Slashdot Mirror

Except it *doesn't* make sense. The .org domain is pretty much made for a logical or business organization, just like Organization for Transformative Works, The National Organization for Women, The Mozilla Corporation/Organization, etc

Now if they wanted to cover both bases, having trump.com and trump.org might make sense.

Actually it's about equality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://www.now.org/nnt/03-97/f... http://www.firstpost.com/india... http://www.hindustantimes.com/... http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/... http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/... http://www.weeklystandard.com/... http://douchebagdork.tumblr.co... http://www.ageofconsent.com/co... http://studentactivism.net/201... http://i.imgur.com/Vac0UOk.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aob5k.jpg http://www.law.fsu.edu/journal... http://www.genderratic.net/?ta... http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/d... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://www.theguardian.com/com... http://www.saveservices.org/pd... http://www.law.fsu.edu/journal... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://jezebel.com/294383/have... http://anescapedconviction.tum... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://news.nationalpost.com/2... https://imgur.com/zoR6eQ0 https://twitter.com/CodeusaSof... https://twitter.com/FabioFacch... https://twitter.com/DanielleGi... https://twitter.com/ForemanEri... http://theflounce.com/harassme...

Okay if you were talking about being roofied and gang-raped when you said "and should have the right to be treated with respect regardless of what they're wearing" -- I can accept that, but that was very poorly communicated because most people think of gang-rape as a more fundamental and serious violation than "not treating someone with respect."

Anyway, it's a pretty minor issue and it seems clear that you agree with me that the right to respect regardless of dress in scenarios like the workplace, formal dances, movie theaters, Walmart, daycare centers, etc does not actually exist today in a way that is different between men and women. You show up to work in speedos and you'll take as much crap as a woman in a bikini.

Since you're a mainstream feminist I'm curious if you perceive a difference between what the mainstream feminist adherent thinks vs. the mainstream feminist leaders. I mean maybe you don't know or care about Title IX (since you didn't reply to it at all), but do you know that it's a pretty big issue for feminist leaders? It's on the NOW issues list for instance -- http://www.now.org/issues/title_ix/index.html

Your point is very valid; however, your ending opens the door to more problems.

The word tolerate (and tolerance) is a double edged sword. It's a bit silly to say we should be intolerant of one subgroup due to their opinions, but we should encourage groups with exclusionary principals like the NBSE, SWE and NOW. The Klan has every bit as much right to peaceably assemble and hold their opinions as the aforementioned groups. They have that right and not to be discriminated against for it according to our current society's rules. That doesn't mean that all of this line drawing from every side helps society as a greater whole.

it's not possible (it'd be like trying to have fully manual antilock brakes, with individual wheelspeed sensing and control, at the driver's feet).

Heavy equipment has had this for decades. Individual brake pedals for left and right sides, and a little slider so you can lock them together if you don't want to "play the brake pedals".

Also, heart failure was far and away from being the major cause of death for most of humanity's existence. Disease, exposure to the elements, starvation, war, accidents ... these all killed humans in great numbers.

Or how about these snapshots:Murder being the #1 cause of death for pregnant women in Maryland, and the #2 cause nationally, behind accidents, or the #2 cause of death for infants/a

Relying on internal discipline in lieu of referring violations of the law to the legal systems is not the right choice when http://www.now.org/nnt/fall-99/campus.html colleges try to hand out internal discipline to rapists in lieu of turning them over to the cops.

Nor is it the right choice when police departments try to limit punishment for illegal beatings, shootings, etc to internal-only discipline measures instead of letting the guilty cops be taken into the court system.

The researchers next decided to record and manipulate the beetle-produced sounds. They focused on an aggression call produced by males of the "tree killer" Dendroctonus species.

...

This was particularly graphic when the researchers played the manipulated sounds right as a male and female beetle were about to mate.

Hofstetter said his team would "watch in horror as the male beetle would tear the female apart."

Beetle stuff!!! How long before the scientists have NOW banging down their door? Maybe they can play some of those altered Rush Limbaugh tapes. NOW activists + high volume Limbaugh shows. Imagine the carnage!

First of all, as others pointed out, you must have meant the Equal Rights Amendment.

Second, I'm fairly certain that NOW was one of the main forces behind the ERA, and that it was conservative forces raising fears that the ERA would lead to mixed-sex public restrooms and public funding for abortions which managed to shoot it down.

In fact, now that I look, NOW's website appears to support the ERA, so I have no idea where you're coming up with this stuff.

but my weekly astrology forecast this week says I will be successful with having the first post.

Is your backyards entertainment SOX-compliant? Do you practice non-discrimination in who you let in your backyard? There are hundreds of laws that apply only to corporation and corporate behavior, not to individuals.

Corporations do not have to practice non-discrimination in many cases. For example many golf clubs are corporations and do not admit members belonging to certain categories, such as women and are corporations. Example: http://www.now.org/issues/wfw/111202augusta.html http://www.masters.org/en_US/info/copyright/index. html. These cases are the same thing as your private backyard party.

As far as SOX, do you realize that this law was put in place to govern the behavior of individuals who are officers of public corporations? It is not much about the behavior of corporations at all.

The fact is that in general laws governing business behavior apply to individuals just as much as corporations. That is the biggest reason to establish a corporation; to shield yourself as an individual from whatever liabilities the corporation might incur. If you conduct activities in without establishment of a corporate identity, you become personally liable for all that happens. I know someone who lost his house because he was foolish enough to take on business debt without actually forming a company first.

"Take the murders caused by hand guns out of the US stats, and our murder rates are similar."

I don't know...but, aren't there more people in the US than in Canada?

The stats for both countries are based on murder rates per capita, so the difference in population is irrelevent.

As for "being safe from it", check out these stats from the Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5003a1. htm

Problem/Condition: A substantial percentage of all homicides in the United States are committed by intimate partners of the victims. Among females, approximately 1 in 3 homicides are intimate partner homicides (IPHs).

Or this ...
http://www.now.org/issues/violence/043003pregnant. html

Homicide was found to be the leading cause of death for pregnant women in Maryland, according to a March 2001 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Using death records and coroner reports, state health department researchers found 247 pregnancy-associated deaths between 1993 and 1998. Among those deaths, 50 were murders. By comparison, homicide was the fifth-leading cause of death among Maryland women. And, nationwide, the maternal mortality rate was just 9.9 percent in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Nationally, homicide is a leading killer of young women--pregnant or not. In 1999, homicide was the second-leading cause of death among women ages 20 to 24. It was fifth among women ages 25-34. Accidents are the top cause of death in both age groups.

Jesus, even planned parenthood, national organization for women, marxists.org, infidels.org and the UN are still up. Bushitler is really dropping the ball for the reich-publi-fascists...

There are many political figures and organizations at least trying to have an influence on this issue. I wouldn't necessarily say that any of these entities have significant political power unto themselves (except the Republican party, I guess), but that taken as a whole, they may persuade some politicians up on Capitol Hill to reconsider their position. E.g.:

National Organization of Women's petition.

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's petition.

Cheney's position regarding the senate filibuster.

And, finally, the Republican party's plans for ending the filibuster.

Back when the national NOW website was just getting started, most of the time when you used Yahoo or Google to search, most people came up with pages for my WA NOW website and our underlying pages, because I coded them to show up high on keywords and links.

Naturally, I provided links back to them, but since we had been on the web before they were, and were responsible for forcing them onto the web in the first place, it wasn't surprising. Their webperson now was part of the three state chapters that forced them to get a web presence, and she knows all about how to get good page rankings - so this is no longer the case, especially since I don't spend much time on the site anymore.

They'll rant and rave about a model making $50K for appearing in a swimsuit in a beer ad being "exploited", but are *silent* about the so-dehuminizing-its-absurd treatment of women in most Islamic socities

This would be disturbing if true, so I decided to check it out. You can't get much more feminist and liberal than the National Organization for Women. To test your claim, I used their handy search engine to see what they had to say about the most famous woman-oppressing Islamic government in the world, Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. I bet they wouldn't utter a word about them!

Results for Taliban 1 to 15 of 63 results.

Okay, fine. Sixty-three. Okay, they talk a little bit about oppressed women in Afghanistan. But now to get to the real meat of the matter: those damn feminists hate chicks in bikinis! If there were sixty-three mentions of the Taliban, then beer commercials must show up much, much more often. I'll hazard a guess of, uh, five hundred. Five hundred hypocritical condemnations, you heard me, every single one an insult to freedom lovers everywhere! And now let's go to the tape...

Results for beer commercials 1 to 8 of 8 results.

And eight's practically the same as five hundred, geologically speaking.

So I guess you're totally correct.

Using the same logic, I eagerly await your complaining about how Slashdot is constantly yammering about off-Broadway musicals while uttering not a word about the DMCA.

They'll rant and rave about a model making $50K for appearing in a swimsuit in a beer ad being "exploited", but are *silent* about the so-dehuminizing-its-absurd treatment of women in most Islamic socities

This would be disturbing if true, so I decided to check it out. You can't get much more feminist and liberal than the National Organization for Women. To test your claim, I used their handy search engine to see what they had to say about the most famous woman-oppressing Islamic government in the world, Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. I bet they wouldn't utter a word about them!

Results for Taliban 1 to 15 of 63 results.

Okay, fine. Sixty-three. Okay, they talk a little bit about oppressed women in Afghanistan. But now to get to the real meat of the matter: those damn feminists hate chicks in bikinis! If there were sixty-three mentions of the Taliban, then beer commercials must show up much, much more often. I'll hazard a guess of, uh, five hundred. Five hundred hypocritical condemnations, you heard me, every single one an insult to freedom lovers everywhere! And now let's go to the tape...

Results for beer commercials 1 to 8 of 8 results.

And eight's practically the same as five hundred, geologically speaking.

So I guess you're totally correct.

Using the same logic, I eagerly await your complaining about how Slashdot is constantly yammering about off-Broadway musicals while uttering not a word about the DMCA.

They'll rant and rave about a model making $50K for appearing in a swimsuit in a beer ad being "exploited", but are *silent* about the so-dehuminizing-its-absurd treatment of women in most Islamic socities

This would be disturbing if true, so I decided to check it out. You can't get much more feminist and liberal than the National Organization for Women. To test your claim, I used their handy search engine to see what they had to say about the most famous woman-oppressing Islamic government in the world, Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. I bet they wouldn't utter a word about them!

Results for Taliban 1 to 15 of 63 results.

Okay, fine. Sixty-three. Okay, they talk a little bit about oppressed women in Afghanistan. But now to get to the real meat of the matter: those damn feminists hate chicks in bikinis! If there were sixty-three mentions of the Taliban, then beer commercials must show up much, much more often. I'll hazard a guess of, uh, five hundred. Five hundred hypocritical condemnations, you heard me, every single one an insult to freedom lovers everywhere! And now let's go to the tape...

Results for beer commercials 1 to 8 of 8 results.

And eight's practically the same as five hundred, geologically speaking.

So I guess you're totally correct.

Using the same logic, I eagerly await your complaining about how Slashdot is constantly yammering about off-Broadway musicals while uttering not a word about the DMCA.

It sounds like this is just another thing that is going stunt the growth of a generation of teenage boys.

Yea, and teach them that all women are overly-materialistic. I wonder what will happen when NOW or some other group hears about this "game."

Have you heard of the National Organization for Women?

Their issues page is here. You linked specifically to their 'fighting the right' page, which easily makes them look more like a left wing fringe group. But fighting the right is important, because if you don't believe there are far right wing religious groups who want to roll women's rights back 100 years, you're deluding yourself.

Your statement about single mothers is irrelevant. Do the hardships of single mothers make it OK for religious groups to pressure women into marriage, or for those groups to receive government funding? If so, well I just disagree.

NOW opposes forced joint custody. You left that word out, but its an important one so you should look it up.

John Ashcroft is the Attorney General. As such he should be promoting the rule of law and the importance of the government and the constitution, over and above the rules of any particular god he happens to favor. If that's beyond his ability he shouldn't be the fucking Attorney General. His statement essentially says that he believes that freedom is a gift from god and doesn't have to do with the will of the people or the constitution. That's pretty god damned scary.

NOW has a pages detailing their positions on both Anita Hill and Paula Jones. Of particular interest is this letter which contains the following...

We urge everyone to check our web site at www.now.org to read our statements directly. As one correspondent wrote by email, "My first five minutes browsing your website made it clear that your position and attitude towards this case and others have been gravely misrepresented...I pledge that I will never believe another thing that I hear about NOW or Patricia Ireland, until I cross check it against your excellent website. " We urge your reporters and readers to do the same.

Their issues page is here. You linked specifically to their 'fighting the right' page, which easily makes them look more like a left wing fringe group. But fighting the right is important, because if you don't believe there are far right wing religious groups who want to roll women's rights back 100 years, you're deluding yourself.

Your statement about single mothers is irrelevant. Do the hardships of single mothers make it OK for religious groups to pressure women into marriage, or for those groups to receive government funding? If so, well I just disagree.

NOW opposes forced joint custody. You left that word out, but its an important one so you should look it up.

John Ashcroft is the Attorney General. As such he should be promoting the rule of law and the importance of the government and the constitution, over and above the rules of any particular god he happens to favor. If that's beyond his ability he shouldn't be the fucking Attorney General. His statement essentially says that he believes that freedom is a gift from god and doesn't have to do with the will of the people or the constitution. That's pretty god damned scary.

NOW has a pages detailing their positions on both Anita Hill and Paula Jones. Of particular interest is this letter which contains the following...

We urge everyone to check our web site at www.now.org to read our statements directly. As one correspondent wrote by email, "My first five minutes browsing your website made it clear that your position and attitude towards this case and others have been gravely misrepresented...I pledge that I will never believe another thing that I hear about NOW or Patricia Ireland, until I cross check it against your excellent website. " We urge your reporters and readers to do the same.

Their issues page is here. You linked specifically to their 'fighting the right' page, which easily makes them look more like a left wing fringe group. But fighting the right is important, because if you don't believe there are far right wing religious groups who want to roll women's rights back 100 years, you're deluding yourself.

Your statement about single mothers is irrelevant. Do the hardships of single mothers make it OK for religious groups to pressure women into marriage, or for those groups to receive government funding? If so, well I just disagree.

NOW opposes forced joint custody. You left that word out, but its an important one so you should look it up.

John Ashcroft is the Attorney General. As such he should be promoting the rule of law and the importance of the government and the constitution, over and above the rules of any particular god he happens to favor. If that's beyond his ability he shouldn't be the fucking Attorney General. His statement essentially says that he believes that freedom is a gift from god and doesn't have to do with the will of the people or the constitution. That's pretty god damned scary.

NOW has a pages detailing their positions on both Anita Hill and Paula Jones. Of particular interest is this letter which contains the following...

We urge everyone to check our web site at www.now.org to read our statements directly. As one correspondent wrote by email, "My first five minutes browsing your website made it clear that your position and attitude towards this case and others have been gravely misrepresented...I pledge that I will never believe another thing that I hear about NOW or Patricia Ireland, until I cross check it against your excellent website. " We urge your reporters and readers to do the same.

Their issues page is here. You linked specifically to their 'fighting the right' page, which easily makes them look more like a left wing fringe group. But fighting the right is important, because if you don't believe there are far right wing religious groups who want to roll women's rights back 100 years, you're deluding yourself.

Your statement about single mothers is irrelevant. Do the hardships of single mothers make it OK for religious groups to pressure women into marriage, or for those groups to receive government funding? If so, well I just disagree.

NOW opposes forced joint custody. You left that word out, but its an important one so you should look it up.

John Ashcroft is the Attorney General. As such he should be promoting the rule of law and the importance of the government and the constitution, over and above the rules of any particular god he happens to favor. If that's beyond his ability he shouldn't be the fucking Attorney General. His statement essentially says that he believes that freedom is a gift from god and doesn't have to do with the will of the people or the constitution. That's pretty god damned scary.

NOW has a pages detailing their positions on both Anita Hill and Paula Jones. Of particular interest is this letter which contains the following...

We urge everyone to check our web site at www.now.org to read our statements directly. As one correspondent wrote by email, "My first five minutes browsing your website made it clear that your position and attitude towards this case and others have been gravely misrepresented...I pledge that I will never believe another thing that I hear about NOW or Patricia Ireland, until I cross check it against your excellent website. " We urge your reporters and readers to do the same.

In what world?

Take a look at their "issues" page.

Here's a quote from their site Right-wing religious groups have an agenda of promoting marriage without regard for the welfare of women and children (and such groups would be eligible to receive funds under this bill).

Yeah, because we all know how well most single mothersand their children have it in this country.

NOW has come out against joint custody of children.

NOW says that this quote from John Ashcroft is 'Scary' "Civilized people ? Muslims, Christians and Jews ? all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Civilized people of all religious faiths are called to the defense of His creation. We are a nation called to defend freedom ? a freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God."

If you remember your history, you'll remember that NOW supported Anita Hill from the beginning when she accused Justice Thomas of sexual harassment. Where was that support for Paula Jones?

NOW is about as mainstream as Fred Phelps, the only difference is that 35 years ago NOW actually did some positive things.

LK

In what world?

Take a look at their "issues" page.

Here's a quote from their site Right-wing religious groups have an agenda of promoting marriage without regard for the welfare of women and children (and such groups would be eligible to receive funds under this bill).

Yeah, because we all know how well most single mothersand their children have it in this country.

NOW has come out against joint custody of children.

NOW says that this quote from John Ashcroft is 'Scary' "Civilized people ? Muslims, Christians and Jews ? all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Civilized people of all religious faiths are called to the defense of His creation. We are a nation called to defend freedom ? a freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God."

If you remember your history, you'll remember that NOW supported Anita Hill from the beginning when she accused Justice Thomas of sexual harassment. Where was that support for Paula Jones?

NOW is about as mainstream as Fred Phelps, the only difference is that 35 years ago NOW actually did some positive things.

LK

In what world?

Take a look at their "issues" page.

Here's a quote from their site Right-wing religious groups have an agenda of promoting marriage without regard for the welfare of women and children (and such groups would be eligible to receive funds under this bill).

Yeah, because we all know how well most single mothersand their children have it in this country.

NOW has come out against joint custody of children.

NOW says that this quote from John Ashcroft is 'Scary' "Civilized people ? Muslims, Christians and Jews ? all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Civilized people of all religious faiths are called to the defense of His creation. We are a nation called to defend freedom ? a freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God."

If you remember your history, you'll remember that NOW supported Anita Hill from the beginning when she accused Justice Thomas of sexual harassment. Where was that support for Paula Jones?

NOW is about as mainstream as Fred Phelps, the only difference is that 35 years ago NOW actually did some positive things.

LK

This is a straw man argument. You're painting the whole of the femenist movement with a brush dipped in the fringe element. Why don't you go to N.O.W. and read what a mainstream femenist organization has to say and then debate that.

The problem with 'femenism' is not femenists, but assholes who try their best to make the word synonymous with 'pushy castrating bitch' instead of 'person who believes in equal rights for women'. And its done with posts like yours.

But since feminism reached its goals

What gives you the right to both determine what femenist goals are and then to say they've been reached? Are you a femenist? Are you a woman? Even if you consider yourself both, have you participated in the debate and struggle for achieving the rights you think women should have? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the answer is no. Many women AND men believe there is a long way to go before women really have the same chance as men to succeed. To tell femenists to pack up and go home because the battle is over, well, just because you don't care, doesn't mean no one else does.

Before I get flamed to a Kingdom Come, I am kidding. (Hops on over and makes a donation to the National Organization of Women).

You forgot to post the NOW link so others could donate as well ...

Ask the experts.

As long as EVERYONE ELSE is going off-topic. I WILL TOO!!
from here
Washington D.C. Feminists Encourage Activists to Send Stones to the Nigerian Embassy in Protest

September 12, 2002

by Joy Nadler, NOW Communications Intern

The Nigerian government has declared punishments such as beheadings, stonings and amputations to be unconstitutional, but a number of states in northern Nigeria continue to implement laws based on an extremist interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, which considers sex out of wedlock a crime punishable by death.

The latest case is that of Fatima Usman and Ahmadu Ibrahim, an unmarried couple from Niger State who were sentenced to death by stoning last month for having sex.

Usman's father, who reportedly wanted her to marry someone else against her will, complained to local police that Ibrahim had impregnated her. The two were called before a Sharia court, where they plead guilty to charges of adultery and were sentenced to five years in prison on Aug. 5. According to the Sydney Sun-Herald, Usman's father considered the sentence too lenient, and protested it until the case was taken back to court. A few weeks later, the court sentenced Usman and Ibrahim to death by stoning.

Women's rights activists around the world have voiced outrage at the court's ruling in this case and in the cases of Safiya Hussaini and Amina Lawal Kurami, both single mothers from poor rural villages who faced similar charges for bearing children out of wedlock.

Members of Capitol City NOW in Washington, D.C. called for activists to send stones to the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, D.C. to protest the sentences and encourage the Nigerian government to intervene and uphold international human rights standards in the northern states.

Send a stone to:
President Olusegun Obasanjo
c/o Ambassador Jibril Aminn
Embassy of Nigeria
1333 16th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

For more information:
Fact Sheet: Women's Rights Under Sharia in Northern Nigeria

Shoot. Somehow my link to the NOW press release got dropped. Must be a conspiracy ;-)

Who do these people think they are? Killing the National Organization of Women! The Progeny of white, middle-class, men, that's who. Rise up, my sisters, and fight the system!

If I had to pick someone who would be an authority figure on whether women are hurt or offended by porn, who would it be? Why, a prominent leader in the Women's Civil Rights movement, of course. How about Betty Friedan, author of The Feminist Mystique and co-founder of the National Organization for Women? Surely nobody can take an AP American History course in high school and not recognize the name; we studied her pretty prominently in my course. And she was not only not against pornography, she actually supported it.

These women are only devalued if they allow themselves to be. In the past, they were certainly undervalued, but that's why the Women's Suffrage and Women's Liberation movements came about. Were the situation as severe as people claim, this wouldn't be a few women who claim to be feminists fighting against porn -- it would be a genuine uprising, led by women's leaders. But it's not. Porn does not make women worthless.

In other words. . .

MARS NEEDS WOMEN!!!!

I'll dive for cover now. . . (g)

According to their FAQ, they only have around a half-million members. The last I heard, there were 270 million people in this country.

I left a few other things out.

http://www.now.org/issues/harass/clin ton.html
http://www.now.org/issues/right/index.ht ml
http://www.now.org/issues/lgbi/index.html

I left a few other things out.

http://www.now.org/issues/harass/clin ton.html
http://www.now.org/issues/right/index.ht ml
http://www.now.org/issues/lgbi/index.html

I left a few other things out.

http://www.now.org/issues/harass/clin ton.html
http://www.now.org/issues/right/index.ht ml
http://www.now.org/issues/lgbi/index.html

http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/

I wasn't suggesting that a lawsuit would be done on the grounds that the censorship is unconstitutional, where in a majority of cases when this type of software is used, it's not. A parent has every right to block what kinds of sites their children can see.

That's not the problem with censorware. There's a big push to have these censorware packages installed in public libraries and other public Internet access kiosks. Suppose I run an online business that's been incorrectly blocked by one of these packages (there are several examples listed in both the report listed in the story, and on Peacefire)... do I, as a business owner, have legal ground to sue to creators of the censorware, since their software is arbitrarily blocking my site (which has no reason to be blocked), and costing me business? I'm sure monetary damages could be determined by lowered advertising revenue, and revenue through purchases... can the creators of censorware be held liable for the lost revenue due to their packages blocking access to the sites under their misrepresented pretense that they're blocking "harmful" sites?

... or are there no checks to prevent censorware from arbitrarily blocking sites? Why would a site like The National Organization for Women be blocked? Or an article about breast cancer? Or the texts of The Odyssey and The Iliad??

Like NOW?

-David T. C.

If you're coming to the library to do research, then unless you just happen to be researching porn or hate groups, you'll probably enjoy the fact that there's not someone on the computer across from you staring at women in all sorts of unnatural positions.

Hrmm, Lets take a look at some of the popular "hate groups" these various blocking software blocks, shall we?

National Organization for Women
Covenant of the Goddess and The Witches Voice, Wicca is a nationaly recognized religion in the US
Yahoo Search Engine
MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratories
The University of Arizona
Stonewall Inc., gourmet coffees, teas, food and gifts.
...and of course...
Peacefire, A site telling people how to disable this blocking software

The problem with commercial blocking software is the lists of blocked sites are not published, and often contain OVERBLOCKS, Stonewall Inc is blocked under the "Gay Sites" area of Cyberpatrol, but it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality.

This is the reason we need to keep these "filters" out of our libraries and schools.

-- iCEBaLM

Quikah asks:

OK, so the computers are in a public area, and apparently the user can be kicked off for viewing
"inappropriate" material...how is that different than using Surfwatch?

Because the current system uses actual community standards, i.e. the Holland Library policy as interpreted by the Librarians or other staff members. It is also flexible enough to allow judgement calls to be made, eg. a high school student might be able to use the machine to access grey area websites for a school project.

SurfWatch claims to offer community standards, yet the list is confidential and done according to SurfWatch standards. Also, most such filters (I don't know if SurfWatch is one of them) filters out sites they find politically objectionable, such as The National Organization of Women. No judgement calls are allowed short of calling in the computer guru to disable to software temporarily.

----

There's a standard to do exactly that, it's called PICS. You describe the content in your page (nudity, violence, etc), and then the web browser can be configured with various filters.

If you want to describe the content on your site easily, you can rate with RSAC, which gives you a standard baseline and spews out the appropriate PICS metadata for your web page, and you copy and paste it into your HTML document. Easy. And any loser on the internet can configure their IE or netscape browser (or anything else that's PICS compliant) to not let a user view content above certain levels without a password. Self-governance on both sides is the only way we're ever going to get anything reasonable around here, the filters have already proven to be extremely politically biased (some of them block the National Organization for Women, for christ's sake.