The Eternal Gaijin

It's a small, crap comment that still got lost somehow so I'm reposting. http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/06/satan_plays_political_favorite.php Somedays you have to wonder what the hell some people are thinking. Satan is too busy dogging my job hunt in the UK to bother with a politician's campaign.

It's not a stretch to distinguish the English from the British. In a sense there's no /British/ culture, rather British is a conflation of several distinctive nationalities and several cultures with in each; English is not Scottish is not Irish, in other words. Similarly, there's a difference between Yorshire and Anglian, Essex and Liverpudlian. We had some carpet laid down yesterday. One small bedroom needed new carpet. My wife had prepaid the company for carpet, underlay and gripper rails. The two man team showed up in the morning. One of the guys was a miserable ghit. Barely spoke and looked at the dog like he was carrying the plague (no particular plague, pick one). Guess which part of the order they didn't install. The gripper rails. And they tossed the old carpet and underlay over the rail to the concourse below our flat (without looking). When I asked them not to, they gave that English answer: It's got nuffin to do wiff me. And the older guy, the miserble gh...

7 Things You Can’t Say in Canada Reader's Digest says these things. I have to agree with the Atwood comment. Blah!

There's always a way around laws and some kind of loophole to exploit. Although there's a certain quaintness to places with no Sunday shopping, but having been to NS just recently I have to admit that you can a) be very accustomed to being able to shop when you need b) find it very frustrating to not be able to get necessities (I don't know tire puncture sealant) when the need arises. So a minor hooray for Sobey's for working out the way around it. http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/18/sunday-shopping.html?ref=rss

One of the great chances we had on the QM2 was to participate in a series of Oxford extension lectures. (Got a certificate!) I attended the lectures on evolution by Dr Robert Barton of Durham University. Barton is definitely in the Dawkins camp, supporting the idea of gene level selection. As he put it the logic is impeccable. I got the chance to speak with him about his thoughts on species level selection (a la Gould); in his opinion Gould managed several mental gymnastics to rationalize certain thoughts. I had noticed that Gould's writings had reflected a belief that natural selection could account for the most wonderful adaptations and structures but somehow not the brain. Barton's lectures covered natural selection in general, sexual selection, evolution and culture and were informative for the informed layman (me). In our short conversation Barton admitted to me that the prospect of doing evolution lectures on a ship half full of Americans made him a bit nervous, what with...

It's quite the thing to watch the World Cup (unlike the World Series this involves more than 2 countries). One of the more amusing things is a series of Budweiser ads showing American commentators either preparing or watching footie and making the most profoundly ignorant comments. I have no idea if they've been posted on You Tube or somewhere else yet, but if they have been check them out.

Through Dispatches from the Culture War. Saw this last night. Only about a day behind. Stewart's triumph here was reversing the slippery slope metaphor to include the next step is banning inter-racial marriage. Very well done. I still have yet to see a slippery slope thin edge of the wedge argument that I thought much of. http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/06/jon_stewart_hammers_bill_benne.php

Hooray, the insurgency is over. Peace breaks out in Iraq. http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/06/08/zarqawi-killed.html?ref=rss Jordanian-born militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted insurgent in Iraq, has been killed in a U.S. air raid north of Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister said Thursday.

Today I thought I'd repudiate some of my previouse statements. But then I realized I wasn't using the word properly. Still: 1. Weather: Today it's absolutely beautiful. Direct from wholesale ordering. 2. TV: Tony Robinson and Terry Jones's documentary series are on a lot. All the Futuramas that Canadian TV never plays (all but 4 in other words) are on. Lots of Buffy and Angel. Sky TV is pretty cool. 3. Cars: Volkswagon Polo? Nissan Micra? Vauxhall Nova? Vauxhall anything? I don't really know cars but these things are an intruiging mystery. 4. Argos: Consumer's Distributing lives! The catalogue is great. You still write down your number on the little slips and pick your order. It's great! It's a nostalgia trip. /Cheap/ laser printers too. (Cheap for the UK) 5. Beer: Brits love beer. Canadians do too, but we don't love variety in our beer the way Brits do. They have some great beers h...

Some things that I've noticed since being here. Numbered, but not ordered. 1. Neighbours: There are some great people in the UK, but everyone that you've ever seen in a BritFlick saying "That's got nuffin' to do wiff me." as they see you lying bleeding in the ditch lives on this street and the next two over. 2. Weather: Why do they hire meteorologists here? I mean seriously...look out the window. You're in London. What do you think it's doing? It's raining. Meteorologist is Greek for "underemployed." 3. Drought: Only England could possibly create the Rain Sodden Drought. It's rained just shy of every day since we got here and the drought continues. Where the hell does the water go? 4. Street signs: are all mounted at my knees. What am I, a hobbitt? 5. Smoking in bars: This just has to stop. Have you every been around a smoker and they say something like: I really nee...