fAtSY'S hOUSE
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© 2009
HR: bigpapanewguinea [at] yahoo
Double X: The growing power of the men’s rights movement.
These men’s rights activists, or MRAs, have long been written off by domestic-violence advocates as a bombastic and fringe group of angry white men, and for good reason. Bernard Chapin, a popular men’s rights blogger, told me over e-mail that he will refer to me as “Feminist E,” since he never uses real names for feminists, who are wicked and who men “must verbally oppose … until our flesh oxidizes into dust.”
Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’ | Raw Story
The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.
Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program. …more…
Ottawa Citizen: An appalling betrayal.
What a bitter spectacle: MPs from all parties, except the Bloc Québécois, caving to a decades-long campaign by disgruntled gun owners, to U.S.-inspired attack advertising in targeted ridings and to self-interest to issue a death warrant to the long-gun registry.
The symbolism could hardly be more poignant — well, yes, it could be. Our parliamentarians missed the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre, which inspired the creation of the registry, by a month.
It is difficult to say who behaved most cynically. New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, a founder of the venerable White Ribbon campaign to end violence against women, stood by mutely while 12 of his 36 MPs voted with the Conservatives to kill the registry.
It was a free vote, true, but he could at least have expressed strong disappointment, or disapproval. Instead, he offered this craven excuse: “Some of our members voted in favour to send the bill to committee.”
No they didn’t. His rural MPs voted to save their sorry seats; they capitulated to a well-orchestrated disinformation effort, rather than fighting back with reasoned argument and proposed improvements to the existing registry — rather, that is, than appealing to values, values they conveniently ditched to save their skins. …more…
thestar.com>> DiManno: Modest crowds greet royals in Newfoundland.
“From the dig, the motorcade went clear across town by motorcade – it took about 30 seconds – to the United Church, pre-filled with invited guests.” …more
Edit much?
“You could hardly call this work!”
Hawaii Chair Infomercial (via InfomercialReviewer)
BBC NEWS | Health | Feeling grumpy 'is good for you'.
In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.
While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.
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The University of New South Wales researcher says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain “promotes information processing strategies”.
TIME: 10 Endangered Monuments.
The World Monuments Fund released its 2010 watch list of the most endangered pieces of architecture around the world.
#7 Craco, Italy, was once a thriving village built along a steep hill in the southern province of Matera. But in the 1950s, portions of the town — which had been inhabited since at least the 8th century, and possibly earlier — were damaged by a series of earthquakes. In 1963, following a massive landslide, Craco’s 1,800 residents abandoned the village for a nearby valley, leaving behind a ghost town of desolate buildings. Craco’s earthquakes abated in the 1970s, but its residents never returned.
guardian.co.uk: Drug adviser quits over David Nutt cannabis row.
A member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has resigned in protest at the government’s treatment of its head, who was forced to step down last week after saying that cannabis was less harmful than alcohol or nicotine.
Professor David Nutt’s comments last week led the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to call on him to resign. Today, Dr Les King told the BBC that he had decided to step down because he felt Johnson had denied Nutt’s “freedom of expression”.
Nutt also incurred the wrath of ministers when he claimed that cannabis had been upgraded to class B against scientific evidence and for political reasons.
Johnson said today that he respected Nutt’s views but the adviser had “crossed the line”. …more
The Chosun Ilbo: Korea's Internet Is Mired in a Microsoft Monoculture.
What is the problem? For one thing, accessing many Korean websites requires jumping through hoops not found anywhere else in the world. This may mean installing unfamiliar software programs, one to ensure secure access, another to protect against keystroke tracking, another for personal firewall protection, and on top of that, an antivirus program, all to be able to do some banking online. Nowhere else are websites so complicated and inconvenient.
It is also a uniquely Korean peculiarity that the programs needed for access to secure websites are compatible only with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Many are based on the ActiveX framework from Microsoft. And while there exist other technologies that perform the same function, none are in use in Korea. As a result, web browsers such as Firefox used by over 20 percent of users worldwide have no presence here.
The average computer user may not care whether it is ActiveX or something else that allows convenient and secure access. But that is misguided. In the event of worldwide Internet chaos, as was the case in January 2003 or during the DDoS attacks in July, Korea gets hit the hardest. Its online environment has become one where users habitually hit “yes” for every dialog box that pops up and install programs without a second thought.
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The following is from a post earlier this month on a blog maintained by British freelance IT experts: “Korea’s excellent Internet infrastructure may be useless as long as its software programs are adopting outdated technologies.” Korea is like an oxcart going along a highway. …more
Dancing man wearing a horse mask cooks wild mushrooms.
(via mrhorseshoe)
