Author: Brian Carnell

British Gov’t Workers Required to Report Inter-Office Sexual Liasions

UK newspaper The Observer reports that fears of sexual harassment lawsuits have prompted many government agencies in Great Britain to require employees to report any sexual relationships they are having with their colleagues to their respective human resources department.

And such fears appear to be well-founded. According to The Observer,

Research by academics at the University of Sydney suggests that almost a quarter of failed office relationships end in sexual harassment cases, and a survey in America by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 52 per cent of companies believe they suffer in some way because of romance in the workplace. Nearly a third of employees quizzed said they feared office affairs would end in claims of sexual harassment. Small wonder then that 95 per cent of personnel managers said they believed office romances should not be allowed or, at least, should be discouraged.

Which, of course, takes further along the road to where Daphne Patai predicted the sexual harassment industry was eventually headed — to stigmatizing heterosexual relationships as inherently suspect.

Are two of your coworkers sleeping together? Well, clearly, somebody should be watching that situation to make certain it doesn’t get out of hand. As Patai put it, “Two fundamentally opposing world views are currently in collision. One of them sees sex (especially male sexuality) as a perpetual danger. The other sees sex as primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men.”

Clearly the former are in charge in the UK.

Source:

Personnel affair. The Observer, July 20, 2003.

Kuwaiti Minister Suggests Expanded Rights for Women Close

Kuwait’s minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah was quoted by Arabic News.Com in June as saying that he believes the next session of that country’s parliament will approve legislation guaranteeing political rights to women.

In July, Kuwait’s parliamentary elections resulted in a parliament that is likely to be much more supportive of the current government, which has wanted legislation seeking political equality for women for several years now.

In 1999 Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued a decree declaring political equality for women, but that decree has been opposed by parliament which has prevented it from entering into Kuwaiti law.

Sources:

Kuwait’s FM voices support for women issues. ArabicNews.Com, June 16, 2003.

Kuwaiti parliament postpones voting on women’s political rights decree. ArabicNews.Com, November 18, 1999.

On Kuwait’s women’s rights for participating in the elections. ArabicNews.Com, July 8, 2003.

Conversant Gets WYSIWYG

A few weeks ago, Macrobyte added a WYSIWYG textbox editor to Conversant. Works really nice, and the addition has made a lot of my users happier.

I, on the other hand, really don’t like WYSIWYG boxes for routine editing, although it does come in handy in some situations. One of the nice things about Conversant is it makes it very easy to configure the WYSIWYG box so each user can choose to turn it on or off as they see fit.

It’s always nice to give users as much control as possible over things like that.

Stop With the Automated Replies Already

I completely agree with this Arstechnica posting,

I’ve never sent out a virus email in my life, yet I’ve recieved dozens of email messages from well-meaning antivirus systems to tell me I have, simply because the systems take the forged From header as gospel. Indeed, for my own Inbox, the combination of these automated replies and bounces from defunct email addresses (also generated by the virus) has been much more of a nuisance than the virus itself!

Of course, the worst part of all of this is that these “secondary” messages are being sent out for all the right reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact that these automated antivirus emails are only making the problem of email congestion worse.

I’m actually receiving more of these automated responses than I am actual instances of the virus.

I also absolutely despise it when people set auto replies to their personal e-mail accounts. Awhile ago I was copied on an e-mail that numerous people replied to and then replied to replies. The problem was that one of the recipients had gone on an extended leave of absence and left an automated message to that effect — which I think I received at least 50 times.

Conventional Ali Captured

Here’s a hilarious take on the capture of Ali “Chemical Ali” Hassan al-Majid in Iraq this week,

Coalition Troops Capture ‘Conventional Ali’

(2003-08-21) — The Iraqi general formerly known as ‘Chemical Ali’ was captured this morning by Coalition troops.

However, Ali Hassan al-Majid is now officially known as ‘Conventional Ali,’ since it is common knowledge that Iraq had no chemical weapons program.

“The thousands of Iraqis and Kurds who we thought were gassed on Al-Majid’s orders, must have died from breathing the smoke of conventional weapons or perhaps sand dust,” said an unnamed Pentagon spokesman. “But Conventional Ali will still be charged with misdemeanor violations of some environmental regulations about dust control at work sites.”

The Cost of Academic Conferences

I don’t know much about organizing or pricing academic conferences, my wife is in charge of organizing a big-assed four day conference with thousands of attendees from around the world. She has some thoughts about BloggerCon’s pricing (her conference’s registration fee, by the way, comes in at less than $100 for four days).