(1) (I’ve posted this in the past, but it bears repeating) (and it happens a lot IRL, not just on the SDMB) I’m sick of people attempting to point out conservative hypocrisy by contrasting the phrase “pro-life” with some position or other. Bear in mind that I’m a pro-choice liberal here, but it is NOT in any way contradictory for someone to be (for instance) anti-abortion and pro-death-penalty. It might be if their justification for their anti-abortion stance was “all human life no matter what is sacred always period”. But usually, it isn’t. “Fetuses are human, and are clearly innocent. Innocent human lives should be protected. But humans who have committed murder should be executed” is a completely self-consistent and non-contradictory position.
Furthermore, arguing against a large amorphous group of people (like “conservatives”) by pointing out two positions that are generally, but not universally, held by them, and claiming that they are contradictory; is a fairly lazy and meaningless thing to do, unless you can pin down a single particular individual who is on the record as holding both positions. Not all “conservatives” are anti-abortion, and not all are pro-death-penalty.
(2) I’m really really sick of people villifying CGI effects and raving about any non-CGI effects and stunts. Some CGI is bad. Some is good. Some effects done with miniatures are bad. Some are good. Some live-human stuntwork is bad. Some is good. It’s sure as hell the case, though, that a movie/series like Lord of the Rings would have been VASTLY less effective without CGI.
It’s just a technique. If someone is overusing it, or using it badly, bash them for that specifically. But movies aren’t more “pure” in some elite pretentious erudite angelic fashion just because they have guys in rubber suits rather than CGI characters. Sure, sometimes CGI looks fake. And sometimes without CGI every stunt or fight scene is conventiently filmed from far enough away that you can’t quite make out the actor’s faces. Get over it.
“Fox News and Michelle Malkin (to name a couple) are terrible conservative bastions of biased thought and any information that comes from a source that’s remotely related to them is automatically suspect and dismissed summarily without actually reading what is said. Here’s a link to the DailyKos blogger that comments on the New York Times article that proves it.” (and vice versa, but far, far more often this way)
I think the constrasting of “pro-life” the words with the other stances that many “pro-life” people seem to hold has actually done some good.
For instance, I recently read an article about how some religious organizations are going to put more emphasis on the kids already around so that people will quit calling them on the pro-life stance that is actually more a pro-birth / pro-fetus stance. To me, this is a good thing and the article mentioned that this stance was being taken specifically because people were being called on their hypocrasy. Sometimes an hyperbolic argument makes people actually think about the long reach of their stance and makes them more careful about what explaining what they stand for.
True- it is not contradictory for someone to be anti-abortion and pro-death-penalty. It* is * contradictory for someone to be “pro-life” and pro-death-penalty. And that’s the problen. Anti-abortion is really anti-sex-(except sex for having a baby in Christian Wedlock). It is not in any way shape or form “pro-life”. So, yes, I will happily point out the glaring contradiction between calling yourself “pro-life” and then being in favor of executing dudes. In other words, I do not accept that the anti-abortion people are “pro-life” and thus they have no business calling themselves that.
A little over sensitive perhaps? I didn’t say you used it incorrectly, even if you did. It is used way too often and incorrectly. So often that it has lost any real meaning. Too many people use it as a synonym for trend or fad. It isn’t.
I can’t say your arguments lacks logic, but the term “pro-life” is just the term that people use. It’s not like there are 10 equally well known and understood terms that mean “anti-abortion” and people are consciously choosing to use “pro-life”. That’s just what the phrase is, and it’s hardly the fault of random rank-and-file anti-abortion people that the term that they end up using, becuase it’s THE term, is “pro-life”. Now, whatever twisted genius of issue-framing came up with that term and popularized it in the first place, THAT person might be someone who you should have issues with.
“I’m not homophobic, because I’m not scared of gays, I just hate them.”
“I’m not anti-Semitic, because I don’t hate all Semites, just Jews.”
“It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a theist. That’s why I’m an agnostic, the only logical position!”
“It’s completely unfair that people of group X can use word Y to refer to people of group X without giving offense, but if I used word Y they would be offended!”
I hate CGI, but not because of any notions about aesthetic purity. It just looks fake and distracts me from the movie.
Example: Compare Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back to Yoda in Attack of the Clones. I’d much rather watch a fake-looking puppet than fake-looking CGI, because the CGI doesn’t even look like it’s part of the same set; with a puppet you can instinctively tell that this is a physical object, subject to gravity and balance and inertia just as we are. With CGI, no matter how hard they try, it never looks like a physical object. Maybe one day it will, but for now it just distracts me.
(One exception: Reign of Fire. Those dragons were the only CGI I’ve seen that felt instinctively “real” to me. That was awesome.)