“Paper: Going Along to Get Along: Female Sexual Submission in Urban China,” by Yan, Glutter, 7 November 2005, http://glutter.typepad.com/glutter/2005/11/paper_going_alo.html (from SimonWorld).

No, not this kind:

Rural Japanese, not Urban Chinese

The story itself is so-so, but a very interesting conversation thread has developed has developed on Glutter. Your brave tdaxp as the lonely defender of women’s economic rights, the left-puritans soundly against:

Dan tdaxp

Interesting that “treating women as equals” seems to involve treating them as children: Women can do and wear what they want, but if they attempt to earn money (prostitution) or dress (office clothes) in a way that is “impure” — it is up to a man to teach her better morality!

I’m promptly of accused of being an extraterrestrial john…

Oh please. Which planet are you on? None of what you are saying has anything to do with equality. Why don’t we try and give all the women who are poor and from little villages really good education and a damn good job and see how many of them “choose” to be prostitute.

And who the fuck is talking about office clothes, and having a man tell her she is impure? Who said her boss is a “man” anyway.

You’re so full of it and not know a damn thing about “equality” you purport to be talking about. That’s not equality, that’s just plane old fashion sexist John talk.

which of course is irrelevent:

What does my status as a john or not have to do with the validity of my arguments?

and further, Glitterbug’s views:

Why don’t we try and give all the women who are poor and from little villages really good education and a damn good job and see how many of them “choose” to be prostitute.

and tdaxp‘s

Heck, give me a “damn good” trust fund and see how long I “chose” to work for other people at all

Read on!

On Sunday I finished Dr. Barnett‘s Blueprint for Action.

A Future Worth Creating?

I’d been following this book for a while, celebrating his return to new blogs in February and congratulating TPMB on the first draft cover in March

While hyper-luminaries like Mark Safranski are able to encapsulate BFA’s big ideas into well written posts, I’m not that able.

So instead I will try to write several vignettes or mini-reviews, focusing on distinct aspects of his work. In tone these will be similar to Curzon’s critique of Barnett’s Taiwan policy, examining the trees and leaving the forest (for now) to the best

Without further ado…

• Barnett wrong in ICC independence from the UN
• Blueprint for Divisiveness
• Tom Barnett Against Connectivity Fundamentalists

Additionally, my series Embracing Defeat examines the themes of Blueprint for Action by using videographs of a recent speech by Dr. Barnett

• Part I, Barnett’s Two Strategies describes the Reverse Domino Theory and the A-Z Rule-Set for Processing Politically Bankrupt States
• Part II, Blood and Will discusses the inability of the American people to sustain nationbuilding by themselves
• Part III, The Born Gimp explains why Barnett’s A-Z Rule-Set for Processing Politically Bankrupt States hobbles our export of security
• Part IV, Embracing Victory shows how the military-industrial complex can be used to create a better world

“tdaxp and His Battle with the NationMaster: A Lesson in Networks,” by Mark Safranski, Zen Pundit, 7 November 2005, http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/tdaxp-and-his-battle-with-nationmaster.html”.

Mark of ZenPundit was kind enough to look at NationMaster‘s recent extortion attempt from the perspective of networks:

Dan of tdaxp, long a blogfriend of Zenpundit is locked in a consumer complaint battle with an internet information company known as NationMaster. In the day of the dead tree media, there was a saying about the power of big city newspapers ” Don’t get in a pissing contest with somebody who buys ink by the barrel”. Today, an updated version might go like this ” Don’t get in a pissing contest with somebody who is part of a scale free network”

In addition to Dan’s most recent post he has previously posted here ( where you can read Nationmaster’s bullying, pseudo-legal email correspondence) and here ( the original post that ticked off Nationmaster’s executives, including one ” John Steinmetz”).

Though Mark comes perilously close to unmasking my true identity…

It is theoretically possible that Dan is a clever but psychotic con man posing as a grad student simply to bilk helpless corporations out of fairly earned dollars – but I kind of doubt it. It seems more likely that some arrogant a-hole in a corner office at NationMaster reacted dismissively when Dan asked for his money back and then decided that Dan ” could be rolled” by pressuring him with a frivolous lawsuit.

… one of his points is on the importance of “hubs” that “that [connect] otherwise unrelated bloggers.” That made me realize that I had no central, up-to-date list of blogs that mention Nation Master‘s attempted extortion. So now at the first part of the left-hand column of NationMaster Watch will be that list. As if now, it contains

• Aaron
• Coming Anarchy
• Dawn’s Early Light
• I Hate Linux I
• I Hate Linux II
• Jim River Report I
• Jim River Report II
• Jim River Report III
• Junk Politics
• Ryne McClaren
• SimonWorld I
• SimonWorld II
• tdaxp I
• tdaxp II
• tdaxp III
• tdaxp IV
• tdaxp V
• The Metropolis Times
• ZenPundit

Mark’s analysis is highly recommended. Please read it — and read his symposium on war and globalization while you’re at it.

Here is a church that may lose its tax-exempt status because it is espousing political viewpoints…

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/07/antiwar.sermon.ap/…

I’m trying to figure out how every Baptist church in the nation isn’t now paying taxes after the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Dan, please link if blogspirit won’t play nice.

tdaxp’s Comment: Thank you Aaron for the blog post. It’s great to have you back as a guest blogger!

That said, the article doesn’t link to any details on the speech. Does the IRS have a transcript, etc? We do know that the church has a history of breaking campaign laws

The IRS has revoked a church’s charitable designation at least once.

A church in Binghamton, New York, lost its status after running advertisements against Bill Clinton‘s candidacy before the 1992 presidential election.

And that the church chose to escalate the situation

Marcus Owens, the church’s tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said the agency offered to drop the proceedings if the church admitted wrongdoing. The church declined the offer, he said.

To repeat, I don’t know the details of the case. Churches have great freedom to discuss issues that concern them, and the IRS’s decision would only make sense if the church stepped beyond that to politically endorse a particular candidate.

Any opinions from the practicing lawyers in tdaxp‘s audience?

PS: Want something truly weird? How about an online statistical clearinghouse shaking down blogs?