I am reading this article about why I should feel sorry for Ben Affleck. You know I don't think I've ever been told I should feel sorry for a woman and there are plenty of women I do feel sorry for. In fact I have whole lists of women I feel sorry for.

I feel sorry for every women burned alive for being a witch - I feel sorry for every women who was brainwashed into believing she should never have an abortion even at the cost of her own life, and who have died because she really needed an abortion. And we will never even hear of most of these martyrs for some stupid belief.

I feel sorry for every woman beaten - or murdered by her husband/boyfriend because he considered her his property- and to women who won't leave abusive relationships because she's been told by society that having that relationship is all that matters.

So many lies women have been told and believed - yet we are supposed to feel sorry for some rich white guy in Hollywood, not that the author is actually sounding particularly sympathetic.

Nevertheless I don't remember seeing articles suggesting we be sorry for Casey Anthony - indeed - has anyone suggested we be sorry for her - ever? My guess is she was brow beaten into having a kid she never wanted in the first place. Why force a woman to have a baby she does NOT want?!!! Why? Just so we can build armies? Just so men can tell us what our life work must be because we were born the wrong gender, and they are the ones with all the authority; that they should make decisions about our bodies and what we'll be doing while pregnant?

It's not like they will carry any of the burdens of raising the child, either in terms of time, emotion, effort and attention or financial... yes raising kids is an intensive exercise - it costs a lot of money and it takes a lot of time and emotion.

Mothers, I feel sorry for most mothers, especially those forced into motherhood.

I feel sorry for girls used sexually by men who should know better.

I feel sorry for Ivanka Trump - she is wealthy - yes, but I do feel sorry for her. She didn't choose her father.

I feel sorry for men who are afraid of women being in government. I feel sorry for women in government - I feel sorry for Hillary Clinton and the abuse she took.

I feel sorry for men who have been sexually abused and felt the need to sexually abuse others as a result.

I feel sorry for men who were sexually abused and didn't feel the need to sexually abuse others as a result.

I feel sorry for anyone who's been sexually abused. I feel sorry for anyone who has experienced emotional, sexual or physical violence. I feel sorry for anyone who experienced emotional and verbal abuse.

I admire anyone who has overcome these things.

But I don't feel sorry for Ben Affleck.

#MeToo is such an important moment that I find it disappointing that it's being used to criticize Hillary Clinton which in my opinion is just more sexism.

First of all, some men are learning for the first time that there are boundaries in dealing with women - and this may be the first time men have been exposed to those boundaries. Most men will accept they should respect women especially in the workplace - and as a result most women believe in giving second chances.

Which Hillary Clinton did when dealing with her advisor on the campaign. She warned the advisor and acted.

What I am worried about is that we don't want to necessarily become overzealous in ostracizing men who need to learn respect and appropriate behavior in dealing with women. But if a man continues to screw up by transgressing those boundaries, after being warned and fails to act more appropriately then we issue harsher penalties, like ostracization and/or sacking.

So I agree with giving men second chances.

But I don't know what I'd do in Clinton's situation. Hindsight as we know is 2020. At the time Clinton was continually hit by sexism she probably didn't want to look overzealous and potentially alienating men. I don't know what her real reason for not dealing more harshly with the guy beyond the 'opus' she later penned in response.

But I hear and understand the 'primal scream' Ruth Marcus speaks of. And probably after the treatment Clinton endured, she no doubt feels the primal scream more than most of us.

Yes, probably most women have been harassed. I know I have been to the point where I am terrified, whether it is getting help from a passing man to open my apartment door who then turns around and asked for sex - to jogging in sweats at 6am and being asked for sex, to being chased across traffic by men who thought I wasn't polite enough when I refused him sex... and these are just some of the instances where I have been terrified of men.

And if it's not just to deliver sex, it's all the 'you're stupid', 'wrong', 'you don't know what you're talking about' when in fact it's the man who has no idea what he's talking about.

Probably every single woman has that primal scream in her.

Similarly I know a lot of men are respectful, charming and wonderful. My husband being one of them, along with many other honorable men.

Most women do agree about second chances as did this poor woman who had the unfortunate date with Aziz Ansari and that second chance turned out to be a mistake.

Most women know men are generally okay - but once they violate their second chance then we know that the man is neither honorable or a decent human being.

So given that women understand men need warnings before complete ostracization I can only assume that attacking Clinton for not sacking this guy is just sexism against Clinton. Women make mistakes too so if we can forgive men, why can't we forgive women? Seems like Trump has been forgiven and he admits to having no respect for women.

Catherine Deneuve also doesn't like #MeToo because she is equal to men and deserves equal pay, but other women aren't, thinks it's fine if men pester women, I'd love to see how that'd pan out for her if she was being stalked or having her pussy grabbed. Yes men can ask a woman for sex or a date or a relationship and if she says no, then he needs to walk away.

Men do not have the right to harass women.

 This is where I should make a really catchy word - something like mansplaining - but as an addendum - I am not really good at bon mots so I'll just outline the phenomena so you'll get an idea of what I am getting at; it's that men *know stuff*.

No - there are a lot of men who admit they don't know stuff - and it seems to be associated with the #FakeNews phenomena - or at least it's been around - and a lot longer than we've had fake news. It may even be part of the war on science - and of course it's not restricted to men - some women also *know stuff* too.

Or perhaps I'm just more aware of it - because there have been times in my life I've *known stuff* that was never proven in anyway, it just became a fact for me - and I am a scientist with many years of experience of experimenting, testing, formulating hypotheses, being wrong, checking assumptions...

Let me clue you in on my favorite example of when I *knew stuff* - I knew govt was less efficient than corporations. I have no idea where I learned this *fact* - I didn't - there has been no proof - although I am sure rw-thinktanks have found 'proof' that it's true by now. But I have heard a number of counter examples of govt being far more efficient that I now realize I knew something wrong.

But it's very commonplace for - especially rw men and sometimes women to *know stuff* - the first time I saw this phenomena was a guy spouting off at the time Dr Tiller was murdered, anyway this guy who knew stuff was pronouncing that female vaginas are basically a rubber band that has infinite stretch and so 9 year old girls who were impregnated would be able to stretch so wide to deliver the baby. This guy was no expert obviously yet he *knew* that women were basically elastic. I'm sure he'd never heard of fistula - but hey he *knew* it anyway.

Another example is CO2 isn't a problem - these male experts just know it's plant food - couldn't possibly cause any harm.

But I guess it's a phenomena that by now you're guessing is mostly political - well true - but it's not restricted to politics - even men on the left *know stuff*, and it doesn't even have to be political but it is usually accompanied by a mega dose of ignorance. One guy told me there'd be a singularity and he *knew* that because he'd done a course on ontology!!! I guess he thought I'd be daunted by him doing a philosophical course and would be astounded because he was using big words.

Another male on the left also thought robotics were going to take over the world - because he'd seen a highly edited piece of advertising by a robotics corporations. You can make anyone/thing look good - even actors who can barely string a sentence together, with the appropriate amount of video editing.

There is so much to know and too little time to read everything you might want to talk about online - but before engaging in an argument with someone who possibly might know more on a subject perhaps you might want to do some reading and often it's not hard to find real information. For instance - if you have a web browser type a sentence with the question into your google search bar. Google will tell you things like 'problems with 9 year olds giving birth' this is the first result Google gave me. Yes Google often gets it wrong first time but if you are prepared to wade through some of their results you can usually make a judgment on how political the topic is and the right are very apt to present lies as facts.

Another tactic in dealing with topics is admitting you just don't know. Pro tip: this is what the most knowledgeable scientists admit.

So the catchy buzz words for men who *know stuff* - hmm - let me ask google: and it's third result was 'con men'. Google really does know everything ;) And they even have a picture of the t-shirt for that!

It recently occurred to me that the ultimate measure of one's position in the hierarchy is how much leisure time you have.

Let's see - rich people have the most time - they can employ as many people as they need to do all the jobs they need done.

But in the life of an average person, women have to carry the bulk of the work raising kids, they have to look good, so thus spend hours in front of a mirror or figuring out clothes to wear and shopping, groom themselves, their hair, exercise to keep fit and thin, then if they work, they have to work twice as hard as a man to be given the same credit as a man.

This means as soon as a woman wakes she has to put on fresh clothes, apply makeup, shower, style her hair, prepare meals for everyone, get the kids off to school, work twice as hard as her male colleagues, then gather the kids from school, do the family shopping, prepare more meals, make sure homework gets done, housework is done, prepare for tomorrow and sleep.

Typically grooming for a man means a shower, perhaps shaving, combing whatever hair they have, and putting on a relatively clean set of clothes. Men have to worry enough to keep clean fresh shirts (but there is even trunk club for that) and if they are single that may mean remembering to use the laundry.

If a man participates in any of the housework, meal preparation, child raising - getting kids from school, getting homework done, dropping kids off at school, meal preparation this makes him an awesome father and husband.

If the woman neglects any of her duties she is a lousy mother and employee.

The man doesn't have to worry nearly so much about his appearance, his clothes, his kids or housework.

The woman has much more to do with her day and men thus have much more leisure time at their disposal.

The same is true for the poor. Often poor people have to work more jobs, often walking to work all these things taking more and more time.

Is leisure time a better measure of our position in the hierarchy? Does time equal power?

I have long since thought we on the left need a new manifesto. It's a project I thought up some years ago and it's a project that probably will continue forever because the more society learns, the more society forgets as time goes by. For instance, it was only 70 years ago we knew fascism was a bad idea but it seems it's a lesson our society has already forgotten.

It's one thing to build a perfect model for how a society must operate but people have forgotten that people will often try to tinker with whatever model there is for their own agenda.

For instance the US founding fathers banned corporations - they hated corporations, indeed they fought a revolution to rid themselves of corporations. Yet here we are. I have wondered why they decided corporations were a good thing - perhaps it was because of the British industrial revolution, they didn't want to see their brand new country get their asses kicked by the Brits?

I don't know. So they undid the wisdom of the founding fathers and opened the US to rule according to corporate interests. This is the danger of having unbridled powerful interests. In the past they've had to act within the law but increasingly they have sought to be above the law.

A new manifesto must address the evolution of a society and new and unforeseen threats to the freedoms accorded to people.

Another issue the founding fathers never addressed was the equality of all people, not just (white) men.

That the interests of all people outweigh an individuals interest.

For some while I have been trying to fathom what is important to the right - and from what I can tell the right are only concerned with the interests of the first person singular, especially when it comes to white men, and extends to only to a limited domain which tend to be people (or perceived people, such as fetuses) that they care about. Seldom do they care about those less fortunate than themselves like the poor, or women in difficult situations.

I think the left is much more interested in us, as in first person plural, trying to empathize with others while still allowing people the freedom to choose as they wish. The right tend to police out-members of their limited domain, like women seeking abortions, women for not being perceived as attractive enough, women breast-feeding, women enjoying sex... for instance.

 It seems everyone is talking about the environment at the moment.

It's hard to understand how anyone can deny the greenhouse effect. We've known about the greenhouse effect since the early 1800s and by 1896 Svante Arrhenius was warning of a relationship between the use of fossil fuels and its effect on the environment.

And, of course, anyone who has gotten into a car on a hot day will have experienced the greenhouse effect firsthand.

The interior of a closed car is a LOT hotter than the outside temperature. And the reason why it is so much hotter is the greenhouse effect: in the car's case, all the glass; in Earth's case, because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, you know CO2, methane...

You might ask why isn't it the same temperature as the outside air?  It's a matter of whether heat can get in, and out; glass allows the light of the sun in, where it heats the interior of the car, but neither glass nor the roof of the car does a good job letting heat escape.  Similarly, the greenhouse gases in our planet's atmosphere allow sunlight down to the surface but act as a blanket to the heat generated when Earth absorbs sunlight.

Our environment is, of course, bigger than a car - and the sun doesn't uniformly heat the atmosphere because the poles get less sunlight, the tropical regions get more sunlight, there is land and there is ocean which all interact differently with the environment, for instance hurricanes only occur in certain places, monsoons in others... However, we do know that the same global effect applies: the more carbon and other greenhouse gases, the greater the impact of the greenhouse effect -- the global warming and climate change that we see in our environment.  Heck - plastic trash is being found at the North Pole - it'd be disingenuous to think the exhaust from all the fossil fuels we are using (which, unlike the the trash, we often don't particularly bother to either curb or collect) isn't also impacting the poles.

But here's the thing: I am a data scientist, and I know enough of the "fuzziness" of data sets and assumptions in modeling them to be dubious about the accuracy of specific predictions from any one particular model generated by environmental scientists -- but what I do know is this: we have no where else to go.

Let that sink in.

We have no where else to go.

There are no other planets we can move to if we fuck this planet up. We don't have the technology to get there, or even know if we can survive there. We can't live on Mars like we live on earth. There is only a very small band of temperatures that humans can survive in comfortably, so if you think that we are somehow not to blame for what is going on in our environment, ie the sun is causing it or whatever, then we should be doing all in our power to reverse the effects of greenhouse gases; because we do know that greenhouse gases do affect the environment.

So if the climate scientists are right we are in a lot of trouble.  Sure, in some sense we won't be dooming our planet per se; Earth's biosphere will likely survive in some form, and the environment will likely recover - but we humans, and certainly civilization as we know it, mightn't. Perhaps rich people think they can hide in underground shelters with air purifiers - I don't know - but I doubt there is room for all the climate science deniers to survive in those shelters and it's unlikely the rich will let you live there with them. And believe it or not - having a lot of money will be no fun if we aren't there too.  (What would you buy, if there's no one to buy from, and nothing to sell?)

And if the climate scientists are wrong, but we listen to them anyway?  Well, we get a clean planet, a clean environment - to me there is no downside. ("Green energy" doesn't mean ending life as we know it or crashing the economy - it just means shifting resources from e.g. oil and coal to, say, solar, wind, hydro.  And it has already been working around the globe; California's economy, for instance, hasn't suffered from "going green"!)  Yes -- in the short term -- perhaps some rich people won't be able to make quite as much money if they actually have to clean up after themselves, but we'll be there for them to help them being richer than us.  (And in the end, rich folks can just shift their wealth into the new energy anyway, frankly.)

So if you are a climate science denier, then you better be being paid to be one (and feel perfectly OK about the people who believe you, and those who don't, being left out in the cold if civilization finds its back against the wall) because those who are making their money are doing so at your expense. They don't care if you die because of them.

I hear Bernie Sanders is writing or has written a bill for a single-payer healthcare system - which is lovely and long over due in the US but if it ever gets passed, will continually be vulnerable to the whims of the GOP who will attack it by under-funding it, or attempting to repeal it (like with the very poor ACA) with their incessant belief that all money belongs in the hands of the already rich and let ordinary people die because they don't have access to affordable healthcare.

They will wail and moan about how we can't afford it - how the rich need more tax cuts whether the economy is good or bad - the solution is more tax cuts for the rich.

You know the drill - you've heard it all before.

The solution might be a healthcare co-op.

How I envisioning it working is that this co-op people would pay their healthcare premiums into it and get healthcare at the local county hospital system or charity healthcare facilities - yes I know not very glamorous - but this is the bootstrap situation, so then we pay the hospital for the services the people receive. This might be an alternative for small businesses wanting to give their employees healthcare, and may even start as a number of small businesses banding together to get better healthcare for their employees or themselves and family if they are owner-operators.

As the co-op gets bigger then more people pay choose to opt into the co-op and perhaps local govt who provide healthcare for those who live locally or even states could pay the co-op instead of a health-care insurance corporation for their healthcare.

As the co-op grows in size and covers more people in the US, the co-op will have the ability to bulk purchase pharmaceuticals. The problem with pharmaceuticals is that this is not a free market as libertarians like to tell you, and nor should it be - because not all pharmaceuticals are of use to all people and most often the corporations aren't competing to sell their products anyway.

The biggest problem government has is that the government voted on a bill denying government bulk purchasing - however the co-op is under no such obligation.

The co-op would no doubt allow people to vote on what is covered, but it would be a nonprofit, it would not require a co-pay, probably, it would be fairly basic healthcare - until we can get the larger corporations on board then the co-op might able to work deals with health insurance corporations for better services, like private hospital rooms for instance.

Anyway, it's just a first draft of an idea for a healthcare solution.

Women in politics - not sexy like society tells us women should be if they are entering public life. After all seen women should be ornamental rather than formidable, sexy rather than a force to be reckoned with, a woman who'd make you sandwiches after hours of your passionate love making - right?

And women like Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine who firmly resisted the urge to buckle to the bullying of their republican president, the party of follow the leader, the party of men being manly men and putting the interests of rich white men ahead of everyone else (the way God meant it to be), especially given that Trump explicitly threatened Alaska if Murkowski didn't fold.

That's pretty brave for women to stand up to these men and the money they were likely offered to fold.

Well on this issue anyway they stood firm facing ostracization by their party and perhaps even their voters.

And perhaps that's what had the right so terrified of Clinton - they knew she what she was made of when republicans gruelingly questioned her for 11 hours about emails, Benghazi and leadership - 11 hours! This is a tactic used by police trying to get suspects to confess to crimes they didn't commit so they can close the case.

Voting for a woman may not be the cool thing to do - she's old - she's not a great showMAN like Sanders or Obama or Trump or W or... but she might actually be on your side rather than the rich corporations you've been told she's on their payroll. It's likely she's not and never will be.

I was recently doing a quiz to find out which philosophical school I belonged to on a libertarian website. After studying some philosophy in college I was curious but also aware of how many branches and how much time philosophers have spent on the question of ethics.

Perhaps morals and ethics aren't precisely the same thing but a large number of these options tend to fall under hedonism - I'd say - rather than representing a wide variety of philosophical schools.

What happened to some of the classics - like: Do No Harm - first coined by Hippocrates but elaborated on by the Dalai Lama where he added If you can, help others; if you cannot do that at least do not harm them.

But this list of morality extends to others only as a kind of consensus, like its a popularity contest, or the odious 'morals are determined by their benefit to humanity'.

The irony is that happiness tends to be directly proportional to the health of your relationships with others. The more you serve other people the happier you will be.

I've had people thank me for asking for their help. Sure I wasn't asking them for life long commitments to my well being, rather simple things like asking people to help open jars with tight lids... things that normally would take no more than a moment - but it wasn't me doing the thanking - rather it was them thanking me for letting them help me.

We are deeply social animals, we need to be needed and whatever our moral code is should reflect that. Hedonism and selfishness in general is run against the needs of my neighbor and necessarily worse for my neighbor and hence necessarily me. Until we realize we are rich in our neighbor and their wealth represents my wealth - in terms of if they are prospering, I in turn prosper (they are less likely to steal my stuff if they are wealthy).

This libertarian experiment showed this result in abundance. Libertarian thrift failed with catastrophic consequences.

I was just reading about a grown woman being told to cover up at an apartment complex's swimming pool because she might excite the teenage boys who also live at the complex. My understanding of teenage boys is that any woman in any state of dress will excite teenage boys. But seriously we know boys can control themselves because, well, when was the last time you saw a teenage boy masturbating in public - or for that matter - how often do you see boys raping in public?

We need to get over this ridiculous urge to protect boys from themselves. They must know they must control themselves.

The problem isn't just with women - but it's a problem with all people. Sooner or later these boys will be making decisions for the rest of us and the planet as they get jobs that impact the rest of society.

Why is it that we are obsessed with policing women/girls at the expense of policing boys/men? Men create most of our problems - like war. Every time I say women don't start wars - men do, some man starts blaming Hillary Clinton for starting wars - which she did not, Libya was a NATO action initiated by Europe. Or Margaret Thatcher - who also didn't start wars - the Falkland war was started by Argentina. Then these men go racing back into history and talk about wars British queens (and sometimes Russian tsarinas) from centuries ago may have started while ignoring the many wars there have been since then. It's curious how the woman nevertheless gets the blame.

Another argument I had with a male included me saying men destroy forests - then this man produced evidence that apparently there have been female lumberjacks. I found it amusing.

Especially since very probably the corporations bringing down the trees were probably owned and operated by men. Indeed how many corporations are owned and operated by men - yet it will be the 1 or 2 lumberjacks who are female will be blamed for the destruction of forests.

Nice one guys.

Why do men find it so difficult to accept the blame for the shit they do. (Yes I know it's not all men - it's a generalization based on bell curves.)