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Imagine you’re walking down the street. A fire has just broken out at a fertility clinic. You rush in to help. In one corner, you see a 5-year old girl standing near the door. In another corner, you see a tray of 2 in-vitro fertilized eggs. There is enough time to save only one of the two. You are faced with a choice. Save the girl who is clearly a living human, or save the 2 fertilized eggs – both potential future humans. It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it?
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A few days ago, I posted ‘Viagra + Birth Control + McCain + Reporters = Disaster‘. In it, I argued that the decision of covering the cost of Viagra and not birth control by insurance companies should not be made solely based on religious reasons. I presented that Viagra can be used for many more sinful acts than birth control. For instance, birth control can be used by non-married people, while Viagra can be used by both non-married people and gay men. Therefore, religion should oppose Viagra more strongly than it does birth control.
I am not advocating that Congress should pass legislation requiring insurance companies to cover the cost various medications and pills – far from it. That is not central to the premise of my post. I only argue that employing religion as motive and rationale in such decisions is injudicious.
I received a deluge of personal emails and one comment by Milo criticizing my approach. Their argument revolved around the central idea of sanctity of life. Milo went one step further by saying that it is not a stretch to believe Viagra promotes life while birth control suppresses it. He’s right; it’s not a stretch. The question, however, is this: how is the worth of an unborn life measured against the already born? And before you roll your eyes up, irrespective of which side of this issue you are on, be prepared to examine your beliefs.
Consider the following example:
Imagine you’re walking down the street. A fire has just broken out at a fertility clinic. You rush in to help. In one corner, you see a 5-year old girl standing near the door. In another corner, you see a tray of 2 in-vitro fertilized eggs. There is enough time to save only one of the two. You are faced with a choice. Save the girl who is clearly a living human, or save the 2 fertilized eggs – both potential future humans. It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it?
If your religion dictates that life begins at the moment of conception (or fertilization in the case of fertility treatments), then you must logically save the contents of the tray and not the girl. A fertilized egg represents a life according to (at least) Christianity. And if your choice is to save the tray, then you clearly place a higher value on 2 unborn fertilized eggs than you do on 1 living and breathing born human. You should now pause and contemplate your choice which, you must admit, seems somewhat inhumane.
If you are not bound by religious views, you’re more likely to save the girl. But even though you are likely to not consider fertilized eggs as actual humans, you do understand that they have the potential of becoming humans someday. Don’t you? Would you not rather save 2 humans instead of 1 – albeit you may have to wait a while for those humans to be born?
Try to contemplate your choice if the tray contained 100 fertilized eggs rather than 2. Will you alter your decision? What if the tray contained 1000 fertilized eggs?
During a Q&A session with reporters last week, John McCain was asked why he has voted down a bill requiring insurance companies to cover prescription contraception in light of the fact that many do cover Viagra. The origin of this question came, interestingly enough, from Carly Fiorina who is now a McCain adviser – source. Remember, McCain has publicly admitted to using Viagra. Watch this video, ponder the 8 second pause, and consider my argument below.
Haven’t you learned the art of dealing with reporters, Mr. McCain? If you’re at all unsure about a question, either don’t talk about it, change the subject, or turn the question into a matter that you are comfortable speaking about. Thou Shalt never take a question, think about it for a while, show the look of struggle on your face, and then refuse to respond by actually admitting your lack of knowledge about the topic.
Just for the record, I feel bad for McCain. He tried desperately, albeit detrimentally, not to duck the question. Congressional votes are not simple. A no vote on a seemingly simple issue often times turns out to be much more complicated than it appears on the surface.
Now, why is it that dispensing Viagra is OK, but dispensing birth control is not? McCain’s vote was shaped by either his business/lobbyists connections or by his religious views. Let’s give Mr. McCain the benefit of the doubt and assume there were no unethical business forces influencing his vote. That leaves only one other possibility. So, was his vote based on religious reasons? Was it?
Consider this! Viagra can help married couples enjoy a better . . . well, we all know what it’s for. However, Viagra also happens to help perverts (sin), non-married individuals (sin), gay men (major sin), non-married gay men (double sin), and even old non-married perverted gay men (sin, sin, sin, and sin)! In other words, Viagra can be used for sinful purposes.
Now let’s examine birth control. Aside from the assortment of condoms, spermicides, etc., there are basically 2 types of pills: those that prevent pregnancy and those that end pregnancy (as in the case of morning after pills). Let’s consider the first kind of pills for this argument since the proposed bill was for prescription contraceptives. Those pills can be used by non-married individuals (sin) . . . and that’s it. Perverts don’t use them, gay men don’t need them, non-married gay men don’t buy them, and old non-married perverted gay men can’t find a good use for them.
So, Viagra is OK and birth control is not. Wow, my logic must be truly flawed!
By the way, I did not research whether Mr. McCain did in fact get back to the reporter with the reason for his vote.
Score one for stupid ingenuity . . . or is it ingenious stupidity.
An enterprising 19-year-old named Max Sanders, a University of Minnesota student, recently offered to sell his vote in the upcoming presidential election on eBay. As proof, he had planned to take a picture of himself and his vote in the voting booth.
Minimum bid: $10. Total number of bids received: 0.
Duuuude, selling your vote is illegal. A scarcely-used 1893 Minnesota law makes buying and selling votes illegal. This law was most used in the 1920s when people sold their votes in exchange for (what else but) liquor. Although he claims the whole thing was a joke, Mr. Sanders was charged with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting. He faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
While the overwhelming consensus in the blogosphere is that Sanders was stupid for attempting this, I think he should receive an A in political science for exercising his First Amendment right. I have not studied this old 1893 Minnesota law in detail (I am not a lawyer by any means), but it appears to me that his arrest was premature. He had received no bids and had not actually casted a vote. Intent, I argue, is insufficient cause in this case. Can battered women ask for the arrest and incarceration of the person threatening them? The answer is no, unless the assailant is caught in the act. The best those women can do is to obtain restraining orders. Certainly, intent is sufficient cause in some situations such as terrorism, but Mr. Sanders plan was not going to kill anyone.
Also, do not give me the non-sense about sanctity of individual votes, and that selling your vote is a slap in the face of our American freedom, blah, blah. Yes, we should very much consider ourselves lucky that we live in a country where the democratic process, for the most part, works. There is, of course, the small and questionable matter of Electoral vs. Popular votes, but that’s not the purpose of this post. Certainly, we should not take our freedom and voting privileges for granted. Selling votes, however, is not a democracy crushing act, and it is not a sign that Mr. Sanders doesn’t care about our dying soldiers (and other unrelated material as many have suggested). Our democracy must be sufficiently strong to absorb such incidents. We are in serious trouble otherwise.
Further, the concept of money-for-votes is exercised daily by our government. Do you not believe that lobbyist influence members of Congress in much the same way as vote-selling? No? Are you sure? What planet do you live on? The entire premise of lobbying is based upon changing votes (oops, pardon the slip up, I meant education) of Congressional members. Sure, strict rules govern transactions between lobbyists and congress members. At the end, however, it’s all a facade. Congressional members may not get money directly, but they enjoy other hidden benefits from lobbyists. If you truly believe lobbying doesn’t influence policy decisions, you are a perfect candidate for a thorough mental examination (throw in a rectal exam for good measure). Note: I make no assertion about lobbying as an activity, and I’m certainly not debating the merits of it.
The proposed sentence for this student is too harsh. Spending government resources on his prosecution is ridiculous. A stern warning and a slap on the back of the hand would have been sufficient. Who knows, he could be a congressman some day.
By now, we all know about the fist pounding Obamas. Oh, the horror! What did that gesture mean? Was it a distasteful public act? Could it have been a secret message to terrorists? Will our taxes go up if Obama becomes President?
E.D. Hill of Fox News was clearly concerned. On the June 10 edition of her show, America’s Pulse, she aired her concerns by saying: “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently.”
[Insert your own ‘what in the world‘ comment here!]
Interestingly, her show was soon canceled from Fox News’ line up. [Now insert your own joke here!]
Memo to Fox News: Fist Pounding (or Dap greeting or Knuckle bumping) is not a secret terrorist handshake. Al-Qaeda members do not greet each other with a fist pound. Osama did not fist pound his top deputies after the 9-11 attacks. You people are in serious need of a good news story – that doesn’t get one of you fired.
White people do it. Black people do it. Baseball players do it. Even George Bush (Sr.) did it. In case you’re wondering, the picture on the right is Anna Kournikova fist pounding the former President.
Fox News needs to spend more time on real concerns about Obama (there are plenty of concerns surrounding both Presidential candidates), not his fist pounding act.
And then there is Media Matters. They have issued a call to action around this incident. Seriously?! What for? Doesn’t Media Matters have anything better to do?
Meet your (possible) future President. I’ve already done this with both McCain and Hillary; it’s Obama’s turn.
In a recent speech in Oregan, Obama said that he has been to “57 states with one left to go”. He also went on to explain that his staff did not permit him to go to Alaska and Hawaii.
Watch out everyone. He’s planning to invade Canada! In fairness, he really meant to say 47 states, but I’m betting there’s a deeper meaning and purpose at work here. If we add 6 Canadian provinces, all of Mexico, Gitmo, Iraq, and Afghanistan to the 47 US states, we get 57. Coincidence? No way!
During a campaign trail stop in Indiana, Hillary Clinton stepped inside a convenient store to get some coffee – unsuccessfully. No other explanation needed.
Um, Madam President! The red button is for launching nuclear missiles. If you’re looking to get an outside line, press the black button on the phone.
This week, I was in search of a good political April fool’s joke. I looked at many of the usual suspects’ websites. No one had anything noteworthy, until I came across this article from Media Matters. It is an excerpt from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show which aired on, you guessed it, April 1.
LIMBAUGH: “And if they — you know, if Hillary doesn’t get it — you have to understand the mindset of a lot of these feminists and women. They think they’re owed this — just like Obama supporters think they’re owed this. These women have paid their dues. They’ve been married two or three times; they’ve had two or three abortions; they’ve done everything that feminism asked them to do. They have cut men out of their lives; they have devoted themselves to causes and careers.”
Ah, just what I was looking for. Thank you Mr. Limbaugh; you could not have made this any easier for me.
Those are condemning words by a man who’s been married (and divorced) 3 times (in 1980, 1990, and 2004), and who’s devoted himself to causes and careers (conservatism and radio talk show host).
Wait a second! Does this mean Limbaugh is a liberal? Gosh, is he a Hillary supporter? Or worst, could he be a feminist?
This is all too confusing. I think I’ll fill up my gas-guzzling SUV, and take a long drive to clear my head.
It’s almost April, and there’s still no Democratic Presidential nominee. Each candidate is now almost desperate to differentiate himself / herself from the other.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s strategy is to identify herself as the experienced candidate. She recently produced a TV ad that portrays her as the right President to receive a troubling 3 am call (see my earlier post). Lately, she’s attempting to showcase her foreign policy and diplomacy experience. On at least 3 different occasions (Dec. 2007, Feb. 2008, March 2008), she has chronicled her hair-raising experience of visiting Bosnia in March of 1996 when she was the First Lady. She described how her official greeting consisted of wearing a bullet-proof vest, dodging sniper fire, and rushing to armored vehicles for shelter.
This would have been a great story – if it was true. In fact, there are actual news footage that show her greeting an 8 year old girl, shaking hands with and talking to US soldiers, and posing for a picture with a group of school children – all that while still on the tarmac.
Watch this video and decide for yourself.
Sen. Clinton has since apologized for the error in her recollection of the events, citing that she’s only human. Dodging bullets or not, Hillary is not just an ordinary human like the rest of us. She is one of the most unique individuals of our time. Most people are unaware of her many accomplishments. Here are merely some examples of what she’s done in her life:
Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton participated in a CNN debate in Austin, Texas last week (2/21/08). For those of you who did not see the debate, I will give you a quick summary of a pivotal moment from it. Click on the image to make it larger so you can appreciate the details.
Hillary: Come on skinny. Let’s go, you and me right here, right now. I will kick your ass.
Obama: What?
Hillary: Come on! First, I’ll kick your ass. Then I’ll send Chelsea to kick Michelle’s ass and Bill to kick Oprah’s ass. What do you say?
Obama: You see Hillary, I’m holding up 3 fingers. You see them, don’t you? I want the American People to know that I’m the only Presidential candidate who can do this. This is the kind of change I plan to bring to Washington. Anyhow, pay attention to this part. If I fold down the first finger . . . and . . . follow that up by folding down the third finger, what that leaves you is one giant middle . . .
At a rally a couple of weeks ago, Obama was stricken with a cold. He stopped in the middle of his speech to blow his nose. The crowd cheered!
Yes, you read it right, and that’s not a typo. The crowd actually cheered.
Are you kidding me? Who the hell are these people? Don’t they have anything better to do than to celebrate discharge of snot? I don’t remember reading anything about snot in Obama’s book ‘Audacity of Hope’.
If the Obama campaign people were smart, they would surely recognize the unexpected and hidden opportunity in this phenomenon. It is clear that as far as some people are concerned, hope wreaks out of Obama’s body. Why not capitalize on that? I bet they can raise millions by auctioning off Obama’s personal items: arm pit hair, used toothbrushes, half-used bars of soap, dirty socks, old underwear, hair brushes, dirty bath water, etc.
Are you listening Obama campaign strategists? A golden opportunity awaits you.
Posted by jmjorat 
Are you kidding me? Who the hell are these people? Don’t they have anything better to do than to celebrate discharge of snot? I don’t remember reading anything about snot in Obama’s book ‘Audacity of Hope’.
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