robinturner | News Round-up (Reply)

Some unrelated news items, linked artificially by proverbs and popular sayings.

Clothes make the man

"Blinking back tears, Pervez Musharraf stepped down as Pakistan's military commander Wednesday, fulfilling a key opposition demand a day before he was to be sworn in as civilian president." The big fuss in the press over the last few weeks has been whether Musharraf would "give up his uniform". Now he's done it, at least figuratively speaking—I imagine he's kept the actual uniform so he can dress up in it and make his wife say "Oh captain! My captain!" This change de couture probably signifies nothing more than a shift in emphasis from being a military dictator to a military dictator.

For they sleep not, except they have done mischief (Proverbs, 4:16)

I've always been a fan of power naps, which are ordinary naps with "power" added to make executives feel good about them. However, sleeping on the job can be dangerous—apparently NATO planes just bombed a group of sleeping labourers in Afghanistan. (This hasn't made it onto the web yet, so I can't provide a link.)

Don't shoot the messenger

In its continuing efforts to avoid entering the EU, the Turkish state is considering pressing charges against the local publisher of Dawkins' The God Delusion. The unfortunate fellow "could be required to stand trial if the prosecutor concludes that Dawkins' book incites religious hatred and insults religious values, and would face up to one year in prison if found guilty." Actually, this could be good news for both Dawkins and his publisher, given the recent failure to prosecute Orhan Pamuk: the publicity will push up sales of the book. It might even result in more atheists in Turkey, which (although I'm not an atheist myself) I think would be a good thing.

Eat shit and die live

According to The Daily Telegraph A woman in Scotland recovered from Clostridium Difficile after receiving a "faecal transplant". (Is there a milder version called Clostridium Facile, I wonder?) In other words, they liquidised her daughter's shit and pumped it into her stomach through a tube. I'm not surprised the tube was necessary—I mean you could put it in a banana daquiri and still the idea would be enough to make you heave it up again.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

The Telegraph is continuing to spread panic about Britain becoming over-populated: "The UK’s population could almost double within a lifetime to more than 100 million, new figures have shown." Further on, we get the actual figures:

The most likely forecast based on current trends is that the population will rise to 71m in 2031 and to 85m in 2081, but if birth rates grow more quickly than expected, immigration remains high and people live longer this could reach 108 million - nearly twice today’s 60m.

So the likely increase is an extra 42% for those toddlers who are lucky enough to still be alive in 2081, and a maximum increase of 80%. So where do we get "almost double" from? If one of my students got 80% in a quiz and they said, "Well you should give me an 'A' because that's almost 100%," I'd laugh them out of my office.