Profile for Custer

Error message

Deprecated function: implode(): Passing glue string after array is deprecated. Swap the parameters in drupal_get_feeds() (line 394 of /var/www/pied-piper.ermarian.net/includes/common.inc).

Recent posts

Pages

AuthorRecent posts
RWG in Richard White Games
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Wednesday, March 30 2005 17:49 Profile Homepage #0
Have we got a clear bead on Richard White? Has he done anything outside of what SW has produced, or...?

[ Wednesday, March 30, 2005 17:55: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Tuesday, March 29 2005 21:58 Profile Homepage #35
quote:
Originally written by Cavanoskus:


Be aware that Christians are human too. We are individuals. Just because someone mentions Jesus does not mean they ascribe to all the other "whacko religious-nut" stereotypes. Like me, for example. I believe Jesus has saved my soul. I also listen to heavy metal and live with another girl (yes, I mean that the way you think I do). I have very good reasons to believe what I do, but that doesn't mean other Christians want me calling myself one. For all I know, Ben might be disgusted that a foul creature like me is defending him (I'm fairly sure he believes I'm damned for that whole bi-thing).
Another?

In all seriousness, I disagree with your assertion that there's no benefit to converting people to Christianity except saving people from Hell. I've been doing it mostly towards creating a better world. True, I may not end up with the hosannas and hallelujahs you might by converting someone to worship of a big ego figure, but the difference is that I can genuinely convert people to my way of thinking, instead of just flipping a flag on someone who wants desperately to believe in something.

I think, and I might be wrong, that I'm making the world a better place that way, and that's what people ought to do. But there I go with the tolerance and the heresy again.

An interesting thought: if I believed Hell was a factor, I wouldn't be converting anyone. Eternal punishment doesn't jive with me for whatever reason.

[ Tuesday, March 29, 2005 22:02: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
End Credits Question in The Exile Trilogy
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Tuesday, March 29 2005 16:32 Profile Homepage #3
It is an assassin. They do not tell the rest of the story, as it is very sad.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Monday, March 28 2005 13:38 Profile Homepage #212
I am interested in knowing what, precisely, you'd expect to feel after being raped.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
How did you got your username? in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Monday, March 28 2005 13:34 Profile Homepage #19
A Turtledove phase I've yet to fully get over; my real name; Exile 2.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Monday, March 28 2005 13:14 Profile Homepage #17
Hell is other people.

Christian, no.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
The Very First Ever Spiderweb IRC Channel! in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Monday, March 28 2005 04:48 Profile Homepage #5
#ec is moribund, and much like everything else EM does, this is actively pointless.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Sunday, March 27 2005 14:20 Profile Homepage #200
quote:
Originally written by Ash Lael:


3: Alec raises an interesting point regarding legality and morality. I would like to know what he thinks of the outlawing of slavery in the US. It was very damaging to the economy of the South, and plunged the nation into civil war. Does he think Lincoln made a mistake?
Slavery created an incredible number of political-agency problems, was economically inefficient in the long run, and so forth. Moralistics weren't the only reason to outlaw it.

Slavery is far more brutal than abortion even if you're taking that absurd life-begins-at-conception tack. The embryo isn't old enough to take it personally.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Sunday, March 27 2005 01:13 Profile Homepage #150
quote:
Originally written by Overwhelming:


quote:
It is not the purview of the State to decide moral issues, but rather to legislate on issues as relate to the public good. The clearest benefit to the public good is given by laws which allow for legal and safe abortion;
Public good: Instead of protecting a few thousand women, by giving them the right to murder their childs, you could protect 1,5 million children every hear (USA), by not legalizing their murder.
Those abortions will mostly happen whether or not abortion is illegal. In addition, by refusing to allow for any legal abortions you're breaking down the ability of the state to take non-hypocritical action against late-term abortion; in other words, it's just as illegal to abort a fetus which is clearly alive as to abort an embryo which is not. This means that, adding insult to injury, you have extermination of viable life becoming more comparatively prevalent.

In addition, illegalizing abortion in cases where carrying to term is impossible guarantees two deaths, whereas allowing it allows for (using your death-standard) only one.

The social benefits gained from actively discouraging abortion, and undermining the social causes leading to it, would be the same as those you purport to come of illegalizing it, without the fringe costs.

P.S.: I feel it's disingenious to continue referring to abortion as 'murder'. Killing certainly, because it ends a life, but claiming the life of a non-viable embryo is exactly equal to that of a full-grown man in his prime, when taken away, cheapens the act of murder and reduces the agency of the State.

[ Sunday, March 27, 2005 01:15: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Work Visas For Illegal Immigrants in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Sunday, March 27 2005 01:03 Profile Homepage #0
The Bush White House has lately been pushing a plan to give temporary work-visas to illegal immigrants.

Personally, I agree with the idea, and this board having a pretty heavy internationalist streak means that a lot of you probably do too. What I'd like to ask is this: what do you think potential problems might be with it, and are those problems serious enough to rethink such a policy? Flex your critiquing muscles on this one.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Sunday, March 27 2005 01:00 Profile Homepage #146
The discussion is getting derailed again, and it's Overwhelming's doing. We have a paradigm here, and that's legitimacy of government intervention.

For your consideration, abortion still occurs in countries where it is illegal; it is just kept quiet and usually involves considerably greater risk to the carrier.
The question we are answering here is this: should the government effectively impose that risk by forcing abortion into the back-alley? Do the social benefits outweigh the costs? Dive into moralistics again ('But it's a baby! It's murder! Wah, wah!' or 'You have no right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do, you dirty androfascist you!') and I will shoot you.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Saturday, March 26 2005 20:24 Profile Homepage #134
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
It is not the purview of the State to decide moral issues, but rather to legislate on issues as relate to the public good.
Some would argue that morality and the public good are the same thing.
Irrelevant. We're not here to debate utilitarianism and you know it.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Saturday, March 26 2005 20:09 Profile Homepage #132
I am intensely irritated that this has turned into a debate on whether or not abortion, itself, is moral.

It is not the purview of the State to decide moral issues, but rather to legislate on issues as relate to the public good. The clearest benefit to the public good is given by laws which allow for legal and safe abortion; the alternative is laws against legal and safe abortion, which hurts aborting women without causing a clear social benefit (e.g. those fetuses which are terminated will still be so, only the risk to the parent will change). The only perceived benefit is moral, e.g. taking a stance against something percieved to be evil.

Moralistics are the purview of the private sector, not the government, and as such it is against the spirit of the laws to outlaw abortion. Action against abortion, e.g. 'Abortion is evil, don't do it' advertising campaigns, are acceptable, but not through the government, nor are laws demanding the will of such a viewpoint be executed acceptable.

That is the basis of the pro-choice argument. Whether or not abortion is an abomination against God, it is not the place of a lay government to outlaw it.

Further contentions on how despicable, evil, etc. abortion is, or whether or not it is the right of a woman to exercise control over her bodily functions, should be treated as non-germane, because they fail to address the critical factor of the social-contractual motives behind legislation against it.

[ Saturday, March 26, 2005 20:11: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
No male agent graphic ? in Geneforge Series
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Saturday, March 26 2005 06:55 Profile Homepage #9
Or perhaps Jeff wisely realized that the 'sexy pale green chick' thing is just creepy when you cross the gender spectrum with it.

Seriously, if he intended the agents to be double-gendered, he could have made it less obvious or he could have made them FBI-style or something. But no.

[ Saturday, March 26, 2005 07:01: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Saturday, March 26 2005 01:45 Profile Homepage #113
quote:
Throughout this discussion it strikes me that few of you, pro or contra, seem to have any idea of an embryo's reality. If you had, you could not argue as you do; you are as far removed from a embryo's feelings and thoughts as you can possibly be.
FYT

Luridly illogical, insulting to my intelligence, etc. I understand you have an elevated opinion of women, but that doesn't make them a different species operating under an entirely different set of moral and psychological principles.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Saturday, March 26 2005 00:47 Profile Homepage #111
"No abortion period" is impractical. There are cases in which carrying a pregnancy to term will be fatal to the mother, and in that case an abortion should occur. Even if you consider that embryo a human life, it's a matter of choosing one corpse over two.

Then there's cases in which it's medically imperative rather than necessary.

And what about untenable pregnancies - say, someone without any money whatsoever having a child in India? They can't feed all that they have now.

Overall, a stance like 'no abortion' cannot be anything but political, I'm sorry. I don't think there's any solid moral basis for it, when you look at it deep down, unless you're willing to add a LOT of codicils.

Specific points of contention:
quote:
Having abortion be legal for the sakes of those who would have them anyway is like making drugs legal in order to make it safer for those who would use them anyway.
They do this in many countries. You will be surprised to learn that not everyone in the Netherlands is shooting up needle drugs. There are situations in which it might be a moral contradiction on first glance, but the facts must be addressed. Tough-love parenting is specious; tough-love lawmaking is insane.
quote:

I certainly have no problem with contraceptives (such as condoms, and pasectomies). However many so-called contraceptives are in fact abortives that kill the fetus early in the pregancy. But if they were the only abortions, it would still be a vast improvement.
No, it destroys a pre-embryonic mass which is as likely as not to naturally abort without the woman learning of it.

I don't see where you draw the line with 'life', to be honest. The first trimester is pretty reasonable, because after that you start seeing vaguely viable life, but no living birth has ever occurred at or under three months, and a woman can go almost that long without even knowing she's pregnant. There's no variegation by sex, the embryo is physically indistinguishable from that of a pig, and there's no brain. You might as well call the rhythm method genocide; there's next to no difference in terms of physical viability.

[ Saturday, March 26, 2005 00:55: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Custom Titles: How Did You Get Yours? in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 20:25 Profile Homepage #9
quote:
Originally written by Mr.knowitall:

Well Icshi I think the title you get is depend on how post you have and how long you become a member.
If I had a postbook, this would go in it.

I got my title as an apparently temporary-turned-permanent rebuke for posting something on GC. Then TM posted the word 'd00d' 2000 times in 3 different topics and he kept his, proving that you can get away with anything if you spend enough time mincing around shouting the names of philosophers and touching yourself.

[ Friday, March 25, 2005 20:28: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 15:59 Profile Homepage #92
'Separation of church and state' were fighting words in most Catholic countries well into the 20th century. They don't exactly have it now, and I'm pretty sure Portugal is legally Catholic.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Needle-Exchange Programs in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 15:22 Profile Homepage #12
quote:
Originally written by Toasty Warm:

Once again you run into a problem. You may like a program and want it to work. I may not have a problem with it, but Russia and China for example are very socially conservative and would never accept an unmodified needle exchange program.
Actually, you'd be surprised - our only strong ally on rejecting this one is Japan. Even Iran, of all places, has given support to the current plan.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Geneforge 3 Released For Mac! in Geneforge Series
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 13:41 Profile Homepage #0
Well, no. I'm a liar.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Needle-Exchange Programs in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 13:37 Profile Homepage #7
Drakey has it spot-on. The needle-exchange programs exchange sterile needles for used ones, no questions asked, at major distribution centers (usu. hospitals). There are various U.N. programs aimed at establishing such exchanges in areas in which the local authorities might be helpless (such as, say, China, or an African nation), but the U.S. has done a lot to suppress them.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Needle-Exchange Programs in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 12:08 Profile Homepage #0
Needle-exchange programs are set up through hospitals, which exchange dirty needles for free clean ones. The cost is low (needles are relatively inexpensive), and the statistics are good: so far, in areas where these programs have received generous funding, AIDS and other blood-borne diseases have dramatically dropped in prevalence.

In many countries in the world today, in addition to many individual urbanized areas, the biggest risk factor to contract a blood-borne disease seems to be either a relationship with or being oneself a needle-drug user.
(This includes China and Russia, where AIDS seems to be spreading primarily through sex with drug users.)

US policy has leaned towards the official 'gag rule' that it has had on abortion within the last Presidential term: no mentioning of the benefits of clean needles, and absolutely no gov't support for clean-needles programs.

What do you think?

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Friday, March 25 2005 12:03 Profile Homepage #80
quote:
Originally written by andrew miller:

Unfortunately, some people aren't willing to consider reality.
Absolutely right. I think a lot of people have been going into a sort of over-idealized fantasy world with legislation and policy lately, believing abstinence-only education and anti-choice legislation is going to help society where the body of evidence shows it harming, and not achieving its stated ends.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Thursday, March 24 2005 23:47 Profile Homepage #66
Morning-afters end existing pregnancies, and it's rather difficult to argue that an eight-celled organism represents anything like human life.

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
New Abortion Laws in General
Custer
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
 written Thursday, March 24 2005 23:06 Profile Homepage #64
quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

I am not aware of other alternatives, but please post them if you know of them.
Offhand, I can think of two: contraceptives and morning-after drugs. Both of which, naturally, the pro-life lobby likes attacking as well, for whatever reason.

[ Thursday, March 24, 2005 23:06: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

--------------------
The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00

Pages