As you can see, we’re back up. (The list of posts from the hurricane party over at the old blogspot blog is below, in case you missed anything.)

Our server was hacked; it should be functioning properly again (touch wood), but if we go down again, then it’s back to the blogspot blog. We’re in the process of upgrading, so things might be dodgy for a couple of days, and I’m sorry about that. Stick with us. It’s all a bit of whack-a-mole at the moment, but, if there’s any plus side, it’s that we’re learning how to combat everything that can be thrown at us.

Onward…

Melissa: Two More Examples of Why We Need Federal Marriage Equality NOW

Melissa: “Lighten Up”

Jeff: Shorter Jules Crittenden

Mustang Bobby: Captain America, the Perv

Space Cowboy: Don’t Flatter Yourself, Dick

Melissa: Caption This Photo

Brynn: A third example of why we need federal marriage equality NOW

Jeff: Liveblogging the Debate

Melissa: Question of the Day

Mustang Bobby: The Heart of a Chickenhawk

Kathy: George W. Bush is the Founders’ Worst Nightmare

Misty: Wedded Bliss

From: [Name and Email Redacted]

Subject: You’re a dumb bitch

Thank you for making the dummying down of America complete – so much easier to laugh at you all this way.

There’s apparently no room for drooling idiots in your family – you unilaterally get all the credit.

When god (notice the small g) realizes what a mistake she made in creating you, I wonder if she’ll finally abort you?

I’d like to note that, despite Name Redacted’s opinion that I am a dumb bitch, he sent this email to me from his work email. I now know his full name, where he works, and that he was sending harassing emails from work, presumably during work hours. That means, if I were the sort of nasty person who would do such a thing, I could quite easily just forward his email to his employer and ask if they share his estimation of me, if the email were, say, transmitting an official company policy, or if I should consider their employee’s opinion his alone.

So, who’s the real dumb bitch here?

Bill Kristol’s the-war-is-being-won piece in The Washington Post brought him plenty of ridicule, but at least one person liked it.

President Bush read the July 15 Outlook article that morning and recommended it to his staff.

On the other hand, Arianna Huffington called it “the single most deceptive piece of the entire war” and said Kristol had “officially surpassed Dick Cheney as the most intellectually dishonest member of the neocon establishment.” David Corn of the Nation dismissed Kristol’s “Bush boosterism.” And 260 pages of comments on The Post’s Web site called him everything from an “uninformed, partisan fool” to a “Bush sycophant” to a “menace to America.”

The Weekly Standard editor, looking a bit grayer at 54, takes the broadsides in stride, his genial, professorial demeanor seemingly unruffled by the highly personal attacks.

“I’ve been pretty consistent, pretty upfront and straightforward about my views,” he says in his downtown office. “I had the same views when they were reasonably popular as I do now when they’re unpopular. It would really be pathetic to adjust one’s analysis based on public opinion.”

Adjusting one’s analysis based on emerging information and facts might make sense, though.

Reuters does a 240-word story (including headline) on Moroccan UN peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast being suspended “amid sex abuse charges,” including “having sex with a large number of underage girls,” which is at best statutory rape. Guess what word never appears once?

Shocking, I know.

Soldiers who are found guilty of “having sex with” underage girls and/or “sexual exploitation” will be “sent back home” as punishment. Where, presumably, they will be free to “have sex with” and “sexually exploit” other women.

The conflict in Cote d’Ivoire saw rape widely used as a weapon by both sides.

I remember the day that they showed us the video on rape. It was during a physical education class, and our teacher, simply put the video tape in the machine and pressed play. The movie that proceeded told the story of a young girl (in university) who went out on a date with a popular “jock”. After going to a party or a movie, her date felt that she “owed” him and proceed to sexually assault her. Now the point of the movie was to let us girls know that we shouldn’t be pressured into sex, that we had the right to say NO, and that if we ever were to find ourselves in this situation, we should not be afraid to tell someone about it. After the movie was done, there was no further discussion, the class bell rang, and we went on with our day.

The reason that this memory sticks out in my mind is because I as a woman have been told over and over again and in many different ways, that I need to protect myself from situations of violence, and that if I should ever find myself in such a situation, I should have enough confidence and strength to tell someone about the incident so that something can be done.

However, it so happens that my husband went to the same high school as I did, so when this memory came back to me, I asked him if he received the same sort of education, or instruction that sexually assaulting a women was “not okay” or if their was any talk about the possibility that he may find himself as a victim of sexual assault, his answer was no. So why is it that I have had many years of learning how to protect myself, but my husband (who is exactly the same age as me) has had no education whatsoever on the exact same subject?

I don’t think that her husband received no education — but I also don’t think the education took.  That’s not his fault; I don’t think we spend nearly enough time educating young men about sexual assault.

I am fifteen years removed from high school, and I have vague memories of being told that just because you buy a girl dinner, she doesn’t “owe you” anything.  But what that meant wasn’t really discussed in detail, and the message was mushy at best.  As I got older, I got the message that “no” means no, though I doubt I would have ever continued after “no” regardless of the circumstances. 

But it wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I read anything suggesting a lack of affirmative consent should be interpreted as “no.”  And not until a few years ago that I connected an extreme level of intoxication with the similar effects of date rape drugs.  Those things weren’t taught to me — ever.  I had to find them for myself.

We can lament that men cross lines, and be right about it — but we can’t expect men not to cross a line that they don’t know is there.

And so we have to do a better job of saying, flatly, that if the woman you’re sleeping with hasn’t affirmatively consented — hasn’t said “yes,” that you need to view it as a hard “no.”  We need to get tell kids honestly that contrary to what the movies tell you, you can’t read your date’s mind, and they can’t read yours, and it’s not only okay to ask if you want to move on to something more intimate, it’s vital that you do so. 

In short, we need to have a deeper conversation than just throwing on a videotape and hoping kids get the message.  Until we do, we’re just creating rapists through our own neglect.

Ha! Via the Washington Post.

(H/T oddjob)
*thanks, darkblack

[Brown, holding his first Downing Street press conference,] said Monday that tougher sanctions are likely against Iran over its contested nuclear program and declined to reject outright the prospect of future military action.

…”I’m not one who is going forward to say we rule out any particular form of action,” Brown said, asked if he would rule out options for future military action against Iran.

…He said Britain would “take whatever measures are necessary to strengthen the sanctions regime in the future.”

The US and the UK continue to fear that “Tehran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to produce atomic weapons,” and Iran has not quelled those fears as they’ve now twice rejected UN Security Council resolutions “requiring it to halt uranium enrichment work.” On the other hand, the “International Atomic Energy Agency said this month that Iran has scaled back its uranium enrichment program, signaling a possible willingness from Tehran to resolve the international deadlock,” so perhaps now would be a good time to engage some of that famous British diplomacy instead of barking about tougher sanctions and issuing veiled threats about military action, which will necessarily be viewed through the lens of Britain’s alliance with the US, where the administration is presumed to want war in Iran as a follow-up to their grand Iraq adventure.

I don’t give Ahmadinejad, who’s clearly crazier than a shithouse rat, the benefit of the doubt for a second, nor Ali Khamenei, who’s sane but a tyrannical bully, but I’m getting extremely tired of a foreign policy that’s got all the nuance of a dick-measuring contest. I’d really appreciate it if we could can the fucking bravado and start behaving like grown-ups for awhile.