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Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. Please add interesting links of your own in the comments.

• Fair go nation has gone | The Australian

– Quote:”Research in the book and on a supporting website – www.equalitytrust.org.uk – shows that once societies pass a basic threshold of wealth, equality of income becomes more important than the total wealth of the society or even the average wealth of its citizens. That means there is more benefit in levelling out the wealth than in increasing it, a suggestion that raises serious questions about the endless drive for economic growth.”

• No science in Plimer's primer | The Australian

– A review from an astrophysicist finds embarrassingly wrong statements in Plimer’s book. I used to admire Plimer.

• Knowing your place

– Some meta-analysis on the English class system prompted by Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go”, which I now absolutely have to read.

• Attracting Women to Rails

– Quote: “So often the discussion it seems to get derailed into a debate on whether people “should” be offended by an incident (with the usual claims that anyone who isn’t prudish should be just fine with images of sexy women or discussion of women’s sexiness), rather than acknowledging that making a subset of your audience uncomfortable is a problem. What also gets lost is that images or comments don’t necessarily have to be offensive in and of themselves to make some uncomfortable, particularly when they are used in a professional context. Just making the atmosphere feel like a straight boy’s club is enough to make some women feel unwelcome.”

• Rules For Media Coverage of Feminists

– Quote: “Stories involving feminists, by definition, must always be controversial, because feminism and feminists cannot be taken as uncontroversial things.”

• "A lot more problems down the road"

– Quote: “While stalking is not always a precursor of violence, we have heard stories like this one far too many times to continue acting as though violent crimes, including homicide, only bear a tenuous relationship to a history of stalking.”

• Murder Case Highlights Why Minimizing Early Sexual Assaults Is Dangerous

– Quote: “Many people talk about acquaintance rape and stranger rape using the premise that they are never committed by the same people and are therefore unrelated. This case is the latest example which disproves that premise.”

• U.S. Soldier Convicted of Rape and Murder of 14-Year-Old Iraqi Girl

– Quickhit just to note that the bastard got convicted

• Again I Ask Myself: What Does It Take?

– Triggers – a woman dies after being given a date rape drug, and although a man is charged with murder he is still not charged with rape

Categories: linkfest

Tags: blogging, Read-ems