Crazy Logic Around the Abortion Issue

 I just saw this article posted yesterday in the Boston Daily online magazine:

The Sex Education of Mitt Romney by Barry Nolan

It discusses an audience question directed toward GOP presidential campaigner Mitt Romney. Essentially the questioning went:

  Do you believe life starts at conception?  Yes

  That would mean banning most forms of conception. Why are you against conception?  To which Mitt, apparently, responded with a stunned silence.

The article then critisizes him for his seeming lack of knowledge of the functioning of contraception, stating the questioner was correct.

To which I respond with saddness at the seeming lack of logical deduction abilities in the average reporter today... and with the following observation (originally intended as a comment on the site, but since they require the article to be shared on facebook before comment, I chose not to):

------->I'm not republican (by a long shot), but I will suggest that perhaps Mitt was 'tripped up' by the seeming illogical 1+1 = 3 of the question. If anti-abortionists believe life starts at conception and contraceptives prevent conception, then fertilization has obviously not taken place and there is no issue of whether you're harming life because there is no life there to harm--from anyone's point of view.

For contraceptives to be considered harmful to life, even by anti-abortionist views, life would have to be considered to start at the level of sperm or egg. That would be a difficult sell, however, since male masterbation or, indeed, a woman's menstration could both be considered acts of murder. In fact, couples would still be committing murder even if sex lead to fertilization, since only 1 in millions of sperm 'survives' (oh yeah, and since sperm die after a few days anyway, whether used or not, men would be committing murder just by existing).<-------

 This article exposes some of the craziness that arises around the issue of abortion. Especially when it's mixed with politics.

Lightspeed Dreams vs glacial progress

There is a big issue regarding superinjunction in the UK right now. I won't comment on my personal opinion in this post, but rather, my comment is reserved for an article that suggests that twitter and facebook should be censored in order to uphold such laws because they are like internet media outlets.

This idea is, of course, completely crazy.

The editorial is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/24/twitter-ryan-giggs-social-media

and my response is here:

This is clearly written by someone who misunderstands the technology of the modern age completely.

Twitter and Facebook are no more akin to media outlets than talking to your neighbour in the street is. They are far more like textual mobile phones, than newspapers. And I don't think Richard would dare suggest a delay after every sentence communicated over cellular, just so the censors could confirm its legality. Or what about big brother agents standing on street corners with directional microphones listening to all conversations on the street?

This is yet another example of the glacial pace of the establishment clashing with the lightspeed dreams of modern technology. One of them has to give, and unless the establishment is willing to take us back to the caves to maintain control I'm sure it will be the glaciers.

The Illegal War in Libya

I wrote this as a forum post in support of the article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/02/nato-gaddafi-libya-air-strikes?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

because some of the posts seemed to show such a naivete that it was frightening.

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Bravo on all counts.

Accurate on all counts. I have trouble believing that thinking readers understand otherwise, and I have to put down crazy comments like:

Make no mistake, Nato's strategy violates international law, shows callous disregard for the innocent, and prosecutes a war approved by no international body,

--> Wrong on all three counts.

to astroturfing (that is: the 'Wrong...' comment). Especially as the poster gives no further elaboration on what anyone can clearly see is a gross, illegal, but entirely expected, overstepping of the original mandate.

Otherwise, some of the 'enlightened' posters surely would have to question why we're expending so much energy on Libya when other, much worse regimes, are not being addressed (Saudia Arabia, as mentioned in the article, is essentially the king pin of all terrorism, but also our greatest financial supporter).

And, yes, such 'enlightened' posters would have to conclude that, once again, money and oil are doing the talking. Libya has one of the largest oil reserves in Africa. That and its proximity to Europe make it an ideal country in which to install a puppet government.

Even if such 'enlightened' posters ignored the black gold issue, they would have to question the ethics of appointing ourselves (along with US) as global policeman. After all, no one else wanted us to have the job. No one begged us to invade them and most countries spend their time either laughing at or loathing us. Even more worrying is who polices the policemen?

We run around the world professing to help downtrodden people in areas that suit our economy. But think. If Britain or the US had a civil war (and mark my words, it's not too far off) do you really think we would want someone like China or Russian to come in and 'help' us?

I can't help but think that the majority of 'enlightened' posters would answer a resounding 'no'. To which I must conclude that they are hypocrits. If we don't want to be policed, what gives us the right to police?

And now, as the western world rejoices at the 'death' of Bin Laden (buried at sea?! come on, you can do better than that U.S.) we are supposed to conveniently forget that we were complicit in an invasion that killed an estimated 30 times more civilians in Iraq than the 9/11 attack (not officially, of course, since allied forces conveniently decided not to keep count). Our leaders are as big criminals as any despotic regimes we're currently attacking. Yet none will ever come to justice, since justice seems to be a concept only available to the west.

Anti-Nuclear Rhetoric

I was reading The Double Standards of Green anti-nuclear Opponents by George Monobiont in the online Guardian--a very balanced look at nuclear power and how it dangers compared to other energy sources are often exaggerated and, as usual, once finished I went browsing the comments and following up some of the links provided by concerned readers. I came across one comment a few times that I just can't reconcile with my understanding of reality so I decided to write a comment, which I'll share here.

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3. The creation of energy through renewables has the potential to spread wealth, generate employment, and increase equality.

The above comment confuses me, yet I've read it in various places by different people. For the life of me I cannot see how renewable energy has the potential to do any of those things.

1) Renewable energy collectors / transducers / distribution lines will still be built by companies who will still reap most of the benefits (even government contribution will be reduced the way the UK is going).

Energy production/distribution is big business and building a different type of energy generator is not likely to change that. Even if we each have personal solar panels everywhere, we'll still have to buy the equipment etc. and there will be some form of tax to make us pay more (or, in UK, we'll have a few sunny areas we'll go where we'll pay to rent space for charging our panels!).

Building a personal wind farm is impractical due to money and space (again, especially in UK where there are more people per square km than China, and a lot less area. However, you may be able to rent a windmill at a reduce rate...)

2) I can't see that the construction would require that many more people but, in the case of wind, it would obviously require much more area also --> would that not result in greater damage to the environment? Even the sea has creatures and ecosystems and a wind farm has a huge footprint.

Maintenance would likely be similar for both

Any renewable source requires almost no further human intervention apart from maintenance, construction and manning the stations--same as non-renewable sources (i.e. no mining, shipping, waste removal, etc are needed). Therefore, any non-renewable source almost by definition would supply more jobs.

3) Given the above--that wealth will remain localized to the companies, and that there will not be any more jobs than with non-renewable energy--how will renewable energy contribute to greater equality? I just don't see it.

So, I'm quite confused by some of the arguments and would appreciate some clarification.

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And I would, because some of the arguments put forward by the anti-nuclear lobby seem full of meaningless utopian rhetoric.

Edwin

Religious Thought: War on Drugs?!

I find it strange that we in the west have had a war on drugs for at least the entirety of my life, it seems. Yet, the euphoric state of peace and carelessness is exactly what much of Christianity prescribes to being in heaven. Many I've talked to will say heaven must be much like being in love all the time (in love with God, of course) and little else seems to enter the picture. Of course, the obsessive, euphoric state that we commonly describe as love is a highly disturbed period of a person's life that's not unlike an addiction.

Now, I don't know about you, but I would find trillions of years in a drugged haze to be a vast waste of existence (not to mention the obvious question: why would God want to keep everyone in that state?).

So, basically, Christians are a vast organization of pushers in the midst of a turf war. They're trying to run all other drugs off the street to get a monopoly for their own version.

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Supplemental thoughts:

(1) Perhaps the 'chosen' represent those who are most susceptible to the drug!

(2) Why would God want an 'army' of mindless, addicted souls?

Updated Religious Thought of the Day

Mythology = old beliefs

Religion = new beliefs

The Truth 101: Going to Church

People do not go to church because they want to believe in a higher power than themselves. People find religion because they want to believe in a higher power than themselves. They go to church because they want someone else to tell them what and how to believe about such a higher power.