Saturday, May 30, 2009

North Korea's Bad Choices

Firstly, allow me to apologise. I've been away from the computer for a few days with a migraine, and still writing this with sunglasses on (I've been called Blade several times over the past week). I'm still a bit out of it so expect a few less posts for the next week while I recover.

Anyway, North Korea! I have to say, they could not have been stupider. First of all, western countries are feeding Kim Jon Il's citizens (because he won't) in hopes that he won't wouldn't develop nuclear technology. Now, that support is likely to come to an end. Thanks to that, the poor poor POOR people of North Korea are going to see a reduction in quality of life from terrible to unlivable. There are even rumours of citizens going into fields for GRASS to supplement their diet because not enough rice is available). GRASS. I'm just trying to picture how I would feel about my lunch if it were soup consisting of water and GRASS. Keep in mind grass has no nutritional properties, so it's not really like eating veggies either. It's just GRASS. Unbelievable.

I have a somewhat vested interest in stories from North Korea and Cuba because I was raised in the Soviet Union (though most of my memorable experience with that leadership is vicariously through my parents) and this sort of news always interests me and frightens me at the same time. I'd like to ask why the good people of North Korea are not revolting, but it seems a bit naive. There is no internet access there AT ALL, there is no real news of the outside world, hell, there's no food. None. I mean, if people are eating GRASS for God's sake. But at the same time, I think we could be doing more. Just like we could be doing more in Sri Lanka, or Zimbabwe, or Colombia, or Afganistan, to name a few.

Everyday I'm amazed by how little our government does to protect their citizens and to help defend human rights.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Ruling on fraud makes cigarette companies choke


Funny story today on a case which has been dragging on since '99, and will likely continue. The courts have, once again, said that cigarette companies are guilty of committing fraud against the public because they've publicly lied about the dangers of cigarettes and deceived the public by offering "light" versions that are in no way less harmful to the body.

Golly gee, that's a surprise.

That said, this is how I see it. First of all, anyone with half a brain knows that cigarettes are dangerous. It's common knowledge. If you don't know, you've been living under a rock. It then seems impossible to "deceive" the public. Of course, "light" is underhanded and evil. And yes they should be punished for it. But I think it's still a far cry from fraud.

I think the worst issue brought up in the trail is the issue of deceiving children, but again - it is not the responsibility of companies to educate children. Why have parents become so lazy? "How dare companies say what is in their best interests, rather than parent my children so I don't need to!"

If the kids knew from their parents the dangers of smoking then the cigarette companies would hardly be able to lie to them, no?


Continue to defend public stupidity and laziness! Though I suppose till the public smartens up, someone has to take care of business.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A bit of cheerful pessimism

I feel I have not had as much humour in this blog as I'd like. I suppose mostly due to the very serious topics I select, but there's nothing like some cheerful perssimism. So here's a recent Dilbert cartoon that I find very timely and very funny.


Dilbert.com

Monday, May 18, 2009

Civil war in Sri Lanka Not Over

This is completely absurd. The news media is going crazy over this so-called end to a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka (see my post explaining the background on it). There is so much propaganda coming from all sides, including from countries which feel guilty for not having done anything in Sri Lanka after promising time and time again to prevent genocides from occuring.

In any case, the news have it that the Tigers have been killed, and that clearly, the violence will stop immidiately. Because before the Tigers there was no violence in Sri Lanka. They were NOT a reaction against institutionalized discrimination where there were maximum quotas of how many Tamils could be accepted at universities, and government troops sneaking into villages at night and killing whole groups of young Tamils.

I am ashamed of my country and the rest of the world for ignoring yet another genocide. So much for "never again". Absolutely disguasting.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Post Secondary Universities


Allow me a rant, if you will, about the effectiveness of post secondary universities. Feel free to comment if you agree or disagree. Disclaimer, I do not claim to know everything, but I sure try to!

Here is my beef - they're worthless, for the most part. If there are some time tested formulas you need to know to get a job in a field once you're out of school, university can help you get the basic technical skills (e.g. calculating taxes, knowing where the heart in the body is, etc). Unfortunately, for technical jobs such as finance and medicine, you still need much more than what you're learning in school, and for non-technical careers such as teaching, business administration, etc, the topics raised in university are not only not furthering our knowledge of our field, but giving us the delusion that we might actually know something after 4 years of long nights and empty wallets.

This is, of course, untrue. Interestingly, one of my profs wrote about the disconnect between school and work, and how students are coming out unequipped and have no guarantee of employment. The article notes that the bachelor degree of today is the high school degree of the past - except the high school degree is free.

The result is graduates who think they deserve a 6-figure job and corner office right out of university, but have no real life skills to back it up, and on top of that, employers and professors are doing nothing to remedy this chronic underperforming and continue to require these degrees while making no changes to them to make them more useful for students.

Why are we being prepared for the world of 1991, when most of those textbooks last had a major updating? What are we paying for?

In short? To be screwed.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Change

I've been thinking a lot about change and moving on lately. I've been told all my life that as you age, accepting change becomes more difficult, and that you cannot "teach an old dog new tricks". This has always been terrifying for me as a kid, because I love change. Stagnation for me is death. To lose that would be to lose myself.

Then I went to university, and learned a couple of things. For example, statistics show that older people (50+) are just as willing to learn new things in the workplace, they just happen to recieve almost 5 times less money in training, for a number of reasons.

This tells me something though - I don't think you lose your ability to accept change because of your age. What this is is just another excuse. It's another of the "I can't do that because of *insert relevant stereotype* and that's that". Why is it that people in one breath fight vehemently against being put in a box and in the next rely on stereotypes to avoid going outside it.

Embrace change, people, or at least find a better excuse. 

Monday, May 11, 2009

The Indian Sex Trade


Neat little story on CNN today about the sex trade in India. Officials have it pegged that at least 100 million people are involved with human traffiking. 100 MILLION people.

India's population is about 1.147 billion people. So that means that about 9% of the population, in modest estimates, is involved with human traffiking. That's increadible. That's at least 1 in 11 people in India in some way related to this industry.

About 1.2 million of those are kids.

Officials believe almost all the movement is within India (i.e. they don't leave the country).


I really have no comment on this.

I am completely speechless.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Miss Naked Beauty

Probably my favorite (read: only one I watch) reality tv show. I'm not sure why it's not more popular, I suppose because it's all about doing some good, rather than doing something disgusting for a chance at a lot of money.

The premise of the show is quite simple: 12 girls compete for a job. The job: an ambassador representing real beauty and campaigning for more real women in advertising.

The challenges have included dumping their make up, creating advertising campaigns, dealing with the media, and coming to terms with parts of their bodies they don't like (in a photo shoot). 

Watching them has been quite inspiring and I hope more people tune in (regardless of gender). 

On a more general note, it saddens me how boys and girls are growing up surrounded by plastic barbies and kens as role models. What's even worse is that for the most part, women talking about better role models for young girls are generally doing everything in their power to fit those same molds, and young boys don't get any role models speaking to them about body image at all.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

i-ASIMO


Honda is not just a car manufacturer, though it is their most visible work. They have been trying to correct this, by taking their inventions to the public. In fact, just in January they brought an interesting invention to Edinburgh. A robot. Not just any robot, one which is capable of moving in any direction, turn, use stairs, even run. It also learns. So far it has learned to take most simple commands, dance, and communicate with people. It even knows how and when to wave.

Much like the ideas of i-Robot (not too bad of a film), the robot is designed to help people. Developers are hoping that ASIMO will contribute in hospitals and nursing homes, and eventually make their way to every home in the world.

The idea both excites and terrifies me. As I've mentioned before, I'm quite conservative when it comes to risk. These robots look adorable (like a kid in a space suit), and their sheer existance, which up until a couple of years ago was deemed physically impossible, is a breakthrough in technology. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to never have to do laundry again, or dishes, or cleaning the floors, but it seems to me that we've substituted a bit too much of our work for that of a machine. It's a great idea for hospitals, nursing homes, even fire departments or police stations if used properly, but do we really need another gadget at home?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Vegetarian Racing

The greatest news I've heard in some time: The University of Warwick, UK has developed a new F1 (or F3 depending on who you ask) racing car. It gets up to 145 mph, has a lightweight body, and is excellent on fuel.

The catch: The car is made primarily from potatoes, carrots, and soy beans, and the fuel is a combination of vegetable oil and chocolate.

As a big fan of Mother Nature, I have to say this seems quite sketchy, especially with worldwide issues of poverty, hunger, and inaccessibility to quality food.

That said, the novelty factor is quite immense, and I almost fell off my seat when I read this. The developers of the car hope that the F1 committee will change their rules on fuel to allow this car to race, and are calling this the future of F1 racing. Something you need to know about racing, for those not fans of watching fast cars go very quickly in very small circles: they burn a lot of fuel. A lot. An F1 car gets about 75 litres/100km (or 3 mpg). Wiki says this on the length of a race: The race distance is equal to the least number of complete laps which exceed a distance of 305 km (190 mi) (although Monaco is 260 km (160 mi)), and are limited to two hours. In practice they usually last about ninety minutes. That's a lot of fuel, a lot of emissions, and a lot of money.

What all this adds up to is incredible pollution and waste of fuel, so even if in practice this may not be the best idea (though I think F1 fans would disagree with my idea of "best"), it is certainly an interesting idea and will certainly be gaining steam throughout the next few years, and then eventually those ideas will be trickling down to production cars.

It's interesting. I must say, I'm intrigued.


Sunday, May 3, 2009

Freedom of the Press - a thing of the past?

According to an annual study, worldwide freedom of the press has been reduced for the 7th year in a row. What is disconcerting to me, is that beyond the countries that have, over the past several years, systematically been reducing the ability of real news to circulate among the citizenship and abroad (I'm looking at you, Iran, China, etc), places that have consistently remained completely free to journalists such as Israel, Italy, and Taiwan, have had their rating reduced to "partly free".

In fact, what is of greatest concern to me (because it applies to me!), some countries listed are now also persecuting BLOGGERS! I remember when I started the blog (and a couple I've had before) the fear of how much personal information you can put on the blog. Should you put your last name? How about a picture? How about descriptive detail which may point you out to those that know you? Where is the line? Is it safe? You can tell by my blog where I decided the line of safety is, and I suspect for bloggers in countries less liberal with the media as Canada, even issues such as using their own computer, or the same public computer, may be suspect. It really shows how truly lacking in confidence some country leaders are, that they are so certain that if they allow the media to judge their governments impartially, there would be surely chaos and upheaval. It's just mayhem when people are allowed to think for themselves.

To all the bloggers out there, keep up the fight! We're here for you.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

100 Year Old Mass Grave Discovered in Pennsylvania

In March, researchers found a mass grave of Irish immigrants near Philadelphia University. It is estimated that they died in August of 1832, either of cholera, or being shot due to being suspected of cholera. The discoverers have taken it upon themselves to bring these people, albight 177 years late, some peace. They will be taking DNA evidence to establish their identities and trying to inform their descendants. If that is impossible, they will have proper funerals for all 57 men.

It's amazing how little people think of the future, and how our actions today have an effect on the future. I think it's wonderful that these people and their families, will be able to find some peace. I don't understand why we wait decades after something like this - men killed for their background or due to fear mongering, that we become compassionate. Where is our compassion while such atrocities are happening? These people, a token of our humanity, were treated like cattle. We have found sympathy for them, but how about the people suffering from our indifference or scorn today?

I wonder how we'll be treating people diagnosed with swine flu in the coming months.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Tamils, Misunderstood


I'm sure everyone in Canada's heard about the situation in Sri Lanka by now, most likely for the first time. I'm also quite sure that no one in the US knows about it at all. The issue here, and why I think it's important I bring it up on a blog that boasts UNKNOWN news, is that this bit of news has been, for 30 years unreported, and now that it's in the news, endlessly misreported. So I'm setting the record straight.

Background:
For the last 2 months, Tamil protesters have had endless protests. More than 50,000 people surrounded Union Station in Toronto with a human chain to raise awareness about what is fast becoming a genocide in Sri Lanka. Of course, they stopped the chain at major intersections to avoid disturbing people making their way to and from work. Then 33,000 of them sat in front of Parliament in Ottawa waiting for someone to come speak to them about why Canada remains silent. Then they came to the American Embassy in downtown Toronto for 3 days with estimates of between 1,000 and 5,000 per day.

Why I'm writing about it:
No one seems to know why there people are out on the streets protesting! Someone at some point brought up the Tamil Tigers in the media, and suddenly all these people want is to remove the LTTE from the terrorist watch list. This is not what they want, regardless of how much the media insists on it.

What they want:
Economic sanctions similar to those enacted in South Africa during Apartheid. They want this because so far the government has only put pressure on one side (the Tigers), rather than putting a pressure on both sides to reach a ceasefire.

Want to know more?
This article is a good place to start
The background of the struggle

Photo courtesy of CBC News.