Forbidden Planet

[Update 10-Deember-2007 @ 17:38, since this post went up 3 days ago, I have had a few search engine hits using the keyword smoking on this post. To dispel any possible confusion: the title is ironic . Smoking increases the risk and incidence of cancer. So do oral contraceptives. However, both also have positive side effects. Smoking appears to reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's. Researchers are currently looking into a nicotine like compound found in a marine creature as a possible treatment for Alzheimer's (why they don't look at tobacco, I don't know - probably because it would not be politically correct). Oral contraceptives reduce the incidence of certain rare forms of cancer, however, the sum of cancers prevented and cancers caused show an overall increase in the number of cancer cases.] I am still in an anti-spinning mood. Eleven years ago or so, the Ottawa Citizen ran a front page article on the pill. The headline (in the biggest font I ever recall seeing) was ...

When we (and by we, I mean those of us in the developed first world) look at people in the developing world, we are often struck by the level of hardship endured by these people. So, being good citizens, we organize and deliver various forms of aid. Unfortunately, these are often tied up in rather arrogant attitudes on our part. Sometimes, I get the impression we believe that without our aid and assistance those poor people would be sitting in the dust trying to eat rocks - therefore, obviously, they need our knowledge to learn how to dig wells, how to plant crops and raise animals and, of course, how to run an effective government and judiciary. We tend to forget that these people have been living there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and have managed to survive thus far. While some of their woes may be due to antiquated or inadequate knowledge, the vast majority of their ills have nothing to do with ignorance. Image nabbed from here .

Today is the Ontario provincial election. I voted for the Green Party. Not because of any ideological attachment to them (although, listening to the Green Party leader on CBC radio two weeks ago, he was far more reasonable, coherent, and less inflammatory and divisive than the main party leaders). No, I voted for the Greens because it was a strategic vote. I suppose I could have spoiled my ballot, but I have grown tired of that. I reckon the politicians ignore it and assume I am an idiot who doesn't know how to mark a single X next to a candidate's name. I figured it was better to give my vote to some non-mainstream party in the hope that it will spur greater choice and genuine debate. (At least in the Federal elections, doing so makes sense, since parties are funded according to the number of votes they get - assuming the cross a 3% of popular vote threshold. I believe that only the province of Quebec similarly funds its political parties). The hot button issue for this electi...

It stands for Mixed Member Proportional. In the upcoming Ontario provincial election, we are also asked to vote on whether or not to change our current electoral system from a first past the post to a mixed member proportional system. As far as I can recall, this is the first time I have ever been asked to vote for a new government and in a referendum simultaneously. In Canada and all the provinces and territories, our electoral system is a representational system. That is, the region involved in the election is subdivided into smaller regions (for this election, Ontario is divided into 107 regions or seats). Each region elects a representative to the legislature. In general, representatives belong to one of the 3 major political parties in Ontario (Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and New Democratic Party). There are other parties, but they are small and generally don't account for much of the popular vote. On occasion an independent candidate will be elected, however, he (c...

In an episode of the British series Yes, Prime Minister , the Prime Minister was keen on reintroducing conscription (National Service) as a means of bolstering the armed forces, reducing unemployment and providing skills training to young people. For various reasons, the civil service and military are opposed to the idea, which the Prime Minister believes to be a vote winner. In this clip, Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Cabinet Secretary, explains to Bernard Woolley, the Principal Private Secretary of the Prime Minister, how to get the poll results desired. This is one of the techniques used in negotiating with someone or trying to persuade someone - consistency. People want to act in a way that is consistent. Psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser, published a study in the 1966 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique showing just how consistent people will strive to be. The experiment was simple, people were...

they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable, if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering. - Doctor Who, The Face of Evil. The real meat of this quote is "the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views ", but I prefer the whole quote because, one, it gives the entire context and, two, it sounds much less didactic. I think it is very true, since I experienced it first hand back in 1977. I was a big sci-fi fan back then (and still am) and loved watching Star Trek, but was hungry for more good sci-fi (after all, how many times can you watch the same episodes over and over again? Quite a lot, actually). On TV there was The Starlost, Planet of the Apes, The Tomorrow People, Space 1999, The Six Million Dollar Man - while those shows could offer some entertainment, they did not have the sam...

I am sure most people have heard or read the quote attributed to Sir Isaac Newton: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. It sounds like a wonderfully humble and self-effacing comment. We can easily imagine Newton slipping that in as he is being lauded for his contribution to science. The actual context is a little more interesting. Newton was involved in a number of controversies during his life. The best known is probably between him and Liebniz over the invention of calculus (which historians now say was developed independently by both). Of course, he was also involved in conflict with Robert Hooke. Hooke criticized Newton's work on numerous occasions. Probably the most serious accusation came in 1675, when Hooke accused Newton of stealing work on optics from him (you might remember that Newton showed a prism will split light into a rainbow of colours - Hooke claims it was his discovery). A number of letters were exchanged between the two over this ...

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force -- the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism... "Thus I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. "During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded wi...

... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell, Politics and the English Language