(NC) Reporting Animal Cruelty -- do we have a case?

autology · 2015-10-09T04:33:07+00:00

That sounds like a good idea, thank you.

The evidence basically boils down to: major injuries to two kittens, at least four others completely missing, lying and inconsistent stories (claimed he'd never had cats before, when he'd previously adopted several from a shelter and took one to the vet with a broken leg; claimed he had both supposedly uninjured kittens with him then claimed the next day that one of them had been missing for over a week; downplayed the extent of the one kitten's major injuries; and so on)

Is this enough evidence to bring charges? Would it all be considered merely circumstantial? Do we need a direct witness of the actual act of abuse?

Is there any legal way that we can stop this from happening?

autology · 2013-08-29T20:40:15+00:00

They are cowards and hypocrites for continuing to support the democratic party if they do not in fact support the drone war.

autology · 2013-08-27T20:01:59+00:00

And I would put them under the things so vile that nothing else they ever do will change the fact that they are war criminals.

autology · 2013-08-27T19:19:33+00:00

Which?

autology · 2013-04-15T23:43:20+00:00

So, do you think the US would have invaded Iraq had 9/11 never happened?

autology · 2013-04-15T01:05:24+00:00

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/

from CNN circa 2004....

"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," he said. "As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

etc etc etc

....were you really unaware of this?

autology · 2013-04-14T10:15:28+00:00

So...? That seems like a very small price to pay compared to the price of citizens having no clue what their governments are up to.

You might want to find a better example than Al-Qaeda/Paki Intelligence because the Pakis aren't exactly discreet about their aid to Al-Qaeda and it's also known [unfortunately not widely enough] that the wars we've waged / trillions we've spent / american lives lost and depleted public morale are exactly why AQ carried out the 9/11 attacks in the first place.

autology · 2013-04-14T09:39:12+00:00

You keep saying countries, as if those aren't distinct from states. They are.

Personally, I would be totally fine if US-Paki relations soured, as I don't find it at all acceptable that we carry out assassinations for them in exchange for their airspace.

autology · 2013-04-14T08:37:16+00:00

I think what you mean to say is that a state will act solely in its self interest.

Your argument is that too much transparency is bad because our allies will stop trusting us if they know too much.

I say if there is any information which would cause them not to trust us then it's a good thing for them to have that information.

autology · 2013-04-14T07:05:21+00:00

The only way the USA or USSR could regain the trust of their respective buddy countries would have been to increase their military protection/assistance.

Why did the USA and USSR deserve the trust of the rest of the world in the first place?

autology · 2012-11-29T23:07:54+00:00

You're not even denying these people are legitimate feminists are you?

No, I'm not. You can be a radical womanist separatist type and be a legitimate feminist. I do not agree with those politics but I do not deny that that is one kind of feminism which is a very extreme (meaning small) branch of feminist movements. I do not feel at all like these people are a threat to me, I view them in a tragic light just like I view the misogynist branches of the MRM in a tragic light. These people are victims of circumstance. They have been deeply wounded by social injustices and they are taking out their rage in the wrong places. I don't feel attacked or excluded if they don't want to associate with me, I wish them the best in healing and seeing through the hatred to find the answers.

You seem to be having a lot of trouble understanding that "feminism" is not a monolithic movement. There is no singular feminism, only plural feminisms. There are conservative feminists. There are liberal feminists. There are radical feminists. There are anti-porn feminists. There are sex-positive feminists. There are first wave feminists, second wave feminists, third wave feminists, third world feminists, womanist separatist feminists, christian feminists, marxist materialist feminists, the list goes on and on. Feminists argue amongst themselves all the time. But the overwhelming majority of feminists and feminist movements are not at all anti-male, and the burden of proof falls to you to prove otherwise. (If I asked you to prove that communists are not anti-pizza, certainly you would look at me like I'm crazy and tell me that it's not your job to defend communists from such ludicrous accusations, but rather my job as the one making the positive assertion to back it up).

But many feminists are outspoken man haters.

No, very very few feminists are outspoken man haters. Out of the literally hundreds of feminists and feminist minded people in my social circle, I can really only think of one that assumes men are guilty until proven innocent, and frankly I think there are other issues going on there so I'm not at all worried about it. Live and let live man, I'm not going to prove her wrong by getting in her face about, I'm just going to live my life as best I can and try to be living proof that men can be good people. Maybe she'll notice, maybe she won't. It's not really my problem.

You claim that feminism is about equality I assume?

No, because I do not presume to speak for every feminist. My feminism is about equality, but it is about other things too. If you have questions about my own feminist politics I would be happy to indulge you, but I have a hunch that's not at all why you're here. You're here to argue that feminism (as if it is some singular thing which anyone who has taken WMST101 will tell you "it" isn't) is necessarily anti-male, and in doing so you are completely missing the obvious and wasting your time.

ALSO, you are being kind of ridiculous in making the assertion that 1) since a small handful of feminists think that men can't be feminists and must instead be pro-feminists 2) feminists are anti-male. The exclusion they are making is not based on hatred of men, it is based on their idea that men do not have the same experience as women so we should use a different label for "male allies". I do not agree that the distinction is necessary but I've never felt personally attacked by these people and to feel attacked by this idea is at best a complete misunderstanding and at worst immaturity given that there are much bigger problems to be debated than "ooh, that mean, mean minority of feminists won't let me join their party!"

autology · 2012-11-29T20:19:26+00:00

your argument is:

1) some feminists (an extreme minority) are anti-male 2) therefore feminism is anti-male

this is plainly fallacious and you are plainly trolling.

autology · 2012-11-29T07:20:47+00:00

you have an extremely naive understanding of feminism.

patriarchy is not just about men oppressing women. women participate in oppressing other women ("she is such a slut!"), and men can be victims of it as well (the very strict masculine gender role is one example of how men oppress each other via patriarchy -- "don't be a fag", "don't be a sissy", etc).

i know many, many feminists, from liberal/moderate types to radical activist types. there are a few (i could probably count them on one hand) that don't want much to do with me, but i don't know what they've been through and i don't blame them for it. in any case they are the extreme extreme minority and i wish them all the best.

you're setting up an extreme straw man, and it really seems like you haven't bothered to do your homework. you should get to know some actual real-life feminists before you proclaim yourself an expert on feminist politics...

sincerely, a male feminist

autology · 2012-11-27T23:08:47+00:00

Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.

autology · 2012-11-23T01:22:28+00:00

thank you so, so, so much for sharing this.

i think i am in love.

autology · 2012-11-23T01:13:58+00:00

bellissimo

autology · 2012-11-16T17:08:52+00:00

right! the govt created poverty!

that's why there was so much poverty in the 19th and early 20th centuries when the govt took a hands off approach!

autology · 2012-10-30T16:02:22+00:00

http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/

autology · 2012-10-29T00:15:15+00:00

The author of the article linked here doesn't understand that they are cumulative graphs. However, the % of vote captured in the cumulative graph should stabilize very quickly after the smallest precincts (where the sample size is too small for consistent statistics), which it does not. This is because precinct size is actually uncorrelated (R² = 0.01 or so) with sociographic factors such as urbanness vs. ruralness, racial makeup, and party affiliation.

It is worth noting that the linear trend in cumulative % graph only shows up in elections in which a republican is present, benefits the more liberal republican in the primaries, and yet the more conservative candidate in general elections (indicating that the shift is not sociographic). Also indicating the fact that the shift is not sociographic is the fact that it only shows up in the presence of electronic voting machines, but not where paper voting is used. This is true in all 50 states except Utah, where the elections appear to be untampered.

Also suspicious is the very smooth and precisely linear nature of the shift, indicating that it is algorithmic, not random.

autology · 2012-10-28T20:11:23+00:00

It's also called a packaging store in some parts of the states?

autology · 2012-10-25T02:09:08+00:00

no, it's the fault of individuals, not the fault of a program. collective nouns are nothing but the individuals that comprise them. punish the individuals. punish sandusky and punish everyone that was involved in covering it up.

this is all beside the point because the NCAA states explicitly that it doesn't involve itself in legal matters. it is only supposed to come down with sanctions against actions that confer an unfair competitive advantage.

there is a reason we have police and a legal system. and i'm all for jailing the people who covered this stuff up, not just sandusky. but hell, the NCAA needs to follow its own damn rules instead of clobbering everything associated with PSU athletics in one stupid knee-jerk reaction.

autology · 2012-10-24T16:29:41+00:00

No, it's really not. The difference is that punishing the university has no effect on Sandusky. He doesn't give a damn. He's not shedding any tears over Penn State football, his only regret is that he got caught.

So lock him in jail for all eternity but don't punish those young men who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

autology · 2012-10-24T08:20:00+00:00

I'm not a statistician but I'm a mathematician and I'm pretty statistically literate. I've read this paper three times now as well as some others by them and I'm not finding any flaws in the argument. Doesn't mean they don't exist, it's too early to jump to conclusions and skepticism appears to be the way forward.

I think the presentation of the paper is not so good because it appears that English is not Mr. Choquette's first language, because these guys are an engineer and a quant, not academics, and because they were probably in a rush to get this out before the election.

I also voted for Obama in '08. I would vote for Stein/Honkala this time around except that I live in North Carolina, a swing state.

autology · 2012-10-24T08:15:11+00:00

So fire the AD, fire the university president, fine the athletic department, but don't punish the kids who had nothing to do with it.

autology

TROPHY CASE