Spread the word!
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09/30/2009
CAPTION THIS!
Spread the word!
Doesn't matter what you call it - it tastes like shit.
H/T Joe, the Yank in Kiwiland for the language!
From Bloomberg
Sydney - Kraft Foods Inc. will change the name of its new, milder version of Vegemite after its first choice, iSnack2.0, caused a storm of complaints from Australian consumers. “The new name has simply not resonated with Australians,” said Simon Talbot, Kraft’s corporate affairs head for Australia and New Zealand, in an e-mailed statement today. “Particularly the modern technical aspects associated with it. We have been overwhelmed by the passion for Vegemite.” Australian and New Zealand consumers will vote to decide on iSnack2.0’s new moniker and Kraft will announce details of the process on Oct. 2, according to the statement. The original Vegemite remains on sale.
Vegemite, a dark, pungent spread made from yeast extract, has been in Australian kitchen cupboards since 1923 and cemented its status as a national icon when it was referenced in Men At Work’s hit song “Down Under” in the early 1980s. The unveiling of iSnack2.0 on Sept. 26, after a nationwide competition that furnished nearly 50,000 suggestions, roused indignation amongst Vegemite lovers, with thousands expressing disapproval on blogs, social networking sites and videos uploaded to YouTube. “Sounds like a circuit board on toast,” one disapproving commenter said on the Food Week Web site.
Kraft has some 500,000 jars of the iSnack2.0-labeled product in warehouses in Sydney and Melbourne, which started arriving on supermarket shelves today, Talbot said in a phone interview from Melbourne this morning. “Consumers like the taste; they just don’t like the name,” Kraft said in today’s statement. iSnack2.0 will remain on sale until the vote is completed.
I've never tried Vegemite but I have had Marmite, which is the same thing but sold in Europe and the United States. Both are rotten yeast. Gooey, sticky, pungent rotten yeast. I cannot imagine having it on a sandwich. I use it as a base for stews and and soups and for that it is marvelous but very expensive. A small jar is around $7.00 here. I've talked to people in both countries and found no one who actually eats it on a sandwich. I think it's a sort of right of passage. Like saying, 'I am Australian/British and I am so tough I can even eat this shit and like it - so there'. Why in the world someone would opt to change the name of either is beyond me. Both names sound barely edible. I'm willing to bet the person who came up with this ad campaign never tasted Vegemite - they knew it only from the song. Can you imagine them changing the name of some other iconic brand like ... Coke?
Some things are better left alone.
Continue reading "Doesn't matter what you call it - it tastes like shit." »
Roman Polanski sums it up in a few words. I can do it without a single word.
"If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the
press, you see? But … fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges
want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone
wants to fuck young girls!" - Roman Polanski from a 1979 Tattler interview
Tea Leaves & Tree Rings
From the Register
A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers. At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC's assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre CRU at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors. At issue is the use of tree rings as a temperature proxy, or dendrochronology. Using statistical techniques, researchers take the ring data to create a "reconstruction" of historical temperature anomalies. But trees are a highly controversial indicator of temperature, since the rings principally record Co2, and also record humidity, rainfall, nutrient intake and other local factors.
Picking a temperature signal out of all this noise is problematic, and a dendrochronology can differ significantly from instrumented data. In dendro jargon, this disparity is called "divergence". The process of creating a raw data set also involves a selective use of samples - a choice open to a scientist's biases. Yet none of this has stopped paleoclimataologists from making bold claims using tree ring data. In particular, since 2000, a large number of peer-reviewed climate papers have incorporated data from trees at the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. This dataset gained favour, curiously superseding a newer and larger data set from nearby. The older Yamal trees indicated pronounced and dramatic uptick in temperatures.
How could this be? Scientists have ensured much of the measurement data used in the reconstructions remains a secret - failing to fulfill procedures to archive the raw data. Without the raw data, other scientists could not reproduce the results. The most prestigious peer reviewed journals, including Nature and Science, were reluctant to demand the data from contributors. Until now, that is. At the insistence of editors of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions B the data has leaked into the open - and Yamal's mystery is no more. From this we know that the Yamal data set uses just 12 trees from a larger set to produce its dramatic recent trend. Yet many more were cored, and a larger data set (of 34) from the vicinity shows no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the middle ages. In all there are 252 cores in the CRU Yamal data set, of which ten were alive 1990. All 12 cores selected show strong growth since the mid-19th century. The implication is clear: the dozen were cherry-picked.
Controversy has been raging since 1995, when an explosive paper by Keith Briffa at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia asserted that that the medieval warm period was actually really cold, and recent warming is unusually warm. Both archaeology and the historical accounts, Briffa was declaring, were bunk. Briffa relied on just three cores from Siberia to demonstrate this. Three years later Nature published a paper by Mann, Bradley and Hughes based on temperature reconstructions which showed something similar: warmer now, cooler then. With Briffa and Mann as chapter editors of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this distinctive pattern became emblematic - the "Logo of Global Warming".
Incredible? Outrageous? Not really, if you think of 'global warming' like a religion. Ironically, its proponents were forced by the cold reality of observable conditions extant over the last century to change the name of their religion to 'climate change'. Socialism cannot function (sic) until all vestiges of traditionalism have been erased. That includes rewriting history, assigning new 'moral' imperatives and above all else - eradicating traditional religion - for it is in traditional religion where much history resides, insofar as it defines religion contextually and chronologically. It is not enough to simply alter the textbooks if the children learn history at church. For purposes of this discussion, the accuracy of that history is not important - only that it exists and is widely held to be true. The Left was faced with creating a new religion from whole cloth, that is, without long and widely held acceptance. Enter environmentalism.
Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' was the first attempt - DDT became the Devil. But that was debunked almost immediately. Then it was 'the coming Ice Age' - also shown to be fantasy. Then it was 'global warming' - now being eviscerated by those pesky 'deniers' and 'skeptics'. Even the term 'skeptic' itself harkens back centuries to religious skeptics. It is no coincidence that all arguments made in support of radical environmentalism always have an economic component - it's not enough to claim the mantle of righteousness - a religion must have penance and guilt in order to survive. Without the possibility of redemption and salvation there is no reason to participate in religion. Environmentalism, by regulation and law, ascribes to the State the power of God. It is by the participant's adherence to strict regulations that one finds 'salvation' - Utopia. Thou shalt not be comfortable has become the Left's single Commandment.
Frequent readers know my stand on religion. My existence requires no God. I applaud those who find solace in their beliefs. I ask only that I not be proselytized, forced to kneel before any God or support that which I do not hold true. The Left insists I ignore hard science and instead 'believe' THEIR version of it. To that end, they will use any ruse, employ any deceit and construct any manner of idols or demons to coerce my acceptance of their religion. I am lucky - I have an education. Others are not so lucky. Those who lack same, be they ignorant, fanatic or children still in school (sic) do not have the same healthy skepticism I enjoy. A story like the one above illustrates just how easily those poor souls are to manipulate. Except instead of reading tea leaves or portending omens - we have charlatans divining tree rings.
09/29/2009
UPDATE! For the children, of course!
From the Daily Mail
Two working mothers have been banned from looking after each other's toddlers because they are not registered childminders. The close friends' private arrangement had let them both return to part-time jobs at the same company. However, a whistleblower reported them to the education watchdog Ofsted and it found their informal deal broke the law.
This was because little-known rules say friends cannot gain a 'reward' by looking after a child for more than two hours outside the child's home without agreeing to a number of checks including one from the Criminal Records Bureau.
Although the mothers never paid each other, their job-sharing deal was judged to be a 'reward'. Campaigners fear thousands of working families could be innocently breaking the rules by relying on close friends for informal childcare.
From the Boston Herald
Bay State bureaucrats are turning day-care centers into stringent schools, where homespun “educators” will soon be required to write progress reports on gurgling infants, prepare toddlers for the rigors of kindergarten and even brush every child’s teeth. “It’s difficult for me to pay attention to all the children if I have to do all this work,” said Irina Zhadanousky of Newton, who currently spends the day reading, singing and playing with the six tots she mothers during the day. “It’s extra work.” The changes come in the form of new regulations passed by the state Board of Early Education and Care, which take effect in January. Among them:
• Child-care workers are now called “educators.”
• Written progress reports must be issued every three to six months that track the cognitive, social, emotional, language, motor and life skill developments of infants and preschoolers.
• Day-care providers must “assist” with tooth brushing after all meals, or for any children on site for four hours or more.
• Nannies must devise a “curriculum” that provides “evidence that programs provide specific, planned learning experiences” and that supports “school-readiness.”
• Written progress reports must be issued every three to six months that track the cognitive, social, emotional, language, motor and life skill developments of infants and preschoolers.
• Day-care providers must “assist” with tooth brushing after all meals, or for any children on site for four hours or more.
• Nannies must devise a “curriculum” that provides “evidence that programs provide specific, planned learning experiences” and that supports “school-readiness.”
Day-care workers and advocates say the requirements burden an already underpaid industry with reams of red tape and shift day care in the direction of an MCAS prep course. There are 275,000 children statewide attending day care. “No one is coming in to tell me how to do my job,” said Camile Abruzzese, who’s cared for kids for 29 years in Everett. “It takes time away from the other children.” Child-care worker Jill Zeina of Roslindale said the new regulations have made her think twice about expanding her small operation, despite the urging of needy parents.
UPDATE!
From the AP
Irving Township, MI - A Michigan woman says she thought she was being neighborly by watching her friends' children for free each morning - and now she's in trouble with the state.
Lisa Snyder of Irving Township says she's been warned by the state Department of Human Services against running an unlicensed day care center. Snyder said Tuesday she's fighting to change the law that prompted the letter.
Under state law, no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each calendar year unless they are licensed day-care providers.
Agency director Ismael Ahmed says in a written statement that Gov. Jennifer Granholm has instructed him to work with the state Legislature to change the law.
'Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.' ~ Vladimir Lenin
Spread the word!
Subliminal? Is THIS subliminal enough for ya???
From EurekAlert!
Subliminal messaging is most effective when the message being conveyed is negative, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust. Subliminal images - in other words, images shown so briefly that the viewer does not consciously 'see' them - have long been the subject of controversy, particularly in the area of advertising. Previous studies have already hinted that people can unconsciously pick up on subliminal information intended to provoke an emotional response, but limitations in the design of the studies have meant that the conclusions were ambiguous.
Today, the journal Emotion publishes a study by a UCL team led by Professor Nilli Lavie, which provides evidence that people are able to process emotional information from subliminal images and demonstrates conclusively that even under such conditions, information of negative value is better detected than information of positive value. In the study, Professor Lavie and colleagues showed fifty participants a series of words on a computer screen. Each word appeared on-screen for only a fraction of second – at times only a fiftieth of a second, much too fast for the participants to consciously read the word. The words were either positive (e.g. cheerful, flower and peace), negative (e.g. agony, despair and murder) or neutral (e.g. box, ear or kettle). After each word, participants were asked to choose whether the word was neutral or 'emotional' (i.e. positive or negative), and how confident they were of their decision.
The researchers found that the participants answered most accurately when responding to negative words - even when they believed they were merely guessing the answer. "There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words," says Professor Lavie. "We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words. "Clearly, there are evolutionary advantages to responding rapidly to emotional information. We can't wait for our consciousness to kick in if we see someone running towards us with a knife or if we drive under rainy or foggy weather conditions and see a sign warning 'danger'."
Today, the journal Emotion publishes a study by a UCL team led by Professor Nilli Lavie, which provides evidence that people are able to process emotional information from subliminal images and demonstrates conclusively that even under such conditions, information of negative value is better detected than information of positive value. In the study, Professor Lavie and colleagues showed fifty participants a series of words on a computer screen. Each word appeared on-screen for only a fraction of second – at times only a fiftieth of a second, much too fast for the participants to consciously read the word. The words were either positive (e.g. cheerful, flower and peace), negative (e.g. agony, despair and murder) or neutral (e.g. box, ear or kettle). After each word, participants were asked to choose whether the word was neutral or 'emotional' (i.e. positive or negative), and how confident they were of their decision.
The researchers found that the participants answered most accurately when responding to negative words - even when they believed they were merely guessing the answer. "There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words," says Professor Lavie. "We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words. "Clearly, there are evolutionary advantages to responding rapidly to emotional information. We can't wait for our consciousness to kick in if we see someone running towards us with a knife or if we drive under rainy or foggy weather conditions and see a sign warning 'danger'."
Yeah? Well we can't wait until reality sets in and we come to our senses, either.
09/28/2009
The Obama Corollary to the Peter Principle
From the Washington Times
The military general credited with capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says he has spoken with President Obama only once since taking command in Afghanistan.
"I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a video teleconference," Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.
"You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?" Mr. Martin followed up.
"That is correct," the general replied.
This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of an classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan "will likely result in failure" if more troops are not added next year. Yet, the debate over health care reform continues to dominate Washington’s political discussions.
"I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a video teleconference," Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.
"You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?" Mr. Martin followed up.
"That is correct," the general replied.
This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of an classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan "will likely result in failure" if more troops are not added next year. Yet, the debate over health care reform continues to dominate Washington’s political discussions.
The Peter Principle - in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
The Obama Corollary - no system can withstand absolute incompetence.
Spread the word!
The Obama Corollary - no system can withstand absolute incompetence.
