Archive for August, 2012

I’m currently reading “The Sex Myth: Why Everything We’re Told is Wrong” by Brooke Magnanti, also known as Belle de Jour. So far it’s a fascinating reading, including a section on how the idea that strip clubs in Camden have increased the rape rate is complete nonsense.

In general, rape is an area of law that suffers a lot of misconceptions.

For example, the conviction rate for rape is 58%. As Amanda Bancroft points out in The Guardian, the conviction rate across all crimes is only 57%. That means not only is the idea that rape convictions are low a myth, but that rape convictions are actually slightly higher than you would expect. That’s good news.

But the perpetuation of the stereotype that rape conviction rates are low is a real problem. As Bancroft also points out, 68% of women are concerned by the low conviction rates (that don’t really exist), potentially putting off victims from coming forward. This disinformation is something we really need to crack down on, to ensure victims aren’t afraid to report incidents.

A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a friend who works for G4S, the company that totally messed-up the Olympics security.

He was telling us how we can somehow become some kind of comic villain – he only works on reception and yet he was telling us how kids have been booing him every time he goes out to get some lunch.

More importantly however, it turns out that G4S have a corporate song! Not just any song, but a rock power ballad with someone singing “G4S, protecting your world…” It’s brilliant! Check it out below.

TAM seemed to take quite a bad wrap for the harassment that has been reported (albeit never officially according to JREF president D.J. Grothe).

I’ve just read Amy Roth’s comments on the incidents that upset her at TAM. She notes that they had a team of 19 people tackling harassment and once she had raised her concerns, a member of the team regularly checked up on her to make sure she was OK.

While unfortunately, I didn’t make Amy feel any better, it certainly seems that TAM have been responsive to harassment concerns and implemented some positive steps to trying to prevent such issues.

As some of you know, I’ve been a huge fan of American football for days now. After deciding to really get on board with Norm’s annual Super Bowl party, I decided to support the 49ers, only to see them knocked out in the championship round by the New York Giants.

Since then, with the new NFL season having arrived, I’ve picked myself up an NFL GamePass to allow me to watch the games over here, and have decided to blog about my experiences on my new NFL football blog, entitled A Brit Talks Football.

You can also follow my updates on Twitter.

When Catherine Bennett dared to speak out about MGM (male genital mutilation), there was soon a strong reaction from the right wing feminists condemning the comparison between MGM and FGM (female genital mutilation), pointing out that FGM is worse. The Guardian rounded up some reactions too.

The most severe forms of FGM are indeed far worse than MGM. But what I don’t understand, is how FGM being worse, that is then an argument for the legalisation of MGM. For example, I’ve never seen someone stand up in court and say “Rape? No, I only sexually assaulted her, so it’s fine.”

Obviously, it isn’t, and we wouldn’t buy that for a second.

It’s absolutely right that FGM is very illegal in the UK – so illegal that just getting on a plane to go to a different country to get it done is in itself illegal. Our laws are spot on here, no child should ever be subjected to FGM.

But nor should a male child be irreversibly mutilated into his parents religion for no either. Saying “it’s not as bad as FGM” is no defence when it comes to cutting off the end of a child’s genitals.”

Here is what Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to say on the matter…

One of the most active members of Toastmasters is my friend John Fletcher who was working towards the end of his Competent Communicator manual when I joined and has since completed it and moved onto the advanced speeches.

His 10th and final speech of the Competent Communicator was about how he was not a big fan of his job and so had finally broken free and set up on his own. It was a speech I strongly identified with, having recently done a similar thing.

John now runs Leeds Maths Tuition, offering one to one tuition for anyone looking to improve their grades.

The continued spread of unethical meat throughout the UK is of particular concern to those of us who try and avoid it for such reasons. Over time, this is likely to place increasing restrictions on what we can and cannot eat.

KFC are currently running a “Halal” trial but I was pleased to read on their website that they have adopted a version of Halal, which is less Halal and more ethical. Here is what their website says…

9. Is KFC’s halal chicken stunned before slaughter?

Yes, due to our strict animal welfare standards, we insist that all our poultry is stunned before slaughter. Our halal chicken has been accredited by the Halal Food Authority, one of the most widely recognised bodies in the UK and overseas. It allows the use of a technique called ‘stun-to-stun’ – a pain-free process that makes the animal insensible to pain and suffering.

That’s probably a tune that we can all dance to.

As many of you will know, we’ve recently spent a great time of time bickering with each other over whose attitude towards equal rights for women is the most equal. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia continues to cut out the genitals of their women before forcing them to walk behind the men.

At Leeds Skeptics we wanted everyone to have their say, so we held a debate “How should Skeptics deal with controversy?” Tom Williamson summed up his thoughts on his blog. Ophelia then wrote a piece about the blog post.

The original talk was entitled “Why aren’t their more women in the boardroom?” Seems like a sensible topic title, and one that fits very well into Ophelia’s suggestion that topics should be specific and useful. However, some of her commentors decided to suggest alternative titles.

“Precisely how stupid and misogynistic are male skeptics?” would make a good discussion. I look forward to Leeds Skeptics discussing this.

What?

The answer is a million. So, that’s settled.

Well, I have a question:

Are Tom Williamson and Steven Moxon REALLY equal to a pile of hog shit?

What? I’m just being skeptical!

I’m not sure they’re quite the same…

This is how to install APC for PHP on Fedora 15.

yum install php-devel
yum install pcre-devel
yum install php-pear
pecl install apc

Create a file in /etc/php.d named apc.ini, containing the following.

extension=apc.so

Michelle has very inconsiderately infected me with Korean pop music memes.