Posts by Lilith __
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Amazing how when Russell bans a troll, another one immediately pops up defending him. Sock puppet, anyone?
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Speaker: Abortion: morality and health, in reply to George Darroch,
Well, the law (and society) might be treating that fetus as a human, a potential human (ie, greater than zero set of rights), or a non-human entity.
Human is the species. But any old bit of human tissue is not a person.
And if you start talking about "potential people", you get back to eggs and sperm and not wasting them, which is clearly absurd.if you get it wrong, it’s about killing people. If you get it right it’s about women having control over a medical condition they’re experiencing.
I think that (early 21st Century gay-marrying NZ) society is collectively quite comfortable with granting the latter and preventing the former. That’s basically abortion on demand in the early stages of pregnancy, with highly restricted abortion in later stages.
Abortion is currently illegal unless bearing a child will harm the mother. Broad interpretation of "harm" is all that currently allows women to get abortions in NZ.
"Viability" is a tricky threshold because with massive technological intervention some babies born at 23 weeks can survive, although they are far from fully developed.
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Speaker: Abortion: morality and health, in reply to George Darroch,
At a certain point, the product of fertilised egg can be considered a human – somewhere between conception and birth. The law (rightly) does not try to define this.
In fact "human" doesn't help us much. Eggs and sperm and zygotes and embryos and fetuses are all human. The point that needs to be defined is when any of these can be called a person, with its own independent rights. The default threshold of personhood has been live birth.
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Up Front: Not Uniform, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
We called those shorts “fanny crushers”.
:-D
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Up Front: Not Uniform, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
There was a minor revolt, with many of the girls wearing black knit shorts or boylegs under their skirts.
Boys and men playing netball wear trackies. I've never understood why women don't also.
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I remember having figure-hugging flannel shorts at intermediate that we had to wear under our skirts if we wanted to to handstands at break-time. Fari enough, I guess. But we wore these same shorts without skirts on the street when we marched out to sports practice/games. We might as well have been in our undies.
Uniform: a logic-free zone.
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to Hebe,
The leadership contest was interesting: four very good candidates, who will still be in the party and contributing in a big way. To me James Shaw was elected because he is a stand-out in the qualities needed to keep the party relevant in a testing time when an influential Green Party is needed more than ever.
I'm all for people being judged by their beliefs and actions rather than by their background, domicile, or hairdo.
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to ,
Because Harawira (narrowly) lost his electorate seat, the 1.42% of votes for Mana were wasted.
There’s no such thing as a wasted vote. All the votes get counted.
Since Mana did not reach the 5% threshold or win an electorate seat, votes for Mana did not elect any MP. This is a feature of our MMP system, unlike STV, in which votes are transferred down the list of preferred candidates.
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Almost 58 years to the day, the Luftwaffe was once again pounding Yugoslavia. The NATO bombardment killed civilians, and destroyed hospitals and schools in its wake. What should still be keeping the Greens awake at night is that they helped precipitate the very human calamity the action was supposed to forestall: sectarian massacre and rape. A tide of refugees.
it's debatable whether the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia was justified on human-rights grounds. I don't think anyone is accusing NATO of starting the civil war, though, are they? Sectarian massacre and genocide were already happening.
Your linking of this to Nazi bombing is drawing a very long bow.
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to Dave Hansford,
Regarding the swing; that depends whether you consider NZ First a left wing party. I don’t.
It’s the Winston Peters party: I don’t think he’s readily categorisable as Left or Right. Certainly nothing to base a trend on. He’s been a thorn in the hide of both Labour and the Nats. His presence in Parliament has been almost continuous since the late 1970s: his loss in 2008 was exceptional.