Quotulatiousness

January 29, 2010

Australia’s film censors got bored, so decided to call attention to themselves

Filed under: Australia, Bureaucracy, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 19:12

At least, that’s a sensible an interpretation as I can come up with for this lovely little policy change:

A reader writes, “Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as ‘abhorrent.'”

Hard to come up with a sensible explanation for this, you have to admit.

Even more evidence to support Agent Smith

Filed under: Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:34

Remember the point in The Matrix where Agent Smith explains that he’s decided that humans are actually viruses (“Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure“). Here’s even more to support his point of view:

When, in 2001, the human genome was sequenced for the first time, we were confronted by several surprises. One was the sheer lack of genes: where we had anticipated perhaps 100,000 there were actually as few as 20,000. A bigger surprise came from analysis of the genetic sequences, which revealed that these genes made up a mere 1.5 per cent of the genome. This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.

On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.

All in all, the virus-like components of the human genome amount to almost half of our DNA. This would once have been dismissed as mere “junk DNA”, but we now know that some of it plays a critical role in our biology. As to the origins and function of the rest, we simply do not know.

High taxes/low taxes, it’s all relative

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, History — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:27

Lorne Gunter finds that what were once considered “intolerable” rates of taxation are microscopic compared to what we pay today:

The American colonists, by comparison, felt they were groaning under a crippling tax burden. Many of their staples, they felt, were onerously taxed while they received little from England in return and had no say in how large the levies against them would be.

[. . .]

So out of curiosity, I asked the historian what the level of taxation was in 1776 that caused the U.S. to declare its independence.

I will always recall his answer: “the equivalent today of about 5% to 7% of their income.”

What?

Today, in Canada, all levels of government, through all their taxes, can confiscate as much as half or more of a taxpayer’s income, in total. Income taxes, pension claw-backs, the GST, gasoline excise taxes, import duties and tariffs, estate taxes, property taxes, capital gains and on and on and on.

And yet, like the abused spouse rushing back to an abuser, many Canadians continue to sing the praises of ever bigger and bigger government. They rush to it in any crisis looking to be saved, whether through “free” health care during times of personal crisis or through auto company bailouts that demonstrate solidarity with distant workers in distant communities during times of global crisis.

The problem has been that Canadians expect the government (at all levels) to do something any time there’s a real or perceived crisis. Governments are happy to oblige by (at least appearing) to do something. Inevitably, the scope of what the government does increases every year. As “Steve the Pundit” wrote in the comments to the original article:

It’s true that Canadians have become far too dependent on government to save us from any crisis, large or small, much in the same way that the citizens of Metropolis continually looked to “Superman” to save them from all of their ills, whether it be an irradiated mutant bent on mass destruction … or a purse snatcher. Any crisis, it seems, “… look(ed) like a job for Superman!”

Exactly.

Short (political and economic) memories

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:20

David Harsanyi looks at the “lost decade” of the last 10 years and finds not so much of a disaster:

Of the many tall tales spun by President Barack Obama during the State of the Union address this week, there is one, and perhaps only one, that most Americans believe to be true.

The old yarn goes something like this: A long time ago, the United States was an economic powerhouse. We built things with our hands and worked in factories and we loved it.

Our recent prosperity, on the other hand, was built on a house of cards — intellectual innovation, risk, free-wheeling markets and international trade — and nothing more than an illusion.

“We can’t afford another so- called economic expansion like the one from the last decade — what some call the ‘lost decade,’ ” Obama explained. The president went on to promise he would do all he could to stop any pesky so-called expansions in the future. And I believe him.

A recent poll shows that Obama is not alone in his aversion to the 2000s. According to a Pew Research Center poll, over 50 percent of American hold a negative view of the decade. Yet, the 2000s, like decades before it, are by nearly any measure — be it health, standard of living, the environment or technology — a success.

The average unemployment rate during this “lost decade” — including one of those unfortunate man-made disasters to the country’s financial center — was at 5.6 percent. One would think that the president — a man who believes a “jobs” bills that only saw unemployment go from nearly 8 percent to over 10 percent was a wild success — would be sort of impressed.

It may be a factor in any given decade, but it’s surprising how deep the short-term memories seem to be coloured by the recession at the end of the decade (the one we’re still struggling out of).

This is more than a slight confusion of terminology

Filed under: Asia, Health, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:33

Jon (my former virtual landlord) sent along a link to this FoxNews story indicating that there is a long road ahead — sociologically speaking — for Afghanistan:

An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns — though they seem to be in complete denial about it.

The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually — yet they completely reject the label of “homosexual.” The research was conducted as part of a longstanding effort to better understand Afghan culture and improve Western interaction with the local people.

The research unit, which was attached to a Marine battalion in southern Afghanistan, acknowledged that the behavior of some Afghan men has left Western forces “frequently confused.”

The report details the bizarre interactions a U.S. Army medic and her colleagues had with Afghan men in the southern province of Kandahar.

[. . .]

Apparently, according to the report, Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot “love” another man — but that doesn’t mean they can’t use men for “sexual gratification.”

Trying to use a western term, which almost certainly has highly negative connotations to Afghans who may have encountered it, isn’t likely to be helpful in dealing with the Pashtuns. Labelling is the least of the concerns, I’d think.

The U.S. army medic also told members of the research unit that she and her colleagues had to explain to a local man how to get his wife pregnant.

The report said: “When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked, ‘How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.'”

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