brilliant!

only in europe. hopefully. depending on who you talk to, between 1 million and 2.5 million french workers decided to protest the threat to their jobs caused by current economic conditions. the form their protest took? not going to work. if you're not even going to bother showing up for your job, why should sarkozy worry about it?

various and sundry things

wow, i've been slacking lately. but it's been slow at work as well, so i've had a bit of time to peruse the BBC website for news... here are a few things i thought were interesting.

1) obama has already managed to piss off al-qaeda, so he can't be all bad. it was definitely in poor taste for al-zawahiri to refer to obama as a "house-slave" though. regardless of what may have brought the insult on, basing it on his skin color--which he has no control over--is pretty lame.

2) gays in california are still pissed about proposition 8; apparently "majority rule should not set the law." which, who really wants that messy democracy stuff anyways? they may actually have a pretty good case; if the courts deem this a revision to the state constitution instead of an amendment, it would have required a 2/3 vote in the legislature before being passed on to the voters. which brings us back to the majority thing; the gay rights folks got a majority of judges to agree to hear an argument that the proponents should have got a supermajority to vote in favor of prop 8 before the regular majority got to vote in favor of it. so apparently majorities are okay, as long as they agree with the gay rights people. personally, i'm going to side with sir elton john on this one. i don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of "marriages are for straight people, civil unions are for gay people... if you're getting the same basic rights, why should you care what it's called?" one is a relationship between two people of opposite sexes, and one is a relationship between two people of the same sex; they are, in fact, two different things.

3) philosophical questions for the day: number 1 is the only one i actually came up with an answer for, so i'm going to go ahead and post the whole thing and then give my answer and reasoning.

1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will shoot all six. (Either way, he'll release you.)

If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet another: you're in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram left, killing one to save five.

But then why not kill Bill?

no, we don't kill bill. in both situations given, at least one person is going to die regardless of what happens. in the original question, if we don't "harvest" bill, he continues living his happy, healthy life. besides which, we really don't know if his organs will actually save the people they're intended for. they could be rejected by the host, or the doctor could screw up the operation, and there are probably several other things that could go wrong as well. also, back to the first example they give... if the hostage taker gives me a gun to shoot one of the other hostages dead, the first thing i'm going to do is shoot the guy that took us hostage, and we're all free. the end.

good news!

from the cuba front: the government is planning to allow more private ownership of land. it seems like it's mostly a practical measure, designed to cut down on the amount of food that cuba needs to import. but whatever the reason, it's a huge step forward for freedom on the island, especially if coupled with this:

"He [Raul Castro] has also announced that workers can earn productivity bonuses, doing away with the egalitarian concept that everyone must earn the same...."

so wait... if i work more, i can get paid more? sign me up! if these reforms go through, it will definitely be time to start easing our trade and travel restrictions on cuba.

thoughts on california's gay marraige ban...

...that was struck down today by the california state supreme court.

1) gays already have the same marriage rights we do: the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. they're not pushing for equal rights, they're pushing for special rights.

2) is it just me, or does it seem like the process got less and less democratic as it went along?
a) 2000, california voters (or at least all those that bothered to vote) passed a resolution banning gay marriage
b) following this, the legislature--elected representatives, but still a smaller number of people than those who voted on the resolution--attempts to legalize gay marriage, but governor schwarzenegger vetoed their bills. proving his RINO status however, he said that it should be passed on to the courts.
c) in a 4-3 vote, the state supreme court overturned the law banning gay marriage. unlike the US supreme court, these judges were at least elected, but still... 7 people getting to make the decision on something as important as this?

an interesting comparison

over at say anything, pilgrim compares organized crime with militant islam. it's actually a very interesting way of looking at them. key paragraph:

And that’s my point: If an organized crime syndicate did the same thing the entire might of U.S. and European law enforcement would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Will the threats against the Live Leak staff get the same treatment? Probably not. Islam gets a pass. I don’t get it.

read the whole thing.

better late than never?

russia is finally beginning to see the light. after iran launched a long range missile on monday, russian deputy foreign minister alexander losyukov noted that "It increases the suspicion of Iran regarding its possible desire to create a nuclear weapon." yes, yes it does. although a better time to notice this sort of thing might have been two years ago, while russia was busy helping iran with its nuclear program.

OS syndrome begins to set in

today, at 6:16pm (pakistan time), Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. i personally wasn't a huge fan; i think she was pushing for too much too fast, and though it was most likely unintentional, i think she was actually making things worse rather than better. her death, i think, will only exacerbate that. for now, i think it unlikely--but certainly possible--that musharraf was behind it. only time will tell. pakistan would not be a fun place to live right about now.

h/t wizbang

open invitation

if any of you happen to find yourself in the waterville area on december 17th, you're more than welcome to come watch me get sworn at. or maybe sworn in. tomato, tomahto. the "ceremony" will take place at the waterville town hall sometime (i'm guessing at the end) of the town council meeting, which starts at 7:30. no beverages (other than the coffee they've usually got on hand) will be served, because i still have to get up for work in the morning. that is all.

except for when it does

quote of the day: "...Islam does not allow suppression of other religions...." except, you know, for when it does. granted, Christianity doesn't have a perfect track record in that area, but we've pretty well grown out of it by now. here's to hoping the gentleman quoted above sticks to his word, and serves as an example for some of his more extreme brethren.

political correctness gone overboard

which is really not overly surprising in this day and age, but this is all kinds of messed up:

Travis Grigsby loves playing drums, but he and his friend Alex Coday weren't able to play for two weeks after they were suspended. It started after the band's performance at a football game. Some kids on the drum line said they were talking about the best knots to use to tie up the drum equipment.

"Someone asked if anybody knew how to tie a noose and Travis did admit he knew how to tie a noose," Kim Grigsby said.

Travis' mom said her son is almost an Eagle Scout, he knew how to tie it, but told his friends he wouldn't because you could get in trouble for that. Later, a black student on the drum line told the teacher he was offended.

"Travis was accused of using a racial slur for saying the word 'noose.' Then he was suspended for 10 days," Kim said.

h/t tongue tied

those crazy spokanites

somehow, i survived this city for 3 years: children get repossessed.

h/t dave barry

whoops

muslim world: "we don't want your western culture! it will corrupt our youth!"

us: "um, dude?"

muslim world: "..."


h/t say anything

news of note

not quite as fun as the flying cow, but good news all the same:

1) as of yesterday, i am the sole owner of my car, having paid it off in just under a year.

2) as of right about now, you can click here to see how awesome i am (scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page), and then leave a comment to remind me that it's a small town/i was running unopposed/something to pop my ego.

no looking back

so, i'm guessing that this couple from michigan won't be making too many trips back to eastern washington:

Cow falls 200 feet onto van; Michigan couple escape injury Cow falls 200 feet onto van; Michigan couple escape injury
By Jaime Adame World staff writer
Posted November 05, 2007

MANSON — A cow fell about 200 feet off a cliff Sunday and landed on the hood of a minivan passing by Rocky Point about one mile east of Manson, officials said.

read the whole thing here.

mental torture?

A Pakistani-born US resident detained at Guantanamo Bay has said he was "mentally tortured" there, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.

however, here's a partial list of the things he considers to be "mental torture":

*taking away a picture of his daughter [mean, maybe, but torture? i think not]

*giving him new glasses with the wrong perscription [this one would qualify as mean if it were intentional, and rather stupid if it were unintentional (you'd think we'd be able to get that sort of thing right); again, i see no torture]

*shaving his beard off [if something as trivial as a beard is that important to you, it may be time to rethink your priorities; if allah is any kind of god worth the title, he'll love you anyways]

*forcibly feeding him when he went on a hunger strike [damn us for keeping him alive!]

*denying him the opportunity for recreation; and even worse, when we did let him recreate, there were "half-inflated balls in the recreation room that 'hardly bounce'" [so, you plan to blow stuff up, and we're supposed to give you recreation time? not on my watch. also, when i was in elementary school, students were occasionally kept in the classroom during recess as punishment for misbehaving. were they being "mentally tortured" as well?]

this, of course, was just too much for the poor man to take: "This led him to attempt to chew through his artery twice, Mr Khan said." i bet we gave him medical treatment after that as well, horrible bastards that we are.

my favorite instances of "psychological abuse" are in the last paragraph:

*cheap, branded, unscented soap [cleanliness may be next to godliness, but does your soap really need to smell good to get the job done?]

*noisy fans [suck it up and deal with it buddy]

*the prison newsletter [is the writing actually that bad? also, nobody is forcing you to read it]

honestly, the article looks like it would fit better in a scrappleface post than on the bbc website. i had a hard time not bursting out laughing when i read it.

prayer request

for the victims of the shooting at virginia tech, as well as for their families.

huh. cool.

via the seattle times (which doesn't even require registration for this article... kudos to them), we learn that maybe that whole "techno-fence" along the southern border isn't such a bad idea after all. we still need more manpower down there, but i'm much more optimistic than i was.

that's just depressing...

sadly, this is a real article:

Condoms too big for most Indian men

Fri Dec 8, 6:40 AM ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian men's penises do not match international sizes and most condoms on sale in the country are too big, according to a medical study.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, the country's top health research institute, found 60 percent of men in Mumbai had penises at least 2.4 centimeters (one inch) shorter than international condom sizes, The Times of India newspaper said Friday.

For 30 percent, the gap was five centimeters (two inches), said a researcher quoted in the article headlined "Indian men don't measure up".

The institute surveyed 1,400 men visiting family planning clinics across the country to conduct the "Study on proper length and breadth specification for condoms".

The study was carried out in a bid to improve the sizing of condoms, which have a failure rate of up to 20 percent in India.

"While improper usage is one of the reasons, there is also condom slippage or tear, which is associated with the size of the condom in relation to an erect penis," said Dr Chander Puri, director of the councils National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health.

The effectiveness of condoms in India, which has a growing population of 1.1 billion, is an important issue as they have emerged as a vital safeguard against sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV-AIDS.

India has the world's highest HIV-AIDS caseload, with 5.7 million people living with the illness, according to UN figures.

who knew there was an international norm for condom sizes? also, they really shouldn't have shown any of those men's faces... they'll probably never live this article down.

h/t say anything