Archives for 2009

Thanks to the People’s Cube folks for this one:

Amen to that.

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Andrea gives half an amen: The undue attention we heap on sports figures AND entertainers is part of the problem. In point of fact, making a hero of someone because they worked very hard to become good at a sport (that’s the discipline she speaks of) is appropriate. We all need heroes and people to look up to. Where I agree is that none of these people should become demi-gods: actors or sports figures alike. And those actors and sports figures forget to wield their immense power appropriately by conducting themselves as role models should. We have forgotten as a culture that what we own is not ours. We have forgotten where our talents, abilities and strengths come from. (I’ll leave each person to guess at the answer for themselves.)

In a recent decision, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously agreed that:

Accident insurance is not comprehensive health insurance,” Mr. Justice Ian Binnie said for a 9-0 majority today. “Mr. Gibbens contracted a sexually transmitted disease in the ordinary way through sexual intercourse.”

Replace STD by pregnancy and imagine the same quote in an abortion-related decision. Funny. How warped has our understanding of sex become when we consider STD to be par for the course but pregnancy to be an unintended consequence?

I love it! Women from mainland China flock to Hong Kong to have their babies. Why?

HONG KONG — Roger Huang is a happy, healthy baby boy, born in mid-September. But as far as the Chinese government is concerned, he doesn’t exist — not officially, anyway.

The baby was born in Hong Kong, after his mother, Huang Rui, a 31-year-old Beijing-based freelance journalist, moved here in June to join her husband, who is from Shanghai and works at a bank. The move was strategic; Huang plans to have a second child soon, and under China’s “one child” family planning policy, Roger’s Hong Kong birth doesn’t count. (In recent years, China has softened its stance on the policy, with federal officials now debating even more radical changes.)

“My plan is to have two babies in three years, while I’m still not very old,” Huang said. “Having the baby in Hong Kong is good — we can have another child.”

That loophole in China’s one-child policy is one reason mothers from mainland China have deluged the maternity wards of Hong Kong’s hospitals in recent years. Many women also come here for what they consider better medical facilities, which often have Western-trained doctors and nurses.

OK, that’s a pretty good heart-warming story. Enjoy!

It was Sept. 6, 1989. They discovered the newborn wrapped in towels at the front door of a townhouse in their Fairfax County complex and took the infant to Emily’s, where her stepfather called police.

The whole thing was over pretty quickly. The authorities took the baby girl, who was later adopted. Chris and Emily, both 15, went on with their lives, although Emily often cried when she told people the story, and the two called each other every Sept. 6.

Twenty years passed.

Then, on Dec. 2, a college student named Mia Fleming sent them both a message via Facebook: Might they be the same Chris and Emily who had once found a baby left at a stranger’s door?

If so, she just wanted to say thanks.

You know, even if I can’t understand how a woman could abandon a baby she’d just given birth to, I’m still glad she did have the baby instead of going to a clinic to get rid of her “problem”.

Sarah Palin is still coming to Hamilton, just for a different charity:

Fortunately for children’s’ groups in Hamilton, local business leaders were able to re-direct the Palin appearance so that the Charity of Hope group would be the beneficiary of the event, said Sam Mercanti, chairman of the charity and CEO of Automotive Canada. “It’s official – she’s going to come here and the monies raised will go towards the Charity of Hope,” Mercanti said. The Charity of Hope raises funds for local kids on behalf of school boards, YMCAs, youth groups and other institutions that benefit children.

I gather there were calls of complaint. However, for every call of complaint I’m sure there were people asking for tickets–point proven insofar as they have shifted the event instead of cancelling it. I for one would support any charity with the chutzpah to invite her and keep her on as a speaker.

This is what happens when MPs have too much time on their hands. (Be very afraid.) There is apparently an urgent need to regulate sex toys. And MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett is coming to the rescue!

‘These unbelievably committed young women sent me this letter,” recalls Dr. Bennett. “I thought, ‘well I know nothing about this’…I went to meet with them at their store.”…

“I frankly didn’t know about international orgasm day,” says Dr. Bennett. (The small, relatively unknown celebration falls this Monday, one day after the MP’s birthday).

Dr. Bennett thinks it’s an important issue as more and more Canadians purchase sex toys….

“Sex is a pretty common activity, and these sexual toys are certainly a growing market, and I really do feel at the moment we’ve got a bit of a double standard in terms of what we allow and don’t allow,” in terms of chemicals, she says.

“I wanted to help them, because they had a good cause, in spite of the fact that it is unfortunately still a topic that makes some people uncomfortable.”

Sex is a pretty common activity and it’s important to take on good causes, particularly at Christmas time. Thank you, thank you…

Born baby not considered “separate life” if still attached to the mother. It is therefore not a crime for a mother to kill her (born, alive) baby as long as they are still connected. At least in Virginia:

Investigators told WSLS the baby’s airway was blocked. They said the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators said because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,“ said Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson said they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

Emerson said there is a double standard with the law. If someone other than the mother harms a baby still attached to the mother, that person can be charged.

Well, I guess that’s logical. My body my choice, right?

[h/t]