Council of Europe calls for abortion rights
Tuesday, 18 March 2008 17:57
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0318/abortion.html?rss

The Council of Europe has called on Ireland to decriminalise abortion.

The Council’s Committee on Equal Opportunities says all member states should guarantee women the right to abortion.

The report calls for abortion be decriminalised, saying a ban does not reduce the number of abortions but can lead to more dangerous and clandestine procedures.
Advertisement

The committee says it is concerned about conditions that it says restrict the effective access to safe abortion in member states.

The report recommends that all 47 countries, which make up the Council of Europe, should guarantee women the right to have an abortion and promote cheaper contraception, along with improved sex education, to try to reduce the number of women who seek abortions.

The recommendations will be discussed by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly next month.

The Chief Executive of the Irish Family Planning Association, Niall Behan, says there has been a big shift in opinion on the issue of abortion in Ireland in the last 20 years.

He said it would take time to achieve a consensus on the issue but that today’s report was a step in the right direction.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

It’s about time.
And yes I am prochoice and yes ideally there would be free contraception, proper sexual education
and a proper non stigmatized support system for those who give up thier child for adoption,
so that the chance of a woman facing the decision about abortion are less.

As it stands we are exporting the problem and causing undue stress and hardship on women in having to travel and find the money needed.
How many ? 1999 to 2006 the numbers are just over 6,000 women a year to the UK this does not include those that went to holland or any where else in europe.

http://www.positiveoptions.ie/index.php
http://www.ifpa.ie/abortion/index.html

found here http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/03/15/cool-stuff-charles-schulz%e2%80%99s-the-watchmen/
And is by “http://explodingmoose.blogspot.com/”
And just in case people don’t know The Watchman movie is in production
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/

Yes That ‘The Watchmen’, href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen”
And again Alan Moore is having nothing to do with the venture.

Upon both my off spring not being under my feet for over 30 mins and after hearing no dissent or disagreement from them in that time I went to investigate and found them giggling and playing chess on the pc.
The game would plot the possible moves so that the 7 year old didn’t feel quiet so lost.
They were happily on their 3rd game so I told them they were good kids for playing so well together
and went back to preparing dinner. About 5 mins later the ten year old came down for a drink and grinning broadly informed me that he had P(a)wned his sister winning 2 out of 3 games…..

I played tomb of horrors as one of the first games when I hit college.
Before that I had read a lot of his books.
For me a world with out D&D and rpg would be a world with out flowers or bread.

I think John Kovalic expressed it best
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/do…ed/146833.html

http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060558123&WT.mc_id=author_AmerGods_FullAccess_022208

If any of ye have not read this yet, well now you have no excuse.

No, no, no, not mine.

4 dice owning dudes are getting married this year.

I am tempted to get them all a holding bag to retire their dice into…

Each of them have been part of some of the most fun and intresting games I have taken part in,
be it in college, in my home, at Gealcon and online playing epoch.

So in order of their impending doom; Guy, Anto, Ed, and Mike

May you have more joy in your marriage as a husband then you have had as a gamer,
May you your luck and love save you from any critical fails,
May you never suffer npc’s interfering in your partnership,
May you learn each other’s stats and working together over come all that comes your way,
Much love and best wises as you start your new adventures.

My Mother, she told me no end,
“If you got a tooth, you got a friend”
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time… I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way,
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fiIlin’s
Injections and drillin’s
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine,
“Two amalgum,” he’ll say, “for in there.”

How I laughed at my Mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath,
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s me they are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Both of my brats have had fillings, this is a fact I have to say I struggle with and it is not for the lack of getting them to brush their teeth but apprently that more and more of our food is full of hidden sugars.
I do cook a lot of meals from scratch and the fruit bowl is always available to them and sweets and biscuits are treats but still they know what it means to be drilled.

The feast of St Valentine is a Christian corruption of the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, where, as part of a fertility rite, men would smear themselves with blood, dress up in animal skins and run around the city whipping young women with cords made of goatskin.

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

The celebration during the Late Republic and Empire

The Lupercalia festival was in honor of the She-Wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, which translates out into “Wolf Festival.” The festival was celebrated near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine (where Rome was founded, see Livy, Book I), to expiate and purify new life in the Spring. The Lupercal cave, which had fallen into a state of decay, was rebuilt by Augustus; the celebration of the festival had been maintained, as we know from the famous occurrence of it in 44 BC. A highly decorated cavern 50 feet below Augustus’ palace in the correct approximate location was discovered by archeologists in October 2007, that may prove to be the Lupercal cave when analyzed.

The religious ceremonies were directed by the Luperci, the “brothers of the wolf (lupus)”, a corporation of priests of Faunus, dressed only in a goatskin, whose institution is attributed either to the Arcadian Evander, or to Romulus and Remus. The Luperci were divided into two collegia, called Quinctiliani (or Quinctiales) and Fabiani, from the gens Quinctilia (or Quinctia) viz. gens Fabia; at the head of each of these colleges was a magister. In 44 BC. a third college, Luperci Julii, was instituted in honor of Julius Caesar, the first magister of which was Mark Antony. In imperial times the members were usually of equestrian standing.

The festival began with the sacrifice by the Luperci (or the flamen dialis) of two male goats and a dog. Next two patrician young Luperci were led to the altar, to be anointed on their foreheads with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off the bloody knife with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh; the smearing of the forehead with blood probably refers to human sacrifice originally practised at the festival.

The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called Februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth. This tradition itself may survive (Christianised, and shifted to Spring) in certain ritual Easter Monday whippings.

Oddly enough when I sat down to dinner with my brats my son start to tell me about Lupercalia, that is until the pasta fell of my fork which had paused half way to my mouth as I sat agog listening to him and he and his sister fell about laughing at me.

Well nice to see he is getting an ‘intresting’ education despite being in a catholic school.