Because if you use your primary email account, one where your user id might contain your full name and perhaps other identifying details in your sign-off block, you might be setting yourself up for cyberstalking woes. There are weird folks… Read More ›
ethics & philosophy
ideals, breaches, disappointments and inspirations
Fun with blogs and Christian Kerr, who doesn’t understand them
Christian Kerr was never my favourite Crikey! contributor back in the day, so I wasn’t especially aware of his opinion on many issues due to mostly skipping his byline (basically I avoided anything by him that was not straight political… Read More ›
Why I haven’t blogged on the Victorian abortion decriminalisation bill
Because Helen at Cast Iron Balcony covered all the issues so well that I had nothing to add – read it there.
Peeve OTD: Tolerance versus Acceptance
Why is it, when some poor specimen of a social conservative writes something breathtakingly offensive/stupid/bigoted/hateful, and gets responses of “hey, that was breathtakingly offensive/stupid/bigoted/hateful”, the response is all too often snark along the lines of “this must be the famous… Read More ›
Ksubi topless party
This guest post is from Mindy, a regular commentor here and a contributor to the For Battle! group blog. It’s not often that I applaud the actions of a brewery, but in this case Fosters deserves a mention for taking… Read More ›
Double standard watch: the “gay panic” defence
Yet another lowlife who murdered a man and stole things from him has claimed that the victim made sexual advances, and that he became “enraged” and “had no other choice” than to slay the victim. He’ll probably end up being… Read More ›
Carnivalia, transgenderism and the gender binary
Two feminist blogging carnivals were published this week: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 53 The 17th Carnival of Radical Feminists Both carnivals contain plenty of excellent posts to ponder, provoke and especially to disturb. Which brings me to the posts that… Read More ›
SF Sunday: machines and freedom from slavery
From my Quotes File (which you can see serving up random quotes at the bottom of the sidebar):
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)
I find the search for the perfect robot society a continuing feature of SF novels,
The HuffPo is off my reading list
That’s it, I guess. I’ve had the impression the Huffington Post was going downhill for a good long time now, and it’s now confirmed. This, on the front page?
Is not funny or clever. It’s just downright creepy and exploitative.
UK Criminal Compensation Authority Blaming Rape Victims
Under guidelines meant to minimise compensation payouts for people who “contribute to their own ordeal during a criminal incident”, such as people taking part in the crime, or offering provocation for an attack, certain bureaucrats decided that women being out in the world socialising in a perfectly legal fashion were liable for provoking their own rapes, and cut their compensation payouts accordingly. Public outcry has meant that the decision has been reversed, but how could they have been so wrong headed in the first place?
It could be something to do with the way that the media reports rape, of course. Melissa reports [trigger warnings], and then responds to a typical Daily Mail women-blaming op-ed (the pictorial juxtaposition has to be seen to be believed):
The piece itself is just unrelentingly infuriating, as its male author offers up gems like:
Hoyden About Town 