Drea

LOL Nope. The Bushstink travels all the way across the earth... we smell it especially harshly as we are right next door. You can't smell it because you like (tolerate?) the smell of your own poo. You know how it is when someone farts? It doesn't affect the farter, but everyone around him. He happily sits in his own stink while everyone else is running for the hills!

That's a tough one Melanie... On the one hand, she DID kill the child (albeit unintentionally). On the other hand... four children in diapers... I cannot even imagine how I'd cope with four bawling babies! Ack I'd probably run screaming from the house and be charged with abandonment! I feel really sorry for her. She will think of this child every single moment for the rest of her life -- and each thought will be of how she could've handled it differently. I think that would be punishment enough. I would be surprised if she doesn't attempt suicide. Friend of mine was shot while taking a dump in an outdoor toilet (many years ago). Some kids were target practicing and using the outhouse as a target. The friend died. The boy that shot him tried to kill himself by hitting himself over the head with a rock... it was just terrible for both the killer and the family of the dead man. Although it was an accident, this boy will be haunted by it forever. I'm sure that the boy and his family said "if only" about a million times. As many times as the family of the dead man... "if only he had come in the house to go" (he was working on an old car and didn't want to get the house all dirty so he used the old outhouse). This woman is saying this over and over and over and over to herself... "if only I had..., if only I had just done this or that" Nothing will bring the child back. Jailing her won't. Taking away her other children won't. It was an accident IMO.

When you saw that pickle jar were you so horrified that your "equipment" took a trip north and never came back? Did seeing the pickled fetus stop you from ever having sex? Well it should have!! Don't you know that sticking that thing inside a female could result in one of those fetuses! Oh right, back in '61 they didn't teach sex ed (especially to a 40 year old virgin!) so you likely would not have even known what your equipment was for, let alone that it could help create one of those scary pickled things. /kiddin' Debating abortion is moot. A totally pointless excersise as it will always be legal. Neener neener I can kiiiiill a fetus if I want to and you caaan't cause you're a boy...neener neener neener.

No one is going to clarify this one madmax... so we must assume that the ban is for when children are in the car only... I don't smoke in my car when my son is in there anyway so this ban would not affect me. HOWEVER, if the ban is for smoking in the car ANYTIME it would be a horrendous assault on my personal liberty.

An egg is just an egg... the Pill prevents the egg from adhering to the wall of the uterus. (at least that's how I understand it, someone correct me if I am wrong). Now is this egg that doesn't "stick" a fertilized egg or just any egg? Maybe these people would be happy if we took away women's desire to have sex (ala fgm) that way they would be assured that no women ever have sex just for the fun of it and no woman would ever have control over her sexuality ever again. Every time a woman has her menstral cycle, she kills an egg. Seems the human body was meant to do this... hmmmm I wonder if fundie "scientists" are researching how to end this natural baby-killng menace... LOL

Congrats Melanie I too agree with the law "in spirit" as I don't smoke in the car when my son is with me. I do this not because the government tells me I have to, but because he doesn't like the smoke. Simple. But Dr.Greenthumb's first post did not clarify whether or not the "smoking in cars" ban was for just when children are with you or if the law is meant to stop all people from smoking in their cars no matter who (if anyone) is with them. Dr.Greenthumb... do you have a link to clarify this for me? Thanks!

True, using an acronym doesn't accurately describe how horrific it is. When this topic comes up... it is not so we can discuss piercing a little girl's ears at 6 months old, nor is the topic about a procedure that (usually) causes no discernable longterm effects for an infant boy... it is to discuss the horror and longterm effects of female genital mutilation. I don't agree with male circumcision for the reasons you state... the infant boy does indeed feel the pain. I did not have my son done as a newborn. He needed the surgery at age 4 because the foreskin would not open and he could not urinate without pain. His foreskin would "balloon" and the urine would trickle out very slowly. As my son's was a medical (not aesthetic) issue, even if circumcision itself were illegal, the surgery would have been performed. The barbarians with hospitals still mutilate young girls for life. Even if the female genital mutilation is performed in hospital, it is no less horrific (the pain of the removal is only part of the horror these young girls go through). Having the hood of the clitoris removed would be horrific! Imagine every time you walk and your penis rubs against your underwear that your entire nerve endings were out in the open. That is what hood removal does. It exposes all the nerve endings. Have you never been touching a woman's clitoris and had her pull away because it was too much sensation? Imagine that every day all day forever. That it what hood removal does. It is not fun. A while back some doctor (here or in the states I can't remember) was "helping" women with their sex lives by removing their clitoral hoods. I think he was sued after he mangled a number of women.

You are absolutely right. Rather than attacking you perhaps I should have realized that you were simply uneducated on the subject and had no idea what FGM involved. I apologize. And now that you are now educated on the subject surely you can understand the huge difference between fgm and male circumcision. My son was "done" at age 4... medical reasons... and let-me-tell-you it was a whole helluva lot worse for him than for a newborn infant. Even at age 4, boys know how important their penises are and are afraid to lose them. Imagine the poor little girl, losing her womanhood -- girls have clitoral orgasms starting very very young, so chances are a little girl knows she is losing something important -- how horrid, how absolutely horrid. At least my son got to go to the hospital, go under and have the surgery done painlessly, AND he gets to keep his sexual enjoyment -- unlike those poor girls...

You wrote: ...how many cultures out there view the death of (wanted) wives and children during childbirth as a good thing? and I responded by saying that the cultures that practice fgm obviously believe that controlling the female's sexuality (and enhancing the man's pleasure) are more important than the lives of the women and children who die as a direct result of fgm. edited to add: Perhaps the husband justfies the barbaric pratice "my wife and child died, but at least she never fooled around on me, I am a lucky man... is my next wife ready yet? A culture that would practice fgm has no value of human life to begin with so they would not care about the women and children. It's all about control - they control their women by cutting off their pleasure centres and making sex a cruel, painful act.

Obviously the "pleasure" of the male and the "control" of the female are the ultimate goals for fgm; both "reasons" far outweigh the lives of women and children in the minds of these barbarians.

Ok then... shove a thin glass tube up the urethea so he can stay hard and satisfy all the women in the tribe... and when they are done with him they pull the tube out using rusty needlenosed pliers. Of course I would never want to see a man go through this -- just trying to get the point across. (which is difficult in the face of "but I am missing my foreskin wahhhhhh!") I hate whiners that think male circumcision is even remotely close to the brutality and horror of fgm. stop fgm

Herein lies the problem... people whining that male circumcision is "just as bad" as cutting off the inner and outer labia, gouging out the clitoris and sewing a woman shut. The only equivelant would be if a man's balls were cut off completely and his penis reduced to a 1 cm nubbins. And while we're at it, lets sew up the little hole at the end so urine cannot flow freely as well. THEN you could whine about men being "mutilated". Do you seriously think that the tradition of cutting off a foreskin is as bad as what they do to young girls? Do you seriously think that a woman who no longer has vaginal lips or a clitoris would feel sorry for YOU whining man? This is why discussions of female mutilation never get very far -- men come along and whine "but I am missing my parts too!!!!" Unless you cannot piss properly and cannot have an orgasm... and get ripped open every time you have sex... your whining is utterly pathetic. FGM graphic pics

excellent!

So if you were an American you would consider yourself personally responsible for all the civilian deaths in Iraq even though you've never stepped foot in Iraq nor killed anyone? A fetus is not a human being. The human becomes viable once it can survive outside the womb. At about 20 weeks or so.

Wow were there earthquakes or other natural disasters in Somalia and Afghanistan this week!?!? No? Then what on earth is your point? Harper scores one point. *Tick!*

"there will be trouble...." What do you mean by this statement? Personally I want my world to be free of religious interference and that includes forcing my child to bow his head for no good reason because of someone's belief in an invisible entity. Prayer belongs at home or church -- or have your child go to the school's bathroom, sit in a private stall and pray there. Can't a child get through a six hour school day without prayer? The invisible entity (sorry but I refuse to call it a name as it is not real) apparently has lots of patience... can't it wait for the child to go home? My coworker prays before she eats her lunch. She sits quietly in her cubicle with her eyes closed. Most of the time, no one even notices. Imagine if all those she works with were forced to bow their heads with her? How pathetic would that be? Once again, freedom of religion is the freedom to practice no religion, to hold no beliefs.

why do you feel the need to insult me? I never said anything negative about you (or anyone for that matter). Just pointing out that people project their thoughts and feelings onto others. Homophobic people believe that gays do nothing but think of how to lure their next 'conquest'... Note that I did not say YOU... I said PEOPLE. Now if you lump yourself in the homophobe group who am I to argue -- you know yourself better than I do. Cheers!

No I am not joking. Not all prayer is silent. Some yell it... better to just keep it at home IMO. And have those that don't pray be "singled out" and picked on by the faithful, no thanks. No. It does not. Many people go through life without prayer and like it that way. Religion has no place in the public arena. If you want your child to have a religious education send them to a religious school. We don't send our atheist children to harass the kids at St. Mary's so why do you send the religious kids to our secular schools to force our secular children to pray (or be singled out by NOT praying)? My coworker's daughter (age 8) is continually harassed by a bunch of Christian children that live on her block, they tell her in no uncertain terms that she is a sinner and is going to burn in hell. Nice Kids. Her mother is thankful that they do not attend her school. As long as there is freedom OF religion, there is freedom FROM religion.

I find it funny that the homophobes think that sex is ALL a homosexual EVER thinks about. It's because every time THEY (the homophobes) see a person of the opposite sex they have sexual thoughts so they project this onto others.

Margrace is right Z. Young, you are just a youngin'! And as a youngin' you have yet to have a serious health issue (I haven't either, but I am older n' wiser) Who cares about socialism or liberalism or capitalism? We are talking about access to health care. In the United States, an INSURER (a private company) dictates whether a person will be treated for any given health issue. We have private insurance too. Our family has Blue Cross. But -- and here's where we lose you -- if hubby and I both lose our jobs we still have health insurance. This is NOT the case in a 100% for-profit insurance system such as the US's. I am all for private care... paid for by public and private insurance. If Mr. and Mrs. Nobody both work and have no private insurance, then their public insurance would pay for them to go to the private clinic. The rich can pay $3000 for "membership", and the poor get in at no cost to them through the public insurance system. Money should never dicatate whether or not a person gets cancer treatment (or any other "expensive" treatment). You are a person, you live in this country, then you are covered. That being said, Canada needs to look at Europe, not the US for examples of how to run a medical system.

If you weren't such a dense goofball you would get it by now. I also eat Indian food (no, not native american food, food from people from a country far, far away --> India!) so does that make me Indian? Should I dress in a Sari and get a Bindi dot? The POINT (if you can ever get it) is that we dipped, but we did not profit from it. Our government allows natives to dip for fish (as per tradition) but they are not to sell the fish for a profit. They are to take home and feed to your children. BUT many natives sell the fish and buy booze rather than food for the chldren. You people don't give a rat's ass about "tradition" or "nature"... tell me, did the natives replant every tree they took for building longhouses, canoes, totems? Hmmm?

All who believe in prayer in school should believe that students are to pray to ALL the invisible entities -- for fairness to the student population. You can't say "prayer belongs in schools" without meaning prayer for ALL religions. How will you handle it? 2 hours of varied prayer each morning? Better to just leave religion out of public school. There are religious schools for the faithful to send their children.

Oleg, you sound like a really nice guy who tried to do what you've been told is "the right thing" when a young woman got pregnant. You are the perfect example of what I fight for... that women DO dupe men into committment by becoming pregnant. She trapped you. Bottom line. And you stayed and raised the children and now she is aging you feel obligated to stay. Is it any wonder so many older men are bitter towards women? My mother taught me to never be dependent. To make sure I was emotionally and financially secure in my own right. I didn't have my child until I was 28 - he was an unplanned baby and I raised him myself. I could have forced the father into a relationship with me, made him marry me, but we both would have been miserable. But for you that time has long past and you must "lay in the bed you've made" as my mother would say... Oleg, you deserve some good luck -- I hope everything works out for you.

Sharing with you or her dying mom? And... this question might seem cold sorry... does she have an inheritance coming? (so she can be financially ok without you) How old are the adult children and can she live with one of them? I would've taken in my mom if need be, but she passed away before I could offer... mind you her and dad were ok together, but I would have if I had needed to. (and near the end, my mother was a cranky, negative bitch and I felt sorry for my dad) Oleg, so many father's don't think their daughter's husbands/boyfriends are "good enough" for them. My niece is dating a fellow that her father hates but he does tolerate him visiting (he wasn't allowed over before). Did you love her in the beginning? How long did the love last and what killed it? I am just so full of questions and I hope I am not intruding... What kind of pschosis has she been diagnosed with? And is she on/taking medications? You raised four children to adulthood! I certainly wouldn't call that a loss. You must be, what, in your 40's? It is not too late to start over. I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by this comment. As a feminist I believe men and women deserve equal support in all areas. What support (financial? emotional?) did she recieve that you did not?

I would say no, it's not love, it's committment. The two are not necessarily connected. Would she survive without you? Financially? Emotionally? Does she have a career to fall back on? A family to emotionally suport her (besides you)? Must be difficult to be in your position -- feeling obligated to the mother of your children, yet needing more. This is one of the dangers of being or marrying a stay at home woman. She (you, if you are a woman) will be dependent forever and if circumstances change you are stuck with few options. Men, while it may seem wonderful that you will have a wife/mother at home...and women, while it is awfully tempting to give up your independence for the hubby and children... there is the chance that you will end up in a loveless relationship with no way out. I advise all men to marry a woman with a career so she won't be wholly dependent on you. And women, keep your careers. Even if you stay at home while the children are little... go back when they go into school, even if only part time, to keep yourself in the "loop" and protect your future.