I couldn't care lest about medical terminology for identifying perceived 'phases' of human life. I only object when some of the are used by morons to attempt to de-humanize any human being at any stage of life, as justification for murdering him/her.

So your stance is that because things in every pregnancy don't happen at a known precise moment -- because every pregnancy develops uniquely -- that words are meaningless? The medical term you so cavalierly dismiss is actually based on known changes that occur during pregnancy. When it "ought" to occur in any given pregnancy is more or less predictable, but whether and when it does is based on specific markers.

Adolescence, by the way, is based on the onset of puberty. This also does not occur at the same time for everyone. Just because the term is used by non-medical persons without regard to whether an individual has entered puberty does not render the term meaningless.

Fetus has a medical definition. Development has markers. "Human being," on the other hand, is up for individual interpretation; I'm not aware that it has a medical definition.

Your very "7-8 weeks" terminology makes my point by itself, for gawdsake!

ALL those terms and designations are useful and handy for medical reasons, but except possibly for 'conception' or 'fertilization', there is NEVER a precise point on a continuum when one term evolves into the next term. How about 'childhood, 'adolescence' 'adulthood' 'old age', etc.? Aren't they "part of the medical lexicon"? But not a damn one of them excludes the universal 'human being', right???

I was surprised to read that fetus was an arbitrary term with no real meaning. I had no idea it was no longer part of the medical lexicon. When did this happen and what is the current medical term for that period between the end of the embryonic phase (7-8 weeks) and birth? I don't know, but it seems there ought to be a medical term for this as a lot of stuff happens during this phase of pregnancy; some of it may need to be discussed and attended to.

Human life exists on an unbroken continuum. You can theoretically assign a word to represent every point on that continuum, but as I said, that is totally arbitrary to the 'point' of being meaningless. Points have no dimension. It may be medically handy or convenient, but it's still totally arbitrary. It's equivalent to pretending to designating a specific spot on a rainbow where the color changes - can't be done.

Of course, "parasitic organism" is perfectly acceptable, but she should add "self-imposed parasitic organism", right? Not fair to imply that the organism attacked her like did the Covid virus!

You lost me on your last paragraph, sorry.

OK, you object to people characterizing it as an "unborn baby", I object to you characterizing it as a "fetus", but both terms are arbitrary and have no real meaning.

Except they are not arbitrary and have very specific meanings based on their definitions. One is a scientific term, the other is not. If the woman wants to be pregnant, referring to it as an “unborn baby” is acceptable. For the woman who had no intention of getting pregnant and that does not want children, referring to it as a “parasitic organism” is just as acceptable.

And you support a woman’s right to an abortion, which you refer to as “rationalized murder”? And who has ever used political correctness to justify a woman’s right to determine her medical choices for herself ? How would that even work?

OK, you object to people characterizing it as an "unborn baby", I object to you characterizing it as a "fetus", but both terms are arbitrary and have no real meaning.

So my suggestion would be, we call it a "human being" Then it becomes generic and serves to reveal any and all of your rationalizational efforts to be just that, rationalized murder.

And in case you're unaware, I'm all in favor of abortion rights. The only thing I'm against is hypocrisy and political correctness serving as the justification for it.

Ron Tabak, September 25, 1953 - December 25, 1984, gone but never forgotten. Rock on, Ron!

Ron Tabak - (I need a) Miracle

Take care and stay safe, everyone!

Here they all are at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Powder Blues Live

Night To Remember

A Message of Love

Alone again, naturally!

Spaceship Superstaaaaaaaaaar

Cover Girl

Ron was hired as lead vocalist in August 1975 and here is a beautiful song that came out of the Sunshyne studio sessions in 1976 but is not found on any of the PRiSM albums. I'm still scratching my head as to why that might be and how the album track would have sounded because Ron's brilliant vocals come soaring through even on this one, seemingly effortlessly, as per usual.

Hope you enjoy Lost Horizons

Zingo - the band

It has become one of my favourites.

Here's a tune off that cd written by Dave Skinner ...

Merry Go Round - Zingo

Pocket Full of Blues

Take Me Away

With any luck, they'll all be out this year!

Anyway, here is the single from Al Harlow Now ...

Let It Go

We Canadians like to think of Heart as one of our own since their first success was here and they lived in Vancouver for several years.

What About Love - Inducted into Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame!

What About Love - Heart

Continuing here in that celebration I'd like to highlight some of my favourite Ron Tabak vocals as well as bandmates and friends of his and their bands from the Vancouver area.

This is one of the songs that garnered PRiSM their first record deal with GRT Records in Toronto. Written by PRiSM's original drummer, Jim Vallance (aka Rodney Higgs), it became the second track off PRiSM's phenomenal debut album, released in May 1977 - the first debut album by a Canadian artist to achieve platinum status in Canada!

Open Soul Surgery

Don't be shy - post your favourite songs and let's dance the night away!

This very special singer would have celebrated his 68th birthday yesterday.

Be back around 7pm, Cali time, give or take ...

The real question is, should she have the right to choose OTHER peoples' health care.

That's the thing. It's NOT "OTHER people's health care."

And it's NOT an "unborn baby."

It's a fetus, inside a free American women's uterus, where Big Government doesn't get to supervise.

Freedom of religion is meaningless if a minority of America's religious views are imposed on the rest of us.

It's that simple, Amigo, no matter how strongly your beliefs on the subject may be.

Excellent and trenchant point says Supreme TaxDoctor. I'd add that Elizabeth Warren's Wealth Tax is unworkable. How would one value wealth? How would one even define wealth?

The answer lies in revamping the Tax Code.

First, why does the tax rates increase as income rises but stops at just under $520K/$625K Married?

I say, continue the increasing brackets and tax rates until it tops off at exactly 91.09%.

That's one for you,

TAXMAN
The Beatles

Second, why is income above roughly $143,000 exempt from Social Security Tax ?

I say, remove the cap! This insures,

1- the fund remains solvent until 2100, because,

2- everyone is now payinh into the fund evenly.

[8]
We'll see, Don. If the Dems get reconciliation and voting rights done you will prove to be wrong. If not, you'll be right. Either way, OD would be swamped by non-OD money and no credible candidate would commit electoral malpractice by so limiting themselves.

Which very special singer, oh Board Mother?

You manifest a level of common sense and comprehension of the workings and of the problems of the tax system that represents something FAR beyond anything I've ever encountered on this blog, or for that matter anywhere, among normal Americans!!! Way to go!

It's going to be a very special evening, celebrating the life and music of a very special singer.

I hope you'll all stop by for a listen and play a favourite tune!

You should know by now that I will always click your links.

~hamlet, act 3, scene 2

(for liz, who probably won't click the link: it's an article from the AP suggesting that justice barrett says she's concerned about the supreme court seeming like it's partisan.)

JL

there is something concrete that can be done about roe v. wade failing, and that is making federal laws to protect women's health and privacy from state encroachment.

How could Big Pharma donate $750,000 to a single politician if we have limits on the amount that they can give? If it is possible for an industry to donate that much money simply by creating enough lobbying groups so that each can give the maximum allowed donation and they can still influence our politics, what would stop them from maintaining their influence by creating enough lobbying groups necessary to donate $750k via $200 individual donations?

One Demand cannot prevent corporations from buying influence over our politicians. Of course, anyone who believes they are truly buying influence for $750k in reported campaign donations while ignoring the millions of dollars given to PAC’s supporting the candidate via “dark money” from unknown sources is kidding themselves.

TP7 Whoda ever guessed that the non-rich would be heavily in favor of taxing the rich? Next thing you're gonna tell us is that water is wet, and the sun rises in the east!

Tax the rich but understand what that means. There is a progressive idea to look at Bezos and those like him as though they have a giant Grigotts vaults full of gold and if only we could figure out how to get a wheelbarrow down to them, we could scoop up some and pay for the legislation-du-jour. The problem is Bezos made $81,000 in 2019. Now that he is no longer CEO of Amazon, he may have not made anything last year. Income tax increases ain't doing squat if the wealth is outside the "income" system. When you see headlines like Bezos makes such and such per minute, what they are really taking about is billionaire pissing contest money: stock value. Yes, he owns x number of shares times the stock price creates a number that is pretty big, but there is a huge difference between theoretical value and liquid value. He could never convert the theoretical value to liquid in any sort of short time frame without grossly reducing the total. Kicking up the "income tax" of the ultra-wealthy is likely to not amount to much. Better enforcement of tax laws, a better system of auditing the ultra-wealthy and figuring out how to tax the loopholes like taking low/no interest loans with the stock as collateral for day to day living expenses will likely bring in much more tax revenue. I'm not sure the "wealth tax" is a good idea either. Somehow taxing unrealized capital gains probably also means tax rebates on unrealized capital losses as that is how the tax code generally works. What is a tempting revenue generator in good years could be quite the disaster in a downturn...

"...this was the big cheese -- and it turned out to be pretty stinky for Trump."

Now, as I read in the NY Times this morning, I learned that this audit failure has had ... zero -- That is, ZERO -- effect on the Stop the Steal movement that drives Trump's current political profile. As the NYT reports, Stop the Steal media outlets, promoters, and consumers are simply ignoring the reports about the audit showing a larger Biden victory than initially recorded. They are instead focusing on the minutiae in the audit that explain which votes were in fact disqualified, etc.

In short, no embarrassment, no shame, no changing of hearts or minds. No effect whatever. Chortle all you want. They didn't hear you. And they're not going to stop trying to alter the voting laws around the country to allow Republican assemblies and state officers to recount future elections as necessary to ensure Republican-only victories.

When these two measures fail in the Senate on party-line vote, what will Manchin and Sinema do?

In any case, a delicious news item HANDED the Democrats a talking point. This will be critically-important in 2022, in Texas and Florida, if nowhere else.
'Majorities support mask and vaccine mandates advocated by the Biden administration, as the coronavirus pandemic remains a top concern, according to the latest Fox News poll.

Three-quarters of registered voters are "extremely" or "very" concerned about the pandemic (74 percent), a 5-point increase from August when 69 percent were worried. The shift comes mainly from Republicans (+14) and men (+8).'
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/fox-news-poll-mask-vaccine-mandates-pandemic-worries-increase

In any discussion about the debt ceiling, it is important to point out that we're approaching the limit because of PAST appropriations. (Perhaps you pointed this out in your earlier column, but I didn't see it in this FTP column.) So anyone who pontificates on withholding approval of an increase because s/he wants to rein in spending is playing fast and loose with the facts. In the same way that I don't refuse to pay my monthly mortgage payment because I object to the loan I obtained from the bank years ago, Congress cannot refuse to pay for spending they previously approved.

I also can't complain about any of the talking points.

Hillary caught a lucky break, finding and kidnapping Q.