Money, sex, death

Things are carrying on here, with another 5.5 quake last night and a new water conservation method in my household - making sure to run the shower into a bucket while it's warming. Heading into the summer with restrictions in place, after the rocky months we've had, is a little worrying for so many people who've taken the quality of our water for granted.

Money
Ben Kepes has posted a piece following on from an earlier one about major questions regarding the honesty of demolition companies working in the commercial red zone. Because of a lucky coincidence in the timelines he's able to show evidence of what seems to be a pretty bold rort on demolition costs - namely, a 400% increase from pre-February quotes. There's a couple of comments about one particular point of the breakdown, namely the waste removal charge, that may shape up to be illuminating depending how they go.

Sex
I hesitate to use the word sex despite it fitting thematically because this isn't about sex, it's about rape. Every so often I head to fmylife.com and skim through the posts. Some of them are pretty dodgy, but nothing compared to what I found when I clicked on the option to vote on submissions. From the outright statements to statutory rape (FML? FHL.) to, oh, more statutory rape, it was a rather disturbing ten minutes. Note that there were a few more that I clicked past before realising I should have capped those as well! The fact that I turned up so many of these in such a short time really suggests something about how huge a problem this is, especially when you consider that most people wouldn't post something like this on FML. (And yes, I'm aware that one or any of them could be made up, but I think that also ties in to how prominent and insidious rape culture is.)

Though for something slightly lighter, I also caught a birth control stupid.

Death
As alerted by No Right Turn, today is World Day Against the Death Penalty. This post has a couple of suggestions for things you can do regarding the four countries in the South Pacific where the death penalty is still legal, though three of those four aren't actively using the legislation and the fourth isn't enacting it - at the moment.

Though, I do note with interest that the poster used to advertise the day seems to feature a white man, though it's admittedly hard to say for sure due to the colour palette as he could be some variety of light-skinned Middle Eastern.