It's too darn hot

Oh, wow - what a week.  Tuesday was the SINGLE HOTTEST DAY OF MY LIFE.  It went past 50 celsius (that's 122 farenheit) during the day.  Also, the air conditioner broke at my work, meaning it was the first day that I didn't freeze my ass off in the office because I'm in a building with two hockey rinks that is kept below room temperature at all time.  So that was good.  But then the ice rinks almost completely melted, so that was bad.  I guess.

And then the other night we had severe thunderstorms - and a tornado warning.  As this flashed across the bottom of the screen during Rockstar Supernova, I was all "whuh?  Wuh wuh?"  Because it never occurred to me that I lived in the part of the world where such things happenend.  So I looked at DD all, "So?  Do we bring in the container garden?  Tie down the patio furniture?  Sleep in the basement?  Tape the rest of the show?"

Fortunately, however, the warning was lifted, and I could enjoy my cheesy reality TV in peace, as nature intended.

Random old guys, second only to God in terms of moral judgement

A friend of mine recently went back to work after a year off battling breast cancer, just in time for to hear all about this wonderful example of humanity spout off about how women aren't capable about making their own decisions regarding their bodies.  At a "welcome back" lunch, we got into a discussion about abortion regulation, and the random old guys who wander around with signs just across the street, and who the hell they think they are to tell women about the morality of her decision. 

See, said friend is pretty young for a breast cancer survivor - 27 - and one of the main issues she's dealing with now is sex and reproduction, post-cancer.   To help prevent a reoccurence, she a) cannot take any hormonal forms of birth control, and b) is on a series of drugs that ARE NOT compatible with healthy fetal development.  She asked her doctor point blank what that would mean if she got pregnant - to which her doctor replied that it was her decision, but he would advise her to have an abortion.

Now sure - random old guys on the street, because they  are "Christian" men and therefore possessing far superior moral judgement to a young woman (or a medical doctor) as far as the issue of pregnancy is concerned - would simply tell her that she shouldn't be having sex anyway, because there's nothing in this world more EVIL than non-married adults engaging in consensual sexual behavior.

BUT!  Here's the sticky point - she IS getting married.  And, seeing as this story is taking place in Canada, I should clarify that she is getting married to a man. 

So it's a very real possibility that some day in the next five years, she might have to walk past random old guys to get to the clinic, and they will wish they lived in a society where, sinless as they are, they could cast all sorts of stones at her (magic stones that hurt the murdering whore without touching the precious angel growing inside her).

Now, some may say that, to be fair, I should accept the possibility that the random old guys would probably understand if she explained her situation to them.  They would probably accept her decision, and feel compassion that she was faced with so many challenges and such a young age.

But to anyone who says that, I say: SO FREAKIN' WHAT?    Oh, would they understand?  Would they be compassionate?  Would they tell her she's not making Jesus cry - this time?  Wow, what a couple of saints!  What truly phenomenal human beings they are - a woman made a personal decision affecting her body and her body alone - and after a detailed explanation, they considered it justified!  STOP THE PRESSES - here are the wisest, most noble of men!  Yes, there!  Hiding behind the "I'm a child, not a choice" signs!

ARRRRRGGGHHH.

Here's the thing about being pro-choice - it means that no woman, ever, anywhere, under any circumstances, needs to justify her decision to ANYONE BUT HERSELF.   Not to her friends, not to her family, and certainly not to complete strangers who spend their whole day protesting abortions while thousands of children in this city alone go hungry. 

It is her body, it is her business, and I am so goddamn TIRED of people who think that they should have the right to decide what are "good" and "bad" reasons for abortions.  There is only one good reason for an abortion - that she wants one.  There is only one bad reason for abortion - that someone else is forcing her to get one. 

That is why it's "pro-choice", NOT "pro-abortion", and if people are so thick-skulled they can't understand that, then they have no place making moral decisions for THEMSELVES, let alone anyone else. 

Saved from summer reruns

...by Rockstar: Supernova.  My love affair with reality TV pretty much ended this year, but that doesn't mean I can't have one last fling with this totally terrific show.  Okay, Dave Navarro is pretty irritating (maybe it's the impending divorce) (but still, telling a female contestant to "eat a sandwich" is pretty rude) (especially when you're lounging around bare-chested, and said chest is more Twiggy than barrel), and Tommy Lee needs to stop his "I am a big ol' horndog who must talk to women in blatantly sexual innuendo only", but the show itself is pretty awesome.  The singers are very talented, and there's a lot of rocking out, and not too much filler, and I'm actually pretty excited to see who will win (My hope?  Dilana.  My guess?  Toby.)

Anyway - if you're not doing anything Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights, check it out. 

Watch out, Melania!

Your husband was auditioning replacements last night...

That's right, it was the 2006 Miss Universe pageant, yeeeeeeaaaah!!!

I tuned into City TV (one of the half-dozen channels I still get, what with the cable being cut and all) hoping for a decent Sunday night movie - and instead happened across this strange throwback extravaganza.  Doubly strange was the fact that watching the first hour didn't make me nearly as angry as one would think (that one would be DD, who was visibly cringing as soon as the credits rolled - waiting for the inevitable "GGGGRRRRR PATRIARCHY" comment that was quickly at my lips, but which never fully-formed because pretty! Costumes!) 

Continuing that thought outside the brackets - oh, the costumes...they were very pretty.  My personal favorite was Miss Trinidad & Tobago, which made her look like she was surrounded by these giant, gorgeous, black and red  floating butterflies.  I also liked Miss Japan because she was dressed up like a samurai, albeit a sexy one, because we are talking about the grrrr patriarchy here.  But she had a sword!  C'mon!  And Miss...Peru, I think, had a big spear.  I am all for arming these women, and I'm not just talking about when Trump's around.

I sat through the swimsuit competition, mostly to hear some former Miss USA try to convince Carson Kressley that his enjoyment of said competition meant he was a closted heterosexual - to which he did not retort (much to my chagrin) that she seemed to be enjoying it just as much.  Honestly, people, it's a freakin' swimsuit show, not an infallible sexuality barometre (YEAH, that's right, I said it, DONALD TRUMP).

Anyway, like I said, I only watched the first hour, but I did tune in long enough to catch the mini-bios of the top ten contestants, in which I learned that Miss Canada was 6'1, Miss Japan spoke 4 langauges, and Miss Bolivia's interests included "Making people happy." I wonder if she also lives in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane? And then other women listed things like "Learning about new people" and "helping other people" and I finally snapped and snarked "Why don't they just list "Giving blowjobs" or "taking it up the a**"?" Grr...you know the rest...

But really, I stopped watching more out of boredom than anything else, because at the end of the day, 95% of these women were pretty much indistinguishable from each other, and were all basically trying to compete to fit the mold of "most attractive woman in the world according to standards set by insecure Viagra-addicts who build giant phallic buildings named after themselves, which, incidentally, rhymes with "frump"", and it was just generally kind of boring and a little depressing, but the women themselves seemed mostly pretty cool, and will probably accomplish a lot with their lives, and generally raise the status of women everywhere, as long as they are stunningly beautiful.

Some more good news!

That was fast! 

Who really makes that baby?

Content note from 2021: Edited to remove transphobic, gender essentialist language.

I'm a frequent lurker on the Fark forums, which provide some of the funniest, most hilarious, most irreverent-and-not-for-the-easily-offended comments on all the Internet tubes.

However, it also provides an outlet for some of the most mind-numbingly asinine asshats to spout their stupidity, an example of which I came across recently in response to an article about anti-abortion groups buying out abortion clinics' leases to shut them down.  A self-proclaimed atheist pro-lifer was arguing against abortion based on his own misguided version of property rights:

Pro choice = pro destruction of shared property. Its half the fathers DNA too, making it not "part of her body". It is "part of her body" in the sense that when you deposit money into the bank it is "part of the bank".

 Sure, the bank is housing your money like the woman is housing your uterus. Sure the bank adds its own money onto yours as the woman adds her own DNA to the child. The fact that it happens to be temporarily residing in one place should not give the right to unilateral destruction.

Now there's a thoughtful, egalitarian and realistic view of reproduction:  A uterus is like an like an ATM!  You put in $100!  A month later, you take out $100.05!  And that's how babies are made! It's a fun update on the "Magic Sperm" view of gestation.  If you've never heard of that one before, it's kind of like the belief that each sperm is a mini-baby, kind of like a pack of "magic grow" sponges.  Stick one in a uterus/put them in a bowl of water, and poof! Dinosaurs!  Er, or babies, depending on the package.

This view - that people with uteruses are passive baby containers - is at the heart of many anti-abortion arguments.  And, like many other views at the heart of anti-abortion arguments, it is entirely false. The two genetic parents do not contribute equally to the creation of a child.  One party contributes 1 (one) (uno) (ein) sperm.  That is it - one sex cell.  That is it.  That is all.  The human body has anywhere from 10-100 TRILLION cells.  At birth, you have anywhere between 5-10% of that (based on size), and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE CAME FROM THE PERSON WHO BIRTHED YOU. They came from the food they ate, what they drank, the contents of they blood, the air they breathed, the substances that permeated their skin.

Forget about that "magic sperm" of yours, buddy - you didn't make a deposit in a bank.  Making a baby is like building a house. You dropped off half of the design plans, and your partner supplied the other half, as well as the concrete, the bricks, the mortar, the steel girders, the 2x4s, the nuts and bolts, the drywall, the shingles, the paint, the curtains, the major appliances, a couple of nice throw rugs, etc.  Congratulations - you have viable gametes.  But you didn't "make" a baby, any more than Trump made any of those buildings with his name on them. 

And if you have a uterus - be wary of misogynists who hide behind atheism - anti-abortion arguments are anti-women, and religion (or lack thereof) is just a convenient smokescreen for people who really just want those sluts to get what they deserve.

For the last time, you are not going to get blown up by a terrorist

Amanda at Pandagon weighs in on the irrational fear of death by terrorist - almost as terrifying as death by shark.