Distracted

You're not exactly the easiest OTer to read. And that's cool and all, I'm not criticizing you, just saying, on occasion it takes a fair amount of effort. Onto your argument. Here is what I think is a better analogy: a trained surgeon, possessing of all the tools necessary for a circumcision in the rules of the art, including anesthetics (which, one can hope, are not a part of McDonalds' food), precise and sterile cutting devices, etc., decides to kidnap children and circumcise them, regardless of their will. That's against the law. No one will disagree with me. However, there's one difference between this case (coupled witht he McDonalds analogy) and the real one: the parents' will isn't kept in mind. The parents' will should be more important. Babies can't be sovereign over their own body. They don't even know what that means, let alone have the necessary thought processes to protect themselves. The parents are just doing what they think the child will be happy with 20 years down the line. Keep in mind even with all that it is still painful and done without consent of the person getting the operation. In any case im glad that is the only thing we do, imagine if we had a culture where parents could beat their kids faces in as a beauty modification. Why not? Sure they dont have concept of what it means, it just means that they cant knowling consent to operations, sex, tattoos, etc. until they have concept of the affects of doing so [18 years old in the US]. I support the parents rights in situations where iet is life threatening or painful to not do an operation but the kid is still too young to legally sign for themselves. Another thing what if parents dont have their best interest for their child, after all they could legally make you give up a kidney if they wanted. Do you think thats right? I dont think the potential to allow that nor circumcisions should exist at all. Once more, please show me statistics of people who were circumcised at birth and are not happy with it. Not a lot, but I don't see how that changes anything, especially considering some can't voice their opinion because they die from blood loss due to a botched operation. Many people die yearly from bad operations, does that mean those operations should be outlawed?

Do you have a source for this? A case where a child's kidney was taken from him for no reason but to... piss him off? I find this pretty hard to believe. Doesn't a blood donor have to be over 18 years? I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but here you can't give blood if you're under 18. So why would you be able to give a kidney under 18, without your consent? The only potential situation where I can ever see this happening is if one of the parents is terminally ill and in dire need of a kidney and the only compatible match is their child, but even then, I don't think that's allowed. Feel free to correct me on this. You've stated elsewhere in this thread that you're not against abortion, which implies you're pro-choice, meaning you feel that the parents should be able to, should have the freedom to choose whatever they feel is best. But when it comes to circumcision, you're suddenly anti-choice, instead opting for the person to get a circumcision themselves when they're over the age of consent, which is a painful and annoying procedure. When you're circumcised as a kid, it might hurt at that moment, the baby might cry a bit, but the baby won't remember the pain. The baby isn't even self-conscious enough to realize what pain is or what's happening. If adults are allowed to decide about the baby's life or death according to you, then why can't they decide themselves whether they want their kid circumcised? In the end, the effects on the person's life is close to nothing, it's not like your parents are attaching a big sign to your head saying you're an idiot and don't deserve to ever get paid. It's something that only a few people will see. The medical effects, both positive and negative, are debatable, but as far as I know, it's not a matter of life or death in the same way inserting radioactive material into a kid's heart would be. You stated somewhere else that people should be able to sue the hospital or their parents if they're unsatisfied with the fact that they're circumcised. You also acknowledge that there may be close to no one that would actually want to do this, but that the whole legal system should be changed for this one person. That's ridiculous. So should we be changing the whole legal system because some people think that homosexuality should warrant a death sentence? Should the whole majority change its ways because of a few people who have a specific opinion? Doesn't that go against the whole idea of democracy? And even then, what fault does the hospital have in performing a surgery with your parent's consent? Your guardian's consent is what legally counts as long as you're under-aged. It's this way for every kind of surgery to be performed on a minor. What are you gonna do? Sue the people who spent years raising you because you feel that your penis doesn't look nice? Omar already addressed your "If it were an accident" argument. If some accident happened on private property that caused someone's nose to be mutilated in the same a nose job would, the injured person would be able to sue. Neither he nor his parents wanted this to happen. It's like this for everything. If some baby had an abnormally large nose and the parents opted for corrective surgery, it'd be perfectly legal, but if an accident had some kind of mutilating effect on the kid's nose, of course they'd be able to sue. And to finish, the grammar nazi in me wants to say something. I tried to stop him, but he's a persistent bastard, so I apologize on his part in advance. When you want to put something between parentheses, use (), not []. [] is a way to modify a person's direct quote so it fits the context. So if someone said "I'm blue", you could quote him in a text without interrupting the sentence by saying that he says "[he's] blue." It's just something that was mildly bothering the grammar nazi in me, so again, sorry for nitpicking.

Yesterday was awesome. Started off boring, as most Saturdays do for me, but suddenly in the evening I got a call from my friends inviting me to a gig by some people I know that was apparently really close to where I live. Great times were had there. On the way back, though, I noticed a dead cat that was run over, lying on the middle of the street. It was like 1 am and there was barely any traffic, so I quickly put it on the side of the road, where it still is this morning. Also, while the apocalypse may not have happened yesterday, I did encounter two different roadkill animals, which is a rarity in the city, I can't recall seeing any in ages. And lastly, today, I got together with some friends for a school project, we filmed, but one of them couldn't come because they were sick, so that's delayed now. All in all, active weekend, it'll feel good to sleep tonight though.

The Hives' Introduce the Metric System in Time

I think that the way they reached their conclusion (I haven't read the article, so feel free to correct me) is pretty silly: the amount of I's has become larger while the amount of we's is lowering. How does that equal narcissism? If I say I love you, does that make me a narcissist? If someone makes a song about how they view the world, does that make them a narcissist? I think what this proves is that music is becoming a more personal thing, more artists are reflecting on their own lives. Though this argument can't be made for the mainstream pop music that's just meant to attract sales.

To add to this, broken music files that have a minute or two of silence before or after the first note.

In The Fade, by QOTSA. One of my favorite songs.

I was always taught circumcision was healthier, since bacteria and dirt can't pile up under the folds or something to that effect? Either way, what's the problem with circumcision? Honestly, once you're grown up you don't even remember being circumcised and it's not like it's some kind of handicap for life that you're receiving in the name of religion...

Yeah, why would we need to confirm New Zealanders are still there? Not like anyone cares about them? :P

To add to that, when I want to listen to music but I have to watch a video instead. Also, annoying school assignments that are just asking you to point out obvious things. Or my English teacher's tests, which usually include at least one part where you have to literally quote a text that's usually attached to the paper you're supposed to write on in an awkward way that ends up forcing you to turn the page constantly while copying the text. The question itself is dumb enough ("Find 3 instances in the text where X says she likes Irish breakfast" [actual question from my last exam]) and then you have to look for it, then spend the next minute turning the page around constantly to write the dumb sentences that say that X likes Irish breakfast. What's even the point of that question in the first place? While I'm talking about that, Belgium may be a great country for education, but I feel like the way languages are taught here is a bit strange. In less than a year of German we've been taught so many words, and out of all those words maybe I'll be able to actually use 5% of them in an actual real-life situation. They're the most obscure words, is what I'm saying, things like the name for the red/green figures on traffic lights or a place where you can only drink wine (but that isn't a wine cellar). And on top of that, we haven't been properly taught how to ask questions, or how to ask/give directions, or how to order in a restaurant, or anything that could actually be of use. Damn, that school-related rant ended up being a bit longer than I expected. P.S., crappy internet annoys me too.

I saw a gay pride flag hanging on the local city hall. It replaced the three local flags that are usually there and was the only one flown. Did anything gay happen yesterday that I for some reason never heard about?

It's still Wednesday, Lizzy :) Also, big congrats on the baby :D In my day (or week) today: busy. A lot of larger group projects with short deadlines combined with a poetry evening organized by the school where I'll be playing guitar. Also, that poetry evening is tonight, I'm leaving for it in ten minutes.

That's [cabbage]: haters may make the thing more famous, but as long as there are only haters making money off it will be hard. There are certainly people that like mainstream music, it's because it's mainstream that it's hated and not vice-versa. Just think of the logic in your statement: you're basically saying that record companies should try to make something that is hated by as many people as possible to make money. That just doesn't make sense.

by Johnossi. First time seeing the video, just what the hell.

Neither could I, I honestly thought it was a joke, but this one actually turned out pretty damn well for a fifth in a series of mediocre action flicks.

Fast Five. It was actually surprisingly good; action-packed from start to finish with some of the most exciting stunts, despite ignoring any kind of all that boring science stuff and going way over-board. It just fit the movie, you know? They didn't try too hard to make it into a deep love story or anything, focusing mostly on the action, but despite that, the characters were lovable, you ended up really standing behind them. All in all, good action movie.

Mary Jane by the Vines.

Today was a first rehearsal with a group of poets and musicians for a poetry evening that's being held by my school. I'm one of the musicians, by the way. It went better then I expected, looking forward to the actual evening next Wednesday.

Take Me Out, by Franz Ferdinand.

This'll sound weird, but the speed of time. Damn it time, stop going so fast. It's already past midnight?

Regarding not being able to run for president as an atheist, wouldn't black people or women have said the same thing about 30 years ago? Just something I considered. @Furah, about people being exiled from religious communities for being atheistic, that's an unfortunate side-effect of the reason people believe in the first place; a believer will believe their religion is right and the others are wrong. It's a simple fact, because they wouldn't go for that religion if they didn't believe that. In a way though, going that far with it that you kick your children out because they're atheist, is a form of extremism, albeit a relatively common one it seems. I won't deny that it's a bad thing, because it is, and I'm speaking from experience; if I were to tell my parents I'm agnostic I'd probably be viewed as a devil. The point I was trying to make got lost somewhere in the process of making it, though. See it as agreeing with what you were saying, because I can't honestly tell you I believe that's a good thing.

The Dark of the Matinée by Franz Ferdinand.

Are they strict on wording use? Because if that is the case, it seems to me like there is no limit whatsoever to the length of your phrases, regardless of the amount of [cabbage] in the sentence that is meant to just stuff the sentence and make the sentence longer, as you as a student should have the right to make the sentence as long as you wish without the suppressive forces of the school or university (who happen to be representatives of the government) standing in the way of all your [cabbage] in a single sentence. It is in that spirit that I suggest to you to [cabbage] your way out of it by using sentences that are longer than the average sentence, since it is clear from these long sentences that very little can be said in many words.

I wouldn't say organized religion is encouraged in western countries at all, if anything, it's looked down upon. These days, people have to defend being religious versus in the past, where atheism had to be defended. Though I won't lie and say that organized religion doesn't cause problems, especially as someone who originally comes from Egypt I've seen first-hand how people bring religion into things that should be kept separate from religion (specifically, government), which is something that mostly stems from a bad education system; some people don't know better than to follow these politicians lest they go to hell.