Oh goody. Another abortion post!

One of my in-laws just had a baby.  Poor tyke was a bit premature, born at 32 weeks.  He was 4 lbs, 9 ozs, delivered by Ceasarean section.

Now, having long been an observer and participator in the abortion debate, I have to ponder some questions:

Since the “item” was a good 8 weeks early, that’s two months for the math challenged, I have to ask, does it still qualify as a “baby?”  It didn’t pass through the birth canal, so can it really be said to have been “born?”

4 lbs is pretty dang small…can nearly fit in the palm of your hand.  It’s in neo-natal ICU, so it’s clearly not “viable” as it needs some respirator assistance and constant care.  And yet, its parents went ahead and named it.

Many pro-abortionists maintain that the fetus is not actually a “baby” until it is born.  Is that true even if we yank it out early via an incision?

And yet, a baby born two months early, a mere four pounds of flesh is ALIVE.  It is breathing.  And eating.  It has a name.

I tend to think that it didn’t undergo some radical metamorphisis as it slipped between a few inches of muscle tissue gripped in the gloved hands of the doctor.  No subatomic shifts, no transition between states of matter or inter-dimensional jumps.  The doctor did not pull a “fetus” out of that woman’s uterus.  He pulled out a baby.

I just don’t see it.  Doc’s got his hand down inside a woman’s innards, gripping the “thing”:

 “Okay,” he says, “I’ve got the fetus.”

“Don’t you mean baby, Doctor?”

“No, not yet.  It’s still inside.”

“The legs are out!”

“Yes, but most of it’s still inside.  Still a fetus.”

“But doctor, look!  The torso and arms, and a shoulder are all out!”

“Ah, yes, but conventional wisdom among the pro-abortioners is that while the head is still inside, technically, the fetus isn’t ‘delivered.’  Heck,” he jokes with a chuckle, “I could still penetrate the skull and suck out the brains and it would be called a ‘procedure!’“

“Doctor! The head has come out. The baby is fully delivered!”

“Well, okay, I guess your right. It IS a baby….now.”

Just don’t see the distinction, is all.  Clearly it is one of mere semantics, rather than of objective reality.

An unrelated post, only, it’s not.

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Breathtakingly Stupid

I’m sure that I’ve read this particular phrase before, but it caught my eye recently while voraciously consuming one of the latest Dean Koontz novels.

“Breathtakingly stupid.”

It evokes such a vivid image to me, as in, “I can’t believe you would do something so breathtakingly stupid…”

Breathtaking:  Just that sudden gasp of surprise or fright or dismay that knocks your eyes wide and drops your jaw open.  It’s like walking around a corner and bumping into a woman who, in that instant of recognition, is so strikingly beautiful or alluring that you suck in one quick half-gasp before your throat closes up, while your brain attempts to recover enough from the sensory overload to stutter out an incoherent apology, even as you continue to stand transfixed, blushing, drinking her in with your eyes.

It’s that short, sharp intake of air when, in the heat of some impassioned argument, your significant other crosses that ill-defined line and uses some deep point of vulnerability to get in an extra piercing jab, a sudden and stunning betrayal of trust.

The idea of something being so “breathtakingly stupid” that it quite literally robs your lungs of air.  A hit to the solar plexus of your psyche that leaves you standing agape, for a moment cognitively unable to process the sheer, yawning magnitude of utter idiocy which you have just witnessed; or perhaps, for which you were just responsible.

Something which is “breathtakingly” beautiful just stops you in your tracks, dumbfounded, as you seek to take it all in, savoring every magnificent element.

Something breathtakingly stupid is at quite the opposite end of the spectrum, something which stops you in your tracks, dumbfounded as you struggle to comprehend, unable to look away, a vague half-grin of disbelief on your face as you stare with morbid fascination, something so over the top that it continues to hold you in its grip, even as it appalls you.

Headlyin’ Newz

From CNN:

“Suicide Bomb” at Iraq party HQ kills 9, injures 36
New specialty drink served at popular Rave hotspot tainted with a bad batch of Mezcal. 

Aussies on lookout for ugly sheep
“All the good looking ones are already taken.”

France ‘faces high terror threat’ 
Considers immediate surrender to be the best course of action.

‘Explosion of diversity’ sweeps U.S.
Except of course, where the 10 Commandments are concerned.

Access to new HIV prevention methods lacking
Abstinence now considered “nearly unobtainable.”

Lebanese troops to head south Thursday
Expect to be in Jerusalem by Sunday   

Britney Spears’ second pregnancy unplanned
“Oops! She did it again”

From MSNBC:

London’s Muslim youth hear many voices
Might explain some things…

Rescuer ‘Green Helmet’ injured in fighting
No. Really. This is legit.  Honest.  He didn’t just lie down and rub dirt on his face.  Promise.

Bush pitches economy from a Harley
“Economy was talking trash, so I gave ‘im the ol’ heave-ho,” says President.  

Europe high-speed train sees passenger jump
Train the only witness so far to apparent suicide.

Repeatedly striking the expired equine

You know, enough already. I’ve gone on and on from a variety of different tangents and angles on all things Muslim and terrorist, and I’ve pretty much burned myself out on the subject. If you don’t understand by now that the Islamic fundamentalists will never, ever stop until every last non-Muslim in the world is either dead or, well, Muslim, then you ain’t ever gonna believe it.

If you are still interested in engagement and understanding after yet another massive, complex plot to kill a whole lot of people just for the ever-lovin’ hell of it by a bunch of radical, koran-thumpers, well, nothing I can say will likely get through to you. If people like Cindy Sheehan, who lived through 9/11 and lost a son to a bunch of beheading lunatics, still figures George Bush is the REAL enemy, well then, it’s going to take more than anything I’ve got to change those kinds of minds.

Sure, Christianity has its loons. We’ve got our Fred Phelps and Dave Koresh’s and the like. But these freak-shows are few and far between, and uniformly condemned by “mainstream” Christianity. Islam just keeps cranking these folks out by the bunker-full. Al Zarqawi makes David Koresh look like Rosa Parks. And what’s worse, and should be a clarion call to rationality, is that these people keep gathering large and devout followings. Osama, Zarqawi, Arafat – all big, big names in Islam. An awfully deep, wide, and populous “fringe” if you ask me.

As my final and parting shot on the subject, let me just add this. Time and again I have heard the same worn out rhetorical saw come lumbering out of the mouths of the Islamo-apologists and Jihadist sympathizers, the elite of the elite among the Al Jazeera set, who claim that ISRAEL is to blame for all the unrest in the Middle East. Israel is the catalyst, the flash point, the sole source of blame for all the problems in the region. In that vein, let me submit this map:

That little white strip? That’s Israel. You know, that cancer that is killing the Middle East.

But in a way, those folks are right. Israel IS a big part of the problem. Because THEY WON’T JUST SHUT UP AND DIE. Or convert to Islam.

And folks, there it is. Any other country in the world with the same attitude…IS PART OF THE SAME PROBLEM AS FAR AS ISLAM IS CONCERNED.

But again, if you ain’t figured that out by now, it’s quite simply because you flat don’t want to know.

Not like you didn’t see this coming…

Hezbollah leader declares victory

“We came out victorious in a war in which big Arab armies were defeated [before],” the black-turbaned cleric said in a taped address on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

In other words, where Egypt, Syria, and Jordan have failed, we were victorious against the Israelis.  Aren’t we just a bunch of badasses?

“We are today before a strategic, historic victory, without exaggeration,” Nasrallah said.

“Without exaggeration?”  I don’t really think that’s possible for you dudes.  You are the kings of hyperbole.  And staged photos.

Nasrallah implicitly rejected provisions in the U.N. cease-fire resolution that called on Hezbollah to disarm and leave an area that stretches from the Israeli border to the Litani River,

In other words, now that we have “forced” Israel into a cease-fire, we are going to promptly ignore all the provisions of it.  Again, hard to see THAT coming, eh?

“Lebanon’s infrastructure has been destroyed in all places, but most intensely among the people of the south and southern Beirut….He estimated some 15,000 housing units had been completely destroyed.

This is part of their definition of “victory?!”

Nasrallah said the “massive devastation and destruction” inflicted upon Lebanon during the monthlong war reflected Israel’s “failure and impotency.”

The fu…?  I suspect that if Israel were any more impotent, then by this definition there wouldn’t be a building left standing in Beruit.

This is something the cynics, doubters, and capitulationists NEED TO UNDERSTAND:  To the Islamicist, taking hundreds or thousands of casualties, and suffering untold damage and destruction can be claimed as a victory if you have still managed to play upon the compassionate West’s heartstrings and “forced” a ceasefire which leaves your group fundamentally intact, and which hamstrings your opponent’s (Israel in this case) ability to continue to interfere with your plans.  The human cost is NOTHING when compared to the imperatives of the POLITICAL CAUSE!  (Don’t bother, Joe.  I heard your voice in my head even as I typed that.)

They have declared victory, and they are right. 

Sure, they may be down dozens of rocket launchers and gun carriages, but you know what?  They forced Israel, Lebanon, and the UN to deal with them as a legitmate political and social organization, very nearly as a government, rather than as the bunch of murdering thugs they are.  And they are still there.  And they are still sending a rousing eff you to both the UN and Israel.

Capitulation and appeasement are only seen as signs of weakness in an enemy by these people.  And “cease-fire” is just a quaint euphemism for “time to re-equip and rearm.”

One a’ them there, uh, “no win” sitchee-ations.

As I watch the ongoing kefuffle about the “purported” plot by “alleged” terrorists to “supposedly” blow up more than 10 airliners in midair, I am struck by a thought {thwack}.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there was this great awful wailing and gnashing of teeth about who knew what when, and why didn’t we know more, and could we have done more to prevent it, and Bush dropped the ball, and their deaths were directly or indirectly on his head.

Then, as time went on, and it turned out that it was no one person’s fault, but rather a systemic failure across the board, the buzz died down for a while.  Until it came light that the Bush administration undertook radical and extensive measure to change the way that we do business, and actively went on the hunt for the bad guys, using a broad spectrum of high tech measures to ferret out the little weasels.

Only to have another great wailing and gnashing cry arise about “invasive” eavesdropping and violation of civil liberties, and is the cost of chasing “supposed” terrorists worth the price of liberty, and who are we to listen in to everyones’ cell phone conversations; in essence, we’ve become as bad as the terrorists.

So now, yet another dramatic plot to kill unarmed civlians, men, women and children by the planeload, hatched by the sick and twisted minds of the enemies of western culture has been unearthered and foiled by more of those “intrusive” measures.  Sadly, however, those same wailing and gnashing voices of cynism have become so tarnished by their own kinds of hate that rather than give a rousing, “Woa! good one guys!“, we get instead, “Bush &Co. planned the whole thing as a carefully-staged media event during an election year.”

Either we didn’t do enough, or we’re doing too much, or we’re being racist, or divisive.  We are either ignoring the “real threat” (Osama Bin Laden) in favor of a war for oil, or we are making up threats to manipulate voter sympathies.  We are either disenfranchising voters, or trying to “hoodwink” them with fancy talk and big words.  Or voting machines.

The Republicans are either so busy sticking our nose into other countrys’ problems that they are letting domestic issues suffer (Oh, Katrina!), or they are so involved the affairs of the rich elite that they are letting the poor of the world suffer (Oh, Darfur!).

We shouldn’t have gotten involved in Iraq, but we should have in Sudan.  Bush is a clueless doofus who’s running the country down a dead-end through sheer incompetence, OR, he’s a wiley manipulator who’s masterfully pulling strings behind the scenes to secure his grip on absolute power.

I must admit, I’ve gotten a little confused.  Which is it?  Anyone?   A little help here?