Pass the nuts, mate

Having journeyed to Australia, Mister Bear knows that it's a spirited place with plenty of individualism to go around.  Leaving out the part about those koalas that try to be "bears" but aren't, the Land Down Under is a great place.  They've also got some common sense, IMO, in their legal system.  Or at least in this case.

From the Daily Mail comes this story:

A nutty snack company in Australia has won the right to call itself Nuckin Futs, despite an official ruling that it was offensive.

A solicitor representing the Gold Coast company argued that the name was not offensive because the words it suggested were commonplace in everyday Australian language.

It has taken almost a year but after rejecting the initial application, the Trade Marks Examiner has now agreed to accept the Nuckin Futs trademark - as long as the company does not aim its marketing at children.  Mr White said that would not happen.

Hat tip to the Language Log.

More thoughts on the Strike

Jonah Goldberg had a suggestion that he posted yesterday, the day before The Strike:

Very soon Wikipedia will go dark for a day to protest something called SOPA. During this event — future historians will call it a “knowledge eclipse” — no one under the age of thirty will know how to confirm or disprove a statement of fact.

It’ll be awesome.

Tomorrow you should go up to a 20-something and tell them things like “the fern is the world’s most popular carnivorous plant” and “Henry VIII invented the internal combustion engine, but kept it secret to protect the environment” and they will have no choice but to believe you as they will have no idea how to use, never mind find, a “reference book.”

Cats have gills, Larry Storch was the 37th president, the 48-53rd floors of the Empire State Building contain the real White House, the pre-internet Wikipedia took up 700,000 floppy disks, Al Gore was once the Vice President of the United States: True? False? It doesn’t matter. These are just a few things you can tell these kids today and they’ll have to believe you. What choice will they have?

Why didn't I think of that?

The Strike

Much is being made today of the "strike" by many websites, including Wikipedia, to go "dark" in protest over two bills pending in Congress.  Richard Fernandez writes at PJ Media that this may just be another useless gesture:

But one or two day ‘strikes’ aren’t going to do much as a long as the forces which are creating a gargantuan and intrusive state are at loose.  The administration may simply wait the ‘Internet strike’ out and try again until they get what they want.  An activist government wielding ever-growing tools of central planning has its own dynamic. The rise of favored groups is an essential feature of a highly regulated economy.

The process is often simple. Find a bogeyman — corporations will do — and by “fighting it” get the power to pick winners and losers whether in health care, finance, energy and the Internet.  And soon all problems will be ‘fixed’.

Mister Bear doesn't have enough readers for a strike here to be more than useless.  So I stayed "light" today.  Read Fernandez's complete article for more thoughts on the inevitable governmental urge to control the Internet.

What was that definition of insanity??

You know....the one about doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.

This concluding paragraph from a story about Greek sovereign debt brought it back to mind.  It quotes Edward Parker, Managing Director for ratings agency Fitch's Sovereign and Supranational Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"(Disorderly default), would be, for us, the really damaging situation, but one which we are certainly not expecting to happen because, clearly, in a rational situation you would think Greek politicians and European policy makers would ensure that it doesn't happen." 

Of course, Greek politicians and European policy makers haven't acted rationally in past debt situations, including the most recent package of bailouts.  So, why should we expect them to do so now?

Hope you're shorting the Euro.  That would be my forex currency play.  The only question is, how long will Germany, and the German people allow themselves to be dragged down by the wasteful actions of other countries?

Full story can be found HERE.

More evidence to confirm common sense

For years, I've scratched my head at the headlong rush to provide unearned praise on our schoolchildren.  It spilled over into sports and interpersonal relationships.  Everyone has heard the stories of soccer games where no one keeps score and everyone gets a trophy.

Turns out that the common sense response of "You have got to be kidding me" is turning out to have scientific support.  From the Washington Post:

A growing body of research over three decades shows that easy, unearned praise does not help students but instead interferes with significant learning opportunities. As schools ratchet up academic standards for all students, new buzzwords are “persistence,” “risk-taking” and “resilience” — each implying more sweat and strain than fuzzy, warm feelings.

“We used to think we could hand children self-esteem on a platter,” Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck said. “That has backfired.”

They say that free advice is worth what you pay for it.  Seems that unearned praise has the same value.

Read the whole story HERE.

Controlling the uncontrolable

Charles Crawford, from the UK, writing about Tom Harris, the "Social Media Tsar" (sic) of the Labour Party:

Of course the really idiotic thing about all this is that Labour thinks it needs a 'Social Media Tsar' at all. The whole point, Labour, of social media is that it is a spontaneous crowd-sourcing Towers of Babel chaotic phenomenon in which order emerges as it does. It's utterly unsuited to any sort of political busy-body Tsardom. See?

But, if your natural inclinations run towards central control, you want to control everything.  Much like the old line "If your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail".

White Stuff

Mister Bear lives in a forest that has a relatively moderate climate. Not like Minnesota or Phoenix, to mention two extremes. Mostly, it's just pleasant and comfortable. All that changed yesterday, when OMW (Old Man Winter) decided to drop about 3 inches of the white stuff outside the cave.

Now, compared to Buffalo, that's just a dusting. But MB has grown to like the milder climes. So it looks as though it was a good idea to stock up on milk, bread, steaks and the like. There's a snow shovel somewhere, but I'm hoping that Al Gore's global warming comes in the next day or two.

Rube Goldberg contraption of the month

I had to watch it more than once to catch exactly how it did everything. But, you know, some mornings I'm just this lazy.

Mexican Hat Dance??

From Fox News, with a hat tip to iOwnTheWorld:

MEXICO CITY – Mexican medics are drawing catcalls after they dropped a heart being rushed to a hospital for a transplant.

Mexico City police say they used a helicopter to deliver the heart in "a rapid, precision maneuver." But after exiting the chopper, a medic stumbled and the plastic-wrapped heart tumbled out of a cooler onto the street.

The medic returned the heart to the cooler, and the Health Department confirms it arrived at the hospital where the recipient was waiting.

There has been no information on whether the transplant was successful.

Was this a governmental health care system? Or just their version of an HMO?

Not a rug

Mr. Bear didn't end up as a rug in some cabin. Though he was close to being declared legally dead for being missing for so long. Nothing serious, though. Just a bit of life getting in the way of blogging. A couple of my friends in the forest have started expressing themselves with their own blogs, so I couldn't let them be the only ones.

See you around.

Sportsmen of the Year

Ian Thomsen of Sports Illustrated on his nomination:

The 2007-08 Celtics are my Sportsmen of the Year because they embraced the least respected and most valuable quality of NBA millionaires: humility. Each sought to play not for himself but for the team. This has become such an empty cliché in pro sports that it needs repeating -- Garnett, Pierce and Allen each pursued an agenda that reduced their individual stats on the faith that it would help the team. The scoring numbers of each star plummeted with no guarantee that they would win. They had no reason to believe that their selflessness would pay off, because none of them had ever been part of anything greater than himself.

I'd love for SI to make that choice, if only to provide a well-needed lesson to the youth of America. We have too many who think of themselves first and foremost. The bigger picture rarely gets considered, especially how our choices and behavior shape our futures.

Read the whole article....it will make you think.

Something for your Wednesday Morning

From Mary Katherine Ham:

TCM anyone??

Your Score: William Powell

You scored 23% Tough, 33% Roguish, 9% Friendly, and 33% Charming!

You are the classic rogue, a stylish rake with the devil of a wit and a flair for mischief, and you shake your martinis to waltz time. You are charming and debonair, but slightly untrustworthy, and women should be on their guard. If married, you are simply a bit of a flirt, even if it's just with your own wife...but if you're single, watch out. You usually rein yourself in to concentrate on one lovely beauty at a time, but with you, we never know. You're an inviting partner, but there's a playful devil behind your eyes, and those trying to get close to you should know they're playing with fire. You're stylish and fun, but you follow your own course, which may or may not include a steady gal. Co-stars include Myrna Loy and Carole Lombard, classy ladies with an adventurous streak.

Link: The Classic Leading Man Test

For my female readers, there's the Classic Dames Test.

Bumper Sticker of the Day

Spotted in Minneapolis:

"If You Agree With Al Gore, Should You Really Be Driving Right Now?

Spotted by Chad the Elder over at Fraters Libertas.

I Don't Not Like to Hear Good News

From Mary Katherine Ham of Townhall:

Another European??

Jules Crittenden writes:

“In many ways, Hiasl is like any other European. He expects his necessities to be provided inexplicably by unseen powers, gets excited and makes hooting noises for no apparent reason, and is accustomed to living in a small enclosure.”

No, it's not another touching portrait of a socialist artiste in Paris -- rather it's his humorous lead-in to a story about an activists' effort to have a chimpanzee living in Vienna be declared a legal person.

I am not making this up. Read the story on Breitbart.

A man of purpose

Techography has a story on Major James Gant and the action in which he won the Silver Star. It is men such as this who are getting the job done in Iraq, and whose efforts we cannot abandon.

Rather than paraphrase, take a look at the whole story. You can read it HERE.

Time is out of it

Time magazine has published its list of the 100 most influential persons in the world. Somehow, the collective animus of the staff came together in sufficient mass to leave George Bush off the list. Tzipi Livni got a nod, but somehow they managed to leave off the President of the United States of America. Condoleezza Rice was put on the list (behind Livni and the Archbishop of Nigeria, among others), but not her boss. Also interestingly, who did Time get to write the description of Rice? Why none other than Donna Brazile. Did Time bother to mention Brazile's long time connections with the Democratic Party -- no, they listed her as "Brazile is the author of Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics".

Can there be any clearer signal that something is definitely wrong with the "old media"?

PS: Like you, I too didn't know who Tzipi Livni is. She's the foreign minister of Israel.

More Techography stuff

There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. What does it mean?

This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

Thought for the Day

"We know exactly where one cow with Mad-cow-disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America but we haven't got a clue where millions of illegal immigrants are located. Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration."

Hat tip to Techography.