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.

People for Ethical Treatment of PETA, anyone?

Remember Knut, the polar bear rejected by his mother in Germany 3 years ago? At that time Frank Albrecht, Germany's PETA's zoo expert, said that the bear should be killed, because "the zoo must follow the instincts of nature". Later he changed his statement to "should have been allowed to die".

It would be a nice cheap shot to say that over there they have had a bit of a problem with ethics during the last century, but in fact the German people are absolutely not to blame: the zoo told PETA to bugger off, the locals held pickets in favor of saving the bear, and the bear was saved.

Apparently Frank Albrecht is not done with Knut yet: now he wants him castrated. Because Knut has to share his living space with his female cousin, and "any offspring would threaten the genetic diversity of the polar bear population in Germany and risk susceptibility to a condition known as "incest depression"".

Excuse me? Did I hear it right? "Genetic diversity of the polar bear population in Germany"? Germany has a polar bear population? Of a size that makes the concept of genetic diversity meaningful? Incest causes depression in polar bears? What color is the sky on Mr. Albrecht's planet? I am not asking whether he comes in peace, because he obviously doesn't.

(OK, I realize that he probably meant inbreeding depression.)

Oh well. In 2003 some Jews were angry when PETA protested a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem where a live donkey (thereafter a dead donkey) was used, but didn't protest the killing of Jews. My dear fellow Jews: shut the fuck up and don't give PETA any ideas. I for one am really glad that they are sticking to animals. Do you really want these lunatics to start fighting for the ethical treatment of Jews? Sheesh, I wouldn't wish them and their ethical treatment even on Palestinians, or for that matter on any other nation where people mate with their cousins, threaten the genetic diversity, and cause incest depression.

Mr. Arbrecht: I've heard that cutting somebody's balls off might cause depression as well. Do try it out on yourself first before advocating it for Knut.

What do you call a country where one can have and enforce Nuremberg laws?

Canada.

Imagine a place declaring that to be considered sufficiently racially pure to live there one has to have N great-grandparents of a certain ethnicity. Imagine them forbidding the marriages between the pure ones and outsiders, and evicting the impure ones, including the spouses and the partners of the racially pure, and their adopted children.

The Kahnawake Mohawk territory in Quebec has decided to do exactly that. The people adopted before the enactment of the law (2003) or married to a member before 1981 can apply to be a non-member resident. The people married into the community after 1981 get kicked out. People adopted after the enactment of the law get kicked out upon turning 18. The law of 2003 also suspends the membership of those who are married to non-Aryans, I mean non-Mohawks, but AFAIK they haven't actually enforced it.

From what I gather from the media, the law (or custom) of kicking out the spouses with insufficient "blood quantum" has existed for a long time, but the enforcement is sporadic, as in they kick out the spouses of their residents every few years and now seems to be the time. They are really liberal, too, giving the people a whole ten days to leave their homes.

"We don't consider ourselves Canadians," says the Grand Chief Mike Delisle. "Maybe this is the first step in terms of informing the community how we're going to move forward in that direction." I wonder what would be the second step - refuse any money coming from the Canadian taxpayers, I am sure.

The really funny thing is that Alvin Delisle, one of the previous chiefs, who used to enforce and support this law when he was a chief, has now become a traitor to the race and is living with a non-Mohawk woman. And guess what - he's had a change of heart now, and he is going to challenge the expulsion of his partner as a Canadian human-rights violation.

"Just because I'm a Mohawk doesn't exclude me from the Charter," he says. "I'm still Canadian. And I think this is an injustice. It's a racial slur."

Right. It's a racial slur and injustice when it is done to you. When you were doing it to others it was totally for the protection of Mohawk blood and Mohawk honor. Oh well, as far as seeing the light goes, I guess better late than never.

His girlfriend wishes to stay, saying that since they are both in their 60s they are not gonna have any children and thus pose a threat to Mohawk survival.

One thing I didn't find in the media: can Canada count the money spent on this community as development aid? Isn't that what you call the money that you send to places with human rights problems?

Benefit to society

I was taking part in a conversation about smokers and how much their diseases cost the society.

For the record, I don't agree that the mere fact of having public health care should oblige everyone to be on their best behavior, healthwise. For one thing, almost nobody ever really is, and the whole thing is just an occasion to complain about other people's sins. Everybody wants to tax the neighbor's unhealthy behavior, and starts complaining about health fascism when somebody is trying to tax their own. (Well, not strictly everybody - demanding taxes on unhealthy behavior is the habit of a certain kind of people - the kind who want to tax traditional sin, such as alcohol, tobacco, and sometimes unhealthy food, whatever that is supposed to mean. I have never seen them demand taxes on dangerous sports, suicide attempts, or giving birth to genetically suboptimal children when a genetic problem is known in advance. Ugh, maybe I shouldn't give them ideas.)

But I digress. The conversation was mostly between people who seemed to believe that one does in fact have an obligation, and part of them pointed out that smokers don't really cost all that much to society, because they die younger.

I've heard this argument many times before. it always makes me shudder to think that in many otherwise normal people's minds, the concepts of "benefit to society" and "cost to society" do not, in fact, include years of life of its members.

Blaah

Kind of tired, stressed out and unwell, despite the fact that everything is fine, work is not being stressful right now, I am not physically sick, there is nothing stressful going on in my private life, nothing is wrong and the people who broke the window did fix it.

I think this winter is just getting to me. Want summer now.

All the people I should have contacted lately but didn't: I am sorry.

My life is not like the lives of other people, part 2

On the way home my panties suddenly fell down. Or at least as down as they can go within my jeans. It was very sudden, very uncomfortable and against all laws of physics and man.

I live in one of those inner-city buildings with a small enclosed yard that has nothing except pavement and trash bins. The first floor is wider than the rest of the building, and if I open my window, which is currently not a good idea, I can walk on the roof of the first-floor hall. Except that there was more than half a meter of snow there in the morning. Both this roof and the roof of the building have a lot of ice hanging off it. I remember taking the trash out yesterday and vaguely wondering when are they gonna clean the roof and whether anyone is gonna be killed before that. Or during.

The answer to the first question came to my mind as soon as I walked through the gate. There was a portable red fence. They had in fact cleaned the roof, and now there is a fucking iceberg in our backyard. We can't get into our yard to get to the trash cans. The trash collector cannot get to the trash cans. And I have no idea what else is coming from the roof, but it can't be good.

When I came into my living room I noticed snow between the windows and figured the pressure of snow has opened the outer window. When I came closer I realized that the building caretaking company has in its infinite wisdom dropped all the ice from the upper roof to the lower roof, and one of the huge pieces of ice came through my window.

Now I have:

- a broken window,
- two big tables with computer hardware in front of the window that need to be moved in order for anyone to get to the window,
- a pile of stuff in front of the tables, that will have to be moved first,
- a pile of snow about a meter high pushing on the window from outside, and likely to fall into my living room if anyone tries to open the window,
- no access to the window or the pile of snow from the outside, because of no access to the inner yard,
- a double headache from having to deal with it both as the apartment owner and a member of the board of the building,
- some fragrant trash at home, and no garbage collection,
- a software deployment at 6:30 in the morning, and a very minor surgery at 8.

I am so pissed. When I find the morons who did that, I am not just gonna rip then a second asshole. They will cry and wish that I stopped at the second while I am ripping them the 284th. I will castrate every one of them and give them a bleach enema, and then strangle them with the remains of their own bowels. And then I'll show the judge what they'd done, and walk free.

The car

I kind of bought a car. Or rather a third of a car. It's nice to have a car every once in a while, but I don't have any daily use for it.

I promised my dear parents not to start driving it on snow and ice, what with having had a long break from driving, and having never had a rear-wheel drive car. Somehow, though, I managed to do exactly that, and due to natural lack of common sense I even mentioned it to them. Eek.

Anyway, I kinda like driving. It's parking that I hate. With a passion. Not even the parallel-park part, even though my parallel-parking skills appear to have rusted a bit. It's looking for a damn parking spot in the first place that I really hate. And looking. And looking. And finding, and then realizing that it's too small. And looking again. And finding, and parking, and getting stuck in the snow. And being unable to get in or out. And trying to get out and realizing that I can't open the drivers' door because of the snow. And climbing out of the passenger door, insulting the door, the snow and their mothers, and shoveling the snow from under the wheels. And finding another spot, 4 blocks away, and wondering about carrying 200 kilos of Lundia for 4 blocks. And then wondering about what the hell the the "I" parking permit, which I certainly do not have, and do I really have to move it somewhere by 9am, and where?

I've always wondered about people who equate a car with freedom. I can understand it in rural areas, but I've also met them in Helsinki. For me, freedom of movement is that I go to a bus stop without looking at the schedule, and immediately a bus shows up. A car is the opposite of freedom - it's more like a very demanding pet, who needs to be fed, taken to a vet, and kept in appropriate places.

However, just like many pets, it's quite a lot of fun.

Change?

Lately I've been following a Russian forum - a forum for the Russians living in Finland. Some of it is nice social fun, some of it elicits morbid curiosity in the manner of a train wreck, and some of it is useful social info.

Anyway, lately they were talking, among other things, about children and schools. More specifically, about how many schools (but not all) automatically put native speakers of the foreign languages into Finnish for foreigners classes, even if they also happen to speak Finnish at a native level, or a sufficient level to attend a native class. In all the cases they mentioned the situation was fixed when the parents protested.

I had suspected as much. A few months ago there was an article featuring a 13-year old Somali boy born in Finland who was in a Finnish for foreigners class in school. At that point I figured that either the kid was dumb as a rock or the school system was dumb as a whole pile of rocks - and the kid didn't seem particularly dumb.

Anyway, some schools - apparently many - stick kids with fluent Finnish into classes for foreigners, and the parents learn about it when the kid complains at home about the school being superboring and consisting mostly of Finnish 101.

My reaction to that was "WTF?". My Finnish friends' reaction to that was "well, how is the school to know?" ("ask the kid" is the obvious answer) and "well, this whole immigration thing is so new to us, we are still figuring out what to do and how to do it right".

This is a disturbing thing in and of itself. When we came to the US we settled in a state with a proud 350-year-old tradition of multiculturalism (ok, in the beginning it was often about shooting Indians and hanging Quakers, but let's not go into that). I went to school in a town where 25-30% of residents were foreign-born. It was one of the most multiethnic schools around, and it was a nice school. As of a couple of years ago, about 27% of residents are still foreign-born and the schools are still good.

Stable 30% of foreign students in Brookline schools is not a problem, but do the people here in Finland realize how fast the change is happening here? 15 years ago there were very few foreigners in schools; now some schools have more than 50% of foreign-language students, in spite of the fact that there is still a rather small percentage of foreigners in Finland.

What can or should be done? Frankly, I don't know and I suspect neither does anyone else. What shouldn't be done, however, can be learned from the long sad history of the Boston school district.

Let's ban driving in bars

It's strange to see how many opponents of the restaurant smoking ban like to refer to cars and their exhaust as an example of other people being allowed to pollute air. So far I have never seen a running car in a restaurant or in a bar.

Life, whee!

Starting to have a life again, which is nice. Been to two game sessions this week, and visited friends with cats twice, and am still able to breathe after that. Also found that sleep thing, which some people substitute for coffee.

It's still cold and snowing. Can somebody please stop the Ice Age?

Yes, we really can!

Now that Massachusetts has elected a Republican to the US Senate for the first time since the 1972 election, is it time for Obama to change his slogan to "Yes, we can make even Massachusetts elect a Republican!"?

Yes, we can!

Today, for the first time ever in my life, I have voted in a national election in a way that actually counted. In every election before this I knew who our state or electoral district would elect in advance. Massachusetts always votes for a Democrat. Everybody knows that.

Except that now it looks like we don't. The race is very close. The reasons vary: lots of people are disappointed with Obama, for various reasons; the healthcare reform is unpopular; many people feel that 60 seats in the Senate is too much for any party; Brown is a rather inoffensive moderate Republican State Senator, whereas Coakley has a well-deserved reputation as an Attorney General who doesn't care much for justice.

But most of all, I think, people are tired of politicians never listening or paying attention or even bothering to campaign. "Who cares about Massachusetts, they'll vote for Democrats no matter what." Nobody has even bothered to set up the exit polls.

Well, now it suddenly looks like it's very close, even the Beloved Leader himself has suddenly decided to visit the state just before the election, and some of the readers of Helsingin Sanomat in faraway Finland are accusing the electorate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of being illiterate rednecks for not voting like the Beloved Leader told them to. (Imagine people in Massachusetts being deeply concerned about the position of Keskusta during the Finnish parliamentary election in 2011, and you might realize how this looks to me.)

I think that we need change. For example, a Republican in the Senate after 47 years of Kennedy, may he rest in peace. I have voted for Brown, and hope he will become our new senator, but no matter who gets elected, this election in itself is a victory for Massachusetts. Now we can finally say: yes, we can have a real election just like in Ohio or in Finland!

Massachusetts is really running out of jurors

I understand that a cat can be summoned for jury duty sometimes. Shit happens.

What I want to know is how come the jury commissioner denied the disqualification. You do have to be a US citizen, at least 18 years of age and able to understand and speak English in order to serve on a jury in Massachusetts; one would expect that this excludes most cats.

Sick

Haven't been posting for a while on account of a really annoying bronchitis, and also because my home is currently a disaster area that needs to be cleaned and rearranged (the cause of the disaster were new bookshelves).

I am, of course, in no condition for cleaning, posting or even sleeping, but tea and antibiotics are slowly winning.

For the entertainment of my readers, an example of why one shouldn't hotlink (warning: goatse).

EDIT: The person who hotlinked to my picture noticed the goatse image and replaced it with a picture of two Israelis in uniform trying to drag an Orthodox Jewish boy somewhere, which is a strange choice of picture considering their topic. It is not known whether he (the hotlinker, not the boy in the picture) has benefited from the experience.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Feeling a little bit hung over. Probably should make my traditional New Year salad.

Security measures

I often feel sorry for TSA and the Homeland Security Department. When they are trying hard and nothing happens, everyone makes fun of them for so much futile effort. When they miss something, everyone is angry at them for that.

This time around they really sound a bit strange, because they are doing both of the above. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father says he has warned many people, including the US embassy. TSA says they didn't have enough evidence to put him on the no-fly list. This have never stopped them before from putting babies and US Senators on that list, but fair enough - maybe they really improved their ways and don't put people on that list without proper evidence, what with being unable to fly being a rather major inconvenience.

We do, however, also have a list people who should be subjected to extra searches and extra questioning. Was he on this list? If not, why not?

The pantybomber was on the UK no-fly list, which is really the UK no-enter list (they are allowed to transit to UK airports but not to enter the country).

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that "the system worked".

Excuse me? Worked? I feel so safe knowing that our system's necessary components include having bad detonators, inept terrorists, and brave Dutch filmmakers sitting in their immediate vicinity.

Happy end is not the same thing as "the system worked". Sometimes it just means the terrorists were not all that bright, and the bystanders happened to have a lot of courage and good reflexes.

Anyway, the new measures include having everyone sit in their seats for the last hour of the flight (AFAIK only in the US, but those things tend to spread around), and having all the luggage in the overhead bins during the same time. Yes, it does mean that you can't have a book, a mp3 player or a blanket. And no, I don't know why only the last hour, but best not to give them any ideas.

The new security measures have already born fruit: they arrested another Nigerian guy on another Amsterdam to Detroit flight, for failing to vacate the toilet when ordered. At first they suspected him of being a terrorist, but then it turned out that he was using the toilet for a much more mundane reason, undoubtedly after sampling a wide selection of Northwest or KLM food.

I am sure all the chronic diarrhea sufferers will thank the pantybomber as they sit in the planes clenching their buttocks and praying for the big white porcelain deliverance. At least they have something they can appropriately deposit on his grave. After he gets one.

The news of the peaceful

A Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight going from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day. He tried to repeat the feat of Richard Reid, and in fact had, failing to blow up the airplane and getting caught. Unlike Reid, who used shoes and failed the igniting part, Abdulmutallab actually managed to set a bomb in his lap on fire, and only the passengers' and crew vigilance and subsequent beating the living shit out of him saved the plane.

We still do not know whether he has grilled his nuts enough to make this officially eligible for a Darwin award submission, but this is not really essential for the gene pool, since his only potential sex partner from now on is likely to be Richard Reid. At least they have a lot in common, testicles or not.

There is a story making rounds in the press that the man is the son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the recently retired chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria. Damn, the story is starting to sound like a Nigerian spam letter already.

God knows what poverty can drive people to.

Today I saw the term "joulurauhan uskonto" somewhere. Unfortunately I have no idea who to attribute it to.

The aviation authorities have responded by banning cabin luggage for the last hour of the flight (meaning that one hour before landing you put all your stuff in the overhead bin and just sit there for an hour without a book or a player, wishing a thousand painful deaths on Abdulmutallab). Oh well, we should probably be grateful be did not stick explosives up his ass.

In much more amusing news: Abdullah Tammi, the founder and the former chairman of the Islamic Party of Finland, resigned last week due to his taking stand against terrorism. He decided to found his own party, the Party of Socialist Peace.

I wish I could say something funny about this, but I really can't make it sound any funnier than it already does.

The Great Infidel Holiday is upon us again

Merry Christmas!

The end is nigh, and Denmark is running out of tarmac space, too

I think I was seven when I first read about buying and selling indulgences in a novel set in 16th-century Belgium. The idea struck me as rather dumb even then, at least from the point of view of the buyers.

Are we having some kind of neo-middle-ages now? Blasphemers are being burned at the stake, world leaders talk about impending end that is about to befall us for our sins and in general sound like apocalyptic madmen, and otherwise perfectly sensible people are buying carbon indulgences. Sold, no doubt, by people who are strongly and publicly concerned for the environment.

As I have said before, I am a simple woman who doesn't know much about climate science. No, I am not pretending to be a prole here, but of my two degrees one is in Linguistics and the other is in Computer Science, and none is in Meteorology or Climate Science. So probably I shouldn't be saying anything. On the other hand, these considerations about the lack of education don't seem to deter anyone else, starting with Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an avid air traveler and an engineer.

(A mean-spirited Guardian commenter calculated Mr. Pachauri's travel miles for the period of Jan 07 - July 08 at 443243, based on his his public appearance schedule. Mr. Pachauri supports heavy aviation taxes, which IPCC will undoubtedly pay for him.)

There is some disturbing point about science and faith in here somewhere. We take our science on faith; we believe in whatever they tell us in secondary-school astronomy much the same way as some centuries ago people believed when they were told that the sun revolved around the earth. What makes the difference is the scientific method and the scientific consensus; how much faith are you ready to put in either of those after those emails from Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia got published? Especially since the message is pretty much "the end is nigh, give us power and money"?

(A very disturbing off-topic aside: the reason we abhor the human sacrifices of the ancient cultures is that we know they didn't work; if they did, we'd be totally doing it all the time.)

Anyway, as I've said before, I might not know much about climate, but I sure know politics, religion and bullshit when I see it. I am sure I am the least environmentally conscious person in the Western world. I use energy-saving lamps because I happen to like them, public transportation because I live in a place where it is very good, and I wouldn't ever think of giving up anything I really wanted for the environment. But you know, I suspect that if I really cared, like all those politicians surely do, I'd at least consider some small sacrifices. Like, flying first-class in a commercial aircraft instead of taking my own private jet? Or maybe at least carpooling, or rather private-jet-pooling with some other dignitary coming from the same city?

But that's just me, and that's probably why they don't invite me to any summits. Prince Charles and Gordon Brown apparently felt it was unprincely or un-prime-ministerial to share the same private jet.

Just before the summit, the Copenhagen airport reported that it was expecting 140 extra private jets, and was unable to accomodate them all, so they'd have to be parked in other Danish airports and in Sweden. More than 1200 limos were ordered.

Is it just me, or does it seem to you that those people don't believe in the imminent apocalypse any more than I do?

Wish we knew the names of everyone who attended the global warming (sorry, it's climate change now) summit in private jets and then came home and told the peasants not to fly on vacation. People should know their heroes.

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