Nobody's Business

Just a Year-End Suggestion

While you're returning a few Santa gifts to the store (and I totally agree that that pink electric ice cream maker just isn't you), here's an idea for what to do with the refund. Why not spend it on a present for a needy blogger whose site makes your day a little brighter (or darker, as the case may be)? You'll He'll be glad you did!

Merry Christmas

Via the Sun-Sentinel, pictures of some foreign guy with a beard, spreading terror. Somebody call the cops!

Seriously — Merry Christmas everyone. I'll be back shortly after the New Year.

Shock Tactics

I can hardly imagine the fury and helplessness of these prank victims when they were subjected to non-fatal electrocutions. Makes me wonder who's really mentally disturbed here.

State officials are allowing a controversial special education school to use electric shock treatments on students for another year. ... The decision comes after an August incident in which two emotionally disturbed students were wrongly given dozens of shocks after a prank call from a person posing as a supervisor.

A state report found that staff made multiple mistakes when they followed the prank caller's directions. The report by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care said six staffers at a Stoughton residence run by the Canton-based school had reason to doubt the orders to administer the shocks, but did nothing to stop it. The six staff members and video surveillance worker on duty that night were fired on Oct. 1.

After the Aug. 26 call, the teens, ages 16 and 19, were awakened in the middle of the night and given the shock treatments, at times while their legs and arms were bound. One teen received 77 shocks and the other received 29. One boy was treated for two first-degree burns. The caller said he was ordering the punishments because the teens had misbehaved earlier in the evening. But none of the staffers had witnessed any problems.

The school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, was the subject of a recent Mother Jones investigation.

The Times Issues a Hussy Alert

India Knight, a columnist with the U.K. Times, has discovered a shocking, shocking truth: Some girls will throw themselves at famous, highly-paid and often athletic young men, such as rock musicians and sports stars. These strumpets, to whom Knight devotes an entire column that brims with indignation and moral panic, don't even charge for their sexual favors, and, worse, they appear to be having a good time while performing their unconscionable lechery. The horror!

Deaf By Design

The most gobsmacking news of the day:

Deaf parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).

Jackie Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP, says that although the vast majority of deaf parents would want a child who has normal hearing, a small minority of couples would prefer to create a child who is effectively disabled, to fit in better with the family lifestyle.

Ballard’s stance is likely to be welcomed by other deaf organisations, including the British Deaf Association (BDA), which is campaigning to amend government legislation to allow the creation of babies with disabilities.

For about two seconds, I tried to apply some libertarian gloss to the situation — parents making up their own minds about their offspring, how bad can that be? — but it just wouldn't stick. Um, what about the right of the child to be normal (no, that's not a pejorative word) and healthy?

These people are truly a bunch of, hell I'll say it, immoral imbeciles. They want a child with a deliberately-bred disability because junior would "fit in better with the family lifestyle"? Great. It follows that those who are deaf, mute, and blind should be allowed to manipulate their embryos to produce a generation of pinball whizzes (OK, that would be kinda cool actually). It also means that prospective parents with asthma are entitled to progeny that has lifelong trouble breathing and may die prematurely; that a couple with cystic fibrosis should be allowed to select an embryo with the gene that will make the child slowly drown in its own mucus; and that we should defer to legless parents who decide to have their obstetrician snip a couple of limbs off the foetus.

There's no downside to deaf parents having a hearing child; it will be perfectly at home among the deaf and the hearing alike, likely helping to bridge any gap between the two. From where I stand, purposely creating a deaf son or daughter because it's either more convenient, or because the parents consider deafness a blessing or a virtue, shouldn't be a choice. It should be a crime.

Non-rhetorical question: Why is it that the deaf seem to have attained this level of kooky militancy, complete with the notion that having non-working ears bestows some kind of superiority? The mentality was on full-on display last year at Gallaudet University with the shameful tarring and feathering of would-be president Jane Fernandez; though Fernandez is hearing-disabled, radical students and faculty torpedoed her appointment because they essentially deemed her not deaf enough. A subset of that group apparently consists of "absolutists who want a 100 percent deaf world." I really want to know: How did the emancipation of deaf people turn this deranged? And is there an equivalent movement among, say, the blind?

Me, I wish everyone had five fully functioning senses, plus maybe an extra one that seems to be in increasingly short supply: common sense.

NH Court System Loves Illegal Surcharges

"Live Free or Die." Residents of New Hampshire who choose to pay a fine by credit card will have to choose the latter option. My condolences.

Retailers can't charge customers a fee for using Visa or MasterCard credit and debit cards, but the state of New Hampshire is charging its court customers $3 a swipe. With 36,000 credit card transactions made in state courthouses every year, the state makes about $108,000 annually from the $3 surcharges, said Laura Kiernan, communications director for the N.H. judicial branch.

And while the bordering states of Massachusetts and Maine have outlawed credit card surcharges, the New Hampshire Legislature approved $3 fees for every court customer who pays a fine or fee by credit card. That law is contrary to Visa and MasterCard regulations prohibiting fees for use of their cards.

[via Fark]

Goats Get It On, Get Ticket

Apparently, in Dibble, Oklahoma, they have a time machine that can take the authorities all the way back to the era of the Puritans:

A woman in the small town of Dibble, Okla., said she was shocked when she was ticketed for owning a pair of goats that had [mated] in public. Dibble resident Carol Medenhall said her goats' sexual behavior and public urination earned her two tickets, KXAS-TV, Fort Worth, reported Wednesday. Apparently her two goats were not only relieving themselves in her fenced-in land, but mating in plain view of people passing by.

KXAS-TV said that after confronting local officials, Medenhall learned her private property had been annexed by the city recently, making such animal acts illegal. Medenhall had not been informed of the annexation and successfully fought to have the tickets dismissed.

Still, to avoid giving further offense to innocent passers-by, Medenhall really ought to outfit the female goat with one of these. Cotton Mather would approve.

Beware Broken Bulbs and Stuffed Santa Dolls

Safety and security before everything is our world's new mantra. And if we didn't have highly paid government officials protecting sanitation workers from four-inch elevations, and warning the rest of us against sticking forks in power outlets, we'd surely all be dead.

Two fine examples. England again, of course.

An elderly woman had her rubbish collection stopped because council officials ruled that a four-inch step outside her home was a health and safety hazard. Priscilla Thomas, 76, was told that unless she lowered her wheelie bin down the step and on to the pavement herself, her rubbish bags would not be collected by binmen.

In other news,

MPs have been issued with a 10-point guide on what to do if they find a broken light bulb in Parliament. The detailed instructions were drawn up by the House of Commons Commission, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Parliamentary estate. It said a protective mask and gloves should be donned before tackling stray shards of glass and explained how to brush them up using a piece of stiff card. A spokesman for the Taxpayers' Alliance said the guidelines were "ridiculous" and a waste of time. He said: "MPs are public servants paid for using public money — have they really nothing better to do than sit around writing guidelines on how to use a dustpan and brush? Politicians are living on another planet. We pay good money into the Government coffers and the very least we expect is good value in return."

It's a nice dream.

While we're on the topic, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has long cautioned British citizens to be especially careful around Christmastime, when

...gift wrappings, cards, glue and adhesive tape are likely to claim hundreds of victims.

You know how deadly those cards and pretty bows can be, don't you? Well, now you do.

Just for fun, I pulled up RoSPA's Christmas-related news releases of the last ten years. Read 'em and weep.

1998: DYING FOR AN OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS?
Sample quote: "An old-fashioned Christmas could be the death of you, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents warned today."

1999: No news release found. RoSPA staff must have been attending a seminar to learn how to type safety guidelines without stubbing a pinkie or getting a hangnail and coming to an untimely end. The seminar clearly produced excellent results:

2000: LOOK OUT! THAT CHRISTMAS TREE IS DANGEROUS
Sample quote: "Most [Christmas-tree accidents] will result from branches poking into people’s eyes, others will cut themselves trimming the tree to shape and some will fall off ladders while adding the decorations."

2001: COMPUTERS ADD TO TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS ACCIDENTS
Sample quote: “Records show people: hurting themselves unpacking their new machine; being hit by computers toppling off shelves and wardrobes: falling off ladders and downstairs while carrying a computer; walking into things while playing computer games; cutting themselves while carrying out maintenance work and tumbling on to computers when they slip or trip."

2002: CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS FIRE STRIKE FEAR
Sample quote: "Families are already starting to put up trimmings, candles, lights and trees — which have all been associated with fires in the past."

2003: DON’T FALL FOR CHRISTMAS IN CASUALTY
Sample quote: "Christmas trees, lights, trimmings and turkeys will be among the things turning seasonal merrymaking into misery and mayhem for thousands of families over the holiday period."

2004: OFFICE ALARM BELLS RING OUT FOR CHRISTMAS
Sample quote: "Office furniture isn’t designed to be as sturdy as the furniture in your local pub, so dancing on desks could do them and you a lot of damage."

2005: ACCIDENT FEARS OVER MINI MOTORBIKES FOR CHRISTMAS
Sample quote: "Ideally children need to go to a course or properly organised club where they can be trained and enjoy riding rather than risk breaking the law and being injured."

2006: TAKE CARE! CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ARE NOT TOYS
Sample quote: "It is easy for parents to be confused and to think novelties are toys. We are not suggesting that people should not buy Christmas novelties, such as stuffed Santas, reindeer and snowmen, but that they should use them safely."

2007: RoSPA CANDLE FIRE WARNING TO AVOID CHRISTMAS TRAGEDIES
Sample quote: "Always read and follow the instructions given on any products that you will be using in your home this Christmas, including candles."

Happy holidays!

London Underground Refuses Bingo Ad

Paddy Power is an Irish bookmaker that wants to attract more women to its games of chance, hence the ad copy. The poster turned out to be an affront to the London Underground, which banned it from its premises because the photo is "an offense to public decency."

As is usually the case with ads deemed intolerable by some authority, the publicity value of the rejection is immeasurable. When it's information and visuals as opposed to goods, the more you ban, the more they get around. I kinda like that.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]

Chicago Calling (Special Flash Mobs Edition)

Here's an idea for Chicagoans who want to call bullshit on the authorities' amped-up paranoia (see this previous post for background):

Organize a couple of flash mobs.

For the first act, get together and, all at the same time, begin calling the police whenever you see someone taking a picture. These calls, from what I can tell, are not illegal — quite the opposite, it's what the cops want you to do as good citizens, and you have it in writing (see the first bullet point on the police department's own flyer). Now, as long as you have your cell phones out, take photos of each other with your phone cameras — or merely pretend to do so — and then report a not-too-detailed description of your flash-mob neighbors to the authorities (after all, cameras are a sign of dubious "surveillance"). Repeat (and disperse) as necessary.

For the second act, bring a piece of paper and a pen, or a PDA with a stylus. Remember, you're supposed to call in notetakers! So: One person begins scribbling away in public. The second person makes a note of the first person doing so and calls in the suspicious activity to the police. The third person makes a note of the second scribbler and also calls the switchboard. Ad infinitum.

IMPORTANT: Even though the Chicago cops, incredibly, want you to call 911 whenever you see anything suspicious, don't in this case. It would be dangerous to jam the lines to the emergency dispatchers. Call the regular police number instead, 312-746-6000. Also note that, as a concerned citizen, you have an obligation to report any suspicious activity, but, as far as I know, no obligation to stick around. And I wouldn't if I were you, for obvious reasons.

Let me know how it goes!