'Nother Solent

Blogging hiatus coming up.

I will be away from the middle of the month and have a lot to do in the next two weeks. No time for blogging, I'm afraid. Dry your tears. I will be back at the beginning of March.

Her vigilance never sleeps.

Moira Breen has spotted Dr Frank who has the facts you need about unconscious irony from the LA Times, Julie Burchill on the road to Damascus and mistranslated subtitles to the Lord of the Rings.

BTW, no one is going to believe me on this, but I tell you it is uncanny how often I spontaneously go to link to someone, no checking of referrer logs or nuffink, and find the someone has linked to me. Then I have a dilemma. It looks so uncool to make the planned link since a cynical world is sure to think that I make it only so that the reader will see the bit that says, Natalie Solent is more wholesome than expensive unsliced bread with mysterious gritty bits in it and fuller of beneficial alpha-linolenic acid than oily fish. Yet if I don't link, my readers miss out on whatever wit or wisdom had caught my eye and I provide a peverse incentive for no one to ever say nice things about me.

That's a roundabout way of saying that you can skip the bit about me and go straight to the interesting discussion about the professor who refused to recommend a creationist student on Moira's blog. And she's looking forward to processing Oregon's poorest for wolf-chow, too.

Malta

, according to my sister who went there on a school trip decades ago and so knows all about it, has nice people but basically "looks like a great big Digestive biscuit."

Be that as it may, among the many threads contributed by the island to the tapestry of world history are the Knights, the Great Siege of 1565, the second Great Siege of 1941 and Peter Briffa's stiletto.

So I'm already pro Malta. And if they help save Europe by their example for a third time I shall be still more so.

(Scroll up from that last link for some careful analysis of what's going on in Zimbabwe, too.)

David Aaronovitch

in fine form, having snuck in on Tony Benn's interview with Saddam Hussein somehow.

Watched Austin Powers again last night.

The scene where all Doctor Evil's ideas for catastrophes with which to threaten the world turn out to have already happened was pretty funny. And, let's face it, the toilet scene is a hoot, ashamed though I am to say it. But the absolute funniest line of all was when the UN spokesman said "It is not the policy of the UN to negotiate with terrorists."

A delightful irony.

Hunting with hounds may be the only way to deal with mink, says a report by Alun Michael, rural affairs minister. It seems that unlike other pest control methods such as traps, mink hounds only go for mink, and leave otters and other animals unscathed. But why are mink wreaking havoc with the ecosystem of British rivers at all, given that they are not native to this country? Because animal rights activists released them from mink farms, that's why. Great CV line for an animal rights activist: I saved the hunts from being banned! Heeheehee.

"India, out of cheetahs, seeks to clone" says the New York Times. It's not a personal ad put in the paper by a rich animal-loving girl called India.

Turkeyblog

has a response up to my earlier post:

"And the argument that I was making was not that we wait so we could enjoy their help, but that we are waiting - even as evidence against Iraq builds - so that we can either shame them into living up to their committments or leave an absolutely clear public record of their moral unseriousness."

First time round

I didn't follow this link to an article on Developmentally Appropriate Practice while reading Joanne Jacobs. Something prompted me to go back to it, though. It's delicious. Just look at this smoothly cynical take on why this rather unsuccessful theory is still popular:

"The broader explanation is that NAEYC made a mistake common to groups that aim to help other people’s children using other people’s money: It assessed cost, risk, and benefit from its own standpoint rather than that of the taxpayers and intended beneficiaries. The result was unintended harm.

"NAEYC is comprised primarily of preschool childcare providers, and the DAP doctrine is attractive to them for a number of reasons: It is sufficiently distinctive to require training and certification, and thus serves to restrict entrance to the profession. It requires a cadre of NAEYC recognized experts—also NAEYC members—to screen, train, and certify individuals in DAP. It maximizes individualized attention to children and thus creates demand for trained practitioners. It rejects the notion of normative expectations for child development outcomes and thus minimizes accountability for results.

"DAP also has the virtue of being highly marketable to parents and policymakers. It promises to improve a child’s readiness for school in a fun and natural way, and without the purported danger of overly ambitious expectations for effort or accomplishment."