patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

but it will be perfectly legal for fashionista parents to forcibly give their child an ear-piercing, whether they want it or not.

What a wild world we live in.

Depending on the child's religion, that might be protected too.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/16/national/main6872106.shtml

Simcha's legal analysis may be a little off, but his conclusion is right. The law will be struck down in the courts.

thunderlips11 says

but it will be perfectly legal for fashionista parents to forcibly give their child an ear-piercing, whether they want it or not.
What a wild world we live in.

Yeah, I cringe a little when I see a baby with pierced ears, and I am certainly going to wait until my girl is old enough to make that choice on here own (and perhaps a little longer).

I don't know the complication rate of ear piercing, but the circumcision is more of an invasive procedure with the risk of losing your little boy's penis. I just don't think that they are analogous.

simchaland says

We have a saying, “Two Jews, three opinions…”

Haha, that actually sums up one of my favorite things about judaism. There seems to be a lot more tolerance to differing opinions (even the opinion that god may not exist) than other faiths.

ch_tah says

Simcha’s legal analysis may be a little off, but his conclusion is right. The law will be struck down in the courts.

Yeah, if it gets passed it will most likely be struck down.

While religious expression does not make it legal for parents to abuse their children, and I don't think that circumcision is a good choice. The evidence is not there to make the claim that is abuse.

thunderlips11 says

I’m really going to start a circumcision advocacy group. I think I’ll shop around for a good name.
Circumcision USA?
Circumcision is Health, Inc.
Stop HPV USA, Inc.
Make Penile Cancer History Coalition

I think that you should punch it up a little bit, how about:

Circumcision FUCK YEAH!

*or*

Grassroots Coalition for Patriotic Births

*or*

The People for Parent's Choice

Basically anything that has the words or phrases: choice, the people, grassroots, patriotic, fuck yeah!, freedom, save the babies, coalition, etc...

EBGuy says

This is the middle ground I’m trying to stake out. I don’t think this question should be an all or nothing proposition for those who want to honor their faith tradition.

I'm not sure. I guess we could survey Jewish men who have had circumcisions performed by Mohelim to find out if they were cut "low and loose" or "high and tight."

Mine was low and loose. But then again, mine was performed in the hospital by a surgeon, even though I am Jewish. Mom is Jewish too. She was a practicing Catholic at the time. She had it done "Just in case." Our family's religious and cultural history is complicated. It's testimony to how anti-semitism can destroy families and create complications for generations.

When I decided to be not just culturally and ontologically Jewish but also religiously Jewish I had a "Hatafat Dam Brit" done. As noted in the article this is done for male converts to Judaism who have been circumcised. Also it talks about how different movements in Judaism approach an uncircumcised male convert either requiring a Brit Milah, or not requiring a Brit Milah. It also discusses how different circumcision is for an adult male as opposed to an 8 day old baby boy.

In my case, I wasn't considered a "convert" per se. I had changed my religious practice but in the eyes of most Jews, I was still a Jew even when I was being raised a Roman Catholic. However I had never had a proper Brit Milah even though I was surgically circumcised.

I had "Hatafat Dam Brit" done in order to have a Kosher Brit Milah. When my circumcision was done it was done as a surgical procedure, the doctor wasn't Jewish most likely, and not trained in Torah most likely, and he most certainly didn't say the blessing. The Mohel I hired, who was also a Urologist, was able to confirm that my circumcision was Kosher and when he was done with the blessing and pin prick (drawing blood) I had a Kosher Brit Milah. I am confident that even though my circumcision is "low and loose" it was Kosher. So, it isn't necessary to do a "high and tight" circumcision. The Mohel told me that Mohelim are trained to do circumcisions "low and loose."

He had to do the pin prick twice. The first time drew no blood. Blood must be drawn. On the second pin prick he drew blood, collected it on a gauze pad, then showed the blood on the gauze pad to three witnesses. And no, it wasn't painless. But the pain wasn't as bad as you may think and the pain was over in a second.

This may sound barbaric to those who aren't Jewish (or to some Jews) but to me it had intense meaning. It was a sign that I was completely committed to claiming my Jewish heritage, identity, and responsibilities.

Here is a discussion about using "Hatafat Dam Brit" as a "compromise." The conclusion of the article is that it is not Kosher to perform this ritual while leaving the foreskin intact.

EBGuy says

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that; my language should have been clearer.

I didn't think you were trying to be offensive. The question is a valid one. Many Jewish Traditions have gained and lost adherence throughout the millenia. There is a question about whether or not Brit Milah has ever fallen out of favor in Jewish history. It seems that there may be a question about the Israelites' adherence to Brit Milah while they were in Egypt. But there's nothing conclusive to suggest that Brit Milah wasn't observed at any time throughout Jewish history since Abraham that I can find.

leoj707 says

I think that you should punch it up a little bit, how about:
Circumcision FUCK YEAH!
*or*
Grassroots Coalition for Patriotic Births
*or*
The People for Parent’s Choice
Basically anything that has the words or phrases: choice, the people, grassroots, patriotic, fuck yeah!, freedom, save the babies, coalition, etc…

How about these for anti-circ activist organizations?:

The Anti-Circ Brigade

No Bris For Me Campaign

Activist Intactivists International

Smegma Lovers Unite!

It's Not A Choice, It's A Birthright! Campaign

Save The Sausage! Campaign

Anything mentioning save, intact, anti-circ, no choice, say no to Brit Milah, or smegma loving would do.

leoj707 says

Islam is based on the teaching of christ and the hebrews, just as christianity is based on the teachings of the hebrews.

nope. you are wrong again. but, your lack of truth in advertizing may be more the issue, more so than a lack of knowledge.

good day

leoj707 says

Bap33 says
Feel free to share where you “feel” moralistic behavior came from. I happen to feel it is learned.
This is waaaay… to far of the topic of this thread, and would require length explanations (developmental science, biology, and neuroscience have the answers you are looking for), and then you would ignore it anyway.

bwaaaa haaa ha ... a punt??!! No biggie, have a good weekend.

simchaland says

Smegma

what is that sim?

simchaland says

Also it notes an interesting concept from Jewish Feminists that this passage of the Torah validates a Brit Milah performed by a woman or the mother.

Interesting, in general thanks for sharing about jewish circumcision tradition.

simchaland says

Personally, I find it reprehensible that people outside of the Jewish People/Religion would attempt to interfere with our own Traditions and our own process of evolving our own Traditions.

This type of attitude concerns me. I don't think that there are any current jewish traditions/practices that anyone should care about, and certainly nothing that should be banned...

...but...

...I think that there are times when others should and need to interfere with religious traditions. It should not be a carte blanche to do anything a group of people want.

When the christian scientist wants to deny life saving medicine to a child. Should that be stopped?

If the mormons wanted a return of the blood atonement. Should that be allowed?

If muslims want to kill their girls because she dishonored the family by being raped. Should this be protected religious freedom?

Sorry, I don't know enough about jewish traditions to come up with an abhorrent example. Except the one about them eating babies (or is that just the atheists), but I suspect that one is false.

simchaland says

Yet all of them want to claim they aren’t anti-semitic in any way, shape, or form.

I think that there are people out there that genuinely think circumcision is child abuse, and I don't think they are doing it for anti-semitic reasons (without question some are though).

Just like pro-circumcision movement starting in this thread they have studies and data to backup their claims, but I don't think that either side has enough "proof" either way.

Bap33 says

simchaland says

Smegma

what is that sim?

Smegma: –noun, a thick, cheeselike, sebaceous secretion that collects beneath the foreskin or around the clitoris.

Origin: 1810–20;

@sim,
cool story. thanks for sharing.

eeeew

simchaland says

Anything mentioning save, intact, anti-circ, no choice, say no to Brit Milah, or smegma loving would do.

Nice, how about:

Intact Sausage Loving Smegma Brigade FUCK YEAH!

the "cool story" part was for the cool story ... the "eeeew" is for the cheese ... lol

Bap33 says

leoj707 says

Islam is based on the teaching of christ and the hebrews, just as christianity is based on the teachings of the hebrews.

nope. you are wrong again. but, your lack of truth in advertizing may be more the issue, more so than a lack of knowledge.
good day

Wha??? look into the origins of islam.

Bap33 says

leoj707 says

Bap33 says

Feel free to share where you “feel” moralistic behavior came from. I happen to feel it is learned.

This is waaaay… to far of the topic of this thread, and would require length explanations (developmental science, biology, and neuroscience have the answers you are looking for), and then you would ignore it anyway.

bwaaaa haaa ha … a punt??!! No biggie, have a good weekend.

Hey, start up a thread on the origins of moral behavior and I am sure you will generate lots of conversation.

Yeah, enjoy your weekend, and don't forget to read up on the origins of islam!

mikey says

Is there a religion where, when you die, you get 72 sluts? At least this would make some kind of sense.

And make them bi-sexual, but who said religion has to make sense.

Bap, I probably shouldn't have used the word "hate" because you totally missed my bigger point later.

Bap33 says

but to suggest anyone who sees the liberal/progressive/leftist position as being bad for a healthy - free - society only does so out of anger or boogie men seems to lack some basic depth.

I wasn't suggesting that. I was suggesting that if one has a fictitious and exaggerated idea of the progressive position, then that might be born by their desire to see that position in a way that justifies their anger.

For example:

Bap33 says

Those on the left/progressive/liberal side of things will want him in prison for life if he kills a person of color breaking into his house, but will demand he be kept alive if he murders an average white male. The same group will demand that the boy be told that tabacco use is evil and that there is no god while in school, but smoking dope, snorting crank, doing acid, performing unnatural sexual acts, being socially disruptive, are all ok.

Really ?

The part of my previous post, that I most wanted you to ponder was this.

marcus says

The religious right values, gun rights, attributing moral decay to the left, these are all just ploys by the corporatocracy and the plutocrats to get your vote.

None of these things are even addressed by their policies (its just about winning elections). Their policies are all about protecting the rich, and fucking over the middle class.

What does this (open link) have to do with gays, drugs, Guns or God ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-truth-about-the-ameri_b_869033.html

Most people who are politically to the left of what's going on now, that is the ones mostly concerned with policies dealing with taxes, health care and so on, are well educated people with family values, and are just as good people as you are.

Furthermore, they can be quite a bit right of what I consider a center, and they are still way left of where we are headed. I could run down the list of people you hear arguing progressive positions on this forum, I guarantee that most are upstanding good people.

TOT Ranted, "Even in ‘06 the Evil Bastards were over at Berkly with their iBooks and thier Mocha Lattes..."

Damn all you smart liberals in Berkeley with your iBooks and Mocha Lattes!

ROTFLMAO! :-D

TOT, you're a funny guy!

Why is it that I picture you as an old white dude in his bath robe on his front porch yelling at "those damn kids" while shaking your cane in the air at them?

Taxpayer says

So ceo tax rate = (0.5Y) / (0.5X) = Y/X.

Okay, so you are arguing that the corporation should pay the taxes on the roads. Fine. If the ceo were the owner, this would hit him. Ceo pay has gone up more because they are all in the club that decides what ceos should be paid. It's not a normal market.

http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/

If you make this as simple as possible, the tax question boils down to the fact that the huge income people can afford to pay more. He or she does pay more, even if the rates are flat. The question is how much more should they pay ? Even with fairly progressive taxes, the ceo who makes 10 million a year will still be able to live with as much luxury as possible and as much invested as he and his heirs will need.

Why isn't that sufficient incentive ?

Meanwhile the same progessive rates will cost the high end doctor with the 450K income just 10K more than now, or maybe 20K more, if the top rate is 45%.

This is not the same as saying that all incentives go away and we are communists !

Tp: I understood your point.

Taxpayer says

BASED ON THE NUMBERS

It's not based on numbers, its based on what you define y and x to be
and what you think that quotient represents.

The ratio of (cost of roads)/(profits), doesn't quite make sense (because others use the roads) but lets pretend it makes sense. Then what I think you are saying is the corporation pays the taxes, or nearly equivalently, the ceo and the worker pay the same percentage of their taxes towrads it. Okay. I changed the subject a little.
Taxpayer says

This question is like asking what name they should give their children.

You say that if I think that the government should raise their tax burden (imperceptibly - really - to him - based on his cost of living) that that would be like naming their kids ?

This one goes a little beyond logic I will admit. It goes to philosophy about what's in the common good versus justfying absurd levels of self interest..

Two great quotes from a favorite commie pinko economist.

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
John Kenneth Galbraith

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith

I think he acknowledged the ceo paying 100 times as much if the ceo pays the same tax rates. But I would argue the ceo should pay even more, since his taxes come totally out of discretionary income (they should have a term super-discretionary, for income that is above the highest living expenses possible)

Taxpayer says

I am saying that you have no RIGHT to ask demand that the high income people pay more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Let me guess. This is a popular email that gets sent around republican circles.

" I agree" (actually I do agree)

"And I'm tired of the fricking liberals who think that everyone has all of these rights"

(I know it's bullshit to imply that liberals believe this - but if we get more votes for our side - no harm no foul, right ?)

Another giant list of straw men cooked up by right wingnuts to fire up their base with meaningless and inane propaganda posted here by yet another right wingnut troll.

Yawn. Wake me up when something new comes up.

hmm, there are many points for and against circumcision. How about we, I dunno; wait until the child is old enough to consent to having part of him chopped off for opinion rife reasons. This isn't subsaharan africa where the lowest denomination of prevention against STDs is needed and even there I believe kids should have a right to make a choice without a bunch of me-too men pressuring them into it.

At least figure out a way to chop it off that won't leave you guys with massive scarlines along your dick anymore. And yes men; we women can see it clearly 90% of the time.

Farcical Liberalism in action.

These pansies and loons insist your letting them lead their own lives ... while they insist on invading your personal lives and managing your children.

Its a Jewish and Catholic tradition. The Jews have more Nobel Laureate than any other group.

I rest my case.

Taxpayer says

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we’re just not interested in public health care.

Yea, I know that when I drive past a house where low-income people live, I hope they have cancer or something. It actually should say that they're not interested in public health care, unless it's them, their child or spouse with billed charges of $500k. Then, they'd be demanding care be provided no matter the cost.

Taxpayer says

You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth...You do not have the right to never be offended...You do not have the right to be free from harm...You don’t have the right to a job...You do not have the right to happiness...

Really? Because if we don't have the "right" to these things, that means that an oppressive government won't allow citizens to have these things. If we were to have a window into the home (and soul) of the ass who created this, I'm willing to bet that he/she wrote it on a computer in a home with a television and a car outside. They complain about "the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed wetters..." but they're the ones who are whiny about others having rights. Because, let's get real, what they mean is that THEY have the right to these things, they just want to limit others from having these things.

I guess the moral of their story is that they want to be the Joneses, and not allow others to keep up with them.

It is called, "The Party of No."

No soup for you!

HIP, it most emphatically is NOT a Catholic tradition. They are very clear about that. It's a choice. They teach that Jesus liberated followers from "the letter of the law" and that the "law should be written in your hearts." One of the big breaks with Judaism in early Christianity was that the people who argued that a convert to Christianity does not have to become Jewish first won that debate. This allowed gentiles easier entry into Christianity. Jewish life cycle Traditions did not have to be followed by Christians. That includes circumcision. Catholics claim to be the original church that made this split with Peter as the first Pope. Remember Peter was to be the rock on whom the risen Christ would build his church? Peter was an circumcised Jew and originally insisted on the converion of Gentiles to Judaism before being allowed into the Church. Paul convinced Peter that the gentiles were worthy of "The Good News" whether or not they became Jews.

simchaland says

It is called, “The Party of No.”
No soup for you!

But they get tons of soup, 'cause they have the right. ;)

I'm sticking with the Original list, regardless what Idiot Right or the Clueless left thinks. It's over 235 years old, and worked before Regan and Clinton.

We don't have a right to drive across country on 4-6 lane highways either.

If you want them, start a corporation to build a toll road to provide them and fund them.

Right?

Taxpayer says

but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

These opportunities "cost money". I see a lot of great opportunities I can't afford. HS diplomas are not the job ticket they were in 1960.

There's a Doctorate with out the Certificate, right on the other side of this keyboard.

Information and Knowledge is not something locked away in the Tower of Educational institutions, that cost a kings ransom to attain, anymore.
Anyone sitting around belly aching about missed opportunities due to lack of education. Really aren't applying them selves.

All of the "Foremost leading experts" in any field did not get that from a classroom. They obtained their knowledge by being curious and applying them selves.

I'm an expert in complex processes, rubrics and matrices.
The highest grade I completed was the 10th grade.

What have I been working on for over year now?

Creating software that evaluates the effectiveness of Program and course outcomes, that manages the credit hours for those course, for a top University.

Money spent on my education? $0 Just the endless hours of me parked on my Ass reading online resources until my eyeballs bled.

I am educated as I set out to learn the technology I have attained. My peers for the most part, are not educated, they have degrees.
They work in the IT department of the University I contract remotely for. They show up, and are bound to the office for 9 to 5, and when they have to review my code, they defer it back to me. Where I'm at home making a sandwich, and listening to Jazz on XM radio. Their knowledge went no further than the 300 to 400 pages in their text books. I read that many pages just for one topic of a subject.

Self made people have always been doable in America, but that concept is the major Universities worst nightmares. Because the self taught, show just how little graduates really know. With their degrees and iBooks and Mocha Lattes.

Congrats on being able to write code, tenpound. I'm happy for you and your ability to support yourself and your family.

Your lack of ability to communicate effectively, at least in writing, might be the reason that they don't want you in the office - there are so many grammatical errors in your post it's crazy.

A "Doctorate without a certificate" is just another person. Tenouncetrout says

My peers for the most part, are not educated, they have degrees.

Actually, they are educated in the formal sense. You are self-taught. Neither way is better, it just is.

Tenouncetrout says

Their knowledge went no further than the 300 to 400 pages in their text books. I read that many pages just for one topic of a subject.

The truth is that you don't know how much education they have beyond their formal degrees, you are just assuming that they haven't furthered their education.

But isn't it possible that they started their careers at the same point you took years to attain? That their formal education enabled them to start at a professional salary in the field of their choosing?

I agree with most of what you say here Tot, except

Tenouncetrout says

but that concept is the major Universities worst nightmares.

Most professors who teach computer science either do have some valuable (even if slightly dated) real world experience, or they readily and gladly acknowledge that what they teach is theoretical and abstract. In either case they would be the first to tell you the importance of real world experience, and that so much of the types of programming done out in the world is specialized beyond what they teach and beyond the worthwhile practice you get in CS classes.

All seem like stinkers right now. And don't forget about the problems with housing markets in the developed commonwealth countries. Or the probable meltdown coming to emerging market economies later this year/next year. And so on...who knows for sure...

When I graduated college, I had served a one year internship. It meant nothing - I can remember when I would meet some social worker who had been practicing 20 some-odd years and would refer to them as an "old social worker." They knew so much and were much more abrasive than us newbies.

I'm an "old social worker" now. My college years gave me a theoretical background, and without it I couldn't be licensed. But my "real world" experience is what makes me most valuable.