Yesterday we had lunch with Mr and Mrs Malaprop, whom we love very dearly.
Beche-la-mer: I read a glowing review of an Iraqi restaurant just around the corner from your home. Do you know it?
Mrs Malaprop: Yes, I know it. There are two Iraqi women who go to Bingo with me on Wednesdays. They're really nice ladies; they've really integrated well.
Wonder Boy: What's integrated?
Mrs Malaprop: It means they accept our way of life and go along with it. The problem is most of them don't integrate.
So there you have it. Statistical analysis of the sample (Iraqis known personally = two) yields a 100 per cent result of "niceness". Yet the conclusion is that "most of them" are not nice. The correlation between "niceness" and "integration" is just one of the flaws in this study.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
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I should also add to this a comment made by my stepdaughter's ex-boyfriend (before he was an ex) about why he was a monarchist.
He believes that if we don't have a monarch as our head of state, there is a very high risk of a Muslim being elected (or appointed), which would mean the end of civilisation and culture as we know it.
VoR and I were gobsmacked by his ignorance. Firstly, the completely irrational overestimation and fear of the power of a minority group such as the Muslim community in an Australian democracy; and secondly, by the assumption that a Muslim president would be so much worse than our current lot of inbred born-to-rule chinless wonders.
I'm not advocating Shari'a law, but one's religious persuasion doesn't of itself make one a good or bad politician. Look at lying John Howard... he's a Christian, apparently, yet his lies of omission about Tampa, refugees in general, interest rates, reasons for going to war, etc, ought to damn him to hell. The sheep and the goats and all that.
Needless to say, muffled cheers were heard from behind closed doors in our house when the Common Dunderhead was recently dumped. Not for this particular piece of ignorance, mind you.
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