(no subject)

I'm in a housing association place, and a man is there with his wife, talking to the woman at the counter. He comments about her name, Aisha.
As he went to leave, I said "Excuse me sir, what does Aisha mean?" in the
middle of the housing association reception sorta thing. He walked towards
me, looking to the ceiling, "Ancient name from persia, Sometimes Ayesha or
Ishtar. It was used in Babylon, Mesapotamia, you know, where iraq is now."
"Ah yes, ishtar rings a bell", I pondered wisely. Anyway, thankyou very much sir, and he
leaves. Complete silence in the room. Modern depressing furniture, smart
girls sitting in front of computers. Aisha says to the other, "Was that guy
being racialist?"
"What?"
Her lips seemed to sneer into her glowing screen."That stuff about babylon
and Iraq and Iran..."
Thoughtful silence.
"How long was that guy here for? 'Arf an ower?"

predictability wins every time

hey kids, did you ever notice how discriminating against people who discriminate is still discrimination? and how that type of discrimination makes you an elitist? and how being an elitist makes you intolerant? and how being intolerant makes you a hypocrite? no? i didn't think so.

oh, and thanks for removing my previous post, segregators.

munkee

More on the death of journalistic integrity

Here we see a lack of integrity on the part of news.com.au

The headline is "Boffins create zombie dogs". The picture attached to the article is this one :

The article is about a new technique developed to suspend organic bodies by draining the blood and replacing it with an icy cold saline solution. This is a technique which, I predict, in the coming years will be commonplace and will save hundreds of lives.

So why is it that News.com.au seek to demonise the inventing scientists by calling them Boffins? Why do they seek to make us fear science with the irrelevant and misleading picture of a snarling wolf? I really don't see any agenda on the part of News.com.au so I have to assume that this is all just par for the course. Any science article? Make it look crazy and dangerous.

What wonders the human psyche has to share. Paranoia and fear of new knowledge. Like I said to ironed_orchid, there are too many examples of wrong-thinking around today, we're spoiled for choice.
munkee

Book excerpt. Get book. Read. Prosper.

The goverments of the world's richest countries demand the free movement of capital and goods (or at least of their capital and goods - perennial tariff disputes between the United States and the European Union confirm that this owes less to high principle than to simple self-interest). But their dislike of official barriers does not extend to the free movement of labour. This is perhaps the biggest difference from the globalisation of the late nineteenth century, when legal or bureaucratic obstacles to migration scarcely existed; and it is a fatal contradiction of the present order. In Britain, for example, ministers ceaselessly emphasise the distinction between 'genuine asylum-seekers' - who have to be accepted, even with thoroughly bad grace and no welcoming ceremony - and 'bogus' incomers who are mere 'economic migrants' and must be deported forthwith. But then they bewail the shortage of doctors, nurses and schoolteachers, and hastily place advertisements all over the world begging foreigners to come and rescue Britain's collapsing public services. (In 2000 the Guardian reported the case of a woman from Mauritius who had worked as a nurse in Britain's National Health Service for six years until being told by the Home Office that she would be kicked out of the country as an 'overstayer'. When she contacted her family back home to say that she might be returning, she discovered that the newspapers in Mauritius were full of adverts from the Department of Health in London - pleading for nurses to come and work in Britain.)

--- Francis Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World
munkee

(no subject)

A person I work with is from Sri Lanka. The coast of Sri Lanka, as you probably know, was hit pretty hard by the tsunami and associated weather. Apparently my co-worker's family is mostly ok, though all their homes were destroyed.

My co-worker said he had property left to him by his father, facing the sea. He said "We had problems with a fisherman squatting on the property but.. ... Well I guess this would have sorted him out"

... yeah. His family is huddled in a cave, but as long as no-one gets something they don't deserve (except maybe death) it's all ok. Hell of a silver lining there.
burkecat

(no subject)

In light of the Right's push for a heterosexual marriage amendment, it should be noted that there are those who consider gay marriage/civil union as a threat to our civilization. The rhetoric smacks of We/They.

Granted, this article about Gary Bauer is from the 2000 presidential election campaign, but I think that it points at the forces which are behind this movement.

Bauer compares Vermont gay rights decision to terrorism

Bauer, speaking at his Manchester, New Hampshire, campaign headquarters on Monday morning, said, "I think what the Vermont Supreme Court did last week was the worst form of terrorism."

This was reported on December 27, 1999.

Thoughts?
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