Say what?

Take a quick glance through FP's latest list, The World's Most Unexpected Crime Waves, and you run across the usual culprits: white-collar fraudsters, marginalised youths, disenchanted elderly, drug gangs...

Hold on a second there - did you just read senior citizens along with drug gangs in a list of crime waves? Yes you did. One in seven crimes in Japan has been committed by the over-60 crowd last year, the most common offenses being pickpocketing and robbery (a man robbed a grocery store in Nagoya and escaped with the aid of his walking cane). There has been a significant increase in assaults commited by the elderly as well. The problem is so bad that the government is spending 8.3 billion yen to build special senior wards - complete with walkers and support rails.

As FP rightly said, it is difficult not to laugh at the visual of a man, who can barely walk, threatening a cashier with a knife. Amusement aside, however, this is a serious problem. The reason that so many seniors are turning to crime is because their world has been ruined by a combination of Japan's "stagnant economy and the breakdown of the traditional family structure" (emphasis added by me). In other words, besides their country's economic woes, many seniors enter a life of crime to make ends meet because they do not have enough younger family members to support them.

Oh, how I hope and pray that the pro-lifers do not get the idea to use this to support their opinions. I would not put it past them. Remember the Krispy Kreme Abortion Doughnuts and Elisabeth Hasselbeck using Ashley Judd's PSA against aerial wolf hunting as a segue to pro-life ramble (you can watch that craziness below)?

The View: Elisabeth Hasselbeck On Wolf Killings
by TheDlisted

Joe the Delusional

Every now and then someone comes along that makes you slap your forehead in complete and utter disbelief. Joe the Plumber is one of those people. This man, after exposing himself as a liar and a tax cheat, has the gall to say “I don’t know if the American public deserves me”. If anyone is suffering from a delusion of grandeur, he is. That is all.

Parallel-parking 101

We have all seen it before; the driver with absolutely no sense of how big their car is. It can be especially annoying when you are stuck on a narrow road because someone is having a hard time parallel-parking their huge car.

I usually give the driver the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they are driving a rental, or they have newly purchased the car, and have yet to adjust themselves to the dimensions of it.

Drivers such as the one in the clip below, however, just make you want to scream how much room there is – never mind the fact that they are driving a Smart, the car that practically fits into your pocket!

I feel sorry for Adolf Hitler…

...and that is surely not an easy thing for me to say. I am actually referring to Adolf Hitler Campbell. He is a three-year-old boy who was denied his name on a birthday cake at ShopRite. (I would have refused to inscribe the cake as well.)

I feel sorry for him and his two sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie. As long as they keep these names, these children will be branded by their parents’ small and hateful minds. Whether or not they believe in Nazi ideology in their adult lives, they will be equated with one of the world’s worst hate crimes.

You can be sure that these children will never have a chance for a decent job. Just imagine: A newspaper headline “Adolf Hitler new Director of Communications at XYZ Inc”. How about your child running home from school saying that their new history teacher is Adolf Hitler?

I sincerely hope that these children will have the chance to grow past their parents’ limited mental capacity. For Pete’s sake, they could not even get Himmler’s name right (for Adolf’s sister)!

Photo source: AP

Realitätsfremd

“It could have been worse.”

That is how John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, defends his request for a $10 million bonus for 2008. Under his watch, the company’s stock performance burnt through billions of investors’ money. Under his watch the company needed to sell itself to Bank of America to ward off a Lehmann Brothers-like scenario. Goldman Sachs, not nearly faring as poorly as Merrill Lynch, will not pay out bonuses to senior management. And yet Thain feels he deserves the moolah because it could have been worse.

I was dumbstruck.

English has, by far, the largest vocabulary amongst the European languages. Despite that, you occasionally are at a loss of words when confronted with an outrageous situation, such as this.

I scoured my mind (and thesaurus) for a single word that encompasses the delusion that Thain must be experiencing. Initially, I thought that it was my being sick, and not a lack of words, that stopped me. Then hubby saved the day…

Realitätsfremd – German. Out of touch with reality, in the sense of being estranged from reality. Marie Antoinette-esque delusion.

I could have simply used the word delusion, but there is a marginal, yet significant, difference in meaning. Thain seems to find his success in how much more of a failure he could have been.

Sad. Very sad.

Word of the day

irony

• noun (pl. ironies) A state of affairs that appears perversely contrary to what one expects, as in 'Bush receives International Medal of Peace'.

'Nuff said.

A cause for concern?

What do you see happening in this video?



Do you see child abuse? Perhaps snake abuse? Many people commenting here and here certainly think so.

I would exercise caution before coming to those conclusions. I believe this all to be a matter of clashing cultures. In this video clip, I see a curious baby toying around with what seems to be a family pet. It is just a little difficult for those in western countries to watch, due to the wild difference in culture. I would even go as far as to compare this to my eldest daughter’s former habit of trying to pull our cat’s tail when she was still a toddler.

Let’s get it on… Let them eat cake!

Let’s get it on…
I know this is another article about pastors and sex, but I could not resist commenting on Reverend Ed Young’s advice. Simply put, Rev. Young believes it is time to “put God back in the bed” by means of a week of “congregational copulation”.

Before you call up your fellow parishoners and set up a holy orgy, I should clarify that the reverend’s advice is intended to help promote and improve monogamous marriage (sorry Utah). He delivered this message in front of and on a large bed. To really bring the point home, his wife was with him in jeans and **GASP** knee high black boots.

In all earnestness, the message is not completely silly. I do believe that a healthy sex life is vital in any relationship. The key in it, however, is that the sex should be fun and spontaneous, not forced. If you need orders from a reverend to have a reason to want to have sex with your partner, then you have issues that a week of pastor-prescribed fornication most likely will not solve.

Let them eat cake!
Unsurprisingly, this advice is aimed solely at married members of the congregation. I think it is a safe bet that one could extend that description to heterosexual, married members. The reverend went all Marie Antoinette on everyone else. His exact words:

I don’t know, try eating chocolate cake.

Er, excusez-moi? He did not just compare sex to chocolate cake, did he? Oh, yes he did. You hear that Lindsay Lohan? When you get an urge to do the mattress mambo, head to the kitchen for some chocolate cake instead.

How appropriate!

This week is International Babywearing Week. According to an email sent to me by Beate Uhse online, it is also National Climax Week.

I find this hilarious! Participation in National Climax Week this year would likely cause you to join International Babywearing Week next year. =P


Only in Continental Europe would you have a week dedicated to orgasms. And maybe, perhaps, also in Japan.

Weekend Summary

I survived my first single-mom-marathon after the arrival of baby #4! Needless to say, I am very tired; hence I am tapping my inner list-freak to summarise my weekend.

What put a smile on my face this weekend:

• Pleasantly surprised concierges - I always make a point of saying thank you. I suppose that does not occur often to a hotel concierege.
• A shortened single-mom-marathon - Hubby surprised me by catching an earlier flight home!
• As is tradition, he brought me home some yummy cheese and foie gras from Pa-ree.
• Baby said "mama" - I know he still does not associate the word with me, but it still makes my heart melt.
• Hubby's mom and step-dad - Always good for a nice kaffeetrinken.
• We went out visiting museums and random exhibits in the city. Upon seeing a case filled with crowns and tiaras, our younger daughter proclaimed to anyone who would listen that they belonged to mommy and papa because they are a king and queen.
• At no point did the children become uninterested or impatient in the museums and exhibits.
• Hearing that Bush claimed his favourite childhood book to be Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". (The book was first published when Bush was in his twenties.)
  

What did NOT put a smile on my face this weekend:

• The Eurozone officially entered recession.
• My stores of Tim Hortons coffee are now completely depleted.
• Hubby's horrible hotel experience - First the hotel left him waiting outside the airport for the shuttle which was going to arrive "in ten minutes". It took over an hour for the shuttle to arrive. Secondly, he was first placed in a smoking room - despite his request for a non-smoking room. This mistake was very reluctantly rectified. Thirdly, there was patch of mould, about 75cm in diameter, right next to his bed. (All this at a four star hotel!)
• Dishonest people who cannot read - Upon hearing that he might be able to catch a delayed flight back home a day early, he spent between five and ten minutes away from his hotel room, at the front desk, to negotiate a free cancellation of his second night in person. He made sure he hung the do not disturb sign on the doorknob before leaving. When he returned, his bed was made up, and a 50 Euro note that he left on his bedside table was missing. The housekeeper was no where to be seen. Unfortunately, hubby could only place a formal complaint by risking losing the courtesy late check-in window that the airline offered him as an exception, so he left it as such.
  
• I forgot to recharge my batteries and had to leave my camera at home.
• The weather - I do not mind cold weather, but I do despise strong gusts of wind with spitting rain.
• An arrogant waitress - I do not care if you are having a bad day; you NEVER let it show to a customer!
• Hubby's aunt - She is completely oblivious and/or condescending to everything that does not interest her or conflicts with her priorities.
  
• CNNI - Enough with Tomb 33 already! It was interesting the first two times it aired, but that was weeks ago and it now seems to be aired with increasing frequency. Wait another six months and I will happily watch it again.
  
• Our planned road trip to the Harz Mountains - We had to postpone it for mid-December.

(Photo from AP)

The almost-plane-crash

This video left me awe-struck. At first glance I thought that this must have been a fake. Hubby, however, being the flying guy that he is, explained to me how this landing could have been possible with 90% luck and 10% skill. Apparently the pilot made as sure as humanly possible that the nose of the aircraft was pointing upwards. Utilising maximum thrust the fall was, to a limited extent, controlled. With all environmental factors coming to his aid (i.e. - no change in wind, etc.) the pilot managed to swing the aircraft body around using maximum vertical trim, and what he's got left from the ailerons.

Can you imagine what it would have been like in the cockpit? I would have gone into full panic, spluttering out an endless string of expletives like #*$% ^&#& $##@$ *@&*#*$ @##@*... enough to make George Carlin squirm in heaven. And I am sure that the pilot never wants to do that again.

Only the Japanese...

...would come up with a toy/commercial like this. This is a commercial for those electronic pets taken to the next level.

WARNING: Not safe for work!

The contents of the video are not explicit, so to speak, but you might want to lower the volume if you do not want others around you to think you are watching Japanese porn. =P

Biden got owned by Barbara West?!?!?

Any sane person who watches the video in my previous post would conclude that West was very droll (in the I'm-going-to-make-a-fool-out-of-myself-by-spewing-out-a-mix-of-McCain's-stump-speech-points-and-an-inaccurate-reference-to-Marxism kind of way) and that Biden came out on top.

It is, however, no surprise that things are not the same in bible-thumping Republicanland. Here are some of the comments from those nutheads regarding the West-Biden interview:

Go Barbara West!! Please keep asking the tough questions! Don't back down. It's about time. - dudehead08 (dudehead? What kind of alias is that?!?)

The backlash against the radical left elite media has started! Looking forward to the McCain/PALIN landslide! - AtlasObjectivist

This lady should run for congress and take over as John McCain's Campaign leader. - sah0620

And the absurdity goes on and on. You can read more of that delusion here.

Barbara West happened to interview McCain earlier this month. Her bias was already apparent in the way she lovingly mirrored his stump speech. What a brown-nosing groupie. Watch this video for a comparison:

Barbara West gets owned by Biden

Biden: “Are you joking? Is this a joke? Is that a real question?”

I kept thinking the same thing whilst watching this video. Normally Barbara West’s careless use of the word socialist would infuriate me, but she was so ridiculous that all I could do was laugh at her harebrained and biased conduct.

How in the world did Sweden become part of the interview? How can she portray it to be a worse-off country? I suppose nobody told her that Sweden consistently ranks higher than the US in multiple quality of life indices. This is reminiscent of McCain mentioning Canada and the UK during the health care segment of the third presidential debate.

Thank you modern mommy for starting my day with a laugh =)

Rich Russians in Denial - Excessive Luxury Craze Continues

Russia is perhaps the most affected by sinking crude oil prices and general financial instability. The rich in Moscow seem to not only have lost their understanding of an average life, but also their perspective related to their own wallets.

For the meager sum of approximately 300 Euros an hour, you can hire a luxury taxi. The one pictured is a Maybach 62 equipped with every conceivable luxury. Even if you cannot understand German, watch this clip. Near the end, the woman cannot find her stowaway desk and recruits the help of the driver to do so. That is how loaded the fleet is. She also scuffs at the contention that the financial crisis will have impacts in Russia. Denial much?

Meanwhile, Russian oligarchs need to return major stakes in Western European corporations for lack of funding. What a world.

(photo from russiafun.net)

Mariecel vs. A flamingpoodle - Round 2

I'm happy to say that flamingpoodle, a.k.a. Garg the Unzola, has continued the interesting exchange of standpoints. For his original rebuttal, click here and scroll down to comments. Here we go!

In fact, taking the Hippocratic Oath is no longer a requirement to become a doctor.
The oath is no longer a necessity in the US? Interesting. This speaks of a sad change in the culture of the US medical community, but is also very telling. In a quick search I was not able to find support for your statement. Would you mind providing it?

Give it a try. Claiming that there are logical fallacies in my statement and actually indentifying them and pointing them out to me are two different things entirely.
Perhaps you did not notice that I indeed address and rebut every position of your statement. But far more interesting is that you ignored a good portion of my points. Perhaps, somewhere deep down, you agree?

You are assuming that someone who suffers from cancer would necessarily be reliant on a social health care system and won't be able to afford private health care.
Either you are ignoring selective phrases or I recommend for you to take a class in logic. I do NOT assume that the patient would not be able to afford private health care - this is indicated with the use of the word 'should' in conjunction with 'on the basis of financial ability'.

By your logic, it is entirely acceptable for me to get a yacht by virtue of the fact that I can't afford it. Or for me to have someone do my accounting for me free of charge, by virtue of the fact that I can't afford an accountant. Where do you draw the line between a fundamental human right and a privilege?
I draw the line where the issue at hand no longer directly affects my physiological and mental well-being. As I said previously, long hair will not kill you, but a cancerous tumour will. Not having a yacht will not kill you, but untreated diabetes will. Not having an accountant will not kill you, but untreated heart disease will.

Are the fundamental rights of those who can't afford health care not the same as those who are qualified to provide health services? If they are, then you can't say the doctor has to provide his services to someone who can't afford them any more tha you can deny me a haircut because I can't afford it.
Yes, I believe they have the same right to health care. That does not mean, by any standard of logic, that I can therefore force my hairdresser to cut my hair. You cannot equate the right to life with a wish for comfort.

Even though I think everyone has the same right to health care, I do not think everyone has the right to the comfort of private hospital rooms or medical practices that are not necessary to the physiological and mental well-being of the patient, such as medically unprompted cosmetic surgery. In most of continental Europe, general health care does not pay for your random nose job, unless it has become medically necessary, i.e. due to an accident.

If they aren't, then all are equal, but some are more equal.
We should all be equal with respect to basic, universal access to health care that treats medical ailments in full according to best practice.

It is a matter of basic equality that anybody, regardless of their financial background, who is in need of a specific medical treatment ordered by a doctor (be that dialysis or a simple break away from stress factors), should have access to said prescribed remedy. If you are lucky enough to be affluent, you can add comfort factors, such as private rooms and exclusive attention from the head doctor of the department, at your own cost.

That's all for now. =)

(images from i-hostels.com, bluebuddies.com, and cartoonstock.com respectively)

Giving Birth to the Republican Ticket

Oh. My. Goodness. The poor child never had a chance. Behind his wife's back, Mark Ciptak did not enter the name agreed upon, Ava Grace, on the birth registration form. He proudly named his daughter Sarah McCain Palin. Seriously.

Leaving this insane decision aside, can you imagine what the wife's reaction will be? He changed their daughter's name without consulting the mother. The parent who carried the child for nine months. The parent whose hormones are all over the place. I foresee major drama in Ciptak's near future.

(photo from Baltimore Sun)

Not Your Everyday Hijacking / Eine ungewöhnliche Entführung

This morning a 41 year old man highjacked a BVG (Berlin public transit) bus. He waited until all the other passengers disembarked at the final stop, threatened the driver with a knife, and demanded to be driven to Usedom Island, around 300 km away in the Baltic Sea. They didn't make it all the way. They got stuck in a traffic jam just north of Berlin, during which the bus driver opened the doors and the hijacker tried to escape on foot. The bus driver subsequently suffered from shock.


Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? What if I told you that the hijacker wore nothing but a bathrobe, happily chatted about the wonderful weather and how fun the drive to the island was, and showed no resistance to police when he was finally caught? I kid you not. I highly doubt this man is mentally sound. Perhaps the warmer weather confused him into thinking that summer was making an impromptu comeback?



Heute Morgen entführte ein 41-Jährige Mann einen BVG Bus der Linie M37. Er wartete bis alle Passagiere aus dem Bus gestiegen waren, bevor er mit einem Messer bewaffnet den Busfaher zwang, in Richtung Insel Usedom zu fahren. Sie haben allerdings ihr Ziel nie erreicht. Auf der Berliner Ringautobahn sind sie in einem Stau stecken geblieben. Der Fahrer öffnete geistesgegen- wärtig die Passagiertür und der Täter versuchte zu Fuß zu fluchten. Der Fahrer erlitt einen Schock.


Diese Geschichte klingt mehr dramatisch als komisch, oder? Aber es geht noch weiter: Der Täter war nur mit einem Bademantel bekleidet, redete unbeschwingt fast die ganze Zeit über das sonnige Wetter und wie toll die bevorstehende Fahrt nach Usedom sein wird. Er ist wenig später nach seinem Fluchtversuch von der Polizei ohne Widerstand verhaftet worden. Ich glaube, daß der Täter geistig nicht zurrechnungsfähig ist. Vielleicht ist er von dem tollen Wetter, daß wir gerade in Berlin haben, verwirrt?

Pee-Pee Teepees and Other Odd Inventions / Pee-Pee Teepees und andere komische Erfindungen

I recently read an article on Strollerderby that included the following as an advantage of having a baby girl as opposed to a baby boy:

No Pee-Pee Teepees.

Did you just have a WTF moment? So did I. I immediately googled “pee-pee teepee” and one of the first entries to catch my attention was this list (I told you I’m a list freak!) at cracked.com. Be prepared for more WTF moments… trust me.

As cruel as it may seem, #7 and #19 seduce me. Don’t hate me – if you have kids you might just agree with me.

Vor kurzem habe ich einen Artikel bei Strollerderby gelesen, der u.A. folgendes Vorteil auflistet, ein kleines Mädchen im Gegensatz zu einem kleinen Jungen zu haben:

Kein Pee-Pee Teepees.

Wart Ihr gerade verwirrt? Ich auch. Deswegen habe ich „pee-pee teepee“ sofort bei google gesucht, und habe diese Liste (Hab’ ich doch gesagt, daß ich einen Listenfreak bin, oder nicht?) bei cracked.com gefunden. Sie ist auf englisch geschrieben aber ich glaube, daß die Fotos sich selbst erklären. Ihr seid vorgewarnt – mehrere „Was zur Hölle!“-Momente folgen.

Obwohl die Ideen von Nr. 7 und 19 vielleicht ein bißchen gemein sind, ich finde sie irgendwie verführerisch. Bitte seid mir nicht böse – wenn Ihr Kinder habt, werdet Ihr mich genau verstehen.