Oh The HORROR!!

Imagine, just imagine a state that doesn't have the DEATH PENALTY!! Oh my God, it's so horrible to even ponder the idea. NOT!! New Jersey is about to do just that!!

N.J. Senate Moves to Ban Death Penalty

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey took a major step Monday toward becoming the first state to abolish the death penalty in more than 40 years, a change that is expect to become law within a month.

The state Senate approved a measure to replace the death sentence with life without parole, which would spare the life of a sex offender whose crimes sparked Megan's Law. The bill has the support of the Democrat-controlled Assembly and the Democratic governor.

New Jersey has eight men on death row and hasn't executed anyone since 1963. It reinstated the death penalty in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions.

The last states to abolish the death penalty were Iowa and West Virginia in 1965, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Thirteen states currently don't have the death penalty.

Among the death row inmates who would be spared is Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender convicted of murdering 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. That case sparked a Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.

Megan's parents, Richard and Maureen Kanka, have sent a letter to legislators urging them to retain the death penalty.

"The inmates currently on death row are the worst of the worst in our society, and to offer them the opportunity of life is a disgrace to their victims, the jurors that deliberated their fate and the majority of New Jersey residents who still support the death penalty," they wrote.

The effort to abolish capital punishment in New Jersey stems from a January report by a special state commission. It found the death penalty was a more expensive sentence than life in prison and has not deterred murder.

"The death penalty is barbaric and fatally flawed beyond repair," said Sen. Shirley Turner, a Democrat who sponsored the bill.

The Kankas, though, said the commission was biased.

"If there is any individual that deserves the death penalty, it's the animal that did this to Megan," they wrote. "To abolish this would be an injustice to our family."

However, the bill has been supported by clergy and family members of murder victims who contend New Jersey's death penalty law has proven meaningless.

The vote by the Democrat-controlled Senate was 21-16. Republicans had sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, rape and murder children, and terrorists, but the Senate rejected the idea.

A vote by the full Assembly was scheduled for Thursday. If approved, the bill goes to Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a death penalty opponent, for his signature. Corzine has until Jan. 8 to sign the bill.

The Supreme Court in 1972 struck down 40 state death penalty laws but did not ban capital punishment as cruel and unusual. Some justices at the time thought their decision would end the practice.

By 1976, though, officials in 35 states had adopted laws to comply with the ruling. A more conservative court upheld some of those laws, and a half-year later executions resumed.

Megan's Law sparked a national notification movement. In 1996, Congress passed a law requiring all states to notify the public when a sex offender moves into their community.

According to the group Parents for Megan's Law, 614,000 sex offenders are registered nationwide.

I will never understand the pro-death penalty argument, and I don't care to. Sure, you want revenge. You want these monsters to die. But, what purpose does it serve other than the fact that they're dead? If you really want to make them pay, let them rot in prison for the rest of their miserable lives on THEIR DIME!! Let them sit there and think about what they've done, not that all of them will care. Make them have to look at pictures of their victims each and every single day.

The death penalty serves absolutely no purpose. It doesn't deter crime. Do you honestly think that the death penalty deters crime? Do you honestly think that someone who is bound and determined to kill, kidnap, or rape someone is going to cancel their plans because they could face the death penalty if they go through with them? It deters NOTHING!! You could abolish the death penalty. You could keep the death penalty. It doesn't matter!! There will always be some kind of crime taking place no matter what the maximum punishment is!!

HIV/AIDS Ignorance And Facts

New Jersey is attempting to become the first state to require HIV/AIDS testing for both a pregnant woman and the child.

As I was surfing some blogs this morning, I came across ignorant statements about HIV/AIDS. It's 2007, and people are still delusional about the disease. They don't get it!! They think that just because they're married they're not going to get the disease. I mean, don't you know that all wedding vows are sacred, and nobody ever breaks those wedding vows?

Another ignorant statement has to do with condom use. I get so sick and tired of hearing religious people (especially Catholics) profess that condom use is EVIL. Given the choice between using a condom to prevent getting HIV or not using a condom so that they stay true to their faith and getting HIV, some of these morons would honestly choose the second option. They don't want to go to hell for actually putting on a condom. The problem there is the Church. Their faith teaches them that condoms are evil because they "prevent life." But what they refuse to acknowledge is that not using a condom also TAKES LIFE. The Church also doesn't help when they have these lunatics preaching about how condoms are laced with AIDS.

Another ignorant statement has to do with abstinence. I'm sick and tired of hearing that the only solution to preventing disease is abstinence. It's a crock!! If we're being realistic, you're not going to prevent everyone in the world from having sex. If they're going to have sex, they're going to have sex. It's nothing more than pushing your moral and religious beliefs on other people.

The following statistics and information is from the Global Health Council:

* By the end of 2005, 40.3 million people were living with HIV/AIDS, including 17.5 million women and 2.3 million children under the age of 15.

* 4.9 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2005, including 700,000 children. Of these, 3.2 million new infections occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa.

* In 2005 alone, a total of 3.1 million people died of HIV/AIDS-related causes.

* World-wide, only one in ten persons infected with HIV has been tested and knows his/her HIV status.

* Ninety-six percent of people with HIV live in the developing world, most in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemic continues to grow in this region, with nearly a million new infections between 2003 and 2005.

* In some African countries, three quarters of those infected are women - many of whom have not had more than one sexual partner.

* An estimated 5 to 6 million people in low- and middle-income countries will die in the next two years if they do not receive antiretroviral treatment (ART). At the end of 2005, only one in seven Asians and one in ten Africans who need ART were receiving it.

* In six African countries, (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe), more than one in five of all pregnant women have HIV/AIDS. In Swaziland, nearly 40% of pregnant women are HIV-positive.

* Without prevention efforts, 35% of children born to an HIV positive mother will become infected with HIV. At least a quarter of newborns infected with HIV die before age one, and up to 60% will die before reaching their second birthdays.

* Injecting drug use and commercial sex work are fueling the epidemic across Asia and Eastern Europe, and few countries are sufficiently reaching out to these marginalized groups or addressing the poverty that often underlies these behaviors.

* Discrimination against vulnerable groups is evident in the Russian Federation, where more than 90% of the estimated one million people living with HIV were infected through injecting drug use, but represent only 13% of those receiving antiretroviral therapy.

* By the end of 2005, women accounted for nearly half of all people living with AIDS worldwide, and represent almost 60% of infections in sub-Saharan Africa. The impact of HIV on women is also growing in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South and South-East Asia. Moreover, young women are several times more likely than young men to contract the disease through heterosexual contact. Worldwide, 62% of infected young people are girls, and that number soars to 77% in sub-Saharan Africa. A woman's vulnerability to the virus is attributable not only to biological differences, but also to deeply entrenched socio-economic inequalities that further compound her risk.

* Because 70% of the world's poor are women, women have fewer economic options. They are far more vulnerable because of absolute poverty to engage in transactional sex to pay for food, school fees and other necessities. They are also vulnerable to coercive or forced sex and often unable to negotiate condom use. One in three women world-wide have been affected by gender-based violence, but poor women are even more likely to be abused.

* Many women, particularly married women, cannot control the circumstances under which sex takes place. Research in several countries shows that for far too many young girls, the first sexual experience is coerced or forced. Married women are especially unable to negotiate sex or condom use with their husbands who may have extramarital partners. Some research indicates that married women are in fact more at risk for HIV than unmarried women because they are more frequently exposed to intercourse within marriage.

* HIV-positive women may transmit HIV to their children during pregnancy, in childbirth or through breastfeeding. Today, mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV is the primary mode of acquisition of HIV for the more than 2 million children living with HIV. While antiretroviral therapy significantly reduces the risk of MTCT of HIV, prevention coverage in the 30 African countries with the highest HIV prevalence is only 5 percent.

* As AIDS ravages families and communities, the burden of caring for ill family members rests mainly with women and girls - many of whom may be seriously ill themselves. A woman affected by HIV/AIDS is plunged further into poverty, losing the ability to provide for herself and her children. Combined with pervasive social stigma and the collapse of traditional family and support structures, HIV/AIDS is eroding the status of women in many countries.

I'm tired of the ignorance!! This is not a "gay person's" disease. This is not a "drug user's" disease. This is a disease that anyone can get. Stop taking the ignorant approach that because you're married you're not going to get the disease. Your spouse could CHEAT, or they could become infected accidently with the disease. You could be a rape victim, and contract the disease through no fault of your own if your rapist has HIV. You could be given a bad blood transfusion, and contract the disease through no fault of your own. You could be working in the medical profession, and contract the disease by accidently pricking yourself with an infected needle from a patient. There are things that could happen. It doesn't just take drug use and promiscuity to get this disease.

People need to wake up because this is not the 80's when nobody knew a damn thing about this disease. They need to stop spouting their archaic moral and religious beliefs. They need to check back into reality!! We need to be proactive, and reactive instead of simply dismissing it with an "oh well, it's your own damn fault" attitude.