It is not “Yankee fan.” It is Yankees fan. The fan likes the team, the Yankees, not one single Yankee (I assume).
Entries from November 2009
no
18 November 2009 · 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: yankees
J!
16 November 2009 · Leave a Comment
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Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Beyoncé, clown, keyboard cat, single ladies
Undoing women’s rights, part two
15 November 2009 · Leave a Comment
If the health care reform bill passes, it will mean women who get insurance from the government will not be able to use that insurance to cover abortions—a remarkable blow to the legalization of abortion that came with Roe v. Wade, and an even stronger blow to the notion that a woman, as a person, is smart enough to make smart medical decisions for herself.
But, those in favor of removing abortion coverage retort, the government health insurance policy would still allow women to buy “riders”—kind of like buying tokens to cover abortions. But the whole point of an abortion is that it is used without planning. It as a response to an unplanned pregnancy or a dangerous one. People don’t expect to have those kind of pregnancies, and the government shouldn’t expect people to come up with the magical foresight to do so.
It’s time the government—and anti-choice supporters—started trusting women again.
Categories: Uncategorized
Undoing women’s rights
12 November 2009 · Leave a Comment
Today’s Op-Ed page in the New York Times includes two articles on the health care fiasco: one on the cost of universal coverage compared to the cost of the war in Afghanistan, and one on the undoing of women’s reproductive rights. The latter, “Trading Women’s Rights for Political Power,” looks at the detriments the recent watering-down of the health care bill has for women’s rights.
Ignoring that the online refer to this wonderful editorial is next to one about women losing weight breast-feeding, this article forwards the surprisingly ongoing fight for civil rights.
The article begins with the “grim reality behind the joyful press statements from Washington Democrats.” It continues:
“To secure the passage of health care legislation in the House, the [Democrats] chose a course that risks the well-being of millions of women for generations to come.”
The Democrats compromised with anti-choice (more on that term later) politicians, banning public financing of abortion, thus preventing government-provided insurance from covering abortions. In doing this, the “Democratic majority has abandoned its platform and subordinated women’s health to short-term political success.”
Abortion is legal and has been since Roe v. Wade paved the way for equal medical treatment for the sexes. But, both long before and long after that Supreme Court Decision, abortion has been branded an “anti-life” treatment, something that no one but the fetus has the right to decide upon. And, of course, giving that right to the fetus is impossible, which makes any decision impossible. What’s more, taking away that right and supposedly giving it to a certain part of a woman’s body is both a dehumanization of women and a continued undoing and cutting apart of a woman’s body through the disguise of law.
From a purely political standpoint (and it’s hard to separate a civil rights issue into the “civil” and the “rights”), the Democrats’ decision is remarkably irresponsible:
The party has distanced itself from the abortion-rights movement in other ways. It has taken to calling Democrats who oppose a woman’s right to choose “pro-life” (and not “anti-choice”).
Even those in favor of a woman’s right to choose or not choose abortion use the term “pro-life,” saying that “anti-choice” is too politically loaded a term. Perhaps it is politically loaded, but markedly less so than “pro-life,” which necessarily takes the Catholic stance that human life, separate from the life of a woman, begins at conception. That may be, but the fetus is still a part of the woman’s body, parasitically feeding on it until birth. Without that woman, the fetus would die. Therefore, the life of the woman is the direct source—and even the life itself—of the fetus.
The political implications of “anti-choice” come mostly from the word “anti,” which, in its negativity, suggests a taking away of rights. But that is exactly what anti-choice is: It takes away a woman’s ownership of her entire body. And while those in favor of a woman’s right to choose are indeed pro-life, that does not make them anti-life. On the other hand, those opposed to this right to choose are, precisely, opposed to the availability of choice. Whether the baby is sufficiently “alive” or not is a separate semantic issue. Anti-choice makes no claims about the soul of the fetus or other religiously-fueled arguments; it instead takes the issue as it is: one of taking away or giving legal rights to women.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: abortion, choice, Democrats, health care
“and then I thought I could make some story”
5 November 2009 · 1 Comment
RETRACTED
Categories: Uncategorized
The Animals
5 November 2009 · Leave a Comment
Just look at this and try not to giggle.
Categories: Uncategorized
Doppler Doppler Doppler
3 November 2009 · Leave a Comment
This is supposedly the color the night sky would be if the universe weren’t expanding, if all stars’ light could reach us without suffering from both temporal and Doppler effects.
The assertion has two requirements:
The first is that the universe is filled with stars. The reason it’s not blazingly bright is because the stars are different ages and different distances from the earth. Some are so far away that, by the time their light reaches the earth, they will have disappeared.
The second: The moving stars’ light undergoes a Doppler effect, transforming the wavelengths of light into those we can’t see. So even if their light does eventually reach the earth, it reaches the earth imperceptibly.
This second requirement is difficult to argue against, especially from a near-lay person’s scientific viewpoint. But the first requirement is problematic in its assumption that the universe is, indeed, filled with stars—that every space in the universe, even if we can’t perceive these spaces at the same points in time, emits starlight. Even if the universe were not expanding, the stars not moving and therefore no Doppler effect, this is still impossible: There are black holes. These are scientifically perceptible by measuring amounts (and lack thereof) of energy in the universe. These black holes do not emit light; rather, they suck it in. A finite universe (finite because it is not expanding) does not mean no black holes.
But even if there weren’t black holes, it seems that the intense and omnipresent light from stars would not appear this shade of off-white. Wouldn’t it be blue, like the daytime sky? The daytime sky is blue because of the way the sun’s light reflects off molecules in our atmosphere. Would stars’ light act differently? Or would the intensity—created by the immense volume of emitted light—overwhelm the reflective capabilities of these molecules and break through, creating a light-beige night sky?
NASA suggests the sky is becoming less blue anyway, because of the kind of light emitted by stars:
What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted above, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. To determine this, astronomers computationally averaged the light emitted by one of the largest sample of galaxies yet analyzed: the 200,000 galaxies of the 2dF survey. The resulting cosmic spectrum has some emission in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but a single perceived composite color. This color has become much less blue over the past 10 billion years, indicating that redder stars are becoming more prevalent. In a contest to better name the color, notable entries included skyvory, univeige, and the winner: cosmic latte.
Categories: Unfounded ranting
Tagged: beige, Doppler effect, universe
