Friday, October 31, 2003
Degrees of evilYipee, this site is only 21pc evil:
In your face, Frank and John!
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:01 PM | link |
Re: Reversed results
It's not the treatment for gonorrhea that's painful - it's explaining to your partner how the hell you got it in the first place!
posted by Jon Ihle at 12:19 PM |
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Reversed results
Yahoo News today reports on a faulty diagnostic machine in a Canadian hospital which led to people being given the wrong results for STD tests. Around 3,000 people were given the reverse results. The upshot was that 83 were told they didn't have an STD when they did and the remainder were told they did have one. While it's disturbing that 83 people were walking around thinking they were clean as a whistle, my heart goes out to those poor schmucks who were unnecessarily treated for gonorrhea.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 11:25 AM |
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The economics of suicide
Slate today features one of the most bizarre features I've seen in a while, although compelling nonetheless. Attempting suicide, it seems, could increase your income:
"Marcotte's study found that after people attempt suicide and fail, their incomes increase by an average of 20.6 percent compared to peers who seriously contemplate suicide but never make an attempt. In fact, the more serious the attempt, the larger the boost—"hard-suicide" attempts, in which luck is the only reason the attempts fail, are associated with a 36.3 percent increase in income. (The presence of nonattempters as a control group suggests the suicide effort is the root cause of the boost.)"
Don't try this at home...
posted by Dick O'Brien at 11:17 AM |
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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Biting your own backsideOne of the many things I love about the Simpsons is the fact that it relentlessly takes the mickey out of Fox, the TV channel which broadcasts it. Indeed, Rupert Murdoch himself has appeared on the show with a bit of self-parody, i.e. "I'm Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire tyrant."
Yahoo News has this amusing story recounting a radio interview given by Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Apparently Fox News threatened to sue the Simpsons because of a parody on the channels news values. Groening called their bluff, reckoning Murdoch wouldn't pay to sue himself. He was right.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:13 PM | link |
When your name's on the list
One of the things about living in a democracy is that you often forget there are different flavours of it. Hence the reason that many in Europe were scratching their heads about the Electoral College during the last US presidential election. Here in Ireland we've got constituency based proportional representation. For those not familiar with it, the country is divided into constituencies who elect between three and five TDs or members of parliament. The system does have its critics however. The fact that politicians are elected by a relatively small proportion of the population sometimes leads to accusations that they are overly local in their outlook, to the detriment of national interest. Over the past few years we've heard various proposals from people, including the introduction of some form of the list system.
Spain, on the other hand, uses the list system exclusively. What does this mean? Essentially, people vote for parties and not people. The number of seats a party gains is based on the number of votes they get. Seats are allocated on the basis of a list drawn up by that party. The further up you are on the list, the more likely you are to get a seat.
There were elections in the Madrid region on Sunday. They were the second elections this year for the Madrid legislature. The reason a second election was held was because of a political row following the first one in May. Back then a coalition of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and United Left (Izquierda Unida) won a narrow majority. However, they were unable to form a government following the defection of two PSOE deputies, who said they were unwilling to enter into government with United Left. Hence the rerun, which saw Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party (PP) gain a one seat majority. Turnout for this election was lower than in May's vote.
The whole saga illustrates the problem with a list system, or at least a system that relies exclusively on the list. People voted for parties and not people. While the party had a policy of coalition, two deputies broke ranks and scuppered the whole endeavour. The two renegades had no mandate from voters to do what they did.
I'll finish with a joke I heard recently about Spanish politics, although it could easily be adapted to any country. A PP member of parliament dies and finds himself outside the gates of heaven. Saint Peter opens the gates and informs him that he's a borderline case for entry into heaven. The best thing, Saint Peter decides, is that he might as well make his own mind up as to where he wants to go. The politician decides to visit hell first and he's surprised at what he sees. Hell is like a country club situated on an enormous golf course. Inside, he sees all his old friends and there's a right old party in swing. A sumptuous banquet is being served up and the wine is flowing. What's more there are plenty of pretty girls eyeing him up. The politician visits heaven the next day. Heaven is what he expected it to be. Angels float on clouds and harps play serenely. At the end of the day Saint Peter asks him what his choice will be. The politician apologises, but says that he'd prefer to go to hell. Down to hell he goes and its not at all like it was the day before. Roaring infernos blaze, the inhabitants are being tortured and the air is wrought by the screams of the damned. Confused, the politician approaches Satan and asks him what's happening. "It's not at all like it was yesterday," he says. "Ah, yesterday we were campaigning, today we've been elected," is Satan's reply.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:06 PM |
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003
What do you drive?One thing that highly amused me a few years back was Mitsubishi having to change the name of its SUV the Pajero in Spain because it meant 'wanker' in Spanish.
Now it seems that another car manufacturer has made the same mistake, according to the BBC:
"Red-faced officials at General Motors in Canada have been forced to think of a new name for their latest model after discovering it was a slang word for masturbation. GM officials said they had been unaware that LaCrosse was a term for self-gratification among teenagers in French-speaking Quebec."
Now if only BMW could make the same mistake...
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:19 PM | link |
Re: Angry O'Brien angers O'Brien
Gavin seems to think I've 'some sympathy' for Denis O'Brien. I'm not sure how he read that into my piece.
Karlin also had a good post on the topic, citing the example of Ryanair's Michael O'Leary to prove that you can be both distasteful and pay your taxes.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:13 PM |
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