Shock Of The Day: Sixteen Volts Gone
This is not something I would've really expected to happen...it looks like Ilkka Kokkarinen, the author of
Sixteen Volts somehow got hit with so much email that it led to the blog being deleted except for a couple of posts. While the goodbye post does make some sense, part of the reasoning also eludes me. For one thing, why did he use his real name considering that it would only make him an easy target to shoot down when enough angry people reacted to his posts? Also, while some posts may be taken as mean-spirited attempts at mocking feminists and such, why remove every last post - even when those
sensitive topics never came up for mocking?
Since I didn't get time to visit Sixteen Volts the day before the deletion, I have no real idea right now what must have been said to trigger the whole incident. However, I defiantly refuse to believe that the author simply decided that his posts were mean and therefore deserved to be taken down. It's much more reasonable to think that some aspect of his personal, real-world life is being threatened and that those doing the threatening are either citing his blog as a reason, or that deleting the blog is meant to destroy evidence before it is seen by the wrong person.
Oh well, time to remove Sixteen Volts from my blogroll, as I'm sure other blogs will also do the same. If I actually discover some new and important information in the near future, I'll revisit this topic, otherwise, all I have to say to Mr. Kokkarinen is farewell.
Weird Studies, Weirder Conclusions
What would you do if a study involving a group of men and a group of women reached a conclusion that suggested the men showed a more favorable trait than the women? Well, take a look at
a MSNBC article titled "Researchers identify 'male warrior effect'":
NORWICH, England - Men may have developed a psychology that makes them particularly able to engage in wars, a scientist said on Friday.
'May have'? You'd think this scientist would be well aware of the several thousands of years of history that were shaped by war and the men that had to fight them to protect their civilization, not to mention the years before that in which men had to hunt and kill or be hunted and killed.
Honestly, this article strikes me as an anti-male hack job more than anything else. Consider that men have always had to fight the wars in history and were sometimes humiliated upon refusing to (see the
"Order of the White Feather"). The way this article sounds is as if lots of women were just ready and eager to fight but were instead raped into submission by mean, evil men as a sign of rejection in order to keep war as some kind of male-only enterprise. Have these people no idea that women in general didn't fight wars for other, less sinister reasons? Also, saying that "men are more likely to support a country going to war" comes off as misdirected criticism of the War on Terror, seeing as how the article was written right before the 5th anniversary of 9/11 and the usual opinion that the War is mainly being fought as a bragging contest of manliness. If that weren't enough, note that nowhere in the article is it said or reasonably implied that aggressive men do things to protect their families or communities. What the casual reader sees is there to evoke images of excessive violence and oppressed women.
Guess what the study involved, anyway...
In experiments with 300 university men and women students, Van Vugt and his team gave the volunteers small sums of money which they could either keep or invest in a common fund that would be doubled and equally divided. None of the students knew what the others were doing.
Both sexes cooperated in investing in the fund. But when the groups were told they were competing against other universities, the males were more eager to invest rather than keep their money while the number of women contributing remained the same.
Ya got that? No paintball guns, no obstacle courses, no Civil War re-enactments, no back-alley fight club. All this study really did was measure how differently men and women may handle money given a particular situation. It may very well have given us insight into the way that businesses and economies are run, if only the author could shut the fuck up about aggressive men and wars long enough to let it sink in. Instead of a follow-up article that really focuses on what the study was about, we get yet another hack job meant to twist anything into demonizing men.
The logic is such that men being more likely to cooperate to protect their 'interests' (nice way to avoid putting something more positive in its place, like 'friends' or 'families') is somehow evil and suspicious since women don't also seem to do the same. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that had this study resulted in women handling the money more cooperatively, it would be presented with words like 'caring', 'nurturing', 'generous', and the like. With that in mind, we can conclude that articles like this don't show how science affects conventional wisdom so much as they show how conventional wisdom affect science.
Loony Laws and Legislators
So, I happen to come across news on some
'law' which is ridiculous in obvious ways upon reading the first two sentences...
COLUMBUS - An Ohio legislative panel yesterday rubber-stamped an unprecedented process that would allow sex offenders to be publicly identified and tracked even if they've never been charged with a crime.
No one in attendance voiced opposition to rules submitted by Attorney General Jim Petro's office to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, consisting of members of the Ohio House and Senate.
Is it just me, or does this 'unprecedented process' reek of violation of due process and a continuing trend of sexual hysteria? Last time I checked, one
had to be charged with a crime to become a sex offender.
The fact that no one has voiced opposition is what scares me the most. Considering that Forbes magazine put out
something far less malign recently and immediately got hammered with criticism, I would have thought that we could have at least a tiny sliver of dissent, just like with the Iraq War. However, no such dissent has materialized, and I also doubt that there will be that many 'real men' in the media to question the manhood of some of these senators and house members of Ohio who didn't fight such lunacy. Better to save that for guys that spend an hour or two grooming everyday, I suppose. [/sarcasm]
A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.
What the hell is up with this emphasis on "even if they're not found guilty by law"? Is the state of Ohio that desperate for people to treat as criminals? The fact that even
alleged (i.e. unproven) victims can get in on the act makes it sound more like an intentional loophole for women that cry 'abuse' to use just in case there isn't a few hundred thousand dollars to give them to shut up. All that would really be different is to replace a financial incentive with a some kind of psycho-social incentive. It's definitely not going to do anything to help people that actually suffer sexual abuse.
The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.
Ha ha...after all the gender-neutral language that begins the description of this evil little law, we see 'he' right at the end. Not 'she', 'the person', or 'he or she', but 'he'. Anybody out there care to guess who's going to make up the vast majority of people targeted and unfairly harassed by this law?
A civilly declared offender, however, could petition the court to have the person's name removed from the new list after six years if there have been no new problems and the judge believes the person is unlikely to abuse again.
After six years? Why not just wait until the offender is actually convicted before putting them on the list? Oh, right, because this has nothing to do with actually intending to prevent sexual abuse, but nearly everything to do with sending the state to terrorize men and
boys...all while denouncing terror when used overseas. Not surprising at all, given that for all the supposed Christian values in this country, some seem to be content with making pagan sacrifices to harmful government policies.
