More way off topic political stuff

I couldn't find the part of the thread where somebody was saying how you have to vote for Gore because otherwise Bush will win and make abortion illegal, so I started this one. This is something from grassroots.com about that whole issue. It's a bit long so I hope no one's pissed that I've posted the whole article instead of just a link.

Ain't Fallin' For That One Again Michael Moore Release: Tuesday, July 18, 2000

I think the first time I remember hearing this political urban myth was in the 1976 presidential election. Somebody told me the reason I had to vote for Jimmy Carter was because if Gerald Ford was elected, women would lose their right to choose to have an abortion. Abortion had been legal for only three years at that point. It was considered a great victory, one we all wanted to support.

So, I voted for Jimmy Carter -- and guess what? One of the things he did was to stop all abortions provided for women or wives in the armed services! He also stopped any further funding to birth control groups overseas that offered abortion as an alternative. And he ended all Medicaid payments for poor women in need of an abortion.

I felt a bit abused. I mean, Gerry Ford had been pro-choice. His wife was an ardent supporter of women's rights. And it was a Nixon appointee to the Supreme Court -- Justice Blackmun -- that wrote the majority opinion making abortion legal. What was I thinking? (Other than that the Nixon Nightmare years had to come to an end! That, I correctly rationalized, was worth the vote for Carter.)

Four years later, Democrats and liberals were going nuts over the possibility that Ronald Reagan might unseat Carter. Dire warnings were issued to all: If Reagan gets in, abortion will be illegal, period.

Well, I didn't vote for Reagan OR Carter, Reagan got in, and then something strange happened: Abortion remained legal! Sure, Reagan built on Carter's abortion restrictions, but Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land when the Gipper rode off into the sunset eight years later.

Yet Reagan had appointed plenty of wingnuts to the Supreme Court, so when the doomsayers in 1988 warned that George Bush would CERTAINLY send women back to the alleys to have illegal abortions, another bizarre thing happened -- Bush got elected, and ... four years later ... ABORTION WAS STILL LEGAL!

But Bush did leave us with Clarence Thomas, so when the Democrats came to scare the bejeepers out of me with what Bush would do to a woman's right to choose if he got a second term, I decided to vote for Bill Clinton.

So what's happened under our first feminist-man president?

Perhaps Clinton misunderstood his mission: he was supposed to support a woman1s right to choose, not his right to choose women. Roe v. Wade is still on the books (mainly because of the consistent and unwavering support from the Reagan-appointed Justice O'Connor, the Ford-appointed Justice Stevens, and the Bush-appointed Justice Souter! They have voted to uphold abortion rights every single time). But it is now twice as hard for a woman in America to obtain an abortion as it was when Clinton took office. The anti-abortion terrorists have been so successful in their campaign of violence against abortion clinics and doctors and hospitals who perform abortions that a woman can now get an abortion in only 14% of the counties in the United States. That's right. Terrorism has scored its first victory on U.S. soil by assassinating enough doctors and firebombing enough clinics so that no one wants to perform an abortion. So if you live in one of the 86% of counties where not a single doctor will do an abortion, let me ask you this: what good is a "right" to an abortion if you can't get one?

The stunning thing about this virtual elimination of abortion in America is that it has occurred at a time when nearly 70% of the country supports some form of legal abortion. The terrorists have literally gotten away with murder -- with a pro-choice attorney general sitting in Washington, D.C., doing damn little about it. About the only reason I voted for these clowns was because of this issue -- and where the hell have they been?

Which brings us to Ralph Nader. Vice President Al Gore, on Meet the Press this week, told Tim Russert WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if George W. were elected president. Women would lose their right to have an abortion, Gore bellowed, with no equivocation and no hint of shame for what has happened on the Clinton/Gore watch.

All the pundits -- and the Democrats -- tell us that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush because all Ralph will end up doing is siphoning off votes that would have gone to Gore. This is their mantra:

"IF BUSH IS ELECTED, HE WILL APPOINT JUSTICES TO THE SUPREME COURT AND THEY WILL DECLARE ABORTION ILLEGAL!"

Well, I've fallen for this before and I ain't fallin' for it again. In fact, I will go so far as to say that George W. Bush, if for some reason he is magically elected, will NEVER do ANYTHING to make abortion illegal.

Here's my proof:

1. To recap what I have already stated: Roe v. Wade was written by a Republican, and upheld for 27 years by Republicans. No Republican president has made abortion illegal, and none will this time around.

2. George W. is, first and only, a politician. For crying out loud, if 70% of the country favors legal abortion, trust me, that party boy is NEVER going to cook his goose on this issue. He is already moving to the center on abortion and has been doing so since the primaries. He wants to win. He already has the majority of women supporting him in the polls, in part because a lot of women are confident he will not upset this apple cart.

3. The New York Times two weeks ago did a study of Bush's court appointees in Texas and found that he did NOT appoint right-wing crazies, but rather moderates or moderate conservatives who have upheld legal abortion in Texas and struck down some cases that tried to put restrictions on a woman's right to choose.

4. Sometimes even conservatives end up accepting that the tide has turned against them. The most stunning example of this came last month when ultra-conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist insisted on writing the MAJORITY opinion for the court upholding the Miranda ruling that requires the police to inform an arrestee of his or her constitutional rights. Now, you know a guy like Rehnquist personally just hates forcing the police to read someone their rights. But in his decision keeping Miranda the law of the land, Rehnquist wrote that the Miranda rights are now "part of the American culture" and therefore should not be done away with. Even pro-Miranda liberals had never heard that line used by the Supreme Court in backing a decision, but it was, in essence, the truth. Reading someone their rights is now like apple pie -- and so is a woman's right to choose what to do if she should become pregnant. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe it a decision best left with a woman, her doctor, her God -- and it's nobody else's dang business. That, too, is part of the American culture. It's called privacy, and it's been around for over 200 years. Nobody, regardless of their political stripe, wants the politicians or the justices in their bedroom.

So, this year, I'm not going to let the fearmongers scare me into voting against my conscience. And I'm not going to let the Democratic candidate for president cynically use this issue when he himself has served in D.C. for 8 years allowing the right to get an abortion to be whittled away to near nothing.

Plus, I believe the true Nader constituency out there is among the 100 million nonvoters who have given up, thinking they no longer have a say in what really goes on in Washington. Gore shouldn't worry about Ralph taking votes from him. Rather he should think about what his administration with Bill Clinton has taken away from the women of this nation.

Come November 7, I plan to enter the voting booth and vote not from fear, but from a desire to see this country returned to the people.

i'm sorry that this is off topic, but anyone who thiks it's okay to kill an unborn baby should just watch one and see how the do it, then decide again whether they'd do it on thier own baby.

Michael Pierry wrote in message news:[email]...

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whether abortion is disgusting or not is irrelevant. heart surgery is disgusting to watch, yet can be a good thing. the debate is about whether or not it is right to force a woman to carry what is effectively a parasite around for 9 months in her belly, when she doesn't want it there.

btw.. do you eat meat?

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 17:57:02 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

Wrong. The debate is whether or not a person has a right to kill another human being just because they are incredibly inconveniencing.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

Hold a tic. Parasite? Maybe the woman should be sexually responsible. In any case, no one is going to outlaw abortion now. It's just not going to happen, especially if your over 18. The debate is meaningless, political posturing.

Unless it's human baby meat, what's that got to do with anything?

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 17:26:14 GMT, "PeterTHX" wrote:

Perhaps because the slaughter of animals for food consumption is almost equally as awful, if not worse...

I'm not vegetarian (I don't have that kind of will power), but I understand those who are.

Cheers, Nicole Lee

http://www.neekole.com

"I'm the master of the zing zang zoom!" -- Conan O'Brien

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." -- Isaac Asimov

"No, no, no, Lisa. If adults don't like their jobs, they don't go on strike. They just go in every day and do it really half-assed." -- Homer Simpson

Daria Code v1.1: A D T3 Ws Q+ FN^Fr O- OH+Oo+Od m- c+++ MV C5X F:111,213,313,406 BB- FCD DT q fN

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 11:19:46 -0700, Nicole Lee wrote:

That's a fair trade. I'll support the outlaw of meat products if you'll support the outlaw of genocide.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

That's hilarious. You should probably sit down and have a rap session with a couple of lions and share your feelings about that. You can ask them if they feel any guilt about it when they're snapping a gazelle's neck or biting through a zebra's spinal cord.

But the greatest thing of all, the ultimate irony, is that the reason we HAVE these big brains that allow us to develop these half-assed ethical aversions in the first place is because we needed the power of reasoning in order to be able to compete with other predators for... (say it with me now)... MEAT! Yes, that's right, your self-righteousness is the product of millions of years of evolution to allow you to more efficiently do something that repulses you but which, as you all too willingly admit, you do anyway because you're too weak-willed and pathetic to stop participating in a behavior which you find morally repugnant. I think that if there is a God, he is laughing his ass off at ALL of us. Especially me, for having to post stuff like this to feel good about myself.

--snip a long and unwarranted, insane rant--

I'd like to apologize. I really have no self-control sometimes. I'm so ridiculous I don't even know what to do with myself anymore. Nicole didn't deserve whatever the hell crap I just spewed at her anymore than anyone else here does. You all are cool, intelligent people and I should just chill out and think for a minute before I post something stupid like that. Again, I'm really sorry, just ignore me. I'm an idiot and I have no idea what I'm talking about. I should probably be in a padded room somewhere. God this is embarrassing.

In article , Michael Pierry writes:

"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors but I think that God's got a sick sense of humor and when I die, I expect to find him laaaaaughing..." ;7 -IdentityCrisis

[email] (IdentityCrisis1) wrote in :

Odd that's exactly the lyric that popped into my head when I read that :) The interesting thing is when they released it, they released it as a double A side, incase Blasphemous Rumors got banned, as the BBC seem to have a habit of doing to stuff the considder 'dodgy' :)

Phill.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 10:09:34 GMT, Michael Pierry wrote:

*sigh* That wasn't my point. I wasn't saying killing animals for food = bad. I was saying that the way that *most* of the way animals are killed for food is quite inhuman. One example is that some fishermen have been ripping off sharks's fins and then dumping the whole body in the water afterward, while the thing is still half-alive. Some cattle farmers are also known for killing off their cattle in a similarly inhuman manner.

I think it's okay to eat animals if they are killed in a proper way that will result in the least pain to the animal. Of course, the animal also has to be not on the endangered list etc. Like I said, after listening about some slaughterhouse practises, I can understand why some people are vegetarian. But that doesn't deter me from my enjoyment of meat.. it's a personal thing.

Cheers, Nicole Lee

http://www.neekole.com

"I'm the master of the zing zang zoom!" -- Conan O'Brien

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." -- Isaac Asimov

"No, no, no, Lisa. If adults don't like their jobs, they don't go on strike. They just go in every day and do it really half-assed." -- Homer Simpson

Daria Code v1.1: A D T3 Ws Q+ FN^Fr O- OH+Oo+Od m- c+++ MV C5X F:111,213,313,406 BB- FCD DT q fN

You want to know what the sad thing is? I already *knew* that. I was just feeling stressed-out, needed to lash out in some way, so I picked you. Luckily you're way more reasonable and emotionally stable than I am, so you didn't feel the need to respond to my puerile accusations with more of the same. Could we trade brains please? Just for one day?

Actually, what I said in and of itself is probably not a bad little piece of writing, just that it was directed *at* someone, that was my error. I should've finished it, read it over again, said, "Hmm, what a lovely insane rant, it certainly doesn't belong at alt.tv.daria though," and then put it up on my webpage (the proper place for all evidence of my rapidly deteriorating mental health).

Michael Pierry said:

That's at least partially true ... the human brain is an energy hog, and it would have been almost impossible for our pre-civilized ancestors to consume a vegetarian diet which would sustain such a high-maintenance organ. It's possible today to use carefully-contrived combinations of fruits, vegetables, and other plants, with vitamin supplements, to make it work, but it would not have been possible in the wild.

Probably not even possible before modern biochemistry, refrigeration, and international high-speed commerce. The common characteristic of human populations which suffered low-meat diets before 1950 or so was stunted growth, both mental and physical. ("Meat" including "fish", "seafood", "dairy products", and "eggs", of course).

Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, will go out of their way to procure meat, even attacking their own kind to this end. They behave in ways that make it obvious that they prize meat above most other foods.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

..

Why carefully contrived? As long as you have a varied diet there should be no problem. I've only ever heard of one vegetarian who needed vitamin supplements, and I think her problem was essentially a medical one. One reason we are always being exhorted to eat more fruit and vegetables is because they are a good source of vitamins and minerals.

I think millions of Hindus would dispute that. I don't know if they have been vegetarians for all of their 3500 year history but certainly they didn't wait for the invention of refrigeration. Also Trappist monks have been vegetarian for over 300 years. Vegetarianism was also advocated by many in Ancient Greece and Rome.

I'm not sure whether you have any particular culture in mind here, but if there is any truth in this I would suspect that it's mostly to do with poverty - being able to afford meat has in many cultures been a sign of affluence, and those who couldn't afford it were probably unable to afford enough food of any type, or might be dependant largely on one staple food with insufficient variety to achieve a balanced diet.

Other than that there were however periods prior to the discovery of vitamins where some populations suffered various ailments due to changed methods of food production and/or a change from their traditional diet. For instance, pellagra was rife in the USA for many years, not because of lack of meat, but because at the turn of the century manufacturers had "improved" the way they milled corn, unwittingly removing the part which contains niacin. Indeed I suspect this is what you are referring to: pellagra mainly affected poor people who couldn't afford a varied diet which included alternative sources of niacin (eg. meat and dairy produce), and it disappeared by 1950, because from WWII onwards corn producers were persuaded to add niacin to their products to replace what had been lost in the milling process.

-Shez.

Shez said:

Because you can't get enough proteins, minerals and vitamins to support full health by simply eating enough fruits, vegetables, and other plants to "feel full", as you can if you eat an omnivorous diet. The tables of nutritional content which make it possible for modern vegetarians to pick a diet which sustains them are the product of an advanced science; they could not have been constructed before the early 20th century, when we finally learned the role of vitamins in human health. The required foods include many which were bred by modern farmers; pre-agricultural Man couldn't have obtained them all in any one place. Many of them originate from very different geographical areas; only the development of transoceanic commerce makes it possible for the same man to eat all of them in the same sitting.

No, they haven't. Most Hindus aren't vegetarians, either: it's a religious ideal but one normally practiced (in pre-modern times) only by elderly men (who, note, had already finished growing). At that, India is a major source of legumes, one of the types of foods that almost every vegetarian diet _has_ to include.

Children need a _lot_ of protein to build their growing bodies. It is _possible_ to obtain this much protein from a vegetarian diet ... but it is not easy.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

i don't think that's true, and remember that most non-vegetarians are pitifully unhealthy anyway.

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 19:01:35 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

An unsupported statement.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

i thought it was fairly accepted that people in general are unhealthy.

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 23:59:50 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

That's too vague of a statement to have any real meaning. You'd have to define "pitifully unhealthy". Then you'd have to explain why you first applied it ONLY to non-vegetarians.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

ahhh, i *meant*, people who aren't necessarily vegetarians. but i didn't say that, because i'm stupid. :)

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 23:59:50 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

Not hardly. Life span's are ridiculously up in comparison to the rest of human history.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

Christopher Morton of Weigle Defense Force -

There have been various nutrition surveys in the UK which show a lot of people are eating too much junk food and not enough fruit and vegetables, and so are not getting their RDA in vitamins and minerals.

E.g. one study showed that modern 11 year olds' diets (which researchers had compiled from detailed food diaries) was the "worst possible diet", worse even than that of poor people in the 1930's. They were found to be eating mainly sugar and fat, and no fruit or veg., with the result that they were growing up to be fat and unhealthy.

-Shez.

On Tue, 15 Aug 2000 02:16:39 +0100, Shez wrote:

But isn't the BRITISH diet traditionally unhealthy? : )

I remember reading a book by a guy who was a reporter in Shanghai in the 1930s who commented upon how small and unhealthy the British were (himself included) and that was before WWII. He attributed it to diet.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

That is simply untrue. I suspect you're overlooking that grains, pulses etc are plant products, not meat. You're also overlooking the fact that most vegetarians also eat eggs and/or dairy products.

Nutritional tables are indeed the products of advanced science, and although useful, people have survived without them for millennia. In the absence of food science, the diets followed by cultures around the world have evolved by natural selection. If you look at the staple diets that have resulted you will often find the non-meat component alone usually gives a reasonably balanced diet, which isn't surprising given that meat has often been something of a luxury for a lot of people. E.g. traditional combinations such as beans and tortillas or beans and rice give you a full complement of amino acids.

I would be interested in the source of that statement. If anything I thought vegetarianism amongst Hindus was falling rather than rising. And I can't think of any reason why the vegetarianism practised by Hindus of all ages today shouldn't have been practised in the past since the same foodstuffs are available.

Not if they eat dairy products. But I would agree that it's a good idea for people to eat their peas.

About 25-30 grams a day for younger children, rising over adolescence to about twice that.

It's easy to obtain this much protein from a vegetarian diet. For instance, half a pint of milk a day and two rounds of peanut butter sandwiches (or beans on toast) would meet the protein requirements of children up to about age 10.

-Shez.

Shez said:

You can't support full health that way by simply eating enough to "feel full", you have to carefully balance your diet to include specific legumes and other special plants which concentrate the same sorts of nutrients you'd normally be getting from the meat portion of your diet.

Which is of course cheating, in the case of eggs and one could argue in the case of dairy products.

To support scrawny, stunted, developmentally retarded people. Ever notice that everywhere in the world, both height and weight have climbed noticably after full industrialization? Or why the average age of puberty has dropped from 16-18 (medieval times) to 12-14 (modern times)?

It's an _essential supplement_ for FULL growth, and is treated as such in most pre-industrial cultures, where the warriors got to eat more meat than the non-warriors.

Not all traditional cultures had beans _or_ rice as major dietary components. It's notable that the two which did were able to survive on very small meat intakes, though.

(One of them, the mesoamerican, used _human_ meat as a food supplement for the warrior classes!)

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

you have to balance a non-vegetarian diet to include adequate but not excessive amounts of meat, too.

why is that cheating? eggs and dairy products aren't alive.

On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:17:31 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

That's a distinction without a difference. Eggs come from animals. If fertilized, they lead to a chicken. It's meat.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

You were the one who wanted to feel full. I was just saying it's easy to achieve a balanced vegetarian diet, which it is.

What's with this hang up about legumes? Do you hate peas or lentils or something?

Why is eating dairy products or eggs "cheating"? Vegetarians avoid eating meat, that's all.

You just love to insult whole classes of people at once don't you Jordan? I suppose I shouldn't take this stuff too seriously though as I get the impression from the weird things you're coming out with that you're probably just trolling.

So most people have more to eat than they used to, but what has that to do with anything?

No it isn't. Sources please.

That was just an example. I'm not about to make a list of traditional meals, I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

-Shez.

Shez said:

If you don't have nutritional tables (the products of our advanced modern science), how do you tell when you've achieved a "balanced vegetarian diet?" You're assuming modern knowledge, and projecting it backwards anachronistically.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

ditto "balanaced omnivorous diet".

Alli said:

An omnivorous diet doesn't have to be as carefully balanced as a vegetarian one, because you're eating a greater variety of foods, some of which are much more energy-dense than most vegetables.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

says who?

Alli said:

Um ... biochemists and nutritionists? Basically, humans evolved as omnivores, and our bodies handle a wide variety of food better than a limited selection of foods.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

In article ,

That's why my uncle, who consumes an above average quantity of rare beef (which I would supposed is a problem in itself) and baked potatos, is always sick.

It's also the reason why people make big deals about "balanced diets" and "the food groups." The healthiest people tend to take a little bit of their food from as many different groups as possible (though going with just vegetables, as opposed to just meat, *might* be very slightly more healthy - I don't know one way or the other, but I don't see myself going either way anyway).

Theoretically, you can. If you can break through the illusions created by desire and get back to eating according to instinct.

Basically, drop the junk food - all of it - and restrict yourself to eating real food with nutritional content. Then, staying within that rule, eat according to appetite.

(Note, you may need to deal with current eating disorders first, as they screw up your sense of appetite.)

Your body knows what it needs. We've forgotton how to listen to it, and had to supplant it's messages with, for example, nutritional tables.

I'm guessing we forgot that about the time we decided reason was everything and instinct was base and sinful.

[email] (PeterTHX) wrote in :

Effectivly yes, it lives off it's mother drawing all it needs from her and giving basically nothing in return, so yeah I can see that that definition fits.

Maybe, yes, but then again there are rape pregnancy cases also, which the mother didn't have the choice of being responsible.

I mostly agree with this yes.

Yes, homo-sapiens evolved as omnivores, so I don't have a problem, as long as it's not other sentient beings (e.g. humans).

Humm Dunno Alli, care to explain ?

Phill.

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 18:10:27 +0100, [email] (Phill Harvey-Smith) wrote:

It wasn't used for the definition. It was used for the negative connotation.

These are borderline strawman.

anti-lifers will constantly point to isolated incidents.

I'm willing to allow abortions in rape cases (barely. It's unfortunate, but that child has a right to life once conceived), and life-threatening ones if all other murders of this type are outlawed.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

PeterTHX wrote:

But what happens to the man's responsibility? The second a man can get pregnant, or at least stuck with the child, after a sexual liaison, is the second I will allow that the impact on abortion rights is as much felt on males as it is on females. Not like it's ever going to happen. Men will continue to be treated like heroes for going for as many partners as they can and women will continue to wind up trying to deal with the consequences.

God I hope you're right. There are some extreme right-wing nuts out there who want abortion illegal at all costs, including the costs of human life. And I honestly don't think that little collection of cells is a human being until the third trimester, because human beings have the ability to breathe and think and reason and digest and that really doesn't fully happen until the 6th month.

I think she's going for the fact that those who eat meat are reaping the benefits of an actual slaughter of a living being. Oh wait, Nicole answered that already...I'm sorry. Anyways, I eat meat. LOTS of it.

LI (just passing through)

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 22:04:25 GMT, Lady Interference wrote:

Ok, so men are not equally sexually responsible, and that's wrong. I'll agree 100% there.

It does not justify the murder of a human being.

No way in hell. Take a look at your average poll. The issue is almost dead split in America.

Until you can point to the second it has life, you can't make such a judgement.

You don't believe there's a difference between humans and animals, on a social or moral level?

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

that's rather a matter of opinion, especially as said human being is usually murdered when it is little more than a lump of goo.

you don't think that an adult pig is worth more than the cluster of cells that constitutes a human embryo?

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 11:10:05 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

Human beings may be highly complex lumps of goo, but we are still lumps of goo at all our stages.

No.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

i wouldn't describe myself as a lump of goo, personally, but there you go. :)

well this is where we disagree. different ideas of what should grant one a "right to life"?

missy aggravation of M.U.F.F.I.N.S. writes:

You're not gooist are you? What are your feelings about primordial soup?

-Shez.

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 18:29:29 +0100, Shez wrote:

Well, mine are that it's a ridiculously long shot that life came out of such a complex enviroment, ecspecially considering that primordial ooze is mostly water, which tends to DEcompose rather than compose.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

you think it's more likely that something simple would produce life?

On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 00:01:17 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

Actually, yes. I think even if I find proof Christianity is wrong, I'd still have a lot easier time believing in a force being our human perception than mere happenstance.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 04:05:01 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

I'm getting there real fast. I got some extra credit of my "freshman fifteen" at college.

Exactly.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

Babies will die without intervention when born. They are totally helpless. They are not yet fully formed. They act only on instinct. Does that make them less "alive"?

Pigs do not and will NEVER think and reason beyond instinct and stimuli. But _all_ embryos, barring death or retardation will grow into something that will think and reason. It's inarguable that once the sperm and egg fuse, it's an independent life form. It's neither the mother or the father. But I do admit, until people can act responsibly, abortion is a viable option. But it's still a moral quandry.

Pigs have outperformed chimps in intelligence tests, and given that apes are capable of planning their lives several days ahead (and without the help of a diary or organiser!) I would imagine that pigs are probably capable of thinking about things and planning ahead too. What holds them back is their body, which lacks hands etc., also of course that most of them are kept in captivity in unimaginably boring places where there's little to do apart from wallow in the mud (not that wallowing in mud is necessarily bad, but it's nice to have something a little more intellectually challenging too).

-Shez.

Did anybody else see that special on Animal Planet where the pigs are playing video games? I'm not kidding. I'm waiting for the day when you can go down to your local arcade and see a crowd of people gathered around the Pac-Man machine, cheering some little oinker on to high score. Sort of a modern-day Charlotte's Web if you will.

This was shown as part of the BBC's QED series in the UK. One observation was that pigs have been selectively bred over many generations for meat and not for intelligence, yet they are still more intelligent than chimps. They also proved to be much smarter than dogs (which were unable to master video games without getting help from a human), also (as in the film Babe I think) a piglet successfully learned to round up sheep by observing a sheepdog at work.

Apparently the discovery of intelligence in pigs came as no surprise to pig farmers, but it has proved disquieting for many bacon eaters, most of whom would probably avoid eating monkeys or dolphins.

-Shez.

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 18:24:46 +0100, Shez wrote:

I'll have your share of the pork chops. You can keep the chit'lins.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

does something being "alive" make it intrinsically wrong to kill it?

oh bullshit. pigs and humans both think and reason, it's just a matter of the amount of thought.

isn't everything?

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 18:04:07 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

No. Only things with an accepted right to life. Specifically, human beings.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On 12 Aug 2000 22:05:30 GMT, herecomethehawks@hockeymail.....com (Kyle) wrote:

Specifically NOT fetuses.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

Oh. So we get to *choose* who has a right to life and who doesn't? How convenient.

George Carlin pointed out the inherent bias of the right to life and sanctity of life theories: all were created and supported solely by the living. Dead people probably do not give a shit about the sanctity of life. But we can't exactly survey their population to get their point of view, now can we? I say any argument in which it's impossible to even *ask* the other side for their opinion on the matter is highly problematic to say the least.

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 13:10:13 GMT, Michael Pierry wrote:

Not really. I'm going by the basic theory that society as a whole has accepted the general belief that all human beings have a right to life. Some don't, but the whole does.

Nope. So we should assume the worst case scenario.

But yet we have to do it anyways.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

I really wanted to stay out of this debate, but this just annoyed me. The only thing that separates humans from most other animals is an opposable thumb. Every animal has a brain which makes decisions based on stimuli so that is a completely bullshit argument. Give the chimpanzees a few more million years and they might be just as advanced as we are.

As I said before, the government has no right to dictate a decision that is based on a person's personal beliefs. If you don't like abortion, don't have one and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 13:30:26 -0400, Jon Reiss wrote:

No, then they won't be chimpanzees any more, just as we aren't australopithecines any more.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

Jon Reiss said:

only

All animals have brains, not all are "sapient" (capable of self-conscious reasoning). Humans are definitely sapient; some other higher animals (chimps, gorillas, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, African grey parrots, and elephants) may also be, but we're not sure.

In my opinion, one day we will be able to prove or disprove "sapience", and will grant civil rights to some animals based upon their possession of this quality. We certainly _should_ do so once our science advances to that point, anyway.

What if my "personal beliefs" include that I have the right to kill anyone who annoys me? Shouldn't the government punish me for committing murder in such a case?

The issue in pro-choice vs. pro-life is whether or not the fetuses should be treated as "fully human" (and thus possessing civil rights), or not. It's not a question of "personal beliefs", since the government already _does_ intervene to forbid people from doing MANY things they want to, some of which (murder and theft) I don't think many of the people posting here would like to see other people getting away with!

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

indeed. why should a woman have to carry a live human around inside her for 9 months when it wasn't *only* her who didn't use adequate birth control?

well. i think it's human, but so what? bacteria are bacteria. doesn't mean it's wrong to kill them if they live inside my body without my consent. i don't think there's anything intrinsically special about humans - i only hold humans in higher esteem than bacteria because i am human.

i like meat. however i don't like the idea of eating dead stuff. :)

In article , missy aggravation writes:

Uh, Alli, do I really need to point out just what kind of *very* unsettling images that statement brings to mind? :7 -IdentityCrisis

Hehe, i did notice that before posting but thought the response to it might be more intersting if i left it as it was. ;) What i *meant* was that i like meat but don't eat it, because i think it's icky. :)

Alli said:

You rip pieces of meat off living animals, revelling in their futile struggles and pleas for mercy?

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

"Jordan S. Bassior" wrote in message news:[email]...

struggles

Yeah, too gooey. It must be hell trying to season it! :-)

(Pleas for mercy? "Mooo! Pleeease dooon't kill meeee!")

You may not _mentally_ consent, but _physically_ you do. Your body will change physically and hormonally to actively support and protect that fetus. That is why it's not a parasite. A host doesn't actively protect and support a parasite.

i'm trying to think of an analogy here. argh. nope. if i think of one i'll post.

well it does, if said parasite is a baby. ;p

I don't see how consent can occur involuntarily. It seems to me more a case of the foetus changing the woman's body without her consent, which brings us to the idea of the "woman's right to choose" - that a person should be allowed to control their own body.

-Shez.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 20:21:17 +0100, Shez wrote:

I believe the word is "paradox", and that's what he's caught in.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

What's the paradox? Don't you guys take biology?

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 21:39:16 GMT, "PeterTHX" wrote:

The subject was "consent". I believe you posited "involuntary consent".

Perhaps it would have been clearer if I'd said "oxymoron".

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

Not at all. What I was saying that there is a difference between mental and biological consent. A woman may not want the baby, but her body will do everything it can to support that baby (to the argumnent that somehow it was a "parasite"). Genetic programming kicks in. We wouldn't need abortion if a woman could "will" herself to either not get pregnant in the first place, or "naturally" abort the fertillized embryo.

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 23:58:45 GMT, "PeterTHX" wrote:

There's no such thing as "biological consent". If there was, you could be said to "consent" to malaria, filiariasis or schistosomiasis.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

You, in a way, just proved the point. When a body is infected, it produces more white blood cells and other antibodies to the intruder. It tries to KILL the invading virus. It does NOT for a baby (self-abortion). Instead it produces hormones and the uterus is "reinforced". The other diseases mentioned aren't supported by the body either.

Very simple biology. A woman can't will her body to not support that baby, not without damaging herself in the process (physical injury, starvation, etc.). What don't you understand?

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 16:53:25 GMT, "PeterTHX" wrote:

You in a way just conceded the point. Parasitic diseases cannot survive unless they SUPPRESS the immune response.

Unfortunately, it's very simple biology which you don't seem to understand.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

"consent /verb/ to say that one is willing to do or allow what someone wishes. --consent /noun/ agreement to do what someone wishes, permission. [from /con-/, + Latin /sentire/ = feel]"

i don't think that sounds like biological "consent" counts.

why would "natural" abortion be any different to normal abortion? same result, no?

The body will support and protect the fetus, even to the expense of itself. The part of the brain you can't control (just try stopping your heartbeat mentally for example) makes that happen.

Because, normal abortion is dangerous. If it weren't, we wouldn't need trained medical personnel to perform it, yes? Natural abortion would be something like the woman producing antibodies that would go in and kill the embryo, or not allowing the uterus to close so the embryo slips out the next cycle, or shedding the uterine wall so the embryo cannot stay in (the same process that gets rid of the non-fertillized egg every menstrual cycle). The closest thing is RU-486, the "morning after" pill which basically does exactly that.

as you can't control that part of the brain, i don't think it can "consent" for you.

ahh yep, ok, i thought you were saying that it's morally better if it's natural. <snip stuff i agree with>

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 20:50:37 +0100, missy aggravation wrote:

That's ok, your consent isn't neccessary. You have no right to take an innocent human life no matter how inconveniencing you may find it.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On 14 Aug 2000 01:19:28 GMT, herecomethehawks@hockeymail.....com (Kyle) wrote:

She has every right to an abortion. You can't stop her.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 22:51:15 -0400, Christopher Morton wrote:

Only legally. And that will change eventually.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On 14 Aug 2000 13:25:07 GMT, herecomethehawks@hockeymail.....com (Kyle) wrote:

And if you repealed the 13th Amendment, do you think I'd pick cotton without pay?

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 17:31:44 -0400, Christopher Morton wrote:

No people are free when some people don't have the right to life. They are simply serving a suspended sentence.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On 15 Aug 2000 18:59:16 GMT, herecomethehawks@hockeymail.....com (Kyle) wrote:

And no one is free who does not have the freedom of their own body.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

Kyle wrote:

You're sounding dangerously naive Kyle.

On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 02:09:50 +0930, Affinity wrote:

Hardly. I'm sounding dangerously lucid. No matter how many catch phrases (when did we go from "pro-life" to "anti-abortion activists" in the media? Damn spin-controlling liberals...) or strawmen (I have trouble believing that the % of abortions involving the life of the mother at stake is anywhere near the % of abortion activists using that rare happening to defend the killing), I see the path society goes down when they start devaluing human life, and I don't like it.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 16:53:25 GMT, "PeterTHX" wrote:

It will also support and protect liver flukes.

--- Gun control, the theory that Black people will be better off when only Mark Fuhrman has a gun.

Check out:

See, this is what scares me about the right to life movement. This is the kind of thinking it tends to produce. "Biological consent"? The hair on the back of my neck is standing up right now. Hmm, I wonder what else one could justify via this concept?

"Your honor, if you'll look carefully at Exhibit A, you'll see from the photos that the cadaver's body BIOLOGICALLY CONSENTED to being riddled with bullet holes; it offered no resistance whatsoever and simply allowed the bullet to go right into the flesh and puncture several vital organs, and in a couple of cases pass clear through to the other side. A clear-cut case your honor: this doctor committed suicide, due to guilt over performing abortions."

"You shot him eight times."

"Yes, I did shoot him your honor, but he biologically consented. If you want, you can call it assisted suicide, but as far as I'm concerned he killed himself and I had nothing to do with it. If he'd not consented to die he'd still be here."

A bad analogy. Unless the body "shot itself", or aided the damage caused by the bullet holes it doesn't hold up. Study biology, the embryo becomes priority one to a female's biological process, whether she "thinks" she wants it or not. I'm not for banning abortion, I merely am disproving the assertion that somehow an embryo is a "parasite". The body, if it can, will produce toxins to destroy an invader (white blood cells, antibodies, etc). It will not click in several brain functions that will allow a parasite to be actively supported (hormones, mammary glands, umbulical, closing and thickening the uterus, etc.) All that happens with or without the woman's consent, no?

The analogy was intentionally ridiculous.

Well that's the point. "Biological consent" as you originally put it, is not consent. It's just a set of involuntary functions. I'm not questioning your knowledge of biology, I'm questioning your use of language.

missy aggravation wrote:

Perhaps then the couple should only have sex when both of them are using birth control, if she is so against carrying a live human around for nine months. It seems like that might be at least more of an effort to ensure against pregnancy.

Whoa. . .a baby doesn't have a choice in the matter--it's not like a baby can ask for permission to stay there. The parents are the ones that put the baby there to begin with--they're the ones that gave the baby consent to be there.

I believe eating meat is more natural (look at any omniverous or carniverous animal) than killing one's own unborn baby. I think it also serves more of a point.

--Jan

do you shit in the woods? hey, you obviously own a computer - that's unnatural!

Lady Interference said:

There are "living beings" and there are "living beings." I'll go out of my way to kill a pest like a hornet; have no remorse about the death of clams, fish, or even cattle to appease my foul hungers; but would risk my life to save a child, or even a dog I knew personally.

You evil Texan you ;-)

Hey, any left for me? :)

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

Unfortunatley, that's the fault of our genetic "programming". We're fighting something like a hundred thousand years of evolution here. If it were a 24-hour clock, it's only been in the last few seconds that human gender attitudes have been changing. Realistically, it will take another second or two before all men will be able to suppress unconsciously whatever hormonal urges and instincts that have been with us since the first humans walked the earth. Fortunately, we can think and reason and suppress them now. Men really have no excuse for "conquests", but that's exactly what happens when thought stops and instinct takes over.

Well, that's why they're extremists. There are extremists who want anyone who's not like them either killed or enslaved. But they are truly a minority.

A newborn really isn't thinking and reasoning either. Can you remember anything from your first year? Once the genetic materials of a man and woman fuse it's an independent life form. Most of the abortion debate is over when it's "acceptable" to kill it. All cells breathe, digest, and excrete BTW.

What separates us from animals is conscious, intelligent thought. True, a fetus' actions are entirely instinct (and so is an actual "born" baby's), but an animal will NEVER "think" and "feel" intelligently.

Human's need meat. We are _meant_ to do it.

It's unfortuante that we need abortion at all. However, until all people can be sexually resposible, it's an option. I do not support outlawing it. I don't like speed limits either, but unless everyone drives responsibly, they're needed. And in the case of rape and incest, there's no question.

At the same time, there are women who use it as birth control. It should be a last resort.

it may not be outlawed, but it may as well be. most counties in the us do not have a singkle abortion provider. oh well, back to the coathangers. i guess women dying of blood loss and septic infections are a much more palatable sight than a woman not held hostage by her uterus. Saerah "Are we going to the same place? if so, can I come?" ~ Eddie Vedder "The Almighty thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fucked."~Stephen (from Braveheart) "Practice deliberate acts of kindness and purposeful acts of beauty"

yes dear. it is not part of her, yet it takes food, oxygen, etc, from her body.

maybe the woman was raped. maybe the condom broke. maybe the pregnancy will kill her. maybe she wanted the baby, and then decided against it. maybe she had her fucking reasons. who are you to judge?

if killing something that has more in common with a fish than an adult human is wrong because it is revolting, isn't chopping up cows AND EATING THEM wrong, because it is also revolting?

(note: i am not saying that eating meat is wrong, just that it is icky.)

Alli said:

Heart surgery promotes life. Abortions promote death.

I actually agree with you. Which is why I think that in the long run technology will render the debate irrelevant; once the capability exists to remove the baby and sustain it outside the womb indefinitely and cheaply, very few civilized countries will insist on killing it!

Yes. And I don't consider killing something nonhuman and non-sapient the equivalent of killing something human and potentially sapient.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

abortion promotes the life of all the poor little pigs that the unborn child will probably go on to eat, and all the bugs he/she'll step on. :p

well yes, although over-population may become a problem.

who says animals aren't sapient?

Alli said:

Killing human fetuses, if no longer necessary for even the _convenience_ of the mother, would be hideously barbaric.

No positive evidence that any nonhuman animals are. If any are, the prime candidates are apes, dolphins, whales, elephants, and parrots. None of which I am in the habit of eating, or for that matter have _ever_ eaten (to the best of my knowledge).

Pigs are the only at all intelligent animal customarily consumed in the West.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

ronp wrote:

You know what? This is off-topic. The point of that e-mail was not if abortion is right or not, it was if it would be made illegal. And it won't be, so get used to it. If you don't like abortion, then don't have one.

[email] (Jon Reiss) wrote in :

Agreed.

Indeed, though being male I'll never hopfully have to face that desision, not having the required parts to need to make it (personally that is) :)

Phill.

[email] (ronp) wrote in :

So what are you sugesting as a solution then ?

Phill.

*gets out her flame-retardant suit out* Oh boy...this argument always gets out of hand... -J The Leopard Lady AIM: JillCat42 "Why settle for vanity when you can have pure egotism?"-Jane Lane "The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know."-Pascal "We're practicing for the millenium, making love at the Chelsea Hotel"-Dan Bern

[email] (Jill Friedman) wrote in :

It hasn't *YET* as someone else quipped we've managed to not fall out over most things (except the guns thing even then we're all talking again I think :) ), we've just agreed to disagree.

Phill.

Sexual resposibility, especially in the age of HIV. Personally, I believe abortion is wrong, but it's a necessary evil. It won't be outlawed again. No matter who's elected President.

[email] (PeterTHX) wrote in :

True, that will help, but there is nothing that is 100% efective as a contraceptive (well apart from abstenance), and then again, what about pregnancy resulting from rape.

Indeed, I do mostly agree with you there.

Especially outside of the USA :)

Phill.

Oh that's the victims fault for not carrying a gun. :-)

<ducks>

Finnegan begin again.... -J The Leopard Lady AIM: JillCat42 "Why settle for vanity when you can have pure egotism?"-Jane Lane "The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know."-Pascal "We're practicing for the millenium, making love at the Chelsea Hotel"-Dan Bern

Michel Morton ([email]) wrote:

Assuming the atheists are wrong, even abstinence is not 100% effective...

[email] wrote in :

Well actually that statement is not entirely true, after all Christianity is not the only religion. Hell here's a thought regarding that please note don't read on if easily offended by irrevernce. Jesus IMHO is illigitimate, after all Mary and Joeseph(sp?) where not at the time married, and anyways he wasn't the father anyways.....heheeh at least I'm in good company, J.C. (and I don't mean Mr Carmack there :) ) and William the Conkerer oh well :)

Phill.

True; most religions (that I'm aware of, at least) do have the possibility of 'immaculate conception' within them, though.

Hell, Zeus spawned half his kids himself.

[email] wrote:

Actaully, if abstinence was judged by the same standards as other conteceptive methods, its fails 100% effectiveness even without resort to 2000 year old urban legends.

For every other methods, "use failure" is counted along with method failure. That is, if girl #1 says "I'm going to use condoms for conteception" and then forgets one night because she ran out and he's already there and its too late to run to the store, a pregnancy resulting from that incident will be counted as failure of the condom method. SO, when girl #2 says "I'm going to use abstinence, its 100% effective" then gets into too much heavy petting and just gets carried away, a pregnancy from that should be counted as a failure of the "abstince method". And when abstince is judged the same as other methods, it actualy has a comparitively high failure rate.

not that this has anythign to do with Daria, I just like to point out the flaw in abstinence only thinking.

i really dont think any man has a say in this, unless he is the one who got the woman pregnant. and then its still not his decision. this is not a theocracy. if you think abortion is wrong a) dont have one, if you are a woman or b) dont have sex without birth control end of discussion. Saerah "Are we going to the same place? if so, can I come?" ~ Eddie Vedder "The Almighty thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fucked."~Stephen (from Braveheart) "Practice deliberate acts of kindness and purposeful acts of beauty"

I go down the shore for a few days and look what happens ;)

Mike Quinn [email]

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