Arrested Development

Here’s a great moral question for today… if your child caused you to be thrown into prison would you still love them?

A Canadian  father is faced with that dilemma after his 11 month old baby inadvertently caused his arrest by placing a 911 call while playing with the family phone… from the SMH… this is one baby that will grow up with a significant guilt complex.

“A baby playing with a telephone inadvertently called police to his house in westernmost Canada and to his “very surprised” father’s marijuana-growing operation inside, police say.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police responded to an emergency 911 call in which the caller hung up without saying a word, Constable Janelle Canning told AFP on Wednesday.

The officers entered the White Rock residence, after knocks at the door went unanswered, she said.

“The father was very surprised to see us and insisted he hadn’t called police,” she said.

“The officers then observed his 11-month-old child playing with a cordless phone, pressing buttons randomly.”

The mystery caller was identified, she said. “It appears the baby called us.”

During a routine search of the house, the officers also uncovered 500 marijuana plants in two locked rooms on the main floor.

The 29-year-old father was arrested and faces charges of production of a controlled substance and mischief. He is to appear in court in April.

The baby boy was removed from the home by the Ministry of Children and Family, and was later released into his mother’s custody.”

So, when this father gets out of jail and his son is in his early teens that’s going to be one awkward reunion.

January 23, 2009

Posted on bail

There’s a list of things you shouldn’t do if you’re a major company that has received a government bailout. At the top of that list is taking out advertisements in major (expensive) publications thanking people for the generosity that was foisted on them by government distribution of tax dollars.

People are pretty unhappy that they have to bail out big companies from their own pockets. So if you book out a full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal – you’re going to cop some flack. As Chrysler learned the hard way. Here’s a page full of feedback from its blog (which was pulled so this is the google cached version). And here’s a sample…

“Depending on placement, full page ads placed in the Wall Street journal can cost over $200,000, not to mention the other publications where this ad was placed. So, at least a quarter of a million dollars of our money was spent on an ad thanking us for our contribution. A contribution that the majority did not want to make. This ad screams “Hey, look what we are doing with your tax dollars, lol.” This ad is yet another example of frivolous and clueless spending. Thank us by using OUR money to make your company profitable, not with a meaningless ad. As the old saying goes,”Actions speak louder than words.”

January 23, 2009

The best bits – January 23, 2009

Here's what has excited me from the blogosphere today.

January 23, 2009

For Sale: 82 Metre yacht

Complete with missile launcher and mini submarine. The yacht only has one previous owner, who didn’t even sail it to church on a Sunday – it has its own mosque on board. Low kilometres and government guaranteed sale. It has only had one previous owner. Saddam Hussein.


Here’s the low down from the SMH.

The yacht was built for Saddam 28 years ago, but the Iran-Iraq war – which saw it moved from the southern port of Basra to Saudi Arabia – was among the factors that meant the dictator never savoured its ostentatious facilities.

The vessel became the subject of a legal wrangle when it appeared in the French Riviera city of Nice in autumn 2007, where a British boat dealer tried to sell it for 23.5 million euro ($46.76 million).

January 22, 2009

If at first you secede… try again

The much hyped inauguration of Mr Barack H. Obama went off with just one hitch. There was a mistake in the swearing of the oath. So he did it again, in the Map Room at the Whitehouse. The SMH reports:

“We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately yesterday,” said White House Counsel Greg Craig.

“But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time.”

Does this mean that anything President Obama did prior to the second swearing is open for legal challenge? Apparently not.

On Tuesday, Jeffrey Rosen, a US constitutional law expert and professor at George Washington University in Washington, said stumbling over the oath had “no impact. News flash: He’s president”.

Rosen pointed to the 20th amendment of the US Constitution, which provides that the president and vice president’s term begins at noon on January 20th.

“Lots of people have flubbed the oath, perhaps most memorably Chief Justice (William Howard) Taft, who sort of riffed and then made up his own” upon swearing in then-president Herbert Hoover, said Rosen.

But Obama, like our own K-Rudd (at least in this regard) seems to be big on symbolism.

January 22, 2009

Nothing says “sure can” like shuriken

Want to pin up your work in intimidating style? Bring your ninja skills to the cubicle wall with these… they will however set you back $12 (Canadian) for a set of 3. Match them with the aforementioned shuriken fridge magnets for total ninja feng shui.

January 22, 2009

Shirt of the Day: 22 January

Available here. Just $US15.95. Fuzzy Ink – the site in question – seems strangely dedicated to promoting the moustache all year round – not just in Movember.

January 22, 2009

Apologies

To anyone subscribing to my blog who received 29 copies of my google reader links. They were good, but not that good. I’m having some plug-in glitches with my WordPress installation – but hopefully all are ironed out now.

January 22, 2009

Sport’s psychology

Great little article from Paul Sheehan at the SMH on the way the sports invented by a country speaks to its culture and the psychology of its populace…

Can you imagine the Americans coming up with a game where the score was commonly 0-0 or 1-0? Or inventing a game that could be played over five days, with numerous meal breaks, and end in a draw?

It’s actually a promo for the Superbowl, this year featuring an Australian. While Sheehan seems to be lauding the excitement contained in US sport he neglects to mention that the Superbowl is essentially two coaches playing chess with the pieces wearing body armour. Chess has built in timed pauses  in which the players make their moves. The superbowl is the same, only the pauses also allow advertisers to get the best bang for their buck.

January 22, 2009

The best bits – January 22, 2009

January 22, 2009

Don’t worry, be happy

All is now fixed. I can log in again. Hooray.

January 22, 2009

I brokes the internet

I can not for the life of me figure out what I’ve done to my WordPress
installation – but for now, the only way for me to post anything is by
email.

January 21, 2009

Targeted ads miss the mark

The amount of information stored about us online – through Google and Facebook and their ilk is incredible. It’s meant to lead to brilliantly targeted advertising with content so compelling that clicking links is irresistible. I haven’t been one to click these links too much. Sometimes I do it in order to penalise the company – they have to pay per click.

Today Facebook tried to lure me to a site for “Liberal theologians” a celebration of liberal theology where fundamentalists don’t belong. Needless to say, I clicked. I feel like I have more in common with atheists than liberals – at least the atheists are logically consistent in their beliefs. 

I hope the guy behind that site thinks it’s money well spent. I can’t help but wondering why this guy is paying to advertise his blog on Facebook. 

I wonder if my generic “religious belief” was instead set to “intolerant fundamentalist Christian” what sort of ads would pop up? Probably not all those Christian dating service advertisements I’m inundated with. Surely those advertisers on Facebook should be targeting people listed as “single”.

January 21, 2009

Twitter

Does anybody out there use Twitter? I confess I am not seeing the point. It seems to be an acquired taste. I know it’s great for reporting news events in the US because it’s reached critical mass there… and our pollies have jumped on board. I have eight friends that I am following on Twitter – far short of the number of my friends on Facebook which seems to serve essentially the same purpose.

Maybe it’s just me. I also haven’t figured out exactly what I should be putting in my tweets – most of the other people’s I’ve read seem to be either obscure or mundane… if you do use it, and you want to follow me – here I am.

January 21, 2009

Audacity of hope

The market is down 1% so far today. And closed 4% down in the US. So much for the much hyped Obama effect. Just yesterday ABC Radio’s morning show was telling us the market would bounce the moment he was sworn in.

Update – it seems this image from the SMH changes in real time.

January 21, 2009