Dr. Peter Watts, a 51 year old Canadian science-fiction writer, was found, against all odds, guilty of…well, I’m not sure what. Apparently he asked why his car was being searched at the Sarnia/Huron border, which got him pummeled while still in his car. Then they ordered him out of his car, which he complied with. Then they asked him to get on the ground, and he made the mistake of asking what the problem was. Then they maced him and arrested him.
Despite his attorney completely decimating the border guards testimony (she had accused Watts of choking her amongst other things that turned out to be wholesale lies) and showing how contradictory their written and verbal accounts were, that one fateful question, “What’s the problem?” has made him a felon in the U.S.. I have no doubt he’ll never see the inside of a jail…but, then, I never thought he’d be convicted either.
Despite this shitty situation, Watts remains very classy and writes about the ordeal on his blog here.
I should probably just quit pretending that this blog is photography related and just admit that it’s a full blown environmental platform. Perhaps I should try and mix the two.
Anyway, I read an excellent article in Newsweek called Their Own Worst Enemies concerning how scientists disseminate thier findings on Global Warming and how more and more people, as a result, are deciding that the whole thing is exaggerated. I’ve railed against Climate Deniers before on this blog. I’m fully aware that calling anyone that disagrees with Climate Change stupid is perhaps not the best way to get them on your side, but I can’t help it; It feels good and serves as a way to vent all the bile that would otherwise cover me in rage goiters.
The main thrust of the article is that scientists, though brilliant, are terrible communicators, and are perceived as arrogant by the masses. The author, Sharon Begley, parallels this to the rising popularity of Creationism over Evolution in the United States. Creationists, idiots though they are (there I go again), can rip scientists apart in public forums because scientists appeal to reason, and Creationists, like Climate Deniers, appeal to emotion with great success. In that contest emotion is going to win most of the time. People, for the most part, are ruled by emotion. We have to work hard to overcome emotion to see reason even when it’s put right in front of us.
There are lots of good psychological and historical points in the article that explain peoples views (especially in the U.S.) on such issues that I hadn’t considered before.
Got Cindy to pose for some pics with the gun (replica) the other day. Here are a few of the results:
Oh, this is too awesome. The billboard, featured here, was erected by a very progressive Anglican minister, Glynn Cardy, in Auckland, New Zealand who is trying to fight literalism in the church. While I consider myself an open-minded agnostic that whole-heartedly loathes organized religion of any sort, I have to say, if I was forced to go, I’d want to go to this cat’s church.
As you can well imagine, he stirred up a holy ol’ hornets nest. I mean, pitch forks were dusted off and torches lit, baby. The billboard was vandalized by an angry Christian horde that apparently doesn’t believe in free speech nor has a sense of har har. One little old lady – I like to think only after violently resisting – was actually arrested. I can only assume she was nabbed because the rest of her “Grey Panther” friends rode motorized scooters and she only had a rolling walker and was still only 29 feet away from the scene of the crime when the cops showed up an hour later. She was obviously only a Prospect Member of their gang and hadn’t earned her “ride” yet. This act, combined with being arrested, will undoubtedly earn Edna her “Full Patch” status. Then she’ll be the terror of the parish hall bingo nights. I mean, who’d mess with her? That patch on the back of her double-knit cardigan carries weight, man.
I may be making that last bit up.
St. Matthews in-the-city didn’t press charges though. It’s unclear whether that’s because they are scared of Edna or because they’re simply classy folks.
Man, who needs lions, Christians do a pretty good job on themselves.
Those who know me, know that I have a personal vendetta against Big Pharma and their pocket doctors. What was once a noble endeavour to help humanity has turned into a blatant corporate machine to bilk us out of money by the billions per year. They are accused by many scientists and doctors of inventing illnesses to fit the new drugs they’ve created (most of which have possible horrific side-effects that dwarf the original “illness”). It is the same with antibiotics.
The common view that antibiotics are a “magic bullet” against any illness is pervasive due to a combination of myth, misinformation, and marketing by Big Pharma. The reality is we’re hurting ourselves badly by downing antibiotics as a pez-like cure-all as any responsible (or competent) doctor would inform you, and which scientists have been trying to get through to us for years as they see their arsenal against bacteriums that are normally cured by antibiotics dwindle to almost nothing. Antibiotics are primarily for use against bacterial illnesses not viral ones. There is a growing list of bacteriums now that are completely drug resistant.
Personally, I think doctors who prescribe antibiotics for virus related illness, especially common ones like colds, the flu, bronchitis, etc, etc, etc… should be formally reprimanded and face some sort of fine. It’s criminal, in my view, that doctors hand out these prescriptions merely because of pressure from the patient. The fact remains that they are hurting us all by taking the lazy way as opposed to informing (and refusing) patients who demand antibiotics out of ignorance. I mean, what kind of doctor would bow to pressure from the damn patient??? Who’s the expert? Grow a spine already.
Read it all from the experts:
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/GetSmart/
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/antibiotics.html
Excel should come with a cigarette pack warning label: “If you are at risk of a heart attack, please refrain from using this product” or “This product increases your risk of complete mental breakdown”. Bright red letters. Skull and crossbones. Larger than the name of the product itself. Flashing, perhaps.
I honestly don’t know how Microsoft charges money for a p.o.s. program like Excel. More accurately, I’m baffled that we keep buying it. Nothing I do will change the fact that even if I start with a brand new spreadsheet and manually type the dates in, it will invariably screw them up. It’s like some sort of universal constant like the speed of light, earth’s gravitational pull, or Kanye being prone to douche-baggery. It completely makes random, arbitrary decisions on what a date is or isn’t no matter what you TELL it to do. If you type 30/11/09 it’s General, if It’s 4/11/09 it’s a date. And holy ol’ jumpin’ Jesus on a crutch, even if you do get it working in Excel, wait’ll you try importing that sucker into SQL Server. Bravo, Microsoft. Bravo. Top talent at work there.
You can literally spend more time searching for a solution than it would to actually resigning yourself to sitting down and typing the whole thing into the damn database by hand.
Thankfully, I rarely have to touch Excel. But even these occasional brushes with it force me to eject my spleen like the Enterprise ejecting it’s about-to-explode warp core (had to have a geek references for my nerdly brutha’s and sista’s out there).
This is an extremely good read full of such obvious common sense, that it makes one wonder how anyone ever thought some of this crap was a good idea.
About time we started to wake up from our generations parenting nightmare: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395-4,00.html
