Stop the Religious Rude Before They (Try) to Think Again...

Please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE would some sane human explain to the crazies on the Religious Rude that 5-day old embroys aren't big enough to kill, let alone be alive!!!

You know, this religious radical conversion of reason to insanity *is* the fault of liberals--we were tolerant of their flat-world fundamentalist insertion of biblical nonsense into the discourse of reasonable topics--we tolerated their delusional insistence that they had/have a place at the table with thinking adults.

THEY DON'T!!

I say take a page from the book of the Republican proto-fascists when it comes to how you treat those with which you don't agree: RUN THEM OUT OF THE DISCOURSE ON LEGISLATION.

I feel better now.

--EU will fund human stem cell research without cloning, killing embryos: "Opponents object because scientists take those cells from a 5-day-old embryo, killing it. "

Carpet Bomb Ann Coulter NOW--Before Someone Takes Her Seriously

Why can't we just carpet-bomb that media harpie Ann Coulter? I mean she has no discernable human value--I don't think she actually is human--and she never brings anything intelligent let alone intelligible to the table. I still don't think she's even a female--she has the self-loathing of a sex-change gone bad--real women just aren't that stupid.

Right-wing pundit proposed "carpet-bomb[ing]" Iran when asked -- again -- by a Fox host what she would do as president: "Summary: For the second time in recent days, a Fox News host asked Ann Coulter what she would do if she were president. Coulter's most recent reply -- during a discussion on Sean Hannity's radio show of Iran's potential development of nuclear weapons -- was that she would 'carpet-bomb them so they can't build a transistor radio' much less a nuclear weapon."

Abortion as a Basic Human Right: YES

As long as this survives:

Slavery thrives. From Albanian sex workers to Indian cigarette-rollers to black Africans bought and sold in Mauritania and Sudan: According to latter-day abolitionists such as the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group, more people -- AASG estimates some 27 million -- are owned now than ever before.

This must thrive:

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Abortion Is a Basic Human Right: "Amnesty International is in the midst of considering whether to include access to abortion in the list of rights that it supports. Many other organizations and individuals have long made the case that access to safe abortion services is a basic human right, one that saves thousands of women's lives and protects the health of many, many more.

--snip--

As 70,000 women die each year around the world as a direct result of unsafe abortion, and 600,000 more are seriously injured, human rights activists should move quickly to ensure that Amnesty makes this historic decision. As somebody who is aware of the impact that Amnesty can have on governments, I will be doing my utmost to support the proposal. "

WHY? Because women in slavery breed more slaves and only to their sick masters delight. To all my anti-abortion readers this is my reply in advance: when you put your money into world reform in the advancement of peace and poverty eradication instead of the coffers of your Washington lobbyists, you can talk to me. Until then, save it.

The Bush Government is Managing Iraq Coverage. Now if They Could Just Manage The Occupation...

The more clear it becomes to me that an illegitimate government is running the United States the more angry reports like this cause me to feel:

Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Covering Iraq: "FP: The Bush administration often complains that the reporting out of Iraq is too negative, yet you say they are managing the news. What’s the real story?

RN: You can only manage the news to a certain degree. It is certainly hard to hide the fact that in the third year of this war, Iraqis are only getting electricity for about 5 to 10 percent of the day. Living conditions have gotten so much worse, violence is at an even higher tempo, and the country is on the verge of civil war. The administration has been successful to the extent that most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made. They keep talking about how the Iraqi army is doing much better and taking over responsibilities, but for the most part that’s not true."

Air Force Spending Half Million to Study...Blogs?

Huh. Now why would the military care about blogs? Oh right, that My Favorite Terrorist Camp Experiences Web-Ring Diary threat...yeah...

U.S. Department of Defense Transformation News Story: "ARLINGTON, Va., June 29, 2006 – The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism.

Dr. Brian E. Ulicny, senior scientist, and Dr. Mieczyslaw M. Kokar, president, Versatile Information Systems Inc., Framingham, Mass., will receive approximately $450,000 in funding for the 3-year project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.”"

Not Enough Fish in the Sea

Here's just one of the many arguments for choosing the precautionary, not economic, principle when it comes to policy. Preservation--not of species for their own sake--but ours:

Not Enough Fish in the Sea: "The more it is tested, the more compelling the hypothesis becomes. Dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia and other neurological problems seem to be associated with a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids, especially in the womb. The evidence of a link with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and dementia is less clear, but still suggestive. None of these conditions are caused exclusively by a lack of these chemicals, or can be entirely remedied by their application, but it's becoming pretty obvious that some of our most persistent modern diseases are, at least in part, diseases of deficiency."

Can Native American Women Save Our Right to Abortion?

Yeah I know there are wingers who believe we have no "right" to abortion, but that is just personal opinion. Outside the laws of the USA--or any country for that matter--there are laws that go to higher principles and no, not the mythical principles of the Sky Fairy. There are laws that spring from the good sense and logic of a human mind. People know rationally that a multi-celled reproduction of oneself is *not* a holy mission from said Sky Fairy to populate the shit out of a stressed economy whether that economy is national or the much smaller one of a single family. Unfortunately, thanks to Republican fundamentalist pandering born of the only life they value: devotion to winning at any cost--particularly to the cost of people--we will have to put up with the fundamentalist BS of anti-abortion (which is *not* by the way, pro-life--it is pro-control of anyone with whom they do not agree)--until saner (liberal) minds prevail...

Pine Ridge Leader Faces Battle Over Abortion Ban: "Native American women are raped three times more often than women of all other races in the United States, according to 1999 U.S. Department of Justice data.

Abortion, Fire Thunder said, is part of the aboriginal right of tribal women throughout North America. Until the advent of missionaries and their boarding schools a century ago, the knowledge of terminating pregnancies, both physically and spiritually, was passed down through women's societies.

'You would talk to that spirit,' Fire Thunder said of the fetus. 'You would say, 'I can't take care of you right now. Please, go back.''"