Holy damn do I love these women.

Good morning to all you Saturday surfers :). Today I’d like to bring some attention to this troubling article from yesterday’s Globe and Mail; Faceless no more: Social networking comes with a price.

The basic premise is one we are familiar with: ‘Young Canadians share too much information online and they don’t understand the risks involved - or care about their privacy.’ The hook here is that; “During a two month-long investigation, The Globe and Mail tracked more than a dozen Canadians through their open social networking profiles, and used freely available web tools to build detailed profiles of each individual user.” This not just a speculative moral panic, the Globe actually went and stalked some young Canadians, all in the name of privacy? Whatever sells your paper, right?

The real problem however is not the data-mining (although as far as I am concerned that’s pretty creepy), it’s how the gender of the youth providing the data is framed. Let’s call it the “the naive sex kitten” versus “wild party animal” bias.

Please turn up to an undisclosed as yet location on September 28th to protest bill c-484
Event details (Facebook link) and website.

Just a reminder the bill in question is one that suggests that a person who attacks a pregnant woman and injures or kills the fetus is on the hook for not one but two acts of assault or homicide. The name of the bill is the "unborn vicitims of crime" act. If that isn't setting off some alarm bells then we should sit down and and have a chat about what kind of baggage the word "unborn" when coupled with "victim" carries.

"The first thing I would advise them to do is to breathe. I want them to breathe and relax. Understand that this is a part of a lifetime journey. Look back at yourself. That person is not gone. This is a shell we are in. This is a body and situations happen. You know, I had my daughter, now I look at it like wow, my body is my badge of honor. I went through that and yes, a lot of us have a lot of battle scars. Things that we can’t get over. But we must. We must embrace who we are. Each stage of our life has to be embraced. You have to understand that you are not going to be twenty with tight skin. Skin doesn’t do that. Skin droops and it sags. Be realistic about what you are looking at and love yourself. Please look in the mirror. Please tell yourself how you feel. I believe in visualizing and everything that you say is basically a prayer to the universe and speak it, talk it, talk to people. Talk to your girlfriends. Talk to your family. Talk to your husband. Talk to them. Tell them what you are feeling. You are not alone. There is a whole community of us that need to get better and if we can just stick together and stand together and communicate I think we can, but you are not alone and you are loved and valuable. "

Kelly Park - interviewed on Blogher.org

Podcast of the interview.

Kelly Park was a participant on How to Look Good Naked. Hosted by Carson Kressley of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" the show is basically like "self-esteem through better fashion" boot camp for women who are unhappy with their bodies and looks. Miraculously, the motif of the show is not extreme surgery or diets. The basic message is one of self-acceptance and learning to work, and to love what you've got.

I can't begin to tell you how exciting that is.

Turns out that wasn't just my period. It was me, thoughtlessly wasting "hundred of millions" of stem-cells. Menstral stem-cells, I could have been cryogenically preserving. Why preserve stem-cells? Well, to use in extending my life, and the life of those that are genetically similar to me (although apparently without the foresight to save their own cryogenically frozen stem-cells, the fools).Or at least that's what the company C'elle, (Pronounced C'iele in a posh pseudo English accent) wants me to believe.

Michelle that is. The FFL (future first lady) fine, maybe, will be posting regularly on Blogher about her experiences working on her husband's campaign. What can say, I mean genius obviously, on the part of Michelle in terms of strategic political spouses and on the part of those insanely effective ladies over at Blogher.

The pink vigilantes: The Indian women fighting for women's rights

Intensely proud of her work, she says: "We have managed to stop women being raped and sent girls to school. Violence and rape against women is very common here, so we're trying to educate them so that they know their rights.

"In cases of domestic violence, we go and talk to the man and explain why it is wrong. If he refuses to listen, we get the woman out of the house, then beat him. If necessary, we do it in public to embarrass him.

"Men used to think the law didn't apply to them but we are forcing a huge change."

--Read the whole article

"We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?" Based on this Op-Ed piece written by a woman in the Washington Post. I am going to hazard a guess that we can get pretty fucking dumb indeed.

This is a presentation Isabel Allende gave at TED, it's 18 minutes long, but click here and open it up to full screen, then give what she says your full attention - you will not be disappointed.