I love drugs

So, I am in the Netherlands, the oft claimed home of drugs and hookers, and was sitting in my room, reading this article from the UK Times about 'love shyness'. In essence, this is supposedly an emergent phenomenon (very very weak epistemological emergence, if you could even call it emergence) whereby a bunch of lonely adult males piss and moan about the fact that they were ten years old when had their last girlfriend. Observe:

John has been in love. “Probably just the once. When I was 10 there was this girl I really liked. She was younger than me, so when I went to secondary school I lost contact with her and never saw her again.” He has an enduring memory of playing outside with the girl, and of the sun slowly going down, and never feeling happier. In fantasy he often takes the memory further and, imagining himself as a child again, he kisses her.

Now, this is clearly indicative of some deep seated emotional abnormality, and I don't mean to be cold hearted and lacking empathy when thinking about this - clearly I read this article for a reason, and if I am in a culture renowned for its liberal approach social norms yet sitting inside and reading newspaper articles, I think it safe to say that I am not the most successful pants-man who strode the earth. But then I read this section, and my humour and cynicism and bitterness returned:

Seb says the first step to getting better is recognising that something is wrong and the label helps with that. “I believe LS can be overcome,” he says, “but it’s a long, hard road.”

There are drugs to treat shyness, mainstream antidepressants such as Paxil. But the many possible side-effects include sweating, nausea, lowered libido and suicidal tendencies

Nice. You want to treat a problem that has depression and sexual relations central to it, by application of medications known to lower libido and increase suicidal tendencies? And make the people sweaty and nauseous while on dates? Nice thinking, arse-clown. Maybe just force these guys to smoke Ice and give them a handgun. Might solve their problems, sure it might also have some negative side effects, but hey, as long as we're helping these people, who cares what happens to them.

Which brings me to the vague point of these ramblings - that labelling of socially non-standard behaviour dances easily to the music of medicalization, which as i'm sure we all know is perhaps not the best solution to a given set of problems: I'm lonely, cold inside and my last girlfriend was an eight year-old, twenty-two years ago. Clearly I need drugs to find love.

The words 'parasite' and 'exploitation' seem to bounce around in my head for some strange reason.

Religion V Religion

Morning folks.

Well come back. '09. And what a year it has been. So far, we have seen floods fires and famine. Whoever said that armageddon didn't happen when the clocks ticked over on '99 certainly didn't have a grasp of armageddon stretching out over a few years.
Speaking of religious intolerance, my brain was s(t)imulated by an article in the paper today.
Very simply described, a comedian in Israel has responded to recent a holocaust denier/revisionist/moron from a certain club by having a skit where jesus walking on water and mary's virginity are called into doubt.

While this itself is of little interest to me, I was wondering if this parallels the Jyllands-Posten controversy? If it does compare are we able to draw conclusions about different religious behaviours, and if it doesn't compare, then what is morally different between the two satires?

Any thoughts and ramblings would be encouraged.

Yours, in love, Mr. TriSickle.

Animal Ethics = Freedom Of Choice

I was reading an article about the 'shonky awards' today. These are put out by Choice Magazine each year.

One of the beneficiaries of this was the Australian Egg Corporation which won an award for their 'Free Range' barn laid eggs. Their free-range birds have the option of leaving the barn, and roaming in an open range area. Yet, many of the birds in the barn do not do this. Choice Magazine thought this was shonky. The managing director of the AEG, James Kellaway, defended their product through the lovelly use of a free-will argument. Here he is, taken from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"As for access to the open range, the corporation was not about to start strong-arming chickens out the barn door each morning."We need to ensure each bird has access to an open range, but it's a chicken's freedom of choice," Mr Kellaway said."

Gold!

Without wanting to ruffle the feathers of those of you who hate counting a pun before it is hatched, I would say that Mr Kellaway's argument is Eggsellent.

John McCain = Human Garbage

As part of his last ditch attempts to fool people into not voting for Obama, John 'I'm a Maverick' McCain has gleefully descended into into the human filth that seems to compose the Republican party.
The focus of his campaign now seems to be scare voters away from Obama. In their final debate McCain pitifully bleated that a voter enrolment group, ACORN (associated with Obama) "is now on the verge of maybe perpetuating one the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, MAYBE DESTROYING THE FABRIC OF DEMOCRACY." (My emphasis)
Now, these are serious claims, and they certainly warrant investigation and explanation. Yet the political import McCain's pig-screams cannot be understated. Democrat Congressman John Conyers raises the issue of the FBI leaks about the ACORN investigation. The concern here is that the leaks from a supposedly independent arm of the government were intended to influence the outcome of this year's election.

But, to my main point, how can John McCain say this crap and maintain his dignity as a human? Let me repeat his words - "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy'. My response to that consists of three words (and one letter) George W Bush President? This is the party who, through electoral fraud, stole the 2000 election. Stole? Yes. Whether it was the erasing of racial minorities from voter rolls, the collusion of the conservative dominated media in swinging the Florida vote or the role that Republican judges played in deciding that George W was the president, to name but a few examples, the 2000 election made a sham of democracy.

Well, that was just once, a one off, one might say. Wrong. The 2004 election was again plagued by Republican manipulation. And now, the same process is being repeated. Now, maybe I am simply a commie, blinded by my liberal bleeding heart, deliberately searching for facts to match my bias. But these examples seem factually accurate, and display the Republican party as willing to sacrifice democracy to keep their talons on the position of the president.

Over reaction? Perhaps. But when one reads that some republicans are attempting to prevent voters from voting in this election, because the banks have foreclosed on their home, one finds the bile rises to throat quicker than you can say 'democracy is the right to equal representation'.

No, John McCain, the ACORN situation is not a threat to the fabric of democracy. The Republican Party tore that fabric up years ago, wiped their arse with it, and now you want to jam that stinking rag in the face of U.S. voters? You sir, are garbage.

Palin into insignificance

I just red some leftist propaganda about my sweet love, Sarah 'I-can-see-Russia' Palin.

Supposedly, McCain's (i.e. Palin's boss) support among women is far behind that of Obama. One poll puts 55% of women backing Obama, while 38% back McCain. I must admit, I am a little bamboozled. She is a women, a pretty one too. Isn't this enough for women to support her? Why are they so stupid. She is a women and so are other women. Women should vote for her, that's how it works. (Ignore her failings as a politician, her inexperience, her jarring ignorance and general ineptitude and vote her in dammit!)

Tonight Sarah Palin gets to go toe to toe with Joe Biden tonight. Fairness dictates that no-one will ask her any questions that she cannot answer. It will be telling to see how the heartless baby-murdering democrap sympathisers show their hands by asking questions that they know she cannot answer. I mean, sure, she may not know much about foreign policy, economics, health care, but she was a beauty queen. And as George W has shown, a lack knowledge of foreign policy, economics and health care is certainly no impediment to a successful presidency.

iViva Life!

Things making me angry today:

Okay, it's really only one thing right now.

Recently a Muslim school plan in the outer Sydney suburb of Camden was rejected, causing a lot of outcry about racism (a pig's head was found staked to the potential site with nasty signs and a lot of residents showing terrible behaviour).

The council ended up rejecting it based on the apparent fact that the plans didn't meet requirements.

However! Now a Catholic school has applied for a similar school (but with Catholics of course :P ) and the president of the local residents group, Emil Sremchevich, who campaigned very loudly against the Muslim school, said that this new school application should be just fine because they're Catholics (before he even looked at the application).

"Why is that racist? Why is it discriminatory? It's very simple: people like some things but don't like other things. Some of us like blondes, some of us like brunettes. Some of us like Fords, some of us like Holdens. Why is it xenophobic just because I want to make a choice? If I want to like some people and not like other people, that's the nature of the beast."

ARGH. STUPID IGNORANT PEOPLE OMG.

Let's hope the council treats this application the same way as the Muslim school. Mob rules are not okay!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/catholics-welcome-muslims-not/2008/09/08/1220857456711.html

U.S. Federal Election

I am sure that some of our loyal and devoted fan base (consisting of millions, no doubt) have been following the recent developments in the U.S. Federal Election.
First off, we have Obama as the first 'non-white' major party candidate, then McCain names Sarah Palin as his running mate/potential Vice President. She is young (mid fourties) conservative, and she is female. She also has five children, one of them 17, pregnant and - shock horror - unwed. As the dirt diggers fire up their engines, and rumours and scuttlebut abound, I am become more and more fascinated by this election. Obviously the outcome wil be interesting, but to see what happens during the process leading to the outcome will be really really interesting.

Just to add a little slacademic fuel to this fire, this is a quote from our girl Sarah P from today's Australian: She is expected to highlight her focus on ethics issues in Alaska and other accomplishments...

Hmmm, I wonder if she takes an irrealist or a non-descriptive cognitivist approach, or whether she is a full blown realist. Methinks the last.

Emo Brings Down The Russian Bear

Supposedly, according to the Blogosphere Russia is banning Emos, because they might kill themselves or bring down the Russian Government.

Well, it looks like I might have to ditch the Heavy Metal/Punk stuff that I have been holding onto for so long, and get with the real winners, Emos.

To paraphrase Bill Hicks:

A guy says, “I hate Emos,” and I said, “Why?” He goes, “Because they killed Russia.” They believe that. If I believed that the Emos killed Russia, I’d worship the Emos, ’cause shit, there’s some badasses on that team, man. I haven’t seen Russia ever, I see Emos all the time – go figure.

The apocalypse

Hello.

I read in the paper today about a robot controlled by brain cells.

"A multidisciplinary team at the University of Reading has developed a robot which is controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons."

Looks like humans are soon to be outdated. I for one hail our new robo-rat cyborgs as gods and masters, and renounce all humans as egotistical meat-bags.

Huzah!

One final postscript: The scientists used rat neurons on this one. Perhaps to prevent our imminent collapse, in the future they could use puppy neurons?

On mice, men, and memorials

So the article I'm writing at the moment (currently overdue to my own self-imposed time frames, but hey) deals in part with memorials and representations of pivotal events in history. Primarily, with our conceptions of war, and the life of the soldier.

However, when this article appeared on my Google Reader page, I got a bit reminiscent, and a bit thoughtful.

For those who haven't been to Berlin recently, there is a memorial there to the murdered Jews of Europe, in fact, the new memorial, to the homosexuals who suffered at the hands of the Third Reich is apparently across the road from it. Now, I deplore most modern art, but the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe ("the memorial") is quite astonishing. Never in my life have I been to a place that is quite of eerie. While I'm sure that a tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau or the like will provide an even greater sense of loss, I was truly moved by the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. To do the night tour and visit the underground museum below the Stelae is an even more moving experience, and I strongly encourage everyone to make a visit, should your path take you to Berlin.

What I wanted to talk about, however, is the concept of a memorial. Now, as an Australian who has done his fair share of mind-numbing car trips across this great, flat, desolate country, I've seen many, many memorials to fallen soldiers: Philip D'Alton, who I mentioned in a previous article had a somewhat critical perspective on them. Sifu, I feel, was right. Memorials in our country are often muted versions of the truth, sanitised and commericalised in such a way that feeds us images that warp our perspective on the horrors of war. Not so in the memorial. Devoid of images so tacky as images of concentration camps, starving Jewry and corpses, the memorial instead conveys a deep sense of loss, by it's starkness. the particular concrete-esque substance of the Stelae soaks up sound, and turning corners is disoriented in the uniform field of Stelae and slowly undulating paths between. it is an inspired memorial that hopefully will continue to inform and challenge people on one of the horrors of the previous century.

So my question to the wider world is: what function does a memorial serve? Memorials in Australia are usually to commemorate battles and fallen citizens, while The Memorial instead commemorates a far different part of history: it remembers the sins of a nation. In light of "sorry," and all its press coverage, it gives one pause for reflection as to the status of the "sins of a nation." can a nation have sins? Are there things so terrible that a body of citizens can do that we become bound to our history? I think so, but I'd be interested to hear from others. It's my view that we have a moral obligation to remember history, lest it (please for give my cliches) repeat itself.

Starting fires as a form of political expression...

This article in Nature seems to have started a number of rants.

I'll get around to writing something meaningful about this, and related phenomena, a bit later (I've got a number of books due back to the library that can't be renewed, and I need to finish them- a task that has and will require many more hours of reading, and coffee, to accomplish). In the meantime, I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

What interests me about articles and research like this is not the Nature article itself, but the comments to the article. Nothing says ruffled feathers, angry bloggers, and general nastiness like pulling Internet users into a sexism debate.