Archive for Ursula

A board member of the NH Libertarian Party writes an open letter to Ron Paul

I am personally acquainted with this person, as are my parents. That’s how I found this.

Most of the letter is of interest chiefly to Libertarians, but one part of it struck me as worth repeating:

On the topic of the Constitutionality of abortion rights, I could cite a right to privacy, which I do believe in, as a Libertarian. I think the government needs to stay out of our homes, our bedrooms, and our doctor’s visits. Yet, you support government violating the most sacred of trusts, the most intimate of issues. One that should remain between a woman, her doctor, her partner and her conscience.

If privacy isn’t enough, the Constitution contains a second support of a woman’s right to choose. You see, the thirteenth amendment of our great Constitution is the amendment against slavery. In 1865 our Congress ratified an amendment that said that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

If a woman has not consented to sex, the possible result of that rape is, simply put, enslavement. However, a woman who consents to sex yet not to pregnancy, is still enslaved as long as she is involuntary bound to harbouring the body and developing life of something she did not consent to creating in the first place.

Her other objections are well-put and also may be of interest to more Left-leaning readers.  You can read the full letter here.

Wednesday Random 10 plus trivia

Basically, you play ten random songs on your mp3 player. I’m not using an iPod, I’m using a Creative Zen V. I didn’t include the songs that I didn’t want to listen to, or didn’t notice were playing because I was so absorbed in teh intarnetts. So here they are!

1. “Your Woman” by White Town
2. “Right Here, Right Now” by FatBoy Slim
3. “Let’s Get Loud” by J-Lo
4. “Gyrate” by Da Muzicianz feat. Mr. Collipark
5. “Achy Breaky Song” by Weird Al Yankovic
6. “All Dressed Up” by Citizen Cope
7. “The Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show 7=C Guessed by Evn in comment 7
8. “Shiny Shiny” by Haysi Fantayzee
9. “Living Room” by The Paris Combo
10. “I’m on My Way” by The Proclaimers

In addition, I have trivia! All of it is (in theory) guessable, through the use of logic, music knowledge, and searches. Ready?

A. Which song mentions being tied to a chair?
B. Which song was used in a Top 4 episode of “So You Think You Can Dance”?
C. Which song is from a CD that includes a wordless version of the same song? C=7
D. Which song samples a song from the 1930s?
E. Which song is from an album that was released one year ago this month?
F. Which song opens with “Good times come to me now”?
G. Which song can be used easily for ballroom dancing?
H. Which song is from a CD that features a Tom Waits cover?
I.Which song does iTunes lack a non-live version of?
J. Which song was used by a politician without the artist’s permission, causing the artist to protest angrily?

Arthur: An Introduction

Hi. This is Arthur speaking. I asked my mom if I could blog on here, and she said “Sure.” So here I am.

I am the oft-mentioned teenage son whose thoughts  and actions are at times wise and odd, naive and unexpected, insightful and provocative, and just generally unique. I think about a variety of things, and blog often about my take on pop culture, as one who is both fascinated and perplexed by the world he should be a part of, but sometimes is not. I notice things about my friends’ taste in music, fashions senses, youth vernacular, and other assorted teenagery things. An anthropologist in malls, you could call me.

Still, I make an effort to keep relatively current on political and social issues, although I’ve been so busy lately that it took me over a week to notice that Karl Rove had resigned. I’m still not sure that his resignation is real. Nothing makes sense anymore in this world and especially this administration, not even the few quasi-good things that the White House spews.

I also think a lot about philosophical problems and hypothetical dilemmas. I will conclude this post with a relatively short one.

Two research psychologists are studying brain wave patterns. They are studying prisoners convicted of violent crimes, especially multiple violent crimes.  The two scientists are analyzing the brain wave patterns of these criminals, and also of an equal-sized control group made up of normal, everyday people.

The first scientist comes up to the second one, and says, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we proved our hypothesis. The anomaly we were looking for was present in100% of the prisoners, and absent from the control group.”

“Well, what’s the bad news then?”

“The anomaly was present in one of the members of the control group.”

The question is, what happens next? What should happen next?