April 2007 Archives

Ew. And by ew, I mean, YUCK.

By the way, I'm not calling anti-abortion people "pro-life" anymore. "Pro-choice" actually means something; people who are pro-choice tend to be pretty open-minded about letting other people make their own choices in all areas of their lives. (For those who complain about "politically correct" this and "nanny state" that, yes, we also believe that corporations should be heavily regulated and that if you enjoy the fruits of living in America, you should pay taxes to support your country.) But pro-life? When people who call themselves "pro-life" often also support the death penalty and don't put anywhere near the amount of energy defending fetuses into trying to end the Iraq war or the genocide in Darfur? Yeah, right.

From the Onion:

MIDDLE EAST—With the Iraq war in its fifth year, the war in Afghanistan in its sixth, and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.

[photo caption: Yet another act of violence in response to something else terrible that occurred in, oh, let's say Basra.]

"Tensions in the region are extremely high," said U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, who added the same old same old while answering reporters' questions. "We're disappointed by the events of the last few months, but we're confident that we're about to [yakety yakety yak]."

The U.N. has issued a strongly worded whatever denouncing someone or something presumably having to do with the vicious explosive things that raged across this, or shattered the predawn calm of that, or ripped suddenly through the other, killing umpteen innocent civilians in a Jerusalem bus or Beirut discotheque or Fallujah mosque or whatever it was this time.

I also love this passage: "In an attempt to increase public support of whatever the fuck it is he thinks he's doing, President Bush trotted out the same old whoop-de-do you've heard over and over at a solemn-yet-resolute speech attended by soldiers, or religious leaders, or firemen, or some mix of ethnic-looking people from one of those countries."

Long-time Iraqi blogger Riverbend is leaving Iraq. Anybody who reads the blog knows how devoted she is to her family, friends and country, so this speaks volumes about how awful conditions are there.

OK, OK, so it's the New England Journal of Medicine. Just what do those punks know anyway?

The Partial Death of Abortion Rights

The Intimidation of Physicians — Banning Partial-Birth Abortion

... is raising my blood pressure today. I just love the spokesbitch for the Family Research Council. She sneered at the statistics (from the CDC!) suggesting that the death rate from birth is higher than that from abortion, and said it was just "typical" of the way the pro-choice side shows its "bias." However, she didn't explain why those statistics are inaccurate and the other participants didn't press her. The whole thing will be available on the NPR website tonight.

Check them out

An article from Harper's a couple years ago makes the point that this case and cases like it involve a lot of stomach-turning detail about what mid-term abortions really look like... and for the anti-abortion crowd, that's the point.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban does not prohibit what most people think it prohibits. It is not a late-abortion law. Apart from a single quoted remark in its “findings” section, which is a kind of declaratory preface, the ban contains no mention at all of third-trimester abortion, or of any gestational point in pregnancy. It criminalizes only by method, outlawing some actions during a pregnancy termination but not others, meaning that as practical legislation—isolated from its mission, that is, and considered solely as a directive on what physicians may and may not do in a procedure room—it makes clear ethical sense only to people who don't spend much time thinking about abortion. Defending the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban in court, as teams of Justice Department lawyers were dispatched this spring and summer to do, requires arguing to judges that pulling a fetus from a woman's body in dismembered pieces is legal, medically acceptable, and safe; but that pulling a fetus out intact, so that if the woman wishes the fetus can be wrapped in a blanket and handed to her, is appropriately punishable by a fine, or up to two years' imprisonment, or both.

There's a lot of other stuff in this article, some of it potentially trouble-triggering, so I'm not quoting it here, but he article is definitely worthwhile, if sobering, reading.

A first-person account explaining why this ban is so bad

Edited to add: And here's another (heartbreaking) one
What she said

Isn't it terrific news that the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on "partial-birth abortions"? Yeah, because of course women have late-term abortions for fun!

Conservative white men should always be in charge of making decisions about medical care! Hurrah!

The other morning as I was changing my daughter's diaper, I reached for the diaper cream, squeezed some onto my fingers and was about to apply it to her rash when I realized I had missed the diaper cream and picked up the sunblock instead.

I really, really, need more sleep.

Note: if you 1) have vanity plates on your vehicle and 2) said plates are the name of a well-regarded local restaurant, you're going to kind of stick out like a sore thumb if you deliberately and repeatedly run red lights.

I called the cops on the bastard. I hope they get him before he causes an accident. And now I have one fewer restaurant in town I feel the need to visit.

1) While riding home on BART, I spotted this graffiti on the side of a building in West Oakland:

2) Michael and I somehow get into a discussion of other dwarf names besides the seven dwarves. "Pimply", "Cranky" and "Snarky" all made an appearance. Michael suggested that perhaps I was talking about him, and I replied, "You're so vain, you probably think these dwarves are about you!"

(Yeah, but it's a lot funnier at 10 p.m. after about seven months of no sleep.)

While looking for computer-related images for a project at work, I came across this little gem. Click it to see it in its full-sized glory.

I also love the keywords underneath. "b&w, machine, 'black and white', humor, fun, cartoon, snot, anthropomorphism, sneeze, technology, nose, disgusting, sorry". It's a librarian's wet dream to be able to put "snot" and "anthropomorphism" together in the same set of tags.

(My new band name is "TechnologyNoseDisgustingSorry," and its next album will be called "Achoo! Beep! Honk!")

Edited to add: I'm sure the point of this little cartoon was to illustrate something talking about computer viruses, but wouldn't you know, neither "computer" nor "virus" appear in the list.