Sondag impromptu

ONE MORE WEEK NOW, AND OUR BELOVED MINNESOTA WILL BE CELEBRATING ITS 150-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of statehood--even if Governor Pawlenty's zeal in playing along with the Club for Growth's "low taxes=jobs=social stability" meme means a somewhat subdued celebration.

Said meme failing to address how, and by what means, such reductions in taxes would be compensated for vis-a-vis government revenue short of the obviously pathetic answer conservatives always have: Privitisation as tends, alas for it! to favour certain weird and unwholesome droogs expecting reward for Good and Loyal Service to the campaign.

Privitisation which only leaves the Lower Classes all the more in misery without adequate "safety net" provisions (for which these same specimens of Zealotry and True Belief--Good Christians All, remember?--would likely recommend "mutual self-help," as in "cashflow gifting" under such "feel-good" names like "Friends Helping Friends" and other affinity-based permutations such as "Christians Helping Christians" and "Women Helping Women," let alone "Æroplane," "Pit Stop" and "Dinner Party" as, in effect, amounts to a Ponzi scheme which this same ilk is forever claiming State Social Security is).

*************

IF YOU THOUGHT IN-PACK GIFT OFFERS WITH CERTAIN BREAKFAST CEREALS WERE A BIT ON THE TACKY SIDE, consider what gave the Azerbaijanis a bit of indigestion. As the BBC reports:

The Swiss-based multinational food company, Nestlé, has apologised to Azerbaijan after a gift attached to a breakfast cereal backfired.

The CD-ROM featured information about countries around the world but the data on Azerbaijan caused outrage there.

It said that Azerbaijan had started a war against neighbouring Armenia and that the hotly disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh belonged to Armenia.

Nestlé has withdrawn the cereal and promised to seize the offending CDs.

Tense and volatile

Conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the early 1990s over Nagorno-Karabakh killed an estimated 30,000 people.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees were created on both sides.

And despite a peace deal in 1994, the situation remains tense and volatile.

Nestlé inadvertently stumbled into a minefield.

The Azeri government vowed to take action, and there has been widespread talk of a public boycott.

Nestlé has now issued a formal apology but some Azeris are still not happy.

They accuse Nestlé of playing Armenia's hand, and are demanding more than just an apology to chew on.

Now imagine what the situation would be like if either General Mills, Kellogg's or Post Cereals attempted a similar promotion in the United States as above, only to include inaccurate information about the ur-RAHOWA in Iraq and the "stateless nationals" status of so-called "Confederate Southern Americans" as doesn't legally exist as a Protected National Minority.

*************

NOT MANY KNOW IT, BUT A CYCLONE IN 1970 AS DEVASTATED EAST PAKISTAN LED TO RIOTING which would eventually result in its independence as Bhangladesh. Said rioting having been aggravated by the Indian Government's denying flyover permission to Pakistani relief agencies.

Now comes word of a devastating cyclone in the so-called "Union of Myanmar" as has killed (according to official estimates) some 350 people, mostly in and around the Irrawaddy River Delta and the Yawgon (f/k/a Rangoon) metropolitan region ... which, Your Correspondent thinks, could, under the right circustances, be enough to undermine the hypersecretive military regime, especially considering its want of preparedness in distributing relief supplies.

*************

IT USED TO BE THAT "DEVELOPING A HEALTHY AND PROPER CHRISTIAN MORAL COMPASS" was about the dominant reason many parents decided to homeschool their children, never mind the lack of healthy social interaction ensuing.

Now, it's emerged that a new reason is compelling some parents to remove their children from established schools and homeschool their children: Schoolyard bullying, and schools failing to take proper corrective measures.

@ least in Scotland, according to The Sunday Post over there; they report where @ least 632 former state school students across Scotia are now being homeschooled, cf. only 352 five years ago. What's more, Scotland has no formal mandate requiring parents homeschooling their children to explain the reasons therefor to local educational authorities.

But then again, children's advertising can no longer make any suggestions or implications that those not having certain products so advertised will not be considered "in" or otherwise consider themselves targets for rejection, neglect or harrassment. Witness clause 47.3 of the CAP Non-Broadcast Advertising Code in Great Britain, for example (Clause 47, in general, deals with advertising targeting children):

Marketing communications addressed to, targeted at or featuring children should not exploit their credulity, loyalty, vulnerability or lack of experience:

a) they should not be made to feel inferior or unpopular for not buying the advertised product

b) they should not be made to feel that they are lacking in courage, duty or loyalty if they do not buy or do not encourage others to buy a particular product

c) it should be made easy for them to judge the size, characteristics and performance of any product advertised and to distinguish between real-life situations and fantasy

d) adult permission should be obtained before they are committed to purchasing complex and costly products.

And, in much the same vein, these provisions of clause 47.7 from the same code:

b) Marketing communications should neither try to sell to children by directly appealing to emotions such as pity, fear, or self-confidence nor suggest that having the advertised product somehow confers superiority, for example making a child more confident, clever, popular, or successful.

c) Marketing communications addressed to children should avoid high pressure and hard sell techniques; they should neither directly urge children to buy or persuade others to buy nor suggest that children could be bullied, cajoled or otherwise put under pressure to acquire the advertised item.

Meanwhile, in Canada, children's advertising is subject to clause 12 of the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, per Advertising Standards Canada:

Advertising that is directed to children must not exploit their credulity, lack of experience or their sense of loyalty, and must not present information or illustrations that might result in their physical, emotional or moral harm.

Child-directed advertising in the broadcast media is separately regulated by the Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children, also administered by ASC. Advertising to children in Quebec is prohibited by the Quebec Consumer Protection Act.

The specific clauses of the aforementioned Quebec Consumer Protection Act banning children's advertising are clauses 248 and 249 of Section P-40.1_A, to wit:

Subject to what is provided in the regulations, no person may make use of commercial advertising directed at persons under thirteen years of age.

[***]

To determine whether or not an advertisement is directed at persons under thirteen years of age, account must be taken of the context of its presentation, and in particular of:

(a) the nature and intended purpose of the goods advertised;

(b) the manner of presenting such advertisement;

(c) the time and place it is shown.

The fact that such advertisement may be contained in printed matter intended for persons thirteen years of age and over or intended both for persons under thirteen years of age and for persons thirteen years of age and over, or that it may be broadcast during air time intended for persons thirteen years of age and over or intended both for persons under thirteen years of age and for persons thirteen years of age and over does not create a presumption that it is not directed at persons under thirteen years of age.

*************

IF THE RATHER CLOSE RESULT OF THE GUAM DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES YESTERDAY IS ANY INDICATION, the likely result of who would win the Democratic Presidential nomination, Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham-Clinton, is still no clearer as the Indiana and North Carolina primaries approach on Tuesday.

In any case, the Pacific territory's Democratic caucuses saw Obama win by but seven votes over Rodham-Clinton, meaning both win two delegates each come the Democratic convention in Denver.

*************

RECOMMENDED READING FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE among such still hard-wired in their Zealotry and True Belief in energy self-sufficency: This particular item from Shakespeare's Sister, as seeks to deflate conservative talking points and memes about American petroleum self-sufficency with facts.

And Another Thing:

For those who see Abundant American Coal as the magic key to energy self-sufficency (especially as the basis of an ersatz gasoline, South African stylee), maybe it was time to ask how much longer before America sees "peak coal"--that point @ which American coal reserves have reached their plateau, only to go into decline thereafter. (Particularly so in the Appalachian coal-belt region and the lignite-coal fields of Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota; after a Major Mining Disaster in early 1959, the anthracite belt in northeastern Pennsylvania was written off as a major coal-production centre as mine after mine closed.)

Especially considering such a Grand Delusion as coal-derived ersatz gasolines requiring plenty of coal to produce profitable quantities without odour.