The reality behind the 'gay marriage' fuss

Peter Hitchens has written an editorial in the Daily Mail that, I think, hits the nail right on the head. I think it's so good that I'm reproducing it in full here.

Next, at an Anglican church near you, a traditional service of divorce

I wonder how the religious affairs reporters managed to find out about the almost-wedding service of two homosexual clerics in one of London's loveliest churches?

Did they happen to be passing at the time? Did one of the congregation disapprove so strongly that he leaked it? Seems unlikely to me.

Or did those involved, by any chance, want to make sure the world knew that this had happened, shortly before a Lambeth conference which is already likely to involve a disastrous confrontation between sexual militants and conservatives, and speed the split in the Anglican Church? And so it will advance the cause of howling, me-first immorality?

It is strange that it is always the conservatives who seem to get the blame in these matters, for their supposed intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Actually, the Church of England has for many decades quietly tolerated large numbers of homosexuals in the clergy in a civilised, kind and discreet arrangement that avoided pain and confrontation. What has changed is that these clergy, and their allies, have ceased to be interested in receiving tolerance (which of course implies disapproval) and want equality instead.

But that's only the half of it. Not only do they not want to receive tolerance. They most definitely do not wish to give it. Their opponents, first to be classified as evil bigots, are next to be defeated, then driven to the edges of public life and finally forbidden altogether, rather more thoroughly than homosexuality ever was.

The new sexual non-morality - composed of three parts self-indulgence, four parts of commercial greed and three of state power - will rule everywhere. Children will be raised by the state, and parents, increasingly irrelevant, will die alone, and quite possibly with the 'assistance' of the state. Huxley's prophecy of these arrangements in 'Brave New World' is visibly taking concrete shape in the world around us.

The caricature of traditional marriage employed by these campaigners does not honour the institution, as it pretends. Does the clergyman involved in this latest ceremony actually believe in or support the stern prescriptions of the 1662 marriage service on which he based the event?

This campaign intends to bring such marriage to an end, and has already nearly succeeded. judging by the rates, first of divorce, when marriage was still strong, and increasingly of couples who don't bother to get married in the first place, because marriage is so weak. What is the point of lifelong marriage in the brave new world these people seek? For them, it is surely an obstacle and a prison?

This isn't really about homosexuals, a small minority in our society .I really don't want to discuss homosexuality here, or the reasons why Christians (or anyone else) might regard homosexual acts as wrong. It's rather boring, it makes people bitter, and it isn't, actually, the point. It's part of a bait-and-switch trick in which the real centre of the argument is snatched out of sight while the gullible audience's attention is diverted.

It's really about heterosexuals, about marriage, divorce, abortion, parental rights over children, the passing on of culture and morals, the ownership and inheritance of private property, the existence of a defensible private life, the priorities between work and home, all the issues which marriage tried to settle in favour of two adults living privately in a strong, privileged but restrictive relationship in which personal will was subjected to moral law.

Homosexuality is the chosen battleground of the revolutionaries for a very simple reason. Homosexual acts, like all sexual acts outside marriage, many of them far more important, are disapproved of by Christian morality. That's an undoubted fact, and there's no real way round it if Christianity is a received religion based on accepted scriptures. Here comes the trick. The revolutionaries can first dishonestly pretend that this is an objection to homosexual individuals, even though this is the opposite of the truth. . They can then portray homosexuals as a persecuted minority who are discriminated against - a stance which automatically makes their opponents look like bigots. Among thoughtful, well-informed people this would fail. But in our TV-dominated, post-education age, bad arguments drive out good.

They therefore always win, regardless of any facts that happen to be available, since in the eyes of the Comprehensive-schooled, sex-educated, 'Life of Brian', alternative comedy generation, 'discrimination' is always wrong and religious principle is always funny.

This also, importantly allows them to use the law against those opponents - employment law and public order law being the usual routes. It would be very hard to make it illegal to hold an opinion as such, though some of the new 'Anti-Terror' laws come close to it. But it is increasingly easy to make it illegal or expensively unlawful to 'discriminate' or to 'offend' . (see recent court and tribunal cases involving the preacher Harry Hammond and the Bishop of Hereford, and the curious police behaviour towards Lynette Burrows and Sir Iqbal Sacranie who said critical things about homosexuality on the radio).

The trick is to become one of the things it is illegal, or unacceptable, to 'discriminate' against. There is no proper logic in this. Many groups have no real protection at all, though logically they should. And all kinds of amusing things happen when people who are not in these approved categories actually are discriminated against - such as Christians who wear crosses at work.

Suddenly, those campaigners and lawyers who would scamper militantly to the side of a Muslim banned from wearing a jilbab are not available to help. Then there are applicants for jobs who are told that they are not being considered because the employer is applying 'Positive Action' and therefore giving preference to ethnic minorities. 'Positive Action' of this kind is perfectly legal, though in my view impossible to distinguish in effect from 'positive discrimination' which is against the law. And then there's the 'Black Police Association' . We all know what would (rightly) happen if anyone set up a 'White Police Association'.

This, too, is part of the 'Bait and Switch' method. By the time you realise what the real issue is, it is too late. You've lost your fiver. Or indeed the whole battle.

The real aim of all this stuff about homosexuality is to destroy the institution of marriage and the moral system which is founded upon that institution. Make those who defend it look like bigots, make expressions of opinion or actions by such people legally risky, or politically dangerous, and you've won.

What these militants ought to do, if they really mean what they say, is to hold services of Unmarriage, or rituals divorce, in the most picturesque old churches, using caricatures of the most beautiful old Anglican services, and rewritten hymns, to do so ( How about "Clear Off, O Love Divine! or "Hide me from the Great Redeemer").

At the centre of the service might be the words "Those whom man, or the state, or career pressures, have pulled asunder, let not God or anyone else attempt to keep together", while the clergyman (or clergyperson) stamps as hard as possible on the ring which has been previously flung to the ground in a petulant gesture of self-indulgence.

Then we can all get on with the real meaning of life, as so well summed up in 'Sex and the City'.

And, after a few years of this, when the last remaining marriage has been torn apart and we're all the property of the supermarkets and the state, all the churches can be turned into night-clubs or funky loft conversions, and all the revolutionary clergy can get jobs as bouncers or estate agents.

We're all free now.

Food for thought.

Peter

Geeks and dorks unite!

The sheer stupidity of this gives me a fit of the giggles.

It seems that a popular online game, Age of Conan, allows players to 'design' their own 'avatar' to represent them in the game. It further appears that many players (perhaps indulging in adolescent fantasies?) have made their avatars . . . how shall I put this? . . . somewhat, er, over-endowed in the mammary gland department.

Until technology intervened.

Computer gamers have staged a revolt after the gravity-defying breasts of characters in a popular game were suddenly reduced.

Many were angry that their previously pert avatars - which they had spent hours creating into icons of exaggerated femininity - now appeared to have "saggy" breasts.

Some players even threatened to withdraw their subscriptions to the online game, claiming that the Norwegian makers Funcom were censoring their buxom characters.

"If this isn't fixed in a reasonable amount of time, ie a day or two, I will be un-subscribing," one player, calling himself Dusk, wrote on the game's official forum.

Multi-player fantasy games like Age of Conan are particularly popular among teenage boys, but even some of the game’s female players were upset at the unannounced change.

"Funcom did reduce the size of the breasts. There is almost no cleavage, just a flat area between them. And YES they do sag," a player called Krystal wrote.

Amid growing anger at the sudden change in the game, which was only launched last month, Funcom decided to act.

In a message posted on a gamers' forum, it said that the maximum breast size had been reduced in error during a programming alteration carried out to fix other bugs.

It also promised that all affected characters would soon be re-enlarged

"Funcom can confirm that some of the female models in the game have had the size of their breasts changed," the statement said.

"This is due to an unintended change in data that was introduced in an earlier patch, data which controls the so-called morph values associated with character models and the size of their respective body parts.

"We are working on a fix for this and your breasts should be back to normal soon."

Hee-hee! Dorks and geeks sure get worked up about pixellated protrusions, don't they? The picture below shows the before-and-after effect.




Speaking as a combat veteran, I have some news for these guys (and gals, where applicable). Large, protruding breasts will be a severe handicap in any serious fight. They affect balance, they mean that certain weapons can't be easily used without causing bruising and pain, and they offer a more easily reached target for an enemy's sword.

The complainers might want to think about that when they design their next avatar . . . but I suspect they won't. After all, combat realism isn't exactly a hallmark of computer games.



Peter

The dangers of 'energy drinks'

I've been involved in a counseling situation with a family for some weeks, and we finally got to the root of one aspect of the problem only last week. It seems their teenage children had been gulping down so-called 'energy drinks', ultra-high in caffeine and other additives, and this had been affecting their behavior. I wasn't aware of the real dangers posed by such drinks, since I don't use them myself. However, I've learned enough through reading up about them that I'd like to share some of the information with you.




These drinks (often mixed with alcohol) appear to fuel tension, aggression and intolerant behavior in those who consume them to excess. Their mixing with alcohol is particularly dangerous, in that the caffeine in the energy drink counteracts the depressant effect of the alcohol. Normally, the drunker one gets, the more tired one gets, so that there's a natural mechanism to put one to sleep and stop the drinking: but with the caffeine to offset this, the drinker gets more and more drunk - without realizing it. The results, in terms of accidents, effect on relationships, etc., can be catastrophic . . . as I've seen in recent weeks.




In its advice to students, the Milwaukee School of Engineering warns:

Energy drinks contain very high amounts of sugar and caffeine, which in high amounts can be dangerous. Studies have found that caffeine increases heart rate, which over time can increase the stroke and heart disease. Over consumption of caffeine can also lead to nervousness, irritability, and insomnia, and has been associated with birth defects in pregnant women. Additional researchers have shown that consuming large quantities of sugar is likely to cause weight gain, where it would it would likely take an average person 15–20 minutes to burn off the 110 calories in one can of Red Bull.

Many people are not aware of these risks with some of the marketing claims that these drinks claim to make. Certain energy drinks claim to increase performance, concentration, reaction speed, vigilance, emotional status, and metabolism, yet are unfounded and without support. Conversely, energy drinks can sometimes even have the opposite effects of their claims, like fatigue and dehydration.

Another popular trend is to mix these energy drinks with alcohol. Many like the taste, where other myths claim that mixing energy drinks with alcohol with speed up intoxication. However, research has found that no one really knows how the combination of ingredients in energy drinks will affect the human body. Many people report electrolyte disturbances, nausea, vomiting and heart irregularities when mixing alcohol with energy drinks. This combination of a stimulant (energy drink) and a depressant (alcohol) can have dangerous effects.

Articles setting out the background to these drinks (and providing a lot more information, if you're interested) have appeared in the New York Times, the London Daily Mail, Australia's ABC News, and many other places. Medical articles referencing them have appeared on WebMD in relation to osteoporosis, and the Mayo Clinic in relation to energy and heart health. I recommend all the linked articles for your information.

If you use energy drinks yourself, or have children who do, you really, really need to read these articles. This stuff is dangerous!

Peter

In Memoriam: Cyd Charisse

One of the loveliest ladies of Hollywood has just died - and yes, she was a Lady with a capital L.




Cyd Charisse was a beautiful woman, an outstanding dancer, and the heartthrob of many manly men. Her marriage to entertainer Tony Martin endured almost 60 years - a very refreshing change from typical Hollywood morality!




She 'grew old gracefully', as the saying goes, and wasn't afraid to take on new challenges and roles even in her old age. The photograph below shows her in 1992, dressed for her part in 'Grand Hotel: The Musical'. How many ladies look so good at 70 years of age?




I've always loved to watch the movies of her dancing. She was quite incredible: the great Fred Astaire described her as 'beautiful dynamite', which I find very appropriate! Here's a clip of her dancing with Astaire in the 1952 movie 'The Band Wagon'.





A lovely lady, now gone to her reward. May she rest in peace.

Peter

A balletic dash to freedom

On this day, June 17th, 1961, the Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev made his famous dash to freedom at Le Bourget airport in Paris.

Principal dancer of the Kirov Ballet, Rudolf Nureyev, has broken free from Russian embassy guards at a Paris airport and requested asylum in France.

The 23-year-old Russian dancer dashed through a security barrier at Le Bourget airport shouting in English: "I want to be free."

It is understood Nureyev was approached by two Russian guards as he was waiting, with the rest of his troupe, to board a BEA Vanguard plane to London.

The guards informed him that he was required to return to Moscow instead of going to London, but, as he was being escorted to a waiting Russian aircraft, he made his dash for freedom.

He was taken into the airport police station by two French police officers, followed by the two furious Russian guards, and a heated argument ensued.

He was immediately granted temporary asylum in France and his case was referred to the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons.

The Leningrad Kirov Ballet troupe continued their journey to London without their principal dancer.

Many of the younger generation have no memory - and, thanks to lax schooling, little understanding - of the evils of Communism and how much damage it did to so many uncounted billions of people all over the world.

It's worth reminding them that many found the system so onerous that they were prepared to abandon everything - family, friends, their familiar language and culture - to make a new start, in freedom. Some succeeded. Many others died in the attempt.

Freedom is worth it. Let's make sure we never surrender it to a totalitarian State. It's the individual that counts, not the masses. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either deluded, or just plain evil.

Never forget that.

Peter

Young criminals and how to punish them

There's a sickening report in a British newspaper about young criminals.

Courts should send fewer teenage criminals to jail, the new head of the Government's Youth Justice Board has said.

Frances Done revealed that only 6 per cent of youngsters sentenced by the courts are sent to custody.

But the quango boss, who was appointed to the £85,000 post in February, said she was determined to 'drive the numbers down' further.

She wants the courts to hand out more community punishments, and for problem children to be sent to 'intensive fostering' instead.

This is despite huge public concern over teenage violence in the wake of a string of fatal stabbings.

Last month it emerged that violent crime by young people had risen by nearly 40 per cent in three years, from just over 40,000 offences in 2003-04 to more than 56,000 in 2006-07.

Yet the numbers sent to custody are relatively low. About 2,900 ten to 17-year-olds are locked up in secure children's homes, secure training centres and young offender institutions.

Mrs Done, who oversees the youth justice system in England and Wales, said it was the intention of the Youth Justice Board to reduce the number of custodial terms handed out.

She highlighted a scheme of ' intensive fostering' as an alternative to custody. Under the regime, a support team is employed to work with an offender and their family for a year.

Mrs Done said: 'They've never had boundaries in their lives, they've had chaotic existences. They have to learn to get up, they have to learn to eat properly, they have to learn to do things at a time which has been agreed with their carer. It's a very rigorous regime.'

I think Mrs. Done has bats in her belfry. She's daft. When you have kids as out-of-control as this, I submit there are three things to be done:

• Get them away from the disastrously deficient home environment that has taught them to behave like this;
• Remove them from association with their friends 'on the street' who encourage such behavior through peer pressure;
• Administer a salutary punishment that teaches them - the hard way - that such conduct is unacceptable in civilized society. If that means breaking rocks in a prison, so be it.
  

My parents administered strict discipline to us as children - so strict that today, it might even be classified as child abuse. It wasn't meant that way, of course. They were products of their time, growing to adulthood in the years of the Great Depression and its aftermath in the 1930's. They knew - they'd learned from bitter personal experience - that they 'd have to make their own way in life, and that to do so required self-discipline, hard work, and adherence to strict standards of what was acceptable and what was not.

Their generation went on to be called the 'Greatest Generation'. They fought and won the war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. My father, after marrying my mother, almost immediately went overseas for three years to fight, and didn't question the need. My mother, waiting for him, endured over a hundred air raids, and spent many nights standing watch for incendiary bombs, armed only with a bucket of water and a stirrup-pump to put out the resulting fires. Did either of them complain about their 'lost youth', or moan about being separated, or mutter that 'it's not fair'? Like hell they did! They got on with what they had to do, as did many millions like them.

They proceeded to raise their children with the same ethic. We wanted to slack off our schoolwork, as all kids do, and do only the fun things rather than the hard things: but they wouldn't let us. They set an example, punished us (sometimes severely, including beatings) when they thought we needed it, and kept us on the 'straight and narrow'. Looking back, I can't say I'm any the worse for it - rather the opposite.

In most cases of juvenile delinquency, I've found that parental neglect is a key reason for it. I'd like to see 'failed parents' charged with the crimes of their kids, and punished for them. There are very few cases (although, admittedly, they do exist) where they're not at least partly responsible for them. As for the kids themselves, to treat them with 'kid gloves' (you should pardon the expression) just isn't going to work. If they suffer no consequences for their crimes, what incentive do they have to change?

I've seen many inmates in adult prisons who accumulated criminal records as long as your arm in the juvenile justice system, but never suffered any real punishment. I'm reminded of one who had seventy-three - yes, seventy-three - juvenile convictions, and served only a total of eighteen months in youth institutions. He got used to being able to get away with anything. When he turned eighteen, he proceeded to act in precisely the same way as he'd done before: but now he was eligible for adult trial and an adult punishment. I met him while he was serving a ten-to-twenty stretch for his crimes . . . and he was bitter and angry at the system. He blamed the court, not himself. After all, he'd done precisely the same thing before, and got away with only a slap on the wrist: so it must surely be the result of 'the system being against him' that he was now serving hard time.

(From his perspective, given his total lack of ability to judge realistically, this made sense, of course. He was completely mistaken, utterly wrong, but he simply wasn't able to see or judge reality. In that sense, yes, the juvenile justice system had indeed failed him - by not being strict enough.)

Hold parents accountable for the consequences of how they raise - or neglect - their kids, and make the kids' punishment fit their crimes. There's no other way.

Peter

Another ex-spousal horror story

You'll recall my post a couple of days ago about former spouses who turn into stalkers.

There's a worse problem - the former spouse who targets his (or, very occasionally, her) children in order to punish the former wife (or, very occasionally, husband).

There's just been another example of this in England.

Security guard Brian Philcox, 53, had lost his job and feared he would have to hand over his house to his estranged wife Evelyn, 37.

After picking up his daughter Amy and son Owen for a weekend access visit, he told his wife: 'I've left you a present. I'll make the papers, just you watch.'

He then drove his Land Rover to a country lane and attached a hose to the exhaust pipe, feeding it through the window before leaving the engine running.

The bodies of Mr Philcox, seven-year-old Amy, and three-year-old Owen were discovered on Father's Day huddled in the rear seat of the Land Rover in Tal-y-cafn, North Wales. All three died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Why is it - how is it even possible? - that some men get the idea that they 'own' their children, and can kill these innocent lives in order to make their former wives suffer?

I'm at a loss for words. I just don't understand their mental processes.

One thing I do understand, however. Such men don't deserve to live. Tragically, in this case - and in too many others like it - the man concerned is now dead, but has killed his kids along with himself. One wishes he could have been relieved of the burden of his life in some other way, without giving him the opportunity to kill others.

May Almighty God have mercy on their souls . . . and I hope his former wife gets the help and support she'll undoubtedly need to cope with this tragedy.

Peter

Safely home

I've just got back from Dallas, as previous posts over the weekend will have told you. It was another long, tiring drive, made worse by the fact that I have to stop frequently to stretch my back and exercise my leg - injury problems. Still, I made it back in one piece.

I'm very tired tonight, so I won't post my usual two or three posts. Look for them tomorrow morning.

Sleep well, friends. I'm off to do the same.

Peter

Soweto, 1976

Today, June 16th, is the anniversary of the Soweto uprising in South Africa in 1976.

This was an extraordinary day in that country's history. The schoolchildren of Soweto, near Johannesburg, the country's largest city and its commercial hub, rose in rebellion against a requirement of the apartheid government that they learn in Afrikaans, the 'language of the oppressor', as they saw it, as well as in English and their tribal languages.




The violence that exploded on that day would continue to roll across the country for eighteen years. Only in 1994 would democracy finally come to South Africa and the system of apartheid - one of the most evil and noxious systems of government in the world - end at last.




The world-famous photograph above shows Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying the body of 12-year-old Hector Pieterson, shot by police on that day. Hector's sister Antoinette runs alongside them.

The Soweto uprising marked the radical polarization of South Africa's Black youth. Until then the older generations had largely remained silent under the oppression of apartheid, protesting at times, but cowed by institutionalized State violence whenever necessary. At last the youth of the country had had enough. They were not prepared to tamely accept what their parents had considered inevitable or unavoidable - and they saw no reason why they should not respond to the institutionalized violence and oppression of the State with violence of their own.




I vividly recall the events of June 16th, 1976. It was a 'wake-up call' for the whole country. The great tragedy is that so much of the (entirely legitimate) Black resistance to apartheid was taken over by Communist-trained leaders, who proceeded to use the same violence against their own communities and people in an attempt to take over leadership of the 'struggle', dispose of rivals, and intimidate the people into supporting their particular brand of 'liberation'.

Tens of thousands of people died between 1976 and 1994. The true total will certainly never be known, as many simply 'disappeared'. They were abducted, tortured for information, and murdered by the authorities; killed during riots; killed in internecine, Black-on-Black violence; murdered by Black political groups trying to remove rivals (most infamously the African National Congress's virtual elimination of the Pan Africanist Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement in the Eastern Cape region); and caught up as innocent bystanders when violence swept through their townships. I've heard figures suggesting that a hundred thousand people died during that period, and I see no reason to disbelieve that total. It may be higher.

Among those who died were twenty-seven of my friends, the vast majority of them Black.

I remain proud to have been part of the effort to help the victims of violence in South Africa, irrespective of their political affiliation or color or religion. Tragically, those groups who tried to stay apolitical, and help anyone and everyone who needed it, were seen as enemies by both sides in the struggle. We paid a heavy price in lives and injuries.

Today I remember my friends . . . and mourn for them. South Africa is the poorer for their loss. They were the bravest and the best people I ever knew.

Peter

A fun day

As mentioned in yesterday evening's report, today was more blogger get-together goodness. Lawdog arrived late in the morning, followed by the fatal Phlegm, and we enjoyed brunch together, courtesy of Holly's cooking (superb, as always). JPG's other son also arrived for a Father's Day visit while we were eating, and took little persuading to join us.

After digesting our meal and batting the breeze for a while, we headed out to a local farm where targets have been set up to form a casual, come-as-you-are shooting range. We spent several hours shooting all sorts of fun things: a snub-nose .38 Special with Crimson Trace grips (which seems to have persuaded JPG and Lawdog that these things definitely have their place on such small guns), a Colt Trooper, a lovely S&W J-frame .22 revolver with 4" barrel (belonging to JPG, and after which, I must confess, I now lust!), a Colt 1911 in .38 Super, an FN FNP-40, a Kel-Tec PF9, a Browning BuckMark .22, a Browning Hi-Power in 9mm., a Henry .22 lever-action rifle and a Mossberg 500 20ga. shotgun. This was Phlegm's first experience with a shotgun, and she did extremely well.

We got back a short while ago. Visiting will doubtless continue late into the evening. For that reason, blogging is light tonight, and will be until I get home tomorrow evening sometime.

Hope y'all had as fun a weekend as your friendly bloggers!

Peter

Of former spouses, stalkers, and the cure for them

My buddy Lawdog has another good post on his blog, dealing with the type of critter who refuses to let go of a former spouse and continues to imagine that he has some kind of right of possession over her.

Dumbasses.

I've had to deal with several such critters in my time, some as a friend of the former wives involved, some as a pastor to whom they turned for assistance. I've never understood the mentality which says that as soon as a woman says 'I do', she turns into his slave, to be at his beck and call for the rest of her life. Furthermore, divorce doesn't change that. If she has the temerity to take another boyfriend, or lover, or husband, it's a personal slight against her former spouse, who has the 'right' to ensure that if he can't have her, neither can anyone else.

Double dumbasses.

I'm regularly sickened to read of men who kill their former spouses, or children, or both, and then commit suicide. They literally can't accept that they no longer 'own' them.

There's usually only one way to deal with truly obsessive persons of this type, and that's to remove them from temptation. This can be done by incarcerating them; and/or by moving their former spouse and children to a safe location where they can't be traced (although critters can be very ingenious at finding them); or, if push comes to shove, by giving said critters their own personal plot in the local cemetery.

I'm reminded of one case in particular. The lady in question had divorced her husband after several years of abuse, and had moved, with her two children, to live with her parents in the town where I was currently active as a pastor. She was a nice person, and the kids were great, and she was making a new life for herself.

Then critter got out of jail and started pestering her.

Things went from bad to worse fairly quickly. He began hanging around her parents' home, stalking her, following her around, following the kids, uttering unspecified threats against her new boyfriend, etc. She did all the legal things, including taking out a restraining order, but he tended to ignore such things. The local cops and sheriff's department were very sympathetic, but unless he could be caught in the act, they couldn't do much.

She came to me for advice, and I gave her some. (Remember I'm an African boy, and in Africa we have simple, straightforward and fairly permanent solutions to such matters. We're not nearly so civilized as some in the USA.) She grinned ferally, thanked me, and left to discuss the matter with her boyfriend, her parents, and some of their neighbors (and hunting buddies).

That night a welcoming committee waited for her former spouse to make his usual slow pass in front of her parents' house, leering at her, yelling things. As he turned into the road leading past her house, the first two members of the 'committee' greeted him with salvos of birdshot from their trusty shotguns. This removed large quantities of paint from the quarters of his car, speckled the windows with lead (they used small-size birdshot that wouldn't break them), and caused him to accelerate rapidly away from danger.

Heh.

His progress down the street was marked by further gunshots (a great many of them) as the neighbors all got into the act. They'd been instructed to use only fine birdshot, nothing larger, but I regret to say that some of them saw fit to ignore this instruction and use buckshot, or even slugs. They did obey the request not to shoot at the driver . . . but by the time his car reached the house of his former wife and her parents, his vehicle was riding on its rims, there were several shotgun-slug-size holes in the rear bodywork, and he was screaming loudly.

As he came to the house, he was greeted by former wife, her parents (both of them), and her current boyfriend.

All four of them with shotguns.

After their fusillade had removed what was left of his car's paintwork, he was merrily sent on his way by the laughter of all concerned as his battered, holed car jolted away on its rims. Reports that a liquid brown trail was dripping from the driver's compartment are unconfirmed.

He actually had the gall to try to lodge charges against those involved. The local policemen (who were - and are - the best kind of lawmen) informed him that yes, of course he could file charges against anyone who did so dastardly a deed as to shoot at him . . . but where did he say this had happened?

Oh.

He did realize that if he laid charges against them, he would be behind bars himself, for violating a court order of protection, didn't he?

He left town on the bus that same night, abandoning his shot-damaged car, and wasn't seen again. His former spouse later married her boyfriend ("the couple that shoots together, stays together," perhaps?), and the kids are very happy with their new dad.

I love it when a plan comes together . . . and I'm pleased to say that I provided some of the birdshot involved. My friends usually used larger sizes for the birds and animals they hunted, but I mostly shot at clay pigeons, so I had the smaller size birdshot most appropriate for the purpose. It might not have been the most pastorly action I could take, but it was definitely one of the most satisfying!



Peter

Busy day with bloggers

Not much posting today. I arrived in Dallas last night after a long and nightmarish drive (heavy traffic extended the trip from its normal 5 hours to over 8 hours - aaargh!). I'm staying with JPG and Holly for a couple of days.

We visited the Dallas Gun Show today, all of us separating to look for bits and pieces we needed. JPG thoughtfully brought along a collapsible luggage cart to tote all the reloading components he wanted! I found a couple of lovely, thick, heavy 5ft. hickory sticks shillelaghs, which I plan to convert into heavy-duty walking sticks. I also picked up some specialized cleaning gear I needed, and a couple more sets of Crimson Trace laser grips for two of my revolvers. Great prices, and a good selection at the show.

Thereafter we headed for chez Phlegm. She'd cleaned and prepared her new apartment for a blogger party. Apart from the four of us, Matt, Speakertweaker, his brother, and Fat Hairy B-----d showed up, many with family. Also present (and great fun to meet in person) was a long-term online acquaintance from a couple of forums, who uses the name Sylvagius Aquaticus for his posts. He and his wife entered warily, but were soon reassured that we were as crazy as they were!

Phlegm had laid on a lovely spread, and we all brought contributions, so the evening was filled with fun, food, drink and laughter. The kids spent lots of time in the pool, the adults spent their time feeding their faces, exchanging guns, discussing things bloggish and doing sundry such stuff. Great fun.

Holly, JPG and I have just got back home, worn out after a long day, but happy. We're off shooting tomorrow, along with Phlegm, Lawdog and (hopefully) a few others, if they get out of bed in time. I'll post an after-action report.

Peter

Playing a building???

This sounds weird in words - and even weirder in tones!

Apparently the Battery Maritime Building in New York has been 'wired for sound' so that its effects can be 'played' like a musical instrument.

In the cavernous, 9,000 square foot Great Hall of the former lower Manhattan ferry terminal, sits the man who once sang about "Burning down the House". David Byrne, who from behind a retrofitted, antique organ that acts as the control station for the musical instrument, is no longer speaking in tongues. He is politely inviting visitors to instead "Play the Building".

Instead of using wind forced through pipes, each of the organ’s keys are connected by a multitude of tubes, pipes and wires to every conceivable facet of the building. Playing the organ causes various devices to hammer on water pipes, vibrate motors against the ceiling girders, magnetically beat against the building’s roof columns or blow air through pipes. The 99 year old previously disused space is converted into a cast-iron orchestra, conducted by Byrne or any other person who wishes to play.

This site-specific installation, which was previously installed in Sweden, reflects the orchestral cacophony of the streets of New York. It is one of a number of pieces concerned with the overlooked aspects of the city space, including the Turner Prize winning British artist and now Camera d’Or winning director Steve Mcqueen, who rolled a reclaimed oil barrel through 14 blocks of upper Manhattan, recording video and sound throughout his journey.

The building can be played until August 10th but as Byrne has said, “Nobody is going to be able to play Bach on it.”

There's a video on YouTube giving some idea of what it sounds like.





Fascinating!

Peter

A Swiss Army Knife like never before!

I grew up with various Swiss Army knives stuck in my pockets. They were a natural accessory to a growing boy, almost as essential as clothing - perhaps more so.

My favorite (until now) has been the monstrous special-edition XXL, created in 2007. It had 87 separate tools and 141 functions - although it could hardly be called a pocket-knife any more! I lusted after one, but my budget, alas, was too small.




Now Gizmodo informs us that this monster has been surpassed, at least in lethality.

We were surprised to learn that one of the stars of Steve Carell's Get Smart is actually a Swiss Army knife, albeit one whose talents are slightly more impressive than your own trusty multi-tool. It's got your scissors, saw, magnifying glass and can opener, but how about a flame thrower that shoots six feet? Or a crossbow with stow-away bolts? Or a blowgun with its own fold-out sight? The crazy part is, even though this thing is a movie prop, the producers had to make it really work. We scored exclusive schematics of the knife itself, and caught up with prop-meister Tim Wiles to learn how the thing was made fully operational for the cameras.

In Hollywood, the same rule that applies to babies and cars applies to key props: There has to be more than one. In the shooting of Get Smart, there were a total of seven functional Swiss Army knives, three with working crossbows, and two each with working flamethrowers and blowguns. There were also a dozen or so rubber versions for shots where the knife flies through the air or takes some other kind of a beating.

. . .

But it was the knife that was the center of Wiles' attention. He got clearance from the companies who own the Swiss Army license (Wenger and Victorinox) to feature a souped-up version in the movie. "Then we bought 50 or 60 big fat Swiss Army knives and gutted them—took them apart and built frames to house the mechanisms to do what we needed it to do."

As you can see in the sketches above, the crossbow concept requires a little "suitcase" for the bolts, while the flamethrower makes sense only when the knife has its own propane tank, so Wiles had to add both, on either side.

When it came time to deploy the functional units for scenes, some trickery was still required. For instance, the flamethrower did manage to shoot a jet of fire four to six feet, says Wiles, but it was assisted by a line to an actual propane tank that was hiding just off-camera and controlled by "the effects guy."

The crossbow totally worked, but its bolts were rubber tipped. Even though Carell appears in the stills below punctured with bolts, Wiles and the crew assumed the real ones probably wouldn't have done too much damage. Nevertheless, on the day of shooting, the crossbow turned out to be all too powerful, and they had to "back off the tension" before someone lost an eye.

Want!

Peter

Red faces in the security department, I'd say!

On May 21st it was announced in Sweden that two contractors had been arrested for trying to smuggle explosives onto the site of a nuclear power station.

"Two Swedish men were arrested ... The prosecutor suspects them of sabotage," Sven-Erik Karlsson of the Kalmar county police told AFP.

He said both men were contractors who had been working at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in southern Sweden "for some time," but said the link between the two remained unclear.

One of the men was arrested and questioned early Wednesday after routine tests at the entrance to the plant detected traces of highly explosive material on the handle of a plastic bag he was carrying.

Karlsson told the TT news agency that the men were born in 1955 and 1962 and that one of them had a criminal record, but did not disclose their identities.

A spokesman for the OKG company that runs the plant, Anders Österberg, told AFP the two were welders who had been contracted for work on one of the plant's three reactors, which had been shut down for maintenance.

He said one of them had been working inside the plant for two weeks, and that sniffer dogs would be sent in to search the area they had worked in.

"One must of course take into account the information we have about where these people have been working ... and in cooperation with the police and bomb sniffing dogs search these areas to make sure these people have not left behind any explosives," Österberg said.

"It is a security measure," he said, adding that around 100 people had been evacuated from the area where the explosive traces were detected.

The plant's two other reactors were running as normal on Wednesday, he said.

The explosive material was believed to be TATP, which is relatively easy to make and has surfaced in a number of recent terrorism investigations, including bombings in the Middle East and the London bombings in July 2005.

Sounds like good police work, right?

Think again.

On Monday it was reported:

Two Swedes suspected of plotting an attack on a Swedish nuclear plant were cleared Monday after authorities were unable to explain why small traces of explosives were detected on a shaving cream can one of them was carrying, news agency TT reports.

Prosecutor Gunilla Oehlin said small traces of TNT were detected on the shaving cream can, but there was no explanation for how it got there and there was no reason to suspect the two men of any crime, TT said.

The two men, born in 1955 and 1964, had been working as welders for several weeks on one of three reactors at the Oskarshamn plant in southern Sweden.

They were arrested on May 21 after a routine security control at the entrance to the plant detected traces of highly explosive material on a plastic bag containing toiletry items that one of the men was carrying.

The two men were released from custody after one day, after raids in their homes turned up nothing.

"It was necessary to carry out the investigation this way and arrest the men so they could be questioned," police spokesman Sven-Erik Karlsson said, TT reported.

At the time of the incident, police said the highly explosive material detected was TATP, which is relatively easy to make and has surfaced in a number of recent terrorism investigations, including bombings in the Middle East and the London bombings in July 2005.

Police said on Monday however that the plant's equipment had detected TNT and not TATP, but had no further explanation for why it had been detected.

A bomb squad called in to the plant on the day of the incident had blown up the plastic bag and the shaving cream can.

Forensic tests later carried out on the blown up material showed traces of the bomb squad's explosives, but no traces of TNT.

Police were unable to explain where the TNT could have come from.

The false alarm cost OKG, the company that runs the plant, some 100 million kronor ($16.8 million), according to tabloid Expressen.

Hmm. Almost $17 million for a false alarm!

If I were the security department, I'd be having urgent discussions with the suppliers of my bomb-materials-detecting equipment, asking them why their boxes of tricks couldn't distinguish between explosives and shaving cream . . . and would they care to foot the bill for the resultant snafu?

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #36

If there's a quintessential doofus, this guy is it. In spades.

A burglar has been branded the 'dumbest of the dumb' after returning to the scene of his crime - to ask if he could have his dropped mobile phone back.

Stuart Gardner, 30, dropped his Nokia after breaking into retired magician Peter Diamond's home.

When he realised he had left it behind, he went back to the house and asked the 74-year-old: 'I'm the person who broke in - can I have my mobile phone back?'

Today Gardner was branded the 'dumbest of the dumb' as he began three years and three months in jail.

It emerged it was not the first time he had dropped his property during raids and left it behind.

One police officer said: 'This guy has to be as dumb as you get. It's pretty damning to leave a calling a card at the scene of your crime by dropping stuff but to return and then ask the victim for it back takes the biscuit.

'Some of the guys at the police station were in stitches when they found out what happened. This burglar must either have a serious lack of brain cells or a serious lot of front.'

. . .

At the time of the burglaries in February, Gardner was on bail after being arrested for a break-in at commercial premises and the theft of copper cable.

He had been caught after leaving a tobacco pouch with his fingerprints at the scene of another of the crimes.

In court Gardner admitted three burglaries and theft, and asked for a further 12 burglaries to be taken into consideration.

He had 44 previous offences on his record and was liable for a statutory minimum three-year sentence, the court heard.

I have only one question.

With intelligence such as he displayed in his most recent caper, how the heck did he manage to pull off 44 previous offences???

Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .

Peter

Happy birthday to the teabag!

I'm sitting at my desk, typing this post, with a mug of hot tea at my right hand. It was brewed in the mug with a teabag (Twining's Irish Breakfast tea, if you're interested).

I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that the teabag is 100 years old this month. What's more, it's an American invention, not a British idea.

Invented by tea merchant Thomas Sullivan in New York City in June 1908, they can now be found in virtually every one of Britain's 24million homes.

But if it wasn't for a handful of confused Americans, the tea bag may never have made it into our cups at all.

They came about only after Mr Sullivan, in an attempt to cut costs, sent samples of tea leaves to potential customers in small silk pouch-like purses.

Unsure quite what to do with the strange little bag, the Americans dunked it into a cup of hot water. And so was born the tea bag.

After complaints that the mesh on the silk was too fine, Mr Sullivan developed sachets made of gauze - a method which was instrumental in today's tea bag design.

But it was not until 1953, when British tea producer Tetley spotted the commercial potential of the bag, that it began to take off here. The firm now sells 200 million tea bags every week.

William Gorman, executive chairman of the UK Tea Council, said: 'Without a doubt the tea bag saved the tea industry.

'There is no way in our busy lifestyles today that we would have had the time or inclination to make tea the old way.'

Tea drinking is seen as a quintessential British tradition, with 130million cups drunk every day. But the initial reaction from Britons who visited America 100 years ago and experienced tea bags for the first time was lukewarm.

Much suspicion surrounded the short string and branded tag attached to the bag.

And there were frequent complaints from tourists who were put out at being served tepid water in which to place their bag.

A major breakthrough came in 1930 when William Hermanson - one of the founders of the Bostonbased Technical Papers Corporation - patented the heat- sealed paper fibre tea bag.

But material shortages in the Second World War prevented mass manufacture, and Britain had to wait until after Joseph Tetley and Co was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1951 to welcome the tea bag revolution.

Convinced the tea bag was the future because of the way it allowed the tea maximum exposure-to the water resulting in a good, strong brew, Tetley persevered with perfecting the bag.

A problem finding a tea bag tissue which did not taint the tea was among the stumbling blocks overcome along the way.

Finally in 1964 the finely perforated bag was developed and the product began to fly off the shelves.

I guess there's always been a certain 'snob value' in using leaf tea. When I was growing up, my family had our own blend of tea: 50% Ceylon black tea, 50% Keemun China tea, with just a pinch of Lapsang Souchong to add a smoky overtone. It was delicious! Of course, to mix it ourselves, we used leaf tea. We couldn't put it into bags. I got used to swallowing the odd tea-leaf now and again.

However, for sheer convenience, the teabag rules. I shall be duly appreciative this month as I go through my regular hundred-plus teabags.

Peter

Do you polish it or launder it?

Courtesy of the Mad Rocket Scientist, we learn of BMW's new concept car: the GINA.




According to Winding Road magazine:

The GINA concept has done away with the traditional rigid metal skin, making use of a spaceframe covered with a collection of metal and carbon fiber wires, in turn covered with a taut textile fabric cover. Those wires are able to move and change shape under the skin of the car, allowing for a multitude of morphing shapes. The concept’s most dramatic applications seem to be in the human eye-like way the headlights are revealed, and the equally living manner in which engine access is granted.

There's a video on YouTube giving more details. I have to admit, watching it is almost creepy, seeing a car change shape in seconds - even appear to wink at you!





As the Mad Rocket Scientist asks in conclusion: "But would you wash it often, or just Scotch-Guard it every few years?"



Peter

Things to remember when driving in Cyprus

A better title for this post might be: "Why you shouldn't drive in Cyprus!"

According to a Reuters report, the Cyprus highway code is being updated.

Drivers in Cyprus have been told not to abandon their car in motion, or wave their hands and legs out of car windows.

This piece of advice is given in a new road safety code in the first major revamp of guidelines on driving practices in decades, the Phileleftheros daily reported.

With many known for driving with one hand, children bouncing about unrestrained in the back of vehicles and parking on pavements, the new code also sets out guidelines on how to use the much-loved horn.

Beeping will be prohibited in residential areas.

Uh . . . OK. Intrigued, I looked for more information. In a blog called 'This Is Cyprus', discussing the new highway code, I learned:

By page 29 we're getting to motorway and area signs (some of which are called 'sings' in this booklet) - then out of the blue is this question:

Q: When you come face to face with another vehicle what must you do?
A: Do not insist that the other vehicle goes off the asphalt.

Well, that's a relief!

. . .

This is followed by this rather bizarre set of instructions, which we're quite sure nobody obeys:

Q: When less than six vehicles are moving together in the same direction what distance must there be between each vehicle?
A: There should be a distance between each vehicle of at least 120ft. When the vehicles moving together are more than six they should be separated into two groups, each group should include less than six vehicle and there should be a distance between these gruops of at least 300ft.

Quite apart from the fact that very few people can remember the pre-decimal 'feet' measurement, and that cars generally drive a great deal closer than 120ft, we've no idea how they would divide, as if in a dance, to form two groups as soon as a seventh car joins them!

. . .

Then this slightly strange instruction:

How to make the left reverse move: As soon as you pass the sideboard on your left, stop on the left side of the main road and drive backwards on the left side of the side-road.


... so, if we see a sideboard on the street, we must go back and collect it.

Right.

Underneath is an even stranger instruction which sounds excessively dangerous:

How to make the right reverse move: As soon as you pass the side-road on your right stop on the right side of the main road. Look over your shoulder outside the window and drive backwards, stopping on the left side of the side-road.

This is a country where people drive on the left (or are supposed to, anyway). So they're saying that if you're on a main road, driving on the left, and see a turning on the right which you should have taken, you should drive onto the WRONG side of the main road, then reverse into the side street.

. . .

I did feel a little perturbed by this question on the final page:

Q: When we notice from the indicator panel that the motor is overhead, what are the usual causes?

Um... wouldn't we notice if the car was upside-down without having to check the indicator panel??

Fortunately we realised from the answers (such as 'not enough water in the radiator') that 'overhead' was simply a typing mistake for 'overheated'.

Sounds like a fun highway code!

My researches also turned up this advice on the BBC Personal Space Web site:

Cypriot Highway Code

If you hit a Greek, it's your fault.
If you hit an Arab, it's his fault.
If you hit a Turk, go to the police station and claim your prize.

There are 5 lanes on Cypriot dual carriageways, found in most town centres, notably Limassol. The main 2 lanes are both carriageways as normal. There is a middle lane in between the two carriageways, normally known as scenic island, but known in Cyprus as an emergency expressway where vehicles of any type go in any direction they like. The last two lanes on either side are known as the pavement and are exclusively used by pedestrians and taxi drivers. You have been warned.

Uh . . . OK, once more!

Frankly, after reading this, if I ever have to drive on Cyprus, I think I'll take a taxi - or a helicopter!



Peter

When concern for the environment brings unexpected dangers

I was intrigued to read about an unexpected side-effect of environmental consciousness. Flight reports:

US and European regulators are recommending that carriers inspect the carbon brakes of aircraft after finding that modern runway de-icing fluids, containing organic salts, can damage the carbon components and potentially lead to brake failure.

The US FAA is planning to modify runway de-icer specifications once a new formal testing protocol has been endorsed. But it is advising operators of carbon brake-equipped aircraft to carry out detailed visual inspection of carbon heat packs for signs of corrosion or other damage.

While carbon brakes have been fitted to aircraft for several years, the switch to organic-salt de-icing fluids – which are considered more beneficial to the environment – has introduced a risk to their integrity.

Aircraft operations in snow or ice can result in slush on the ground, mixed with de-icing fluid, being sprayed into the brakes and their carbon plates, particularly during take-off or landing. Gear retraction exacerbates the problem by allowing the melting slush to flow into the brake assembly.

At high temperatures, some 400-500°C, thermal oxidation can occur in the brakes. While this does not normally have an effect on brake life, alkalis in the de-icing fluid can reduce the temperature at which oxidation begins to around 100-200°C.

The higher probability of exposure to these lower temperatures means the carbon is more likely to soften and crumble over time.

“As a result there is a danger of possible brake failure during high-speed aborted take-off or dragged brake during normal take-off – and subsequent overheat once airborne,” says the FAA in an airworthiness information bulletin.

The article goes on to quote the European Aviation Safety Agency as saying that losing even one brake during a rejected take-off is 'potentially catastrophic'.

Interesting. Greater concern for the environment is a very good thing, I think - but you'd better check out all the consequences first! I wonder whether this has contributed to any accidents in recent years? I've read about several runway over-runs on landing . . . wonder if unduly and/or prematurely worn carbon brakes, caused by this stuff, had anything to do with them? And, if so, will we ever be told?

Peter

A novel way to promote tourism

Seems the Queensland Minister of Tourism has some novel ideas about how to get visitors to come to her State.

Bikini girls and beach boys have taken to the streets of Sydney and Melbourne in a unique marketing pitch to promote Queensland holidays.

Queensland Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said male and female "flashers" would be positioned around the cities for the next month trying to convince southerners to leave the cold and visit the Sunshine State on their next getaway.

"They've come up with a particular gimmick this time and in Sydney and in Melbourne today we have flashers, as it were," Ms Boyle told reporters in Brisbane.

"(There are) people in overcoats in that weather who, when they open their overcoat, have all sorts of signs about coming to Queensland for a holiday and are wearing bikinis."

Not a bad idea, I guess . . . but why not make it a real challenge? Send the bikini-clad flashers someplace truly cold, to highlight the difference. (I note that a Colorado resort is reopening its ski slopes this coming weekend - that'll do.) I daresay the flashers' goose-pimples will reinforce their message!

Peter

Doofus Update

Readers may remember Doofus Of The Day #31 - the man bitten by a snake on his penis.

More information has emerged. An article in the Daily Mail reveals:

Australians have been howling with laughter over the bizarre case of a carpenter who survived being bitten on the genitals by a deadly snake.

Mr Daryl Zutt, 38, had gone into the bushes to relieve himself when the eastern brown snake, one of the most dangerous on the planet, managed to sink its fangs into a very delicate part of his anatomy.

'I squatted down and I reckon I must've nearly sat on his head,' Mr Zutt recalled. 'He sank his teeth into my penis and as soon as I felt it I yelled. It really hurt.

'I saw the snake slither out from between my legs and I thought "This is it. I'm gonna snuff it."'

Mr Zutt said he tried to remain calm as he inspected the damage. How on earth, he wondered, was he going to tie a tourniquet to stop the poison spreading?

'He got me about half way along,' he said as he tried to describe in the most delicate
way his embarrassing encounter.

'I saw fang marks and a bit of blood come out.'

As the snake slithered away, Mr Zutt hurried back to his van and his friend advised him to use a cold rum can from their portable fridge and place it against the delicate area to deaden the pain.

Then Mr Zutt managed to get a call through to his mother to bid her a final goodbye.

He told the Cairns Post newspaper that by the time he arrived at the small town of Lakeland medical services were waiting for him.

'I was nauseous and had pains in the stomach. I couldn't talk properly - I was tongue-tied.'

After a series of blood tests, a relieved Mr Zutt was told that although the snake had bitten him, no poison had sunk in. He was free to go home and to stand by for the jokes that were certain to follow.

And sure enough, along they came.

'My mates have been saying things like "it was a trouser snake fight" and "when the snake saw the competition he got scared off".'

Uh-huh. I daresay his reputation - and a few nicknames! - are set for the rest of his life!



Peter

They made things to last in those days

I got a nice warm fuzzy from a story in the Daily Mail yesterday.

The last time Teddy Bacon saw his expensive gold watch it was sinking down into the harbour in Gibraltar.

That was in 1941, and the watch had slipped off his wrist when Lieutenant Bacon threw a line to shore from his ship, HMS Repulse.

After two divers failed to find his lost treasure, the young officer gave up on ever seeing it again.

But 67 years later, it turned up on his doormat - still ticking.

The Bulova Automatic, wrapped in a brown paper bag, did not seem at all the worse for wear after decades on the ocean floor.

The timepiece had been discovered by workers dredging the harbour in 2007, who scooped it up with other debris in their machine.

Because the deputy harbourmaster in 1941 had made a log with a description of the watch and its approximate location, staff knew who it belonged to.

'To say I was stunned could be considered a major understatement,' said Mr Bacon, a widower and father of four who is almost 90.

'It truly was a miracle that I had been reunited with that watch after a lifetime.

'Now I wear it every day and it keeps perfect time, even after all those years in the water. It is absolutely excellent and I consider it a long-lost friend.'

So Lt. Bacon survived the sinking of the Repulse, and all those years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, and his watch survived 67 years underwater! That's pretty amazing.

Peter

Human creativity can still surprise me

Courtesy of Oleg Volk, we learn of a gentleman in Russia who's made a camera out of a matchbox, a film cassette and some insulating tape. A translation of the Web page gives the details.

I know so-called 'pinhole cameras' are nothing new, but I always like to see human ingenuity at work - and this guy's taken some pretty interesting photographs with his 'retro tech'.










More details and pictures at the link.

Peter

A thought-provoking article and blog post

Our friends at Al Fin recently published a post about the 'Kindergarchy', referencing this article by Joseph Epstein.

A snipped from the Al Fin post:

Even only children who are full of self-esteem and their own specialness, are in reality "quite insignificant." Sequestered in classrooms until their twenties or later, protected from any real responsibilities, prevented from being tested by the larger world, they are finally tossed into reality demanding everything but qualified for little or nothing.

These "special" children are turning into psychologically neotenised lawyers, politicians, journalists, judges, political activists, bureaucrats, educators, clerks, and any other occupation where they can frequently turn their feelings into a quasi-truth.

Heaven helped these poor children who fall into a field where they are actually tested against reality in a meaningful way. Working physicians, engineers, IT workers, technologists and technicians, military, ICU nurses, maintenance and construction workers, law enforcement, pilots, researchers and lab workers who are required to develop things "that work", EMS, business people who must "deliver the goods"--these are examples of people who have to go beyond their feelings and actually be competent.

There are many examples of psychologically neotenised people who got into "competence-tested" fields by mistake. They flew the plane drunk, killed or terrorized innocent people, operated on the patient under the influence of drugs. They fudged their data, produced sloppy code, and designed buildings that fell down.

Unfortunately, parents in developed societies are turning their few progeny into more and more psychologically neotenised princes and princesses. Full of self-esteem and a sense of entitlement, they are spilling out into all occupations and fields. What have they done? Nothing. What can they do? Nothing. What are they willing to learn to do? Almost nothing. What do they want? Everything!

Both links are very worthwhile reading, and highly recommended.

Peter

Roadrunner - from fringe to mainstream

A few months ago, I posted here about a couple of scientists who'd adapted Playstation consoles to serve as computers - number-crunchers - for their work.

Now we learn of Roadrunner, a new supercomputer that's cracked the one-petaflop 'boundary' - over one thousand trillion calculations per second. For those interested in the supercomputing technicalities, there's a good discussion here, and a feel-good movie about Roadrunner here. Briefly, it uses different types of processors to tackle different elements of a computing problem.

Its speed is stunning. Think about it. 1,000,000,000,000,000. One quadrillion. The mind simply can't comprehend it as a number.

In terms of computing history, think of it this way. We used to calculate the speed of a processor in instructions per second, or IPS. An instruction would be defined as the computer cycle needed to process one operation against one location in the computer's memory: for example, multiplying one number by another. Placing the number to be multiplied into a given memory location would be one instruction. Getting the second number would be a second instruction; performing the actual multiplication would be a third; and storing the result in another memory location would be a fourth.

Back in the early to mid 1970's, when I got into computers for the first time, corporate mainframe computers typically operated at one to three million IPS, or MIPS. The first IBM PC, in 1981, operated at way less than one MIP, whilst mainframe computers of that period ran at ten to fifty MIPS.

The Sony Playstation 3 processor, as introduced, ran at 10.24 billion MIPS in 2006. That processor has now been enhanced by IBM, and is the heart of the new Roadrunner system. There are 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 'cell engines' in Roadrunner - each of the latter operating at least as fast as the Playstation 3 processor, probably faster. Even at an equivalent speed, that's a raw combined processing power of 132,710 billion MIPS.

132,710,000,000,000,000,000,000 instructions per second.

1,000,000,000,000,000 calculations per second.

Suddenly I feel old and creaky . . .

Peter

I've been tagged

I see JPG has tagged me for his mug meme.

Well, it's just gone four in the morning, and I'm feeling a bit blurry - that's why the picture's blurry too! (At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)




That's my wake-up mug of tea. Hot, of course!

Peter

Keeping warm in the Antarctic winter? - updated

I'm intrigued by a report in the Guardian, London.

Before the winter darkness descended over Antarctica, a US research base received one crucial final delivery, according to a report today - a consignment of 16,488 condoms.

A year's supply of the prophylactics was despatched last month to the McMurdo station, on the southern tip of Ross island, the New Zealand newspaper the Press reported.

The last staff flight out of McMurdo before winter set in was on February 26. Workers will now have to wait until August 20 for the first sunrise of the spring.

As the biggest settlement in Antarctica, the research station had a summertime population of around 1,000, but this dropped to about 125 in winter, the paper quoted its manager, Bill Henriksen, as saying.

"There are some people that tend to get a little bit bored. But for the most part, people who come down here know how to occupy their time," he said.

The condoms would be freely available to staff, he said: "Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable. We'd prefer to just provide them and do it that way so that people don't do without."

"So, tell me, Mr. Scientist, what sort of research kept you busy over the winter in Antarctica?"

"Ah - well - er . . . it was the penguins, I tell you!"

"Uh-huh."



Peter


EDITED TO ADD: Received by e-mail from JWR:

I read that there are about 125 staff on station during the winter. If the sex (not 'gender') ratio is 50-50, and the 16,500 condoms represents a full winter's supply. That means that the 62 guys are getting busy about 266 times. That's about a 10 year quota for a married guy in the US.

Where do we sign up for an Antarctic research grant?

Oral sex isn't a safe alternative any more

As a pastor, I was often asked by parents to speak with their teenage children about sexual issues.

Usually I told the parents that it would be a waste of time for me to talk to them. First, I wasn't their parent, but an outsider, and one whom they regarded as biased towards a particular view of the problem. (They were quite correct in that, of course.) Second, kids spend much more time with their parents than they do at church, or with church figures. They're going to learn much more, take in much more, from their family experience, than from someone else's preaching or teaching. Third, they're in an environment - school or college or university - with other teenage kids, where they're under peer pressure. Again, that's going to influence their behavior far more than I can. If they haven't received a good grounding in a basic moral life by the time they reach their teens, it's too late to try to instill such an approach at that point.

(Needless to say, parents don't like to hear that . . . but it's true.)

However, I tried to point out to the kids the very real dangers of premature sexual experimentation. They used to laugh at me: but now statistics are bringing home the tragic consequences of loose sexual behavior. According to a recent conference held by the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention:

A new CDC study indicates that one in four (26%) female adolescents in the United States has at least one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Led by CDC’s Sara Forhan, the study is the first to examine the combined national prevalence of common STIs among adolescent women in the United States.

Based on the overall STI prevalence of 26 percent, the authors estimate that about 3.2 million adolescent females in the United States are infected with one of these STIs. They note that the total prevalence might be slightly higher than these estimates indicate, because some STIs – including syphilis, HIV and gonorrhea – were not included in the analysis; however, the prevalence of these STIs is low in this age group.

In addition to overall STI prevalence, key findings of the new study include the following:

• The most common STI was cancer- and genital wart-associated HPV (18.3%), followed by chlamydia (3.9%), trichomoniasis (2.5%), and HSV-2 (1.9%). Among the teenage girls who had an STI, 15 percent had more than one.
• By race, African American teenage girls had the highest prevalence, with an overall STI prevalence of 48 percent compared to 20 percent among both whites and Mexican Americans. (Other Hispanics and race/ethnic populations were captured in the survey, but there were insufficient numbers in any one group to permit valid prevalence estimates for any group except Mexican Americans.)
• Overall, approximately half of all the teens in the study reported ever having had sex. Among these girls, the STI prevalence was 40 percent.
• Even among girls reporting only one lifetime partner, one in five (20.4%) had at least one STI. Girls with three or more partners had a prevalence of over 50 percent. The predominant STI was HPV.
  

According to the authors, the high prevalence of HPV indicates that teenage girls are at high risk for this infection, even those with few lifetime sexual partners. It is important to realize that most HPV infections clear on their own; however some infections persist over time, placing women at risk for cervical cancer.

Sobering statistics, indeed!

There have been media reports that teens are turning to oral sex as a 'safer' substitute for conventional sexual activity. This doesn't seem to be borne out by the facts. As the Washington Post reported last month:

Contrary to widespread belief, teenagers do not appear to commonly engage in oral sex as a way to preserve their virginity, according to the first study to examine the question nationally.

The analysis of a federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19, released yesterday, found that more than half reported having had oral sex. But those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.

"There's a popular perception that teens are engaging in serial oral sex as a strategy to avoid vaginal intercourse," said Rachel Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit research organization based in New York, who helped do the study. "Our research suggests that's a misperception."

Instead, the study found that teens tend to become sexually active in many ways at about the same time. For example, although only one in four teenage virgins had engaged in oral sex, within six months after their first intercourse more than four out of five adolescents reported having oral sex.

"That suggests that oral and vaginal sex are closely linked," said Jones, whose findings will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. "Most teens don't have oral sex until they have had vaginal sex."

. . .

Previous research had suggested that oral sex was increasing among teenagers as an alternative to intercourse, but those studies were based on small samples or anecdotal reports. The new study analyzed data collected from a nationally representative sample of 1,150 females and 1,121 males aged 15 to 19 who were questioned in detail in 2002 for the federal government's National Survey of Family Growth.

A majority of the teens -- 55 percent -- said they had engaged in oral sex, which was slightly more than the 50 percent who said they had had vaginal sex. But oral sex was much more common among those who already had had intercourse: Eighty-seven percent of those who reported on a computerized questionaire that they had had vaginal sex said they had engaged in oral sex as well, compared with 23 percent of those who described themselves as virgins.

When the researchers examined the timing of sexual behaviors, they found that among those who said during face-to-face interviews that had had vaginal sex in the past six months, 82 percent said they also had had oral sex, compared with 26 percent of the virgins.

Among those who had initiated vaginal sex more than three years earlier, 92 percent had engaged in oral sex.

Those figures seem to confirm that oral sex isn't being used as a substitute for 'conventional' sex - but they also confirm it's widespread. I've encountered many teens who seem to believe that oral sex doesn't carry the same risk of sexually transmitted diseases as vaginal or anal sex. I'm afraid that's wrong, too. For example, a recent report in the Chicago Tribune attributes a rise in throat cancer to the spread of orally-transmitted HPV infection.

With 6,000 cases per year and an annual increase of up to 10 percent in men younger than 60, some researchers say the HPV-linked throat cancers could overtake cervical cancer in the next decade.

"It's almost a new disease, in a sense," said Dr. Ezra Cohen, an oncologist at the University of Chicago Medical Center. "It's now becoming a dominant sub-type of the disease that we see in our clinic."

The HPV infections likely took root decades ago as the Baby Boomers were reaching adulthood, and only now are spurring a rise in throat cancer cases, mostly among men and women in their 50s.

No one understands the precise reason for the increase, though experts suspect it's linked to changes in sexual practices that emerged in the 1960s and '70s. For example, oral sex is a known risk factor for HPV-related throat cancers, and studies have shown that people who have come of age since the 1950s are more likely to have engaged in oral sex than those who were born earlier.

I try to convey these realities to teens when I speak with them, but it's hard to get them to listen. I hope that readers who have teenage children will share these facts with them, and I hope they listen more to you than they would to me. For the rest of us, let's try to set as good an example as possible to those who look to us for guidance - and let's not minimize the dangers inherent in a promiscuous lifestyle.

They're very real.

Peter