Franks in a petulant mood

I don’t get Stephen Franks. His candidacy started in a somewhat odd fashion and has continued to bemuse. I don’t agree with Franks but I understand he’s a smart lawyer, that he’s a rationalist (of the economic variety) and that he’s reputed to be logical and thorough. 

I’ve blogged about Franks attempt to rebrand himself as something other than the ultra-dry conservative and a few weeks ago he was clearly trying to present himself as a real kiwi-joker with his stupidly sexist humour. Initially, it appeared Franks realised his error and offered his apologies to anyone offended - a sensible approach I thought - however he’s now petulently declaiming the so-called wowsers and Labour stooges who dare to criticise him.

My post last weekend of the Danish Road Safety Council’s traffic safety spoof ran into the same culture, abetted by abysmal journalistic standards. With pursed lips the Herald reported ” a storm” erupting over the posting. The storm was one email from a Labour stooge purporting to be from a National voter but not verified when the journalist concerned called me. In all my subsequent email traffic I had only encouragement.

A Labour stooge - how’d we arrive at that conclusion? What evidence does Franks adduce to support his claim? Let’s see if we can follow this compelling logic.

• (A) a named individual, Adam Prouse (Whitepages reveals several records of people who could be Adam Prouse), claiming to be a National Party member, criticises Franks sexist humour
• (B) some people are critical of Franks at kiwiblog
• (C) people critical of Franks and other Nats who post on kiwiblog are often Labour stooges

A perfect example of Logic 101 and Lewis Carroll’s soriteses:

• Some A are B
• Some B are C
• Therefore A is C

Of course this does not cohere with Carroll’s laws, nor is it remotely logical or credible. It is an attempt by Franks to avoid responsibility for his school-boy humour. As the smart lawyer we understand Franks to be, he could verify his claim by simply asking Party HQ if they have a record of an Adam Prouse.

Evil Abortion Pill Destroys World

Davey’s weird yank to the Right this Election year continues unabated.  This time it’s dog whistling to the Religious Right with a seemingly innocuous post about the Morning After Pill.  Of course, as DPF planned, the thread recklessly plunged off-track as a group of males (well mostly) waded onto a discussion about Abortion. Let’s just clear this up:  The Morning After Pill is a high-dose contraceptive pill. That’s it. A Contraception Pill. It has exactly the same impact on a woman’s body as regular contraception only, because of the level of the dosage, it’s more likely to prevent a pregnancy from happening.  To the religious right, the Morning After Pill is equivalent to abortion because “life commences at conception”.  But to the rest of us, especially those who appreciate the biology of pregnancy and how frequently a normal women loses fertilised eggs (zygotes) before they implant successfully - if you were going to talk about the start of a pregnancy, you’d talk about pregnancy being from time the zygote successfully implants itself into the uterine wall.  The Morning After Pill is not abortion.  It’s just a medical means of upping the chances of either preventing ovulation or having a period even if your partner managed to fertilize an unattached egg.