DancingSamurai.ca

Quick little update regarding interesting mutterings in the blogosphere:

• BoingBoing reports on a handy graph of how much health care costs in various countries. Guess who stands out?
  
• Wired has a great article on anti-vaccine hysteria & the evidence. (via BoingBoing):
  

  At this year’s Autism One conference in Chicago, I flashed more than once on Carl Sagan’s idea of the power of an “unsatisfied medical need.” Because a massive research effort has yet to reveal the precise causes of autism, pseudo-science has stepped aggressively into the void. In the hallways of the Westin O’Hare hotel, helpful salespeople strove to catch my eye as I walked past a long line of booths pitching everything from vitamins and supplements to gluten-free cookies (some believe a gluten-free diet alleviates the symptoms of autism), hyperbaric chambers, and neuro-feedback machines.

  To a one, the speakers told parents not to despair. Vitamin D would help, said one doctor and supplement salesman who projected the equation “No vaccines + more vitamin d = no autism” onto a huge screen during his presentation. (If only it were that simple.) Others talked of the powers of enzymes, enemas, infrared saunas, glutathione drips, chelation therapy (the controversial — and risky — administration of certain chemicals that leech metals from the body), and Lupron (a medicine that shuts down testosterone synthesis).

  Offit calls this stuff, much of which is unproven, ineffectual, or downright dangerous, “a cottage industry of false hope.”

• Bruce Schneier comments on zero-tolerance policies:
  

  These policies enrage us because they are blind to circumstance. Editorial after editorial denounced the suspensions of elementary school children for offenses that anyone with any common sense would agree were accidental and harmless. The Internet is filled with essays demonstrating how the TSA’s rules are nonsensical and sometimes don’t even improve security. I’ve written some of them. What we want is for those involved in the situations to have discretion.

  However, problems with discretion were the reason behind these mandatory policies in the first place. Discretion is often applied inconsistently. One school principal might deal with knives in the classroom one way, and another principal another way. Your drug sentence could depend considerably on how sympathetic your judge is, or on whether she’s having a bad day.

This blog post… well, just read:

In just about one short year (March 2008 – March 2009), the bailouts managed to spend far in excess of nearly every major one time expenditure of the USA, including WW1&2 (omitted from graphic), the moon shot, the New Deal, total NASA budgets (omitted from graphic), Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean wars — COMBINED.

206 years versus 12 months. Total cost: ~$15 trillion and counting . . .

via BoingBoing

Vanity Fair has an excellent article highlighting America’s double standard:

Among critics of American-style capitalism in the Third World, the way that America has responded to the current economic crisis has been the last straw. During the East Asia crisis, just a decade ago, America and the I.M.F. demanded that the affected countries cut their deficits by cutting back expenditures—even if, as in Thailand, this contributed to a resurgence of the aids epidemic, or even if, as in Indonesia, this meant curtailing food subsidies for the starving. America and the I.M.F. forced countries to raise interest rates, in some cases to more than 50 percent. They lectured Indonesia about being tough on its banks—and demanded that the government not bail them out. What a terrible precedent this would set, they said, and what a terrible intervention in the Swiss-clock mechanisms of the free market.

The contrast between the handling of the East Asia crisis and the American crisis is stark and has not gone unnoticed. To pull America out of the hole, we are now witnessing massive increases in spending and massive deficits, even as interest rates have been brought down to zero. Banks are being bailed out right and left. Some of the same officials in Washington who dealt with the East Asia crisis are now managing the response to the American crisis. Why, people in the Third World ask, is the United States administering different medicine to itself?

Read the whole thing, it’s well worth it! [Wall Street and the Third World]

(via BoingBoing)

Calvin & Hobbes has to be my favourite comic strip of all time (yes, it even beats xkcd). I must say I love it all the more now that I’m expecting a  baby boy — I shudder to think at all the ingenious/devilish things he’ll come up with.

Regardless, this strip is spot-on with what is happening in the economy today. Prescience, or just human nature? (h/t Shadowfax)

This is such a well executed video. Check it out at Crisis of Credit. (HD version)

I wonder what software people are using to make these great text/animation videos I’ve seen lately…

So this doesn’t look so good:

Also, remember, this is US job data. In Canada, it’s twice as bad.

(via Movin’ Meat: A Little Alarming.)

This about sums it up:

2008 deficit
$3.9 billion

2009 deficit (est.)
$14 billion

Dollar
77.31 cents US

Oil
$49.62

TSX
Down 47%

Bay Street Bailout
$75,000,000,000

And a comment adds:

Lying to Canadians about the stength of the “fundamentals” of our economy to get re-elected:

PRICELESS!!!!

Ron Wilson (vice-president, merchendizing of Best Buy & Future Shop) adds his thoughts on the copyright debate, and comes down strongly on the side of consumer rights:

As one of Canada’s most successful entertainment and electronics retailers, we share our customers’ interest in acquiring technologically innovative and advanced products at the best prices. Customers have the right to use and maximize their enjoyment of these products, and a fair and balanced copyright law is imperative in facilitating this.

(via Digital Copyright Canada)