Nerds. Nerds EVERYWHERE...

[Pitchguest]

And Pitchguest, Final Fantasy 6 arguably had 3 main characters, two of which were women.

Funny how Sarkeesian will NEVER mention that. Final Fantasy 5 had three out of four playable characters female. Chrono Trigger had three "strong female characters" who were all nevertheless quite different from one another. One could argue that Lucca plays a much more important role within the story than almost anyone else.

Valkyrie Profile has a female main character and tons of recruitable female allies. WHOOPS, they don't exist. All of gaming is a patriarchal white male conspiracy to rape women in video games!

Just more evidence Anita is a troll.

Indeed, it began with Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy 6 was when Squaresoft really got that franchise going.

Yeah, there were many "point of view" characters you played as in that game, but the one they first focus on was Terra and she is, for the most part, the main focus of the game which was my point.

Oh man. Just talking about old Squaresoft games makes me want to fire up the old system. They were just SO GOOD. And Natsume! Japanese companies really were the gods of gaming back then. Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Lufia, Lufia II, Lagoon. And that's just some of the RPG's, not mentioning the action-oriented games!

The music, too, was awesome.

[youtube]VmI_bALv_fc[/youtube]

[Pitchguest]

And Kemco! I just realised as I watched the video.

[Really?]

I only saw that happen once and it was over a customer.

You could negotiate with the stripper for extra services and if she was not into it she could arrange it for you with another girl (officially it was not supposed to happen).

The clubs I was a regular at (Friday evenings) also had a hierarchy among the strippers. The ones who sold blowjobs for example were looked down upon by the others. Same as the ones who fucked management to waive their appearance fee.

I found out about the appearance fee because one night I had a stripper ask me for a favour. There was a new girl (student nurse) who had been there all night and was down $40 because she had not been able to work up the nerve to get a single customer.

What an awful story. If only we could remove the stigma of "stripping" so there would be more customers and that young woman would make more money.

[Spike13]

And Kemco! I just realised as I watched the video.

The Japanese companies also had a way with survival horror.

The original Silent Hill has a creepiness and pacing that American makers have yet to master.

[AndrewV69]

Vancouver has fallen: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Vancou ... story.html

Gender neutral bathrooms would have been more pratical if you asked me.

*shrug*

As a matter of fact, public gender neutral bathrooms with a diaper change table is something I could relate to. That was an issue I used to run into when my kids were younger and I was out and about with them and no female relative in sight.

Anyway, if a "policy change that welcomes a brand-new string of pronouns into Vancouver public schools: “xe, xem, and xyr.” is your priority then all I have to say is "Oh Honey, bless your heart".

(Ask Welsh what that means. Hint: You say it to someone from the South do not be surprised if they get in your face afterwards).

[real horrorshow]

The university is run by idiots if they thought engaging with those people at all was a good idea. Their demands are absurd.

They should've given the job to Little Paul, and videoed the meeting for our amusement.

More seriously, it may be that the admins are trying to deal with a situation that - in these internet days - has gone, almost instantly, public. Their text for the meeting being something along the lines of: 'you've had your fun, but you're bringing the university into disrepute (or whatever) and we can shit-can you for that. We don't want to make martyrs and you don't want to find yourselves persona non grata at every decent college. So we'll issue this joint statement... '.

[Spike13]

I only saw that happen once and it was over a customer.

You could negotiate with the stripper for extra services and if she was not into it she could arrange it for you with another girl (officially it was not supposed to happen).

The clubs I was a regular at (Friday evenings) also had a hierarchy among the strippers. The ones who sold blowjobs for example were looked down upon by the others. Same as the ones who fucked management to waive their appearance fee.

I found out about the appearance fee because one night I had a stripper ask me for a favour. There was a new girl (student nurse) who had been there all night and was down $40 because she had not been able to work up the nerve to get a single customer.

What an awful story. If only we could remove the stigma of "stripping" so there would be more customers and that young woman would make more money.

Perhaps of we called strippers "dancers"

And we called strip joints/Go go bars " gentlemen s clubs"

[Old_ones]

That, if Sarkeesian didn't know herself, she could have ASKED and people would have told her. Like what happens, you know, when you do minimal research about a topic. But that would involve looking at things and doing actual work.

I agree with your emphasis on research in the statement above, because Tropes vs. Women isn't the result of research. Its a string of anectdotes divorced from their context, which are said to constitute sexism, under an unspecified definition of sexism. She hasn't outlined any definitions or criteria for what can be considered a problem. She hasn't quantified anything relating to sexism, female protagonists, or violence against women in any subset of video games. She won't even address the fact that inserting women into violent video game worlds will necessitate "violence against women". According to the standards I've seen in her videos Ryu kicking Chun Li in the face in game of Street Fighter 2 should constitute misogynistic violence.

If she were attempting to take an even handed look at video games and honestly account for strengths and weaknesses, I could forgive some amount of bias. If she were doing an analysis of the incidence of sexism (using explicitly stated criteria) in video games from a reasonably large sampling of games, then I would be willing to consider her results. But she isn't doing any of these things. She is cherry picking examples for propaganda pieces that paint video games in a uniformly negative light, and offer no actual insight into anything.

How depressing that the video game industry has actually chosen to legitimize her "criticism".

[Spike13]

Any day now I expect PZ's mail box to be overflowing with poes.

Dear Ass. Pro. Meyers

[Clarence]

Moral panics often make for bad law.

When grandma can be thrown in the slammer for possessing grandchilds first bath photos, we have gone off the deep end.

Not to mention teenagers carrying records for taking photos of themselves.

If our great and wise lawmakers didn't see these kind of things coming, should they really be in the business of writing law?

Yes , there are a few who are stupid enough to only worry about 'how it will make them look' come election time.
But most not only do that, but know very well what they are doing:
solidifying their political position and making it easier to attract donations.
Most of those in the public justice system and the private prison corporations keep silent or actively push this stuff along too. They know which side their bread is buttered.
Feminists and religious traditionalists join hands on this stuff for all sorts of various reasons.
And if there is anyone or any groups in the government who enjoy exercising power they certainly have no reason to oppose this stuff.
Even most civil liberties groups won't touch this stuff with a 30 foot pole.

In the 1960's and 1970's we had groups downright proposing (and in some cases even getting passed legalization of adult-CHILD (not teen, CHILD)relationships. Child porn (as low as, I think, age 8), was legal or at least not prosecuted in places like the Netherlands. Now we've went so far in the other direction that CNN has TWO stories on this , mostly based on the fact that Japan didn't go totally crazy and ban DRAWINGS. We've went from being way too lax (but at least the state was far more concerned about individual rights and privacy) to way too strict, all at the same time we've built up a police state here in a America. And this all PARTLY goes back to "The Personal is Political". Look at this and the stuff in California.

Welcome to hell. We've created it ourselves.

[Spike13]

Moral panics often make for bad law.

When grandma can be thrown in the slammer for possessing grandchilds first bath photos, we have gone off the deep end.

Not to mention teenagers carrying records for taking photos of themselves.

If our great and wise lawmakers didn't see these kind of things coming, should they really be in the business of writing law?

Yes , there are a few who are stupid enough to only worry about 'how it will make them look' come election time.
But most not only do that, but know very well what they are doing:
solidifying their political position and making it easier to attract donations.
Most of those in the public justice system and the private prison corporations keep silent or actively push this stuff along too. They know which side their bread is buttered.
Feminists and religious traditionalists join hands on this stuff for all sorts of various reasons.
And if there is anyone or any groups in the government who enjoy exercising power they certainly have no reason to oppose this stuff.
Even most civil liberties groups won't touch this stuff with a 30 foot pole.

In the 1960's and 1970's we had groups downright proposing (and in some cases even getting passed legalization of adult-CHILD (not teen, CHILD)relationships. Child porn (as low as, I think, age 8), was legal or at least not prosecuted in places like the Netherlands. Now we've went so far in the other direction that CNN has TWO stories on this , mostly based on the fact that Japan didn't go totally crazy and ban DRAWINGS. We've went from being way too lax (but at least the state was far more concerned about individual rights and privacy) to way too strict, all at the same time we've built up a police state here in a America. And this all PARTLY goes back to "The Personal is Political". Look at this and the stuff in California.

Welcome to hell. We've created it ourselves.

I remember a time when cops dressed like cops, not paramilitary shock troopers.

[Clarence]

Now I want you people to think about something.
Technically (and yes, you can find the occasional cases of prosecution, though to be fair this doesn't seem to be the norm either because of pleas or because of prosecutorial discretion) a single beach pic of a sixteen or seventeen year old(she or he DOES NOT need to be nude or even half naked, it's enough to be 'lascivious', check out the woo known as the "Copine" scale) can be considered child porn.

The NSA and other agencies have been collecting and storing vast amounts of stuff off the internet for years and years. And I downright don't believe them when they say they only keep the information around for a certain period of time. Even if they aren't lying, those kind of unregulated 'policies' can be changed on a whim. Even if by some miracle those unregulated data bases haven't been misused , human nature says its only a matter of time.

Imagine you want to run for office. Or you get a politician mad. What can be 'leaked' to the appropriate government agency or news organization?

[Casual Nemesis]

The greatest danger to strippers are boyfriends, girlfriends (even worse), and each other. Customers are a distant fourth. I can't count the times I've had to go into a dressing room to break up a cat fight. Screening the girls from customers who want to get their fuck on is easy by comparison.

I only saw that happen once and it was over a customer.

You could negotiate with the stripper for extra services and if she was not into it she could arrange it for you with another girl (officially it was not supposed to happen).

The clubs I was a regular at (Friday evenings) also had a hierarchy among the strippers. The ones who sold blowjobs for example were looked down upon by the others. Same as the ones who fucked management to waive their appearance fee.

I found out about the appearance fee because one night I had a stripper ask me for a favour. There was a new girl (student nurse) who had been there all night and was down $40 because she had not been able to work up the nerve to get a single customer.

Our place had a good reputation for keeping the meth and sex acts out of the building; the more out there stuff happened when girls would hire out for private parties independently.

We had pecking orders among dancers and DJs that could get unbelievably petty.... part of the entertainer mentality I think. The dancers were very territorial over "their" regulars, and that added to the friction.

Some of the girls used sex to try to gain all manner of special privileges or exemptions. It didn't take long to get cynical and suspicious of everything after I switched from security to management. The best thing I did was get out of that business. I don't even drink anymore.

[AndrewV69]

I only saw that happen once and it was over a customer.

You could negotiate with the stripper for extra services and if she was not into it she could arrange it for you with another girl (officially it was not supposed to happen).

The clubs I was a regular at (Friday evenings) also had a hierarchy among the strippers. The ones who sold blowjobs for example were looked down upon by the others. Same as the ones who fucked management to waive their appearance fee.

I found out about the appearance fee because one night I had a stripper ask me for a favour. There was a new girl (student nurse) who had been there all night and was down $40 because she had not been able to work up the nerve to get a single customer.

What an awful story. If only we could remove the stigma of "stripping" so there would be more customers and that young woman would make more money.

She was very nervous about the whole thing. I gave her enough dances so she could make the fee and go home. I was not really an "insider" but it got to the point where I started to get invites to social events. Some of those girls could make money. [redacted] made enough in a couple of weeks a buy a Maxima for cash, and when I got invited over for a pool party it was in a "nice" middle class neighbourhood.

[Casual Nemesis]

Maybe that last part should go... The best thing I did was get out of that business. I don't even drink anymore.... I... just... can't.....

[real horrorshow]

Peezus has spotted Matt Cavanaugh's post about the letter praising 'The Happy Atheist'

And boy, am I glad I cut out the name and hometown from that letter. Can you imagine if I’d left it in, and asshole Matt Cavanaugh thought it would be clever to do some investigative skepticism, tracked down her phone number, and called her up to slime her with innuendo directly? It would be a natural and expected step in the hyperskeptical toolbox to make such a thorough examination of all the data.

You mean like the way Little Paul published the full name and hometown of that Christian kid who wrote to him? Yeah, that would be awful.

Oh yeah, one more thing: the guys at that site (OP and commenters) are vile HBD/MRA morons.

Ok, I know what an MRA is, but apparently I'm an HBD now too, What does that mean?

[AndrewV69]

Perhaps of we called strippers "dancers"

And we called strip joints/Go go bars " gentlemen s clubs"

That reminds me. There were a few occasions when a woman would show up by herself and ask for a lap dance. There were only a couple of strippers who would not turn her down.

I kind of felt sorry for her because she was forced to settle. It was clear that there was one girl she really wanted to dance for her and who was having none of it.

[real horrorshow]

Three pages too late: but to "fix" the consent problem we should introduce a neo-Islamic Sharia. So, women must leave their homes only with protection of strong male relatives (brother, father, etc) and stay at home otherwise. <snip>

Better yet, let the white knights come out from behind their keyboards and provide a volunteer escorting service (note: I didn't say 'escort service'). Of course, they'd have to pass a stringent background check, but that would be no problem for the purest of the pure would it?

[Tony Parsehole]

Laura Penny is extremely butthurt over falling for the fake accounts and hashtags on Twitter:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... mentpage=1
Got to love the title "Sexists and racists are resorting to online sabotage. But they still won't win"
The only sexists and racists are the people who genuinely thought #EndFathersDay and #WhitesCantBeRaped were a good cause to get behind. And I'd argue that by having idiots like Laura Penny writing angry online articles about their prank out there they've already won.


This bit is unrelated to the drama but gives wonderful insight into the mindset of feminists like Penny.

In Britain, the coalition government is mounting an all-out economic assault on the lives of the most vulnerable of women. From the rise in food banks, to the ways in which women seeking asylum are treated in detention centres such as Yarl's Wood

What the absolute fuck? How can anybody possibly say the rise of food banks is an assault on women? Are only women affected by poverty? Oh, sorry, there I go again. Making it all about teh menz.

[Pitchguest]

Ok, I know what an MRA is, but apparently I'm an HBD now too, What does that mean?

HBD stands for human biodiversity. Apparently "HPD's" are people who believe women and men are sexually dimorphic, but also how some races perform better in some things and poorer in others. I don't know. Urban Dictionary has a passage of it here:

http://sv.urbandictionary.com/define.ph ... id=6133602

[Pitchguest]

Err, "HBD's", not "HPD's"

[Southern]

Oh man. Just talking about old Squaresoft games makes me want to fire up the old system. They were just SO GOOD. And Natsume! Japanese companies really were the gods of gaming back then. Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Lufia, Lufia II, Lagoon. And that's just some of the RPG's, not mentioning the action-oriented games!

The music, too, was awesome.

[youtube]VmI_bALv_fc[/youtube]

Japanese companies were the gods of gaming when they weren't trying to make Western games. The moment all RPGs had to be Elder Scrolls clones was the moment they started their downfall.

The fact that Fire Emblem: Awakening and Bravely Default sold so well on the 3DS should say something to them.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

PZ creams into Cavanaugh.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... /#comments

It was inetivable he'd notice, considering all the pingbacks he'd get from my links to his old blog posts chapters in the soon-to-be-released The Happier Atheist.

Wow, the Fifth Horsemanâ„¢ took time out of his busy schedule to call me, an obscure, amateur blogger, an asshole at length. I'm flattered; he's still a rapidly-fading buffoon at the slag-end of a disappointing career. Go Viet Cong!

Little Paul seemed especially agitated over what he perceived as innuendo of a "Lolita" dynamic. The hentai-rape-teen-students-as-sex-mermaids fantasizer doth protest too much!

I have to get the ranch ready for weekend guests, and then it's my GFs birthday party! But don't you worry, Mr. Myers, I'll have another love letter for you soon.

[another lurker]

The greatest danger to strippers are boyfriends, girlfriends (even worse), and each other. Customers are a distant fourth. I can't count the times I've had to go into a dressing room to break up a cat fight. Screening the girls from customers who want to get their fuck on is easy by comparison.

I only saw that happen once and it was over a customer.

You could negotiate with the stripper for extra services and if she was not into it she could arrange it for you with another girl (officially it was not supposed to happen).

The clubs I was a regular at (Friday evenings) also had a hierarchy among the strippers. The ones who sold blowjobs for example were looked down upon by the others. Same as the ones who fucked management to waive their appearance fee.

I found out about the appearance fee because one night I had a stripper ask me for a favour. There was a new girl (student nurse) who had been there all night and was down $40 because she had not been able to work up the nerve to get a single customer.

Our place had a good reputation for keeping the meth and sex acts out of the building; the more out there stuff happened when girls would hire out for private parties independently.

We had pecking orders among dancers and DJs that could get unbelievably petty.... part of the entertainer mentality I think. The dancers were very territorial over "their" regulars, and that added to the friction.

Some of the girls used sex to try to gain all manner of special privileges or exemptions. It didn't take long to get cynical and suspicious of everything after I switched from security to management. The best thing I did was get out of that business. I don't even drink anymore.

I am glad that I only stripped for a couple of years. And since I only worked in the summer, no more than 6 months total. Everyone I met in the strip/bar business was a sleazy piece of shit. The other girls were often bitchy, manipulative narcissists. The bar owners would steal from you every chance they got (such as not paying you for your work - they would conveniently forget to mark it down).

There were some nice customers and some real losers. What made me laugh, however, was how so called upstanding members of the community would ask me for a private dance. Oh, and to please perform cunnilingus on me ( I declined). The guy who asked for the above also bought me donuts. I did a private dance for him for free video games. I snagged the Bladerunner game, which I still need to play, and an oldie called "Lost in Time".

[Cunning Punt]

The university is run by idiots if they thought engaging with those people at all was a good idea. Their demands are absurd.

These people are entitled morons.

If I were the administration, I'd be looking for ways to fire faculty members who signed that insulting list of stupid demands. I'd also be inclined to expel some of the more aggressively outspoken students. Call the administration "liars"? Fuck off, brat.

(Of course, that would never happen because it would be a PR nightmare, and also I'm not sure whether it would even be legal for a public university to expel a student for speech, no matter how idiotic or vitriolic [unless it's offensive to progressives].)

Um, the people calling the administration liars were against the trans-friendly language. Still feel the same way about it?

[John D]

Moral panics often make for bad law.

When grandma can be thrown in the slammer for possessing grandchilds first bath photos, we have gone off the deep end.

Not to mention teenagers carrying records for taking photos of themselves.

If our great and wise lawmakers didn't see these kind of things coming, should they really be in the business of writing law?

Yes , there are a few who are stupid enough to only worry about 'how it will make them look' come election time.
But most not only do that, but know very well what they are doing:
solidifying their political position and making it easier to attract donations.
Most of those in the public justice system and the private prison corporations keep silent or actively push this stuff along too. They know which side their bread is buttered.
Feminists and religious traditionalists join hands on this stuff for all sorts of various reasons.
And if there is anyone or any groups in the government who enjoy exercising power they certainly have no reason to oppose this stuff.
Even most civil liberties groups won't touch this stuff with a 30 foot pole.

In the 1960's and 1970's we had groups downright proposing (and in some cases even getting passed legalization of adult-CHILD (not teen, CHILD)relationships. Child porn (as low as, I think, age 8), was legal or at least not prosecuted in places like the Netherlands. Now we've went so far in the other direction that CNN has TWO stories on this , mostly based on the fact that Japan didn't go totally crazy and ban DRAWINGS. We've went from being way too lax (but at least the state was far more concerned about individual rights and privacy) to way too strict, all at the same time we've built up a police state here in a America. And this all PARTLY goes back to "The Personal is Political". Look at this and the stuff in California.

Welcome to hell. We've created it ourselves.

I think a bit of perspective might be in order. When I was a young male mastubator, a few copies of Penthouse were precious and rare. The first Playboy I saw was hidden by a friend of mine in a plastic bag, under a rock, in the vacant lot by his house. Hard core stuff was nearly impossible to find and required you to slink into a "bookstore" with black shades in the windows. Get caught slinking in or out and you were labeled a pervert. This was in the mid 1970's.

Ganted, in some big cities in the US you could find a red light district. You were also pretty likely to get mugged there too.

In most places you could get arrested for all manor of behavior that is now considered "normal." Gay sex, bondage, trans... whenever. All this shit would land you in jail. It is pretty ironic that Pee Wee Herman is making something of a "cum"back. haha. Today, there are politicians who (almost) make a recovery after sending penis pictures to their mistress.

So, yeah, there are some problematic laws that get passed here and there. There are potentially ways of getting arrested for having bath pictures of your kid. This kind of danger is super rare by comparison. The shit I can find on my computer without even trying would have caused my heads to explode in the 1970s.

So Clarence - When I hear you cry about how horrible this world has become, well, you make me laugh.

[Clarence]

Ok, I know what an MRA is, but apparently I'm an HBD now too, What does that mean?

HBD stands for human biodiversity. Apparently "HPD's" are people who believe women and men are sexually dimorphic, but also how some races perform better in some things and poorer in others. I don't know. Urban Dictionary has a passage of it here:

http://sv.urbandictionary.com/define.ph ... id=6133602

HBD gets a bad rep because of people like Steve Sailer -even though in HIS case I think his rep is a bit unfair- and others on the 'alternate right' some of which are downright racists and others who are 'racialists' (doesn't believe their race is better but believes they owe some sort of genetic loyalty to their race).
Basically, they take evolutionary biology (some of it good science, some of it dubious or bad) and apply it to human races and other populations usually divided on a continental level.
Problem with them besides being co-opted for racist purposes, is I think the believe they know more about evolution and epigenetics than they really do, and many of them are basically idiotic essentialists. That is, how population groups are today, are essentially how they will be for the foreseeable future and possibly forever.

[welch]

Moral panics often make for bad law.

When grandma can be thrown in the slammer for possessing grandchilds first bath photos, we have gone off the deep end.

Not to mention teenagers carrying records for taking photos of themselves.

If our great and wise lawmakers didn't see these kind of things coming, should they really be in the business of writing law?

Yes , there are a few who are stupid enough to only worry about 'how it will make them look' come election time.
But most not only do that, but know very well what they are doing:
solidifying their political position and making it easier to attract donations.
Most of those in the public justice system and the private prison corporations keep silent or actively push this stuff along too. They know which side their bread is buttered.
Feminists and religious traditionalists join hands on this stuff for all sorts of various reasons.
And if there is anyone or any groups in the government who enjoy exercising power they certainly have no reason to oppose this stuff.
Even most civil liberties groups won't touch this stuff with a 30 foot pole.

In the 1960's and 1970's we had groups downright proposing (and in some cases even getting passed legalization of adult-CHILD (not teen, CHILD)relationships. Child porn (as low as, I think, age 8), was legal or at least not prosecuted in places like the Netherlands. Now we've went so far in the other direction that CNN has TWO stories on this , mostly based on the fact that Japan didn't go totally crazy and ban DRAWINGS. We've went from being way too lax (but at least the state was far more concerned about individual rights and privacy) to way too strict, all at the same time we've built up a police state here in a America. And this all PARTLY goes back to "The Personal is Political". Look at this and the stuff in California.

Welcome to hell. We've created it ourselves.

I think a bit of perspective might be in order. When I was a young male mastubator, a few copies of Penthouse were precious and rare. The first Playboy I saw was hidden by a friend of mine in a plastic bag, under a rock, in the vacant lot by his house. Hard core stuff was nearly impossible to find and required you to slink into a "bookstore" with black shades in the windows. Get caught slinking in or out and you were labeled a pervert. This was in the mid 1970's.

Ganted, in some big cities in the US you could find a red light district. You were also pretty likely to get mugged there too.

In most places you could get arrested for all manor of behavior that is now considered "normal." Gay sex, bondage, trans... whenever. All this shit would land you in jail. It is pretty ironic that Pee Wee Herman is making something of a "cum"back. haha. Today, there are politicians who (almost) make a recovery after sending penis pictures to their mistress.

So, yeah, there are some problematic laws that get passed here and there. There are potentially ways of getting arrested for having bath pictures of your kid. This kind of danger is super rare by comparison. The shit I can find on my computer without even trying would have caused my heads to explode in the 1970s.

So Clarence - When I hear you cry about how horrible this world has become, well, you make me laugh.

The Comstock laws would have made him suicidal.

[AndrewV69]

Maybe that last part should go... The best thing I did was get out of that business. I don't even drink anymore.... I... just... can't.....

I think I understand. You can get very jaded and cynical in no time at all. Still, for me it was an eye opener and I certainly learnt a lot from my weekly visits.

[Clarence]

Moral panics often make for bad law.

When grandma can be thrown in the slammer for possessing grandchilds first bath photos, we have gone off the deep end.

Not to mention teenagers carrying records for taking photos of themselves.

If our great and wise lawmakers didn't see these kind of things coming, should they really be in the business of writing law?

Yes , there are a few who are stupid enough to only worry about 'how it will make them look' come election time.
But most not only do that, but know very well what they are doing:
solidifying their political position and making it easier to attract donations.
Most of those in the public justice system and the private prison corporations keep silent or actively push this stuff along too. They know which side their bread is buttered.
Feminists and religious traditionalists join hands on this stuff for all sorts of various reasons.
And if there is anyone or any groups in the government who enjoy exercising power they certainly have no reason to oppose this stuff.
Even most civil liberties groups won't touch this stuff with a 30 foot pole.

In the 1960's and 1970's we had groups downright proposing (and in some cases even getting passed legalization of adult-CHILD (not teen, CHILD)relationships. Child porn (as low as, I think, age 8), was legal or at least not prosecuted in places like the Netherlands. Now we've went so far in the other direction that CNN has TWO stories on this , mostly based on the fact that Japan didn't go totally crazy and ban DRAWINGS. We've went from being way too lax (but at least the state was far more concerned about individual rights and privacy) to way too strict, all at the same time we've built up a police state here in a America. And this all PARTLY goes back to "The Personal is Political". Look at this and the stuff in California.

Welcome to hell. We've created it ourselves.

I think a bit of perspective might be in order. When I was a young male mastubator, a few copies of Penthouse were precious and rare. The first Playboy I saw was hidden by a friend of mine in a plastic bag, under a rock, in the vacant lot by his house. Hard core stuff was nearly impossible to find and required you to slink into a "bookstore" with black shades in the windows. Get caught slinking in or out and you were labeled a pervert. This was in the mid 1970's.

Ganted, in some big cities in the US you could find a red light district. You were also pretty likely to get mugged there too.

In most places you could get arrested for all manor of behavior that is now considered "normal." Gay sex, bondage, trans... whenever. All this shit would land you in jail. It is pretty ironic that Pee Wee Herman is making something of a "cum"back. haha. Today, there are politicians who (almost) make a recovery after sending penis pictures to their mistress.

So, yeah, there are some problematic laws that get passed here and there. There are potentially ways of getting arrested for having bath pictures of your kid. This kind of danger is super rare by comparison. The shit I can find on my computer without even trying would have caused my heads to explode in the 1970s.

So Clarence - When I hear you cry about how horrible this world has become, well, you make me laugh.

John D: I can assure you that your laugh is one of ignorance.
I happen to know a bit about the history of anti-sodomy laws , the sex laws of puritan New England, and things such as the Mann Act. I also know about the MEESE commission and who was on it as well. And newsflash: people still get arrested and lose their kids for BDSM. https://www.ncsfreedom.org/ I used to belong to that organization. I happen to have been born in the 1970's, and I was reading stuff as a teen that talked about sex law in both the Reagan years AND the 1950's and 1960's. And this was way before the internet and its access to easy information sharing. I should also mention that there were no sex offender lists back then, and no websites showing the sex offenders and no tracking of all your social media (heck, most people didn't HAVE any kind of 'social' media) so that your most embarrassing moments can be be preserved for all eternity.

Today we have a government that openly violates the Constitution. We have politicians and courts that openly support and enable corruption -see my link a few pages back to New Yorks Supreme Court basically declaring fraud was legal - and pornography - esp 'child' porn - and 'sexual trafficking' (defined as all prostitution) is the moral panic of the past 30 years. So we have a largely unrestrained governmental apparatus with massive databases, massive propaganda organs (get yourself put on a sex offender registry or a "John" list and see how your local news covers it) and very punitive punishments and you are perfectly ok with that because apparently it was 'just as bad' in the past. No. Has the government (Federal and state) often made the lives of sexual minorities harder in the past? Yes. But the state never intruded in everyones bedrooms and private lives like it does now. There was no money in it , then. There is now, and one thing our system runs on is money.

Anyway, perhaps you should tell this criminal defense lawyer below that 'nothing has changed', and perhaps you will laugh if one of your kids is ensnared in some ridiculous law like they are proposing in California or ends up up on a Sex Offender registry for being 'too old' for a girl or boy in their own high school.

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1008

[Casual Nemesis]

Maybe that last part should go... The best thing I did was get out of that business. I don't even drink anymore.... I... just... can't.....

I think I understand. You can get very jaded and cynical in no time at all. Still, for me it was an eye opener and I certainly learnt a lot from my weekly visits.

I couldn't resist that little hat-tip to Oggie. :D

[jugheadnaut]

... and others who are 'racialists' (doesn't believe their race is better but believes they owe some sort of genetic loyalty to their race).

I've heard the term 'racialist' used in different ways, but never in the way you're describing it here. I think the most common use is to describe a belief that there are significant differences between the races (as population groups, not necessarily as individuals) in matters beyond appearance, but these differences don't mean certain races are superior or inferior to others. Wikipedia seems to agree.

I think a term that describes what you are saying is 'race conscious'.

[jugheadnaut]

[ I did a private dance for him for free video games. I snagged the Bladerunner game, which I still need to play, and an oldie called "Lost in Time".

Does Anita Sarkeesian know about this? The use of video games as currency to procure the objectification of women can be a whole new angle for her. ;)

[AndrewV69]

Oh yeah, one more thing: the guys at that site (OP and commenters) are vile HBD/MRA morons.

Ok, I know what an MRA is, but apparently I'm an HBD now too, What does that mean?

HDB = Human BioDiversity. See HDB Chick

maybe it’s ’cause the two groups are not very related (genetically speaking) anymore (think of the likes of obama, too). maybe it’s ’cause the upper crusties are mostly psychopaths. maybe they’re just misguided and their behaviors (and, therefore, their genotypes) will be weeded out by natural selection (we can always hope!).

but i guaratee you – their behavior, like everyone else’s on the planet, is rooted in their biology; and without understanding that we will never understand their actions.

THAT is what hbd is all about.

JayMan has a few words on the subject in his JayMan’s Race, Inheritance, and IQ F.A.Q. (F.R.B.)

In anticipation of the release of Nicholas Wade’s forthcoming book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History and of the firestorm that will ensue, I am putting together a page to address the basic misconceptions that are bound to circulate in the discussion that will follow. I’m doing this in an F.A.Q. format, except I won’t be addressing questions, exactly. Rather, I’d like to call it an “F.R.B.”: Frequently Repeated Bullshit. This page will be continually updated as I spot more common bits of erroneous claims about genetics and race floating around.

Please note that my page HBD Fundamentals contains the references to the supporting pieces of research. I’ve linked to the relevant sections of the page and other references in each section below. What follows is a concise introductory counter to each point.

Long story short. Among the SJW set and their ilk it means you are a racist

[Clarence]

... and others who are 'racialists' (doesn't believe their race is better but believes they owe some sort of genetic loyalty to their race).

I've heard the term 'racialist' used in different ways, but never in the way you're describing it here. I think the most common use is to describe a belief that there are significant differences between the races (as population groups, not necessarily as individuals) in matters beyond appearance, but these differences don't mean certain races are superior or inferior to others. Wikipedia seems to agree.

I think a term that describes what you are saying is 'race conscious'.

I'd thank you for the correction, but it seems to me those terms should be reversed.
Think about it: 'race conscious' would seem to imply acknowledging the existence and potential importance of race without necessarily believing in any kind of racial loyalty.
We know 'racist' basically means (Social Justice Warrior definition excluded) belief that your own race is superior to some or all others.
So where does 'racialist' fit? It seems to me it should be the term to refer to those who believe in racial loyalties but are 'live and let live'.

[Guestus Aurelius]

The university is run by idiots if they thought engaging with those people at all was a good idea. Their demands are absurd.

These people are entitled morons.

If I were the administration, I'd be looking for ways to fire faculty members who signed that insulting list of stupid demands. I'd also be inclined to expel some of the more aggressively outspoken students. Call the administration "liars"? Fuck off, brat.

(Of course, that would never happen because it would be a PR nightmare, and also I'm not sure whether it would even be legal for a public university to expel a student for speech, no matter how idiotic or vitriolic [unless it's offensive to progressives].)

Um, the people calling the administration liars were against the trans-friendly language. Still feel the same way about it?

I'm confused. The liar business I was referring to was the quote from one of the "Whose Diversity?" organizers that Aneris linked to:

However, in an interview last week at the MSR, both Mahadeo and fellow “Whose Diversity?” organizer Tori Hong disputed this statement. “They [school officials] have never asked [the group] to a meeting. When they are making these bold statements, like inviting us to meetings and such, that’s a lie,” stated Hong.

link: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/ ... atalogues-

Is that what you thought I was referring to? Or were you maybe thinking about the Vancouver school board thing that others have been posting about?

Either way, intent isn't magic, and you're stepping on my oppressed foot with your privileged boot. Fuck you with the power of a thousand splendid suns.

[jugheadnaut]

Little Paul seemed especially agitated over what he perceived as innuendo of a "Lolita" dynamic. The hentai-rape-teen-students-as-sex-mermaids fantasizer doth protest too much!

That's his way. He'll take a minor part of something he's criticizing that he believes is especially weak and harp on it like it's a major element. And, of course, another of his MO's: misrepresenting what he's criticizing. The problem isn't that the w's and ligatures "aren't identical", the problem is that they're all over the map. Since most people have some level of consistency in their handwriting and it's very hard to fake a consistent handwriting style, this is at least modest evidence that it's been forged. However, even if it was forged, there's no real evidence at this point that it was done by Peezer or with his knowledge.

[Tribble]

You know, when people started talking about how the police was harsher on Franklin than Michael or Trevor, I immediately thought it was deliberate, as a satire of racial profile that real life police does.

Nope. The AI works exactly the same way for all three protagonists.

But if you are predisposed to see misogyny, racism and bigotry everywhere you look, well, you'll probably see it in a hamburger... http://tinyurl.com/m5wyc73

[Spike13]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/ ... wtJJ/story

Redskins to lose trademark protection on name "Redskins"
The logo is still OK though.

In other news Cleveland native Chief Wahoo heard mumbling
"They'll never take me alive."

[Tribble]

For some good mewsic:

[youtube]XY2nSBXlVS4[/youtube]

Castrato?

[AndrewV69]

In other news:

We got us a Feminist Book Burning Not a joke apparently.

Someone who is possibly unaware of all the implications of the inherent symbolism and implications behind this act perhaps?

Burn baby burn!

https://i.imgur.com/8A0yFaf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LBaBOpY.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0cjvTRi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/EuraTUe.jpg

[Clarence]

In other news:

We got us a Feminist Book Burning Not a joke apparently.

Someone who is possibly unaware of all the implications of the inherent symbolism and implications behind this act perhaps?

Burn baby burn!

https://i.imgur.com/8A0yFaf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LBaBOpY.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0cjvTRi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/EuraTUe.jpg

The baby boys will be next.

[Spike13]

In other news:

We got us a Feminist Book Burning Not a joke apparently.

Someone who is possibly unaware of all the implications of the inherent symbolism and implications behind this act perhaps?

Burn baby burn!

https://i.imgur.com/8A0yFaf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LBaBOpY.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0cjvTRi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/EuraTUe.jpg

Ideas are dangerous things that must be destroyed.

[Spike13]

The Hot Dog Tongs of Social Justice reaped a bitter harvest on that day.

[John D]

I think a bit of perspective might be in order. When I was a young male mastubator, a few copies of Penthouse were precious and rare. The first Playboy I saw was hidden by a friend of mine in a plastic bag, under a rock, in the vacant lot by his house. Hard core stuff was nearly impossible to find and required you to slink into a "bookstore" with black shades in the windows. Get caught slinking in or out and you were labeled a pervert. This was in the mid 1970's.

Ganted, in some big cities in the US you could find a red light district. You were also pretty likely to get mugged there too.

In most places you could get arrested for all manor of behavior that is now considered "normal." Gay sex, bondage, trans... whenever. All this shit would land you in jail. It is pretty ironic that Pee Wee Herman is making something of a "cum"back. haha. Today, there are politicians who (almost) make a recovery after sending penis pictures to their mistress.

So, yeah, there are some problematic laws that get passed here and there. There are potentially ways of getting arrested for having bath pictures of your kid. This kind of danger is super rare by comparison. The shit I can find on my computer without even trying would have caused my heads to explode in the 1970s.

So Clarence - When I hear you cry about how horrible this world has become, well, you make me laugh.

John D: I can assure you that your laugh is one of ignorance.
I happen to know a bit about the history of anti-sodomy laws , the sex laws of puritan New England, and things such as the Mann Act. I also know about the MEESE commission and who was on it as well. And newsflash: people still get arrested and lose their kids for BDSM. https://www.ncsfreedom.org/ I used to belong to that organization. I happen to have been born in the 1970's, and I was reading stuff as a teen that talked about sex law in both the Reagan years AND the 1950's and 1960's. And this was way before the internet and its access to easy information sharing. I should also mention that there were no sex offender lists back then, and no websites showing the sex offenders and no tracking of all your social media (heck, most people didn't HAVE any kind of 'social' media) so that your most embarrassing moments can be be preserved for all eternity.

Today we have a government that openly violates the Constitution. We have politicians and courts that openly support and enable corruption -see my link a few pages back to New Yorks Supreme Court basically declaring fraud was legal - and pornography - esp 'child' porn - and 'sexual trafficking' (defined as all prostitution) is the moral panic of the past 30 years. So we have a largely unrestrained governmental apparatus with massive databases, massive propaganda organs (get yourself put on a sex offender registry or a "John" list and see how your local news covers it) and very punitive punishments and you are perfectly ok with that because apparently it was 'just as bad' in the past. No. Has the government (Federal and state) often made the lives of sexual minorities harder in the past? Yes. But the state never intruded in everyones bedrooms and private lives like it does now. There was no money in it , then. There is now, and one thing our system runs on is money.

Anyway, perhaps you should tell this criminal defense lawyer below that 'nothing has changed', and perhaps you will laugh if one of your kids is ensnared in some ridiculous law like they are proposing in California or ends up up on a Sex Offender registry for being 'too old' for a girl or boy in their own high school.

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1008

I am not going to argue that all our laws are prefect. Some are clearly not working well.

Your comic book site is quite entertaining. While some prosecutors over-step their bounds, it is not very useful to read comics about potential injustices.

It is good that you are concerned about this topic. I agree that there is room for improvement. I do not agree that things are worse now than they were. There are some specific laws that I do not favor, and on these I think we would agree. The sex offender registers are particularly vile in my opinion. There is no evidence that sex offenders have a higher recidivism rate that other criminals. They should not be forced to serve a life time sentence and get harassed by their neighbors. I also don't think people should be judged based on their sexual behavior. On this topic however, things are WAY better now than they used to be.

BTW - You are not the final arbiter of what is and isn't constitutional.. I think there is a court system for that. (Didn't we have this discussion on the pit once already???)

Your paranoia is fun to witness.

Where is your sense of history man? J Edgar Hoover used to spy on employees that were gay and fire them. It was actually ILLEGAL to be gay and work for the CIA. Today, politicians still run for office after showing penis pictures to their mistress over their i-phone. Politician are openly gay. Famous entertainers are gay, and bi, and talk about porn openly. Americans are more accepting than ever on this topic.

[jugheadnaut]

So where does 'racialist' fit? It seems to me it should be the term to refer to those who believe in racial loyalties but are 'live and let live'.

'Should' has nothing to do with it, it's how the terms actually are used that's important. As I said, I've never heard the term used this way, but feel free to provide examples. The Wikipedia article I linked to seems to agree, although there's a debatable example in the 'identity politics' section of the article.

'Race conscious' is also used in various ways, some not too different than racialist (for instance, affirmative action has been described as both a race conscious and racialist policy, meaning basically the same thing). But when a person is described as 'race conscious', it generally means they act in ways that are aware of, and prideful of, their race.

[Sunder]

I'll add that book to my queue then.

Also, few things say "privileged upper middle class" better than a stone fireplace.

[John D]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/ ... wtJJ/story

Redskins to lose trademark protection on name "Redskins"
The logo is still OK though.

In other news Cleveland native Chief Wahoo heard mumbling
"They'll never take me alive."

Does this mean the Trademark Agency is an Indian Giver????

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I did a private dance for him for free video games. I snagged the Bladerunner game, which I still need to play

another lurker was my favorite dancer at that club. I still have an old photo from one of her performances:

another_pris.jpg

(16.86 KiB) Downloaded 162 times

[John D]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/ ... wtJJ/story

Redskins to lose trademark protection on name "Redskins"
The logo is still OK though.

In other news Cleveland native Chief Wahoo heard mumbling
"They'll never take me alive."

Does this mean the Trademark Agency is an Indian Giver????

Perhaps they should just change their name to the "Washington Scalpers"

[Spike13]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/ ... wtJJ/story

Redskins to lose trademark protection on name "Redskins"
The logo is still OK though.

In other news Cleveland native Chief Wahoo heard mumbling
"They'll never take me alive."

Does this mean the Trademark Agency is an Indian Giver????

Ouch!
:rimshot:

[Matt Cavanaugh]

In other news:

We got us a Feminist Book Burning Not a joke apparently.

Someone who is possibly unaware of all the implications of the inherent symbolism and implications behind this act perhaps?

Burn baby burn!

https://i.imgur.com/8A0yFaf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LBaBOpY.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0cjvTRi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/EuraTUe.jpg

She's mad cuz she thought it was a "How To" book.

[Old_ones]

I found the distinction that PZ makes in response to Matt's handwriting analysis interesting:

And then, somewhere in the middle lie science and skepticism. People readily conflate those two, unfortunately, and I think that’s wrong. Science is all about following the evidence. If a bit of evidence supports a hypothesis, you willingly accept it tentatively, and follow where it leads, strengthening or discarding your initial ideas appropriately with the quality of the evidence. You end up with theories that are held provisionally, as long as they provide fruitful guidance in digging deeper. It is ultimately a positive approach that winnows out bad ideas ruthlessly, but all in the cause of advancing our knowledge. I am far more comfortable with science then skepticism, because I’d rather be working towards a goal.
Skepticism is the flip side. It’s all about falsification and disproof and dismantling proposals. I think it is the wrong approach.

And this corollary:

So we get skeptics who argue against the dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke, or anthropogenic climate change — it’s OK, because they’re being critical — and these same skeptical entertainers are lauded for berating an MD and throwing him out of a party, because he had criticized their pandering to a quack…and also their climate change denialism. Do I even need to get into their contemptible sexism or their Libertarian bullshit?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... /#comments

I don't know that I've seen a better illustration of PZ failing to understand both science and skepticism. First of all, there is no distinction. Science entails skepticism, or you aren't doing it right. Hypotheses have to be falsifiable, and experiments need to be conducted in order to show that they stand up to scrutiny before they get any currency. Evidence is not to be blindly followed, it needs to be understood, and followed in proportion to its strength. Anecdotes, for instance, can be evidence for the existence of something, but with the reservation that eyewitness accounts can be fallible and are insufficient to prove extraordinary claims. I wonder if PZ has this attitude toward the peer reviewed literature (assuming he even reads it anymore). Does he believe everything he reads? Does he ever question whether adequate evidence has been produced in support of a conclusion, or whether a result was correctly interpreted?

The second paragraph is even more damning. Skepticism is about understanding evidence, not rejecting conclusions. Since when are any of the people who don't think cigarettes cause cancer, or who reject climate change considering the evidence? I was pretty sure they were in the business of denying it. Also, what the hell do sexism and libertarianism even have to do with this discussion? Talk about being intellectually broken.

Sometimes it blows my mind that this guy made it to where he is. Either he is devolving into a simplistic rube, or he's been an extremely effective con artist for a very long time. Either way its fucking depressing.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Little Paul seemed especially agitated over what he perceived as innuendo of a "Lolita" dynamic. The hentai-rape-teen-students-as-sex-mermaids fantasizer doth protest too much!

That's his way. He'll take a minor part of something he's criticizing that he believes is especially weak and harp on it like it's a major element. And, of course, another of his MO's: misrepresenting what he's criticizing. The problem isn't that the w's and ligatures "aren't identical", the problem is that they're all over the map. Since most people have some level of consistency in their handwriting and it's very hard to fake a consistent handwriting style, this is at least modest evidence that it's been forged. However, even if it was forged, there's no real evidence at this point that it was done by Peezer or with his knowledge.

Ah, but it's hyper-skeptical to even wonder whether it might be a poe. True, we have, and can have, no direct evidence that Peezus wrote it himself. But now I've gotten into his head, and he has to be worried now about those missing 18 hours, the unexplained credit card charge for the Ellwood, IN TraveLodge, and those receipts from the local post office and the Hoosierland Card & Gift Shop. :lol:

[Clarence]

I think a bit of perspective might be in order. When I was a young male mastubator, a few copies of Penthouse were precious and rare. The first Playboy I saw was hidden by a friend of mine in a plastic bag, under a rock, in the vacant lot by his house. Hard core stuff was nearly impossible to find and required you to slink into a "bookstore" with black shades in the windows. Get caught slinking in or out and you were labeled a pervert. This was in the mid 1970's.

Ganted, in some big cities in the US you could find a red light district. You were also pretty likely to get mugged there too.

In most places you could get arrested for all manor of behavior that is now considered "normal." Gay sex, bondage, trans... whenever. All this shit would land you in jail. It is pretty ironic that Pee Wee Herman is making something of a "cum"back. haha. Today, there are politicians who (almost) make a recovery after sending penis pictures to their mistress.

So, yeah, there are some problematic laws that get passed here and there. There are potentially ways of getting arrested for having bath pictures of your kid. This kind of danger is super rare by comparison. The shit I can find on my computer without even trying would have caused my heads to explode in the 1970s.

So Clarence - When I hear you cry about how horrible this world has become, well, you make me laugh.

John D: I can assure you that your laugh is one of ignorance.
I happen to know a bit about the history of anti-sodomy laws , the sex laws of puritan New England, and things such as the Mann Act. I also know about the MEESE commission and who was on it as well. And newsflash: people still get arrested and lose their kids for BDSM. https://www.ncsfreedom.org/ I used to belong to that organization. I happen to have been born in the 1970's, and I was reading stuff as a teen that talked about sex law in both the Reagan years AND the 1950's and 1960's. And this was way before the internet and its access to easy information sharing. I should also mention that there were no sex offender lists back then, and no websites showing the sex offenders and no tracking of all your social media (heck, most people didn't HAVE any kind of 'social' media) so that your most embarrassing moments can be be preserved for all eternity.

Today we have a government that openly violates the Constitution. We have politicians and courts that openly support and enable corruption -see my link a few pages back to New Yorks Supreme Court basically declaring fraud was legal - and pornography - esp 'child' porn - and 'sexual trafficking' (defined as all prostitution) is the moral panic of the past 30 years. So we have a largely unrestrained governmental apparatus with massive databases, massive propaganda organs (get yourself put on a sex offender registry or a "John" list and see how your local news covers it) and very punitive punishments and you are perfectly ok with that because apparently it was 'just as bad' in the past. No. Has the government (Federal and state) often made the lives of sexual minorities harder in the past? Yes. But the state never intruded in everyones bedrooms and private lives like it does now. There was no money in it , then. There is now, and one thing our system runs on is money.

Anyway, perhaps you should tell this criminal defense lawyer below that 'nothing has changed', and perhaps you will laugh if one of your kids is ensnared in some ridiculous law like they are proposing in California or ends up up on a Sex Offender registry for being 'too old' for a girl or boy in their own high school.

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1008

I am not going to argue that all our laws are prefect. Some are clearly not working well.

Your comic book site is quite entertaining. While some prosecutors over-step their bounds, it is not very useful to read comics about potential injustices.

It is good that you are concerned about this topic. I agree that there is room for improvement. I do not agree that things are worse now than they were. There are some specific laws that I do not favor, and on these I think we would agree. The sex offender registers are particularly vile in my opinion. There is no evidence that sex offenders have a higher recidivism rate that other criminals. They should not be forced to serve a life time sentence and get harassed by their neighbors. I also don't think people should be judged based on their sexual behavior. On this topic however, things are WAY better now than they used to be.

BTW - You are not the final arbiter of what is and isn't constitutional.. I think there is a court system for that. (Didn't we have this discussion on the pit once already???)

Your paranoia is fun to witness.

Where is your sense of history man? J Edgar Hoover used to spy on employees that were gay and fire them. It was actually ILLEGAL to be gay and work for the CIA. Today, politicians still run for office after showing penis pictures to their mistress over their i-phone. Politician are openly gay. Famous entertainers are gay, and bi, and talk about porn openly. Americans are more accepting than ever on this topic.

J. Edgar Hoover was freaking 'old hat'. I certainly know all about him, his fetishes, and his power over some Presidents just as I know about John Foster Dulles and McCarthyism and stuff like that. These 'totalitarian wannabees' didn't have access to the information tools that we have these days NOR did the formal laws on the books enable them as much as our own spooks and cops are enabled. Your argument is based on superficial societal approval (most of which I bet you get from watching TV or noting that most people today are ok with gays and interracial marriages). Nothing wrong with either of those things(gays, interracial marriages), both of us would agree. But I've been tracking this shit since the late 90's and things have only gotten worse from the standpoint of law and punishment.

Do you really think the number of laws on the books concerning sex crimes is the same as it was in say , 1970?
Do you know anything at all about when the first "Special Victims Units" were established?
What do you know about the history of rape law or the changes that have been made over the past 40 years?
Do you know anything about the rule of feminist legal societies in rape law/family law?

I don't really think you do. And until you do, you are in no position to call me paranoid, esp when Britain recently installed a mandatory porn filter (which has all sorts of civil rights implications if you bother to read British media), the European commission has seriously considered outlawing porn, and our own country currently jails more people than any other country on earth on a per-capita basis. When moral panics, movements based on propaganda, and unrestrained governments collide, bad things happen. It should scare you that California is seriously considering passing something we've been talking about here lately. Instead, you choose to yawn.

Oh well, no skin off my back.
P.S. The real reason I linked to the defense guy was he has a great section on the expansion of 'strict liability' laws and punishment for those who violate them.

[Spike13]

I found the distinction that PZ makes in response to Matt's handwriting analysis interesting:

And then, somewhere in the middle lie science and skepticism. People readily conflate those two, unfortunately, and I think that’s wrong. Science is all about following the evidence. If a bit of evidence supports a hypothesis, you willingly accept it tentatively, and follow where it leads, strengthening or discarding your initial ideas appropriately with the quality of the evidence. You end up with theories that are held provisionally, as long as they provide fruitful guidance in digging deeper. It is ultimately a positive approach that winnows out bad ideas ruthlessly, but all in the cause of advancing our knowledge. I am far more comfortable with science then skepticism, because I’d rather be working towards a goal.
Skepticism is the flip side. It’s all about falsification and disproof and dismantling proposals. I think it is the wrong approach.

And this corollary:

So we get skeptics who argue against the dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke, or anthropogenic climate change — it’s OK, because they’re being critical — and these same skeptical entertainers are lauded for berating an MD and throwing him out of a party, because he had criticized their pandering to a quack…and also their climate change denialism. Do I even need to get into their contemptible sexism or their Libertarian bullshit?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... /#comments

I don't know that I've seen a better illustration of PZ failing to understand both science and skepticism. First of all, there is no distinction. Science entails skepticism, or you aren't doing it right. Hypotheses have to be falsifiable, and experiments need to be conducted in order to show that they stand up to scrutiny before they get any currency. Evidence is not to be blindly followed, it needs to be understood, and followed in proportion to its strength. Anecdotes, for instance, can be evidence for the existence of something, but with the reservation that eyewitness accounts can be fallible and are insufficient to prove extraordinary claims. I wonder if PZ has this attitude toward the peer reviewed literature (assuming he even reads it anymore). Does he believe everything he reads? Does he ever question whether adequate evidence has been produced in support of a conclusion, or whether a result was correctly interpreted?

The second paragraph is even more damning. Skepticism is about understanding evidence, not rejecting conclusions. Since when are any of the people who don't think cigarettes cause cancer, or who reject climate change considering the evidence? I was pretty sure they were in the business of denying it. Also, what the hell do sexism and libertarianism even have to do with this discussion? Talk about being intellectually broken.

Sometimes it blows my mind that this guy made it to where he is. Either he is devolving into a simplistic rube, or he's been an extremely effective con artist for a very long time. Either way its fucking depressing.

Well he did make his bones arguing with creationists.

That's the Internet equivalent of a never ending seal clubbing.

Once he stepped away from that, he fell on his face.

[jugheadnaut]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/ ... wtJJ/story

Redskins to lose trademark protection on name "Redskins"
The logo is still OK though.

In other news Cleveland native Chief Wahoo heard mumbling
"They'll never take me alive."

I'm assuming Dan Synder will challenge this, and it will make for a very interesting court case. I strongly suspect he'll ultimately win the case on the grounds that the USPO overstepped their mandate.

One of the interesting things about the 'Redskin' debate that rarely comes up is that the term historically originated not from skin color, but from war paint. This isn't a show stopper argument because many racial terms once considered benign are now considered offensive. But this fact seems to be ignored because it doesn't fit within the narrative of 'Redskin' being an obvious slur.

[Tigzy]

Laura Penny is extremely butthurt over falling for the fake accounts and hashtags on Twitter:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... mentpage=1
Got to love the title "Sexists and racists are resorting to online sabotage. But they still won't win"
The only sexists and racists are the people who genuinely thought #EndFathersDay and #WhitesCantBeRaped were a good cause to get behind. And I'd argue that by having idiots like Laura Penny writing angry online articles about their prank out there they've already won.


This bit is unrelated to the drama but gives wonderful insight into the mindset of feminists like Penny.

In Britain, the coalition government is mounting an all-out economic assault on the lives of the most vulnerable of women. From the rise in food banks, to the ways in which women seeking asylum are treated in detention centres such as Yarl's Wood

What the absolute fuck? How can anybody possibly say the rise of food banks is an assault on women? Are only women affected by poverty? Oh, sorry, there I go again. Making it all about teh menz.

Also, according to Laurie, it's only the disabled women who are getting their disability allowance cut:

In Britain, the coalition government is mounting an all-out economic assault on the lives of the most vulnerable of women. From the rise in food banks, to the ways in which women seeking asylum are treated in detention centres such as Yarl's Wood, to the attack on disability living allowance

Damn lucky that plucky little Laurie didn't get crippled for life when, as she claims, she boldly endured those police baton charges at Trafalgar Square. Imagine the injustice of having to face disability benefits cuts while her fellow wounded urban anarchists Quentin and Timothy could have happily raked in the shekels simply because they gender identified as male. And all patriarchy-perpetuated injustices aside, how could this Islington born former public schoolgirl and media-darling have possibly survived, given that she would now clearly be in the same boat as some poor penniless fucker who spent a near lifetime sucking up asbestos dust only to get royally fucked over by ATOS at the end of it?

Sure is tough being a paid-up member of the Porcelain Proletariat, so it is.

[John D]

Ok Calarence.... you are right. Things are way worse now than ever and we live in a virtual 1984 of government control. You win fucker. Put your dick back in your pants... I know there are thousands of guys getting rounded up for spanking their girl friend for sex play... and there are thousands of guys losing their rights to their children because they wear a leather harness during sexy time. I am just so naive. Thanks for educating me so good.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I don't know that I've seen a better illustration of PZ failing to understand both science and skepticism. First of all, there is no distinction. Science entails skepticism, or you aren't doing it right. Hypotheses have to be falsifiable, and experiments need to be conducted in order to show that they stand up to scrutiny before they get any currency. Evidence is not to be blindly followed, it needs to be understood, and followed in proportion to its strength.

QFT. What Peezus describes as skepticism is really contrarianism/denialism.

Sometimes it blows my mind that this guy made it to where he is. Either he is devolving into a simplistic rube, or he's been an extremely effective con artist for a very long time. Either way its fucking depressing.

Despite his hubris, PZ is just not all that smart. He failed at being a top gun science researcher, so he tried to be a leading atheist. He failed at being a leading atheist, so he switched to minor mouthpiece for the radfems. As this, he's succeeding, but only before an ever-diminishing clique of radfems. Eventually, they'll turn on PZ, as they always eventually turn on their own. Then he'll only have his Bio 101 students to torment. Then he'll have to retire, and his audience will be down to Trophy Wife. :violin: