By VFM: On International Men’s Day this year (November 19th), advertising and
marketing company M&C Saatchi released a White Paper titled The Modern [Aussie] Man.
The Paper was the result of eight months of one-to-one interviews with
140 men, primarily aged 27-55 years, from a broad cross section of
Australian demographics, workforce and geography.
Seventy men were influential leaders, marketers and role models from
business, sport, military, popular culture, hospitality, philanthropy,
academia, men’s health and wellbeing, education, media, advertising and
fashion. Seventy were everyday men from around Australia, including
construction and white collared workers, sales assistants, baristas and
bartenders.
To quote from the Paper,
“The Modern [Aussie] Man study is not, and was never
intended to be, a definitive summation of Australian men’s character,
anthropology and imperfections. Nor is it the creation of a new set of
male archetypes. Its aim is to draw a line under historic truths and
modern day perceptions, and help move society to a new place of
heightened awareness and mutual respect.
corbettreport: Commonly referred to as the psychiatric diagnostic "bible," the APA's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has always
generated controversy. How are disorders diagnosed? What criteria are
used to establish disorders in the first place? Are the categories
subjective? Do they reflect cultural biases?
By Michael Krieger: I have publicly questioned the official story of 9/11 for
many years. Of course, I’ve never claimed to know exactly what happened
on that fateful day, but I’ve maintained that the official story stinks
to high heaven. I always found it beyond bizarre that the U.S. launched
a war against Iraq following the terrorist attacks, yet never really
questioned the potential (and obvious) Saudi involvement, despite the
glaring fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.
Saudi suspicion crept even further into my mind following their anger
at the U.S. for not going to war in Syria, in what now seems likely to
have been a Saudi provocation to begin with.
Disturbingly, it appears the highest levels of the Bush
Administration knew all too well about such a link and intentionally
covered it up. The Obama Administration continues the coverup. The Saudi
link is made clear in a 28-page, redacted classified document from
2002, which has now been seen by two Congressmen who were “absolutely
shocked”
By Jesse Folsom: One
of the most frustrating things to see, to a person who values truth, is
valid points misleadingly mixed with ridiculous assertions. Salon’s
article by Soraya Chemaly, “The MPAA’s backwards logic: Sex is dangerous, sexism is fine,”
is a case of just such an article. In perhaps Chemaly’s only really
substantive point, she questions why a sex scene, which depicts
something generally positive and fun, should be rated worse than movies
where people are literally ripped to shreds. But this isn’t the place to
debate such aspects of American morality (although this might be), and aside from this, it is an exercise in fallacy and distorted reality.
Chemaly’s article focuses on the French film, “Blue is the Warmest
Color,” which was given an NC-17 rating for graphic, lengthy lesbian sex
scenes, using prosthetic genitalia. However, you don’t need to have
seen the movie to realize just how ridiculous the arguments in her
article are. In one of her first questions, she prompts the reader to,
“Imagine if our movie ratings considered sexism and racism as content
that children should not be viewing without parental input.”
Okay, I’m imagining it: I see films rated based on a film reviewer’s
political convictions and personal beliefs. You know, more than they
already do. That way, every movie a person under 17 is allowed to see
will give them just the right politically-correct programming, since
clearly mandatory schooling isn’t working fast enough.
Lecturers and others reproach the police traitors, identify their trechary in legal terms and demand the kettled kids be released.
Perseus999: On December 6, 2013, following a big protest in the center of
Athens, Greece by highschool students, on the 5 year anniversary of the murder
of 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a policeman in 2008, riot police attacked the protest at its end on Athens University
grounds, that until recently was under asylum status. Then, in
an attempt to humiliate them, surrounded the entrapped students and began
to frisk them again and again. Even a traffic policeman took part in
the frisking!
LeeCamp2: Amazon.com revealed recently they are ready to have drones delivering
your packages within 5 years. What are the larger implications of this??
TEDxTalks: Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, which has
representation in the European parliament and has spawned Pirate Parties
in more than 60 other countries.
His interests lays in fighting
for the net's core values, the ability for everybody to publish their
ideas and creations, and how these industries drive us towards a Big
Brother society.
Abstract: For a number of decades now, the gap in educational
achievement between boys and girls has been widening significantly in
favor of girls. Instead of blaming male attitudes towards education
however, I think we have a duty to question whether the current
education system is simply more suited to girls.
If the
culturally deterministic, "blank slate" theory of behavioral sex
differences is inaccurate, then this brings into question the
egalitarian code of conduct which is common practice in many western
governments today.
By Paul Craig Roberts: The payroll jobs report for November from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics says that the US economy created 203,000 jobs in November.
As it takes about 130,000 new jobs each month to keep up with population
growth, if the payroll report is correct, then most of the new jobs
would have been used up keeping the unemployment rate constant for the
growth in the population of working age persons, and about 70,000 of the
jobs would have slightly reduced the rate of unemployment. Yet, the
unemployment rate (U3) fell from 7.3 to 7.0, which is too much for the
job gain. It seems that the numbers and the news reports are not
conveying correct information.
As the payroll jobs and unemployment rate reports are released
together and are usually covered in the same press report, it is natural
to assume that the reports come from the same data. However, the
unemployment rate is calculated from the household survey, not from
payroll jobs, so there is no statistical relationship between the number
of new payroll jobs and the change in the rate of unemployment.
It is doubtful that the differences in the two data sets can be
meaningfully resolved. Consider only the definitional differences. The
payroll survey counts a person holding two jobs as if it were two
employed persons, while the household survey counts a person holding two
jobs as one job. Also the two surveys treated furloughed government
workers during the shutdown differently. They were unemployed according
to the household survey and employed according to the payroll survey.
By Paul Elam: Are
school officials interested in education and the well-being of students
anymore, or are they just a bunch of sociopathic, opportunistic
scumbags willing to savage children for the sake of political
correctness and to get back slaps from their left of Mao, morally
derelict cohorts in the teachers union?
Never mind, the question was rhetorical. And if it wasn’t, it was
just given another resounding answer by Robin Gooldy, district
superintendent over Lincoln School of Science and Technology in Canon
City, Colorado, where he just explained the suspension of six year old Hunter Yelton, for, get this, kissing a girl on the hand, an apparently at some point, her cheek.
Oh, and they also stamped “sexual harassment” on his permanent school record.
I started to write this up as a news story, but I was too pissed off to keep my opinion out of it.
Now, I am not going to waste keystrokes explaining how a six year old
doesn’t understand sex, much less sexual harassment. Nor am I going to
offer a step by step rationale why behavior of this kind is perfectly
normal. If you need that explained to you, then I can only suggest
Googling “Darwin Awards” and then just using your limited brain power on
not getting one. Either that, or consider a career in education.
