According to some media reports, Amnesty International’s new secretary general, Salil Shetty, has accused the Canadian government of a “serious worsening” of human rights in Canada. He cited a “shrinking of democratic spaces” in Canada, and organizations that have lost their funding for asking “inconvenient questions.”
“You expect more from Canadians . . . I think there is a growing gap between the values and the track record of Canada historically and the actions of the current government, which is deeply concerning.”
It reads like a Liberal Party press release, doesn’t it?
So what, exactly, has Mr. Shetty so upset about that he’s decided to slam Canada rather than, for instance, Iran?
Why, it’s the fact that Ottawa hasn’t sought the repatriation of young Omar Khadr from his detention in Guantanamo Bay. Which is a rather curious thing to criticize, since “the values and the track record” of the previous Liberal government is entirely consistent with what the Conservatives are currently doing.
Adrian MacNair, “Canada, noted human rights pariah state”, National Post, 2010-08-25
August 25, 2010
QotD: Amnesty International decries human rights situation in . . . Canada?
LED lightbulbs won’t save energy in the long run
Not because they aren’t more efficient than ordinary lightbulbs, but because of the inevitable side-effects of human nature:
Federal boffins in the States say that the brave new future in which today’s ‘leccy-guzzling lights are replaced by efficient LEDs may not, in fact, usher in massive energy savings.
This is because, according to the scientists’ research, people are likely to use much more lighting as soon as this becomes practical. The greater scope for cheap illumination offered by LEDs will simply mean that people have more lights and leave them on for longer.
“Presented with the availability of cheaper light, humans may use more of it, as has happened over recent centuries with remarkable consistency following other lighting innovations,” says Jeff Tsao of the Sandia National Laboratory. “That is, rather than functioning as an instrument of decreased energy use, LEDs may be instead the next step in increasing human productivity and quality of life.”
According to Tsao and his colleagues at Sandia, the fraction of gross domestic product spent on lighting has remained constant as candles were replaced by oil lamps, then again in the transition to the gaslight era, then yet again with the arrival of electric lighting. What changed with each of these innovations was that lighting became more and more common.
Hands up, anyone who didn’t see this one coming.
Bans on texting while driving have not measurably improved highway safety
This report should come as no real surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention:
The two biggest highway-safety issues right now, as far as Washington is concerned, are runaway Toyotas and distracted driving. But what if these aren’t the most important factors driving the nation’s annual highway death toll, which averages about 100 fatalities a day?
That’s the view of Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, who says the U.S. Transportation Department, Congress and the media have gotten sidetracked by issues like texting while driving.
“There’s nothing rational about the way we set highway safety priorities,” Mr. Lund says in the Insurance Institute’s Aug. 21 “Status Report” newsletter.
Mr. Lund’s organization is the safety research and advocacy arm of the insurance industry. The IIHS has been critical of the government’s highway safety policies over the past few years, usually arguing that the government wasn’t moving fast enough to require better crash-prevention technology from auto makers.
Mr. Lund and the Insurance Institute also say recent laws banning motorists from using mobile phones behind the wheel don’t correlate with a significant reduction in accidents.
“You’d think from the media coverage, congressional hearings, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s focus in recent months that separating drivers from their phones would all but solve the public-health problem of crash deaths and injuries,” he wrote. “It won’t.”
“How can I buy the kind of food I want without supporting dangerous delusions?”
Eric S. Raymond has qualms over what some of his food preferences are actually going to support:
My mouth watered. “Oh Goddess,” I muttered in her direction, “it’s packaged crack for me . . .”
Ah, but then came the deadly disclaimers. “VEGAN GLUTEN-FREE NO GMOs NO TRANS FAT.” and “We support local and fair-trade sources growing certified organic, transitional, and pesticide-free products.” Aaaarrrgggh! Suddenly my lovely potential snack was covered with an evil-smelling miasma of diet-faddery, sanctimony, political correctness, and just plain nonsense. This, I find, is a chronic problem with buying “organic”.
So, what specific parts of those fluffy pro-foodie marketing terms bother ESR?
Take “no GMOs” for starters. That’s nonsense; it’s barely even possible. Humans have been genetically modifying since the invention of stockbreeding and agriculture; it’s what we do, and hatred of the accelerated version done in a genomics lab is pure Luddism. It’s vicious nonsense, too; poor third-worlders have already starved because their governments refused food aid that might contain GMOs.
[. . .]
Vegan? I’ve long since had it up to here with the tissue of ignorance and sanctimony that is evangelical veganism. Comparing our dentition and digestive tracts with those of cows, chimps, gorillas, and bears tells the story: humans are designed to be unspecialized omnivores, and the whole notion that vegetarianism is “natural” is so much piffle. It’s not even possible except at the near end of 4000 years of GMOing staple crops for higher calorie density, and even now you can’t be a vegan in a really cold climate (like, say, Tibet) because it’ll kill you.
[. . .]
Who could be against “fair trade”? Well, me . . . because the “fair trade” crowd pressures individual growers to join collectives with “managed” pricing. If you’re betting that this means lazy but politically adept growers with poor resource management and productivity at the expense of more efficient and harder-working ones, you’ve broken the code.
I share a lot of ESR’s concerns — and tastes. I don’t go out of my way to buy organic produce, but we do tend to buy local produce (in season) and our local butcher shop has been a great source of slightly-more-expensive but definitely-better-tasting meat and chicken. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, we have to pay more attention to food labels than most folks, but we’re looking for specific ingredients, not for the marketing bumph.
August 24, 2010
Sidney Rice has hip surgery, won’t be ready to play until November
In what many are claiming is a contract-related move, Vikings wide receiver Sidney Rice had hip surgery yesterday for an injury he took in the NFC Championship game:
There has been a lot of controversy concerning that injured hip of Sidney Rice, primarily questions about when the injury happened and why it wasn’t reported until a Twitter-related confession from his agent.
Rice was at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colo. No, not to try to pull John Elway out of retirement but to have his injured hip examined by a new set of eyes. Rice confirmed to the Star Tribune he had surgery that is expected to sideline him for the first half of the 2009 season.
What makes the situation curious is that Rice, whose contract calls for $550,000 for the 2010 season, went through minicamp without any obvious hindrances and now needs surgery. The injury is said to have happened during the NFC Championship Game vs. the Saints in January.
If he had been in a scenario that would need surgery, the team clearly would have preferred to have the procedure done much earlier so that he would be ready for the start of the season. As it stands, he could be sidelined until November.
This is a very odd development: as John Holler points out above, this is an old injury and if surgery was required, it could have been done earlier in the year. If the Vikings had indicated that they weren’t willing to pay Rice extra for the breakout season he had last year, it could easily be interpreted as a deliberate move to punish the team for being unwilling to reward Rice.
Update: The Vikings have signed Javon Walker, who played with Brett Favre in Green Bay:
Walker worked out for the coaches Friday and, contrary to Walker’s recent body of work, there seems to be enough left in his 31-year-old body to give them depth at a position that has none.
We’ll see. Until Walker has a chance to prove himself, it would be a shame to see him move ahead of younger players such as Logan Payne. Payne, 25, played in two games with Seattle in ‘08 but has potential. Walker is a household name with a Pro Bowl past, but he also has been beaten down by injuries and off-field trouble the past four seasons.
The last pass Favre threw to him was in the ‘05 season opener. Walker tore an ACL on the play and has had only one productive season since. Heading into that season, a rift developed between Favre and Walker because Favre publicly criticized Walker’s decision to stage a contract holdout. The Favre-Walker relationship obviously has been mended because the Vikings never would bring in a receiver Favre didn’t want.
Censors to poke noses into what Aussies can load on their iPhones?
Roger Henry sent this information to one of my mailing lists and I repost it here with his permission:
An interesting bombshell in Oz. Apple iPhones, and presumably other similar devices, have been put on notice that all, or nearly all, of the apps that people buy and install should, by law, have been submitted for “Classification” (i.e., censorship). Failure to do so is a criminal offence with penalties of some AU$35,000 per offence. Purchasing said ‘apps’ without a Classification label is also a criminal offence, punishable with jail time and/or fines. Seems that getting these ‘apps’ Classified attracts a charge varying from AU$470 to AU$2,600 so a lot of money is outstanding. With 50,000 apps already in use, the government accepts that there are some practical limitations to the matter but they aren’t going to let the matter just fade away.
This is Roger’s summary from information posted in The Australian‘s weekly IT Notes. And then, in response to a “Dude, WTF?” query:
It may well be that Apple will cease making apps available in Oz. Yes. It is known that they have their own censors. This merely compounds their culpability. What might have been an accidental oversight is now clearly a deliberate attempt to A) avoid censorship and B) defraud the government. This cannot go unpunished. As for the consumers, well, they are all probable pedophiles and identified thieves. No punishment can be too severe . . . it might take awhile but Justice will be served.
While it likely will all end in a round of dignified press releases and backslaps all ’round, there’s still the outside possibility of a highly entertaining politico-technical train wreck here. Let’s hope the wilder spirits prevail.
Gluten-free food not the dietary silver bullet
With a celiac in the family, we’ve been very aware of all the ways the food industry uses gluten as a cheap filler (because we have to read ingredient lists very carefully). The recent boom in gluten-free products has been wonderful: we still read all the labels, but there are more products we can safely buy and use with confidence. But some folks buy the products thinking that gluten-free means guilt-free:
The notion that a gluten-free diet can help people lose weight or avoid carbohydrates is a myth. “Many packaged gluten-free products are even higher in carbs, sugar, fat and calories than their regular counterparts, and they tend to be lower in fiber, vitamins and iron,” says Shelley Case, a registered dietician on the medical advisory board of the Celiac Disease Foundation. “Gluten-free does not mean nutritious,” she notes.
Gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye, is not only a key ingredient in baked goods. It’s also used as a thickening agent in ketchup and ice cream. It helps ferment vinegar and alcoholic beverages. It’s even in lip gloss and envelope adhesives.
For people with celiac disease, ingesting even tiny amounts of gluten can set off an autoimmune reaction that flattens the finger-like villi lining the small intestine. The most common symptoms are bloating, gas, diarrhea and constipation, as well as early osteoporosis. The autoimmune reaction can also cause skin rashes, chronic fatigue, bone and joint pain, neurological problems, liver problems, diabetes, infertility in both men and women and cancers, including lymphoma. An estimated three million Americans have celiac disease — and the vast majority don’t know it because it can have no symptoms or mimic other diseases.
Separately, a smaller group of people have a specific allergy to wheat; exposure can lead to rashes, asthma and even anaphylactic shock.
A third category of people — as many as 20 million Americans — appear to be sensitive to gluten without having full-blown celiac disease. For them, symptoms may be less typical, involving depression, mental fogginess, mood swings and behavior changes. Much less is known about this group.
The Guild, Season 4 Episode 6
“One of the few thrills of working as a bylaw enforcement officer is making people cry”
Ezra Levant looks at the bylaw enforcement regime in Clarington, just east of Toronto:
It’s not a lemonade crime wave that the brave city elders of Clarington are combating. It’s the menace of backyard barbecues.
Peter Jaworski has been holding backyard barbecues at his parents’ property there for 10 years. It’s a house in the country on 40 secluded acres. Once a year, Peter invites a few dozen of his friends to spend the weekend eating his mom’s cooking and camping next to the swimming hole. I’ve been there: it’s one part family reunion, one part picnic and one part political talk.
So clearly, the Jaworski family must be stopped.
First came the health department. They poked and prodded, and even took water samples. No one has ever got sick at a Jaworski barbecue — the opposite; everyone comes for the food — but the government ordered that no home cooking would be allowed. The Jaworskis complied with these costly and ridiculous demands, catering the whole weekend and serving only bottled water, at great cost.
But bureaucrats travel in packs. A local bylaw enforcement officer waited until the barbecue itself, and marched right onto the property — no search warrant needed! — and started peppering the guests with questions.
He wasn’t a health officer; he was a bylaw officer. Yet he demanded to know what the guests had for lunch. In the name of the law!
Armed with this devastating information, the officer charged Peter’s parents with running an illegal “commercial conference centre,” which carries a fine of up to $50,000. The officer, a burly, tattooed, six-foot-something man, told Peter’s mom to “be very careful.” She burst into tears.
Why do people get this insane idea that they should be able to do what they want on their own property? If we wanted that to happen, we wouldn’t appoint bylaw officers and arm them with bylaws to quash your fun and destroy your ability to enjoy your own property!
This scourge of backyard entertainment must be defeated, and Clarington is leading the way!
GW2 links from Gamescom
Arenanet had the first live demo of Guild Wars 2 at the Gamescom event in Germany this weekend. Rubi Beyer couldn’t attend, but still feels that she’s getting plenty of information about the upcoming release:
I did not go to Gamescom. I was kind of not anticipating last week at all, because I envisioned it as a week of me looking at all the wonderful things I couldn’t have, much like a starving orphan outside a bakery (or maybe a homeless orphan in some player’s home instance). I figured it would be very un-fun.
In fact, the opposite was true. Sure, I couldn’t play hands-on, but I enjoyed all the Guild Wars 2 news flooding out of Gamescom just the same. I imagine being there would have made it impossible to take in all of these details from every direction — it just would have been too overwhelming.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not sour grapes. I would have loved to be there! But since I couldn’t, I’m really enjoying my bird’s-eye view, so to speak. Even from this point of view, the amount of new information we have is nearly impossible to keep track of, so for Flameseeker Chronicles this week, I thought I’d take all that we’ve heard this week and try to distill it into a guide on where you can find information.
It’s felt a bit like trying to take an octopus and 15 of his closest friends and convince them all to fit comfortably in one small sandwich baggie, but I’ve done my best. Follow along after the jump to see where you can find the latest and greatest from Guild Wars 2 at Gamescom.
August 23, 2010
QotD: Peak Culture
The height of their society peaked in 1969. They used militarism and socialism to put two guys on the Moon, they trotted out their public-private partnership (Concorde) to build exclusive supersonic transport for the rich. Max Faget and some other brilliant engineers designed a space shuttle fleet of ten vehicles capable of hundreds of flights a year to make access to low Earth orbit cheap and routine. And the Advanced Research Projects Agency had some geeks create an inter-networking protocol that could survive a nuclear war.
Obviously, they shot their wad, as it were, and no longer put guys on the Moon. They no longer fly supersonic transports. Their space shuttle is going to stop flying soon, if it hasn’t already. Those geeky guys went on to develop open source cryptography, open source software, and totally private economic transactions. The future we’re creating is going to be very, dramatically different. It is going to be decentralised to a fare thee well.
Right now, today, two people anywhere in the world *can* have a totally private economic exchange that cannot be detected by anyone else. And since it cannot be detected, it cannot be regulated, it cannot be prohibited, and it cannot be taxed. Even inflation cannot tax it, if the exchange is denominated in some money like silver or gold. Which means that those who dream of ruling the world sowed the seeds of their own damnation?
Jim Davidson, “Peak Culture”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2010-08-22
Unmasking “The Stig”
A court case will decide whether HarperCollins can publish a book that reveals the identity of Top Gear‘s anonymous driver:
Publisher HarperCollins is in a legal dispute with the BBC over a book that reveals the identity of Top Gear‘s The Stig, BBC News understands.
Both sides appeared in London’s High Court on Monday after the BBC confirmed it was trying to halt its publication.
The Stig regularly takes to the track on the BBC Two show, but never removes his helmet on screen.
The BBC says the publication of the book breaches contractual and confidentiality obligations.
HarperCollins declined to give any official comment.
The dispute comes amid suggestions from several newspapers speculating that the character’s true identity is former Formula Three driver Ben Collins, based on the financial reports of his company.
Sex sells, even especially in MMOs
Justin Olivetti acknowledges the obvious:
The other day, a group of us in the Massively office watched the latest TERA demo video in a sort of horrified awe as the skimpily clad character ran with her fanny flying in the wind and gyrated her hips to cast a spell. It sparked an intense discussion among us as to the fine line between sexing a game up and over-sexing it just to draw in stereotypical drooling male gamers.
It’s a well-known adage that sex sells, and like it or hate it, attractive characters and skimpy outfits have been a part of MMORPGs for quite some time now. From World of Warcraft‘s seductive succubus to Age of Conan‘s topless extravaganza to Star Trek Online‘s character creation “breast slider,” game studios tend to play the sex card first and frequently to pull in customers. This is why, for example, male armor tends to always be practical (if oddly flamboyant) while female armor isn’t even big enough to protect one’s dignity, never mind one’s internal organs.
How to become an instant expert on Afghanistan
P.J. O’Rourke had a few days to visit Afghanistan and managed to become an expert on the nation, its people, and the problems they face:
Women cover themselves in public but not more than my grandmother did at Mass. An occasional down-to-the-ground burka is seen but not as often as in London. In the malls, clothing shops predominate. Men’s and women’s clothes are shinier and more vividly colored than those seen in a traditional society such as New Hampshire.
Traditionalism being one of the things that makes Afghanistan so hard for Americans to understand. We Americans have so many traditions. For instance our political traditions date back to the 12th-century English Parliament if not to the Roman Senate. Afghans, on the other hand, have had the representative democracy kind of politics for only six years. Afghanistan’s political traditions are just beginning to develop. A Pashtun tribal leader told me that a “problem among Afghan politicians is that they do not tell the truth.” It’s a political system so new that that needed to be said out loud.
The Pashtun tribal leader was one of a number of people that Amin arranged for me to interview. Tribalism is another thing that makes Afghanistan hard to understand. We Americans are probably too tribal to grasp the subtlety of Afghan tribal concepts.
The Pashtun tribal leader was joined by a Turkmen tribal leader who has a Ph.D. in sociology. I asked the Turkmen tribal leader about the socioeconomic, class, and status aspects of Afghan tribalism.
“No tribe is resented for wealth,” he said. So, right off the bat, Afghans show greater tribal sophistication than Americans. There is no Wall Street Tribe upon which the Afghan government can blame everything.
Even the worst of Afghan governments never acquired the special knack of pitting tribe against tribe that is vital to American politics — the Squishy Liberal Tribe vs. the Kick-Butt Tribe; the Indignantly Entitled Tribe vs. the Fed-Up Taxpayer Tribe; the Smug Tribe vs. the Wipe-That-Smirk-Off-Your-Face Tribe.
There you have it: the reason we all find Afghan politics so hard to unravel!
