Lightning Round -- Late July Edition
I have a lot of catching up to do from this weekend (plus a shindig announcement that I can't put off any longer), so "everything else" goes here:
[Anti-Abortion Advocates Stumped Over Appropriate Punishment]
It seems that a lot of people who are against abortion are also reluctant to actually legally punish women for having one -- were the procedure to become illegal. This is reflected as far up as the Supreme Court, where the majority opinion on a recent abortion case basically indemnified women against their own decision to have the abortion, as if they were nothing more than "infantile" victims of carnivorous doctors.
"Lawmakers in a number of states have already passed or are considering statutes designed to outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned. But almost none hold the woman, the person who set the so-called crime in motion, accountable. Is the message that women are not to be held responsible for their actions? Or is it merely that those writing the laws understand that if women were going to jail, the vast majority of Americans would violently object? Watch the demonstrators in Libertyville try to worm their way out of the hypocrisy: It's murder, but she'll get her punishment from God. It's murder, but it depends on her state of mind. It's murder, but the penalty should be ... counseling?
Here's something to think about: what if the doctor is a woman, geniuses?
[Women Paid Less... and It's Their Own Fault]
It's not uncommon knowledge that women get paid about 77% of what men make (overall, anyway -- 89% if they're actually in the same profession and position), but this newly released study suggests it's because they (almost) never complain. Even the counterpoint doesn't deny this argument, but reinforces the behavior with the reasoning that women will be seen as less "nice" (or any other euphamisms that suggest more masculine traits) by a society that expects them to be just that.
Well, society also once disallowed women from owning property, voting, working, control of their own reproductive organs, or the ability to divorce the sleezy old bastard 20 years her senior who stole her off the farm when she was 13. I think this would be a small step by comparison.
[Feingold Grills Gonzales]
I originally saw the whole thing on tape-delay, but this pretty much sums up everything that's wrong with Gonzales' tenure.
Now that info is coming out that Gonzales may have been technically correct when he told Congress that he wasn't talking about the Terrorist Surveillance Program with Ashcroft of his hospital bed, it overlooks the fact that the whole thing seems like a side-skirmish to the real issue, which is that he's never said anything that hasn't been contradicted by other witnesses (who generally agree with each other), and that the Justice Department can no longer function under his leadership. The Ashcroft episode might speak to his character and political/philisophical ideology, but it didn't happen while he himself was Attorney General.
Still, I think the video completely lays it out.
More updates to come
~Sean
[Anti-Abortion Advocates Stumped Over Appropriate Punishment]
It seems that a lot of people who are against abortion are also reluctant to actually legally punish women for having one -- were the procedure to become illegal. This is reflected as far up as the Supreme Court, where the majority opinion on a recent abortion case basically indemnified women against their own decision to have the abortion, as if they were nothing more than "infantile" victims of carnivorous doctors.
"Lawmakers in a number of states have already passed or are considering statutes designed to outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned. But almost none hold the woman, the person who set the so-called crime in motion, accountable. Is the message that women are not to be held responsible for their actions? Or is it merely that those writing the laws understand that if women were going to jail, the vast majority of Americans would violently object? Watch the demonstrators in Libertyville try to worm their way out of the hypocrisy: It's murder, but she'll get her punishment from God. It's murder, but it depends on her state of mind. It's murder, but the penalty should be ... counseling?
Here's something to think about: what if the doctor is a woman, geniuses?
[Women Paid Less... and It's Their Own Fault]
It's not uncommon knowledge that women get paid about 77% of what men make (overall, anyway -- 89% if they're actually in the same profession and position), but this newly released study suggests it's because they (almost) never complain. Even the counterpoint doesn't deny this argument, but reinforces the behavior with the reasoning that women will be seen as less "nice" (or any other euphamisms that suggest more masculine traits) by a society that expects them to be just that.
Well, society also once disallowed women from owning property, voting, working, control of their own reproductive organs, or the ability to divorce the sleezy old bastard 20 years her senior who stole her off the farm when she was 13. I think this would be a small step by comparison.
[Feingold Grills Gonzales]
I originally saw the whole thing on tape-delay, but this pretty much sums up everything that's wrong with Gonzales' tenure.
Click to viewNow that info is coming out that Gonzales may have been technically correct when he told Congress that he wasn't talking about the Terrorist Surveillance Program with Ashcroft of his hospital bed, it overlooks the fact that the whole thing seems like a side-skirmish to the real issue, which is that he's never said anything that hasn't been contradicted by other witnesses (who generally agree with each other), and that the Justice Department can no longer function under his leadership. The Ashcroft episode might speak to his character and political/philisophical ideology, but it didn't happen while he himself was Attorney General.
Still, I think the video completely lays it out.
More updates to come
~Sean