Loosely following the theme of my previous post: and now, here's a random scatter-fire collection of rants inspired by things on Boing Boing this last week:

1. I cannot believe that people fervently line up in some stupid Facebook "support" group to defend a guy who embarrassed himself looking at nudie pictures at work and then being caught on camera.  It's obvious in the news footage that he could see the first picture he looked at was a nudie, and he still went on and clicked on the rest.  Therefore it's irrelevant that he may have been "set up": he still made the choice to go look at inappropriate pictures at work. 
   
   I have no doubt people defend this guy on the basis of some sort of "He's only human, like all of us!" bullshit, thereby implying that "all of us" are useless at self-discipline and cannot obey a simple imperative to not do X in particular-setting Y.  You.  Are.  Weak. 
   
   It's so ridiculous how people these days get all boo-fucking-hoo over their "right" to do anything at any time.  Fuck you and your "right" to look at porn at work.  Fuck you and your "right" to wear pyjamas in public.  Fuck you and your general rebellion against standards.  The public world is not your fucking living room.
   
   I hope all of these people get fired for doing retarded things at work, as it might actually free up some jobs for competent people in this tough economy. 
   
   
   
2. Thank you Bruce Sterling:

   Joris Peels: If everyone had replicators would people that were able to speak quicker be happier than those that spoke slower?
   
   Bruce Sterling: Look, "everyone" is never going to have anything. The human race includes infants, the senile, the mentally retarded, the disabled, people in clinics and prisons, the illiterate, the totally broke, dropouts of all descriptions, refuseniks... This is like asking what happens when "everybody has a car." Everybody's not gonna have a car, even in an imaginary world where cars cost less than nothing. If replicators were as cheap as cellphones we wouldn't be any "happier." Are guys who yak really fast on cellphones any happier than the rest of us? Hardly.

   Thank you.  Thank you thank you thank you.  I hate it when people talk about technology changing the face of humanity whilst totally ignoring that said technology is unlikely to be adopted by everyone - in part because of glaring inequalities that spoiled first-worlders seem to like to ignore - and in so doing, imply that everyone in Sterling's list is not a "real" human being whose experience counts in making up "the face of humanity."  How about not trying to compensate for nobody liking you in high school with "geeks will inherit the earth" garbage?
   
   
   
3. Obviously, considering certain things I've had to deal with in my past, I have sympathy for someone who feels hurt by pictures of themselves being posted on the Internet.  (My case was a worry rather than an actuality of this situation, but still, I have been through relevant emotions is what I'm saying)  And all the more so when it's pictures of something far more horrific than in my case. 
   
   However, I think idea of suing everyone who downloads said pictures is a really bad one.  Here is why:
   
   [It's a long one...]

I don't know how many of you already read Boing Boing, so I apologize if this post is boring because you've seen all this already.  There's been a good haul in the last few days, so I just wanted to share some of that:

• Leather fetish steampunk masks (somebody on Boing Boing seems to like steampunk as it comes up fairly often);
  


• Photos of ruined hotels (I was amused to see that there's a Calgary landmark in here);
  


• Liquid glass that sounds pretty cool; may not turn out to do all the things it says it does but if it does even some of them that sounds pretty awesome;
  


• Vintage car pictures that are pretty amazingly real-looking for being diecast models with baking soda on them (really big photo gallery if you follow the link to the actual photo site);
  


• Star Wars themed sneakers;
  


• Online game that makes solving real world problems like world hunger, disaster relief, etc. sound like the most awesome Mission:Impossible / Matrix / Invisibles / etc. operation ever. 
  I haven't got an account on this thing so I haven't checked it out in detail, but I am under the impression (rightly or not) that it is at least in part aimed at trying to get people to really do stuff in real life also.  Something about mentorships and scholarships for people who do well at the game is the main thing that gives me this impression.
  


• Timothy Leary interview in prison from the 70's
  


• Wade Davis interviewed about Voodoo in Haiti and Pat Robertson's idiocy - links also to two TED talks (one from 2003, one from 2010) he did that are super interesting. 
  I think Davis really does a lot re: putting across the message that people shouldn't assume that those with "lower" technology or "more backward" religious beliefs or whatever have nothing to offer humanity and "deserve" to fade out of existence; if you don't look at any of the other links, I highly recommend at least checking out these videos.  Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my "old age" but personally I get a sense of awe at the adaptability of humanity from the things this guy talks about.  Moreover, there's a story in the 2003 video about an amazingly resourceful Inuit elder that is pretty amusing...
  
  (An aside: I really don't think the movie "The Serpent and the Rainbow" is as bad as many people make it out to be.  It did not portray all of Voodoo as "oooh, look what the scary black people are doing," and all of the actually fucked-up "evil" Voodoo stuff in it that I remember was done by the Tonton Macout - who were, in real life, the secret police guys and thus actually pretty horrible to people.)

I do find that Boing Boing's LJ feed tends to swamp the old F-list a bit, but a lot of people don't post as much as they used to, so that works out ok for me.  Sometimes it talks disproportionately a lot about things I'm not that interested in (as per a previous rant) but I find on the other hand that it lives up to its alleged focus on "wonderful things."  Comments are often stupid of course, but that seems to be true of every media blogsite ever.

Someone sent me this e-mail.  I don't have the time or inclination to go due to concerns with getting my academic work done, but just thought I'd post it in case people might be interested:

* * *

Hey there DJ Jinx,

Given that other than Chimera, Gothic Industrial events are few and far between in Calgary, I just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that this Saturday, Jan 30th, there is a Gothic Industrial Freakshow at The Distillery. It will feature performances from Ryan Stock "The Human Guinea Pig" and Powerman, "The World's Fattest Contortionist." as well as musical performances from Junkies Rush and Fattooth (from Montreal).

I saw The Human Guinea Pig last time he came, and the show was amazing, hilarious and disgusting.

Fattooth are a great band - check 'em out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsogvWcEgcc

As you can tell, I'm stoked for this show, and the only thing that will make it better will be a good turn-out from Calgary's coolest freaks - thus this email to you,

Yaaargh,

-stEvil

* * *

I won't be even slightly surprised if this is one of those "duh, everybody on Facebook already knows about that" things, but there it is anyway.

I know this sounds excessive when I say something like it pretty much every month, but: seriously, best Chimera evar. As one patron said, "if this is the way the Warehouse closing down treats us, bring it on!!"  Turnout was well over 100 people, with more of them on the dance floor at once than I've seen in a long time.  At one point there were so many people either dancing or standing on the periphery of the dance floor that I couldn't see to the back of the bar - which is saying something considering how small Soda is.

Also, the guest DJ: definitely coming back.  He got rave reviews from everyone I heard anything from, including one to the effect of "the only guest DJ better than that who we've had was Dervish." Anyone familiar with the scene here in Alberta will realize what a big compliment that is.

Personally though, my favorite thing about him was that he took initiative on his own to look at the request list and try to help me get through it.  Seriously, nobody does that. I never did it when I was a guest DJ.  Just like being a "guest" in someone's house, with DJing the assumption seems to be widespread that guests just do their thing and leave requests to the resident DJ.  I do have more fun when the guest helps with requests though, because otherwise, what tends to happen when there's a guest DJ is that either I a) feel like I have to spend my entire time every set playing requests, or b) don't care and the request list really suffers as a result.

I really had a lot of fun.  I know I said last month that Chimera had shifted from being a cool party with/for my friends to being a cool job, but this month it felt more like being a cool party with/for my friends again, just with lots of "extras" in the background.

The only extremely minor issues I had with the night were a) the pen not working for the request list (I will have a pencil or something next month) and b) my microphone not working.  Either I got no sound or I got too much feedback to make it useable.  I've decided I'm pissed off with this issue and may look into buying a megaphone... since as well as being practical, that strikes me as... self-evidently awesome. Does anyone know where to get such a thing in Calgary?  I found a whole bunch for sale on eBay for very reasonable prices, but I'd prefer to check the thing out physically to make sure it isn't a cheap piece-of-crap toy or something before buying it.

Oh, and I wanted to mention too, in case anyone was curious: my lecture today actually went extremely well, as did my meeting with my supervisor, so good to see that DJing isn't apparently going to cause problems on those fronts.  I did end up getting a headache in the late afternoon and having to sleep for about 3 hours, but I think the reasons for that were not necessarily related to DJing, and at least everything that needed to get done today did get done to my satisfaction.

Anyway, an extremely successful night all-in-all, for which thanks is due to:

• cadredlight, darkgentleman, diss_tress, mauler and others (Larissa, talis, more?) for helping out on the door.  (I reloaded my blogging software recently, so I updated everyone's usernames to LJ since nobody seems to care about myspace anymore anyway) 
• DJ Metalmaester for being totally awesome, and also to him and sturm_totenkopf for helping me take my equipment to the car at the end of the night.
• The staff at Soda.
• Everyone who made it out to show their support for the night.

And here is the playlist:

I mainly wanted to post this entry to make a couple social updates:

1) My supervisor asked me to meet with her tomorrow at 3.  This will be after I'd have taught my class at noon, which will in turn be after having got up at 9 whilst having gone to bed in the 3:30-4 AM range after Chimera.  I don't think this situation bodes well for my making it to tea, i.e. I think it is more likely that by the time I'm doing meeting my supervisor I will just want to go home and crash.  So assume I won't be at tea tomorrow unless I text around to say otherwise.

2) I had started asking around to see if anyone wanted to go to a play called the Abortion Monologues.  Unfortunately though, I found out from my colleagues at Mount Royal that the play is already sold out, so I guess that's not going to work out.  I hope it is at least sold out because of people who actually want to go and not because some pro-life organization bought the tickets to keep them out of circulation or something. Either way though, looks like it won't work out to go now, so sorry dark_nymph!

Since I'm here anyway though, I also wanted to mention:

I've heard from several people now that the Warehouse/Underground has closed permanently. 

I can't say I'm sorry to see it go either, since aside from Datalink, I've been thinking for awhile (the last few years at least) that the place has been like some suffering old dog who really should just be euthanized instead of waiting around for it to die.  Too bad for the organizer of Datalink, and too bad for any haters of mine who want somewhere subcultural to go other than Chimera, but no big personal loss to me.

One question this raises in my mind though is: if there is no Warehouse, doesn't that mean there is no weekend competition for events?  And does this also mean that having two events a month is sustainable as opposed to just one? 

The interesting thing about the timing of all this is that I was going to talk to D tonight anyway, since Chimera is tonight.

If you have thoughts on this subject, please let me know, preferably before 7 PM today.  Not that I have concrete plans of what to do yet, or expect to have anything confirmed by tonight, or even have much of an idea of what might be possible.  But I do want to start thinking and planning ASAP, in case there are some good opportunities here...

Oh, and on an unrelated note: if you're wondering why I'm up at this time when I work in the evening, it's because my orthodontic wire broke and I am going to an appointment to get it fixed in an hour or so here.  It's pretty hard to eat when you have a wire stabbing you in the tongue constantly, so I really need it dealt with ASAP.  Otherwise there's no way I'd schedule something like that for the same day as Chimera.

I had a random thought today about devising a formula for "original sin."  It looks sort of like this:

"I [should do / am entitled to do] X, because Y somehow magically makes Z not the case."

Where:

X = a) an action + b) an assumed lack of negative consequence.
Y = an impulsive sentiment notable for its neglect of long-term implications, effects upon others and/or reality in general.
Z = circumstances that ought to overrule the preoccupation with one's own little time/space/circle in anyone who isn't an idiot.
Note: a sufficiently-strong Y cancels attention not only to Z, but also to the b part of X.

I seriously could think of examples of this all day long.  "I should be able to eat the apple yet still have everything be fine afterward, because doing so sounds awesome even though I was told by my creator that I shouldn't do it."  "I should be able to kill the guy who pissed me off, because I'm angry and I don't care about the consequences beyond this moment."  "I am entitled to drive drunk and still get home safe, because I want to, even though everybody knows the risks of drunk driving."  "I am entitled to have a mistress behind my spouse's back without my spouse feeling betrayed, because my dick/pussy is bored and somehow that overrules anything to do with people who aren't me."  Etc. etc.

What I mean by this is, if I were going to employ the religious notion of "original sin," this is how I would do it: the above formula is, in my view, the flawed thought process (or more accurately, thoughtlessness process) that is the birthright of humanity, and a cause for guilt even prior to any actual concrete wrongdoing.

I'm not saying I'm immune either, because you can bet that when I'm grumpy and tired, I notice like 5 different examples of this in myself, every damn time I leave the house.  "I am entitled to not have people randomly walk in front of me, because I don't feel like dealing with them, even though obviously they have as much right to be there as I do."  And so forth.

Notice too that this personal example illustrates something useful: that I'm counting cases in which I feel hostile toward people even if it doesn't manifest outwardly.  This then covers the Buddhist angle of things: the formula also covers the manner in which attachment (to Y) causes suffering (X), to the individual even if to nobody else. 

Which, due to my current interpretation of Satanism, actually then applies to that religion as well: the number one Satanic sin is stupidity, and what could be stupider than acting in a way that both fucks yourself over and benefits nobody else either? 

Though with Satanism, the interesting thing is that "I want to fuck with the life of so-and-so, because I am entertained by their suffering, accept any and all possible negative results of it for me and mine, and don't care that society says it's wrong to feel that way" actually does not fit this archetype - which is fine, because indeed, I don't think that train of thought to be a "sin," rather I consider it a precursor to the "responsible" use of black magic.

I don't know what all I'm doing with this insight yet, but I just wanted to get it down.

Recently one of Boing Boing's bloggers wrote this:

As I said at the beginning of this program, I'm constantly amazed at the "pop culture amnesia" that seems to be an epidemic today. People have forgotten some of the greatest achievements of mankind... and what have they replaced it with? Infomercials, current events clowns, celebrity gossip and patently phony reality shows. Now, I can already hear you saying... "Well. me and all my friends know about important stuff... all kinds of stuff!" Whenever I ask one of my archive interns what kind of music they listen to, I always get the same answer- "All kinds of music!" Then I ask, "Who's your favorite country and western artist?" or "What's your favorite opera?" and I get blank stares. It turns out that "all kinds of music" means "acid house, electronica, trance, darkwave, eurobeat, speedcore, etc."- a million different names for the same kind of music. It isn't their fault that they're ignorant of the cultural riches of the 20th century. Big media has kept them in the dark so they can spoon feed them "pre-packaged, pasteurized entertainment product".

This person sounds to me like an elitist wanker.  I find it particularly offensive how the implication is that country or opera count as "real" achievements but x other genres - all of which are "coincidentally" electronic and favored by younger people - are not.

Also stupid: Um, hello blogger, has it occurred to you that these genres all seem "the same" to you because you're not a fan, and that they are obviously, perceivably different to people who are fans?

Also also stupid: What does that rant at the end about "big media" have to do with the genres listed?  Yeah, some of them are "mainstream" but some of them are probably more "indy" than the stuff this guy is actually posting as "music you should like."  Oh, but they use synthesizers, so obviously that must automatically mean they are "fake" and not worth anything. /sarcasm And furthermore, I see no necessary connection between liking electronic music and liking "Infomercials, current events clowns, celebrity gossip and patently phony reality shows" - in my experience, there's at best the opposite of correlation, and at worst no more correlation than with people who like any other kind of music. Which further supports my contention that this writer is being kind of ignorant.

I admit, I hate the "all kinds of music!" answer too, because in my experience this is just something people say so as to seem open-minded and not offend anyone when in practice, it is never literally true and there is always something the person doesn't like. 

But I don't understand where this attitude comes from that it's a big deal to be familiar with pop culture that is "historic" but not with other kinds.  To me that's like saying people have an obligation to watch TV so that they can talk to other people about it - this is just the more nose-in-the-air equivalent.  Buddy, if you are lacking in people to talk to about your pet interest, yeah that's unfortunate, but how about expressing it as the subjective issue that it is for you instead of talking like there is objectively something wrong with people who just don't care about all your little black-and-white bluegrass clips?

Though speaking of bluegrass: I also find it interesting how this guy at one point showcases the term "beautiful ignorance" as if it's such a great, American, down-home thing, when I can't help but coincidentally notice that the "down-home" collection of values is quite likely to include disdain for the tastes of young people and for "weird looking" subcultural people in contrast to the "wholesome" images of the black-and-white entertainment of yesteryear.

Pardon me, but I'm not real fond of some fogey-hick telling me that people I know and relate to are ignorant just because they don't like [favorite thing that is just as arbitrary as whatever my favorite thing is].

In closing, at least when Boing Boing pisses me off, it gives me more interesting and intellectual things to rant about than FARK ever did.

I've been struggling to find time to post this, but here's a few bits and pieces from my first week back teaching:

1. Institution A has given me two spacious classrooms with large windows and properly-working AV and computer equipment.  Institution B has given me one classroom that has too many desks in it, no windows, computer podium in the corner (which makes zero sense for trying to do powerpoint presentations) and terrible sound equality on videos.  I have the same number of students at both institutions, i.e. class size at one is half that of the other.  Institution A pays better.  Gee, I wonder where I want to work more in the future. /sarcasm
   


2. I have a special needs fellow in one class who is bright and enthusiastic, but has a bit of trouble with the whole "make comments that are relevant to what I'm talking about, not just relevant to the topic of religion in general" concept.  I was worried about handling this gracefully for about the first 20 minutes, and then it occurred to me that countless students engage in "I'm now going to beak off with my random theory about life, the universe and everything" in religious studies classes all the time anyway.  So really it's just business as usual.
   


3. On last Monday I had to teach two classes with zero sleep.  This turned out to be a silver-lining thing though, because I think it's had a beneficial effect on some lingering self-consciousness issues I have with teaching.  i.e. "I'm too tired to be self-conscious about this right now," a sentiment that helps me with slowly ridding myself of the problem entirely.
   


4. I recently gave up on a certain friend ever giving back certain comics of mine that I've asked for on multiple occasions, so I just went and bought them over again.  I spent my over-tired periods of time this week re-reading the whole series, and this being Grant Morrison's Invisibles, I have a lot of background spiritual-theorizing going on in my brain now.  I may or may not write about it once it runs its course.  I also pulled "have you heard of the Invisibles?" on some random student who was asking me a question about Zoroastrianism in P.K. Dick's work, so hopefully that goes somewhere for him.
   


5. Because of having to change my textbook this semester, and thus re-write all my lectures, quizzes and whatnot, I'm finding the workload for teaching is really heavy right at the moment.  I hope though that if I put as much time as I can into it for the immediate next while, I can get far enough ahead to be pacing the research better once again.
   


6. As far as the research goes, the end result of the Xmas break was that I got lots of reading and brainstorming done, and have a much clearer idea of my overall direction, but didn't actually finish the chapter(s) I had hoped to because of more shifts in focus, claims I thought I could make that fell through, and etc.  I get frustrated at times that, while this doesn't bother me-in-and-of-myself, because I know it's part of the process, I'm annoyed at the potential for it to seem like a lack of progress in the eyes of other parties, academic or otherwise.  Can't do much about misperceptions of that sort, so I know it's ultimately pointless to worry about, but there it is anyway.
   


7. Turn-out at tea on Friday was awesome, and I hope that's a trend that continues to strengthen.  But since Zyclobonzaron comes in on Fridays these days and we aren't much for clubbing when we're together, this hasn't been conducive to going to Datalink.  There's also the fact that I've disappeared from Datalink for periods of time due to academic priorities in the past, and of course I am even busier right now.  Just wanted to mention that because I don't wish to give the impression that I'm "against" supporting it; I don't hate it, it's just not a priority for me right now.

I don't really have time to write about this right now, so this is almost more like notes for a future rant, but:

Yeah, rape.  Fucking hilarious.  Yay, ten different people defending their right to laugh at something horrible.  Ooh, you are so awesomely edgy and badass. 

Let's label anyone who complains "oversensitive" and "stupidly getting upset over an Internet meme," and etc., and pay no apparent thought whatsoever to the possibility that maybe the person complaining was raped, and that therefore maybe it is not funny at all to them.  Can you be any more completely lacking in empathy?

And then there is the charge of political correctness.  We demand our right to laugh at something terrible that we've never lived through.  Wow, you are so awesome, I wish I was awesome like you, assholes.  Is your world seriously that diminished by excluding this kind of humor?  Is your "right" to laugh at everything really that important?  Do you seriously think that right outweighs all else and is accompanied by the right to make insensitive comments to victims/survivors?

Oh, and I also love (/sarcasm) how moral relativism makes it so that being offended and not being offended are equally valid in the minds of some people.  Yeah, I'm a chaos magician and I do believe in the value of being able to laugh at everything, to attempt constructive re-interpretations, to avoid being controlled by automatic reactions, and etc., but again: empathy, ever fucking tried it?  

Like, do some people (whose demographic I will tactfully refrain from speculating on) seriously have such a hard time imagining how rape can be traumatic that I have to watch the same bullshit "you are too serious, huh huh huh duh!!!!" reaction from 10 different monkeys, when two seconds of thinking about the possible context of the one person's negative reaction seems to suggest the possibility of personal trauma in that person's past experience?

Especially offensive to me is how the tone of some of the comments in question seems aimed at implying that the offendee's reaction is illegitimate, i.e. that it's not enough to say "sorry you didn't find it funny" and instead one instead proceeds to "there is something wrong with you for not finding it funny."

(Hmm, I was going to type something else and then I burst out crying and couldn't stop. Isn't that interesting...?)

And yeah, I'm aware that from the perspectives of some, a rant like this seems to constitute a significant shift in my values/personality/something.  What all exactly that means I'll think about and try to post on more in the future, because it is something that's been weighing on my mind lately. 

All I want to point out for now though is that I'm pretty sure this is not just a reaction to women's or sexual issues on my part, because if it was a raped male reacting this way, or a joke about murder that someone was upset by because they know someone who was murdered, I'd be equally irritated on the whole "wow, congratulations on being too ethically/spiritually/etc. stunted to think about the victim/survivor for half a fucking second" side of things.

So yeah: I don't want to hear any crap about how my complaining about this makes me a hypocrite, because I KNOW that I have changed.  I just haven't had the chance to reformulate and openly present what's on my mind these days yet.

I was just reading this interesting article about differences in approaches to airport security in America vs. Israel.

This in combination with some other stuff that I also read awhile back via Boing Boing made me wonder:

Would it be more useful to put armed, uniformed, trained, well-paid, highly visible, scary looking security people on planes instead of just adding more elaborate routines to the whole "security theatre" song-and-dance? 

Obviously, you'd have to train such people to not be assholes to every brown person who comes on the plane, but the racist issue aside I increasingly think that this might legitimately be a good idea.  I mean, if nothing else, personally I'd feel that the presence of someone like that would contribute more to my personal sense of security than not being allowed to have a blanket or use the washroom for the last hour.  Or, for that matter, naked scanners run by bored, underpaid, undertrained lackeys.  (You know that's just going to lead eventually to some terrorist hiding explosives internally, and thus literally blowing up his own ass.)

However, it's probably one of many ideas (like euthanasia, or selective breeding, or even certain types of optimization toward efficiency) that has been ruined by the Nazis.  i.e. "oooh, that sounds like something the Nazis did, therefore it is automatically bad in all future circumstances ever-ever!!"  Not that the Nazis didn't do awful things, obviously, but I hate when people use that connection to seemingly turn off their critical thinking skills in preference for moral black-and-white.  "Nazis were organized, therefore organization is bad!" = that's the kind of idiocy I expect from people on this front.

I could also go into a tangent here about how in my experience, the people most often whining about something turning into a "police state" are big guys more capable of protecting themselves than I am of protecting myself, and how I thus fail to see why an extreme anarchist/libertarian situation in which I potentially get pushed around by random big guys is in any way an improvement over the current situation of potentially getting pushed around by police officers, but I won't. 

Nor will I have a go at the, in my opinion, stupid hippies who either don't think about, or don't care about, the likelihood of someone like me having to worry 100x as much about getting raped in their unrealistic happy-happy law-free paradise wherein the bestial side of human nature has magically disappeared all by itself.  (Or does that count as "having a go at"? )

Returning to the point though: Now, I do grasp that most people these days have a fucked-up view of how likely or not terrorism actually is, i.e. your odds of getting killed by a lightning strike are higher.  From that perspective more security is a waste of resources.  Yet at the same time, it seems hard to avoid the argument that the less security there is, the more likely there would be more terrorist attacks than there already are.

Last thought on this subject: "we should stop fucking up those other countries with Western imperialism and pissing them off, and then terrorism would go away."  I hate this kind of naive crap from my fellow university-goers.  To me, this is like the pro-life feminists who say "well, instead of letting women have abortions we should fix all the poverty issues in the world and then women wouldn't want to have abortions because they'd have enough resources to have all the kids they want."  To which two responses come to mind:

1) it doesn't address the fact that some women just don't want kids
(compare: there are ideological motivations for terrorism - e.g. issues with "infidels" and the very existence of Israel - that I don't think will go away even if the economic ones do), and

2) you can't do that overnight, so what the fuck is the point of making women suffer in the meantime by "making" them have children they can't support?
(compare: you can't fix the Middle East overnight - if ever - so as long as it's not fixed, isn't it wise to anticipate extremist behavior in order to protect your own citizens?)

Not the best of parallels, I know, but it's just something that occurred to me just now.  And to cut down on some of the more useless flaming I can anticipate this sparking, I'm not advocating surveillance of everyone all the time or anything retarded like that, okay?  Don't assume that I'm stupid or have no respect for individual liberties just because I happen to feel safer with a little bit more authority structure in certain situations than you do.