You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2009.
I would just like to welcome Mystro to DWR as a guest poster/moderator. Please give him the respect that has been given to me.
Part 4 is fresh off the press, read the first part here and part two here , part three here if you need to catch up.
Section Three: Evolution, Reactions and Compromise.
“The Internet is the widest public space that mankind has ever known. A space where everybody can have their say, acquire knowledge, create ideas and not just information, exercise their right to criticize, to discuss, to take part in the broader political life, and thus to build a different world of which everybody can claim to be an equal citizen”
–An excerpt from the proposed Internet Bill of Rights.[1]
[1] Collaborative work. “The Internet Bill of Rights” Last updated: November, 2005. http://internet-bill-of-rights.org/en/appeal.php Accessed: August 10, 2008.
I think I am going to get this book. This review makes me think this work is along the same lines as much of Noam Chomsky’s work.
|
Joyce Arthur on her post from the Pro Choice Action Network made quite few relevant observations about the abortion debate. Here she frames the issue in terms of a woman’s rights and the prevalence of abortion.
“Anti-choicers insist that the key question in the abortion debate is whether a fetus is a person or not. If so, abortion is murder, they say, and therefore obviously immoral and illegal. That is not the key question at all, of course – anti-choicers are committing the “fetus focus fallacy.” The practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of the fetus – it hinges totally on the aspirations and needs of women. Women have abortions regardless of the law, regardless of the risk to their lives or health, regardless of the morality of abortion, and regardless of what the fetus may or may not be. On average, abortion rates do not differ substantially between countries where it’s legal and countries where it’s illegal.[2] Which reveals a more pertinent question: Do we provide women with safe legal abortions, or do we let them suffer and die from dangerous illegal abortions?
Some anti-choicers argue that even though women will have abortions regardless, that doesn’t mean we should make abortion legal, since we don’t legalize murder just because some people will commit murder anyway. This analogy fails because everyone in society agrees that murder is wrong and must be punished, but there is no such consensus on abortion. Second, very few people commit murder, but a majority of women will either have an abortion, or would have one if they experienced an unwanted pregnancy. As we learned from Prohibition (of alcohol), criminalizing behavior that large numbers of people engage in has disastrous consequences for public health and law and order.”
The things people do to avoid the secular school system.
|
I would feel better if this was not really the par for the course from Alberta politicians. I would think by now that they would have taken a page from Harper’s federal playbook and kept the loons muzzled and in the background. The recent kerfuffle with Bill 44 (and the mess it is going to cause) coupled with statements like this:
.
.
“Men are attracted to smiles, so smile, don’t give me that ‘treated equal’ stuff. If you want Equal, it comes in little packages at Starbucks.”
.
.
I’ve just posted the highlights of the train-wreck from CBC. For a detailed analysis please see The Intransigent One’s comments. Insightful and well worth the read.
Well on the bright side, aside from social conservatism, Alberta tories do a wonderful job of mismanaging our natural resources. It is comforting to know our beloved conservative party possesses a solid, fail enhanced position on resource management, once they are finished mucking about with social issues.
|
Edmonton-Calder MLA Doug Elniski, seen in a photo posted on Facebook, took down his blog on Monday.
|
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…