HereAndGone2
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User ID: 4074
HereAndGone2
4d ago
Chesterton said "if you understand why the fence was there, then you can tear it down". If you think "that's just in my way", you may be tearing down the fence that is keeping the bull in the field from running at you and goring you.
People can be idiot fools and ignore warning signs about cliff edges, and then be all shocked when they go right to the edge and it crumbles beneath their feet. Hell yeah don't tear down 'inexplicable' fences because you may be an idiot fool and not the smart invulnerable person you think you are.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
"That didn't happen and if it did, it's a good thing".
HereAndGone2
4d ago
The word you are looking for is "evil"
Oh no, WhiningCoil. That is nasty judgementalism when people are only being compassionate and accepting!
I've had decades of listening to the pushback and insults around the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion, so I am both inured to the tactics and grimly validated in what we stick-in-the-muds were warning all along. You start loosening the bolts. You pull down the fence. You cut down those trees in the way. It's all done in the name of compassion, and nobody thinks it will affect anyone except the (carefully chosen and cherry-picked) few hard cases you selected to get the laws changed and societal acceptance.
Divorce is a tragedy and marriage should be for life, but do you want to keep women stuck in abusive marriages? It will never affect marriage itself! Abortion will only be for the few cases where delivering the pregnancy would kill the mother. Birth control will only be used by responsible married couples to delay and space out their families. Gay marriage will have no effect on you. Trans people are only a tiny percentage of the population, they never did anything to you. So giving in on this one thing will not do anything except help the few desperate cases.
It won't lead to normalisation and acceptance. It won't be the first step towards the next hard case that needs compassionate understanding. Abortion won't become "it's not a baby, it's only a clump of cells" or "it's a baby if you want it, it's not a baby if you don't want it". It won't have the knock-on effect of devaluing all life. Euthanasia is compassion for the terminally ill who want to avoid gasping out their last few weeks in horrible pain. It will never be something where gradually lowering the age limits will be proposed. Granting limited rights to this minority will never be the first stepping-stone to increasing demands. Granting expanded rights will never be used as a playbook for a different minority.
There is no such thing as the slippery slope and only bigots and haters pretend there is. Nothing will change once we loosen this bolt, the machine will continue to function exactly as it always has. See, everything is fine after that bolt was loosened, that means we can remove it altogether! See, the machine is still running even with that bolt gone, let's loosen a few more bolts. Okay, now the machine is making funny noises, but that only means we haven't loosened enough bolts.
Now let's all chant together "There is no such thing as the slippery slope!"
Yeah, Canadian MAID is what I expected. But I'm just a dumb conservative traditionalist pro-lifer, what do I know? We're sawing off the branches we're sitting on but don't worry, we will continue to float in mid-air while all the nasty old dead wood tumbles away!
Why keep the useless vegetables on life support when we could strip them for parts? Trust The Science! Believe The Experts! A technocracy would be so much more efficient and better run as a society!
Fortunately, there is a relatively new method that can improve the efficacy of donation after circulatory death. In this procedure, which is called normothermic regional perfusion, doctors take an irreversibly comatose donor off life support long enough to determine that the heart has stopped beating permanently — but then the donor is placed on a machine that circulates oxygen-rich blood through the body to preserve organ function. Donor organs obtained through this procedure, which is used widely in Europe and increasingly in the United States, tend to be much healthier.
But by artificially circulating blood and oxygen, the procedure can reanimate a lifeless heart. Some doctors and ethicists find the procedure objectionable because, in reversing the stoppage of the heart, it seems to nullify the reason the donor was declared dead in the first place. Is the donor no longer dead, they wonder?
Proponents of the procedure reply that the resumption of the heartbeat should not be considered resuscitation; the donor still has no independent functioning, nor is there any hope of it. They say that it is not the donor but rather regions of the body that have been revived. How to resolve this debate? The solution, we believe, is to broaden the definition of brain death to include irreversibly comatose patients on life support. Using this definition, these patients would be legally dead regardless of whether a machine restored the beating of their heart.
HereAndGone2
5d ago
I think in the most recent books, Harry is finally starting to grow up. He's a great guy and his heart is in the right place, but he has a long history of making really, really bad decisions.
And a lot of that is due to his background, where his mentor DuMorne very carefully shaped him to distrust and confront all authority, thus cutting him off from a lot of sources of information and education he badly needed as he was developing. This left Harry with a smart-ass attitude that, even without all the other strikes against him, would put him at loggerheads with anyone and any body he saw as trying to be the boss of him, so that even now there are breadcrumbs throughout the novels of things he should know but doesn't. He also has severe White Knight Syndrome where any baddie can easily manipulate him by putting a woman or innocent person in danger. Harry relies on the strength of his talents and magic to just bulldoze an answer to any problem, and while that was okay when he was going up against evil mages, he is now on a completely higher and more dangerous level where he will have to use his brain instead.
I like Harry, but there were times in the books when I wanted to slap him due to his "don't think, just bulldoze" approach (and eh, his views on women; there's a few too many Fridged Exes in his life but then again Butcher has been writing this character over a very long time and when he started, Harry was your typical mid-20s guy who likes tits and beer. It was fun urban fantasy with a male character as written by a guy and wasn't really intended to be anything more serious than that, I don't think.)
HereAndGone2
5d ago
Put it down after just a couple of pages, because I couldn't stand Chesterton's insufferable smugness.
I am filled with deep sorrow for your affliction. To be cut off from sources of joy due to incompatibility - alas!
HereAndGone2
5d ago
She has claimed Taino and Jewish ancestry, and probably there is some truth to that (but I'm very sceptical of "my ancestors were Sephardic Jews who fled the Inquisition" part, much more likely to be more recent:
"During the early 20th century Jews began to settle in Puerto Rico. The first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were European refugees fleeing German–occupied Europe in the late 1930s. Puerto Rico's economic boom of the 1950s attracted a considerable number of Jewish families from the U.S. mainland, who were joined after 1959 by an influx of Jewish emigres from Fidel Castro's Cuba.")
"Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, made the reveal on Sunday evening at a Jackson Heights synagogue in Queens, telling the crowd that “a very, very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews.”
She dated her ancestry to those who had to flee Europe during the Spanish Inquisition more than 500 years ago, and sought refuge in the New World. “Some of those people landed in Puerto Rico,” she explained.
“As is the story of Puerto Rico, we are a people that are an amalgamation,” she said. “We are no one thing. We are black; we are indigenous; we are Spanish; we are European.”
She is majority white, though, as is the Puerto Rican population in general:
"Puerto Ricans, on average, have genetic contributions from Europeans, West Africans, and Native Americans of approximately 66%, 18%, and 16%, respectively."
I think Polymarket and other prediction markets took a hammering on Hong, which makes me laugh also (because I don't think prediction markets are the be-all and end-all), but to be fair, all the polls up till then were showing her leading by a country mile. The margin of loss was so small, I'm sure the conspiracy theories in some quarters will start rumbling if they haven't already.
What I'm really interested to know, if we get any analysis, is why Crowley (the eventual victor) was brought back into the race. Hong was doing extremely well in the polls, but this doesn't seem to have been reflected in the internal party views? Crowley had already dropped out, then as other candidates (who had got party backing) dropped out, Crowley was called back in. Was this because the party wanted an actual Democrat, not a DSA member, as their nominee? He seems to have received the endorsement of the party, but the question remains: how were the polls so wrong, or was this a case of "give us an electable candidate and we'll pick them" for the Democrats? In which case the progressive victories of Mamdani and El-Sayed are not indicators of where the party should turn.
But yeah - "candidate who spent years making herself as unlikeable as possible loses due to mean tweets dug up from the past, well well how the turn tables" will always be funny because of Woke or SJW or PC or the name of the time digging up old tweets and calling for heads on spikes as a result.
HereAndGone2
5d ago
But laughing is considered rude, don't you know? It's called just being a decent person, bigot! To be polite and kind! To go along with the fantasies!
HereAndGone2
5d ago
Well, yeah. That was the problem - there was nothing there (and I think that also is Newsom's problem trying to break out of California to the national stage). But the turn hard left really was terrible, even if her fans lapped it up at the time (OMG, she schooled old white guy Biden on busing! Racism KOd! Never mind everyone with half a brain knew Biden was going to be the candidate because His Turn Now).
HereAndGone2
5d ago
Mom is (or was) prettier, at least by my judgement.
Having watched it again, no, she's not attractive (to me). I think the difference is that Walken is dancing in his video, while she's grimacing and convulsing. And to me at least, her mouth is too big and her eyes are wrong (they look like they're upside-down, there's something off about the lower lids and the shape there).
But I'm not a straight guy, so what's hot about her to you is not going to be the same to me. She is able to control her body and do the jumps, I'm not denying that, but she's not what I'd call hot. At the very start of the ad, I think the two older women seated at the table with her are more attractive. She looks - unfinished? doughy? too young? Something, anyway. Like there's not much there yet, and a few more years will fill up this shell with a person, not the larval stage she is at there.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
Yeah, he's average compared to the average person.
Young Bill wasn't a hideous uggo, but he might as well have had "nerd" tattooed on his forehead, for that is how he looked. He needed every advantage wealth, fame, and intelligence (ahem) could give him.
Looking at photos of her she's pretty, but not super-super attractive. She must take after her mom since Bill, God love him, is not blessed in the facial department (and so all the stories that got out about him being a playa were even more incredible; it goes to show that fame and wealth can make up for a lot).
Young Melinda was pretty, too, but again not the most stunning. Bill seems to have married within the range of attractiveness available to him, they look like a normal couple (never mind that some time down the line he'd be running after women who worked for him).
Plus she's the daughter of a very wealthy man, so premium health care, nutrition, and possibly (who can say?) subtle cosmetic procedures were all easily available to her.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
Slightly horsefaced, and some angles in photos can be very unflattering. Also she tends to wear her hair tightly pulled back and that is not flattering since it draws your facial skin and muscles taut as well (see the joke about council facelift).
HereAndGone2
6d ago
She is saying what she needs to say as the winds shift and the tides recede. A bit like Kamala Harris, only cannier. The Coconut Queen tried tacking hard left for 2019 and left a whole slew of hostages to fortune behind her (the 'they/them' ad just had to show her actual own appearance).
AOC is more brazen in her approach but also more clever in how she positions herself. Probably it's easier for a radical to go moderate than a moderate (or what passes for it) like Harris to try and go radical.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
It's turtles all the way down!
HereAndGone2
6d ago
For 8k years of human civilization a man wearing women clothing got stoned to death.
Not always. People like that, along with the mentally challenged/mentally ill and standing out by other characteristics (e.g. albinos or twins) could be considered unlucky/unnatural and be sacrificed or killed.
Or they might be considered taboo, which was always on the fine edge between being auspicious and inauspicious. Strange edge cases like that were the province of the spirits or the gods, and could be intermediaries between our world and the world of the ancestors/spirits. You might have a crossdressing shaman, but this was not something for ordinary people (the berdache system is something woefully misunderstood and I think modern progressivism has made interpretation of what exactly was going on even murkier and hard to disinter, see the Wikipedia edit on it which can't sufficiently spit in disgust on the horrid European repugnance of it all).
Certainly it was not something to be considered "and this is just like Real Women/Real Men" but now we insist on "and this is exactly precisely the same, see how trans women get their monthly periods on HRT".
HereAndGone2
6d ago
You made the right decision. That was someone just itching to write her next Instagram or whatever post about the toxic white supremacist masculinity of the guy who pumped and dumped her, and never mind she was the one with her hand down your pants in the first place.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
I see that Ms. Hong lost, where even Nate over at Silver Bulletin didn't give the winner Crowley a look-in (they had it Hong vs Tiffany), so perhaps woke is slain. Or perhaps not. AOC going "ooh things sure were crazy back then, eh? Ha-ha, those were the days, but we're all grown up now" is very amusing. I've always said she was primarily a political operator and if she thinks the wind is swinging round to a different quarter, it may be worth paying attention.
But mostly I think the craziness is just being skimmed off the top, like fat off a stock, and the main "it's called just being a decent person" bludgeoning remains. Though with Professor Arday also getting critical attention, we'll have to wait and see.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
Christopher Walken had/has the weirdness points to spend on that video. I don't know this girly and frankly if she's an actress I'm not going to be rushing off to catch up with her oeuvre.
Crikey, it just struck me what her goofy face-pulling reminded me of - this quote from "The Pilgrim's Regress" by C.S. Lewis:
Glugly instantly rose. She was very tall and as lean as a post: and her mouth was not quite straight in her face. When she was in the middle of the room, and silence had been obtained, she began to make gestures. First of all she set her arms a-kimbo and cleverly turned her hands the wrong way so that it looked as if her wrists were sprained. Then she waddled to and fro with her toes pointing in. After that she twisted herself to make it look as if her hip bone was out of joint. Finally she made some grunts, and said:
‘Globol obol oogle ogle globol gloogle gloo,’ and ended by pursing up her lips and making a vulgar noise such as children make in their nurseries. Then she went back to her place and sat down.
‘Thank you very much,’ said John politely. But Glugly made no reply, for Glugly could not talk, owing to an accident in infancy.
‘I hoped you liked it,’ said young Halfways.
‘I didn’t understand her.’
‘Ah,’ said a woman in spectacles who seemed to be Glugly’s nurse or keeper, ‘that is because you are looking for beauty. You are still thinking of your Island. You have got to realize that satire is the moving force in modern music.’
‘It is the expression of a savage disillusionment,’ said someone else.
‘Reality has broken down,’ said a fat boy who had drunk a great deal of the medicine and was lying flat on his back, smiling happily.
‘Our art must be brutal,’ said Glugly’s nurse.
‘We lost our ideals when there was a war in this country,’ said a very young Clever, ‘they were ground out of us in the mud and the flood and the blood. That is why we have to be so stark and brutal.’
HereAndGone2
6d ago
Why does making faces and doing silly walks make a conventionally attractive woman even more attractive?
Nah, that's a you thing bro. Good luck with your preferences, chacun à son goût and all that, but... that video is not "ooh how attractive she looks". Not even fun, I have to agree with other commenter - this is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl having her bipolar meltdown.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
I can believe it. You would not believe (although after this experience, maybe you would) the dumb stupid things women (and men too) do because "I loooooove them!!!"
HereAndGone2
8d ago
Problem was she kept topping it up, which is the Sunk Cost Fallacy in operation if ever it was.
Oh well, if we're swapping anecdotes...
My father had a sudden, drastic collapse. Rushed to hospital. Kidney failure, the works. Comatose or damn near it. Heart stopped and he had to be resuscitated. Doctors then broached "look he's very bad, do you want us to resuscitate if this happens again or you know you could just let nature take its course hint hint". My mother said more or less "Hell no" and the family demanded he be resuscitated. Happened twice more. When he was eventually discharged, it was pretty obvious the hospital thought they were sending him home to die.
Well, he didn't. Thanks to my mother and me, we nursed him back to health and he had ten more good years of life. He was on dialysis for those years, but he had recovered so well that his consultant used to brag about him to the student doctors as "my miracle man". We the family smiled and muttered under our breaths "yeah you guys wanted to kill him off, we stopped you".
If we had listened to the doctors, we would have let him die and lost those final ten years of life. By the time he came to die, it was natural: he'd been gradually fading for a year and even though it was sudden (a blood clot and resultant stroke) by then he was ready to die and we were ready to let him go.
So if euthanasia gets normalised, I do think there will be more pressure on families to "let nature take its course" and preventable deaths will happen.
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