Amazon Women on the Barricades

This is a test shot from the original Wonder Woman TV show  - wonder why they didn't go with this outfit?

 Another test shot - closer to the mark. Wonder Woman of course was an Amazon princess somehow transported to modern times, and used her magic bracelets and lasso to fight crime. For some reason. Did you know the real Amazons are theorized to come from modern day Ukraine? Then called Sarmatia, up the road from Scythia. Lots of cool myths, half legends, conjecture, and maybe some fact. Read here.

I was thinking - as is my wont - that the gender equality we've created in America (not yet perfect, but getting closer all the time) sure is a double edged sword. Work sucks, and I suppose if trends continue, women will be fighting in the Empire's wars as often as men. Is this a good thing? Shouldn't we strive to hold onto a reliable, large group of people who are usually steadfastly for peace? Rather than raising more warriors?

Also, since I'm turning super Marxist, I tend to think of everything political these days from the perspective of "how will it benefit the ultra-fat cats?" The fat cats only want a few things: Power, money, and more of each please. More money is always a goal, and one way to do this is to pay as little as possible for labor. Slavery is the best (free!), but hard to maintain these days. So the goal then is to get as close to slavery while maintaining the illusion of freedom. Sounds like the last 30 years of American politics, right?


So, be careful what you wish for ladies. Equality is great, but with it comes a different type of oppression at the hands of The Man. 


The answer is Unions, of course. People power. All the people - since, as soon as some people accept that other people aren't as good as them, or don't deserve something they do, etc, The Man will use this division amongst the Peoples and deploy the age old divide and conquer strategy, which I think almost always works. Alas.

Kindlenacht

Folks, this is some incredible stuff. I'm slightly flabbergasted, and I thought myself immune to all forms of flabgastery. But, here I am. This is so... outrageous? Incredible? Chilling? So many things at once. Read the entire article below, original post from the NY Times.

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.

But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.

This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.

As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.

You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?

The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”

Scary.

I had been vaguely thinking about at least checking out a kindle, as I find the medium to be intriguing, especially the idea of instant downloads. But this, this is just beyond the pale in my mind, and ensures I will never buy a Kindle.

And that they would do this with George Orwell books? Boggling. In fact, I am thoroughly boggled and flabbergasted. Nice work, Amazon -- if you had the choice, you should have pushed back against the publisher rather than do this. No one will trust the product now with this kind of behavior.

So long, fellas!

So, them fancy pants scientists have gone and created artificial sperm cells from stem cells, and successfully fertilized mouse eggs with them, and then presto! Little mouse babies. All without the help of a mousey stud. Linky.

Which of course leads to the obvious conclusion: The end of the male sex. Sure, there will be a longish transition period in which men are enslaved by their matronly overlordesses, for manual labor no doubt, but eventually the new Queens of the earth will tire of the troubles caused by these slaves, and do away with them. Ushering in peace on earth, natch.

So, men, I say to thee: Enjoy this time we have left as lucky recipients of a patriarchal system. It's not long for this earth!