no_ambiguity

Do you think that without religion far fewer people would do caring work/charity work? I have worried in the past, that without religion, all we'd have is horrible capitalist greed and self interest.

I don't know, and I have no data whatsoever, so feel free to link to things. I think that Christianity can often harm the poor, for instance, in the Catholic church's refusal to promote condom usage to prevent HIV transmission.

1)I've had a few people say to me recently that there is no point in feminism in this country - that women are basically equal. I'm just wondering how common this view is. I think it's entirely wrong, given that women still earn less, are still victims of domestic violence/rape to a greater degree than men, etc...

2)I'm also wondering what type of feminists people are. I've always had problems with feminists who simply want equal rights (bourgeois feminists, as I used to call them). I don't just want to raise the wages of low paid women so that they equal the wages of low paid men, I want to make the wages equal and raise them for both men and women.

Poll #1382770
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you think that feminism is relevant in the UK today?

If you think of yourself as a feminist what do you mean by that?

God, Andrew Brown's column in the Guardian is annoying.

He argues here that children need God.

And here he argues that the environment can only be saved by religion.

Women and religion.

I'm getting past the point now of believing that it's simply men's interpretation of their holy books that's the issue, and not the foundational texts of their faiths that are also at fault. To paraphrase the US-based Freedom from Religion Foundation: the Bible itself is a handbook for the subjugation of women. But then the Bible, like religion, was created by men for men, and has been used ever since its inception as a tool to keep women in their place.

Article on benefits and unemployment. This is basically what I think.

Oh, and this is worrying:

The British Chamber of Commerce predicts that things will only get worse, with unemployment rising to 3.2 million by the end of 2010.

Poll #1367499
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Which do you agree with

1) Gordon Brown - Laissez-faire is over.

Why on earth is he still part privatising the post-office, and the benefits system in that case?

2)The Barclay's tax avoidence whistleblower writes very eloquently about it all IMO.

Poverty in the UK.

By midday on Wednesday, Louise Spencer has £6.80 left in her purse to last until Monday, which works out at £1.36 a day to pay for anything she and her two small children might need.

I've been thinking about embryo screening for various genetic conditions a fair bit, for a while. I'm still slightly uncomfortable with it, because I think it might lead to a situation where people are entirely judged by their value to society (if people could screen out mental health conditions and low intelligence, for instance), and I wouldn't want to live in that sort of society. However, I do think that being able to screen for cystic fibrosis is probably a good thing.

Poll #1330598
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you approve of embryo screening for cystic fibrosis etc?

[I don't know that it's necessary for breast cancer actually. Surely if someone were born with the gene that makes it more likely that they'll develop breast cancer, a good solution would just be to have their breasts removed when they're 45 or so. It might be upsetting for them, but it does seem like a reasonable, practical solution.]

Really really irritating Guardian article about atheism. And a follow up.

ARGH COLUMNISTS.

But there's a pretty good explanation of atheism written by Jonathan West as a response.

Poll #1325278
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you think that you treat people differently on the basis of their gender?

Do you think that the gender makeup of a group (whether that group is all male, all female, or mixed) makes a big difference to the atmosphere?

Do you tend to talk about different things with male and female friends?

ETA: Sorry if you have to fill this in again, I had to delete this the first time...

I liked this article!.

This question is hypothetical, since I don't plan to have children! I'm quite fanatical in my view that education, healthcare etc should be provided by The State, hence I've ticked the comprehensive option.

Poll #1313384
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I would send my child to

What makes Purnell's plan to make the unemployed work for benefits really beyond the pale is that they won't be paid minimum wage. So they'll be working for less than minimum wage, and the work will take up time that could have been spent applying for jobs.

Precarity cards. (From Infinite Thought). These are awesome. Here is the wikipedia article on precarity.

I should get back into political activity, but unfortunately I hate the left (too full of organic chicken eaters). Also, having the motivation of a fly that accidentally fell into a whisky bottle not only means that I'm unlikely to suceed under conditions of precarity, it also means that I'm not too good at fighting against these precarious conditions.

It would help enormously, for instance, if the smell of crankishness which still clings to the Socialist movement could be dispelled. If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt, and every vegetarian, teetotaller, and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly!

From The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell. This is exactly what I think. Yes.

Right wing people often accuse me of being a hippie, because I am left wing, and meihua thought that I was right wing when he first met me due to my being anti-hippie. I am neither. I am left-wing, but we need to change structures not eat organic chicken, and wear brightly coloured clothes.

Job insecurity and mental illness.

For some time, I've thought that there is some sort of link between increasing elevels of job insecurity and mental illness. A quick search "job insecurity mental illness" in google gives me many links. From here:

The report found that, over the past 10 years, job insecurity had increased by 28% among professionals, 10% among clerical staff and 9% among managers and it found a direct correlation between job insecurity and [mental] ill health. People who felt secure in their jobs were considerably healthier than those who did not.

Here is an Independent article on the same subject, and here is another report.

In my current job, the "special conditions" on my contract are that "no period of notice is required for termination on either side". So they can literally sack me at any time. This does lead to increased anxiety. I am told that I'm being paranoid when I constantly worry about tiny mistakes that I've made, but then they could just sack me! In order to stay sane I have to almost pretend that that isn't the case. I'm sure that I'd be mentally saner if my jobs recently had been more secure!

People constantly talk about the laziness of people who go on benefits rather than simply getting any job. It's probably true that it's possible for most people to find some sort of job, but the conditions in many casual jobs are often bloody appalling. Catering is a good example. I have worked as a catering assistant before in holidays from university. I was employed as casual staff, and would get 8 hours work some weeks and 50 hours other weeks. Someone who had the choice between JSA and Housing benefit or working as a catering assistant would be able to survive more easily by taking benefits than by taking that sort of job.

If someone is employed as permanent full time staff, they are paid maybe £6ph and hired to work about 39 hours a week. The conditions are pretty fucking appalling. Not only do they have to work weekends and night shifts, but normally they won't have fixed rotas so they will work different hours every week (all night shifts one week, constant morning shifts the next), and won't find out what their shifts are until very soon beforehand, so they cannot plan ahead. It basically takes over your life. If they want to earn more money, they must be promoted to supervisor and they will be expected to work sometimes 70 hours a week, for about, perhaps £7ph. Again you can have no life. I spoke to a guy who had worked for several years as a hotel manager and he said that in the last year he had averaged 100 hours per week. I would presume that hotel managers get paid something approaching a reasonable amount, but I would guess that they are not nearly compensated for the amount of work they do. I also spoke to a chef who said that he had worked a similar number of hours while running the kitchen of a busy restaurant.

Improve working conditions! I find it pretty fucking shocking that friends of mine think it's ok to force people to work under these conditions.

Fucking awesome blog post by k-punk here about chicken welfare. I would have posted it on my other LJ, but I'm worried that people would get offended ;). It partly expresses why I don't buy organic chicken or free range eggs:

...Fearnley-Whittingstall's aim to transform his local town, Axminster, into 'Britain's first free-range chicken town' was dogged by a single mother, Hayley, who, although she had enthusiastically participated in a project which saw residents of council estate raise and kill their own chickens, resolutely refused to stop buying '2 for £5' chickens in Tesco. Even after she saw how chickens were kept on the intensive chicken factory that Fearnley-Whittingstall had set up to demonstrate the conditions that cheap chicken are raised in (none of the intensive poultry producers would allow him to film in their establishments), she maintained that feeding her children on a limited budget was more important than the welfare of chickens...

Trying to make sense of the situation in Pakistan at the moment. It is very very difficult. This article argues that the Americans wanted to install Bhutto due to what's going on in Afghanistan, but that they then failed to protect her when she went back.

( A section of the article )

Not sure whether to trust this or not, since I don't have enough time to do more research atm, but what do other people think?