I only read People magazine when waiting in a doctor’s or dentist’s office when there are no bars on my phone or National Geographics lying around. My impression through infrequent reading is that People is mostly a celebrity gossip magazine that is primarily aimed at women.
That’s fine but usually not my thing since I’m an old mombie who hasn’t heard of most current pop stars and doesn’t give a flying fuck about feuds among the Kardashians or royal family. Then a saw a link online to this People mag article published today:
Rape, Incest Victims Must Show Proof to Get Exception to Florida’s New Abortion Ban
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Heartbeat Protection Act into law, which bans abortions after six weeks and increases restrictions to the standing exceptions
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has doubled down on the state’s restrictions against abortion services.
On Thursday, DeSantis announced that he signed the Heartbeat Protection Act into law, which will now require a woman to provide proof that the pregnancy was a result of rape, incest or human trafficking in order to receive an abortion up until 15 weeks of gestation…
A poll in February done by the University of North Florida found that 75% of the state’s residents either somewhat or strongly opposed the six-week ban — including 61% of Republicans.
I knew about DeSantis’s “heartbeat” law, but it surprised me to see it covered in People magazine. But you know what? That’s exactly where this bullshit ban needs to be covered.
I also applaud the tone of the article, which focused on the impact on, well, people instead of political prospects. It included a quote from a White House statement, which was also exactly on point:
“This ban would prevent four million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion care after six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement issued Thursday.
The statement added, “This ban would also impact the nearly 15 million women of reproductive age who live in abortion-banning states throughout the South, many of whom have previously relied on travel to Florida as an option to access care.”
The only whiff about the horserace implications of the Florida abortion ban is contained in the reference to the poll that shows it’s unpopular across both parties. That is also refreshing, though I admit I do find horserace content more interesting than coverage of the Taylor Swift tour costumes. But it turns out maybe I’m a People person after all.
Open thread.
Victor Matheson
I get interviewed by lots of newspapers and radio/tv stations about my expertise regarding sports economics as well as the economics of gambling. But I was particularly happy a few years ago to get a call from a reporter at Teen Vogue. I asked if they wanted my opinions about “14 ways to make that boy notice you” and instead all they wanted to talk to me about was the economic impact of the Olympic Games on host economies and why cities keep bidding.
Baud
Is that like the proof ex-cons needed to show to vote again?
Old School
Is a conviction and sentencing required as “proof”?
Anonymous At Work
People did a few things, like Teen Vogue did, when Trump was elected around deciding “We want to keep our readers safe from threats. Period, no matter if the threat is a politician or political party.” Kudos to them for taking a stand.
Whomever
@Victor Matheson: Teen Vogue has become one of the best sources of hard hitting progressive journalism in the US. Seriouly.
Burnspbesq
@Old School:
Who the hell knows? The vagueness is the point.
Jerzy Russian
Putting aside everything else, can one even prove a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest that early?
azlib
I honestly think the whole tenor of the abortion debate has changed since the repeal of Roe v Wade. Before repeal I noticed a reluctance of Dems to talk openly about the issue because it was “icky”. I am seeing more and more conversations about abortion as necessary health care. Maybe this is trending the same way as the “gay” marriage issue which in my mind went from unthingable politcally to broad acceptance in a pretty short period of time.
Ruckus
Why in the hell are some so enshrined in controlling women’s bodies? And yes it’s not just men, although the men seemingly wanting to control those bodies seem to be, at least in my opinion, not actually liking women. Are they doing this because it is their seed that is being blamed? Are they doing this because they think they are superior? Do they do this because they resent that they can’t get pregnant? Are they doing this because it lessens their concept of superiority because they get to control half the population from being able to stop the process that they have only one small part in? Are they doing this because they think they own women?
I don’t get it. If a law was passed that they had to get written permission to have an erection would they agree with that? Yeah NO they wouldn’t. Some men have to feel like the are in control or they have zero value whatsoever. The concept of equality is so far beyond them it’s almost amazing that they fight over having superiority – oh wait maybe it is because they really aren’t equal. Ahead/behind, physical strength – maybe/often, mental ability – nope-equal/and sometimes not close and not in their favor, biology – nope-behind-there is one thing they can never do-childbirth.
Paul M Gottlieb
Amazingly, you will find some of the smartest coverage of cultural and political issues in “Teen Vogue.”
Geminid
@azlib: The result of last June’s June’s abortion referendum in Kansas may have contributed to Democratic confidence on this issue. It certainly should have.
Fake Irishman
@Geminid:
here’s the thing though: public opinion has been mildly pro choice for decades. And referenda trying to ban abortion usually went down in the -Roe era. (South Dakota and Mississippi come to mind.)
Bill Arnold
The name “Heartbeat Protection Act” is deeply offensive in its falsehood. There is no beating heart at 6 weeks, or even until much later in a pregnancy.
But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case.
Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.
It is a fucking boldface lie, based on what claims to be religious doctrine (theologically extremely dubious, in the Abrahamic traditions at least), written into law in (what is to me a clear) violation of the establishment clause.
(Brain development is slower. A mouse has considerably more claim, biologically, to sentience than an embryo.)
Bill K
Republicans knew this would be unpopular, which is why they waited until after the election to pass it. Now they are just hoping everyone forgets about it when the next election rolls around. They will, of course, be campaigning about how they are protecting us from government overreach.
Paul in KY
@Jerzy Russian: If dad taped it & they got ahold of the tape…
Geminid
It was a good day in Yemen. The two sides that have been fighting a civil war for ten years exchanged 900 prisoners. Saudi and Houthi negotiators still have a lot of work ahead to craft a comprehensive, durable ceasefire, but they appear committed to achieving one. Omani mediators are playing a key role in the process, as is the UN’s special envoy.
West of the Rockies
Soooo tired of the whining, sniveling and enraged Republican base of patriarchal bigots and know-nothings.
Bill Arnold
@Paul in KY:
Within a few years the Dad and/or the Red State will be deploying the argument that such videos are deep fakes. While those same Red States will be using other videos of other things to secure convictions for other crimes.
JCNZ
If, through DNA testing, the male half of the pregnancy equation could be positively identified, and if that male was then legally bound, in the face of severe penalties, to financially support the child until the child was 18 – how long would anti-abortion legislation survive? Or is that not how these things work?
Betty
I was happy to see the Washington Post headline The DeSantis Folly as well. He doesn’t know where to draw the line on extremism. Lucky for us.
Betty
@Geminid: That is certainly welcome news. The people have suffered so much.
Jeffro
Why indeed?
I’ve read a little about it, and it seems like they ought to either limit it to a very few cities that have already built the necessary facilities (so that they can be re-used) or spread each Olympics’ events out to several of those facilities (re-use + more manageable).
(I don’t mean circling back to a host city every 30-40 years; I mean like every other or every third Olympics)
Makes too much sense, I suppose…
clay
On top of everything else, it just codifies the mindset that bitches be lyin’, am I right?
Jeffro
Anyway, back on topic: we’re going to crush the GOP on guns, abortion, and climate change going forward if we as a party can just stay the course.
It’s about freedom and it’s about the future…about having a future. The kids seem to get it.
Geminid
@Fake Irishman: The 3-2 margin in that Kansas referendum was unmistakable proof that Democrats were on the right side of public opinion on this question, even in a Republican state. Women’s rights are a moral issue, but it was good to have clarity on the political dimension too.
JCNZ
@Bill Arnold: Remarkable. That was my unthinking view of a fetal heartbeat – a tiny, heart-shaped organ gently moving in the chest of a tiny, human-shaped presence. Instead, it’s an electrical signal of some kind. The Heartbeat Protection Act – the endless cynicism of these people.
Ocotillo
@Jeffro: I had the same thought along with alternating in such a manner that all continents (Antartica excepting) be represented in the cycle.
Ruckus
@Jerzy Russian:
How do you prove a pregnancy is rape in the first place?
Either sex was consensual or it wasn’t. So other than genetic testing to see who the father is it is one person’s word against another unless caught in the act.
HOWEVER – it is always rape when it’s forced, even in a marriage. And that’s also why we have socially accepted minimum ages for sexual behavior. Because how many 14 yr olds are capable of this decision? Hell a lot of men are never capable of anything other than “It’s my right to screw anyone I desire, whenever I desire.” On twitter in the last few days there has been posts about men – I believe 2 were priests – who were arrested for sexually assaulting/rape of under age females. And arrested not for just one time/one woman either.
Paul in KY
@Bill Arnold: Probably true. CGI is getting scary good.
Renie
@JCNZ: If the GOP is so pro-life and actually cares about the ‘baby’, they should make it law that the father is also responsible financially for the child until the age of 18. Have paternity tests done to determine the father if there is any uncertainty who is the father (under subpoena if the man is unwilling). This way the guy has consequences to face.
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: If it made the Olympics less of a burden for the citizens of the cities who host, I would be for that. I’m just watching the competition on TV and am concerned with that so much more than the particular town it is in.
Ken
I’ve always assumed massive kickbacks and bribery are involved.
JaneE
This needs to be more forcefully stated. Something on the order of “Because of the way gestation weeks are calculated, 6 weeks pregnant means your period is only 2 weeks late. Unless someone is extremely regular, this may not be unusual enough to notice, especially for younger women.”
topclimber
I thought I saw news that Florida law forbids the governor from running for president. It seems they want him there when a Ft. Lauderdale happens. GQP has a law to end the ban.
I wonder if Trump has an opinion.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
Of interest to you (and me):
Talking Points Memo: “Right-Wing Terrorists Are Targeting the Grid Amid Rise in Accelerationism.”
Steeplejack
TriassicSands
Sure, why not? It’s a well known fact that 99.99% of convictions come within 4-5 weeks of the commission of a crime and rape has a 99.999999999% clearance rate. Therefore, women should have ample time — one to two full weeks to discover if they are pregnant and obtain a legal RonDeSantisApproved™ abortion. Naturally, there will be no red tape or other bureaucratic obstacles for women to overcome since Governor DeSantis is all about making life as easy and safe for women as possible.
If you are a woman of child bearing age, support Ron DeSantis: He has your best interests at heart.
RON CARES!
Jeffro
@Ocotillo: Maybe. That would mean a 24-year rotation, though…a lot of those same facilities would probably need pretty thorough renovation after that kind of time frame.
@Paul in KY: yup, same here!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty: And even that headline is so horse race oriented! Reporting the stakes instead of the odds will never catch on in MSM.
evap
Does this mean that if a girl under the age of consent gets pregnant, she can get an abortion? Legally, it is rape by definition in this case?
Maxim
@Renie: But they aren’t, and they don’t. What they care about is controlling women. And one of the reasons they want to force women to give birth is so they can be talked into giving their babies up for adoption by well-off infertile white couples.
Jeffro
@Steeplejack: I just saw that one too.
As the stories keep coming out and people keep speaking up, it’ll be harder and harder for the wingnuts to justify any of these ridiculous restrictions and we’ll end up back close to Roe v Wade and…the RWNJs will ask us to thank them.
Ksmiami
@West of the Rockies: maybe we should ban statins for fat ass Republican men. I mean God hates gluttony Rt so
Baud
@evap:
No, because the GOP is playing Calvinball with people’s bodies. Nothing means anything.
trollhattan
Since the majority of cases aren’t reported–winning!
TriassicSands
Women are unquestionably one focus, but not the only one. Republicans want to control everyone (except perhaps corporations and the wealthy because they need to allowed to run amok in order to do their thing).
Women. Gays. Trans. Minorities. By the time you get finished naming all the people they want to control you’re looking at well over half the population. Eventually, they may even figure out a way to control people like me — old, white guys who vote like minority women.
greenergood
Yes there was a law passed here In England a couple of years ago (dunno if in Scotland, need to check) that if you are a woman on benefits (US welfare), you could get ££ for your first two children, but if you’re trying to claim benefits for a child after that, you would need to prove that the third/fourth/whatever child is a product of rape – otherwise you’re obviousliy a feckless female who deserves no help at all. Charming, Nyet?? Thanks, Tories – learning from your US Republican mentors …
Capri
Something else about these discussions that galls me is equating heartbeat with life. If there wasn’t life without heartbeat there would be no CPR, no defibrillators.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@TriassicSands:
This.
TriassicSands
@Capri:
And there can be NO life even with a heartbeat, since personhood resides in the brain, not the heart. They don’t “kill” a person with no brain activity when they are removed from so-called “life-support.” They are simply acknowledging reality — the heart is a machine, a pump, that can be kept pumping long after a person has died.
A doomed fetus can still have a heartbeat with no chance of ultimate survival. Leaving that fetus in a woman’s uterus can result in the eventual death of the woman. This kind of event is all over the news since the Dobbs decision.
twbrandt
Alito (!) issued a temporary stay of the lower court banning mifepristone, so full access is available for now until the SC takes up the govt appeal.
Tony G
The effective impossibility of providing such “proof” is the point, because cruelty to and punishment of women is the point. Even if (by some miracle) a woman can show, a few weeks after the crime, that a man has been convicted of raping her — how can she prove that she has had no other sex during the time period? This is just hatred of women; period. And the majority of the good people of Florida are, apparently, just fine with this.
Tony G
@TriassicSands: The unnecessary deaths of women is a feature, not a bug.
Baud
@twbrandt:
Expected. It would have been bigger news if they didn’t issue the stay.
Scout211
@twbrandt:
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Philbert
@Ken: The Olympics seem totally Euro-rich corrupt.
How about permanently in Greece and Switzerland?
Ohio Mom
None of my doctors’ offices have magazines anymore (unless you want to count the health system’s PR magazine or the Area Senior Services advertiser). Neither does my walk-in hair cut place. They all stopped during the first months of Covid, when it was still a reasonable assumption that you could catch the virus by touching things sick people had touched before you.
Then they realized they could save money by never providing magazines ever again. Just assume everyone will be too busy on their phones to notice the magazines are gone.
This trend must be a serious threat to many magazines’ continued existence.
Bill Arnold
@twbrandt:
The SCOTUS has a problem with this case, because the original ruling is entirely shit arguments, and even the supposed grounding in scholarship is shit, as an hour with google scholar looking at papers citing the (shit) papers referenced by the Judge will inform one.
Even the partisan hacks (most of them Christian Supremacists) that form the current SCOTUS majority will be feeling conflicted.
Though they may get over it.
WV Blondie
@Ruckus: I’ve always thought it’s because they have this fantasy of returning to a time where “men were men and women knew their place” – i.e., silent and three steps behind them, cooking and cleaning and raising their children. Oh, and if they have to work because of family economics, they turn their paychecks over to their
ownershusbands.karen marie
@JCNZ: The problem with that is, it would go hand in hand with forcing the person who gave birth to the child to deal with/interact with/be controlled by “that male,” up to and including “that male” removing custody of the child to himself.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
I think there are two interlocking reasons:
My gut feeling is the “putting your name out there” is an especially big deal for authoritarian governments that want to use the games as a propaganda spectacle. This use obviously goes back at least to the 1936 Berlin games. Using the games to try to pry money out of the central government is more universal.
Ohio Mom
@Renie: There are already child support laws that are thoroughly ignored, that would only increase the number of ignored child support orders.
Roberto el oso
@Ruckus: I think there are maybe a small, small handful who believe that controlling women’s sexuality & all pertaining reproductive issues is the Godly thing to do. But the utter lack of follow-through on women’s and girls’ healthcare post-pregnancy gives the lie to any compassionate concern. From what we’ve seen over and over and over, conservative men feel nothing but contempt for women, although they have also shown that they very much want to be free to have unprotected sex with women (regardless of age) and for the very concept of consent to be done away with, along with the desire that rape and other means of coercion should not be taken seriously (with certain caveats when the woman is white and the rapist is not, although again, not because they give a damn about the women in question, for them it is a question of someone trespassing on their property).
As for the whimsical idea of laws being passed requiring permission for men to have an erection, the logical counter would be that conservatives would wish for there to be laws requiring that any existing erection be satisfied.
The conservative view of independent women as a threat and a nightmare is a psychosis.
TriassicSands
@Tony G:
The feature aspect may come into play because they figure they’re probably killing more potential Democratic voters than Republicans.
But, sometimes they may look at it more as an annoyance than an actual feature. The loss of life isn’t the problem, but the loss of a vote might be. Too many deaths could conceivably come back to haunt them when Republican and Independent registered women come to realize they too could be at jeopardy, less from the issue of a “voluntary” abortion than from a medically necessary procedure.
Admittedly, lots of people are very slow on the uptake and it may take the death of someone very close and/or similar before reality sinks in. For the densest people, it will only hit home when their own lives are directly threatened. We saw that a lot during the height of the pandemic.
karen marie
@topclimber: The law doesn’t forbid the governor from running for president, it merely requires him to resign first.
JoyceH
@Bill Arnold:
SCOTUS has another problem with the abortion issue, IMO. I am CONVINCED, just based on the odds, that at least one Justice has an abortion in his background. At least one, probably more. There are people out there who know that information – the patient herself or a relative or a doctor. Under these circumstances, I would find a spot of discreet blackmail to be forgivable, wouldn’t you?
Ken
Not so long as high schools need money for extracurricular programs.
(“But I don’t want to subscribe to HGTV Magazine or Midwest Living. No, not even People. Can’t I just send your school a check for band uniforms?”)
Almost Retired
@Paul in KY: I agree that the Olympics are generally a burden on the host city’s citizens, but Los Angeles in 1984 seemed like a pretty big exception. Private financing, and the business and government magically cooperated to alter work and delivery schedules to reduce traffic. We ended up with 10 days of mostly smog-less skies and largely fast-moving freeways. Maybe I’m idealizing that time because I was 21 and pre-cynical.
OTOH, I was a waiter at the time, and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the shitty tipping cultures of the rest of the world. So there was that…
WV Blondie
@karen marie: I wish the proposed new law would include the language that if a sitting governor runs for President and LOSES, he has to give up the governorship …
Bill Arnold
@Steeplejack:
Pikers. All you need is a well-timed fast Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME).
Straightforward chaos engineering, especially if one has an effector platform near enough the sun to minimize or eliminate the need for causality violation. (The solar [surface] is seriously chaotic.)
Seriously warning, though; don’t go looking hard for accurate information about the electric grid and its vulnerabilities without taking serious anonymity precautions; you will be observed. (Also, Texas has its own grid. :-)
Bill Arnold
@JoyceH:
Agreed.
Ohio Mom
I’ve developed the bad habit of dropping in on my local newspaper’s comment threads.
Most of the commentators are dead set against abortion “as birth control,” but do not want to deny abortions to 10 year old rape victims or women who are about to go septic.
Things like Lindsey Graham’s proposal for a 16 week cut-off or this silliness from DeSantis will appease these people. They will think, “See, my Republican politicians are decent and reasonable!”
E.
Betty I get your point but Taylor Swift and her fans are reliable allies, probably forever, and there are a lot of them. Have you listened to her music?
Geminid
@Steeplejack: After the December Moore County power station attack, a DHS memo about previous grid attacks in the Pacific Northwest was made public. There were more attacks there afterwards, and 2 or 3 more attempts in the Carolinas this winter.
Lately things seem to be quieter. Maybe it’s just a lull. Just reading that TPM article, and seeing all the anger and recklessness on the right, one would expect continued attempts to knock out power this year.
On the other hand, it could be that electric companies are taking countermeasures, like placing security cameras and/or silent alarms at remote facilities, and word of this has gone out.
I guess we’ll see in the next few months. If security has been improved, there will still be dumbasses who will get caught, like the two thieves who were caught up in Oregon a couple months ago. They decided that knocking out a substatation, and committing a major federal felony in the process, was a clever way to help burgle a couple local businesses.
Besides these two nimrods, and the Florida man and Baltimore woman described in the TPM article, there is a North Carolina case involving several men who were charged a year ago with conspiracy to sabotage electrical facilities. I think one was an active duty Marine. I heard about this case through Molly Conger, aka “Socialist Dog Mom,” but the story was reported by state media as well. Conger was reporting on a development in the federal case from last December.
UncleEbeneezer
@Paul M Gottlieb: Cracked magazine also does some very good stuff.
Anyway
@Steeplejack:
scoot over, me three. I’m disappointed with the lack of progress in the NC grid sabotage investigation. Apparently there were similar incidents in California(? one of the Western states) that are still unsolved — don’t know whether there’s slow-walking of the investigation or some savvy/lucky saboteurs.
Ohio Mom
@Ken: Well there is also the public library, they still subscribe to lots of magazines.
But there are a lot of hair cutting and beauty salons, and waiting rooms in the world — not just medical practitioners, can repair places and whatnot — and all of them provide many eyes per copy, and that surely matters to advertisers.
As for school sales, this week I FINALLY used up the last of the wrapping paper and Ohio Son graduated from public school in 2016.
E.
@Jeffro: There’s a term for this I overheard: “futurability.” Some people have more of it than others.
TriassicSands
Contempt yes. Hatred? I don’t think most right wing men “hate” women any more than they hate their table saws, expensive cigars, pick-up trucks, or guns. They’re all tools available for the pleasure and gratification of men.
I doubt if most Republican men “hate” Ginni Thomas. She’s a very useful tool, just as Phyllis Schlafly was. They help Republican men get what they want (including control of women) and the men see that as a good thing. Do women deserve the same respect or care as men? Hardly. Given the chance to save either a box of Cohiba Siglio III cigars or a woman, but not both from being washed away in a flood, I’m pretty sure a lot of cigar-smoking Republican men would kind of regret the “necessary” loss of the woman. Unless the woman had lots of money and was supplying the cigars. The word transactional seems to matter in the relationship.
As with so much in Republican Land, “what’s in it for me,” as opposed to “what’s good for you,” seems to dominate.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
old, white guys who vote like minority women
Hey! We are in the same club!
Roger Moore
@TriassicSands:
I said this in a previous post, but we should steer clear of the fetal personhood discussion. It’s ultimately accepting the anti-abortion framing, because it assumes the fetus’s rights dominate as soon as it crosses some magic line of personhood. That’s just wrong. The fetus does not have an inalienable right to stay in the uterus; the person whose uterus it is should have the final say.
Sure Lurkalot
@Bill Arnold:
On NPR earlier this week, the mansplainer simply stated that the new Florida law seeking to ban abortion was based on the fetal heartbeat which can be detected at 6 weeks. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard or read this nonsense spouted as fact; it seems rare when it isn’t. I really hate that these troglodytes get away with this shit.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
I think print magazines have bigger problems than not being in doctors’ offices.
luc
Isn’t it great? Climate change is winning topic. Yeah !!!
…. as long as we pretend that the American gas-guzzling Monster-Truck/Monster-SUV way-of-life is just fine, that gas should always be cheap, going everywhere by car is fine and houses should always be 3000 square feet.
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
I sincerely doubt this explanation. If there were justices who didn’t want to touch abortion because they have one in their history, it would have showed up during Dobbs, not now.
TriassicSands
@Roger Moore:
I understand what you’ve written and I agree, but I actually wasn’t discussing personhood in the context of a fetus. The fetus is mentioned in a separate paragraph and doesn’t say anything about brain activity. or personhood.
The original comment to which I was replying referred to fetal heartbeats and I was simply pointing out that a “doomed fetus” (of no particular age or development) could have a heartbeat, which according to these new laws, would protect it in preference to the mother’s well-being, but have no ultimate chance of survival.
Perhaps, if I had put the two paragraphs in separate comments, you wouldn’t have made that connection, which was neither stated nor implied. I thought one comment to the same person could cover both.
sab
@Ohio Mom: I gave my mom’s wrapping paper to our Humane Society thrift store. She died ten years ago at 84 and she left a lot of really nice wrapping paper. She got hers supporting a women’s colllege scholarship fund because their alumnae supported her college’s pecan sales.
Ruckus
@WV Blondie:
It likely is.
The world of course is not a simple place and while some humans are simple (or even less), most are not all that simple.
We try to make is simple because it’s easier to explain, understand and live in. Except that life very rarely works simply, especially over all. And the more humans you add into the mix, the more complicated it gets. I believe this is the basis of our politics, the more political parties a country has, the more difficult it is to run, so we basically have 2. Of course that leaves out the crazifiaction factor which John Rogers said should always be considered 27%. I believe today we call them republicans.
TriassicSands
Even simpletons can be complicated.
Ruckus
@Roberto el oso:
Oh I think you are correct. That is an issue whenever we try to discuss this as rational humans, we want to simplify this. But humans are complex, there’s no one way to be human. And there is no one way to fail to be human. And some will always look for a way to be and others will always look for a way to fail, even if that looking fails. Some do not want others to live a life the doesn’t reward them at least in some way.
TriassicSands
Repeated from the next post:
Wow. Cardinal Alito’s jurisprudence actually bumped into the law. That’s likely to be temporary since he now needs to carefully craft an opinion based on 10th century BCE* hunter-gatherer tribal customs that bans the use of mifepristone altogether.
*Undoubtedly, Alito will use BC — before Christ — and reject BCE — before the common era.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
I stand corrected…. But.
I was talking about the concept of human understanding and control, of themselves and of others. Some like to simplify everything because they think everyone is/should be the same. But everyone is not the same, everyone is not simple and not simple in so many ways.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
I’ve been following the news. I thought this was a good overview article (in a slightly unexpected location).
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Trail cams can be pretty well disguised. From a brief search, these are among the best camouflaged of the lot, even without additional effort to hide them.
Browning Command Ops Elite Trail Camera – no cell phone capability though
or this one, with verizon/att support:
https://www.amazon.com/Stealth-Cam-Fusion-Cellular-Verizon/dp/B0BBJRR2BD?th=1
Gotta match the bark pattern with local trees, though.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
I wasn’t correcting, I was agreeing. Multi-party political systems can be chaotic. Just look at Israel trying to form coalitions. And religious parties (which should not exist in a democracy) make things even worse.
I thought your comment was fine. I must have been trying to simplify things. Oops.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think that was JoyceH’s point. I think it was rather the hypocrisy of being a party to an abortion but then voting to (essentially) make it illegal.
Citizen Alan
@Steeplejack: Isn’t there a sitting member of Congress who forced his mistress to have an abortion even though he’s rabidly anti-choice? Dejarlais, I think, from Tennessee?
Steeplejack
McTurtle sighting!
He’s wearing “sloppy retired grandpa” clothes. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen him not in a suit, except maybe once or twice at a political barbecue or some such.
Geminid
@Anyway: NewsNation has been reporting on substation attacks. They were the ones who obtained the DHS alert I referenced at #74. On December 10, 6 days after the Moore County attacks, they reported on “a recent law enforcement memo that warned of of something strikingly similar….The memo reads in part:”
Other media reports on the memo said it was distributed in late November to law enforcement agencies and power companies, and that there had been at least 6 attacks in Oregon and Washington in recent months.
The NewsNation story reported that a Nov. 11 attack in Jones County, North Carolina had knocked out power to 12,000 people for days. Also, that ” back in February the DOJ secured guilty plea from three men accused of plotting to shoot substations across the country with powerful rifles.”
A January 3 NewsNation article reported the arrest of two men for sabotaging 4 Tacoma, Washington area substations on Christmas Day.
.
@Anyway:
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Bill Arnold: So we need to refer to this as the “There a few cells wilggling in unison so now we can deny a woman’s personhood act!”
Geminid
@Steeplejack: This reminds me that I haven’t checked out Cheryl Christy-Bowman in a while. She’s a Moore County resident who has been reporting on right-wing radicalization in her rural/exurban county since 2018, on her blog and on Twitter. Christy-Bowman is a good citizen journalist.
sab
I don’t subscribe to People but I happily read it every time I get a chance. Celebrity gossip but almost always kind.
To me People v Murdoch in UK and all their other tabloids is what differentiates us from them. People wants to gossip about them in a way that they like. Publicity without notoriety. Just give these celebrities publicity and move on. Celebrities happy, fans happy. Kind. Friendly. Cheerful. What is wrong with that? I think American fans want that. I like that person. Why be mean? I do not want to really know about them. I just want to like the persona if it is pleasant.
That is why Piers Morgan failed so dismally when he took over from Larry King’s 25 year old program. Larry King was friendly and just chatted. Piers Morgan was utterly nasty to his guests.We are reaaly in a bad way politically in this country but we are not yet into hating everyone who isn’t us.
JoyceH
Not sure if you guys saw this? A male bald eagle at a wildlife sanctuary was trying to hatch a rock. The sanctuary people replaced the rock with a baby eaglet – and now Murphy is a Dad!
https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/3581/A-Male-Bald-Eagle-That-Was-Trying-To-Hatch-A-Rock-Has-Been-Given-A-Chick-To-Raise
sab
@JoyceH: Stupid eagle acting like a penguin. What is wrong with him?
Jinchi
Gotta assume that it’s only evidence of rape. Who’s to say that this pregnancy is a result of that crime?
Jinchi
@Citizen Alan: There are a lot of them. A fair number of priests as well I expect.
Steeplejack
@sab:
Perhaps he doesn’t identify with his birth species. A trans penguin.
sab
@sab: Jackals, I hoped you noticed I turned this into something other than gender. Haven’t figured out the label. Species? No. Race? Huh.? Breed! Got it.
RSA
And it’s not a recent thing.
‘for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.’ 1 Corinthians 11:9
‘Now if a woman has a discharge of her blood many days, not at the period of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond that period, all the days of her impure discharge she shall continue as though in her menstrual impurity; she is unclean. Any bed on which she lies all the days of her discharge shall be to her like her bed at menstruation; and every thing on which she sits shall be unclean, like her uncleanness at that time. Likewise, whoever touches them shall be unclean and shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening.’ Leviticus 15:25-30
Side note on language: It’s a little weird and sometimes even disturbing how much people associate cleanliness with health and morality. Yeah, germs can kill you, but eating clean isn’t really a thing.
Gvg
@Sure Lurkalot: We lost this battle when we didn’t know there was one. Back in the 80’s they started letting couples listen to “their” babies heart and giving them copies along with videos of the fetus bouncing around in the uterus from wellness checkups. It seemed to be involving men in fatherhood more and getting more of them to childbirth classes. People my age loved it. This was also when they started having the ability to tell the sex and for awhile some people still wanted it to be a surprise but gradually it just became normal to know and tell everyone. I also noticed people said they wanted girls more, it was no longer first a boy than a girl. It was later, much later that girls had to get pink everything!
I have always loved pink myself, but not every girl did. It was not so much fun when that was the only choice. Listen up people and loosen up.
That was when it was called a fetal heartbeat, way back then. I had no idea it was wrong until fairly recently. Of course I consider brain development to be more significant to a human status. A guppy probably has a “heartbeat” in a few days, so what? Human brainwaves are what matter.
Ohio Mom
@Roger Moore: Yes, it is only one straw on the camel’s back. But still, a straw.
Ohio Mom
@Gvg: I also blame that Life Magazine set of photos of developing embryos and fetuses, which was later made into a book. I knew more than one expecting couple that bought the book and referred to it photo by photo — this is what Junior looks like right now!
Ironically, the photos were mainly of “surgically removed” fetuses (phase the Wikipedia article quotes from the photographer)
Kay
Florida had the biggest increase in abortions in the country post Dobbs, because women from all over the south were going to Florida, so it’s not just 11 million Floridians, it’s all the refugees from the other states.
Here’s another place to donate if people want:
JCNZ
@Renie: Absolutely.
brantl
Ron De Santis, the turd that keeps polishing itself.
JCNZ
@karen marie: Good point. But would the possibility that they might get notification (say) years after a one-night stand to say that they suddenly have a considerable financial liability for the child they inadvertently fathered, not give all men reason to think about what “pro-life” actually means – and to consider that abortion is in fact just a procedure?
AlaskaReader
Ask your so-called pro-lifer why they aren’t closing down IVF clinics.
The fact that they ignore IVF practices proves they’re just single issue dupes, an unaware acting army regularly being manipulated by their overlords.
sab
@AlaskaReader: You are supposed to ignore the Pope and rhe doctors and try to carry all six of them to term, even if it kills all seven of you. Do you not even understand Faith before science?!
sab
@JCNZ: LOL. Happened to my stepdaughter’s dad. He gave up custody and whatever before they could finish asking the question about him making up child support for all those years he did not know he had a kid.
Years later he caming crawling back asking for forgiveness. She was not kind or understanding.
AlaskaReader
@sab: The new age of eugenics,
…wholly endorsed via the practice of regularly tossing out millions of fetuses.
TriassicSands
@Jinchi:
Video may be required, but now that AI can produce utterly fake audio and videos of pretty much anything…
Tony G
@Ohio Mom: That’s true. I bring a book or magazine from home when I have to go to a doctor’s office these days.
AlaskaReader
@Citizen Alan: Odds are there are several of those….
Paul in KY
@Almost Retired: i enjoyed those games. Was a bit bummed by the commie boycott. Much less bummed than in 1980 when we boycotted. I had been looking forward to kicking commie ass on their own soil.