FFS – Page 4 – mikeybear

Facebook. Cünt Of The Day.

Facebook banned me for 30 days for using the words “poof” and “dyke”. Why?

Over the past couple of years I’ve sustained a number of increasingly harsh bans on my Facebook account as a result of reports against content that I’ve posted.

The most recent report on my account resulted in a 30 day ban on posting that went beyond any other ban against me, including sending private messages, liking posts or pages, unsubscribing from groups (that others added me to) and so on.

I try to play fair on Facebook because I don’t really want to lose my access and I don’t really want to be a problem user.

This is what Facebook took exception to most recently:

The message in question was one I sent via Twitter that was cross-posted to Facebook. I didn’t feel this a particularly offensive message given that the words “poof” and “dyke” are in common use in Australia and given that Lyle Shelton did admit he was concerned that people might think him gay if marriage equality became a reality in Australia.

One might say that the words “poof” and “dyke” are offensive. They can be, depending on context and who is using them, much like the word “nïgger” can be offensive. I couldn’t get away with reasonably calling someone a nïgger as easily as an African American could. Similarly, as a gay man I have no concern appropriately referring to myself or someone else who is gay (or who is perceived to be) as a poof. In the right context it can even be a term of endearment.

So to my use of the words “poof” and “dyke” on Facebook, it’s hard to think Facebook actually has a problem with them:

So if Facebook permits the use of the words “poof” and “dyke” in its groups, pages and places, what actual justification does it have for slapping a 30 day ban on my account for using these words, in a context that is factual?

Double standards Facebook?

PS. Facebook doesn’t even seem to have a problem with the word “nïgger” appearing in it’s pages (etc):

or “cünt”:

Carl Katter, meet Barbra Streisand

Carl Katter, ALP candidate for Higgins, wants to make a 2013 Twitter conversation of his disappear from the public record. If you play dirty about it, it comes back to bite you.

On February 1 2013 Same Same published a story on Carl Katter’s political aspirations. On August 10 2015 Crikey also published comments on Carl Katter’s political aspirations. Crikey referred to the Same Same article:

Carl Katter has long flagged that he’s interested in a political career, saying he wanted to run before the 2013 election after joining the party in late 2012. We hope that preselection won’t tame Katter’s honest Twitter presence, including this exchange with Freedom Commissioner Tim Wilson in 2013 that was later deleted (and caught by SameSame):

The following snapshot of a Twitter exchange appeared in both articles:

I run a public Facebook group called “Proud to be a Second-Class Australian“. The aim of the group is to stimulate awareness of discrimination and to motivate people to campaign for LGBTIQ rights. I post a significant amount of content as part of my activism. Members can also post relevant content freely. I like to ensure what I post is “warts and all”, in an effort to eliminate bias.

On August 10 I posted the aforementioned graphic to the Facebook group, including a link to the Crikey article. I captioned the image “I said love, I said pet, I said princess.” Shortly after posting the image I received a message from Carl Katter and then he blocked me. Fair enough. He’s entitled to do this. He did this a couple of years ago too. Some time in the middle he unblocked me. I guess at that point he felt he wanted me back as a Facebook friend.

Here is what he sent me on both occasions:

A little after receiving this message I got a warning on Facebook that I had breached their “community standards” and notification of a 7 day ban on posting to Facebook. This means that someone had reported content I had posted on Facebook and Facebook had decided it was somehow inappropriate. This is the message Facebook sent me:

Facebook message on Katter Twitter issue

I’m about 6 days through the 7 day ban:

It’s been a frustrating week for me as this ban has severely limited my capacity to do my activism. It’s been the busiest news week in 11 years on marriage equality. It’s been the week in which I was the key player in breaking a story on a controversial reparative (“gay cure”) therapist coming to talk to a Melbourne Jewish child sexual abuse group. It’s been the week one the biggest marriage equality rallies ever happened in Melbourne. It’s been the week Carl Katter probably needed some good publicity in his election campaign. It’s also been another week I’ve not needed more unnecessary distractions in my personal life.

So I ask the question why Carl Katter would not want me to post a picture that is already in the public domain, about comments he posted on Twitter two years ago. Why would he block me on Facebook for doing this? Why would someone concerned about Carl Katter’s reputation report a photo of a public Twitter conversation including him to Facebook that resulted in me copping a harsh 7-day posting ban? I get no say in this outcome on Facebook. I just have to cop it sweet. I’ve mostly managed to work around it but it’s wasted my time and significantly diminished my capacity to fight for LGBTIQ equality during a particularly important week.

If Carl Katter is concerned about his image and if he wants to maximise his chances of winning the seat of Higgins, it certainly doesn’t bode well for him to piss off gay rights activists.

Why am I so harsh on him? He’s abused me. He’s abused my husband Gregory. He’s abused other people in the LGBTIQ community. If he is going to stand for public office he needs to stop abusing people. Actually, he needs to stop abusing people irrespective of whether he is standing for public office. But he is not going to get away with abusing people when he stands for public office. Carl Katter needs to be accountable for his words.

Carl Katter, meet Barbra Streisand.

When saying No To Homophobia can look more like window dressing than genuine support for a cause

The City of Darebin and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria have recently aligned with the No To Homophobia cause, albeit with differing levels of enthusiasm.

On June 3 the City of Darebin Council passed the following motion:

THAT building on its support for the No to Homophobia campaign expressed on 10 December 2012, Council commit to No to Homophobia’s ‘Promise Campaign’, thereby ‘giving its word to stand up against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Always’

Impressive.

In March this year, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria announced they were joining the No To Homophobia campaign. At their May 6 plenum meeting they advised they would not pass a motion in support of saying No To Homophobia or calling others to do so, and instead simply made an informal recommendation to its affiliates:

MOTIONS BEFORE THE PLENUM

The motions on the agenda regarding the ‘No to Homophobia’ campaign and Child Protection were actually recommendations to the JCCV affiliates and not motions which needed to be voted upon. Nina Bassat read the recommendations to the Plenum on the ‘No to Homophobia’ Campaign and the offer from the Child
Protection Reference Group.

Nina Bassat requested that Affiliates advise the JCCV if they sign up to the ‘No To Homophobia’ campaign, and requested that Affiliates respond to the questions in the Child Protection Briefing Paper prepared by Andrew Blode and presented at
the Council of Presidents.

Not so impressive.

This week I asked the JCCV if a motion was put to their plenum that preceded their March announcement to support No To Homophobia, given that there was no minuted record of it in their March plenum minutes. They were unable to provide confirmation of such but advised me they would make enquiries to establish if there was. Watch this space.

window dressing

And so, here we have two sizeable organisations who have both signed up to saying No To Homophobia, the City of Darebin which has made a firm documented commitment to the cause at council level, and the JCCV, not so much. A pity really, because in the absence of such a motion their level of commitment could be perceived to be lacklustre.

Colin Rubenstein, setting his Zionist agenda for the ABC

If Colin Rubenstein of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council wishes to dictate to the ABC who they should not have on Q&A, perhaps he might like to relocate to somewhere like China, North Korea or Iran.

In this week’s Australian Jewish News the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said the ABC should not have invited Ilan Pappe to appear on Q&A:

“The decision by Q&A to frame a program around an individual whose single claim to notoriety is his defamation and demonisation of Israel – a longstanding advocate for Israel’s demise and a man repeatedly caught misusing historical sources to push his openly declared ideological vendetta – is an extraordinary example of contempt for the intelligence of viewers,” Rubenstein said.

I’d like to put it to Colin Rubenstein, and those who concur with his point of view, that the viewers of the ABC, myself included, are intelligent enough to make our own minds up as to whether the ABC should have invited Ilan Pappe to appear on their show and that we don’t need pro-Zionist moral guardians to make our minds up for us.

If Colin Rubenstein wishes to censor the ABC he can take himself off to somewhere like China, North Korea or Iran and open his own state media outlet and not invite Ilan Pappe, over there. In the meantime, in Australia, he should respect the independence of the ABC and the intelligence of its viewers.

Julia Gillard aligns herself with Christians who believe “gays reproduce by molesting kids”

When the prime minister of Australia starts supporting organisations that believe gays reproduce by molesting kids, their time is up.

Today it came to my attention that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is appearing as keynote speaker at the 2012 Australian Christian Lobby National Conference. It also came to my attention that an aligned radical Australian Christian organisation is claiming that “gays reproduce by molesting kids”.

It’s inexcusable for the leader of the nation to remotely associate herself with any organisation that espouses such hateful views

Prime Minister @juliagillard aligns herself with the Christian lobby that believes "Gays reproduce by molesting kids" http://t.co/lKx6vjDh

— Michael Barnett (@mikeybear) August 14, 2012

Julia, its time to leave the house.

How to fool god your soda water is kosher for Passover

When the carbon dioxide in your soda water needs to be approved kosher for passover, it’s time to realise that you’re being scammed to the max.

It never ceases to amaze me as to the level of craziness that some religions aspire to. On the Jewish festival of Passover it’s customary to abstain from food and drink products that are considered ‘chametz‘. Growing up, in the family house, I was made to observe this practice. It caused me great distress one year when as a little boy, maybe 8 or 9 years old, I went to a birthday party for a school friend, during Passover. The friend was not Jewish and Passover meant nothing to him or his family. And so the parents of the birthday boy took us all out to lunch at McDonalds, very generously no doubt.

Realising there was about to be a huge logistical issue for me, I worked up the courage to tell the parents I wasn’t allowed to eat bread, but I didn’t tell them this was because it was Passover. I didn’t know how to explain that to them. This caused a great deal of consternation for the parents and the restaurant, and humiliation for me, as I was not happy with the dilemma I had been placed in. Somehow the restaurant were able to concoct a “hamburger” without the buns for me. It was mostly meat and the salads, and probably had cheese in it as well.

The craziness of this was that my parents didn’t mind too much that the food I was eating at someone else’s party wasn’t kosher, yet they did mind that I ate bread during Passover. I’m glad my parents didn’t find out I was eating meat and cheese together. It would have been the end of the world. There is no logic to this at all. If keeping kosher matters, it should matter 100%, not partially. Not that keeping kosher is about logic either. It defies logic completely and epitomises irrationality.

Yesterday, some 35 years later, it came to my attention that the carbon dioxide gas used in making soft drinks needs to be approved by a kosher authority before it can be considered suitable for consumption during Passover. We’re talking about a substance that is a gas, that contains no solids or liquids. Yet apparently it’s possible that it can contain contaminants that are a by-product of its manufacture that would render it ‘chametz’. WTF.

No doubt many faithful will disagree but to me this is a scam of the highest degree, being perpetrated by a bunch of shonky con artists who are sucking money mercilessly out of people who could better spend it on more important things like health or education. My suggestion to those who are paying the exorbitant prices for kosher foods, especially at Passover, is to think about how gullible you are being and how you are being ripped off by the nonsense that keeping kosher is. Just go and buy an 88c bottle of soda water off the shelf at the regular supermarket and pretend it’s kosher. Your god won’t have the slightest clue. Trust me.

Kosher Australia Update
5 April 2012
Dear All,
We have just completed our investigation of the Schweppes unflavoured mineral water and soda water and found that they are chometz and kitniyos free and may be used on Pesach if purchased before Pesach (before 11am on 6/4/2012 if in Melbourne). Unfortunately the generic brands could not confirm that the carbonation sources were chometz and kitniyos free. (In fact they noted that starch based carbonation was used.)
We are still chasing down information regarding a number of medications and diet specific products and when & if information comes to hand, we will advise the community.
We remind all consumers who have yet to do so, to sell their chometz. Follow this link^* to download the Kosher Australia mechiras chometz form which must be completed and faxed/email back urgently.
Wishing you a Kosher & Joyous Pesach.
Best Regards,
Yankel Wajsbort
General Manager
Kosher Australia Pty Ltd
www.kosher.org.au
main tel: 1300 KOSHER
fax: 03 9527 5665
direct: 03 8317 2502

* http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20174602/Pesach%205772%20Sale%20of%20Chametz%20Form%20for%20Consumers.pdf

AJN Watch confirmed gone soft

Yesterday I said AJN Watch had the bloggers equivalent of erectile dysfunction. In a post just up today they’ve confirmed it:

The simple reason that we have stayed away from this semi-annual “gay moan and gripe” festivities is because it has become boring. Boring for us and boring to our readers. Zehu! Nothing else.

I don’t for one minute believe this codswallop. Their masthead states quite clearly:

We spotlight errors, expose misrepresentations and vigorously advocate our community’s positions.

If they had an ounce of credibility they’d be vigorously advocating their community’s positions, but nope, they’re can’t be bothered.

Soft shmocks.

(P.S. AJN Watch accuses gays of being “half-naked, sexually-disturbed weirdos” and “pink-frilly underpants-wearers”. Their religious community is the one rife with the hideous child sex-abuse scandals, police investigations and cover-ups at Yeshivah College. Not to mention the men walking around the streets in hats made of possums, wearing funny white stockings and curly side-locks, and their women covered up, not unlike the burqa-clad Muslim women, simply because their lecherous men can’t control their sexual urges. They’re not in a position to be calling gays weirdos, especially with this sort of shmutz and weirdness in their community.)

AJN Watch has gone soft (or “Let’s play hide the kosher elephant”)

AJN Watch has gone soft given their lack of response to the Australian Jewish News’ coverage of the homophobic bullying and the ECAJ’s spanking of Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen.

I’m really intrigued. AJN Watch has gone soft. Once they’d take on the Australian Jewish News with great gusto, and most especially when it was on the issue of homosexuality. But of late AJN Watch has remained silent on the major coverage that the AJN gave to the two most pressing issues of late, namely the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s spanking of the out-of-line Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen and the AJN‘s extensive coverage of the taboo topic of homosexuality (in the context of bullying in schools).

Has someone had a word in the ear of the editorial team at AJN Watch and told them it’s not ok to publish gay-hate any more? I suspect they’d be foaming at the mouth with these recent events, and barely able to contain their collective rage. I mean, the best they’ve been able to get outraged about lately is kosher cheese and Jon Faine (and of course a reminder about how to bypass the need to subscribe to the AJN).

I can’t say I’m at all disappointed that their vile hate has been silenced, but I’m curious as to what’s transpired behind the scenes. The silence is deafening.

Ilana Leeds shows strong support for shunned virulently anti-gay rabbi

The bullied anti-bullying campaigner joins ranks with the bully who wants to disband the life-saving anti-bullying program.

In September 2010 Ilana Leeds told us she was a victim of bullying. On Monday this week (Feb 13 2012), Ilana Leeds showed her support for Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, a man who wants to delegitimise an anti-bullying program, simply because it affirms homosexuality.

The hypocrisy here is amazing. Really it is. It’s beggars belief that a self-professed anti-bullying campaigner is promoting the very attitudes, based on disproven junk science, that have been shown to contribute to the alarmingly high rates of youth suicide in Australia.

The bullied anti-bullying campaigner joins ranks with the bully who wants to disband the life-saving anti-bullying program.