I received the following forward today, from someone whom I knows knows better:

Many of you have likely seen the heart rending testimony of Ms. Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown University, before a Congressional Committee this week. She was lamenting that no one would subsidize her birth control expenses, which she claimed would amount to $3000 during her three years in law school. After watching Ms. Fluke describe her desperate  situation, I set to thinking of ways to help her out of her crisis.

First, of course I had to pass through the grieving period I experienced after hearing of her inhumane treatment at the hands of the Georgetown administration and our Government – what cruelty lurks in the heart of men that they would leave this poor woman to fend for herself when all she wanted to do was get laid seven times a day (see my analysis below).

Once I recovered from my grief, I set to thinking about ways to help this poor girl. Being a Physicist, I sat down with my calculator and worked through some numbers. Ms. Fluke’s expense account for birth control (aka sexual entertainment) was claimed to be $3000 for three years at law school. Let’s presume that as an educated woman she wants to be doubly safe and uses both birth control pills to prevent pregnancy and condoms to prevent STD (sexually transmitted disease).

Using the Wal-Mart cost for birth control pills of $9 per month, her birth control pills will cost her $324 for her entire law school career (if you can call it a career – I can think of other names). This leaves only $2676 for her condoms.

I went to Amazon.com, and found quality condoms available for 33 cents each in packages of 60 condoms each. This cost includes tax and shipping. Since she has $2676 for her 33 cent condoms, she will be buying 8109 condoms during her law school “career”.  To use her 8109 condoms (remember, $3000 was Ms. Flukes’ own number) she would have to have sex 7 times a day. This number presumes that she has sex ten times a day on Sundays when she has more free time.

So, having worked through these numbers, I have some suggestions for Ms. Fluke to help her work through her crisis:

1. Find dates who are gentlemanly enough to either provide their own condoms, or at least split the cost with her. Selection criteria is the key to this one.

2. Spend more time studying. Even seven “quickies” a day will seriously cut into quality study time. This would not only save money but would improve her education as well.

3. Seek funding from the EPA from one of their Wetlands Protection programs – surely Ms. Flukes’ nether regions would qualify as wetlands given sex seven times a day.  Just trying to help out a starving student....

By the way, the average starting salary of new Georgetown Law School graduates is $160,000 a year, FYI.

Booth R. Myers, PhD


(Yo!  Dr. Myers.  Even law school graduates--even former states attorney generals--are having a tough time finding a job in the continuing crappy economy.  So, stick to physics, okay?)

It would be nice if the people who have so widely commented on Fluke’s ‘testimony’ would actually read the transcript of what she actually said…  Most pundits and eejits like Rush clearly haven’t.  Including the physicist’s whose words of, well, eejitsness just added to the noise rather than the signal on this topic.

Here you can read it, or listen to it: http://current.com/1ahv4kc

As for those who think that there is a single generic birth control that can be obtained from Walmart for $4/30 day supply (in most states; in others, including California, it’s $9/30 day supply), think again.  There are 80 different types of birth control pills, each containing varying amounts of the different hormones which, when combined, can prevent most incidents of an egg getting fertilized and implanted in the placental wall.  Most of these drugs are NOT available through the $4 Walmart program, so they will cost in the neighborhood of $70-100/month.  That’s because, for the pills to be effective for any and all of the reasons for which they may be prescribed (which include, but is not limited to, preventing conception), you have to take them for the whole month (well, 28 days, plus a week of placebo pills so you don’t forget to start taking the next month’s round).  Check out the pricing yourself at my favorite online pharmacy, which I’ve found to generally have the best prices if one can’t get to a Costco:  www.familymeds.com

I’m hoping you all (males, not the female here) know what Rush and some of his supporters clearly don’t:  You can’t just take a birth control when you have sex.  Apparently, Rush and others has confused this with his Viagra, which is taken when wants to have sex.  (I remember going to a school function with one of my college professors who had recently gotten divorced.  He asked me to get a map out of the glove compartment.  When I opened it and rummaged through looking for the map, I came across a card of birth control pills.  I asked him why he had it.  Yes, he was under the same impression as Rush: take it when you do it and you won’t get pregnant, so a 30 day pill pack meant 30 times to get lucky.

Thirty years, and apparently most men still haven’t learned how their wimmen’s plumbing works.

List of birth control pill brands:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a601050.html#brand-name-2

I’m all for men paying their share.  Unfortunately, most women are reluctant to force the issue, and most men don’t think of it, or don’t think it’s their responsibility.  That’s too bad.  If ALL women just simply refused to have sex, ever, until men stopped deciding they know what’s better for women than women and their doctors do, then we’d probably see some changes come down the line that actually made sense.  I mean, seriously, who wants men like Rush, Booth Myers, or others like them in their vaginas anyway?  ::shudder::