Martin World News

ITEM:  I have not one, but TWO of my teams winning championships!  More details will be found on the NHFFL page this week and next, but congrats to Polish champion Sanok who took out #1 Tychy in 6 games, and the UK's Sheffield Steelers who won their one-game winner take all match with Belfast's Giants in OT to take their fourth playoff title.


ITEM:  How's this headline grab you?

9-month old Pakistani boy arrested for attempted murder, threatening police


Pretty active little tyke, eh?  His dad was part of a protest group (if you believe him)/mob of gasoline thieves (if you believe the police), but it was little Mohammed Mosa Khan that got the felony charges.  Apparently the "mob" pelted the cops with stones when they tried to break up the protest/stop the larceny.

Judge Rafaqat Ali first directed police to record the child’s statement, then when he realized his age, granted him bail and adjourned the case until April 12. The judge could not dismiss the case as it’s not under his jurisdiction.
Senior Superintendent of Police Rana Jabbar said there was a misunderstanding that led police to book the minor in the case. The assistant superintendent who filed the charges against the infant has been suspended.


Yeah, probably a good idea.  I'll bet that asst. superintendent kills 'em at birthday parties.


ITEM:  A couple of stories our UK buddy Grumpy Old Ken  posted about as he perused the London Times the other day:

Three things that made me mad. Why does the NHS need an art curator and a Green Travel Administrator I wonder. And the woman from Frome in Somerset who claimed £50,000 in Benefits whilst working as a travel guide in India. She said, 'Impossible, I'm an agoraphobic." There's some strange people about.

To the underinformed, the NHS is their National Health Service- y'know, the kind of thing that fans of Obamacare would love us to have here.  So why would a health service need an art curator or a "green travel administrator?"  Guess what, in about 15 years, you'll probably asking OUR government why OUR health system needs one.  This is where we're heading, folks- a world just like England, where we have a couple hundred bucks tucked into that bill for our root canal for "the lady that picked out the wall hangings and the cute little potted plant cozies on the geraniums at the reception desk."  Of course, I'm sure the bill will trim my description down to "ergonomic therapies" or some other such.

And hiring an agoraphobic travel guide... who no doubt took the job so they could be on the dole.  Reminds me of my old job where we once had a janitor drawing a SS disability check... his disability?  Alcoholism.  Fired for coming in drunk too many times.


ITEM:  From young to old to young again... oh, these darned kids!

Kristoffer Von Hassel, a five year old from the San Diego area, hacked his dad's xBox account- without even using a password.  Did he get in trouble?  No- he was named an official researcher by Microsoft, along with getting 4 new games, $50, and a year's subscription to xBox live.  They may as well put the little guy on salary, they'll be doing it soon enough anyway:

It's not the first time Kristoffer has flashed his tech skills.
“He’s figured out vulnerabilities 3 or 4 times,” said (Robert) Davies (his dad).
At age 1, Kristoffer got past the toddler lock screen on a cell phone by holding down the home key.

This time, he got in because, after several password attempts failed, the game took him to a password verification screen, and he typed the space bar a few times and hit "enter"- and he was in.


ITEM:  What happens when you automate toll road billing?  Let's see how it went in South Africa:

Cape Town - a Table View resident who hasn’t driven her car in Gauteng for more than 20 years has been sent an e-toll bill by the South African National Roads Agency Limited.

Ireley Hoare of Sunningdale said she was shocked when the bill for R16.53 arrived in her mail on Wednesday.

Hoare said she often flew to Johannesburg, but had not driven a vehicle on Gauteng roads for more than 20 years.

 

 

Her daughter also got a bill without having been on the road.  It seems to be an ongoing problem (perhaps the collection software was designed by the ones who built our Health.gov).  In fact, here's another account:

 

In February, Fin24 reported that Citrusdal couple Johnnie and Ina van Wyk had been billed R43.50 by Sanral for their tractor. The couple had reportedly not been in Gauteng for 40 years.

 

 

And my fellow Hoosiers complained about Mitch Daniels selling the toll road.  At least you have to be somewhere near the Indiana Toll Road to be billed!

 

ITEM:  Speaking of South Africa:

 

 

 

Poo protesters challenge ANC

 

And how, pray tell, does one become a "poo protester"?

 

 

It is alleged they and seven others emptied containers with human faeces at the Cape Town International Airport’s entrance in the departure terminal on June 25.

 

 

This was in response to the ... er, crappy conditions the ANC, alleged bastion of hope for the little guy, was allowing to occur in some poor areas.

 

ANC members Andile Lili and Loyiso Nkohla issued their ultimatum to the ruling party.

“We have made it clear. We will only vote for the ANC if they make a commitment to give these people what they want. If there is no land, sanitation or housing it means there’s no vote, even myself as an ANC councillor I won’t vote,” Nkohla said.

 

Nkohla also said that they were confident that the charges would be... er, wiped away.

 

 

ITEM:  Are there Democrats in Sri Lanka?  Possible evidence here...

 

40000 illegal ballot papers in toilet of UPFA chief Ministerial candidate Rasaputra found ! Island wide election fraud with MaRa patronage

(Lanka-e-News- 30.March.2014, 4.30PM) Following the discovery
of the fraudulent
 election activities
at Matara day before yesterday(28) which was an index
of how the Rajapakse regime is indulging in election malpractices
 and the victories scored based on them ,
 Lanka e news inside information division has

this detailed report noted hereunder :

Believe it or not ! the large number
of illegal ballot papers that were
 found in the office of the Matara
UPFA chief Minister candidate
 Chandima Rasaputra had been taken
 possession of by the SSP of
 that division the most notorious Deshabandu Tennekoon ,
and until now nobody knows
where they were taken or used.


Where they ended up being found, it seems, was in the
 "executive washroom"...
266 books containing 150 ballot papers each were found hidden in
 Rasaputra’s toilet,
and all these had been videoed by the Assist. Commissioner’s camera.
There had been 400, 000 such illegal ballot papers .

Kinda puts the lady that voted for Obama six times to shame, don't it?


ITEM: I tumbled across a story about how Bhutan was mad that they made a list of "60 failed nations" according to the think tank Fund For Peace.  These guys combine scores in "security threats, economic implosion, human rights violations and refugee flows" among 12 categories they score each nation in.  Actually, Bhutan had come in 63rd, so perhaps math is one of those other factors.  Now here are the actual 2013 "failed states" top ten:

1- Somalia (Anyone surprised here?  Pirate capital of the world...)
2- DR Congo (formerly Zaire, which was a much classier name)
3- Sudan (which of course means that next is...)
4- South Sudan (I imagine that Sudan is a bigger failure because they let South Sudan get away)
5- Chad (Jeremy was well down the list)

"Cause that was yesterday... now yesterday's gone..."

6- Yemen (biggest export- dead al-Qaeda members)
7- Afghanistan (USO shows and US Army gift shops keep them out of the top 5)
8- Haiti (Another no-brainer)
9- Central African Republic (Currently in a civil war between Christians, Muslims, and soldiers from Chad trying to move down on the list)
10- Zimbabwe (sliding towards normalcy as Bob Mugabe gets older and less able to do stupid stuff; they are down from #5 last year)


The group groups the nations into "Alert" (AKA You are failed, 35 in this group), "Warning" (AKA the Failed States minor leagues, 36 through 136 on this list), "Stable" (AKA Aw, you guys are no fun; 127-164 on this list, including the UK, France, and the US of A), and "sustainable"  (AKA the nations who, like cockroaches, will survive when everything falls apart.  The sustainables include:

1. Finland
2. Sweden
3. Norway
4. Switzerland
5. Denmark
6. New Zealand
7. Luxembourg
8. Iceland
9. Ireland
10. Australia
11.Canada
!2. Netherlands
13. Austria
14. Germany

So basically you have former British colonies that speak English, Germany and her 3 moons, and Scandinavia.  But let me ask you this:  Ireland is one of the "PIIGS" (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) that are in so much economic trouble, and they're in?  Didn't Iceland just have a major bankruptcy issue, too?  And the US of A finished out of the top twenty?  Hmmmm....


On a related note, I also found a survey from the World Bank on "the easiest nations in which to do business".  Here's the top ten there:

1- Singapore (boy, they got there little hands in everything, don't they?)
2- Hong Kong (which really shouldn't count because they are "part of China", right?)
3- New Zealand ( the first of the double-dippers)
4- the US of A (Oh, yeah, HERE we show up...)
5- Denmark ( another double-dipper)
6- Malaysia (Unless you are an airline...)
7- South Korea (Which reminds me, how did North Korea only hit #23 on the failed states?  They seriously beat out Nigeria and Kenya?)
8- Georgia (yeah, a hop and a skip from Crimea, already invaded by Russia once, but they have a LOT of McDonalds's...)
9- Norway (double-dipper #3)
10- UK (take that, Australia, Canada, and Ireland!)

Russia came in 92nd, beat out by six former Soviet republics, three former Yugoslav republics, and five Caribbean Island republics.  Not to mention Guatemala.  The were 80th on the failed state list, being judged worse off than seven former Soviet republics, ALL the former Yugoslav republics, the Dominican Republic...  but they did beat out Guatemala.