Quotulatiousness

September 26, 2009

British libraries now afraid to lend scissors to patrons

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 16:13

The staff at the Holborn Library in London are apparently very worried about the risk of being attacked by library patrons, so they won’t even lend scissors:

Lorna Watts, 26, a self-employed dressmaker, was turned down at Holborn Library in central London.

She said: “It’s ridiculous — public libraries are supposed to be supportive of small businesses.”

A spokeswoman for Camden Council, which runs the library, has apologised and said it would investigate the incident.

Ms Watts, from Islington, north London, said: “I asked why I couldn’t borrow a pair of scissors and she said, ‘they are sharp, you might stab me’.

“I then asked to borrow a guillotine to cut up my leaflets but she refused again — because she said I could hit her over the head with it!”

The way Britain has been going, I’m surprised they didn’t hit Ms. Watts with an ASBO for the implied threat here: “It’s absurd — there are plenty of heavy books I could have hit her with if I wanted to.”

Those confusing/conflicting Arctic ice stories

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:13

How can it be that on one day, we’re told that the Arctic is thawing at an unprecedented rate, yet the next day we’re told that the ice is twice as thick as predicted? Lawrence Solomon tries to sort out the sensational from the prosaic:

If you’re confused by stats on Arctic melting, you have lots of company. Arctic stats are easy to misunderstand because the Arctic environment is unlike our own — the Arctic magnifies the changes we experience in the temperate regions. In summer, our days get longer and theirs get really, really long, just as in winter, when our days gets shorter, theirs all but disappear. By analogy, the Arctic also magnifies temperature variations, and resulting changes to its physical environment.

In the Arctic, the ice has indeed been contracting, as the global warming doomsayers have been telling us. But it has also been expanding. The riddle of how the Arctic ice can both be contracting and expanding is easily explained. After you read the next two paragraphs, you’ll be able to describe it easily to your friends to set them straight.

Rick Mercer explains voter apathy

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

Rick Mercer has diagnosed the real reason nobody really wants a fall election in Canada:

It may be a myth that the Inuit have 100 different words to describe snow; it is an absolute truth that people on Parliament Hill have twice as many words to describe Stephen Harper’s various levels of angry.

[. . .]

Voting Conservative is not a problem for a majority of Canadians; we’ve done it before. Voting for an angry guy who thinks we’re stupid and will believe anything? That takes some getting used to.

[. . .]

The Liberals should have a bit of an advantage this time around. Having been beaten badly in the last election, they quickly took Stéphane Dion out behind the barn and he hasn’t been seen since. Immediately afterward, there was a puff of white smoke and the Liberal party suddenly had a brand new leader in Michael Ignatieff. He is by all accounts highly qualified, having dazzled many people at dinner parties for decades.

Mr. Ignatieff is, as we speak, surrounded by a brigade of young people in pointy shoes and designer glasses who work for him, worship him and twitter about him. Why we should vote for him? I’ve read the tweets; I’ve yet to see an answer.

[. . .]

Canadians have never come close to electing a New Democrat government federally, and yet Jack dreams. This is fine, as dreams are important.

The problem with Jack is, we all saw how excited he got when he actually thought that he was going to be a part of a coalition government. It wasn’t a normal excitement; it was the kind of excitement that scares other passengers on a plane.

Three excellent reasons to stay away from the polls. If there’s an election this year, I’m hoping there’ll be a smaller party I can cast my ballot for (without needing to hold my nose).

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