It's Just A Cultural Thing

We must celebrate our cultural diversity...

CRIPPLED FOR LIFE--> Muslim Child Brides in Nigeria

You can tell much about a society by looking at how they treat their children. What do they teach them...how do they socialize them into society...etc. Sometimes as Americans we don't do the best job.. violent cartoons, stereotypes and other thing we sometimes pass to our kids (both my kids knew "pull my finger" before they were three). But overall I think we do try to teach them about freedom, citizenship, and good work ethic.

In Judaism's most important prayer, the Sh'mah, we are commanded to teach our children about loving God. In fact the rabbis tell us a story about God asking us what we would do to guarantee the Torah, and our answer was, we will teach it to out children.

Islam is different. Child abuse is inherent in Islam especially marrying and having sexual relations with little girls. Heck Muhammad married his favorite wife when she was SIX. He consummated the marriage when she was NINE

There is no argument on this point among Islamic authorities whether shia or sunni. They all agree that a Muslim man can have sex with baby girl.

This is what Imam Khomeini, the top shia authority says:

“A Muslim man can have sexual pleasure with a little girl as young as a baby. But he should not penetrate her vaginally, however he can sodomize her”. (Tehriro vasyleh, fourth edition, Qom, Iran, 1990)

Here is what the the top Sunni authority says (video on a Saudi website) about having sex with a one day old baby girl. (Go to “site video” and click on sex with a one day old girl)

In most societies the perpetrators would be thrown in Jail, or at least shunned as pedophiles. But this is the Religion of Peace at work. In northern Nigeria, Muslim girls (as young as 12) are being forced into marriage. They are being forced into bearing children before their bodies are developed enough and because of that they are being crippled for life;

Broken lives: Nigeria's child brides who end up on the streets

Child brides in Nigeria are often crippled by childbirth. Their injuries lead to incontinence, shame and exile

Ramita Navai in Kano

In a small, dimly lit brothel in the red-light district of Kano in northern Nigeria nearly all the young prostitutes lined up on plastic chairs are runaway brides.

“I was married when I was 15 years old. I was forced into it,” said Hadiza.

Whenever her husband attempted to consummate the marriage, Hadiza would flee to her parents’ home, but they kept returning her to the man to whom she had been married off.

Finally her husband raped her: the attack was so violent that Hadiza was sent to hospital.

“We have no choice. If you’re not married by the time you’re 16, people think there must be something wrong with you,” she said. The girls around her nod silently - some of them had been forced to marry when they were only 12.

Northern Nigeria has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world: nearly half of all girls here are married by the age of 15.

The consequences have been devastating. Nigeria has the highest maternal mortality rate in Africa and one of the world’s highest rates of fistula, a condition that can occur when the pressure of childbirth tears a hole between the vagina and the bladder or rectum. Many women are left incontinent for life. Up to 800,000 women suffer from fistula in Nigeria.

“They marry young, they get pregnant young, they deliver young and they pick up the fistula,” said Kees Waaldijk, the chief consultant surgeon at the Babbar Ruga hospital, the world’s largest fistula clinic, in the northern state of Katsina.

Most cases happen to young girls during their first pregnancy, and nearly half the patients at Babbar Ruga are under 16.

Dr Waaldijk operates on up to 600 women a year, with no electricity or running water. He sterilises his equipment in a steel casserole pot that sits on a gas camping stove. Rows of girls and women - some as young as 13 - lie listlessly on rusty hospital beds, each connected to a catheter.
The smell of urine is overpowering and many of the women have been cast out from their communities. Some have been divorced by their husbands - it is estimated that up to half of adolescent girls in northern Nigeria are divorced. “If nothing is done the woman ends up crippled for life: medically, socially, mentally and emotionally,” Dr Waaldijk said.

The Nigerian federal Government has attempted to outlaw child marriage. In 2003 it passed the Child Rights Act, prohibiting marriage under the age of 18. In the Muslim northern states, though, there has been fierce resistance to the Act, with many people portraying it as antiIslamic. “Child marriage in Islam is permissible. In the Koran there is no specific age of marriage,” said Imam Sani, a liberal cleric in the northern state of Kaduna. He said that this was the root cause of the opposition among the more hardline mullahs, who believe that matters of Islamic “personal” law - marriage, divorce and inheritance - must be governed by the Koran, not the state.

“The Muslim clerics have a problem with this Child Rights Act and they decried it, they castigate it, they reject it and they don’t want it introduced in Nigeria,” Mr Sani said.

He said there would be serious repercussions if the federal Government attempted to impose a minimum age of marriage. “There will be violent conflict from the Muslims, saying that ‘no, we will not accept this, we’d rather die than accept something which is not a law from Allah’.”
Half of Nigeria’s 36 states have passed the Act, but it has been adopted by only one of the dozen Muslim states - and even that one made a crucial amendment substituting the age of 18 for the term “puberty”.

Each state in Nigeria has the constitutional right to amend legislation to comply with its local traditions and religion, meaning that central government is powerless to impose a minimum age of marriage.

Other vocal opponents to the Act include village heads and elders - almost all men - highlighting the tribal and cultural constraints that hamper attempts to stamp out child marriage.
“It is important we have the right to marry our girls young so there is no risk of pregnancy outside marriage. It is to preserve the purity of our girls,” said Usman, an 84-year-old man from the village of Yammaw Fulani, who married a 14-year-old girl four years ago. “We will never accept this law,” he said.

Mommy, that panda has an arm in its mouth!

Posted by: Robert Basler

Tags: Oddly Enough, adorable, animals, cute, humor, panda, zoo

Gentlemen, this is the worst crisis the Panda Propaganda Council has ever faced!

We need full damage-control! News has got out that a guy sneaked into the panda pen at a zoo, just for a cuddle, and the panda ATTACKED him!

Of course Pandas are vile beasts that drink bourbon and smoke cigars, but we cover it up so we can rake in $60 billion a year from panda cuteness.

Incidents like last year, when pandas at the National Zoo ate a whole busload of schoolchildren, have never come to light.

So you know the drill. Herb, you plant stories smearing this victim as a panda-hater. Earl, get the panda that did it to cry on Oprah. Lois, pay that dimwit Reuters blogger to run adorable panda shots.

If we can’t fix this, we may as well hand our whole business over to those greedy thugs with the roly-poly polar bear cubs, or God-forbid, those monsters with the cute floating otters!

Feel young! Join the Oddly Enough blog network!

Litigious Lunacy

Watts Up With That

This is quite something. Darn those Canucks. As we saw with his defense of eco-vandals in England, I wonder if Dr. James Hansen will rush to The Hague to testify for this one? And if by some furthest stretch of the imagination, this lawsuit is successful, what then? Will Pachauri use the spoils to whittle down the number of lifetimes if will take to erase his own carbon footprint? I wonder if Danny Bloom is related to omnipresent blog commenter, and Sierra Club representative, Steve Bloom? BTW Steve, we are still waiting, over a year now for your answer.

NOTE: The article below is reposted in entirety from the blog Northward Ho(t) The opinions are those of the author of that blog, Mitchel Anderson, not of myself nor of any WUWT contributor. - Anthony

---

Ballsy.

That is perhaps best word to describe a class action lawsuit filed this week in the International Criminal Court in The Hague in Holland against national governments refusing to act on reducing carbon emissions.

The suit was filed by climate activist Danny Bloom who is asking for “US$1 billion dollars in damages on behalf of future generations of human beings on Earth - if there are any”

No Joke

The lawsuit is specifically seeking damages from “all world leaders for intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2, causing possible apocalyptic harm to the Earth’s ecosystem and the very future of the human species.

The point of the suit of course is not to wring money out of carbon emitters, but to embarrass the legions of laggard governments in advance of upcoming international climate negotiations next month in Poland. According to Bloom, the legal action “is about trying to protect future generations of mankind, humankind, and a positive judgment in this case will help prod more people to take the issues of climate change and global warming more seriously. We fully intend to make all world leaders of today responsible for their actions in the present day and age.”

This case is a legal long shot no doubt, but Bloom’s team said “”it’s up to the court to decide whether this case has any merit. We fully expect the court to agree to at least hear the case and make a responsible and measured decision later.”

It would also be the first case of its kind to seek to act on behalf of future generations for the irresponsibility of their ancestors. The need to put world leaders on the hot seat is very real. International climate talks like the one happening next month in Poland have happening for over a decade yet global emissions just keep climbing. A recent report showed that in spite of international commitments, carbon emissions of 40 industrialized countries rose by 2.3 percent between 2000 and 2006.

That said, those countries that signed Kyoto saw their overall emissions fall by 17% below 1990. The disgraceful outlier among those nations is Canada, whose emissions ballooned by over 20% in spite of having ratifying Kyoto. Canada’s Prime Minister Harper has called Kyoto a “mistake” and he seems openly contemptuous of such international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Mr. Harper is of course not alone in the responsibility for Canada’ terrible climate change record. The Canadian public recently handed him another mandate in a general election.

Back to Mr. Bloom. His lawsuit seems directly targeted towards such irresponsible nations like Canada that have refused to take this issue seriously. If he wins, Bloom is planning to donate the $1 billion in damages to the Nobel winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Godspeed Mr. Bloom.

Suddenly Al Sharpton Is Outraged With the Term "House Negro"

(Video)

As recently as February 2007 prominent African American "spokesperson" Al Sharpton was describing Colin Powell as Bush's House Negro.

The question came up during his discussion at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee:

"Rev. Al Sharpton, Do you believe that political leaders such as Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are viewed as "house negroes" by other African Americans, by going along with the President against their beliefs?"

And, here was Reverend Al's response:
(25 seconds)

But, that was last year.

Suddenly, Al Sharpton is outraged that Al-Qaeda would dare call Barack Obama or anyone a "house negro":
(23 seconds)

I know... You're shocked.

posted by Gateway Pundit at 11/20/2008 08:29:00 PM

Pirates can claim UK [insane] asylum

Marie Woolf, Whitehall Editor

THE Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.

Warships patrolling pirate-infested waters, such as those off Somalia, have been warned that there is also a risk that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain.

The Foreign Office has advised that pirates sent back to Somalia could have their human rights breached because, under Islamic law, they face beheading for murder or having a hand chopped off for theft.

In 2005 there were almost 40 attacks by pirates and 16 vessels were hijacked and held for ransom. Employing high-tech weaponry, they kill, steal and hold ships’ crews to ransom. This year alone pirates killed three people near the Philippines.

Related Links

• Captain tells of 47 days at pirates' mercy

• Shipping threatened as piracy rises again

Last week French commandos seized a Somali pirate gang that had held a luxury yacht with 22 French citizens on board. The hijackers were paid off by the boat’s owner and then a French helicopter carrier dispatched 50 commandos to seize the hijackers and the ransom money on dry land.

Britain is part of a coalition force that patrols piracy stricken areas and the guidance has troubled navy officers who believe they should have more freedom to intervene.

The guidance was sharply criticised by Julian Brazier MP, the Conservative shipping spokesman, who said: “These people commit horrendous offences. The solution is not to turn a blind eye but to turn them over to the local authorities. The convention on human rights quite rightly doesn’t cover the high seas. It’s a pathetic indictment of what our legal system has come to.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “There are issues about human rights and what might happen in these circumstances. The main thing is to ensure any incident is resolved peacefully.”

The guidance is the latest blow to the robust image of the navy. Last year 15 of its sailors were taken prisoner by the Iranians and publicly humiliated.

In the 19th century, British warships largely eradicated piracy when they policed the oceans. The death penalty for piracy on the high seas remained on the statute books until 1998. Modern piracy ranges from maritime mugging to stealing from merchant ships with the crew held at gunpoint.

[via www.patdollard.com]

‘No Cure for Stupid’

LEGALLY SPEAKING

By John Browning



I marvel sometimes at the human capacity for stupidity, or perhaps more accurately, to put one’s stupidity on display for all to see by invoking the protection of the legal system.

A colleague of mine once defended a personal injury lawsuit brought by an individual who claimed paralysis as the result of an accident.

When my attorney friend (a martial arts enthusiast) saw a familiar name among the competitors at a full-contact karate tournament, he decided to gather a little evidence with his camcorder. At a court-ordered mediation of the case, the supposedly “permanently and totally disabled” plaintiff discovered that a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words when my colleague played the videotape of that plaintiff executing roundhouse kicks, spins, and other karate moves en route to winning that tournament.

Gold medal? Yes.

Big personal injury settlement? Not quite.

Stupidity is, sadly, not a rare commodity in the legal system. Take Boston firefighter Albert Arroyo, for example. Mr. Arroyo filed for a disability pension in April of this year as a result of a back injury, and shortly thereafter was successful in getting a doctor to conclude that he was “totally and permanently disabled.” However, this July he was ordered back on the job by Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser, Jr. It seems the department learned that, even while he was claiming to be disabled and drawing benefits at taxpayer expense, Mr. Arroyo ( a competitive bodybuilder since 2003) had competed in a national bodybuilding competition just days after receiving his disability rating, placing eighth. Compounding Arroyo’s attempt to put one over on the fire department was the feeble insistence by his physician, Dr. John Mahoney, that despite examining Arroyo 13 times before certifying his “total and permanent” disability, he never noticed Arroyo’s muscular bodybuilder physique.

One would think that a disgraced, disbarred attorney who had pleaded guilty to having sex with underage girls would do everything possible to avoid the public eye. But common sense doesn’t appear to be a strong suit of 44 year-old James Colliton, who confessed to statutory rape in October 2007 and was sentenced to three concurrent one year terms. Colliton, a former attorney with a prominent Manhattan law firm, sued American Express in July, claiming that the credit card company violated its cardholder privacy agreement when it gave law enforcement personnel information that led to his capture. Colliton had been indicted on charges of having sex with young girls, but then fled and was arrested in February 2006 near Toronto. American Express had no comment on the lawsuit. Perhaps Colliton thought he had a different card in his wallet: the Pedophile Express card – don’t leave the country where you’re facing criminal charges without it.

Maybe Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is not a stupid guy, but he certainly would benefit from a map. Apparently, Mr. Bruning is not happy with the National Indian Gaming Commission’s (the federal agency that regulates tribal gambling operations) decisions to allow the Ponca Indian tribe to build a casino on 5 acres of land it owns in Carter Lake. So Bruning decided to do something about it, filing a federal lawsuit in January of this year. There was just one teeny little problem, as Department of Justice lawyers pointed out in their 26 page response: Carter Lake is in Iowa, not Nebraska. Allowing Nebraska to challenge activities that occur in Carter Lake, the DOJ lawyers argued, “would essentially make the state boundary irrelevant.” Bruning has defended his boneheaded quest, stating that “Carter Lake is in a unique geographic location. You have to go through Nebraska to get there.” I guess by that logic, Bruning thinks he should be able to weigh in on anything that occurs in any of the states bordering Nebraska.

Maybe there’s something in the water in Nebraska. Last fall, state senator Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit, demanding that the defendant “cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.” The defendant Sen. Chambers was referring to is God – as in, the Almighty. Chambers’ lawsuit accuses God of causing “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like.” Sen. Chambers says that his main objective is to bring attention to his belief that everyone is entitled to access to the courthouse, despite attempts by other senators to prohibit the filing of certain kinds of lawsuits. Sen. Chambers maintains that “anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody – even God.” There has been no ruling from the judge assigned to the case. But if lightning just happens to strike Sen. Chambers on the Nebraska Senate floor, let’s just say I won’t be surprised.

Just to prove that lawyers and politicians haven’t cornered the market on stupidity, I give you Dr. Steven Kirshner, a Philadephia-area board-certified orthopedic surgeon. In a lawsuit filed in July, Dr. Kirshner is accused of “rubbing a temporary tattoo of a red rose” just below the panty line of a female patient while she was under anesthesia for surgery to repair a herniated disc. Dr. Kirshner doesn’t deny placing the tattoo, and his lawyer says that in the past he’s left similarly washable marks on patients to lift their spirits. Despite this, medical ethics experts, like Dr. Art Caplan, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s Department of Medical Ethics, point out that “you cannot do something like this even as a joke.” According to the patient’s attorney, Gregg A. Shivers, she was “extremely emotionally upset” by Dr. Kirshner’s action.

Gill Switalksi is a British lawyer and former head of legal affairs for financial asset manager Foreign & Colonial (F&C). She wants a lot of money – 19 million pounds, to be exact – from her former employer, claiming that she had a nervous breakdown, was discriminated against, and is entitled to compensation. But lawyers for F&C have responded that Ms. Switalkski is hardly the shattered shell of a person that she purports to be. In fact, they point to the fact that while suffering from this mental illness, Ms. Switalksi successfully interviewed for a job at a rival asset manager. So what do you do when you’re busted? If you’re Gill Switalkski, you claim that it was your “alternate personality” that actually got the job. Apparently, at least one of her personalities is a good interviewer. Let’s hope for her sake that one of them is also a credible witness.

Finally, Shannon Kelly really wants to be a lawyer; badly enough to sue the West Virginia Board of Law Examiners for violating his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Mr. Kelly, who graduated from Concord University in West Virginia in 1997, and from Florida’s Barry University School of Law in 2003, maintains that he has learning disabilities and in fact on that basis received extra time to complete exams while in law school. In 2007, the West Virginia Board of Law Examiners accommodated Kelly with special treatment for the bar exam. It printed his exam in large, eighteen point type, permitted him a private room to take the test, and even gave him an extra day to finish the exam (normally, the West Virginia exam is administered over 2 days). But according to Mr. Kelly and his lawyer, this special treatment wasn’t enough, and they say that unless he’s given 4 days in which to take the test, then the “enormous time, money and energy” invested by Kelly to reach the threshold of the legal profession at age 32 will have been wasted.

Kelly’s lawyer, Edward McDevitt, says that his client “has severe deficits in processing speed, cognitive fluency, and rapid naming.” I’ve got to wonder – with issues like that, should he really be in the legal profession? Let’s face it, courts aren’t going to insists that his opponent’s legal briefs and pleadings be written in 18-point type, and judges won’t give him twice as much time during closing arguments or a private room so he can “focus” during trial. And how many clients will be beating a path to hire a lawyer with such “severe deficits?”

There’s only one position that I can think of in the legal profession where you can apparently get by with severe deficits in “cognitive fluency.” Unfortunately, Nebraska already has an attorney general.

Writer On Stupidity Charged In Internet Sex Sting

The author of two books on stupidity has been charged with using the Internet to try to arrange sex with a 15-year-old girl, who was actually a male undercover detective. Investigators said the author, James F. Welles, 61, who wrote ''The Story of Stupidity'' and ''Understanding Stupidity,'' was aware of the possibility of a sting. He wrote in one message that he worried about ''the State of Florida looming in the background,'' the investigators said. He was arrested after arranging a meeting at a restaurant, they said. [NY Times]

Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer

8:13 28 February 2003 by Shaoni Bhattacharya

Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured.

On 28 February 1953 biologists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA - the chemical code for all life. The breakthrough revealed how genetic information is passed from one generation to the next and revolutionised biology and medicine.

But in a documentary series to be screened in the UK on Channel 4, Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular biologists have a duty to devise gene therapies or screening tests to tackle stupidity.

"If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease," says Watson, now president of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York. "The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 per cent."

Watson, no stranger to controversy, also suggests that genes influencing beauty could also be engineered. "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."

Complex traits

But other scientists have questioned both the ethics and plausibility of his suggestions.

Nikolas Rose, a bioethics expert at the London School of Economics, says such genetic engineering may not be possible: "These are complex traits, with multiple genes interacting with the environment."

"These are characteristically casual and provocative statements by James Watson," Rose adds. "I think they should be treated just as amusing rather than as a serious account of what behavioural genetics or any genetics should be doing, or will be able to do."

Geneticist Steve Jones, at University College London, dismisses Watson's comments about beauty as "daft". "The concept of beauty is a subjective one," he told New Scientist.

No fool

But he adds: "The IQ suggestion is a little bit less silly, if you turn the logic on its head. Watson likes to annoy - no question - but he's no fool." Genetics could and does help people with severe disorders like Fragile X syndrome and phenylketonuria, both of which affect IQ, says Jones: "The problem is where do we draw the line?"

Series producer David Dugan, of Windfall Films, said the programmes also show Watson visiting a family who greatly value their child with Down's syndrome, as well as their child without Down's.

"We were keen to confront Jim with this - he was genuinely moved," but insisted that geneticists should work to eliminate the disorder. Dugan believes Watson's views emanate from his own family's experiences with his son, who has a mental illness resembling schizophrenia. [source]

Would-be power thief shocked, in jail, after 'criminal stupidity' strikes twice

A scrap metal thief has received time in jail, and hospital, after trying to steal live high voltage cable at two sites in Tasmania's Central Highlands.

Graham Christopher Hall [no relation] was looking for scrap metal when he first tried to steal overhead power lines at Hydro Tasmania's Wayatinah Power Station in September last year.

Despite warning signs, Hall tried to cut the wire and received a 22,000 volt shock.

He spent three weeks in hospital with serious burns to his legs and arms.

The day after being released, and still swathed in bandages, Hall cut another live wire at the nearby Tungatinah Power Station.

This time the 34-year-old wasn't injured, but the station was shut for a day, costing Hydro Tasmania more than $200,000.

Hall pleaded guilty to theft and injuring a public utility.

Supreme Court Justice Peter Evans noted that Hall had involved two young friends in his 'criminal stupidity'.

He sentenced Hall to 18 months prison for the second incident, fixing a 12-month non-parole period. [source]

Confessions of Fraud, Stupidity, and Rationalized Behavior

October 21, 2008 03:13 PM ET | G.L. Hoffman | Permanent Link | Print

GL Hoffman

I recently wrote about an entrepreneur and his company here in Minneapolis that are accused of running the biggest Ponzi scheme since, well, Ponzi. You can read my take here in my home blog of What Would Dad Say. Very little about this story has been covered by national media, yet.

The short version of the federal prosecutors' case is that this guy Tom Petters would allegedly dummy up invoices showing a sale to Costco or Sam's Club of electronics products. He's accused of then taking these fake paper invoices to investors, hedge funds, individuals, and even nonprofits with some song and dance about needing short-term cash until the invoices could be paid. If the allegations are true, then some smart people saw dollar signs—"24 percent interest, fer cripes' sake!"—and may end up losing their money, shirt, and rep. We're talking billions of dollars.

Three of Petters's cronies have pleaded guilty to charges of fraud, including the employee who turned him in. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:

Federal investigators' first inkling of a possible investment fraud involving Twin Cities businessman Tom Petters came Sept. 8, when one of his longtime employees approached them and said she had helped him bilk more than $3 billion from unwitting investors....

Her guilty plea was one of three Wednesday. Robert Dean White, 67, of Excelsior, and Michael Catain, 52, of Shorewood, also admitted to their roles in the scheme, which involved the creation of false bank statements and other documents that were used to trick investors into funding what they called a giant Ponzi scheme.

The prosecution's case makes for a fascinating story about greed, stupidity, and how one can rationalize almost any kind of behavior. The employees who have confessed to helping Petters create the alleged scheme have lived high on the hog, as we used to say. "All three defendants said they earned millions of dollars by participating in the scheme. White said he got a salary and generous bonuses, 'at Christmastime, usually,'" the Star Tribune reports.

Alas, whether or not the charges and confessions are true, stupidity makes for a lame legal excuse, and so does rationalization.

Two things we can learn from the prosecution's case:

1. If something smells, trust your nose.
2. If something appears too good to be true, chances are awfully good it isn't.

Stupid Food editor poisons himself

JUN 17 - 6:40 AM -- I'm feeling much better, thank you, after poisoning myself the other day with two killer sausages I discovered somewhere in the bottom of my cluttered fridge. I should explain: My fridge -- both of them, one upstairs and another in the cellar -- not to mention a chest freezer in the basement, are veritable cornucopias of long-forgotten and mysterious foodstuffs that would make any sane person shudder, if not run away in panic.

(Photo: Hapless victim shopping, right)

Ever since I met my wife, Nancy, eight years ago, I've been promising her to eat to the bottom of the chest freezer so I might clean and actually defrost the appliance and make it fresh and new again. Then I could fill it back up. Oh, joy!

But in all the years since, I confess I have done nothing to accomplish the daunting task, to the point where the freezer today is so chock full of roasts, bits of chicken, frozen stocks, leftover stews (and, who knows, maybe someone's pet?) that I cannot find room to store even an Aspirin tablet, much less the latest ribs on sale at Loeb.

The fridge is no better. Neither of them.

(Photo left: The crime scene)

Upstairs the main fridge is filled with the usual juices, milk, cheese, and leafy things in the crisper. But the real danger zones are found in the second and third drawers, where meats and whatnot that should go into the meat compartment are tossed because there is no other room. There, sadly, too much food is forgotten ... only to be rediscovered later at a most inappropriate time by a stupid but ravenous Food editor who just wants to stuff his face for lunch at the barbecue.

I know I'd been poisoned twice before. Once, I was flat on my back within 48 hours after returning home from Portugal. I don't know what I ate or where, but I'm pretty certain I was struck down by the dreaded E-Coli bacteria because I was so darned sick. Lying on my back at home in Kitchener at the time, I recall thinking to myself, this is how people die! I was too sick to even leave my bed to see the doctor. Without putting too fine a point on it, there was a lot of bleeding involved.

Gallons of ginger ale and many slices of stale bread later, I recovered to tell the tale. And all was well for a few more years, until I tested a most ill-considered turkey recipe (from a supposed reliable source, I might add) that called for kebab skewers to be threated with marinated chunks of turkey and vegetables -- on the same skewer. Bad idea. The result was, if you wanted turkey to be safe you have to overcook the veggies, but if you wanted the veggies to be edible then the turkey had to be undercooked. Needless to say, I compromised and, once again -- in Ottawa, this time -- I found myself flat on my back, staring helplessly at the ceiling fan turning 'round and 'round ...

My latest episode was entirely my fault. I'm just glad I didn't share the poisonous food with anyone else.

The best-before date said the opened package of sausages was still good. Even though the two remaining brats seemed a bit slimy to my fingers, I figured a few minutes on the barbecue grill would kill any nasties. Heck, I know what I'm doing, huh?

(Photo right: Beware cluttered fridge drawers. This one is clean and sanitized now, thanks to Nancy)

Stupid Science Word of the Month: Bi-George

Pressed for time, a chemist goes for a name he knows.

by Jocelyn Rice

published online May 27, 2008

Bi-George, n. Two bonded cagelike molecules composed of 9 carbon atoms and 10 hydrogen atoms each.

When undergraduate James Carnahan synthesized a new molecule in his chemistry lab at Columbia University 42 years ago, he hurried to his adviser, Thomas Katz, to share the good news. The molecule was the result of a new kind of chemical reaction using rhodium—the metallic element that gives expensive jewelry its shine. Katz didn’t have the time or patience just then to work out the molecule’s official name (which turned out to be tetracyclo­[4.3.0.0^2,4.0^3,7]non-8-ene), so he suggested “George.” When Katz heated George in the presence of rhodium, two Georges stuck together, forming a new molecule that he named—you guessed it—Bi-George.

Would Obama, Dems Kill 401(k) Plans?

U.S. News and World Report
October 23, 2008 10:47 AM ET | James Pethokoukis

I hate to use the "S" word, but the American government would never do something as, well, socialist as seize private pension funds, right? This is exactly what cash-strapped Argentina just did in the name of protecting workers' retirement accounts (Efharisto, Fausta's Blog). Now, even Uncle Sam isn't that stupid, but some Democrats might try something almost as loopy: kill 401(k) plans.

House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created "guaranteed retirement accounts" for every worker. The government would deposit $600 (inflation indexed) every year into the GRAs. Each worker would also have to save 5 percent of pay into the accounts, to which the government would pay a measly 3 percent return. Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, said that since "the savings rate isn't going up for the investment of $80 billion [in 401(k) tax breaks], we have to start to think about whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that's not generating what we now say it should."

A few respectful observations:

1) McDermott is right when he says the savings rate isn't going up. But the savings rate doesn't include gains to money you invest in the stock market. It ignores the buildup of net worth. (If you bought a share of XYZ Corp. in January at $100, for instance, and its value doubled by December, the savings rate measure would still value that investment at $100. In short, the savings rate is a phony number.)

2) So based partly on the above faulty logic, the $4.5 trillion, as of the start of the year, invested in 401(k) plans doesn't count as savings.

3) Ghilarducci would have workers abandon the stock market right at the bottom of the market. A stupid idea, according to Warren Buffett: "I don't like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I'll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: 'Put your mouth where your money was.' Today my money and my mouth both say equities."

4) Ghilarducci would offer a lousy 3 percent return. The long-run return of the stock market, adjusted for inflation, is more like 7 percent. Look at it this way: Ten thousand dollars growing at 3 percent a year for 40 years leaves you with roughly $22,000. But $10,000 growing at 7 percent a year for 40 years leaves you with $150,000. That is a high price to pay for what Ghilarducci describes as the removal of "a source of financial anxiety and...fruitless discussions with brokers and financial sales agents, who are also desperate for more fees and are often wrong about markets." Please, I'll take a bit of worry for an additional $128,000.

5) What effect would this plan have on an already battered stock market? Well, I would imagine it would send it even lower, sticking a shiv into the portfolios of everyone who didn't jump aboard. But I am sure the Chinese would love to jump in and buy all our cheap stocks to fund the retirement of their citizens.

My bottom line: If you believe in the long-run dynamism of the American economy, then you have to believe in the stock market. Listen to superinvestor Buffett, not the prof from the New School.

Washington's elite private schools are scrambling for the Obamas' daughters

[a president for and of the poor people... hmmm]

by Gabriel Sherman

Vanity School Fair

Nothing sets the nation’s capital aflame quite like the imminent arrival of a president elect, especially one who directly appeals to the ruthless strivers who populate the wealthy liberal precincts of upper northwest D.C. For a few weeks, elite Washington abandons all decorum in a ritual display of lust. The unbridled jockeying for status, influence, or a lofty cabinet perch in the new administration is intense, over the top, and therefore hilarious to behold: watch as the city’s great egos try and fail to maintain a shred of the gravitas they have spent careers accumulating. It’s a Tom Wolfe set piece waiting to be written. But even this doesn’t match the mad scramble for social status going on behind the scenes—all the more primal and fierce this time because the dashing young Obamas are the hottest thing to hit Washington society since the Kennedys.

The Obama era may be less than a week old, but denizens of the city’s toniest neighborhoods have already fixated on the objects of greatest cachet: for status-conscious parents and elite private-school headmasters, nothing is more coveted than the Obamas’ young daughters. Amid weighty questions about the economy and Iran at Obama’s first post-election press conference Friday, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times leapt up to ask Obama the question Washington’s ruling class most wanted answered: Where he would be sending his kids to school. (The president-elect, no cheap date, dodged the question.)

Indeed, the race to land Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, is already well underway and is one of the most closely watched contests in Washington. Several weeks ago, prominent Democratic donors, and one-time Clinton loyalists, Beth and Ronald Dozoretz (she was the Clinton bundler who intervened with the president to help secure a pardon for the fugitive financier Marc Rich) attended a dinner for Barack Obama at a private home in Virginia, where Michelle Obama was among the guests. With Michelle’s husband ahead in the polls, victory and transition were on the minds of those in attendance. The Dozoretzes—who named their daughter after Melanne Verveer, Hillary’s former White House chief of staff, and then asked Bill Clinton to be her godfather—had a personal request for the soon-to-be first lady. Beth Dozoretz delivered a handwritten note from Melanne, a fourth-grader at the prestigious, Quaker-run Sidwell Friends School, who is the same age as Malia Obama. Melanne had written to say how much she hoped the Obamas would enroll their daughters at Sidwell Friends.

“Sidwell is a very special place, both educationally and culturally,” Ronald Dozoretz explained to me, recounting the conversation with Michelle Obama. “She should look very closely at it. We said to Michelle that if she wanted to talk more about the school, we would be happy to do that.”

Among the Washington power elite—the law-firm partners, high government officials, and big-name journalists—the process of applying to private school is not only ulcer-inducing (and wallet-busting—tuitions run as high as $28,000 this year) but is a particularly brutal spectator sport, a playing field littered with broken egos and thwarted ambition. With everyone looking for an edge, what could be better for a couple than letting slip to social rivals at a cocktail party that their child is a classmate of a presidential daughter?

The private-school frenzy has a long and storied tradition, particularly at Sidwell. During the 1992 Renaissance Weekend, just after Bill Clinton was elected president, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman lobbied the soon-to-be first family to send their daughter to Sidwell, to join his own children. Several years ago, parents say, when Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn learned that his child had been rejected from Sidwell, he enlisted the former president himself to lobby—successfully—for reconsideration. (Penn: “No comment.”)

This time, in-the-know Washington parents tell me, speculation over the Obamas’ choice of school has reached new levels of intensity. A front-page piece in the November 6 New York Times mentioning Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Day School only fueled the hysteria, adding to the angst of a certain class of Washingtonian. “There’s a frenzy going on in terms of speculation,” one displeased parent of a Maret School student observes. “It makes me want to vomit.” But nauseating as it may be to some, the social significance of the decision has already led to speculation that well-placed parents in the Obama universe are quietly (or, like Dozoretz, not so quietly) lobbying to steer the future first children to their preferred school. Handicappers consider Sidwell, Georgetown Day and Maret the likeliest bets, and each possesses particular strengths—and influence—in the Obama camp.

Sidwell, of course, already boasts a presidential pedigree. Chelsea Clinton and Tricia Nixon are alumni—a major asset, according to parents. “My gut is they go with Sidwell,” one Georgetown Day parent sighed. “[Sidwell’s] politics are very similar to the Obamas’,” Ronald Dozoretz points out. “They certainly wouldn't go wrong being there.” The school also counts prominent Obama supporters among its parental ranks, including Barack Obama’s Harvard Law School classmate Steve Weisbrod, and Hunter Biden, the vice president-elect’s youngest son. Still, the school’s image is extremely, well, Clinton-heavy (parents include Hillaryland veterans Mark Penn, Mandy Grunwald and Lissa Muscatine) … and isn’t this new guy all about “change”? (And imagine the Penn-Obama tension on back-to-school night.)

So the Obamas might look elsewhere, if only to establish their independence. On this touchy subject, the powers at Sidwell have gone to ground. A spokesperson declined comment. “We have a policy of not providing information on prospective applicants,” he said. Pause. “But we would be delighted to have the Obama children.”

Georgetown Day is ardently pro-Obama. The student mock election? A landslide: Obama took more than 90 percent of the vote. The school, founded in 1945 specifically as Washington’s first racially integrated school, boasts a progressive legacy: it is every bit as much the liberal Eden as Hyde Park’s Lab School, which the Obama children currently attend. Forget the buttoned-down formality of the Bushes. Students at Georgetown Day call their teachers by their first names, and “community service” is built into the curriculum. The G.D.S. parent body includes many Obamans: possible attorney general Eric Holder, who oversaw the vice presidential search; Larry Summers, the once, and perhaps future, treasury secretary; campaign media adviser Jim Margolis; transition official Todd Stern, who was Summers’ counsel at Treasury; debate-prep chief and possible Biden chief of staff Ron Klain; and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett’s cousin, Tony Bush. According to one Georgetown Day parent, Bush reached out to Valerie Jarrett months ago to make the pitch. “Early on, there was some talk of lobbying and making a campaign of it,” this parent told me. “But word came back from the campaign that the Obamas did not want to be lobbied.”

The Maret School, too, has ties to Team Obama and many other prominent Democratic figures (Marjo Talbott, Strobe’s sister, is the head of school). Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice is a Maret parent and, says one source, has mentioned this to the first family. Other Obama-affiliated parents include former Harvard Law Review colleague Julius Genachowski (read his Obamablog here). A Maret spokesperson, while declining comment, still managed to slip in a pitch: “Certainly we’re an open and diverse school community, and I think it would be a wonderful environment for the Obama family.”

One long-shot scenario has the Obamas following Jimmy Carter’s lead and sending their daughters to a D.C. public school. The president elect has openly praised both current School Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty. (In fact, Obama described Rhee as “a wonderful new superintendent” during the third presidential debate.)

But the strong consensus among those who care most deeply—that is to say, among the striving notables whose offspring populate these expensive institutions of learning—is that the Obamas will opt to keep their kids in private school. On with the lobbying campaign! And good luck! “The decision will be made by Michelle,” says one Maret parent with knowledge of the Obamas’ thinking. “No amount of sway will matter.”

Plane stupidity as yobs beam laser pens at landing flights

By MARK McLAUGHLIN

LASER lights which can blind pilots have been fired into at least nine planes landing at Edinburgh Airport in the space of five months.

Police are hunting those responsible for the attacks, which have led to some pilots having to cover their eyes and others taking evasive action.

On each occasion, a powerful laser pen – which can focus a green beam of light over several miles – has been used.

Experts say the devices, which can cost more than £100 and are generally used by astronomers and scientists, have become "dangerous toys".

The most recent incident happened on Saturday night when a green laser, thought to have been fired from the Loanhead area, hit a 130-seater BMI Airbus 319 passing over Straiton at 4000ft.

The pilot landed safely but police have warned that if caught, the person responsible will be prosecuted.

Saturday's incident is the latest in a long line of similar reports from pilots entering Edinburgh airspace.

On October 21, a cargo plane from Aberdeen was forced to drop 400ft as it approached the runway to avoid a green beam. An easyJet Airbus carrying 59 passengers and six crew travelling on the same flightpath from Stansted was targeted 30 minutes later.

Both pilots were dazzled by the beam, suffering a temporary loss of vision, and were forced to cover their eyes at a crucial point in the descent.

Two days earlier a Boeing 747 jumbo jet – potentially carrying around 500 people – was also targeted by the blinding lasers.

On September 7, both the pilot and co-pilot of an easyJet flight coming in from Luton with 42 passengers on board reported being dazzled. A second British Airways flight was also targeted on the same day.

Other planes targeted in recent months include a British Airways BAE 146 and a BAE RJ100, both of which can carry more than 100 passengers.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, which records all aircraft hazards, said the pens had very little practical use for the general public.

He added: "Some of the less powerful pens are used for things like conference pointers, but the more powerful ones capable of reaching an approaching aircraft are of little use to most people other than as a potentially dangerous toy."

Low-powered laser pens under one milliwatt (mW) are considered safe enough for general sale, however, stronger lasers are available, including some used by astronomers or scientists which can be as powerful as 240mW.

The Evening News found one such laser available online for just under £110.

David Reynolds, from pilots' union the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA),

said: "At the moment the pens are more of nuisance for passenger airliners rather than a major air safety hazard as there are generally two pilots."

Stupid is as stupid does

October 19 | Damian Bathersby

Good morning children. Today’s lesson is about stupidity.
The Macquarie Dictionary defines it as “the state, quality or fact of being stupid”.

In turn, it defines stupid as many things, my favourite being “lacking ordinary activity and keenness of mind”.

There were several other definitions but we only have one dictionary at work and the blokes in the sports department had it booked for the rest of the day.
Those guys just love their definitive verbs and past participles. But I digress.

I was keen to discuss stupidity because it’s struck me recently that the world is full of really stupid people but for some reason we are becoming increasingly willing to turn a blind eye.

Seriously. You see some idiot doing a burn-out in his hotted-up Datsun 120Y and your first reaction is “that’s so stupid”. Or maybe “that’s so sad”. But that’s it.

Unless he wipes out a carload of nuns and orphans (in which case it officially becomes “really stupid”) we’ve got to the point where stupidity is so ingrained in society that we tend to let it go.

Take this scenario - a car in front of you is towing a trailer loaded with rubbish and pieces of paper and other odds and ends are flying out all over the place.

Do you:
A Flash your lights and blow your horn until he pulls over, then demand he go back and pick up every piece of rubbish? (Not likely, given that he could be bigger than you; having a bad day; armed with sawn-off shotgun or all three).
B Call the police and give them his registration? (Possibly but let’s be honest, they’ve got enough to do fighting real crime).
C Go back and pick up the rubbish yourself. (Yeah right).
D Mutter “look at that stupid idiot” and 30 seconds later have forgotten the whole thing?

Choice D wins hands down which means idiots will continue to rule the world long after nuclear holocaust has wiped out the last of the cockroaches.
But there are many levels of stupidity.

There’s the level that will result in the nuclear holocaust I just mentioned, (take note Mr Bush, we’re still watching you) and there’s the stupidity which has sadly become the norm (like the idiot with the trailer).

Then there’s the stupidity which has even the most cynical among us shaking our heads. Like the public servant who’s just been busted faking illness to avoid work.

“Not so stupid,” I hear you say. “I told the boss I had a migraine one day when I couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed.”

Big deal. This bloke makes all of you look like amateurs.

You see, 28-year-old Phillip Lyons didn’t tell his boss he had a headache ... or the flu. He claimed he had lung cancer and repeatedly wrote fake medical certificates to avoid having to go to work.

It was a great little scam but he went too far when he produced a letter, reportedly from the head of the oncology unit at Canberra Hospital, saying he needed surgery. His boss, being the caring, sharing type of person bosses tend to be in the public service, tried to visit him in hospital. Imagine her surprise when staff said they’d never heard of him.

It’s testimony to how convincing he was as a liar that his boss visited two more hospitals before admitting that she’d probably been conned and she and young Mr Lyons might have to have a serious talk about his future.

See ... stupid, stupid, stupid.

But then stupidity, like beauty, is really in the eye of the beholder. I was recently reading about the “mooning” festival in California, where 8000 people gather to bare their buttocks at passing trains.

That’s right – 8000 naked butts waving in the fresh air. Been happening every year since the 1970s, apparently.

Recreational drugs, alcohol and in-breeding make a nasty combination, don’t they?

Reminds me of the time I lost a contact lens at a nudist colony.
Unfortunate? Yes.
Hilarious? Ditto.
But stupid?
Not unless some of them got caught taking a sickie to be there.

Welcome To Duh ... No!

Stupidity has its own rewards... so we'll be looking for how lack of rational thought has consequences for both plans and actions.

What we are not looking for are stupid pet or human tricks. There are plenty of sites dedicated to that.

For some starters, check this out.

..