Quotulatiousness

December 2, 2010

The Two Scotts in a split decision

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:56

Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid like different results in this week’s matchup between Minnesota and Buffalo:

Buffalo (plus 6.5) at Minnesota

Feschuk: So Buffalo’s Steve Johnson butterfingered a game-winning pass against the Steelers and, naturally, rushed to Twitter to blame it all on God.

Good for Johnson. It’s about time someone had the courage to call out God for the terrible season He’s having. Dude is the Randy Moss of deities — totally going through the motions. Come on, God: we’ve seen you torment the Bills and Lions for the last eon. TRY SOMETHING NEW. And what were you thinking when you let Satan get away with working his evil magic so that both Matt Millen and Joe Theismann are calling the Thursday night games? Not cool, God. Not cool at all. Pick: Buffalo.

Reid: You mean God isn’t a Buffalo fan? This IS news!

Pick: Minnesota.

Feschuk also has an excellent question that the league hasn’t yet answered:

The league’s ruling on Andre Johnson warrants a revisiting of what occurred on the field. Responding to the trash talk and rough play of Cortland Finnegan — the only NFL player whose name sounds like an Irish hotel chain — the Texans’ receiver ripped off Finnegan’s helmet and punched him repeatedly in the head and face.

Johnson’s punishment? The exact same fine that Chad Ochocinco had to pay for tweeting too close to game time. It raises the question: what do you have to do to get suspended by the NFL? Do you have to actually murder a linebacker? Defile the corpse of a Hall of Famer? Fail to gently lower Tom Brady to the ground and tenderly kiss him on the forehead while sacking him?

It’s apparently not “wrong touching” when the TSA does it

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:21

Daniel Tencer says that the TSA’s guidelines for calming children are the same things sexual predators use:

An expert in the fight against child sexual abuse is raising the alarm about a technique the TSA is reportedly using to get children to co-operate with airport pat-downs: calling it a “game”.

Ken Wooden, founder of Child Lures Prevention, says the TSA’s recommendation that children be told the pat-down is a “game” is potentially putting children in danger.

Telling a child that they are engaging in a game is “one of the most common ways” that sexual predators use to convince children to engage in inappropriate contact, Wooden told Raw Story.

Children “don’t have the sophistication” to distinguish between a pat-down carried out by an airport security officer and an assault by a sexual predator, he said.

The TSA policy could “desensitize children to inappropriate touch and ultimately make it easier for sexual offenders to prey on our children,” Wooden added.

H/T to Cory Doctorow for the link.

Smug, but nursing that inferiority complex: urban Canada in a nutshell

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:28

John Geddes seems puzzled by the apparent contradiction:

Can we settle on the putdown of preference when it comes to right-wingers expressing their disdain for Canada?

They often resort to either of two seemingly contradictory, but equally condescending, lines about Canadians: we are insufferable in our sense of moral superiority, or we exhibit an equally tiresome inferiority complex.

Now, I’m willing to take my lumps, but do they have to come from both directions at once? Can’t you decide if my national ego is obnoxiously over-developed or pathetically under-developed?

I can only assume that Mr. Geddes hasn’t attended too many parties in Toronto or Ottawa. Both psychological maladies are often displayed by the same people . . . sometimes in the same conversation. Torontonians in particular are capable of sneering at vulgar Americans in one moment, then fretting that they don’t pay enough attention to our “world class” city in the next. Short of finding a way of expressing both thoughts simultaneously, I’d say that was a strong indication that urban Canadians can hold both thoughts without an overwhelming sense of contradiction.

Autism may be linked to faulty mitochondria

Filed under: Health — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

A report in The Economist looks at a recent study which may explain the cause of autism:

One suggestion that does pop up from time to time is that the process which leads to autism involves faulty mitochondria. The mitochondria are a cell’s powerpacks. They disassemble sugar molecules and turn the energy thus liberated into a form that biochemical machinery can use. Mitochondrial faults could be caused by broken genes, by environmental effects, or by a combination of the two.

Nerve cells have a huge demand for energy, so a failure of the mitochondria would certainly affect them. The question is, could it cause autism? To try to find out Cecilia Giulivi of the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues studied the mitochondria of ten children, aged between two and five years, who had been diagnosed with autism. They have just published their results in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

[. . .]

The children in question were randomly selected from a previous study on autism. They were matched with ten children of similar ages and ethnic backgrounds who were developing normally. Dr Giulivi found that mitochondria from children with autism consumed far less oxygen than those from the control group. That is a sign of lower activity. One important set of enzymes — NADH oxidases — used, on average, only a third as much oxygen in autistic children as they did in non-autists, and eight of the autistic children had significantly lower NADH-oxidase activity than is normal.

The mitochondria of the autistic children also leaked damaging oxygen-rich chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide. These are a normal by-product of mitochondrial activity, but are usually mopped up by special enzymes before they can escape and cause harm — for instance, by damaging a cell’s DNA. The level of hydrogen peroxide in the cells of autistic children was twice that found in non-autists. Such high levels suggest the brains of autistic children are exposed to a lot of oxidative stress, something that would probably cause cumulative damage.

While such a mechanism may allow better treatments to be developed, it also implies that those who already suffer from autism may not benefit as much (or at all) from such treatments, as the cellular damage will be a much tougher challenge to reverse.

On the other hand, if the pattern can be detected early enough, it may allow treatment well in advance of serious damage.

December 1, 2010

Toronto: where professional sports go to be embalmed

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Soccer, Sports — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:51

Scott Stinson looks at the less-than-impressive results turned in by Toronto’s various sport teams:

It makes business sense, of course, since Rogers, which already owns television networks and other content platforms devoted to sports, would own almost all the city’s sports properties, too. But would Toronto fans be any closer to a winner? Fans in this city have long lamented the inability of the bottom-line oriented current owners, dominated by the giant Ontario teachers’ pension plan and assorted business types, to build winners on the ice and the field. The franchises have been hugely successful in terms of making money, but woefully unsuccessful in the pursuit of championships.

Leafs: Zero playoff appearance since the NHL lockout of 2005. No Stanley Cups since 1967.

Raptors: In 15 years, they have won 11 playoff games. And lost three franchise players.

Toronto FC: Zero playoff appearance since club was formed in 2006.

[. . .]

So maybe Rogers would be different. Maybe it would want winners, since winners drive ratings. But the Jays haven’t sniffed the playoffs since Rogers bought them in 2000 (admittedly a tall order in a division that includes New York and Boston), and Rogers’ other sporting venture, the lease of eight Buffalo Bills games over five seasons, is thought to be a financial disaster.

It’s a pretty stark example of how disconnected the financial success of the business is from the sporting success of the team, isn’t it?

Update: Do check the comments, where “Lickmuffin” is holding forth about the iniquities of professional sports in general. It’s good, entertaining reading.

“London Calling” to come to the big screen

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:50

Fans of The Clash, your film is in production:

The creation of classic album London Calling by punk band The Clash is to form the basis of a new music biopic.

Former Clash members Paul Simonon and Mick Jones will executive produce the film, named after the 1979 record.

Playwright Jez Butterworth will pen the script, which will tell how producer Guy Stevens worked with the band to create their most celebrated disc.

This should be good for stirring up spirited debate

Filed under: Media, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:52

Sarah Bee reports on the kerfuffle around Satoshi Kanazawa’s book Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature:

Women long for the classic Barbie figure with big boobs, long blonde hair and blue eyes because it makes men want to impregnate them, an evolutionary psychologist has proclaimed.

London School of Economics reader Satoshi Kanazawa has successfully manipulated the more malleable and shameless news outlets into excitedly regurgitating the provocative theories contained in his book, Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature. He explains that the traditional attributes of the buxom blonde babe have evolutionary advantages, as the Daily Mail duly recounts.

Big boobs are supposedly indicative of fertility, along with a large waist-to-hip ratio. Blonde hair displays grey hairs less obviously, thus concealing age — men prefer the younger bird for a better shot at passing on their DNA, sensibly enough.

Blue eyes, Kanazawa points out, more clearly display pupil dilation, which occurs when the peepers’ owner sees something she likes. Thus a man can tell more quickly if a blue-eyed woman fancies a bit or not, saving precious sharking time at the bar.

Kanazawa further postulates that women are getting hotter and having lovelier daughters, while men are regrettably as fugly as ever they were. Beautiful women have more children than the overlooked homely types, and also have more female children, and on it goes in a wondrous babeification of the species.

This is a case where the science may point in a direction that is so politically and socially unwelcome that everyone just ignores it. Or it could be a huge joke to put the politically correct folks into a lather. Pick your option and season to taste.

Want to buy (the remains of) an aircraft carrier?

Filed under: Britain, Environment, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:47

HMS Invincible is being disposed of:

Strategy Page has more:

Britain has put its decommissioned (in 2005) 20,000 ton aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible, up for auction at edisposals.com. Five years ago, the Royal Navy said that the ship would be held in reserve until September, 2010, for possible reactivation. That process would take 18 months. However, by last year, Invincible was in a sad state, with its many components removed, and tended to by a detachment of only four sailors. Thus the auction did not come as a big surprise, and the Royal Navy hopes to obtain at least $3 million for the old ship. The Invincible entered service in 1977, and normally carried 18 Sea Harrier vertical takeoff jets, four helicopters and a crew of 1,050. The Invincible underwent a refurbishment in 2004, but cuts in the navy budget forced retirement the next year. Invincible played a vital role in the 1982 Falklands campaign.

It’s not as easy as it used to be for navies to get rid of unwanted ships:

In the past, navies would send retired ships “to the breakers” and receive a portion of the value of the scrap metal obtained when the breakers (the firm the disassembles ships) finished their work. But this is no long profitable in many cases, because taking ships apart in an environmentally correct way costs too much. This has become a problem for navies, that have no easy way to get rid of old ships. The U.S. uses many old ships for target practice and lets them sink at sea. But even this practice is under attack because of potential environmental damage.

Update, 3 December: HMS Ark Royal has just arrived in Portsmouth to be paid off. It’s not clear if the British government will try to sell the ship or if she’s headed to the breaker’s yard.

Five Books interview with P.J. O’Rourke

Filed under: Books, Economics, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

P.J. O’Rourke is asked to talk about five books from the field of political satire:

P J O’Rourke talks Swift, Huxley, Orwell and Waugh and says we now live in the world of 1984 but, instead of being a horror show, a television that looks back at you is just a pain in the ass. It’s 1984-Lite. Sad in one way, but a relief in another.

The category of political satire books is simply closed. The top five are so good that in order to make any surprising choices one has to go a long way down to the next level.

[. . .]

I’ll be careful. Animal Farm and 1984.

Yes. One is comic satire and the other is tragicomic satire.

Let’s start with the comic.

Well, Animal Farm sticks in everybody’s mind. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Again, something read twice. I read it for the first time when I was 14 or 15 and it was a funny story about badly behaved animals and then I read it again at college and someone pointed out to me that this was sharp social satire. I thought it was an animal story, a kids’ book, but when I took another look at it I realised what he was getting at. The Soviet leadership was pretty well represented there. But one of the things that’s interesting to me about both Animal Farm and 1984 is that they are warnings against collectivism from a man of the left. Sure, any old Tory or Republican might be likely to make this point, though not so well, perhaps, nor so amusingly, but the fact that it comes from a man of the left is interesting. It seems to me to be something Orwell never fully came to grips with. Maybe if he’d lived longer…

What do you mean?

The necessity for collectivism under his leftist ideals and yet the danger of collectivism no matter who it’s done by seems like something he really wrestled with. I think we all buy the necessity for collectivism in a way.

[. . .]

Have you actually been to Sweden? I’ve never been, but I find myself constantly holding it up as the pinnacle of socialist marvellousness. It could be a complete shit-hole for all I know.

I have been and you know what it is? It’s very foreign. It’s full of Swedes. I mean, there are a few immigrants, and it has more now than it did 15 years ago when I was there, but Swedes are really Swedish. They are just remarkably alike. So, when you have a country of only eight and a half million people and they’re very like each other and you take 80 per cent of their income away and redistribute it through political means and they go: ‘Ya, ya, dat’s vot I vonted! Abba records! Herring and a PhD!’ And it’s all okey-dokey. But if you take a country as diverse as the United States and you take everything away from everybody and redistribute it — oh my God, there’d be hell to pay! I mean, some people would want guns, and some people… I wouldn’t even want to ask what some people would want.

[. . .]

1984.

That’s satire more in the Roman mode. The usual definition of satire is humour used to a moral end for a moral purpose, and there’s certainly a moral purpose to 1984 but it’s not funny really. I mean there is a certain dark humour to rewriting history and things going down a memory hole.

It’s funny in the Russian sense of the word.

I like that. Believe me, I’ll steal that phrase.

I’ll see you in court.

It’s sort of like being popular in Japan.

The inevitable convergence of new technology with sex

Filed under: Media, Randomness, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:33

PC World looks at the latest convergence of all the sex-obsessed geeks in the world and the latest consumer electronics toys:

It’s practically the universal rule of electronics: Where there’s technology, there’s sex. Embrace it or shun it, but it’s the way of the world.

Now, it looks like Microsoft’s new Kinect may be the latest gadget to fall prey to prurient interests. The Kinect is undergoing a series of experiments designed to turn its motion-sensitive virtual gaming into motion-sensitive virtual mating.

Oh, come on — are you really that surprised?

The original term was “teledildonics”, which has the virtue of allowing you to discuss it without quite giving away the true subject.

If you want to know about the possibilities of Kinect sex, just ask Kyle Machulis. Machulis, aka “qdot,” runs a site called slashdong.org (Google it at your own risk). The site, which I probably shouldn’t mention by name more than once, focuses on the meeting point between sex and tech. It featured a blog this week exploring the idea of X-rated uses for Kinect-enabled Xboxes (hat tip to the crew from CNET for finding the page).

In the blog, Machulis — who was recently cited by New Scientist as a Kinect-hacking authority — observes how the Kinect is able to use depth in order to identify a person’s body shape. He goes on to note, however, that Microsoft’s gaming console really tracks the human body “as a whole,” looking at “major geometric features” of a user’s form. This doesn’t bode well for the prospect of Kinect sex; without getting too graphic, let’s just say that the primary anatomy involved in intimate relations isn’t exactly a “major geometric feature.” Sorry, fellas.

New technology is notoriously prone to being harnessed to the interests of prurience . . . after Gutenberg and his competitors got the mass-produced bible business going, one of the next profitable niches to be explored was the erotic/pornographic book market.

« Newer Posts

Powered by WordPress