Politics

August 29, 2003

My Suburban Obesity Theories A while back I theorized (with chart) about the varying weights of urban, suburban and rural citizens. Bree has linked to a study that verifies my theories: Americans who live in the most sprawling counties tend to weigh 6 more pounds than their counterparts in the most compact areas. Adding to the sprawl concern: Pedestrians and bicyclists are much more likely to be killed by passing cars here than in parts of Europe where cities are engineered to encourage physical activity - and whose residents typically are skinnier and live longer than the average American. She also has some interesting thoughts on growing up in the suburbs. 9:34:43 AM      Trackback []    Politics

August 27, 2003

The Most Interesting Part of Horsemanship. As you know, dear readers, I love randomness and serendipity. As such, these sentences overheard on the Tube are fantastic. Mind you, when I've taken the Tube in London, I don't hear many people talking. Mostly their being all British and grim, contemplating the immensity of their commutes. A few of my favourites: Classical dressage is really the most interesting part of horsemanship. Camille Paglia. She's clever, but she knows it. She should just shut up. If we ever move to Southgate, shoot me. Ben Affleck doesn't even have a face. I would like to kill everyone. Except you. Obviously. 10:43:31 PM      Trackback []    Internet Politics

August 26, 2003

Maori Restorative Justice I've got infonesia regarding where I found this, but this is a fascinating article about the way Maori deal with young offenders: This is restorative justice, a system that has transformed the way juvenile offenders are treated in New Zealand and now embraced wholeheartedly by the British Government. It brings criminals and their victims face to face, and assigns responsibility for retribution to families and the community. I saw Whalerider on the weekend, which was a somewhat flawed but entertaining tale of a Maori tribe's struggle for meaning in the modern world. It kind of traded on its ethnicity, was overly serious, and clumsily directed, but was still a pretty fascinating and rare look at the New Zealand indigenous peoples.  9:49:00 PM      Trackback []    Movies Politics

August 22, 2003

Blogs Canada Jim Elve brings us Blogs Canada, a directory of Canadian blogs. He's done a nice job of stealing the crappy look of Canadian government sites, right down to the name (until recently, our tax office was called Revenue Canada): BlogsCanada is a pet project of Jelve Design, a small, 100% Canadian, family business run by a couple of Elves. Really. Check the Whois. We develop websites for small businesses and organizations. We are located in Canada and we pay Canadian taxes but we are definitely NOT the Government of Canada. We say so in the very first bit of text on every page of this site. Jim also has an intelligent blog about Canadian politics. 8:57:41 AM      Trackback []    Canada Internet Politics

Talking About Americans Krisitian references an extensive and fascinating poll completed by the BBC: What the World Thinks of America. Here's the full coverage, and it appears that you can even watch the program online. There was apparently a debate, and Canada was represented by the CBC's Peter Mansbridge. All of the survey data is pretty interesting (and well rendered), but this particular chart stuck out: I don't know what Brazil is thinking, but check out the American response. Who else do they think the superpowers are? I've said it before and I'll say it again, the BBC is hands-down the best TV station in the world. This reminded me of some shtick on a hilarious Canadian show called This Hour has 22 Minutes: Talking to Americans. 8:47:34 AM      Trackback []    Canada Politics

August 18, 2003

Required Reading: An American Odyssey I've been bemoaning the state of journalism lately, but this piece has nearly single-handedly changed my mind. This long essay in London's Daily Telegraph the best piece of journalism I've read this year (and possibly for several years): Graham Turner spent five weeks travelling throughout America talking to all sorts of people, members of the administration, presidents of great universities, military commanders, chief executive officers of giant corporations and banks - and a host of ordinary citizens. In this three part series, he reports his findings. He makes so many extraordinary observations and articulately re-states so many truths about the US and its increasingly imperial world view. It's lengthy (and requires free registration), but is well worth it. I'd be curious to read an American response to this piece. 6:43:47 PM      Trackback []    Politics The Commons

August 15, 2003

Statesman or Skatesman Just in from the wonderful people at B3ta: I found a fantastic picture of Enoch Powell MP on a pogo stick, and so decided to write to a load of MPs and Peers, to see whether any of them had ever been on other forms of children's locomotive toys (ie Skateboards,  Roller skates, Space Hoppers etc etc.) Much to my amazement over 80 of them responded, including three Prime Ministers, five Chancellors, six Foreign Secretaries, four Home Secretaries, and three Speakers of the House of Commons. And so http://www.statesmanorskatesman.co.uk was born. Politicians, it must be said, do some weird stuff. 9:27:54 AM      Trackback []    Internet Politics

July 16, 2003

Speak Italian Without Uttering a Word Further to these comments on Italians, James sent me the uber-Italian gesture page. It's mostly in Italian, but the videos are awesome. On a related note, here's a nifty Flash animation explaining how Italians are not, in fact, European at all, but a separate people all their own. A few of the examples--queueing, pedestrians--apply to Ireland as well. 12:43:45 PM      Trackback []    Politics