What Caught My Eye Today - Canada, India, Ireland, Syria, Education, Potpourri

Canada - Canada is staking a claim to the North Pole. North Pole meets the Great White North. Sounds like the perfect match if you ask me. The nation has submitted a preliminary application to the United Nations to extend its nautical borders in a bid to control vast Arctic resources, including nearly one third of the world's untapped natural gas reserves and large deposits of oil. Then again, maybe the possibility of untold riches may have something to do with Canada's request. Canada's own surveys have shown that its continental shelf does not reach the North Pole, but government officials said new studies would be commissioned. Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that these new surveys (obviously using technologies not previously available) will render results much more to Canada's liking? And sure, there might be an abundance of natural resources in the Arctic, but you have to be able to get to them in order for them to have any value and that is no easy thing to do. Just ask Brazil how well it is doing with the oil bonanza recently discovered just of its shores.

India - India's Supreme Court has re-criminalized homosexuality overturning a 2009 ruling that had found the colonial-era anti-homosexuality law unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that changing the law should be up to Parliament, not the courts. The law calls gay sex "against the order of nature" and punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Same-sex relationships are criminalized in 76 countries, almost all of which are in Africa and the Middle East. These guys really seem to struggle with sex.  I'm curious which "order of nature" this law is referring to? While it is true there is only one family in the animal kingdom where the man has the baby, try telling all those seahorses (and the other 300 species of fish in the Syngnathidae family) that nature got its signals crossed and that those males need to stop having babies right now.  Maybe instead of pondering what the "order of nature" means, India could spend some time and effort embracing slightly less ambiguous concepts, like "no means no." I'm sure all those victims of rape (both female and male) would certainly not object.

Ireland - Ireland has a modest proposal for addressing unemployment. The government is sending letters to unemployed citizens urging them to apply for jobs elsewhere in Europe. I, for one, appreciate this sort of out of the box thinking. Officials say all foreign job opportunities are voluntary and that no one will lose their benefits if they do not apply for an overseas job. Groups opposed to the initiative accuse the government of state-sponsored emigration.  A quarter of Irish people under 25 years of age are unemployed and emigration has reached record levels with 75,800 people aged 15-44 leaving Ireland in the last year. The opposition has it all wrong.  This isn't state-sponsored emigration. Far from it. This is about some really smart individuals looking out for themselves.  Think about it.  You are young and unemployed, so what's one way to pass all that time on your hands?  That's right, at the pub.  If I'm a working stiff, the last thing I want to see is some young punk drinking all my booze.  Can't find a job in this country, then get out and leave my whiskey alone. Now mind you, at some point, Ireland will find itself having to address a massive brain drain, but if the remaining citizenry has its booze, maybe it won't notice.

Speaking of job opportunities abroad...

Syria - The United States has agreed to take control of Syria's chemical weapons and destroy them on a specially adapted Navy ship in international waters. I can see the want ad now: "Make the World a Safer Place. No experience required. No family or friends considered a plus." The Syrian government agreed to give up its stockpile of chemical weapons to avoid Western intervention in September, after it was proved that sarin gas was used against civilians. Since no country will allow 500 tons of lethal chemicals to enter its borders, the weapons will have to be destroyed at sea in a dangerous and costly U.S. operation. Imagine that. No country wants to assume responsibility for processing 10,000 pounds of deadly gases. What a bunch of pansies. The weapons will also pose a risk while in transit as they could come under a security threat from any of the warring parties in the Syrian conflict. I've read a little bit about the process for treating these chemicals so that they can be properly disposed of. Basically, you neutralize the toxic material with other toxic material and what you have left is a much safer hazardous waste that can be disposed of. So to summarize, in order to make something toxic safer, you have to make it hazardous.  Kind of makes you chuckle don't it?

Education - Ivy League universities may have a case of grade inflation. First a meningitis outbreak at Princeton, now this? Dude, I am so happy I went to a state university. At a monthly faculty meeting at Harvard University, the school's dean of undergraduate education told professors that the grade most frequently awarded to students is an A. Oh...grade inflation. I get it now.  In 2002, Harvard capped the proportion of the graduating class with honors to 60% after a year in with 91% of students graduated with them. Yale University found that 62% of grades awarded to undergraduates from 2010 to 2012 were in the A- range. Isn't it possible that the students that matriculate in these fine institutions of higher learning are really that smart? And isn't it a bit cynical to suggest that students might have some expectation of high grades if mommy and daddy fund a professorship? Princeton University had instituted a policy of grade deflation to limit the awarding of high grades, but those tougher standards are currently under review. I'm sure the shrinking endowment that followed in the wake of that policy had nothing to do with Princeton's decision to revise its academic standards.  Here's a radical idea. Why not award grades based on academic achievement. If the curriculum and testing are fundamentally sound, then if 60%, 70% or the whole freakin' student body can achieve high marks then so be it.  Most experts would agree that this is statistically impossible, but why not let the student have a chance to prove them wrong?

Potpourri - Let's call this entry the "No kidding, really?" edition.

• Economic Growth - Over the past 64 years and 16 presidential terms, the U.S. economy has grown at an average rate of 4.35% when a Democrat was president versus just 2.54% when a Republican held office. Of course, these numbers don't really show the whole picture. If you start low enough, any improvement will seem large.
• Credit Worthiness - The Netherlands left an elite group of nations rated AAA by all three major rating agencies, leaving just 10 countries with the top credit rating: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland. Let's give a shout out to Australia, the only nation south of the equator (and south of the Tropic of Cancer for that matter) to make the cut.
• Nuclear Safeguards - From 1962 until 1977, the U.S. military intentionally set the launch codes at every nuclear missile silo in America to "00000000" so it could rapidly respond to any Soviet attack. It's amazing that the human race has managed to survive all these years in spite of itself.