Friday, rah

[annathepiper]

-0: Just when I thought politics couldn't disgust me any further, last night I saw this link over on firni's journal: VA Legislative Sentry: Have a Miscarriage, Go to JAIL?. And all I can say is, what the hell has the Virginia legislature been smoking lately?

-1: Weather.com is still hemming and hawwing about 'ehhh, the Seattle area MIGHT get snow this weekend'. <Zim>LIES! THE FILTHY EARTH WEATHERBEASTS LIE!</Zim>

+2: But at least it's Friday, and tonight mamishka, spazzkat, risu, solarbird, and I will gather for belated Christmas-gift-exchangy goodness.

+3: And tomorrow, I shall have to watch me an Elvis movie in honor of the birthday of the King.

+4: And keep working on the reorganization of the middle of the book.

-5: Stupid no snow yet.

Comments

[poetry-lady.livejournal.com]

UM...your item 0? I'm frothing mad.

And about ready to drive over to the ex-boyfriends and PUNCH him. When I talked about stuff like this as a consequence of Bush being elected, he said it "could NEVER happen". Of course, HE can't get pregant, so what's the big deal to him, right?

I think I'll keep a copy of "The Handmaid's Tale" handy, as a sort of roadmap so we know where we are in the process of developing the Republic of Gilead.

[annathepiper]

I'd be frothing mad--if I weren't just disgusted and entirely unsurprised. This kind of 'lawmaking' fits completely in with all the other things I've been seeing crop up lately, through what information Dara has gathered. Things like that jackass in Arkansas wanting to ban books with gay characters in them.

[firni.livejournal.com]

It better not snow, I need to go down to Mill Creek and apply for passports.

*blink*

I have snowtires, why should I care?

*realization*

Oh yeah, because nobody around here knows how to drive in any kind of weather.

[lyricae.livejournal.com]

For some unknown reason my email is refusing to send emails out. So I respond here with a huge giant THANK YOU! I shall be watching the X-Files for much time to come :-)

[annathepiper]

You are most welcome! ^_^ Enjoy the First Season Mulder goodness!

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

-5: Stupid no snow yet.

come on up, you can have ours.

[annathepiper]

Ah, but that's half the sport of snow around here! ;P :) (And I say that as someone who still vividly remembers doing a 180 on the University District I-5 bridge during a winter weather burst. Y'know what? Being pointed the wrong way on a freeway bridge is SCARY.)

[annathepiper]

You're so good to me!

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

-1: Weather.com is still hemming and hawwing about 'ehhh, the Seattle area MIGHT get snow this weekend'. LIES! THE FILTHY EARTH WEATHERBEASTS LIE!

YAY ZIM!!!!

You can have some of our "white fluffy goodness" I'll even fedex it to ya...

[annathepiper]

Hon, not even Federal Express can get snow here fast enough to keep it from melting, not without packing it in dry ice. ;)

Besides, that entirely cuts out part of the point, which is to watch the stuff actually FALL. :)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

refrigerated express air? I'll stand on your roof and dump it on your head if that helps lol

[annathepiper]

For proper simulation, you'd have to personally fling each individual snowflake out across the yard. Don't think it'd work. ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Aww damn.. .you're no fun... :-p

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

We still have no snow! Bah! It's snowing 20 miles north of here. It's snowing 70 miles northeast of here. It's snowing 20 miles east of here. It's snowing 15 miles west of here. But here? NO SNOW.

[annathepiper]

We got some last night, finally, very late. But not much!

[annathepiper]

Let's just say I don't need snow dumped directly on my head. ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Can I dump it on solarbird's head then? ::innocent look::

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

Seems to me you could modify a manure spreader....
Cathy, feeling 3vil

[annathepiper]

It'd have to be quite, quite cold. ;) AND quite fine-grained!

[annathepiper]

OH NO, I'm not taking ANY responsibility for any snow thrown at solarbird. You do that, it's on your own head, pal. ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

::snickers::

I had also thought of a snow machine like they use at ski resorts... but i like the manure spreader better...

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

you think I'm afraid of a guuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrlllll? mwahahahahah...
::waits for solarbird to step outside the door::

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

and who said anything about throwing it? I said dump... like ::FWUMP!!!:: and no, it would be on solarbird's head, not mine... ::wicked grin::

[watermelonpunch.livejournal.com]

That Virginia law proposal is part of the "give fetuses legal 'personhood' & rights" agenda.
It's the only thing that explains it since there would be no rational benefit to society to have women calling the police to report miscarriages.
Indeed, considering that apparently there is evidence to suggest that half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage (being that a lot of times people don't even realize they're pregnant or even know they've miscarried), it seems like this type of law could only open up the most bizarrely inappropriate can of worms in the legal system.
Not to mention, with this kind of militant watchfulness on miscarriages, I think it may deter some pregnant women from seeking early pre-natal care.

As for snow... You really want snow?
I had to replace my car this week because of some jackass in the snow storm on Wednesday... (http://www.watermelonpunch.com/blog/archives/002496.php)
And people in my area ought to know how to drive in snow. I surely wouldn't want to be driving on the roads with people who aren't used to driving in snow!

[annathepiper]

I was reading through a lot of the replies on the link I posted--and I saw that someone had posted that Cosgrove, the guy behind this bill, actually claimed that its intention was to stem the problem of babies abandoned in trashcans and the like. As your interpretation sounds a lot more likely to me, I posit that Cosgrove is either a liar or an idiot.

My sympathies about your car! :(

We do have the snow now, as it happens, but only a couple of inches. On the other hand, hardly anybody in this town (where I define 'town' as 'the greater Seattle area', now that I actually live in Kenmore) knows how to drive in snow at all, so we don't even need much of a snowstorm to make traffic wig out. My money's on the roads being drivable by tomorrow, but as I take the bus into work, I won't be risking my car anyway.

[watermelonpunch.livejournal.com]

"Cosgrove, the guy behind this bill, actually claimed that its intention was to stem the problem of babies abandoned in trashcans"

That's what he says. Maybe he somehow even believes that I suppose.
But how would this law stem the problem of babies abandoned in trashcans at all?
With this law, the only way someone would be caught for not reporting a miscarriage, would be if they'd already been to a doctor and had the doctor declare that they were pregnant. (I don't think the claims of a family member or someone else saying "she said she was pregnant" would hold up in court.)
Or, if someone actually saved the blood waste material from the woman when she was miscarrying. With a baby in a trashcan, this would seem irrelevant, since the birth/stillborn/miscarriage material would actually have been found. ?
And anyway how many people who leave their babies in a dumpster do we think were under pre-natal care & known by medical professionals to be pregnant? (I'd love to see some statistics on that.)
And how would requiring honest people to report miscarriages prevent dishonest (probably mentally ill) people putting full-term birth babies in trashcans?
I mean, the connection just doesn't seem to fit.
If it's a case of wanting harsher penalties for people who abandon babies in trashcans... Then why not just push a law that would do that? Why bring miscarriages from conception time into it?
So I'm not sure I buy that explanation that Cosgrove is putting forth. Or if I were to buy it, I would think him a most illogical person.

"we don't even need much of a snowstorm to make traffic wig out"

Yeah, I can imagine.
I remember my mother telling me about the blizzard of 1993 in Knoxville Tennessee. It shut down traffic completely (I know because me & friends were out walking downtown in it, where they were actually plowing, and it was desolate.) But here, there was snow up to our thighs. 3 feet maybe? Knoxville got 3 inches, and the entire city shut down, until it melted on its own. Because they aren't equipped to handle even a small amount of snow. My parents had lived in Maine previously, and still had their snow shovels, and when they went out to shovel their sidewalks & driveway, the neighbors looked on with curiosity - it was an alien activity to them.

At any rate, around here... The last time a snow storm actually kept people from driving was Dec. 25th 2002, when we got, I believe, 18-26 inches in one day. (Varied by location, there's valleys & mountains around here.) But you know, I went out walking to take photos of that snow storm in my town and the adjacent town to where I lived. And there were still people on the roads driving, and getting stuck in the snow.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I don't buy Cosgrove's excuse either. If nothing else because "live babies in trashcans" is NOT an issue that can be addressed by "fining women who don't report miscarriages". Like I said--he's either a liar or an idiot. I'm not sure which.

I haven't seen the kind of snow you describe since my childhood in Kentucky, and even then, it was pretty rare. We had a couple of highly abnormal winters where we had a couple of feet on the ground in Louisville, and during which we'd have things like wind chill factors down to -50F. But Seattle? The most we've had in a winter since I've been here was 17 inches in a day.

That WAS cool, though it did pretty much bring the city to its knees. ;) It made Seattle decide "um, maybe we'd better have more than two snowplows for the entire city".

[watermelonpunch.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen too many supporters of Cosgrove making any loud arguments. So my suspicion is, this one's not going anywhere, because there is no way to defend it. But it annoys me that they'd try to sneak something so ridiculous through.

Besides, what really irks me is that even if reporting miscarriages was somehow very important, I don't think the law would be at all effective.
And it's rather ironic that it's being pushed by a Republicans - when supposedly Republicans are for the trimming down of government interference in private lives. And here's a grand example of pointless extra laws to bother people with for no good reason. I hope lots of Republicans are irritated with Cosgrove too. heh.

2 snow plows for Seattle?? Wow. Well, I mean I know Seattle doesn't get much snow, but it does get some...

My mother lives in Oregon, and she said they were calling for snow, but then didn't get any after all. (She's about an hour from Portland.) One of her big things wherever she moves is that she doesn't want to deal with snow anymore. She's lived in Pennsylvania, Maine, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, California, and now Oregon. I was actually surprised that she decided to move to Oregon, because it's definitely a cooler climate, and more likely to get snow, than the desert of southern California - where she last lived.

But you know, I think everyone's secret fears are of a new ice age... what with the movies The Day After Tomorrow and Post Impact.
(By the way, I saw Post Impact because Nigel Bennett was in it... and I wound up liking it a hell of a lot more than The Day After Tomorrow.

Anyway, as much as I'll complain about snow, I would probably miss it. I do like living somewhere that has a wide range of weather.
I recall when my sister Joanie first moved to the San Diego area, she was feeling really really blue in the middle of summer, and complained that it was just nothing but sunshine, day after day after day after day. I guess that could get boring.
Never heard my mother complain about the sunshine in Cali though. But now she says that her old friends back in the desert are actually getting a lot more rain than Oregon. I guess she's pleased about that. hehe.

[annathepiper]

But it annoys me that they'd try to sneak something so ridiculous through.

Yeah--that seems to be kind of a theme this year with lawmaking.

2 snow plows for Seattle?? Wow. Well, I mean I know Seattle doesn't get much snow, but it does get some...

In the years I've been living here, we tend to have one notable snow in the lowlands during the winter--and that's about it. And at most it's a couple of inches. Barely enough to need one snowplow, much less two.

Anyway, as much as I'll complain about snow, I would probably miss it. I do like living somewhere that has a wide range of weather.

That's one of the things I do miss about Kentucky--I did appreciate the variety of weather, real snow and thunderstorms and the like. But I don't miss the tornados. :)