Fetus Updates
At one end of the spectrum, This judge says fetuses don’t count as “persons” even for such piddly purposes as placating the Transportation Gestapo carpool lanes. At the other, this letter writer thinks fetuses are persons for purposes of the 14th Amendment, and apparently thinks any expectant mother who would abort one must also be a state. In the middle, this humble blogger is a proud father to a fetus, for whom he has yet to come up with a blog-name (the last one having been used by a former fetus, Baby Xrlq, who is no longer a fetus and arguably, no longer a baby either). Any suggestions would be appreciated.
UPDATE: Wanna race?
UPDATE x2: Cool, a Pajamalanche!
UPDATE x3: Michael Williams has more.
January 11th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
To be fair, I think the rules for carpool lanes should be set so that nobody under the age of 16 counts, either – eg, if the point is to reduce the number of cars on the road, you should only get credit for the number of licensed drivers.
January 11th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Congrats!
January 11th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Congratulations!
I’m jealous!
January 11th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Yay! Congrats to you and the Mrs.!
I vote for Xrlq 3.0 :)
January 11th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Didn’t someone have a clever blog-name for Mrs. X? This next one should be her “Jr.”
January 11th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Good News and Bad…….
First the good news: My migraine is much better. My usual remedy: a long VERY HOT shower, Tylenol Flu (which they evidently no longer make due to Psudoephedrine issues…. but Walgreens does. Yay!), and a nap. Somedays it just takes……
January 12th, 2006 at 5:57 am
[...] To Xrlq on another child, thought that’s a strange way to announce it. [...]
January 12th, 2006 at 6:39 am
Congrats! Now get out of the carpool lane.
January 12th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Aphrael: that’s a decent point, but wouldn’t it be fairer still to abolish carpool lanes outright, or to fund them exclusively through a tax on carpools? I’m not sure there is a “fair” way to force 100% of the driving population to pay for a perk that is only available to 5-10% – and I’m saying that as part of the privileged 5-10%.
CW: Nah, I’m staying put, at least when on company business. Fetuses may not count as “persons,” but surely corporations do, right?
January 12th, 2006 at 10:02 am
XRLQ – the argument on the other side is that everyone benefits from that perk, because to the extent that it encourages people to carpool, it reduces the number of cars on the road and therefore alleviates congestion.
Of course this is only true if the number of cars in the carpool lane is not substantially lower than it would be if it were a general-use lane.
January 12th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Which, of course, it always will be, for at least two reasons. First, this fascist little experiment has never been a very effective incentive to carpool, as anyone who has driven at rush hour on any freeway with a carpool lane can attest. Second, even if there were a significant incentive effect, that effect would drop off precipitously as the carpool lane usage rate began to approach that of general use lanes.
To paraphrase the old Arnold, we don’t have a carpooling problem, we have a not-enough-freeways-for-our-huge-population problem. To paraphrase the new one, I say build it. Unfortunately, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, at least not in SoCal.
January 12th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Wouldn’t you need the whole board of directors in there with you? Unless, as friends of mine have done, you are in charge of your own, one-man corporation.
January 12th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
For migrains Advil Migrain always takes away the pain for me. If I take it when my eyes start to bug out I don’t feel any pain at all, just some pressure in the head. And I can keep working/playing.
For names you can use the two I wanted for my kids (but, of course my wife wouldn’t let me!) Boy= Wolfgang Clyde; Girl= Chalawanda
January 12th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
CW: nah, any officer can bind the corporation. You don’t need the whole board to sign a contract, why should they all have to ride in your car for that “person” to have a presence there?
JB: thanks for the suggestions, but Wolfgang definitely won’t work, as Xrlq 2.0′s (real) middle name is Wolf.
January 12th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Congrats, Xrlq! And, thanks. But I won’t race ya; I don’t even have a fetus yet. We’re still embryonic over here!