Stop all the f*** ing victim-blaming, OK? Just stop it.

(Your humble correspondent is feeling exceptionally cranky today, so prepare for even less tact than usual.)

Recently, a scumbucket pervert misogynistic motherf***ing hacker stole a lot of nude photos of famous women and posted them online. And a lot of people who really should know better have said really stupid s*** like “it’s her own fault, because she posted them online”. All together now, let us respond from the First Book of Crankitude: “BULL-F***ing-S***”.

This is victim-blaming crap, and it is usually done to women. It takes many forms. A few examples:
“She should have known better than to have nude pictures of herself”;
“She shouldn’t have been drinking”;
“She shouldn’t have gone to a party”;
Or, of course, this writer’s pet peeve; “She was asking for it, dressing that way”.

All of these statements are pretty much equivalent: they are designed to control and degrade women, and have been used towards that end with (sadly) great success. And uttering any of them makes the speaker the moral equivalent of a peeping tom, Fundagelical wingnut preacher, rapist, or all of the above.

We don’t often (if ever) say these things about men. We don’t apply these antediluvian judgements to men. No, it’s pretty much always women who get the shame & blame treatment.

Until men are treated the same way as women, let’s all just stop treating women as if we were living in the dark f***ing ages. That isn’t really all that much to ask.

Mister Blunt and Cranky

This is how far the NSA has fallen:

The tech industry now considers the National Security Agency to be a “threat”, and a bunch of “malicious hackers”. This is a direct quote from Apple, after they found out that the NSA has been secretly hacking our iPhones. Our tech industry now classes a government agency as being equivalent to spies, thieves, anarchist nutjobs and other such scumbuckets.

This writer agrees, and since he is writing this post on a iPhone, he offers this cheery message to the NSA: “F*** the lot of you, in whatever manner would be the least pleasant and most painful. F*** you, NSA, and the computer you rode in on.”

The NSA took the laws they got from the Bushistas and ran like Forrest Gump, with no one holding up a sign saying “stop”. And now they are hated, reviled, and have been revealed to be hurting our nation instead of protecting it.

The laws that have allowed the NSA to become an enemy of the American people need changed, of course; the reason they were able to do all of this stems from the early Oughts when an Administration with no respect for the Constitution ran roughshod over the rule of law. It’s long past time to correct those many wrongs.

Meanwhile, if Apple thinks the NSA is a load of malicious hackers, you’d be well advised to pay attention. The NSA is now our enemy. And for an agency of the federal government to have descended to such a lowly and despicable status is a tragedy worthy of Sophocles.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky