The Histomap

September 3, 2013

I have only just come across this.

The “Histomap,”  was a tour-de-force of his time, created by John B. Sparks, an amateur historian and was 5 feet long and covered 4,000 years of global history. It was first printed by Rand McNally in 1931 and was marketed for just $1.00. Inevitably his “map” is Occidental-centric but it is still a quite remarkable piece of work.

Histomap advertisement (Yale Library)

Histomap advertisement (Yale Library)

The map itself – fully zoomable – can be found at the David Rumsey Map Collection

Histomap by John B Sparks

Histomap by John B Sparks

As Musings on Maps writes:

One would assume the map effaces singularities or any singular historical narrative–the selective condensation of information to an image five feet in length in the Histomap can’t be beat for charting a balance of power among world cultures, reifying the state and racial difference as the metric by which to map world history.

HistoMap Upper Rubric

Convenience and efficiency are both premiums in its design.  As other early twentieth-century compendia of knowledge, the map glories in positivist  presumptions of mappability:  rather than offering narrative, the map offers the inverse, apparently obliterating any local meanings:  it homogenizes four thousand years not by relinquishing narrative structures, but using a racial rubric to map states’ “relative power.”

Histomap Rubric

Sparks devised the Histomap as both more ecumenical and empyrean in its economic individuation of purified vision of history, and more global.  Its color-keyed streams are readily comprehensible consultation of the lay reader, but the green dust jacket assured prospective they would be overwhelmed by “the fresh realization of the very recent insignificant contribution to history of those we are accustomed to call great men,” as the map would leave them ”enthralled.”

The Start of the Histomap

Starting from the Minoans and the Settlement of the Nile Delta, this occidentalist condensation of some four-thousand years “relative powers of contemporary states, nations, and empires,” is the distillation of an era of state-building–a narrative to which it accommodates the dynastic division of time among the Egyptians Ammorites, and Chinese, to digest their otherness in a river of time.  By erasing the Neolithic, as it were, the streams contemporaneously arise, like Athena from Zeus’ head, with the force of a declarative statement.

Each stream is distinctly separate, and as one wanes another takes its place to expand, in the uniform frame of mankind:

Each stream is separate

Geography (as globalism) is a big casualty in this visualization of time, indeed, as one stream–here the Roman–comes to fill the viewer’s field of vision from around 150 BC, as it fills not only the historical record, but the balance of world powers.  Although this was long before the notion of such a balance existed or was understood, this was the optic in which Sparks so skillfully visualized a universal history, and, more to the point, made sense to lay readers of the 1920s and 30s.

John Sparks followed up with a historical map of evolution in 1932.

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Rudd trailing Abbott in the final stretch and the bookies start paying out

September 2, 2013

My perception is not so much of Abbott taking or stretching his lead but rather of Rudd trailing and falling further behind. Like an over-the-hill runner attempting a come-back, who cannot quite keep up and who falls increasingly further behind as they enter the home stretch.

There is less than a week to go and they have had 3 debates. Neither scored a knockout but neither  fell down either. The personal popularity that was Rudd’s calling card is just a shadow of what it used to be. His beaming smile now has a hint of being sinister. If this election is in any sense a referendum on the carbon tax, Rudd is on the wrong side – even if it is Julia Gillard who takes most of that hit. The nexus between corrupt union leaders and Labour politicians lives a life of its own and a mere election will not put a stop to that. But all the recent headlines don’t particularly help Rudd.

In the critical state of Queensland, Rudd is “going the wrong way“.

Poll results.

The ALP is going the wrong way in Queensland. – The Age

I can’t help thinking that part of the ALP’s problem is that Rudd (and Gillard before him) had an over-inflated perception of their own importance on the world stage. Part of that was no doubt due to the elevated position Howard had in US eyes with his support of the Iraq War. Being a little more realistic can be to Abbott’s advantage

Herald-Sun:

TONY Abbott says Australia should stop boasting on the world stage and bring some “humility” back to foreign policy.

In a direct swipe at Kevin Rudd, the Coalition leader suggested the Government should stop “overstating” its influence and be realistic about what authority it could command internationally.

The Prime Minister yesterday continued to use to the Syria crisis to attack Mr Abbott’s apparent lack of depth on global affairs.

But in a stinging rebuke to the man once dubbed Kevin 747 for his extensive world travel as PM, Mr Abbott said Australia could be more effective as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council if it stopped exaggerating its power.

“Australia should do what it can to build a better world but we shouldn’t exaggerate our own influence,” he said following a Press Club address in Canberra to make the case for a Coalition government.

As always, following the money is usually very revealing. If the bookies had just stopped taking bets on Abbott it would have been pretty telling. But when a bookie starts paying out even before the polls have opened – let alone before the result is announced – it can only mean that one contender is overwhelmingly dominant or that the result has been fixed. Either way the result is a done thing, and one bookmaking company has started paying out bets on Abbott a full week before the election.

Reuters: Thu Aug 29, 2013

An Australian bookmaker on Thursday began paying out bets on a conservative opposition victory, declaring the country’s September 7 election race already over for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s struggling Labor government.

With nine days to go, online bookmaker Sportsbet said it had begun paying A$1.5 million ($1.34 million) in bets received on a victory for opposition leader Tony Abbott’s centre-right coalition, because the outcome was already clear.

“As far as Sportsbet’s betting markets are concerned, the Abbotts can start packing up their belongings ahead of their imminent move to Kirribilli House,” Sportsbet spokesman Haydn Lane said, referring to the prime minister’s residence in Sydney.

The race it seems is over.

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Are Kerry and Obama dancing to an Israeli tune?

September 2, 2013

There are a number of inconsistencies between the various  “intelligence” reports concerning the alleged Syrian use of chemical weapons which give rise to convoluted stories about “who knew what”, “who made up what” and “why”? That Israeli intelligence is heavily involved in presenting the “right” story is only to be expected. That Turkish sources slant everything in favour of what may help get rid of Assad is also to be expected. That Al Qaida ( and I would not put it past them to be behind the chemical attack even if only through a renegade Syrian Army general) would like Assad to be attacked and the hostilities prolonged is equally obvious. That the various Syrian opposition groups (including Al Qaida) each has its own corner to protect is apparent every day.

Perhaps everybody involved is trying to orchestrate the “intelligence” and the “evidence” –  and the result will then be something that nobody has actually designed. It is US Foreign Policy happening by accident and not by design – at least not by US design.

Admittedly many of the stories are from sources who themselves have some vested interest and nothing emanating from Syria can be taken without a major dose of salt. Nevertheless some of the stories may well have some kernel of truth. And it does seem strange that one of the first to hear about Obama’s intention to delay the expected strike and defer to Congress – before he announced it – was the Israeli Prime Minister!

Haaretz reports:

U.S. President Barack Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday and informed him that he planned to delay what seemed like an imminent attack on Syria, ahead of his speech at the White House to that regard.

Obama also told Netanyahu that he would relegate the matter to Congress, and ask for a congressional vote on any military action.

Craig Murray:  

It is therefore very strange, to say the least, that John Kerry claims to have access to communications intercepts of Syrian military and officials organising chemical weapons attacks, which intercepts were not available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee.

On one level the explanation is simple.  The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad, according to my own well  placed source in the Washington intelligence community.  Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.

But the inescapable question is this.  Mossad have nothing comparable to the Troodos operation.  The reported content of the conversations fits exactly with key tasking for Troodos, and would have tripped all the triggers.  How can Troodos have missed this if Mossad got it?  The only remote possibility is that all the conversations went on a purely landline route, on which Mossad have a physical wire tap, but that is very unlikely in a number of ways – not least nowadays the purely landline route. … The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple.  Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist.  Mossad fabricated them.  John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks.  More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts.  It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention.  It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel

Moon of Alabama: 

During next weeks discussions it will be important to point out that the U.S. “intelligence” about the chemical incident in Syria is full of holes. The paper by the British Joint Intelligence Organisation used by Cameron to ask for war speaks of 350 people killed in the incident. On Friday Secretary of State Kerry spoke of 1,429 people killed. The draft war resolution speaks of “more then thousand” killed. 350, 1,429, 1,000 – which is it?

Jack Goldsmith, the Henry L. Shattuck Professor at Harvard Law School writes at Lawfare:

The administration’s proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) for Syria provides:

(a) Authorization. — The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in connection with the use of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in the conflict in Syria in order to –

(1) prevent or deter the use or proliferation (including the transfer to terrorist groups or other state or non-state actors), within, to or from Syria, of any weapons of mass destruction, including chemical or biological weapons or components of or materials used in such weapons; or

(2) protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.

There is much more here than at first meets the eye.  The proposed AUMF focuses on Syrian WMD but is otherwise very broad.  It authorizes the President to use any element of the U.S. Armed Forces and any method of force.  It does not contain specific limits on targets – either in terms of the identity of the targets (e.g. the Syrian government, Syrian rebels, Hezbollah, Iran) or the geography of the targets.  Its main limit comes on the purposes for which force can be used.  Four points are worth making about these purposes.  First, the proposed AUMF authorizes the President to use force “in connection with” the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war. (It does not limit the President’s use force to the territory of Syria, but rather says that the use of force must have a connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian conflict.  Activities outside Syria can and certainly do have a connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war.).  Second, the use of force must be designed to “prevent or deter the use or proliferation” of WMDs “within, to or from Syria” or (broader yet) to “protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.”  Third, the proposed AUMF gives the President final interpretive authority to determine when these criteria are satisfied (“as he determines to be necessary and appropriate”).  Fourth, the proposed AUMF contemplates no procedural restrictions on the President’s powers (such as a time limit). 

…….. Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to use force against Iran or Hezbollah, in Iran or Lebanon?  Again, yes, as long as the President determines that Iran or Hezbollah has a (mere) a connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and the use of force against Iran or Hezbollah would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the U.S. or its allies (e.g. Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons.  Again, very easy to imagine.

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Nutrition rather than genetics when it comes to height over the last 100 years

September 2, 2013

Nutrition – and especially nutrition in the early years of life – has dominated the development of human height over the last 100 years. An average growth of 11 cm in the last 100 years. One hundred years is just over 5 generations and far too short a time for Darwinian genetics to have had any significant impact. This increase in height, rather than being hampered, actually accelerated during 2 World Wars and the Great Depression in the 15 European countries studied.

But now as the height impact of improved nutrition plateaus, perhaps the next 100 years and five generations of fast food will bring an 11cm increase in human width!!

In the “nature” versus “nurture” debate it only convinces me further that for all genetic traits, the particular set of genes in an individual only provides a Bell curve of the available framework for the expression of that trait. And there will be a Bell curve for each “trait” which is genetically determined. Thereafter it is “nurture” and/or the existing environment which determines the level to which that trait is expressed.

Nature and Nurture

Nature and Nurture

Science Codex: 

The average height of European males increased by an unprecedented 11cm between the mid-nineteenth century and 1980, according to a new paper published online today in the journalOxford Economic Papers. Contrary to expectations, the study also reveals that average height actually accelerated in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression.

Timothy J. Hatton, Professor of Economics at the University of Essex and the Research School of Economics at Australian National University in Canberra, examined and analysed a new dataset for the average height (at the age of around 21) of adult male birth cohorts, from the 1870s to 1980, in fifteen European countries. The data were drawn from a variety of sources. For the most recent decades the data were mainly taken from height-by-age in cross sectional surveys. Meanwhile, observations for the earlier years were based on data for the heights of military conscripts and recruits. The data is for men only as the historical evidence for women’s heights is severely limited.

Professor Hatton said, “Increases in human stature are a key indicator of improvements in the average health of populations. The evidence suggests that the improving disease environment, as reflected in the fall in infant mortality, is the single most important factor driving the increase in height. The link between infant mortality and height has already been demonstrated by a number of studies.” Infant mortality rates fell from an average of 178 per thousand in 1871-5 to 120 per thousand in 1911-15. They then plummeted to 41 in 1951-5 and 14 in 1976-80.

In northern and middle European countries (including Britain and Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and Germany) there was a “distinct quickening” in the pace of advance in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression. This is striking because the period largely predates the wide implementation of major breakthroughs in modern medicine and national health services. One possible reason, alongside the crucial decline in infant mortality, for the rapid growth of average male height in this period was that there was a strong downward trend in fertility at the time, and smaller family sizes have already been linked with increasing height.

Other factors in the increase in average male height include an increased income per capita; more sanitary housing and living conditions; better general education about health and nutrition (which led to better care for children and young people within the home); and better social services and health systems.

Source: Oxford University Press

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The irony of global warmists now becoming the “hiatus deniers”

September 1, 2013

Denying the hiatus without being seen to deny it is now becoming the most important task facing the IPCC global warmists, That the “missing heat” cannot be found is a “travesty”! It could be hiding in the deep oceans or maybe it is in the deep mantle. It can’t be in the upper atmosphere because there we have measurements.

Perhaps it is just not there but that would be too simple!

The high priests of global warming are all joining the cult of the “hiatus deniers”.

Reblogged from P. Gosselin at NoTricksZone:

Die Welt Veteran Journalist: “Ignoring Warming Stop Would Be Ridiculous”, Missing Heat “Perhaps Just Doesn’t Exist”

Veteran journalist Ulli Kulke at German national daily Die Welt has a commentary at his Die Welt blog about the upcoming IPCC report. IPCC: Discuss or Ignore Warming Stop. He starts:

According to News Service Bloomberg it is currently being discussed whether to mention the ongoing 15-year pause in global in the 5th Assessment Report“ (AR 5) to be released in late September, or if perhaps it would be better to simply ignore it in order not to unnecessarily supply so-called ‘climate skeptics’ with ammunition.”

Alarmist scientists find themselves in a dilemma and aren’t sure what to do. They are eager to argue back against skeptics’s claims that the warming has stopped, yet are petrified of bringing it up. Some are saying it is simply best to ignore the pause in warming. But Kulke writes:

The attempt to keep the warming pause out of the ongoing discussion surrounding the upcoming AR 5 would be ridiculous. Semantic and formal splitting of hairs would not stick because it cannot be denied that also the In-group of the IPCC scientists have acknowledged the stop in warming – at least internally – and view this as the biggest problem. It is “a travesty” they cannot explain. That quote comes from Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports. […] In the meantime Trenberth suspects, according to his models, that the missing heat is somewhere in the depths of the oceans. But this is not certain in any way; perhaps it just doesn’t exist.”

Kulke then adds that the IPCC also will not be able to downgrade the warming pause to a mere weather event and claim that it has nothing to do with overall climate:

Just because it is still in the range of weather and has not yet reached the time span that one uses to discuss climate, ignoring the warming stop would also be outrageous because it would mean you couldn’t mention any weather event that is not at least 30 years long.”

If increasing frequency is the test that alarmists like to use, then it’s tough to get more frequent than every year over the last 15. You can’t claim a team is in a slump-trend after it has just won 15 games in a row.

For the alarmist IPCC scientists, it’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. Bringing up the warming stop surely will be ammo for the skeptics, but so would ignoring it. Should we feel sorry for them? I don’t think so. It was they themselves who maneuvered their own jewels between the jaws of the vise. Last chance to pull them out!

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Global warming missing in South America

September 1, 2013

It’s only weather of course but the current winter in South America affords no evidence of global warming. The heat – if it is there – is extremely well hidden.

  1. It is cold that is far more deadly than warmth;
  2. it is only the availability of affordable energy which can help us ward off the cold;
  3. And it is only conventional energy sources (fossil, nuclear and hydro) whic are both available and affordable

Snow grips South American countries
Chile cold snap deaths total 16
Cold snap kills nine in Argentina

Peru snow state of emergency extended to more regions

The Peruvian government has extended to nine more regions a state of emergency called to cope with unusually cold weather and heavy snowfall. At least two people have died and 33,000 others have been affected by the cold spell, local officials say.

Tens of thousands of animals have frozen to death over the past week. President Ollanta Humala has travelled to Apurimac, one of the worst-hit areas, to oversee the distribution of emergency aid.

The state of emergency would be in place for 20 days, an official statement said. 

The heaviest snow fall to hit Peru in a decade has killed tens of thousands of llamas, alpacas, cattle and sheep, and left farmers destitute. A man died when the roof of his hut caved in under the weight of the snow in southern Carabaya province but the circumstances of the second death were unclear. Three people were rescued on Saturday from the same region after their home was cut off by snow. Rescue workers said the three, two girls and an elderly woman, were suffering from frostbite and snow blindness.

The cold front has also hit Peru’s south-eastern neighbour, Bolivia, and Paraguay, where a combined total of five people have died.

A woman walks along a snowy road on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia on 25 August 2013

A woman walks along a snowy road on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia on 25 August 2013 (BBC)

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No acknowledgement or apology for plagiarism from Rawnsley

September 1, 2013

A few weeks ago the Observer’s political correspondent Andrew Rawnsley was apparently caught plagiarising an article in the Economist by Jeremy Cliffe:

The revelations about Rawnsley came 2 weeks ago from Guido Fawkes on his blog (run by Paul Staines and is probably the most read right-of-centre political blog in the UK):

Rawnsley’s column went missing for a few weeks but I see that he has returned today. His absence could have been vacation or a spot of “gardening leave” as a slap on the wrist for his “cut and paste” activities. But I can find no reference or acknowledgement or apology for his apparently quite blatant plagiarism.

The article today is a rather topical piece about Cameron and his lost vote in the House of Commons. This only happened 3 days ago so the article is probably mostly his own work. He expounds on the thesis that Cameron’s loss was his own and not a loss for the country!

But the basis for his thesis is odd and seems to be fundamentally unsound.

Why on earth would a political commentator in the “democracy” that is the UK  think that a vote taken in a duly elected Parliament could ever be a loss for the country? Unless he believes that Parliament’s normal role is just to rubber stamp all decisions made by the sitting Government.

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Before the Sandwich came the snowy chocolatti

September 1, 2013

The use of the word “sandwich” to describe sliced meat between two slices of bread is supposed to originate after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, (13 November 1718 – 30 April 1792). But the invention of the sandwich as a dish probably goes back to the first use of flat breads and of wrapping other edible foods within the breads. As far as we know flat breads originate at least from 4,000 BCE as they were known in Sumeria and Ancient Egypt.

“Sandwich”: It was named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an 18th-century English aristocrat, although he was neither the inventor nor sustainer of the food. It is said that he ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread, and because Montagu also happened to be the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, others began to order “the same as Sandwich!”. It is said that Lord Sandwich was fond of this form of food because it allowed him to continue playing cards, particularly cribbage, while eating without getting his cards greasy from eating meat with his bare hands.

But it would seem from research by Kate Loveman that Admiral Sir Edward Montagu, the first Earl of Sandwich (1625 -1672) has an even greater claim to culinary fame than his great, great, grandson. Of course chocolate has been in use for at least some 800 years for pleasure and as a medicine but the first iced chocolate – or is it a chocolate ice? – is still a culinary milestone.The Earldom was created in 1660 and this recipe for a “snowy chocolatti” dates from 1668 or earlier.

The Earl’s iced chocolate recipe

  1. Prepare the chocolatti (to make a drink)
  2. Putt the vessell that hath the chocolate in it, into a jaraffa (carafe) of snow stirred together with some salt
  3. Shake the snow together sometyme and it will putt the chocolatti into tender curdled ice
  4. Soe eate it with spoons

Kate Loveman, The Introduction of Chocolate into England: Retailers, Researchers, and Consumers, 1640–1730,  Journal of Social History (Fall 2013) 47 (1): 27-46. doi: 10.1093/jsh/sht050

Abstract: 

In the mid-seventeenth century chocolate was a new and fascinating product in England, often grouped with two equally exotic drinks, coffee and tea. This article focuses on the early history of chocolate, examining how it was marketed, perceived, and consumed. Chocolate sellers, who included coffee-houses proprietors, frequently made use of print to educate potential customers: the 1640s and 1650s saw chocolate-drinking promoted as medicinal, excitingly foreign, and pleasurable. Further insights into the scientific, governmental, and social factors that drove interest in chocolate during the Restoration can be found in the manuscripts of the first Earl of Sandwich (1625–72).

Despite evidence of considerable industry on the part of chocolate consumers, in the 1690s the success of a new breed of elite chocolate houses led to chocolate becoming strongly associated with leisure and decadence. These cultural associations were promoted in succeeding decades by periodicals, drama, and satirical poems. Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, consumers’ experimentation with chocolate took place in the context of succeeding government’s fiscal experiments with cacao and chocolate: new tax measures influenced the cost of chocolate and its availability. By consulting a range of sources, from customs records to recipe books, we can track the ways chocolate was used across the decades and the factors in its adoption by different groups of consumers.

BBC News writes:

Dr Kate Loveman, from the University of Leicester, said she found the recipes in manuscripts which belonged to the Earl of Sandwich in 1668.

At the time, the chocolate treats came with a health warning for damaging the stomach, heart and lungs. The research also shows some of the regular themes in chocolate advertising across the centuries.

Dr Loveman, a senior lecturer in 17th and 18th Century English literature, said she was looking through a Samuel Pepys journal when she came across a 30-page section on chocolate.

Dr Kate Loveman
Dr Kate Loveman said the recipe was for a very solid, dark version of iced chocolate drinks. “It struck me as quite an unusual, odd thing because I have never come across anything quite like this before,” she said. “So I thought I would look into it further to find out how unusual it actually was.

“It’s not chocolate ice-cream, but more like a very solid and very dark version of the iced chocolate drinks you get in coffee shops today. Freezing food required cutting-edge technology in 17th Century England, so these ices were seen as great luxuries.”

The Earl’s recipe was written about 100 years before his great-great-grandson allegedly invented the sandwich. Dr Loveman said: “In the 1660s, when the Earl of Sandwich collected his recipes, chocolate often came with advice about safe consumption. 

“The papers included quite stern warnings about the dangers. It was a drug as far as people of the 17th Century were concerned.

“One physician cautioned that the ingredients in hot chocolate could cause insomnia, excess mucus, or haemorrhoids. People worried that iced chocolate in particular was ‘unwholesome’ and could damage the stomach, heart, and lungs.”

Dr Loveman’s research also shows some of the continuities in chocolate advertising across the centuries, such as links between chocolate and women, pleasure and sexuality.

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Obama blinks, passes the buck to Congress and Kerry looks like a war-monger

August 31, 2013

Well, I thought that Kerry’s speech yesterday had effectively closed off all options for retreat.

But I had not reckoned with Obama’s risk aversion and his distaste for making decisions.

He blinked, passed the buck to Congress and Kerry now looks like a war-monger! 

He found his exit from the “red-line box” he was in. And Cameron’s slap-in-the-face from his own Parliament probably provided Obama not only with the inspiration to find his own exit policy but also convinced him not to go it alone. Having French support (and the Turkish support does not really count) was clearly not sufficient for Obama to stick his neck out. The “special relationship” with the UK still has meaning – even if Cameron is smarting.

I suspect this deferment to Congress is more due to Obama’s reluctance to take risky decisions rather than his desire to support the role of Congress. Congress will not be recalled especially for this and will resume normally on Monday 9th September. If Congress approves a strike his back is covered – even if a strike achieves nothing. And if Congress rejects any strike he has an “out” and a Congress to berate for lack of moral “spine”. 

Quite clever really. A win-win for him at the cost only of enhancing perceptions of his risk aversion and his indecision. And he has no elections to face any more.

 So probably no strikes for the next 10 days but 10 days is a very long time for anything to happen.

======================

UPDATE! Someone pointed out to me that a delay of 10 days could also be very useful in the collection or manufacture of “evidence”. That may be unduly cynical but I note also that Putin’s call for the evidence to be shown and his statement that evidence which could not be seen could not be considered evidence came before Obama decided to pass the buck.

======================

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Syria, US | 1 Comment »

Drunken gang of elk get obstreperous!

August 31, 2013

It is at this time every year when apples have fallen to the ground and are gently fomenting, that the stories of drunken elk (which are not moose) proliferate in Sweden. We usually get the odd elk cleaning up under our apple tree but – so far – we have never encountered an intoxicated animal. Elk find apples – and other fruits and berries – irresistible. Their resistance to intoxication seems relatively low and drunken elk get quite feisty. This time a gang of five drunken elk got very stroppy and barred a resident from entering his own home. However, as the police report reads “Police who arrived on the scene reported that the animals had been warned that the police were on their way and wisely decided to leave the address,”

The Local:

A gang of angry drunken elk barred a man from entering his home in suburban Stockholm on Tuesday, leaving the frightened homeowner no choice but to call police for help. “Five drunken elk were threatening a resident who was barred from entering his own home,” read an incident report on the website of the Stockholm police department.

The author of the report confirmed that the homeowner, who lives on the island of Ingarö in Stockholm’s eastern suburbs, was justified in calling the police for help. “I’m not surprised that he called the police when he was faced with a gang of five drunken elk,” police spokesman Albin Näverberg told The Local. “They can be really dangerous. They become fearless. Instead of backing away when a person approaches, they move toward you. They may even take a run at you.”

The incident involved four adult elk and one calf, Näverberg explained, all of whom were intoxicated after having eaten fermented apples that had fallen from the homeowner’s apple tree.

“Police who arrived on the scene reported that the animals had been warned that the police were on their way and wisely decided to leave the address,” the report read.

“The elk will have to find somewhere else to get intoxicated.”

Perhaps the most famous photograph of a drunken elk is from September 2011 of this one which got itself stuck in an apple tree

Moose in a tree - September

When The Local talked to Per Johansson about the elk (no, it’s not a moose) that had been caught in a tree after a fermented apples bender, he would never have imagined his words would be repeated worldwide. Type “elk in a tree” into Google, you’ll find 29 million hits. Worryingly, “moose in a tree” gives even more.
Photo: Gustav Johansson

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