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The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race

"How to decrease population growth then? Certainly not by supporting immigration, medicine, public health, sanitation, peace, law and order, clean air, but rather by encouraging abortion, small families, war, famine, murder, violence, pollution, and by stopping immigration... Wow, that's radical! But it's the truth. Nature will have its way with us, no matter what we say. There's one option, though, which is open to us. We need to find something on this list of horrible tragedy that we can go out and campaign for. Anyone for promoting disease?"

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/the_powerlessness_of_pink.php

More pink toys for girls.

Both the telescope and the microscope come in special pink versions, just for the girl who is apparently more interested in getting an instrument that matches her nail polish than being functional, and note also (you may have to click through to see the larger image) that in every case the pink model is less powerful than the black and gray model.

D:

The end of a decade brings about a lot of Recaps and Lists - especially for a decade that signifies the beginning of a new century. So far, all I've read is fairly mediocre and barely worth a skim, until the Internets brought to me:

Cracked.com's: The Top 10 Decades of the Century: How The 2000s Compared.

This is the BEST decade recap I've read. So far.

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to have a good memory."

I love Judge Judy

Dear 2009, thank you for being pretty sweet.

( a year in review )

Something on my mind here...

A long, long time ago, I used to actually think about shit, analyze, and work out what was right and what was true. I was usually right. Somewhere along the line it all just got too depressing, the whole thinking thing. Plus, I'd try to explain shit to people and it was as if I were speaking Korean. At worst they'd look at me like I was speaking in tongues and at best I'd get something back on about the same level as "annyong haseyo. Ne ireumeun Lauraimnida" which seemed so elementary to me that I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a response. That was also fucking depressing. So I just stopped, and just let shit happen instead without trying to constantly analyze, and now, now I'm trying to think and I just fucking can't. It's as if I've lost the ability somewhere along the way and that, my friends, is the most fucking depressing thing of all.

As far as such things can be measured, I am in the 98th percentile when it comes to intelligence. Statistically, only one in fifty people I meet is smarter than me. Somewhere I started to listen to the other 49 people and became convinced there was something wrong with me, which there is, you know, many things are wrong with me, but critical thinking wasn't one of them and I should never have believed it was. Now I don't know how to get it back.

but Simon's whole thing here is honesty, precision of words, thinking instead of reacting purely based on emotions, and that's what I want, you know? that's more like who I used to be. I just don't know if I can do it any more.

see? life-changing.

Buenos tardes, everyone! Hola from Isla Mujeras, Mexico. It was a long journey to get here. Mostly I slept in Jenna's bag.

Us sleeping in the airport

It's been beautiful the whole time we've been here. We arrived and had some of the local flavor!


We spent the first night at a fun hostel. I met some nice people and had a great night on the beach with Latin music. Oh, mouse Jodi is tired, children. Sssh.


Jenna seems very happy here. This is her on Boxing Day morning, in front of some hotels ruined by hurricanes:


We've had a wonderful time, what with the Cuban drummers and new friends a cartwheels in the sun. We're a long way from home, and glad to be.

as my return to Antarctica grows closer I find myself seeking out blogs and other websites related to the continent in an effort to provide an outlet for some of my excitement. A few days ago I came across a clip on Youtube from the new BBC series "Life" that was filmed at McMurdo when I was down there. I met the people who filmed this clip. I still think that is awesome.

Before the BBC packed up and left they showed us some of the raw footage of this clip but it's much more exciting to hear Sir Attenborough (who, incidentally, will be down there when I arrive in Jan. Luckily I will arrive just in time for his presentation to the community. CAN'T WAIT!) narrating it.

The clip is time lapse video which is why the starfish are moving so fast. The clip was shot over weeks and edited etc. It was also a rigged shot. The seal that all the animals are feeding on was found, already dead, on the ice surface and the BBC guys came around and "sunk" it.

YOutube won't allow me to embed the video but here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG17TsgV_qI

It's about 2 and a half minutes long and quite wonderful. For an underwater shot the clarity is amazing.

Now, a question. I am thinking about buying this series to watch during the winter. Since it is only available in the UK I would have to buy it from Amazon UK. Now the DVD is region 2 and with the PAL format. Obviously I won't be able to play it on a US tv but would it work on my laptop?? The series won't be aired in the US until later next year and the narrator is going to be Oprah which is a bunch of crap.

Washington, December 28: A scientific analysis of millions of years of data has suggested that if the course of human history is any model, then the wheels are already turning on Earth’s sixth mass extinction, thanks to habitat destruction, pollution and now global warming.

According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the study of the fossil and archaeological record over the past 30 million years by UC (University of California) Berkeley and Penn State University researchers shows that between 15 and 42 percent of the mammals in North America disappeared after humans arrived.

That means North American mammals are well on the way - perhaps as much as half way - to a level of extinction comparable to other epic die-offs, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

[Source]


Meanwhile, 125 pilot whales attempt mass suicide by beaching themselves in New Zealand. Forty-three survive. They would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling humans.

• 15:19 This week, I learned that Spokane's number one export is anecdotes about being sexually harassed by Cuba Gooding Jr. #

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That gem of a blog you can't believe you didn't know about until this year.

Guh, Sarah Von from yesandyes.org! I think I read 3/4 of the archives the same day that I discovered it. That girl can move mountains.

Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

The Institute for Liberal Studies -Environmental Policy Seminar- in Mississisauga.

All the speakers were excellent, of course, and the event was wonderful as they always are, but Karol Boudreaux's discussion about property rights and entrepreneurship in Africa was incredible. Amazing. Beautiful. Educational.

It came at a time in my life where I was starting to question whether I really wanted to get deeply involved in the libertarian scene in Ontario. The unfortunate situation is that 'libertarian' generally means 'well-educated, upper-middle class, white, conservative' and while there's nothing specifically wrong with that, I've had some ethical issues about the racism and ethnocentrism that tends to crop up.

Boudreaux's stories about her life in Africa and about the incredible changes that are slowly happening there made me realize that embracing liberty and freedom didn't have to mean embracing big-C conservative values. Personal freedom is something that I believe should be universal, and the fact that there are opportunities to study and promote that in places all over the world really opened my eyes to my own potential.

Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

Too many to even list. This year in Korea has been without a doubt the best year of my life. I've met so many amazing and diverse personalities that every night was amazing in its own way.

What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

Bruce Feiler's Walking the Bible.

There were a lot of reasons. One was because I started reading it at the beginning of my big epic jaunt to Asia and the entire book reads as a journey log. Another was because, as an atheist, I don't spend a lot of time considering biblical... things, or stories, even though I know the basics. But most importantly, I loved the book because it brought my attention to something that I had never really spent any time considering before: there are people in this world who are so dedicated and passionate about the stories in the Bible that they have devoted their entire lives to preserving the history of the area, and of the people. To me, it had less to do with religion and more to do with the idea that people can feel so connected to something that they spend their entire lives researching and protecting its legacy. It's a beautiful book - I remember the first time I read it, I put it down at the end of each chapter because I didn't want it to be over. I wanted to keep reading it and learning more forever.

What's an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious'd and reference throughout the year.

This is a bit of a cheat because it's a TED video, but it counts because it changed so much for me. I've always been interested in disability studies because I think I've always seen it as a bit of a transhumanist topic. Aimee Mullins' video about her 12 pairs of legs raised a lot of really interesting ideas about how disability is changing now, and how it's about superability these days, as the technology changes.

Amazing.

Further things I have learned on this trip:

Ed Byrne and Russell Howard are hilarious.

Goat meat is not all that.

I was remiss in not seeing The Dark Knight until now. Is it weird that I like the Joker (in most of his incarnations) better than Batman? Arkham Asylum is also a pretty great game.