Palau would’ve loved this video
May 9th, 2012
A close up look at Deepstaria Enigmatica, a not very well known deep sea jelly fish.
(More, much more at MeFi.)
Categories: Natural World
We’ve always expanded rights
May 8th, 2012
Reverend Dr. William J. Barber tells how it is about the North Carolinian vote on Amendment One, that would limit marriage by law to that between one man and one woman.
Categories: Civil liberties, GLBT rights, Video
Water, Water everywhere, but not a reservoir in sight
May 6th, 2012
It’s been the wettest April on record in Britain, yet large parts of the country still have drought warnings and hosepipe bans. How is that possible? Could it just be that the water companies have been selling off reservoirs:
Gary Smith, GMB National Secretary for Water, accused Thames Water of “mismanagement” of the south-east of England’s water supplies.
He said: “It is simple mismanagement. A major city like London has run out of water twice in the space of five years. Thames Water must recognise that this is dismal water management in a country that is filled with water.
Its analysis found that 25 “bulk water storage facilities” in the south-east closed since the 1980s, including sites at Stoke Newington, Hornsey and Barnes.
That’s what you get when companies are allowed to profit from a necessity of life.
Categories: Life under Capitalism, UK politics
Life expectancy for girls in the American south is deteriorating
May 4th, 2012
Coincidence that it’s in the heartlands of the American south that this development is the most pronounced?
Categories: Blinded by Science, Feminism, US politics
“I choose my choice” considered harmful
May 2nd, 2012
Amanda Marcotte explains why the idea of value free choices in a feminist context can be harmful:
The problem with presenting “choice” as some abstract concept unmoored to social pressures and therefore as beyond critical analysis as the preference of the color of red over blue is that conservatives are happy to exploit that to continue supporting a system where women are systemically underpaid. As this exchange shows, it gives them cover even to push their favorite argument for continuing inequality, which is that the people who aren’t doing as well simply aren’t as worthy. Rachel calls it the “math is hard” argument, and Castellanos basically says, “Yep, that’s my argument.” To unpack that, what’s going on here is the argument from conservatives is that since women are mentally inferior, work outside the home is just harder for their wee female brains, and so they “choose” supposedly easier work that taxes their tender lady nervous systems less. Because of the “I choose my choice” rhetoric, they can bury this essentialist argument about inferior women in the language of “choice”, and it sounds nearly feminist-ish.
Choice in this context has been appropriated by the anti-feminist backlash in the same way “tolerance” has been appropriated by racist douchenozzles, to disguise reactionary bullshit with a bit of fake progressive covering. It works slightly better in this context, mainly because there was an argument to be made that second wave/post-war feminism was too dogmatic in its rejection of the traditional feminine roles of wife/mother/housemaker, which third wave feminism with its emphasis of empowerment and free choice reacted against, inadvertently providing cover to anti-feminist backlash as well.
As Amanda indicates though, while of course you should be careful about criticising individual women for their choices, feminists should always be aware that these choices are still far from free, that they carry consequences. It is therefore right and proper to criticise Ann Romney, not so much for her choice of being a stay at home mother, but more for how she allows herself to be used by those who’d want to see all women being forced into this, as well as for how her simplistic portrayal of mums vs career women carefully erases working mothers.
Categories: Feminism
Missing the forest for the trees
May 1st, 2012
Zunguzungu links to a hard luck story in the Marie Claire about an “accidental sex offender”. A nineteen year old boy who had sex with his 15 year old girlfriend, whose mother shopped him to the cops to “teach him a lesson”, which landed him on the Texas sex offenders register where he still is, fifteen years later, even though he’s now married to the same women and they have children together. It’s a tragic illustration of how sex offender registration laws can ruin the lives of people who were never supposed to end up on them, but whom political considerations keep on these registers — no politician up for re-election wants to be accused of being soft on rapists or pedophiles…
It’s a good argument against such registers: sex offender registration is for life, regardless of the severity of your crime and you can never get off it, except in very special circumstances. In effect sexual offenders are considered so dangerous that they have to be punished for life with all kinds of restrictions even when clearly they are not, something most other criminals do not have to deal with: a murderer can be rehabilitiated, a rapist cannot. Which is why sexual offender registers are quite likely doing more harm than good and should be abolished. You would think that the people in this case, being victims of this policy themselves, would understand. You’d be wrong:
Today, Nikki, 30, and Frank, 34, both say they unequivocally support laws that put sexual predators behind bars and protect children from attacks. “The registry isn’t a bad thing,” says Nikki. “It’s a good thing. It’s just that Frank shouldn’t be on it.”
Categories: Civil liberties, Policing, US politics
What social security is not
May 1st, 2012
From MeFi comes this handy linklist about social security, with which to refute the rightwing myths about it going broke:
Here’s what Social Security is not:
- going broke;
- a Ponzi scheme;
- expected to stop paying out benefits in your lifetime;
- bankrupting our nation or future generations.
Categories: Crisis? What Crisis?, US politics
Ironicaly the javelin is an anti-tank weapon
April 29th, 2012
Leaving aside the lack of consultation about this and the failure to ask the residents, we get to the question of what good these missiles could actually do. Presumably these missiles are to guard against aircraft piloted or hijacked by terrorists which might be flown into Olympic venues 9/11 style. In the event that such an aircraft was identified, unless it was shot down over open ground the wreckage will fall directly onto London streets and buildings. These hardly look like long range missiles; they look like the target must be in visual range. (Correct me if I am wrong here.) We knew from previous announcements that there would be missiles on board ships in the Thames, but I certainly didn’t realise that there would be more dotted around London. I expected the missiles that had been mentioned to be of the sort that could be fired at a plane a bit further away where plummeting debris might not have such an awful effect. Use of these missiles to bring down a hijacked jet would simply move the devastation from the intended target to somewhere else in London.
And yet despite this there are still people who’d think it a good idea to get the Olympic Games to the Netherlands.
Categories: War on Terror
QotD: the existential dillemma of the modern tory
April 25th, 2012
Carloshasanaxe neatly lays bare the existential dillemma of the modern tory: unhappy but unwilling to change:
A lot of people with addictive behaviors will admit they have a problem. They’ll talk your ear off of about it, and then ask you for a twenty. It’s a step, but it’s not a big step.
Since the modern world is not going to change to accommodate refugee50s — nor should it, since it would mean a radical diminishment of millions of peoples’ lives, and for what? just so he can feel like a real man? — he has to change himself to accommodate to the world. But his resentment forms so much of his self-identity, he has based his entire worldview around it.
It’s not a real change. He doesn’t have the empathy for it; he probably thinks empathy is a dirty word, since that’s become a partisan shibboleth.
Can he learn? Can he change? Can he grow? I would truly like to think so. But as it is, he’s pretty low. And so he’ll probably die unhappy, but blame everyone else first in the process.
The bullet next time
March 28th, 2012
Ajani Husbands sends a letter to his unborn, Black son:
You will not survive your encounter, so it is important to remember to show investigators, the courts, and critics alike that you were in fact the victim. This will be difficult as the assumption is ever-present that somehow, in some way, you did something wrong. That perhaps there was something different you could have, should have done. Perhaps you should have worn something different or walked in a less suspicious manner. I assure you, my son, this is not the case. Regardless of your actions, you were not meant to survive. All you can hope for is an easier postmortem investigation. This will be of some comfort to your mother and I as we cope through your loss, and so I ask you to follow these directions carefully.
See also how to talk to young Black boys about Trayvon Martin and Etan Thomas talking about how and what he will need to tell his six year old son soon.
Categories: Policing, Race, US politics
