Tag Archives: thought policing

The Right to Self Defence

This was originally meant to be a reply comment to this post at According to Hoyt, but as it has multiple links, it’s easier to write the comment here, and link only ONE thing in a comment.

A common accusatory meme about gun control that usually pops up after a school shooting is ‘you love guns more than you love children.’

The meme is wrong. It is because I love children that I believe they should be defended with every resource possible – and if that requires guns, then so be it. I would rather the ones wanting them dead to make a name for himself or herself be the one dying of bullet wounds, than the children.

Having been taught by my father – yes, I know, cis-patriarchal and all that noise – to gasp value my own life over that of my attacker, I consider self defence one of my most basic rights. Since I live in Australia, I’m fairly sure that people will disregard my opinions on this – which is a mistake, since my perspective is that of someone who is more vulnerable as a result. I cannot carry anything specifically for self defense – not a gun, not a knife, no pepper spray. Maybe a rape whistle?

Folks at ATH know me as someone who is teeny tiny – I’m 4’7, and am likely to shrink with age. I also brawled a lot as a kid and well into my teens – y’know, because there were people who thought I was ‘less’ than they were -racism being the usual reason, because an English speaking Asian always stands out in places like Germany and France; basic bullying being the rest of it – and I frankly disagreed with the idea that I was less than anyone else, and refused to bow down to physical attempts at pushing me into the box of ‘less.’

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Going with the flu and a bit about SESTA

First off, I’m very sorry for missing out on a bunch of things I really needed to write about. SESTA and why it’s a horrible bill that’s pretty much a reincarnation of SOPA/PIPA being pulled into the guise of being anti-sex trafficking but really a censorship bill being one of these things, and the small stories / trips down memory lane I was planning to write up.

Y’see, here in the land Down Under, we’ve got this lovely (coughmotherfuckinglybadcough) flu season. I caught it last week. I thought I was having a bad case of allergies from a local grass fire (they do controlled burns and sometimes, I’ll react, some times I won’t… and I was reacting…) but instead of just being allergies, it hid the fact that I had caught flu. A very bad case of flu. This savage thing’s been killing people over here. Everyone, except for our 10-year-old boy caught it – fortunately, not all at the same time. Even the eldest caught it, and she’s usually the one with the most robust immune system in the family. I’m starting to get over it, but I don’t want to push too fast and too hard because I don’t want to end up making things worse for myself in the long run. So after I post this, it’ll be back in bed for me, and I don’t think I’ll be 100% for a while.

Funny about the boyo not being sick; he’s usually the one who brings home the plagues from school, too.

Luckily, (or unluckily) it’s the school holidays, so the kids aren’t missing school, but at the same time this killed about a week of work for me and things I had planned to do through the holidays.


(This part is a repost of the comment I wrote before regarding SESTA, with links to things and notes added in.)

Summary given to me, to boil it down –

Right now, all the services that we use for discussing, blogging, conversation have, for the most part, no responsibility for the content that is hosted on it. We are able to write about anything we want, discussing anything we want. The blog host (say, WordPress, or Blogger, or Tumblr) is not responsible or culpable for any of the content their users put out. Similarly, the bloggers, or original post writers are not responsible for the comments that result – legally or otherwise.

SESTA changes that. Platforms would be responsible for the content displayed, and blog owners would be responsible for what people say on their blogs, as if they had been the ones to write it themselves.

The relevant line is this (source):

This carefully crafted legislation offers three reforms to help sex trafficking victims. The proposed legislation would:

Allow victims of sex trafficking to seek justice against websites that knowingly or recklessly facilitated their victimization;

Remember the various discussions we’ve had over the years – such as during Sad Puppies, or say, like the one where Larry blogged about that Ms America candidate who was pro self-defense? There was someone who came into the comments and made it seem like everyone who was arguing in favor for self defense was enabling rapists (Shadow’s note: that mindset exists, by the way), and not only that, she argued that we should change the definition of rape to allow for women who felt they were raped but claimed that ‘this doesn’t necessarily need to have legal consequences.’ (Note: Her fuzzy definition was met with outrage; my original response to this idiocy is here) Or, for example, the discussions recently where we talk about self-responsibility, and I cited that Tumblr post where from the story of the writer most of the people she described engaged in purely reckless behavior and then were raped… and somehow it’s up to other people to ‘start the change.

People who responded, either negatively, or arguing against those stances would be – let’s be honest here, conflating isn’t new – easily positioned to be ‘in support of sex trafficking – because some of the victims of sex trafficking might have been a bit reckless but were also unlucky enough to end up being trafficked. Or that rape victims were also trafficked.

Not only could our detractors complain about those comments, they could have the blogs shut down for ‘recklessly facilitating sex trafficking victimization.’

Nothing we say, even if we police ourselves, would be safe.

Say one of the trolls who frequently shows up goes to our blogs while we’re on our low-activity time, or while the blog owner is asleep, and makes a comment, completely unrelated to the topic at hand, saying “I know where we can get young boys.” The comment doesn’t get deleted for some time. The owner of the blog would already be a ‘sex trafficking facilitating criminal’ – because under SESTA, the blog owner and the hosting service is responsible for all content and is legally culpable. Then the allies of that troll submit a report citing that comment and claim that the blog is in violation. And escalate it.

Boom. Gone. You don’t even get to argue because you can’t.

Even blogging about writing – police procedurals, chatting about how to realistically portray fictional criminals or crime, or how to write thrillers – would potentially fall under the ‘reckless’ because “Sure, you’re writing fiction, but then someone took your ideas and used them in real life!” – kind of like how there’s a train of thought out there that Tom Clancy gave Osama Bin Laden the idea to crash a plane into American monuments because it happened in one of his books.

Am I fear mongering? No. I am not. I simply understand the social climate we are in now – dissent must be erased by all means. This could easily be used to chilling effect – beyond chilling effect, in fact. Brexit wouldn’t have been able to happen, Trump would not be elected, there wouldn’t be any voice for anyone wanting to say “No” or “But wait…” or “I think…”

All that would matter are the ‘victims’ or ‘potential victims’ or ‘hypothetical victims’ that could be ‘harmed’ by those ‘haterbigotracistnazipatriarchycishomobhobescum’ daring to say anything out of line.

Look at Antifa. Look at the media. Alternative media wouldn’t. couldn’t exist. We wouldn’t have anywhere safe to talk. Remember that we are not considered remotely human or worth protecting, that we are, in the view of the rabid, controlling Left, the Social Marxists, outside the protection of the law – and that the laws are supposed to be a weapon to keep us quiet and cowed and silent.

I can’t do anything but warn my friends in the US from here in Australia. DON’T LET THEM WIN.

==end of comment repost==

 

I’m not sure I’ll be able to write more about about SESTA (link goes to the US congress page on it), I can point to a few VERY helpful pages where they wrote about it.I really wanted to write about it and I know I said I would, but I’m sorry. I’ll have to put this down because I will not be able to write about this in any timely manner, and I hope you’ll forgive me. However, please do read about it.

This lovely Techdirt article, Why SESTA Is Such A Bad Bill covers most of the reasons why it’s bad, and manages to do so without swearing. It even comes up with examples that I wouldn’t have thought of. I encourage you to read it, especially my friends and readers in the US.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more on how badly SESTA will damage freedoms and have catastrophic chilling effects on speech online, but does absolutely nothing in preventing sex trafficking at all.

The Housemate reckons that it will die at this point and I hope he’s right but, folks over in the US, don’t let up! Make sure it dies. I’m in Australia; I can’t do much except give that heads up. OvergrownHobbit wrote a very good and quick How You Can Help, and I hope ‘Hobbit doesn’t mind that I put it here too.

 

How to reach your elected representative: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
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Please don’t use the victims of sexual trafficking as an excuse to destroy American liberties.
Right now, all the services that we use for discussing, blogging, conversation have, for the most part, no responsibility for the content that is hosted on it. We are able to write about anything we want, discussing anything we want. The blog host (say, WordPress, or Blogger, or Tumblr) is not responsible or culpable for any of the content their users put out. Similarly, the bloggers, or original post writers are not responsible for the comments that result – legally or otherwise.
SESTA changes that. Platforms would be responsible for the content displayed, and blog owners would be responsible for what people say on their blogs, as if they had been the ones to write it themselves.
As a librarian, and a union employee, my freedom to speak up about controversial issues could be abrogated if a Trump “pizza-gate” activist decided to use law-fare to shut down the social media site. For those on the right, if the next president and congress are Democrats, they could face a similar shut down.
Please stop this bill.
And now, it’s time for me to lie down again, as the headaches and aches everywhere are back.

This is how you do it

So, recent posts have been complaining about the “Made To Care” method of ‘supporting a cause’ – but I’m pleasantly surprised today by a more considerate method of this from a surprising source.

That link goes to the Australian Government’s informational site on the whole voting thing.

And you know what? I’m okay with that. Why?

Because I have the option of clicking on it. It’s not an obnoxious auto-redirect to pro-gay marriage sites, and the site it links to is the official government site about the matter, which is all that’s important on it. The rest of it is up to the people. Yes, I’m using screenshots because Google’s main homepage is regional and affected by where you are. So, I’m not sure how you’ll see this outside of Australia.

So, kudos to Google for being …oddly upstanding on that. Given Google’s history I’m actually surprised by the low key and neutral presentation, but it’s a pleasant surprise, and appreciated.

Still, I share the same concerns about increasing technological presence and monopoly mentioned here.

===

In related news, this vote is important, not just for whether or not same sex marriage goes through. I think the Australian people have the awareness that this is not just as simple as so many pro SSM advocates make it out to be. In fact, from England is a great example of why it isn’t.

For one thing, since SSM was approved in England, there have been changes and proofs that the No voters have every reason to be validly concerned about a Yes to SSM being the start of a number of erosions to Australian rights, protections and society. After all, it has happened in the US and England – indeed, it’s been declared that ‘Same sex marriage won’t be ‘proper’ until Churches can no longer opt out.’ This is in direct conflict with the usual assurances that there would have been protections that would allow religious groups and people to opt out of ‘participating in SSM’ – but as WordPress.com’s stance and other pro-SSM groups and speakers have shown, “Acceptance Without Exception” is the full end goal – a truly Orwellian aim that seeks to remove any dissent.

It became clear, during this year’s general election, just how militant the LGBT lobby have become, following marriage redefinition. The primary target was Tim Farron, leader of England’s third largest political party, the Liberal Democrats. High-profile journalists had heard that Farron was a practising Christian. In every single interview thereafter, they demanded to know. Did he personally believe homosexual sex to be a sin? He practically begged the commentariat, to allow him to keep his personal faith and legislative convictions separate. For decades, he pointed out, he had out vocally and legislatively supported the LGBT Lobby. Likewise, he had long backed same-sex marriage, voting for it enthusiastically. This simply was no longer enough.

Support isn’t enough. You must march and agree. Example: Michigan Farmer prohibited from selling apples because of his stance against SSM.

Last December, Tennes, who owns the Country Mill Orchard and Cider Mill in Charlotte, wrote a Facebook post explaining his family’s Catholic views on marriage, and how their deeply held beliefs are why his farm won’t host same-sex weddings.

The city’s response — banning him from its farmers market — reminded the former Marine of the time he spent near the border of North Korea. Tennes could see into the country, and it impacted him how people there live their entire lives in fear of the government.

That’s how he felt when he got the letter from East Lansing.

“I felt it in my gut. This isn’t real,” Tennes recalls.“We have freedom of speech in this country.”

Tennes felt especially betrayed that he was being denied rights he fought to defend while serving his country. His wife Bridget is a former Army nurse.

The East Lansing government isn’t backing down. In fact, it broadened the definition of its civil rights ordinance specifically to ensure the couple wouldn’t have access to the farmers market this season. It applied the ordinance to all of a business’ practices: In this case, what the Tennes do on their personal property 22 miles from East Lansing.

“We require everybody to conform their business practices to the East Lansing ordinance in order to use East Lansing property to sell their goods so that is applied to everybody,” says East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows.

That slippery slope people were worried about isn’t just about ‘who else would then demand the ‘right’ to be married’ – it included things like these. It is becoming increasingly clear that the fight for SSM or against SSM isn’t just about marriage – it’s about who has the right to conduct business, live peacefully, and who is to be granted the protection of law, the ability to have opinions and thoughts, hold that personal life is separate from professional conduct, and how children are to be raised. “Marriage Equality”‘s intrusion into nearly all aspects of our lives is massively under-stated by pro-SSM advocates. The reality is, we weren’t the ones who turned this into a battleground – their advocacy isn’t for equality, it’s for their being placed as having more rights and privileges as the rest of us – because the reality is, homosexuals are still a minority, and a minority should not have power over the majority. Screaming epithets that people who are against it are haters and bigoted adds nothing to the discussion, and indeed, only highlights that people who push hard for SSM are only concerned with their own indulgence and desires, and in fact consider other valid concerns such as the various ones listed above as ‘trivial and unworthy of consideration.’

A survey in Australia held earlier this year gave this result:

a full 59 percent of LGBTI people said they would oppose a legal exemption allowing religious celebrants (priests, pastors, or other ministers) to refuse to marry two men or two women.

Nearly 60 percent of LGBTI Australians said it should be illegal for a pastor to refuse to marry a same-sex couple. But it got worse.

A full 94.3 percent said a church or a religious organization should not be allowed to deny the use of its property for a same-sex wedding. Australia has yet to legalize same-sex marriage. When LGBTI people were asked if they would allow churches to refuse to host same-sex weddings in exchange for making same-sex marriage legal in Australia, a full 90.6 percent still opposed it.

Ultimately it is that attitude of ‘me, me first! Me only!’ that has been a source of great disgust and served to turn people away from support of SSM.

 

Moral and informed choices

Warning: I talk about abortion, morals, and loss here, so if you think  you can’t handle that, for whatever reason (whether it is triggering to your own loss; you feel it might be judgemental of choice – and it will be, because this is an opinion column – or simply because you don’t want to read about abortion) that’s fine; don’t click the read more as I have put this behind a blog cut. If you do, however, you don’t get to be offended about my opinions.

This is, however, from the perspective of a woman who has lost two babies of her own, through stillbirth and SIDs. This is not a religious opinion either, but a purely factually scientific one which is admittedly against abortion.

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YES! ORDERED!!!

So I planned to order the book on the day it got out – except it ended up being completely out of stock on Book Depository, and even looking on Amazon and being willing to pay the exorbitant amount in shipping ‘wrong side of the world, fuckers!’ costs just to get the book …found it was completely out of stock. For a moment, I thought yet again that Milo’s book had been stopped – but a quick look online reassured me and made me cheer at the same time. Milo’s book was simply SOLD OUT~!!!!!!

Good reason to not be able to immediately get it.

I figured I’ll try getting in a while later; and was reminded to check when I saw that Milo-sempai had a new video up. So while I was laughing myself into coughing fits, I checked on BD…

MINE NOW. Well, en route to me. Had to grab it before it went out of stock again, even if I might not have time immediately to read it.

Now I just gotta hope that Monster Hunter: Siege comes out a little later next month so I can save up for it again.

 

edited to add: Got another book I just cannot resist: The Lawdog Files!

Buried news

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/bury-them-alive-white-south-africans-fear-for-their-future-as-horrific-farm-attacks-escalate/news-story/3a63389a1b0066b6b0b77522c06d6476

Why is this under the economics section of the news? This shouldn’t be buried in the back, but should be in the front page section!  But given how it is extremely racially charged crimes – black against whites, no less – it does not surprise me that it was buried.

I’m more surprised that the news was reported at all.

All that fake news

I was looking for recipe posts to tag and came across the first ‘proper’ post I did here.

And laughed, cynically, because for all the screeching that alternative news sites are nothing but fake news…

the ‘proper’ news channels are sure good about faking up their news.

Waste of book

I usually am quite happy with secondhand book purchases, including those procured through online book shops. I get a number of books that way, especially nonfiction.

Most of the time, if there’s a bit of writing on the sides, I don’t mind it. Sometimes, I’ll find it interesting. My father used to write in book margins, usually expanding a bit on an underlined sentence or phrase.

So when I finally got a copy of Civilization and Its Enemies, and flipped through it briefly to see if the description I’d been given was accurate (Slight cover damage, some notations on the margins and underlined sections.) Continue reading

Certain Humanity

A common screech I encounter from pro-abortion supporters is that my support for anti-abortion is religious in nature.

This is a vast assumption on their part.

First, I am not against medically necessary abortion; specifically the kind where every other option has been exhausted, and a decision must be made to save the life of the mother. In most of the cases where medically necessary abortion happens, the problems are detected later; and I haven’t heard of ectopic pregnancies that develop outside the womb to survivability. Further, I see medically necessary abortion as a painful tragedy and sympathise with the parents for their loss.

I am specifically against abortion done for convenience, or non medically necessary abortions – the ‘Oh no, I got pregnant, this will get in the way of my plans for life’ type; gender selective abortion of any type, racial abortion, abortion where the woman is pressured or coerced by society/government to go for abortion. I will not deal with the psychological, health and societal reaction or fallout about this in this particular article as it falls outside the specific issue I wish to address.

The victims of rape and incest I reserve, personally, a grey area for. The option I believe, should be available to them without the condemnation of society, as it is a tragedy compounding another trauma. It is a decision that the victim must make herself, and that she be treated gently, with kindness and consideration, and that she be cared for before and after. Whatever decision she makes, I feel support should be given to her as she needs, to help her heal. That said, contrary to the common belief, not all rape victims choose to abort if they end up pregnant. I’m sure a cursory Internet search will result in plenty of stories of both decisions. This is also outside the scope of my article, so I must leave it there for now.

Secondly, my pro-life stance is purely scientific and medical in rationale, not religious in origin. This is the main focus of my post. It is illogical and irrational to declare that someone who is anti-abortion is doing so purely out of emotion, or religious morals. In fact, I may have greater trust in humanity’s technological progress and capability than those who would decry my pro-life stance as ‘unscientific and un-medical.’

To understand my specific reasons for this, I begin with the disclosure that I was born premature; at 7 months (because of severe pre-eclampsia), in the 1980s, at a hospital that did not enjoy a neonatal unit. An incubator had to be brought in from a different hospital, and a chance meeting my mother had with one of the nurses who cared for me about 15 years later on revealed that my birth and subsequent care in the hospital resulted in the establishment of a neonatal ward there after I had gone home to my family. My youngest brother was born prematurely in East Berlin (Yes, before the wall fell) and it was by purest chance that he was saved by his doctor – his umbilical cord had been in the process of strangling him and it was an offhand remark about feeling/tasting something bilious by my mother to the doctor, who was keen to practice his conversational English with a native English speaker that precipitated such a quick rush to the operating room that my mother felt the slice of the knife.

Lastly my youngest son was born premature as well, because of emergency caesarean. So it is safe to say I have personal knowledge and experience in pre-term births.

Now, for as long as I remember, I’ve been reading voraciously, and like many other children of that era I liked reading about nature, ancient history (the basics), the earth, the solar system and so on.  My parents were happy to encourage this and one of my childhood books was a detailed pop up book about, well, human gestation. So I got from there a basic primer in not just human biology and reproduction, but human evolution (from the stages of development of the embryo) and genetics (which explained why children get Mom’s brown hair or Dad’s freckles, for example)- I think I got that particular book around the time my Mom was pregnant with the youngest brother. Before that though, I loved reading encyclopaedias, so I knew the basics of where babies come from.

Because of this, from a very young age I knew that a fertilized human egg cell that is not tampered with nor somehow mutated or magically chimera-ized would not become anything but a human baby. It does not become a dolphin, or a dog, and absent unfortunate circumstances such as ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or stillbirth or uterine accidents such as umbilical cord strangulation, a fertilised egg cell will develop into a foetus with recognisable human features. I remember being fascinated with the unimaginable scientific wonder of an egg that is no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence growing into a person.  (I went a bit further than that and looked up how Caesareans were done ‘just in case I needed the information.’ I didn’t, thankfully, but I had a rather active imagination even back then.) (Edited to add: Quotations from medical and scientific texts in fact declare that the life cycle of mammals; including humans, begins at fertilisation.)


Thus, the usual arguments of ‘it’s not a baby, it’s just a bunch of cells’ have never held water with me because of my awareness of the human gestational cycle. By the time most women even discover they’re pregnant, the embryo as already implanted, the heart and blood vessels are developing and have begun to pump, the brain is in the process of developing as well. The ‘just a bunch of cells’ stage is before implantation – implantation is the thresh-hold between ‘cells’ and ’embryo.’ By the eighth week, the embryo already is making small movements. Two weeks later, the embryo is no longer an embryo but a foetus, and is called that from that point onward til birth. It has recognisable hands and feet, ears and nose and the jaw is formed, and the foetus is beginning to develop towards being either male or female. At 12 weeks of pregnancy, the face is visibly baby-like.

You are 12 weeks pregnant. (fetal age 10 weeks)

  • The fetus is now about 2.5 inches (6cm) length and weighs about 0.7 ounce (20 g).
  • The feet are almost half an inch (1cm) long.
  • The fetus starts moving spontaneously.
  • The face is beginning to look like a baby’s face.
  • The pancreas is functioning and producing insulin.
  • Fingernails and toenails appear.
  • The baby can suck his thumb, and get hiccups.

12 weeks

From this week you may well be able to hear the baby’s heart beat through a doppler monitor on your tummy. You will notice that the rate is up to 160 a minute, double that of a normal adult.

Your baby now has a chin and a nose and a facial profile. Vocal chords are complete, and the baby can and does sometimes cry silently. The brain is fully formed, and the baby can also feel pain. The fetus may even suck his thumb.

 

 

That puts lie to ‘a bunch of cells that can’t feel pain.’

So it should not surprise anyone that I am quite sickened at the thought that abortion is done up to less than the 24th week of pregnancy. I looked up the procedure, and tearing off the limbs, slicing up the torso and crushing the skull was made worse by the knowledge that this is done with the foetus very much alive; and drugs or chemicals to try kill him or her often haven’t quite worked yet. It is quite an inhuman procedure, and it has been made ‘palatable’ by dehumanising the foetus with the frankly unscientific lies that the foetus ‘doesn’t feel’, is ‘just a bunch of cells’ and ‘is not able to survive at this point of gestation.’

Medical progress is a truly wondrous thing. Before, babies born too early would almost certainly die; but it might surprise most that the first attempts to try keep them alive happened in the 1870s in Paris, after obstetrician Dr. Stéphane Tarnier decided to try using an incubator on human babies to keep them warm and save them from hypothermia after seeing an incubator warming baby chickens. I strongly urge you to read the article I linked. His insistence, and Dr. Couney’s advocacy and medical exhibit – a proof of life demonstration and charitable care – is some truly breath-taking medical history.

Couney never charged parents for the care he provided, which also included rotating shifts of doctors and nurses looking after the babies. According to historian Jeffrey Baker, Couney’s exhibits “offered a standard of technological care not matched in any hospital of the time.”

In a wonderful interview recorded by Storycorps and aired on NPR, a former incubator baby from one of Couney’s exhibits described how fragile she was at birth: “My father said I was so tiny, he could hold me in his hand,” said 95 year-old Lucille Horn, who was born prematurely in 1920 at the shockingly low birth weight of under two pounds. Baby Lucille was given no chance to live by her doctor.

“I couldn’t live on my own, I was too weak to survive … You just died because you didn’t belong in the world.” Horn said. But Horn’s father, who had seen one of Couney’s exhibits on his honeymoon, bundled tiny Lucille up and took her out of the hospital. “I’m taking her to the incubator in Coney Island. The doctor said there’s not a chance in hell that she’ll live, but he said, ‘But she’s alive now,’ and he hailed a cab and took me to Dr. Couney’s exhibit, and that’s where I stayed for about six months.”

Because of those men, babies who would’ve otherwise died didn’t, and their parents were given hope that their tiny baby would live. Medical progress, resulting in life that would otherwise been lost, now taken for granted today. As technology advanced, the earlier and earlier preterm babies could survive, until a baby born at 23-24 weeks could survive now. That ’24 week line was determined by available technology.

According to the latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics in 2011, 80 per cent of babies born extremely prematurely survived. ‘We found that babies born at 27, 28, 29 weeks, which had really high mortality rates when I was doing the first study, are now doing well and living normal lives,’ Prof Neil Marlow, a consultant neonatologist at University College London Hospital and one of the authors of the EPICure studies, says.

Not only are more premature babies surviving, but more are being born. Along with a steady rise in birth rates, there are increasing numbers of older mothers and those using fertility treatments – two groups of women who are more likely to have premature babies. Now, according to data from 2011, those born alive at 27 weeks have an 87 per cent chance of surviving, at 28 weeks it is 92 per cent and at 29 weeks, 95 per cent. It means that doctors are working on tinier babies, typically with more complications, than ever before.

‘The smallest baby I ever treated was called Jessica and she weighed 460g [1lb] at birth,’ Dr Smith says. ‘This baby was born and, actually, she had good lung function, probably because of the stress of the birth – stress produces steroids that have a lung-maturing effect on a baby. But the day after the birth her bowel had perforated; that’s quite a common problem with premature babies. She went into surgery and the surgeons took out a big lump of colon that had infarcted [the tissue had died]. But she came through and did well – I’ve got a photograph of a very happy-looking toddler.’

Those are the facts. And the fact is, the viability line can and will be pushed further and further back. Studies have found that 1 in 4 babies born at 22 weeks can now survive if given active treatment.

And therein lies the key issue about the ‘viability’ argument that pro-abortionists try to use. They cling to the ‘viability’ date as if, right before that calendar day change, the foetus was not human, just inanimate ‘cells’, the ‘nonhuman thing’ cannot survive, and should not be seen as human so that the murder of an otherwise healthy, vulnerable and innocent human being is socially palatable and not to be condemned. Yes, there are still discussions and debates, but the simple reality is this:

‘Viability’ is determined by the technology available to us, thus to arbitrarily declare that X gestation date = ‘nonhuman, not worth saving, acceptably abort-able’ is an unscientific and irrational position to hold, as well as ethically inconsistent. Premature babies that would have died just over a hundred years ago now regularly survive. Babies thought for the last twenty years to be ‘low survivability rate’ at 22 weeks are now possible of being saved.

What new medical technologies and advancements could happen in yet another twenty might push back the viability date solidly at 22 weeks – or even lower. We might even see the development of artificial ‘raising cradles’ where an infant born pre-term could be placed in a pod that mimics the womb environment, so we might see the aided viability of even younger and younger foetuses that would prevent their having developmental impairments, until perhaps some day, if medical science, human biochemical understanding and bio-tech, and mechanical technology progress to that point where fully artificial wombs could be what carries future generations to term. Granted, this speculative future I am describing is pure conjecture at this point, but consider this other simple truth and reality:

To the doctors Tarnier and Couney, the ability we currently have to keep 23 week old babies alive makes our current technology positively miraculous to them if they could see it now.

To take the position of ‘that’s crap and will never happen, you’re a delusional dreamer’ reveals a position that is more profoundly unscientific, and anti-medical, as well as illogical, than ‘religious’ reasons for being anti-abortion.

When Rights Don’t Trump Individual Safety.

This post was originally meant to be a comment over at Nicki’s The Liberty Zone. It’s a response to how a state over in the US has ruled that bathrooms must be male or female only. The discussion is about rights and government over-reach, and for the most part I agree with Nicki’s post, that a business should be allowed to decide whether or not they will accommodate transgender people being allowed to go into the restroom as the gender they identify as. But as Nicki said, this is not a simple question at all, and from my own limited observations, it is slowly escalating outside of the seemingly innocuous question of bathroom access.
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So they went after metal and failed, and now they’re going after Linux?

And Linus Torvalds?

https://twitter.com/hashtag/istandwithLINUS?src=hash

Oh man. I seriously need to buy me that popcorn machine, stat. It is now a necessity.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i-dont-care-about-you/

fml___problem_exists_between_keyboard_and_chair_by_cutelildrow-d89s2yu

First off, you pretentious fucking douchebag SJWs, code, of ANY type will not give two shits of a rat’s ass about your hurt feelings, who you fuck, what you chop off or stick onto you, or what political opinions you hold. You fuck up your code no amount of crying and whining and throwing ickle tanties will make it forgive you and work. I’m no programmer, but just fuck up basic HTML tags and well, we’ve all been there. Type in the wrong command – oh wait maybe most of them don’t even know that. Never mind!

But seriously now, there’s nothing more coldly uncaring of gender, race, social or economic class or any of those silly irrelevant things as programming. Either your code works, or it doesn’t. Either your program works, or it fails miserably and needs debugging – in which case fuck you, find it, fix it. All it cares about is whether or not you have the skill to make it work. It does not care whether the fingers that typed across the keys belong to a white or black or green skinned person, nor does it care whether you have a penis or a vagina, or neither, or both, or like to suck cock or lick twat or dress up in a fursuit. It does not care if you are in a wheelchair or have massive tits and swing both ways.

None of that matters. What DOES matter is the pure, unadulterated unforgiving meritocracy of being able to make the hardware and software interact in the way it needs to, to bring about a result.

Really, it boils down to the simple reality that unmasks SJWs and the left with the cold hard truth: When it comes to true, brutally blind equality, they can’t handle it. They don’t want to deal with meritocracy, or skill, or truly even ground, they want everything handed to them on demand, or tantrums, life destroying and slander shall ensue!

Boo de Q_Q harder.

Linus Torvalds does not care about your fucking little fee fees. All he cares about “is quality and merit comes first and everything else comes second, and he doesn’t care if he offends people in this regard” – and frankly, that’s pretty fucking fair of him. None of this diversity in programming bullshit – I don’t give a crap if the person doing the code or writing the program is a girl or a guy, or likes to fuck a guy or not, or what their political opinion is. I really don’t. All I care about is ‘can this person do the job? Does that shit work? Is that program legit or does it have hidden malware?’

Don’t like that? Then make your own fork or program.. oh wait, no you can’t unless you have the skills, and since there’s more Q_Qing than actual skills to make stuff happen… we’re left with people just throwing massive tanties again.

edited to add this quote:

This is triply true in engineering/development. It’s not like marketing or HR where everyone is special and an all-day meeting constitutes productive work, technical work is very well-defined with quantifiable, testable results where there’s not much room for second place. The winners in this space are those who Get Shit Done, not those who have the most friends or the most politically-correct agenda. And you will not Get Shit Done if you prioritize your team’s DNA over their skillset. Seriously, social skills do not mean a damn thing here–either your robot is the biggest, baddest mofo in the room and it crushes everyone else’s souls with its godlike power, or it’s not and its your souls getting crushed by someone else’s godbot. There’s something to be said for being able to deal with other humans when necessary but it’s a secondary skill, and one not generally used as companies tend to keep engineers as far away from the customers as possible.

Linus is the ultimate non-discriminating manager. He does not care who you are or what you look like as long as you’re good at what you do, and he won’t tolerate excuses. Which is exactly why diversity fanboys hate him so much–they don’t actually want an identity-blind society, they want an identify-focused society which simply flips the discrimination in favor of gender-studies weasels. They have to tear him down because, like Trotsky to Stalin, he vividly shows that what they claim to want is vastly different from what they’re actually implementing.

Yep.

 

 

Because it is worth relinking and rereading.

thatswhatseparatecountriesarefor

 

Jim Butcher has this to say about the Charlie Hebdo atrocity

Freedom v Fear

It needs requoting, but you should also read the original post on his LJ.

“Still mortified about our fallen cartoonist colleagues, but free speech will always win.”

No.

No it won’t.

The history of the human race demonstrates /very/ convincingly that free speech is the /exception/ to the human condition, not the rule. For millennia, those who spoke out were imprisoned or killed. Hell, you could say something that wasn’t even subversive, just inept and stupid, and be destroyed for committing the crime of lese majeste.

Make no mistake. What we have today is a level of freedom and self-determination on a scale unparalleled in the history of our species. We live in what is, in many ways, a golden age. So much so that we give tremendous credit to the adage, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

But everyone always forgets the first half of that quote:

“Under the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

I’m not sure I know of anyplace that’s ruled by anyone “entirely great.” That adage wasn’t a statement of philosophy, as it was originally used: it was a statement of irony.

Don’t believe me? Look around. Notice that everywhere you go in the world, whoever happens to be ruling seems to have a great many swords.

Still, the idea contained within the quote is a powerful one–that intangible ideas, thoughts, and beliefs can have tremendous power. And that’s why we should be paying close attention.

After all, intangible fear can be mightier than the sword, too. Hell, it has been for quite a while now. Don’t believe me? Try getting on an airplane without taking your shoes off in the security line. While you’re doing that, try cracking a joke about having a knife.

That’s the power of fear, guys.

We. Are. In. Danger.

The threat isn’t aimed at our government or our borders or our resources. It’s targeting something far more precious–our identity. It’s changing us, who we are, how we live, and not for the better.

The Western world has got the biggest and sharpest sword the planet has ever known, yes. But the extremists are armed with a weapon just as powerful: Fear. And these nuts are really good at using it.

There is /one/ way that freedom, freedom to speak, to choose, to grow, to believe, to improve, survives in the face of violent attack.

Free men and women defend it, violently if necessary–or it dies.

It’s that simple. It really is.

If we forget that, if we forget that there are predators in the world who very much want to destroy those freedoms in the name of their god, their philosophy, their politics, if we forget that our freedoms /can/ and /will/ be taken away if we sit staring and do nothing, they are as good as gone.

Freedom doesn’t defend itself.

We have to do it.

That said…

Good question.

That’s a huge contrast to Scalzi apologizing to Muslims for what happened over in France. Hat tip to Vox Day on that one, since I don’t keep track of Scalzi.

Respect for Butcher, Correia, Hoyt, and so many others +++++++ infinity. This is a freedom of speech issue. This is a Western Civilization issue. It needs defending, or we lose everything.

Une nécessité pour un Charles Martel

A collection of the ‘offensive’ comics from a satire paper that targeted everyone equally.

Yet, it’s Muslim jihadists that did violence, killing for their religion. There’s no way around that, no matter how the usual apologists try to whitewash and blame the victim (warning, that link, I’m told, is particularly enraging and I was strongly advised not to read it given my current blood pressure issues by a very good friend.)

Honestly, I’m somewhat surprised it took this long, since the local jihadists are plentiful and active in France, there are plenty of zones urbaines sensibles – pretty much ‘if you are not Muslim, you take your chances in these areas because the rule of law does not apply, Sharia does.‘ There’ve been plenty of other terrorist attacks that were rather ignored by the West, including an attack on a Jewish school in France some time ago, before the attacks on Pakistani schools by the Taliban – where one suicide bomber was thwarted by a brave 14 year old.

I’ll eventually write up a longer post on my thoughts on this, because I’m still in the hospital and the blood pressure meds are wreaking havoc with my ability to think straight, due to migraines and bouts of drowsiness.

Still, I wonder if people in the US will still call for cop deaths in the wake of the French police getting killed – and one of the cops in question was black, female, and the other one was… wait for it … Muslim. Both of them considered ‘legitimate targets’ because of the uniform they wore, and the choices they made. (Also, no screams of POLIIIICE STAAAAATE!!!!! for France increasing security everywhere, in the wake of terror attacks? I remember the complaints of the same thing being done during the Boston Bombing. I’d like to know what’s ‘different’ now.)

Anyway, I’ll link to people who I think are doing a much, much better job of reporting on this and reacting to this.

Of course

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

http://gatesofvienna.net/

www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Atlas Shrugged

American Thinker

Frontpage Mag

The Long War Journal

Noisy Room has more links

Larry Correia has some very choice words on the matter, especially with regard to this being very much a Freedom of Speech issue.

T.L. Knighton also makes the very valid point that if we were, as per that idiotic feminazi’s demands, to ‘criminalize’ (a very strange definition of free speech that boils down to ‘I don’t like what you say and think you should go to jail’), we lose the most basic freedoms that allow idiots like her to spew her stupid all over the Internet.

Kate Paulk is correct in saying that Free Speech is not, in fact ‘free of charge or cost.’ People pay a heavy price to keep the ability to say what you want and to have the freedom to opine, disagree and speak one’s mind, to write the stories we want to write, and so much more that honestly, most people in Western countries just take for granted. Don’t let them take it away! I’ve lived under two different regimes where you couldn’t speak your mind or seek the knowledge you wanted to know about, and it hurt the people who lived in them, in their spirit, and soul.

Lastly, Sarah A. Hoyt expresses the anger I don’t have words for right now. Thank you all, for writing.

 

What the I don’t even you know what fuck you.

http://www.reaxxion.com/3720/totalbiscuit-is-sent-death-wish-by-anti-gamergate-for-promoting-charity

So there’s a charity event to help disabled gamers. Which, well, is freaking awesome because some of the most awesome, most badass people I’ve ever had the privilege to meet are disabled gamers. Think ‘wheelchair bound mostly unable to move limbs’ disabled. Think people who have been in horrible car accidents. Think kids who were born with unavoidable defects that trap them in less than optimal bodies, but have fully working brains. Think vets and cops who have been injured in the line of duty and for a number of them, this is the only social interaction they can have without being treated like cripples. These people also tend to be the nicest, most cheerful people I’ve ever met, and most of the time you never find out they’re disabled till you ask something like “Why is your vent not push to talk?” “Because I can’t reach it fast enough with the stick in my mouth.”

life in hard mode

So yeah, fucking do not ever deprive these guys of one of the few things that put them on even footing with the rest of the goddamn world, where they can be themselves and not ‘crippled.’

So anyway…

Two Anti-GG people ask for retweets and then flip the fuck out when TotalBiscuit (one of the biggest Gamergate supporters, apparently) actually takes them at face value and does exactly that. Because Ablegamers Charity for disabled gamers is fucking awesome.

He also does it because his company is partnered with the Ablegamers charity. Oops, didn’t know that? Of course not – Anti-GGers are too busy trying to hate the guy for daring to disagree and oppose them. Remember the previous post I mentioned about nerds and not wasting their time with social bullshit? Yeah, there’s a reason for that.

ThosewhocantCriticizethosewhocan

So really, who’s the haters here? Who’s intolerant? Oh and attacking the guy based on his cancer treatment? Really classy and humanistic of you. Not.

Anti-GGers are proving themselves that they are the most hateful shitfaces on the face of the earth quite easily. And the bystanders like myself are just staring then facepalming when we take them entirely on the face of their actions. Holy crap. Epic, epic fail.

Seriously, it’s like this level of epic failure: suicide bombers blow themselves up on TV by mistake.

 

Sometimes you have to call it what it is

Hi. If you came here from Fundies Say the Dumbest Things, you guys are being used as a catspaw by my longtime misogynistic stalker, Yamamanama / Yama The Space Fish, aka Andrew P. Marston of Marshfield Massachusetts. Here is a history of his stalking and harassing me online me for six years, taking advantage of the fact that I am a woman who doesn’t live in the same country as he does – and yes, I am, in fact, a woman; I’m also small, and Asian. He is very fond of taking things I say and do out of context in the worst possible way to try portray me as either 1) Misogynistic 2) Racist 3) Homophobic 4) insert whatever hateful label he wants to try pin on me. Andrew has a tendency to also bring me up at random on websites that I have nothing to do with, in often hateful or defamatory language.

He has outright admitted that he actively does this in attempts to try get people to dogpile on me.

Andrew Marston / Yamamanama has repeatedly tried to use his taking my words completely out of context to justify his harassment and stalking of me; repeatedly making claims that I said something, but never backing up the claims with proof the way I have been able to prove, with screenshots, that Andrew / Yama has the intent to harass and defame me. I have repeatedly spoken against self-defeating attitudes that are aimed at preventing people from taking their own lives into their own hands and taking control of their own choices. This is NOT racism, but Andrew / Yama tries to make it seem like that.

This is a person who has actively threatened my children as well, and has repeated this threat again and again.

Yama repeats that threat again, this time more personally than ever before.

 

So yeah, that’s what’s going on, and I’m sorry you guys are getting dragged into something that has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with someone’s longtime campaign of hate, harassment (both sexual and otherwise) and racism and misogyny. (Also, uhm, I’m quietly pagan, so I’m really unsure if I count into American definitions of ‘fundie’ from what l gather is supposed to reflect on Christian fundamentalism.)

 

ANYWAY. ON TO THE ORIGINAL POST.

 

Feminism Today

 

This was originally meant to be a comment over at According To Hoyt, but I changed my mind and decided this should well be a post instead. I wouldn’t be surprised if people skim until offended, but meh. And because inevitably some idiot out there will paint me as white, racist, misogynist and rape-apologizing or whatever – I’m Asian, female, hate political correctness and opinionated – so if that sort of shit bothers you, hey, feel free to close the tab or browse away. You don’t have to read this.

So, feminists are going after nerds, since they failed to paint all gamers as 1) male 2) rapists 3) racists. For ‘sexual entitlement’. Or something seriously bizarre like that. The article I linked is a rebuttal because it’s actually more readable than the brain-breaking stupid of the thing it’s actually addressing.

First off, fuck you, feminists for trying to paint ‘nerds’ as ‘only male.’ Sayeth THIS female nerd and geek who has always been proud of her nerd and geek status. Also, fuck you again, because guess what? The Internet owes its’ existence to the very nerds you despise and looked down on. Guess who you sound like to nerds like us? The popular Prom Queen bitches who liked to spread rumours about the nerds and anyone who dared NOT to fit in during high school. While the rest of us grew up and became adults, you stupid eternal children pined for the days of being relevant and ‘socially the centre of the universe’ in High School. While the rest of us were fighting off the bullying and the abuse of your sycophants – and yes, I had my share of having to fight people who thought it would be funny to seriously hurt me – you lot pretended to be morally superior to us.

I’d love to know based on what ‘morals’ those are supposed to be. Frankly, the worst bullying I got were from women, because given the rumour-mongering and slander I’d get from an insecure bitch who saw me as some kind of threat to her social position that I never noticed, and the honesty of a punch in the face from a man, I had better chances of fighting back against the latter. Because then it’s self defence and I could gut the son of a bitch.

Also, fuck you for trying to make nerds as a group feel worse. Bitch, we’ve been through hells you can’t even imagine, the kind of oppression that drives people to suicide, we’ve survived, we’ve made it through and you’re TRYING to drag us back to that pointless, empty stupid time of High School just because your own lives are so empty and devoid of meaning, you need to find someone to bully to make yourselves feel better? This is especially true of male nerds, who are freaking socially awkward because the usual social cues make no sense to them – hell, to us. Male nerds as a group tend to step into social landmines for that reason – and they’re aware of that so they also tend to be more careful and sensitive than the ‘average male.’ As a nerd girl who played the Universal Big Sister and Confidant to several male nerds all through my life, how fucking dare you claim that male nerds are sexually entitled?! They’re FAR more likely to treasure and cherish the woman who falls for them, to the point that I’ve seen many a male nerd get taken advantage of by an abusive, user-friendly woman.

On the far end of that, there are the male nerds who simply refuse to have relationships with real women and go with the 2-D Girl option. Seriously, leave them the fuck alone. It’s ‘coz of crazy psychotic bitch queens like you that you drove away those men to eternal fantasies. They’re not going to treat real women worse, they just won’t have relationships with them. You do not get to bitch about them not wanting real women, because to them, real women are not worth the heartache and suffering and endless double standards that the feminists like you have put up as ‘proper treatment of women.’

06d

In the long run, I think that this is ultimately an attempt by feminists to ‘get back’ at the nerds who frankly, see them, and run away screaming because when it boils down to it, these sort of women have nothing to offer for any kind of partnership except a lifetime of pain and heartache. Especially true for the rich, successful, powerful nerds who they looked down on before who now are in positions of economic and social power of the kind they only dreamed of. While these women were wasting their time playing social superiority games, we nerds applied ourselves more usefully.

I gotta say, these ‘feminists’ display some serious amounts of undiluted crazy and lies in order to try make themselves sound more relevant and important. Somehow. Instead, they happily come off as flat out insane. Also, hats now are some kind of code for being … pro-male or something demented like that? In my universe, where we have brush fires and typhoons and 45 degree Celsius weather, hats are worn to give you some shade and protect you from the sun.

And fedoras are awesome, because Indiana Jones. Whatever ‘argument’ about fedoras they’re trying to make is invalid forever.

indiana-jones-and-the-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-original

Oh, and holy crap the hate the feminists have for mothers has to be seen to be believed. Yep, even towards lesbians who choose to become mothers.

By other lesbians.

images

Read the whole thing. If possible.

.… that you’re weakening and permanently altering your body, and shortening your life span, making it more possible to bleed to death, develop high blood pressure, have a stroke or heart attack, or develop diabetes, kidney disease, or cancer.20 (The dangers of pregnancy and childbirth are a well-kept secret.)

Uhm, flat out lie. They tell you what to watch out for every single time you get pregnant and you go have your check-ups. The info is out there, open for perusal. It’s bloody freaking obvious that the person who wrote this never ever got near a family clinic – after all, why should she? (Thank gods she’ll never breed and inflict herself on her children.) The pregnancy booklet I got for free from the clinic has a section on the more common complications and advises that the woman report anything even REMOTELY unusual. There’s a pregnancy complication that commonly presents with a single insane-sounding symptom: itching only at night, ‘especially on the palms of the hands and on the soles of your feet.’ Not fatal for the mother, but holy hell the risk it puts the baby under…

Hell, just the opening paragraphs contradict them, within the first few sentences. To the point that the paragraphs themselves are oxymoronic and null and void as statements. That’s an impressive show of doublespeak there.

They shouldn’t become parents. They howl about gendercide and inequality but ignore the same shit that they decry for women as perfectly acceptable for men.

Feminazis are fucking crazy. And yes, they hate even their own sons. Child abusers!

Feminazis are fucking crazy. And yes, they hate even their own sons. Child abusers!

Refer to the top graphic. They are surprised we take them and their words at face value?! Why?

shakes head If they were really ‘telling the truth, with facts and honesty’ why the nine bleeding hells do they have to lie like the crazy reality-denying -y’know what? Fuck it – bag of cunts-not-brains-are-important – psychos they present themselves as? And no, describing them as they are is not an insult, it’s describing them as they are. These are …people… who hold militant misandrist lesbian feminazi ideals to the point that they denigrate lesbian mothers. To them, sex is the end all and be all and reproducing at all is ‘the ultimate act of selfishness.’ So when I call them ‘cunts’ it’s because that’s their main identifying ‘thing’ – not their personhood, not their intellect or anything else, but the entirety of their identity is based on their genitals and who it’s used with and for.

In fact I am utterly gobsmacked at the sheer amount of hatred that this article alone spews onto other lesbians for making choices that they don’t agree with. What was that about not judging and being accepting of alternate choices, LGBT movement people? Yeah, these people may be ‘outliers’ but geez. You can’t claim to be ‘more accepting’ than I am. I support gays and lesbians having children and support the concept of their marriage, and treat them like people (I just don’t like it when they go after Christian orphanages, schools and institutions, and businesses for disagreeing or disapproving of them, and do not like the current methodologies for their push of non-equal treatment for marriage. I’d be completely fine with non-religious, secular options that do not intrude into the religious areas of life but apparently that’s not good enough, so… See below.)

Equality is equality, people. This means that other people are as free to reject or disagree or disapprove of your choices as you are of them – and yes, if they are meant to accept some of the choices you make, that means that you must also accept some of theirs. That’s two-way street stuff. You can decry it as wrong, disagree all you like, but you can’t shut them down and can’t suppress them or their point of view from the marketplace of ideas. The moment that you do, that means you’re not pushing for equal treatment or equality in any form, you’re pushing for unequal treatment that benefits your/your cause / your POV.

At which point, you lose my support. I’m someone who’s for equal rights, equal treatment, equal responsibility.

I wandered over to The Other McCain’s twitter feed to see if there was anything interesting, and boy did I get it. For a rather demented peek into the range of ‘interesting’ anyway…

 

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Edited to add this awesome article:

http://chrishernandezauthor.com/2015/01/02/microaggressions-trigger-warnings-and-the-new-meaning-of-trauma/

THIS. SO MUCH.