Ludwig who?

I think he meant this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

-- Rowan Berkeley/i>

I have the other guy on the brain. Make it stop!

Re: humorless ass.

My bad. Although the rest of your post sort of proved my point. The whole discussion started with a lighthearted reference, by a man, on youthful sexuality as "pussy" (as in, "chasing..."). It was a gently teasing conversation, that evolved toward a goal of coming to an understanding about the usage of these words, until you jumped in with your non-sequitur.

I am one who has the misfortune of from time to time dealing with so-called "feminists" who routinely state the fact that women are only victims, and all evil is male.

Well, that's a shame, but you really shouldn't put that on me if you don't know that it fits, which you don't (and it doesn't). I have a really great appreciation of males, just not those who think I'm a lesser being simply because our anatomy differs.

I agree with you that all of those terms are offensive, for the reasons you stated, and I rarely use them myself. However, I think you would have to agree that when insults are being lobbed "pussy" seems to be used with much more frequency than "prick" to imply lack of manhood.

No, it does not imply that woman is lesser. It implies that the male isn't sufficiently male. It isn't actually about women at all.

If that were true, then you all would stick to your own anatomy when searching for insults. After all, wouldn't say, "limp dick" also imply insufficiency?

There is, of course, still sexism in the military against women. One example of that is the high rate of rape. Another is such as the disparity in the Graner-English sentences, and the controversy concerning one of those.

Not just the high rate but also the fact that it is still considered acceptable to suppress evidence and intimidate accusers.

As for Lynndie England and Charles Graner and the discrepancies in their sentences, England agreed to plead guilty to abuse and would have been sentenced to 11 years. Graner then intervened with new testimony that resulted in the judge reducing her sentence. And you want to blame her for not being feminist enough to tell them to STFU? The real crime was not this discrepancy, but the fact that charges didn't flow up the chain of command where they truly belonged.

I never "billed" myself as anything to you. In fact, until you jumped into our conversation all puffed up about whatnot, I had never even had a discussion with you. So I'm not sure why you feel justified in dropping every single emasculating thing some other "feminist" ever laid on you at my door, but that door is now closed to you.

You are blinded by your own ideological fantasies if you think it would attract people who would otherwise vote for McCain

Since all I did was cut and paste an AP report, I take it this is the rhetorical "you" and not me personally?

I took the liberty of patrolling through the comments and tried to extract all of the links that so many of you provided. The resulting post link is at my name.

I'm also trying to keep a chronologic list of links to GG's General-Gate posts, and the url at which I did that is here:

http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/daily-constitutional-spring-divertissements-torture-illegal-propaganda/

I'll try to keep it updated as GG adds to his post repertoire on this subject. If you see omissions, errors and have links you'd like added, please comment on the respective blog posts, and I'll update.

Thank you, one and all.

I was wondering what the origin of the assertion that a Barr candidacy would pull voters from McCain is, but it's impossible to tell just from googling around. I suspect that the assertion is a ploy by one of McCain's media strategists, but this would be extremely difficult to prove. The 'you' I referred to is those of you who allow themselves to be misled by it. The author of the ploy, ex hypothesi, wouldn't believe it for a minute, and as for the AP writer and all the other hack journos who repeat it, I think they are trained (or train themselves) not to think about whether any story they handle is true or not, but only about whether it's attractive as a story, i.e. an attention grabber. That's what they're paid to do, isn't it.

p.s. - I suppose you could suggest (either sarcastically or seriously) that, it's more likely the originator of the suggestion that the Barr candidacy would pull more voters from McCain than from Obama, or however we want to phrase it, actually did believe it, and was thus, by my reasoning, stupider than I am.

In England this sort of reasoning falls into a category called "cock-up versus conspiracy explanation" and normal people will always hurry to tell me that everything I find odd or suggestive is evidence of "cock-up" (i.e. incompetence, stupidity) rather than "conspiracy" (i.e. intentional management and manipulation of public thought). On the other hand, we also have a phrase, "well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" which has come to mean, it's an obvious lie.

In fact, I am so thoroughly misled by this ploy that I have no opinion about it at all.

Barr's candidacy "could' also draw down a plague of locusts, as far as I know or care.

I try to prioritize. When it gets closer to November, I'll start looking at who might siphon votes from who, if it seems relevant. In the meantime, there are bigger fish to fry (as they say down here in Georgia).

Should this dress be illegal?

Remember last year when 25 girls were turned away from a high school prom in Louisiana because their gowns were deemed "inappropriate"? Well, this year, a Texas school has one-upped that Puritanism, calling the cops on senior Marche Taylor after she argued with an official who refused to let her in. The crime? A very revealing dress. Taylor was led away from her prom in handcuffs without even getting a chance to spike the punch.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/?last_story=/mwt/broadsheet/2008/05/12/skimpy_prom/