Jim Alfredson

I don't think your friend is an asshole, either. The topic of this thread refers to the guy in the story I linked. Obviously, every case is different. And I don't blame you for not having sympathy for the woman, but not having sympathy for the child, who had no choice in this matter, is rather callous, imo.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...00318/1007/NEWS

Bullshit.

Yes, I would encourage her to sue for support, even if she deliberately tricked someone. And I'd also make damn sure that money was spent solely on the kid and nothing else AT ALL. Why? Because again, this idea that the man deserves none of the blame, that he was bamboozled, and that by paying for the child he's assuming 100% of the blame as the victim is bullshit. My daughter would still have to carry the pregnancy to term (not exactly an easy task), she'd still have to give birth to the child (not exactly an easy task), she'd still have to raise the child from an infant to the age of 18 (the hardest thing in life to do that there is). All the guy has to do is pay some money per month. It seems to me he's getting off easy. No. The message I'm sending is take responsability for your actions, whether or not they are the result of being "duped", especially since an innocent human life is concerned.

Remember that next time you vote then. There's at least one political party that feels that same exact way. This is getting silly. You're telling me that the laws of nature are trumped by the laws of man? Tell that to the next hurricane. What stipulations? How are you going to prove deception? How are you going to prove that she commited fraud? If there are plain facts that can easily be laid out, sure (such as medical records indicating she was never on birth control or vice versa, medical records saying that her doctor told her she was infertile). But it all comes down to he said / she said, unless some sort of contract is signed. That's because a human being isn't a piece of merchandise. I thought we did away with that notion back in Lincoln's time. So you want the government to get into the game of defining, regulating, and making laws about intimacy? Even more-so than they already are, that is? Who says the man is accepting 100% of the "blame"? The mother still has to care for the child, right? She still has to physically bear him/her into the world, pay for the hospital bills, raise the child for 18 years. So just because the state demands the guy pay child support, he's shouldering 100% of the "blame"? That what Child Protective Services is for. They can take away your kid these days if you look at him/her funny. It's funny, because when I first read that article, the first thing I thought is, "These guys want to overturn Roe vs. Wade and they are using this lawsuit as an example." By saying that women have all the rights and men have none, you could frame the argument in a way that paints women's rights as being overbearing, based on Roe v Wade, and men the victim and then seek to overturn that.

Man strong, woman weak? Woman no can hurt man? Dude, that is wrong in so may ways. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that the situation of deciding whether or not to bear a child or abort a child lies with the woman because of the laws of nature, not the laws of man. There's nothing we can do to change that. Women carry children, it affects their lives and their bodies in ways that no one but them can ever understand and they have the right to choose what happens to their body. It is a source of power? Absolutely. Are you saying that anyone with any sort of power should have laws that limit that power and attempt to equalize it among everyone? Because obviously that would never work. Sure, there are cases in which a guy can get screwed (har har) by a women who tells him she's infertile or on birth-control or whatever in order to purposely deceive him and trap him. But it is still his choice to put himself in that situation and he has to deal with the consequences of that choice, deception or not. There are far, far more cases of a guy saying everything and anything under the sun to get between the sheets with a woman, knocking her up, and then scootin' when she gets pregnant and leaving her high and dry. That's what child support laws are for. Is there a plethora of women using those laws to entrap men? I don't think so. Regardless, in either case, it is the best interest of the child that needs protecting. Even if that child was not wanted and is the product of a scam by the mother, it is still YOUR child and you need to care for him/her at the very least financially. The fact that the article linked above mentions the "father's" disdain at having to give up his "dream car" (a frickin' Trans-Am?! C'mon, buddy...) is just laughable. Boo - fucking - hoo. The guy is a prick who doesn't want to accept responsability for his own actions.

I'll re-iterate again... there can't be any sort of "equal protection" in cases like these because the two sexes are not equal. Blame nature. If a man could bear a child, it would be a different matter. It would be like suing a company over not hiring you because you're a 90lbs, 5 foot woman and part of the job requires lifting 50lbs boxes over and over again. Sorry, but that's a job best made for someone different physically than you. Should that woman be able to sue the company for discrimination? The laws are going to discriminate against men because women have children, men do not. Women deal with a lifetime of periods and tampons and cramps and all that other shit and we do not. It's not equal and it never will be, therefor the laws cannot be equal.

It's the woman's body, it's the woman's choice.

Why would she lie about not having a child just to get pregnant and then abort? That doesn't make any sense. You wanna hear a BIG double-standard that has nothing to do with the laws of men? WOMEN HAVE BABIES, MEN DO NOT. Not much you can do about that. So yes, the man-made laws are going to be one-sided because nature is one-sided in this case.

I heard this the other day while driving to my dad's house after Zora and I had a nice lunch together. I thought it was pretty cool. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5249566

I'm all for that, but otoh, aren't there laws against bait-and-switch on the books to protect the gullible from the predatory? But how are you going to prove that? It boils down to "he said / she said" with a helpless child caught in the middle. It's better to err on the side of the kid, in my opinion. And if you're really concerned about getting trapped by a woman, don't have sex with her or use a condom. I have no sympathy for someone putting themselves in that situation.

Seems to me this is one of (if not the only...) instance in this man's world where a woman holds the upper hand and it shouldn't be surprising that men are trying to take that away from them, too. You play, you pay. It's as simple as that.

Then it seems like you would support the idea of this guy paying for the kid. Think about how much easier things would've been for your mother had your father given that financial support.

Sorry, it's bullshit. You wanna stick your dick in someone? Gotta be ready to pay the consequences. The child didn't make the choice to be born, either. So who's looking out for him/her? "I didn't want the child." So what? I didn't want to get in that fender-bender, but I still have to pay the insurance. It's called personal responsability. Kenny, your situation sounds tragic and quite a bit different than this guy. Two different situations, it sounds like. I hope things work out well.

That's about all I can say about this: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...STYLE/603090385

Never has the plot summary of a TV show sounded so ridiculous. Can you imagine the pitch meeting for this show? "So what's this pilot about?" "It's about a man who has a talking car and the two fight crime." "A talking car?" "A Pontiac Trans-Am." "A PONTIAC?!" "Trans-Am."

You should've gone up to him and said, "Steve Augeri!??! Oh man!!! Steve Augeri!!??! Dude, JOURNEY IS MY FAVORITE BAND!" And then when he said, "No, I'm sorry, I'm Kenny G," you say, "Oh.... man.... that sucks."

Hey jndrecords, next time post one thread, not three, talking about the same thing, ok? I don't appreciate the spam.

Is it a man-date? Is Chuck chaperoning?

Using a single harddrive as the only backup option is not very smart, imo. Much better to either use high-density tape, DVDs (dual-layer discs can hold up to 8.5gb these days) which are very inexpensive, a RAID array (ie, multiple harddiscs in a redundant array), or something like the Iomega REV drive, which uses removable discs that hold up to 35gb of info per disc. Again, if the data is important, then it's worth spending the money to protect. Harddrives are notoriously unstable and will die at a moment's notice. Or sometimes they'll last for years and years and years. You never know, and that's why it's dangerous to trust them.

Watch out! http://youtube.com/watch?v=X4xhS3dPTdk

Freddie King laying down some serious blues. http://youtube.com/watch?v=25MyKCYrXcs DAMN! Dig that collar, too!

Yep. The first rule of computers is if you don't have something saved in at least THREE places, you don't have it. Backup, backup, backup. I can't stress it enough.

Pretty cool! http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8969

Maybe I'm naive, but that seems a little over the top to me. I just remember growing up poor and having a very poor, single-mother family down the road. My brother and I befriended the two sons who were our own age and even though we were poor, my dad and mom always made them feel welcome and gave them whatever food we had. Numerous times they ate dinner with us. I saw my old friend about a year ago after many years of not hearing from him and he told me how much my family meant to him growing up. His family was so unstable that my mom and dad served as an example to him and he always felt welcome and loved. Maybe the grandmother just fell asleep on the couch and the kids wandered outside. Maybe she was working on something and told them not to go outside and they did anyway. I would be more concerned with why they seem so hungry. Maybe she doesn't have a lot of money, or maybe she doesn't have steady transportation to the store. While it is good to tell kids not to talk to strangers, I probably would've invited them in, gave them something to eat and then told them that in the future it probably wouldn't be wise to talk to people they don't know. But since they know me, they can come talk to me if they ever need anything. I would scope the situation out a bit more before getting the authorities involved, that's all. Maybe all the woman needs is a ride to the grocery store every now and then.