Monday 16 February 2009

Stop-the-madness Monday

Today is definitely a peanutbuttereggdirt day, made worse by the myriad fools out there trying their utmost to see who can win the "piss off a mongoose today" competition:
  • Jezebel reports on this Rihanna deserved it T-shirt that was on sale at CafePress, but was eventually removed from its site. I would post the actual picture, but I can't stand to look at it any longer that I have to. There's also an I Beat It Like Chris Brown T-shirt for sale. At this rate, my "boycott all morons" policy is going to save me vats of money.

  • Then there's Rapeplay, a PC game that allows players to gang rape virtual women and then force them to have an abortion. Amazon has banned the game after complaints from users, "deeming it to be inappropriate."
    Rapelay, which was released in 2006, encourages players to force the virtual woman they rape to have an abortion. If they are allowed to give birth, the woman throws the player's character under a train, according to reviews of the game. It also has a feature allowing several players to team up against individual women.
    I have now officially ceased to be shocked by the wanton stupidity (and violent misogyny) of 21st century "civilization".

  • And finally, not as jaw-dropping but almost as confounding, is the suggestion of international consultant Trevor Hamilton that the Jamaica government cut public sector employment by 30 percent as a way of reducing government expenditure and stimulating the economy. This one-third of over 100 000 workers are then meant to:
    ..automatically be eligible to bid for [the] divested government services (he recommends too that 300 state-run entities be divested), possibly through the establishment of Employee Share Ownership Plans, as well as enjoy eligibility to government-secured low-cost business loans.
    Apparently, these displaced workers are now supposed to have the get-up-and-go to start their own businesses. Hamilton also assures that under his plan, "there will be increased opportunities for local investors to invest their excess liquidity." It seems the Jamaican economy is not suffering from this pesky little global recession that is afflicting lesser mortals. I hesitate to completely condemn the plan without seeing it in its entirety, but these parts of it at least seem ill-conceived. Who are the employees to be made redundant? What will be their barriers to re-entry? Why is everyone talking nonsense today? It's really quite exhausting.

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