So Cooper and I went for the walk at Asilomar and  (then around to Pacific Grove, but the PG library is closed on Mondays and then closed tomorrow because New Year, so I went to Carmel and its library. We took 17 Mile Drive instead of 68 and 1, and we stopped at Fan Shell Beach so that Cooper could hurl himself into the surf. The tide was coming in and I managed to get caught by a high wave and got soaked from the knees down – jeans, socks and shoes. Squelch squelch squelch down Dolores Street to Ocean Avenue and Lincoln Stree, squelch squelch squelch up the steps and into the libe. I got four appetizing books though.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I forgot to mention that I’m in California. Monterey Peninsula. I got here Saturday.

I thought I was going to take Cooper out for a walk along the coast at Asilomar at about ten this morning, but here I still am. Ok after lunch then.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Delhi rape-victim has been cremated. That’s the end of her.

[Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh said on Saturday that he was aware of the emotions the attack had stirred, adding that it was up to all Indians to ensure that the young woman’s death will not have been in vain.

What emotions would those be?

Let’s look again at what happened to her.

On the night of the attack, the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman’s body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

As the body of the raped and murdered Delhi woman was cremated, normal life continued.

In Kolkata, one of India’s four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.

She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.

Maybe the six men were amateur law enforcement officials, and the woman had done something wrong.

Or maybe it was just run of the mill misogyny, but that doesn’t get discussed much in … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Good move.

A member of the hacking group Anonymous broke into the website of Britain’s biggest abortion provider because he “disagreed” with the decisions of two women he knew over their pregnancy terminations, a court heard.

Quite right. Some guy “disagrees” with the decisions that two women made about their pregnancies, so he goes to work to mess up thousands of lives. Because it’s all about him, and his opinions are reason enough to cause harm to thousands of people.

Fortunately he ended up deciding not to publish the details he found by hacking, but not until after he had stolen them.

We’re seeing a lot of this kind of thing. Dude X decides he has a principled hatred of … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Meanwhile, that “Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk” article that I saw yesterday and meant to read and maybe comment on – that article disappeared on account of how Asher Wolf’s site got hacked. Guess what she and the hacker community needed to talk about.

I know a lot the community doesn’t want to talk about this stuff. I know I didn’t personally try to build a bridge between wannabe-crypto-users and hackers so I could deal with shitful sexism, misogyny and down-right crappy behavior.

I know most people would rather just delete a sexist webpage or image, apologize for the offensive comment, or shitty behavior and move on. Again.

But things aren’t changing for the better. And pasting

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Christina Hoff Sommers is appalled at the way people are trying to make boys be more like girls and girls be more like boys.

Say what?

The Reklamombudsmannen (RO) has reprimanded Top-Toy, a licensee of Toys”R”Us and one of the largest toy companies in Northern Europe, for its “outdated” advertisements and has pressured it to mend its “narrow-minded” ways. After receiving “training and guidance” from RO equity experts, Top-Toy introduced gender neutrality in its 2012 Christmas catalogue. The catalog shows little boys playing with a Barbie Dream House and girls with guns and gory action figures. As its marketing director explains, “For several years, we have found that the gender debate has grown so strong in the Swedish market

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I missed the part where Charlotte Allen replied to her critics. It’s a treat.

It’s no small thing, of course, to stop a gunman, whatever his size, but there might have been more of a chance with a few men on hand. I asserted that the “feminized setting” that prevails at elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel creates a culture of “helpless passivity” that puts women and small children at risk when a psychopath like Lanza decides to blow out the doors.

And an admiring audience failed to materialize, so she is explaining it all again.

No, I was not blaming any of the 26 victims or the parents who enrolled their kids at Sandy

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Laura Bates of Everyday Sexism gives us some more everyday sexism.

Meanwhile, this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival made headlines for featuring a high number of jokes about rape and domestic violence. Such “jokes” are also endemic online.“We must wake up to the way that social media enables and magnifies abuse and harassment of women,” Ms Dustin says. The popular social news website Reddit has entire categories dedicated to “raping women”, “hot rape stories”, and “choke a bitch”. And an article on the student website UniLad in January said: “Eighty-five per cent of rape cases go unreported. That seems to be fairly good odds.”

Yes but those are just tropes and tropes don’t matter and besides “tropes” is a big … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)