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It's only semi autobiographical
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Sleepy
But related enough, I give you, sleep divorce.
Now I'm tired and I'm going to bed.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Golf indeed.
Important News!
Police are warning all men who frequent clubs, parties & local pubs to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink from any woman.
Many females use a date rape drug on the market called "Beer." The drug is found in liquid form and is available anywhere. It comes in bottles, cans, or from taps and in large "kegs". Beer is used by female sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male victims to go home and sleep with them.
A woman needs only to get a guy to consume a few units of Beer and then simply ask him home for no strings attached sex. Men are rendered helpless against this approach. After several beers, men will often succumb to the desires to sleep with horrific looking women whom they would never normally be attracted. After drinking beer, men often awaken with only hazy memories of exactly what happened to them the night before, often with just a vague feeling that "something bad" occurred.
At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life's savings, in a familiar scam known as "a relationship." In extreme cases, the female may even be shrewd enough to entrap the unsuspecting male into a longer term form of servitude and punishment referred to as "marriage." Men are much more susceptible to this scam after beer is administered and sex is offered by the predatory females.
Please! Forward this warning to every male you know. If you fall victim to this "Beer" scam and the women administering it, there are male support groups where you can discuss the details of your shocking encounter with similarly victimized men. For the support group nearest you, just look up Golf Courses" in the phone book.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Drunken consent, a reply.
We can agree on the start of your argument, in the 3rd paragraph, the practice of getting someone drunk to lower their resistances is indeed immoral. But I would say that if someone gets themselves drunk deliberately, no other person may be blamed for this state of affairs.
Next, we discuss how to assess drunkenness. You affirm that these laws should apply to strangers in particular, since relationships blur the lines. Now, different people have vastly different capacities for consuming alcohol. If you do not know a person, you have no way of knowing if they are extroverted normally, and quite sober, or an incredibly shy shrinking violet, pissed off their head. To within reason of course, I do have two particular people in mind when writing this.
Next, my point was not so much that one would have to be very cautious, but that one would not be able to have sex at all. The truth of the matter is, no matter the level of sobriety of a girl, (I am sorry for using the sexes this way around, but in general this is the case) she could at any point decide that she had not wanted to have sex, and claim she was so drunk she could not have given consent. I argue here from practicality, there would be no way to uphold the kind of ruling proposed here.
I also would not say that one should "expect" to wake up in a strange bed. I for example, nearly always return home when very drunk. If I did have a tendency to wake up in a strange bed, I would not drink that much. I do have a tendency to throw up if I drink too much. So I drink, but not enough to make me ill. I have a tendency to miss lectures if I go out and drink the night before, so I try not to. Gin makes me alternately sick and violent, so I never drink gin.
As Kieran states, I made the point that if one gets drunk, one must take responsibility for ones actions, and I stand by this claim. The next point has a qualifier: "...If you agree that drunken consent is not really consent..." and the next point is a tautology. However, this just amounts to "If you agree with me... then you agree with me."
My argument is that if you take responsibility for your drunken actions, you must take responsibility for what you agree to. Kieran here states "Yes, you take responsibility for any crimes you might commit, but not crimes committed to you." and on his blog itself I riposte with the fact that sex is not a crime in itself. The reply that this statement comes from the assertion that drunken consent is not consent if fair enough, but that means that this statement has no bearing on the argument, and is no reply to the assertion that one must take responsibility for your actions.
Now in summary: I argue this; Responsibility must be taken for ones actions. If one gets drunk, one at that point takes responsibility for actions they may take when drunk. Otherwise, we have the case that Loz pointed out, where one can avoid responsibility for rape, by getting drunk.
It seems the counter argument has but one point. If you get drunk, you do not have to take responsibility for what you say and do. All the other points rest on this assertion, and this, I believe is a fallacy.
On a side note, the report here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4780992.stm was the start point for this debate. And I, personally, think that the judge mentioned at the end of the article, hit the nail on the head. If I may describe a hypothetical situation, which to some degree addresses Kieran's points in paragraph 7 of his post.
Judge: So at this point, you say the defendant stole your wallet?
Accuser: Yes. I know I had my wallet at 10pm, when I bought my 10th DVR, and then I don't remember much, but she walked me home, and then we kissed for a bit, and she got in a taxi and left, then my wallet was gone!
Judge: Wait, you don't remember much?
Accuser: Well... no, not from 10 till about 3AM.
Judge: So you could have, in fact, dropped your wallet or lost it before then.
Accuser: I don't remember.
Judge: (Throws case out of court)
And I would argue that this is equivalent to the situation in the news article.
One last point, which I may address more fully in a later post.
"Amnesty International UK said the campaign was a "step forward" but that it must form part of a wider plan to tackle low conviction rates and "a sexist blame culture"."
I agree with this quote, but not in the way I expect it was intended. I do think there is a "sexist blame culture" but not just around rape in particular. But I will not go into that. The bit I do not agree with is their arguments stemming from "low conviction rates" perhaps... just perhaps... there are low conviction rates, because most people are not guilty?
And again... I run out of time. I hope I have made myself clear. It boils down to responsibility, if you have a clear counter-argument, from either practicality or morality, I would like to hear it.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Because I want to know.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Macarena
I sit here listening to the Macarena. There is a reason behind this, and wit my usual belated commentary on day-to-day events I will now relate why.
Last Monday, spurred on by the lecturer’s strike giving us a Tuesday off work, a group of us went to the nightclub known as Po Na Na’s. It was fairly dead when we entered, so we decided, to get things going a bit, that we would walk into the centre stage of the dance floor. Regardless of the music being played we would then dance the Macarena and leave. How I convinced the others to do this I will never know.
In any case, we did so, and then ran away to preserve some form of dignity. The best thing was though, later in the evening, they played the Macarena for us, without us even having to ask. I’m not sure whether that was a good thing or not…
The rest of the evening went without great event, aside from Kit trying to steal a road sign and having a run in with the police and a taxi driver. And Elaine getting a thick lip.
When the Internet actually starts working again, I will post this…
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Cop out post
 | You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com |
Would You like to be my partner?
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Sundry
I will save that subject for later. The question is, who left that post? The ardent advocate of fairness for females, Sarah? The ever quarrelsome and argumentative Roisín? Or possibly Bex, because as far as I am aware, she is the only one who calls me Ricardo at the moment...
Instead, as IC mentioned, yes I fell down the stairs. It was doubtless a moment of great hilarity for those who observed the act, but I assure you, from my position, it was most assuredly not. Fortunately I managed to save my face from too much damage, and instead paid with my legs, arms and chest.
Having dabbled in what I am sure are the dark arts of snowboarding though, I was somewhat innured to the punishment, and am now on good form to catch up with the work I have missed. I say to catch up, but I have in fact done so now. Topology is, as they say in the vernacular, my bitch.
I am also going for the world record of numbers of loads put in the washing machine in one day. Practically my entire collection of clothes is going through the process today, which means I had to go to university this morning unwashed (gasp from Ro probably.) Well, I hate having to get into dirty clothes after showering, and it was only for an hour, so it does not count.
I am alsobeginningg what is doubtless going to degenerate into world war III, but contained within my house. I have already moved into the Rhineland which is our washing room, and soon the Poland of the Kitchen will be mine also! I may have to begin research into better weapons technology... All I have to get past is basic staves and swords which already prevail throughout the house. Battle Hammer anyone?
Oh, go visit Penny Arcade, Tycho is like a writing god. A titan of the English language if you will. And yet he is an American... I find myself in a state of confusion... But which one?
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
A New Hope
How is it that people can think of it as friendly? They go out of their way to bathe in it, lay in front of it, worshiping it like some kind of god.
It is completely perverse. What we have here is an unfathomably hot, burning ball of gases and energy, which is radioactive to boot! The sun is not a smiley little face, it is a thermo-nuclear device, performing nuclear fission! On top of all this, all the time you spend in its sight, it is trying to give you skin cancer! It is slowly killing off all who stand in its way, have you seen the Sahara desert?
And yet people fawn in front of it, letting it burn their skin! Does no one else see the problem here? Oh yes, they take precautions, make sure they wear sun cream and the like. Great, so now it is just withering your skin and damaging the surface, rather than actually burning it off. Perfect.
It has been pointed out that Sol is indeed the source of all life on the planet, and should be respected as such, which is fair enough. However, the same could be said of the molten core of Terra, but you definitely do not see people getting "Just close enough to the lava so it burns but won't kill me" when volcanoes erupt!
It just seems... wrong somehow.
Anyway... I want to write more, I really do, and I write better when something pisses me off. So, you know, talk to me about things that make me cross more...
