Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Forskolin

So I’m poking around my favourite joints on the internet, and run across a Eurekalert reference to erectile dysfunction research.  Everybody knows that nitric oxide is what triggers the onset of an erection, but nobody had nailed down – sorry for the choice of words – what sustains an erection, which is the other half of working on ED.  Turns out that you need a continuous cascade of nitric oxide to keep the jolly happening, some of which happens in the penis itself.  At the very end of the article, there’s an offhand comment about how forskolin assists to keep this nitric oxide cascade flowing.

I’m thinking, Darwin’s Beard, a compound that assists with ED that’s called Forskolin?  I mean, it’s like hiding a foreskin in plain sight.  So I look up forskolin on wikipedia, and it sounds like homeopathy, it’s been offered up as a treatment for so many conditions.  But no, science.  And the molecule looks like Oh Ho Ho with a boner at both ends.  But that’s just me, I can derive amusement from almost anything.

 

 

what?

Dear Mr. Kenney, and by copy to Mr. Julian,

Look, it’s really very simple.  If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.  If you don’t have the equipment to ever need to make that decision, stay out of it.

Do not attempt to legislate the recriminalization of abortion in Canada.  Although there is a substantial minority of Canadians who would applaud the recriminalization of sodomy, gay marriage and abortion, we live in a modern pluralistic liberal democracy and the majority of Canadians don’t support those stances.

Recriminalizing abortion is regressive, mean-spirited and an assault on women’s rights.  It’s bad medicine, bad politics, and bad social policy.

I say this as a woman, a tax-payer, a church-goer and a voting Canadian.

Kill M-312 as soon as possible.

 

Yours truly,

 

Allegra Sloman

phone and address redacted

May ludicrous things happen to Jason Kenney

O, FFS.  Jason Kenney is trying to recriminalize abortion.  The war on women has officially moved north of the border, kids.  You’ve got a day to move on this.

If you have had an abortion WRITE YOUR MP AND COPY JASON KENNEY.  If you think women have the right to legal safe abortions, as well as the contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place WRITE YOUR MP AND COPY JASON KENNEY.  If you don’t want to live in a country where your daughter or friend or sister or coworker is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term after she’s been raped WRITE YOUR MP AND COPY JASON KENNEY. TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON BILL M-312.  http://www.canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html#mem is how you get hold of them. FOLLOW UP WITH A MAILED LETTER – you may send it at no charge to http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/Addresses/ParliamentaryHOC.aspx

Miss Margot watches the screen

A couple of days ago Margot was sitting on her tuffet in the den while Jeff was copying files.  She watched intently as the files flew between the folders, and then for yuks Jeff started shifting the dialog box around, and she watched that too.  Eddie never watches TV although occasionally he responds to sounds from the speakers.

Margot needs a bath, she’s getting a bit pee-ie, and it’s Jeff that has to put up with her rank rear end.

I have a new phone, an HTC One S (I bought it on Thursday last but it was DOA so I replaced it).  I am very much liking it but I’m still getting used to the keyboard.

Rantoglot

The new Kside word is for the weird almost English raving that shows up in youtube comments.  Also known as trollspeak.

Sue’s dad died.  He was over 100 years old, and she was planning on visiting him this week.  Now her mum and dad are dead, her mum passed last year.  She’s not the only person I know who is over seventy and lost a parent.  mOm I am glad you made that scarf for her.

I09 talks about epistolary novels today.  In SF format.

I am actually working on an epistolary sf novel.  In my family there is a cousins’ letter that rotates between numerous people over the course of about three years. The cousin will write whatever he or she wants to and then send it along.  Once it gets back to the origination point it is collected by mOm and the next iteration fires up.
The novel follows the cousins as they a) attempt social work with a trispecies gang in an orbital (blocked out) b) sell tickets to the only real tourist attraction (but it’s a doozy) on a fleabag planet (in process) c) found a Unitarian church on a wholly-owned planet and accidentally become the lightning rod for a debate on interspecies marriage (this letter is written) d) join the Forces to see the galaxy, kill monsters and blow shit up real good (this is in process) e) have boring lives on Earth (anything but, climate change and volcanoes)  f) get old and have themselves uploaded so they can continue to work on family history projects they didn’t want to die in the middle of, thus becoming the de facto all purpose family elder.

 

Lovely!!!

Had a wonderful visit to Victoria with Keith.

It took 7 hours to get home, but it was a nice visit.  I am not very happy with BC Ferries right now, and having to drive Keith to his meetup afterwards because he was running late wasn’t a problem but it did add a lot to the drive.

I traded up phones and have still not been able to activate it.  I am seriously considering taking it back to the place of purchase and letting them know that if I have to spend three days trying to activate a phone there isn’t much point gamely staying with the same company.  The chat on line help has sucked as well.  Very disheartening.

I have to get a job, and the market is very poor.

I decided that since being conscious was actively causing me pain that I should take refuge in sleep.  As soon as I was decently unconscious, and far away from my back pain, BC Ferries and the utter pointlessness of life, the phone rang and it was somebody from church reminding me to bring the checkbook to service.  Serves me right for going to bed so early.

It is now 2:35 in the morning.  This is not a good time to be writing blog posts as they are likely to be rather grim.  Oh, sorry, too late.

I hope today will be a better day.  I’m going to get a glass of water and go back to sleep, if Morpheus is kind.

 

aaaand Robert’s back in my inbox

He is now accusing me of setting his inbox ablaze with Christian spam.  Oh . Your . God, as Bender might remark; I would rather hack my feet off and eat them than trigger a spam blitz on somebody, even somebody as relentlessly and obstreperously obtuse as our dear Robert.

I wouldn’t do it.  Nope, not if I was offered payment.  Fortunately he’s on Gmail so he can adjust his spam filter and never deal with that crap again.

Put those Mennonites and Quakers on the rotisserie….

…. this is what I want my mother to knit me for Christmas.   And no, she doesn’t have to, and I’ll be fine if she doesn’t.

 

Just remember folks, I wrote a song once in which I said, “And my heart’s an 88” and I WAS referring to the forward cannon on a Panzer.  So nobody should be too surprised if I get all gooey over some artillery themed slippers.

Robert is a man who doesn’t get it.

So he responded to that last email with:

On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 7:25 AM, robert white <passionatepiper@gmail.com> wrote:
There is no message when the delivery is so repugnant.

 

And here’s my response.

Precisely.  When you talk about the tone of an atheist’s comments using sexualized and demeaning language, you have no message.

I’m glad we can agree on that point.

Your delivery was repugnant; it lacked any demonstration on your part to show “responsibility to be as dignified, intelligent, rational, measured and believable as possible”.  Those are your stated standards, by the way, not mine.  If you are really committed to being dignified, intelligent, rational, measured and believable in your protestations of atheism to a deistic world, why be undignified, immoderate and hidebound towards a fellow atheist?  The deists are clever buggers on occasion, and they’ll catch you being inconsistent and give you a hard time.

By your own standards, you have given everyone who reads that note to Skepchick permission to dismiss it because it’s repugnant and even if it wasn’t, there’s no argument / debate / dialogue / call for clarification.  Arguments against tone aren’t arguments.  They are, and always will be, an acknowledgement of rhetorical failure.  Throwing sexual insults into the mix while clinging to words like dignified makes you look … how?  How do you wish to be perceived?  On one hand you’re claiming the moral high ground, and then you throw it all away by the atheist equivalent of sectarian violence.  (Which of course leaves no one dead, making it intrinsically superior).

As for you being a militant atheist while alternately ignoring and railing against how your public speech and attitudes are not in step with the more forward thinking aspects of contemporary atheism, good luck with that. You remind me of the Catholic priests who continued to celebrate Mass in Latin after Vatican II.   Most Catholics were happy to ditch the Latin, but there will always be traditionalists.  Your version of atheism isn’t mine; mine is messy, fluid, raucous, fun loving, and inclusive of strange and queer and diverse and under-represented voices, even yours, if only as a cautionary sample of how the unscientific and undignified ways of misogyny penetrate even our lofty halls of intellectual superiority.

There was precious little reasoning or dignity in what you said to Skepchick, and you completely dodged any questions I asked.  I did not seek to censor, merely to understand, and if you can’t see how being a misogynist in public doesn’t serve atheism, I can’t see how talking to you any further would help either of us.

Good day to you, sir.

Allegra

 

I am wondering if Robert really is an atheist at all.  Some of what he says just don’t ring true.  However, trolls come in all shapes and sizes, I’ve been a troll meself, so I know.