Question

Can anyone give me the etymology and correct use of the term "mark 1 eyeball"?

Thanks.

I Don't Mind

Being slightly-more-atheist-than-thou'ed by PZ Myers. Really I don't.

The Ardent Atheist The results are in, and it appears that you have scored 75%...

You are an atheist, pure and simple. You think God is just one big lie, and consider religious people to be both annoying and beneath you. Ardent atheists will argue tooth and claw for their position, and have no truck with people that won't listen. You think being an atheist is the only way to lead an honest life, and see no reason to accept the pleas of faith. Ardent atheists are the backbone of atheism. Be proud.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on pentagrams

Link: The Atheist Test written by chi_the_cynic on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

What Makes This City Special

I used to think it was the tams, but now I'm less convinced. Wonderful though the tams are, I think it's barely possible that there's somewhere else on this planet where hippies, goths, medieval sword fighters, and trendsters dressed for a night of clubbing can get together in the thousands for the common purpose of enjoying as much sun, drumming, and THC as possible. I think it's in fact quite likely that there is somewhere else where you can lie on a grassy hillside, making the kids on mountain bikes navigate around you, watch a little girl beat her big brother in a tug-of-war over a stick, and get licked on the toe by a passing huskie. I even think there is somewhere else where one can watch a cyclist and a biker hold up traffic to have a shouting match in the middle of one of the hairiest intersections in the city.

These things, though wonderful, are not what make Montreal so special. I'll give you an example of the sort of thing that does:
Nowhere else will you see a man walking down the street in broad daylight, carrying a chinchilla in an upended floral teacozy.

I love this city.

Nothin' to Prove but the Groove

It's true that it's a sport. There's no game more fun than "bug-the-vegetarian". Unless you are one.

I'm sick of being wishy-washy about this.

I'm sick of hiding behind "It's a personal choice."

I'm sick of it all so I'm just going to say it.

Eating meat is wrong. If you live in a first world country and you don't have a medical condition that would prevent you from being vegetarian, you have no excuse. I know that each situation is different, and people need to judge for themselves what is best for their lives, which is why I would never tell people that they should be vegetarian, and I certainly wouldn't support any kind of vegetarianising legislation, but that's beside the point. Not everything that should be legal is right, and the only realistic way to maintain all our civil rights is if we exercise descretion in using them. Eating factory-farmed meat is cruel to the animal and bad for the environment. Eating free-range meat is somewhat less so, but that's not saying much. Now when it comes to people doing things that are wrong, I'm hardly in a position to cast the first stone, but I'm sick of pretending I don't think what I think. Eating meat is wrong and our reliance on it as a society needs to stop.

There's nothing I can do to make people stop eating meat, but I beg every meat eater who reads this post to really think about it. THINK about it. Do you *need* to eat meat? Do you need to eat as much as you do? If not, why do you? Is your pleasure and convenience worth the loss of the rainforests? Is it worth antibiotic-resistent bacteria? Is it worth upset ecosystems and loss of subsistence farmland and starving people who need the calories that our cows and pigs burn off as heat? Is it worth it? Really?

Just think about it. Please.


_____
title taken from the Ember Swift song Include My Food.

My Anvil

There's an anvil at the top of my brain. And usually it just hangs out up there and that's fine, and I can think and work and get stuff done, but sometimes it falls down, *kurchunk!*. And when that happens there's just no making anything work.

I tried, I really did. I sat in front of my work computer for two hours this morning, and I tried. But my brain was full of anvil and it wasn't working out. I'll try to describe what it's like.

So if you picture your brain as soft and easily penetrable, then your intellectual input (things you read or listen to) can be like arrows or something. And when you read or listen, the arrows go into your brain and you understand them (or maybe you don't understand them, but you recognize that you don't understand them and you can try to work out what they mean by inviting more arrows, if you want).

The anvil is hard and can't be penetrated. So when the anvil that hangs out at the top of my brain falls down and fills my brain the arrows can't penetrate. They just bounce off. It's not that I stop being able to understand things, it's that the things that I'm looking at or hearing don't get read or listened to, because the arrows can't get in. I think that that sort of thing can happen to everyone sometimes. When we're worried or anticipating something, or otherwise preoccupied, then we'll read the same page in a book five times because the words aren't penetrating.

Well my anvil is like that, only without the preoccupation. It just happens.

Sometimes the anvil is situation-specific. So I'll get a work anvil, or a blogging anvil, or a knitting anvil, or a gardening anvil, or whatever, and then I can still think about (and therefore do) things that aren't related to what the anvil is about. But sometimes the anvil is general purpose, and that really sucks, because it means that I can't do anything but lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, or maybe watch TV.

Sometimes if I change activities for a while, when I come back the anvil is gone. But sometimes not.

Sometimes I try to force the arrows through the anvil, shooting them harder and harder. That can work for a little while, but I'm still really slow at whatever I'm doing, because each arrow takes several tries before it penetrates.

There's been some talk that I might have ADD. I wonder if that's the technical term for my anvil.

Stupid anvil.

New Buddy Blog

My pal Lothyn, MamaE to the owner of this sweater
has her own blog, which I will be adding to the blogroll.

She's awesome, so you should check it out.

D'oh update: The link to the blog: Dreamy Prune Whip

I Think I'll Get A Job In A Slaughterhouse

It must be nice to get paid not to do your job.

I'm no legal expert, so I can't say what the laws actually say, but I will say this: If the laws prevent an employer from taking action against a person who refuses to perform perfectly standard and legal aspects of their job, that they knew about when they took the job, then the law needs to be changed.

And if the law doesn't prevent it then serious pressure needs to be brought to bear against these companies. They need to be boycotted, picketed, and denounced until they start making their employees Do Their Jobs.

I mean really. How old are these pharmacists? 10? They're certainly acting it.

It's real simple people: If your job requires you to do something you find morally reprehensible, get a different job.

I'm incessantly amazed at the stupidity of my species.

Go Ahead, I Dare You.

Call this video of two embryos exploding murder.

Do it.

Compare, in all sincerity, this to the killing of two fully developed human beings.

Please, I beg you. It would so make my day.

(hat tip, PZM)

I Just Don't Know

Should I go to Vienna in the first or second half of June? Should I move away to be with my partner in September, or stay in Montreal? How long should I spend in Toronto this spring? I just can't decide. It's my lack of Y-chromosome, I think.

Fortunately, for me, there is help.

Women, call Senator Napoli for any decision you have to make. The phone numbers for the entire South Dakota senate can be found here.

FUCK!!!!

Fucking theiving fuckers with no sense of fucking social responsibility or idea that someone else might have fucking NEEDED THAT AND IT WASN'T JUST THERE FOR THE FUCKING TAKING. FUCK!!!


On a completely unrelated note, I came home from doing laundry to find a twisted U-lock in an otherwise empty stretch of fence where my bicycle used to be.


fuck.

Small Businesses?

I think small businesses are better than big ones. I think they're better for communities, better for individuals, better for a competitive market (which is the only remotely acceptable way to do capitalism) and better for the public purse.

That said, I also agree with this critique by Maia of Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty.

It all comes down to this:

we can never trust the owners of business to act in the interests of anything but their bottom line, no matter how socially conscious they are, no matter how much they're part of our community, no matter how much they're providing a service we want.

Non-Daily Link, Monday

The best thing I've read today, hands down, is Flea's dream Feminist Acres. I don't think anyone who has ever worked for an activist or non-profit, left-wing organization can possibly fail to relate.

It's so nice to have tangible proof that I'm not the only one, though. It's such a horrible feeling, to look around and realize the struggle you and your organization and possibly your future family have to go through, and to know that if you just gave up on a few of those principles it would all be so much easier. To just sit down and think to yourself "You know what? Fuck it! I don't *care* about being environmentally friendly, or vegetarian, or any of that. I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna stop caring." And then you get that sick feeling in your stomach when you realise that you can't stop caring, that you won't stop caring, and that the cost to your soul of living like you don't care is even greater than the cost of living with your principles.

So you get back up and trudge on, questioning your every motivation to see if it's one you can live with, not buying things that would make your life easier because you don't know whose life you'd be making harder by doing so. Noticing things that no one else seems to notice, like the fact that 90% of what gets sold in the front of drug stores is completely useless, and 90% of that is marketed exclusively to women.

Bloody hell. I'm sick of living in Feminist Acres.

If Everyone Lived Like Me

According to the Earth Day Footprint Quiz, I use up 4.4 hectares. While this is only half as much space as the average Canadian uses, it's still considerably more than the 1.8 biologically productive hectares per person that the Earth can provide.

What this means is that if everyone lived like me, we would need 2.4 Earths to sustain us.

Would my readers care to take the quiz and tell me how much more than their fair share they use?

Who am I?

Despite taking the test with an eye towards getting BSG, my true colours showed through. It would appear that this is where I belong:

You scored as Enterprise D (Star Trek). You have high ideals and know in your heart that humanity will continue to evolve in a better people. No matter what may happen, you have faith in human beings. A rare quality. Now if only the Borg would quit assimilating people. Enterprise D (Star Trek) 88% Moya (Farscape) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 75% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 69% Serenity (Firefly) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 63% SG-1 (Stargate) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 56% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 44% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 31% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You know, I've been rewatching this series lately (I hadn't seen any since it ended lo, those many years ago) and I'm amazed at how closely my principles match those of Jean-Luc Picard. Here I thought they would have been shaped by my parents or my school or my classmates, but no. It was the TV show my family and I watched religiously throughout my childhood.

Huh.

People Have Sex

That's a fact. There is not a single thing that anyone will ever be able to do to change that. All kinds of people have sex. My ex knew a massage parlour worker who said that her most common clients were Hasidim. Evangelical preachers get arrested for asking cops for blow jobs. (It still amazes me that it's illegal to ask for a blow job in that state. As far as I know, in the case in question the preacher didn't offer or ask for money. The poor man just wanted some head.) All sorts of people have sex.

Telling people not to have sex does not stop people from having sex.

Pressuring people to promise not to have sex until marriage does not stop them from having sex.

Lying to people about how their bodies and available contraceptives work does not stop them from having sex.

Refusing to allow people to talk about sex in public does not stop them from having sex.

Making sex as dangerous as possible by denying people access to condoms and other contraceptives does not stop those people from having sex.

If people want to have sex NOTHING IS GOING TO STOP THEM.

So please, stop trying to do the impossible and give the poor women in the United States of America their freaking emergency contraception.

Goddamn.

Pink Video Update

I found a working link to the Pink video I blogged about a while ago.

here it is.

Not-Remotely-Daily Link, Sunday. You-Are-A-Rapist Edition

This post at the newly (by me) discovered Den of the Biting Beaver (soon to be added to the blogroll) is so good that I'm just going to copy out the whole thing.

Some things to remember...

1. You are a rapist if you get a girl drunk and have sex with her.

2. You are a rapist if you find a drunk girl and have sex with her.

3. You are a rapist if you get yourself drunk and have sex with her. Your drunkeness is no excuse.

4. If you are BOTH drunk you may still be a rapist.

5. If she's alternating between puking her guts out and passing out in the bed then you're a rapist.

6. If she's sleeping and you have sex with her you're a rapist.

7. If she's unconscious and you have sex with her then you're a rapist.

8. If she's taking sleeping pills and doesn’t wake up when you have sex with her then you’re a rapist.

9. If she is incapacitated in any way and unable to say 'Yes' then you're a rapist.

10. If you drug her then you're a rapist.

11. If you find a drugged girl and have sex with her then you're a rapist.

12. If you don't bother to ask her permission and she says neither 'Yes' or 'No' then you could be a rapist.

13. You are a rapist if you 'nag' her for sex. Because you manage to ply an eventual 'yes' from a weary victim doesn't mean it's not rape. You are a rapist.

14. You are a rapist if you try to circumvent her "No" by talking her into it. She's not playing hard to get, and, even if she IS it's not YOUR responsibility to 'get' her. You're still a rapist.

15. You are a rapist if you manipulate her into sex when she doesn't otherwise want it. If you say, "If you loved me you’d do X" then you're a rapist. If you say, "All the other kids are doing it!" then you're a rapist.

16. If you threaten her, or act in a way that SHE thinks you're threatening her then you're a rapist. If you puff up and get loud and frustrated while trying to 'talk' her into sex then you're a rapist.

17. You are a rapist if you don't immediately get your hands off of her when she says 'no'. You are a rapist if you take your hands off of her and then put them back ON her after 10 minutes and she eventually 'gives in' to this tactic.

18. You are a rapist if you won't let her sleep peacefully without waking her every 15 minutes asking her for sex. Sleep depravation is a form of torture and YOU are a rapist.

19. If you're necking with her and you're naked and you've already gone down on her and she says 'No' to sex with you and you have sex with her anyway then you're a rapist.

20. If you're engaged in intercourse and she says 'No' at ANY point and you don't immediately stop then you're a rapist.

21. If she said "Yes" to sex with a condom and that condom breaks and you proceed anyway then you're a rapist.

22. If she picked you up at a bar looking for sex and then decides that she doesn't WANT sex and you continue then you're a rapist.

23. If she changes her mind at ANY point for ANY reason and you don't immediately back off or you try to talk her into it and get sex anyway then you're a rapist.

24. If you don't hit her and she says 'No' you're still a rapist.

25. If you don't have a knife or a gun or a garrote and she says 'No' then you're still a rapist.

26. If you're a friend of hers you can still be a rapist.

27. If you had sex with her the night before but she doesn't want morning sex and you pressure her for it anyway then you're a rapist.

28. If you're her husband you can still be a rapist.

29. If it's your wedding night and she doesn't WANT to have sex with you and you force or coerce her anyway then you're a rapist.

30. If she's had sex with you hundreds of times before but doesn't want to on the 101st time then you're a rapist.

31. If you penetrate her anally, orally or digitally against her will then YOU my friend, are ALSO a rapist.

32. Women do not owe you sex.

33. Buying her dinner does not entitle you to sex.

34. Paying her mortgage does not entitle you to sex.

35. Buying her clothing does not entitle you to sex.

36. Buying her lingerie does not entitle you to sex. It also doesn't mean that she has any obligation to wear that lingerie around you.

37. Spending any amount of money on her does not, ever, entitle you to sex.

38. Seeing her legs or cleavage does not entitle you to sex.

39. If she 'turns you on' you're not entitled to sex.

40. If she has fucked every man in a 10 square mile radius and she doesn't want to fuck you and you have sex with her anyway, then you're a rapist.

41. Her clothing is not a reason for you to rape her. Her LACK of clothing is no reason to rape her. If she's wearing a thong and pasties you STILL have no right to rape her.

42. If she's a prostitute and she says "No" then you're a rapist.

43. If she's a stripper and she says "No" then you're a rapist. Likewise, if she's a stripper and she's been rubbing against your dick all night long and you follow her to her car and have sex with her against her will then you are ALSO a rapist.

44. If you watch a woman being raped without calling the authorities then you're as bad as a rapist and you may also be a rapist yourself.

45. If you don't fight rape then you accept rape.

46. If you don't believe a woman when she says she was raped then you're encouraging rape.

47. If you choose to remain friends with a man who raped a woman you are encouraging rape.

48. If you confess to the authorities that you raped a woman it does not exonerate you. You are not suddenly a model of good behavior.

49. If you ‘only’ raped one woman, you’re STILL a rapist.

50. You cannot tell who is a rapist by the way they look. Rapists are your friends, your brothers, your fathers and you won't know it.

51. Do not get frustrated with a woman if she doesn't trust you. SHE already knows that rapists don't wear signs on their foreheads. Something you think is innocuous SHE may find terrifying.

Links and Housekeeping

1. As reported on KWF, I am currently baking bread all by myself, for the very first time. Go me!
2. The Big Fat Carnival has been up for a few days. It has some excellent posts. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to writing my thing. It's just refusing to form itself into a post. Oh well, maybe next time.
3. Pooflingers Anonymous is no longer updating, a loss to those of us who love laughing at creationists, so I'll be removing it from the blogroll.
4. A few additions will be made to the blogroll over the next few days, as I reorganize my bookmarks to reflect my reading habits. Enjoy.

And that's all for today.

Quasi-daily link, Tuesday

Today's link is for my mom, via Bitch, PhD

Knee-deep in elephant shit

Quasi-daily link, Sunday

Today's link is to a Real Audio file of a song by Atmosphere on the Rhymesayers label. I first heard this song months ago on Julien's In Over Your Head Radio podcast (RSS in the sidebar), and it was one of the most lyrically beautiful songs I've ever heard.

The song, called Woman with the Tattooed Hands is a truly rare item: a strong and positive depiction of female sexuality. The fact that it's sung by a man doesn't bother me, because, unlike that creepy She Comes First guy, the singer isn't holding himself up as an expert on female sexuality. It's a first-person account of an experience with a woman who didn't need any help, and it's beautiful. I mean how can you not love this:

I didn't get turned on I just got turned
I wasn't as aroused as I was concerned
for each one of em I've hurt
and every time I've been burned
I've got a lot to teach but even more to learn

How can you not love that?