Ellen Datlow has the low down on the Bush Administration’s latest assault on women’s health.

But take note, America, this is what happens when you have federal funding of health services – suddenly certain groups of people find that they can’t get health care because they have been labeled “immoral”.

I’ve been trying to avoid saying anything about the US Presidential election, partly because it is not my country, and partly because the ongoing self-destruction of the Democrat party is is just too darn depressing for those of us from outside the US who hope the country will vote itself a sane leadership this time around. Looking from the outside, it seems very likely that, in much the same way as Ralph Nader did for Al Gore, angry Clinton will supporters do for Obama. Unless… unless…

The Economist has come up with an interesting idea. The Libertarians might yet ride to the rescue. Not, of course, the loony “freedom to own slaves and kill people I don’t like” Libertarians, but rather those “soft Libertarians” who, like The Economist itself, are conservative on economic issues and liberal on social issues. As the paper points out, Dubya has hardly endeared himself to Libertarians:

Mr Bush has presided over the fastest growth in federal spending since the Great Society in the 1960s. He put the Republican seal of approval on the biggest intrusion of federal power into the classroom in history (No Child Left Behind), the most expensive public-works programme ever (the 2005 highway bill) and the largest new entitlement programme since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid (the prescription-drug benefit). He launched an open-ended “war on terror”. He rode roughshod over states’ rights on issues such as assisted suicide. And he has expanded the government’s power to eavesdrop on its citizens.

And that’s a whole big pile of potential wedge issues. The Economist apparently thinks that these issues are potentially serious enough for a small but not insignificant number of voters to desert John McCain and vote for Bob Barr instead. I have no idea whether they are right, though I’ve always suspected that conservatives have an innate advantage in elections because they tend to value power above all else whereas liberals are likely to value principle above all else. Still, it is perhaps a comforting thought for those of us across the pond who are watching the current outpouring of fury from Clinton supporters with a considerable degree of nervousness.

This week’s Economist has a leading article about different attitudes between Brits and Americans (doubtless prompted by the current visit of Sarko to London, which we responded to by sending Posh and Becks to Paris, thereby proving that Britain and France are still at war). The results of their poll are quite interesting. I’m not at all surprised to find that Brits are way less religious than Americans. I mean massively so, to the extent that Tories are way less religious than Democrats. I am, however, disappointed to see that Brits of both major political persuasions are more hawkish about military matters than Democrats. You would have thought we could have learned something over the past few years.

Of interest to Americans will be the fact that the two countries are pretty much in step on climate change, despite the fact that their governments are poles apart. The only area of disagreement is to do with airline fares, which is entirely understandable because most Brits only need to fly when going on vacation whereas air travel is the only simple means of getting around the USA, even for such short trips as San Francisco to L.A. or Seattle.

But perhaps the oddest result came from asking Brits about the forthcoming US elections. Apparently the Tories favor Barack Obama while Labor supporters prefer Hilary Clinton. This seems very strange.

(Zemanta has just got very excited because I mentioned the US presidential race.)

As I have been doing a fair amount of Britain-bashing of late it seems only fair that I should lay into the Americans as well. So here is a little story about the State of Montana threatening to secede from the union over the issue of gun control.

That is, if the federal government acts to tighten gun control, Montana will up and leave. And I can see why. I’m sure that one of their major sources of income is from lunatic Libertarians moving to Montana so that they can live in heavily fortified bunkers.