Warbler said:

I think the laws should be different when comes aborting fetuses at are already dead, as opposed to fetuses that are still alive. I don’t think there needs to be any restrictions put on aborting dead fetuses.

That’s why a viability standard makes more sense than an arbitrary number of weeks–it’s medically flexible enough to cover a lot of scenarios (but still not all). Also, the life of the mother is a very serious consideration that’s far too frequently left out of the equation because people can be real shits.

moviefreakedmind said:

CatBus said:

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

the majority of hardcore Democrats will give it all a blanket, “abortion on demand without apology,” response.

I think this is a misconception. There are very few people at all that want to see a constant stream of abortions.

Maybe link to some stories of people demanding it?

Abortion on demand, meaning readily available, for anyone that wants it regardless of their reason.

I think that’s a tomayto/tomahto difference, though. If your goal is to reduce the number of abortions without reducing the availability of abortions, that position is effectively abortion on demand, although nobody who held that position would describe it as such. “Abortion on demand” only (badly) describes the desired legal landscape, it doesn’t describe the policy goal. Abortion on demand can lead to a significant reduction in the number of abortions, if coupled with increased access to other reproductive healthcare or related services, as the Obama administration more or less proved.

How does it badly describe the desired legal landscape? It sounds accurate to me.

Also, the majority of Americans are against the legalization of late term abortions according to Gallup polling and others. I’ve never once heard anyone provide a defense of late term abortion, excluding for health reasons, but pro-choicers still treat it like it’s a violation of human rights.

Well, speaking as someone who knows someone who had a late-term abortion, let me spell it out. Her fetuses had already died, the miscarriage was not happening for whatever reason, and she was in serious danger of getting blood poisoning from the dead bodies inside her. Had there been a late-term abortion ban in our state, she’d be dead along with her fetuses. Yes, aborting pregnancies where the fetus has already died is still abortion. The procedure is the same. As it was, even though we’re in a “liberal” state, she had to drive several hours to get this life-saving procedure, and nobody was allowed in the room with her while she had it (she was grieving AND in danger of death, and she had to go in alone) because once you’ve whittled down the options to the few who provide the service at all (considering how incredibly rare late-term abortions are, how the state can regulate them especially stringently, and how this increases the chances of getting firebombed/assassinated, you can see why this may be the case), you pretty much have to go with whatever bizarre rules they choose to have.

Regarding the earlier point, it’s much like drug legalization. Legalizing drugs doesn’t mean everyone gets drugs with no repercussions. Kids don’t. You can still get DUIs, etc. Similarly, the liberal position on abortions doesn’t mean a regulatory free-for-all. Reasonable controls can still exist, viability for example.

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

the majority of hardcore Democrats will give it all a blanket, “abortion on demand without apology,” response.

I think this is a misconception. There are very few people at all that want to see a constant stream of abortions.

Maybe link to some stories of people demanding it?

Abortion on demand, meaning readily available, for anyone that wants it regardless of their reason.

I think that’s a tomayto/tomahto difference, though. If your goal is to reduce the number of abortions without reducing the availability of abortions, that position is effectively abortion on demand, although nobody who held that position would describe it as such. “Abortion on demand” only (badly) describes the desired legal landscape, it doesn’t describe the policy goal. Abortion on demand can lead to a significant reduction in the number of abortions, if coupled with increased access to other reproductive healthcare or related services, as the Obama administration more or less proved.

TV’s Frink said:

There has been a recent (at least, in the news) fight on the left over abortion and if you have to be pro-choice to be part of the Democratic party. One side says you absolutely have to be, the other says that anti-abortion voices have to be included in order to win House seats and state legislations in Conservative states/districts, in order to then push pro-choice positions.

I find both sides have compelling arguments, unfortunately. I guess it’s the old “does the end justify the means” argument.

There’s more sides than just that. For example, there’s anti-abortion leftists whose goal is to reduce the number of abortions, which they see as completely unrelated to the availability of abortions. To this group, Obama provided a clear leadership example–he did not do anything (that I know of) to reduce the availability of abortions, but his policies successfully reduced the number of abortions to levels lower than they were before Roe v Wade. To your standard “I want to throw doctors and women in jail” anti-abortion type, Obama was as bad as any other recent Democratic president. To your “I just want to stop abortions” anti-abortion type, Obama is a hero/saint/example to us all.

Admittedly this anti-abortion faction is a small group without easy access to bumper sticker technology.

DominicCobb said:

This isn’t a great way to put it, but I agree in some ways. Certain debates don’t deserve a common ground - somewhere in between isn’t always the best place to be. But I do believe it is important to engage with the other side so as to at least reach a point of understanding.

Well, opinions and debates have different qualities. Opinions are informed by facts, colored by your basic values/morality/outlook/etc. There’s a common modern refrain that everyone has a different opinion, and nobody needs to bother with facts because facts are opinions too. Which leads to bullshit debates and pointless yelling and name-calling because what else could it lead to.

But if you can agree to the same set of facts, and have an argument about how those facts can be interpreted based on personal values, that’s a debate worth having. But an opinion that throws facts out the window as step 1? Yeah, it really is trash not worth bothering with. For example, we shouldn’t really be debating whether or not there’s a global warming trend anymore – the only purpose that serves is to misinform people who might not have known the facts on that matter are long-settled. Engaging in trash debates spreads trash opinions, no matter which side you’re on.

rcs709 said:

CatBus said:

The changelog (such as it is, I’m not terribly detailed about it) is on page 52. If you’re interested only in a particular language/type of subtitle, that may make the answer easier.

In 10.1 we will get improvements to Brazilian Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, possibly Dutch, and maybe even a surprise new language, although I’m trying not to get my hopes up about that.

You know, I think I might have another idea for 10.1. iTunes has HD versions of the original trilogy with subtitles in the following languages:
-Arabic
-Bulgarian
-Cantonese
-Croatian
-Danish
-Dutch
-Estonian
-Finnish
-French
-Greek
-Hebrew
-Icelandic
-Indonesian
-Latvian
-Lithuanian
-Malay
-Norwegian
-Portugese
-Romanian
-Slovenian
-Spanish
-Swedish
-Traditional Chinese
-Ukranian
-Vietnamese
Perhaps you could use these to improve your existing subtitles. The only problem would be line changes (“You’re lucky you don’t taste very good” vs “You were lucky to get out of there”). Thanks in advance.

I might take a look (I have no iTunes account, but sometimes subtitles manage to find their way to me regardless). Often subtitles with streaming services are “farmed out”, and those contractors often just pull subtitles from free fansub sites. Most of the subtitles I have are from the official Blu-rays or DVDs, but I do have a few fansub-based ones like Vietnamese and Ukrainian. Even if they’re no better – or even if they’re worse – than the current Project Threepio subtitles (they could even be suspiciously identical…), Lithuanian and Latvian would make great additions.

Yeah, player support for overlapping/adjacent subtitles is pretty spotty. On my end, the way I work around it is to not have them. I’m sorry to say that may need to be your solution as well, if MPC-HC playback is not an option.

TV’s Frink said:

Bummer, if I had just waited a few minutes someone would have made a better joke and I could have just stayed silent.

CatBus, failing to silence Frink since 2011.

Ah, my software’s pretty purpose-built. Project Threepio doesn’t have any overlapping or even immediately adjacent subtitles–so just going over the logic in my mind, I imagine the SUP will end up having two distinct subtitles with overlapping timings and the same onscreen placement, which will likely behave badly as you describe. If it was smarter, it would probably create three adjacent subtitles, one for each distinct subtitle, and another for both subtitles showing at the same time, with placement adjusted, etc*. It would not be an easy change to the existing script, it would be a whole back-to-the-drawing-board type change.

So while my scripts have all the fancy features I wanted, it’s actually not nearly as feature-rich as other software (or else it’s simply broken) with regard to things that don’t apply to Project Threepio.

* Also, in my brief flirtations with immediately adjacent subtitles, I’ve found that not all players even do that very well, at least right now (they flash, they don’t show up, it’s a crapshoot). If you’re trying to make compatible subtitles, always leave a gap. It could be half (or more) of the problems you’re seeing are with the player, not the subtitles. *cough* especially if you’re using VLC *cough*

doubleofive said:

Since you’ll have to be 5 inches from a screen the size of Rhode Island to see the pixels for 8k, I don’t think it’ll be much of a consumer thing.

Could you please repeat that in a larger font? I’m only 6 inches away from my new Rhode Island-sized 8k display.

yhwx said:

Trump signs a bill he calls deeply flawed.

Because getting your veto overridden makes you look weak, and vetoing a Russian sanctions bill makes you look complicit. But signing the bill while hurling insults and going off on self-aggrandizing tangents makes you look exactly the same as before.

TV’s Frink said:

Is Trump (Finally) Ready for a ‘Pivot’ to Presidential?

Doesn’t he have to pivot to the general first? He’s doing this only because being completely off your nut appeals to Republican primary voters, don’t you know.

I don’t see what the big deal is. My wife and I have a similar plan to prevent our four-year-old from eating all the sugar in the house and making holes in the walls with a hammer.

I hope it will all be explained one day when it’s revealed that all surveys had a third of their respondents from the battleground state of Florida–St Petersburg, Florida, to be exact. But, due to a mix-up at the post office… this would also explain why so many respondents said “Da, is werry good President!”

I followed the link thinking it was an old Fo post pushing the conspiracy theory. Curse you, Frink!

Say it ain’t so!

It appears that the BS Seth Rich conspiracy theory, which was so baseless even Fox News retracted their story on it (Hannity notwithstanding), was pushed to Fox News by Trump himself as a way to fabricate an alternate non-Russia-connected explanation for how Clinton’s campaign data ended up in Trump’s hands. Who’da thunk?

TV’s Frink said:

yhwx said:

Trump has reached his highest disapproval rating and lowest approval rating yet.

By which metric?

538’s average has him at 38.2% approval, lowest since early June when he was at his true low of 38.0%.

Similarly, RCP has him at 39.2% approval, lowest since mid-June when he was at his true low of 38.6%

Apparently this headline is using the Rasmussen poll (yes, the same Rasmussen all the other pollsters like to point at and laugh). It may still be a useful data point because Rasmussen is always so heavily skewed toward Republicans that it may actually provide a metric of what Republicans are thinking. In other words, Trump’s approval among Republicans may be at its lowest point ever.

That said, trying to ferret out usable data from a crap pollster is at some level hopeless. Man, I wish Mason-Dixon would do more polling, they were great.

Jeebus said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Didn’t frevious used to bitch constantly about the right?

Frievous is a troll, he comes and takes a dump in the middle of the thread for reactions. He’ll say whatever it takes for people to respond. And I dare him to prove me wrong.

I dunno. I didn’t know the people of North Korea ever had control over their economy until he told me they’d experienced socialism at some point – I thought it was a dictatorship, which any grade-schooler should be able to tell you is incompatible with socialism. If he’s not a troll, he’s as profoundly well-informed as one.

I hate to break it to Denmark what the end result of their nation is.

TV’s Frink said:

Suddenly there’s a lot of sense coming out of Arizona. Jeff Flake wrote this today:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/31/my-party-is-in-denial-about-donald-trump-215442

It was we conservatives who, upon Obama’s election, stated that our No. 1 priority was not advancing a conservative policy agenda but making Obama a one-term president—the corollary to this binary thinking being that his failure would be our success and the fortunes of the citizenry would presumably be sorted out in the meantime. It was we conservatives who were largely silent when the most egregious and sustained attacks on Obama’s legitimacy were leveled by marginal figures who would later be embraced and legitimized by far too many of us.

I wonder if Jeff Flake is owning up to his own role in all this, or if this is his way of pretending he’s one of those “good conservatives” who doesn’t do such things, as a prelude to needing to keep his Senate seat in 2018.

On a question about Republican leaders’ refusal to hold confirmation hearings for Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, Flake said the move was not without precedent. A man in the audience shouted, “Bulls—!” as the crowd chanted “shame on you.”

Bullshit indeed.

TV’s Frink said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-sheriff-joe-arpaio-convicted-of-criminal-contempt/2017/07/31/26d9572e-7620-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.7ea8b765b3fe

Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff whose extreme stance on illegal immigration made him a household name, was convicted Monday of criminal contempt of court for ignoring a judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.

U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton wrote that Arpaio had shown a “flagrant disregard” for the court’s command, and that his attempt to pin the conduct on those who worked for him rang hollow.

“Not only did Defendant abdicate responsibility, he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise,” Bolton wrote.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Arpaio faces up to six months in prison at his sentencing, which is scheduled for October 5. Arpaio’s attorney said he would appeal in order to get a trial by jury. He had been convicted after a trial in front of Bolton.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

You’re using the masculine pronoun in an exclusively feminine accusative phrase. The masculine form is: Pardon him! Pardon him!

Now, write it out a hundred times, and don’t do it again!

It’s clearly Luke. He’s holding a lightsaber. And badly, too–the nerve endings must have given out in his robotic hand.

Teletherapy. It may add a sometimes-annoying barrier between you and your counselor, but the increased options may be beneficial enough to outweigh that. Admittedly I’m coloring your current counselor situation with how I’d react in a similar situation, but I’d say it’s worth exploring.

suspiciouscoffee said:

Good news: I am finally getting counseling or whatever.

Agreed with the rest, you appear to have gotten “whatever” when what you really need is “counseling”.

There are lots of Christian counselors who would not think to insert religion into their counseling. There are also lots of Christian counselors who may insert religion into their counseling, but would refrain from doing so if you made it clear you did not want that. Make sure you didn’t get someone from the second group by stating what you consider to be out of bounds in your counseling. And then there’s the third group, where the correct response is to run.

Why not go full surrealist?