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No pun necessary for this title.

May 4, 2007 - Leave a Response

http://www.aina.org/news/20070425181603.htm

This is absolutely horrible.

According to the Kurdish website Jebar.info up to 1000 men from the Yezidi Kurdish community of Mosul killed a teenager who’s only crime was running away to marry a Muslim man whom she loved and converting to his religion.

It was reported that in the last few days her family persuaded her to return home, convincing her that she had been forgiven by her parents and relatives for her mistake.

In a short mobile video clip which appears to have been taken by locals at seen of the murder, the girl is seen being ambushed on her way home by a group of up to 1000 men who were waiting for her to return; the men killed her in the most brutal way possible, by throwing large stones on her head.

[...] it appears that the girl was first stripped naked to symbolize that she had dishonored her family and her Yezidi religion. She is lying on the road naked while her smashed face is covered with blood and still breathing.

According to the website and footage from the clip a number of armed local police officers were present who in fact helped the crowd to kill the woman rather than preventing the crime. Sometime later the Iraqi army arrived at the scene and refused anyone entry, including the press.

I only hope philosophers who refused determinism were right, despite that would mean these people made a choice. What kind of brainwash do you need to have to lose all empathy, to get so brutal, to feel this is right? What kind of extremists manage to be in such a large group acting that way while being backed up by the people who should represent law?

This is purely horrible.

If this is innate, this means we can all be such killers and all we do is repress it. If it’s acquired, it means we all could have been this way, and we are able to create such a climate that would condition our peers and ourselves to behave that way. Either way, humanity takes a horrible face. I still hope this is all acquired as this means it can be eliminated in time (utopias, please).

Any comment making broad generalizations about extremists, concerning “nuking them all”, or directly blaming religion for this will be changed for pictures of nice flowers. Botanic censorship or whatever you want to call it.

Categorized in ANGER, international, life, news, politics, posts, psychology and society

Justice and pants don’t go together

May 3, 2007 - One Response

$65 million pants

Would you pay $65 millions for these pants? this is what a man requests.

from http://news.yahoo.com

I’m just going to quote stuff directly, because it makes no sense at all.

WASHINGTON – The Chungs, immigrants from

The Chungs, immigrants from South Korea, realized their American dream when they opened their dry-cleaning business seven years ago in the nation’s capital. For the past two years, however, they’ve been dealing with the nightmare of litigation: a $65 million lawsuit over a pair of missing pants.

“What the hell?” is the first thing I thought of. But then, after reading better, well it changed nothing:

A pair of pants from one suit was not ready when he requested it two days later, and was deemed to be missing.

Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. That’s when Pearson decided to sue.

Manning said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson. First they offered $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000. But Pearson wasn’t satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants.

Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, part of his lawsuit calls for $15,000 — the price to rent a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

“He’s somehow purporting that he has a constitutional right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment,” Manning said.

But the bulk of the $65 million comes from Pearson’s strict interpretation of D.C.’s consumer protection law, which fines violators $1,500 per violation, per day. According to court papers, Pearson added up 12 violations over 1,200 days, and then multiplied that by three defendant

I can agree that sometimes people are overzealous with justice and are happy to sue for no reason, but damn it, this wins hands down. Even more knowing the guy is a judge.

According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alteration to Custom Cleaners in Northeast Washington, a place he patronized regularly despite previous disagreements with the Chungs.

A god damn Judge sues people for over 65 millions because of pants that were late for a week, and he believes it is his constitutional right (according to the opposing lawyer) to have access to a dry cleaner within 4 blocks.

I for one, think that the fact this man has been able to go through the required studies, the bar and managed to get a job as a judge disproves Darwinism and evolution at once. Creationism has to be right, there is no option.

abcnews.com’s saying it is $67 millions instead of $65,000,000.

Profile of Roy L. Pearson, Jr.

Categorized in ANGER, Law, interesting links, international, news, politics, posts, rants and society

Girls’ names influence what they’re good at

May 1, 2007 - 4 Responses

New dubious but entertaining study

girls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable study has found.

Both subjects, which are traditionally seen as predominantly male, are far more popular among girls with names such as Abigail, Lauren and Ashley, which have been judged as less feminine in a linguistic test. The effect is so strong that parents can set twin daughters off on completely different career paths simply by calling them Isabella and Alex, names at either end of the spectrum. A study of 1,000 pairs of sisters in the US found that Alex was twice as likely as her twin to take maths or science at a higher level.

Obviously, correlation does not imply causation, but the observations are still interesting. This would mainly come from the children’s environment and how people think they should behave according to their names:

Edyta Ballantyne, a primary school teacher in north London, said she would often be given the names of children in her class before meeting them and admitted that it was hard not to form judgments. ‘I think most people get an image in their head when they hear a name,’ she said. ‘If you treat a child differently because of their name, then they will behave differently.

The article is worth giving a read, still.

Categorized in interesting links, life, parenthood, posts, psychology and science

Saparmurat Niyazov: Laws are a joke

April 30, 2007 - Leave a Response

Saparmurat Niyazov

“Dear population: laws are boring, I’ll make new fun ones!” -Leader of Turkmenistan

Saparmurat Niyazov is Turkmenistan’s ex-leader (until his death in 2006) and was one master into making absurd laws.

He had (I suppose) a God-given objective of reminding people that one person in charge of power could lead to bad things and/or that laws are often the good place to make [cruel] jokes. Some of his decrees, according to wikipedia:

In April 2001, ballet and opera were banned after Niyazov felt they were “unnecessary … not a part of Turkmen culture”.^[13]
In 2004 it was forbidden for young men to grow long hair or beards.^[13]
In March 2004, 15,000 public health workers were dismissed including nurses, midwives, school health visitors and orderlies and replaced with military conscripts.^[14]
In April 2004 the youth of Turkmenistan were encouraged to chew on bones to preserve their teeth rather than be fitted with gold tooth caps or gold teeth.^[15]
In April 2004 it was ordered that an ice palace be constructed near the capital.^[16] (In December 2006 an article in the UK’s Sunday Times revealed the ‘ice palace’ to be an ornate ice skating rink.^[17])
In 2004 all licensed drivers were required to pass a morality test.^[18]
In 2004 it was prohibited for news readers to wear make-up^[19]
In February 2005 all hospitals outside Aşgabat were ordered shut, with the reasoning that the sick should come to the capital for treatment. All rural libraries were ordered closed as well, citing ordinary Turkmen do not read books.^[20]
In November 2005 physicians were ordered to swear an oath to the President, replacing the Hippocratic Oath.^[21]
In December 2005 video games were banned as being too violent for young Turkmen to play.
In January 2006 one-third of the country’s elderly had their pensions discontinued, while another 200,000 had theirs reduced. Pensions received during the prior two years were ordered paid back to the state.^[22] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan strongly denied allegations that the cut in pensions resulted in the deaths of many elderly Turkmen, accusing foreign media outlets of spreading “deliberately perverted” information on the issue.^[23]
- (Note: On March 19, 2007 Turkmenistan’s new president Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow has reversed a decision of his predecessor by restoring pensions to more than 100,000 elderly citizens..^[24])
In September 2006 Turkmen teachers who failed to publish praise of the Turkmen leader would remain at a lower payscale or be sacked.^[25]
In October 2006 Turkmenistan claimed to have set free 10,056 prisoners, including 253 foreign nationals from 11 countries on the Night of Omnipotence. Niyazov said, “Let this humane act on the part of the state serve strengthening truly moral values of the Turkmen society. Let the entire world know that there has never been a place for evil and violence on the blessed Turkmen soil.”^[26]
The Turkmen words for bread and the month of April were changed to the name of his late mother, Gurbansoltanedzhe. ^[27]
Car radios, lip-syncing, and recorded music are all prohibited.^[28]
Video monitors are required in all public places.^[28]
Dogs are restricted from the capital city due to unappealing odour.^[29]