These times, and especially here in Finland, I'll probably get into less trouble for that than for piracy. Also, I'll show the judge how to buy Kindle books on Amazon.fr, and after utterly failing to do so he or she will be merciful.
I just wanted to buy a book, for fuck's sake! A bunch of plays by Jean Giraudoux. I already have one, and it was kind of heavy (in the purely physical sense), and I wanted to buy a Kindle edition, which is not a fucking unreasonable desire. And Amazon.com did not have a Kindle edition, so I went to Amazon.fr, which did.
I logged into the damn site, and it recognized me, like it always did when I bought something from there, which I do every once in a while. And the I tried to buy the damn book, and it said "this title is unavailable in your country".
Why, for fuck's sake, why? Does Giraudoux object to Kindle editions from the grave? Do those plays contain some French secrets that make it necessary to sell them to foreigners only as paperbacks? Do huge crowds of Americans stampede to buy the French version instead of buying their own, more expensive version? Oops, I forgot: there is no Kindle version available in the US.
Yeah, I have a shitload of devices with Kindle, and I have considered setting up another account where I claim to be a Frenchwoman who just happens to have a Finnish credit card. Maybe I will, yes. But then again, murder is a lot more satisfying, and piracy is both faster and cheaper.
Showing posts with label crazy people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crazy people. Show all posts
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Vengeance (spoilers)
Read Vengeance by George Jonas. That's the story of Israel's operation Wrath of God - revenge on the terrorists who massacred Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. This is the book that the movie Munich was based on, and quite a bit more interesting than the movie. More details, some of the such that I would consider them unrealistic if I ran into them in a role-playing game.
A note to self:
If I ever choose the retain the services of an assassin, even a reasonably decent and upstanding assassin, I shall not:
1. Try to force him or her to work after he or she decides to resign,
2. Steal his or her back pay,
3. Threaten his or her child.
I find it incredible someone would do all that to an assassin. In fact I can't imagine doing all that even to a gardener.
Yes, I realize that the book was written based on the personal account of Avner (the assassination team leader), and by the time it was written he was pretty disgruntled, but if I had an assassination team of my own, I would certainly make sure that the leader and the rest of the team are pretty damn well gruntled.
Friday, April 06, 2012
Hey, check this out
Bäckman has published my translation, without any attribution of course. Rimma's original capitalization disappeared though.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Rimma Salonen's appeal to the Russian people
This is a translation of Rimma Salonen's appeal to the Russian people. The original is here (SAFKA's blog), in Russian, text and video, posted by Johan Bäckman (people should know their heroes). The capitalization is Salonen's, and so is, obviously, the content and the degree of sanity.
Rimma Salonen and Johan Bäckman were both running for Eduskunta in 2011 (Suomen Työväenpuolue STP), getting 16 an 36 votes, respectively.
I would like to ask for help from Russia, and in particular from the "Young Guard", because the situation with my child in Finland has not improved for three years, but quite the contrary - the child is still being isolated from the mother, and I am being openly blackmailed by limiting my contact with my son, Anton. Convinced of the bias of the Finnish justice, I have no illusions about my possibilities of resolving the issue through legal channels in Finland. The President of Russia has repeatedly emphasized that Russia will protect its citizens, wherever they are. Anton and I are citizens of Russia, trapped in a hopeless situation, my son was smuggled away from Russian, depriving the child of its mother and a happy childhood. I am asking the Young Guard to help me to restore justice. I am very grateful to the activists of the Young Guard for their support, and I hope that together we can defend the rights of Russian citizens and legal right of Russian mothers and children to family life.
On April 12 it will be exactly three years since the tragedy of my Russian family. This day was like the first ring of a bell. With the theft of Anton a terrible process started all over the West. They started to steal Russian children in all the countries.
Today the Russian mothers from Germany, Norway, New Zealand, France, and many, many countries turn to me. Anton became a kind of symbol - the tragedy of the Russian families in the West.
3 years ago the third world Hunt for Russian children started.
Russia's strong and clear position on this issueis necessary for the salvation of Russia's future - our children. First of all, in order to stop this wanton outrage of the western child services, under cover of which the worldwide battle for the healthy Russian genes is being waged.
For 3 years I've been in mourning. For 3 years I've been struggling. 3 years ago was a tragic day for the whole of Russia. If today Russia does not wake up, then the tomorrow they'll steal your child, and yours, many children, every child. Who among Russian children will be next - that's the question.
The process of stealing Russian children under any pretext is gaining momentum in Finland. No one is wondering WHY anymore, but everyone is afraid that their own son or daughter will be next. This is the PLAGUE of third millennium. This is a disaster. It is not enough just to talk. One should scream!
We, the Russian mothers, are being kept on a leash in the West. The child services of all the countries are spying on us. Guards and child wardens are following us. Why? Because the demographics of western countries are falling. And putting one Russian child in prison automatically attaches a lot of relatives to that country. Today the West is using Russian children to even out the demographic collapse.
Vladimir Putin has recently said that Russia is one of the few countries in the world that has managed to stop the demographic decline, even out the situation, and there has even been some growth. But this does not mean that Russia should throw away its wealth - our new generation, our Russian children who are being stolen in the West.
As a Russian mother, I appeal to the President of Russia and the Russian people - to turn their faces towards the children born in mixed marriages, to protect them from the ALIENATION from Russia. To see in our stolen children the golden gene pool of the nation, to intergrate them into the Russian people.
Today we have a chance to rally Russia to protect the Russian children who are languishing in the dungeons of the western child services, practically the juvenile prisons of the West. The West is doing everything today to make the Russian children forget the Russian language, the religion of their ancestors, the great Russian culture.
My Russian Anton is a symbol of Russian children imprisoned in the trunk of the juvenile system of the West. A Finnish trunk is showing Russia today what the West has in mind for the Russian children - a prison with no windows and doors. A mobile box for the demographic material.
Our children born in the West are talented and unique, unlike the robots and sex dolls, mass manufactured on an assembly line in the West. That is why Russian children are taken from Russian motherstoday: to erase the the Russian individuality, Russian originality and Russian progressiveness.
The West only wants the demographic material - units in the cells of the demographic tables. All that the states want is to get one more line, head, or being at any price. The battle for the demographic unit is killing the souls of Russian children. Being the mother of Anton, I want to testify - to tell about the terrible Argameddone - the global battle between good and evil, which you are witnessing today. This is the battle for the souls of our Russian children.
The whole "civilized" world is against Russia today. Almost all countries in the world are hunting for Russian girls and boys. This Armageddon is the battlefield for the future of mankind.
Stealing Anton from Russia showed the world that the West is not only not ashamed to steal our children, but that the West has turned the theft of Russian children into PLANNED alienation of Russian biomaterial.
According to the media there is a state plan in Norway, according to which every year 3,000 children have to be TAKEN AWAY and ALIENATED from immigrants without a trial. Extremely. Just because there is the plan. Communes and municipalities in the west are competing with each other, who will take the most children away from the Russian mothers.
And the leaders of the countries call the mayors on the carpet, to reproach them for taking away too FEW children last month or last year. This is what I ran into here in the West.
The theft of Russian children in the West is covered by the veil of SUPER SECRECY. If the mother turns to the media for help, she will be crucified, all contact with the child will be forbidden.
This secrecy and alleged privacy of the FAMILY have been invented in the West in order to conceal the crime. There are no family issues - there is the international HUNT and THEFT of Russian children.
I believe that I will live to see the day when this HUNT will be called a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. That there will be a new Nuremberg trial. And the people who stole my son will stand the trial and will receive punishment.
But right now my goal is to be heard. I am pick up a BELL. I want to warn Russia of the trouble that is coming from the WEST, about the PLAGUE OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM, which is coming from the north and from the south. And the name of the plague is HUNT for RUSSIAN CHILDREN.
Today I want to testify - MY BELL TOLLS FOR THEE. For every Russian. Because now any Russian child can become the second Anton Salonen! There is only one cure for this plague - join our hands together.
Dear Russians! Dear President of Russia! Dear Russian mothers and fathers! Dear Russian people! I, Rimma Salonen, am asking you today to JOIN OUR HANDS for our children, for the most precious thing we have.
Russian people are a great power. The goal of the West is to divide us and to sow discord. But we have a cement which unites us, we have a treasure that we are destined to protect. That is our Russian children.
Today, the West started a battle for the Russian children. And only we - Russian mothers and fathers - can protect them. Our strength lies in Unity. Our strength is that we have joined hands and stood in a circle, defending our children with their bodies and souls.
The Third World HUNT on our children has already begun. And it began with the theft of my Anton. But Russia will withstand it. Hand in hand we are invincible.
Rimma Salonen and Johan Bäckman were both running for Eduskunta in 2011 (Suomen Työväenpuolue STP), getting 16 an 36 votes, respectively.
I would like to ask for help from Russia, and in particular from the "Young Guard", because the situation with my child in Finland has not improved for three years, but quite the contrary - the child is still being isolated from the mother, and I am being openly blackmailed by limiting my contact with my son, Anton. Convinced of the bias of the Finnish justice, I have no illusions about my possibilities of resolving the issue through legal channels in Finland. The President of Russia has repeatedly emphasized that Russia will protect its citizens, wherever they are. Anton and I are citizens of Russia, trapped in a hopeless situation, my son was smuggled away from Russian, depriving the child of its mother and a happy childhood. I am asking the Young Guard to help me to restore justice. I am very grateful to the activists of the Young Guard for their support, and I hope that together we can defend the rights of Russian citizens and legal right of Russian mothers and children to family life.
On April 12 it will be exactly three years since the tragedy of my Russian family. This day was like the first ring of a bell. With the theft of Anton a terrible process started all over the West. They started to steal Russian children in all the countries.
Today the Russian mothers from Germany, Norway, New Zealand, France, and many, many countries turn to me. Anton became a kind of symbol - the tragedy of the Russian families in the West.
3 years ago the third world Hunt for Russian children started.
Russia's strong and clear position on this issueis necessary for the salvation of Russia's future - our children. First of all, in order to stop this wanton outrage of the western child services, under cover of which the worldwide battle for the healthy Russian genes is being waged.
For 3 years I've been in mourning. For 3 years I've been struggling. 3 years ago was a tragic day for the whole of Russia. If today Russia does not wake up, then the tomorrow they'll steal your child, and yours, many children, every child. Who among Russian children will be next - that's the question.
The process of stealing Russian children under any pretext is gaining momentum in Finland. No one is wondering WHY anymore, but everyone is afraid that their own son or daughter will be next. This is the PLAGUE of third millennium. This is a disaster. It is not enough just to talk. One should scream!
We, the Russian mothers, are being kept on a leash in the West. The child services of all the countries are spying on us. Guards and child wardens are following us. Why? Because the demographics of western countries are falling. And putting one Russian child in prison automatically attaches a lot of relatives to that country. Today the West is using Russian children to even out the demographic collapse.
Vladimir Putin has recently said that Russia is one of the few countries in the world that has managed to stop the demographic decline, even out the situation, and there has even been some growth. But this does not mean that Russia should throw away its wealth - our new generation, our Russian children who are being stolen in the West.
As a Russian mother, I appeal to the President of Russia and the Russian people - to turn their faces towards the children born in mixed marriages, to protect them from the ALIENATION from Russia. To see in our stolen children the golden gene pool of the nation, to intergrate them into the Russian people.
Today we have a chance to rally Russia to protect the Russian children who are languishing in the dungeons of the western child services, practically the juvenile prisons of the West. The West is doing everything today to make the Russian children forget the Russian language, the religion of their ancestors, the great Russian culture.
My Russian Anton is a symbol of Russian children imprisoned in the trunk of the juvenile system of the West. A Finnish trunk is showing Russia today what the West has in mind for the Russian children - a prison with no windows and doors. A mobile box for the demographic material.
Our children born in the West are talented and unique, unlike the robots and sex dolls, mass manufactured on an assembly line in the West. That is why Russian children are taken from Russian motherstoday: to erase the the Russian individuality, Russian originality and Russian progressiveness.
The West only wants the demographic material - units in the cells of the demographic tables. All that the states want is to get one more line, head, or being at any price. The battle for the demographic unit is killing the souls of Russian children. Being the mother of Anton, I want to testify - to tell about the terrible Argameddone - the global battle between good and evil, which you are witnessing today. This is the battle for the souls of our Russian children.
The whole "civilized" world is against Russia today. Almost all countries in the world are hunting for Russian girls and boys. This Armageddon is the battlefield for the future of mankind.
Stealing Anton from Russia showed the world that the West is not only not ashamed to steal our children, but that the West has turned the theft of Russian children into PLANNED alienation of Russian biomaterial.
According to the media there is a state plan in Norway, according to which every year 3,000 children have to be TAKEN AWAY and ALIENATED from immigrants without a trial. Extremely. Just because there is the plan. Communes and municipalities in the west are competing with each other, who will take the most children away from the Russian mothers.
And the leaders of the countries call the mayors on the carpet, to reproach them for taking away too FEW children last month or last year. This is what I ran into here in the West.
The theft of Russian children in the West is covered by the veil of SUPER SECRECY. If the mother turns to the media for help, she will be crucified, all contact with the child will be forbidden.
This secrecy and alleged privacy of the FAMILY have been invented in the West in order to conceal the crime. There are no family issues - there is the international HUNT and THEFT of Russian children.
I believe that I will live to see the day when this HUNT will be called a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. That there will be a new Nuremberg trial. And the people who stole my son will stand the trial and will receive punishment.
But right now my goal is to be heard. I am pick up a BELL. I want to warn Russia of the trouble that is coming from the WEST, about the PLAGUE OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM, which is coming from the north and from the south. And the name of the plague is HUNT for RUSSIAN CHILDREN.
Today I want to testify - MY BELL TOLLS FOR THEE. For every Russian. Because now any Russian child can become the second Anton Salonen! There is only one cure for this plague - join our hands together.
Dear Russians! Dear President of Russia! Dear Russian mothers and fathers! Dear Russian people! I, Rimma Salonen, am asking you today to JOIN OUR HANDS for our children, for the most precious thing we have.
Russian people are a great power. The goal of the West is to divide us and to sow discord. But we have a cement which unites us, we have a treasure that we are destined to protect. That is our Russian children.
Today, the West started a battle for the Russian children. And only we - Russian mothers and fathers - can protect them. Our strength lies in Unity. Our strength is that we have joined hands and stood in a circle, defending our children with their bodies and souls.
The Third World HUNT on our children has already begun. And it began with the theft of my Anton. But Russia will withstand it. Hand in hand we are invincible.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Traditional values
Liberia, where homosexuality is already illegal, is currently trying to increase the prison sentences for it. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, last year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is very much against decriminalizing homosexuality. "We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve. We're going to keep to our traditional values," she says.
That's funny. I thought Liberia's traditional values were civil war, rape and cannibalism, as well as its traditional place in the last ten countries as listed by Human Development Index.
A former president of this highly traditional country, Charles Taylor, is currently in Hague on trial for murder, rape, torture, mutilation and cannibalism.
Of the other fine politicians of Liberia, Prince Johnson is known for torture and dismemberment, Roosevelt Johnson is known for sponsoring Joshua Milton Blahyi (also known as General Butt Naked), Joshua Milton Blahyi is known for human sacrifice, eating children's hearts and playing soccer with people's detached heads (yeah, and being butt naked).
I understand that next to all these dignitaries Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has never committed a violent crime or at least been caught doing so, totally deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
Seriously though, there is some point in her Nobel Peace Prize. She managed to criminalize one traditional Liberian pastime: raping everything that moves, and a lot of things that don't move fast enough (like babies, for example). Yep, they banned rape in 2006. Before that it was kinda traditional.
Americans got a little taste of traditional Liberian values a couple of years ago, when a 8-year-old Liberian girl was raped by four boys aged 14, 13, 10 and 9 and was thereafter disowned by her parents, Hemie and Wedeh Dio (currently on trial in Arizona for 7 unrelated counts of child abuse).
But it's a good thing the president is standing up for the traditional values. I mean, Liberia is so fucked already, imagine how it would be if homosexuals were allowed to have sex!
That's funny. I thought Liberia's traditional values were civil war, rape and cannibalism, as well as its traditional place in the last ten countries as listed by Human Development Index.
A former president of this highly traditional country, Charles Taylor, is currently in Hague on trial for murder, rape, torture, mutilation and cannibalism.
Of the other fine politicians of Liberia, Prince Johnson is known for torture and dismemberment, Roosevelt Johnson is known for sponsoring Joshua Milton Blahyi (also known as General Butt Naked), Joshua Milton Blahyi is known for human sacrifice, eating children's hearts and playing soccer with people's detached heads (yeah, and being butt naked).
I understand that next to all these dignitaries Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has never committed a violent crime or at least been caught doing so, totally deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
Seriously though, there is some point in her Nobel Peace Prize. She managed to criminalize one traditional Liberian pastime: raping everything that moves, and a lot of things that don't move fast enough (like babies, for example). Yep, they banned rape in 2006. Before that it was kinda traditional.
Americans got a little taste of traditional Liberian values a couple of years ago, when a 8-year-old Liberian girl was raped by four boys aged 14, 13, 10 and 9 and was thereafter disowned by her parents, Hemie and Wedeh Dio (currently on trial in Arizona for 7 unrelated counts of child abuse).
But it's a good thing the president is standing up for the traditional values. I mean, Liberia is so fucked already, imagine how it would be if homosexuals were allowed to have sex!
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Don't use fake email addresses, people
Before you use a fake email address, even one that sounds fake, such as foobar at somepopularprovider.com, stop for a moment and consider that that address might belong to a living, breathing, malicious person with a penchant for practical jokes.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Communists are crazy, part 452542
HS says that somebody blew up Stalin's monument in the Ukraine, in the city of Zaporozhye. My first thought was "no shit". The second thought was "what the hell was the monument doing there anyway?".
For those who don't know, Stalin has murdered millions of Ukranians.
They really should get rid of all the monuments of genocidal maniacs from the USSR time, I thought, and then read that the monument was put up last May.
WTF, really? Was it there waiting for Hitler, Che Guevara and Pol Pot, as a friend of mine suggested? Or just to scare children? Who put the damn thing up? I wanted to see the person.
Quick googling found, among other things, that the leader of Ukraine's Communist party considers Stalin to be the greatest politician of modern times. Some more quick googling found that it was Zaporozhye's Communist party committee that put the monument there in the first place.
For those who don't know, Stalin has murdered millions of Ukranians.
They really should get rid of all the monuments of genocidal maniacs from the USSR time, I thought, and then read that the monument was put up last May.
WTF, really? Was it there waiting for Hitler, Che Guevara and Pol Pot, as a friend of mine suggested? Or just to scare children? Who put the damn thing up? I wanted to see the person.
Quick googling found, among other things, that the leader of Ukraine's Communist party considers Stalin to be the greatest politician of modern times. Some more quick googling found that it was Zaporozhye's Communist party committee that put the monument there in the first place.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Is your underwear the right color today?
The UBS Bank of Switzerland has issued a 43-page dress code to its employees (here in French), complete with instructions on the color of underwear, using makeup on one's neck, the requirement to wear a black belt (not a karate one, I think), the description of the glasses one is allowed to wear, how one's roots should be impeccable (hair roots, not genealogical), the demand that the pantyhose should be always worn with a skirt, that it should be transparent (the pantyhose, not the skirt) and that wearers of pantyhose always have another pair with them, in case it runs, the advice on trimming one's toenails, on taking off one's glasses when you talk to a customer (so you can't see them?) and some other goodies. Some of it is advice, some of it is requirements, and they require, above all, that your look should make you comfortable and bring forward your personality.
Oh dear. The only way my personality would come forward in all that attire, I am afraid, would be by catching the authors, giving them a good kicking with the regulation heels, strangling them almost to death with a regulation scarf, and then reviving and strangling them again with the other regulation scarf (yes, they have two).
Seriously: my first reaction on reading the news, even before reading the actual document, was "if my bank issued a regulation like that, by the evening I'd open an account in another bank".
Besides, considering their recent history, shouldn't they rather be issuing instructions on the topic of facilitation of tax evasion without getting caught?
Oh dear. The only way my personality would come forward in all that attire, I am afraid, would be by catching the authors, giving them a good kicking with the regulation heels, strangling them almost to death with a regulation scarf, and then reviving and strangling them again with the other regulation scarf (yes, they have two).
Seriously: my first reaction on reading the news, even before reading the actual document, was "if my bank issued a regulation like that, by the evening I'd open an account in another bank".
Besides, considering their recent history, shouldn't they rather be issuing instructions on the topic of facilitation of tax evasion without getting caught?
Monday, December 06, 2010
Bäckmanin uusin
Tämän päivän hesarijuttu Bäckmanista sai mut ajattelemaan että suurin osa suomalaisista ei tunne Bäckmanin tuotantoa, mikä on väärin, koska kansan pitäisi tuntea sankareitaan.
Viimeisin juttu joka levisi Venäjän lehdistossa oli juttu velkovenäläisestä naisesta jonka lapsen ilkeät suomalaiset sosiaaliviranomaiset vei. Tässä se on venäjäksi.
Lyhyt yhteenveto asianomaisen versiosta:
- Svetlana-äiti ja Tanja-tytär tulivat pakolaisina Valkovenäjältä (joten en edes tajua miten Venäjä liittyy asiaan) ja saivat kämpän Vaasasta. Tytär (nyt 8-vuotias) meni kouluun ja äiti töihin.
- Huhtikuussa tyttärellä alkoi esiintyä mielialavaihteluita ja paikalliset alan ammattilaiset suosittelivat että se kävisi Venäjällä venäläisellä psykologilla,
- Maahanmuuttovirasto ei päästänyt tyttöä ulos kun täälläkin on psykologeja, ja suositteli että lapsi jätettäisin sosiaaliviranomaisille kahdeksi viikoksi kun äiti käy Venäjällä,
- Pietarissa käydessään äiti menetti asunnon Vaasassa, ja joutui olemaan siellä puoli vuotta lisää kunnes sai säästettyä rahaa vuokrakämppään Helsingissä,
- Kun Svetlana palasi Helsinkiin osoittautui että lapsi otettiin huostaan sillä perusteella että äiti oli kadoksissa. Ja vieläpä Vaasassa eikä Helsingissä minne äiti muutti!
- Äiti nyt asuu Helsingissä kaksiossa jossa on sauna ja parveke, ja naapurissa venäjänkielisiä lapsia.
- Tytär sen sijaan asuu Vaasassa orpokodissa jossa samassa huoneessa on kaksi afrikkalasita tyttöä, eikä ole koulua,
- Äiti saa soittaa tyttärelle ja käydä kylässä, mutta vain tulkin läsnäolleessa, eikä saa puhua mistään surullisesta,
- Bäckmanin mielestä kyse on siitä että venäläisistä lapsista yritetään tehdä suomalaisia.
Onneksi tällä kerralla jutun kirjoittajat taisivat aliarvoida venäläisiä lukijoita: kommenttien yleisin sävy oli että sosiaaliviranomaiset olivat oikeassa kun kerran äiti katosi ulkomaille puoleksi vuodeksi.
Viimeisin juttu joka levisi Venäjän lehdistossa oli juttu velkovenäläisestä naisesta jonka lapsen ilkeät suomalaiset sosiaaliviranomaiset vei. Tässä se on venäjäksi.
Lyhyt yhteenveto asianomaisen versiosta:
- Svetlana-äiti ja Tanja-tytär tulivat pakolaisina Valkovenäjältä (joten en edes tajua miten Venäjä liittyy asiaan) ja saivat kämpän Vaasasta. Tytär (nyt 8-vuotias) meni kouluun ja äiti töihin.
- Huhtikuussa tyttärellä alkoi esiintyä mielialavaihteluita ja paikalliset alan ammattilaiset suosittelivat että se kävisi Venäjällä venäläisellä psykologilla,
- Maahanmuuttovirasto ei päästänyt tyttöä ulos kun täälläkin on psykologeja, ja suositteli että lapsi jätettäisin sosiaaliviranomaisille kahdeksi viikoksi kun äiti käy Venäjällä,
- Pietarissa käydessään äiti menetti asunnon Vaasassa, ja joutui olemaan siellä puoli vuotta lisää kunnes sai säästettyä rahaa vuokrakämppään Helsingissä,
- Kun Svetlana palasi Helsinkiin osoittautui että lapsi otettiin huostaan sillä perusteella että äiti oli kadoksissa. Ja vieläpä Vaasassa eikä Helsingissä minne äiti muutti!
- Äiti nyt asuu Helsingissä kaksiossa jossa on sauna ja parveke, ja naapurissa venäjänkielisiä lapsia.
- Tytär sen sijaan asuu Vaasassa orpokodissa jossa samassa huoneessa on kaksi afrikkalasita tyttöä, eikä ole koulua,
- Äiti saa soittaa tyttärelle ja käydä kylässä, mutta vain tulkin läsnäolleessa, eikä saa puhua mistään surullisesta,
- Bäckmanin mielestä kyse on siitä että venäläisistä lapsista yritetään tehdä suomalaisia.
Onneksi tällä kerralla jutun kirjoittajat taisivat aliarvoida venäläisiä lukijoita: kommenttien yleisin sävy oli että sosiaaliviranomaiset olivat oikeassa kun kerran äiti katosi ulkomaille puoleksi vuodeksi.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
The Other Sanity
Today I've read The Other Russia, the vision of Eduard Limonov, the leader of Russia's National Bolsheviks.
The text's purpose is to raise the reader's warrior spirit, and it does work: approximately by the page three I could easily visualize myself dressed in a loincloth and with the author's intestines right on the tip of my spear.
Mind you, this post is not Russia-bashing for once. Anyone who'd spend his whole life in Russia would surely have enough sense not to start a National Bolshevik party, because the country already had one and it didn't turn out quite as advertised. On the other hand, never underestimate the lack of common sense.
No, Limonov is not entirely a product of Russia. He was kicked out the there in 1974 (guess Russia was in no condition to feed two simultaneous Bolshevik parties), moved the the US, "fell in with the New York punk and avant-garde scene", according to Wikipedia, moved to France in 1982, quickly became active in French literary circles and moved back to Russia in 1991 to become a politician.
French intellectual circles are a dangerous place to put a power-hungry idiot in, as a couple of millions dead Cambodians can attest.
Anyway, Limonov believes in young energy and liberating young people from their families. He disapproves of families in general, because the family is just a burden on a budding young hero. His idea of the proper family values is free polyamorous sex where people get satisfied and nobody refuses anyone (he is not clear on how that is to be achieved), where nobody is tied down to any kind of family, where women are obliged to have at least 4 children, who are taken away as soon as they can walk and raised by the society. He wants to permit polygamous families.
Well, you can understand him. For some reason his party seems to be rather short on women. The party homepage features heroes, martyrs and authors, none of whom happen to be women, and the photo gallery shows a few women in the demonstrations. I am sure that if every one of those women took a harem of 10 men, they'd all be one happy unfamily. (Limonov does warn against mating outside the party, so that is out.)
He doesn't like school much, either, and gives his own model for education: "Education will become short and will be different. Boys and girls will be taught to shoot from grenade throwers, to jump from helicopters, to besiege villages and cities, to skin sheep and pigs, to cook good hot food and to write poetry."
"The teacher in the middle school has to be only one. It has to be a man, he has to have an artistic (painter, poet, writer) and military experience. No algebra, trigonometry, mathematics, physics and other abstract, never useful disciplines will be taught to the children."
A nation of warrior poets. Right.
Limonov wishes for a youth revolution and destroying every institution there is. He is not clear on how he'd enforce the 4 children per woman rule after he gets rid of police. He promises sex, war, and no school. And mandatory defloration at the age of 13. He would like to ban and destroy the cities outright, and frowns on agriculture and infrastructure in general. And furniture.
He has a vision: nomadic warrior communities roaming around on helicopters. All of them in black jeans, black coats and black boots. Infrastructure largely destroyed, except that businesses that produce weapons and said helicopters can be located on the outskirts of the abandoned cities.
He has ideas on the foreign policy, too:
"Will we produce weapons? Of course, we will. We will wage wars. But not like those before, not front on front. Ours will infiltrate their territories, familiarize their people with our way of living and ideas and the healthiest and strongest ones among them will become ours, our nation. And then our forces will invade and finish off those who don’t agree."
"The armed community could be called "Government of Eurasia". Thus the dreams of the Eurasians of the 30s will be realized. Many people will want to join us. Possibly we will conquer the whole world. People will die young but it will be fun. We will burn the corpses of the heroes."
Oh dear. I thought the most popular dream among the Eurasians of the 30s was not to get into any concentration camps, and generally avoid heroes and corpse-burning.
I wish I could say that the man is a lone lunatic, but he does have 56 thousand followers. On the other hand, everything should be tried except incest and folk dancing, so can some TV studio arrange for a bit of uninhabited land for them to build their society on, in return for getting to film it? A society of 56 thousand heroic sociopaths should make one hell of a reality show.
BTW, can anyone tell me: how come all those people extolling the virtues of dying young are always in their sixties or seventies?
The text's purpose is to raise the reader's warrior spirit, and it does work: approximately by the page three I could easily visualize myself dressed in a loincloth and with the author's intestines right on the tip of my spear.
Mind you, this post is not Russia-bashing for once. Anyone who'd spend his whole life in Russia would surely have enough sense not to start a National Bolshevik party, because the country already had one and it didn't turn out quite as advertised. On the other hand, never underestimate the lack of common sense.
No, Limonov is not entirely a product of Russia. He was kicked out the there in 1974 (guess Russia was in no condition to feed two simultaneous Bolshevik parties), moved the the US, "fell in with the New York punk and avant-garde scene", according to Wikipedia, moved to France in 1982, quickly became active in French literary circles and moved back to Russia in 1991 to become a politician.
French intellectual circles are a dangerous place to put a power-hungry idiot in, as a couple of millions dead Cambodians can attest.
Anyway, Limonov believes in young energy and liberating young people from their families. He disapproves of families in general, because the family is just a burden on a budding young hero. His idea of the proper family values is free polyamorous sex where people get satisfied and nobody refuses anyone (he is not clear on how that is to be achieved), where nobody is tied down to any kind of family, where women are obliged to have at least 4 children, who are taken away as soon as they can walk and raised by the society. He wants to permit polygamous families.
Well, you can understand him. For some reason his party seems to be rather short on women. The party homepage features heroes, martyrs and authors, none of whom happen to be women, and the photo gallery shows a few women in the demonstrations. I am sure that if every one of those women took a harem of 10 men, they'd all be one happy unfamily. (Limonov does warn against mating outside the party, so that is out.)
He doesn't like school much, either, and gives his own model for education: "Education will become short and will be different. Boys and girls will be taught to shoot from grenade throwers, to jump from helicopters, to besiege villages and cities, to skin sheep and pigs, to cook good hot food and to write poetry."
"The teacher in the middle school has to be only one. It has to be a man, he has to have an artistic (painter, poet, writer) and military experience. No algebra, trigonometry, mathematics, physics and other abstract, never useful disciplines will be taught to the children."
A nation of warrior poets. Right.
Limonov wishes for a youth revolution and destroying every institution there is. He is not clear on how he'd enforce the 4 children per woman rule after he gets rid of police. He promises sex, war, and no school. And mandatory defloration at the age of 13. He would like to ban and destroy the cities outright, and frowns on agriculture and infrastructure in general. And furniture.
He has a vision: nomadic warrior communities roaming around on helicopters. All of them in black jeans, black coats and black boots. Infrastructure largely destroyed, except that businesses that produce weapons and said helicopters can be located on the outskirts of the abandoned cities.
He has ideas on the foreign policy, too:
"Will we produce weapons? Of course, we will. We will wage wars. But not like those before, not front on front. Ours will infiltrate their territories, familiarize their people with our way of living and ideas and the healthiest and strongest ones among them will become ours, our nation. And then our forces will invade and finish off those who don’t agree."
"The armed community could be called "Government of Eurasia". Thus the dreams of the Eurasians of the 30s will be realized. Many people will want to join us. Possibly we will conquer the whole world. People will die young but it will be fun. We will burn the corpses of the heroes."
Oh dear. I thought the most popular dream among the Eurasians of the 30s was not to get into any concentration camps, and generally avoid heroes and corpse-burning.
I wish I could say that the man is a lone lunatic, but he does have 56 thousand followers. On the other hand, everything should be tried except incest and folk dancing, so can some TV studio arrange for a bit of uninhabited land for them to build their society on, in return for getting to film it? A society of 56 thousand heroic sociopaths should make one hell of a reality show.
BTW, can anyone tell me: how come all those people extolling the virtues of dying young are always in their sixties or seventies?
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Gay Pride: morons found
Went to see the Pride parade yesterday. No, didn't see the attack on it, but heard that those morons have been found and caught too.
I like watching the Pride parades, and sometimes participating if I happen to wake up early enough, which I didn't. One thing that always makes me wonder, though: every time there is at least several people in it proudly displaying portraits of Che Guevara. I always wonder what kind of moron would bring a portrait of a celebrity homophobe to a Gay Pride parade.
Well, I guess the moron has been found now. I saw 4 people (not in the same group) carrying identical Che Guevara balloons, and when I came a bit closer to one of them, I noticed the text under Che: SKP. This SKP, I assume.
I like watching the Pride parades, and sometimes participating if I happen to wake up early enough, which I didn't. One thing that always makes me wonder, though: every time there is at least several people in it proudly displaying portraits of Che Guevara. I always wonder what kind of moron would bring a portrait of a celebrity homophobe to a Gay Pride parade.
Well, I guess the moron has been found now. I saw 4 people (not in the same group) carrying identical Che Guevara balloons, and when I came a bit closer to one of them, I noticed the text under Che: SKP. This SKP, I assume.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Who are those people?
President Obama has ordered the Health and Human Services agency to ensure that the hospitals that get Medicare and Medicaid money grant visitation right to whoever the patient wants. It was mostly described in the news as giving the visitation rights to same-sex partners, but it fact it concerns all the people who wish to be visited by someone who is not a member of their immediate family.
This is very good news, of course, but the very fact that the issue exists makes me wonder quite a bit - who are the enemy, I mean the people on the other side of the issue? Why? I've never seen them. This sort of gives me the feeling that there is some other, alternative USA out there.
Obviously, one of the guilty parties is Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital. A few years ago a woman visiting Miami got a brain aneurysm and was rushed there. When her partner of 17 years came there with their three children, they were not allowed to visit the woman, in spite of the fact that the partner had a medical power of attorney document with her, and in spite of the fact that there was no medical reason to prevent the visit. The woman died, alone.
Jackson Memorial Hospital argued in court - successfully, no less - that they are under no obligation to allow any visitors at all. I can only hope that everyone who does have an opportunity to choose their hospital has heard this loud and clear.
The whole thing makes me suspect that Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital is in fact run by aliens (of the extraterrestrial kind) with little green antennae, who did not come in peace. Seriously, I've never seen anything like that. I've never seen any hospital in the US (or in Finland or Austria, for that matter) take any interest in who their patient's visitors are. Moreover - I know that there are many Americans who are different from me in one way or another, and I've met quite a lot of them, from rather far right to rather far left, from the coasts and from the Midwest, religious and atheists, but I've never met a person whom I could even imagine supporting this idea. Who are they? Hey, if any of you are reading this, wanna tell me who you are?
I can imagine that if some hospital in Boston suddenly started admitting only immediate relatives to visit patients, the result would be immediate violence, with the perpetrator utterly failing to be convicted by the jury of his or her peers.
What's in it for the hospitals? Also, how do they even know who the immediate family are? How does anyone know that I am my parents' daughter, or my parents are married to each other? Obviously, if the matter comes up in some court, one can unearth some certificates, my parents have their wedding pictures somewhere, and quite a lot of living witnesses to the event, and the fact that they are my parents can be established by a DNA test. Anybody who does not have the time and money for all of the above would have to rely on our word, though.
This is very good news, of course, but the very fact that the issue exists makes me wonder quite a bit - who are the enemy, I mean the people on the other side of the issue? Why? I've never seen them. This sort of gives me the feeling that there is some other, alternative USA out there.
Obviously, one of the guilty parties is Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital. A few years ago a woman visiting Miami got a brain aneurysm and was rushed there. When her partner of 17 years came there with their three children, they were not allowed to visit the woman, in spite of the fact that the partner had a medical power of attorney document with her, and in spite of the fact that there was no medical reason to prevent the visit. The woman died, alone.
Jackson Memorial Hospital argued in court - successfully, no less - that they are under no obligation to allow any visitors at all. I can only hope that everyone who does have an opportunity to choose their hospital has heard this loud and clear.
The whole thing makes me suspect that Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital is in fact run by aliens (of the extraterrestrial kind) with little green antennae, who did not come in peace. Seriously, I've never seen anything like that. I've never seen any hospital in the US (or in Finland or Austria, for that matter) take any interest in who their patient's visitors are. Moreover - I know that there are many Americans who are different from me in one way or another, and I've met quite a lot of them, from rather far right to rather far left, from the coasts and from the Midwest, religious and atheists, but I've never met a person whom I could even imagine supporting this idea. Who are they? Hey, if any of you are reading this, wanna tell me who you are?
I can imagine that if some hospital in Boston suddenly started admitting only immediate relatives to visit patients, the result would be immediate violence, with the perpetrator utterly failing to be convicted by the jury of his or her peers.
What's in it for the hospitals? Also, how do they even know who the immediate family are? How does anyone know that I am my parents' daughter, or my parents are married to each other? Obviously, if the matter comes up in some court, one can unearth some certificates, my parents have their wedding pictures somewhere, and quite a lot of living witnesses to the event, and the fact that they are my parents can be established by a DNA test. Anybody who does not have the time and money for all of the above would have to rely on our word, though.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Alabama on the forefront of high-school BDSM
Oxford High School in Oxford, Alabama, has a dress code for prom dresses: the hem cannot be more than 6 inches above the knee and the cleavage cannot be below the breastbone. The article is not clear on whether they mean the top or the bottom of the breastbone; neither makes any sense to me.
That is not the point. Silly dress codes happen. The really amazing thing that after 18 out of the 352 students violated the code they were given a choice of paddling and a three-day suspension, and 17 chose the paddling.
Wow. I'd never imagined a backward place like Alabama would be as open to BDSM as to paddle consenting high school students on taxpayer money. In my home state of Massachusetts it's illegal even between consenting adults, and 10 years ago police even arrested the participants of a BDSM party in Attleboro. The case was thrown out on technicalities, but not before the local population renamed Attleboro into Paddleboro to the great joy of the local authorities. But Alabama? Just wow!
I am probably the last person on earth who should ever joke about the family trees that don't branch, but I often suspects that the states who have the reputation for having a lot of inbred morons tend to have it for a very good reason.
The even more amazing thing than the fact that paddling is offered as a punishment (do they also have whipping? piercing? fisting?) is that out of 18 students given the alternatives between a paddling and not having to go to school for 3 days, 17 chose the paddling. Either Oxford, Alabama is absolutely full of subs in need of a dom, or their school is so much fun that nobody wants to miss any of it even under the threat of being paddled, which sort of makes me wonder what other activities go on in there.
I am also kinda wondering whether they need an extra employee for the prom season.
That is not the point. Silly dress codes happen. The really amazing thing that after 18 out of the 352 students violated the code they were given a choice of paddling and a three-day suspension, and 17 chose the paddling.
Wow. I'd never imagined a backward place like Alabama would be as open to BDSM as to paddle consenting high school students on taxpayer money. In my home state of Massachusetts it's illegal even between consenting adults, and 10 years ago police even arrested the participants of a BDSM party in Attleboro. The case was thrown out on technicalities, but not before the local population renamed Attleboro into Paddleboro to the great joy of the local authorities. But Alabama? Just wow!
I am probably the last person on earth who should ever joke about the family trees that don't branch, but I often suspects that the states who have the reputation for having a lot of inbred morons tend to have it for a very good reason.
The even more amazing thing than the fact that paddling is offered as a punishment (do they also have whipping? piercing? fisting?) is that out of 18 students given the alternatives between a paddling and not having to go to school for 3 days, 17 chose the paddling. Either Oxford, Alabama is absolutely full of subs in need of a dom, or their school is so much fun that nobody wants to miss any of it even under the threat of being paddled, which sort of makes me wonder what other activities go on in there.
I am also kinda wondering whether they need an extra employee for the prom season.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Don't shave and drive
In particular, don't shave your pussy and drive. Not only do you get into an accident, you are probably left with half of your pussy covered in stubble.
Megan Barnes decided to shave her pussy while driving, the next day after having her license suspended for 5 years. Judging from the picture we should be grateful she didn't decide to color her roots, too.
Megan Barnes decided to shave her pussy while driving, the next day after having her license suspended for 5 years. Judging from the picture we should be grateful she didn't decide to color her roots, too.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
No, we don't have campfires indoors
There was a horrible fire in a nightclub in Perm. 112 people are dead, out of about 250 people present; considering the injuries of the survivors, the death toll is likely to rise.
There is a lot of soul-searching in the Russian forums right now. Russians are corrupt, and not particularly safety-minded, and well aware of it, but they are not sure what to do about it: they are not all corrupt, of course, not even the majority, but it only takes a few percent of the population to make it possible for everyone who wants to bribe a fire safety inspector to find a bribable one. A few more percent, and the honest people stop choosing the professions where a lot of people take bribes. One can resist giving bribes, but in many cases it's not an option.
I kind of wish I knew how much the fire inspectors got in this case. To begin with, the club was on the first floor of an apartment building. Its ceiling was quite low (2.5 meters or so) and made of straw and dry twigs. Behind the twigs they had a highly flammable sort of polystyrene and lots of electrical wiring. Just the place for the indoor fireworks. The fireworks turned out to be bigger and hotter than specified, the place had only one emergency exit, and it was unmarked, and all the light worked from the wiring in the ceiling, so as soon at it caught fire the lights went out. And of course there were no sprinklers or fire alarm.
Well, they promised that the evening would be unforgettable, and it sure was. :(
But enough of the Russian fire safety enforcement. Shit happens everywhere. 6 years ago there was a very similar fire in Rhode Island. There the fire inspectors were not bribed but happened to overlook the absence of sprinklers anyway. The company that delivered the insulation materials forgot to mention they were flammable, and the emergency exits were all there, but apparently during such situations people tend to run back where they came from. The survival percentage was much higher than in Perm, of course, but still, 100 people died.
What I really want to know is: considering that almost all the big nightclub fires around the world lately come from the indoor use of fireworks, what exactly possesses people to continue using them? How many people really want to see fireworks during an indoor show? Those events have sufficiently bad air as it is. The whole thing makes me feel like explaining to people "no, we don't have campfires indoors".
It just seems like such a fucking bad idea.
There is a lot of soul-searching in the Russian forums right now. Russians are corrupt, and not particularly safety-minded, and well aware of it, but they are not sure what to do about it: they are not all corrupt, of course, not even the majority, but it only takes a few percent of the population to make it possible for everyone who wants to bribe a fire safety inspector to find a bribable one. A few more percent, and the honest people stop choosing the professions where a lot of people take bribes. One can resist giving bribes, but in many cases it's not an option.
I kind of wish I knew how much the fire inspectors got in this case. To begin with, the club was on the first floor of an apartment building. Its ceiling was quite low (2.5 meters or so) and made of straw and dry twigs. Behind the twigs they had a highly flammable sort of polystyrene and lots of electrical wiring. Just the place for the indoor fireworks. The fireworks turned out to be bigger and hotter than specified, the place had only one emergency exit, and it was unmarked, and all the light worked from the wiring in the ceiling, so as soon at it caught fire the lights went out. And of course there were no sprinklers or fire alarm.
Well, they promised that the evening would be unforgettable, and it sure was. :(
But enough of the Russian fire safety enforcement. Shit happens everywhere. 6 years ago there was a very similar fire in Rhode Island. There the fire inspectors were not bribed but happened to overlook the absence of sprinklers anyway. The company that delivered the insulation materials forgot to mention they were flammable, and the emergency exits were all there, but apparently during such situations people tend to run back where they came from. The survival percentage was much higher than in Perm, of course, but still, 100 people died.
What I really want to know is: considering that almost all the big nightclub fires around the world lately come from the indoor use of fireworks, what exactly possesses people to continue using them? How many people really want to see fireworks during an indoor show? Those events have sufficiently bad air as it is. The whole thing makes me feel like explaining to people "no, we don't have campfires indoors".
It just seems like such a fucking bad idea.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Natural beauty, in the world of the differently sane
First of all, a disclaimer: this story has not been confirmed in any official way. It was told in an online community by a member in good standing who did not appear to be lying. But you never know. But what the hell, I just want to comment on it here, and who is to say I can't? It's too funny to be true, and too funny to be fake.
Anyway, the girl is a high school student in a small New England town. They had an English project: give up three hair styling products and makeup for a week, and write about it afterwards. Of course the three products have to be something you'd normally use, and the teacher insisted that they really should give them up.
Just for the record, I oppose such projects on general principle. School should not intrude on one's own life in such a way. If it's the text they want, they should be satisfied with a fictional account of giving up those products; if they want authenticity, the paper on "why I really didn't want to give up my styling products" should be just as good as "how I felt when I gave up my styling products for a week".
And then there is one more very obvious problem: not everyone has three styling products to give up. I fact I suspect most people don't, although the girl thinks otherwise. And the task specified that you can't give up showering, shampoo or conditioner, which leaves me - and the girl of this story - with exactly 0 styling products.
(Yes, there are boys in that class. They were allowed to give up shaving instead. Girls were allowed it to, but strongly discouraged from doing so because, according to the teacher, it's disgusting. The girl in question doesn't shave anyway.)
Now, common sense and teachers are not necessarily compatible, which I knew at that age but the girl definitely doesn't, and if it were me there instead of her, I would quietly write a paper about the whatever three products I managed to google or look up in a drugstore, how at first I felt uncomfortable without them but then I found the power of the beauty within, yadda, yadda, yadda. (Thanks, Mr. Halpern, for demanding spontaneity and sincerity and telling us what exactly our spontaneity and sincerity should be.) If the teacher were someone I were actually comfortable with, I would have handed him or her the bullshit paper and the authentic one too, which would have been something along the lines of "gave up shampoo and conditioner for a week; nobody noticed anything unusual, least of all myself".
The purpose of the exercise, after all, is to make the girls see that they don't need all that to be beautiful, and to teach them about the beauty of the natural body. (According to the teacher, that is.) Leaving aside the concept of beauty and the question of what styling products actually contribute to it, it seems rather obvious to me that the people who don't use the products anyway have already figured out that they can do without and don't need a project to make this message sink in.
The girl, however, turned out to be not nearly as cynical as I was at her age, and decided to tell the teacher that she does not use any styling products. It was all downhill from there:
- the teacher sent the girl for a mental evaluation,
- then she sent her to the school office for "improper hygiene",
- then she told the girl that she can have 50% of the points for the assignment of she gives up combing her hair, but that she'd like to see a "drastic change" (the girl is considering using hairspray to induce said drastic change),
- but she is gonna take some points off for lying, because she just doesn't really believe that the girl doesn't blow-dry her hair.
Now, if it just me, or is this teacher pretty much the last person in the world who should instruct anyone on the wonders of natural beauty?
The most amazing thing is that the girl (and apparently the teacher) lives about thirty miles from where I lived when I was in high school. Aliens truly do live among us.
Anyway, the girl is a high school student in a small New England town. They had an English project: give up three hair styling products and makeup for a week, and write about it afterwards. Of course the three products have to be something you'd normally use, and the teacher insisted that they really should give them up.
Just for the record, I oppose such projects on general principle. School should not intrude on one's own life in such a way. If it's the text they want, they should be satisfied with a fictional account of giving up those products; if they want authenticity, the paper on "why I really didn't want to give up my styling products" should be just as good as "how I felt when I gave up my styling products for a week".
And then there is one more very obvious problem: not everyone has three styling products to give up. I fact I suspect most people don't, although the girl thinks otherwise. And the task specified that you can't give up showering, shampoo or conditioner, which leaves me - and the girl of this story - with exactly 0 styling products.
(Yes, there are boys in that class. They were allowed to give up shaving instead. Girls were allowed it to, but strongly discouraged from doing so because, according to the teacher, it's disgusting. The girl in question doesn't shave anyway.)
Now, common sense and teachers are not necessarily compatible, which I knew at that age but the girl definitely doesn't, and if it were me there instead of her, I would quietly write a paper about the whatever three products I managed to google or look up in a drugstore, how at first I felt uncomfortable without them but then I found the power of the beauty within, yadda, yadda, yadda. (Thanks, Mr. Halpern, for demanding spontaneity and sincerity and telling us what exactly our spontaneity and sincerity should be.) If the teacher were someone I were actually comfortable with, I would have handed him or her the bullshit paper and the authentic one too, which would have been something along the lines of "gave up shampoo and conditioner for a week; nobody noticed anything unusual, least of all myself".
The purpose of the exercise, after all, is to make the girls see that they don't need all that to be beautiful, and to teach them about the beauty of the natural body. (According to the teacher, that is.) Leaving aside the concept of beauty and the question of what styling products actually contribute to it, it seems rather obvious to me that the people who don't use the products anyway have already figured out that they can do without and don't need a project to make this message sink in.
The girl, however, turned out to be not nearly as cynical as I was at her age, and decided to tell the teacher that she does not use any styling products. It was all downhill from there:
- the teacher sent the girl for a mental evaluation,
- then she sent her to the school office for "improper hygiene",
- then she told the girl that she can have 50% of the points for the assignment of she gives up combing her hair, but that she'd like to see a "drastic change" (the girl is considering using hairspray to induce said drastic change),
- but she is gonna take some points off for lying, because she just doesn't really believe that the girl doesn't blow-dry her hair.
Now, if it just me, or is this teacher pretty much the last person in the world who should instruct anyone on the wonders of natural beauty?
The most amazing thing is that the girl (and apparently the teacher) lives about thirty miles from where I lived when I was in high school. Aliens truly do live among us.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
From Ilkka's keyboard to God's eyes?
Some kinds of development is not very hard to predict, but it's still very funny when somebody predicts something and the next day it happens.
Yesterday Ilkka mentioned that "there is a serious fracture hidden inside the progressive vanguard, lying in wait between the urban SWPL types and the green eco-activists".
Today, the nuts actually decided to separate themselves from the granola.
This is the page I saw on a few IRC channels and considered a joke until I noticed that Vihreä Lanka is linking to it as the actual program of the new party.
To quote a few:
Kaikki vihreän etiikan ja maailmankatsomuksen muodot sallitaan, kunhan ne kaikki ovat liikkeessä alisteisia syväekologiselle ekosentristiselle holismille.
Me hyväksymme kaikki toiminnan muodot vallitsevaa järjestelmää vastaan, niillä jokaisella on aikansa ja paikkansa.
Olemme linkolalaisia ja paloheimolaisia, olemme primitivistejä ja kommunalisteja sekä sosiaaliekologeja. Me olemme ekobolshevikkeja ja ekoanarkisteja, ekokonservatiivivallankumouksellisia ja ekososialisteja. Olemme ekofeministejä, ekouskonnollisia, ekonihilistejä, ekohumanisteja, ekosyndikalisteja, survivalisteja ja eläinoikeustaistelijoita.
Vallitseva ryösteliäs maailmanjärjestys, tämä koko ihmiskunnan kuolonmarssille pakottanut kaikenmurhaava sivilisaatiomme, huutaa päällensä oikeutettua kostoa. On lyötävä alas tämä koko vanha maailma.
Jos Linkola olisi kuollut, hän kääntyisi haudassaan.
Ihmisten on avattava silmänsä; aikamme tuhon ideologia ei ole uusliberalismi, vaan liberalismi yleensä.
Reformismipyyteistä irtisanoutuminen tarkoittaa, että jätämme aikaa vievän, työlään ja tarkoituksettoman parlamenttipelleilyn vähämielisempien koikkelehtijoiden temmellyskentäksi.
Emme aio myöskään siis hirttää itseämme naurettavaan legalismin ohjenuoraan. Käytännön vaatimukset, käytettyjen keinojen toimivuus päämäärien saavuttamisessa sanelevat toiminnan muodon. Jos päämäärä ei pyhitä keinoja, niin mikä sitten?
Suora toiminta on radikaaleimmissa muodoissaan suuressa määrin "ulkoistettava" autonomisille soluille31 ja yhteistyökumppaneille.
Äärimmäisen tarpeellista on myös luopua ns. positiivisen eli aktiivisen47 omistusoikeuden periaatteesta,48 ja siirtyä passiivisen omistusoikeuden periaatteeseen. Omistaminen ei siis ole luovuttamaton sisäsyntyinen ja automaattinen perusoikeus,49 vaan omistuksessa on kysymys siitä että toistaiseksi annetaan jonkun jotakin omistaa, sikäli mikäli siitä ei ole kokonaisuudelle haittaa.
Rikokset elonkehää ja tulevia sukupolvia kohtaan tulee tuomita mitä drakonisimman käytännön mukaan. Tämä oikeus ei tunnusta kansallisia rajoja. Mikäli kumousvalta tulee Suomessa voimaan, on se velvoitettu tätä oikeutta levittämään ja toimeenpanemaan myös rajojemme ulkopuolella.
Kaupunkien (sikäli mikäli niitä päätetään ylläpitää) tulee lakata olemasta ravinnontuotannollisesti katsoen loiskasvaimia. Niiden on kyettävä tuottamaan itse merkittävä osa ravinnostaan. Koulut, työpaikat ja kotitaloudet/taloyhtiöt tulee ottaa mukaan ravinnontuotantoon.
Imperialismin Suuri Saatana, Yhdysvallat, elonkehän suurin vihollinen on kurkottanut kuolettavat lonkeronsa yltympäriinsä rakasta palloamme näiden.
Nykyistä liberaalidemokratiaa voimme ainakin pitää kuoleman uskontona.
Yesterday Ilkka mentioned that "there is a serious fracture hidden inside the progressive vanguard, lying in wait between the urban SWPL types and the green eco-activists".
Today, the nuts actually decided to separate themselves from the granola.
This is the page I saw on a few IRC channels and considered a joke until I noticed that Vihreä Lanka is linking to it as the actual program of the new party.
To quote a few:
Kaikki vihreän etiikan ja maailmankatsomuksen muodot sallitaan, kunhan ne kaikki ovat liikkeessä alisteisia syväekologiselle ekosentristiselle holismille.
Me hyväksymme kaikki toiminnan muodot vallitsevaa järjestelmää vastaan, niillä jokaisella on aikansa ja paikkansa.
Olemme linkolalaisia ja paloheimolaisia, olemme primitivistejä ja kommunalisteja sekä sosiaaliekologeja. Me olemme ekobolshevikkeja ja ekoanarkisteja, ekokonservatiivivallankumouksellisia ja ekososialisteja. Olemme ekofeministejä, ekouskonnollisia, ekonihilistejä, ekohumanisteja, ekosyndikalisteja, survivalisteja ja eläinoikeustaistelijoita.
Vallitseva ryösteliäs maailmanjärjestys, tämä koko ihmiskunnan kuolonmarssille pakottanut kaikenmurhaava sivilisaatiomme, huutaa päällensä oikeutettua kostoa. On lyötävä alas tämä koko vanha maailma.
Jos Linkola olisi kuollut, hän kääntyisi haudassaan.
Ihmisten on avattava silmänsä; aikamme tuhon ideologia ei ole uusliberalismi, vaan liberalismi yleensä.
Reformismipyyteistä irtisanoutuminen tarkoittaa, että jätämme aikaa vievän, työlään ja tarkoituksettoman parlamenttipelleilyn vähämielisempien koikkelehtijoiden temmellyskentäksi.
Emme aio myöskään siis hirttää itseämme naurettavaan legalismin ohjenuoraan. Käytännön vaatimukset, käytettyjen keinojen toimivuus päämäärien saavuttamisessa sanelevat toiminnan muodon. Jos päämäärä ei pyhitä keinoja, niin mikä sitten?
Suora toiminta on radikaaleimmissa muodoissaan suuressa määrin "ulkoistettava" autonomisille soluille31 ja yhteistyökumppaneille.
Äärimmäisen tarpeellista on myös luopua ns. positiivisen eli aktiivisen47 omistusoikeuden periaatteesta,48 ja siirtyä passiivisen omistusoikeuden periaatteeseen. Omistaminen ei siis ole luovuttamaton sisäsyntyinen ja automaattinen perusoikeus,49 vaan omistuksessa on kysymys siitä että toistaiseksi annetaan jonkun jotakin omistaa, sikäli mikäli siitä ei ole kokonaisuudelle haittaa.
Rikokset elonkehää ja tulevia sukupolvia kohtaan tulee tuomita mitä drakonisimman käytännön mukaan. Tämä oikeus ei tunnusta kansallisia rajoja. Mikäli kumousvalta tulee Suomessa voimaan, on se velvoitettu tätä oikeutta levittämään ja toimeenpanemaan myös rajojemme ulkopuolella.
Kaupunkien (sikäli mikäli niitä päätetään ylläpitää) tulee lakata olemasta ravinnontuotannollisesti katsoen loiskasvaimia. Niiden on kyettävä tuottamaan itse merkittävä osa ravinnostaan. Koulut, työpaikat ja kotitaloudet/taloyhtiöt tulee ottaa mukaan ravinnontuotantoon.
Imperialismin Suuri Saatana, Yhdysvallat, elonkehän suurin vihollinen on kurkottanut kuolettavat lonkeronsa yltympäriinsä rakasta palloamme näiden.
Nykyistä liberaalidemokratiaa voimme ainakin pitää kuoleman uskontona.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Please, people, put the Misanthrope Supreme back where he crawled out of
"Writer and fisherman Pentti Linkola is of the opinion that having children is the greatest environmental crime,", writes Antti Manninen in Helsingin Sanomat.
Damn, how can a journalist miss such a chance to be snarky? It should be "writer, fisherman and a father of two Pentti Linkola...", for the man who wants everyone else to die is still alive at 76, and certainly has not kept his dick in his pants, nor even in a condom.
The man is pure and unadulterated evil - the kind of evil that you laugh at as too much over the top when you see it in the movies. For those who are not familiar with him - he is a sort of environmentalist version of Fred Phelps, whose basic idea is "kill everybody, they are bad for the environment" and who rejoices every time there is a bombing or a tsunami or some other disaster somewhere.
The main difference is that Baptists are in general rather embarrassed about Phelps. Environmentalists, OTOH, are not nearly as embarrassed about Linkola - oh well, many of them are, but not near enough.
Linkola, of course, wants a dictatorship. (I assume he means the kind where he or somebody with similar opinions is the dictator and bans everything and kills lots of people who go to malls or own cars or something, not the kind of dictatorship where I am the queen of the world and all the "let's reduce the numbers of humanity by poisoning water supply" types are rounded up and summarily executed on the first day.)
That, BTW, is one of the answers to the question jmk asked me in the comments to the previous post: a lot of people are fond of Communism and other dictatorships because it provides a sweet fantasy of power: a dictatorship tends to elevate at least one Linkola to Pol Pot, which is a pretty nice deal if you are in fact the person who gets the power. The brighter ones remember what happened to all the candidates who did not get to be Pol Pot, and enjoy the fantasy of power from afar; the dumber ones get to be the bones in the killing fields; the really lucky dumb one gets to be Pol Pot. But I digress...
Anyway, Linkola is luckily not Pol Pot, has never been elected to any position of power and - thank God for small favors - is not even insane enough to go postal. I don't really care why he is the way he is. Homicidal misanthropic maniacs, including ones who don't go as far as actual homicide, do happen in the population. What I want to know why media tends to write about him as if he were somebody sane. I mean, a lot of media write about Phelps, but they always make it quite clear that they know the guy is a complete nutcase.
HS says that Linkola was interviewed in the magazine called Responsible Influential Person. Do they even realize how much red wine hurts going through your nose? That's the last time I am ever drinking anything while reading HS.
Just how desperate the people in the Responsible Influential Person are? Why are they interviewing the guy? Was Mugabe unavailable? Fidel Castro too old to give an interview? Ahmadinejad refused to talk to them?
If you as much comment on the sexual tastes of some group's prophet, you end up in court. You say you want to kill Jews, Muslims, Christians, blacks, whites, gays, heterosexuals - you will get convicted, and for a good reason. But try to incite people to commit what would be in effect crimes against humanity, and not only don't you get dragged to court, you get interviewed by supposedly serious magazines and idolized by the lunatic fringe of environmentalism.
Damn, how can a journalist miss such a chance to be snarky? It should be "writer, fisherman and a father of two Pentti Linkola...", for the man who wants everyone else to die is still alive at 76, and certainly has not kept his dick in his pants, nor even in a condom.
The man is pure and unadulterated evil - the kind of evil that you laugh at as too much over the top when you see it in the movies. For those who are not familiar with him - he is a sort of environmentalist version of Fred Phelps, whose basic idea is "kill everybody, they are bad for the environment" and who rejoices every time there is a bombing or a tsunami or some other disaster somewhere.
The main difference is that Baptists are in general rather embarrassed about Phelps. Environmentalists, OTOH, are not nearly as embarrassed about Linkola - oh well, many of them are, but not near enough.
Linkola, of course, wants a dictatorship. (I assume he means the kind where he or somebody with similar opinions is the dictator and bans everything and kills lots of people who go to malls or own cars or something, not the kind of dictatorship where I am the queen of the world and all the "let's reduce the numbers of humanity by poisoning water supply" types are rounded up and summarily executed on the first day.)
That, BTW, is one of the answers to the question jmk asked me in the comments to the previous post: a lot of people are fond of Communism and other dictatorships because it provides a sweet fantasy of power: a dictatorship tends to elevate at least one Linkola to Pol Pot, which is a pretty nice deal if you are in fact the person who gets the power. The brighter ones remember what happened to all the candidates who did not get to be Pol Pot, and enjoy the fantasy of power from afar; the dumber ones get to be the bones in the killing fields; the really lucky dumb one gets to be Pol Pot. But I digress...
Anyway, Linkola is luckily not Pol Pot, has never been elected to any position of power and - thank God for small favors - is not even insane enough to go postal. I don't really care why he is the way he is. Homicidal misanthropic maniacs, including ones who don't go as far as actual homicide, do happen in the population. What I want to know why media tends to write about him as if he were somebody sane. I mean, a lot of media write about Phelps, but they always make it quite clear that they know the guy is a complete nutcase.
HS says that Linkola was interviewed in the magazine called Responsible Influential Person. Do they even realize how much red wine hurts going through your nose? That's the last time I am ever drinking anything while reading HS.
Just how desperate the people in the Responsible Influential Person are? Why are they interviewing the guy? Was Mugabe unavailable? Fidel Castro too old to give an interview? Ahmadinejad refused to talk to them?
If you as much comment on the sexual tastes of some group's prophet, you end up in court. You say you want to kill Jews, Muslims, Christians, blacks, whites, gays, heterosexuals - you will get convicted, and for a good reason. But try to incite people to commit what would be in effect crimes against humanity, and not only don't you get dragged to court, you get interviewed by supposedly serious magazines and idolized by the lunatic fringe of environmentalism.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Auntie
I am not exactly Miss Manners, and neither are my parents. Some of my friends are blessed with even less social grace than myself, and some of my relatives are blessed with none at all.
All of these people, however, generally understand human speech. They might lack tact, blurt out whatever is on their minds, fail to understand subtle clues, but if you tell them to shut the fuck up - well, they might start screaming even louder, but at least they acknowledge it.
My aunt, unfortunately, has not reached this stage of development.
Any visit to her place goes the following way:
"Would you like something to eat?"
"No, thanks, I just ate."
"Would you like something to eat?"
"No, thanks."
"Chicken?"
"No, thanks, I am not hungry."
"Would you like something to eat?"
"I said no three times."
"Chicken or shrimp? I also have some cabbage pie?"
"No, thanks."
Yes, there are cultures where food is supposed to be offered and possibly refused several times, but even in Russian culture after four iterations it is supposed to be entirely clear whether or not the host really wants to offer the food and whether or not the guest really wants to eat. Clear to everyone except my aunt, that is. On numerous occasions she has gone up to 40 iterations, and would have gone to fifty had I not escaped. Worst of all, at her place I am bound by hospitality rules not to order her to shove the chicken up her anus.
The only time I failed to abide by the hospitality rules was once eight years ago when she was at my place with my father and uncle, helping me to assemble six bookcases I'd just bought. I have no idea why they were there, really: I needed no help, my aunt considered it beneath her feminine dignity to actually help with the shelves but came anyway, and both my father and my uncle considered it beneath their masculine dignity to read the instructions. As the result I was sitting on the floor assembling the shelves, the men were arguing about the most optimal way of doing so and occasionally trying to steal my hammer, and the aunt decided to help out by taking a trash bag and putting there all the objects whose purpose she did not know, plus all the clothes she did not like. After confiscating the trash bag and telling her to leave my stuff in peace for the third time I led her to the kitchen, ordered her to make tea, and told her that if she leaves the kitchen without my permission, or throws out as much as a used teabag, she would be immediately disemboweled. This did catch her attention, and she remained in the kitchen for the rest of the day and kept all her bowels.
This time I decided not to visit her place (I did see her, but not one-on-one), and she called me on the phone instead. Big mistake. In addition, this time she suddenly decided to give me some advice on beauty and femininity. The last time she has done so was when I was 15; even then I realized that you probably shouldn't heed any advice on femininity coming from a woman who wears a beard due to the fact that shaving is very unfeminine.
"It's too bad that you did not have time to come to my place," she says. "We could have gone to see my hairdresser."
"Huh?"
"She would have advised you on a new hairstyle."
"I am quite pleased with the current one, thanks."
"You don't have to do anything, just discuss it with her, to be ready for when you do want change."
"I am not interested in any change in foreseeable future, but if I ever do, I'll go to my own hairdresser, thanks."
"I would like you to go to my hairdresser."
"Not gonna happen. I am not interested in seeing your hairdresser, now or ever." And neither is anyone else who has ever seen you, I leave unsaid.
"But you need change!" For a second there I wonder whether she has seen to many Obama speeches, then decide that he is not to blame.
"You do realize you are being rude, right? Unsolicited advice on other people's appearance is quite rude in general, and I have told you three times that I am not interested."
"I just want you to be beautiful!"
"Our esthetic tastes are very different, so I don't think I can benefit from this advice, or any other esthetic advice of yours."
"No they are not!"
"I think we should change the topic."
"You have reached the age when women should wear short hair."
"And I am still not interested, and not interested in discussing it with you, either. This topic is now closed."
She iterated about ten times on length, then switching to color and informing me that my dye has peroxide (it doesn't, but she felt the need to argue) and to the conditioner, informing me that I should definitely use the one that comes in green bottles, and completely ignoring my protestations that a) lots of conditioners come in green bottles, b) there might be a different selection of conditioners in Boston and in Helsinki.
As the conversation (most times she is content to preach while I put the receiver on the table and surf the net, but this time she demanded responses) progressed, I found my mind wandering to the scene from Kill Bill 1 where O-Ren is holding a yakuza meeting and making a rather forceful point about what she does and does not wish to be discussed. In the end, after about thirty iterations of her wanting me to cut my hair, to use the conditioner in green bottles whose brand will forever remain a mystery, and telling me how my hair reacts to the dyes that I do not use, the rather limited reserve of my patience ran out, and I told her that she should look in the mirror and realize that she can ill afford to give hairdressing advice.
Of well, at least I haven't used the words "frightful bird nest".
All of these people, however, generally understand human speech. They might lack tact, blurt out whatever is on their minds, fail to understand subtle clues, but if you tell them to shut the fuck up - well, they might start screaming even louder, but at least they acknowledge it.
My aunt, unfortunately, has not reached this stage of development.
Any visit to her place goes the following way:
"Would you like something to eat?"
"No, thanks, I just ate."
"Would you like something to eat?"
"No, thanks."
"Chicken?"
"No, thanks, I am not hungry."
"Would you like something to eat?"
"I said no three times."
"Chicken or shrimp? I also have some cabbage pie?"
"No, thanks."
Yes, there are cultures where food is supposed to be offered and possibly refused several times, but even in Russian culture after four iterations it is supposed to be entirely clear whether or not the host really wants to offer the food and whether or not the guest really wants to eat. Clear to everyone except my aunt, that is. On numerous occasions she has gone up to 40 iterations, and would have gone to fifty had I not escaped. Worst of all, at her place I am bound by hospitality rules not to order her to shove the chicken up her anus.
The only time I failed to abide by the hospitality rules was once eight years ago when she was at my place with my father and uncle, helping me to assemble six bookcases I'd just bought. I have no idea why they were there, really: I needed no help, my aunt considered it beneath her feminine dignity to actually help with the shelves but came anyway, and both my father and my uncle considered it beneath their masculine dignity to read the instructions. As the result I was sitting on the floor assembling the shelves, the men were arguing about the most optimal way of doing so and occasionally trying to steal my hammer, and the aunt decided to help out by taking a trash bag and putting there all the objects whose purpose she did not know, plus all the clothes she did not like. After confiscating the trash bag and telling her to leave my stuff in peace for the third time I led her to the kitchen, ordered her to make tea, and told her that if she leaves the kitchen without my permission, or throws out as much as a used teabag, she would be immediately disemboweled. This did catch her attention, and she remained in the kitchen for the rest of the day and kept all her bowels.
This time I decided not to visit her place (I did see her, but not one-on-one), and she called me on the phone instead. Big mistake. In addition, this time she suddenly decided to give me some advice on beauty and femininity. The last time she has done so was when I was 15; even then I realized that you probably shouldn't heed any advice on femininity coming from a woman who wears a beard due to the fact that shaving is very unfeminine.
"It's too bad that you did not have time to come to my place," she says. "We could have gone to see my hairdresser."
"Huh?"
"She would have advised you on a new hairstyle."
"I am quite pleased with the current one, thanks."
"You don't have to do anything, just discuss it with her, to be ready for when you do want change."
"I am not interested in any change in foreseeable future, but if I ever do, I'll go to my own hairdresser, thanks."
"I would like you to go to my hairdresser."
"Not gonna happen. I am not interested in seeing your hairdresser, now or ever." And neither is anyone else who has ever seen you, I leave unsaid.
"But you need change!" For a second there I wonder whether she has seen to many Obama speeches, then decide that he is not to blame.
"You do realize you are being rude, right? Unsolicited advice on other people's appearance is quite rude in general, and I have told you three times that I am not interested."
"I just want you to be beautiful!"
"Our esthetic tastes are very different, so I don't think I can benefit from this advice, or any other esthetic advice of yours."
"No they are not!"
"I think we should change the topic."
"You have reached the age when women should wear short hair."
"And I am still not interested, and not interested in discussing it with you, either. This topic is now closed."
She iterated about ten times on length, then switching to color and informing me that my dye has peroxide (it doesn't, but she felt the need to argue) and to the conditioner, informing me that I should definitely use the one that comes in green bottles, and completely ignoring my protestations that a) lots of conditioners come in green bottles, b) there might be a different selection of conditioners in Boston and in Helsinki.
As the conversation (most times she is content to preach while I put the receiver on the table and surf the net, but this time she demanded responses) progressed, I found my mind wandering to the scene from Kill Bill 1 where O-Ren is holding a yakuza meeting and making a rather forceful point about what she does and does not wish to be discussed. In the end, after about thirty iterations of her wanting me to cut my hair, to use the conditioner in green bottles whose brand will forever remain a mystery, and telling me how my hair reacts to the dyes that I do not use, the rather limited reserve of my patience ran out, and I told her that she should look in the mirror and realize that she can ill afford to give hairdressing advice.
Of well, at least I haven't used the words "frightful bird nest".
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Not only do we own Hollywood...
...but it sure looks like we have taken over Iran!
Apparently Mahmoud "Mad Jad" Ahmadinejad comes from a Jewish family.
Note to ourselves: we really should stop marrying our cousins. Once or twice in a long family line is OK, but do that 10 generations in a row and look what you end up with.
Apparently Mahmoud "Mad Jad" Ahmadinejad comes from a Jewish family.
Note to ourselves: we really should stop marrying our cousins. Once or twice in a long family line is OK, but do that 10 generations in a row and look what you end up with.
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