Magic Statistics

A bride who endured "four months of hell" at the hands of her mother-in-law sued her for damages under the UK's 1997 Harassment Act.  A judge agreed and levied a fine of £35,000.

Gina Singh, 26, told a court that she was bullied, isolated and became seriously ill after entering into an arranged Sikh marriage. Ms Singh, from Nottingham, sued her former mother-in-law, Dalbir Kaur Bhakar, who imposed a 17-hour daily regime of housework, forced her to bleach her skin and cut her hair and severely restricted contact with her family.

She was forbidden to leave the house alone and was not allowed to listen to the radio, read newspapers or watch television. Her isolation was such that when she fled the marital home in March 2003 Ms Singh knew nothing about the imminent invasion of Iraq.

The Bhakar family denied the allegations, but the court found their testimony evasive and untruthful.

via Times Online News Log.

Since the early 20th century, scientists have generally accepted the view that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive formation of ice sheets on the earth's surface and therewith planetary ice ages.  Recently, however, that hypothesis has been challenged by a finding that, over the long term, the reverse is actually the case: ice sheet formation causes alterations in CO2 levels.

William Ruddiman, an environmental scientist with the University of Virginia, provides a novel explanation for the rhythms of the ice ages in a paper just published online in the journal Climate of the Past. Ruddiman found that carbon dioxide is a driver of ice sheets only at the relatively small 23,000-year cycle, but not at the much larger ice-volume cycles at 41,000 years and approximately 100,000 years. In those cases he found that ice sheets instead control atmospheric carbon dioxide and drive feedbacks that amplify ice growth and melting. He says his carbon dioxide feedback hypothesis explains why the strongest cycles of ice response are not in correspondence with those in the orbital cycles.

Ruddiman concludes . . . that ice sheets are initially driven by the Sun, but then the ice takes control of carbon dioxide changes, producing its own positive feedback (the amplifying effect) at the 41,000-year cycle.
. . .
His new paper can be accessed at: http://www.climate-of-the-past.net/. From that page, type "Ruddiman" where it says, "Site search…" From there, find the Ruddiman paper "Ice-driven CO feedback on ice volume" as a PDF file or in HTML form.

To simply the process, the pdf link is right here.

via Faith-Science News.

Venezuelan dictator President Hugo Chavez and the last dictator in Europe, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, have met together and proclaimed an alliance opposed to (can you guess?) dictatorship.  Reuters refers to Mr Lukashenko as a "fellow maverick" of Mr Chavez.  That's priceless.  Kinda like calling Robert Mugabe a "fellow maverick" of Idi Amin.

"The number of countries in the world which resist the forces of dictatorship is growing," said Lukashenko, standing alongside him [Chavez] at the military academy.

So that's why the US and much of Europe enacted sanctions against Belarus last March.

Reuters says Belarus has "a Soviet-style command economy", but Mr Chavez finds the place positively inspiring.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Belarus, calling it "a model social state like the one we are beginning to create".

That tells you all you need to know about Hugo Chavez.

h/t for Reuters link: Dust My Broom

Previous related posts:

• Does Hugo Chavez think he runs South America?
• Hugo Chavez and The Jackal: good Venezuelan friends
• “Oh, no! Chavez won’t go!”

Roger and Anita Johnston, a PEI couple running a small business, tried several times to get tax law information through Canada Revenue Agency's toll-free phone number, but received conflicting advice.

At first, she tried to follow instructions given by CRA officials who answered the telephone. When she called back for more information, each official she spoke with gave different suggestions and even criticized the information she had received from the others.

Totally confused, Ms. Johnston asked her husband to try his hand.

"Every time we called up we'd get Ken or Bill or Frank. We'd never get the same person," he said.

This dragged on for so long that the Johnstons were charged interest on a tax bill they were more than willing to pay in the first place.  They went to court mostly to express their frustration with CRA's poor service.  To say the Tax Court of Canada judge agreed with them would be putting it mildly.

The judge was so infuriated he wants the agency to drop all interest charges assessed against the Johnstons and he told the couple, in court, that he plans to make his views about the lousy service known to the CRA.
. . .
"I am writing these brief reasons for judgment in order to recommend highly, in the aggravating circumstances, that the Minister of National Revenue waive any interest that otherwise would be payable on the tax owing under the reassessment," Judge Bell wrote.

Justice Department lawyers who represented the CRA declined to comment.

Good for Judge Bell.  I hope he won't mind being subjected to a tax audit every year for the rest of his life.

The collect for today, the Feast Day of Saint James the Apostle, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Grant, O merciful God, that as thine holy Apostle Saint James, leaving his father and all that he had, without delay was obedient unto the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him; so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow thy holy commandments; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Epistle: Acts 11:27-12:3a
The Gospel: St Matthew 20:20-28