Think Progress just discovered that the Bush Administration is forcing HPV vaccines on immigrants :

In July, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services quietly amended its list of required vaccinations for immigrants applying to become citizens. One of the newest requirements? Gardasil, which vaccinates against the human papillomavirus (HPV). From the agency’s press release:

CDC’s revised Technical Instructions to Civil Surgeons for Vaccination Requirements require the following age-appropriate additional vaccinations to adjust status to legal permanent resident:

* Rotavirus
* Hepatitis A
* Meningococcal
* Human papillomavirus
* Zoster

This regulation goes directly against the advice of Dr. Jon Abramson, chairman of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices. In Feb. 2007, Abramson said that he and other committee members advised that Gardasil should not be mandatory because HPV is not a communicable disease like chicken pox.
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In West Virginia thre is a cohabitation law, which makes it a misdemeanor for unmarried people to "lewdly and lasciviously associate" and live together. This law is being challenged by a lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of an inmate whose parole was delayed because of his plan to cohabit with his fiance.

Well, I have lewdly and lasciviously associated and lived together with women before I was married. And enjoyed it very much, thank you. And I considered it none of the government's business that I did so. However, I always had the option of marrying who ever I wanted to lewdly and lasciviously associate with.

Since gays are not allowed the same right to marry eachother that I have, this cohabitation law seems to clearly discriminate against gays, preventing them from lewdly and lasciviously associating with eachother legally.

But really, the fundamental question here is what business is it of the government to care who lewdly and lasciviously associates with who? When will we get the governmemt out of our bedrooms? Oh, yeah. When we get rid of Republican control over our government.

As many states face a decision of what technology to choose to replace the old voting machines, more security issues are cropping up around the touch-screen (DRE) machines.

I already have reported on how the DRE machines are easily hackable, use prorietary software that prevents open public oversight of elections, have no official paper trail preventing any kind of independent recount and, on top of it all, are far more expensive to buy, maintain and replace than the alternative, "scantron" (PBOS) system. A summary of a Princeton study on security issues surrounding DRE machines can be found here.

But the DRE machines are also easy for almost anyone to open. Turns out the locks they use can be opened by a standard key that will open hotel minibars and many kinds of office furniture. From the "Freedom to Tinker" technology blog:

“Hotel Minibar” Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines

Monday September 18, 2006 by Ed Felten

Like other computer scientists who have studied Diebold voting machines, we were surprised at the apparent carelessness of Diebold’s security design. It can be hard to convey this to nonexperts, because the examples are technical. To security practitioners, the use of a fixed, unchangeable encryption key and the blind acceptance of every software update offered on removable storage are rookie mistakes; but nonexperts have trouble appreciating this. Here is an example that anybody, expert or not, can appreciate:
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I swear, this whole red alert drama was created to indispose me. You think I am exaggerating? Then why is it that even though I was born in the United States, I have to carry my US passport in order to not be stopped and frisked at every gate in every airport of this great nation of ours ... including the it's lovely colonial Island of Enchantment ?

If the red alert drama was not created to make my life miserable while traveling, then why would anybody want to go to the lenghts of banning all liquids including hand lotions, hair glossers, medicines and asthma inhalers from all flights? I mean if George Bush hates black people the next logical step is to hate black Puerto Rican women named Liza Sabater. That would explain why he would want me to travel with ashy skin, split hair ends, and children with runny noses and wheezing chests.

George Bush hates me and that's why he called in the red alert.
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There is a diary over at My Left Wing that is well worth reading. It describes an attempt by a thoughtful teenager to redo the "Doll Test" from the 1940s and 50s. In the original test researchers showed that when black children were shown two dolls that were identical except for "skin" color, the children would overwhelmingly choose the white doll as the "nice" one and the black doll as the "bad" one. This was used to show the effects that institutional racism had on children's self image and was used as evidence in Brown vs. Board.

The new "study" can't be called scientific, but it is still very interesting. Kiri Davis, a 17-year old filmmaker, wanted to see The Doll Test repeated today. With help from my neighborhood YMCA in Brooklyn, she did her best to do just that. The results were essentially the same as the original, pre-Civil Rights era study. Read the diary for more details.

I think this is something of a condmenation of our society. Our society teaches children as young as 5 years old to consider black skin "bad" and white skin "nice." The MLW diary's author links this to the complete abandonment of black Americans after Katrina hit, which at the time I felt showed quite starkly that the Bush Administration cared not one whit for blacks. Together, these two snapshots of blacks in America really show that our society has not escaped racism. I have always felt that until our society can face up to our slave past we will have a hard time overcoming racism in America. You can take the racism out of the laws, but you can't get rid of the racism unless you face the fact that America was founded with a legal definition of blacks as property and as 5/8 of a person. Even today, history books that cater to Southern markets refer to slavery as not that bad, say that blacks were better off as slaves, and paint the post-Civil War reconstruction government as corrupt carpetbaggers, a myth that was never as true as our history books portray. Isn't it time we admit that as a nation we committed a sin in slavery, admit that our society is still far from fair racially and try to find solutions. The denial of American racism is widespread. Claims that all is equal ignores the reality on the ground. Blacks were left behind after Katrina. It is black skin that is reviled. In NYC our mayor declared victory over unemployment at a time when 50% of black males were without work. It is mostly black district polling places that seem to have problems on election day. Even life expectancy is lower for blacks than whites...a fair amount lower.

Without even assigning blame here, can't we at least admit that there is something deeply wrong in a society with discrepancies like that?