The thickness of Peter Mackay

Let's face it, Peter Mackay is not among the sharpest implements in a drawer full of dull blades. His latest attack on women demonstrates a thought process that is not only overly-simplistic but flawed to the point of being dangerous. Tabatha Southey does a low-level strafing run on Mackay demonstrating his consistency in being wrong on, well, everything.

At this point, I’m impressed with the sheer breadth and scope of Justice Minister Peter MacKay’s ineptitude. These days he’s wrong about so many things and manages to communicate this wrongness in so many mediums, I’m in awe.

The man is wrong everywhere! He just keeps popping up wrong! Peter MacKay is like the Zelig of wrong! He’s wrong in the House of Commons – and throws papers on the floor. He’s as wrong in four-year-old as he is in adult.

It gets better and is a great Sunday morning read.

Of course, nothing about Mackay would be complete without pointing out his failure to keep it professional in the House of Commons when his steady squeeze gave Harper the finger. It also showed what he thought of women.

Liberal MP David McGuinty asked Mr. MacKay how the Conservatives' newly unveiled green plan would help his dog in Nova Scotia. Mr. MacKay is said to have looked up, pointed to Ms. Stronach's empty chair and said "You already have her."

...

Added Mr. McGuinty: "I mean, this is the kind of conduct that you expect from a schoolyard bully, not a Minister of Foreign Affairs ... It is not the conduct that is becoming of a minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mackay ran away from further questions on the matter.

But one has to wonder: What's motivating this mono-synaptic twit?

He sold out a "big tent" party (which admittedly had been shredded by Mulroney) to a bunch of intolerant, racist, small-minded, knuckle-dragging, low-life fascists just to get a seat at a particular table. This is not someone motivated by a sense of public service.

Could it be that Peter Mackay is so dumb that he believes he can outlast Harper and, because he sold out his once centrist party to the Calgary republicans, that he is the anointed monarch?

Please ... he can't be THAT stupid. 

The war on women . . .

THE WAR ON WOMEN continues in the Middle East, and according to Roya Hakakian's article in the Washington Post, "How blaming the West hides a war on women", it developed to a fine art in Iran and has institutionalized misogyny in the Islamic fundies, and has put a killing frost in the Arab Spring.

The world cringed and turned away from Iran. Just then, the age of marriage was lowered to 9; the weight of a woman’s testimony in a criminal trial was halved against a man’s; divorce, abortion, inheritance and custody rights were slashed; several academic fields and careers were banned to women; and the Islamic dress code was reinstituted. Public spaces in Tehran, including buses, were segregated by gender, and the faithful’s fists pumped into the air, punctuating Friday prayers with “death to America” chants.

Thank You

In Ohio, if you poke it, you own it.

Via Feministe we get word of one stunning piece of legislation being formed in the State of Ohio.

Remember the Putative Father Registry issue in Virginia? Well, sure enough, Ohio has one too, and its supposed purpose is identical to that of Virginia's. (Emphasis mine)

The Putative Father Registry has been established to determine the identity and location of an undisclosed putative father who may have conceived a child for whom an adoption petition has been or may be filed in order to provide notice of the adoption to the putative father.

Adoption. Get that? It's all about adoption.

Now, you'll remember, back in that post about Virginia's Putative Father Registry, I raised the ugly specter that this may well be about more than adoption, as in perhaps to skirt the privacy precedent established in Roe v. Wade and make it about abortion.

And, if you try to secure an abortion, we already know who you are!

But, that's just me. I'm a suspicious person. Except that when it comes to Ohio, I was right.

Led by Rep. John Adams, a group of state legislators have submitted a bill that would give fathers of unborn children a final say in whether or not an abortion can take place.

Because if anyone needs their rights protected when it comes to a pregnancy, it the father! It gets, shall we say, worse.

As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort.

Claiming to not know the father's identity is not a viable excuse, according to the proposed legislation. Simply put: no father means no abortion.

Bad... wot? No, don't get all enraged yet. We're not done, and there is more coming.

In addition, women would be required to present a police report in order to prove a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

So... at least a woman would not be required to get the permission of her attacker to abort a rape induced pregnancy. How civil. She needs the permission and concurrence of the police!

Let's sort through this a little. This proposed legislation requires the father to grant permission for the woman, whom he claims to have impregnated, to have an abortion. If he disagrees with her desire to terminate the pregnancy, she would have no say. If she disagrees with his position, she still has no say. The man's decision trumps the decision of the woman.

How is that fair? Well, because he's a man; she's just a slut. He gets to decide; she gets what's coming to her. And don't forget: he's registered!

This proposed legislation also lends itself to unbelievable potential abuse. As EF at Feministe points out:

It’s not encouraging choices, it’s encouraging either (a) nothing at all because people in healthy relationships already talk about unplanned pregnancies or (b) abuse and manipulation. Let’s guess which is more likely.

Because, if after discussing whether the pregnancy should continue, there is no resolution, the prospective father does not just have a "say" in the matter; he has absolute dominion over the woman and a state ordained veto.

It will be interesting to see how far this proposed legislation goes. Ohio has recently elected a liberal-leaning legislature and has a liberal Democratic governor.

In the meantime, Ohio State Representative John Adams and his eight co-sponsors should really consider that hobby I was talking about in an earlier post.

More from Melissa, Scott and Echidne

You poke it; You own it.

As Birth Pangs points out, you simply cannot make this stuff up.

Ah, Virginia. The realm of registries.

First there was the sex offender registry. (A good thing.)

A couple of weeks ago, we got the dangerous dog registry. (A feeble thing.)

Now, lo and behold, we have the "I had sex with a woman!" registry. (A bizarre thing.)

In the blizzard of bills that buries Richmond every winter, many of us missed this one. Seems the General Assembly passed a law in 2006 creating a "Putative Father Registry," which was activated on July 1, 2007.

Putative? Does that mean "supposed" father? "Presumed" but not proven?

It allows a man who's had sex with a woman who's not his wife to record that erotic encounter. In case he wants to block an adoption in the future.

Yes, sir. If you've had ah, relations, with your girlfriend, your girlfriend's sister or a drunken one-night stand, you can go online and file a formal report with the state. Lotharios who aren't tech-savvy can mail in a record.

If the guy doesn't intend to hang around beyond "possibly" getting a woman pregnant, why would he assume he has the right to interfere with her decision nine months later?

I'm sorry. Right! He's a man. She's a slut.

The online instructions are cheery:

"You may register as many times as you like for each potential pregnancy or different child. If you have multiple relations with the same person or more than one female that you are involved with, you need to register for each."

Ahem! And then you go to the Virginia Department of Social Services Putative Father Registry site and find all kinds of interesting things.

Putative fathers must give a complete description of themselves and I mean everything. That's fine. And then they have to describe the woman they banged, thanked and left shared an evening of romance so tender and fulfilling that they knew they could never find that level of joy again, thus sadly ending an all too brief but life altering encounter.

They must also describe the woman completely, including her identity... (ready?)... if known.

I am not making this up. It's right there for you to read. There's even a place where the penis owner gets to guesstimate the approximate age of the woman (question 20 of the form)... whose identity he need not necessarily have ascertained.

Question 17 is intended to narrow down the date or dates when copulation occurred... according to the man.

And the woman's input into this? Nothing. They are, after all, women.... who fornicate.... and get what they deserve.... filthy sluts. Don't try to put that child up for adoption! We must protect the father.

And, if you try to secure an abortion, we already know who you are! The guy you lured into your evil female clutches has fingered you! (No pun intended, although it is good, isn't it?)

Is there such a registry for women in the State of Virginia? Are you kidding?!

Y'know... the lawmakers who write this kind of legislation need a hobby. Really. Try porn... (Oops! They already do that.) Take up knitting while riding a donkey. That way everyone will be able to identify the real ass.

If you read nothing else this weekend, read Joss

Joss Whedon explodes. It's something I wish I'd written, but I didn't because Joss did so much better a job.

How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

Read all of it.

Hat tip Amanda