Current Affairs

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Abuse alerts poured in from Iraq
"A stream of regular reports to Canberra detailed concerns, including from the United Nations, about US forces mistreating and abusing Iraqi prisoners as far back as June last year."

It's now very clear that Australia is just as guilty as the US of condoning and covering up the abuse. The government has resorted to its normal "well nobody told us" defence.

OMG!!! There's an axe in mi hed!!!!!!!eleven!!!!

"Oh my God! There's an axe in my head!" in 102 languages

(no subject)

I've just top spotted the cats, and there's terrible confusion.

(no subject)

I sent my brother Ed a plush toy space shuttle for his birthday. His cat has taken to it, as he reports:

Taiko has become partial to the Space Shuttle. He likes to carry it around the house. I can almost hear the seven tiny screams as he walks past ...

(no subject)

Forgive me, I just need to get a little poison out of my system.

You may recall my previous comments on this case: New law to protect unborn as killer father jailed. The father had known the mother for three years; they had sex once, resulting in a pregnancy which she wanted and he didn't. He demanded she have an abortion; she refused. He offered friends $500 to beat her until she miscarried. Finally, he attacked her, punching and stomped on her stomach. She miscarried and may never be able to have children. (Importantly, the new law recognises the killing of the foetus as an injury to the mother; despite the paper's description, it's not an attack on abortion rights.)

I have just had to endure a shop customer informing me, out of the blue, that the mother is responsible because it was a one-night stand, she didn't use contraception, and she went "crying" to him - what did she expect would happen? If women were more "chaste" this sort of thing wouldn't happen. I suggested as gently as I could that perhaps he ought to have used contraception if he didn't want the responsibility of a child. This fell on deaf ears.

My interlocutor was not a young woman. I hope her attitudes are simply outdated, and not widely shared. Sometimes, as someone said of vicious old judges, you just have to wait for them to die.