Freedom Ship: Abortion, Drugs, Sex Change and Euthanasia

There is already a ship chartered by pro-choice activists that offers abortion pills to women where abortion is illegal. They simply take the woman to international waters, and the Dutch-flagged ship allows doctors to terminate unwanted pregnancies. The organization is Women on Waves, and so far have visited Ireland, Portugal and other European ports.

This is such an interesting project, that I am willing to expand it into other activities that are illegal in most countries, but legal in the Netherlands. And mostly, bringing the ship to Latin America, where abortion is largely illegal.

The ship would have several sections, in addition to Abortions: Pot Smoking, Same Sex Marriages, Euthanasia, Sex Change Surgery, Gambling and delivery of babies with Dutch nationality.

The cost of those activities will be very low for citizens of restricted countries, because they will only need to board the ship for a few miles.

The captain of the ship will act as non-denominational Priest to marry couples and administer last sacraments to euthanasia adopters. He will also be Birth Godfather, and we will try to convince him into pouring drinks (for Arab countries where alcohol is illegal) and preparing the Opium Narguille. At nights he doubles as Croupier in the Floating Casino.

We need a few bucks (maybe 1,000,000) that will be multiplied several times in a year or two.

We are open to other equally appealing activities to add: Human Cloning (still unauthorized), Human Genetic Engineering, 3-Some Marriages and more.

Time To Import Wine Into Maryland

Thanks to the head's-up from Maryland blogger HoCo Rising. As I have stated before, Maryland has a ban in importing wine from out of state via the Internet or mail-order catalog. If you go to http://winewoot.com, you can order all kinds of great wines from across the country. But you can't send them to Maryland because it is against the law.

You see, our Maryland elected officials think that they are protecting our children by banning the importation of wine. Because if Maryland children could order wine over the Internet, they'd be buying that Verge Dry Creek Valley Syrah for $49.99 + $5 shipping. And we know that children certainly don't have easier ways to purchase alcohol - like older siblings or hanging outside of the 7-11 waiting for some guy to buy you a case of Coors Lite with a twenty.

However, that's only part of the problem. On the other side of that there is the liquor lobby that is funneling campaign contributions into the coffers of our elected officials in order to keep them from voting in favor of removing the ban. And as HoCo Rising pointed out in this post, someone challenged The Sun to produce a campaign donation list from the liquor lobby.

Now we have a list of legislators that have not cosponsored the bill, which can generally interpreted that they are opposed to it, though not necessarily. If any of your elected representatives are on this list and you agree that we should be allowed to import wine into Maryland, then please contact them! We need to end this stupid ban.

I Can Make This Choice On My Own, Thanks ...

Well kids, once again some people here in Redneckville have decided to try and defeat the prohibitionists and turn our small, rural county wet.  As I have mentioned here many times before, the sale of alcohol is prohibited here.  We do have a few private clubs who have been given licenses to sell alcohol though.  Both the Elks Lodge and the Country Club have full bars.  There is another golf club up near the lake and a tennis club here in town that both still have a license for full bars, but those places are closed and for sale.  If anyone buys them and reopens them, the licenses are still good. 

And we have two restaurants in town that have a beer and wine license.  The most recent place to get a beer and wine license is Colton's Steakhouse.  Their initial application was denied, but they appealed.  At the appeal all the holy rollers and the county sheriff showed up to argue against the license.  Then the state beverage control board voted unanimously to deny the license.  Luckily though the board's director ignored their recommendation and granted the license anyway.  Nice system huh? Anyway, you can get a beer or glass of wine with your steak there now. 

A lot of people love to claim that the democratic party is the party of the "Nanny State."  And it certainly is in many ways.  But, the fact of the matter is, the desire to tell people what to do and control their lives cuts across party lines.  When was the last time you saw the republicans take control of a city, state or county government and repeal anti-smoking laws?  Almost never. My city and county are republican controlled and they are committed to making sure that I can't smoke anywhere in public (not that I smoke, but if I wanted to I couldn't do so anywhere other than in my own apartment) or run out and buy some beer if I want some without having to drive to another county or even to Missouri.  They also make sure that I don't run the risk of seeing any naked chicks in person or a dirty movie, or accidentally read something controversial either. They're just looking out for my well being, ya know.

Prohibition laws always bring out my libertarian streak.  I get into all kinds of arguments with people over my opposition to smoking laws.  "Why should the gov't be allowed to tell a person that he can't allow smoking in HIS OWN restaurant? He owns it!" I'll ask.  Invariably I'll get some mumbo-jumbo about public health and the health of the employees. "But, nobody is REQUIRED to go there or work there!" And then I get the "Well, I'm allergic to smoke/don't want to expose my kids to smoke and if they allowing smoking in that place I won't be able to go and I like there food" line.  The "It isn't fair TO ME!" Bullshit.

But, YOU don't have a God-given right to eat at that restaurant.  If the person who took the financial risk to open the place wants to allow smoking, he should be allowed to.  If, by allowing people to smoke, he can't find people to work there, or his business is so slow that he can't make money, then maybe he will have to go smoke free.  But, it will be the owner's decision and not forced on him by the gov't.  That's the free market in action.

Anyway, as you can imagine I fully support the county going wet.  Not only that, I think that beer and wine at least, if not liquor should be sold at convenience stores and even at Walmart.  And it should be sold on Sundays too!  That's another one of my pet peeves.  Allowing alcohol sales, but then limiting it to only a couple of stores that essentially engage in price fixing because of the lack of competition and then use the profits to buy off the local politicians to keep control over the liquor trade. Which is exactly what the bootleggers used to do back in the day.

Hell, we might as well go wet anyway now that there's a state lottery and we're all hardcore gambling addicts and our towns have been overrun with homeless and prostitutes.  Well, not yet, but it will happen. They promised us it would if we voted in that lottery.  Maybe if we go wet it will accelerate this a bit.  I'm not looking forward to dealing with the homeless, but the prostitutes will be a lot of fun.


Now don't be stupid people.  I'm not saying that I should be able to sit on a park bench by the lake and drink a fifth of vodka, talk to my bookie about what games I'm betting, smoke a pack of cigs (and maybe smoke a joint) all while having sex with a prostitute as I do in my dreams.
 

I'm just saying that I don't really need the government to protect me from myself.  And, for those of you who don't drink or smoke or gamble do anything "bad" ever? Good for you. Now shut the fuck up and quit trying to tell me how to live my life.

Wine By Mail

An article in The Sun by Laura Smitherman indicates that the Maryland General Assembly will consider changing the law to allow Marylanders to order wine and beer from other states and have it shipped here.

Currently, the law strictly prohibits this practice. You cannot go to Barboursville Wine's website and order this great bottle of Merlot. If you have ever been to Wine.Woot.com, you cannot order any of the great deals that they have if you live in Maryland. Their website states:

Thanks to stick-in-the-mud buzzkilling state legislators, wine may only be delivered to the following states:

- and Maryland is NOT on that list.

Morality-legislating elected officials have claimed that the law protects minors from obtaining alcohol by mail. Anyone who didn't grow up under a rock knows that children do not order $45 bottles of wine from Napa Valley. They have older friends or siblings who buy it for them. Tell me that's not what you did.

I'm not sure if this will impact any of our elected officials' alcohol desires, like Montgomery County Delegate Kumar Barve who was arrested for DUI, but whose charges were mysteriously dropped, or Baltimore County Council member Sam Moxley, who was not arrested once, but twice, for driving under the influence. Perhaps the law can be written so that only non-elected officials can order alcohol from outside of Maryland.

Regardless of our elected officials' reckless disregard for the laws they pass, let's hope they get this one right and allow adults in Maryland to order fine beverages and have them shipped to our state.

Contact your State Delegate or State Senator and tell them to vote for this! Don't know you your elected officials are? Go here.

Brewed Stimulus

While most Americans are struggling to pay the bills and are worried about keeping their job, our President was caught at a Washington Wizards game boozing it up. Can you ever recall a time when our President was caught sloshing it up?



I mean, Obama seems like he's a cool guy, but can you image this, "Mr. President, the Chinese are attacking us!"

"Okay. Let me finish my beer."

I somehow don't think this is a good idea.

How 'Bout a College Story ...

The first weekend of my sophomore year I somehow acquired (stole or it was stolen for me) a bottle of Seagram’s Seven and decided to take it over to a friend’s dorm room and share. I’m nice and thoughtful like that.

So, I put the bottle in my backpack and headed over to the other dorm. As I walked into the building there was a DPS officer standing there. WTF? Anyway, he was waiting on the elevator so I there I was, 18 years old and a bottle of liquor in my backpack chatting with a freaking cop. He’s all like “A little Sunday night study session the first week?” And I was like “Oh yeah, I can’t afford to get behind.” while, sounding like Opie Taylor.

Anyway we didn’t waste much time getting busy drinking the 7&7 and watching a couple of movies (porn). Okay, I’m kidding about the porn. I’m pretty sure we were watching “The Lost Boys”. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.

One of things I found out that night was that hard liquor has a much different affect on me than beer. We all learn this lesson at some point in our lives and I learned it that night. It turned out that my friend had his own bottle of Black Jack, so I only had to share a little bit of my 7&7 with a couple of people.

Long about 2 am I announced that I need to get home because I had an Emerging Nations political science class at SEVEN THIRTY IN THE MORNING! And everybody laughed. I was like “What? I’ll be there.” Again everyone laughed. So I announced that I if I wasn’t in my class at 7:30 am, I would buy (or otherwise acquire) a bottle of Seagram’s or Black Jack for each person in the room. I think there were seven of us in the room at the time.

Now I’m pretty sure that according the law degree that I don’t have, agreements entered into while one or both parties are slobbering drunk aren’t valid. Besides, it was unlikely that more than one or two people would remember that promise anyway. But, being the honorable guy that I am I decided I would go anyway.

I chose to have only some toast and orange juice for breakfast and headed down the hill to Carnall Hall for my class. Carnall is now a hotel, but at the time was a pretty run down building on the edge of the campus that held about a dozen classrooms.

It didn’t seem too warm while walking down there, but after I got into the room and took my seat, which was right next to the back door I realized that it was quite warm in there. I looked around and all the windows were closed. I told myself that it would fine, and to just relax.

So then our professor came in. I can’t remember this guy’s name, but he always made quite an entrance. Folks, no offense meant, but this guy was FAY-MING! He was hilarious though and was pretty fun to watch flitter around the room and lecture. I never knew whether he was going to actually lecture or break out into show tunes. And before you laugh too hard, I should say that I would probably recognize any show tune he sang.

About 15 minutes into class I was really starting to struggle. I started telling myself things like “Hey, I just promised to be here on time, I didn’t promise to stay.” Then I suddenly realized that I was sweating so much that my shirt was getting wet.

Then it happened.

As carefully and quietly, yet as quickly as I could I got up and made a dash for the bathroom. Let’s just say that the orange juice was a bad idea. Luckily though I made it to the restroom in time and didn’t puke in the hall or anything like that.

I stayed in there for several minutes to make sure I wasn’t going to puke again and then washed my face and got a drink of water. Then I gave myself yet another couple of minutes and went back to class and tried to sneak back to my seat.

Just after I sat down the professor kind of smiled and said “Water. Drinking lots of water is the key to recovery.”

I didn’t want to look at anyone else in the class at all. But, I stayed for the rest of the class and when it was over, as I was leaving the room some girl gave me a pat on the butt and said “way to hang in there dude.”

And, another guy, who I kind of knew came up to me and said “I’ll give you a ride back to your dorm if you want. I don’t think you’ll make it up the hill.”

Then ... when we got into his car he turned to me and said “How much was the bet?”

That’s when I realized that there was no reason to be embarrassed at all. Everyone in that classroom had either been there, or knew that at some point they would have the same experience.

The way I looked at was that this is pretty much what college exists for. To prepare us for these types of situations that we might find ourselves in at some point in the future. And to remember that we should confine the hard liquor to Friday and Saturday nights.

A good lesson learned.