h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A wonderful, simple invention http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=patent-watch-apr-12

Saw your story on smoking with children in cars, anhaga. The thing about all of it for me is that I bet about 85% of people who have been addicted to cigs for 5 or more years would be perfectly happy to see them outlawed entirely (and, so, very difficult to obtain). And the problem would be less the other 15% than the know-nothings who think we mostly do it because we enjoy it (when, in fact, it is more like a compulsion than anything).

French Police besiege Toulouse shooting suspect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17446999

To the disappointment of some no doubt, it'll be hard to link Mohammed Merah who says he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children" with President Sarkozy's comments about immigration.

French gunman cornered, (good news for Sarkozy - he's not Far Right):

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/french-police-hurt-shoot-suspects-040058818.html

Yesterday (damn) (because of the extra day in February) was the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/20/spring-equinox-end-of-winter?newsfeed=true

'Outcry in New Zealand over 'Marmageddon' crisis as Marmite stocks run out'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/9154576/Outcry-in-New-Zealand-over-Marmageddon-crisis-as-Marmite-stocks-run-out.html

wow ...if that keeps up they might have to go to caviar

tho it will be a poor substitute

This is a very interesting piece. Not a news story, but thought provoking: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/03/haidt-weird-liberals-righteous-mind-america/



(for some reason I'm thinking of ~ jwf ~ right now.)

Human rights court backs police kettling

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/15/human-rights-court-police-kettling

@ anhaga:
(for some reason I'm thinking of ~ jwf ~ right now. )
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/03/haidt-weird-liberals-righteous-mind-america/

Oh.
I read the link.

And I quote from the summation.

"So, is the future post-liberal? The WEIRD liberalism of the baby boomer generation was perhaps condemned to a dogmatic universalism as a result of emerging in the shadow of two world wars, the Holocaust and the anti-colonial and civil rights struggles. There was a lot to react against and it is perhaps understandable that in eagerly embracing the moral equality of all humans, some boomers slipped into a carelessness towards national borders and identities and a rigidity towards many forms of equality."

And I wonder why you'd think of me.


More pointedly:
1. 'So is the future post-liberal?'
Duh. It has been since the 1980s.

2. '..boomer generation...'
The social statisticians have moved the goal posts and
I now happily find myself more war-baby than boomer.

3. '..moral equality of all humans...'
Nonsense. The whirled is mostly full of immoral idjits.
(See #1 above)

NB: This ripost is entirely rhetorical and by way of
thanking and acknowledging your thoughts of me,
whatever they may have been.


~jwf~

PS: Anybody seen or heard from Effers lately?

Kazakhstan's shooting team has been left stunned after a comedy national anthem from the film Borat was played at a medal ceremony at championships in Kuwait instead of the real one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17491344

The spoof song praises Kazakhstan for its superior potassium exports and for having the cleanest prostitutes in the region.

check your email, ~jwf~

Videos of crazed pitbull-type dog mauling police in London and then being shot.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/video-of-cops-mauled-by-crazed-dog-769693

That first video is hilarious as we see our gallant policemen bravely running away as their colleague is eaten by a dog

A woman who killed her husband was acquitted, under a thunder of applause by the audience

http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/Region/actualite/Secteur_Region/2012/03/24/article_alexandra-lange-la-femme-battue-acquitte.shtml

After 11 years of rape, humiliations, and other violence, she stabbed her husband as he was trying to strangle her, if I remember well.

Yes, one thing I take great exception to is the notion that just leaving a situation of semi-captivity is a reasonable answer in most cases. This glib and common attitude, while I am sure it is a reasonable answer in some cases, is probably grotesquely off the mark for the majority of cases that people believing in it think it is correct. The same people who hold this view are also the ones who would usually want to do the least to provide external support structures and resources for those who might make use of them. Shame that anybody has to die, but in a world where people cannot reasonably often 'just leave', better him than her (And besides, she spared the next one by not just leaving).

Borat anthem played by mistake at medals ceremony

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/borat-anthem-played-mistake-medals-ceremony-112050453.html

very well said, Eveneye and i agree with you one hundred percent!

The oddest story to be found on the BBC website today: Pet reptile dies in suspected arson in Jaywick http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-17498297