Weird 2.0 (3-9-2010)
Weird 2.0
Spawn of News of the Weird / Pro Edition
March 9, 2010
(datelines February 27-March 6) (links correct as of March 9)
Evidently, it's big news 8½ years after 9-11 that a respected Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa condemning suicide bombing, backed by 600 pages of Quranic scholarship. Nonetheless, everybody knows that the most important basis for fatwas remains not murder, but insults! CNN
Twenty-three super-principled members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted (23-22) to officially condemn Turkey. It's not for anything anyone alive did. The country is being smited because the 23 have concluded that, based on their study of history, the Ottoman Empire committed "genocide" in 1915-1923 and that it's up to the U.S. House of Representatives not to let them, whoever they were, get away with it. Agence France-Presse via Google News
America has done a creditable job at reducing manmade pollutants over the last 40 years, but it is falling way behind on one: farm animal manure. In the old days, small farms could recycle their manure over their own fields. Now, megafarms produce megapoop but don't have megafields to spread it on. The government tries to set standards, but the way this works is that the megafarms' lobbyists object, using "the small family farms" as their human shield against further regulation. Washington Post
And speaking of The Way Things Work, the federal government way-overpays its workers (in salary, benefits, and due-process-of-law protections) compared to the private sector in most occupations accounting for the bulk of the federal workforce. However, the unions howl and trot out those few occupations where federal workers are paid less (e.g., doctors, lawyers, senior managers). A USA Today analysis concluded that, on average, a fed gets $7,000 a year more in salary, plus better benefits. (And, although you don't get a guaranteed lifetime job, it helps during a recession that your boss can print his own money.) USA Today via News-Journal (Wilmington, Del.)
In New York and about half the states, domestic violence by choking is only a citation offense or a misdemeanor, not rising to a felony unless there is tangible, documentable injury (i.e., more than fear, more than discomfort, more than red marks). Year after year, the New York state legislature ignores anti-domestic- violence advocates and continues to treat spousal chokings as it does traffic tickets. New York Times
Tex-Ass Justice (continued): What does it take to get Texas law-enforcement officials to admit they made a mistake such that they would actually pardon someone they've convicted? We found out last week. It helps to be dead. Tim Cole was pardoned for a 1985 rape he never committed. Another guy confessed to the rape in 1996, but having another perp on hand is never enough for Texas officials; they ignored him. Cole died in prison in 1999. In 2008, they got around to the DNA, which exonerated Cole . . and implicated . . the guy who confessed in 1996. Houston Chronicle
Pennsylvania is known as "East Utah" for its restrictive liquor package-store laws. You can only buy beer for take-home if you get a case at a time from a "distributor" or buy it at a "bar" (at bar-type mark-up). Now, the large grocery chains Giant Eagle and Wegmans have gone to the trouble of opening fake-out "bars" inside their stores so they can sell beer. (But since the alleged purpose of the state's restrictions is fear of underage drinking, the chains are requiring that driver's licenses be scanned for each purchase. That means they potentially store much more information than just date-of-birth.) The beer distributors, of course, think this is basically a fine system. BoingBoing.net
[Weird 2.0 is a kinda-upmarket rendition of News of the Weird / Pro Edition. No perverts, no drunks, no stupid criminals. Just scary important stuff.]
Newsrangers: Laurence Polk, Peter Hine
Spawn of News of the Weird / Pro Edition
March 9, 2010
(datelines February 27-March 6) (links correct as of March 9)
Evidently, it's big news 8½ years after 9-11 that a respected Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa condemning suicide bombing, backed by 600 pages of Quranic scholarship. Nonetheless, everybody knows that the most important basis for fatwas remains not murder, but insults! CNN
Twenty-three super-principled members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted (23-22) to officially condemn Turkey. It's not for anything anyone alive did. The country is being smited because the 23 have concluded that, based on their study of history, the Ottoman Empire committed "genocide" in 1915-1923 and that it's up to the U.S. House of Representatives not to let them, whoever they were, get away with it. Agence France-Presse via Google News
America has done a creditable job at reducing manmade pollutants over the last 40 years, but it is falling way behind on one: farm animal manure. In the old days, small farms could recycle their manure over their own fields. Now, megafarms produce megapoop but don't have megafields to spread it on. The government tries to set standards, but the way this works is that the megafarms' lobbyists object, using "the small family farms" as their human shield against further regulation. Washington Post
And speaking of The Way Things Work, the federal government way-overpays its workers (in salary, benefits, and due-process-of-law protections) compared to the private sector in most occupations accounting for the bulk of the federal workforce. However, the unions howl and trot out those few occupations where federal workers are paid less (e.g., doctors, lawyers, senior managers). A USA Today analysis concluded that, on average, a fed gets $7,000 a year more in salary, plus better benefits. (And, although you don't get a guaranteed lifetime job, it helps during a recession that your boss can print his own money.) USA Today via News-Journal (Wilmington, Del.)
In New York and about half the states, domestic violence by choking is only a citation offense or a misdemeanor, not rising to a felony unless there is tangible, documentable injury (i.e., more than fear, more than discomfort, more than red marks). Year after year, the New York state legislature ignores anti-domestic- violence advocates and continues to treat spousal chokings as it does traffic tickets. New York Times
Tex-Ass Justice (continued): What does it take to get Texas law-enforcement officials to admit they made a mistake such that they would actually pardon someone they've convicted? We found out last week. It helps to be dead. Tim Cole was pardoned for a 1985 rape he never committed. Another guy confessed to the rape in 1996, but having another perp on hand is never enough for Texas officials; they ignored him. Cole died in prison in 1999. In 2008, they got around to the DNA, which exonerated Cole . . and implicated . . the guy who confessed in 1996. Houston Chronicle
Pennsylvania is known as "East Utah" for its restrictive liquor package-store laws. You can only buy beer for take-home if you get a case at a time from a "distributor" or buy it at a "bar" (at bar-type mark-up). Now, the large grocery chains Giant Eagle and Wegmans have gone to the trouble of opening fake-out "bars" inside their stores so they can sell beer. (But since the alleged purpose of the state's restrictions is fear of underage drinking, the chains are requiring that driver's licenses be scanned for each purchase. That means they potentially store much more information than just date-of-birth.) The beer distributors, of course, think this is basically a fine system. BoingBoing.net
[Weird 2.0 is a kinda-upmarket rendition of News of the Weird / Pro Edition. No perverts, no drunks, no stupid criminals. Just scary important stuff.]
Newsrangers: Laurence Polk, Peter Hine
Comments
Armenian Genocide: Give it another 50 years and they may just get round to writing that strongly worded rebuke to Mr. Hitler.
Domestic Choking: Perhaps there are mitigating circumstances like an non-Sanforized shirt or something?
Tim Cole: Well of course you wait until he's dead. That way he can't sue your ass into perpetual penury.
Store Pub: Many years ago the British Sunday trading laws were quite strict, but an exception was made for essential services like petrol-stations. I went to one that had one of the most comprehensively stocked supermarkets I have ever been in, complete with fresh and frozen food, clothes, furniture, sports gear, electrical goods, books, toys, musical instruments, everything... all in a space not much bigger than an ordinary garage. The only thing you couldn't get there was gas. They only had the one pump and it had run out the week before.
Domestic Choking: Perhaps there are mitigating circumstances like an non-Sanforized shirt or something?
Tim Cole: Well of course you wait until he's dead. That way he can't sue your ass into perpetual penury.
Store Pub: Many years ago the British Sunday trading laws were quite strict, but an exception was made for essential services like petrol-stations. I went to one that had one of the most comprehensively stocked supermarkets I have ever been in, complete with fresh and frozen food, clothes, furniture, sports gear, electrical goods, books, toys, musical instruments, everything... all in a space not much bigger than an ordinary garage. The only thing you couldn't get there was gas. They only had the one pump and it had run out the week before.
Posted by Dumbfounded on 03/09/10 at 09:25 AM
genocide n. the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group
This has to be one of the most misused words in the news this decade!
This has to be one of the most misused words in the news this decade!
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 03/09/10 at 09:32 AM
fatwa- i respect the fact that a muslim cleric came out publicly condemning suicide bombings, gotta start somewhere.
house of reps- the idiots need to do something constructive. we have plenty of current problems. how stupid.
poop- the law should reflect a difference between small farms and large corporate ones. a little common sense please.
choking- dumbfounded :lol:
texas- they make florida look reasonable. things like this make me realize that it makes perfect sense that texas is w's state.
pa- you don't realize how different things are from state to state till you hear stuff like this.
house of reps- the idiots need to do something constructive. we have plenty of current problems. how stupid.
poop- the law should reflect a difference between small farms and large corporate ones. a little common sense please.
choking- dumbfounded :lol:
texas- they make florida look reasonable. things like this make me realize that it makes perfect sense that texas is w's state.
pa- you don't realize how different things are from state to state till you hear stuff like this.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/09/10 at 04:26 PM
GenocideThe man who invented the word Genocide used the Armenians as one of his prime examples, since the Holocaust wasn't general knowledge yet. Even the Turks admit the Ottoman Empire killed about 500,000 Armenians, Greeks & Assyrians at that time, most other groups count about 2,000,000 dead and many more driven out of the country in forced death marches.
Expat, what do the Greeks call this Racially Motivated campaign of Murder and forced Deportation? The Armenians call it the "Great Calamity" and the American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire called it a "Campaign of Race Extermination:"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AmbassadorMorgenthautelegram.jpg
One of the Turks problems with this is that one of the worst crimes in Turkey is to insult Turkey or Turkishness, so you are committing a High Crime by bringing this up.
Expat, what do the Greeks call this Racially Motivated campaign of Murder and forced Deportation? The Armenians call it the "Great Calamity" and the American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire called it a "Campaign of Race Extermination:"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AmbassadorMorgenthautelegram.jpg
One of the Turks problems with this is that one of the worst crimes in Turkey is to insult Turkey or Turkishness, so you are committing a High Crime by bringing this up.
Posted by Freddie Freelance on 03/10/10 at 12:41 PM
PA package stores: could be worse - you could be in Georgia. No alcohol sales by the bottle on Sundays, period. Due to the way the law is worded, this means you can't buy non-alcoholic beer or wine, either, although you can buy "cooking wine", which has so much salt in it as to render it unusable, never mind undrinkable. A few places (Atlanta is one) allow you to buy by the drink in bars and restaurants on Sundays, but only after 12:30 pm. The one exception was made when Atlanta hosted the Superbowl, and bars in the stadium were allowed to serve starting at noon, but outside were still restricted to half past, despite desperate lobbying by sports bars.
Manure: I find it amusing the article is in the Washington Post. If anyone knows about bovine waste, it should be them.
Manure: I find it amusing the article is in the Washington Post. If anyone knows about bovine waste, it should be them.
Posted by TheCannyScot in Atlanta, GA on 03/10/10 at 07:50 PM
Dumbfounded, I misspoke, Lemkin didn't use the Armenians in the book, but did consider them one of the reasons he thought to write the book; from a 1948 CBS interview: "I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times. First to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action."
Posted by Freddie Freelance on 03/11/10 at 10:56 AM
Fair enough, I'll ammend my views accordingly. But I think the Carthaginians might have an issue with Armenia being the first genocide.
Not to mention the Amalekites, the Midianites, the Heshbonites ...
Not to mention the Amalekites, the Midianites, the Heshbonites ...
Posted by Dumbfounded on 03/11/10 at 11:41 AM
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