jfields

Remster, Good to hear you'll be attending. Keep your fingers crossed and hope Skreamer can't make it.

It wouldn't matter, as long as the kosher pigs didn't eat him with dairy.

Ditto basketball and football.

Women, condoms and beer all fall into this category.

Don't you mean 1-900...? Kidding, Michele.

As a temp, you can also find other work really fast, so it is easy to just say, "Seeya!" When I worked as a temp, I registered with like 6 different agencies, and I was busy turning away overflow work until found my permanent job and told them all I was done.

This is where I don't understand the logic of the pro-life case. What is the difference between "probability" and ".007% possibility"? Numerically, I know the difference, but in either case, I don't understand your rationalizing the difference. Where is your authority to decide for the mother? If I were to kidnap you, chain you to a chair, hold a revolver to your head, and pull the trigger, would it be fair with one bullet but unfair with 2? How would I have the right to decide for you? You aren't a criminal, have done nothing wrong, and are a thinking adult human being. Really? Please post supporting facts, including a breakdown among deaths at licensed clinics versus the unlicensed ones women would use if it were illegal. Those statements also are valid for parasitic worms, cancers and burrowing ticks. A blanket ban on abortion would apply to blastocysts (?) far smaller than any of the other living things I mentioned. What about a dog? A dog's owner has the right to take it to the vet and have it put down. If the issue is human life, then what of the death penalty, war, deadly use of force by police and citizen self-defense. All those things take human life as well. Are they all wrong under every circumstance? Your stance values potential sentience over actual sentience. Whether the embryo is "part of the mother" or "just getting sustenance from the mother" is kind of a silly differentiation. You can't look at the dramatic physiological changes a mother goes through during pregnancy and say that the embryo is a totally separate entity. If it were, why would the mother get morning sickness, have her feet swell, get food cravings/aversions, and any of the many other changes of pregnancy? If it were separate, why the umbilical cord? Your comments on test tube babies could become pertinent, should technology change. If technology was sufficiently advanced that we could remove the blastocyst, emryo, or fetus (depending on developmental level) alive and transfer it to an artificial womb without endangering the mother at all, then you'd begin to have a point for banning abortion. There are some facts that can't be argued away: 1) Not all pregnancies are consenting. 2) Pregnancy and childbirth dramatically and irreversibly effects a woman's life. 3) Pregnancy can cause the mother's death. 4) You aren't the father of every child born. Those are indisputable facts. So, given the effects on the mother, the risk to the mother, and the fact that you aren't even the father, I fail to see your authority to dictate the terms of the mother's life. Please explain where you get the right to do so. I agree with that. I'm not pro-abortion. But I don't see how anyone but the parents have any right to dictate their actions. It would be great if rape didn't happen, bad choices didn't happen and every conception was welcome. It would also be great if every pregnancy ended with a safe childbirth and a solid family unit. But that isn't reality. I think we need to keep the option of abortion legal as a last resort for some of the times when things aren't on the path we both want. Thanks. I couldn't agree more. She is the light of our lives. That would be great!

Shut up, Dave. Just suck it up. If I can escape and fly in from Maryland, you can make it from Texas. No more excuses!

I put up a new thread in Events and Gatherings, along with the start of the attendance list. I'm going. If Southwest sold tickets this far out, I'd already have them. Bring it on!

Skydive Arizona Dropzone.com 2nd Annual Holiday Boogie Definite Attendees List: jfields .... Step up folks. If you've cleared it with your boss, your S.O. and your wallet, throw your name down. I'm good to go!

I'm so getting a taxi.

Always premature....

Sheep are cheap dates.

But then when they are to harrassed to get anything done, at least it doesn't matter/

Do ones with babies count extra? You know, like another added bonus for difficulty? I'm not saying you'll be successful, but you might as well try for the most points you can. [starting to look up phone numbers for taxis]

That should be "pffft, what person would give any Justin a ride"

Cool. Didn't know they were so close. I guess I'll confirm my canopy class at 'snore then. Wahoo. Two DZs in one trip. Three if I can sneak in Skydive San Diego after my wife picks me up from Perris.

Cross posted from the "Places to Jump" forum.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey folks. I'm going to be getting a ride from San Diego to Perris from Keith. I found that the canopy training I wanted to do is unavailable at Perris when I'm there. However, some digging found that I could get coaching on June 30 from Elsinore Evolution. How far is Elsinore from Perris? I won't have a car, so I guess I'm looking for a regular Perris jumper who feels like making a day trip to Elsinore. Anyone fit this description? I'd hook you up with gas money and dinner on our return to Perris or something. Thanks!

I bet your bruiser already outweighs Lucy by a few pounds though. I sense jealousy! Dangit, now he's gonna go get video. How can I top that? Hmm... I know Joe Jennings used an Imax camera. Maybe I can borrow it.

Muahahahaha! April 25, 2002 for Lucy. Mininacmac? Yep. Even including NacMac's runner up.

You miss the point here, and pass the buck. In this scenario, after the initial crime of rape, the woman does not have to die. Rather than the rapist being charged with her death, it ought to be those that deprived her of the right to potentially save her own life. Would you be willing to go to jail for murder because a mother died in childbirth you told her she had to have? If not, how can you justify your authority and responsibility over her body? Either you are responsible, with appropriate punishment, or she is. You can't have it both ways. Yes. Innocent people going to death row and being executed happens too. Because it doesn't happen every day makes it okay? Would you be okay if you were sentenced to death and executed for a crime you didn't commit? If you think that is fine and cool, then I doubt your honesty. If you object to that, how can you ask that of a woman? Rather than discussing odds, the flat fact is that you are trying to order a woman to risk her life against her will. That is wrong. Sure it robs them of the sovereignity of their bodies. How does a rape victim choose to be pregnant? How does a rape victim choose to have her body altered forever by childbirth? As I said in refutation of your last point, how does a rape victim you order to deliver the baby choose to risk her life in childbirth? Throwing cloning and genetics in the discussion is just a diversionary tactic. It is moot, because it has nothing to do with abortion rights. You are talking about taking away a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body. We aren't talking about mad scientists running around and stealthily using in-vitro fertilization to rape women. She has a responsibility to a collection of cells forced into her unwillingly by a rapist? I have no doubt that women are aware they are taking a human life, but nobody else has the right to take the choice of their own life from them. And this applies to rape how? I certainly believe in being personally responsible. You are trying to take the right/duty of personal responsibility away from women. I agree with this. Really, I do. That is the ideal. No argument at all about that. But what about the person that doesn't want to have baby, maybe because they are 14 and not even sexually active, but a victim of rape. You are commanding them to go through with it, no matter how much it may wreck or end their life. In that scenario, no, they are not being mistreated or violated in any way. But you are attempting to expand the ideals into a very different real world. That attempt to take the woman's choice out of the issue is an injustice to women. The few that do... well, I don't agree with that either. So I'm with you there. Life shouldn't be taken in a cavalier fashion. Here is one of the fundamental contradictions. In part because of the risk of childbirth death, the "pro-life" view is really misnamed. It is more "pro-embryo", "pro-fetus" or "pro-baby", because a sweeping ban on abortion would directly cause the deaths of some mothers. The strict stance against abortion clearly correlates to a view that unborn fetuses are more important than adult women. I object to that characterization.

So if she is forced to deliver the baby, your answer is "well, she can just give it away"? That is condescending in the extreme to women. Feelings, duty and love, however bittersweet, mean nothing? There is no way a man has a right to tell a women what she has to do with her body. How would you feel if you were unwillingly dragged off the street, sent to the hospital and given a procedure that gave you x chance of being sterile, y chance of being castrated and z chance of death. Fun, huh? Speaking of that, you do realize that if implemented, your "pro-life" stance will result in the murder of rape victims? Yes, murder. Any pregnancy is a major health risk. Despite our best medical technology, women still die in childbirth. If you completely take away the mother's choice, as well as the doctor's responsibility to the mother, you are condemning a certain percentage of women to death, by the very fetuses you insist they carry. "Pro-life"? I don't think so. All that stance does is rob women of their soveriegnty over their own bodies. If women don't have that fundamental right, you are reducing them to the level of mindless fetal incubators. I hope no woman in my life ever gets treated like that. I do not know any woman that takes the issue of abortion lightly. They generally understand it at a much deeper level than men do. We do not have another life coming forth from our bodies. Yes, a life. I'm not debating that a third trimester fetus is alive. But the mother is to, and her rights are not meaningless. You feel no pain of childbirth, no pain of raising a baby you didn't want, alternatively no pain of giving away your child, and you sure have no risk of your own death from telling a woman she has to deliver the baby.

Two can play that... Instead of: "We think that raped women should have to suffer through the birth of their attacker's child then be victimized further for the rest of their life by their responsibility to raise that child they didn't want in the first place" we hear "Pro-Life". Instead of: "We want to keep the money we make, no matter what, and if that means short-sighted cutting of essential services and the degradation of the quality of life for many low-income Americans, we don't care because the fuckers must be stupid and lazy not to already be rich" we hear "economy-stimulating tax cuts".

Then prepare for the stakes to be raised. It is time to start in with the Lucy videos. Nacmac, give in?

I think that is half the issue. I'd like to think that the president would tell the truth unless there were a real security reason why he can't. But I'm not naive enough to think that is the case. I also think that lying to the American people repeatedly on national television in an effort to take us into a war would be pretty serious, even if not under oath. I'm not saying there weren't any, or that we might not someday find them. However, I am calling into question the validity of pitching that as the reason we went to war. If we had the hard facts they say we did, I think we would have found things by now. If we went on suspicions, we should have been told they were nothing more than guesses. The snake-oil salesmanship of politicians belonging to both parties irritates me.