Akin was just repeating his party's platform. Perhaps some House Republicans will state they know that women can get pregnant when raped but the fundamentalist underbelly of the TP/Republican Party frequently try to float that "women have secretions when aroused which aid in fertilization" dreck. It is my theory that men who really believe that are nascent rapists. I don't believe men should be the ones making any rules about abortion.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Actually, all the people who told me to relax if I wanted to get pregnant back in 1993 had the same idea as Akin and could have used some biology lessons.

And keep in mind that this guy IS on the House Science committee.
And this implies more than just magic secret spermicides supposedly within homo sapien feminine interiors.
This is the committee that deals with climate change and many other issues.

Originally Posted by cnn.com

The House science committee has oversight on congressional science and technology policy and thereby helps shape the course of billions of dollars of related funding. In other words, Akin -- who is now best known for his folkloric views on reproduction -- has a strong say in determining the long-term scientific progress of our country...

...How can a science and technology leader like the United States allow itself to be governed by people who try to ignore scientific fact? Given Akin's "magical" theories regarding rape, abortion and pregnancy, I would not want him having a say in the long-term plans of a single middle-school science class, much less our nation as a whole.

How can a science and technology leader like the United States allow itself to be governed by people who try to ignore scientific fact?

It's easy, just spend 30 years following a culture war dominated postmodernism where any subjective opinion has equal weight with theories reached after considered thought.

Akin is likely just the tip of the iceberg.
How many other charlatans are hiding in Congress because they are useful to the elite?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

... *Recognize that I'm talking about culture here, not law. The government cannot force this kind of change. It will have to come from the people, and perhaps from a collapse so devastating that the only refuge is the "old ways" (family and faith, and the support, self-restraint and self-sacrifice that comes with them).

A return to much simpler times is impossible, or as close to impossible as human culture can conceive. The world you want was the world we inhabited as we left the agricultural age. We have not been an agricultural society for 200 years. The mainstays of that culture, including religion, will morph into something vastly different, or fade away. Its inevitable. We aren't the same people we were then. We're not even the same people we were when I was young.

I doubt perpetual change will win-out either, but we're still on the journey to wherever it is we're going. I'm sure traditionalists like you hate every minute of it, but it isn't optional.

The Wall Street-tea party ticket is here.

Originally Posted by The Moderate Voice

Going into the Republican Party Convention in Tampa this coming week, it’s time to clearly and succinctly state the nature of this party’s ticket. It can be summed up in five words: Wall Street and Tea Party.

Governor Mitt Romney likes to point to his business experience. The only business he was in, however, was the Wall Street business...

....And then there’s the Republican’s vice presidential pick, Rep. Paul Ryan. A small town rich kid whose views of social and economic reality have also been shaped by a few right wing gurus rather than real world angst. Do you think he or anyone in his immediate circle has ever worried their food budget would run out before the end of the month? That they couldn’t see a doctor because they couldn’t afford the co-pay? ...

...If voters want to a turn this country over to the tender mercies of Wall Street hustlers and Tea Party ideologues, fine. If that’s what voters want, it’s a democracy, that’s what we get. But at least they should understand up front what such a vote is really all about.

You can’t vote for the Grand Old Party, the GOP, the traditional Republican Party, any longer. It’s dead and gone. Replaced by The Wall Street Tea Party.

By the pair that tops a political party’s ticket ye shall know them.

Yes the Democrats have flaws, but there is a meanness to this GOP ticket, especially Ran with his cold blue eyes, that's rivaled only by Cheney's eternal sneer as to how cold it leaves me.

Just posting to say: excellent posts, herbal tee, and Marx and Lennon.

Originally Posted by Galen

I am pretty sure that most normal people understand how babies are made. Akin is simply a representative of the average intelligence of the typical congress critter. The only thing party affiliation affects is how that stupidity is expressed.

There is a difference between stupidity and strong values. One can be quite intelligent and able to manipulate information within the context of one's world view while saying things that sound stupid, immoral or wrong to someone with different world views or values.

There is also a difference between stupid, having strong values, and saying stuff you don't believe but which one thinks a lot of voters believe. It isn't stupid to state strong or even extreme red values if one is running for office in a strong or extreme red district.

The judge who warned of the coming civil war should Obama be re-elected, who thinks the locals should prepare to resist the UN forces that are about to be called in, might be another similar case. Stupid, strong values, or saying what local voters might want to hear or expect the hear? I don't know.

But if one has blue values, it sure sounds stupid.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The core reality is that the notion of family, and particularly marriage, has been eroded by 40+ years of baby boomer "counter culture" values. There are not huge numbers of young men and women who don't understand how babies are made and don't know about birth control. The leftist idea that more sex education would solve this problem is hilarious (if they even consider mass abortion a problem -- many don't). Most abortions are not had by teenagers either. These are adults, usually in their 20s.

What has happened is that many young women no longer view marriage as a prerequisite for having children. The example of multi-millionaire female Hollywood celebrities doesn't translate so well to the inner city. For some, having a baby follows the same thought process as getting a dog. For others, it may be an attempt to get a boyfriend to stick around. If that plan doesn't work out, there's always the option of killing the baby.

In other words, this is not about economic conditions or the lack of government programs. It's about one thing, which was the central "ideal" of the 1960s: Do whatever you want, and don't worry about the consequences. If there are consequences, do not take responsibility, throw that responsibility onto someone else. Whether it be an unborn child, society at large, or the government.

Unless that mentality is completely destroyed, this society is through.

I'll again touch on the reality going into the 60s, which the younger generations don't seem to comprehend fully. Oh, sure, they've read about it, but they haven't lived it, and thus they can't know it. Live draft cards. Family planning by coat hanger. White and colored rest rooms. Badly polluted waters.

Any given awakening or crisis can only do so much before culture shock sets in, when a culture's ability to adapt to changing circumstances overloads and the conservatives sink in their heels and say no more. The 50s were the peak of the high, when the new ideals of the New Deal were unquestioned and unquestionable, as was the militaristic world's policeman role that grew out of World War II triumph. This rigid society had a ticking clock, though. The flaws in the society were easy enough to see. When the time came, what was possibly the best civilization humankind had ever achieved was doomed.

The slavery problem wasn't going to be fixed in the revolutionary era. No way could Lincoln have pushed through the New Deal. That's a good part of what the cycles are about. When the correct constellation of generations in place you can do so much, but no more can be done until society can rest a bit, catch its breath, and look around to see what needs doing next. The prophet generation, never fear, will let everyone know.

Live draft cards. Family planning by coat hanger. White and black rest rooms. Badly polluted waters. The 60s was not a time that lacked morality or social awareness. As usual, however, those who profited from or were just stubborn about holding on to older perspectives couldn't grasp that new technology brings new solutions. It is hard for some to see how things that were once acceptable or perhaps even necessary become no longer acceptable once more severe problems have been solved.

The pill and other related medical technologies were going to revolutionize sexuality.

My grandfather was a severe alcoholic. He wasn't alone. Before the New Deal, the work hours were long and hard. Many needed an escape, and booze was the most socially acceptable choice. It was bad. There is a reason the failed experiment of prohibition was tried. Something needed to be tried. Due to the drinking, my grandmother was a repeat victim of domestic violence. In a time before the pill, natural urges led to sex, sex led to babies, babies led to marriage and divorce was not acceptable given the interests of the children. It was often a miserable time, yet the society's proper drive to see children cared for made the above dance seem normal and right.

Those with absolute values think that if their own values system are not followed the society must of course fall apart. Follow their absolute values and they expect sweetness, light and all being right with the world. Failure to preserve said absolute values leads to the destruction of civilization as we know it. Anyone who lives by other values must be evil, stupid, destructive, or otherwise unacceptable.

I never found Virgil Saari's proposal that we ought to return to the divine right of kings funny. I would not consider a proposal to restore a race based institution of slavery funny. I would not consider a proposal to return to Gilded Age style Laissez Faire boom bust economy funny. I do not consider JPT's proposal to return women to the old life style they once commonly endured funny.

But you don't convince those with absolute values to let go of them. If the values are old, they must have worked, right? Old traditions don't die because they don't work, they aren't replaced as the new ideals are better given different technologies. Cultures change because the next generation isn't as morally pure as they ought to be in the eyes of the righteous.

Not.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Not knowing where the sperm swim, and how, has nothing to do with values. It's stupidity. Or ignorance, to use a slightly more polite term.

If the guy really isn't stupid, and was making up stupid shit to make a stupid point, then it might be related to values. Not being a Missouri voter, I haven't cared enough about the story to investigate it.

There is this idea that stress on the part of the woman can inhibit conception -- mostly on the part of those women who want to conceive. There might be some bit of truth to that (there have been controlled small-scale studies taking women trying to conceive and those doing meditation and the like conceived at a slightly higher rate) -- hence the notion that stress can "shut the whole thing down" -- but I sure as heck wouldn't count on stress to be a viable method of birth control. Or view it as solving the problem of pregnancies conceived through rape.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'm a believer in the mind/body connection, but not THAT much of a believer! Maybe Eric could figure out how to use the Chakras as birth control.

I can see how stress might do a number on one's reproductive cycle. However, if you are already ovulating and get raped, the stress won't do squat.

Originally Posted by B Butler

There is a difference between stupidity and strong values. One can be quite intelligent and able to manipulate information within the context of one's world view while saying things that sound stupid, immoral or wrong to someone with different world views or values.

There is also a difference between stupid, having strong values, and saying stuff you don't believe but which one thinks a lot of voters believe. It isn't stupid to state strong or even extreme red values if one is running for office in a strong or extreme red district.

The judge who warned of the coming civil war should Obama be re-elected, who thinks the locals should prepare to resist the UN forces that are about to be called in, might be another similar case. Stupid, strong values, or saying what local voters might want to hear or expect the hear? I don't know.

But if one has blue values, it sure sounds stupid.

There is a distinct difference between opinons - which can vary, biases - which can manipulte how issues are framed, and errors of fact - which are undeniable. Right now, we have more a few opinion makers solidly in the last of those three camps, and it is up to those of us who see the errors for what they are to say so. Actually, it shoud be up to those the consider allies, but that won't happen this time. So it's us then - and no quarter! Whehter they're lies or hallucinations is of no importance. There needs to be an accounting.

People spouting nonesense need to be called to task, journalists are the people we expect to do that, but they aren't. Judging by the state of journalism, it's not likely in the near future. So it's us. We can equivocate and balance our remarks, or call a spade a spade.

Originally Posted by B Butler

There is a difference between stupidity and strong values. One can be quite intelligent and able to manipulate information within the context of one's world view while saying things that sound stupid, immoral or wrong to someone with different world views or values.

I have dealt with these people in person and with a few notable exceptions they really are this stupid.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Not knowing where the sperm swim, and how, has nothing to do with values. It's stupidity. Or ignorance, to use a slightly more polite term.
If the guy really isn't stupid, and was making up stupid shit to make a stupid point, then it might be related to values. Not being a Missouri voter, I haven't cared enough about the story to investigate it.

I believe abortion should only be legal when the life of the mother is in danger. That's the only case where you have an equal outcome. As tragic as pregnancy resulting from rape is, the baby does not deserve to die because of it. The woman has to go through pregnancy for 9 months, and can then put the baby up for adoption, after which she can live out the rest of her life. Killing a baby is not a reasonable trade-off for that hardship.

Akin presumably holds the same position, but for some reason he feels the need to come up with some other rationalization for it. That's where his statement comes from. It's almost like he's trying to come up with an excuse for his position, or a cop out, by saying "well, women don't usually get pregnant from forcible rape anyway". It's a stupid and cowardly argument, which makes no sense.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

There is a distinct difference between opinons - which can vary, biases - which can manipulte how issues are framed, and errors of fact - which are undeniable. Right now, we have more (than a) a few opinion makers solidly in the last of those three camps, and it is up to those of us who see the errors for what they are to say so. Actually, it shoud be up to those the consider allies, but that won't happen this time. So it's us then - and no quarter! Whehter they're lies or hallucinations is of no importance. There needs to be an accounting.

People spouting nonsense need to be called to task, journalists are the people we expect to do that, but they aren't. Judging by the state of journalism, it's not likely in the near future. So it's us. We can equivocate and balance our remarks, or call a spade a spade.

Yes that's right. I do give some grudging credit to Romney/Ryan/McConnell for disavowing Akin's remarks. And at least some journalists are giving us the story of what happened. But what will be interesting to see is what the Missouri voters do. What are we to think of them if they elect this guy?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

And keep in mind that this guy IS on the House Science committee.
And this implies more than just magic secret spermicides supposedly within homo sapien feminine interiors.
This is the committee that deals with climate change and many other issues.




How can a science and technology leader like the United States allow itself to be governed by people who try to ignore scientific fact?

It's easy, just spend 30 years following a culture war dominated postmodernism where any subjective opinion has equal weight with theories reached after considered thought.

Akin is likely just the tip of the iceberg.
How many other charlatans are hiding in Congress because they are useful to the elite?

AKIN is on the HOUSE SCIENCE COMMITTEE??? Mein Gott im Himmel!!!

Originally Posted by Odin

JPT is showing his inability to imagine a functioning culture that is different then the patriarchal authoritarianism he thinks is so great. He has the same backward mentality that Dostoyevsky had ("if God is dead then everything is allowed"), believing that people only behave because they are afraid of divine punishment.

If people have no other sense of right and wrong... then let that one remain. Of course I must concur with the observation that some of the worst sociopaths are clergy.

Originally Posted by Kate

Akin was just repeating his party's platform. Perhaps some House Republicans will state they know that women can get pregnant when raped but the fundamentalist underbelly of the TP/Republican Party frequently try to float that "women have secretions when aroused which aid in fertilization" dreck. It is my theory that men who really believe that are nascent rapists. I don't believe men should be the ones making any rules about abortion.

The Tea Party has the backing of right-wing interests who want a high birth rate that results in cheap labor, high real-estate prices, and plentiful cannon fodder for war. Thus the opposition to contraception and homosexuality, both of which frustrate profit maximization and wars for control of markets and supplies.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The core reality is that the notion of family, and particularly marriage, has been eroded by 40+ years of baby boomer "counter culture" values. There are not huge numbers of young men and women who don't understand how babies are made and don't know about birth control. The leftist idea that more sex education would solve this problem is hilarious (if they even consider mass abortion a problem -- many don't). Most abortions are not had by teenagers either. These are adults, usually in their 20s.

This looks like an inauspicious time for a child unless born to the Right Family -- and in view of the potential menace of authoritarian right-wing government capable of ruining anyone (and the family attached), the gross instability of the economy in the event of a right-wing political take-over, and of course the intensifying disparity of income one might have little cause for optimism in the future of any child.

What has changed since the 1960s is that it has become easy to have sex without having a baby. Do you say that that is a bad thing?

What has happened is that many young women no longer view marriage as a prerequisite for having children. The example of multi-millionaire female Hollywood celebrities doesn't translate so well to the inner city. For some, having a baby follows the same thought process as getting a dog. For others, it may be an attempt to get a boyfriend to stick around. If that plan doesn't work out, there's always the option of killing the baby.

Still-young multi-millionaire athletes, entertainers, and heirs live in a universe vastly different from yours. They can get away with much that poor and middle-class parents can't get away with. A child born out of wedlock to some new-rich young adult has advantages of high-value schooling, attention from people hired to do the household chores while Mommy performs on stage 1500 miles away, and perhaps ersatz grandparents. The typical American knows that such is impossible for her.

Please consider this: a child conceived in a rape or near-rape is almost certain to get unsettling signals from the mother. Just think of Charles Manson or Ted Bundy. Charles Manson interpreted "Helter Skelter" to describe the chaotic childhood that he knew, and the Tate-LaBianca murders were one way to inflict upon society as a whole the chaos that he experienced in childhood. Ted Bundy, I have come to believe, was really raping and killing surrogates for his mother.

If you could know ahead and abort a would-be Charles Manson or Ted Bundy -- would you?

Needless to say I want a world more secure for children -- and the Devil-take-the-hindmost economics that we have seen only intensify since about 1980 can never provide security.

In other words, this is not about economic conditions or the lack of government programs. It's about one thing, which was the central "ideal" of the 1960s: Do whatever you want, and don't worry about the consequences. If there are consequences, do not take responsibility, throw that responsibility onto someone else. Whether it be an unborn child, society at large, or the government.

Unless that mentality is completely destroyed, this society is through.

Imperial Rome was a thoroughly-corrupt society with a perverse economic order, frequent bad leadership, continually-declining standards of learning, and of course vile spectacles of entertainment. It lasted a half-millennium. Infanticide was commonplace in Imperial Rome.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The Tea Party has the backing of right-wing interests who want a high birth rate that results in cheap labor, high real-estate prices, and plentiful cannon fodder for war. Thus the opposition to contraception and homosexuality, both of which frustrate profit maximization and wars for control of markets and supplies.

-- interesting pov. I just figured they were retro throwbacks or something

re: Manson- he grew up around here. His Mom was a hooker down on Vine St. She used to send him up & down Vine to get her johns. When he was around 12ish, so the story goes, she did him. Then went up & down Vine bragging to anybody who would listen that he was the best lay she ever had. And we wonder why he's so f'ed (pardon the puin) up

Originally Posted by sonrisa

-- interesting pov. I just figured they were retro throwbacks or something

re: Manson- he grew up around here. His Mom was a hooker down on Vine St. She used to send him up & down Vine to get her johns. When he was around 12ish, so the story goes, she did him. Then went up & down Vine bragging to anybody who would listen that he was the best lay she ever had. And we wonder why he's so f'ed (pardon the puin) up

And Ted Bundy was told his mother was his sister until he was a preadolescent. And there are some who think that his grandfather may have been his father.

Originally Posted by B Butler

I'll again touch on the reality going into the 60s, which the younger generations don't seem to comprehend fully. Oh, sure, they've read about it, but they haven't lived it, and thus they can't know it. Live draft cards. Family planning by coat hanger. White and colored rest rooms. Badly polluted waters.

Good point. The last High had its faults. It's arguable that the previous Crisis had ripped away some of the old faults of America -- like the slow assimilation of 'ethnic' whites (notably Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans) into the American middle class before the Depression. World War II gave plenty of opportunities for competent people to show their abilities as military officers. The "Dumb Pol@ck" joke that you might have said with little sensitivity toward someone named Kowalski in civilian life in 1935 was on that you did not tell to a higher-ranking officer with that surname during the war. Gutter racism that resulted in an occasional lynching somewhere in the American South made no sense as the cornerstone of public policy in America's enemies. Women who had been consigned to domestic chores during the Depression for lack of anything better to do in a time of high and persistent unemployment and did what had long been considered jobs too demanding for the 'fair sex' found that they were capable of far more than household canning and sewing.

The war unleashed new technologies of production intended to make war materials... and by 1946 the consumer demand was high and productive capacity was available. Much of the economic distress of the 1930s was now pointless. But it was still a white, male-dominant, heterosexist world in which people did much with little thought.

Any given awakening or crisis can only do so much before culture shock sets in, when a culture's ability to adapt to changing circumstances overloads and the conservatives sink in their heels and say no more. The 50s were the peak of the high, when the new ideals of the New Deal were unquestioned and unquestionable, as was the militaristic world's policeman role that grew out of World War II triumph. This rigid society had a ticking clock, though. The flaws in the society were easy enough to see. When the time came, what was possibly the best civilization humankind had ever achieved was doomed.

The GIs had been all over the world, but they had seen it at its worst. The world that America liberated or conquered had shown the consequences of ideologies that debased humanity. They saw the ruins of cities that the Enemy had turned into fortresses or that the Army Air Corps had leveled because of oil refineries, ball-bearing plants, or armaments factories. They had captured arrogant, brainwashed German soldiers convinced that the Fuehrer was always right. They had heard of atrocities by the Imperial Japanese armed forces.

The 20-something soldier of WWII saw a vastly-different Florence than might a 20-something Boomer or Generation X student who spent a semester abroad. That is a huge difference. For that matter, a 20-year-old soldier who joined the Armed Forces with the understanding that he would see the world spent time in Florence saw it vastly differently than would a soldier of WWII. A soldier in a Crisis war has no chance for any Voyage to the Interior and little time for the cultivation of cultural sophistication.

The slavery problem wasn't going to be fixed in the revolutionary era. No way could Lincoln have pushed through the New Deal. That's a good part of what the cycles are about. When the correct constellation of generations in place you can do so much, but no more can be done until society can rest a bit, catch its breath, and look around to see what needs doing next. The prophet generation, never fear, will let everyone know.

Paradoxically it was the Union Army that decided that slavery had to be ended. As a rule a Crisis war mandates the destruction of the productive capacity of the Enemy. The Army was not going to return slaves to the masters that the slaves had fled. It was employing recent slaves to build fortifications... and those now-free workers were no longer doing the farm labor for an agrarian order that depended upon slavery.

Live draft cards. Family planning by coat hanger. White and black rest rooms. Badly polluted waters. The 60s was not a time that lacked morality or social awareness. As usual, however, those who profited from or were just stubborn about holding on to older perspectives couldn't grasp that new technology brings new solutions. It is hard for some to see how things that were once acceptable or perhaps even necessary become no longer acceptable once more severe problems have been solved.

Crisis Era wars are waged, as a rule, to preserve something precious -- like old liberties and the accumulated wealth of earlier times. They can also preserve things not so precious, like the racist and anti-environmental attitudes set far earlier. The smokestack belching out sooty smoke was long understood as a sign of industrial progress. We need to remember that technology has unforeseen effects on suspect institutions. People drive out to the great scenic wonders ("See the U-S-A in your Chevrolet") might see a huge contrast between industrial blight in Flint and the beauty of Mackinac Island; elderly residents of Chicago's Gold Coast who drove to Florida on US 41 for the winter got to discover segregation in the raw and talked about it to children or grandchildren, often with disgust. Any route to the festivities of Mardi Gras in New Orleans from Minneapolis eastward goes through Mississippi, and before the Interstate Highways that meant through "Kukluxistan".

The pill and other related medical technologies were going to revolutionize sexuality.

Sex is fun. Childbirth is painful, and children have become more expensive to raise to middle-class standards. Technologies that make life more enjoyable persist until something better comes along. If JPT sees something wrong with sex for any purpose other than procreation, then that is his problem. He can adjust or he can get angrier by the year.

My grandfather was a severe alcoholic. He wasn't alone. Before the New Deal, the work hours were long and hard. Many needed an escape, and booze was the most socially acceptable choice. It was bad. There is a reason the failed experiment of prohibition was tried. Something needed to be tried. Due to the drinking, my grandmother was a repeat victim of domestic violence. In a time before the pill, natural urges led to sex, sex led to babies, babies led to marriage and divorce was not acceptable given the interests of the children. It was often a miserable time, yet the society's proper drive to see children cared for made the above dance seem normal and right.

That makes the contemporary GOP look all the worse -- because it seems to offer solutions best described as a return to the 'golden days' that weren't so golden. That was a far-poorer, and more hierarchical time. "Children submitting to their mothers, wives in loving submission to their husbands, and workingmen subordinate to their bosses" -- that's what the Hard Right wants. Economic distress becomes the pretext for economic insecurity and inequality that makes a travesty of every scientific and industrial advance -- let alone political changes -- since then.

It is far easier to remain sober if one has reason for staying sober. Technology that allows people to be more productive in lesser time and that allows people to experience a wider world than the village would have to go if America is to revert to the norms of the Agrarian Age. I say this of JPT -- if he really believes that the old authoritarian world of the plantation is so great, then I suggest that he be the first to divest himself of air conditioning, motor vehicles, the refrigerator, recorded music and video, radio and television, and medicine that includes antibiotics and anesthesia.

I can criticize some of the consequences of modern technology -- mostly the mass low culture and the urban sprawl. But even for those the cure is either the elevation of the mind for the former and Zero Population Growth for the latter. The narcissism of our economic and bureaucratic elites will have to go. Either those elites will step aside in favor of people less full of themselves or they will lead us into consummate tragedy. That is not a question of technology so much as of character.

Those with absolute values think that if their own values system are not followed the society must of course fall apart. Follow their absolute values and they expect sweetness, light and all being right with the world. Failure to preserve said absolute values leads to the destruction of civilization as we know it. Anyone who lives by other values must be evil, stupid, destructive, or otherwise unacceptable.

Moral absolutes can be crude (blind obedience and rigid subordination) and result in a horrible world or allow for some flexibility. In the last Crisis in Germany the critical day was July 20, 1944, when people who believed that allowing a murderous gangster to lead their country into shame and ruin was so horrible that acts that would otherwise be considered murder and treason were necessary... and acted upon such a conviction. Just think of how different the world would be had the Stauffenberg clique succeeded. The Holocaust would have come to an abrupt end. The only national capital of any Axis power or of any country occupied by the Axis that had been a capital of a country as of January 1938 in Allied hands was Rome. Most countries would have divested themselves of Axis or collaborator rule without the dubious assistance of the Soviet Army. Stalin would have had to have settled for show trials of Axis war criminals that Ludwig Goerdeler would have gladly supplied.

I would not consider a proposal to restore a race based institution of slavery funny. I would not consider a proposal to return to Gilded Age style Laissez Faire boom bust economy funny. I do not consider JPT's proposal to return women to the old life style they once commonly endured funny.

Humor is a good way of dealing with harsh-but-necessary realities. It becomes sardonic when the realities are unacceptable. Think of many of the old jokes about scarcity in the Soviet Union.

But you don't convince those with absolute values to let go of them. If the values are old, they must have worked, right? Old traditions don't die because they don't work, they aren't replaced as the new ideals are better given different technologies. Cultures change because the next generation isn't as morally pure as they ought to be in the eyes of the righteous.

Not.

On a hunch, I did a search.

And guess what I found!

Originally Posted by Lady Vagina

No rape is a legitimate rape...

Hmmm...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vagina_Monologues

The Vagina Monologues is made up of a varying number of monologues read by a varying number of women... Some monologues include:

The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could, in which a woman recalls memories of traumatic sexual experiences in her childhood and a self-described "positive healing" sexual experience in her adolescent years with an older woman. In the original version, she is 13, but later versions would change her age to 16. It also originally included the line, "If it was rape, it was a good rape." This particular skit has sparked numerous controversies and criticisms due to its content...

Does anyone think that Akin was really advocating rape? The context of his commment (that a rape is so traumatic that it disrupts ovulation) would deny that. Sheesh.

Originally Posted by Odin

Republican Senate Nominee: Victims Of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Don’t Get Pregnant

The stupid, IT BURNS!!! How does this guy remember to breathe? If you are so ignorant that you think rape victims can't get pregnant then you have no business being in politics. This guy must have went to a Christian private school or else he failed Biology.

...but Odin. The man has apologized. Considering that this was a one-time mistake, shouldn't you accept it?

Originally Posted by Deb C

You have that right!!!!

There is speculation to his staying in the race. UGH! Our State has tons of extremely fundamentalist Christians. It appears that Akin figures there's enough of these people who will vote for him in November. Already some radical pro-lifers have come out in his defense. It was a stratgic move that he announced his staying in the race on Huckabee's far (off the page) Right *Christian* radio program.

The other piece of this is that many neoconservative Missouri residents would rather see a crazy guy like this win, than Claire McCaskill.

This is just how absolutely Looney Toons this election season has become. Even the Tea Party has come out against this insanity.

...but Deb. The man has apologized. Considering that this was a one-time mistake, shouldn't you you be willing to give him a motherly hug?

Are the polls assuming a more GOP friendly voter pool than they should ?

Originally Posted by NYMag.com

Who’s winning the presidential race? There’s an odd disconnect between the polls and the body language of the candidates...

the polls are assuming a much different, and more GOP-friendly, electorate than either party. ABC’s poll assumes that 78 percent of registered voters are white. That is … a whole lot of white people. The white share of the electorate has been dropping steadily for more than twenty years — from 87 percent in 1992 to 83 percent in 1996 to 81 percent in 2000, 77 percent in 2004, and 74 percent four years ago. Ron Brownstein’s recent reporting suggests that both campaigns expect an electorate that’s about 74 percent white. The same problem seems to appear in numerous other polls. Many of them don’t release their racial breakdowns, but those that do seem to imply electorates far whiter than the campaigns are banking on.

Now, we don’t know what the racial composition of the electorate will look like. But it is utterly key. Assuming the 74 percent white makeup, and further assuming that Obama’s standing among nonwhite voters holds up as it has with high consistency, then Romney needs to win white voters by more than 20 points, perhaps by around 22 points, in order to prevail. Few polls show him doing that. The ABC poll has him winning whites by eighteen points.

To sum up, most pollsters are assuming an electorate like the Tea Party favorable 2010 electorate. But 2010 was an off year election. The voter pool will be about 50% bigger, and more Democratic leaning, this November than it was in 2010.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Wow. It almost sounds like you're saying that pregnancies resulting from rape (or "near-rape," whatever that's supposed to mean!) should be aborted.
I ask again ... WWSS?

Any birth of any child conceived without love between members of a loving (this allows surrogacy, same-sex couples, and in vitro fertilization) is at a high risk for a catastrophic upbringing. need I tell you that Saddam Hussein was an unwanted child?

For some, the pro-life value stops after birth. Then it's, make fun of, or criticize anyone (damn ole socialists) who wants to provide safety nets after they exit the birth canal. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but being pro-life means a caring about life from cradle to grave.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I guess that's a "yes" in favor of a proactive death penalty.
So how many innocent embryonic lives are you willing to terminate as collateral damage in your quest to kill one Hitler?

Six million.