I have a surprise for you

Dear friends,
How are you ?I am pleasant to tell you that I just found a good online
store engage in famous brand handbags.They are all in top
quality,affordable price,and elegant appearance.I think they are
wonderful articles,maybe you will have the same thoughts after you go
:www.sell-brand-bag.com
May you have a happy shopping journey there~!

Armed to the teeth

It sometimes amazes me how often scientists come up with reports that 'prove' what I already knew.

The case in point today is a piece of news I found on newscientist.com, which states that a study by a scientific team of the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that you are far likelier to get shot and killed if you are carrying a firearm yourself.

Of course, it's called news, but it isn't, really. That is, the only newsworthy bit of it is that scientists have actually spent valuable time and resources studying it, since it seems to me this conclusion is entirely logical. Why do I think so?

If you are carrying a gun, there are several options:
1) You are in a profession in which gun-toting is allowed or obligatory (i.e. the police, military, secret service, etc.), which severely increases your chances of being shot and killed.
or
2) You are a regular inhabitant of the world of crime, which severely increases your chances of being shot and killed
or
3) You are in a country at war, which severely increases your chances of being shot and killed
or
4) You are in a country in which it is legal and desirable or fashionable to carry a gun (for instance, the USA), which means that many more people besides yourself will be carrying a gun as well. And since there are always people who cannot contain themselves and will use every weapon available if they feel threatened/angry/outraged/frustrated/fearful, this severely increases your chances of being shot and killed.

Did they really need scientific study to prove all that?

But here's the thing: according to the news item it would be 'impractical – not to say unethical – to randomly assign volunteers to carry a gun or not and see what happens.'

Hmmm...impractical or not, in order to make this study sound (not to say slightly less ridiculous), it's imperative that such on-hands trials should take place. It was difficult, but I think I've found a group of people who might jump at the challenge, as this is a subject that's close to their hearts.

So does anyone have the phone number for Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Association?

Men Wanted... or Wanted Men?

According to the BBC, scientists at the University of Edingburgh are searching for men to participate in a trial for contraceptive injections. Basically, these men would be injected with some sort of drug, and then they will be monitored to see what happens. Apparently, this particular cocktail is better at preventing pregnancy than condoms...

Imagine it: you're a single female, out on the town in Edinburgh when you happen to come across a man with whom you hit it off nicely. You have a drink, good conversation and before you know it, one thing leads to another: you end up in his bed.

Of course, you make sure the sex is safe and ask for a protection. 'Oh,' he says, 'that's not necessary, I'm protected! I'm in the contraceptive trials, so we don't need a condom!'

Nine months later, you're giving birth to your first child and your face is plastered all over he papers. The headlines: 'Male contraceptive injection trials fail - scientists state they "need to go back to the drawing board"'.

And that's all before you find out you've contracted Chlamydia.

EU parliament elections

I received my voter card for the European Parliament elections through the post today. But since my move to England has been rather recent and I've been too busy with other things than to concentrate on European politics, I haven't a clue as to what the political landscape looks like. 

So instead, I went searching the internet for something that has been in vogue in Holland for years: a political profiler. This is a website that asks you a number of questions and which, based on your answers, tells you where your opinions fit in with the political parties. 

I'm not going to tell you my answers, nor who I (according to this website) should be voting for. In my opinion, everyone should make up their own minds, and I don't want to be stigmatized by my choices either.

But one thing struck me. You see, after you've answered all your questions, you can choose to compare your standpoint with those of all the political parties in Europe, either all at the same time or on a country-by-country basis. And, being Dutch, I had a look at the parties from The Netherlands. 

Now if you see the chart, one of the Dutch parties stands out: the Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV. It's name translates to the Party for Freedom, and their logo is a flying bird. Yet the graph also shows that they are anti-immigration. Almost off the scale anti-immigration, even. How is that freedom, if you cannot allow people to move between countries? What freedom does this party promise us, exactly? And on that note, I wouldn't vote for them, ever. 

Oh, and if you're interested, if I wanted to vote for the party who's closest to my own ideas I'd have to move to Cyprus, apparently. I guess I'll go search for language classes now...

Orange turns to red

Today used to be my favourite day of the year:

Queensday, the Dutch national holiday, will never be the same again.

And for once, I'm out of words.

A rock and a hard place

There's been a lot of news coverage on the Australian Miss Universe competition lately. That is, the winner didn't seem to get any coverage at all, at least world-wide, but the runner up, Stephanie Naumoska has even given an exclusive interview to Good Morning America yesterday.

This is because she is frightfully skinny, and her bony figure in a tiny red bikini has had the entire world flapping about anorexia and other eating disorders. She insists that she eats normally, that she is healthy and active, and that she cannot help being thin. She says: 'Some people are just naturally skinny... I think it is very unfair just to all the other girls out there who have the same body type as myself.'

I can relate to this, to people who continually criticize you for your bodysize. My problem, as people who know me can attest, is the other direction: regardless of what I try, I can never seem to get my weight down to an acceptable level, even though I do eat regularly and healthy. Even if I spend all my time moving and playing sports, and even if I'd eat too little for any person to live on, I'd still be overweight.

The problem is that no one ever believes you when you have a weight issue. I only have to walk into a supermarket to get the idea that there are people watching what I put in my basket. No matter who I talk to regarding food, or what I eat, I always have the feeling they don't believe me. So, I can commiserate with Stephanie for her ordeal.

And let's face it: who cares? If she is naturally skinny, let her be naturally skinny. If she's not, and she is actually starving herself, let her starve herself, it's her life. You can say she's a bad role model, but if there wasn't a Miss Universe competition in the first place, she wouldn't have been able to be a role model anyway?!?!? If she is anorexic, isn't it possible she has contracted that disease from watching beauty pageants anyway? Perhaps it's time to stop criticizing everyone on how they look and just be glad there's all kinds of people in the world.

But I must confess that I secretly had a chuckle that, after all the overweight publicity (heart disease, obesity, type-II diabetes and so on and so forth), the world finally seems to have a problem with the other end of the scale. Maybe they'll get off my back for a while!

9/11 all over again...

Yesterday morning, people in New York were shocked by a large Boeing 747 flying low over the city, trailed by two fighter jets. It came particularly close to both the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero, the spot where the World Trade Center used to stand.

It seems that several people, panicked by their memories of the attacks on September 11, 2001, fled into the streets, fearing another terrorist attack.

However, their fear turned to fury when it turned out this particular plane was having a photo opportunity. This particular jet was none other than: Airforce One. Apparently, the media machine that is the White House regularly has photo's taken of the presidential ride at important national landmarks. The president was not on board.

Now if only they'd informed the people about it?

New Science

I'm a great fan of neo-pseudo science magazines, I think they're wonderful. They offer hours of entertaining answers to all sorts of questions I may or may not ever have had. In Holland I had my favourites, Triv and Quest, but I've been struggling to find alternatives in England.

That's how I came to pick up a copy of New Scientist this week, in which I found an interesting article about a hypothetical kind of particle, specifically a type of photon, which, if used correctly, could shine all the way through the Earth. And I don't mean a soil sample, but the entire planet. Apparently the idea is to aim a special laser at the earth so that someone at the other end, who has the right equipment, can decode it. It would be nearly impossible to intercept, and therefore excellent for, for instance, submarines or other military installations. These miracle particles might even be able to take messages where standard radio signals could not go. The dark side of the moon, for instance.

One scientific commentator says: '...these particles, if they exist, would have potentially useful real-world applications.' Imagine that, a particle with a real-world application. Another commentator states that the signal capacity would be so low that it would take '...about a year to download an mp3 file, so I'm not sure who would use it.'

Now I'm positively ignorant when it comes to quantum mechanics. I've been trying to read up on quarks, muons and besons, and I just don't get it. To me, it seems that trying to smash two particles into one another in order to see what happens (and spending trillions of Euro's building the equipment for it) is just the most elaborate (and expensive) way to show our prehistoric, cave-dwelling roots. I imagine the conversations would go just about the same: 'ooh, I wonder what would happen if I smash this particle into that particle '. I generally have the greatest admiration for people with intelligence, so I'm sure there's some underlying reason that I'm missing, but it has yet to be explained to me.

But with all my ignorance, I spotted something in this whole article that, apparently, the brainiest of scientist has missed:

Guys... these particles are hypothetical?!?!?!

RyanAir

BBC Breakfast said this morning that Ryan Air - the crappy low-cost airline - is proposing a 'fatty-tax' on their flights. They want to start charging overweight people over, if you catch my drift. In other words, there you are, shedding thousands of pounds (sterling) in order to weigh not one ounce less, and still being charged more.

This comes, of course, a few months after the same-self airline proposed charging its customers for using the toilet during a flight. In other words, you're not even allowed to redistribute your weight when you come in.

I have some other proposals for Ryan Air:
*Why don't they make it a standing-room-only flight, and charge double for people in wheelchairs? They do, after all, take up more space.
*Charge people with small children, disabled people and the elderly extra for taking longer to board - after all, every second spent on the ground costs.
*Charge anorexics extra for a seat: if you are light enough to be used as a streamer, you don't deserve a seat, after all.
*Charge normally sized - and under - for the seating space they don't use. If you have 4 people who each have 10 cms left in their seat, they are denying someone else room to sit. The same counts for people who are short.
*Instead of seats, have individual cubby-holes that people lie in, a bit like the pod-hotels you see in Tokyo. I can just imagine it, each traveller gets a space of their own, which can then be redistributed through the plane in order to make more fit in. You could then call the flight a regular coffin ship...

I suppose that one RyanAir adagio stands: you get what you pay for. In other words, you don't pay much, but you get even less.... respect, that is.

Oh dear...

Okay, so it's been a while since I've posted anything... I've been so incredibly busy with myself! I'm afraid emigrating is not an easy thing to do, and somehow my life just kept getting harder. But I'm in England now, and althoough the problems have not yet all passed, I'm feeling much better. The winter is over, it's glorious weather, and I'm roaring to go!