I don’t at all think you’re implying sexual assaults within the armed forces shouldn’t be punished. I’m sorry expressed myself badly enough to give that impression.

Thank you for the compliment! I’m glad I can help people understand things better.

True. But while the military is inherently hostile to organisations outside itself (which is, after all, its entire function), it needs to be united within itself. A fighting force cannot be efficient if it’s riven with internal distrust and hostility.

One can only hope this is an “extinction burst”. When you’re training a child out of bad behaviour, part of it is withdrawing attention or other rewards for the behaviour. The child’s first response will be to intensify the behaviour, because that’s always worked before. They won’t give up the behaviour until the…

No, the full force of the state would have banned the images. That didn’t happen. As I described, the problem wasn’t the images per se. The problem was that people couldn’t go about their daily lives without having to see them. The display and advertising of the magazine meant the offensive images were prominently…

Oh, I didn’t mean that firing on the car was a smart thing to do or likely to improve the situation. But this is “stand your ground” country, and they were in reasonable fear of their lives, so...

Opera singer Bryn Terfel. I have synaesthesia, where I “taste” sounds, and his voice is like the best goddamn chocolate in the world.

When it comes to physical and sexual assault, every environment is hostile and dangerous to women and LGBTIQA people. The military acknowledges that the organisation has a serious problem with sexual assault in particular, has procedures and policies in place to deal with the issue and - most importantly - appears to…

From my perspective, a warrior is a warrior is a warrior. We have standards on what we expect out of an infantryman, an artilleryman...

At this point, it seems it would be easier to report on the universities that are not facing investigation for Title IX violations. How? How can it be so fucking hard to follow Federal law?? How do they think they won’t get called on that shit?

It’s intended so children can’t get at the (more explicit) images inside.

As an old Australian, I gotta put some context on this.

Jesus. It sounds like all the civilian participants were trying to be responsible gun owners. They were attending a training course with police officers and they assumed they were in the hands of competent professionals. Either this clusterfuck didn’t have the most basic safety procedures in place, or they weren’t…

Particularly as a truck was recently used as weapon of mass-murder in France. If this person deliberately drove into a group of protesters, it was an attempt to kill or injure multiple people.

I got to meet my favourite celebrity after seeing him perform. I’ve had a pathetic celebrity crush on the man for about 15 years. The whole time I was frantically thinking “Performance face on don’t freak out don’t freak out don’t freak out I WILL NOT SQUEAL LIKE A TEN YEAR OLD AT A JUSTIN BIEBER CONCERT…

Blagojevich said he had been too ambitious tried to use his position of trust to subvert the democratic process and undermine the foundations of peaceful governance in his country, for personal gain, with no regard for the welfare of his fellow citizens.

Wow, looks like rugby sevens is a lot more running and a lot less tackling than standard Rugby Union - I’m used to seeing much burlier players. Here’s some NZ rugby Union players doing their famous pre-game Haka.

You aren’t overreacting. Trump is not just “a political candidate”. He openly advocates the mass disenfranchisement and deportation of American citizens based on their race and religion. He has been accused of at least two serious sex crimes and advocates imprisoning women who have abortions. He has expressed hope…

Wait, I didn’t read that wrong? He got kicked off the Supreme Court bench for ethics violations and then got reappointed????? Is Alabama that short of judges? WHAT THE FUCK???

There isn’t. In incidents like this, the murderer is overwhelmingly the man; but I agree we shouldn’t assume. If it was clearly him, police would have released that information.