this is not a journal title

If you have flown outside this country in the past year or so, you have a terrorist score. I am unclear if it's also used for travel by boat or car, so I may be counted too via last summer's vacation. The gov't has been doing this since at least last November. They track what flights you took, how you paid for the ticket, where you were going and coming from, where you live, and even what you ATE on the flight. Hopefully they didn't track what jethereal barfed back up on the Cat. You're not allowed to see your terror score, and while you're allowed to make complaints if you feel you're being targetted, you're not allowed to do anything specific to fix mixups (since you can't see what they messed up).

In response to a post from sammka, I dug up the following info about how to get Emergency Contraception (Plan B, levonorgestrel) until they finalize the legislation allowing it to be sold OTC to 18+'s.

Plan B is already fully OTC in the states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Washington. If you do not live in those states, the nationwide EC webpage has a search engine for how to get EC near you. In Massachusetts (and perhaps other states) some pharmacists are authorized to dispense w/o a prescription. And a number of Planned Parenthoods will do online EC prescriptions, but only 9am-3pm Monday-Friday.

In the attempt to read more about Blue Laws regulating the sale of alcohol and other goods on Sundays, I stumbled across the original set of Conecticut Colony laws, which were called Blue Laws after they were published on blue paper (or one of various other stories as to why the name).

Some were amazing to me to read today, including the establishment of one of a few state religions, though Friends (Quakers) were not one of them - converting to Quakerism was punishable with banishment (better than Islamic nations!), but if you tried to return you'd be put to death (well, not much better, though only one religion was explicitly persecuted). You could be disenfranchised if you twice voted for an atheist. You're not allowed to kiss your kid on Saturday, because it's the Sabbath. Premarital sex was punishable with forced marriage, and adultery with death. If you don't live with your spouse you'll be thrown in jail. Bowl cuts were mandatory for men.

And I'm not sure how to interpret #42: "A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband." Does this mean a woman could be a witness against her husband? Or that a woman's word was as good as her husband's word? Or that anything a woman promises the man must be held liable for? Or vice versa?

Man, this's a sad and sobering editorial on the South Dakota abortion ban.

The same Massachusetts court that ruled that gay marriage was legal under the state constitution, has unfortunately limited it in accordance with a 1913 (miscegenation?) law forbidding marriage to out-of-staters if the marriage would be illegal in their home state.

While I disagree with the law, the little bit I know does make it seem that the ruling is correct under that law. What I would like to see happen is instead they can get married in MA but the marriages are only legal within the state and others that honor gay marriages. Similarly, I hope that MA will honor gay marriages and unions made in other states and countries, but I haven't heard anything about it yet.

The students at least. Against a new law that is supposed to help youth unemployment by removing job security for youths. Um, run that one by me again?

ETA: The BBC gives slightly more explanation: apparently the contracts that youths currently work under do not allow employers to fire them at all. Because they're untried youths, employers are reluctant to hire them indefinitely, so they simply do not hire them. The hope is that where youths wouldn't be hired at all before, now they'll be hired temporarily. Still not a good deal, but I now understand the reasoning.

Pending a lawsuit from the ACLU, the government has agreed to stop backing the Christian-run abstinence-only program "Silver Ring Thing."

The reason law suits are so damned prolific is that people here are too stupid to figure these things out on their own. *Dur!*