April 26, 2009
Rule Five Sunday: Selma Hayek
I know what you’re thinking. The answer is yes. I am trying to win the Rule 5 Diversity Award! To that end, here’s a little Selma Hayek for you to enjoy.
As always, I’ll give you one more.
April 25, 2009
Like a dog is a man’s, a gun is a woman’s best friend!
I don’t understand why women are supportive of gun control laws. It’s the perfect example of an issue that the left uses to play on our emotions. We are told about children being accidentally shot, or flashed pictures of Columbine, but we are never told about the women whose lives are saved because they were carrying a weapon. Or how the kids at Columbine could have been stopped if a responsible law abiding citizen had been carrying a gun and able to take those kids out.
The Craig’s List Killer prompted Massachusetts officials to advise their residents to just not fight back. Forget advice about not selling your body over the Internet, just when the man tries to rob you, in a situation where it seems that rape and death are unavoidable, don’t resist. They advised women to go against their natural instinct for survival. That seems realistic.
At least one MA resident finds this advice just a tad absurd. I’m going to have to agree with her. She thinks that more women should become handy with the steel, if you know what I mean (that means they should become well trained in using a gun):
No, I will never find myself alone in a hotel room with a strange man about to engage in a risky and illegal act. But I have been alone on subway platforms, alone walking to my car late at night and alone with young kids at home while my husband took (thankfully rare) overseas trips for conferences. No matter how much he’d love to do it, my husband just can’t protect me at all times. And, in spite of his lovely protective instincts, I really don’t need him to do so either. That’s because even though I’m a small woman, I have a pistol and I know how to use it effectively. We train and practice regularly as a family and I’m confident that if push comes to shove, I can and WILL use that pistol to defend myself.
Now, I’m not sure I agree with her premise that women don’t want to carry guns because they perceive it as unfeminine. Perhaps they do, but I would say there’s more to it than that. It’s an emotional issue and too many women think guns are naturally bad. If we could just get rid of guns, then the world would be a safer place.
Last year we were discussing guns in one of my grad school classes. We were talking about opinion polls on allowing concealed carry in the District. She said it made her uncomfortable, the thought that any one on the Metro could be carrying a gun, right next to her, and she wouldn’t even know it. Then I pointed out, that was probably already happening. Unfortunately, though, the person carrying a gun now was already a criminal and if he decided to use that weapon, you could rest assured every law abiding citizen on that train would be at his mercy because, thanks to DC laws prohibiting us from having weapons, the criminal would be the only one with the gun.
We talked about allowing guns on school grounds. As would be expected, the Virginia Tech shooting came up. I had to explain that the guy could have been stopped by someone else carrying a gun. As a society, we have been trained to think about all of the bad that happens with guns. We never hear about the good. And, women seem to be especially susceptible to this. Too many women blame guns instead of people, which really isn’t shocking to me.
Women don’t understand how useful a gun can be, especially to them. That restrictive gun laws disproportionately target and hurt them. Maybe that’s how the issue should be framed: gun laws are a way for men to keep women in a submissive, weakened status. It’s a way to keep us in check because if we have to go toe to toe with a man somewhere and we don’t have a gun, we are naturally at a disadvantage. I don’t know.
One thing is for sure, women need to realize that like a dog is a man’s best friend, a gun is a woman’s. Yes, it’s a responsibility and it takes work. Just carrying a gun in your purse isn’t going to save you. In an attack, you have approximately three seconds to get that gun out and be able to turn it on your attacker. That takes practice. But, it just may save your life.
(H/T: Jillosophy)
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Mother to children: Get Out!
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Admittedly, I don’t have children. And, I know that if I ever do, I will probably be one of the strictest parents around. I come from the school of thought that kids are to be seen and not heard. They should mind their manners, respect authority, and listen to adults. Life is tough and they should start learning their place in it as early as possible.
This mother kicked her children out of the car. I have no problem with that. First of all, it was only three miles from their home and she knows her town. Yeah, something could have happened. Maybe she should have just circled the block to give the girl a scare, but I think the initial kicking out of the car was acceptable.
When my brother and I were in fifth grade, we missed the school bus one morning. Now, it was too long ago to tell you if this was on purpose. We were notorious for finding ways to miss school together, so I’m sure it was. But, my mom had had enough and told us to walk. It was January 28, 1992. I remember the date because it was my mom’s birthday and I remember how old she was turning.
January in Connecticut. It was cold, to say the least. My brother and I decided we were not going to walk the 3.5 miles to school in the freezing cold. Scott came up with the idea of walking over the mountain, instead, and hanging out at a friend’s house.
Of course, we didn’t anticipate that the school would call our house. Our mom would find out we never made it, and a police search would ensue because we were officially missing children at this point. When we did finally get caught–as an older brother knew exactly where to start looking for us–it wasn’t my mom that was in trouble. It was us.
Not only did our mother want to kill the both of us, she grounded us for a very long time. We might have even gotten smacked. Who can remember? But, we were also in trouble with the school. We both received the punishment of one day of in-school suspension. All of this was deserved, of course.
My mother was not in trouble with the police for basically the same crime this woman committed. The only difference is, my mom kicked us out of the house, this woman kicked her child out of the car. I was 10, at the time, Scott was eleven. These girls were 10 and 12.
I’m sure the 10-year-old was more shocked than scared. She could have walked the three miles home, or had the good sense like her sister to run after the car knowing that her mother would let her back in. Instead, her mother has now been punished by being arrested for child endangerment. Is there a statute of limitations on that? Perhaps I can still get my mother back.
Either way, my brother and I learned an important lesson that day. A lesson that this child has been robbed of by the stranger who rewarded her misbehavior with ice cream and the police who punished her mother for her unorthodox parenting techniques.
The psychologist/psychiatrist and child experts in this clip are more worried about the psychological impact this will have on this poor child. I’m more worried about the psychological impact this will have on the mother, and other parents trying to get their unruly children under control. I guess that’s just my warped way of looking at the world. It’s not like she beat her or something.
Anyway, I just wanted to say, I support the mother in this story. If it were my child, she would be in even more trouble now than she originally was. Unfortunately, the police have now handed the power in this relationship to the child instead of the adult.
Comments (0)April 22, 2009
Unprotected, underage sex? Don’t worry. There’s always Plan B.
Abortion for all, no matter your age:
The “morning-after pill” will be available without a prescription to women 17 and older, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. The minimum age has been 18.
On March 23, a federal court ordered that Plan B, an emergency contraception pill, be made available over the counter to those 17 and up, the agency said in a statement on its Web site. The agency will not appeal that order, the statement said.
In the order, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman also asked the agency to consider whether the pill should be available to women of all ages without a prescription, saying that such a determination is best left to the expertise of the FDA rather than a federal district judge.
I had written about this before. One of the problems with this story being that Plan B isn’t really birth control. It’s abortion before you know you are aborting. You take Plan B in order to abort a pregnancy within the first 72 hours of that pregnancy. It’s just a tad different than actually preventing a pregnancy. It gets tricky, but there is a difference. It’s like guilt-free abortion because you don’t really know if you ever had an abortion. You might not have been pregnant at all.
The judge in the story also feels that the FDA should consider whether the pill should be available over the counter to those under eighteen? The beauty of a prescription being required is that it might actually involve some parental guidance. That is why this judge is against it. They want to detach children from their parents social mores.
The drug companies are also involved. They want to make money, and they’ll be making a lot more of it if all of this would become over the counter. The thesis I am working on will explore the financial mega-industry that is abortion. This isn’t about a woman’s choice, or a woman’s right to privacy. First of all, as arbitrary as it may be, before 18 you are not a woman. You’re a child. This is about the companies that produce these drugs opening themselves up to a wider market. It’s disgusting.
Anyway, parents just lost some more of their rights. The government, primarily through the courts, have told parents time and again that they have no business in their childrens’ lives. What’s next? Is the school nurse going to start performing abortions and only call parents in to pick up their child because she feels sick? I wouldn’t be surprised.
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A Call to Rule 5: Carrie Prejean
Someone wants to implement Rule 5 Wednesday in honor of Carrie Prejean. As a strict follower of The Rules, here is one more for the boys:
I’m with Smitty on this one, though, they definitely don’t look natural. Look at that gap. On the bright side, she doesn’t look orange in this picture.
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When was the last time a weatherman was right?
President Obama has announced a new energy initiative:
President Obama marked Earth Day Wednesday by announcing a new initiative to lease federal waters for the purpose of generating electricity from wind and ocean currents.
The president announced the initiative, to be administered by the Interior Department, while reiterating his pledge to push for a comprehensive energy plan that encourages the development of alternative fuel sources, cuts dependence on foreign oil, addresses climate change, and creates new jobs.
Wind power can generate 20 percent of the country’s electricity by 2030 and support 250,000 jobs, Obama said during a visit to a wind turbine tower manufacturing plant.
It is part of “beginning a new era of energy exploration,” he said.
Contrary to the assertion of some critics, the country does not have to choose between protecting the environment and expanding the economy, Obama said. The real choice is between “prosperity and decline.”
The idiocy of Earth Day aside, this plan is just another waste of our money to further Obama’s ideological goals. Wind power is never going to live up to these expectations of generating 20 percent of our electricity by 2030. Let’s be realistic. And, even if it was realistic, that begs the question of is it worth it? And, who wants those stupid modern day windmills polluting our landscape? Obama’s own homeboy Teddy Kennedy didn’t want windmills ruining his view. I’m sure others will object.
If you want to cut down our dependence on foreign oil, why doesn’t he try tapping into the oil reserves we have right here in America and/or off our coasts? There’s a thought for you. A thought that the majority of Americans support. I reject his false choice between protecting the environment and drilling for oil. Surprise! We can do both. Technology is amazing!
This guy is going to break our country. It’s one expensive initiative after another. If he wants to start saving the environment he could start with all of his supporters who came here for inauguration and littered our nation’s capital with garbage. How environmentally friendly was that? I guess they didn’t vote him in to save the environment. There’s a shocker.
Our country will move to cleaner energy when it becomes economical and desirable. We haven’t reached that point, yet. If “clean energy” still can’t compete when it is being so heavily subsidized, it shouldn’t be falsely buoyed by the government in order to keep the (false) hope alive. Green jobs shouldn’t be created at my expense.
After one of the longest and coldest winters I have yet lived through in DC, I’m sick of hearing about climate change and global warming. If the climate is changing, I would submit that perhaps it is getting colder, not warmer. Perhaps weather is cyclical and so we alternate between warming and cooling trends. Perhaps our government shouldn’t be wasting our money on something that hasn’t been definitively decided upon by the scientific community.
Wasn’t this the same administration that invoked science when allowing federal funding for stem cell research? I guess they only care about science when it fits their ideological goals. I mean, when was the last time a weatherman got something right? They can’t predict the weather tomorrow. We’re going to rely on their judgments of what is to come in a hundred years?
Too bad none of us will be here to say I told you so when they are irrefutably proven wrong.
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Mr. President, Are you starting to feel like a pawn, yet?
Surprise, surprise! The Cubans didn’t quite mean what they said when they said that everything would be on the table in discussions with the US:
Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama “misinterpreted” his brother Raul’s remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on dollars people send to the island.
Raul Castro touched off a whirlwind of speculation last week that the U.S. and Cuba could be headed toward a thaw after nearly a half-century of chilly relations. The speculation began when the Cuban president said leaders would be willing to sit down with their U.S. counterparts and discuss “everything, everything, everything,” including human rights, freedom of the press and expression, and political prisoners.
Obama responded at the Summit of the Americas by saying Washington seeks a new beginning with Cuba. But as he prepared to leave the summit Sunday, Obama also called on Cuba to release political prisoners and reduce taxes on remittances from the U.S.
That appeared to enrage Fidel Castro, 82, who wrote in an essay published Wednesday that Obama “without a doubt misinterpreted Raul’s declarations.”
Don’t worry. It gets worse. Our Secretary of State is even more dillusional than our president:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had a different perspective on Fidel Castro’s essay while speaking about Cuba policy with the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. She said that while Fidel Castro had “contradicted” his brother’s previous statements about Cuba’s willingness to discuss a whole range of issues with the U.S., it shows “there is beginning to be a debate” inside Cuba about how to move forward with U.S. relations.
We are not sparking an inside debate between the Castro brothers over in Cuba. I hate to be the one to break this to you, Ms. Clinton (how am I coming on that date with your husband, by the way?) but they will only discuss what they want to discuss, they will give us no concessions, and we will gain nothing by conceding anything to them. I thought you were the one with experience in this administration. Wasn’t that what you ran on? I guess I was wrong.
(H/T: Memeorandum)
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