Alternate title: aunursa attempts to walk a tightrope.  Oh well, here goes…

Abortion Rights Supporters

Pro-choice.  Stop calling yourselves that.  The majority of you are, ironically, anti-choice on an amazing number of issues.  Many of you want to decide what foods I may not eat, what cars I may not drive, and what words I may not say.  You want to decide (through government mandate) how my money is spent and what my children are taught.  You don’t get to call yourselves “pro-choice” based on just one issue.  No euphemisms — don’t be afraid to use a term that actually includes the “A” word — you know, the issue you’re contesting.

Buffer zones.  Stop calling for them.  Certainly anyone who threatens, harasses, or obtructs patients or workers should be prosecuted under existing trespass and assault (and related) laws.  That said, the fact that some opponents are disruptive should not allow the government to curtail the First Amendment rights of all of your opponents in a manner not applied to other disorderly partisans (Prop. 8 opponents, for example.)  Be honest — are the sensitivities of workers and patients really so fragile that they require protection from a peaceful protest?

Late-term abortions.  Don’t restrict them.  If it’s about bodily autonomy, as you claim, then a woman should be able to exercise her reproductive freedom at any point during the pregnancy.  Yet some of you are willing, for political expediency, to agree to a ban in the 3rd trimester.  What happens during the 27th (or 30th … or 35th) week that suddenly provides the fetus with a right to be born?

Abortion Opponents

Pro-life.  Stop calling yourselves that.  The term actually covers a broad range of issues, including opposition to euthanasia, assisted suicide, population control, and capital punishment.  Since many of you support at least one of them, you don’t get to imply a false consensus.  Use a term that includes the “A” word, and don’t be afraid to define yourselves in opposition to the issue you’re contesting.

Rape and incest.  Don’t allow exceptions for them.  If abortion is murder, as you claim with pious certainty, why would some of you allow the innocent baby to be killed based on the circumstances of the conception?  Here, too, it’s for political expediency, one that you wouldn’t accept for other situations you consider life-threatening.  Makes me wonder how serious some of you are about equating the “A” word with the “M” word.

Posters of aborted fetuses.  Don’t use them.  You may think that they’re effective, but they actually turn off the ones you most want to convince.  Most observers become disgusted, not with the concept of abortion, but with your shocking tactics.  Want to draw people to your side?  Display giant posters of beautiful, healthy, in-utero babies.

The story of The first Thanksgiving, as told by Rush Limbaugh…  I’m out of contact for probably all of Thursday, if not through Friday morning, so take care, folks.  If I get back in time Thursday night, I’ll post some classic stuff from Presidents past.

Pray for me.  I’m spending time with 95% Dems, many of whom possess depressingly high levels of White Guilt.  Have a great holiday, folks.  Enjoy time with friends and family, or at least enjoy the food.  Take care, and stay safe.

And now, Rush Limbaugh.

(more…)

Ron Prince is OUT as the head coach for K-State football.  Thank god.  Man was as bad a recruiter as could be possible.

“Who’s in?” you ask?  You mean the swearing from every other coach didn’t tell you?

Coach Bill Snyder is on a 5-year contract.

Weep, oh ye pathetic opponents…  Wail and gnash thy teeth in anguish!!  Your days are numbered.

No, I’m not thrilled about this at ALL! 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand just in time for the holidays, we have our regular threat of violence from AQ.

This time, it is NYC subways that are the target.  This is amid reports of explosions, shootings, and hostage-takings in Mumbai, which authorities ARE calling terrorist attacks…  As I find actual links to news stories about it, I’ll update this post.

Update – Best I can find is a short article at SkyNews

Update x2 – Ok, it seems that several bombs have gone off (most recent report I heard also includes a car bomb in a taxi lighting off at a “domestic airport”), and several sites are either held hostage by gunmen or are under siege.  Al Jazeera and the UK Telegraph both have good articles regarding what’s going on.

Update x3 – Reports say that 40 brits and Americans are being held inside the Taj Hotel in Mumbai.  It has also been reported that the terrorists were targeting people with USA or UK passports.

Update x4 – Officials in India are saying 40-80 dead, 200 wounded in attacks…

Update x5 – Photo and info here (thanks EricPWJohnson) and there’s more at the India Uncut blog (thanks Kevin Murphy)

Also, the US has condemed the attacks.  Thank god, for a second I thought we might be fans…

Idiots.

As a personal note, if there is even one US citizen held hostage (and it appears thatthere are at least several US and UK citizens), we need to have the SAS, SEALs, and FBI Hostage Rescue Team (the breachers, these guys don’t do the talky-talky stuff) throw dice, and the winner go clear this place.  India has a problem with us taking care of this problem…

Well, they can go fornicate themselves with the garden implement of their choice…

What would your reaction be if I told you that a university was going to stop holding fund-raisers for breast cancer research, because it affects only women?  Or no fund-raising was allowed for sickle-cell anemia, because it is “a black person’s disease”?

You’d call me a sexist, a racist, and throw rocks at my head.  And rightly so.

While those statements above might be true for the most part, there are not only exceptions, but there is the idea that any disease that can cause people to die is something we should probably try and cure.

Apparently, though, cysitic fibrosis isn’t worthy of time or effort at Carleton University, in Ottawa Canada.  It seems that some idiot (who, btw, is black) was told that CF is a “white man’s disease”, and thus was not inclusive enough to be a cause the university would support.

According to Bergamini, the motion read that orientation week strives to be inclusive and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts are serving a diverse community.

However, the motion went on to say that “and whereas cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people and primarily men, be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign.”

I’ll give you a moment to get the gasping and swearing out of the way.  The clenching of fists out of anger and rage, however, you’ll have to work through while I continue.

Read the article folks, and then read the comments, because some are pretty good.

I’ve helped raise money for CF before, so this really riles me up.  Add to that fact that Dean Barnett passed away recently after a long and hard-fought battle with CF, and this just destroys whatever possible sense of understanding I might have been able to muster for these idiots at Carleton.

Carleton University – Where discrimination is bad, unless it is against White Males.

I hate mashed potatoes as made by my family.  Maybe not the way they ALL prepare them, but the version that arrives at the Family Thanksgiving Feast o’ Gluttony fill me with rage, and cause me to wish harm upon people.

See, in general, I love mashed potatoes.  A little lumpy, thick, with a bit of skin?  I will nearly fill my plate (there might be a clue there why I’m 5’8 and around 220 lbs).

So every year for the past 5 or so I have gotten a heaping helping of the white fluffy stuff I see mid-table at this yearly family gathering, and always – like Lewis Black and candy corn – I end up pissed because the damn potatoes have had sugar added to them.

These aren’t a meringue, people.  NO SUGAR!!!!

*twitch*

Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my hypothetical from the other day — and thanks, Patterico, for the shout-out. I’d love to take all the commenters’ engagement as a compliment on my own Deep Thinking, but in truth I know it’s mostly just that the abortion is one of those issues that’s always bound to get a lot of response.

I was going to make this a comment on the initial post’s thread, but it got so long it seemed kinda ridiculous. And I haven’t even started to address the points on Patterico’s (longer) thread yet! Anyway, here goes.

htom @ No. 3 makes an interesting point, saying “it seems a device designed to enable rapists to propagate.” While I hardly think it seems designed to let rapists propagate, I’d have to agree that would be an effect. So let me ask a follow-up hypothetical geared more toward people who would ban abortion right now if they could — especially those people who would make exceptions in the case of rape and incest: If “no-death abortion” were available, would you make it the only option for women impregnated by rapists? Or would you let such women have actual abortions if they wanted them? And since this is a hypothetical, let’s stipulate that the offspring would be no more predisposed to violence than anyone else, and in the case of incest would not be genetically impaired.

JVW @ No. 4 asks who’d pay for the removal and incubation of the fetus. As for removal, let’s say the no-death abortion was exactly the same as a regular one, except more widely available in regions where currently there are no abortion clinics. As far as incubation goes, I’m thinking the situation would be the same as for any conventionally born abandoned baby (so I guess that means the government in most cases, or insurance companies in cases where the baby is claimed by another relative).

DRJ @ No. 9, interestingly, says a no-death procedure would not have caused her to change her pro-choice attitude back when she was in college. She says she’s “closer to pro-life” now, and adds: “My gut tells me that happens to a lot of women after they have children.” I’m going to have a little trouble articulating the next thought, so bear with me, but I’m wondering: Does that necessarily mean that her college, pre-motherhood self was wrong? If childless women do happen to feel differently about abortion than mothers do, should the opinion of women who have experienced motherhood carry more weight? I ask this because I sometimes wonder if a good case could be made in the other direction: that the experience of motherhood is almost prejudicial. I think I haven’t expressed this very well at all. If any of you can divine my meaning and articulate it better, please, by all means!

Dana @ No. 10 says “if those having the current procedure done truly believed there was nothing but tissue and blood being removed, then why even need to develop a system that in essence removes the function and guilt of abortion (to kill what is alive)?” I could be wrong about this — maybe really wrong — but I don’t think most “pro-abortionists,” as Dana inflammatorily calls them, would deny that there’s a death of some sort going on. Is it even scientifically debatable? (I’m really asking; it’s not a rhetorical question.) I mean, even a plant lives and dies. And in many (most?) cases, an abortion does indeed, as the ad has it, “stop a beating heart.” I think the debate is over when a fetus gains the rights of a person.

This last point of mine is minor in the context of my hypothetical, but I wanted to address it because I’d like to weed out inaccurate characterizations of opposing sides when possible.