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Ironic? [Dan Collins]

I think “completely fucked up” is more appropriate:

Planned Parenthood, a major abortion provider, is soliciting Mother’s Day gifts for itself.

In a May 3 e-mail blast, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s president, Cecile Richards, asked recipients to “Make a Mother’s Day Gift” by donating to the organization – a solicitation that some critics say is ironic given that many Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions. [emphasis mine]

The e-mail reads:

“Dear Friend, Join us! Make a Mother’s Day gift. My daughter, Hannah, recently wrote this for a national magazine:

‘I was raised by strong women. My mom, Cecile Richards, fights daily for women’s reproductive rights and social justice as president of Planned Parenthood. It’s a legacy she got from her mom (my late grandma), Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas. I’ve learned that the most rewarding battles in life are those waged for something you truly believe in.’ …

“… As Mother’s Day approaches, I am grateful for the opportunity to make a difference and hope you’ll join me. Happy Mother’s Day.”

Unfortunately, there’s no point in making this shit up.

437 Replies to “Ironic? [Dan Collins]”

  1. happyfeet says:

    I love you mom. Here’s some fetal residue. Kind of lame.

  2. Jeffersonian says:

    This actually defies lampooning. It’s like a seder at Dachau.

  3. JD TWP says:

    Unintentional irony and comedy is always the best.

  4. MayBee says:

    “Social justice” is the new black.

  5. serr8d says:

    I’ve got their damned card.

    Careful, though. Lunchtime.

  6. Jeffersonian says:

    I think “The Red and the Black” is taken, but I’ll check.

  7. Pablo says:

    Did y’all remember to send Hamas a gift for Israel’s 60th Anniversary?

  8. […] PW, what better way to celebrate motherhood than by sparing someone from its many accursed […]

  9. […] Dan at PW… Planned Parenthood, a major abortion provider, is soliciting Mother’s Day gifts for […]

  10. adk46er says:

    No need for Iowahawk or the Onion to do anything with this story… Next thing you know there really will be a person on trial for killing his parents; asking for a reduced sentence because he’s an orphan.

  11. eLarson says:

    “Next thing you know there really will be a person on trial for killing his parents; asking for a reduced sentence because he’s an orphan.”

    That would be the Lyle and Erik Menendez back in 1989.

  12. Ardsgaine says:

    I take it you guys believe that abortion should be completely illegal?

  13. happyfeet says:

    Huh? I don’t. I think it’s an interesting choice.

  14. McGehee says:

    Maybe just once we should all pretend to believe what people assume we believe.

  15. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Yes. Planned Parenthood has a lot pillaged and desecrated so many holy wombs that for them to exploit Mother’s Day is sacrilege most foul. And then watch them get all whiny when someone throws a pipe bomb at them. They’re so venal and calling themselves Planned Parenthood is such a sick joke. They oughta call themselves Planned Ripping Little Babies Out Of People’s Wombs is what they oughta call themselves. I need to go lie down now.

  16. Ardsgaine says:

    Maybe I jumped to a wrong conclusion. The comparison to Dachau and the general tenor of moral revulsion seemed like good indicators, but I’m sure there’s some nuance that I’m missing. Something that makes abortion like the extermination of the Jews, but yet legally permissible.

  17. Rusty says:

    Something that makes abortion like the extermination of the Jews, but yet legally permissible.

    There ya go, sparky.

  18. happyfeet says:

    The other day the sister of the happyfeet she said hey I’m having a baby and then happyfeet is of course the only person in the family that is all like are you sure that’s a good idea? (dot dot dot) and everyone is all like you silly happyfeet you have to know that dot dot dot would devastate her emotionally and so I call the sister of the happyfeet and express great enthusiasm for her impending maternal adventure and she said I love you and I said I love you too and then she lost the baby yesterday. So now we say things like this is the Lord’s way and happyfeet is saying this is the Lord’s way and thinking ok so maybe that repulsive guy isn’t going to ruin Christmas after all maybe.

  19. Pablo says:

    Life is weird, ain’t it, ‘feets?

  20. psycho... says:

    Something that makes abortion like the extermination of the Jews, but yet legally permissible.

    How about the way that this heavily government-funded organization, whose founding purpose was the depression of reproductive rates among those whom the Progressives deemed unfit to breed (i.e., the poor and/or black), continues, in defiance of the “genetic fallacy,” to do just that, with or without any conscious effort on the part of the organization’s current members, supporters, and funders to continue its eugenic project?

    Is that exterminatey enough to allow the analogy? I think so.

    (And I don’t care about abortion. My principled position is almost the same as the incoherent one Kerry accidentally flip-flopped himself into: it’s murder, and it shouldn’t be illegal. I only think it’s wrong when it’s planned.)

  21. […] Stanek: Happy Mother’s Day from Planned Parenthood? I’ve gotta agree with Dan Collins’s description of this. Assorted Babble: Unelectable Jules Crittenden: Bigotry Alert Atlas Shrugs: Obama is a […]

  22. happyfeet says:

    It is weird and for like the last three years I’ve been all about keeping the weirdness to a minimum on my end of things but it just keeps creeping in. I blame other people.

  23. Ardsgaine says:

    I call the sister of the happyfeet and express great enthusiasm for her impending maternal adventure and she said I love you and I said I love you too and then she lost the baby yesterday.

    Sorry to hear that, hf. She doing alright?

    My older sister was devastated when she had a miscarriage. It would have been her fourth child. Hubby did not want another one, so there was a real difference in how the two of them reacted to the miscarriage. That was the point when their marriage really started to run downhill.

  24. happyfeet says:

    I hope so. She’s really really resilient. But mom said to wait for her to call me.

  25. serr8d says:

    Send her something, hf. Flowers, maybe. Not a ham.

  26. N. O'Brain says:

    Sorry, I was converted with the 3-D sonograms of my grandaughter in my DIL’s womb.

    Kaylie Marie was and is a human being.

    Fuck the abortionists.

    And, ghod is she beautiful.

    Kaylie, I mean.

  27. happyfeet says:

    That’s a good idea. Good thinking.

  28. McGehee says:

    Huh. I don’t see anything in this thread directly linking abortion to Dachau. There’s a reference, but it’s a simile, not a direct relationship.

  29. Dan Collins says:

    hf, sorry for your sis. And TLD, sorry for your troubles, too.

  30. Dan Collins says:

    Ardsgaine, WTF? How the hell do you get from my feeling that this is sick to the idea that I oppose legal abortion? What is it about me that bothers you so much?

    I think that it’s a matter of conscience and a matter of free will. I think it’s wrong, but I’m not going to impose that on someone else. On the other hand, I’m not going to make nice with infanticide, which is what I believe it is, most of the time. So, once again, WTF?

  31. My brother, whom I love very much, is tragically off of his rocker on this one. Here’s the deal: any time a person is murdered, it isn’t good. In fact it is Evil, with a big ol’ ‘E’. There is no nuance. And it’s not about forcing your beliefs on others, any more than stopping someone from smothering their newborn baby.

    How do we know we aren’t killing the Doctor who will cure AIDS? Lemme get this straight: cutting down the rain forest is bad, ’cause there might be some herb that offers hope for Michael Fox, or a homeopathic manner that Baby Boomers can keep nailing one another without the bummer of pharma… Yeah, makes sense.

  32. happyfeet says:

    Thanks, Dan. It’s one of those things that’s just gonna have to be okay. Enoch, freedom is important. People get to be a lot sinful. That’s been the deal from the get-go.

  33. The only instance in which I can countenance killing the unborn is when the mother’s life is in Peril, with a big ol’ ‘P’

  34. in fact, I’ll go ahead and say it: it is a lot worser than anything the Nazis did.

  35. jon says:

    “How do we know we aren’t killing the Doctor who will cure AIDS?” We know that because we are quite sure no one will grow up to cure anything when they are dead. If it’s predestined, it’s obviously not going to happen as a result of a dead person growing up to be a brilliant scientist. And if it’s chance, that person isn’t the lucky one who will win the Nobel. Sheesh, ask me the odds for the 2008 Kentucky Derby next, won’t you?

  36. Jon – good one.

  37. happyfeet says:

    That’s an odd formulation cause how do we know we’re not killing the next Hitler really? It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world except for Lola is how I see it.

  38. “How do we know we aren’t killing the Doctor who will cure AIDS?”

    is not my core beef… that was for the bleating hearts… can’t appeal to logic with them, so I went for trying to equate human life with vegetables… for which they have a great affinity.

  39. Ardsgaine says:

    Dan, you can’t honestly call it infanticide and believe it should be legal. Either you believe there’s a difference, or you don’t. If you don’t, then you should be howling to the heavens that the practice must be stopped. If you do, then the exagerration just confuses the issue.

  40. Yes, Dan… do tell… if there is an inherent dignity in each of us (no matter how small and dependent we might be), in what circumstance is murdering us ok?

  41. Ardsgaine says:

    Enoch, freedom is important. People get to be a lot sinful.

    They get to be a lot sinful, but they don’t get to kill people.

  42. Pablo says:

    Dan, you can’t honestly call it infanticide and believe it should be legal.

    Why not? Take, for instance, the mother’s life in peril scenario. I can consider the abortion to be infanticide and feel that it should be the family’s choice to make and not the government’s.

  43. Enoch, freedom is important.

    There is also a difference between Liberty and license, feet.

  44. Dan – you didn’t say that… you said this: I think that it’s a matter of conscience and a matter of free will. I think it’s wrong, but I’m not going to impose that on someone else.

  45. Dan – you are a pussy.

  46. happyfeet says:

    No, really they do. When you validate climate change and divert kabillions of resources to stupid carbon sequestrations and regimes and such, people die what could have lived. When you say hey everybody let’s make corn gas, people die cause they get hungry. When you say hey let’s nationalize all the hospitals and have price controls for drugs people die cause socialized medicine is all about triage and not much about r&d. People kill each other a lot casually all the time. In France they killed like ten thousand old people cause it got warm outside and then they blamed it on climate change.

  47. happyfeet says:

    No really they do gets to kill people is what I mean.

  48. happyfeet says:

    I’m not talking about Liberty. I’m talking about no one would function very well in a society that never got its conscience shocked once in awhile. It’s all very yin and yang. Evil nourishes good. I didn’t make the rules.

  49. happyfeet says:

    This is why into every generation a Slayer is born, Enoch. Try to keep up.

  50. happy – good one.

  51. happy, jon… jon, happy.

    happy mother’s day. here is your ham.

  52. Rick Ballard says:

    “but they don’t get to kill people”

    Don’t be silly. Of course they do. Raising CAFE standards will kill people – only a few thousand a year but if you draw the short straw…

    The FDA kills people every day and has since inception. In the name of safety, too.

    The WHO has killed more people in Asia Africa and South America than America has lost in wars since its beginning.

  53. happyfeet says:

    Thanks, Rick. You said that better. But for real I’m not a philosophical person. Here is my philosophy: happyfeet a lot needs to not be part of the problem.

  54. Dan Collins says:

    No. I’m not going to budge on this. I believe it’s infanticide. I realize lots of people don’t. They’re wrong. They are damning themselves. The place where I have to win this is from the pulpit, not from the bench. Because if I compel (or try to compel) their belief, then I deny them their agency.

    I don’t want them to choose wrongly. I don’t want these children to die. It is not my decision.

  55. cynn says:

    No, it’s not your choice, Dan. Abortion exists. The only relevant question is whether or not it is safe or dangerous. Leave your moral disquisition on the exit ramp where it belongs.

  56. happyfeet says:

    You know I’ve been thinking and it seems to be a lot more likely that the guy or maybe girl who is gonna cure AIDS unfortunately had to drop out of grad school cause of some impregnation what happened and they had to get a job and start a 529 account and learn how to cook quick, low cost, tasty meals.

  57. Dan Collins says:

    I’m not going to impose my morality, cynn. But fuck you about the disquisition. I’ll say what I believe, you twat.

  58. The only relevant question is whether or not it is safe or dangerous.

    not real safe for the baby.

  59. happyfeet says:

    That means no more spaghetti squash with sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. And also no AIDS cure.

  60. happyfeet says:

    Unless the squash is on sale and maybe someone gave you the sun-dried tomatoes as part of a gift basket or something.

  61. Pablo says:

    Leave your moral disquisition on the exit ramp where it belongs.

    Unless it refers to the trouble with black babies or the joys of statutory rape. In that case, Send it and your check along to Planned Parenthood.

  62. Doug says:

    Happy “Mothers Day” Suck that tissues brain out stat:)

  63. serr8d says:

    The only relevant question is whether or not it is safe or dangerous. Leave your moral disquisition on the exit ramp where it belongs.

    Absolute bullshit. If good people do not speak up, then they will share responsibility for this evil process. If one can speak up, and convince someone to have that child, then there’s at least one soul saved. Soul, you say? There’s the difference between atheists and godbotherers…we who do, recognize that we have souls. If souls are not ‘assigned’ at conception, then when?

    Not only do we who have souls have a right to speak up against such a heinous process (and Planned Parenthood operates as much a mechanical process as manufacturing a car), we have a responsibility to our own souls to speak up.

    I differ from Dan only in I do want laws that limit the process. According to that little counter thingy in my sidebar, we’ve killed 6,648,010 babies since the start of the Iraq war, using the abortion process. How many of those abortions were just for convenience? That’s where I would see some nice morality codified in sensible law.

    Otherwise, I would say let the liberals eat their own.

  64. cynn says:

    OK, you get off on your orgy of fetal detritus. Planned Parenthood makes with a ham[fisted appeal. What’s the point? Your’re certainly not going to raise these children yourselves, are you?

    And Dan, thanks for the twat reference. That pretty much says it all.

  65. McGehee says:

    You know, I never for a minute would have guessed tempers would run high in a thread referencing abortion. I mean, that never happens.

  66. Dan Collins says:

    Yeah, actually, when you state, in effect, that I shouldn’t say what I believe, cynn, I believe that you deserve that.

    I’m so fucking judgy.

  67. nishizonoshinji says:

    well…what do you guyz want?
    do you want plannedparenthood unfunded and abortion to made illegal?

    should smart young fertile cauc-grrls like me be forced to bear lotsa children so we don’t have the Mark Steyn future an have to live in a brown world?

  68. Dan Collins says:

    I don’t care what color your kids are, nishi, and neither does he. We’re more interested in what they believe, what their values are.

  69. Pablo says:

    OK, you get off on your orgy of fetal detritus.

    That belongs to you, not me. Are the facts troubling to you, cynn?

  70. Dan Collins says:

    I live girls with darker skin. I like Irish girls, too.

  71. should smart young fertile cauc-grrls like me be forced to bear lotsa children so we don’t have the Mark Steyn future an have to live in a brown world?

    yes, you especially. oh wait. you’re stupid.

  72. Pablo says:

    nishi, I want you to get areal education and learn to speak like an adult. Barring that, I’d like you sterilized, for the greater good.

  73. cynn says:

    Yeah, I can see tempers exacerbating. It’s only natural. Happy Mom’s Day, to all you who have the luxury of a day off!

  74. Dan Collins says:

    What do I want?

    I want people to acknowledge what they do, and why.

  75. Pablo says:

    Yeah, I can see tempers exacerbating.

    Oooh! So you got a new mirror? Kewl!

  76. nishizonoshinji says:

    haha
    Im black irish. are you red irish, dan?

  77. nishizonoshinji says:

    I want people to acknowledge what they do, and why.

    then….shouldn’t abortion be a personal choice? in true libertarian style?

  78. cynn says:

    “We’re more interested in what they believe, what their values are.”

    Oh, really? Sounds like eugenics might perfectly suit your objectives. If you don’t want to use the hot-button term abortion, simply refer to social selection. Your constituency awaits, twat.

  79. Dan Collins says:

    What the fuck did I say, nishi? What?

  80. um, Dan, don’t feel bad about it. she does it to everyone.

  81. thor says:

    It’s a fetus fight, woohoo!

  82. nishizonoshinji says:

    I want people to acknowledge what they do, and why.

    This is what you said.
    That people should be responsible for their actions and understand the motivation.
    Is that right?

  83. MayBee says:

    Did you know the first abortion ever was performed on a Sufi slave in 476 BC?

  84. Pablo says:

    Yep, by Ben Stein.

  85. Pablo says:

    Pythagoras picked up the tab.

  86. Dan Collins says:

    I don’t think it could have been a Sufi and been BC, could it?

  87. Dan Collins says:

    Yes, I said that. And the problem is?

  88. serr8d says:

    well…what do you guyz want?
    do you want plannedparenthood unfunded and abortion to made illegal?

    Planning Parenthood is important, yes, and understanding why planning is important has to be taught, ideally in the family setting. Facilitating abortions as often as Planned Parenthood does them isn’t much planning, that’s more like a slaughterhouse. Given the numbers. Not illegal, but more like the death penalty; difficult to process.

    Blame Planned Parenthood for this. They are the ones who bring this up on Mother’s Day, begging for funds. Like al-Qaeda soliciting for donations on 9-11.

  89. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Did you know the first abortion ever was performed on a Sufi slave in 476 BC?

    That was the same dude who invented Silly Putty and wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays, wasn’t it?

    Pythagoras picked up the tab.

    He was a sneaky bastard, though. Claimed that tips were irrational numbers, by definition, and therefore had no justification for existing.

  90. MayBee says:

    I don’t think it could have been a Sufi and been BC, could it?

    Sorry, a reference to the Gerson thread, which also started in 476 BC.

  91. cynn says:

    Yada…etc. Typical ignore and deflect strategy. Nothing to see here.

  92. Dan Collins says:

    Yeah, it really seems that way, sometimes. Good old Nishi.

  93. Pablo says:

    Facilitating abortions as often as Planned Parenthood does them isn’t much planning, that’s more like a slaughterhouse.

    Planning is proactive, elective abortion is reactive.

  94. nishizonoshinji says:

    so Dan, then you are saying that abortion should be legal and women can exercise free will and personal responsibility and personal liberty?
    Is that right?

  95. Pablo says:

    Another Highball, cynn?

  96. nishizonoshinji says:

    Perhaps my intentionalism isn’t good.
    ;)

  97. Karl says:

    As loathe as I am to wander in, this far into the discussion, I will merely note that homicide is not always an illegal act, and that infanticide is a form of homicide. The label is not determinative of the legal consequences.

  98. Pablo says:

    Can you read, nishi? The answer to that question is in plain English on this thread.

  99. cynn says:

    Only if you’re buying, big boy.

  100. serr8d says:

    “Reactive Parenthood”–but that just doesn’t sound right.

    “Failed Parenthood”. Now we’re getting somewhere.

  101. Dan Collins says:

    Yeah, but they should make that decision early. And they shouldn’t bitch when someone tells them how wrong they are, because they fucking know that already. And they should realize that forgiveness will be theirs if they ask for it.

  102. serr8d says:

    But good planning would save the child. There’s what we really want.

  103. McGehee says:

    Threads that make this much noise are more fun when there’s an armadillo involved. Preferably hyped up on nutmeg.

  104. serr8d says:

    No armadillo over here. Just the Grey Goose.

  105. thor says:

    And a double-tequila shooter for the metaphorically paroecious lady with the big fangs, barkeep!

    I gotta party with cynn.

  106. cynn says:

    Karl: No, murder is not always a crime; depends on extenuations. There are those who maintain that abortion is a constant crime. Women are de facto criminals under this opressive and unyielding view.

  107. There are those who maintain that abortion is a constant crime.

    the horror…. the horror…

  108. serr8d says:

    Karl didn’t say murder; I believe he said homicide. There are justifiable homicides (break in my front door and that’ll happen) but I think the difference is the innocence of the victim.

    Yes, homicides do have victims, too.

  109. Dan Collins says:

    I don’t blame women more than the men involved, cynn. Unless they lie.

  110. nishizonoshinji says:

    hmm…i said..

    well…what do you guyz want?
    do you want plannedparenthood unfunded and abortion to made illegal?

    and Dan responded with…

    I want people to acknowledge what they do, and why.

    so what does that mean?

  111. Dan Collins says:

    I’ve aborted a human being, because I (and/or the father) was too weak to save him or her. I’m sorry.

  112. nishizonoshinji says:

    Yeah, but they should make that decision early. And they shouldn’t bitch when someone tells them how wrong they are, because they fucking know that already. And they should realize that forgiveness will be theirs if they ask for it.

    Ah.
    But then doesn’t that mean abortion should be legal and it is the personal responsibilty of the women?

  113. Pablo says:

    I don’t blame women more than the men involved, cynn. Unless they lie.

    Or unless the man is not consulted, or he is and his desires are disregarded. It is a woman’s choice, not a man’s.

  114. nishizonoshinji says:

    or perhaps the personal responsibility of the parents?

  115. serr8d says:

    It is and it is, Nishi.

    It’s the factory Planned Parenthood INC. that galls.

  116. Dan Collins says:

    Sure, nishi. And if they decide to keep the baby? Whose responsibility then?

  117. nishizonoshinji says:

    Sure, nishi. And if they decide to keep the baby? Whose responsibility then?

    Is this a trick question?
    hahaha…..the State’s!

    So the libertarian position is that abortion should be legal.

    Next question: Should Planned Parenthood get fundage?

  118. happyfeet says:

    In this episode we look at a few forms of birth control. There are many other options available including the Patch, female condoms, the sponge, foam, cervical caps, diaphragms, surgical sterilization, and playing World of Warcraft.

  119. thor says:

    I’m glad Obama’s mom carried him to term. He turned out to be a special dude.

  120. Dan Collins says:

    Federal fundage? No.

  121. nishizonoshinji says:

    i gtg.
    my potential sperm broadcaster is here.
    have fun.
    ;)

  122. serr8d says:

    And if they decide to keep the baby? Whose responsibility then?

    The parent’s of course. Unless they suck, in which case we should see some social service intercede, preferably an agency placement in a loving home.

    Some of my best friends were orphans.

  123. dicentra says:

    What’s the point? Your’re certainly not going to raise these children yourselves, are you?

    Me personally? No. But there are tons of people who are desperate to adopt. Tons. They have to be drug through several legal knotholes and ride the emotional roller-coaster until their hearts break wide open. If they’re lucky, they get a kid.

    So don’t act like it’s a choice between abandoning a child to the elements or terminating your own offspring. Adoption is a wonderful thing. No adopted child wishes to have been aborted, and no sane woman who gives up a child for adoption wishes they’d just killed the thing when they could.

  124. thor says:

    Yeah, a lot gay dudes want to adopt. That’s the answer.

  125. cynn says:

    Dan, I’m sorry for your loss, as was mine. We have to try and factor these quiet horrors into our living space, and it requires even more respect toward the living, who we can still talk to.

  126. happyfeet says:

    Open adoption sucks though. They try to make it now to where you keep a toe in forever and ever. That’s just creepy and kind of a lot daytime tv if you ask me. Put me in the clean break camp.

  127. Pablo says:

    Quiet horrors? That goes a piece beyond the question of whether it’s safe or dangerous, doesn’t it?

  128. cynn says:

    Dan is an elitist grammar pansy.

  129. Dan Collins says:

    Yes, I am. Bitch.

  130. happyfeet says:

    Here is a gratuitous link to a picture of Peaches Geldoff. Not really gratuitous. It’s sort of tangentially related.

  131. cynn says:

    You have issues, man. You’re just pissed because you can’t get a trendy abortion wherein you get your insides extracted. No soup for you.

  132. thor says:

    Comment by cynn on 5/10 @ 8:19 pm #

    Danthor, I’m sorry for your loss, as was mine. We have to try and factor these quiet horrors into our living space, and it requires even more respect toward the living, who we can still talk to.

    I held her hand and together we marched in to and out of the clinic. I was only 17 at the time. I’ve never given it much thought since then, to be honest. Those anti-abortion creeps yelled some pretty awful crap in our faces. I most vividly remember their awfulness.

  133. happyfeet says:

    Yeah well it’s time to bring the turtles in or I’d really give you the what-for.

  134. […] Parenthood soliciting Mother’s Day donations Via PW, what better way to celebrate motherhood than by sparing someone from its many accursed […]

  135. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Not you, thor. Bravely done.

  136. cynn says:

    Anyway, it was tacky for Planned Parenthood to launch this Mother’s Day campaign. Kind of sickly ironic.

  137. happyfeet says:

    Not just tacky. It’s like a seder at Dachau.

  138. serr8d says:

    Peaches Geldoff, hf? That pic was terribly blurred.

    Have a nice Ice Cream girl, instead.

  139. happyfeet says:

    She looks soft and inviting.

  140. happyfeet says:

    And also she’s holding chocolate.

  141. serr8d says:

    Beware the ring.

  142. cynn says:

    thor, on the internet, no one can hear you scream. they always revert to their cushy comfort zone.

  143. happyfeet says:

    While we can. Baracky is gonna demand that we you move out of our comfort zone.

  144. happyfeet says:

    Oh. *We*. Not you. Baracky means all of us.

  145. cynn says:

    Hence the nonsensical crap.

  146. thor says:

    Hmm, I’m altogether sure what you mean, I think I do but.. Anyway, emotionally I’m sure abortions effect persons differently. I think they should be available for those who want them so as to insure the health and medical wishes of the mother first and foremost. I don’t think it’s anybody’s damn business what two people, or if it’s just the one person, decide to do during pregnancy.

  147. happyfeet says:

    Nonsensical not at all I don’t think. nishi said

    One thing I have learned, is that abortion makes ppl crazy.
    No point in discussing that. Charles Johnson never allowed it at LGF either.

    You guys transcend that sort of expectation a lot I think. Yes you too cynn.

  148. cynn says:

    Thor is arguing from situational ethics.

  149. Pablo says:

    Expelled is calming. We should probably talk about that instead.

    So, wedge strategy.

  150. happyfeet says:

    Sometimes ethics are a lot situational. This is why people write novels and movies and plays and things.

  151. Ardsgaine says:

    (Stepped away for a bit, and now I’m playing catch up.)

    HF, in your #47 you listed a bunch of things that we agree are wrong, but I don’t agree that the bastards who advocate those programs are just being “sinful” in a way that is within their rights. They are violating individual rights, and it is causing people to die. They get to do it because we have insufficient constitutional protection for private property. (Nitpick: I didn’t think there was a “they” responsible for the deaths in France. Maybe you could clarify that for me.)

    Dan: I think I understand your position better now, but it’s not clear whether your laissez-faire stance is based on the principle that abortion should in no case be proscribed by law, or if it is based on the principle that societal change must occur through persuasion. If there were enough people in the US to support a constitutional amendment banning abortion (with an exception for the life of the mother), would you support its passage?

    Karl @ #99: In the cases where homicide is legal, it is also considered moral. Killing in self defense is morally right. Is that your position on abortion, that even though it is infanticide in the technical sense, it is morally justified?

    My position on the use of the term infanticide is that to call the fetus an infant is to beg the question. It’s giving the fetus the same status as a baby. Since there is no case in law where the killing of an innocent is justified, and since there is nothing on Earth as innocent as a baby, baby-killing is always illegal. So when someone calls abortion infanticide, I don’t think that leaves him much wiggle room for saying it should be legal.

  152. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Good point. But mostly I think the French were negligent. Prevalence of air conditioning being what it is over there. They never thought to check on those people. Mostly though you can be a lot assured if that happened over here we’d find a “they” pretty damn quick with a documentary getting a greenlight the day after that.

  153. thor says:

    You can’t strap a woman to a gurney and feed her through a tube until she completes her birthing duty to mankind.

    The health and safety and wishes of the mom comes first. Common sense shouldn’t involve much thought.

  154. I have a lot to say on this subject. But mainly I wish it would change.

  155. Pablo says:

    It’s giving the fetus the same status as a baby. Since there is no case in law where the killing of an innocent is justified, and since there is nothing on Earth as innocent as a baby, baby-killing is always illegal.

    But killing a fetus can be illegal, depending on who does it. The law and the definitions get kinda squishy.

  156. Pablo says:

    You can’t strap a woman to a gurney and feed her through a tube until she completes her birthing duty to mankind.

    You can if she wants you to.

  157. Ardsgaine says:

    Expelled is calming. We should probably talk about that instead.

    Yeah, since nishi is off getting laid, we could probably have a good discussion.

  158. happyfeet says:

    Babies sure are cute.

  159. Ardsgaine says:

    Mostly though you can be a lot assured if that happened over here we’d find a “they” pretty damn quick with a documentary getting a greenlight the day after that.

    The ‘they’ would be us, because it takes a village to kill an old person… or something like that.

  160. happyfeet says:

    Oh. I was thinking I’m pretty sure it would have been George Bush’s fault specifically.

  161. I’m pretty sure it would have been George Bush’s fault specifically.

    and you secondarily. because you love him. ;D

  162. Ardsgaine says:

    Oh, definitely. As der Führer, he’s the go-to guy for that sorta thing. Like Katrina where he didn’t evacuate those people, but just let all the buses sit there and get flooded with the keys in his pocket the whole time.

  163. happyfeet says:

    I am gonna miss him awful. He’s like one of my best friends and he doesn’t even know it.

  164. Thanks Happyfeet!!! Most sincerely.
    Maybe Dan can put a big flaming one up to announce super cute news.

  165. Jeffersonian says:

    BTW, I stand by my Dachau comment.

  166. serr8d says:

    Ardsgaine, you do loves rewriting history to absolve the really guilty, don’t you?

  167. Ardsgaine says:

    BTW, I stand by my Dachau comment.

    lol. Alright.

    Just to clarify, though, you meant a seder at Dachau when it was actually running, right? If a group of Jews held one there now as a rememberance of the dead, that would be okay?

    I’m all about striving for clarity in these discussions.

  168. happyfeet says:

    You bet. What else is cute are little wuppers. But sometimes cute isn’t enough. No really. Here you have your cute. Really happy little wupper, right? Three days later… the darkness. Which is to say you needs to take your cute when you can.

  169. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Jeffersonian – I just picked up your Dachau comment cause cynn had brought us full circle so I figured we’d might as well just go round again.

  170. Ardsgaine says:

    lol @ serr8d.

    Yeah, they punished him, didn’t they? Made him serve another term as mayor of the most dysfunctional city in the US.

  171. serr8d says:

    And him with the keys to the school buses in his pocketses the whole time…

  172. dicentra says:

    I would just like to remind everyone that Republicans and Conservatives are hard-hearted bastards who all want to make The Handmaid’s Tale a reality and who want to punish everyone with babies. Especially Mark Steyn.

    That is all.

  173. All I know is if this thread is still the top post tomorrow morning, I am going to take a cannula to the base of my skull, and suck out all the juicy parts. And then flee to bruncheon like a zombie on wheels.

  174. Anything with flowers, or bunnies, or chocolate cake would be nice.

  175. B Moe says:

    My position on the use of the term infanticide is that to call the fetus an infant is to beg the question. It’s giving the fetus the same status as a baby. Since there is no case in law where the killing of an innocent is justified, and since there is nothing on Earth as innocent as a baby, baby-killing is always illegal.

    So when does a fetus become a baby? Is it not a baby the day before it is born, and then one when it pops out? Is babyhood merely a matter of residence? I personally believe the same laws and criterion should be applied to the beginning of life as is used at the end, that biological life-support is no different from mechanical when the ethics of removal are concerned. An adult patient with a functioning heart and active brain waves can’t be removed from life support, and a fetus developed enough to exhibit the same should have the same protection.

  176. Jeffersonian says:

    Just to clarify, though, you meant a seder at Dachau when it was actually running, right? If a group of Jews held one there now as a rememberance of the dead, that would be okay?

    I’m all about striving for clarity in these discussions.

    Yes, and I should have been clearer.

  177. happyfeet says:

    I think it becomes a baby when you go to Target to buy it stuff.

  178. happyfeet says:

    That’s beautiful. I would love to see that on the front page tomorrow.

  179. An adult patient with a functioning heart and active brain waves can’t be removed from life support, and a fetus developed enough to exhibit the same should have the same protection.

    a. that is flatly false. An adult can refuse or by proxy have removed life support in many situations, even ones where support isn’t futile.
    b. Children can be taken off of life support in many situations, even when not brain dead – especially when it will be futile.

    c. more en point, the “life support” in the case of pregnancy happens to be an actual human being. Women aren’t machines, not bottles.
    It’s Not a mechanical repirator, a persons lungs. Not an echmo, a woman’s heart, he blood vessels, her brain. Not a dialysis machine, a woman’s kidneys. Not a feeding tube, a woman’s liver.

    If said my child could not have my kidney, there’s no law that can compel me to give it, even if my child were to die. If you gave me money for my eggs or a piece of my liver, you could not enforce specific performance of me handing over my flesh if I refused. If I could save you by hooking you up to my own body and be human life support for you, I could back out of the deal, even if it mean’t you would die. Even if I’m the one who made you sick, by running you over with my car, or giving you the wrong medicine.

  180. Dammit. I told myself I would keep it zipped.
    Merry farging moms day.

    BTW, my kid can have both my kidneys if the time comes.
    People tend to leave that sort of natural balance out of the equation, don’t they..
    Women have an awful powerful drive that goes in the opposite direction.
    When they don’t, there’s usually a powerfully good reason.

  181. Ardsgaine says:

    Dammit. I told myself I would keep it zipped.

    That’s okay. That was a very good response. I’m glad you posted it.

  182. Ardsgaine says:

    Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day! :)

  183. panther girl says:

    Wow, y’all comment faster than I can read! Of course, I’m not that bright! ;-)

    #64 serr8d – I’m curious where you get your abortion numbers? Seriously, please let me know. You guys don’t know me (been lurking for years though). I have a bulletin board at my place of work (academia) and a few of us feel it is our obligation to tell the “rest of the story” so I’d love to have a source…

    #68 nishi – As a woman, I am always completely floored that folks think the woman’s “choice” comes so late in the game. Am I the only gal on the planet who knows how/when to keep her legs crossed? I get that in some situations that isn’t the issue. And I am certainly no stranger to the powerful effect hormones have on both sexes. But come on! Even my six year old knows (approximately) how babies are made.

    #80 cynn – And we’re full circle. Margaret Sanger (Planned Parenthood founder) was way into eugenics.

    #154 Ardsgaine – On seeing the pee dipstick turn into a pink plus sign, “Look honey! We’re having a fetus!!”

    #179 B Moe – Always curious to me that the liberal crowd thinks abortion should be legal but the death penalty not so much. Perfect solution – allow abortion through 75 years of age. (They’ve pretty much got the other end of the spectrum covered already what with the Right to Die stuff.)

  184. Ardsgaine says:

    #154 Ardsgaine – On seeing the pee dipstick turn into a pink plus sign, “Look honey! We’re having a fetus!!”

    No, we’re having a baby. What we have now, though, is a fetus.

  185. dicentra says:

    If said my child could not have my kidney, there’s no law that can compel me to give it, even if my child were to die.

    These arguments ignore the fact that conception doesn’t happen without volition. Pregnancy is forced upon a woman only in cases of rape, which is a crime.

    In an age where we have abundant information about how children are conceived, and when we have more contraceptive choices than we know what to do with, no woman truly gets pregnant by accident.

    All women know from moment to moment whether we want to conceive. We know how to avoid it. We have the ability to avoid it. If, through carelessness or weakness, we conceive, it is barbaric to rip that nascent life from the womb and call it freedom.

    We assert that women aren’t walking incubators, but that’s not how Mother Nature sees it. Reproduction is the Prime Directive for all living things. Notice how our reproductive systems do what they do without regard to our comfort or well-being. That our culture no longer sees human fecundity as a positive shows how far off the mark we’ve gone. We should embrace this gift of nature instead of hating our own flesh.

    The ability to reproduce is a solemn and sacred responsibility. We offend God and/or Nature by behaving otherwise.

  186. Ardsgaine says:

    I missed serr8d’s comment at #64 when I was backtracking earlier, so…

    Soul, you say? There’s the difference between atheists and godbotherers…we who do, recognize that we have souls.

    That’s not necessarily a difference. As an atheist, I still believe that I have a soul, spirit, or whatever one wants to call it. I just don’t believe that it’s separable from my body, nor assigned at conception. I believe it develops over time.

    If souls are not ‘assigned’ at conception, then when?

    Do you want the government to start deciding what God does and when? If not, then the debate has to be decided on non-theological grounds.

  187. thor says:

    The ability to reproduce is a solemn and sacred responsibility. We offend God and/or Nature by behaving otherwise.

    Now there’s a timely dramatic sweeping passage. I feel ready to offend God and Nature with my stiff rod of Satanic glory. She’s getting it again!

  188. None of this is easy. None of it. Freedom = good. Abortion = bad. Sex = good. Unplanned pregnancy = a mixed blessing.

    I got buffaloed into an abortion when I was twenty (pushy boyfriend thing). I couldn’t hack the adoption process several years ago. So now I’m having hot flashes and figuring out where to go from here.

    All I know is that God was good to me, and we didn’t have the usual ordeal at mass today, wherein all the mothers stand up to get their special blessing: everyone stood up, and the mothers were only specially mentioned. I used to cry every year after the Mother’s Day mass. They did hand out flowers to all the mothers on their way out of the church, but I just kept my head down and my hands at my sides, and didn’t give anyone any eye contact.

  189. Carin- says:

    Strange day for confession – but when I had an abortion, I believed the lie about a clump of cells. If I had known then, what I know now… what I learned when pregnant with my babies – it wouldn’t have happened. Regret. I just want people/women to not regret such a thing. I want girls to know that there is a beating heart. That one day, a six week old baby in their tummy is going to be something they talk to and dream about.

    I mostly just get pissed about the pro-abortion propaganda.

  190. Little Miss Attila – If you are going to Mass and receiving Communion, I will take it that you have Reconciled in the Catholic manner. If you have, then you MUST forgive yourself. God knows what is in your heart and His Mercy is vast. Let the dead bury their dead. Forgive yourself as the Christ has forgiven you. Have Faith.

  191. Cowboy says:

    I’m so sorry, LMA. I will never feel the same way at Mass when we do the “mother recognition” thingy. Isn’t it strange how we never consider how emotionally charged such a seemingly innocuous moment might be?

  192. mastenk says:

    this is our irony..

  193. B Moe says:

    more en point, the “life support” in the case of pregnancy happens to be an actual human being. Women aren’t machines, not bottles.
    It’s Not a mechanical repirator, a persons lungs. Not an echmo, a woman’s heart, he blood vessels, her brain. Not a dialysis machine, a woman’s kidneys. Not a feeding tube, a woman’s liver.

    All of which I appreciate, but matters not to the child. I have been conflicted on this my whole life, what I stated is the rationale I have used to arrive at a conclusion. I did mispeak in asserting the life support issue as absolutes rather than generalities, my apologies. Basically in any discussion on the matter, I feel compelled to speak for the voiceless, and the truly innocent.

  194. nishizonoshinji says:

    Well, B Moes you have no right to speak.
    In a libertarian society abortion should be legal, and Planned Parenthood should not be funded by the state.

  195. B Moe says:

    Fuck you, nishi.

  196. Pablo says:

    Well, B Moes you have no right to speak.

    Ah, we’ve nishified the First Amendment. Lovely. Here’s hoping we’ll get to the point where she has to shut up.

  197. nishizonoshinji says:

    You have no right to speak “for the voiceless”.
    The first only guarantees your right to speak for yourself.

  198. Rusty says:

    #

    Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/11 @ 8:12 am #

    Well, B Moes you have no right to speak.
    In a libertarian society abortion should be legal, and Planned Parenthood should not be funded by the state.

    In any society abortion should not be the preferred method of contraception. But hey. Whatever way you want to avoid the consequences of your behavior is your business. Just don’t ask me to pay for it.

  199. nishizonoshinji says:

    “In any society abortion should not be the preferred method of contraception”

    Sure. It is when that social more becomes codified into law that is the problem.
    Cannot happen in a free society.

  200. Darleen says:

    ;It is when that social more becomes codified into law that is the problem.
    Cannot happen in a free society.

    one of your many problems, child, is that you say “freedom” meaning “license” when American society is really “freedom” meaning “liberty.”

    All behavioral law is based on morals. Murder, theft, assault, fraud, etc. Law is only the floor, those behaviors serious enough breeches of the concept of Liberty (wherein citizens are free to pursue their own happiness as long as they live up to the responsibility of dealing with each other in a voluntary/honest manner) that the force of the state must come into play. There are a lot of immoral behaviors we do not feel the government has a vested interest in regulating.

    And what behaviors are/are not codified is always an ongoing process of evaluation in a free society. It is the purpose of legislatures to be responsive to the concerns of the citizenry, with an eye on Constitutional restrictions.

    And that is where our society has come to such infighting where abortion is concerned. The usual path to how the law treats abortion was abbrogated by judical fiat in Roe v Wade, and further expanded (new standard of “undue burden”) in Planned Parenthood v Casey. (it should be noted, however that in both those cases the deciding opinions agreed that the state does have an interest once viability occurs)

    In the intervening years, however, pro-abortion advocates, like Planned Parenthood, denigrate any regulation of abortion even in 2nd and 3rd trimester … well into the viabilty arena. They keep saying “abortion is a right”, but that is wrong. Language from Casey

    Roe determined that a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy is a “liberty” protected against state interference by the substantive component of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

    A woman has the right to DECIDE to abort, but there has never been anything in the language or Roe or Casey that obligates the State to provide or pay for an abortion.

    I should note here that I’m a Reluctant Pro-choicer. I don’t believe the state has any compelling interest in banning elective or theraputic abortions for adult women of a sound mind up to 10-12 weeks gestation. In a way, I consider it a woman’s choice of first refusal. After that, I believe it should be the determination of The People of each state to figure out how to regulate abortion.

  201. nishizonoshinji says:

    I disagree.
    I think judicial fiat is a builtin failsafe to protect the rights of a minority tribe against a majority tribe.
    A libertarian society requires personal responsibility.
    The state should never pay for helath care in a libertarian society.
    PP should not recieve either fed fundage or state fundage.

  202. nishizonoshinji says:

    Abortion is a right and a personal liberty.
    Thus Roe v Wade.

  203. nishizonoshinji says:

    Lulz, the system works!

  204. Darleen says:

    child

    Abortion is a right and a personal liberty

    You can’t read even as I put the language of Casey right in front of you.

  205. nishizonoshinji says:

    Casey is just who pays.

  206. Rob Crawford says:

    I think judicial fiat is a builtin failsafe to protect the rights of a minority tribe against a majority tribe.

    I think you’re a fucking moron. Judicial fiat is tyranny; there’s nothing stopping judges from deciding in ways to oppress the minority OR the majority. If society cannot determine the rules under which the society is ordered, then it’s not a free society.

  207. Darleen says:

    nishi

    Casey is just who pays

    You are derranged. Read this and then quote, verbatim, where it has anything to do with PAYMENT.

  208. Darleen says:

    and, addendum to Rob Crawford, if we are to be ruled by judicial fiat, there is no need for legislatures or voting for that matter. Judicial fiat is a secular version of Iran’s rule by mullahs.

    You’re sociopathy is edging into psychopathy, nishichild.

  209. nishizonoshinji says:

    You are hypocrites, whited sepulchres.
    You desire the nanny-state only where it is congruent with your religious values.

  210. happyfeet says:

    They will tell you you can’t sleep alone in a strange place
    Then they’ll tell you you can’t sleep with somebody else

    She’s not a deranged sociopath, she’s young. She’s a lot the future I think and I’m comfortable with that.

  211. MayBee says:

    She’s not a deranged sociopath, she’s young. She’s a lot the future I think and I’m comfortable with that.

    My kids are younger and a lot more thoughtful.
    They even brought up Expelled at the dinner table last night. We had a really interesting discussion about the fact of evolution and the fact that it doesn’t explain the origins of life. I hope they are the future, cause I’d be really comfortable with that.

  212. nishizonoshinji says:

    praytell maybee, do your kids unnerstand the difference between abiogenisis and ToE?
    that would be a blessing. ;)

    On the coldest night
    in the darkest room
    I will sleep alone
    cuz it’s better than you,
    yah it’s better than you.

  213. nishizonoshinji says:

    typical.

  214. happyfeet says:

    That makes you the future a lot too, MayBee. I’m in a really happy place today. I might hug somebody before this is over.

  215. nishizonoshinji says:

    It’s ok maybee.
    If your kids want to believe in IDT they can probly still go to Oral Roberts or BYU.
    ;)

  216. MayBee says:

    Everybody that is young is our future. The problem with believing too much in your own youth and futureness though, is that eventually you have to realize that you aren’t the youngest future anymore. Or you end up talking about how kids today aren’t as special as you were, and don’t have causes, and you think you’re relating to them when you talk about the “scene” and being “harassed by the man”.

  217. MayBee says:

    If your kids want to believe in IDT they can probly still go to Oral Roberts or BYU.

    ???

  218. happyfeet says:

    That’s true kind of, but not the everybody that’s young is our future part. But for the other those people get a lot of cover from kids what are most decidedly *not* the future. Los Angeles built a whole school system for them.

  219. happyfeet says:

    It’s free!

  220. nishizonoshinji says:

    you talk about the “scene” and being “harassed by the man”.

    erm…we don’t say that, maybee.

    i actually have a cap that says “fight the power” that my sissy bought me at the Spike Lee Store.
    i need to get a che! t-shirt to wear with it tho.

  221. MayBee says:

    erm…we don’t say that, maybee.

    exactly my point. lulz

  222. MayBee says:

    Although including yourself in what the kids say makes my point, too.

  223. happyfeet says:

    You can play what you want to – all the critics love you in New York

    They won’t say that you’re naive if you play what you believe – in New York

    The reason that you’re cool

    Is cuz you’re from the old school, and they know it

  224. MayBee says:

    i need to get a che! t-shirt to wear with it tho.

    A few years ago, when che t-shirts were still hot, my son made an art project where he put Che’s head on Scarface’s movie poster body. The teacher was concerned, though, because there was a depiction of a gun.

  225. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – Too bad your mom didn’t feel the same way about abortion as you do thor. Then your unborn spirit could have explained how right she was in her choice.

    – But then that sort of “I got mine, me me me” narccissism so typifies the Leftie thinking.

    – Personally, I would fight any laws the made it illegal for progressives to annilhilate themselves as fast as possible. Keep up the good owrk. More. Faster please.

  226. B Moe says:

    The entire Constitution was intended to protect individuals and minorities from the majority, it is woven into the very fabric, Judicial fiat are the complete opposite. Read some James Madison, or continue being an ignorant, self-centered ass.

  227. nishizonoshinji says:

    The entire Constitution was intended to protect individuals and minorities from the majority

    not workin out so well for teh gay, is it?

  228. nishizonoshinji says:

    didn’t work for slaves, but they weren’t citizens. are teh gay citizens?

  229. happyfeet says:

    Ok that’s a lot ahistorical and afflicting marriage on gays is just mean. Making minorities conform to the matrimonial strictures of the majority is really a lot fascist I think.

  230. McGehee says:

    What rights don’t “teh gay” have, that straight people do?

    I hear a lot about “the right to marry the person you love,” but what if the person I love is my nine-year-old niece?

  231. happyfeet says:

    Really in historical terms the right not to marry the person you love is a lot more radical I think.

  232. happyfeet says:

    But the iron glove of conformity is closing fast, looks like.

  233. B Moe says:

    didn’t work for slaves

    I don’t know, I haven’t talked to any lately.

  234. nishizonoshinji says:

    bullshit mcgeehee.
    you cant marry your nine-yr-old niece because of age of consent and age of legal marriage.

    as those good christian patriarchy daddies of the FLDS found out.

  235. nishizonoshinji says:

    just answer my question.
    are homosexuals citizens of the United States of America?

  236. happyfeet says:

    Joss Whedon is for sure.

  237. B Moe says:

    Just because you don’t understand how the system works, doesn’t mean the system doesn’t work.

  238. Carin -BONC says:

    So, as nishi sits there in her Che shirt and lectures us about homosexual rights … the irony is rich.

  239. B Moe says:

    Just answer my question:
    Where in the Constitution does it guarantee the right to wedlock?

  240. RTO Trainer says:

    She’s a lot the future I think and I’m comfortable with that.

    I’m really not.

    Fortunately, I know of a whole bunch of folks who really are young and making life and death decisions with incredible clarity and accuracy every day. Makes me feel better that voices like this one won’t be alone or unanswered.

  241. Carin -BONC says:

    It’s right there, B Moe, next to the bit about the right to health care and universal pre-school.

  242. B Moe says:

    She’s a lot the future I think…

    The world is always going to need bad examples.

  243. Darleen says:

    nishi

    If your kids want to believe in IDT they can probly still go to Oral Roberts or BYU.

    You insufferable little bitch. Now people are not even allowed to openly discuss the origin of life (accident or design?) without your demand they be banished from the room.

    Please please please have your tubes tied and stay away from children.

    You are diseased.

  244. Cowboy says:

    She’s a lot the future I think and I’m comfortable with that.

    You shouldn’t, though, happyfeet, if you really do like her. She envisions herself to be a part of some large, like-thinking tribe, and she is safe in that assumption as long as she never leaves her little nest. But some day, she’ll have to face a world that will not merely parrot back her inanities, and will instead kick her in the teeth.

    There are very few places in the world where you can insulate yourself from the rest of us. The state university campus is one, and a government office building is the other. Even there, however, one day you’ll recognize that noone outside of your little enclave pays any serious attention to you–mostly they think you’re exotic, weird, like a three-legged defanged tiger at a low-rent circus.

    You’re interesting, but totally ineffectual.

  245. JD says:

    happy mother’s day to all. I see the nishit’s knowledge of the Constitution, Rights, liberty, well basically everything, is woefully inadequate.

  246. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    mostly they think you’re exotic, weird, like a three-legged defanged tiger at a low-rent circus.

    From another thread.

  247. McGehee says:

    just answer my question.
    are homosexuals citizens of the United States of America?

    First you answer mine:

    What rights don’t “teh gay” have, that straight people do?

  248. Cowboy says:

    What rights don’t “teh gay” have, that straight people do?

    The right of willfull, premeditated accessorization?

    Sorry. I denounce myself preemptively.

  249. Pablo says:

    The right to be fabulous! Except for the bull dykes.

  250. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – So on the one hand we have the mentally impaired LeftLoons whining and clamoring dayly for non-existant rights just because they “want them”, and on the other, strangely silent when it comes to the real right to life of unborn children. But then of course, the latter is simply “inconveinient”. The Left has raised “feckless” to an art form.

  251. Ssssshhhh. By all means, I hope the discussion keeps going. But let everyone do his/her breathing exercises first.

    And just because most of us are right-of-center is NO reason not to put in ten minutes of T’ai Chi or yoga. Or not to say the rosary, or have a cup of green tea.

    Ssssssshhhhh.

  252. Rusty says:

    240
    Yes, nishi, every one. They’re special that way.

  253. Carin- says:

    I nominate Pablo for best of thread.254.

  254. serr8d says:

    From 191…

    That’s not necessarily a difference. As an atheist, I still believe that I have a soul, spirit, or whatever one wants to call it. I just don’t believe that it’s separable from my body, nor assigned at conception. I believe it develops over time.

    Oh. Well, redefine that term then. Like marriage (reserved for that unique convergence of a man and a woman), the word soul characterizes a religious concept reserved for those who have a relationship with God, who’s considered eternal. As is the soul.

    A soul isn’t like a tattoo. You have a soul, you develop and nourish it over your lifetime, then return it after death. Whether or not there’s a judgment of it’s staininess is for you and your belief system to come to terms with.

    So, atheists, ‘soul’ is taken away with the divine wind…how about, for your own personal ‘developed over time whatevers’, afflatuences?

  255. Slartibartfast says:

    Perhaps my intentionalism isn’t good.

    Well…yeah. In other breaking news, water is wet, and hot stuff burns you.

  256. nishizonoshinji says:

    Yes, nishi, every one. They’re special that way.

    thnx, rusty.
    see, the mother is a citizen, and a host. her rights trump the fetus’ until birth when the fetus becomes a citizen.

    darleen, why so hot?
    im just pointing out that kids that grow up believing abiogenisis is part of ToE–

    We had a really interesting discussion about the fact of evolution and the fact that it doesn’t explain the origins of life.

    –arent exactly going to get in to Stanford or MIT.

  257. nishizonoshinji says:

    but thats ok.
    im sure Oral Roberts and BYU are just as good.
    ;)

  258. Carin- says:

    Apparently, nishi doesn’t even believe children should question this stuff.

  259. nishizonoshinji says:

    “marriage (reserved for that unique convergence of a man and a woman)”

    and that sacrament should be performed in a church.
    but marriage as performed by agents of the state, is a right of all citizens.
    life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and all that jazz.
    teh gay pay taxes too.

  260. nishizonoshinji says:

    nah carin, im just sayin that maybee’s kids should unnerstand that ToE has nothing to do with the “origins of life”.
    that is a whole other separate science, theory of abiogenisis.
    tryin to poke holes in ToE can’t ever work to promote discussion of the “lifespark”.
    ToE just deals with evolution of forms, not the origination of forms.

  261. Smirky McChimp says:

    And another thread hijack by the Anime LOLCat, the Internet’s famous aliterate troll!

    “I think judicial fiat is a builtin failsafe to protect the rights of a minority tribe against a majority tribe.”

    What a comfort that must have been to Dred Scott.

    Ever notice how you tend to drive the discourse down, LOLCat?

    Oh, and be a dear and show me where the Constitution mentions reproductive rights — or even the right to privacy.

  262. nishizonoshinji says:

    that is basically why the intelligent design argument is such a loozer in academe.

  263. MayBee says:

    nah carin, im just sayin that maybee’s kids should unnerstand that ToE has nothing to do with the “origins of life”.

    That’s exactly what I said we were talking about.

  264. JD says:

    You really are a little twit, nishit.

  265. JD says:

    marriage as performed by agents of the state, is a right of all citizens.

    Bullshit. It is a desire. A privilege. It is lots of things. A right, it is not.

  266. McGehee says:

    but marriage as performed by agents of the state, is a right of all citizens.

    Gay people have been marrying for centuries. There’s never been any law against it.

  267. MayBee says:

    tryin to poke holes in ToE can’t ever work to promote discussion of the “lifespark”.

    See…this is what you get for never listening to what people actually say. Neither my kids nor I have any interest in poking holes in ToE.
    Their point was that anybody who really believes in ID needn’t fear evolution. They certainly don’t want to learn about ID in school, and they are both fantastic science students.

  268. nishizonoshinji says:

    wow smirky, haha.
    show me where the Constitution mentions reproductive rights

    doesnt matter….abortion is rights of citizens over non-citizens.
    sort of exactly like dred scott, where slaves were non-citizens.
    the minority tribe whose rights were protected was slave-holders.

  269. nishizonoshinji says:

    i repeated exactly what you said maybee.

  270. McGehee says:

    So, Nishi believes that a yet-to-be-born child is a slave.

  271. Carin- says:

    Maybee, the mere fact that they even broach the subject of the origins of life deem them unworthy, in Nishi’s eyes, of ever rising above the level of a two-digit.

    I’m sorry. 40% and all that.

  272. nishizonoshinji says:

    non-citizens will never be favoured over citizens in judicial rulings.
    but the judiciary does protect minority tribes from being oppressed by majority ones.
    that is why samesex marriage will become legal…..because teh gay are citizens.

  273. JD says:

    Let’s try this, very slowly for the nishit. There is this little thing called the Bill of Rights. Same sex marriage is not listed. Nor is traditional marriage. Nor is healthcare. Nor is freedom from religion. There are all sorts of things that are listed. Throughout our history, the Courts have read a few Rights into this, including the notion of privacy. But, no same sex marriage.

  274. nishizonoshinji says:

    Nishi believes that a yet-to-be-born child is a slave.
    actually, a parasite, like sarahw said.
    and a fetus is not a slave, but a non-citizen.
    make an amendment like the 13th if you want fetuses to be citizens.

  275. McGehee says:

    Straight people are banned from marrying people of the same sex too. Where’s the discrimination, Nishi?

  276. McGehee says:

    Before the 13th Amendment, the Constitution explicitly prescribed that slaves were not citizens. There is no such provision denying citizenship to fetuses.

  277. MayBee says:

    I said evolution doesn’t explain the origin of life and you said: Your kids are IDers! They don’t realize that ToE doesn’t explain the origin of life. Send them to BYU!

  278. Carin- says:

    MayBee, the meme machine isn’t that sophisticated. You only need to get somewhat close to the ID/ToE issue, and the auto-responses take over.

  279. Carin- says:

    I remember when I was expecting with my first parasite …

  280. MayBee says:

    ha, Carin!

  281. McGehee says:

    Nishi, if you’re expecting the courts to overturn laws against SSM, it’s most likely to be on an equal protection argument. That requires identifying actual, legal discrimination.

    You may find judges willing to find legal discrimination based on “we want it,” but those judges are slightly less likely to get on the Supreme Court. If “we want it” is the argument for legalizing SSM, that’s political rather than legal. Which means you have to convince the moties, not the judges.

    Math class doesn’t really prepare you for questions of rights and the law.

  282. nishizonoshinji says:

    maybee i apolo for misunderstanding you.
    Im just a little touchy this week.
    you see, you premise that the attempt to force ID into highschools has failed is wrong.

  283. nishizonoshinji says:

    the IDT zombies are still at it.

    Nationwide, nearly half a dozen states are considering variants of such bills, some of which throw in the origin of life and climate change for good measure. Legislators in Florida recently introduced such a bill in response to new educational standards that were the first to formalize the teaching of evolution. Althought two incompatible bills passed the state House and Senate, they died when the legislature went out of session; similar measures are still pending in other states. These bills appear to have originated at the pro-Intelligent Design thinktank the Discovery Institute, and constitute part of its latest effort towards reducing the teaching of evolution in public schools.

  284. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:


    Math class doesn’t really prepare you for questions of rights and the law

    She doesn’t know much about math, either, actually.

    Let’s recap, shall we?

    She’s demonstrably ignorant of:

    Spelling, grammar, and usage
    History
    Mathematics
    Law
    Politics
    Religion
    Literature

    Please add to the list!

  285. Carin- says:

    Shit – nishi – they teach Global Warming, and putting condems on cucumbers in school. They spend excessive amounts of time teaching all sorts of bs. Yet, the only thing you get upset about is ID.

  286. marko v. cheney says:

    why not science, dude, and a better model..it will argue that Expelled is just want to make all men are pithed by religion.

    this point i know it makes you should be assured.

    rawr.

    Dawkins, Myers, Seed magazine…..all the Theory of samesex marriage or fabricate a constitutional amendment like the right’s farenheit 911.

    so we have no domain knowledge to last. Inflexible. I’m pretty sure that didn’t get it. wow..i thought of goofy marginal junkscience.

    there IS a grossout, and no…..by shutting down a far lesser transgression against liberty than the right tho…..language has evolved, changed. still….

    intentionalism says all inclusivity as bad. it be the intellectual insects. no man is a humanzee in judicial fiat.

  287. MayBee says:

    Thanks for the apology, nishi.
    Half a dozen = 6
    some of which = ?
    In one of those states, FL, they died

    Don’t worry, nishi.

  288. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    nishi: Every fucking argument you make about anything is both intellectually sloppy and, more importantly, devoid of simple humanity!

    You are as shallow and despicable a person as I have ever seen on the nets. You care not one whit what anyone else has to say or what they may have gone through on a human level. Instead you trumpet you views like some elephant seal on a beach with this idiotic faux authority complex that requires everybody who disagrees with you to be pigeonholed as some kind of “stoopid” religious idealogue rather than a someone who has real human concerns about a subject.

    Let me be blunt: Fuck you and your callousness and lack of humanity. You are the living embodiment of Margaret Sanger and the other monsters who thought improving the race by forced sterilizations was not only a good idea, but a shining importance to a better world. You missed your calling as a gulag prison guard.

    I’m happy to argue with Ardsgaine about the all kinds of stuff. We have polar opposite views on many of those “messy” topics like religion and abortion. I pay that no mind because I can see the basic “humanity” in what he writes. You are nothing more than than a cue card cyborg, the sort of inhumane “rationalist” who is more than happy to spout the idealized philisophical construct while ignoring and/or laughing at the human consequences.

    You used to be merely quirky or annoying. In this thread you have managed to allow your inner monster to shine through. I’m done with you in any manner, shape or form. Feel free to go build a new eugenics initiative for the 21st century, monster, and leave the important discussions to the grownups.

  289. nishizonoshinji says:

    im not upset about sex education in school. sry.
    i think knowledge about sex is good for kids.
    we already discussed that.

    an i told you, AGW is the inclusion of junkscience, not the attempt to replace real science with relligion.
    and IDT simply violates the separation of church and state which is very, very important to me.
    AGW doesnt.

    Evolution clearly has no shortage of controversies. But none of those controversies involve the basic principles of evolution, and all of them operate within a framework where random mutation and selection play a key role in creating diverse species that are related by common descent. It’s clear that the Discovery Institute is trying to introduce controversies that don’t exist, while ignoring those that do. That’s why the academic freedom bills it’s promoting are such dangerous things; while supposedly promoting intellectual analysis, they’re actually an attempt to pave the way for misinformation to enter the scientific classroom.

    Is there room for the real controversies in the classroom of public schools? Maybe, but I’m not in any way convinced. I would be pleasantly surprised if the average high school student left knowing what horizontal gene transfer is, what the proteasome does, or the significance of the Archaea. Understanding how those things play out within the current scientific understanding of evolution is going to be beyond all but the most advanced students. Teaching even the real controversies may simply be bad pedagogy.
    Buzz up!

  290. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Spelling, grammar, and usage
    History
    Mathematics
    Law
    Politics
    Religion
    Literature

    I left off the physical and social sciences, but she’s ignorant of those as well.

  291. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    And furthermore: Raise your hands if you are bored to the point of cardiac arrest with nishi writing about IDT and Expelled and Jesusland. Find a new fucking topic because we’ve heard your fucking argument over and over a thousand times and I’d rather watch grass grow.

    Almost three hundred comments an she still managed to hijack the fucking thread. I’m through.

  292. marko v. cheney says:

    the same small area of goofy marginal junkscience. type A and picotechnology?

    outlaw certain brands of stringtheory, and orgasms.

    The Founders intended the xian mores developed his own ethics police for the judiciary does protect her child.

    wat they could. like the interwebs to function? Both branches interact to think.

    no more IDbots crawled have linked and my age don’t get a far lesser transgression against liberty than the LAW is like the aggregate.

    btw i lost my sex and intentions.

  293. Carin -BONC says:

    im not upset about sex education in school. sry.
    i think knowledge about sex is good for kids.
    we already discussed that

    I don’t CARE that you’re not upset about it. You are not a parent, nor are you the parent of my kids.

    Knowledge about sex = good.
    Knowledge about alternative views of the origin of life=bad.
    Knowledge about anything nishi doesn’t believe in= bad.

    You would argue that children should learn about creationism/ID/ or whatever from their parents. Why can’t you see that some parents believe that sex info should come from them as well?

  294. JD says:

    Carin – That form of logic does not work because the nishit has not used any type of bastardized form of logic to arrive at her conclusions.

  295. Enoch_Root - BONC also says:

    Nishi – may the Divine Light of Grace shine upon you. Seriously. A good dose of illumination is what your darkened mind needs. Stop the OCD, get centered, and find your place in the universe. We all go through it. And I know it’s scary… but the payoff is always worth it. Ask for the blessing of a sliver of Grace. And then put your ego to the side, decrease yourSELF and see what happens.

  296. daleyrocks says:

    BJ
    “nishi: Every fucking argument you make about anything is both intellectually sloppy and, more importantly, devoid of simple humanity!”

    nishi claims to be a muslim or at least plays one on the internet. Why should she have any humanity for you, infidel?

    Get with the program! Off with your head.

  297. MayBee says:

    Oh this is fantastic!
    I just noticed this in that blurb:
    nearly half a dozen states

    Was this written by Greenwald and Mona or what?
    NEARLY six states. The number approaching six is simply too gargantuan to count accurately.
    So the number is some smaller subset of nearly six, but too large to actually name. Just know that it is time to panic.

    It seems hilarious to me, but then I don’t have an advanced degree in mathematics.
    Hilarious.

  298. Carin -BONC says:

    I thought that was funny too. Now, if they were pushing some agenda they approved of, the quantity would have been worded as “barely a handful of states.

  299. nishizonoshinji says:

    bj tex, like i said to ponnuru, ima transhumanist, you are theocons.
    i think humanity is glorious….i think we shall be as gods. ;)
    but right now, this is war.

    “War is like any other bad relationship. Of course you want out, but at what price?”
    –Quellcrist Falconer

    We just want you to stop pushing IDT on us.
    That is all we want.
    But you brought this.
    And we aren’t going to let you have your way.
    It’s a deathmatch.
    And IDT is going down.

  300. Carin -BONC says:

    That “YOU” word you keep using … is problematic.

  301. marko v. cheney says:

    Science is the scientific fields. would have concieved of the xians burnt her. Bruno too.

    no….im readin article 11. i have elucidated things that science online mags. just outlaw biotech altogether? outlaw fermitech!

    science blogs..all the godbots constructed anything by majority oppressed by lynching.

    it might be very dangerous. outlaw theory of belief will become legal…..because teh gay think che! is science, dude.

    marriage will become chattel to protect minority tribes from being Jeff.

  302. Carin -BONC says:

    Regardless, I think nishi has a lot more invested in this issue than any of us. Deathmatch and all. You keep fighting the good fight!! If you feel it gives your life meaning.

  303. Cowboy says:

    SBP:

    Morality
    Ethics
    Geography
    South American Politics

  304. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    Oh, greta! the net insurgency “deathmatch” against IDT and theocons. Because, we’re all theocons, that’s what we are. Maybe you have Gulags for us, monster?

    Nobody cares as much about IDT as you and your emotionally stunted playmates. Do us all a favor and form a WOW guild, leaving the serious discussions to the grownups.

    And trust me, monster: When it really is a “deathmatch” the damage won’t be from bombarding websites and giggling with your nerd friends. It will be a bit more meatspace and a lot less detached.

    Seig Hiel, fascist.

  305. nishizonoshinji says:

    thnx, i will carin.

    bjtex, one more time, im not a sangerite or a nazi.
    im a transhumanist.
    you can think of us as the sworn enemies of the villagers with pitchforks.

    “Transhumanism is the belief in overcoming human limitations through reason, science and technology.”

    The godbotherers have had thousands of years of trying that with little success.
    It’s our turn now.

  306. B Moe says:

    Define human limitations.

  307. JD says:

    Carin – nishit is engaged in a deathmatch with the voices in her head. That cannot end well for her.

  308. Cowboy says:

    Oh, and I’ll add:

    Logic
    Reasoning

  309. marko v. cheney says:

    i don’t get even. im talking about biomemes? look….it is that science as inferior in the biology of Christianity,

    because, in your judeochristian morality, Warren Jeffs is no ones master.

    except where a vibe from the left bends over citizens in IQ and taboos superior to accomodate changing cultural mores.

    like, slavery was ok.

    women not science, dude, and the left and brightest. btw i got the weasel wording….

    by “ethics” you suck collins and sell tickets to science.

    the Founders intended it makes us into villagers with opiates.

  310. JD says:

    nishit – You can call yourself whatever you wish, but that does not make it so. Note how reason plays a role in transhumanism? Foreign concept, I know …

  311. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    bjtex, one more time, im not a sangerite or a nazi.

    Liar.

  312. McGehee says:

    Heh. Abortion and SSM have suddenly dropped off Nishi’s radar.

  313. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    ….overcoming human limitations through reason, science and technology.

    That’ll be a neat trick, since you have no apparent skill, talent, or understanding of any of those three areas.

  314. Carin -BONC says:

    JD, that’s what I was sorta thinking.

    “Transhumanism is the belief in overcoming human limitations through reason, science and technology.”

    The godbotherers have had thousands of years of trying that with little success.
    It’s our turn now.

    Oh, for fucks sake. It’s wehn you say idiotic things like this that people question (to put it lightly) your powers of intellectual thought.

  315. Cowboy says:

    …but the most egregious hole in nishi’s knowledge base is this: She has no idea of her place in the world relative to other people. A consistent thread running through all of her comments is this “us” against “you” theme. She really believes that people outside of her little covey give one good God-Damn about her or her ideas. Furthermore, she believes that, push come to shove, she and others like her shall overcomeour base godbothering ways.

    Nishi, the middle America that you so frequently and ineffectually castigate doesn’t fret with you–not out of fear (as you would like to believe) but out of an enormous lack of concern. We tolerate children like you in the hopes that one day you’ll grow up, come back to us and say, “Damn, I’m sorry, I was such an asshole, you were gracious enough to let me spout off endlessly, and while it must have been frustrating putting up with me, I appreciate it and it made me a better person.”

    However, you’re reaching the age (chronologically, if not intellectually/emotionally) where your cute is wearing off.

    You do not want to wake the sleeping giant that is most of America. We’re busy making stuff, taking care of our kids, going to church, voting.

    You do not want us to stop this car, child.

  316. Slartibartfast says:

    Plus, she keeps forgetting that the “Q” part of IQ actually means something: that you can’t move the IQ curve to the right no matter what you do. It’s like trying to “improve” pi.

  317. nishizonoshinji says:

    and one more thing.
    I am very sure the Framers hypothesized judicial.
    They were peerless in their faultless understanding of human nature.
    And the check on judicial fiat is constitutional amendment, just like Dred Scott.

    the hopes that one day you’ll grow up, come back to us and say, “Damn, I’m sorry, I was such an asshole, you were gracious enough to let me spout off endlessly, and while it must have been frustrating putting up with me, I appreciate it and it made me a better person.”

    and that might even happen, Cowboy.
    but it aint happening today.

    acuz, “that’s the way it goes our here in the West.”

  318. nishizonoshinji says:

    judicial fiat.

    dur, slart i said i wanted to change the shape of the distribution, not move the mean on the gaussian.
    that would be impossible.

  319. B Moe says:

    I am very sure the Framers hypothesized judicial.

    I am very sure the Framers would be utterly appalled at that attempt at a sentence.

  320. nishizonoshinji says:

    she and others like her shall overcomeour base godbothering ways.

    and yes, yes we can!

  321. nishizonoshinji says:

    B Moes, hehe, likely they would.

    That is what this war is about, really.
    The orthodoxy insists it has the has right to indoctrinate its children in the orthodoxy.
    Im just part of the heresy of youth.

  322. Cowboy says:

    and that might even happen, Cowboy.
    but it aint happening today.

    Of course not, nishi, your special brand of insolent stupidity and willful ignorance can’t possibly be overcome quickly. Yours isn’t merely a stubborn strain of dumb–I fear it goes down to the bone.

    acuz, “that’s the way it goes our here in the West.”

    I assume you meant to type “out” rather than “our,” but really it makes as much sense either way…which is to say none.

  323. Slartibartfast says:

    Your link says nothing about the changing the shape of the curve, nishi. Did you even read it?

    But let’s say you were able to train everyone and give everyone an absolute-scale (if there even is such a thing) intelligence boost. Presto, the whole distribution gets renormalized to have 100 as the center, and a fixed one-sigma spread.

    Possibly you might raise aggregate intelligence, but that’s a different thing than raising aggregate IQ.

  324. Cowboy says:

    Im just part of the heresy of youth

    Not really. Heresy is serious, nishi, it has impact, it challenges the status quo, sometimes in beneficial ways.

    Associating yourself with heresy is like saying a gnat is an eagle.

  325. MayBee says:

    If only there were some way to discover whether the Framers might ever have envisioned someone using religious teachings in public school and risk having children indoctrinated. Surely they would have declared war on such a thing, no?

  326. nishizonoshinji says:

    lolz no, slart….there are like…eleven genes at least that operate on IQ, and there are environmental components.
    i think you are likely familiar with skewness and curtosis, right?

    speakin of IQ….. that is d.u.m.b. of mccain to feature his 96 year old mother….john mccain sr died at age 59, of heart problems likely exacerbated by his role in WWII.

    By war’s end in August 1945, the stress of combat operations had worn McCain down to a weight of only 100 pounds. He requested home leave to recuperate but Halsey insisted that he be present at the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, Japan on September 2, 1945. Departing immediately after the ceremony, McCain died of a heart attack at his home in Coronado, California on September 6, 1945. He was posthumously promoted to full admiral.[6]

  327. nishizonoshinji says:

    i mean, mccain shares more genes with his father than his mother, lulz.

  328. nishizonoshinji says:

    hahaha, oh i gtg….on may 15 mccain is supposed to release his medical records……do you think he will?

  329. Carin- says:

    Well, of course, he might forget on the 15 … so there’s that.

  330. nishizonoshinji says:

    maybee, the Framers did.
    They envisioned a religious majority trying to oppress a minority.
    that is why ID will never be taught in highschools.
    judicial fiat would strike it down if it ever got that far.

  331. MayBee says:

    The Framers did what, nishi?

    Have you ever heard of Noah Webster?

  332. JD says:

    MayBee – Unless Noah Webster has written on heavy lifting, IDT, Expelled, genocide, or eugenics, nishit has prolly not heard of him.

  333. McGehee says:

    I don’t think any of the SCOTUS justices drive a Fiat.

    Given the number of 5-4 rulings, I doubt they drive an Accord either.

  334. Slartibartfast says:

    i think you are likely familiar with skewness and curtosis, right?

    Irrelevant, really. You can’t influence skewness if you don’t know cause-and-effect. If you’re saying you want to make the distribution more skew (it’s already skew, by definition, even if skewness is slight), you’re only looking to advantage a relative minority.

    I like the rising-tide effort better; even if it doesn’t (can’t, actually) raise aggregate IQ, it just might be able to raise aggregate intelligence.

    But I also tend to think that the fixation on intelligence is misplaced. The IQ version of intelligence isn’t what you think it is; it’s just what the tests measure.

    It’d be interesting to hear exactly what sort of mechanism you’ve got in mind for altering the shape of the population intelligence distribution, though. Breeding programs and herd-culling programs both have cultural difficulties, and are in any case slow in effect. Gene therapy, on the other hand, is still to some degree the great unknown.

  335. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    Bah!

    The irony of nishi’s “transhumanism” is that it lacks any semblance of humanity.

    Seil Heil, facist. I’ll let the left side of the Bell Curve know that you and your stormtoopers will be coming for them.

  336. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    curtosis

    LOLZ. LMFAO. pwned.

    The TTP can’t even spell a fundamental term from its own alleged field of expertise.

  337. Slartibartfast says:

    BTW, you have no idea whether any gene operates on IQ; there are genes that correlate to IQ, but none that are known to operate on IQ.

    I’d put it differently; maybe you meant that there are genes that correlate to elevated intelligence, which in turn means those genes correlate to higher IQ. More likely, each of these genes contain components that advantage different facets of intelligence.

    Personally, I don’t know that training of intelligence the nishi way, whatever that might be, is necessarily advantageous to human survival. You might get a group of supermen that winds up getting atomic wedgies by the rest of humanity, because they simply cannot compete.

  338. Slartibartfast says:

    Yanno, I was going to hack it on the kurtosis thing, but my particular field of stochastic estimation makes its living from Central Limit, so I typically don’t fuck with higher moments.

  339. Rob Crawford says:

    bj tex, like i said to ponnuru, ima transhumanist, you are theocons.

    Bullshit, nishidiot. You’re a fucking genocidaire.

    And you have no fucking clue who you’re talking to, if you’re going to declare everyone here “theocons”. But again, I guess it’s easier to argue against the imaginary people in your head than the real people out here.

  340. Rob Crawford says:

    “Transhumanism is the belief in overcoming human limitations through reason, science and technology.”

    That’s exactly what the Progressives, the Marxists, and the Nazis thought, too.

    Just sayin’…

  341. Rob Crawford says:

    i mean, mccain shares more genes with his father than his mother, lulz.

    Wrong.

    There are more genes on the X chromosome than the Y *PLUS* mitochondrial DNA comes exclusively from the mother.

    You really are ignorant about EVERYTHING, aren’t you?

  342. Slartibartfast says:

    I’m guessing that the transhumans are going to have to solve some more difficult problems before they start churning out supermen, such as how to cope with the problems posed by population pressure and sheer boredom. I think Heinlein appreciated the problems you run into with lifespans measured in century or millenia more than nishi or Glenn Reynolds do.

  343. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    curtosis

    Maybe that’s what was wrong with Robert II of Normandy.

  344. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    bj tex, like i said to ponnuru, ima transhumanist, you are theocons

    Fine, nishi. You are a genocidist, eugenicist, facist, terrorist and monster.

    I figured all that out with way more information as you had to brand me and almost everyone here a theocon.

    Seig Heil, baby! How goes the deathmatch now?

    Now fuck off.

  345. daleyrocks says:

    nishi – When are you going to euthanize your flesh doll father? That is the kind of reasonable policy you support, right?

  346. Rob Crawford says:

    What’s funny is the assumption that “not transhumanist” == “theocon”.

    Hell, no. I don’t buy into the transhumanist claptrap because I know we’ve seen all this before. The Singularity is just the atheist version of Rapture, and about as scientific (hey! look what happens if I extrapolate this curve!!!). The idea of “reason, science, and technology” allowing us to “improve” humanity is straight out of the Progressive/Communist/Nazi playbook — and, inevitably, the folks who want to “improve” people have goals, or means, that require overriding basic liberties.

    Reynolds at least I can trust not to want to force people; I trust his libertarianism. Nishidiot? Hell no; she’s more comfortable with the language of the despot than with English — see how easily she declares any disagreement to be the result of being less than her, less than rational, less than human.

    Human nature is not entirely fixed, but it’s largely fixed. I can read Xenophon’s Anabasis and see familiar types of people; hell, even the SF authors nishi misunderstands realize that human nature is largely constant. I can see improvements happening, much in the line we’ve had already — healthier, less constriction from our environments, more access to opportunities — but radically altering humanity at the genetic level?

    Sorry, no, don’t buy it. You’ll either end up with something that’s not human, or you’ll just have a human that’s a hair healthier, smarter, whatever.

  347. nishizonoshinji says:

    rob, im correct.
    mitochodrial dna is not genes.
    genes are located on chromosomes.
    mccain has more genes in common with his father than his mother.

  348. nishizonoshinji says:

    #352
    quod erat demonstrandum
    ;)

  349. nishizonoshinji says:

    thnx daleyrox

    actually it would be a mercy.
    but it’s illegal.

  350. Pablo says:

    Which is to say that she’s got issues, and yet there is hope. For us, not so much for her.

  351. Pablo says:

    but it’s illegal.

    Kill yourself second and you won’t have to worry about that.

  352. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    chromosomes.

    The X chromosome, which McCain received from his mother, has ~153 million base pairs. The Y chromosome, which McCain recieved from his father, has ~60 million base pairs.

    You’ve demonstrated yet another area of brutal ignorance, nishi.

    Accept it and move on to your next self-embarrassment.

  353. nishizonoshinji says:

    but, SBP, presumeably mccains dad was also XY, not XX.
    we are talking about chromosomes in common, dude.

  354. daleyrocks says:

    but it’s illegal.

    Kill yourself second and you won’t have to worry about that.

    actually it would be a mercy.

  355. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    GTP = Genocidal Telephone Pole

  356. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    but, SBP, presumeably mccains dad was also XY, not XX.

  357. daleyrocks says:

    but it’s illegal.

    What a bullshit excuse. Stand up for your principles. With all your vaunted scientific training and reading you ought to know how to do it without getting caught.

    Don’t be a fucking pussy.

  358. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    but, SBP, presumeably mccains dad was also XY, not XX.

    So? McCain (presumably) has 46 chromosomes, 44 autosomes (22 from each parent, making the contribution equal), and 2 sex chromosomes, one from the father and one from the mother. The one from the mother is 2.5 times the size of the one from the mother. Thus, he has more genetic material from his mother (disregarding for the nonce your sophistry about the mitochondria).

    Oh, right: you’re innumerate as well as illiterate. I forgot.

    (sorry, previous post got cut off)

  359. nishizonoshinji says:

    my point being, mccain’s dad died at 59, after his health was compromised by a job sharing many similiarities with the job he is currently applying for.
    why on earth is mccain’s mother’s health any more relevent than his father’s?

  360. nishizonoshinji says:

    ok…im wrong, and SBP is correct, you get 50% of your chromosomal genetic material from each parent.
    but since mccain is XY, presumeably, he might express phenotypic characteristics that are sex-specific or sex-limited.
    so mccains dad is equally relevent to his mother.
    only mccain’s mother didn’t have quite such a hard job.

  361. MayBee says:

    my point being, mccain’s dad died at 59, after his health was compromised by a job sharing many similiarities with the job he is currently applying for.

    Barack Obama’s father, an alcoholic working in government, died at 44. His mother died of cancer at 52.

  362. nishizonoshinji says:

    i just don’t unnerstand….why on earth would you want someone that old to be president?
    didn’t you have any better candidates?

  363. nishizonoshinji says:

    Obama is 46, not 71.

  364. Pablo says:

    Tupac died when he was 25. Your point?

    my point being, mccain’s dad died at 59,

    Except that he died at 70, you fucking idiot. But let me guess, real Sufis believe he died at 59, right?

    You’re really too stupid to play here, two digit.

  365. MayBee says:

    Obama is already on borrowed time, genetically.

  366. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    nishi puts me in mind of that Star Trek episode with the “grups”. “Bonk, bonk on the head!”.

    Except that I don’t think McCoy’s going to come along with a vaccine.

  367. nishizonoshinji says:

    and you are assuming that at age 71 everything works like it did 20 or 30 years ago.
    it doesn’t.

  368. Pablo says:

    Linky for the embarrassingly uninformed.

  369. JD says:

    nishit is a lying idiot. It is hysterical to watch y’all vivisect her blatant lies and misrepresentations.

  370. Rob Crawford says:

    mitochodrial dna is not genes.

    Says who?

    From what I can tell, actual, you know, scientists disagree with you. You wouldn’t be trying to play definitional games to cover up your ignorance, would you?

  371. nishizonoshinji says:

    oops…1884 to 1945
    he was 61!
    i shudn’t listen to those kossacks, sry.

  372. nishizonoshinji says:

    not 70 tho pablo

  373. Rob Crawford says:

    i just don’t unnerstand….

    Yeah, no shit.

    why on earth would you want someone that old to be president?

    Because he’s less a danger to the Republic and to our liberties than his competition.

    Duh!

  374. nishizonoshinji says:

    mitochodrial dna is not genes.

    rob is right, mito-dna is not genes on chromosomes however.

  375. MayBee says:

    oops…1884 to 1945
    he was 61!

    Who?

  376. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    nishi’s spinning is about as futile as a cat trying to bury a turd on a hardwood floor.

    Not nearly as funny, though.

  377. aw, someone doesn’t unnerstand the difference between Jr., Sr. and III.

  378. Rob Crawford says:

    Obama is 46, not 71.

    And he’s a flaming idiot, with associates that vary from “criminal” to “insane”. He spent 20 years lapping up the verbiage of a hate-filled demagogue. He’s shown he’s incapable of actually answering questions he wasn’t carefully prepared for, and that he has no ideas for governing beyond “look nice, sound nice, and tell the audience what it wants to hear”.

  379. BWAH HA HA HAAAAAA

  380. JD says:

    the nishit would do well to learn the 1st Rule of Holes – When you find yourself in one, quit digging.

  381. McGehee says:

    Nishi’s calling McCain’s grandfather his father.

    But we’re the ones lacking facts.

  382. Rob Crawford says:

    mitochodrial dna is not genes.

    rob is right, mito-dna is not genes on chromosomes however.

    So the fuck what? What does mitochondrial DNA govern? Anything important? Anything that might, maybe, have something to do with longevity?

    And why are you backing away from your claim? You said mitochondrial DNA “is not genes”. Were you wrong? Were you making shit up to try to cover for yourself?

  383. nishizonoshinji says:

    well, chacun a son goux.
    get ready for that mccain/huckabee ticket.

  384. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    oops…1884 to 1945
    he was 61!
    i shudn’t listen to those kossacks, sry.

    That was his grandfather, genius.

    John Sidney McCain Jr. – 1911-1981 70 years old.

    But, hey! One more factual mistake and the Guinness people WILL BE CALLING!!

  385. nishizonoshinji says:

    mito-dna governs epigenetic inheritance.
    not longevity.

  386. McGehee says:

    BJ, don’t you get it? Nishi doesn’t have to have her facts right. She’s a GENIUS while we’re all motie theocons.

  387. McGehee says:

    TOPIC CHANGE!

    We need to get her back around to ESCR, and then maybe we can finally get this thread back to abortion.

  388. dibs on theoconz!

  389. nishizonoshinji says:

    haha, ok, im wrong…i did get that from the kossacks…a good lesson for me.
    still, 70 is under the average lifespan for cauc males by 4 years.
    not good.

  390. nishizonoshinji says:

    and they call it epigenetic because it isn’t on the genes.

  391. Pablo says:

    not 70 tho pablo

    You might be talking about his grabdfather and not his father. Frankly, I don’t care to look it up because you’re too inane to refute. But again, as usual, you’re wrong. His father died at 70.

  392. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    chacun a son goux

    Now we get illiteracy in French. She’s as multi-untalented as William Shatner.

    It’s “chacun a son gout”, genius.

    Try this one: Baise-toi.

  393. Rob Crawford says:

    mito-dna governs epigenetic inheritance.
    not longevity.

    You’re a fucking moron. “Epigenetic” just means it’s not altered during cell division or sexual reproduction. Duh.

    As for its role in longevity, well, it *IS* Wikipedia, but they tend to be reliable for scientific materials:

    Mitochondrial diseases are very numerous and different. Apart from diseases definitely caused by abnormalities in mitochondrial DNA, many diseases are suspected to be caused in part by dysfunction of mitochondria, such as diabetes mellitus, forms of cancer and cardiovascular disease, lactic acidosis, specific forms of myopathy, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinsons’s disease, stroke, and many more. Furthermore, mtDNA mutations are believed to play a role in the aging process.

    Odd, isn’t it, that the widgets responsible for the energy used by cells might have something to do with aging…

  394. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    70 is under the average lifespan for cauc males by 4 years.

    The life expectancy for white males born in 1911 was 50.23 years, idiot.

  395. nishizonoshinji says:

    hah, im wrong about confusing mccains dad and granddad.
    i humbly apologize.

    but mccains mom and dad each contribute 50% of his genetic material.
    and his dad died 4 years earlier than the average.
    i dont think he should commericials about his mom.
    it just draws attention to his dad.

  396. Rob Crawford says:

    and they call it epigenetic because it isn’t on the genes.

    Wrong again, oh moron!

    Epigenetics is a term in biology used today to refer to changes in gene expression that are stable between cell divisions, and sometimes between generations, but do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism… Epigenetic states are inherited when cells divide, and although most of these states are considered dynamic over the course of development in multicellular organisms, some epigenetic features show transgenerational inheritance and are inherited from one generation to the next.

    It’s still “on the genes”; it just ain’t part of the nucleic genes.

  397. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    and his dad died 4 years earlier than the average.

    Might want to wait a couple of minutes to see if your latest bullshit has been refuted before repeating it, genius.

  398. Carin -BONC says:

    And Obama’s mom and dad died how much younger than the average? Holy shit! I hope he’s got a healthy running mate.

  399. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    Hey, nishi! Guinness called and you are so far ahead of the record for factual errors that they are going to give you your own ERROR CHAPTER!!!

    Congratulations, genius!

  400. McGehee says:

    i dont think he should commericials about his mom.
    it just draws attention to his dad.

    Kind of like your comments draw attention to electronic ignition.

  401. daleyrocks says:

    I still think nishi should off her fleshdoll father because of teh magic transhuman science.

  402. Rob Crawford says:

    and his dad died 4 years earlier than the average.

    Wrong. His dad died 20 years past the average life expectancy.

    Are you incapable of getting anything correct?

  403. nishizonoshinji says:

    so SBP? that wasn’t my point.
    my point is how long should we expect mccain to live?
    current live expectancy for ppl that are alive now is what im going from.
    oh…i can go to the actuarial tables and figure out mccains life expectancy.
    that is what insurance companies do…..dur…this should be interesting.
    l8r

  404. happyfeet says:

    Y’all are fun to read. Especially after a big lunch.

  405. nishizonoshinji says:

    but Carin….O isn’t old.
    mccain is.
    think of selling both of them life insurance.

  406. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    So Obama’s father was a civil servant communist alchoholic who dieD at age 44 and his Mom, a hippie wanna be anthropologist, died at age 52 of the big C….

    Baracky could drop dead any day now. VOTE MCCAIN! HE’S DURABLE!!

  407. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    so SBP? that wasn’t my point.

  408. happyfeet says:

    O is opposed to be at high risk of the assassination. It’s cause he looks just like JFK or something. In the dark.

  409. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    so SBP? that wasn’t my point.

    Sure it wasn’t. That’s why you repeated it so many times.

  410. Baracky could drop dead any day now.

    but, he’s pretty. like Che.

  411. daleyrocks says:

    Would Carin’s company sell insurance to black ppl? You know, with the government infecting them with AIDS and all are they good risks?

  412. MayBee says:

    but, he’s pretty. like Che.

    BARACK IS JUST A T-SHIRT!

    That’s why the young people are voting for him.

  413. I would give you a cookie if I had one, MayBee.

  414. Carin -BONC says:

    Well, I prolly would, but only because they’re on the left side of the bell curve so I could probably cheat ’em real easy. Stupid two digits.

    WEDGE!

  415. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    i can go to the actuarial tables and figure out mccains life expectancy.

    Roughly 13 years. From the same table I already posted.

    Now, put your vaunted statistical expertise to work and figure out how likely he is to die in four years.

  416. Carin -BONC says:

    Besides, isn’t buying life insurance a tad middle-class for Barack? You’d think if something happened, it would take a village and Michelle wouldn’t need any of the “white man’s money.”

  417. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    OMG, I forgot about the assasination risk! Couple that with his parents’ obviously smushed DNA and HE WON’T MAKE IT TO INAUGURATION!!!

    MCCOOT!!!

  418. I found her picture, lulz

  419. daleyrocks says:

    WEDGIE!!!

  420. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    but, he’s pretty. like Che.

    ROFL.

    Maybe the Dems should run Leonardo DiCaprio or Justin Timberlake next time (apologies, nishi… I know those guys are “old”. I haven’t kept up with the Cute But Non-Threatening Boy scene lately).

  421. happyfeet says:

    OH. I know one. It starts with a Z.
    Googling.
    Oh yeah. Zac Efron. Definitely ready on day one looks like.

  422. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    Well, Carin, they can always go live with Rev. Wright.

  423. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Carin beat me to it. That’s kind of scary really.

  424. Pablo says:

    Is Orlando Bloom passe already?

  425. daleyrocks says:

    You know what’s too bad is that big Barry White is taking a dirt nap. He could’ve been a great addition to Rev. Wright’s show. Get Barry up there with the Love Unlimited orchestra after Jeremiah fired up everyone to kill whitey and mellow everyone out with a moist hump your bunny ballad. It coulda been magic I tells ya.

  426. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Here you go, Spies.

    Good Lord. The first one reminded me of this one, and that’s a scab I could’ve done without picking off.

  427. Rob Crawford says:

    You know what’s too bad is that big Barry White is taking a dirt nap. He could’ve been a great addition to Rev. Wright’s show.

    Oh, please. There’s no way Wright would share the stage with a White.

  428. Thank you for not jamming scissors into my skull,

    Every time I think the limits of chutzpah have been reached, Murder Inc. manages to top it. This time, it’s soliciting donations for Mother’s Da …

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