The Null Device

2004/2/5

Anti-hate activists are getting up in arms about girls' T-shirts with anti-boy mottos. The pink and pastel-blue midriff-baring T-shirts, with slogans like "Boys are stupid, throw rocks are them", are made by a company named David and Goliath (apparently based in the Clam stronghold of Clearwater, Florida; not sure whether that has any significance), and sold to a wide variety of age groups. In the eyes of anti-hate-crime campaigners and "mens' rights" groups (who may well be the US equivalents of the Blackshirts or something), the T-shirts are nothing more than an incitement to hatred:

"These T-shirts have nothing to do with girl power," says Joe Kelly, president of Dads and Daughters in Duluth, Minn. "They are a cynical manipulation of faux 'girl power' designed primarily to generate corporate profit, the consequences be damned."
"I think it's funny when people take the 'Hooters' shirts and turn them around in ways that bring attention to stereotypes that demean women," she said. "But name calling isn't funny or acceptable no matter what group it's targeted at. These shirts are simply substituting one power message for another."

More proof that Americans have no sense of irony?

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A new RFC has been published, arguing why the idea of a ".sex domain" or of rewriting TCP/IP to include "adult-content" flags in packets would not work and probably do more harm than good:

The American Civil Liberties Union -- and other members of the international Global Internet Liberty Campaign -- caution that publishers speaking frankly about birth control, AIDS prevention, gay and lesbian sex, the social problem of prison rape, etc., could be coerced into moving to an adult domain. Once there, they would be stigmatized and easily blocked by schools, libraries, companies, and other groups using filtering software. Publishers of such information, who do not view themselves as pornographers and retain their existing addresses, could be targeted for prosecution.

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Sleepy City is a collection of very cool-looking photos taken mostly in (and under) Brisbane. The subject matter tends towards underground tunnels, abandoned buildings, sodium-lit concrete wastelands and derelict machinery, though the uses of colour and composition make the mundane seem magical. (via MeFi)

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What do Norwegian Black Metal and American Neo-Conservatism have in common? See here.

The similarities dont stop there. Whereas Vikernes and other Black Metalists saw heathen Norway in a life-or-death struggle for existence with the Semitic tribes Judeo-Christianity, Perle and Frum see Judeo-Christian America under threat from Islam. And both have the same solution: War, dude!
To be fair, Vikernes and another Black Metalist murderer, Hendrik Mobus, come off as far more interesting, intellectual and complex with their second-rate Nietzschean ideas mixed up with D&D mythology, whereas Perle and Frums war manifesto is surprisingly dull and sparse. Indeed, on each page the words are spaced so far apart you could drive a fertilizer-packed white van between each line. I read it in one sitting and came away with only one memorable line, in which they disparagingly called Belgium "Frances pilot fish." On the other hand, Perle and Frum have used their influence over Bush to rack up a far, far higher corpse-count than the hapless Norwegian dirtheads, so they more than make up for their lack of aesthetic flair or stylized corpse paint with genuine blood on their hands.

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