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Crazy Foreigners

Friday, September 21, 2007

Trafficking in Your Baby

What the crying hell is wrong with England?

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of “emotional abuse”, even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

advertisementHexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.

From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.

And we’re all worried about al Qaeda. How droll.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A Thousand Years Ago, This Would Not Have Been A Problem

Sweden struggles to integrate Muslim immigrants.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Social Calendar Checkbox

From the Ministry of Minor Perfidy Social Calendar: Aging lefties sometimes get married.  Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Buckethead for their attendance, and the support of so many other family and friends.  The curious might want to view a few photographs from the wedding; I’ve managed to get a few up there.
http://www.terriandross.com/

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Quotes entirely relevant to golf

(With a serious nod to the actual creators of the “Quotes entirely relevant...” genre, Long or Short Capital):

Monday, June 18, 2007

The wonders of Perfidious Advertising

Just seen in the Perfidious Advertising section, left:

Beautiful Russian Brides
seeking men for marriage
and dating. Find your true love now.

Luckily, we’re not planning to refurnish the Ministry Bunker and Castratorium from the proceeds of advertising.

And, while I hope it goes without saying, we as a group express no opinion on whether any reader will find their true love, from Russia or anywhere else.

Friday, June 15, 2007

So, California is France

Here’s an interesting thing: a map of the United States with the names of the states replaced with the names of countries that have equivalent GNP’s.  It seems that my home state of Ohio is, economically, a brother to Australia.  Cool.  Take a look.  Thanks to Rocket Jones for the link.

Aussies strive for perfect balls

C’mon....I couldn’t let this pass without saying something.

Actually, I think the pic they used for the story is right before the scene when the blades pop out and the thing flies straight into his eyes:

Kneel before Zod!

Apparently Israeli nuclear tests shattered the Phantom Zone carnival-mirror prison these guys inhabited. 

If there is an Islamic analogue to Superman (II), he needs to get his caped ass to Gaza and get it done.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

I forgot to remember to forget

So check this out: a young Chinese government censor let a memorial to the victims of theTiananmen Square massacre slip past her into the paper she censors, because having grown up with censored news, she’d never heard of it.

Haw!

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Yes, this logo blows

On the subject of the 2012 olympic logo and its relative quality, I am told by the whole internets that the prevailing opinion is “it looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob.”

Why yes… yes it does.

London must stand firm. They MUST NOT bow to pressure to abandon this hilarious and utterly appropriate logo! If this logo goes, the terrorists win.

Monday, June 04, 2007

London unveils Olympic logo

Presenting the branding icon for the 2012 games, which will encompass all marketing, communication, structures, uniforms, and all other aspects concerning the look and feel of this most significant international competition. 

2012: Jagged Bits of Broken Crockery

Sunday, June 03, 2007

The purity of essence of our precious category tags

Patton has accused me of being overly concerned about wasting a scarce natural resource.  The category tag.  In this, of course, he is completely wrong.  Naturally, I could have argued that over-categorizing a post dilutes the utility of tags.  And I would have been right.  But that wasn’t the point.  I was attacking him on aesthetic grounds, and just to stick a stick in his eye. 

Just to prove that I am not some sort of homo-tree-hugging-enviro-commie, this post, which really is about everything, is tagged with every category we have.  And, when I have a free moment, I’ll add some new categories, and add them to this post.

So there.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Anschluss

The United States has twice invaded Canada in the course of prosecuting wars against Great Britain.  Despite this violent start to US-Canadian relations, on many occasions over the last two hundred years, people have proposed with varying degrees of seriousness that various bits of Canada be annexed to the United States.  But for some people, that sort of piecemeal aggrandizement just isn’t enough.

For example, this website argues that there should be a complete merger of Canada and the United States.  Given that Canada has only 10% of the population of its southern neighbor, they recommend that the Canadians adopt wholesale the political system and constitution of the United States.  (And argue as well that the American Federal system will serve to preserve large measures of Canadian independence.

Among the benefits of such a merger would be the creation of, geographically, the largest country in human history.  Most of the new territory is of course arctic wasteland, but it’s still land.  The ten percent increase in population would narrow slightly the margin with China, which will be important in a couple decades when China goes imperialistic and attacks.  Also, the added GNP will put us in a better position with regard to the EU.  Dropping unnecessary border installations, customs, and redundant government installations will surely result in a savings for the taxpayer.

While this has absolutely no chance in Hell of ever happening, it is interesting to contemplate.  (We’d have a better chance, I think, of picking up bits of Canada if Quebec ever decided to secede.) The most significant impact would be political, considering the close margins between Republicans and Democrats in the last few elections. 

Consider: of the ten provinces, nine are big enough to become states, population wise.  (Prince Edward Island only has 127,000 people – it would have to be rolled into New Brunswick or Newfoundland.) Of these provinces, now states, most would, thanks to their low populations, get the minimum three electoral votes.  As we know, states with low populations get a disproportionate impact in the US Electoral College.

Bush won the 2004 election by five electoral votes.  If Canada had been assimilated before the election, what would the result have been?  Assuming that each province adopted the traditional winner-take all approach of most states, and that everyone who voted in the 2006 Canadian federal election for Liberal or NDP candidates voted for Kerry, this is what would have happened: Bush would have taken Alberta (6), Saskatchewan (3) and Manitoba (3), and lost by a whisker in British Columbia, for a total of 12 electoral votes.  Kerry would have won in all the other small provinces, and gained BC (8) and Ontario (19), for a total of 36 electoral votes, throwing the election decidedly to Kerry no matter how Quebec voters went.

But, what if the provinces adopted the Maine method of determining their electoral votes?  If so, then all the smaller provinces with three electoral votes would be unchanged, as would Alberta which went decidedly conservative.  But, assume that Bush edges Kerry in BC, for a 5/3 split.  And in Ontario, Bush would pick up six of the seventeen congressional districts for a 13/6 split.  Both Kerry and Bush would likely pick up to districts apiece in Quebec, which gives us a total of 25 for Bush, 27 for Kerry.  Bush would be up by three overall, and the last nine electoral votes would be in the hands of the Parti Quebecois.

The French would at last have their wish, control over America.

[Wik] Ran into some other interesting sites in reading about the above: The Apportionment Paradox, Congressional Apportionment, and Thirty-Thousand.org.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Bering Straight Tunnel connects nowhere to nowhere

A little bird tells me that the Russkies are planning to build an undersea tunnel to the United States.  No doubt this is some sort of paleo-commie plot.  But it is an interesting, and hugely expensive one.  The scheme is to build from the Easternmost tip of Siberia, to the little islands about halfway between there and Alaska, and then back into the water and over to Alaska.  At over $10 billion, it will even cost more than Boston’s big dig.  The tunnel, which in its longest stretch will be underwater more than twice the distance of the chunnel, would carry rail, power, pipelines and road traffic.  As cool as this is, theoretically, I can’t really imagine that it would be terribly profitable, or useful.  As a way to improve transportation to resource rich and largely empty Siberia, I would think that other schemes might give more payback.  Saying you’re connecting two continents that have been separated for 10,000 years sounds nifty. But what you’re really doing is connecting the most desolate and uninhabited part of Russia with the most desolate and isolated part of the United States.  If they build it, cool, but there isn’t a lot of traffic piling up there, and sea transport is cheaper than rail anyway.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Memo missed, new word learnt

I’m sure that the rest of the Ministers got theirs, but I must have missed the memo on the start of the Canadian seal-clubbing season.  Dang.

Via an article in the April 4 2007 Economist (subscription required) entitled ”On thin ice“, I’ve learned that global warming has impacted Southern Canada’s ability to provide fodder for the particpants in its seal-clubbing industry. Clearly, the government needs to do something to avoid disenfranchisement of the affected group.

THE activists have armed themselves with helicopters, video cameras and outrage. The hunters have their sharp hooks and blunt clubs, often combined into a single sinister-looking instrument of Norwegian design known as a hakapik. Canada’s seal-hunting season officially began on April 2nd along with the usual row between those who denounce it as senseless cruelty and those who defend it as a traditional and necessary part of local livelihoods. Thanks to global warming, however, the argument might soon become redundant.

So it seems that the protesters are impaired in their ability to effectively protest. Global warming - Is there anything it can’t do? Admittedly, not everyone can muster much sympathy for the perpetually outraged pretend-protectors of the cute little seals.

The problem?

This year there has been less of the usual footage of burly men bashing small furry skulls and of blood smeared across the ice floes. That is not because the hunters have become less aggressive, but because suitable seals have become scarcer. Thanks to an unusually warm winter, the ice is melting early in the southern Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where hunting began this week. The seal pups on which the hunt preys are reared on the ice until they are old enough to swim. So the premature thaw has drowned them—before the hunters had the chance to kill many.

Less seal-cranium-crushing= less for PETA, or whomever, to kvetch about. In a nod to realities of the matter, the Canadian government points out that seal hunting “brings income to struggling fishing communities”, which I’d guess is a good thing.

Not surprisingly, the protesters don’t care, and want to protest, regardless of any benefits to the communities in which the hunting occurs.  However...

... campaigners against seal hunting are not wholly beyond reproach either. Few bother to make it clear that the killing of the youngest pups with fluffy white pelts has been banned for 20 years. They also make it sound as if the seals are endangered. In fact, the seal population has tripled since the 1970s.

In another bow to reality, and due to warm conditions in the South, the government has reduced the quota for seal hunters from 335,000 to only 270,000. The practical effect is to have shifted seal-hunting to the colder northern climes.

The sealers in those areas tend to hunt with rifles, and so do not provide such good fodder for media campaigns.

You’d think, reading it, that both the hunters and the complainers are equally wrong-footed by the weather, but that’s not the case - the hunters can always head north.  There’s not enough outrage available up there for the complainers, however, and therefore I stand by my assertion that they’re the ones most unfairly affected.

Oh, and yes, the new word learned is hakapik. Help me out here - the name of that tool isn’t onomatopoeic, since it surely doesn’t make a sound like its name. What’s the description of a word which (in its English incarnation, at least) has a name that sounds as though it’s describing what you can do with it?

[Wik] Technically, if the protesters actually cared about the seals, wouldn’t they try to save them from drowning, as well as from the evil hunters?

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