Recent Comments

1. almost 9 years ago on Candorville

   Re 9/11 – I just read about this in a book – the two key pieces of information that could have stopped 9/11 showed up just a few months before the attack. But the flow of information didn’t allow these two pieces to be put together. (And don’t talk about privatizing. This would have been equivalent to Verizon and Wal-mart sharing information)

2. almost 12 years ago on Real Life Adventures

   She obviously never lived in Texas. Some days it can take 10 minutes for the air coming out of the vent to make it through the wall of hot air.

3. almost 12 years ago on Frazz

   Well, at least I don’t fold my underwear…

4. about 12 years ago on Frazz

   Do you notice the sidebar that explains Frazz’s choice of job?

5. about 12 years ago on Candorville

   I understand where you’re coming from and I can sympathize with your frustration. How I think of it though, is that I’m not going to convince the person I’m arguing with online, because they’ve already invested effort into the argument. I’m trying to convince the audience. I feel like being polite and factual in my responses is going to get the point across better than ad hominems.

   Besides, do you really want to give him the opportunity to play “Poor, pitiful me”? Well, anymore than he does now…

6. about 12 years ago on Candorville

   An interesting perspective on requiring ultrasounds: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/02/requiring-counselling-ultrasound-abortion.html

7. about 12 years ago on Candorville

   Farley – there are currently nine (9) states requiring ultrasounds, not two. Currently, three of these states (Oklahoma, North Carolina and Texas) have a law that not only requires the ultrasound, but also requires the ultrasound technician to describe the image to the recipient. OK and NC are currently not actually enforcing this law due to extent lawsuits. If we ignore these two states, the remaining seven states represent over one third of the U.S. population. cite: http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_RFU.pdf

   Everyone knows though, what an ultrasound is like, right? The technician places a device on a woman’s stomach, presses a couple of buttons, and a picture of a baby appears, right? Not necessarily- in order to get the required images for a woman who is less than 12 weeks pregnant (80% of all abortions), the technician has to do a trans-vaginal sonogram. I’ve had one of these so I can speak with authority on how this is done: they put a dildo up your hoo-ha and move it around. Note: it didn’t bother me, because I was having it done to diagnose a health problem. But I don’t even want to think about how a woman who is getting an abortion because she was raped would feel about this.You say that it is only “unnecessary” if a woman “demands the right to an abortion without knowing anything about the life she’s terminating”. What do you think an ultrasound is going to tell a woman? That it’s alive? Of course it is, otherwise the person wouldn’t be going in for an abortion. The only reason to do this is to attempt to control a woman’s actions through humiliation and shaming.

8. about 12 years ago on Candorville

   Please don’t call Farley a liar. First, it puts him on the defensive, which makes it even more unlikely that he (and others like him) will listen to you (or me, or anyone else who might be on our side of this argument). A lie is when someone says something they know is incorrect, and I will lay odds that Farley truly believes it to be true.The way to fight this type of argument is with facts, not ad hominem arguments.

9. about 12 years ago on Candorville

   Exactly. If something like this had happened to me, I would have provided great detail. And offered to bring proof.

10. about 12 years ago on Candorville

    BTW, here is the transcript that sstarted a lot of this kerfuffle:These denials of contraceptive coverage impact real people. In the worst cases, women who need this medication for other medical reasons suffer dire consequences. A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome and has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy. At many schools, it wouldn’t be, and under Senator Blunt’s amendment, Senator Rubio’s bill, or Representative Fortenberry’s bill, there’s no requirement that an exception be made for medical needs. When they do exist, these exceptions don’t accomplish their well-intended goals because when you let university administrators or other employers, rather than women and their doctors, dictate whose medical needs are good enough and whose aren’t, a woman’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.

    In sixty-five percent of cases, our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university staff about why they need these prescriptions and whether they’re lying about their symptoms. For my friend, and 20% of women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription, despite verification of her illness from her doctor. Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted the birth control to prevent pregnancy.