There are no pictures of breasts or any other NSFW item here. If you were just looking for that “item,” you can now leave. However, please stay and read the post if you are interested in how you think…

A woman, Jen McCreight, has posted a picture of herself showing some cleavage to oppose a statement made by a male Islamic Cleric. The news post states

“Many women who do not dress modestly… lead young men astray, corrupting their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted last week as saying by Iranian media.

Comedic Insertion

Yes.. Those ARE the two I was looking for…

Sorry, couldn’t help it, there was some “force” affecting me when I made that statement…

If you still don’t get it, well… I can’t help, and I apologize for the use of said language above…

Back to the Story

I am always surprised when a person, religious or not, makes a statement about women and the effects women have on men - different from how women affect men (just to be clear).

Humans have wanted to separate themselves and their “compatriots” into cliques for a very long time. Such separations are to make “us” feel “better” than “them.” It doesn’t matter who “us” and “them” are or whether or not anyone actually is better, but the breakdown of humans into sub-groups continues today.

A woman wears a “skimpy” outfit, and people can imagine what that looks like… Often they are imagining a similar outfit, and they ought to be asking themselves why they have that image associated with that word or phrase.

People think of a “successful man” and often think of a man in a suit and sporting a tie. People think of a “librarian” and an image comes to mind. Why?

Each society has certain similar belief patters, often from religious or social customs. Fashions change because the “new” is “cool” and worn by “that guy” or “that girl” rather than the new “fashion” offering some benefit to the user over the “old” fashion.

We have beliefs that we have due to our parents, our friends, our cliques, our environment, our religion, our society, marketing forces, and other issues we have to deal with as humans. Often, we get “beliefs” because our parents had those beliefs–many times, we haven’t thought why we think that way, we just do…

It is time to start realizing that thinking a girl in a mini-skirt, with thigh-high hose, knee-high boots, and too-tight spaghetti-strap shirt is “loose” or “morally lascivious person” may be wrong. What you are thinking says something about you rather than the person you are looking at while you think those thoughts. You should ask yourself why you have those thoughts and whether those thoughts are generalizations, outright lies, or other baggage that has kept you “prisoner” to your raising (sometimes it is like brainwashing).

Imagine someone coming up to you and yelling, “You are are a stupid (insert your insult here)!” Does the statement, in any way, define you, the person at whom the insult is directed? No. The statement being made says something about the speaker.

Back to Nature

A lion hunts to feed itself and, perhaps, the other lions. The lion does not go out looking for a “hot” meal… (sorry, I’ll try to resist…). If a lion kills a lamb, we don’t blame the lamb for being attractive, for being chased, or for being eaten (sorry, I’m not really trying…). Rather, the lion made a choice on what to kill. The lion may like the taste of lamb, but any lamb would work. The lamb killed was likely sick, injured, or old and not the voluptuous, athletic animal which is better able to evade the lion’s attack.

My Thoughts

Don’t blame the wolf in the sheep’s clothes. The wolf is a wolf and will hunt sheep. It is irrelevant that the religions of the world have problems with the wolf who dresses in a sheep’s clothing (yep, went there again).

Humans will think in sexual terms. We are, after all, animals. We can procreate, or breed as a friend of mine likes to say. Sexual activity feels good because it helps guarantee the continuation of the species.

If you are religious, you have to wonder why God made it feel so good–he could have made it feeling-free. Since it does feel good, you have to admit that God created sexual activity that way for a reason. While it may be to procreate, God may have wanted animals to have a way to get rid of stress. I don’t presume to know all of the reasons, but I can tell you evolution will favor those species that get pleasure from sexual activity. As a matter of fact, I will state that if a certain group of humans got MORE pleasure form sex than others, those populations would tend to grow faster than the others… How is that for behavioral biology? I guess most everyone can grasp that concept…

Summary

Don’t blame women for a man’s activity. Rather, blame the man for not being able to control his emotions and desires. The woman had no way of forcing the man to do anything. Rather, the man chose to act.

This is like arresting prostitutes to stop the desire some men have for sexual activity… It just isn’t going to work folks.

Perhaps the religious community should look to the force for help. If they find the force, they could once again get men to state…

Those aren’t the droids we are looking for…

Patent law provides a way for an inventor to protect the right to what was invented so that the inventor can “reap the rewards” and “recover the costs” of the invention.

The USA Patent Office states

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. U.S. patent grants are effective only within the United States, U.S. territories, and U.S. possessions. Under certain circumstances, patent term extensions or adjustments may be available.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Once a patent is issued, the patentee must enforce the patent without aid of the USPTO.

There are three types of patents:

1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;

2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and

3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant.

The same office states that some things can not be patented

In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if: “(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent,” or “(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United States . . .”

If the invention has been described in a printed publication anywhere in the world, or if it was known or used by others in this country before the date that the applicant made his/her invention, a patent cannot be obtained. If the invention has been described in a printed publication anywhere, or has been in public use or on sale in this country more than one year before the date on which an application for patent is filed in this country, a patent cannot be obtained. In this connection it is immaterial when the invention was made, or whether the printed publication or public use was by the inventor himself/herself or by someone else. If the inventor describes the invention in a printed publication or uses the invention publicly, or places it on sale, he/she must apply for a patent before one year has gone by, otherwise any right to a patent will be lost. The inventor must file on the date of public use or disclosure, however, in order to preserve patent rights in many foreign countries.

Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be refused if the differences would be obvious. The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention. For example, the substitution of one color for another, or changes in size, are ordinarily not patentable.

What I love about this process…

A double-sided toothbrush was determined to NOT be prior art or obvious and was given a patent because the patent application, itself, stated

While there exist prior art toothbrushes which focus on brushing the teeth and gums, there has yet to be provided a toothbrush which includes a dual purpose of comfortably and effectively enabling brushing one’s teeth and gums and also the remaining mouth tissue. The present invention achieves this.

Yes, that makes sense…

Now you see the “why” behind the move for patent reform…