HuffPo is about as anti-choice as one can get!
Vous may have heard of a new law in Arizona that liberal racists hate (they tend to hate everything from Arizona because they don't actually have to live there), called HB 2036. The title of a Huff the Magic Dragon article reads "Arizona Passes Abortion Law That Says Pregnancy Begins Before A Child Has Been Conceived," and claims that this is "another blow to reproductive rights in the US" (when was the first blow? - that's what she said). It goes on to say:
"Aside from banning all abortions after 20 weeks, defined from the date of the woman's last period instead of conception except in the case of medical emergency, it will force women considering abortion because of fetal abnormalities to have counselling, and for women having an abortion to have an ultrasound.
"It also says the age of a foetus is "is calculated from the first day of the last [woman's] menstrual period.""
I did something HuffPo didn't do, and actually read the text of HB 2036. Here's what it says regarding the beginning of pregnancy:
""Pregnant" or "pregnancy" means a female reproductive condition of having a developing unborn child in the body and that begins with conception.
Abortion does not include birth control devices, oral contraceptives used to inhibit or prevent ovulation, conception or the implantation of a fertilized ovum in the uterus or the use of any means to i̶n̶c̶r̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶r̶t̶h̶ save the life or preserve the health of the unborn child, to preserve the life or health of the child after a live birth, to terminate an ectopic pregnancy or to remove a dead fetus" (from the final, ammended version, strikethrough and emphasis included).
Right in the title the HuffPo article is lying, and it's not just lying out of ignorance or neglecting to mention something, it's a blatant lie. The text actually says pregnancy begins at conception, not before.
One thing HuffPo got right is how gestational age is calculated, as the actual text reads: "the age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman." However, there's nothing controversial about that at all. According to the National Institutes of Health: "In human obstetrics, gestational age is often defined as the time
elapsed since 14 days prior to fertilization. This is approximately the
duration since the woman's last menstrual period (LMP) began." The Arizona law is using the national standard system for calculating the age of the unborn child, not making up some draconian anti-women rule. Everyone's calculations are done that way; there is absolutely nothing controversial about that.
What about restricting (not banning) abortions after 20 weeks? Well, according to the CDC only 1.3% of all abortions in America and 0.8% of all abortions in Arizona happen after 20 weeks anyway. HuffPo is arguing over less than one percent of abortions in the state, and many of them (all 105 in 2004) probably had either maternal or fetal health factor in in some way (the later in term an abortion is the greater the risk to the mother, so getting an abortion halfway through the second trimester isn't nearly as safe as earlier on), so there's no saying that this number will be affected in any way at all.
What about the other provisions? What's wrong with giving women considering getting an abortion counseling? It's a huge decision, one not to be taken lightly. One does not simply wake up one morning and says "hey, I'll get an abortion, then I'll get cake and celebrate!" This is something that requires a lot of thought, does carry health risks (there are some studies suggesting an abortion-breast cancer link; I don't know, I haven't read them), and has psychological repercussions (a lot of women have to deal with post-abortion depression, not unlike postpartum depression). This isn't the same thing as buying a hat, this isn't even the same as buying a car, this is something not to be decided upon brashly. By all means, let women considering an abortion talk it out with someone in a calm, adult fashion.
And what of ultrasounds? What's wrong with that? The bigger the decision the more information you should have before you make it. You wouldn't buy a car by going to a dealership and picking one at random? Doesn't "pro-choice" mean just that, pro-CHOICE? Shouldn't the woman considering an abortion be given information from BOTH sides so she can make an informed CHOICE, and not just pro-abortion propaganda? How is it possible to make a choice if one is given a single option? Arizona's new law actually promotes genuine choice, and actually empowers women (is it not said that "knowledge is power"?). But HuffPo wouldn't know that - I doubt they read the actual text of the law - and they certainly don't want their readers to know that because they never linked to the actual law itself! They expect their readers to take their word for it and not do their own research and make up their own minds! HuffPo is about as anti-choice as one can get!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Mother Ganges
A lovely 49 minute BBC documentary looking for the many sources of the Ganges river, exploring the wildlife and human habitation along the way. Some of the most beautiful cinematography I have ever seen. Enjoy!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
A Brief History of the Ouija Board
A six minute video on the history of the Ouija Board, from the time of automatic writing and planchettes to the present day.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Ethan Frome In A Nutshell
Some complete moron, maybe mentally challenged, named Ethan Frome lives in a cabin he built with his bare hands with his wife who is very ugly. They eat pickles and doughnuts for every meal and nothing else yet they haven't died of malnutrition yet. They live in some place that snows all the time and is miles from the nearest human settlement. Some bloke visits the nearest town and asks about Ethan and they tell him nothing so he ambushes the guy and they get trapped in a cabin or something and Ethan reminisces about his crappy boring life. His wife is Xena Warrior Princess but she's played by someone other than Lucy Lawless because, like I said before, she's ugly and Lucy is not. Anyway, his sister or someone comes along for some reason (hell if I know) and he totally has the hots for her and they do it but it was left out of the book! The only good part was missing and it pisses me off. Nothing happens. Nothing happens. I think they're looking for some witch or something, I wasn't paying attention. Ethan and his sister try to steal away into the night because they're like the Scarlet Letter or something, and his sister goes nuts because society won't let them be together. They make a suicide pact and go on a sled ride to wack a tree and drop dead but they survive. Ethan is now a cripple or something and the hell if I know what happened to the chick society wouldn't let him score with. His wife is now an anchor around his neck because he's a cripple and she was useless from day one, but now he has to take care of her and his crippleness and he can't do it alone and we're supposed to cry like little girls or something because of that. The end.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Dietary Disasters
Two new stories about diets going bad.
From the NY Daily News, an unnamed Swiss woman starved to death after watching a documentary about Prahlad Jani in January 2011 (and the news just got released?). The woman watched a documentary called "In The Beginning There Was Light" (the trailer BEGINS with the words "I'm not saying stop eating and drinking"!) about breatharianism, the practice of living off of sunlight instead of food. I have not watched the film but a copy is being tracked down as we speak, but right from the trailer I can see that no one advocated that this woman starve herself to death. Transitioning to living without food, if it's possible at all, is very lengthy and difficult just like transitioning from being a couch potato to an Olympic athelete is very lengthy and difficult. Similarly, most people won't ever become Olympic atheletes just as most people won't ever be able to live without food.
Here is the trailer of the film:
From The Blaze, a North Carolina man Steve Cooksey faces jail time for writing a diet journal online. The gestapo of NC says you need a state-approved license to dispense nutritional advice to anyone or you can spend 120 days in jail. Mr. Cooksey wrote about his experiment with a 30-day "paleo" diet (no dairy, no grain, no eggs, etc.) and some stuff he found online about the diet and the government says that he can't do that. If he wants to write about his diet he can't show it to anyone or tell anyone about it, even his closest friends and family, or that counts as dispensing nutritional advice and must be punished.
One day he went to a seminar at church and the state approved dietary police were feeding the people there propaganda so Cooksey spoke up and forever gained the ire of the state. They investigated him like government does to people it doesn't like and are now making threats. This is big government fascism if ever such a thing existed.
From the NY Daily News, an unnamed Swiss woman starved to death after watching a documentary about Prahlad Jani in January 2011 (and the news just got released?). The woman watched a documentary called "In The Beginning There Was Light" (the trailer BEGINS with the words "I'm not saying stop eating and drinking"!) about breatharianism, the practice of living off of sunlight instead of food. I have not watched the film but a copy is being tracked down as we speak, but right from the trailer I can see that no one advocated that this woman starve herself to death. Transitioning to living without food, if it's possible at all, is very lengthy and difficult just like transitioning from being a couch potato to an Olympic athelete is very lengthy and difficult. Similarly, most people won't ever become Olympic atheletes just as most people won't ever be able to live without food.
Here is the trailer of the film:
From The Blaze, a North Carolina man Steve Cooksey faces jail time for writing a diet journal online. The gestapo of NC says you need a state-approved license to dispense nutritional advice to anyone or you can spend 120 days in jail. Mr. Cooksey wrote about his experiment with a 30-day "paleo" diet (no dairy, no grain, no eggs, etc.) and some stuff he found online about the diet and the government says that he can't do that. If he wants to write about his diet he can't show it to anyone or tell anyone about it, even his closest friends and family, or that counts as dispensing nutritional advice and must be punished.
One day he went to a seminar at church and the state approved dietary police were feeding the people there propaganda so Cooksey spoke up and forever gained the ire of the state. They investigated him like government does to people it doesn't like and are now making threats. This is big government fascism if ever such a thing existed.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
House Passes CISPA
According to Politico, the US House of Representatives just passed CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). If you recall, SOPA and PIPA are like boyscouts compared to the elite SAS that is CISPA. The bill passed 248 to 168 with 42 Dems voting for it and 28 Pubs voting against it, across party lines.
The New World Order is using fictitious "cyber terrorism" from North Korea to justify taking all of our rights away.
John Boner. Look at him. That smug son of a bitch. He disgusts me as much as a man can be disgusted by another man.
Speaker John Boner (and it is Boner, I don't care if he pronounces it Bayner, that's not how it's spelled) says "Slave, you will learn to submit!" While an unnamed person in the White House replied "CISPA would trample the privacy and consumer rights of our citizens while leaving our critical infrastructure vulnerable. We need Congress to address this critical national and economic security challenge [sic.] while respecting the values of freedom, privacy, openness and innovation so fundamental to our nation."
With proper activism we can kill this in the Senate. Don't give up just because you're tired. Don't give up just because defeating SOPA and PIPA have left you complacent. Keep fighting to protect our freedom.
The New World Order is using fictitious "cyber terrorism" from North Korea to justify taking all of our rights away.
John Boner. Look at him. That smug son of a bitch. He disgusts me as much as a man can be disgusted by another man.
Speaker John Boner (and it is Boner, I don't care if he pronounces it Bayner, that's not how it's spelled) says "Slave, you will learn to submit!" While an unnamed person in the White House replied "CISPA would trample the privacy and consumer rights of our citizens while leaving our critical infrastructure vulnerable. We need Congress to address this critical national and economic security challenge [sic.] while respecting the values of freedom, privacy, openness and innovation so fundamental to our nation."
With proper activism we can kill this in the Senate. Don't give up just because you're tired. Don't give up just because defeating SOPA and PIPA have left you complacent. Keep fighting to protect our freedom.
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Conspiracy to Kill Jesus
Friday, 3 April AD 33. Jesus is tried by the Sanhedrin and sent to Pontius Pilate who asks him some questions and has Jesus beaten. The Sanhedrin does not relent. They demand Pilate execute Jesus. Pilate points to the Passover tradition of pardoning a criminal and lets the mob decide Jesus' fate and they choose to let Barabbas go free instead. Pilate washes his hands of the decision and the mob cries out that Jesus' blood will be on their hands and the hands of their descendants.
That's the story from the Gospels, but is it true? Is there really a conspiracy to kill Jesus and blame it on the Jews? The Gospel story has been used to justify antisemitism for over a thousand years, but is there a problem with the story?
To be sure the Sanhedrin wants Jesus dead. Jesus is challenging their claim to authority. The Sanhedrin wants people to believe that they are the only source of God's authority, the only mouthpiece for the Lord. They also want the vast sums of money worshipers spend at the Temple performing sacrifices and they like the cushy life they have in Rome's favour. However, as previously stated, just because the Sanhedrin wants Jesus dead does not mean the Jews want him dead. The people who benefited most from Jesus were the Jews, who had their hopes pinned to the coming Messiah. The Jews didn't like the status quo with Rome and the Sanhedrin, Rome's lapdog, keeping them under thumb.
What of Pilate? He cannot find fault in Jesus, right? Well, Pilate was a ruthless man who would find an excuse to kill Jesus if he wanted to. Pilate had no compunction killing Jews and Jesus was a Jew among many for Pilate. Worse still Jesus was a religious agitator. It didn't matter to Pilate if he was Messiah or not, as long as people believed he was that could lead to a rebellion and a rebellion would give Pilate a hard time. Pilate worked really hard rising the ranks to become prefect and he did everything he could to keep his job. Is it any wonder so many Messiah claimants ended up dead?
Didn't Pilate wash his hands of Jesus' death? Actually, no. That was a Jewish practice, not a pagan Roman practice. Pilate would not have washed his hands just like he would not have been circumcised just like he would not abstain from eating oysters (which Romans loved).
And the Passover pardon? Actually, there is no history of such a tradition outside the Gospels. Yes, a prefect did have the authority to pardon prisoners and there are sporadic examples of prefects who had pardoned prisoners, during Passover and other times throughout the year, but we have no evidence of a Passover tradition of pardoning someone. It appears nowhere in the Old Testament (so it wasn't a Jewish tradition), and it appears nowhere in Roman records, so it wasn't a Roman tradition. It's not in Josephus, or the Talmud, or in Philo. The idea of the pardon appears first in the Gospels associated with Pilate, and if we take into consideration Pilate's character we can doubt that a bloodthirsty man such as him would even consider pardoning a Jew at Passover. Remember, Pilate's job as prefect was to keep order, and part of keeping order is not to give in to the will of the mob. When there's a mob the prefect puts it down, he does not aquiesce to their demands. Pilate was recalled to Rome because of his brutality, not because he caved to the will of his subjects too often.
So Pontius Pilate does not free Barabbas and he does not wash his hands of the blood guilt, and it's not the Jews who hate Jesus but just the Sanhedrin. What in the world is going on?
We have to take two things into account, namely the time the Gospels were being written and the mindset of the Gospel writers. Mark, the first written canonical Gospel, was written in around AD 70, around the time of the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple. Up until that time there was little difference between Jewish Christians and Christian Jews. The Gospel writers wanted to distance themselves from the Jews because the Jews were being systematically destroyed by the Romans at the time. There were far more Jews than Christians, so, as a matter of survival, the Gospel writers had to make the Jews look like the enemy and the good Roman Pontius Pilate look like he was reluctant to kill the Messiah. Jewish guilt was not created out of malice, but fear. Jesus' disciples hid and Peter in particular denied him three times out of fear of the Romans, and it was only witnessing the Resurrection that made them become fearless evangelists. The Gospel writers, living more than a generation after the Resurrection, had no such miracles to boost their confidence. Out of sheer pragmatism they tweeked the story of the trial of Jesus to try to keep Rome from lumping them in with the Jews.
Saying Pontius Pilate had much more to do with the death of Jesus and exhonorating the Jews does not mean what many people think it might mean. Saying the Gospel writers altered the true events of Jesus' life go without saying. Gospel means "good news" not "raw fact". There's no way the Gospel writers could have known what was said between Jesus and Pilate, the Sermon on the Mount is way too densely packed to have been delivered as a single sermon, and John even says at the end that he had to condense the material because Jesus did so much he couldn't fit it all. Saying that the Gospel writers were human and acted out of human motivation does not mean Jesus was fake and the Resurrection never happened - there is enough to say that the Gospels do point toward the truth, but a finger pointing toward the moon is not the moon. It also does not mean that the Gospel writers were acting sinisterly. They were making the story of the life of Jesus more accessible to a wider audience, and part of that includes maintaining the survival of the nascent movement that was Christianity in the First Century.
It is a double-edged sword. We can use the Gospels as a launching pad to grow in a relationship with Christ or we can use them to justify antisemitism. The choice, ultimately is up to us, and with the knowledge of history there is hope we can unravel the story of Jewish blood guilt and fix a wound that has festered for close to two thousand years. Then, at last, we can put this conspiracy to kill Jesus to rest.
That's the story from the Gospels, but is it true? Is there really a conspiracy to kill Jesus and blame it on the Jews? The Gospel story has been used to justify antisemitism for over a thousand years, but is there a problem with the story?
To be sure the Sanhedrin wants Jesus dead. Jesus is challenging their claim to authority. The Sanhedrin wants people to believe that they are the only source of God's authority, the only mouthpiece for the Lord. They also want the vast sums of money worshipers spend at the Temple performing sacrifices and they like the cushy life they have in Rome's favour. However, as previously stated, just because the Sanhedrin wants Jesus dead does not mean the Jews want him dead. The people who benefited most from Jesus were the Jews, who had their hopes pinned to the coming Messiah. The Jews didn't like the status quo with Rome and the Sanhedrin, Rome's lapdog, keeping them under thumb.
What of Pilate? He cannot find fault in Jesus, right? Well, Pilate was a ruthless man who would find an excuse to kill Jesus if he wanted to. Pilate had no compunction killing Jews and Jesus was a Jew among many for Pilate. Worse still Jesus was a religious agitator. It didn't matter to Pilate if he was Messiah or not, as long as people believed he was that could lead to a rebellion and a rebellion would give Pilate a hard time. Pilate worked really hard rising the ranks to become prefect and he did everything he could to keep his job. Is it any wonder so many Messiah claimants ended up dead?
Didn't Pilate wash his hands of Jesus' death? Actually, no. That was a Jewish practice, not a pagan Roman practice. Pilate would not have washed his hands just like he would not have been circumcised just like he would not abstain from eating oysters (which Romans loved).
And the Passover pardon? Actually, there is no history of such a tradition outside the Gospels. Yes, a prefect did have the authority to pardon prisoners and there are sporadic examples of prefects who had pardoned prisoners, during Passover and other times throughout the year, but we have no evidence of a Passover tradition of pardoning someone. It appears nowhere in the Old Testament (so it wasn't a Jewish tradition), and it appears nowhere in Roman records, so it wasn't a Roman tradition. It's not in Josephus, or the Talmud, or in Philo. The idea of the pardon appears first in the Gospels associated with Pilate, and if we take into consideration Pilate's character we can doubt that a bloodthirsty man such as him would even consider pardoning a Jew at Passover. Remember, Pilate's job as prefect was to keep order, and part of keeping order is not to give in to the will of the mob. When there's a mob the prefect puts it down, he does not aquiesce to their demands. Pilate was recalled to Rome because of his brutality, not because he caved to the will of his subjects too often.
So Pontius Pilate does not free Barabbas and he does not wash his hands of the blood guilt, and it's not the Jews who hate Jesus but just the Sanhedrin. What in the world is going on?
We have to take two things into account, namely the time the Gospels were being written and the mindset of the Gospel writers. Mark, the first written canonical Gospel, was written in around AD 70, around the time of the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple. Up until that time there was little difference between Jewish Christians and Christian Jews. The Gospel writers wanted to distance themselves from the Jews because the Jews were being systematically destroyed by the Romans at the time. There were far more Jews than Christians, so, as a matter of survival, the Gospel writers had to make the Jews look like the enemy and the good Roman Pontius Pilate look like he was reluctant to kill the Messiah. Jewish guilt was not created out of malice, but fear. Jesus' disciples hid and Peter in particular denied him three times out of fear of the Romans, and it was only witnessing the Resurrection that made them become fearless evangelists. The Gospel writers, living more than a generation after the Resurrection, had no such miracles to boost their confidence. Out of sheer pragmatism they tweeked the story of the trial of Jesus to try to keep Rome from lumping them in with the Jews.
Saying Pontius Pilate had much more to do with the death of Jesus and exhonorating the Jews does not mean what many people think it might mean. Saying the Gospel writers altered the true events of Jesus' life go without saying. Gospel means "good news" not "raw fact". There's no way the Gospel writers could have known what was said between Jesus and Pilate, the Sermon on the Mount is way too densely packed to have been delivered as a single sermon, and John even says at the end that he had to condense the material because Jesus did so much he couldn't fit it all. Saying that the Gospel writers were human and acted out of human motivation does not mean Jesus was fake and the Resurrection never happened - there is enough to say that the Gospels do point toward the truth, but a finger pointing toward the moon is not the moon. It also does not mean that the Gospel writers were acting sinisterly. They were making the story of the life of Jesus more accessible to a wider audience, and part of that includes maintaining the survival of the nascent movement that was Christianity in the First Century.
It is a double-edged sword. We can use the Gospels as a launching pad to grow in a relationship with Christ or we can use them to justify antisemitism. The choice, ultimately is up to us, and with the knowledge of history there is hope we can unravel the story of Jewish blood guilt and fix a wound that has festered for close to two thousand years. Then, at last, we can put this conspiracy to kill Jesus to rest.
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