"So when a white person holds objectionable views — racism, for example — we rightly condemn them."

"But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them."

Prime Minister David Cameron, daring to say that his country has values.

Publish Post

"The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty."

Says the UK Telegraph, relying on Wikileaks:

A series of classified messages sent to Washington by US negotiators show how information on Britain’s nuclear capability was crucial to securing Russia’s support for the “New START” deal.

Oh, but don't be upset! The START treaty was Obama's chosen post-elections showdown with GOP last fall:

Just two weeks after an election that left him struggling to find his way forward, President Obama has decided to confront Senate Republicans in a make-or-break battle over arms control that could be an early test of his mettle heading into the final two years of his term.

Obama proved his mettle! What's more important? Our relationship with the UK or proof of Obama's mettle after the crushing 2010 elections?

"Home Secretary Theresa May has confirmed there was 'contact' between the Duchess of Cornwall and one of the protesters who attacked her car."

"But she did not confirm reports the duchess was poked with a stick during student protests on Thursday."

Poked with a stick! The Duchess!

***

"The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!"

"People my age don’t want to put hats and scarves on in their homes..."

Old people in Britain are cold.

Ironically, I read that while wearing mittens. I've been trying to warm up my hands for the last hour. It's not really a big deal. I keep the thermostat at 62°. I could turn it up, but I don't. It may be true that as you get older, the cold gets to you, and I feel sorry for people who don't have the option to turn up the heat. I think that wears on you psychologically. But, really, it's healthy to keep the air you breathe cool. It's also good for the environment not to burn more fuel for heat. Shouldn't it be normal to warm up your extremities with sweaters, slippers, hats, scarves, and even mittens? Why is there some idea that if you are getting old, you shouldn't have to use clothing to warm yourself?

In the UK, a 15-year-old girl is arrested for burning the Koran — and posting a video of her conduct/speech on Facebook.

This is happening in the U.K.!

It is thought the girl, who lives in the Sandwell Council area, was allegedly filmed setting the booklet alight while other pupils watched.

Booklet?

It is understood that the group who published that version of the Koran have since been to the school to talk to pupils.

Were Korans distributed by public school officials? Under what circumstances? If you want a book to be treated with respect, don't hand it out free to teenagers. Maybe the school officials should be arrested.

Bob Badham, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council cabinet member for education, said he had visited the school and believed the atmosphere was generally good among pupils. He added that he did not believe there was a "deeper problem" in the area.

Is contempt for religious indoctrination a "deeper problem" that government should concern itself with? I think the deeper problem is that government officials in the U.K. seem to have lost touch with basic principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

World Toilet Day is today... and it's no joke.

"Haiti is in the throes of a cholera epidemic. The disease is easily treated, and can be prevented outright if people have access to good sanitation and purified water, health experts say. But the country, debilitated by the earthquake, poverty and hurricanes, lacks access to clean water, toilets or health care. Lack of sanitation is the leading cause of infection in the world...."

This reminds me of a passage in the truly engrossing Bill Bryson book "At Home: A Short History of Private Life," describing the sanitary conditions in England in the 19th century:

[C]esspits in poorer districts were seldom emptied and frequently overflowed... In St. Giles... 54,000 people crowded into just a few streets. By one count, 1100 people lived in 27 houses along one alley; that is more than 40 people per dwelling. In Spitalfields, farther east, inspectors found 63 people living in a single house. The house had 9 beds — one for every 7 occupants....

Such masses of humanity naturally produced enormous volumes of waste — far more than any system of cesspits could cope with. In one fairly typical report an inspector recorded visiting 2 houses in St. Giles where the cellars were filled with human waste to a depth of 3 feet. Outside the inspector continued, the yard was 6 inches deep in excrement. Bricks had been stacked like stepping-stones to let the occupants cross the yard.

At Leeds in the 1830s, a survey of the poorer districts found that many streets were "floating with sewage"; one street, housing 176 families, had not been cleaned for 15 years. In Liverpool, as many as one-sixth of the populace lived in dark cellars, where wastes could all too easily seep in.

Royal wedding in the offing.

Do you care?

Reaction?
	Lovely. A ray of light in this somber world.
	I don't care but don't begrudge the British their sentimental amusement.
	It's actively annoying. Phony. Irrelevant.
	Boring. Tedious. I don't care.
	This is the one I'd vote for if I even cared enough to read this far.
pollcode.com free polls

"How do I stop a squirrel ruining my lawn?... I’m in the u.k so i do not have access to guns or explosives before I get tons of killing suggestions."

... "The problem is not the squirrels. It is your attitude. I’m not trying to be mean.
Squirrels have just as much right to your yard as you do. Maybe more. The
animals of the world do not see property lines. They are doing what they need
to do in order to survive. The fact that you are upset by their behaviour only
makes you look self absorbed and petty. Please leave them alone. Take a
different approach and laugh at their antics. They are funny once you can let
it go. Chili powder might blind them. Do not use it."

Oh, I'm just out here on the front stoop, helping Meade with the gardening, by doing the part of the gardening that you can do on Google. Squirrels keep burying acorns in the otherwise lovely new lawn.

Apparently, if I don't blog this, I'll never stop getting email and comments from people telling me to blog this.

Okay. Here. I don't want there to be an increase in suicides because you people have nowhere else to go. Satisfied? Now, please clean up after yourselves.

"A man was arrested after stealing author Jonathan Franzen's glasses from the writer and demanding a ransom of £100,000 ($158,808) at a book launch."

"Police said a helicopter was called to chase the culprit, who jumped into the Serpentine lake in London. The 27-year-old has since been released with no further action being taken and the glasses have been recovered."

A helicopter? I mean, I know Franzen's book — "Freedom" — is considered tremendously important, but... it was a pair of glasses. Why chase the guy with a helicopter?

Is it because those glasses are part of his signature look? Quick! Which one is Franzen?



Without the glasses... he could be... just anybody.

Some book journal editor who was at the scene of the crime, said: "It was frankly quite bizarre. Considering the seriousness of Franzen's work, this is the last thing anyone expected at his book launch."

Considering the seriousness of Franzen's work! I don't understand literary-journalist logic. It's exactly seriousness that inspires absurd prankish tweaking. (If you don't understand my logic, you need to watch a few Marx Brothers movies.)

"At the moment if you want to become au fait with what this department thinks on how to keep order in class you have to read the equivalent of War and Peace."

"There are about 500 pages of guidance on discipline and another 500 pages on bullying. We will clarify and shrink that."

The Prime Minister keeps his baby in a box.

"Nancy made her a cardboard box when we were in Cornwall as we didn't have a cot and decorated it and she's still in the cardboard box. She'll be able to say I was brought up in Downing Street in a cardboard box."

"Avastin prolongs life but drug is too expensive for NHS patients."

We've talked about the limitations on Avastin in the United States. It's much worse in the UK.

One third of Britons take a teddy bear to bed.

And 25% of men take teddy with them when they travel.

Corrine Sweet, a psychologist, said cuddling a teddy bear was an "important part of our national psyche... it evokes a sense of peace, security and comfort. It’s human nature to crave these feelings from childhood to adult life. It’s not surprising, then, that taking a teddy bear on a business trip is popular. As a bedtime bear evokes feelings of home, warmth, and can help you nod off – just like in babyhood.”

The study also found that the traditional teddy bear was the most popular cuddly toy among adults, with Winnie the Pooh second and Paddington Bear third.

So... it's a special British thing?

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
	Yes. I need to cuddle my childhood toy to get to sleep.
	A little, but I don't really need it and can travel without it.
	Only when my human or living animal bedmate isn't around.
	No, but I do require extra pillows.
	No!
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: This post brought back a long-lost memory. When I was a child, I wanted to be the child that takes a stuffed animal or doll to bed. I had a mental "ideal girl" image in mind. I tried... and failed. I couldn't put up with it. I liked to sleep on my stomach and extend my hands flat under the pillow, and I cared a lot about the underside of the pillow being very cool. I used to turn the pillow over to get the cool side facing down.

"NHS tells cancer boy, 5, he is 'too fat'... after putting on TWO POUNDS during chemotherapy."

Cancer boy... that's pretty insensitive... But this is really insensitive:

A gruelling course of chemotherapy caused his weight to plummet to just two stone. So when five-year-old cancer patient Lewis Mighty put on a few pounds, his mother was overjoyed. Until, that is, she received a letter from the NHS bluntly telling her that Lewis was overweight.

With astonishing insensitivity, it warned her that he was at risk of cancer - despite being just two pounds over his recommended weight. The letter suggested Lewis should take up swimming, even though an intravenous drip in his chest to deliver life-saving drugs prevents him from being in water.

Being Prime Minister was Tony's idea first!

A hilarious use of YouTube (found via Drudge). I'm jumping over the first minute or so to make it funnier, but feel free to drag the slider back to the beginning if you're the leisurely sort:

"People travel from all ends of the country on what is almost a pilgrimage to view the plant in bloom and are often overcome with emotion at the sight."

A flower requires and receives police protection.

"I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator," said the preacher who was arrested.

"Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act."

"Imagine if Obama's gaffe about 'clinging to guns and religion' had been uttered by John McCain, about his own base."

It would look like this...

But, actually, to be fair, that is worse than the hypothetical McCain scenario. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was caught on tape insulting a particular individual — Gillian Duffy — calling her a "bigot" right after talking to her, and her reaction to hearing about it (and then listening to it) is caught on video.

More of Gillian Duffy's amazing real-time response here. (I like when she gets a cell phone call and the reporters can't believe she'd take a phone call while she's on live TV.) Brown has now given Duffy an in-personal apology, but as you can see in that video she says she doesn't want that. She wants to know why her comments were counted as bigotry.

IN THE COMMENTS: Class factotum said:

Josephine the Plumber has been born.

Hey! Wait a minute! Josephine the Plumber? Jane Withers!



When my mother saw those Comet ads, she's always exclaim about how mean Jane Withers was to Shirley Temple. She was the child actress who was most emphatically not Shirley Temple:



And the actor in the wheelchair is Charles Sellon — or as I insist on calling him, Mr. Muckle. Now, open the door for Mr. Muckle:

Do you think the National Health Service in the UK is denying people the treatments they want?

Think again.

"If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd pay for the operation straight away. But we don't have the money. People can have their own beliefs on whether they think this is a good use of NHS money but I just want what will make my child happy."

This is the case of a 16-year-old boy who "began researching sex change operations last year" after the kids at school "taunted him for being gay and... he was excluded from school after getting into fights."

"The psychologist said she was satisfied that Bradley knew his own mind and was eligible for a sex change and immediately put him on a waiting list for an operation."

What an insane way to solve problems! I suppose it's easier for the government to pay £10,000 for an operation than to deal with the harassment of a gay kid at school. The poor mother is eager to "make my child happy," but why would surgery be the first choice or even any kind of choice if the truth is that the child is gay and surrounded by people who don't know how to behave with any sort of decency? 

Notice how this is a problem with the government running everything — not only the school, but also the medical treatments. When it's all a matter of economics, look at how evil it can get. It's easier to lop off body parts that to persuade groups of young people to treat each other kindly. There is one victim, and there are many harassers, so go after the victim, but call him "patient," and keep up the pretense of a caring, all-embracing government-parent... who only wants to make us children happy.