I don't know what this means...

You are "Noscitur a socii"!
You look to neighboring words to shed light on the meaning of ambiguous words. You're a sociable canon, and always look at everything in context. However, you're useless by yourself.

Which Canon of Statutory Construction are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'll have to ask my lawyer. Via Feministe.

Regurgiblogging

Yeah, not dead or anything. Just deep in the grips of pregnancy. I have fallen into a sleep-go to work-eat-sleep cycle with bouts of nesting instinct and Olympic Figure Skating-watching (Can you believe Johnny Wier lost? But you gotta love that Sasha Cohen!) inbetween, and haven't really felt the urge to blog.

Most people officially put their blogs on hiatus in times like these, but since I only have like 5 readers anyway I'll post when I please, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, for those poor 5 readers, here's some stuff.

Jeanne at Body and Soul has a post about what it means now that the Al-Askariya shrine in Iraq has been destroyed, along with some heartbreaking before and after pictures of the beautiful golden dome.

This is a huge symbol of all that's wrong in Iraq. Not only does it seem to indicate the country is poised on the brink of civil war, it is yet another piece of the Iraqi cultural heritage that's been damaged. From the Spiral Minaret at Samarra to antiquities looted from the National Museum that are still missing, what will be left?

Maybe I'm just a cold-hearted woman, but this is almost more upsetting to me that loss of life. These buildings and these artifacts have managed to survive just fine until now. Like the destruction of the Parthenon, the burning of the Library of Alexandria, or the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban these are act that will be looked upon with shame by posterity.

Next: Who sucks more, the United States or Europe? Honestly, I can't decide.

I honestly believe those Danish Muhammed cartoons would never be published in America (although maybe I am naive...) and if they were, American Muslims are not as apparently marginalized by society as they are in Europe. (Okay, so maybe I'm taking most of my opinion from the film Dirty Pretty Things.)

But so far, the United States has not had home-grown Islamic terrorism the likes of which has plagued London and Madrid, or riots the likes of which were seen last fall in France. To ask an honest question, why not? Are American Muslims allowed a bigger stake in society than European Muslims? Honestly I don't know, but that's the conclusion I'm drawing. Feel free to criticize.

Then there's this. South Dakota is working to pass a law that would ban all abortion, with no exception for the health of the woman included. That is so barbaric it's unbelievable. Can you imagine being a doctor and having to look a woman in the eye and say, "You're probably going to die/be rendered infertile/give birth to a doomed baby with no brain, and I could save your life/uterus/heartbreak, but by law I can't!" I don't care what your position on abortion is, when you think life starts, but you can't possibly tell me you could do that.

This is yet another example of conservatives not thinking about the consequences of the stupid laws they seek to pass. Or, worse yet, maybe they are. Maybe they really do hate women that much. Is it worse, though, than this recent ruling by the Italian Supreme Court?

The court ruled in favor of a man in his forties, identified only as Marco T., who forced his 14-year old stepdaughter to have oral sex with him after she refused intercourse.

The man, who has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail, lodged an appeal arguing that the fact that his stepdaughter had had sex with men before should have been taken into consideration during his trial as a mitigating factor.

The supreme court agreed, saying that because of her previous sexual experiences, the victim's "personality, from a sexual point of view, is much more developed than what would be normally expected of a girl of her age".

"It is therefore fair to argue that (the damage for the victim) would be lower" if the abused girl was not a virgin, Italian news agencies quoted the court as saying.

Ugh. Truly disgusting. Again maybe I am naive, but I really don't think this would ever happen in the US. (Although it does seem to be somewhat of an unwritten rule here...see the Kobe Bryant case.)

So who sucks more? It's a wash.

Finally: Am I the only one who thinks Willie Nelson's gay cowboy song is a little too cutesy? "Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out.."? I don't know, this seems to be coming from the stereotype that all gay men are effeminate. Although it's great that he went there with (apparently) serious intentions, that lyric in particular seems to have missed the mark and sound a little too 'jokey.'

Well that's all for now. I'll post again when I feel like it.

Bush bravely takes anti-Humanimal stand!

My new favorite blogger PZ Myers over at Pharyngula has drawn attention to a particularly hilarious segment of the State-of-the-Union speech.

I didn't listen to the State of the Union Address last night, preferring to maintain my equanimity by attending a talk on quantum physics, but I knew I could trust my readers to email me with choice weird science bits. I'm getting a lot of "WTF?" email about this statement from Bush:

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.

It's pure political calculus. He throws away the mad scientist and pig-man vote, and wins the religious ignoramus voteÃ?‚…and we know which one has the majority here.

No one is honestly arguing that there shouldn't be some sort of ethics involved on experiments with genetics, the vague, alarmist wording of the president ignores the practical scientific uses of this kind of work.

PZ goes on, explaining better than I could possibly:

We would love to have an animal model of Down syndrome, so that, for example, we could figure out exactly what gene overdose is causing the immune system problems or the heart defects, and develop better treatments for them.

So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic overdoses in their development.

...These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem.

George W. Bush would like to make them illegal.

This seems to be another example of crazy religious conservatives not thinking about the practical, real-world effects of the policies they want to enact.

The classic example, of course is the question of how women who have abortions should be punished if abortion is made illegal. (ADDED***I finally found the video I was thinking of when mentioning this, here.)

Preventing research using human-animal hybrids not only potential medicines undiscovered but would actually prevent the usage of medicines already in use against things like Crohn's Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis.

It's easy to say you're against the creation of Dr. Moreau-style manimals. Of course you are. No one is for that. But equating *that* with the use of some strands of a molecule inside a cell with some slightly different molecules is stupid, reactionary, and callous towards those who could be helped by it.

Still Alive

Still alive, pregnant, etc. I haven't been posting this much as my house has been turned into the Viking craft sweatshop in preparation for the 2006 Taos Aelthing. Which is this weekend...woo!

I will post some pictures so everyone can see how cool my husband and our friends are.

Some people are just retarded.

Now, I'm no Islamic scholar or anything, but I'd think if someone wanted to secretly make something look like a mihrab, they'd make it look more like this:
Or like this:
And not like this:

I mean I'm just saying. A mihrab is supposed to represent a door, as in the gateway to Islam. That's why they tend to look like a door, and not like a crescent.

Read the comment thread over at this post at TBogg, and you'll understand. Some people are just retarded.

Blah Blah Blah Auld Lang Syne...

Happy New Year everyone.

Jeeze I hope so

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

I am the one who dwells within!

Ultrasound
Originally uploaded by plucky punk.

Fear me!!

Oh Barf...

Wow. I don't know if you're mother has ever mentioned this, but being pregnant kind of sucks. I'm beginning to wonder when I'll enjoy eating again. Right now my favorite foods are popsicles. That's what I can eat now.

I don't want this to became a big pregnancy blog, but I've pretty much lost interest in current events. So, instead of writing about my daily pregnant annoyances (besides, babyfruit is doing a much better job of it than I would at her blog,) I will again blog about movie trailers that piss me off.

Before I do that though, I will take a moment to complain about the stupid dumbass things men at my job have started to say to me. First, there's my supervisor, who keeps feeling the need to share all the horrible things his poor wife went through when pregnant. I've heard all the stories, from her mood swings after progesterone shots, to six weeks of bedrest (which doesn't sound too bad to me right now) to how she gained 100 pounds, to that time she got toxemia. I'm sure his wife is glad he's sharing this with a stranger, but it's even nicer to be able to hear it all myself!

Then, there's the random comments from all the other men I work with, from "I'll bet your husband is glad to be away from you during the day!" to "Do you feel like throwing up right now?" to "Jeeze, I'm glad I have a penis!" I'm going to start wearing a sandwich board that says 'Yes, I'm pregnant, now just shut up!'

Anyway...

First on the chopping block is Memoirs of a Geisha. Not only does this movie look like the usual smarmy Hollywood pablum, but it casts a bunch of Hong Kong actresses as Japanese. Am I the only one annoyed by this? Do Americans realize there's a difference between Chinese people and Japanese people? These women don't look or sound remotely Japanese. It seems odd. (Not to mention that one of them has blue eyes, but that might be some sort of plot point, I don't know.)

It's not like we don't do this with other nationalities. I never really realized that most French people in American movies have English accents until I saw Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (also a truly horrible film) and noticed the French people had French accents. Weird.

Next: The Hills Have Eyes. Poor New Mexico. Not only does most of the country think we speak really great English for being from Mexico, but now they're going to think we're a bunch of irradiated freaks. Maybe now they'll think twice before building another toxic waste dump here, eh? Really, though, New Mexico doesn't look like this. It looks much more like The 3 Burials of Melquiades Estrada. And I am willing to bet that if there's a gas station in the middle of nowhere it's not being run by a white guy.

Oh well. At least the annoying victim family was on their way to California instead of moving here from California.

How about Mel Gibson's new one, Apocalypto. Dude, bad title. That sounds like a third-tier Spiderman villain. But doesn't it seem to me that this trailer carries suspicious overtones of blaming the un-named South American civilization for being conquered? Am I being too liberal-sensitive? And how much do you want to bet there's a gay villain in this movie?

Last but certainly not least, there's The Da Vinci Code. This just rubs me all sorts of wrong ways. Like, how many History Channel specials debunking this bullshit book does America need to be exposed to before they let it go? What's with Tom Hanks's hairdo? And who keeps paying Ron Howard to make these horrible movies?

Lest you find me too grumpy and hormonal about all this, there are of course some movies coming out I do want to see. V for Vendetta looks cool, although it does have "from the creators of The Matrix Trilogy," written on it. And the trailer for The Fountain has me practically foaming at the mouth, desperate to see this movie. So it's not all bad.

Now, I'm off to have a popsicle.

The reason I haven't been posting...

...is because I'm trying to keep a secret, and I'm a big fat blabbermouth.

I'm pregnant again. Apparently I get pregnant every fall now.

Well, word is now out.

Hmmm...

Haymaker


You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.


You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.


Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

And I'm back...

Okay, so the cable is finally here (I hate you, Comcast...) and the computer is hooked up. I like the new apartment (more of a townhouse, really) and almost everything is starting to come together.

The cats handled the move quite nicely. My lovely betta, though, has a nasty case of fin rot and is not looking too well. I've gotten him a clean new tank with the hope of saving him, and have dumped about a dozen different types of fishie medicine in his water, so I'm holding out hope. Our nice asparagus fern also spent a week untended to and is not doing so hot either.

I am recovering from a cold myself and dealing with some big news I will devulge later, so am completely exhaused. Brian is being the hero husband and dealing with most of the unpacking stuff. If I were Ed McMahon I'd give him ten million dollars, really.

I'm glad to be back exploring blogtopia (yes, skippy, etc., etc.) and no longer feel like such a Luddite for not having cable in the house. It will probably take me awhile to get back in the swing of things. Will begin posting mightily soon.

Do Not Disassemble Number Five!

So, computer is being taken apart now and I will have no internet until the 7th. See you then!

Moving

Moving for the next couple of weeks, so may be sporadic here as things are packed and disassembled.

Question...does anyone know if the new 1 gigabyte mmc cards are compatible with the samsung p735?

I Hate the Balloon Fiesta

Go read this post at 'Burque Babble.

To me, the jillions of balloons scattered in the air kind of look like a giant sneezed 1970's colored boogers all over the sky.

Plus, there's all of those irritating out-of-state people (mostly from California, you've heard me complain about them before,) bragging about how they got green chilie on their breakfast burrito at the Frontier, just like the locals!

Well horay for you. Meanwhile, my state continues to be exploited by companies from your state and the only job I can get is one in a call center for a company...from your state...that cripples me with carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome causing me to be in constant pain.

Enjoy your burrito.