But, but, guys... what about the stink?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

A bunch of guys are living in the same apartment. But the bathroom is broken*. So most of them use the corner behind the front door to pee and take a shit. The stink is starting to get unbearable.

Africa: "Whoever is peeing by the front door, please please stop doing it, all the stink is leaking to my couch!"
Europe: "All right, all right, let's devise a plan how to curb the peeing at the front door..."
Canada: "And a procedure, too! There must be a procedure".
Europe: "Yep, and a procedure of course. We like procedures".
Canada: "We like them too!"
USA: "No shit?"
Africa: "Bad pun!!!1"
China: "LOL".
Australia, Japan: "OK guys, make a plan and we'll sign it".

*Scribble scribble scribble scribble*

Europe: "Here's the plan. Now sign it".
Africa: "Hooray!"
USA: "Hmmm, so you're telling me I should shit less? You know, I don't have to sign this plan, nor the procedures that come with it".
China: "Oh yeah comrade? And neither do I! I like to shit as much as I want!" *foot-stomp*
Europe: "But guys, guys..."
USA: "NO! I won't sign it".
China: "He won't sign it, so I won't either".
USA: "Dayum mate, that was sooo spot-on!"
China: "Nyaa-nyaa-nyaaa".
Africa: "But, but, the piss... My couch!?..."
USA: "Fuck off, the rest of you sign it. That'll surely curb the stink, okay?"
Europe: "Sigh... OK let's sign it, the rest of us. It has an expiry date, you know?"
Australia, Japan: "Fine".
Everybody else: "Okay..."

*Fast-forward. Expiry period is over; the stink has increased*

Africa (holding its nose): "Guyyys, I can barely breathe..."
Europe: "Calm down, you. We have convened here to make a new plan how to curb the stink".
Australia: "...And a procedure too. Right?"
Europe: "Suuure. We all love procedures!"
Africa: "OK do it, but fast!"
USA: "That's nice, but I'm still not going to sign whatever you want me to sign".
China: "He won't do it, so I won't, either!"
India: "I've had enough of this blackmailing!"
Japan: "Hell yeah! And arm-twisting!"
Canada: "You know what? I've had enough of this! They won't sign it, and neither do I have to sign it! I'm out of this."

*Bewildered silence*

Europe: "Et tu, Brutus??"
Africa (eyes glazing): "But, guys... The stiiiink!"
China: "Nyaa-nyaa-nyaaa!"
USA: "Dayum I'm lovin' this".
Europe: "OK OK guys, let's agree to come up with a new plan after N years, OK?"
India (fussing): "Fine. I'll think about it. But that's still blackmailing".
Japan: "And arm-twisting".
Canada: "Yeah!"
India: (Fussing).
USA: "See you in N years then, bichiz!"
China: "Nyah-hahaha!"

Basically, that's how the Kyoto "renewal" proceeded. Oh, but other than that, the Durban summit was a "huuuuge success", amirite? There were Zulu folk dances, and our foreign minister showed her gorgeous new dress. There were smiles, songs, colorful protests, and lots of coffee and back-patting too. You know, just like any self-respecting summit should be. And everyone left with a general sense of victory, and much faith in the bright, clean, future. Right?

The stink is still there, by the way. And going up. But "Dayum"...

* By the way, couldn't they just fix that damn bathroom, you'd ask? Yeah, but "that's soooo expensive!"...

Comments

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Off to The Onion you go to apply!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Damned mercantilists!

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

We may laugh but the story is really depressing.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

So the plan's proposal would be to FIX the bathroom, but only allow some of the roommates to use it.

That way, only SOME of the guys would continue to pee and poop in the corner while others get to enjoy the benefits of the bathroom.

In the "modern" ways of doing business that would be deemed a viable solution and even argued to be "fair", no?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

If only they could come up with a viable schedule for using the bathroom!

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

The first question:

Viable for who(m)??

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

For the same one who'd deem that (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1268388.html?thread=101062820#t101062820) a viable solution.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

sounds like the metaphor breaks down at this point. Nobody wants to use the bathroom. They want to shit in the corner and have the corner magically clean itself.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Hey, peeps need reasons to feel good about themselves, no?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I propose unicorns. Pink ones if possible. Their piss smells of rainbow. Or so I've heard.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You already know (http://t-p-nonsense.livejournal.com/91749.html) how rainbows are made.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

But, but, whaddabout our Freedomz(tm) and Libertyz(tm) to shit'n'pee as much as we want?

Fear not, the invisible hand will handle this.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Fear not, the invisible hand will handle this.

True. It's just that then you'll have a perfect market, and few humans left alive to mess with it. Which just proves how right Adam Smith was, and all the Austrian school followers are.

For humans who want something other than a perfect market, this may be a tragedy, alas. Poor saps.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

The perfect market: a handful of consumers who have all the cash in the world. The rest may sit on that stinking sofa, kthxbye.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

#occupythebathroom

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Bathroom is broken.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

So is the other thing people keep occupying and it has a similar effect!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Stop occupying things!

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

#occupystopoccupyingthings

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

No problem, we'll privatize space programs so those guys could make big ships to move to another... ehm, sofa.

Oh wait! Or... or, they could be planning to dump us all into space! KONSPIRRSSY!!!1

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

So that's what those camps were for!

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I think we need a procedure for how this discussion will go. With graphs and bulleted points. *runs off to PowerPoint*

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

PowerPoint? Just use Paint and make it simple!

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

It's not about simple, it's about presentation.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Spoken like a true North American!

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

I think you and I have been to some of the same meetings.


On second thought... they're really all essentially the same meeting anyway, aren't they?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

IF IT'S NOT WRITTEN IN CAPS LOCK I AIN'T SIGNIN' IT!

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING IT WILL BE IN ALL CAPS!!1!!

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

IS THAT WRITTEN IN THE small LETTERS??

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

But what if we throw out the sofa along with the carpet?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As I said in the other thread Canada didn't adhere to the treaty even as a signatory so this makes no difference, other than perhaps that signatories won't needle the states that didn't sign a treaty its own signatories were both unable and unwilling to adhere to.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the procedure was unsound so they didn't wanna sign it. There must be a procedure! This! Is! Canadaaa!

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

You're not allowed to criticize Canada unless you've filled out government forms A564-8 and H621. In triplicate. That's a $800 fine. Payable to me. I'll totally pass along the revenue when I file my income taxes.

Wait, what?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I thought there was a waiver this month?
I'm certainly glad I haven't criticized Canada, this is a bad month to have to come up with $800!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I'll need an Invoice to be able to transfer the fine.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

That couch really tied the room together.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I've slowly come to the conclusion that these enormous world-wide climate deals are a bad idea. Too much sausage making and too many competing interests to create anything.

I've been wondering for a while if it would make more sense for regions and blocks to hammer out their own deals -- they would not be all identical, but it would probably be far more likely to actually get somewhere. What if the B-R-I-C nations worked out their own deal as the most growth oriented economies, and the NAFTA nations worked out one of our own while the EU did its own deal? Indonesia could lead a deal brokered for Southeast Asia and an African block could work out what is most likely to work for them.

Not as grand or "unifying" as a new Kyoto, but maybe it could actually accomplish something for once.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The new plan doesn't even start in effect until 2020. Way too late to be effective. Actually it's pretty depressing to know how far we are already down the pike with climate change.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I can see from now what would happen.

"But those guys are having more lax goals to meet, why should we push harder? Whine whine whine".

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

NP. The NAFTA plan will be for the EU and BRIC countries to implement changes to bring down CO2 emissions to their 1990 level. We would totally sign and follow that.

I think we'd also ask Africa to stop exhaling as well.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's about how it went down. And you're spot on about the US and China.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Duuuude you're forgetting that, here in the U.S., shit n' piss ain't bad at all! They are, in fact, perfectly clean products put out by perfectly safe, perfectly responsible, economically vital poopenschafts and wienerhosen! To even *think* of banning them is utterly ridiculous! The "science" behind global peristalsis is merely a bunch of liberal Earth Goddess heathen hooey that is obviously made-up! (And it's unfair to ask America to stop peeing and pooping when the Indians and Red Chinese are covering the world in giant piles of steaming buttnuggets and veritable oceans of nature's lemonade...why not make *them* stop! We're Americans!)

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Banning them? Banning...them...? O noes! Good poop is an awesome material for agriculture!

On a less lighter note

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Did you know that was a test to help separate the city folk from the country folk in "The Killing Fields"? (not the movie, the real thing)

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Apparently you are correct, the OLA people collected it in bottles and containers.

In all seriousness...

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

http://www.drtomorrow.com/lessons/lessons1/28.html