| The reasons for having an abortion |
[08 Nov 2009|02:11pm] |
About 4 weeks ago, I had an assignment in class to look up some political party (in the Netherlands) on the internet and write down a few things that they stand for. The first thing I clicked on - of course - was abortion.
I was disgusted.
Basically they said that they were for abortion, but wanted to limit the amount of abortions and they did not want abortion to be like some kind of birth control where the girl aborts like 5 times a year or something.
I'm appalled, really.
Just why the fuck is it your business as for what reason the girl is aborting? Or for that matter, how many times she has had an abortion? It's none of your business! The reason for aborting shouldn't matter diddlysquat.
I'm sick of people judging abortion based on the reason for aborting. Hey you got raped? Well go ahead, you can abort - but if you had sex willingly you can't abort! Is one of those reasons that make me pull out my hair.
It doesn't matter if you got raped, or if you can't afford a baby, or if you're using it as a form of birth-control, or if you're too young to go through labor - none of those reasons matter, because in the end, you're all doing the same thing. You do not want to continue being pregnant so you terminate the pregnancy by aborting. It all ends in the same damn thing, no matter what the reason is.
Then why are people still discussing the reasons for aborting, and are actually fighting to make those reasons into laws as to why you can not have an abortion?
It's just unbelievable. It makes me sick to think that people think the reason for aborting is much more important than just wanting the procedure.
/end rant.
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| Mod Note |
[07 Nov 2009|01:09pm] |
I am posting this to let you all know that the mods have heard the complaints of late, and we wanted to update you.
We would be sad to see people leave as we try to figure this out, because we feel that all the people here add dimensionality to the community, which is important. And yes, that includes men, Republicans, thin people, and 18 year olds.
It has come to our attention that there are two different schools of thought in this community. Group 1 wants no-holds-barred debate and doesn't take anything personally, even if someone calls them "a fucktarded sweaty donkey ball sucker." To this group, the most important thing is standing up for what you believe in, which has always been, and will always be, a cornerstone to this community. As mods, we don't often worry about this group because they seem to be able to walk through fire and come out the other side cheerful from the stroll. As a result, our interactions with them tend to be when they, in our opinion, cross the line and start affecting:
Group 2. Group 2 is looking for like minded folk; maybe identifying as CF is somewhat new to them and they are looking for people just like them, or they are less confrontational. Regardless, they get turned off when things get personal and broad generalizations are made, because the most important thing to this group tends to be comraderie and a sense of belonging to a group. Often they're lurkers thinking about becoming more active members. Since there really isn't that much else to go to out there that disallows parents, and (warning, anecdata) ...sometimes people feel wrath of friends when they find out they belong to the CF group on Facebook, we feel a responsibility to this group here and now.
We are hoping to find a way to incorporate both sets of needs into this community. Both approaches are important to us, as are people who consider themselves to inhabit the middle ground.
If you have suggestions as we consider solutions going forward, feel free to include them in the open post. You can choose Anon posting if you don't want to be identified. But in the spirit of the aforementioned "stand by your opinion" -- while we will consider all suggestions, attaching your name also attaches more weight to your suggestion.
Thanks much and to be continued...
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| Oh for fucks sake |
[07 Nov 2009|12:41pm] |
I get far too much insanity in my inbox.
Today includes 10 emails, one after the other, from the MIL. First 3 are 'WARNING, THERE IS A NEW VIRUS THAT WILL KILL YOUR PC IF YOU EVEN OPEN ANY EMAILS!!!' which are a) crap and b) really fucking annoying to send to an IT professional. The next 7 though were bible stuff (she KNOWS I'm pagan, I get this shit anyway) mixed in with..and I'm not kidding:
'Wanring, the swine flu epidemic! things you were NOT told by the scientists! Did you know the virus is not natural? It was made in a laboratory and grown in ABORTED BABIES. Why? Think of this - you know the flu is very dangerous to pregnant women? Well the swine flu is just generated to induce abortions in ALL PREGNANT WOMEN because the government doesn't want to pay out for maternity benefits!'
Wow. Just..........I was going to send her a tinfoil hat for xmas but I think we're way past that now...
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| Public service annoucement |
[07 Nov 2009|04:46am] |
So I don't know if someone has posted this before, but I've been meaning to for a while (since I learned it in nursing school) and just keep forgetting. I was reminded of it while reading a book, so here I am.
For those who are unaware, many antibiotics can counter the effects of most birth-control pills. Pharmacists SHOULD tell you this when you pick up an antibiotic but I was never informed though, thankfully, I haven't had to be on antibiotics very often.
At any rate, if you get sick and the doc puts you on an antibiotic, be sure and use an additional form of protection other than the Pill. I'd hate for my CF friends to wind up pregnant due to a medication interaction!
(x-posted to childfree)
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| Celebrity Crazy |
[07 Nov 2009|08:57am] |
Wow, Sarah Jessica Parker is nuts.
In addition to being married to a gay man Ferris Bueler, and being freaked out by the concept of adoption, she also seems to have a diaper fetish.
"I love the smell of diapers," she said. "I even like when they’re wet and you smell them all warm liked a baked good. I love the smell of Balmex. Love it.”
Now we finally understand why Mr. Big always seemed to run screaming from her whenever he wasn't getting The Sex.
Oh, well, she's just another Square Peg, I guess.
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| Daniel Larison and NY-23 |
[06 Nov 2009|12:09pm] |
"One thing that seems crucial to emphasize is how much this was not a “revolt” or an explosion of anti-GOP establishment fervor. I want to be very precise here. Many voters in NY-23 revolted against their local party leadership by backing Hoffman, but the outpouring of support for Hoffman came from the very center of what remains of the national Republican establishment. Viewed locally, Hoffman was not the establishment candidate. However, he was the national GOP establishment’s candidate, which is why I do not regard his defeat as such a great loss."
So, the local GOP candidate was the local establishment choice, which the rank-and-file rebelled against, and pulled it the now-mainstream national GOP talking heads like Back and Palin?
"To the extent that last night signaled the amount of right-populist discontent in the country, the establishment support for Hoffman represented yet another episode of the national party attempting to feed off of populist enthusiasm to sustain its own decaying body and to co-opt (and then ignore) populist themes while having no intention of ever governing in the interests of their constituents should they regain power."
Both parties have a tradition of this, best recently portrayed in Obama's first year of election-promise-breaking.
"The prominence of the pseudo-populist Palin in all of this was significant. Her presence served as a reminder of how often conservative voters are pandered to rhetorically and symbolically and how uninterested Republican leaders are in serving the interests of their constituents once elections are concluded."
Pretty much, yeah.
"Hoffman’s failure may mean that rank-and-file Republican voters in once-safe districts are no longer going to be taken for granted, and it could mean that their votes will have to be earned with policy proposals that address their concrete interests. The national and Congressional party has no clue how to do this, and so they keep failing. Candidates at the state level seem to grasp this basic idea and have started having some success."
So, I wonder how long before the Tea Partiers (conflating them with active rank-and-filers) get representation within the party by someone who isn't essentially a panderer?
His full article:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/
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| Reporting on the Bachman Tea Party |
[06 Nov 2009|10:44am] |
Protest signs that deny the Tea Partiers credibility with anyone not already agreeing with them:
* "Get the Red Out of the White House"
* "Waterboard Congress"
* "Ken-ya Trust Obama?"
* "Traitor to the U.S. Constitution."
* Pictures of dead bodies at the Dachau concentration camp and compared health care reform to the Holocaust.
* Obama as Sambo
* "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds"
Just as the GOP declared the John Birchers unwelcome, the Tea Partiers who want to be taken more seriously need to exile the bigots and haters. So long as the media can focus on this aspect, they won't get much traction outside of the ever-shrinking GOP.
Even if I kinda sneakingly like the "Waterboard Congress" one. I mean, its just Enhanced Interrogation, riiiight? )
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| Let me tell you of a lady I know... |
[05 Nov 2009|07:20pm] |
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(First, I apologize for two crossposted entries twice in a row. Some entries I personally feel are too tame for the hardcore, or too extreme for the regular CF. This is not one of those entries. This is one that I'd like to have feedback from both ends)
One of our neighbors has a sister I rather like. She's one of the brash loud, outspoken women and I've had wonderful conversations with her. She also has a huge old Shepard/Rottweiler mix who I love, I'm a sucker for that mix.
However, she has done something that may be considered crazy by the standards of this comm.
She has MS (link for the curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis). Some many years ago, she and her husband put away some of his sperm, I suppose so they could have a baby when she got better?
He was a fireman and lost his life as a first responder on 9/11.
Now, years later, though her legs are very stiff, she's decided to have the baby.
As a single mom, with MS (which can flare up during pregnancy, as its an autoimmune condition!) she has decided to have her dead husband's baby courtesy of Sperm in a Can.
Now lets skip the whole debate about having both parents in a child's life. That's a non-issue. We'll have different opinions. But the poor kid is going to grow up with a "ghost" dad who died 8 years BEFORE HE WAS CONCIEVED.
I saw her two months ago. She looked more like 4 months pregnant than 7. She probably couldn't gain as much weight as a normal pregnant woman due to her MS and her legs.
She gave birth yesterday. She needed a C-section, her legs were very swollen due to her MS flaring, and the baby was only FIVE POUNDS. My mother doesn't know if the baby was premature or just underweight.
There's so many levels of WRONG here.
I really hope that I judge right by saying she'll be a parent, not breeder, because usually she's That Damn Cool. And bounce-backable, too. She's already on her feet with the aid of a walker going down to the NICU for the baby.
I wish her luck, but damn, people will do anything to breed. @__@
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| Andrew Sullivan on the federal deficit |
[05 Nov 2009|02:49pm] |
"I was too nice in ascribing merely a trillion dollar deficit bequeathed to Obama, as a reader reminds me:
'According to the treasury department's Bureau of Public Debt, the federal deficit went from $5,728,195,796,181.57 on January 22, 2001 to $10,626,877,048,913.08 on January 20, 2009. Bear in mind that the allegedly fiscally conservative Republican Party ran this government for six of those eight years. Roughly two trillion of that debt was added after Democrats took over Congress in 2007.'
Adding $5 trillion in debt in eight years is unprecedented in US history outside the Second World War. But that's what Bush and Rove and the GOP did. And now they lecture everyone else about fiscal responsibility.
Here's my litmus test for the Tea Party right: when they hold up effigies of Bush and Cheney as socialists, I'll take them seriously. Until then, they're more partisan than principled."
Something like that. There were many people who now carry Tea Party signs who defend the Bush administration like he was the Second Coming (Charlie is specifically exempted from this charge from me, and the rest of those whose primary protest is the erosion of 2nd Amendment rights). The federal deficit, the police-state powers (state secrecy trumping war crimes and illegal operations, like those of the 23 CIA operatives in Italy, et cetera) of the Bush administration, and torture, amongst other things.
But it wasn't until he was replaced with a Democrat that all of these things, so necessary under Bush/Cheney, became anathema for these folks.
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| GOP Health Care Plan - MUCH better |
[05 Nov 2009|10:31am] |
The Congressional Budget Office Wednesday night released its cost analysis of the Republican health care plan and found that it would reduce health care premiums and cut the deficit by $68 billion over ten years.
I'll take it...
Its much less ambitious than the Dem plan, which IMO is a good thing. Its doing things in small steps, checking whether or not it worked before moving on. I'm always suspicious of huge, ambitious plans - usually their very magnitude is hiding something, given the theory that all politicians are corrupt to one degree or another.
According to CBO, the GOP bill would indeed lower costs, particularly for small businesses that have trouble finding affordable health care policies for their employees. The report found rates would drop by seven to 10 percent for this group, and by five to eight percent for the individual market, where it can also be difficult to find affordable policies.
The CBO found that under the Republican plan, insurance coverage would increase by about 3 million and that the percentage of insured non-elderly adults would remain at about 83 percent after ten years.
The CBO found that the Republican provision to reform medical malpractice liability would result in $41 billion in savings and increase revenues by $13 billion by reducing the cost of private health insurance plans.
So... why not do that, and then see what else needs doing? Tort reform? Check. Getting hard-to-insure people covered? Check. Enabling small businesses to provide coverage to their employees? Check.
As opposed to - essentially - Medicare for everyone. Even if it doesn't work, you'd never be able to take it back or scale it down - it would be political suicide.
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| Baby Steps |
[05 Nov 2009|08:58am] |
Watch Prometheus take his first Baby Steps in The Iron Sea.
They grow up so fast.
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| Hey Charlie - Afghan question |
[05 Nov 2009|06:33am] |
Honest question...
Begging the question of how much continual engagement in Afghan costs - which is no side question, but for the purposes of this, it is - how many American servicemen/women and civilians will lose their lives in Afghanistan if we stay for another ten years (I know, we've only - only? - been there for eight, but still) vs. the possibility of another 9/11 attack that would happen if and only if we left?
I mean, how does one even begin a rational, non-political cost/benefit analysis of Afghanistan, and without one how can we make a rational decision as to the cost (as opposed to the "keyboard commando" chickenhawks like Cheney, telling Obama to "man up" while he took deferment after deferment), both in dollars and human lives. Throw in how we've degraded our country's standards and honor by torture, and then hiding the war criminals away, and...
The 9/11 atrocity was planned mainly in Germany and Florida, and the 7/7 London subway bombings in Yorkshire. Holding a patch of ground in Afghanistan doesn't do much for us IMO, except act as a recruiting flag for AQ, in the "See? Americans are imperialists and forcefully occupy an Islamic country, proping up the corrupt, puppet regime" category.
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| talk about *child-centric* ! |
[04 Nov 2009|06:14pm] |
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just found this *gem* in one of my other communities....
"I tried Public Health but they refused to see me, saying they stopped seeing adults four years ago."
....yupyup this is why I just don't both trying for public services 90% of the time anymore :(
after age of 16 or so....the world does not care unless your military... and thats a whole nother bag of worms.
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| Xmas hatred. |
[04 Nov 2009|08:53pm] |
Does anybody else absolutely dread Xmas time? Just between the s/o and I, we have 7 nieces and nephew from just two sisters alone to shop for. Most of the time, like 100% of the time they open our gifts, and leave them on the floor untouched. None are appreciative, or thankful. We never see these gifts again. I feel like it's such a waste of time and money shopping for ungrateful kids, but don't want to look bad in the eyes of families. Does anybody forgo the tradition of obligation? It is really hard w/the economy being rough and all, and all of the self-entitled monsters stress me the hell out every year.
How do YOU handle the holidays/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Xmas whatever. :]
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| Mom and Dad Identities |
[04 Nov 2009|07:37pm] |
I don't exactly know how to articulate this thought, but I'll give it a go:
While on FB just now, there was an add on the sidebar that said something like, "Are you a Mom that likes gaming?"
Aside from the fact that this is annoying because FB usually tailors adds, it got me thinking about the words mom and dad, and how they're used as an identity. I think its kind of strange that children (not all, but most...including other such names in languages other than English) universally refer to their parents as mom and dad, instead of as a their personal names. Like its a replacement identity, and parents just become Mom and Dad to their children.
I'm not sure how to word it other than that...but my partner and I were like, "Yeah, thats kinda weird, isn't it?" If you used a term of affection (like I refer to my dad's parents as Gena and Papa, but my mother's as Grandma and Grandpa) I think its a little different; like terms of affection are at least personalized, whereas standard mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aren't.
Does this make sense, or am I just babbling?
Also of annoyance, on a completely different subject, somehow both Viagra and Pampers got my email address in their databases. So now I'm getting emails that are all Viagra-y (ya'll know this one) and Pampers ones that say things like, "You're Child is 21 Months Old!" I just delete them, but its really irksome.
Thanks for letting me rant :)
PS- I didn't want to make a post that specifically said this, but this community has quickly become my favorite ever. Mostly because you guys are really informative about reproductive issues, and it has definitely peaked my interest to gain more insight into those issues. But yes. You guys rock.
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