The Return Feed - 29 September 2008

[silveradept]

Back! Had several tonnes worth of fun on my vacation, even if I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep. Coming back to nearly 400 entries, of course, means that catching up will take some time, but it’s not impossible.

It’s time for news. I’m not completely sure I know where I’ve seen him, but lots of people are posting about Paul Newman's death at 83, so I get the feeling I’ve seen him in quite a few places.

I put this up top because I have to say it - about time. Jack Thompson, disbarred. Also, responds to disbarrment by filing suit, alleging civil rights infringement. It just won’t die. Suggest Marth strike him with a critical hit, and then we can all say “Looks like Jack Thompson is blasting off again!” and that’ll be the end of it. (Yes, I know, mixed media metaphor malapropism, most likely.)

Also, the Minx line of DC Comics is coming to a close in January, citing a lack of market for alternative tween female-oriented comics that aren't manga or romances. Wow. I’d bet that market exists, but the problem with marketing any book these days is that you have to compete with everything else, and even more so in the comics section.

China succeeds at spacewalking, sets their ambitions on a lunar surface mission. although, I’m still wondering when we’ll get to the point where we can start making manned missions outside the solar system. Puttering around in our own backyard is great, and it’s nice that China is the third country to send up missions into space, but we’re not going to be answernig great questions about the presence of life in the rest of the universe if we can’t make it outside our own star system.

Pirates seized a ship, found out it had tanks on board, have demanded ransom, but will likely be receiving the business ends of warship and plane projectiles. At least, that’s what the situation looks like right now, assuming the destroyers and such can do it without damaging the tanks or sinking the ship.

Discarding the Christianization of the story, the underlying truth that a lot of Iraqis risking their lives to help the American forces can't get asylum in America makes for wondering what the United States government is doing by not giving them a chance to succeed somewhere if the home environment should turn hostile. If there’s worry about religious minorities not being represented in the fledgling government, there’s worries that the minority religions might not be permitted at all. And, of course, the United States ambassador will take chances to attack Iran and accuse it of interfering in Iraq.

Naturally, the American economy is still high on people’s minds. the rush-job bailout bombed in the House, which makes Wall Street very unhappy but the taxpayers financing the move quite hapy, as it forces people to like, sit down and discuss stuff. Hopefully stuff that won’t end in trying to give the Treasury secretary the same unlimited power with the purse that the executive has claimed for himself. At the same time, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have given actual help to the homeowners suffering. so, at one-tenth the price, much more could be done, but no, we have to push the big bill that doesn’t help anyone but the corporate people and defeat the small bill that would help the real people. The corporation will get a free lunch that it shouldn't, while the people suffer. And the WSJ said that we needed to vote for the plan, because we needed to do something, even if said plan was very ill-advised.

Out of this, Professor tscheese provides an excellent summary of all her own very relevant, instructive, and informative posts on this matter, from beginning to the current continuing point. So if you need a quick refresher, or need to get up to speed fast, check out tscheese on the matter. At least it’s looking more and more like everyone gets blame, not just one side, well, unless you’re Seantor McCain, and then you’re claiming credit for the bill before it fails, and then blames the Democrats and Barack Obama for causing it to fail. After all, in the end, it's only money, right?

The Slacktivist gives a very hairy eye to Governor Palin because her interview made it sound like she can't empathize with the people losing their homes in this mess, which has resulted in heads being chopped off at least once in the recent history of the world. Thus having determined she has no heart, we’re well on our way to knowing that she has no brains, either, as she might buy young-earth creationism in toto, including the “dinosaurs and people existed together” idea, according to unverified accounts. It's not out of character for the Governor if this turns out to be true. Now we wonder whether she’ll have any courage, with by the way she was dodging reporters in her meetings with foreign dignitaires, it might be the Oz trifecta. It will take some wizardry to put her and Senator McCain in the Presidency, I’m guessing. After all, now she’s got conservative columnists calling for her to step down, a situation that puts the McCain campaign in a bind, because they’re facing a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. Pile on with Palin's pastor believing that the current economy should be taken over by Christians like him, and there are problems. To try and provide a brake to the runaway religious talk, Charles Haynes says that this campaign, religious has been used to generate new lows, new images, and new slurs.

Although, there is some good that the Governor is doing - the campaign to donate to Planned Parenthood in her honor is working quite well... so the thank-yous should start rolling in soon.

And then there were presidential debates, of which I hope a great and grand many people had drinking games for, even if they were just water shots. It makes things more enjoyable, and you pay more attention to what’s being said. FactCheck provides the creections needed for the candidates in their first debate, as some behind-the-scenes photographs appear on Flickr, and a rather Dewey Defeats Truman moment, where the graphic that McCain wins is already made before the debate actually happens. Bias? What bias? The WSJ finds the matter a wash, with no real winners or losers, and Peggy Noonan suggests the candidates do some work explaining to the populace why they have the affiliations they do, apparently because people still don’t quite get it. Or perhaps because, as she writes, America in general feels that all their leaders have become hopelessly out-of-touch and can't relate, regardless of who’s campaigning or in office or in power.

In other domestic news, the Secretary of Defense is being sued by an Spc who alleges that he was forced to participate in public prayer and that the military systematically violates the religious freedoms of its personnel, an evangelist is being arraigned on charges that he brought children across state borders for sexual activities, on which his personal belief that the Bible okays young marriage and encourages it isn’t helping, and some morons decided to chemcially attack a mosque where there were people praying, many of them children. That the chemical was apparently just an irritant is irrelevant, as it could have just as easily been something designed to ignite or start fires.

In the opinions, Bill Maher satirically implores the country to look past Senator McCain's race when making their voting decisions, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert talk seriously about the candidates and how media, even the satirical kind, is making the candidates into art-museum pieces,

Speculation that Israel has backdoors into the U.S. government and is using them to compromise national security, because the U.S. contracts out to countries based in Israel for a lot of intelligence work.

The great power of SCIENCE takes flight with a man crossing the English Channel on a personal jet conveyance. It also takes an amusing left turn at the blue sheep as an attempt for one farmer to know which of ewe has been breeding, and continues through to measuring brain wave responses to audio stimuli in bovines to detect the presence of mad cow disease, and the potential of four billion cell phone users worldwide.

----------------
And now, some political and ethical thoughts, supposedly of a controversial nature, in the form of several questions:

[01] Would you do meth if it was legalized?

Nah. No interest, really, and as far as I can tell, there are very few actual medical benefits from methamphetamine usage. I can see legalization happening as a way of attempting to drive out a black market and to ensure that the meth being used was actually meth and not cut with anything more harmful than what it was. At that point, though, there’s probably a serious addiction problem and the government is trying to get people off meth rather than on it. So, no, I don’t think I would - too many good reasons why the legalization decision is a warning rather than an okay.

[02] Abortion: Pro Life, or Pro Choice?

I would have to answer pro-choice in such a simple dichotomy. If I wasn’t savaged by shouting heads after saying such, I would note that my stance is not “pro-choice and I want every woman who has an unwanted child to get an abortion”, but that I feel that women, and specifically, each individual pregnant woman, is the best person to decide whether or not they want to have the child, adopt, abort, and to decide the method by which they will do so. Watch me bite a bullet later on in this meme, though.

[03] Do you think the United States would fail with a female president?

Absolutely not. Just because a political figure is XX rather than XY means nothing at all about their ability to lead, administrate, negotiate, and run the government. We’ve seen plenty of men fail or damage the country, so it’s not like all men are born leaders and great at their jobs.

[04] Do you believe in the death penalty?

Maybe. I say that because I don’t think the decision to end someone’s life is a decision to be made lightly, to be sought after often, or even to have a guideline on when to seek it and whether it’s a required seeking. I think the decision to seek the death of another should only come after careful thought and reflection and weighing the options to see if there is no other way, including imprisonment for the remainder of one’s life. I can see situations where the call for death would be justified, and the administration of death would be an acceptable outcome, if a suboptimal one, so that probably means that I believe in the death penalty. I think deciding on life imprisonment would be easier if there were saner rules on imprisonment with regard to certain drug charges. Which will be expounded on in the next question...

[05] Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?

I do. Not because I think everybody should get stoned, or I want to get stoned, but because there’s growing evidence that supports marijuana, in certain forms, if taken under the supervision (or at least the regimen) of a licensed medical professional, has benefits in several cases. As a Schedule I drug, though, that research is retarded and hindered, then buried as much as possible. Those for whom marijuana is a “gateway” drug to harder drugs would achieve the same with tobacco (which more and more looks to not have health benefits at all, and so may do better moving onto Schedule I) or alcohol or any other. There will always be abusers, and in much the same way as above, if the government legalized marijuana, it could then exert control over the purity of the supply, or establish official government marijuana as safe and legal. Plus, a legalized marijuana would probably clear out several beds in prisons across the country, possibly fixing the overcrowding problem and making it an easier decision to give someone the remainder of their natural life to contemplate the consequences of their actions.

[06] Are you for or against premarital sex?

That’s a very odd phrasing for that question. No, I’m not a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, nor am I of the opinion that everyone, at any age, in any situation, regardless of consent, should be having sex before the institution of marriage takes hold.

In some ways, I’m for premarital sex, because I think that the religious ceremony that is marriage shouldn’t be a requirement to commitment to each other, and atheists should be able to get committed and get off, which would all be technically premarital sex, because it happened before marriage.

In other ways, I’m against premarital sex, especially in cases where there’s no consent, like rape or pedophilic sex or any situation where one of the actors hasn’t given consent or doesn’t have the capacity to do so. Of course, in some of those cases, then I’m against marital sex and postmarital sex, so really, what my answer is is as follows:

I am neither for nor against sex. I am against nonconsensual sex. Marriage has squat to do with it.

[07] Do you believe in God?

If, by God, you mean the being represented by the Tetragrammaton, worshiped, at least nominally, by adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and possibly also the Baha’i and others), then my answer is “Don’t know.” The items offered as proof of his existence were written by those already convinced of it, and our current science is insufficient to test the matter. For which we may have to wait until “The Last Question” is resolved to know.

On a broader scope, I think I’m more inclined to believe in the possibility of many deities, but equally as thoughtforms that a mind such as mine uses to rationalize the capriciousness of the universe, as icons from which to attempt to effect change within myself or my environment, and possibly as actual beings who may or may not take an interest in my welfare as is their wont. I believe more in something like the Tao than God as described by religious followers.

[08] Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?

The state has no business making religious decisions. That said, religion has no business determining whether a state function should be legalized or not. As phrased, the answer to the question is “Yes, I hope that religious organizations come to the decision that they should include homosexual pairings in their blessing ceremonies.” If you’re asking me whether or not the official governmental apparatus should legalize homosexual unions and grant all the blessings that the state does to heterosexual ones, then I say, “Yes, they should have done it a very long time ago, and they have no real government excuse not to do so now.”

[09] Do you think it’s wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?

What, in the same sense that moths move toward a flame, because it’s in their nature to seek out what they perceive to be a better life here than there, hoping not to get burnt up? That’s not wrong. That they don’t follow the proper immigration protocols and enter the country illegally, yes, that’s wrong. Could the nation absorb the impact of such a mass emigration and find good above-the-table work that pays proper wages for them to live a decent life here? I don’t think so, but that’s more because the way capitalism is structured than the numbers that would flock.

So, yes, it’s wrong, by the way the question is worded, by definition of it being illegal. Solutions to the problem involve either making it so they can emigrate legally or finding a way to strengthen the home country so that emigration doesn’t look like such an attractive option.

[10] A twelve year old girl has a baby, should she keep it?

The depends on her support structure. Assuming that this was consensual and that both parties had the faculties to understand what they were getting into and the risks they were taking, then it’s not a question of consent, but of whether bearing and raising a child at that age is possible. I don’t know if a twelve year-old’s bodily structure has developed sufficiently to have a safe birthing - if it’s going to be unsafe to the mother, then there’s no sense in killing both children through a demented “culture of life” argument, even if just pushing for adoption.

In today’s society, it’s not, at least not on one’s own. If there are parents and grandparents and older siblings who will shoulder the grand majority of the raising work and the capital it will require, so that the mother can get to a point, education or otherwise, where she can take care of the child, it’s a possibility (although the kid would be entering kindergarten about the same time Mom was going to her first year of university). If Mom is willing to give the child up for adoption to a family that will be able to provide for it, then it’s also a possibility.

I am not in favor of bringing children into the world that cannot be supported or given their shot at a good life, and I don’t feel that a child’s life is paramount to the mother’s, if the pregnancy would be life-threatening.

So my general answer to the question is no, because there are a lot of factors for me that would have to all line up for both child and mother to be able to survive and thrive in the world, and I don’t think they align all that often.

[11] Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?

At least. I think that if we nixed the alcohol age entirely, we’d do better, by allowing children and teenagers to get familiar with alcohol on their own terms, with their own preferences, and to see the effects that happen to them while they’re still in a mental state that proceses things like drunkenness and hangovers as possible problems rather than as badges of honor. It might induce more respnosible drinking. There would be alcohol at an earlier age, certainly, but that also means that the family members, including parents, might be the first experience, too, rather than a party with people whose intent is to get you hammered. Depending on the people, they might take care of you, they might not.

[12] Should the war in Iraq be called off?

It should have never happened in the first place, based on what we now know about the justifications for the conflict and the way it was packaged and sold to the American people. That it continues now is tolerable in the “pick up after your messes” sense, but all the money spent on this could have been put to far better use.

[13] Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?

Another loaded question. For one thing, to assist someone in killing themselves makes it seem more like the right charge should be murder or manslaughter. Ultimately, the decision to end life at a particular point comes from the person committing suicide (or the person they trust to take care of their medical power of attorney), and not from someone else. Most of the assistance in this manner comes from atempting to make it painless and quick, and for me, seems to follow the Hippocratic demand to do no harm, in that context. Frankly, I would rather have someone go to a medical professional and have a a quick death than to go to a gunsmith or a ropemaker and commit suicide in a bloody or traumatizing manner to those who are then tasked with discovery.

[14] Do you believe in spanking your children?

Not particularly, from experience. This does not mean, however, that I don’t believe in discipline and guidance for young children so they can learn from mistakes and the experience of the older generation. Children are smarter than we believe, and they often don’t need something as violent as a spanking to correct them. Plus, The Weirdo wrote something about how spanking is essentially older people bullying the powerless, and I find that I agree with him on that angle.

[15] Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?

Without too much worry, but that’s because I could really use the money. Yes, it’s mercenary, and no, I don’t really think of it as saying anything otherwise. Would I just burn a flag for the hell of it? Not unless I really wanted to make the statement that such a burning implies. I’d be much more likely to fly it upside down than burn it.

[16] Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?

From what I have gathered on the candidates, my judgment prefers Senator Obama. Neither Senator, from what I have gathered, is the candidate I think would be the best ideal President, but the question doesn’t ask that.

[17] Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?

No more than they already would with what I’ve said before and will say afterward. Those that have heard me face-to-face and on the blog know that I have my opinions. Whether I speak them or not depends often on the company I’m in.

Comments

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

OMG! I totally judges u for ur anzers!

I really, really hate this list of questions. Mostly for the reasons you pointed out that most of them are worded in a very loaded way.

[silveradept]

It's like the question askers were aiming for maximal black-and-white and almost no grey area. Like they were trying to generate a controversy. I've seen it headed as the Controversial Question Meme, and with these sorts of constructions, it's easy to see why.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

she buys young-earth creationism in toto

That article is completely based on the say-so of some random schmuck. We need to hear HER say that, to the public, before we can say she buys young-earth creationism.

[silveradept]

Noted and fixed. It seems like this would be a true statement, but then again, a lot of people still think Barack Obama is a Muslim.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Seriously, these questions are practically SHOVING you towards one answer or another.

[silveradept]

Most definitely. Such a very black and white world, probably supposed to let all the extreme social conservatives pat themselves on the back and expound about all the evils in the world to their friends, and be able to easily demonize those who disagree or shoehorn those who are trying to put grey into it into picking. Must be one or the other. Sound bites only.