Molly

You are talking rules and I'm talking ethics. How many 18-year-olds do you know who are ready- physically, emotionally, financially - to be orphaned? To whom it would be merely a sadness, and not a serious setback and trauma? We owe more to our kids than to set them up for that kind of abandonment. Palin knew her child was seriously, irreparably genetically flawed, and actively chose to give birth in spite of it. I'm not one of the ones who thinks that such a decision is noble and self-sacrificing. In all probability, she produced a dependent whose dependence will outlive her ability to provide. That's.... self-indulgent. I neither have, nor wish to have the power to make that decision for her or others like her, but if my opinion matters, I disapprove.

Even in talking strictly auto assembly, the big cheeze around here is Honda-- non-union.

The stats don't cover the folks whose hours have been cut to way, way down-to the point of not being anything like enough, or the folks whose wages have been unilaterally cut, either. There are lots of both. The shot at union labour was an obvious gratuitous drive-by.

Dobbin... Palins irresponsibility had little to do with her age. So far as any other circumstance, age or other, if you can't reasonably expect to provide for your kids to self-sufficiency-- physical, emotional, financial self-sufficiency-- then you should be thinking twice and more before doing it, and probably deciding against.

Noahbody... do you suppose this mom will be playing catch with her boys when she's 82? Will she make it to their high school graduation? She gets the joy of having those kids; they get to be orphaned young. I don't think I'd wish that on my kids.

Oddsox.... forced sterilization? Stretch much? We already intervene when kids are very grossly neglected, but we don't do it often enough, soon enough nor permanently enough. Are you advocating that children should always be left at the mercy of their parents, no matter how deficient those parents are?

So people who can't afford to raise kids shouldn't give birth to them. We can all agree. But oops, they did it anyway! Now what? Should we make sure that those folks who couldn't afford kids, and the kids they had, all live the rest of their lives in abject poverty with no hope of ever improving on the situation? Vent all you want, but then let's get real, and figure out what's more costly: lots of people with no way to support themselves and their families, and no means to prepare their families to be self-supporting, either... or a boost that lets most of them get their feet on the ground, and able to pay for both their own, and some of the next ones facing the same challenges. Daycare assistance only accrues to those who maximize employment opportunities. Who is more deserving of the help?

Alta4ever "in 2002 it was 7.6" Bryan "Only 7.2?" It's 8.0 right here, right now, and still climbing as fast as it did through January. Enjoy being smug and dismissive about it, but if no one at this end of the road can pay the national bills, it will all be up to you. Have fun with that.

Irresponsible is irresponsible, Topaz. If you can't look after kids, whatever the reason, you are stretching privelege to the breaking point by creating them. Possessing them when you can't or don't look after them (or yourself) is a highly doubtful privilege, too-- for instance, I question whether that mother of the recent octuplets should be trusted with custody of any of the 14, since she is obviously irresponsible, and of poor mental health. Privelege, not right. Kids deserve better. THEY have the rights. (BTW, your grandparents- starting when they were children, too- had 18 kids in the days when birth control was unavailable, it was the cultural normal, and the human presence was not known to be destructively large.)

Put me on the list as someone who thinks Palin was irresponsible, old fathers are irresponsible, and this couple is outrageous. Kids deserve much much better than to be their parents' self-indulgence. In the world of rights and priveleges, I do NOT think that having children is a 'right', but the highest of priveleges.

The explanaation is pretty simple--- the time that could have been used to get it right was thoroughly wasted before it was ever put on the table. November was already late to be calling for a do-over, but in January/February, to put it off for another couple of months would have been wholly irresponsible, even if it's deeply flawed.

That's what I was expecting. I've been watching a total bloodbath locally, and the predictions I've been reading just didn't reflect it. I simply couldn't believe that this immediate area could be so anomalous... that this could be the only place that jobs were disappearing at that horrifying rate-- where employment must be falling over a statistical cliff.

No, PT, I'm not raising grandchildren, but I did take time off work babysit when the kids were in a month-long daycare jackpot. It's not easy to organize, and it's ripping expensive, however it's done. That baby is exactly why some help on that front is not a bad idea at all. Her parents are young, just barely self-supporting--on the verge of being very productive net contributors. But at the present, they live in an economic/future-building house of cards in which if any one element has a wobble, then the whole outfit collapses. A very short-term loss of daycare could be catastrophic to all their futures.

$40/day for one grandchild; employer subsidized by the other, down to, if I remember right, $10/day. You need more than a McJob not to be losing money on it.

Seems to me that they like him. Quite a lot.

As to the question of the evolutionary source of the god-seeking imperative, I actually visited that in another thread a couple of weeks ago.... I have two broad suspicions on it. The first is that it is a side-effect of basic heirarchical socialization, enabling man to live in mutually supportive groups. Such group living requires each to understand and acknowledge his social role, recognizing and demonstrating authourity over lower-status members, and respect for the authourity of stronger members. Our socialization is full of instinctive emotional prompts-- liking babies, fearing dangerous folk, gratitude when we recieve a kindness-- but if socialization instincts run just slightly beyond themselves, then we can anthropomorhize all sorts of things-- creatures, inanimate objects, natural events-- and respond emotionally to them, as we would if they an element of our social heirarchy.... feel grateful for food we've found, show respect for a tree, fear thunder --- take random events personally on an emotional level, as though they were an act or an aspect of an associate. The second is that it is a side effect of self-awareness, and something of a coping strategy. To anthropomorphize uncontrollable events provides a means to delude ourselves into a sense of control over them, through force, negotiation, finding favor, etc. A sense of control is soothing. I'd be willing to bet that both play a role.

LOL Well, you are still one assumption behind. Or ahead. In any case, divergent, before we get to the actual question at hand. (Which further makes my point about the difficulty of finding common ground on which to base a serious conversation.) I could tell you that presupposing deity has been the fall-back position in absence of information, time after time after time, only to have the real mechanisms later exposed, so it commands little respect among investigators.... and it would be the truth. The greater truth, though, in this situation is that in order to answer whether your presupposition has any basis in fact, we must first investigate, based on mine, because yours precludes functional investigation. If we find the the motive, the means and the method by which man creates gods ... then we may or may not be any wiser about whether GOD created man to be that creater of gods.

Where EVER did I say, or even imply, that religion must be bad? (I wonder how many folks commenting here have volunteered as many hours to a church as I have!)

Your assumption is incorrect. (Well, a whole bunch of 'em are, but that one in particular misses by a mile.) Spirituality-- reverence-- ritualization---deification is a universal human trait, whether praying to prey animals, elevation of saviour leaders to divine status, belief in fairies and corn gods and harvest gods, or just a sense of thankfulness for a fine sunset.... humans appear to be universally predisposed to worship of some sort or another. Universality strongly, strongly suggests that it is inborn, not learned behaviour. Since it appears strongly to be nature rather than nurture in origin, the exploration is the source and nature of that neurological quirk. In essence, the question is 'How, and thus why are we driven to invent gods?'

It is arrogant as Hell, Chris, to ask those of us on THIS side of the looking glass to step through to your side, to graciously, respectfully and KNOWLEDGABLY discuss the parables of what we percieve as 'the talking toaster' (and tut-tut that we seem less than nimble at it), while your own concession to meeting in the middle is to stand exactly where you already are, and congratulate yourself on being open-minded.

You do not see evolution and Christianity as necessarily contradictory. In light of the specific subject proposed-- exploration of an evolutionary source of mans wanton invention of deities-- that's a very VERY cheap copout.

I also find it interesting-disappointing, but interesting and illustrative- that the use of the word 'Darwinian' was not at all communicative-- as in, I used it to have one meaning, and you interpreted it through your own baggage, to give it entirely different implications, priorities, and in the end, meaning, so it became an instant unretrievable digression to nowhere. I meant nothing more than 'driven by survival advantage'. And you replied to it with 'I don't even think that Darwinian notions are entirely wrong....' (Say what?!) Again I ask, "Where is the common ground?" Even our language is rendered gobbledegook by the difference in our world views! 'Being polite and respectful to each other' doesn't overcome that utter failure to grasp the others perspective.

I chose that subject matter quite pointedly, because it actually does directly challenge the source of reverence/divinity/sense of deity. One MIGHT say that 'real God' can co-exist with exploration of a neurological quirk driving the invention of gods and worship activity-- but it's a bit like insisting that that the pretty assistant disappeared into ether via real magic, even as you explore the trapdoor mechanism in the back of the box. It is, after all, POSSIBLE that neither magician nor assistant knew or cared that the trapdoor happenned to be there... --------- Now, Chris, I'm sorry if my choice of words comes off as dismissive-- I was aiming for 'clear and direct', not 'rude' -- but it's hilariously ironic that the devolution to mutual 'You are not capable of carrying on this conversation.' happened that fast, even between folks who are attempting to do it. Was that-- one sentence each for us both to have given, and taken offense?

And that one can be reversed on you, too, Mr. Canada, without effort. If the tale of Superman was placed in the row of deity myths, it could only be separated out by virtue of being less complex, and more reality-based than most. They are all cartoons, unless you suspend disbeleif.

Chris... what sort of nuanced discussion are you proposing? Where is the common ground to be found? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Are you interested in discussing with me the Darwinian/neurological implications of the universality of 'deity' in human cultures-- or, in accepting diety/divinity as something real, does your brain reject that conversation as specious nonsense from the getgo?