Assorted musings...

A strange story from New Zealand - a 9 year old girl is in court guardianship there so that her name can be changed. The name her parents gave her? - Talula Does The Hula from Hawaii. At this point I pause to beat my head against the wall. The judge gave other examples of bizarre names in his ruling including Fish and Chips, Stallion, Sex Fruit and - erm - Violence. Now my general rule on officials telling people what to do is I'm against it. Here I make an exception. Being a child/adolescent is difficult enough without having to drag baggage like that around. As for the parents? Moderate words fail me.

Another tiresome example of the professions joining in with officialdom in mindless bossiness has surfaced. The British Medical Journal pronounces that bigger families are as environmentally dubious as patio heaters or gas guzzlers. Oh get lost you arses! This kind of medical pontificating is not confined to the printed word. I heard a mother of 6 on the radio saying that after the birth of one of her children she was gratuitously asked by some medical professional what she was going to do to prevent the next one. She told the medical professional where to get off. Quite right too. There is apparently 1.91 children per woman in the UK. If the rate fell to 1.7, the population would halve in six generations. Hardly an overpopulation crisis. Affluent people tend to have small families. If you are in a poor country and children are your social security system cum pension policy and infant mortality rates are high, you have lots. Remarkably, this state of affairs continues despite the strictures of the British Medical Journal. The rabbit is a father of 2 for the record.

Strange goings on as regards the clip posted on Monday. First the clip was taken down by YouTube and then Memphis Steve (link to left) reports that the link to the clip is blocked at his place of work. What is going on here? the clip is at least still up on the B'tselem website - http://www.btselem.org/english/Firearms/20080721_Nilin_Shooting.asp - A modest proposal: could all bloggers of goodwill copy, paste and stick the link up on your blog. It seems the only answer to the deleters and blockers.

I'm off for a break in rural Bucks so no new postings for a few days but a random parting shot: why are there so many blokes wandering about in Argentina rugby shirts these days? Is it some sort of ironic statement or are we being stealthily invaded? just asking...