polish humour

I recently bought something from Poland and it came with the following stamps on the envelope


a close look shows what seems to be a bureaucrat (based on the stamp and phone on the desk) hiding behind a mask of paper and with goat (devils?) horns coming out of the top.

What makes this art even better (to me) is that a bureaucrat had to approve this to appear on a stamp!

I loved it.

machine translation gems

Anyone who has tried learning Finnish will tell you that its not easy. Despite the Finns thinking that they have a logical language (some delude themselves as far as to say it is "mathematical") poor old Google had this to say about my last translation request

but I did understand what it meant

racism and violence in Australia

I was reading (with a sad heart) the story of protests in Australia against violence against Indian people which turned into violent scuffles with the police. My first reaction was to wonder what was what the hell is going on and why are people picking on Indians in Australia??

Then I read this (from here):

But a group of "rabble-rousers'' separate from the Indian students may have hijacked the protest, Mr Overland said.

"I think their demonstration was hijacked - it initially started as a peaceful demonstration.

"The organisers of that demonstration then left.

so it seems that its another case of a minority with a separate agenda hijacking the situation for their own purpose. Especially if the following is true...

The police chief said some demonstrators were clearly affected by alcohol, which prompted police to close the nearby Young and Jacksons hotel bottle shop, he said.

"They were going in there and accessing alcohol, and we knew that wasn't going to resolve the issue,'' he said.

"There were some people in there who weren't Indian who were rabble-rousers who had their own agenda and didn't seem to have much very much to do with the issues that are confronting the Indian students.''

A collection of weapons, including knives, was found once the demonstrators left.

"They I think were obviously responsible for some of the tactics that were then used by the Indian students when we moved in to disperse the crowd,'' Mr Overland said.

Penny Wong (cited here) seems to feel that "racism in Australia is confined to a minority of people with extreme views". As a Malaysian migrant she should know more than me (I only went to school with Vietnamese and Greeks, I'm anglo so I wouldn't really know) but I really hope so Penny.

spring: time for pine pollen

For those allergic to pine pollen (not me this year it seems) now is the time when Pines are shedding their wind distributed reproductive stuff.

This is what a pine flower looks like.

Click the image for a larger version to see more clearly.

Pine trees use wind to distribute their pollen (unlike other plants which depend on insects or other vectors).

I was out for a walk yesterday morning with my wife and I noticed a large cloud of "smoke" move across the path ... hmm ... I thought ... bit early for a BBQ ... I wonder if its pollen release time already.


A quick flick of one of the flowers by my wife showed that yes indeed they were bursting with pollen.

For those who haven't seen pine flowers up close (or their pollen release time) I thought I'd put together this quick sample of what it looks like.

If you click this one you can see the eddy currents in the air as this little flower sprung back up to where it came from.


Hope you like the images