antiminke

Happy London Pride!

It's been raining and there have been car bombs in London but I hope that doesn't affect the day.

And here's why it's still important:

The Observer, Coming out of the dark ages
"For most people the Sixties was a time of sexual awakening and experimentation. But it wasn't until 1967 that gay and bisexual men could share that freedom. On the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we revisit the appallingly repressive atmosphere of the Fifties and Sixties that ruined lives, destroyed reputations and finally sparked a campaign for change"

The situation might have changed in the UK - this has been the summer of Civil Partnerships - but Pride marches are attacked in Moscow, Riga and gay rights are still a dream in many places around the world.

Muriel Bamblett, "chairwoman of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, the main body for Aboriginal and Islander Children and Family Services", writes in The Age: Please listen to us, PM:

The Prime Minister says the "old ways" have failed and the time for talk is over.

We would like to believe you, Prime Minister, but your own "old way" of dealing with Aboriginal people is to disregard our voices. We have been trying to talk with you for years about the lack of services for health, education and child protection. We have been giving you examples of Aboriginal communities that have begun to turn around the drug and alcohol abuse and poor health outcomes, communities that have succeeded because they were empowered and resourced to take action.

We have been talking about a human rights and culturally respectful social investment approach. But the approach by the Federal Government is a policy of disinvestment. It promotes mainstreaming and denies community control. It has no evidence base.

The evidence from overseas and in Australia points to the fact that when there is properly resourced indigenous community control and effective culturally based programs, social dysfunction indicators, such as poor health outcomes and youth suicide rates, decrease.

The Prime Minister says the measures he has announced will stabilise and protect communities. We would like to believe you, Prime Minister, but your measures are disempowering and punitive.

Encouring news: Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds

From the New York Times: Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds

Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.

London is turning into Melbourne - it was beautiful and sunny this morning, and I was even going to venture from my desk and go to the park at lunchtime, but we've just had a massive downpour.

I never particularly liked the 'four seasons in one day' thing in Melbourne and don't want it over here too!

(I could also do without hayfever, ta)

BBC: 'Find of century' for Egyptology

Egyptologists say they have identified the 3,000-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful female ruler. ... Hatshepsut was an important 18th Dynasty ruler in the 15th Century BC, having usurped her stepson, Thutmosis III.

She was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard, and was more powerful than either of her more famous female successors, Nefertiti and Cleopatra.

Hatshepsut's funerary temple is one of the most visited monuments around the pharaonic necropolis of the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt.

Coming out

Entirely randomly I came across this brilliant analysis of the different stages of coming out, whether as a feminist, a dyke, whatever, and also an insight into what it's like dealing with the queer community if you're disabled: SexAbility: Coming Out.

Greenpeace are running at 'Energy saving [r]evolution - first 7 steps' campaign - why not sign up and see how it works for you.

"We need to kick start an energy [r]evolution! By burning fossil fuels for energy, we're altering our atmosphere - causing climate change. To reverse it, we'll need to stop burning so much coal and oil. Renewable energy like wind and solar power is part of the answer, but the fastest (and most cost effective) way to reduce our global warming pollution is simply use less energy."

Thanks to Faye, I can now bring you the most amazing story ever, Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, learns to say "No" to drugs.

Just so I can find it again: Australian National Sorry Day.

BBC: India rattled by vibrating condom. And I had no idea sex toys were banned. Maybe they need that vibrating Harry Potter broom...

More seriously, "UK tourist visas are often denied to would-be visitors because they "plan a holiday for no particular purpose other than sightseeing", a report says." (BBC)

Guardian: Most British women now expect to have cosmetic surgery in their lifetime. How did the ultimate feminist taboo become just another lifestyle choice?

A practice widely regarded not a decade ago as physically risky, morally doubtful, prohibitively expensive and socially embarrassing has been rebranded as something so innocuous and sensible as to be mundane. ... For a large part of the 20th century, patients who wanted cosmetic surgery would generally have been recommended therapy, their desires interpreted as an indication of pathology. ... When cosmetic patients talk about their bodies, dissociation is a recurring theme, as though they no longer inhabit their own skin. ... By identifying with actresses and models and pop stars - people who really are judged on their looks - women exchange a three-dimensional identity for an image, and life becomes an unending audition, involving all the anxiety and rejection of Pop Idol. ... Feminism would once have expected to offer a viable alternative, but its unresolved attitude to beauty has created an ideological vacuum. ... For all the rhetoric of "individual choice", surgery is a symptom of something much larger than the body - of faulty self-identity and celebrity obsession, and the transfer of moral authority from disinterested health professionals to the commercial media.

It's not a new article - it was published in 2005, but given the BBC articles that suggest breast implants are now uncritcally mainstream, I think it's timely.

Google PageRank explained

Apparently.

Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It?

Apparently I look like a grown-up, but you wouldn't think so if you'd just seen me barely able to breathe for laughing at pictures of a knitted squid attacking a cat.

What's that? Why, yes, I am procrastinating when I'm meant to be doing something proper and grown up.

I think squidsquid is the most charming site I've seen in a while. You can find out your squid name (mia the salty ocean-dweller!), find out if you are part squid and various other things.

This BBC article, 'I love my new C cup breasts', which reads like a PR piece about a site that 'makes the UK's top plastic surgeons available at prices women like unemployed Lucy can afford' really disturbs me. The article doesn't question why women who can't even afford to pay full price for it should want invasive surgery, and although one of the final paragraphs says:

"She certainly looked much more self confident, she had changed her hair style and her previous stoop and round shoulderedness had been replaced with a more confident upright appearance."

there's no discussion of whether there are non-surgical ways to make someone feel more self-confident that should be considered before surgery.

Perhaps ironically, this article was also on the BBC site today: Breast implant website condemned

A website where women can raise cash for breast implants using personal photos is unsafe and degrading, say UK cosmetic surgeons.

The implants are paid for by male "benefactors" who, for a fee, can access the women's personal profiles, pictures and contact details.
...
Adam Searle, consultant plastic surgeon and former president of the BAAPS, said: "This is really quite shocking. The invitation for women to post suggestive photos, sell personal items and chat with strangers over the Internet in exchange for a breast augmentation is just plain degrading."

I find it shocking, and really horrible, but then I also find a cut-price charity boob job website shocking.

(I managed not to make any jokes about BAAPS)

As the Catholic church gets more stupid (Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty) I discover just in time that it's possible to become officially un-Catholic.

Random but funny (if you're a geek): The Lonely Mathematician.

From the depths of the internet, lists of unusual and lost words.

The National Gallery is "hanging 44 full-size recreations on walls ranging from Hamleys toy shop (a Seurat) to a sex shop in Soho (a Caravaggio) to give Londoners a taste of what it offers." (more)

Wired: Suddenly, the Paranoids Don't Seem So Paranoid Anymore

Have you noticed? We've become a people that no longer respects, or apparently desires, privacy. Our own or anybody else's.

That's a remarkable thing, when you stop to think about it. We Americans, historically, have fiercely guarded our personal privacy. It's one of our defining characteristics. Others, who live in societies where personal privacy isn't so easily taken for granted, have looked on with a mixture of admiration and bemusement. "Mind your own business" is a singularly American expression.

I'm not sure about the last statement, but generally, I'm glad to see this article. I'm not sure how or when the onus switched from the need to show why a loss of privacy was necessary to the need to show why privacy is important and necessary, but it annoys me.

When did privacy go from being a right to just barely being a privilege we're allowed?

James told me about More Words, which is mostly for word games but also has nice random words on the bottom of the page.

A really interesting blog about Edinburgh's dark side across the centuries.

More free language downloads

More on free language resources on the moneysavingexpert site:

There's a great US website called Open Culture which lists mostly free language courses that are available as podcasts (in other words digital files you can download onto an MP3 player to listen to).

If only there was a site where I could download some free time to listen to these free lessons!

You can make your own luck

From the BBC: guide to getting lucky:

Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles.
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
...
Here are Professor Wiseman's four top tips for becoming lucky:

• Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
• Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
• Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
• Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call. Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy

Rough Guide have updated their phrasebooks, and now they've each got a free audio download so you can practise with words and phrases recorded by native speakers. Hooray!

The audio files work best when you've got a phrasebook in front of you, so Rough Guide probably aren't losing much business by giving away the audio files.

If I was still flying short-haul, I would have liked to have gone to Latvia to support their Pride march: Latvia: Celebrating rights -- fighting prejudice.

So the biggest issues in the news this week are the new London 2012 Olympic logo (which has also been blamed for triggering epileptic seizures; and 'is gingerism as bad as racism?'.

Aussies knocked off as world's most friendly

""Although Australia still has a strong reputation as an aspirational destination, we must focus more on our cultural heritage, national parks and alternative, more accessible holiday options to encourage a broader tourism appeal," Mr Harcourt said."

Or maybe we should just stop being arseholds in immigrants and refugees. Why spin it when you can just be nicer?

Haw flakes - the mystery finally solved

Ok, so the mystery of what on earth haw flakes are made from hasn't been that mysterious for a while now, but now that I've got a photo showing the ingredients of haw flakes as 'hawthorn', I just have to do this.

It's worth noting that this brand are a very pale colour and possibly not as addictive as the brand with the red, green and yellow packaging. I also found fancy triangular layered haw the other day - red layered with a darker, jammier layer of haw. Mmm, hot haw action.

The glbtq (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer) encyclopedia looks like a really good resource (and a good random read).

Kinda basic but possibly thought provoking: What search engines know about us