anyway, breastmilk is by far the most compelling argument

Reading through the bounteous infopackz now – am I being patently chauvinistic or does everyone agree that feminism isn’t making sense? I may be persuaded to buy some of the feminists’ self-patronising arguments (that they don’t lack _______ / what they lack in _______ they make up for in _______ / they got the breastmilk (okay that’s not really a feminist argument, I made it up to labour my point)) – but they’re not making their cause any easier to swallow with feeble hypothetical attempts at turning the tables:

Why focus on physical aggression though? As Angier notes, and any survivor of the sixth-grade clique wars knows firsthand, the female arsenal includes more insults and snubs than sticks and stones. (…) [Men] may simply have the more poorly developed verbal skills.

Earlier in the article:

Since 1964, women’s marathon running times have dropped 32%, compared with only 4.2% for men. If the trend continues, female marathoners could be leaving men in the dust sometime in the next century.

Wait, what? It becomes apparent that Barbara Ehrenreich is not a H2 Economics student, for if she were she would have learnt of the Law of Diminishing Returns (which incidentally is also offered as a module in H2 Common Sense, and H1 Grey Matter Iz Fun!: Exercising Your Brain In 101 Ways). Obviously the marginal propensity to improve gets lower as the timings get faster, so perhaps the argument could be for a lessened difference in running times rather than a turning of the tables.

Moreover it’s not clear where she’s going with her article. Is she propounding that the physical differences between the sexes are less pronounced than society perceives them to be, or that said differences don’t matter? A little of both, it seems. She’s battling the feminist cause on all fronts, with mixed results. I think it can be said that her internal struggle characterises to some extent the struggle of the feminist movement, which seems to be divided over a) their aims, and b) their grouses to begin with. It has to be said that some grouses are fully justified (like wage disparity, participation in sports or something else that they cannot change and are justified in wanting to change) but surely the feminist thingy has evolved into a sprawling movement with different aims and wants that more often than not happen to be antithetical to one another (since gender equality and absolute female superiority aren’t exactly aims that can both be simultaneously achieved).

My conclusion: there are some legitimate calls for gender equality but the feminist movement hasn’t proven to be very legitimate. Maybe for starters they can convene around a round table (which would have to be a very large round table) and concur as to what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve it.

any other excuse is for the WEAK

damn gay^2

Wow, I’d give a lot to be able to do this (Y)

(He sings both parts of A Whole New World in another video, but I figure this one was more embed-worthy)

diet pills, surgery

CAUGHT RAD-HANDED

wtf, is there anything more bizarre than this? I don’t even know how to begin to write about this – we’ve been making fun at someone for her command of English when she’s actually a credit card fraudster?? This doesn’t make sense. The world doesn’t make sense.

I need a lie-down.

*

In other bizarre news, an 8.7kg baby, with accompanying funny picture:

Which is a fitting reminder, of course, that for every rugby captain born in the world, there’s a librarian.

UNDERMINESWEEPER

You see, the problem with kids these days is that they lack the desire to stand out anymore.

(though sabbath is postponed until further notice)

² Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. ³ March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. ⁴ Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. ⁵ When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.”

- Joshua 6:2-5

Seven days could tumble a city.

the basic economic problem

Below is the function of (Econs Notes) Absorption:

The corollary of the above is fairly obvious: I’ve been spending time playing with stupid Autoshapes when I could have been cramming more econs into/up my head/sleeve/ass.

(Next up in the series of Quasi-Econs: Aggregate Discomfiture)

nugget

Am I the only Lockwood sympathiser around?

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I ‘never told my love’ vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return – the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame – shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

the mystical land of PWhores

I’ve just spent a few hours tidying up my WR, editing font sizes and creating awesome contents pages. It’s colourful and prettily paginated and appendixed – and I had to look determinedly upwards to fight back my tears upon seeing the indexed appendix, like seeing your child grow up into a full tween, just before he becomes a gangly and pissy adolescent and just after he gets toilet trained. It’s times like these where you start to doubt if there is anything in the world worth more than nice margins and sub-chapters.

Feels like I died a little inside, but that’s probably just AutoCorrect making its rounds <3

hittin’ the stores any time now

It is the mark of a true spazzo when his carefully distilled and typewritten Microsoft Word notes manage to look convoluted. I think in about seven days’ time I’ll be trying to write notes of my notes of my notes ~ [f(f(f(x))) :O]

On the bright side, Matthew Chan notes (“Matthew Chan’s Perfectly Sumptuous But Occasionally Explosive Notes” neatly heads every page) come with sly asides and snide comments. That’s good. When battling the demons of Macro Indicators, one can never be too snarky.