[men and women] 6 reasons not to be a feminist - a woman speaks out

My fragmented profession brings me into contact [last count] with 125 ladies and 8 gentlemen per working week and those are the types of odds which keep me over here.

Let me set out my stall. In me you’ll find a door opener, a flower bringer, an impulsive present giver and the physical biz is very nice as well. In short, I like women, [as distinct from loving them]. And the more intelligent, the more accomplished, the better.

What I can’t handle, not at all, are special interest groups. I’ll not speak of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishnas and political movements but I shall speak and vehemently so, of the Feministi and give these reasons why, when you see one approaching, you should hide until she’s gone:

1. Men and women were designed for one another. Does it have to be spelled out - any man who ever stayed more than one night with his woman knows that. So when you read such pap as ‘a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’, once we’ve smiled at the wit, the very next gesture must be to shake the head and to sigh sadly for the woman who uttered it.

Full text here.

[blog] fixations

Interesting how writers often get locked into a topic which they keep returning to over and over, providing more and more information until they become seen as authorities on the topic. Some have fixations about Noam Chomsky, some about Petron Corp, some about the Saudis, some about Hezbollah.

I'm currently quite hot under the collar about Pluto.

Very difficult to find an unbiased writer. Is there such an animal, politically and socially eclectic, a sort of cultural tourist? I ask only for information.

[world round-up] news in three or less paragraphs

Today: Iran, USA [3], UK, Switzerland, France, Japan, Pakistan

Iran Aljazeera.net reports that the Iranian president has inaugurated a new phase in the Arak heavy-water reactor project, part of Iran's atomic programme which the West fears is aimed at producing bombs.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the project and toured the site at Khondab, which is near Arak, 190km southwest of the capital Tehran. The plant's plutonium by-product could be used to make atomic warheads.

USA A tornado touched down in east Massapequa early Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service confirmed. The F-0 tornado knocked out power, uprooted trees and smashed cars, but no injuries were reported.

Long Island Rail Road trains were delayed for some time because trees fell across the tracks and the twister touched down as severe thunderstorms swept through the Tri-State area, flooding roads and causing transit delays.

Heavy downpours caused residential roads to flood in areas of Long Island. The hardest-hit areas were Gilmore and Marsalis streets as well as Hillside and Liberty streets.

...continues with the UK here.

[the coming oil disaster] petron is doing everything possible

I’m just reading the latest Underwater Times article about the Solar 1, still lying on the seabed, still rusting, still with 450 000 gallons of oil ready to spill. Just skimming down looking for Petron’s plan to raise the tanker and prevent the ecological disaster:

"For us, it's a moral responsibility to help the people clean up the oil spill," said Peter Paul Shotwell, Petron's supply operations and planning manager.

Shotwell said a team from a Japanese firm, Fukuda Salvage and Marine Works, is due to arrive in Guimaras on Saturday or Sunday to retrieve the sunken ship, motor tanker Solar I. He said the team has already left Japan.

Shotwell said the firm will be bringing in a vessel, Shinsei Maru, which is equipped with a remote operated vehicle that can search the seabed down to 2,000 meters and take photos to determine the ship's condition underwater.

That’s a start.

"That's part of our commitment," said Shotwell, referring to the cleanup and subsequent rehabilitation of areas that have been affected. "Petron is coordinating with Siliman University (SU), University of the Visayas (UV), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and they are giving us some help" in the development of a long-term rehabilitation plan. He hoped that the cleanup would be finished in 45 days."

Petron officials are "to provide protective measures to prevent the oil spill from reaching the other shorelines that are threatened.

Yes, fine but isn't the tanker the main priority now?

[presidential election looms] vive la nouvelle france!

Good article from The Age, abridged here:

What is France’s place in the world? Can it keep its character and difference, or will it be overwhelmed by globalisation?

President Jacques Chirac's decision on Thursday to commit 2000 troops to the Lebanon peacekeeping force was also about national identity: France's standing on the world stage.

Last year's riots in poor suburbs, the failure to win the 2012 Olympics, France's catastrophic loss of primacy within the European Union after its voters rejected the European Constitution in a referendum in May 2005, the end of labour market reform and the presidential hopes of Dominique de Villepin] have not been good for French pride.

As people return to work after the long summer break, the country enters the last nine months before the presidential election in May. Some commentators say the nation's future hangs on the result.

Full text here.

[russia] putin was right to imprison khodorkovsky

You could be forgiven for looking at the smartly attired, well groomed Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky and thinking butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. In fact, there is ample evidence that he had plans to establish a parliamentary republic in Russia and who could possibly be the leader of that republic?

President Putin accused Khodorkovsky of accumulating enormous amounts of oil reserves and yet not contributing to the state, through the vehicle of taxation. Of course this was par for the course with such oligarchs, as long as they were onside with the administration.

In other words - onside with the stable governance of Russia. Because, whatever your personal opinion, Putin and the Duma are the state. But Mikhail Borisovich was a driven man. Or rather, he’d had the sniff of power and threatened to take Russia back to the lawlessness of Berezovsky and Co.

Full text here.