[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIBZ-kJ6XAc]

[h/t The Corner]

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Andrea adds: Nice.

Every now and then you encounter amazing stories like this one:

Oceané McKenzie, with fingers the length of a paper clip and a tiny mop of brown hair, has become the first baby in Canada to successfully undergo a life-saving heart intervention while still in her mother’s womb.

[…]

The experimental and risky procedure, performed by a team of doctors from the Hospital for Sick Children and Mount Sinai Hospital, involved putting a needle through Ms. McKenzie’s abdomen into the left ventricle of the baby’s heart. From there, doctors manoeuvred a wire the diameter of a strand of hair so a tiny balloon catheter could open the narrowed valve leading to Oceané’s aorta.

Doctors believe the little girl will have a normal life. Jolly good show.

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Andrea adds: Incidentally, when Terry O’Neill posted about this over at the Western Standard, it spurred on a tremendous debate, mostly between the same people, about “property rights” and “personhood.” I returned to check it out, and found it interesting insofar as if you want to change minds you should know what is convincing to others and what is not. You can check it out, here. (I did not read the whole thread.)

A reader sent a link to this advice column on the male contraceptive jab (a monthly, self-administered injection that is said to halt sperm production), and why girls shouldn’t trust a man who claims to be on the thing.

Imagine the scenario: boy meets girl, and, like so many young women now, she doesn’t know the man particularly well.

As they strip and get into bed, she asks him if he has ‘brought anything’. He says: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve had the jab.’

What woman in her right mind would believe that? At least you can see a condom with your own eyes. Or would they issue sperm-free certificates for men to carry around with their driving licences to prove they’re up to date with their jabs?

My first thought was “My, you’ve got to want sterile sex A LOT to get into that sort of routine, don’t you” and my second was “How much you wanna bet plenty of girls will believe the guy anyway?” My third thought was something unreprintable about this sorry state of affairs (whadayamean, she doesn’t know him yet she’s perfectly OK jumping into bed with him except she can’t believe a word he says? Can somebody explain to me what the point of that might possibly be?). And then I went off to mumble something suitably old-fashioned about how it used to be a lot more simple when people were forced to take responsibility for their actions.

Anyway. I swear I was going somewhere with this. Oh yes.

I just have two questions: 1) Wasn’t science supposed to make our lives better? And 2) Isn’t hedonism supposed to be fun?

Hey, remember that picture of the fetus reaching out to grab the finger of the surgeon performing surgery on him while he was in his mother’s tummy? The kid is now nine years old and he swims like the dickens. How cool.

[warning: major yuk factor involved] There’s a bit of a kerfuffle in Germany over copulating corpses.

You read that right. It’s that crazy plasticized-cadavers-on-display business you may have heard about, which is already gross and disturbing enough. Now the promoter is pushing the envelope even further:

Pictures of the couple in the Cycle Of Life exhibition show a skinless man lying on his back with a woman sitting on him with her back towards his head.

Where to begin?

Part of me (the cynical and jaded part) wonders why the guy had to be so bourgeois. Why didn’t he go for some serious same-sex incestuous polygamist action? Man and woman having sex. How horrendously heteronormative. (Can we file a human-rights complaint?)

Another part of me (the only slightly cynical and jaded part) shrugs, thinking: “Well, you live in a culture that aggressively insists sex is a sterile activity that need not involve commitment or anything related to baby-making, at least those two look the part.”

Then the other part of me (the non-cynical third) wonders whether I should just give up and join the Amish. It’s dashed tempting.

A propos nothing in particular (except that reasonably intensive training is always de rigueur this time of year – gotta look good in those new shorts, don’t we): I just got this fabulous book, Women’s Strength Training Anatomy, which describes in almost overwhelming detail the way our bodies work and how we can best improve them. Yes, this means more sweating and groaning. But somehow static forward lunges feel better when you can visualize exactly how your gluteus maximus (that’s the one you’re sitting on) is improving. At any rate, that’s what I’ll be telling myself.

Whatever helps, right?

Here’s a nice story for you, Andrea.

I wonder if we could reverse his idea and sing songs in order to sell t-shirts?

I’m working on a few American history projects and just saw this 1956 video about futuristic designs. I just loooove their automated kitchen and push-button magic. Warning: Extremely cheesy. Viewer discretion is advised.

Like Andrea, I have rather a lot of work to do these days, which explains the light blogging. Unfortunately that means I will also have to miss the Tulip Festival’s opening weekend, where people evidently walk around with flowers in their hair and funny sunglasses. But hey. I will endeavour to take advantage of the sunshine this weekend to plant a few new flowers around the house and see how long they last this year (I am a professional non-gardener, but I’m trying, I’m trying).

Our old buddy Antonia Z. is in well-deserved trouble. Here is what she wrote on her Twitter account, about Michelle Malkin.

Actually, I don’t believe she’ll really get in trouble. Why, when you attack a right-wing conservative kind of person, you can say any darn thing you like. It’s all fair.

I’m a pretty extreme free-speecher myself. I believe you should be free to say any stupid thing you like, with two reasonably narrow exceptions: Libel and incitement to violence. “Joking” that marksmen ought to “take” an identifiable person, no matter how much you hate that identifiable person’s guts, is far beyond the pale.

Michelle has the contact information here should you wish to voice your objections to the Toronto Star, for which Antonia Z. writes. Please remember to “exhibit the politeness and civility that Zerbisias lacks.”

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Andrea adds: My knickers remain unknotted here. Because Michelle Malkin is wrong on one important thing–she calls Zerbisias mainstream. I’ll grant she works for a mainstream paper. But if we recall the Canadian Blog Awards, Zerbisias won in the “professional pundit” category, where we won in the “best new blog” category. But I remember looking at the number of votes (wish now that I took screen shots, alas) and she got substantially fewer votes than ProWomanProLife.

If I’m correct on the voting thing, it’s a fairly astounding feat to have the platform of the country’s most highly circulated newspaper and still get fewer votes than a niche, upstart blog centred around an issue that arguably no one wants to talk about. I felt bad, actually. As here: I do think Zerbisias was trying to be funny, and possibly more at Cheney’s expense than Malkin’s. But my point is this: Mainstream is not a word I’d use to describe Antonia.