All facets of a person’s life – including employment, education, place of residence, access to medical facilities, and access to stores – are determined by a semi-hereditary system of social discrimination that classifies citizens into 53 subgroups based on their family’s perceived loyalty to the regime.

Kim Jong Il’s utopian North Korea, as described in The Least Free Places on Earth: 2010. From the Freedom in the World 2010 survey. 

Readers will recall Amanda Marcotte, a popular leftwing feminist whose wisdom has entertained us more than once. Not least with her famous publishing blunder and subsequent, rather competitive, displays of  racial consciousness. Nor should we forget Amanda’s belief that the inclination to reproduce is a dastardly social construct “preserved” by unnamed villains solely to ensure that women without children aren’t recognised as “complete individuals.” Some may treasure memories of Amanda’s evidence-free claim that critics of academic feminism, among them Daphne Patai and Christina Hoff Sommers, are “trying to oppress women.”

Ms Marcotte’s recent ruminations involve sympathy cards for men and women affected by abortion. Of particular interest to Amanda is the sympathy card for men whose partners have chosen to abort their child-to-be:

The card is question is produced by the Fatherhood Forever Foundation, a religious organisation opposed to current abortion law. Now one might disagree with the motives of the organisation and one might find the cards grimly cheesy and a dubious commercial prospect, but that isn’t what caught my eye. What’s interesting are the reactions of Ms Marcotte and her readers in a post titled Thwarted Sperm Finally Have An Advocate. It goes without saying the Sisterhood isn’t thrilled:

Apparently abortion must be – can only be – an issue of “uterine property” and patriarchal control. After all, what other considerations could possibly be in play?

And,

Because if a woman chooses abortion and her male partner isn’t entirely happy at this outcome, even if he agreed with it and would defend it in principal, he must be a douchebag, a deadbeat or a dick. Such things are simply known by the ladies at Team Pandagon, where righteousness prevails, prejudice is unheard of, and telepathy is commonplace.

With big sticks.

Armed with a “bounty fund” of over £9000, George Monbiot has been urging Guardian readers to effect a citizen’s arrest of Tony Blair, ostensibly for committing “an illegal act of mass murder” and “crimes against peace.” (Mercifully, this bounty doesn’t extend to parliament or a sizeable part of the British electorate.) Monbiot’s campaign website includes the former prime minister’s public schedule and a charmingly ambiguous assurance:

The fund will remain open for as long as Mr Blair lives, or until he is officially prosecuted.

The proposal met with much whooping and hooting among Guardian readers, with more than a few enthusiastic endorsements:  

I would actually like Blair’s blood on my hands.

Elsewhere, saner voices have noted some procedural concerns.

Blair hasn’t been found guilty of anything by any court, tribunal or other competent forum unless you count the High Court of Islington (Chattering Class Division).

And,

Amusingly, if someone did act in this way as a result of Monbiot’s urgings, Monbiot would also be liable, as he would have procured the wrong and the wrongdoer’s actions would also be attributed to him. I would suggest, as well, that his employer, the Guardian, would be vicariously liable for Monbiot’s wrongdoing.

Readers may recall George’s earlier attempt to arrest former US ambassador John Bolton, which didn’t go terribly well. I perhaps don’t need to add that some of us were hoping to see Mr Bolton decking Monbiot personally, quite firmly, and maybe more than once.

Here’s a thing.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States of causing the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which killed possibly 200,000 people. Chavez believes the U.S. was testing a tectonic weapon to produce eco-type devastations.

Blimey. One wonders how this revelation will go down among the Great Man’s admirers here in the UK.

But I’m confused. I thought only “The Jews” had such diabolical technology. As revealed in December 2007 when Hamas MP Ahmad Abu Halabiya informed Al-Aqsa TV that,

It is not impossible for the Jews to generate an artificial earthquake… in order to accomplish their goal of destroying the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Needless to say, The Guild of Evil™ has been conducting research of its own with this mobile apparatus.

Update: Not what it seems, it seems.