On the Rocks

"You have to be pretty drunk to want to sleep here."

Ryszard Kapuściński, literary journalist visiting the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi in the very north of Sweden. He felt the hotel's beds were a bit too chilly for his taste.

Vanity

Would you do it?

Top Five Female Ops

1. Breast surgery. Resizing or reshaping under full anesthetic; 1 or 2 nights in hospital, stitches out in 7-14 days
2. Rhinoplasty. Nose reshaping, needs an overnight stay and 7-10 days for the swelling to subside
3. Liposuction. Fat removal under local anesthetic takes 1-2 hours; anoterh week or two for the area to heal
4. Blepharoplasty. Excess tissue around the eye is surgically removed; stitches removed in 3-7 days
5. Abdominoplasty. Surgery to remove excess skin and fat from the belly; needs 2 weeks off work and lots of bed rest

Top Five Male Ops

1. Rhinoplasty. Nose reshaping is the most popular op
2. Liposuction. To reduce breast size or get a flatter belly
3. Blepharoplasty. Men also dislike saggy, baggy eyes and laugh lines
4. Otoplasty. Ear reshaping by removing skin and cartilage and restitching into place. In bandages for a week
5. Penis enlargement. A small incision at the base can extend flaccid size by about 2,5 cm; body-fat cells can be implanted to increase girth. Expect a week off work and no heavy lifting for a month

* Source: Harley Medical Group / Time

The right to own a pet

You might have seen this being reported the other week...

Americans know more about Simpsons than about their basic rights and freedoms

McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum in Chicago is a new museum aimed at informing the American public about the Constitution. The museum did a survey of Americans' knowledge of their basic rights and freedoms and found that:

• 28 % were able to list two out of five basic freedoms in the First Amendment
• 69 % knew that freedom of speech is one of the five freedoms
• 24 % knew about freedom of religion
• 11 % were aware of freedom of the press
• 10 % were familiar with the freedom of assembly
• only 1 % knew about their right to appeal

This can be compared with the fact that 52 % could name at least two members of the Simpson family.

Another finding of the survey is that many Americans think they have constitutional rights that are not found in the Constitution:

• 1/5 thought the right to own a pet was part of the First Amendment
• As many believed the right to drive a car was in the same amendment (even though the car was invented a century after the establishment of the Constitution
  

If only it was that easy!

Italian PM Berlusconi has advised his country's poor to make more money. Italy's richest man apparently started his business by picking up paper off the streets and crumpled them to little balls that he sold to people who used them to light their stoves. And when someone gave the young Berlusconi a camera he started taking pictures at funerals and weddings.

All good ideas...hm...unsurprisingly Berlusconi's popularity is falling as a result of his government's difficulties to get the Italian economy going. The latest opinion polls show that Berlusconi's centre-right alliance will lose to former Commission President Prodi's centre-left bloc - I hope so!

Petition against Trafficking during the Football World Cup

With International Women's Day coming up on Wednesday I want to highlight a very important fight.

A petition against trafficking during the Football World Cup in Germany in June.

As prostitution is legal in Germany and plans are under way to set up mobile brothels, it is very likely that trafficking of women and forced prostitution will significantly increase during the event.

Let's help protect women from such exploitation.

Olof Palme

I wanted to blog about Olof Palme already on February 28 (the anniversary of his murder) but haven't gotten around to it until today. But instead of writing about him myself I will link to tributes from my fellow bloggers:

Olof Palme...and Bruce Springsteen

En märklig känsla av vemod (Swedish)

And a news article.

For those of you who need an introduction, here's his life (and death).

I was 10 when Palme was murdered. Having grown up in a Social Democratic home I was already very familiar with who he was and with his politics. And it's obviously not every day a country's Prime Minister is murdered (though sadly it happened in Sweden yet again in 2003 when Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was knifed down; fortunately that case has been solved) so it's one of those things you remember forever. I had spent the night at my grandparents' and turned on the radio in the morning to listen to a radio play. We couldn't understand how the writers could joke about such a thing, before it started to sink in that it had actually happened. I remember that my grandmother cried but I don't think I did. I also remember that they cancelled all TV shows and just played sad music on TV all day. I will also always associate Palme's murder with getting my ears pierced. I hadn't had it done that very day but two days earlier and I guess my ears were still hurting. Weird how one's memory works.