Here we go again

Facebook has a new tool to enable stalkers.

Thanx to andrewducker

Ignorance

There are two kinds of people who are competent to discuss female sexuality:

(1) women
and somewhat less, (2) men who are interested in/involved with women.

Pope Benedict XVI is neither. Likewise, alas, Stephen Fry

Thanx to epi_lj

Sanity

Melissa McEwan says that the Rally to Restore Sanity unfairly stigmatizes the many people with mental difficulties who are not running for office on the Republican ticket. I wonder.

Long ago, Gore Vidal pointed out that heterosexual, as an adjective describing acts, is operational: One can tell with reasonable certainty whether it applies to a particular act. If, however, one tries to apply it to people, nearly endless confusion and conflict follows. In general, trying to describe a person by a single term is problematic whether it be Presbyterian or son of a bitch. Descriptions of people are particularly good examples of Korzybski's "Whatever you say it is, it isn't."

On the other hand, the idea that Planned Parenthood is staffed by Satanists who perform abortions in order to feed innocent blood to their deity deserves stigmatizing. At the very least, it's obviously untrue and liable to lead to undeserved hatred. Perhaps we should use the word crazy for the idea, without speculating on the mental state of those uttering it. Or maybe the word is so tangled with its use to label people that we need a different word. What do you think?

I hope not

From an imagined future:
"Did you know that keyboards weren't always musical? They used to have letters on them."

My vision of a worse one continues:
"Letters? What are they?"
"Part of the silent system the monks use to encode words."