(no subject)

[apocalypsos]

The more I see the story about Hilary Swank having to pay for bringing fruit into New Zealand, the more annoyed I get. The woman probably has pairs of shoes that cost less than that, and hell, I could pay that fine. And right now, I have a buck and a half in my pocket.

As her parents lay mortally wounded, a 5-year-old girl called 911, telling an emergency dispatcher, "I think they're dead." Oh, that poor little girl.

Belgian trainers helping police to understand body language have caused a controversy by likening George Bush's facial expressions to a chimpanzee's. Look, like him or not, the man looks like a chimp. If more people liked him, it'd be endearing and cute. Since they don't, it's an insult. Sheesh.

Plasticized fetus stolen from exhibition -- EW.

A Shanghai online game player stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword, the China Daily said Wednesday, creating a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons. Now that's taking the gaming a wee bit far.

A woman rushing to a hospital to give birth hit a few stops along the way — first at a gas station where she delivered the baby herself, then when confused police ordered her out of the car at gunpoint. Okay, I'm definitely not complaining about having a bad day anytime soon. It can't possibly compare to that.

Harry Knowles reviews Sahara. I really, really want to see Sahara. I don't know why, since I can see Matthew McConnaughey be pretty at home with my DVDs, but the trailer amuses me.

The TWoP recaplet for this week's double episode of The Amazing Race. Reading that makes me happy. Especially the ending. :)

A Vatican cardinal denounced the death Thursday of Terri Schiavo, saying removing the feeding tube that was keeping her alive was "an attack against God." Oh, for Pete's sake.

Comments

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

Christ. That poor little girl...

God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

Well, if God hadn't wanted her to die, he wouldn't have put her into a persistant vegetative state, NOW WOULD HE?

If God is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful, this victimising-the-innocent routine wouldn't happen, WOULD IT?

All these religious whackjobs need to realise that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either he put her in that vegetative state and intended for her to die (by not providing a last minute miracle) OR their argument is bullshit and there is no god.

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Yeah really.

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

One page of Cagle's editorial cartoons had two cartoons of Terri at the pearly gates, back to back. The caption on the first one is "What took you so long, we called you years ago?" and the caption on the second was "We didn't expect you yet."

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

Oh that's genius. I'll have to look and see if I can find it online.

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[budclare.livejournal.com]

Either he put her in that vegetative state and intended for her to die (by not providing a last minute miracle) OR their argument is bullshit and there is no god.

Your logic is just as painful as theirs. The fact that their argument is bullshit in no way implies that there is no god. I'm not even convinced that the first part of your statement is logically sound. I will agree, however, that they are loopy.

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I dislike the use of some person who's suffered tremendously (whether that's Terri Schiavo, the Pope, or anyone else) for a cause that does not seem to respect that person.

To me, the issue hasn't been about what it should have been about (Schiavo's parents refusing to let their child die for whatever reason) but instead has been about "I have an opinion! Look! And God/Jeb Bush/whoever is on MY side! So you suck!"

And my logic may be painful, but so far every religious leader that I've seen talking about it has generally said "This is the way it should be because she's still alive and God wants her this way." Well, by that logic, I still believe that God wouldn't have put her into a vegetative state.

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[budclare.livejournal.com]

Well, by that logic, I still believe that God wouldn't have put her into a vegetative state.

While there are cases in which I could sympathize with that argument (but not 100% argee with it), I think that it's problematic in this case. While I was in favor of letting her die, realistically, it didn't matter to her one way or the other. Because she wasn't aware, regardless of what her family believed, so technically she could have existed in that state for another 50 years without suffering any harm. Had she been aware, then she'd be suffering.

So if we assume (for the purposes of this argument) that some sort of god exists, and if we accept that Terri wasn't really affected by either course of action, then the real point of the whole exercise (again, assuming that there was a point) was the way that everyone else reacted to the situation. Which most religious people would probably agree with, except they'd then go on to insist that they were on the right side and the rest of us weren't. Which assumes that there was a right side and a wrong side, of which there is no proof, even assuming that there is a god. From where I'm sitting, there were people on both sides of the issue who were "right" and people on both sides who were "wrong".

Anyway, my original point was that you were using a false dichotomy (likely in addition to other fallacies), which is something that religious people frequently do, which is why from a logical standpoint I often have trouble differentiating between religious people and atheists. Bad logic is bad logic, regardless of what you're trying to prove with it.

Re: God's bleeding from the eyes at his minions.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I agree that there were people on both sides who were right and wrong. My objection was to the ones who were using her to further a cause that she may or may not have supported in her aware life.

But I'll accept that the dichotomy was false. For the sake of simplicity (and a state of rage at people using this person), I defined it poorly.

[nebulist.livejournal.com]

That little girl is going to turn into Batman.

I read the rest of that story, and it's just too horrible. Ouch.

[jldecker.livejournal.com]

Being in S.Florida, I got to hear about the Tia Hernlen thing "first hand" on the 10:00 news. It was disturbing and sad.

However, I just gotta say that the officer's comment on GMA: "The information she gave us and the manner she gave it to us, we wish we could get that out of adults": is a marvelously hypocritical statement. We all know if an adult-- hell, a teenager nowadays-- responded to what that 5-year-old saw with the same calm clarity, they'd be Suspect #1 and likely sent to prison.

What a sad, sad world it's become, huh?

[wal-lace.livejournal.com]

... I've read the book of Sahara. I can confidently tell you that the movie will be better, because it could hardly be worse.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

Obviously that cardinal hasn't seen Dogma.

[stevie-jane.livejournal.com]

It's true; Ben Affleck is the true attack against God.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I like a world where the priorities are straight (ahem, well): Ben Affleck is trying to destroy the universe, but really just wants to get into Matt Damon's pants. Alanis Morrisette is god. All the rest can be fixed. And there's Jay and Silent Bob.

[stevie-jane.livejournal.com]

The story about the little girl made me cry, she's got to be having some serious counseling after that, the nightmares she'll have.. it's horrible.

Bush does look like a chimp; I hope this won't give chimps a bad reputation.

[aberrantangels]

I already posted my immediate reaction to the cyber-theft thing over in theweaselking's journal. ^_^

[mindset]

This site is ooold, but still one of my favorites: http://www.bushorchimp.com/

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

I only want the people who think 'human and alive' is good enough for moral standing to follow their argument to its logical conclusion and ban both whacking off and the treatment of cancer.

It took an act of will for me to avoid asking if the guy from Singapore stabbed his victim with a virtual knife. Just so you know.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Whoops, Shanghai.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

I only want the people who think 'human and alive' is good enough for moral standing to follow their argument to its logical conclusion and ban both whacking off and the treatment of cancer.

The evil of Onanism. Christian Scientists. ::sigh::

[fyrdrakken]

Thing is, people who do decide they're against "self-abuse" or medical treatment are following their convictions through. It costs them something to not masturbate or to refuse those vaccinations/blood transfusions/chemotherapy/whatever. Abortion clinic picketers aren't going to have to pay to raise the kids they prevent from being aborted, so they piss me off. The people ranting about Schiavo weren't funding her medical care (except via the portion of their tax dollars that went to Medicare, which apparently handled some of the costs), so they piss me off.

2nd try... maybe I can close that open bold tag this time

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Thing is, people who do decide they're against "self-abuse" or medical treatment are following their convictions through. It costs them something to not masturbate or to refuse those vaccinations/blood transfusions/chemotherapy/whatever.

True. And on reflection, although these beliefs *annoy* me, the believers aren't forcing others to conform to them. So my examples weren't really apropos and I apologize for using them.

Abortion clinic picketers aren't going to have to pay to raise the kids they prevent from being aborted, so they piss me off.

The thing that *REALLY* pisses me off about these people is that that almost always conform to a very few stereotypes:

A) That sinful woman and her wicked ways! She deserved to get pregnant, that hussy! And she shouldn't be allowed to ditch her punishment without my permission! She has to go through labor, WITHOUT any pain meds, and raise the kid herself! At which point I'll scorn and hate her for being a leech on the welfare system! Bitch!

B) Give it up for adoption to a good home, despite the fact that I have no/very few children and would never think about adopting myself, unless it was some poor little dewy-eyed girl delivered to me straight from Asia. You've got to save those poor heathens' souls, after all!

C) (this one is usually men only) I hate women! All women! Because they make me feel things that I can't control and then won't let me rape fuck them! I have to control you because I can't/won't control myself! And I don't care what you want or why you want it; if you want it I CAN'T LET YOU HAVE IT!!

D) I have umpteen billion kids of my own (look at my masculinity / femininity!) and don't want to understand why you don't want to be a mother! A woman's purpose is to be a mother! It's the most special / important / wonderful thing there is! Be a mother, sweetie / darling / baby / honey / love / other inappropriate-and-revolting-from-strangers-"cutesy"-nicknames!

Now, I know that I'm oversimplifying and dramatizing, but it sickens me how *few* of these people give a damn about what happens after the kid is born.

Re: 2nd try... maybe I can close that open bold tag this time

[fyrdrakken]

The most fervent "pro-life" people are also often anti-contraception, but someone in the movement has enough PR sense to realize that they can get away with picketing clinics and even killing doctors if they screech about "baby-killing" but that too many people in this country are happy with the availability of birth control for them to openly go after it. Yet.

And, yeah, pro-life and anti-contraception are both anti-feminist, even if they don't quite realize it in those terms, because the ability to keep from being continuously pregnant or nursing is the only thing that allows women not to be forced to choose between a career and a sex life. (I can't help but note that three of the above four stereotypes indeed come across as either misogynistic or having an extremely limited view of femininity and a woman's proper role.) I ran across a brilliant essay last week on the "culture of life" as a culture of pain and justice, since pain is held to be character-building and since justice is held to lie in causing pain to those who "deserve" it. The paragraph I loved enough to quote in my own LJ:

"The suicide, the mystic, the woman who seeks an abortion, the cancer patient who smokes a joint (the cancer patient’s long-suffering lover who smokes a joint)—all are roundly condemned for their escape from “responsibility” but truly feared for their escape from jurisdiction. It is a fear with a long and traceable history. The Roman emperor Tarquin crucified the bodies of citizens who committed suicide in order to escape his tyranny. When Margaret Sanger began her campaign for birth control, she was accused of permitting women to escape their God-ordained sorrow in bearing children."

[lots42.livejournal.com]

But the human and alive people don't think sperm is human

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

*blinks* Why, because it lacks the full set of chromosomes? It would seem that on the other counts (the right set of things happen, it will someday be a conscious being) it fits as an analogy to Schiavo and fetuses. And does cancer still count? That's just weird.

*is honestly curious*

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Conception makes human life.

Simple as that, really.

- It would seem that on the other counts (the right set of things happen, it will someday be a conscious being) it fits as an analogy to Schiavo and fetuses. -

I have no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean. The words and phrases by themselves make sense but together...nada.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I should have elaborated. I was referring to the very popular potentiality argument amongst prolifers (short version: moral standing begins at conception, because at some point if all the right things happen then there will be a person there even if there is not now), which would seem to apply to both sperm and Terry Schiavo, as in both cases if all the right things occured there would be a person there at some point. Granted with Schiavo that chance would be so slim as to be negligible, but there's the beauty of potentiality.

[fyrdrakken]

The sperm argument is used by anti-contraception groups, or nearly so ("Every Sperm is Sacred" being the idea taken to ridiculous extremes), not by arguing that each sperm equals a potential human but by arguing that it goes against God to decide whether or not a sex act will result in a conception. And one of the things that bothers me the most about pro-life groups is how many of them are in fact anti-contraception as well as anti-abortion, which puts a whole new spin on their stated motivations.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Not to butt into the conversation (okay, that's exactly what I'm doing, but whatever) but I've always thought the argument against contraceptives that God is the only one who should decide whether or not someone has a child is ridiculous considering that no birth control other than abstinence or sterilization is one hundred percent effective. I mean, he's God, for crying out loud. If he wants a woman on the pill to get pregnant, I'm sure he'll get right past the 97% effectiveness and make use of the 3% ineffectiveness just fine.

[fyrdrakken]

Kind of reminds me of this one parable I read and actually kind of liked about the guy who was so strongly convinced that God would take care of him because of his faith that he ignored all the warnings to flee to high ground as flood waters were rising and the offers to hop into a boat as the waters arrived. Finally someone asked him if it had ever occurred to him that God was trying to take care of him by sending people to warn him and offer to help him evacuate. IOW, God helps those who help themselves, and he also gave us free will for a reason, so maybe sitting around with our thumbs up our asses trusting in Him to provide isn't the best idea here.

And I can't help but notice that the people who argue that it's the will of God whether or not a sex act results in a child are the same ones arguing that sex in and of itself is sinful (sometimes even in marriage) and is only ever justified for reproduction so we should all keep our legs crossed unless we're trying for a kid. So I think what they're going for is the idea that the will of God is that sex is for procreation only, and it's sinful to try to do it just for fun.

[fyrdrakken]

Also, A) it's your own LJ and you're allowed to butt into any comments made here, and B) sterilization isn't 100% effective and neither is abstinence if you factor in the not-0% possibility of rape.

[fiona64.livejournal.com]

considering that no birth control other than abstinence or sterilization is one hundred percent effective.

Sterilization, either male or female, has a known failure rate of 2/1000 cases. ::shrug:: And that assumes that the person requesting the surgery is able to obtain it. Most physicians will not perform surgical sterilization unless the person seeking it is over 30 and/or has at least 2 children.

I had to doctor-shop at the age of 29 to get a tubal ligation. BTDT.

[siegeofangels.livejournal.com]

Hey, completely unrelated to anything you just said, but this Ocean's 11 fic (http://www.livejournal.com/community/oceanfic/20814.html) reminded me of your multi-fandom Hurley fic.

It's cute. Though I'd mention it in case you haven't seen it.

[siegeofangels.livejournal.com]

Thought, even. Sheesh.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Does the Pope having a living well?

Seriously.

I don't want fifteen years of VeggiePope.

[hellziggy.livejournal.com]

hee hee.

This week on Veggie Tales a new character is introduced, it's the VeggiePope!!

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Veggie PooOOpe, Veggie PooOOpe, Veggie PooOOPe, It'sVeggisPope. du-dun dun dun dun

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

That lady who had the baby at the gas station was crazy as a loon for driving off to the hospital by herself. But the cops were nuttier for just letting her go on her way without helping her! Sheesh.

[fyrdrakken]

A woman doesn't drive herself to the hospital while in the late stages of labor (with her 3 and 5 year old daughters in the back seat, no less) if she has someone who can do the driving for her. And the thing that really got me was that someone who called the cops told them actually that it was someone trying to throw a baby out the van window, and another caller had them thinking they were calling to report the van as stolen, which had a lot to do with them reacting as badly as they did. And, you know, what were they expected to do to "help her" by that point? Have her slide over into the passenger's seat, clean the blood and amniotic fluid out of the driver's seat or put a towel down or something, and have one of them drive her to the hospital? I can really see why they were too damn embarassed at that point -- and besides, she'd already had the kid anyway, so the rush was kind of over.

[adjectivegirl.livejournal.com]

Goff said Coleman "threw her leg over the steering wheel, groaned once, and the rest of the baby came out. She caught that baby, put it to her chest, gave me a look, like, 'I gotta go,' closed the door, put the van in gear and away she went."

DUDE THAT'S ONE MULTI-TASKIN' WOMAN.