when the status quo frustrates.

Justice delayed

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

If you’re outside of Canada, you might not be hearing much these days about the case of the Toronto 18, or the Toronto 17, or the Toronto 11 (the number of suspects charged keeps dwindling as the case against them collapses). They are 15 men, mostly in their early 20s, and five kids, all Muslim, charged in 2006 with an absurd plot to storm the CBC and Parliament and behead the Prime Minister. Two years ago, the mainstream media was congratulating the RCMP for averting disaster, but after charges against four of the men were stayed and one man was acquitted, it is grudgingly coming around to the position that maybe some rights may have been violated here.

I’m not boasting of much when I tell you that I called bullshit from the beginning. I’m not convinced that real terrorists strategize in chat rooms or over e-mail. And more to the point, it appeared even early on in the case that the informant who went to the RCMP, Mubin Shaikh, was compensated rather generously for his help and was likely the mastermind behind the plot, a.k.a. entrapment. He certainly needed the money, given his little cocaine habit. Also, the supposed “terrorist training” that the men and boys engaged in was apparently paintball.

My prediction? The charges against all of them will likely be dropped within the next year or so. I don’t think that there was much of a case to begin with. Whether those responsible—the RCMP, Shaikh, and so on—for what is almost certainly a momentous fuck-up and a miscarriage of justice will ever be held accountable, and whether the accused suspects will see any compensation for their ordeal is a different story. We rest too easily when we think: “Oh, it’s okay, it took awhile but they were acquitted.” Some of these kids were still in high school when they were arrested. What support will they have to get on with their lives?

Anyway, if they didn’t have a reason to storm Parliament in 2006, they might have a little more cause now.

24.04.2008 Filtered Propaganda, Imperialism for Dummies 2 Comments

The Punkass Poker Translator(tm)

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

A small sampling of what’s often heard ’round the poker table:

“I’m all in!”
“Is that supposed to be, some kinda position raise or something?”
“What you got under there, man? Big slick? Cowboys?”
“Probably ducks.”
“Oooh, dead man’s hand. Against…what is that shit?”
“This is my favorite hand!”
“Why am I not surprised that a flat tire’s your favorite hand? Fuckin’ donkey. Oh wait, yeah, they’re SUITED!”
“Damn, he just flopped the nuts.”
“Big blind special!”

Yeah. As in, huh..?

Now, you can sit tight at the poker table and try to brazen your way through this and hope that the blank expression on your face is taken for inscrutability instead of total confusion. OR, you can whip out the Punkass Poker Translator(tm) and fake your way to a real poker reputation!

Poker terms tend to describe one of 3 things: the players, the cards, or the situation. We’ll start with the players.

Fish: Someone who does not often bet or raise, but plays pretty much every hand he can afford regardless of how good it is. Identifiable by his cry, “I gotta see the flop!” (note: Flop (flop) n. The first three community cards dealt to the table.)

Rock: Someone who does not often bet or raise, but is religious about playing only good hands. Identifiable by the way the other players flee the table whenever he reaches for his chips to place a bet, as they all know he only does that when he’s got the best hand out there.

Shark: Someone who bets and raises aggressively, but is also very careful about only playing good hands. Identifiable by the way the other players try to impress him and be his friend, partly because they admire his skill and partly because they hope if he likes them he’ll go easy on them.

Maniac: Someone who bets and raises aggressively and plays pretty much every hand he gets regardless of how good it is. Identifiable by the fact that whatever table he’s sitting at fills up last and the glares of the players that end up stuck with him.

Calling station: Someone who, once he has decided to be in a hand, absolutely will not fold his cards, whether the hand is shaping up well or not. He will call every bet any other player makes, regardless of how insanely much or little it is. Identifiably by his cry, “I call!” Often to the point where people begin referring to him as that.

Donkey: Someone who does not know how to play, even after playing for months or even years. Why he is unable to learn is a complete mystery. Identifiable by the fact that other players don’t talk to him if they can possibly help it no matter how hard he tries to get them to do so and the look of agony on their faces when he manages to trap them in a conversation about “strategy.”

(more…)

23.04.2008 Punkass!, Poker No Comments

Mea Culpa II

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

I’m sorry people, but I had a paper due on Monday, a presentation that was due today, and a HUGE paper on whether or not Bahrain will continue to become more free due on Friday, not to mention I just picked up a second job. Expect the post of Childbirth on Saturday or Sunday. Until then, I give you: HYPNOTOAD!

23.04.2008 Punkass! 3 Comments

Sexual Dimorphism and Me

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

female soldier
Warning: I get pissy below. I EVEN DROP THE F-BOMB.

The sexist smog surrounding Danica Patrick’s career as a racecar driver, culminating in her recent win in Japan, has finally tipped over into the blatantly ridiculous. She’s a winner, it seems, primarily because she is smaller than all the other drivers. This is an unfair advantage! at least one sore loser has shrieked to the press, as well as countless others, both drivers and non. Glue a 100 lb barbell to the hood of her car, dammit!! SPORTSMANSHIP! FAIR PLAY! As others have pointed out, this is quite a 180 degree backflip for the We-Don’t-Wanna-Play-With-GURLZ crowd, who usually base their arguments on the ineradicable and overwhelming physical disadvantages that are inherent to womankind. The saddest part about all this is that the sexism is so ingrained that even this irrefutable evidence of the bullshit of it all has not made a real dent in the concept.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Women, in general, are physically inferior to men in general when it comes to most things athletic. I know this both in the abstract, in being familiar with the physiological design differences, and on a personal level, having spent some time in the military. In the abstract, sexual dimorphism is a fascinating biological topic; you can read about argonauts, a species of octopus, where the female is five times the size of the male, or elephant seals, where the males are two to three times the size of the female. There are species of more primitive animals where one sex exists only as a larvae parasite or even only as specialized tissue inside the other sex. To cap it off, you have many more species, like the goldfish upstairs in my fishtank, where there are no size differences between the sexes at all. At the most basic level, it’s all about what’s worked over the millenia to keep your species alive. In terms of good ol’ Homo sapiens, in the US for instance, where we are much less likely than other places to give superior nutrition to one sex over the other and thus the numbers are more legitimate than they might be elsewhere, there is only an 8% difference in height between the sexes and a 14% difference in weight. (Contrast this with the 180% difference in length and the 330% difference in weight between the sexes in elephant seals. They probably wonder how we can tell each other apart.) So what’s the big, HAIRY DEAL?

(more…)

22.04.2008 Feminism, Shame on you for being a woman 6 Comments

Why Dicebox makes Violet happy

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

The Mary Jane, um, “action” figure below reminded me of this.

I love, love, love comics where I can look at the characters say, “wow. my body actually kinda looks like that.” (this link contains nekkid.)

That page blew my mind, actually.

Obviously, I was aware that comic art is… not exactly realistic. Not for men, but especially-omg-holycrap not for women. But you kinda get used to it. It knew that the art was depicting this skewed fantasy, but the full implications of that didn’t really hit me in a visceral way until I felt how mind-blowingly refreshing it was to see women’s bodies depicted in all their squishy glory. That’s when I really fully internalized what I, we, practically a whole medium is still missing out on.

(There are, of course, lots of other beautiful reasons to love Dicebox. If you don’t know what yours are, you should really get on that.)

22.04.2008 Punkass!, Culture No Comments

No, you cannot touch my boobs

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Mary Jane, again
Hey, I wonder why more women aren’t into sci-fi and fantasy.

In LiveJournal Land, an interesting hoopla has erupted around The Open-Source Boob Project. The story starts at ConFusion in Ann Arbor, an annual sci-fi, fantasy, anime, gaming, comics, etc., convention. If you’ve ever shown up at a con wearing a set of boobs, you know that the gender and personal space dynamics can get a bit—well, touchy. It’s not that there aren’t female geeks (and if you don’t read her already, check out Karen Healey for awesome feminist analysis of comics and geekdom), but the majority of cons are still sausagefests and not always female-friendly.

This year’s ConFusion took the creepy vibe that women often feel at cons to a whole new level, however.

“This should be a better world,” a friend of mine said. “A more honest one, where sex isn’t shameful or degrading. I wish this was the kind of world where say, ‘Wow, I’d like to touch your breasts,’ and people would understand that it’s not a way of reducing you to a set of nipples and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful.”

Obviously, the solution to our sexually repressed, sexually confused culture where women are objectified and reduced to a collection of body parts is to instigate a con-wide gropefest. Being geeks, the guys in charge of this project decided that the gropefest needed to be perfected and streamlined, so by Penguicon, they had two sets of buttons that could be issued to women, advertising the availability status of their ta-tas.

I can only assume from reading the post that an empowered, post-patriarchal utopia ensued.

Oh, it didn’t? I wonder why. Springheel_jack has an excellent smackdown:

The ferrett wonders why a man’s asking, out of the blue, if he can feel up a woman’s boobs shouldn’t be understood as “a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful.” But this is simply to ask why he shouldn’t be able to continue to treat women as they have always been treated. Body first, sexual delectation to men first, as object first, “mind” – i.e. as a human subject – very firmly second. It’s simply to intensify the condition of patriarchal gender relations that already existed – or, to put it more simply, it’s a frustrated man’s fantasy of putting women back in their place.

And here we have the usual libertarian solution to everything – in the name of a false individuality, itself the product of an illegitimate reification and universalization of the social conditions of propertied white men – we have a retreat into the worst of the dark days of gender relations before feminism, offered as a so-called “advance” into a “more honest” and “freer” world. This is pernicious masculine ideology at its most pure and most insufferable. In the name of “empowering” women, we have…more of the same poison that women have been trying to free themselves of for all this time.

Go read the whole thing—I can’t add much to his analysis beyond to say that it’s spot-on. Obviously, this is not just about geekdom. Certain problems are more pronounced in geekdom because a lot of the standard modes of interpersonal relations and social niceties go out the window (and rightly so). But the patriarchy doesn’t. You can tell, because no one was proposing an open-source nutsack-grabbing project.

Look, I have a nice set of boobs. Really nice, according to some. Ever since I got them, I’ve been fending off assholes who think they have the right to grab them, whether I want it or not. I don’t need a button to advertise whether my boobs are touchable or not—if they are, gentlemen, you’ll know about it.

Update: Misia has a response. You should read it.

22.04.2008 Bodily Autonomy, Cock!, Dudes, For the ladies, What Patriarchy? 41 Comments

Let’s all put the middle finger down for a moment

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Punkassblog is about many things, but rarely would I count moderation among them. Today’s a different story, though.

Here’s my prediction for Pennsylvania Tuesday: regardless of who wins or by how much, regardless of what it means for the nomination overall, the Democratic infighting between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters will reach a fever pitch. Jill’s highlighted some of the latest lameness, and we can expect some ugly winners and sore losers by tonight. Obnoxious glee and bitter (yes, bitter) defeat are potent fuels for inflammatory rhetoric, and we’ll see it everywhere from the dinner table to the cable news round-table. We’ll certainly see plenty of it in the blogosphere.

Perhaps the most troubling data I’ve seen during this election season is the poll indicating 19% of Obama supporters and 28% of Clinton supporters would back John McCain if their preferred Dem loses the nomination. Truly, this shocked me. Clinton and Obama have damn near identical policy positions — not even the candidates dispute this! In many ways, the only reason to prefer one over the other is because you think there’s a tangible reason they’ll defeat John McCain. If you’re currently backing a candidate who’s campaigning on universal health care, a strong NARAL rating, a quicker end to the war in Iraq, and a halt to Bush cronyism — regardless of WHICH candidate — how on *earth* could you turn around and endorse McCain if your #1 loses in the primary? I realize not everyone votes on the issues, but what would these people be voting on? Wardrobe?

(more…)

22.04.2008 Looks like someone needs an intervention, Politics 6 Comments

the last five years of the bush administration and its war in iraq, summed up in youtube form.

Monday, April 21st, 2008

don’t like cross-posting, but sometimes i like being lazy.

the only slight difference is that our president is the producer… and there’s no one to remind him that, um… that’s not a horse, buddy… it’s an illegal occupation of a foreign land with no end in sight.

21.04.2008 Brilliant Ideas, Bush is a cock 1 Comment

Mea Culpa

Monday, April 21st, 2008

I promised a post, but unforseen circumstances has popped up on my radar, and it shall be delayed. Instead, for your viewing “pleasure”, I give you a troll from my blog. This posting is remarkable in its complete back-aswardness, false information, and inappropriate placement.

Sounds like you are a slut and property.

Really? Last time I checked I signed contracts, owned my own property and everything. I’m fairly certain I’m not property

Your boyfriend decided that it would be better to be “married” so you did what you were told and signed a piece of paper even though it upset your parents.

For those of you unfamiliar with my situation (and really, why would any of you be?) I proposed to my (now) husband. He didn’t tell me to do anything. My parents, while not thrilled with the decision, did accept it, not that it was much of their business. I have this posted on my blog, so five minutes of reading the posts may have been helpful. I particularily like the scare quotes around “married”- I’m not sure what else you can call it, what with the certificate and all.

He wouldn’t care if you aborted a child the two of you created, meaning he cares about your vaginas ability to be drunk and available, but not much else.

Ah, what? My husband and I have talked about contingincy should I get pregnant, and he’s agreed that it has to ultimately be my decision, which at this point means I would probably have an abortion. He would also support me should I choose to go through the pregnancy. Just as a side note, how can a vagina be “drunk”?

And he has “married” you however you two still live in an apartment, showing that he has not bothered to provide a stable home, and furthermore shows his desire to have steady sex, but not provide a foundation for you two to build your relationship on.

Again with the scarequotes. This guy doesn’t really seem to know what a marriage is. Maybe he’s one of those ones who believes it’s only real if it’s in a church? And I didn’t know that living in an apartment meant that my husband didn’t love me. Nothing like mixing classism with sexism for some nutjob fun.

If you want to see what an owned slut you really are, tell him that to be romantic, you don’t want to sleep together until September when you have your “real” ceremony, and watch how quickly you become a statistic.

But I DO want to sleep together. I would go nuts if I had to be celibate for that long. However, in the interest of scientific accuracy, I did tell my husband that I didn’t want to sleep together until September. His response, after going “Yeah, right”, was that if I felt that it was necessary, he and I would have to talk about it, but he wasn’t going to divorce me.

And don’t lie and say you don’t advertise this blog when you link it to the DakotaStupid* web site.

-Jake

I don’t advertise. I make absolutely no money off of this blog, nor do I pay for advertisements for people to come to my blog. I didn’t know that “linking” now meant “advertising”. Go figure…I’m sure I’ll get that internet cheque any day now.

* The Dakota Student is the Student newspaper in my area. It is distinctly possible that this troll followed me from a letter about women priests.

21.04.2008 Punkass! 14 Comments

I asked, you answered

Monday, April 21st, 2008

By my count, it seems that #1 is the one that people want to write about. So, in the next two days, expect a post about the medicalization of birth!

21.04.2008 Punkass! 2 Comments

You keep using that word…

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Karol Sheinin unwittingly highlights certain differences of opinion as to the meaning of English words:

I want to free Tibet as much as the next person (in fact, my parents can confirm that I had a “Free Tibet” sticker hanging in my room in their house since about 1992) but I’m not sure what scaling the Golden Gate bridge or messing with the Olympic torch is going to do about it. I believe it was Mark Steyn who said that all the Free Tibet people would have a fit if we made a move to do anything to actually free Tibet.

Yes, because when you say, “free Tibet” in that sentence, you seem to mean, “bomb Tibet.” However problematic nice liberals wanting to Free Tibet! might be, they are unlikely to confuse the two.

Maybe you could start selling bumper stickers. It makes me feel rather ill to say so, but they’d probably catch on.

21.04.2008 Punkass!, War 9 Comments

Texas Hold ‘Em 101

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

It sounds like some poker posting is on the table! (pun so not intended)

As I think we’re all coming into this with wildly divergent levels of familiarity and interest, I am going to try to please all the people all the time by writing a thorough yet succinct post that masterfully combines the basics of the game with a few more advanced concepts and experiences. Yep, even though this approach rarely if ever actually succeeds, usually ending up by leaving everyone including the author unsatisfied, my glass is half full, I believe I can make it work! Specifically, my wine glass over here next to my laptop is half full for the third time this evening. Confidence lube!

Wikipedia has a very nice article with a lot of very good detailed reference links for anyone who is interested in really getting into the hand and betting structures of the game, which I am not going to get into here. I will however shamelessly steal some of the high points from them and summarize below:

[Texas] Hold ‘em is a community card game where each player may use any combination of the five community cards and the player’s own two hole cards to make a poker hand. Because each player only starts with two cards and the remaining cards are shared, it presents an opportune game for strategic analysis (including mathematical analysis). Most [Texas Hold 'Em] books recommend a strategy that involves playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays.

Let me reemphasize that last part. “playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays” Again! cause you just can’t get too much of a good thing: “PLAYING RELATIVELY FEW HANDS BUT BETTING AND RAISING OFTEN WITH THE HANDS ONE PLAYS!!” (clearly I’m hoping that at least one of the donkeys I regularly play with happens across this post, or even just this one little paragraph…c’mon, man..!)

The importance of mathematical analysis to Texas Hold ‘Em cannot be overemphasized, either. The cards you get, the other players get and what goes in the community card pile is of course entirely random, based upon four suits of thirteen sequential cards. However, whether or not you win at Texas Hold ‘Em is all about your ability to do two things–minimize the monetary damage your lost hands will cause and maximize the monetary returns of your winning hands–and about doing so over time. Any idiot can win a tournament or double up in a cash game once, and the best players have endured short-term losing streaks. Those are how the cards fall, and nobody gets to control that. Long term, you can be a winner regardless of the card falls…if you’re willing to learn some not-too-difficult statistics and the even less difficult concept of “pot odds.”

This is what distinguishes poker from craps, slots, roulette, and pretty much every other casino game there is. There is no long-term strategy that will allow you to win any of those other games. Period. Ignore anyone who says otherwise, cause they probably also buy Lotto tickets, have “lucky numbers” and have personally seen a ghost or possibly an alien at some point in their lives.

Stay tuned! Next post: Rocks, Sharks, Fish, Maniacs, Calling Stations, Donkeys and all the many other characters you will meet at the Texas Hold ‘Em table!

20.04.2008 Poker 4 Comments

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