This Time, a Buffet

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at May 14, 2008 in food and offbeat news. 6 Comments

Unfortunately, dear Haemet readers, you’re stuck with me as a guest-blogger until Tieki  unearths herself from a pile of books, which is sometime in the middle of June. 

For your gastronomical pleasure: Chicago has ended its ban on foie gras.

The House passed a $300 farm bill by a veto-proof margin.  President Bush has promised to veto it, preferring taxpayers not to pay for both pork and wheat.  For those keeping track at home, the farm bill is more than double the annual cost of the Iraq War… and these crops haven’t established rape rooms, put kids in jail, or made mass graves.  Note that Nancy Pelosi has implicitly acknowledged that biofuels (specifically, corn-based ethanol) are a disaster:

 She said the measure would help lower food prices and contribute to making the United States less dependent on foreign oil by providing a tax credit for refineries that produce a new generation of biofuels made from grasses, wood and other non-corn sources.

Is anyone seriously saying that, in the days of $4/gallon gasoline, you need an economic incentive to produce fuel? 

Moving right along: India blames the United States for rising food prices.  As a point of logic, the United States may be responsible for a lot of things, but it hasn’t changed much in the past few years (except for the aforementioned biofuel debacle); therefore, anything that has changed is not the responsibility of Americans.  A quick complaint:

[Pradeep S. Mehta] added, archly, that the money spent in the United States on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funneled to feed famine victims.

Possibly… if those who spent their own money on liposuction would instead send it to Africa.  This is not “American” money that the United States Government may dispose of as it pleases, nor is it money that is rightfully the property of the neediest in the world.  It is the property of the people who earned it, who may dispose of it as they please.  Without the ability to spend their money as they wish - frivolously or wisely - people will not have an incentive to earn money. 

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Another Smogasboard

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at May 12, 2008 in academia, feminazis and global warming. 10 Comments

For those who have missed the kerfuffle, Phyllis Schlafly will be speaking the Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL)commencement and will receive an honourary degree from the school.   Yes, this has provoked outrage; modern college women are upset because they feel as if Mrs. Schlafly does not represent their values:

Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U’s graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn’t having someone like her in the midst of Wash U’s female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?

Well, sweeties, why not read Mrs. Schlafly’s bio?  She earned a college degree from WUSTL at the age of 19 - in 1944!  She then earned a Masters in Government from Radcliffe College in 1945.  By any sane standard, Mrs. Schlafly is a maverick and an inspiration for feminists who care about women in education.  As a Master’s from one of the most prestigious universities in the country was not enough for Mrs. Schlafly, she went back to earn a J.D. from WUSTL in 1978.  She began her law school career scarcely three years after Title IX was passed and eleven years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Is that really a woman who is anything but an inspiration to young women who are about to receive a university degree from a fine institution?  What “values” are shared by university women that she does not hold dear - and has not demonstrated that she holds dear? 

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McCain is kowtowing to the enviro-mental-cases.  He advocates for a “cap-and-trade” system whereby each plant has a set amount of permissible pollution.  This system is fundamentally flawed, for several reasons:

  1. There is no just way to allocate credits.  If a plant is performing badly, it will get more credits than one that is already clean.  It may be much costlier to reduce emissions from a clean plant by 10% than a dirty plant by 50%, although the company that does the latter will be in a better economic position.

  2. It ignores the economic reality that it is much easier to build something new and green than to retrofit something to be green.

  3. It creates a cartel whereby existing companies can prevent new ones from coming onto the market - even if those new factories are significantly cleaner than their competitors.   A business owner need only refuse to let a newcomer purchase emissions credits, and the newcomer will not be able to operate a plant.  This will happen, even if the new plant is cleaner and will produce better environmental results than the one it replaces.  (See #2.)

  4. It creates an unnatural monopoly. The ability to pollute is not something like the creation of a railroad line or a telephone pole, which is somewhat monopolistic in its existence.  It makes sense to regulate railroads, energy lines, and telephone lines, as it is horribly inefficient to let people build zillions of parallel railroad tracks, power lines, and telephone poles for the sake of creating a “free market” in the relevant goods.  McCain’s proposal, although it has that “buy, sell, broker, cost/benefit analysis” look of a free market, actually undermines a properly-functioning free market.  The government, through its initial allocation of carbon credits, imposes an additional cost upon each company, which is unrelated to the cost of doing business, polluting, or cleaning up pollution.  Businesses may then impose costs upon each other by refusing to sell the credits, except for an exhorbitantly high cost.  The “supply” part of “supply and demand” is fixed: for obvious reasons, you can’t increase the supply of carbon credits without making the whole system utterly idiotic.

McCain, McCain… please, just stop this nonsense.  Ask people to plant trees… or face up to the reality that the earth is actually cooling down, despite an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

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The Boston Globe brings out the tears for people who bought houses that they cannot afford (here).  First of all, the  monthly payments should be affordable, not budget-straining, so any increase in interest rates would result in belt-tightening, not foreclosure.  Second, if the house was unaffordable when it was appraised at $700,000 in a good market, it isn’t any less affordable when appraised at $500,000 in a bad market.  The current market value of a home does not change whether or not the mortgage is affordable, just whether or not it is a financially good idea.  If it doesn’t make financial sense to keep the house, tough luck: the buyer gets the benefit of an upswing in the market (by selling the house at a profit, potentially) and pays for that with the risk of a downturn (whereby the she would have to sell at a loss). Now, the market value of a house only matters when… drum roll… wait for it… the house is on the market.  If you aren’t selling your house, it does not matter, financially, whether it is valued at $700,000 or $400,000.  So this is complete and total b.s. that a change in the housing market makes these homes unaffordable.

Third, and most importantly, two groups pay for these irresponsible people: responsible homeowners who will see an increase in their interest rates to cover foreclosure, and renters who are blocked out of the housing market by less financially stable, but irresponsible, homeowners, and, of course, the rising interest rates on mortgages to pay for the financial irresponsibility. Notice how wrongdoing and irresponsibility do not correlate to financial burdens.

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In Which Academia Flies Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at May 2, 2008 in academia and college. 6 Comments

Blogging on somewhat old news here (as students have been lobbying for this since I was in college, i.e. the better part of a decade ago): universities are accomodating student requests for co-ed housing.  (Story here.)  This is not co-ed dorms, where guys have one floor and girls another; this isn’t where the guys are on in room and the girls in another: folks, this is co-ed by pillow. 

Now, I’m about as libertarian as they come.  That does not mean, however, that I think every exercise of a freedom is wise.  Let’s break down the arguments for co-ed housing:

“It ultimately comes down to finding someone that you feel is compatible with you,” said Jeffrey Chang, a junior at Clark in Worcester, Massachusetts, who co-founded the National Student Genderblind Campaign, a group that is pushing for gender-neutral housing. “Students aren’t doing this to make a point. They’re not doing this to upset their parents. It’s really for practical reasons.”

There are 2,100 undergraduates at Clark; 61% are female, and 39% are male.  In any class, then, there are approximately 300 girls and 210 boys.  Is Mr. Chang really saying that, among the 200 or so men in his class, he cannot find a single person with whom he can share a room?  This individual need not be his best friend, just someone who won’t spill beer on his bed.  If he cannot do so, perhaps he ought to be a bit more mature before starting college, as the problem is with him and not the sex of his classmates.

More importantly, Mr. Chang is part of a “Genderblind” group.  Now, yours truly is not advocating for traditional sex roles - after all, she changes her own oil and brakes, has an engineering degree, opens bottles without the aid of a guy or a special little bottle-opener thingie, and does the visual-rotation-of-map-in-head driving (not the girlie landmark driving).  Nevertheless, not a guy.  My body does things that male bodies will never do.  (This woman, despite her best intentions, has proven that; the very fact that she got pregnant once she stopped putting hormones into her body indicates that she is pregnant; no man can do so.)  When you live with someone - when your body shares the space that their body is in - it matters whether or not you have the same body parts.  Blindness to gender is one thing; blindness to sex, another. 

Up next in the “clearly doesn’t get it” category:

Still, Feldman said her daughter is partly in college to learn life lessons, and it’s her decision. Samantha said she assured her mom that she thinks of Caspro as a brother.

If you think that you can share close quarters with someone of the opposite sex, when neither of you are dating anyone, for a year, without sexual tension, then you’re just naive.  Teenagers, however, are allowed to be naive - people often have to see things go wrong, time and again, to understand why certain proscriptions are put into place.  Adults, however, do not have that excuse: they’ve been around the block enough times to understand that these things rarely work out.  It is the job of the university, and adults in these students’ lives, to prevent kids from making these types of mistakes.  (As for the  mother who allowed her daughter to do this - are you freaking kidding me?  Mom, it’s really simple: “Honey, that’s wonderful that you feel liberated enough to live with a man without telling me.  Now, let’s talk about finances, because I’m not contributing a cent to your college education if you do that.  Be modern and hip on your own dime.”  Anything else is simply an abdication of parental responsibilities.)

There is no reason why universities must cater to this madness.  If students want to live with their friends, they can find apartments near the school.  There can be advantages to living with someone of the oppposite sex - men, for example, might appreciate the neatness and domestic flair, while women might appreciate having a body guard - but it is utterly foolish to believe that there will not be problems.  It is not hard to imagine that a girl may not want to come home to find six guys in her room, when all she wants to do is take her Midol, crawl into her pj’s, and get some sleep.  That’s not regressive - that’s civilised.  A final thought - anyone want to guess what this will do to the rate of date rape and acquaintance rape on college campuses?  Want to guess if a girl will report that her male roommate or her male roommate’s friend raped her?

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Halfway There?

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at April 29, 2008 in Abortion and Pro-Life. 0 Comments

Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, criticised the practise of aborting female babies in utero.  Families who hope for a boy child will often do this once ultrasounds reveal the sex of the child.  The Lancet estimated that, over the past twenty years, Indians have aborted ten million girl babies for reasons of sex alone (here).  The good news:

“No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women,” Mr. Singh said, giving an inaugural speech at a national conference dedicating to “saving the girl child,” which brought together politicians, doctors and advocates.

Describing the abortion of female fetuses as “inhuman, uncivilized and reprehensible,” he said the government should crack down on the large numbers of doctors who illegally disclosed the sex of the fetus to the parents, and then arranged abortions of unwanted girls.

The bad news: India permits abortion until twelve weeks if the practioner believes that there is a grave risk to the mother’s physical or mental health, or if the foetus is physically or mentally disabled.  Furthermore, women whose birth control failed are presumed to be so mentally harmed by a pregnancy so as to justify abortion.  (Here.) India’s abortion laws expressly permit discrimination against the physically and mentally disabled - discrimination that would be a human rights violation of the highest order if it occurred outside the womb.  The “mental health” exception is quite broad: we’ve seen in the United States that it permits abortion on  demand.  Is it any surprise, then, that a woman who would be scarred and dishonoured by bringing a female baby into the world would seek - and receive - an abortion under India’s laws?

India’s PM has stated that it is a human rights violation to murder unborn children because of sex.  Would we get to the point where it would be equally reprehnensible to murder boy children, disabled children, or those so unfortunate as to be conceived to women who do not want them, as it is becoming to murder children on account of being female.  The right to life is universal: it does not evaporate when the reasons for abortion are socially acceptable and politically correct.

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Smogasboard

Published by
Roxeanne de Luca
at April 26, 2008 in 2nd amendment, Abortion, Illegal Immigration, Virginia Tech and gun control. 3 Comments

A healthy (or rather, health-related) smogasboard for your reading pleasure:

Eric Thompson, a gun dealer who sold the firearms that were used in last year’s Virginia Tech massacre, spoke at Virginia Tech as a guest of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.  (Story here.)  He believes that, had other students been armed, the massacre would have been much less deadly.  (Tieki stated the same thing a few months ago.)  Thompson’s speech was not that of a zealot:

Thompson said he supports enforcing existing gun laws and mental health reform to try to prevent further tragedies. He qualified many comments by saying he didn’t believe everyone should own a gun and said the two sides in the heated debate over gun control could find common ground.

Entirely reasonable; sadly, liberals don’t see it that way. 

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker released a statement about the visit, acknowledging the importance of free speech but saying that he found Thompson’s appearance “terribly offensive.”

“The organizers appear to be incredibly insensitive to the families of the victims who lost loved ones and to the injured students still recovering from this horrendous tragedy,” he said.

Holly Adams-Sherman, mother of Leslie Sherman, one of the students killed in Norris Hall, said Thompson’s appearance at Tech was in poor taste. She heard about it late Wednesday.

Let me get this straight.  A horrible tragedy occurred.  A man who is arguably part of the chain of events comes to apologise for his role and suggest means by which such tragedies can be avoided in the future, so that other people will not have to suffer so horribly.  This is “offensive” and “insensitive.” 

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The MSM uses the term “unborn twins” to describe a tragedy in which a woman, who was five months pregnant, miscarried after being shot.  (Here.)  Serious applause for these words, even if their use was unintentional - those are not “fetuses” or “products of conception;” they are unborn twins.  My condolences to the young woman who suffered so horribly.

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A nationwide study indicated that female residents of Southwest Virginia have experienced a decrease of approximately six years in their life expectancy from 1983.  (Here.)  The study indicated that, nationwide, those in poor and rural areas were the most likely to live a shorter time than people of their parents’ generation. 

More, below the fold:

Continue reading ‘Smogasboard’

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Sarah Palin’s “Angel Child”

Published by
tieki rae
at April 23, 2008 in Abortion, NRLC and Pro-Life. 2 Comments

From the Anchorage Daily News, Palins’ child diagnosed with Down Syndrome

She and her husband, Todd, showed their new baby, Trig Paxson Van Palin, to a few reporters and photographers and answered questions about his condition and the sooner-than-expected delivery.

Trig has Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality that affects a child’s intellectual and physical development, the governor confirmed.

“When we first heard, it was kind of confusing,” Palin, 44, said. She called the revelation “very, very challenging” and said she initially felt sad.

But the family has worked through that. Palin said she and Todd feel blessed and chosen by God. With a big family including four older kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Palin said, they will have lots of support for what’s ahead. In their eyes, she said, “he’s absolutely perfect.”

This is a very well-written article about Palin’s baby and children with Down Syndrome in general.  Instead of focusing exclusively on the challenges that come with DS, the author also emphasizes the blessings that can come from having such a special child.

It’s odd, I haven’t seen this mentioned on any of the news or blogs I follow on my reader, but rather I received it via email from Dave Andrusko, editor of the National Right to Life News, who puts out NRLC’s “Today’s News & Views” daily on their website and on an email list.  I would highly recommend subscribing to N&V.  Dave’s topics range from human interest stories to political happenings to pop culture - all relating to the pro-life movement.

What I found most interesting about this story was this:

Because of prenatal testing, most families now know beforehand, said Judy Waldron, president of the Alaska chapter of the National Down Syndrome Congress, a support and education group that delivered a parent packet to the Palins in the hospital.

“They anticipate it and they kind of relish the challenge of having a child with special needs,” said Waldron, an Anchorage teacher whose 19-year-old daughter, Lyn, has Down syndrome.

While it’s “no walk in the park,” the joys are great, she said. “Just the fact that they require such great effort to complete some simple tasks and that’s real rewarding.”

Todd Palin said the family has gotten a flood of supportive e-mail from families around the country with special-needs children. He said he’s playing it by ear as far as his North Slope job.

Some people call them “angel children,” straight from God, Waldron said. They are usually sweet-natured but can be ornery, like anyone.

Left unsaid is that because of ignorance and sometimes blatantly false or biased medical information, some 80% of families choose to abort their Down Syndrome baby because they don’t think they are up for the challenge of one of these “angel children”.  Let this serve as a reminder of the importance of S. 1810, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Condition Awareness Act.

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