Can a woman really "steal" your man?

It's that age-old controversy. Can women and men ever be just friends?

To listen to some women (and, admittedly, some men too), the answer would be "no!"

Take Sasha Brown-Worsham over at the Stir. I was reading Instapundit last week (you really should, you know), and came across Brown-Worsham's article entitled "6 Things a Woman Says When She Is Trying to Steal Your Man." To look at her list, it would seem that she is of the opinion that men and women can't be friends. She opens by talking about her seemingly clueless husband:

"My husband is one of those men who is totally clueless to other women's advances. A women could plop down on his lap, start making out with him, and he STILL would say: "What? She just likes me as a friend."

Suuuure. Still, you spend enough time with a guy like that and you start to doubt your female instinct. Maybe she isn't a vicious man-stealing woman, intent on sleeping with my hubby. Maybe she IS just a friend. Let's not kid ourselves."

Now I admit it. I used to be one of these clueless guys, when I was much younger. I never missed any advances (or if I did, they never told me about it and none of my female friends clued me in to it), but I could be very clueless in what a woman was trying to get me to do.

I remember one night at a club, one of the women that was in the group I was out with was talking to me for a while, and she finally had to come out and say "I'm asking you to dance" because I was totally missing what she was hinting at.

But do Brown-Worsham's six things always mean that she's after your man? It can never be that she just finds value in his friendship?

Like #3. "I'll never be as pretty as your wife." Brown-Worsham says "This one is especially manipulative. It LOOKS like a compliment, but it's not. It's actually a thinly disguised way to open a conversation no one should be having with YOUR spouse."

But is it really? It's possible. But it's also possible that the woman has really bad self-image issues. Looks can be a major problem for people of either gender. Both men and women can think that they don't have anything to offer in the attractiveness department. And if you're married to a really hot woman, it's even more possible that another woman will say this (though it's still a sign of low self-confidence, as a confident woman wouldn't feel the need to even compare, or at least state it outright).

Then there's #5: "Wanna go to lunch alone?" It is possible for a man and woman to go to lunch as friends, you know. Friends do it all the time.

That being said, if the emphasis on the invitation is on "alone," then there may be a problem. Especially if the three (or four, if the other woman is also with somebody) of you do go out to lunch a lot. In that case, if she's emphasizing the "alone" part (i.e. without your wife), then there may be an issue.

Either that, or she wants to pump you for Christmas present ideas for your wife.

The comment section is almost more interesting than the post itself, as there are some great arguments made on both sides of the issue. And yes, admittedly, there is some typical Internet stupidity as well.

I think one thing Brown-Worsham is missing in her post is context. That, and patterns.

For example, context is what the situation is when one of these things happens. Is it a woman who's been friends with your husband forever? Then going to lunch is not going to be a problem. Did he tell you about the invitation or did he hide it from you?

If you're both at a bar and a woman neither of you knows says "Wow, my boyfriend would NEVER do that for me. You are SO great!" after talking to you both a bit, then yeah, she's probably hitting on him. But if it's a woman he's known (or maybe even you've both known) for a while, then it may just be her complaining about her boyfriend.

Then there are patterns. Is the woman doing a lot of this? Did she hit all six of these things in one night? Are there a lot of clandestine lunches and meetings? Or is it the occasional lunch and you know about each of them?

This list is much too simplistic, and if people went by it, it would destroy (or prevent) a lot of great friendships.

Which is sad in so many different ways.

Book Review - Foundation by Peter Ackroyd

The subtitle for Peter Ackroyd's new book, Foundation, is "The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors." Sounds like quite the comprehensive book, doesn't it?

And it kind of is, in a kind of general way.

It's a fascinating book of British history, told in an alternating way. By this I meant that it's chronological, king by king (and leader by leader, if known, before kings came into effect), but the narrative alternates with chapters that are a bit more broad, detailing something about British society or norms, or maybe even culture. There's one chapter that's on British names before William the Conqueror and after him.

All in all, it's a great book with just a couple of minor issues.

These issues are detailed in my review, now up on Curled Up With a Good Book (you didn't think I was going to give you the whole review here, did you? You'd never click the link!)

From the review:

"What makes this book really interesting are the little asides on things like where certain words come from, or how something (a building, for example, or even a code of law) still exists today. I had no idea that "peeping Tom" came from the Lady Godiva legend: one man named Tom disobeyed the royal edict of not looking at Godiva as she rode through the town naked. These are sprinkled throughout the chapters and add a bit of meat to what otherwise would be a rather bare history."

It's actually a very good book, despite being a bit superficial at times. Most importantly for me is that I learned some things that I didn't know, and I'm fairly well-versed in British history.

I'm not an expert by any means, but if I'm reading a general history, it's very possible that I'll already know a lot of what's in it. Instead, I may be reading for the author's interpretation, as historians are constantly re-examining things.

Ackroyd has written a really interesting book, and I hope there will be a second one.

I also hope that he doesn't drag it out into three books. That would just be overkill.

Take a look at the review and let me know what you think.

Facebook Stupidity and a Heroic Kid

Two things to talk about in today's post, both from the same story.

A teenage Michigan boy was a hero recently, when he let a desperate woman into his house and then helped fend off her attacker.

The unidentified woman was apparently kidnapped, raped, and then the perpetrator was transporting her somewhere in her car when she jumped out and escaped. She saw the light on at the boy's house (his father had left to pick up his fiance and so the boy was taking care of his two younger siblings) and pounded on the door, calling for help. The man was chasing her.

With quick thinking, the boy let her in, made sure all the doors were locked, and didn't let the man's shouted threats intimidate him. He called his dad and the woman called 9-11. After an aborted attempt to set fire to the house, the man ran away, and was later killed by police.

It's an inspiring story, and I encourage you to go to the link above and read the details. The kid is a hero.

The story also prompted something else to pop into my mind, though, and it's the real reason for this post.

Stupid Facebook behaviour.

What am I talking about? The asshole rapist (now thankfully dead) posted to his Facebook account just a short time before getting killed, with the status update saying "Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace"

Is that the stupid behaviour? No, that's not it. In this day of social media, these perpetrators always do something like that. It may be stupid, but it's expected.

No, I'm talking about his friends.

Seriously, folkes...sorry, folks. If you ever have the bad luck to know somebody who has gone off the deep end, or who is just plain evil and you didn't realize it, and they post something like this? DON'T COMMENT ON IT!

There were 25 comments at the time of the Daily Mail screen grab, and four of them were displayed. One guy says "I don't know what I feel." Excuse me?

Another one is somehow looking for the cause of this behaviour, saying that the guy is a "sweet person" and something must have set him off. Funny, but this kind of gets in the way of the "sweet guy" impression:

"Ramsey had been on parole since last summer after serving the minimum five-year prison sentence for assault with intent to do great bodily harm, according to Corrections Department online records."

Yeah, sounds like a really sweet guy.

Another one wonders what happened to the guy he grew up with.

And the last one just made me laugh (in a seriously "WTF???" way). "Very unfortunate." And then she tags him! Like he's going to see it.

I'm not saying any of these feelings aren't legitimate. Who knows what we would be feeling if we suddenly discover that one of our friends did something like this. The guy who doesn't know what he feels? That's perfectly legitimate and logical. Sometimes we don't know how we feel. We thought we knew this person. And it turns out we don't.

So, feelings = legitimate.

But posting that on Facebook? Especially in response to a post like this?

Do you really want to take the chance that your name will be plastered all over the world in an article like this? When you're still trying to work out your feelings about a traumatic event?

Take a deep breath and realize that maybe Facebook isn't the proper place to work through turbulent emotions like that.

At least it doesn't appear anybody "liked" the post.

That would have been cringeworthy.

Star Trek: DS9 - Season 1 Boxed Set

Here's an episode by episode review of Season 1, along with a review of the boxed set of DVDs (the regular DVDs, not any Blu-Ray possibilities, though seeing them come out on Blu-Ray would be really cool).

The first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a very interesting beginning. We discovered in the first episode that we would be staying in one place, exploring a little but dealing much more with the Bajoran people and how they are recovering from years of occupation, along with their grooming to be new members of the United Federation of Planets. Past Trek shows have been on a ship, but this show would take place on a space station.

One thing this means is that they can't run away from their problems. If something comes up, they have to deal with it, and the consequences of the problem could very well come back and haunt the crew later on. Recurring characters (Garak and Dukat are introduced in the first season, along with Keiko O'Brien coming over from Next Generation) abound, and relationships are allowed to grow and change.

These characters are not static like the Next Generation characters generally were. I can't see much of a difference between William Riker in season 1 and William Riker in season 7 of Next Generation. Kira Nerys, on the other hand, has changed greatly just within season 1 of Deep Space Nine

I was really glad when all seven seasons came out in DVD boxed sets. The presentation is wonderful, with four episodes per disc (except the first one, which includes the 2-hour premiere). The menus are great, with the Deep Space Nine theme projecting majestically from the speakers. It's always been my favourite of all the themes anyway.

After you choose an episode, you then can either play it, press "set up" (where you set up your audio and subtitle options), "chapter log" (where you can go to any scene), or return to the main menu.

There are six discs in the set, with the first five containing the episodes and then the sixth being a bunch of specials. There is a documentary on the first season, called "A Bold Beginning." There's a crew dossier on Kira Nerys, the secrets of Quark's bar, a sketchbook of production sketches and a little bit about alien props.

There are also a bunch of easter eggs on this disc, with other crew dossiers and little interesting tidbits about the actors and their roles. We hear about how they got their part and what their feelings are about their characters. Some of the interviews are from the first season, when the actors didn't know where their characters were going.

Others are from after the show, or during the last season. They're par for the course for actors' interviews, so if you're naturally bored by them, you won't find much of interest here. If you like the show, though, they're intriguing.

All in all, this is a wonderful collection of episodes. The picture quality is wonderful, with the exception of one episode, but I’m sure that's just on my edition. "The Storyteller" made my DVD player have conniptions, and I had already had so much hassle with Columbia House that I wasn't going to try and deal with them to get a better copy. It's just one episode, though.

The packaging is interesting and sturdy, with two fold-out covers revealing the plastic disc trays. The overall quality of these discs is quite high. Only the quality of some of the episodes themselves brings the rating of the boxed set down to 4 stars. They had a rough patch in the middle of the season.

Season 1 Episode Recap

Here are the episodes contained on each disc, along with my ratings and links to my individual reviews. Ratings are out of a possible 10 (just to give you something different from the original star ratings)

Disc 1
Emissary - an excellent start to the series. We get introduced to all of the characters, but we don't get massive infodumps. Only boring aliens and a little scenery-chewing bring down a great beginning (8.0)

Past Prologue - DS9 hits the ground running with a great follow-up episode that gives us a close examination of Major Kira. Some logic problems hinder it, but the characterization (especially Kira, but the others as well) more than makes up for it. Also a plus for introducing Garak (though he's not seen again in the first season). (8.0)

A Man Alone - The first bump in the road. Some questionable acting and a horrible ending (horribly abrupt, anyway) make this episode tedious in the extreme. (5.0)


Disc 2
Babel - It only took three episodes (not counting the premiere) for them to do a "disease of the week" episode, but the producers do it with style, bringing the actors along with them. Auberjonois and Shimmerman save this one. (7.5)

Captive Pursuit - An episode I've always loved, it lost a little bit in the re-watching. Still, the acting of Meaney and Macdonald (the guest star) more than make up for the really pedestrian plot and major logic holes in the episode. The best of the season so far. (8.5)

Q-Less - The first real bomb. For so long, this show has been depending on the acting to save the plot. This time, the plot is so bad that the actors take a vacation. DeLancie is always good and Q has some good quips, but the vapid Vash and the "I'll be in my trailer if you need me" acting of the regulars sinks this one. Big time. (3.5)

Dax - Much better than I remembered, but still not the greatest. It brings up some interesting issues about Trills and especially the slug inside them. Unfortunately, it doesn't deal with them very much. It's always delightful to see Anne Haney, but the rest of the guest cast needs some work. (6.0)


Disc 3
The Passenger - Another one that's better than I remembered, but only marginally so. Siddig El Fadil does a horrible job playing "evil" and the ending is a joke. Except for Caitlin Brown, the guest acting is painful too. This episode has the added "bonus" of having sent us Lt. Primmin as the new Starfleet head of security. Thankfully, he was sent packing very quickly. (4.5)

Move Along Home - What a worthless episode. Nothing really happens and Auberjonois is the only one who looks like he even cares. The plot is a cliché and we don't learn anything new. At the end, you're left saying "What's the point?" (4.0)

The Nagus - Now this is more like it! The Ferengi haven't become annoying yet, and Wallace Shawn turns in a virtuoso guest performance. Shimmerman does a wonderful job too. When the only bad thing you can say about an episode is the Ferengi laugh, you know you're in good straits. Why can't it always be this good? (9.5)

Vortex - The first episode to address the mysteries of Odo, it's more of a tease then an offering of concrete information. Still, it's interesting and it's too bad the guest cast is pretty laughable. Auberjonois and DeYoung shine, though. (7.5)


Disc 4
Battle Lines - Some standout work by Nana Visitor along with Camile Saviola as the Kai make this episode much better than it should be. There's a bit too much technobabble for my taste, and O'Brien and Dax are wasted uttering it. If we just saw the bit down on the planet, this would easily be a 10. (9.0)

The Storyteller – unfortunately, this episode crapped out on me when I tried to watch it (maybe there's a spot on the disc), so this summary is by memory of the many other times I've watched it. This is a great O'Brien and Bashir story, cementing their friendship that will carry through the rest of the series. A fluffy B-story involving Jake and Nog is good but detracts from the main storyline. Perhaps it's too light to carry an entire episode on its own, but I kept wanting to get back to Meaney and El Fadil when the others were on the screen. (7.5)

Progress - stellar guest acting by Brian Keith and Nana Visitor holding her own with him makes this another wonderful examination of Kira's character. Her character arc in this first season has been really interesting. We've seen her realize that she's not a rebel anymore. Then she has to deal with the violence that permeates her soul. Now she's has to come to terms with being part of the establishment and realizing that you can't always fight everything. A fun B-plot softens the intense drama. (10.0)

If Wishes Were Horses - DS9 stumbles into its first season stretch run with a horrible episode about fantasies coming to life. Everybody looked bored (well, it *was* late in the season) and the episode just isn't interesting. (2.5)


Disc 5
The Forsaken - the producers inflict Lwaxana Troi on our station crew (and the viewers), and none of them survive. Colm Meaney is the only one who looks like he cares, and the episode is just painful to watch. Just slight improvement on the last one. Things are not boding well. (3.0)

Dramatis Personae - A funner episode then it should be, this one doesn't really bear re-watching. The acting is good, but some major plot holes hinder the plot. Completely ignoring the problem that they've been arguing about the whole episode doesn't help, either. (7.0)

Duet - the best episode of the season, and perhaps the series (though there are certainly other contenders). The scenes between Yulin and Visitor spark with intensity and everything else about this episode stands out as well. A great story that parallels the Holocaust and its aftermath. (10.0)

In the Hands of the Prophets – An excellent ending to the season, showing us how far all of the characters have come since they came to this rattletrap of a station. It's also an interesting examination of the religion/science debate. It doesn't give us any answers, but for once that's a good thing. There are no easy answers, and it would be a disservice for a television show to even pretend to have them. A fitting coda to the season. (10.0)

Star Trek: DS9 - Ep 19 - In the Hands of the Prophets

The conflict between religion and science is centuries old, and will perhaps last for centuries into the future. There is no easy solution. One man's "god" is another man's theory of how nature works. There may never be a solid answer, because something taken on faith is, essentially, unprovable. Star Trek has always been a secular show, Gene Roddenberry being an avid secular humanist. Thus religions on Trek have usually been shown as misguided, with the Federation coming along and showing that the God these people believed in was false and science could lead them to salvation.

Deep Space Nine changed all that. No, it didn't become the New Religious Hour. Instead, it deigned to show a religion and its worshipers as real people. It showed that there are different points of view, but that nobody is inherently right. The show was deeply respectful of the Bajoran religion and its "Prophets." However, you knew that, eventually, there would have to be an episode about the uneasy tension between the two. "In the Hands of the Prophets" is that episode, made all the more powerful because it ended the first season of the show after building up the Bajorans throughout the season. It's a wonderful episode, tying up very neatly the ongoing storyline of the first season, leaving us with some of the uneven ends that this conflict always does.

Keiko O'Brien (Rosalind Chao) is teaching her class about the wormhole when she has an unexpected visitor. Vedek Winn (Louise Fletcher) has come with an important mission: to either get Mrs. O'Brien to stop teaching blasphemy about the Wormhole Aliens (the Prophets) or to remove the Bajoran children from the school. This has the effect of heightening tensions between the Bajorans on the station and the Federation personnel, as it seems that the "godless Federation" is trying to remove the Bajoran religion from its society.

Winn starts to win over a lot of people on the station with her ideas, including Kira (Nana Visitor), despite the fact that she's the leader of an ultra-orthodox sect that doesn't have a lot of support in the Vedek Assembly. Along with this is the suspicious death of a Starfleet engineer. Are they related? When Sisko (Avery Brooks) tries to elicit help from the Vedek who is the frontrunner in the race to be the new Kai, Bareil (Philip Anglim), he is rebuffed. When the school is bombed, however, Bareil reconsiders. This leads to an explosive conclusion that could bring the crew of the station back together again. Or it could force them further apart.

"In the Hands of the Prophets" brings up a lot of interesting points about issues of faith versus reason, but it doesn't even attempt to answer them. We haven't been able to answer them for this long, so why would we think a 45 minute episode of a television show could do it? Some shows might, but Deep Space Nine does not fall into that trap. Instead, it brings to light the various issues in a more "normal" plot. Sisko's impassioned speech after the bombing opens a few more eyes, including Kira's, about how the Bajorans and the Federation can work together, despite their differences.

The real eye-opener for any Trek fan used to the Trek tradition of looking down on religion is when Jake (Cirroc Lofton) says what every other Trek episode has hinted at before: that belief in the Prophets is stupid when it's obvious that the Prophets are really wormhole aliens. Sisko sits him down and corrects him, saying that the Bajoran faith is what got them through 70 years of occupation. The wormhole aliens' view of time is so fluid that they can see the future as well as the past, so why shouldn't they be called Prophets? He then reminds Jake that everything is a matter of interpretation, and that if Jake continues along that line, he's no better than Winn, just from the anti-religious side. It's a wonderfully played scene, displaying Sisko's worry about what's happening on the station as well as educating a boy about the value of a religion, even if you don't follow it.

In fact, there are so many standout scenes in this episode. The acting is simply wonderful, with the actors evidently finding a script with a lot of meat to it and sinking their teeth into it. Everybody, from Visitor, Fletcher and Brooks to even Shimmerman and Lofton in roles where they only have one scene, are very good. Fletcher is simply electrifying as the smarmy yet true-believing Winn, who has an agenda even more than just keeping blasphemy away from her "children." It is a bit disappointing that the writers turn her into more of a power-hungry character than a religious zealot, but she is still interesting, and that's the most important thing.

Visitor plays Kira with passion as she defends Winn at first ("Some might say pure science, taught without a spiritual center, is a philosophy, Mrs. O'Brien."), but then comes to terms with the fact that the Federation actually does deserve her support. She's come a long way since the first episode where she didn't want the Federation there, as the final, touching scene between Sisko and her shows us.

Even those with fewer scenes did well, adding some much needed humour to a dramatic episode. When O'Brien (Colm Meaney) asks what the now-dead Ensign Akino was doing in a runabout at four in the morning, Odo (Rene Auberjonois) looks at him and says "Apparently, he was getting murdered." The one Odo/Quark (Armin Shimmerman) scene in the episode is also priceless. Terry Farrell is the only one short-changed in this episode, not having much to do but saying her lines with conviction. She certainly wasn't weak. She just didn't have anything to really say.

That's obviously not Rosalind Chao

I have to give kudos on the production front as well. First, there's Neela (Robin Christopher), O'Brien's assistant. She was certainly decent, but the compliments on the production come from showing a little foresight. She was in Duet as well, and it was nice to see them showcase her in an episode before she becomes an important part of another one. She is very important in "In the Hands of the Prophets," and it was nice to see a familiar face. She was still a bit obvious, but at least the regular viewer had a little bit invested in her.

Also, the direction was great, staying out of the way for the most part (and that's good in a dramatic episode like this). There were two wonderful scenes that the director made even better, though. The first is when Sisko visits Bareil in the garden. Sisko throws a stone in the water and it disturbs his reflection in the pond. When it stabilizes, Bareil is walking up behind him and we can see that in the restored reflection. The second is the slow-motion climax, which was very effective.

I can't say enough good things about this episode. Everything works, from the plot to the script to the acting, the entire package is so juicy. Deep Space Nine ended its first season on a high note, with two first-class episodes. It bodes well for the show as it enters its second season. We leave Season 1 with a realization that, despite our differences, it is possible to get along and get some work done. It's even possible to bridge those differences and become unified.

Memorable Quotes:

"The Prophets teach us patience." Bareil

"It appears they also teach you…politics." Sisko

5 Stars

Stay tuned next week for the Season 1 wrap-up!!

Book Review - The Brenner Assignment by Patrick K. O'Donnell

As stated in last week's book review post of O'Donnell's Dog Company, small war-time stories can be quite riveting, as we see what a few people are going through in their individual missions, the camaraderie that they have with their fellow soldiers (or whoever they're working with) and the potentially harsh circumstances that they're going through. Since many of these stories are done through interviews with the living, we get to see what those who didn't make it through the events of the book were like through the eyes of friends and colleagues.

It can be quite powerful.

Back in 2009, I read O'Donnell's The Brenner Assignment and was captivated. It's a true spy story that can have more impact than any fictionalized one. The Brenner Pass is a mountain pass through the Alps connecting Austria and Italy that the Germans were using to bring troops and supplies to their northern Italy war effort. The Allies wanted it closed to prevent this. This book is the story of the two missions that attempted to do this.

It has all the makings of a spy novel, but it has the benefit of actually having happened.

My review of the book is on Curled Up With a Good Book.

From the review:

"Modern spy novels don't really do much for me, though I do like those taking place during World War II for some reason. One thing I haven't read much about, however, is *real* World War II spy missions. That's why I was excited to pick up Patrick K. O'Donnell's new book, The Brenner Assignment, about a mission to close the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy that allowed the Germans to bring their troops and supplies down into the Italian boot. Taking place in 1944-45, this mission has everything: derring-do, romance, battles against tough odds, and lots of intrigue. O'Donnell tells it in an interesting fashion, and it would look good on any World War II history fan's bookshelf.

O'Donnell uses a combination of sources, mostly interviews with the surviving participants in the mission. The main "character," Howard Chappell, was still alive but very reluctant to talk about what had happened. O'Donnell spends the Preface telling us how he came up with the idea to research this assignment and the difficulties he had in getting Chappell to speak. It took having a mutual friend, Albert Materazzi (who was the operations officer in charge of Chappell's mission and his best friend), to finally get him to open up."

It's understandable that Chappell would be reluctant to talk. It sounds like the mission was quite emotional for him. I'm glad that he finally relented and O'Donnell was able to complete this fabulous book.

News of the Weird - Jeopardy-Winning Computer Swears Too Much

Some linguists say that "street" language will eventually be the death of the English language, at least as we know it.

Who knew that it would also be the death of an intelligent computer in a much more immediate fashion?

Yes, "Watson," the computer that beat two Jeopardy champions at their own game, has had to have its "memory wiped" because it was starting to swear too much (no word on whether this was before or after Quentin Tarentino offered it a role in his next movie).

According to the Daily Mail, programmers had it download the entire contents of the Urban Dictionary site, and the machine took it a little too much to heart.

Evidently programmers were trying to create a machine that would pass the Turing Test for machine intelligence (The Turing Test is basically a test where a machine tries to sound like a normal human being if you're conversing with it without knowing it's a machine. If it passes, it's considered intelligent).

Yes, speaking in slang would be a good indication that you're talking to a human and not a machine, but without the intelligence to realize when you should use slang and when you shouldn't, it's really hard to consider you intelligent (a fact that also applies to far too many human beings to begin with).

So poor Watson digested the entirety of the dictionary and then start responding with "bullshit" or other similar profanities to some questions that it was asked (so it thought it was talking to a politician then?)

According to the International Business Times:

"Watson unfortunately learned all of the Urban Dictionary's bad habits, including throwing in overly -crass language at random points in its responses; in answering one question, Watson even reportedly used the word "bullshit" within an answer to one researcher's question. Brown told Forbes that Watson picked up similarly bad habits from reading Wikipedia."

So it's a student trying to fake a research paper in college?

I had no idea Watson was so versatile!

Anyway, in typical fashion, the Daily Mail overstates things. It keeps saying that Watson had its "memory wiped," when in reality the programmers just removed the Urban Dictionary from its memory and put a swear filter in (which Watson typically gets around by putting asterisks in the middle of its swear words). Yes, I suppose it's technically accurate that it had its memory wiped of the Urban Dictionary, but the connotation of "memory wipe" is that it's entire memory was erased.

That's not what happened.

Poor Watson. Isn't there somebody who will stand up for his right to swear as much as he wants? Isn't this part of what a free society is?

They're stopping Watson from swearing.

Are you next?

The Daily Mail doesn't get into questions like that.