Now that there's some good science!

I'll just let the opening paragraph speak for itself:

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

They couldn't even find some morally bankrupt chemist or geologist to do this; they had to get a lawyer whose degree was in econ. That either shows how incredibly inept they are at this propaganda thing, how hard it is to find a Ph.D who's that big of a tool, or both (which would be my vote).

This is a sulfurous hot spring in Yellowstone, from a trip I took with my dad and his household two years ago. This picture hasn't been digitally altered in any way; the colours are from bacteria that thrive in the water.  

These guys were totally prepped to have pictures taken of them. I don't mean that they were cool with it, though they were, I mean that the second "Can I take a picture of you guys?" slipped passed my lips they dropped their shit and assumed the action stance like I was Darth Maul pre-stumpification. This was the first picture I took at Wizard world.  

Feminist of the day: Katharine Graham

Here's a fantastic quotation from today's Feminist of the Day, Katharine Graham:

The thing women must do to rise to power is to redefine their femininity. Once, power was considered a masculine attribute. In fact power has no sex.

Awesome!

What She Said!: Women's Autonomy Movement

I really like these names:

Shakti suggested we call it reproductive sovereignty. I've been thinking we need to take a two pronged approach. First would be the Women's Autonomy Movement, which would be a continuation of feminism, emphasizing our right to our own bodies, medical decisions and to safety from rape, sexual abuse, assault, domestic abuse, slavery and war. The second would be the Sexual Sovereignty Movement that would assert that adults have a right to have sex as they choose, in accordance with their own beliefs. I'm sick of the Christian assumption that sex is bad and only for procreation. I'm a proud hedonist in a free country. I won't be limited by ideas from a book written by a tribe of hash-smokers a few thousand years ago that have nothing to do with my life. The government exists to make the trains run on time and keep the peace -- it has no place in my bedroom, or my doctor's office.

As should be obvious by now, I take the right to an abortion (and birth control of all sorts) to be nothing more than a direct application of a woman's right to reproductive, sexual, and bodily autonomy.

Tom Friedman solves the education crisis

Brilliant. Rather than paying educators a living wage and leaving standardized testing behind as yet another phenomenally boneheaded product of the twentieth century, we should just talk about how important teachers are. It's a hell of a lot cheaper.

Each of the four teachers is given $2,000, plus a $1,000 donation to his or her high school. The winners and their families are then flown to Williams, located in the lush Berkshires, and honored as part of the graduation weekend.[...]

And the best way to ensure that we have teachers who inspire their students is if we recognize and reward those who clearly have done so.

Imagine if every college in America had a program like Williams's, and every spring, across the land, thousands of great teachers were acknowledged by the students they inspired? "No Great Teachers Left Behind." How about it?

Starting pay for public school teachers is pretty comparable to academic grad school stipends, around $15k. After working in this incredibly (existentially) rewarding and psychologically demanding job (you try dealing with teenagers 70 hours a week, plus spending your free time prepping for those 70 hours) for a couple decades, a public school teacher in a good district can make $60k, meaning they might actually be able to afford to live in their district (assuming they don't have more than one kid). Yeah, the possibility of a nice weekend, a couple thousand bucks (yay! I can get the transmission on my car fixed!), and a little semi-public recognition is all we need to make teaching a viable, attractive profession again.

Putz.

Photo blogging

Most of you don't know this, but I have a small hobby playing with Photoshop and my digital camera. I've decided to put up a series of these, starting with one of my favourites:


This is based on a photo I took at the wedding of our own ArchGarth, two years ago this August.  

Damn #$%^@-ing Dog!

This game is bullshit, I totally shot that duck.

How Does He Fit In Such A Tiny Pokeball?

The plan was for the whole group to get a picture with Picachu here, and then have Jay run at it, finishing with a vicious tackle, but somehow that didn't happen. Actually, I'm pretty sure that unlike most of the people I have pics of, this guy was getting paid to be there, as there was a huge Pokemon Tournament going on. Never have so many older men played games with little boys and there be not a single arrest. Another little interesting fact about this picture is that after I took the thing, Picachu shook a little at the flash, as if frightened or startled, which I found sort of amusing. Still, I can only imagine how annoying it must have been to be the hot and sweaty person inside that suit having to do cute things like that all day.

I realized today that in all the hustle and bustle that I experienced while unemployed for three weeks I managed to miss celebrating the one year anniversary of Staff of Ra! The not-so-old addage in the blogging world is that if you're still managing to make yourself do it after a year you'll keep doing it for a good long while. Though it's been a while since I had a good long political post, which is sort of why this blog started last summer, it's been a great year with a great blogging partner in Dan, who does all the real work. More later, gotta run...

Chinese Gamer Sentenced To Life For Killing

This is that guy from a few months ago that killed his friend because the friend stole a sword from his Massively Multiplayer RPG character. I guess he missed his evade roll.

Seriously, though I'm stealing this line from the link, this is exactly the type of thing that the anti-game crowd latches onto, even though it's pretty obvious this guy had a coupld screws loose regardless of his gaming.

Know Thyself

Who are you?

Aren't You A Little Short To Be A Stormtrooper?

As you would expect, most of the people dressed up in Star Wars regalia at the old Con. It's just one of those things that goes with with nerd-dom. One of the things that I found really facinating about Wizard World was the number of pirated movies being sold in the open. They had copies of all kinds of nerdy shows just laying on the tabletops with obviously homemade covers. I would have thought that type of thing would land you some serious fines, but apparantly it's not that big of a deal. They were also selling a number of midevil weapons there, which simultaneously seems like a very good match to the swords and sorcery crowd and a monumentally bad idea for nerds with gallons of bottled rage.

And yeah, this guy *was* a little short to be a Stormtrooper, but Drew was too scared to say it to him...

TK421! Why Aren't You At Your Post?!

Post above...

Foundations of modern liberalism

Via Pandagon, an excellent post explaining why feminism is NOT just a woman’s issue

One of the most disheartening things for those of us who consider ourselves feminists is the sense that it has become a ghetto term; the Right was successful in labeling us as man-hating FemiNazis (or, as one recent Dkos poster referred to us: “menstruating she-devils”), when the irony is that feminism is the bedrock of progressive politics. Feminism links the private with the political, interrogates how restrictions on personal behaviour echoes out to national policy, and understands gender not as “sex,” but as power—who has it, who wants it, and how those in power get to portray those who do not.[...]

You do not have to be a woman to recognize that gender and feminism are inextricably tied to the progressive agenda. You do not have to be a woman to recognize that when progressive males start shitting on so-called women’s issues, they are missing the point. If you do not understand how power works, how it is rooted in the binary oppositions that we ascribe to the sexes, then you will continue to focus on saving one tree while the entire forest is being razed.

This was one of the great achievements of feminism's so-called Second Wave: feminist theory. Bundled together with the work of intellectuals writing explicitly from queer and 'ethnic' points of view, 'Theory' became the foundation for our contemporary understanding of social science and philosophy. Beyond just marginalizing more than half the electorate, dismissing 'cultural issues' as unimportant shit means discarding the grounds for progressivism as we know it.

You Got Your SNES In My Playstation

This guy had some time on his hand, but it was a holy mission.

Though I do appreciate the project, I must say that this guy is obviously a fan of Nintendo and they products and he really didn't waste any opportunities to praise them or to attribute the successes of others to Nintendo's ideas.

A New Idea!

Ok, here's a problem I've been running into lately: I really like posting stuff, and I sure like the feeling that Staff of Ra is a bustling site o' love...err, news and information, but I'm really busy these days. So here's a possible solution I've been banging around in my head lately: you do my work for me! I'm not looking for long, in depth articles here (though if you feel like it you're welcome), just something in the ~100 word ballpark (I'll allow less if it's just a really cool link that doesn't need to be explained, like Bananaphone), and it needn't be politics or nerdy-stuff related either. You find something you think other people might want to see, you send it to me, and I give you those ever precious Ra points that I know you all thirst for. Furthermore, if you want to come up with some original content (reviews of things for instance) that would also be cool.

I have to say, however, that I have to retain some editorial power here. If I change anything in your writing I'll make that clear in the post. Anyway, bring it chumps! Let's see your game!

Edit: Just realized you don't know how to get in touch with me probably. Let's say you send things to me at MosBen-at-hotmail-dot-com.

TWIP! Think He Keeps Web Fluid Cartridges In That Fanny Pack?

This week we have a fun feature for you, the loyal readers of the SoR: Pics from Wizard World '05! That's right, some friends and I made the exciting and nerdy trek to a comic book convention this last weekend.

I had a really good time, which probably says something about my personality, but everywhere I turned I was compelled to profess my eternal and complete love of geeks. Seriously, not five seconds after I took this picture Spidey here got called over to a group of four or five girls that were pretty attracted and ended up talking to them for several minutes. Now, they were probably laughing at him on the inside, but he was talking to them! How often do you think that guy, and most of the people there (self included), has random attractive girls prompt *him* for a conversation?

I have enough pictures to get us through Saturday, with a couple days of double pictures, and I plan, at least at this point, to give some commentary on each one. Till next time, true believers (10 Ra points to the first person to say who I'm quoting).

Pie fight

Over the weekend, both Daily Kos and Pandagon had sidebar ads that referenced a teevee commercial for TBS's Gilligan's Island (go to the dKos link and hit page down a time or two). In the teevee spot, 'Ginger' and 'Mary Ann' smear cream pies and then wash each other while wearing ridiculously skimpy clothing. If you have cable, you've probably seen the spot sometime over the last six weeks or so.

I wrote Jesse and Amanda an email

I have a problem with one of the sidebar ads; in particular, the 'pie fight' ad for TBS (I'm enclosing a cropped screen capture so you know what I'm talking about). While this ad itself isn't a problem, it doesn't make any sense without the teevee commercial it links to, which is, in my opinion, sexist, disgusting (in the particular way it's sexist), and stupid.
I don't know precisely how they work, but I'm guessing blogads has decided to put this in circulation on your site, so I don't blame your personally. Nor will I be driven away from the pandagony goodness if it's not removed. But I was quite surprised to see it, and thought I'd let you guys know what blogads is putting on your site.

Now, I don't think Pie Fight is all that bad; that's why I didn't threaten to leave if it wasn't removed. It's just a couple of shades worse than Baywatch, which really does make it more idiotic than objectifying, as far as I'm concerned. But it is still objectifying, and it's an open debate among feminists whether objectification is ever acceptable. Amanda, like me, is the sort of feminist who thinks this sort of thing is more juvenile than morally problematic:

Huh, that is pretty stupid. We don't vet our ads much, just check to make sure they aren't pro-Bush type stuff. I'm not sure why they advertised with us anyway. Still, I'm no stranger to the pull of the cold, hard cash. I've been meaning to write something on the gender stereotyping on reality TV shows, and maybe this would be a good occasion, a sort of prank on the BlogAd.

I didn't even realize they were advertising a TV show. Shows what I know.

I just checked, and the ad is still up on Pandagon. Kos has a slightly different reaction:

Feel free to be offended. I find such humorless, knee-jerk reactions, to be tedious at best, sanctimonious and arrogant at worst. I don't care for such sanctimony from Joe Lieberman, I don't care for it from anyone else. Some people find such content offensive. Some people find it arousing. Some people find it funny. To each his or her own.

But I am not Lieberman. I won't sit there and judge pop culture and act as gatekeeper to what I think is "appropriate", and what isn't.

And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad. It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.[...]

Update: [...] I honestly didn't mean to smear anyone who has ever taken a women's studies course, or majored or minored or gotten an advance degree in it. Just what is, to me, a small, extremist set looking for signs of female subjugation under every rock. So yeah, a poor choice of words that cast the net far too wide to cover the people that have, in fact, pissed me off.

Sorry about that, but not sorry about my broader point -- that being sanctimonious about this ad is no different than the sanctimony we decry from people like Lieberman, Dobson, and the Family Values Coalition.

I'm noticing signs of anti-feminist hostility more and more on Kos: it's NARAL that should compromise and support anti-choice Dems; feminists (which, in his retracted smear, is the 'women's studies set') who have a problem with stupid, objectifying commercials are humorousless; it's sanctimonious to call for Kos to take a tasteless ad off his own site; sexism isn't important for progressives.

Kos could've written fifty words saying he didn't think the ad was all that bad, that if people didn't like it they shouldn't click on it and it would rotate off the site in 24 hours. Or been understanding that a significant part of his community has big problems with portrayals of women as sex objects and taken the ad down out of respect for his fellow Dems. This dismissive, stereotyping attack on feminists was completely inappropriate.

Obviously Kos has a right to his opinions and veto power over his BlogAds. He doesn't care about feminism, fine. He wants to leave the ad up, fine. But, as I explained in a previous post, marginalizing feminism as unimportant, sanctimonious, and humourless (and thereby marginalizing women) isn't going to help bring lefty types together into that powerful, unified voting bloc Kos is trying to bring about. I wonder how many feminist types have pushed Kos far down their list of regular reads because of this sort of shit from him.

Update: Echidne of the snakes weighs in.

In short, and in an effort to be polite, I suggest that Kos doesn't see the sexism around him. That's the only kind explanation I can give for his response, whether the particular ad is harmless or not (I didn't look).

Update 2: We've got our first trackback, so yay about that. This has erupted into a huge issue on the feminist blogosphere, so I thought I'd add some links to more active discussions: Pandagon and Feministe. And, deliberately echoing the women's rights movement, Democratic women's caucus, etc., a group of former Kossacks has split off to their own group blog (link from Pandagon).

This is just plain creepy

Here's a link to an article in Salon (site pass required) to what is one of the most morbid sounding displays I've ever heard off. Imagine an art gallery where people's bodies (which could in fact be people who haven't given their consent, say, like, executed chinese prisoners whose organs may have been illegally harvested by their government?) are posed on things like bicycles with their skin peeled away and various organs displayed.

Personally, I feel you can call anything art, but just because someone takes a crap on a cinder block and call it art doesn't really mean it is.

This is what happens

when teenagers don't take real science classes in high school.



Via Pandagon