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Random Rants 6

Entry 556, on 2007-06-18 at 23:05:59 (Rating 3, News)

Here's some more random rants based on some stories I saw in the news today.

A New Zealand blogger commented on a "miraculous" Jesus nightlight which appears to watch you wherever you go. The website says: "Your children will love this nightlight, as Jesus appears to be watching over them wherever they are. Your children may receive comfort, security, and relief from those sleepless and scary nights." Judging by the image they have used to represent Jesus (we don't know if Jesus even existed and certainly have no idea what he looked like if he did exist) it will more likely scare the kids. I can just imagine them saying "Please Mummy, I'll go to sleep, just turn off the freaky Jesus light!". Well I've always thought Christianity was more scary than comforting!

The BBC reports that people in Britain are being urged to vote for Stonehenge as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. I presume to be modern the new wonders just have to be less ancient than the seven ancient wonders, only one of which - the Great Pyramid - still exists. The modern wonders are all very interesting. Its worth going to the New7Wonders web site to vote before the survey closes on 07-07-07.

Our Prime Minister, Helen Clark, has recently commented that she thinks ideas of reducing travel to help decrease the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere are both idiotic and unscientific. I know that New Zealand will suffer if these ideas ever do gain popularity, but I still think she's wrong. Air travel is a major generator of carbon and other pollutants, and there is no viable alternative to jet fuel to power aircraft. Maybe the era of common global travel is coming to an end. This will definitely damage New Zealand's tourist and export earnings but pretending the problem doesn't exist won't help.

A large New Zealand company has recently been fined for sexual discrimination when it refused to let a woman do a filleting job at its factory. Despite this, the head of the company still thinks the ruling is a joke. He says that women and men are just naturally better at different jobs. The woman concerned has said "anything a man can do, a woman can do better", which is sexist (and untrue) in itself, but reverse sexism seems to be OK. There are jobs where one sex has an advantage over the other but the person should be judged on their performance. If less women than men (or vice versa) do a particular job because less are capable of doing it well, that's OK, but stopping someone from doing a job just because they are a woman (or man) isn't. I don't know the details of this case, but its interesting to see the manager making such a non politically correct comment. Of course this sort of arrogance from big business shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Comment 1 (810) by Damian on 2007-08-22 at 14:44:42:

I agree with you about most of this OJB. The reverse sexism is just as bad as reverse racism I think. The company shouldn't have let this happen. It doesn't matter if they think its right or wrong, they should still know they would get into trouble about it.

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