01 April 2009
I have nothing important to say
But, I'm off to my bed now, after having slogged through the Gold thread, the Rap/Misogyny thread and, apparently, after marking myself as a fascist on the Berlins thread about prisoners being given the right to vote. *Sigh* It's been a quite a night. Anyway, we're at 164 comments on Monkeyfish's thread, so I thought I'd start a new one before we hit the "200 comments sends us to a 2nd page" mark - which would, inevitably, happen while I'm sleeping/working. Do go down to the bottom of Monkey's thread to make sure you've read everything. Back in approx. 15 hours...
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You are getting so organised these days Montana, you got a new one ready to go for when we hit the 2nd page mark! It has been quite a gruelling few days on cif actually, sometimes it has a quiet few days, sometimes the whole week is a giant battle royale. I cant actually remember precisely any such weeks, or which articles were included, but if anyone else can remember any battle royale weeks on cif, i think they would make interesting little articles for this site.
ReplyDeleteOh Oh, Jay, Kizbot's mad and wants to see you in the phonebooth. Or should I say woodshed?
ReplyDeleteOoooh, Jay, Kiz, your tiffs are usually public, do share!
ReplyDeleteI wasnt even aware me and the mrs were having a tiff? Kizzy dear, are we having a tiff? Whats going on here? Im confused now. Me and Kiz have only had one major tiff over a clumsy analogy of mine, though it was quite a sizable tiff that got quite heated. Where is she? I thought she was busy taking up the slack with BTH?
ReplyDeleteI havent got access to the phonebooth i dont think
ReplyDeleteI hope this is all a misunderstanding, i havent been told off by Kiz for at least a fortnight and thought i was doing rather well ;)
ReplyDeleteKizbot???
ReplyDeleteWhats is reggis? If it is this phonebox i dont think i am set up on it, or if i am i dont have a clue how to get there, so you will have to explain what i need to do and i think montana has to add me or something?
I don't think she can come on here at work Jay.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the clumsy butler reference over on the Tanya Gold thread was about me I'm having a tiff with her!
Once more, for the record: I've never broken one of those sacred vessels in my life: what madam does when it's past wine o'clock is another matter!
Well you have to be careful with her when she's been on the wine, one word out of place and she launches the kitchen sink at you. I think i need montana to invite me for this thingy, but havent seen her about for a while to ask. I saw Swiftyboy today, so he is still alive.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else think the guardian april fool was painfully obvious and not at all funny?
ReplyDeletescientolgyisacult
"painfully obvious and not at all funny". Sadly that's almost always true. We've lost our innocence, which is interesting (to me, anyway) because the equivalent in Spain is 'the day of the innocents', which takes place on December 28th. This is a pretty macabre kind of joke because it's supposed to be the day when Herod slaughtered new born babies in order to kill the Messiah. Anyone have any similar traditions to report?
ReplyDeletemartillo
ReplyDeleteAnyone have any similar traditions to report?
yeah. Friday nights. I'm anyone's.
Nothing so dark...
ReplyDeleteI am told that the french have poisson d'avril where they try and stick paper fish to each other without getting caught. Although they are clearly not up to speed, surely chaton de mer or some such would be more appropriate...?
Friday nights. I'm anyone's.
ReplyDeleteAnd the similarity would be...? Have you been following the Tanya Gold thread? That girl is a major troll - if the pay her on a commission basis she must be rolling in it.
chaton de mer? Is that a big catfish?
if they pay her...
ReplyDeletemartillo, sorry, haven't learnt links yet, um i meant these....
ReplyDeletehttp://action.peta.org.uk/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=5&ea.campaign.id=1895
Oh, Jay, darling... You were told to e-mail me so that you could get an invite. Click on my profile, go from there. Haven't checked Tanya's thread yet (just got home from work about 1/2 hour ago), so I'm afraid I can't give you any tips on what could be the matter...
ReplyDeleteahh i see kizbot liked the graun april fools, maybe i had set my sights too high, or am too serious.
ReplyDeletei thought the sans serriffe one years ago was bloody good and set the bar high...
It's ok - I asked the missus. Sea kittens, a classic thread. Hey, why don't we do a 'my ten favourite threads' thread? Bagsie Max and that Shapiro lunatic.
ReplyDeleteYou do remember, don't you, martillo that you can start new threads?
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what Kiz posted on the 'Rape Victims don't want Tea and Sympathy' thread?
ReplyDeleteI hope to god she was standing up for a persons right to a cup of tea! Although further info would be appreciated.
She was probably threatening someone with her teapot, if she's not making tea with it she's assaulting people with it.
ReplyDeleteYes Jay, but be fair they are only VIRTUAL teapots!
ReplyDeleteCaleb -
ReplyDeleteShe was asking why the Rahila Gupta thread wasn't open to comments.
I responded to agree, and my post got vaporised altogether.
They've opened it now though.
They may be virtual Annetan but abuse isnt always physical, she is emotionally domineering and using the virtual teapot to degrade and dehumanise fellow posters.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention besmirching the reputation of teapots (and those of us who have respect for the sacred vessels!)
ReplyDeleteOn a completely separate note, I've just read Twilight, that book Biddy got her knickers in a twist about on CIF a while ago, it annoyed me for three reasons:
1) I could kind of see Biddy's point
2) What WOMAN faints at the sight of blood? She'd spend approximately one week in four permanently fainting.........
3) I couldn't put the d*mn book down..........
Whats the book about? Biddy writes so much hilarious nonsense i cant remember.
ReplyDeleteTeenage girl falls in love with teenage (when made) vampire, spends a lot of time making sure she doesn't tempt him to bite her too much......
ReplyDeleteIt was made into a film recently, I borrowed it from my housemate to see what all the fuss was about!
I didnt know you were a fan of such genres Dot?
ReplyDeleteVampire angle rather than teenage angle: I prefer Anne Rice but when you've tried everything on the steak menu you go for a burger for a change...............
ReplyDeleteIts not a problem Jay you just virtually DUCK!
ReplyDeleteAgree with Dotteral that it besmirches the reputation of teapots.
BTW who is Atlashruggedagain? Over on Jeremy Seabrook's thread lovely piece, put me in a good mood despite its being a tad utopian, he said:
" Nobody gives a s**t about those at the bottom of the food chain. You might pretend to care but you don't fool me."
and
" You may have noticed from my post that I am a little bit of a social darwinist with Nazi leanings so I welcome a society that sterilises the worthless and rewards the useful."
Nice!
Roger Hicks is there as well so its not him (unless he's posting as two people!) The usual post!
He's quite a recent acquisition to CiF. He's definitely not Roger Hicks. Roger Hicks is like Himmler on acid and all loved up. The most bizarre combination of Social-Darwinism and some weird new age ideas. To be honest, when he's not amusing me with his posts, he creeps me out. Have you noticed how he always italicises and emphasises certain words like Darwinian.
ReplyDeleteIf you read his posts closely (I did so when I first encountered them, because they're so peculiar), they are basically Social-Darwinian but with even less content. Bizarre.
Yes he has some ideas almost right about the social evolution of humanity but his take on it is wierd.
ReplyDeleteAnd what on earth is our Darwinian nature? If he means what I think he means its survival of the strongest. Thats not what survival of the fittest means it actually means survival of those who fit their environmental niche best.
I don't usually read his posts anymore they are nearly always exactly the same!
I wonder if there will be a comedy Friday thread tomorrow...? Very much hoping so, a Bindel would be good, (and long overdue).
ReplyDeleteYes, annetan, that's the irony. He doesn't really understand Darwin's theory.
ReplyDeleteI'm never quite sure what he's really suggesting. He's obsessed by white people not mixing with non-white people (he harps on about indigenous Europeans and their rights to genetic purity), and then always emphasises the Darwinian nature of humans. It's so abstract, it's difficult to see what he really means. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's impossible not to think he's hinting at some kind of uber-Mensch idea, based on race.
olching/annetan
ReplyDeleteYup, had a run in with him (I think!) a few months back, tried to introduce him to the concept of hybrid vigour, he wasn't having any of it (and no he REALLY doesn't understand evolutionary theory!)
Oh what i would give for a Biddy friday special...
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you wish for Jay!
ReplyDeleteBring her on, im ready. Its a friday, its easter next week, i am ready for her.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost (but not quite) upset that I'm not around tomorrow!
ReplyDelete(I'll be up to my waist in a river)
A river? Eh?
ReplyDeleteWhoever AtlasShruggedAgain may be, he or she is very confused.
ReplyDeleteS/he appears to be supporting and justifying the bailout of the banks on libertarian grounds, when every other libertarian of left or right (not least the Rand Institute) are absolutely steaming mad about it, calling it rampaging socialism (from the right) or shameless bolstering of rampant capitalism (from the left).
One of the most tedious things about the collapse of the financial free market is the sudden emergence of Ayn Rand fans. Personally I think it's like A Brief History of Time. Thousands of people might be buying it, but I can't believe there are that many people who are patient, gullible or brainless enough to get past the first 600 turgid pages without throwing it furiously out the window in despair. There will be a hell of a lot more who have never read a word of her writings, but looked her up on Wikipedia and declare themselves disciples. I'd hazard a guess that ASA is one of those.
The scariest prospect is of an associated surge in the sales of Rush albums.
{shudder}
Work!
ReplyDeleteI get paid to play in rivers, I love my job!
(and will be around less as the field season kicks off, finally the boring office stuff is nearly over!)
What do you do in rivers though?
ReplyDeleteBank bailout is libertarian? WTF? Im not sure i even want to know, this sounds like a pit of stupidity it would be mad to get sucked into...
Yeah Dot, what do you do in rivers? I ask because I recently applied for a job as a field assistant on a riparian/river conservation programme. I obviously didn't get it (sniff). I think, because I didn't have the experience in electro fishing. It looked like such an interesting position... I wish I had the time to do some volunteering stuff to get the experience but alas right now I am way too busy. One day tho.... (*daydreams)
ReplyDeleteASA's on the San leith thread now. Marxism's been tried and it failed na na na nana!
ReplyDeletePriceless!
So I've been wise in skipping over ASA's posts? I've never actually read any - the user name alone told me all I needed to know. Whoever he/she/it is - he/she/it must surely be a compatriot of mine. I'd like to think there aren't too many Europeans stupid enough to enjoy Rand. Had an AmLit prof who told us she probably ought to make us read Atlas Shrugged, but she didn't hate us that much.
ReplyDeleteI've read Atlas Shrugged. It was an interesting experience - I enjoyed it as a story despite the philosophy. Call it suspension of ideological distaste, if you will. At the time I thought it well written, too. That was a long time ago maybe I'll look again to see if it feels different.
ReplyDeleteOn the 'where are they now' thing, I've been wondering about billposters. I was looking at his comments the other day because I was wondering where he'd got to. He last posted on 23rd Feb. I'd never dare get into an argument with him because he'd never give up, but he's very witty at times. Also, he has this mutual respect thing going with Sarka - I once read a post of hers referring to a standing invitation to visit her. Does anyone know anything?
I do remember that I can start threads, Montana. I will soon...
Ouch! "Europeans stupid enough to enjoy Rand". Perfect timing too...
ReplyDeleteWell, let me clarify, Martillo. I've not actually read Rand, so I'm being a bit of a jerk by saying "stupid enough to enjoy Rand". Knowing that I find her ideology repugnant, I just couldn't see the point in even trying to read her. I'm told Hitler painted some nice pictures - but I have no desire to look at them (did I just Godwin?) If you've been able to stomach her, more power to you. But anyone who could say something like this:
ReplyDeleteToday's mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy. A philosophy out to destroy man's mind is necessarily a philosophy of hatred for man, for man's life, and for every human value. Hatred of the good for being the good, is the hallmark of the twentieth century.
is someone whose grave I would happily dance upon.
sounds standard billp behaviour to me, martillo - for a couple of months he's all over cif like a rash, followed by a couple of months of silence - probably the result of an institutionally imposed shared facility roster ;0
ReplyDeleteoh, forgot to mention, here's a link for anyone interested in the GU books blog on Ayn Rand as author
ReplyDeleteYep, you Godwinned ma'am. Not that I think there's anything wrong with that. AH is useful as a litmus test for an argument, just as wives and servants once were in telling decent literature from pornography. You could have said something like "I wouldn't like to encounter any work by the most evil human being I can imagine" (which takes us back to our 'acceptable music' thread, but that loses something in immediacy. The thing is, I have neither the time nor the desire to apply moral tests to artists. I might refuse to buy their work if I want to avoid rewarding them, but whether I enjoy it is another matter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that interesting link, parallax. What a pleasant, polite thread. If I'm to keep any credibility I may have, I'll have to reconsider the 'well-written'. Nice to see others felt the same compunction to finish it, though. I hope billp does come back - I really miss some of his one-liners.
Well, you asked for a Friday special... and what do we get?
ReplyDeleteHarry Phibbs writing about cane toads.
he must have known what was coming, especially since I've been deleted twice in the past for pointing out the striking similarity between Harry and Toad of Toad Hall.*
Sometimes it is just too, too easy.
*Not as often as I've been deleted for pointing out that Hazel Blears looks exactly like Chucky from Child's Play.
Some of the comments on Harry Phibbs article are hilarious. Let's see how they stay up there.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite was this from Quixotematic:
A cane toad's eye view of pest control from the batrachian Phibbs.
Until Ally came up with his comment. Made me laugh so hard.
Here it is in case it's modded:
I think Harry should become Toadfinder General, a Matthew Hopkins for the 21st Century.
The twist in the tail, however, would be just like the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where Judge Doom, the Tooncatcher-in-Chief, has his masked removed to reveal that he is in fact a toa... sorry a Toon himself.
But you would look mighty fine in the long black coat and big black hat, Harry.
Nice one dude :)
I'm being a bit naughty at the moment. Trying to incite CathElliot or ultimathule over on the Bruni vs Obama fashion thread is probably not a good idea in the long run. But who cares, the sun is shining at last in Budapest (spring finally arrived, 19degrees and sunny) and I'm up for some fun.
And congrats to olching for getting a Best of the Comments. I'll have a brown beer for you once I get to the park mate.
"Trying to incite CathElliot or ultimathule over on the Bruni vs Obama fashion thread is probably not a good idea in the long run."
ReplyDeleteI cant believe the Guardian, i really cant. After their smug, sanctimonious droning day after day about how badly women are treated by the patriarchy, they wheel out an article like this. Beyond belief. Their hypocrisy is mindblowing.
Please, please, I'm begging, can you provide a link?
ReplyDeleteHere you go...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/03/michelle-obama-carla-bruni-sarkozy-fashion
*Sigh*....
ReplyDeleteWhy in Madonna's Mercy wasn't this opened for comment?
it is open for comment! Get stuck in! Though i expect mine to last maybe another 10 minutes at best.
ReplyDeleteRead the Belinda article, absolutely demolishes Gupta and co, but in a polite and dignified way. I love Guardian moments like this, just when my faith is wavering....
ReplyDeletePestinpest: It worked, ultimahule posted at 4.49 on the fashion thread...
ReplyDeleteSomething similar to the job original went for, you're right about the volunteering BTW, best way to get into it.
ReplyDeleteCan someone give me a quick run down of todays threads in a "my day on CIF style"? Sounds like it was fun!
I need to rant - I'm reading the Madge/adoption thread. elscollondelgos took imognenblack to task for using 'it' to refer to the child in question and this was how lovely imogenblack replied:
ReplyDeleteelsscollondelgos - does everyone in the world HAVE to be child crazy? For that matter does everyone have to come up to your standards of literacy..?
You know when you work closely with kids they do become a bit of an other - its more of a coping tactic than a 'distance'.
aaaaaaarrrrrghghggg!!!!!!!! WTF?? 'an other'??? No, everybody doesn't have to be 'child crazy'. But, christ on a goddamn bike, if you've chosen a job that means that you work with kids then you ought to at least think of them as human beings!!!!!!! I'll just bet you anything imogen is just like some of the middle class bitches at my school who sit in the staff room and complain about the attitudes and behaviour of some of the kids who come from the shittiest homes you can imagine - kids whose parents are drunks or strung out on meth or in prison. Kids with 3 or 4 siblings and every single one of them has a different father. These candy-assed bitches have never made one ounce of effort to meet these kids half-way or give them a break on anything. They're the very ones who say this shit about "Oh, you can't think too much about that, because it just gets too depressing." Well, if it depresses you to think about it - HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK IT FEELS TO LIVE IT????????
Here ends the rant.
Thank you.
Oooh, Vari, excellent comment on the Madge thread at 3:20 pm!
ReplyDeleteMontanna if I had £10 for everytime I've sat in a staffroom like that I wouldn't have a problem living on my pension.
ReplyDeleteWell said it does make you want to scream doesn't it! I once said of a class that the poor needs needed a psychotherapist not a teacher. I was told that that was a disgusting thing to say! But it was actually true in fact considering what they were dealing with it was a miracle they were so nice!
There's an organisation in South London called Kid's Company that does brilliant work in this field. You can find out about them here
http://www.kidsco.org.uk/about-us
Every town and city on the planet needs one of these organisations.
They had about 2000 kids there on Christmas day. 2000! Wonderful that they did it, but mind wrenchingly dreadful that they had to.
Sorry to go on - its something I feel so strongly about.
Came on to say I did so agree that despite all its faults I for one think the BBC is well worth £142,50 per year. That's under £13 per month!
ReplyDeleteOh and I think Marina's article is excellent!
ReplyDelete(Written as sunburnt, free-style jazzed out and slightly drunk Pest). Marina's article was funny and rather good. She's been on form recently.
ReplyDeleteAnd my comment about fashion got modded in the end. They're no fun :( hehehehe all the way to the bathroom (hic)
Annetan - I shall expect you to weigh in on the "It's the Parents' Fault" thread!
ReplyDeleteI already have! Had a go at MAm don't know why I bother. It just seems like a good idea at the time... :-)
ReplyDeleteYour contributions were good I agree - totally.
Oh, he/she (pretty sure the pronoun's 'he') winds me up! Obviously hasn't got a feckin' clue what it's like in a classroom these days.
ReplyDeleteSorry i just have to share this with someone, apologies to any religious folk (if we have any here?), but i got a pamphlet through my door, i have a big jehovahs witness centre just round the corner, so might have been them. I had a flick through for comedy value, it is packed with earnest proselytising, but i did stumble upon this little gem of a sentence:
ReplyDelete"Bible truth liberates us from superstition."
Mourn with me, brothers.
Jay, it reminds me of this rather lovely news report:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4350625.stm
"The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true."
"The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true."
ReplyDeleteThat is an all time classic. That is priceless. This should be on Dawkins website as its header.
No he hasn't its quite amusing taking him on every time he digs himself deeper into a hole.
ReplyDeleteAlso my union and my politics are to blame for all of it. and as for the bit about adults should be able to control kids well...
I suspect s/he is about my age and went to a grammar school (which is a High school for bright kids). Wouldn't know a learning difficulty if he fell over it! and has absolutely no idea about modern classrooms as you say.
S/he is a complete bigot who lives in a dream world where lefties are all lazy gits inventing new forms of testing to mask the results of their incopetance.
Trouble is people like him have been burdening teachers with sats tests and overburdened curricula for the last 30 years in this country. They are designed to control what is taught in schools and as you said how its taught.
I left teaching in the 90's my last job was teaching nueracy to the adult learning disabled. At least there I could still do some really innovative teaching although when I retired it was getting difficult even there.
It worries me. We have a saying here what the US does wrong today we in the UK will do next week. Certainly true of education sadly. ( and foreign policy!)
Its the view of all teachers as raving lefties that gets me. Some of us are but most are very middle of the road
Don't get me wrong Montana I am sure you guys get things right its just that we never copy them!
ReplyDeleteOh, annetan - don't ever worry about offending my patriotism - you'd need a microscope to see any in me. It is ironic, though, isn't it? The things that have really caused the greatest harm in the classroom, as far as policy goes, are the standardised testing and teacher performance evaluation that have to be done to try to prove to people like MAM that teachers are doing their jobs.
ReplyDeleteSomeone called John Oslo has just said (on John O'Connor's thread
ReplyDelete"We have something to learn from so-called 'police states'. At least people sleep safe in their beds there."
I just don't believe it!
I'm not sure whether he was being ironic, Annetan. There's been a lot of sarcasm on the threads, because of the magnitude of this instance. MartinSmith, EoS, and NP, however, have not been sarcastic, merely bastards.
ReplyDeletewhy has CIF been so boring this week?
ReplyDeleteOlching I suppose so but am I alone in thinking that irony isn't really appropriate on this issue?
ReplyDeleteIrony doesn't come over well online anyway.
His having a 'weak heart (usually means heart failure) is leaving me feeling very vulnerable at the moment. His behaviour criticised by some (walking slowly not responding etc is soooo like me when I'm tired. When I post crap and I do sometimes it usually means I need to lie down for an hour.
I suspect he was compromised from the first (unvideoed but reported confrontation). he should have had medical attention from that point with his condition. Makes me shudder.
Definitely not going even on small local demos any more.
Annetan, we don't even know he died from a heart attack. That's the police spin. For all we know he may have hit his head hard on the floor during that incident or a previous one. That of course would be worse. I've been saying it cuold be involuntary manslaughter, but of course that's only when accepting the police spin of 'heart attack waiting to happen'. The charge could probably be upgraded. Shameful, but so bloody typical.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, your observations are interesting and of course put paid to the smear campaign (which has already started in some papers) of gradually shifting the blame onto him etc...
Hope you're well Annetan; I'm going to as many demos this summer as possible and I will film and photograph as many officers as possible.
I'm fine so long as I take my pills like a good girl!
ReplyDeleteNot sure sure where the weak heart story came from and your point about the blow to the head (he may have had more than one) is an interesting point and a distinct possibility.
But I know what going into heart failure is like, he had been at work, he was wandering around trying to find a way out of the city. If he had the same problem as me that would make him exhausted confused and raise his heart rate and BP to dangerous levels (which would be lower for him than for a healthy person).
My consultant likes mine to beat at a nice steady 60pm! Thanks to the meds it does I'm like a metronome!
I keep remembering how I was when I was rushed to hospital and then think what it must have been like to be in that state in the middle of that situation.
Poor guy
Lets hope the second post mortem discovers the real cause of death. Whether it was brain trauma or heart failure the police were culpable I've no doubt of that, its obvious.
I believe a diabetic and an epileptic had problems while being 'kettled' as well.
It should now be obvious to all that the police are there to protect them not us. In fact Editorial thread demonstrates that many are beginning to see this.
The state is an armed body of men and serves the interest of the ruling class. The met is demonstrating this principle perfectly!
Take care of yourself on those demos! I'll be with you in spirit!
Are you going to the memorial one on Easter Sunday?
ReplyDeleteAnnetan, no won't be going...family Easter business and all...
ReplyDeleteThe politicisation of the police is getting worse in fact, now with Boris in charge in London...and so it continues.
Seen theRuth Sunderland thread - its priceless Cheryl Cole (Girls aloud? is that right?) is quoted as saying.
ReplyDelete"At home in Teesside, my dad and the fathers of my friends handed over their pay to their wives and were given pocket money. Men were not trusted to be responsible - never mind that most were too meek and henpecked to dare run amok."
I've never seen a statement that manages to insult a working class culture(both men and women) that evolved to deal with low pay that just about kept body and soul together.
This was tradition in many working class communities, it wasn't about men being under a man's thumb(In Northumberland? your joking). It was about men and women struggling to bring up kids in conditions of dire poverty. How much pocket money he got wasn't the wife's decision it was a matter of what could be spared after they were all fed and clothed, which was the wife's responsibility. It was his responsibility to bring the money home!
How sad that she is so unaware of the history of her region, But then the way history is taught these days its not surprising.
I won't mention the troll who decided to call it "domestic violence on a grand scale"
Should I call a gender war alert here?
I was wrong seems to be an interesting discussion (for a change). Daft article though.
ReplyDeleteThe premise seems to be that women are financially incompetant. I don't think we are - no ore than men are anyway.