Have take a tactical leave of absence from the world of burnt offerings, to return some point in the near future, either in this incarnation or another. Stay posted.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
This just appeared in my inbox –
Petraeus: Time has come to rethink gay policy
The Associated Press Tuesday, March 16, 2010; 10:56 AM
WASHINGTON — The four-star Army general who is managing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan says "the time has come" for the military to rethink its policy toward gays.Gen. David Petraeus peh-TRAY-us stopped short of saying whether he personally believed if the militarys policy of "dont ask, dont tell" is outdated or unfair.Instead, Petraeus told a Senate panel Tuesday that he wants to see the results of an internal study ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates before any changes are made. He said he wants to know if allowing gays to serve openly might hurt recruiting and retention, or the militarys ability to fight.
via Petraeus: Time has come to rethink gay policy – washingtonpost.com.
Which reminded me of this awesome conversation from the West Wing –
Admiral Fitzwallace enters [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]
MAJOR TATE – Oh my God.
MAJOR THOMPSON – Attention!
The officers in the room swiftly stand straight.
FITZWALLACE – Good afternoon, Sam.
SAM – Mr. Chairman.
FITZWALLACE – Congressman.
KEN – How do you do admiral?
FITZWALLACE – Good to meet you again, Ken. [to Mike] We haven’t met.
MIKE – Mike Satchel.
FITZWALLACE – From Oregon?
MIKE – Yes, sir.
FITZWALLACE – Percy Fitzwallace.
MIKE – It’s an honor to meet you, admiral.
FITZWALLACE – I imagine it would be. Yes.
SAM – Uh, Major Tate, Major Thompson, this is Chairman Fitzwallace.
FITZWALLACE – They’re not gonna speak to me until I speak to them, Sam. They’re pretty well-trained. [to Tate and Thompson] Stand easy, fellas. [sees the snack on the table] Is this Danish for everybody?
SAM – Oh. Yes sir.
FITZWALLACE – [to Tate and Thompson] We’re discussing gays in the military, huh?
MAJOR THOMPSON – Yes sir.
FITZWALLACE – What do you think?
No response.
FITZWALLACE – I said what do you think?
MAJOR THOMPSON – Sir, we’re here to help the White House form a possible-
FITZWALLACE – I know. I’m asking you what you think.
MAJOR TATE – Sir, we’re not prejudiced toward homosexuals.
FITZWALLACE – You just don’t want to see them serving in the Armed Forces?
MAJOR TATE – No sir, I don’t.
FITZWALLACE – ‘Cause they oppose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion.
MAJOR TATE – Yes sir.
FITZWALLACE – That’s what I think too. I also think the military wasn’t designed to be an instrument of social change.
MAJOR TATE – Yes sir.
FITZWALLACE – The problem with that is that what they were saying to me 50 years ago. Blacks shouldn’t serve with Whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I’m an admiral in the U.S. Navy and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…Beat that with a stick. [to Ken] We’ll see you, Ken. [leaves]
Interesting times. Go Fitz!
Sierra Leone and its diamonds: Digging in the dumps | The Economist
From: Sierra Leone and its diamonds: Digging in the dumps | The Economist.
The joys of globalisation meant that when the leaders of the Western nations crashed our economy into a wall, the rest of the world is in the nasty pile up that follows…
Over the past few months De Beers, until recently the world’s biggest diamond producer, has seen the value of its “sights”—carefully calibrated sales of rough diamonds to a handpicked club of buyers called “sightholders”—fall from an average of $650m to a recent low of around $150m. In response to collapsing demand, mining companies have been temporarily closing mines or reducing production. This does not hurt countries such as Australia and Russia all that much. But it squeezes poorer ones, particularly in Africa, very hard.
Earlier this year, for instance, De Beers temporarily shut mines in Botswana and Namibia that it owns in partnership with those states. At least three-quarters of the companies in Namibia’s young cutting and polishing industry have closed. “We are suffering quite severely because of job losses,” says Bernhard Esau, Namibia’s deputy minister for mines. In India, home to the largest diamond cutting and polishing industry in the world, at least 100,000 diamond polishers are out of work. America, where half of all polished diamonds are eventually sold, is importing less than half the volume of polished diamonds compared with a year ago.
Not cool. Especially when you consider Collier’s work on development traps and then the link between natural resources (diamonds) and conflict…
But Sierra Leone relies on those consumers to help prevent it from slipping back into chaos. When Koidu Holdings temporarily halted operations and laid off 540 people, leaving only 60 in work, it was especially nerve-racking. For Kono has the highest concentration of former rebel fighters in Sierra Leone. Despite political stability and fairly harmonious elections since the war ended, the conditions that led to it still prevail. Back in 1991, the rebels gained early if short-lived support by arguing that a country as mineral-rich as Sierra Leone should give all its people a decent living. Yet it was at the bottom of the UN’s human-development index when the war started—and is still at the bottom.
But, the Economist ends with a cheery note. War is unlikely because the rebels would find it hard to shift the diamonds, cutting chance of armament-funding-revenue. Additionally, many miners are going back to farming, which should help ease food prices. Here’s hopin.
Posted in Africa, Eeeekonomics, Globalisation Leave a comment
Study break
For a nice change, the essay deadline is for handing marked essays back, rather than handing one in. Still. Deadline. Essay. Need to not be posting stories. Expect more and expect it more regularly after this. (Employment permitting, mashallah!)
In the meantime, this week’s Have I Got News For You was amazing. Bob Crow decided to… well, it’s not clear if he had a plan or not…..
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BBC News – Rape complaint woman reaches settlement with police
BBC News – Rape complaint woman reaches settlement with police.
A manic depressive with bi-polar is raped during a psychotic episode. She’s then sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Two months later she reports the rape to the police… who do nothing. Literally, nothing.
Her rapist took her to a cash point and made her withdraw £200, which was caught on film. She alleges a police officer told her the cameras were dummy cameras. When she finds out much later from a cashier at the bank that they’re not, she takes the police to court. They pay £3,500 and get some bad press.
Since when is £3,500 the price to make a rape go away?
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Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From Twilight | Underwire | Wired.com
Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From Twilight | Underwire | Wired.com.
Ha ha ha. Love Wire, dislike vampires.
And so, with an insincere “love is forever,” we begin.
- If a boy is aloof, stand-offish, ignores you or is just plain rude, it is because he is secretly in love with you — and you are the point of his existence.
- Secrets are good — especially life-threatening ones.
- It’s OK for a potential romantic interest to be dimwitted, violent and vengeful — as long as he hasgreat abs.
- If a boy tells you to stay away from him because he is dangerous and may even kill you, he must be the love of your life. You should stay with him since he will keep you safe forever.
- If a boy leaves you, especially suddenly (while telling you he will never see you again), it is because he loves you so much he will suffer just to keep you safe.
- When a boy leaves you, going into shock, losing all your friends and enduring night terrors are completely acceptable occurrences — as long as you keep your grades up.
- It is extremely romantic to put yourself in dangerous situations in order to see your ex-boyfriend again. It’s even more romantic to remember the sound of his voice when he yelled at you.
- Boys who leave you always come back.
- Because they come back, you should hold out, waiting for them for months, even when completely acceptable and less-abusive alternative males present themselves.
- Even though you have no intention of dating an alternative male who expresses interest in you, it is fine to string the young man along for months. Also, you should use him to fix things for you. Maybe he’ll even buy you something.
- You should use said male to fix things because girls are incapable of anything mechanical or technical.
- Lying to your parents is fine. Lying to your parents while you run away to save your suicidal boyfriend is an extremely good idea that shows your strength and maturity. Also, it is what you must do.
- Car theft in the service of love is acceptable.
- If the boy you are in love with causes you (even indirectly) to be so badly beaten you end up in the hospital, you should tell the doctors and your family that you “fell down the steps” because you are such a silly, clumsy girl. That false explanation always works well for abused women.
- Men can be changed for the better if you sacrifice everything you are and devote yourself to their need for change.
- Young women should make no effort to improve their social skills or emotional state. Instead, they should seek out potential mates that share their morose deficiencies and emotional illnesses.
- Girls shouldn’t always read a book series just because everyone else has.
- When writing a book series, it’s acceptable to lift seminal source material and bastardize it with tired, overwrought teenage angst.
- When making or watching a major feature film, you should gleefully embrace the 20 minutes of plot it provides in between extended segments of vacant-eyed silence and self-indulgent, moaning banter.
- Vampires — once among the great villains of literature and motion pictures — are no longer scary. In fact, they’re every bit as whiny, self-absorbed and impotent as any human being.
Quite.
Gay Rights: How a California Judge Is Challenging Obama – TIME
Hurrah, hurrah! Lady marries lady, and then lady tries to put wife on insurance, they say ‘hmmmm’ and the judge says ‘do it’. They do it, then the Executive Branch goes ‘wait a minute… don’t do that’ and then the judge says ‘DO IT.’ Now waiting on the next move from the Exec… that’s you, Obama! Get on it!
Obama Administration lawyers are likely still scratching their heads over how to respond to an extraordinary ruling in San Francisco. Last week, the chief judge of one of America’s most prominent federal courts ordered an Executive Branch agency to stop interfering with a court employee’s efforts to secure health insurance coverage for her wife. "The Office of Personnel Management shall cease at once its interference with the jurisdiction of this tribunal," wrote Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. He gave the Administration 30 days to permit Karen Golinski, a lawyer employed by the Ninth Circuit, to include the woman she married under California law last year on her family health-insurance plan.
…Kozinski’s unusual and bluntly worded Golinski order comes 10 months after the judge, acting in his capacity as administrator in an employee dispute resolution, determined that the federal Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts had erred in rejecting Golinski’s inclusion of her wife on her insurance election form. Sidestepping constitutional questions about equal treatment for gays under the law, he agreed that the Defense of Marriage Act forbids the government from recognizing gay marriages. But Kozinski’s argument centers on the Federal Health Benefits Act, which says that coverage must be provided for an employee’s family, including a spouse and children under the age of 21. While the Administration interpreted that as meaning the coverage could only be provided for couples whose marriages are recognized under federal law, Kozinski reasoned that the law should be seen as setting a minimum standard for coverage, and that policies could include grandparents living at home, children until they are 25 or, as in Golinski’s case, a woman with whom she is raising a child and is married to under state law.
More: Gay Rights: How a California Judge Is Challenging Obama – TIME.
This is especially complicated because gays are unholy gays are all terrible people and should be treated as second class citizens America doesn’t have a nice clear document that enshrines the rights of its citizens
Ok, you got me, America. Why is this complicated?
Cheney 2012…. please, no….
The above is an interesting article that suggests Cheney on a ticket for 2012 would give America the chance to debate serious issues and make up its collective mind. Unsold and cowering. The man…. leaves me speechless. Let’s come back to Cheney. One day. One day, in the far, distant future, not in 2012 and never in the context that he might be allowed in the White House again. Please no.
Kate Moss: ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ – Telegraph
Kate Moss: ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ – Telegraph.
From the Telegraph:
The 35-year-old shocked campaigners fighting to abolish the cult of stick-thin models with the disclosure to the fashion news website WWD.
When asked in an interview if she had any mottos, she replied: “There are loads of mottos. There’s ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’. That’s one of them.”
She added: “You try and remember, but it never works.”
Sweet jebus. You sort of have to hope it’s bad reporting and that she didn’t really mean to say that/it’s been taken out of context.
But high five for providing depressed teenagers who are already on the road to starvation with a role model. Famine victims weren’t quite glamorous. Down with food! Up with stupidity! Hurrah!
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Election 2010: What the Conservatives really think of wives | Sally Bercow | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Election 2010: What the Conservatives really think of wives | Sally Bercow | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.