How The Elephant Got His Trunk

When the great Rudyard Kipling wrote his "Just So Stories", he included the story of 'how the elephant got his trunk' ...... 'he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees. But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the Crocodile winked one eye--like this!' ....

The little elephant enquires what the Crocodile eats for tea,  'Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful.' 'I think,' said the Crocodile--and he said it between his teeth, like this--'I think to-day I will begin with Elephant's Child!'

Dirtiest Job Of The Week?

Wei Xinpeng is a man whose method of earning a crust definitely qualifies as dirtiest job of the week ..... he skulls up and down the Yellow River in China in his little skiff, looking for the bodies of those drowned or killed and dumped in to the  mighty river.


Its A Dirty Job, But Someone Has To Do It...

He was originally prompted to do it when one of his children drowned, and he never recovered the body for burial .... he then started looking for other bodies and then 'selling them back to relatives for burial. "I bring dignity to the dead," says Mr Wei, who goes to the temporary bridge where many bodies are caught up in the current eddies there .... if the finds one, he then posts notices in the newspapers and he charges relatives up to $500 if they want to take the body home (he has sold about 40 corpses in all) .... if they don't he buries them himself.

Two Speed Web In UK

In the UK the 'coalition' (sounds like a war government doesn't it?) have decided that instead of having a web neutral Internet in the UK, where each web site is served to your browser at the same speed, regardless of the the 'importance' of the site you are viewing, we will have a two speed system.

Communication Minister Ed Vaisey says that in future ISP's can throttle back the speed of delivering content of sites that they deem less important i.e. Those that don't 'pay more' to be classed as important. Sites which refuse to pay could see connections slowing to a crawl, while those who do pay would pass costs on to consumers ...... even those customers who paid for the highest-speed Internet connections could find their favoured sites slowing to a crawl if the website did not pay for a premium link.


A Communicator Who Can't Communicate ...

This is obviously a two pronged attack on the Internet and Web as a tool and medium for all, and suddenly on the 'Big Boys' will be 'first class' users, the rest of us schmucks will get a second class service ........ if the rest of the world ignores this new situation, then the UK could end up as backwater where international customers just disappear.

Increasingly I dislike the course that this 'coalition' is taking over a number of issues, but this is an outright attack on me and others (75% of the UK have Interent access) who use the web as both a tool of commerce and entertainment ..... it should at least be noted.

Oddly as I wrote this I found that Mr Vaisey had been doing some back tracking ..... "We're not saying one ISP should be able to prioritise one provider's content over another and I don't support the commercial decision to downgrade a rival's site." He added that he thought people who criticise him for abandoning net neutrality haven't read his speech: "I say the same as Berners-Lee." (Founder of the World Wide Web, who has strongly defended Net Neutrality), in which case he communicated this like a drunk with a sock in his mouth  ......... so we shall have to wait and see.



     

Asyum Seeking Reaches New Levels

There were two stories that show that the UN charter on Asylum needs serious strengthening ........

Firstly, a wealthy Pakistani cricketer, Zulqarnain Haider is seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, because he has fallen foul of the corruption that is an epidemic in both Pakistan's cricket, and wider society ..... now it seems to me that the political asylum laws were not meant to cover sportsmen dodging bookie gangs .... but I guess it covers everything these days, from African homosexuals, to wealthy sportsmen in corrupt countries.


Asylum Seekers Get Wealthier ....

And then, from the coming "Super Power" China, we are still getting "Asylum Seekers" (whys that then?) .... this one apparently boarded a flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver disguised as an elderly white male .... but apart from the ingenuity, it was pretty dumb as he used a Halloween "Ugly Old Man" mask .... apparently he was only caught his young-looking hands were noted , and later when he emerged from a washroom looking like a man in his twenties

You can buy masks like this all over the net and I found many example such as this one .....

Maybe they should be licenced in case the Canadian Border guards can't spot that they are jokes?

The United Nations and Womens Rights ....

In one of those stories that proves that the world has gone truly insane, the United Nations new super-agency to promote women's rights, is likely to get two members that weren't envisaged when the agency was proposed .......... Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Yes, the peace loving sponsors of Islamic fundamentalism worldwide are to be able to set the agenda and what constitutes a woman's rights around the world ...... women be afraid, be very afraid.

• Iran still sentences women to stoning, or hangs them from the back of open back lorries .....
• Saudi Arabia, sentences women to death for witchcraft.   

Both of them employ religious Mutaween police to whip women in the streets ......



Iranian Religious Police respecting women's rights ...

Ah well, I guess this is what the UN has become these days ..... and the West says nothing.