The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Kai Jones:

Thanks, Marilee. I still don't know if it's *fear*, though; I can think of other reasons to avoid situations where you might be heckled (or even questioned) than fear.

Where did the BBC get that conclusion? There's no quote, it's just inserted as an assertion, and you're all buying it without question.

Sorry somebody is attacking you.

Fine, then use those arguments. Don't try to whip up hysteria by using two bills that have been off the table for months, and that were introduced by Democrats.

I googled that house bill, and found the spam comment in those exact words on a bunch of blogs.

ginmar, you mean they banned all of Livejournal from access by soldiers, or just your journal?

Randall P. writes: my overall problem with vaccinations is the steady stream of disinformation that few people question anymore,

You demonstrate yet again your cluelessness. There is an active anti-vaccination movement in the US, and it's been around for at least 20 years. Even mainstream parenting magazines discuss the controversy.

If you think no one is questioning vaccination, you are willfully keeping your head in the sand. Now if you want to argue that no one *rationally* questions vaccination, I'd agree with you; but I don't think that's your position at all.

Stop thinking of yourself as a freedom fighter, the only one smart enough to question the status quo of vaccination.

Randall P. writes: My whole beef with vaccines is that no one questions them anymore. They just get them.

Wow, you must really live out in the sticks. But you have Internet...so I'm wondering how you can have missed the major parenting movement over the last 20 years that's anti-vaccine? You're by no means the only person questioning them. I remember reading about it in Mothering magazine before I ever had kids, and my oldest is 18 now.

For example, if there's no link to autism and vaccines, then why did they remove themerosol from the latest generation of vaccines?

A lot of people are allergic to thimerosol. It used to be used as a preservative in contact lens solution, too, but they took it out because so many people were allergic. That's all. I used it, my eyes got red and irritated, they switched to non-thimerosol preservatives, my eyes cleared up. No autism here! In fact I'm pretty well socialized for a science fiction geek!

The reason for the gonorrhea treatment for babies is that they can contract it while traveling down the birth canal, not because they might have had sexual contact. See, for example, this NIAID fact sheet, which includes this statement: Infected women also can pass gonorrhea to their newborn infants during delivery, causing eye infections in their babies. This complication is rare because newborn babies receive eye medicine to prevent infection.

bellatrys: The person who was fired after heckling at the Bush rally was there on a ticket provided by the client. The client who was offended by his heckling. In other words, the client would not have provided a ticket had he known it would be used to heckle.

So it's a lot more complicated than just "his political speech offended a client and therefore his employer fired him." He was only there courtesy of the client.

I think it's misleading to use this as an example of how speech under your legal name might get you fired. The correct lesson here is to exercise your right to free speech on your own dime, not on somebody else's, and even that is limited (e.g., some public employees are free from discipline based on speech even while on duty).

I used a pseudonym on LJ. Then I was outed, without my permission, on Usenet. It's not like the pseudonym was completely opaque: it's the username part of my email addy.

The thing is, in the near future (sometime in the next 60 days) I'm changing my legal name. I'll still be the same email addy and LJ, though.

I didn't watch it, but reading the furor over this particular section made me wonder why people are assuming he was stupid and unprepared. Why did you believe him? You keep saying he lies, so why believe this one?

I doubt he was unprepared; I bet that was the prepared response. He's corrupt enough to do it. I'm not at all surprised he'd say that, because I doubt he ever thinks about his mistakes. But he's smart enough (or his handlers are) to realize he needs an in-character response to that question, and I'd just bet this one was formulated just in case.

Winds of Change has an interesting thread going on this subject, specifically about Little Green Footballs. Charles Johnson defends himself in the comments. My perception of LGF is that the hateful stuff is in the comments. He gets over 3,000 comments per day, and makes no attempt to moderate them, although if his attention is caught by a particularly nasty comment he will delete it, and he admits to banning some people along with entire IP blocks (such as AOL).

My younger son, who is 13, tells me that Nine Inch Nails is an old band.

I felt compelled to answer this because I detected a certain faint aroma of “People in poverty are there because of their own choices,” which sort of defeats the whole article’s point,

I'm not surprised there's an aroma, because I do believe that many people are remaining in poverty because of the choices they make. I also believe that there is conspiracy-level intent to limit their choices. Like you, I made it out of poverty. Unlike you, there was no luck involved--it was social welfare programs that kept me alive as a child, and my own hard work and choices (like not to have a baby while in high school, or not to do drugs, or not to run up charge cards) that made it possible for me to get good jobs and eventually to own a home.

Ms. Payne admits *in the article* that she bought stuff she wanted, not just stuff she needed. She had a tv, vcr, email addy (computer? internet access?), answering machine--enough stuff that someone helped her rent a truck to move.

She also chose to have 4 kids she couldn't support, left a marriage when she couldn't support herself or her kids, and apparently didn't do enough investigation about whether she'd actually be able to earn enough to pay off her college loans before deciding to incur them. Even with her limited choice field, she's shown no record of taking full advantage of what's available to her. The only good trait portrayed in the article is that she's a hard worker.

I don't argue with the proposition that there is intent (systemic) to keep people down, to make it difficult to get out of poverty. But Ms. Payne made a lot of choices that could have gone differently. She managed to run up $10,000 or more in credit card debt, but didn't choose to spend the $250 to get the dentures fixed? She incurred almost $20,000 in student loans to get a 2-year college degree, but couldn't find a job in her field? She apparently accepted a minimal divorce settlement, and it's at least implied that she could have received more. Where are her kids, why aren't they helping her?

I don't understand what you mean when you say she's there to keep us in line. Care to expand?

Wenceslas is a traditional name in my mother's family. At least one boy child in every generation has been named that, or our family's nickname for it , "Lalo," for the last 6 generations.

"Become" a Christian? He was raised one, raised in the Catholic church. He doesn't get cut any slack for being a recent convert.

Thanks for commenting, Melissa; I'm very glad you found comfort in your husband's letter. I hope your baby is healthy and your love for your husband can be shared with your children.

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