VAGINA!!!!!

[Crackpot]

Unfortunatley the event happened nowhere near there.

[Rick]

Been to Lansing once.

I was in the 9th grade at the time.

The main floor was made of glass bocks and some were missing.

So we went to the subfloor and looked up womens dresses.

This was the early 70s many women still wore dresses back then.

We also went to the Michigan State campus, I preferred Ann Arbor...

[Crackpot]

who doesn't?

[BoSoxGal]

Oh big deal, the author located the Michigan Legislature in the wrong city.

The rest of the world isn't as US-centric as you, believe it or not. That minor detail does not discredit the quality of writing (far better than you ever accomplish here - I know, I know, you can't be troubled to spell check), nor does it discredit the validity of the core argument.

[Crackpot]

so getting your facts straight does not effect credibility? Just because you agree with the gist does not make it a credible argument. If you write a piece to persuede and get your basic fact wrong you destroy your ability to make a persuesive argument. If you don't care enough to check the readily verifiable facts why should I care what you have to say?

So what if the world isn't as "US centric" as you put it the writer would have been correct in stating "Michigan" instead of making up the "fact" of Detroit. it's sloppy editing sloppy factcecking which leads to highly questionable veracity.

Would you trust the testimony of a witness who stastind the sun was high in the sky at 3 am?

[Crackpot]

in the end it's all the same the writer made up details to try and lend give the illusion of familiarity that they clearly don't have.

[BoSoxGal]

Stastind?

Honestly CP, often your posts are so terribly misspelled and grammatically incorrect that I don't even bother reading them / it hurts my brain too much.

That kind of sloppiness affects credibility, in my perception, far more than a foreign writer misstating the capital of a US state. I'm smart enough to perceive that otherwise her essay, which is well written from a standpoint of argument structure and language use - and is based on overarching concepts and ideas, not rudimentary facts - stands solidly despite a minor error with regard to foreign geography. I'd give a US writer the same benefit of doubt.

Your analogy to witness testimony is not a productive one; the vast majority of witnesses are there to testify to facts, not opinions or theories.

I know you love to argue with me, but let's give this one a rest, shall we? You will not convince me of your position and I consider myself far better qualified to judge the quality of rhetoric than you, given that I have an advanced degree with a focus in teaching it.

[Rick]

I don't have a dog in this fight but wouldn't the second article be considered an op/ed?

Having posted that ...vagina, vagina,vagina...according to the article I now own 3 yippee...

[Crackpot]

Stastind? [

stated[/b]

I often post in a hurry during breaks at work in a system that doesn't warn me of typos and don't have time to proofread. (I had three in that last sentence and three more right here)

Honestly CP, often your posts are so terribly misspelled and grammatically incorrect that I don't even bother reading them / it hurts my brain too much.

I'm hurt I really am.

That kind of sloppiness affects credibility, in my perception, far more than a foreign writer misstating the capital of a US state.

mis stating no a misstatement would be something like say "Lancer" Detroit os like saying the Capital of Australia is Sydney. (something that they often have a fit over). It's a Mistake from ignorance not a slip of the tongue.

I'm smart enough to perceive that otherwise her essay, which is well written from a standpoint of argument structure and language use - and is based on overarching concepts and ideas, not rudimentary facts - stands solidly despite a minor error with regard to foreign geography. I'd give a US writer the same benefit of doubt.

My point is if you don't care about your argument to get the simple easily verifiable facts correct how can I trust that you've given enough thought to your opinions.

Your analogy to witness testimony is not a productive one; the vast majority of witnesses are there to testify to facts, not opinions or theories.

They are there to give you their perception of the facts. And what I'm speaking to speaks directly to that what if they decided to embellish their testimony to give the impression that they had a more detailed memory of the event than they actually had and in doing so spouted a "fact" that completely discredits their familiarity? THat is exactly what happened here.

I know you love to argue with me, but let's give this one a rest, shall we? You will not convince me of your position and I consider myself far better qualified to judge the quality of rhetoric than you, given that I have an advanced degree with a focus in teaching it.

whatever you say andrew as we know you are never wrong.

Listen you may not like my opinion but it is mine and it is rational. I give no one breaks for making stupid statements to support their position wether I agree with their overall point or not. Actually that's not true it irritates me far more when I agree with their overall point because it's an easy spot to discredit the entire argument. ANother example in case you're far to stubborn to get my position here. As you know I'm a Christian. Last Christmastime (or was it the year prior) THe SPeaker decided to give a sermon about the miraculous circumstances surrounding Christ's birth. This argument started with him expounding about the rapid expansion of the Roman Empire in the world and into palestine since it's inception with Julius. I voiced my displeasure with my friends. THey said In the broad scope of the sermon that was a minor point. I agreed but I countered If one can't bother to get the easy facts right how can you expect someone to trust you when you confront them with something that's not so easily verifiable?

in short

If you play fast and loos wit the facts the only ones agreeing with you will be the ones who did so already.

[Gob]

Sorry, I cannot find a link to the article, it was from the Sydney Morning Herald, so the MP error is an easy one to understand.

[Andrew D]

whatever you say andrew as we know you are never wrong.

How did I get into this thread? I have not (until now) posted anything in this thread.

By the way, I am one of the few posters here who has actually started an entire thread with an admission that I was wrong ....

[Gob]

It's a joke, (hint, it's about pedanticism.) Don't worry, your oft admitted lack of sense of humour will be taken into account.

[Andrew D]

Well, if it is about pedanticism, shouldn't it bear some resemblance to pedanticism? Surely I have been pedantic enough times to provide sufficient fodder.

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

[The Hen]

I need glasses. Does that say "from" or "in"?

[dgs49]

Another take...

A Michigan legislator, Lisa Brown, gave a speech in the statehouse last week that would have made her right at home in a women's studies course at a local community college, but a wacko in a group of actual legislators.

She commented on a pending abortion bill by first announcing that she was Jewish, kept kosher, described her various sets of plates, and then saying that Jewish law makes abortion mandatory to save the life of the mother.

This had absolutely nothing to do with the bill being considered, but it may explain why there are no Jewish Tim Tebows.

Then she said: "I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?"

Her smashing crescendo was: "And finally Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no'!"

It's not clear where Rep. Brown got the idea that the Republican caucus was planning on date-raping her, but I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding. The bill under consideration merely ensured the safety of women having abortions -- and, in a small way, the safety of the fetus, whom the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited legislatures from protecting directly.

Thus, the bill addressed insurance and inspections of abortion clinics, and included a requirement that the abortionist confirm that the woman having the abortion was not being pressured by a third party to do so.

I have not polled all the Republicans in the Michigan statehouse yet, but the ones I've spoken to assure me that Rep. Brown's vagina played a very small role in their deliberations. It's odd that she seems to think she's the object of so much Republican male fantasy.

Why must a certain type of woman always start shouting about her vagina whenever the topic of abortion comes up?

Do what you want with your vagina. Pro-lifers just want to stop babies from being killed. It would be as though a slaveholder complained that Republicans wanted to regulate his anus by abolishing slavery and taking away his right to crap on his slaves.

For making inappropriate remarks during a legislative session, Brown was prohibited from making floor speeches for one day. Being an hysterical drama queen who believes the Michigan Legislature was thinking about her and her vagina, Rep. Brown responded to the sanction by claiming she had been "silenced." A vulgarian gets a one-day penalty, and suddenly she's Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Rep. Brown was not being silenced. She was being admonished for a crazy display of narcissism utterly irrelevant to the bill under discussion. I would never in a million years silence a woman because of her views on abortion, but I'd vote for a month of silence from this self-dramatizing freak.

The media are in full smirk mode, not at Rep. Brown's perversely self-referential speech positing that Republican legislators wanted to date-rape her, but at Republican bluenoses, whom they seem to think are shocked by the word "vagina."

Hey, does anyone else remember way back into the distant past three months ago when liberals were ablaze with indignation because Rush Limbaugh used the "s-word" to describe Sandra Fluke, another drama queen, who was demanding taxpayers pay for her contraception? That word had liberals fainting like Victorian virgins.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, 75 Democrats in Congress called the language used by Limbaugh "sexually charged," "patently offensive," "obscene and indecent," and called on Republican leaders to condemn it. The president of the United States even called Fluke to see if she was OK after having been called ... the "s-word"!

But now, lo these many weeks later, you can't find a liberal female who isn't screaming "vagina." Thousands of beastly women appeared near the Michigan statehouse on Monday -- as well as every show, every hour on MSNBC that night -- to shout "vagina!"

On one of the 800 TV shows Rep. Brown did this week -- which, ironically, were the exact same shows that had featured Fluke describing her trauma at having been called the "s-word" -- MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell gushed about the advances society has made since the days when women did not prattle about their vaginas in public. He said: "It's easy, I think, for some of our audience tonight who are in their 30s or 20s to not be able to even comprehend what that world was like."

Rep. Brown somberly agreed, saying, "We have all, as women, come a long way."

Another guest, Eve Ensler, authoress of "The Vagina Monologues," talked about the magic of thousands of women shouting "vagina" in public: "Many young women came up to thank both of us for giving them voice, for allowing them to be authentic, for allowing them to love their bodies, for allowing them to feel agency over their bodies and their rights, to know that they have choices, that what they decide to do with the reproductive decisions or abortion decisions or whatever they decide is their choice. It's their body."

That is, unless your little body hasn't been born yet, in which case, liberals think it can be torn to shreds and dumped in the garbage -- a point they argue by shouting "vagina" and claiming Republican legislators want to date-rape them.

[source upon request]

[rubato]

Another take...
"...
She commented on a pending abortion bill by first announcing that she was Jewish, kept kosher, described her various sets of plates, and then saying that Jewish law makes abortion mandatory to save the life of the mother.

This had absolutely nothing to do with the bill being considered, but it may explain why there are no Jewish Tim Tebows.
... "

Most Jewish parents value education and teach their children aspire to the professions whereas many Christian parents value contact sports and dropping out to play pro?


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

[T]he bill addressed insurance and inspections of abortion clinics, and included a requirement that the abortionist confirm that the woman having the abortion was not being pressured by a third party to do so.

The author is being somewhat modest about what the bill would accomplish. Among other things:

It prohibits any abortions conducted over 20 weeks, for any reason.

It requires a physician to be present in person to prescribe emergency contraceptives, meaning rural women will have to spend hours travelling to see a doctor for what they can now accomplish over the phone, and increasing the risk of pregnancy due to said delay.

It requires any facility performing more than six abortions per month to be equipped with surgical operating rooms, even if they do not perform surgical abortions, meaning that many reproductive health centres will have to close because they do not have the budget to support surgical services.

But yeah, let's pretend this is all about resistance to abortion clinics being properly insured...

[Lord Jim]

I'm going to take a guess on the author of that piece....

Ann Coulter...that sounds like Ann's prose to me...