Unhappy? Really?

On perusal of the BBC homepage, this headline blurb caught my eye.

Home truths

Life in shacks makes black South Africans unhappy

No! Why would it? I can't understand.

I'd venture a guess that life in shacks probably would make most people unhappy, color and nationality notwithstanding. Maybe not people who are currently living in caves, or simply exposed to the elements on street corners, but taken as a whole, I'd say that the bulk of humanity wouldn't be happy in shacks. I'm sure there's more to the story, but the headline blurb isn't great.

North Korea

The whole article is great, but all you need to know about North Korea is contained in the following sentence:

That evening we were taken to the theatre to watch a ballet devoted to the triumphant building of a hydroelectric dam.

Yeah... they might be crazier than the Burmese.

And lest you think that this is overt racism, it is not. I feel incredibly sorry for the poor people who have to live in both North Korea and Burma, because those countries are FUBAR. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the kind of crazy that shouldn't be let out.

And the previous comes from a person who actually likes Soviet art and literature.

A Metaphor That Needs Work

I am bothered by comparisons of apples and oranges, particularly if the point of the comparison is to prove that apples should be peeled because oranges should be. It doesn't even matter if I disagree with the central premise of the comparison; I still want a better analogy.

South Africa is mooting the idea of banning all Internet porn. We could argue all day about freedom of speech or the idiocy of believing that it could be done, but what I actually take issue with is this quote by Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba (from this BBC article), to whit:

"Cars are already provided with brakes and seatbelts [sic]... There is no reason why the Internet should be provided without the necessary restrictive mechanisms built into it."

No. No no no. It won't do, Mr. Gigaba. Cars are provided with brakes and seat belts for good reason, and perhaps the Internet of South Africa should be provided with a mythical porn-blocking filter for good reason too, but those reasons aren't the same.

According to Mr. Gigaba, brakes and seat belts are "restrictive mechanisms," possibly because they restrict the car's movement or the movement of the driver. But a far better way to classify them would be as safety mechanisms, in that without them, the car is extremely unsafe, as is the driver. Comparing that safety to a virus scanner or a firewall is kosher, because those things are safety devices for computers and the Internet. If South Africa were planning to put up a national firewall to keep out attackers (rather, of course, than keeping out porn, which isn't so much a safety issue as one of those "restrictive mechanisms") then it would be a fine metaphor to use.

However, what Mr. Gigaba is actually talking about is the technology to keep a car from exceeding the speed limit. That's restrictive technology, and one could argue whether or not it was safer. Similarly, keeping computers from visiting pornographic sites is restrictive technology and one could argue whether or not it was safer. Sadly, Mr. Gigaba can't use that analogy because the technology to keep cars from driving faster than the posted speed limit, if it exists, is not widely available. We could be developing it, and I think it would save lives, but we're busy keeping people from looking at dirty pictures.

In summary, seat belts don't keep you from doing anything you would otherwise do, and their sole purpose (unless you're a crank who believes that they're terrible) is to keep the driver safe. Porn-filtering technology keeps you from doing something you would otherwise do, and there may be a side effect of making you safer. One is restrictive, one is not. And brakes are just part of the car. Without brakes, a car is no longer a car, it's a poorly-guided suicide missile. No comparison there.

If You Do It

Here's the deal: if you have a religious prohibition against doing something, that means you and your coreligionists shouldn't do it. That does not mean that everyone else who isn't a member of your religion is bound by those same rules.

So you have a rule that you can't eat hot dog buns. You feel very strongly that the eating of hot dog buns is wrong. Everyone laughs at you, but you refuse to eat those hot dog buns, no matter how tasty they look, no matter how annoying it is to eat hot dogs sans bun.

Then you see another person eating a hot dog bun, you go berserk, and you kill him or her with a runcible spoon, the weapon your religion has historically used to kill infidels. Everyone says, "Oh, well, I guess we really shouldn't eat hot dog buns so we don't offend that religion," but what they're really thinking is, "Gee, I don't want to get killed with a runcible spoon too."

Herein, the idiocy. If you have a problem with something, don't do it. If you believe that everyone should have a problem with something, you should try to convert them to your religion, wherein they will be prohibited from doing that thing. But if you think that just because you feel religiously bound to dance naked in the streets every July 12th, I'm going to do the same thing so as not to piss you off, then you are thinking wrong. Hell, if dancing naked in the streets is against the law, I'm not even going to support you in your claim to be religiously oppressed.

It's not offensive to do something that someone else is religiously prohibited from doing. It's simply a reflection of the fact that you're not a member of that religion. If they don't like it, they can look away, or keep not doing it, or try to convert everyone in the world to their religion. But until they do, it's not a matter of political correctness, it's a matter of fact. Not everyone believes that. Whatever that happens to be.

Update to Quantities

Just a brief note: in reference to my statements of amounts vs. numbers, the easiest thing to remember is "many" vs. "much". If you would say, "many", as in "many cups of coffee," then you can use "numbers." "Many" can be counted. Manny is a two-bit mook, and Murray is an accountant, and together the two of them can be counted, although one could not say they number many. Murray might number Manny if Manny was going to run in a race or something, but the two of them wouldn't number many.

Confused? Sorry. I'm just injecting some humor.

"Much," on the other hand, is something uncountable. You have "much" coffee. Well, you don't often say that, but you can have "so much coffee." Suffice to say that if you can use "many" then you can use "numbers," and if not, you should use "amounts."

Note that this gets confusing because people ask, "How much?" and expect a number sometimes. They should be asking, "How many?" but we'll give them a pass. Still, if you can say "I have many Xes" where "Xes" is some plural noun, then you have large numbers of Xes, rather than large amounts of X. See, amounts takes singular, numbers takes plural.

The Russians are so much better about this.

Likely

You know how much I love stupid things. In this case, I just love criminal offenses which are vague enough that about anyone could be charged with them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8667761.stm

I'm not pro-terrorism. I don't like people who kill other people for any reason, really. So I'm not really saying that the people in question are guilty or innocent or anything else. I'm just agog at the crime with which one of them was charged.

Ilyas Iqbal was jailed for 18 months for possessing a document likely to be useful to a terrorist.

Okay. I possess a document which might be useful to a terrorist. Not even "might." It's likely to be useful to a terrorist. It's called the phone book. I understand that it contains contact information for people who sell various items a terrorist might find very useful indeed. I know I'm not in England, but I'd venture a guess that, even if you can't find gun dealers in the phone book in Ol' Blighty (and I don't know, maybe you can) you can find various other contact information of interest, if not likely to be useful.

In the age of terrorism, we've gotten so scared of things that we accuse people of having documents "likely to be useful." Not even, "documents which were proven to be used in the commission of a terrorist act." That's problematic too, but we're not even going to be that hardcore. Terrorist paraphernalia this ain't. This is like the DEA arresting me because I own plant food, which I might use to grow cannabis. Of course, they could also arrest me for owning plant food because it contains fertilizer, which would likely be useful to make a bomb.

Yes sir, we're sure scared of terrorism. I bet terrorists find that useful. It's likely, anyway.