New Zealand not Epically Doomed, unlike Louisiana.

Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy.com has been banging the drum about creationism and evolution for a long time now and I wholeheartedly agree with everything he has to say. If schools want to teach Intelligent Design or Creationism then it should be done in the correct forum, which is not the science class. Anyway, where am I going with this? Phil Plait has done a pretty good job on this argument so I am not going to go into the specifics here.
The governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindahl, has just signed has signed a new state bill called the academic freedom bill which will allow creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Evolution of course being a Theory that can be proved by scientific means and principles, creationism cannot. And now the whackjobs in NZ are having a go as well.

The floodgates have opened. www.Stuff.co.nz in New Zealand reports that, “A Christian group promoting intelligent design over evolution has sent teaching material to schools that critics say is religious propaganda and sloppy pseudoscience.”
At least the critics have a voice. The NZ Education Ministry says:
“The unsanctioned material does not breach the Education Act and there are no plans to ban its distribution. But officials stress the theory of evolution underpins the science curriculum and schools have a responsibility to teach theories that are subject to accepted scientific scrutiny.”

A groups calling themselves “Focus on the Family” (meaning of course THEIR focus on YOUR family) sent Material to 400 high schools trying to get them to teach the hack pseudo-science in class.
Waikato University sciences senior lecturer Alison Campbell said:
“The material champions creationism - the belief that God created the world as described in the Book of Genesis - claiming the universe is too perfect to have been produced by chance so must be the work of an intelligent designer.
It represented a religious viewpoint, she said, not a scientific one, and had no place in science classrooms.”

Focus on the Family's executive director Tim Sisarich said the material was intended to expose pupils to an alterative theory of cosmology.
"We're a Christian organisation so we believe that God made the planet and God made the cosmos ... Science takes a theory and tries to establish it as the truth, and that's all this is."
Education Ministry senior manager Mary Chamberlain said parents had a right to withdraw children from religious instruction.

This is amazing. I knew that NZ had a large religious community and that is totally fine, I have no problem with that. I did not think we had the same type of minds here as in the US. I suppose we are lucky that we don't as yet seem to have those types of people in power that can make the crazy mistakes as Louisiana.

If you check the article on Stuff, you will see the standard religious morons coming out of the woodwork, making the same inane arguments. "Its just a theory", "we didn't evolve from monkeys", "teach the controversy", and "why is there no half monkey/ half human" is just a random sample of the horse shit the Committee for Lying for Jesus is posting. Always with the same crap that shows more about their lack of understanding, than their intelligence. I don't think it will ever get to the same level of stupidity that it does in America, with 40% of NZ subscribing to no religion, and another 30% subscribing to religions other than christian based ones, but its still worrying to see these knobs waving their flags every now and then.

Also interesting to see this kind of crap start surfacing just before the election, with Tim Sisarich and his cronies at the Destiny Church trying to get a seat in parliament to push their evangelical nonsense. Here's hoping come election time the same thing happens as every year, and they get laughed out of the polling booth.

Theres also a poll on the Stuff hompage about teaching ID in school. Go over there right now and give them the good news!

Is it a Bird - Is it a Plane

One of the worst things about flying is that little something, no matter how remote might happen to your plane. That slight niggle in the back of your mind that is inescapable. Everyone has it. Imagine being on a plane that sucks a bird into the engine on take off. What a mess. I wonder what that would look like.
Check out the video after the jump of a Boeing 757 taking off.

Lots of seats would need cleaning after this.. Scary.

FAIL : Life imitates Web

Ok, here's the scenario. Chick sees escalator, works out you could do a nifty trick, gets mate to film it, puts it on interwebtoob. Moron sees vid, thinks "what a neat trick" tries to emulate it, and screws up badly. See both vids after the jump.














Heres the original



And heres the moron


http://view.break.com/527060 - Watch more free videos

Need I say more.

UPDATE : Terry Pratchett not god botherer - no-one surprised again

Looks like someone took the time to ask Terry to explain what the dithering blockheads had reported earlier as a religious experience - and he does! See this article at the Mail Online (ignore the title, its bullshit again) where he says :

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

More excerpts after the jump.

Evolution was far more thrilling to me [as a child] than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn't take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

So what shall I make of the voice that spoke to me recently as I was scuttling around getting ready for yet another spell on a chat-show sofa?

More accurately, it was a memory of a voice in my head, and it told me that everything was OK and things were happening as they should. For a moment, the world had felt at peace. Where did it come from?

Me, actually - the part of all of us that, in my case, caused me to stand in awe the first time I heard Thomas Tallis's Spem In Alium, and the elation I felt on a walk one day last February, when the light of the setting sun turned a ploughed field into shocking pink; I believe it's what Abraham felt on the mountain and Einstein did when it turned out that E=mc2.

It's that moment, that brief epiphany when the universe opens up and shows us something, and in that instant we get just a sense of an order greater than Heaven and, as yet at least, beyond the grasp of Stephen Hawking. It doesn't require worship, but, I think, rewards intelligence, observation and enquiring minds.

I don't think I've found God, but I may have seen where gods come from.

Celebs do the zaniest things

What do we consider a celebrity? Most of the time its someone who is popular for one of the arts like singing, acting or dancing. Other times its media related (radio show hosts), internet (popular bloggers) or even just for being in the spotlight far too much (I think we all know who that is). The one thing that all of these people have is that they are just people - a common cross section of average joe's who are talented in one or two area's, just like everyone else. And because they are just a normal cross section of humanity, they contain the full spectrum of weirdo's and freaks we meet in our everyday lives.

Stephen Fry is one of the least nutty people I read about. He may be gadget obsessed, far too smart for your average bear, and a talented actor, but he's also reasonably rational, severely underestimates himself, and backs his opinions with fact a majority of the time. He is the most unusual of celebrities in that he is one who's opinion I listen to, and while I don't agree all the time, I understand the point he makes and its usually based in reality.

Unfortunately, Stephen is in the minority when it comes to logic and reason combined with celebrity. The majority of people in prime positions of public interest out there are no more than glorified sock puppets when it comes to speaking in public. They twitter inanely about UFO's, the 9/11 conspiracy, how JFK was murdered by illuminati, anti-vaccination movements, feng shui, homeopathy and crackpot religions. Most of all, they use their fame and fortunes to further these causes/dementias, to the detriment of everyone else just because they think they know better. "I am famous, so I must know more than you!"

Even worse are the blind sheep of a public who sit there day in, day out being fed this crap, lapping it up, wondering if their celebrity horoscope might tell them how to get a piece of that famous pie, or if the homoeopathy pills they choke down will really help make the golf ball sized lump they found in their balls go down. Well horoscopes are utter fantasy, and homoeopathy is an 11 letter word for water, so not likely on both those fronts. But what other weird and wonderful crap have we seen recently from our morons in superstardom, and what impact does it have on the millions of muddled souls out there?

Celeb : Robbie Williams
Wackiness : Believes in UFO's and likes to go out into the wilderness with a Spotters guide book and binoc's to see if he can tick off the notable aliens. "Robbie has been taking pals out to the woods for long weekends. He wants to live like a cowboy in a Western. He also has a fascination with UFOs and thinks he has more chance of seeing one away from Los Angeles' bright lights."
Science says : No proof as yet of any extraterrestrial contact
Possible Effects of Imitating Star : loss of income spent on chasing phantoms, loss of credibility among friends and family when you tell them what you do, and loss of brain as it melts out your ears.

Celeb : Jim Carrey
Wackiness : Jim's been brainwashed by his new missus that vaccines are bad m'kay, and we are poisoning our children by injecting them with this stuff.
Science says : Are you out of your mind? Denying children a vaccine is tantamount to signing their death warrant. There is no evidence that vaccines are even remotely bad for you in the way these idiots purport.
Possible Effects of Imitating Star : very sick children who have no immunity to disease's, possible death. One of the stupidest star-led causes I have ever heard of.

Celeb : Heather Mills
Wackiness : Says that milk is the main cause of obesity in school children. Nothing to do with the MacDonalds right?
Science says : This is a thinly veiled PETA protest against cows as herd animals. Not based on science whatsoever, and is totally a social prejudice against anyone who is not a vegan. If PETA had their way, we wouldn't eat anything.
Possible Effects of Imitating Star : sick kids again who wouldn't get some of the more essential nutrition in their diet.

Celeb : Prince Charles and other royal inbreds
Wackiness : Homoeopathy actually does anything
Science says : Its water. It doesn't do shit except for the placebo effect. You are paying millions of dollars each year for water. Well done Charlie.
Possible Effects of Imitating Star : your wallet has an amazing tendency to become lighter, yet your illness continues unabated. IF you are seriously ill, you are risking your life by believing in this snake oil.

Celeb : Madonna
Wackiness : I'm unsure exactly what she believes in - I think she's just a twit. But she does buy into this Kabbalah water crap, which is some spiritual Jewish water peddled by The Kabbalah Center, which is supposed to heal, center you, make you at one with the guiding yadda yadda yadda.
Science says : Its water. Even Jewish rabbi's say its bubkes.
Possible Effects of Imitating Star : more rapid deflation of bank account, followed by acute swelling of the "I'm a tit" gland.

Celeb : Geri Haliwell, Tom Cruise, Oliver Stone, John Travolta etc. etc. etc.
Wackiness : Scientology. A religion dreamt up by a bad science fiction writer to make money, and believers think we descended from Clams and you can spend half a millions dollars to be audited to retrieve god-like powers. Riiight.
Science says : (shrugs shoulders) There's no evidence that anything they claim is even remotely true, but this is a money making operation, not a scientific organisation no matter what the call themselves.
Possible Effects of Imitating Star : you are a loony.


I could go on writing all day. The point I am making is that these people that we as consumers of mass marketed media put on a pedestal, are no smarter or dumber than every one of us. They are just a cross section of society containing the literate, smart and logical, as well as the kooky, weird and downright nuts. The problem lies within the fact that they have a power to coerce people through their fame into causes and bullshit that have no basis in reality. We should treat them just like everyone else - show me the evidence. If you have a cause or belief, show me the evidence it is true. Otherwise, shut the hell up.

Jeremy Clarkson Rakes in the Cash

Yesterday Mooghead sent me this article from the telegraph in the UK. It appears that Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear has secured himself a small fortune. The BBC know what they have with Mr Clarkson, that is the most entertaining presenter on TV at the moment and it looks like they will do anything to keep him at the Beeb. The goss is that Mr Clarkson will take a percentage of the worldwide profits from the Top Gear brand, this has been disputed by the BBC but what a score if it’s true.

It is said that the new deal will put Clarkson in the same league as other BBC presenters such as Jonathan Ross who earned over 18 million pounds over a 3 year period. Top Gear is BBC Two’s highest rating program and is watched by over 235 million people. That shows the pulling power that he has. Some people get paid far too much but as far as I am concerned Jeremy Clarkson is worth every penny. A BBC spokesperson said:

"Top Gear has become a massive success story in the UK and all over the world. It has gone to another level: it is now a family programme – it's not just for men who like cars. What percentage he actually gets and how it works needs to remain confidential.”

It is surprising that he falls into this category of presenters because he is one of the more controversial at the BBC. He is well know for his comments which many would deem politically incorrect and some say that he is an advocate for speeding and dangerous driving. This is all rubbish, his jokes are in jest and is people take them literally they are too sensitive, and he is probably one of the safest drivers on the road.

All I can say is well done Clarkson and continue with the good work.

Here's some video of Clarkson doing what he does best.

Comedian George Carlin dies age 71

George Carlin, legendary comedian, passed away on Sunday from heart failure. Famous for his "Seven words you can't say on TV" which became expanded to 11 as his career progressed. After Lenny Bruce, he is one of the most influential shock comedians ever, and was ever forthright in his opinion that society had too much of a hang up with what was dirty, and what was indecent.

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
George Carlin, Associated Press, 2004

He will be sadly missed. Check out a Youtube clip after the jump for a sample of his work.

Comics are all kinds of cheesy goodness

Heres a tasty selection of all the best comics I've read this weekend around the interwebnettoob. Check em out after the jump.

UK Papers report utter crap - no-one surprised

Terry Pratchett is a brilliant author. While some may read this and disagree, I would like to gently make the point that I'm the one writing this and you can bugger off. He has stated many times during his career how he is an atheist, and "blames god for not existing" and he was recently diagnosed with Alzheimers. If you've read any of his novels he takes the idea of gods and puts it in its proper place of comedy and ridicule. But recently my attention was drawn by Moogs to an article in the Times about TP finding god, and he asked what I thought about it. I'll admit, my first reaction was unfavourable.

I mean, the temerity of the man - how dare he! But after a few seconds I calmed down and wondered if it was indeed true - it didn't really go with everything else he has said about religion. So I did a wee bit of research, read the article on Times Online and did a search for any other bits of info surrounding TP and his conversion to god bothering. What did I find? Not much - the article points to an "unexplained experience" he had when he was first diagnosed with Alzheimers.

“I’m certainly not a man of faith, but as I was rushing down the stairs one day . . . it was very strange. And I say this reluctantly, because I am trying to deal with this situation in as hardheaded a way as I can. I suddenly knew that everything was okay, that what I was doing was right, and I didn’t know why.”

"It was a thought that all the right things are happening in the circumstances; and I thought, ‘Well, that’s all right then.’ I don’t actually believe in anyone who could have put that in my head – unless it was my dad, and he’s been dead a few years.”

“It is just possible that once you have got past all the gods that we have created with big beards and many human traits, just beyond all that, on the other side of physics, there just may be the ordered structure from which everything flows.

“That is both a kind of philosophy and totally useless – it doesn’t take you anywhere. But it fills a hole.”

Ok, time to get the deconstruction stick out.

The first point to make is that all of these statements have been made in different interviews. He said some of it an interview as reported on Times Online, and in another interview in the News Review. Two separate interviews, probably about two completely different things, and bad quote mining = stupid Times Online article.

Secondly, he doesn't ever say "I've found god, I'm off to bash some bibles". The headline for the piece in Times Online was "Alzheimers leads atheist Terry Pratchett to appreciate God", and in the Telegraph it was "Terry Pratchett hints he may have found God". No he doesn't - he says he had an unexplained experience. The closest he comes to saying god is "I'm not a man of faith". So does this mean every time someone proclaims that they are not of faith, they actually are? What sort of bizarre and twisted logic is that?

And thirdly, the phrase "unexplained experience" does not mean god. Nor does it mean the flying spaghetti monster, or Ramadama Ding Dong had anything to do with it either. In fact, usually when people use the word "unexplained" people immediately leap into the UFO category, and its surprising they didn't this time. He says that he felt "everything was ok" and that "all the right things are happening in the circumstances". So what he's saying is that he felt at peace with himself at that particular time, and happy with the way things are going. I see no god in that. I feel happy frequently, and at peace with my decisions in life - but at no time do I interpret a divine hand in my life. Just because everything is going your way, does not mean some benevolent beardy weirdy sky god has his eye on you.

Its a load of bollocks in my opinion - a sloppy peice of journalism created by some nancy in between his sessions at the boozer. And the other papers have just copied it verbatim because its mildly interesting, and they can't be bothered checking the facts. What rubbish.

As an aside, even if this were accurate (and I have no way of verifying this unless TP decides to respond to my email) who cares? I don't care if he suddenly clutches at the rosary, and heads down to the local guilt merchants for a session in "all the things he's done bad". That's his prerogative. It has no bearing on my opinion of him as a writer and I will continue to buy his books until they stop becoming good books to read. I hope he continues to write for many years to come, and his "embuggerance" of an illness goes into recession, or is cured (no thanks to the NHS). Sure, it would be disappointing to see someone with a serious brain disease succumb to religion, but again - who am I to say what he should believe in?

I think the best indicator of the veracity of these articles is something he said during the interview :

“Faith in what? If I get pushed in this corner, I believe in the same God that Einstein did. Einstein was a clever bloke."

And what did Einstein have to say on the subject?

If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

Alien statue to scare the crap out of mom.

I want one. I want 4. Can you imagine having these things loitering around the dark corners of your house, ready to scare the flying crap out of people? Brilliant. Its 7 foot 7 inches tall, steel, foam, latex and resin model on a 4 x 2 foot base. The cost is a bit prohibitive (US$5200 + shipping), but money is no object when it comes to art like this. Check out the home site over at Monster Galaxy.

See more pictures after the jump

Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"?

Its not really that surprising to someone like me that we don't see the headline "Psychic wins dickloads of cash!", apart from the fact that your average editor probably wouldn't go with the adverb "dickloads". I was asked recently whether or not I believed in unmapped potential in the human brain, to which I answered "yes - especially in mine if the teachers in my school days are to believed", but I knew that was not the point they were getting at. Do we have the ability to predict the future, speak to each other over great distances using only our minds, or find my bloody car keys?
Absolutely! But not in the way you may be thinking.

My economics teacher many years ago was very fond of the saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch", as I'm sure many Economics teachers are. I've found that particular piece of advice more relevant in everyday life than anything else he ever said. Probably because it's the only thing I can ever remember him saying, but that's not important right now. My point is that you can apply that epithet to absolutely everything - all rewards require effort or payment in some form to be acquired. We work to gain money to pay bills and buy things we want. We cut firewood to stay warm. We throw water at the neighbour’s cat to stop it crapping on the lawn.

This does not however stop us yearning for the ability to get that easy money. "Wouldn't it be neat if" and "I wish I could" are always the beginning's to sentences of dreaming and fantasy. And dreaming and fantasy is squarely where psychic ability lies. It’s the mental equivalent of a free lunch - no real effort for big return. Speaking to the dead, moving objects by thinking about it, reading events yet to occur and speaking to others across large distances without talking. Wouldn't it be cool if we could do these things? Sure, but if wishes were doughnuts I'd be Homer Simpson. These things are all highly improbable, and all the current scientific testing and data tells us that its not possible for a human to perform any feats of psychic ability any more than it can produce a 20 kilowatt laser out of its butt.

Most of the psychic abilities that people profess to hold in high regard (a 2005 Gallup Poll indicated that 41% of Americans believe in ESP) are all ways of getting answers without any hard work. Can we find out what happened to a person without searching every square inch of ground between here and Timbuktu? Can I find out what my mother thought of me before she died without months of intensive therapy to realise I just need to let her go? Can I make the remote control come to me without me getting off my fat ass? I think most people want to believe in psychic abilities because it’s an easy way out, and people love easy answers. When was the last time a majority of people were satisfied with an answer to a question that was complex and convoluted? People like simple and straightforward, and much like religion, psychic abilities fill that niche in our psyche. How did that happen? God\psychic ability did it. Michael Shermer says “Most of us, most of the time, want certainty, want to control our environment, and want nice, neat, simple explanations...We must always work to suppress our need to be absolutely certain and in total control and our tendency to seek the simple and effortless solution to a problem. Now and then the solutions may be simple, but usually they are not.” ¹

But I reckon there is a way we can have our cake and eat it too, and it won’t be through a bunch of scam artists, phone operators or tinfoil hat wearing new-agers. It’ll be science baby, and its not too far off neither.

Telepathy
With modern mobile telephony, we pretty much have this one now anyway. You can with the press of a few buttons speak to virtually anyone in the world, or with the appropriate routing, anyone on the moon as well. We already have the ability to communicate via phone without speaking and the next step is of course to have this technology implanted in our body. By the time they get to that stage, computing power will be so compact that we won’t just be talking, but we’ll be doing business and other important things like sharing pr0n.

Telekinesis
Combine the ability to voice commands without speaking, and small robot army’s of either specific function robots, or multipurpose nanotech, we can do pretty much anything. Sound a bit farfetched? We are making leaps and bounds in nanotech, and not too far off we will be able to perform the smallest operations by programming these nanobots to do the job for us. The ability to affect objects physically with our brain power is something we can do now with remote manipulation of robots. Remove the joystick and console, and wire it directly to our brain and you have in essence the basics of telekinesis. Also why get the remote to float across the room when you can change the channel by thinking about it?

Speaking to the dead
We can already, but not it a conversational “Yo deadhead - hows it hanging?” kind of way. Advances in forensics and medicine allow us to interrogate the dead to get information specific to their life and their death. Every year we expand the techniques for extracting information from the dead, and we increase the reference material to which we refer to when deciphering that information. While we may never get the answer out of the corpse about what they thought of our Sharon, we can tell if it was indeed our Sharon that had a hand in their death.
I know that people want answers from the dead more as a reminder of who they were when they were alive, and to delay the realisation that they are gone forever. But today’s advances in digital recording technology also make it virtually impossible for anyone to be truly gone forever. Everyone leaves an imprint in this digital world through home video, television, cell phone cameras, YouTube, Google Video and many other shared mediums.

Predicting the Future
The more we know about the past, the better we can predict the future. That does not mean we won’t make the same mistakes, and it will never be foolproof, but what is? Tell me one thing in this universe that involves human decision, that will 100% reliably, every single time a coconut, never fail always be correct? With faster computing power and more and more accurate modelling programs we can predict outcomes faster and more accurate than ever before. This allows us to look to the short or long term and make decisions based upon our projections for the future.

It all sounds very next century I know, but most of the technology or techniques are currently available or in development at the time of writing this post. The biggest problem people have is not that its available, or that we as a species can accomplish these technological marvels, but that its based on hard work. And that’s why, for a while at least, psychics and seers will be able to fleece the unsuspecting mark by selling them the dream of easy answers. Until technology reaches the point where it overtakes these charlatans and delivers the ability to accomplish these feats without “magic”, they’ll be sniffing round the fringes for a while yet.

¹ - from Michael Shermers book Why People Believe Weird Things (2002) p59

It's Official - Ice Found on Mars

The Mars Phoenix lander has done what it was sent to Mars for. It had found solid evidence of ice on the red planet. The lander dug a small trench which revealed a white shiny substance. This has been up for much debate over the last week as to whether or not it was ice or salt. But it looks like it is probably ice.

Mars has a different atmospheric pressure than here on Earth, that being the case liquid water can not exist. What happens is that when ice is exposed to the atmosphere it literally turns straight to gas, skipping the liquid stage, this is called sublimation. NASA has just announced that the patch of white shiny stuff they found has started to vanish, this can only mean that sublimation is taking place. The only real thing left for Phoenix to do now of find evidence of organic compounds that lead to life.
This is a major discovery, we now have evidence that water existed on Mars and is still there in ice form.
Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona said:

"It must be ice, these little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

That's not bad going, the craft has only been there for 24 days. It was day 20 when the hole was dug and 4 days later they an ounce that they have found ice.

Needless to say that the discovery has come at an interesting time. The US Presidential candidates have been announced and who knows what is in store for NASA and space exploration. Hopefully this will encourage the new President to re-examine the current policies and throw a bit more money their way.

This is another nail in the coffin of intelligent design or creationism (whatever its called). I see a future that many have predicted, seas on Mars and colonists walking the land breathing the air. Start terraforming now I say.

Death star invades my body, and I'm not happy.

Its that time of year again. Winter has spread its dusky wings across our Land of the Long White Cloud, causing all who dwell within to cry "Ah shit - flu season". Yes, that picture to the left is not Darth's Hangout, nor the Emperors Crib - its a 3D representation of the dreaded flu virus (see more at 3DScience.com). And the little bastard got me this year. So since I was forced to spend the last few days, and the next few as well, getting to know it so intimately, I figured I'd check out what makes this virus unique - does the rep live up to the hype?

Its a pretty fearsome idea really, that something as small as a virus, be it influenza or other, can lay an organism such as ourselves to waste. We can't see it, we can't predict its arrival and nothing we can do can protect us from its onslaught. It has the ability to put a severe dent in the worlds population, and can mutate at such a rate that standard vaccination programmes will never control it to the extent that vaccination inhibits other diseases.

Lets look at the score board Miss Ford
It's been with us from the very beginning, and dare I say it, it'll be there at the end too. The first recorded case of the flu was roughly 2400 years ago by our man Hippocrates, and we have never looked back. Every year between 40,000 to 50,000 New Zealanders report to the doctor with its symptoms (1-1.5% of pop), and every year between 30 and 100 Kiwis die from it, although generally from secondary complications such as pneumonia, rather than the virus itself. The flu was at its worst during the 1918-1919 Spanish flu epidemic when the infection rate rose to 50% globally, and current estimates say killed 50-100 million people. In the first 25 weeks of the pandemic it killed 25 million people. Contrast that with HIV\AIDS which has killed 25 million in 25 years.

But whats yours dad?
Theres several different strains, and you've probably all heard of H5N1 (bird flu) which was bandied around in the last couple of years as being the next big global killer. Luckily for us, it never happened, as it never mutated into a very effective transmitter between humans, and those who caught it were typically in extremely close contact with birds. But what's with the H's and N's? The H and the number stand for which one of several known types of the protein hemagglutinin, an antigenic glycoprotein found on the surface of the influenza viruses. It is responsible for binding the virus to the cell that is being infected. The N stands for the number of the known types of the protein neuraminidase and thats a glycoside hydrolase enzyme. It is frequently found as an antigenic glycoprotein and is found on the surface of the Influenza virus. They use these two markers to type the strain of influenza virus, along with other information to make it more specific, such as first species its found in, the different species of flu virus (A, B or C) and even the country of origin.

"I say we roll them in there and nerve gas the whole fucking nest"
After the Spanish flu pandemic, successive pandemics have had smaller footprints in terms of deaths and cases reported. This has been put down to better response with antibiotics to control secondary infections in the post Spanish Flu years. These days we also have vaccinations (up yours Jim Carrey!) to help us fight the good fight, thanks to the US Army who after losing thousands of men in the first world war, developed a vaccine for use in the 1940's. That has continued on to today where we have Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere vaccine that is updated every year with the most prevalent strains. It is seen here in NZ as the injection of the dead virus strains that we can get for free if we are in the high risk categories and some employers pay for it if they are nice.

The best defence is a good offence
The best way to avoid the flu is, well, luck I suppose. There's no real way to avoid the little bastard, but you can lessen the odds. The virus is more predominant in winter, and although there's a few good hypothesis's no-ones exactly sure why. So during winter, be extra vigilant about your personal hygiene. Stay away from people in the 2nd and 3rd day of infection as they are at their peak of infection, and stay infectious for up to 10 days. Its an airborne and contact virus so when you cough and sneeze (if you've caught the blighter), save others by doing it into a snot-rag or tissue. Children are more infective that adults, giving off the virus up to 2 days before exhibiting symptoms and remaining infectious for up to 2 weeks after.

Your best bet is to take to the hills and live in a cabin for a few months every year. But remember, birds and other animals such as pigs carry the flu, so if its a choice of living in a hut being a vegan for months at a time, or flu for 10 days, I'll take the flu thanks.

So bugger all you can do about it really. Grin (or grimace) and bear it. Stock up on tissues, lemons and DVD's, and prepare to endure a visit from your favourite friend - the Flu.

More info check the following :

MOH Website - Ministry of Health NZ
Wikipedia - for more information that you'll ever understand
Facts and figures for New Zealand - lots of up to the week reports on how the flu and other diseases are progressing in NZ.

Best News in Ages – Top Gear is BACK.

That’s right, I just found out that Top Gear is back on our screens this week; well it is if you live in England. For those of us that live outside the homeland we have to find other ways to keep up-to-date. But that is beside the point. The point is that we will have the gang back, Jeremy will no doubt be power sliding flash cars shouting “power”, the Hamster will be polishing his teeth and James May will be going slow.

Top gear is undoubtedly the best show on TV, it is funny, dangerous, intelligent, stupid and outrageous all at once. Even members of the fairer sex like the show (probably has something to do with Richard Hammond), my wife finds it funny. The 1st episode of season 11 is on BBC2 on June 22 and will feature a Ferrari F430 Scuderia.

On related news Jalopnik just announced that BBC America have cast the presenters of the US version of Top Gear which will be produced by NBC. They are Adam Carolla who is know for been on the Manshow with Jimmy Kimmel, Tanner Frost who apparently is a well known rally driver and drift racer, and a chap called Eric Stromer who is a TV construction type guy. I have to say that I am cynical about this as half the reason that the British version works is because they are all former journalists or radio personalities that have an unbridled passion for the motorcar but mostly because they are all seriously good mates. I don’t know, maybe it will take a while for the US team to gel and become popular. It will be interesting to see who the guests in the reasonably priced car will be, what with being in the US where most of the famous people in the world hang out.
Jay Leno pulled out of the project saying "it would be impossible to re-create or live up to the standards of the British show."
No word yet as to when the US version will air, only to say that the pilot is currently being filmed.
Top Gear Season 11 trailers (click the link and then select from the options)
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
Bloopers and Uncut.

RIP Stan Winston. 1946-2008

This is sad news. Stan Winston has passed away at the age of 62 after a 7 year battle with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer. Winston had a prolific career in the special effects arena and created many icons of modern cinema. He regularly worked with the likes of James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton and was directly responsible for the practical effects in films such as the Terminator, Aliens and Jurassic Park.

Winston won four Oscars in a career that spanned over 40 years. The Visual effects Oscar went to Winston and his team for Aliens, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park and he also won one for makeup for Batman Returns.
It was Stan Winston that gave the Predator the classic facial mandibles and enabled James Cameron to recognise the monster puppet that was used to bring the Alien Queen to life.
Close friend Arnold Schwarzenegger had this to say:

"The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends with the death Sunday night of Stan Winston. Stan's work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever. What will live forever in my heart is the way that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were family."

The film industry has truly lost a great person with a great imagination. Few people have influenced the design of films like Stan and he will be sorely missed.

RIP Stan Winston. 1946-2008

The Happening, and why it sucks balls

M. Night Shyamalan's latest flick has hit the screens and apparently nearly everyone thinks its crap. Check out the reviews its getting at Rotten Tomatoes where they think "People drop dead; remain more animated than Wahlberg". Not surprising really - all his movies except the 6th Sense have sucked in my opinion. The latest claim is that his new flick The Happening is a bare faced proponent of Intelligent Design, that lovely religious movement trying to cram the Bible into everyone's science class. But is it?

I'll go on record as saying I've never seen this movie, and I never will. M. Night Shyamalan's ability at writing good screenplays has degraded to such an extent that the endings are no longer unpredictable and subtle, but are more likened to the end to a torturous session on the toilet after 3 solid days of eating bran. His last three films Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water have all been differing degrees of awful - so much so that I ignored Lady in the Water completely after reading a synopsis.

His latest foray in movie crappiness, the Happening, is according to some people a thinly veiled attempt at endorsing ID. But is this all that surprising? It a well know fact that MNS is down with the g.o.d. and a quick look over his past films shows the themes and motivations behind all his screenplays and what they all have in common.


Praying with Anger (1992) - young man returns to home country, finds god and stops riot by preaching.

Wide Awake (1998) - 10 year old boy seeks God, has crisis of faith, finds god again.

The Sixth Sense (1999) - boy sees ghosts, Bruce Willis tries to help him sort out his life. Surprising lack of god.

Unbreakable (2000) - Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson talk a lot, and find out they are super heroes. god had nothing to do with it.

Signs (2002) - In a return to form, MNS has fellow god botherer Mel Gibson as a priest in a crisis of faith save his farm from invading aliens by believing in god.

The Village (2004) - people in olde village terrorised by boogie man (just a man in a suit, much like christianity) find out they are living in big olde theme park because of all the godlessness in the world.

Lady in the Water (2006) - MNS takes peyote, loses his freaking mind and makes a weird film about story monsters coming alive. god does not appear in this film, all though was originally on the billing, and replaced at later stage by nargles from Harry Potter. Kills film critic in movie in vain hope that life imitates art.

The Happening (2008) - MNS hires fellow god botherer Marky Mark to be a science teacher who spouts crap like "evolution is just a theory", and "spontaneous evolution". Turns out everyone is dying in the film because god is mad at us, so he makes the plants turn bad.


Oh well, lets hope he "see's the light" so to speak and makes a better movie next time. I'm not holding my breath.

Quack Health Part 2 : Vaccinations and why famous people should be ignored

Jim Carrey - Ace Ventura, bizarre bodily contortionist style comedian, and an actor who has made several highly entertaining movies.

Charlie Sheen - Hot Shots star, Hot Shots 2 star and Wall Street star. All round prolific actor who has made more movies than I've had hot dinners.

Jenny McCarthy. Um....who? Oh that’s right – the playboy chick.

What do these three have in common? Are they aliens? Are they Anti-Vaccine proponents? Are they out of their freaking minds? Yes. Yes they are. Well, except the bit about the aliens.

I never understood why we put people such as this on a pedestal outside of their given field. Sure they have great acting talent, and they make us laugh, but how exactly does that translate into intelligence or knowledge? We idolise these people for evoking emotion on the silver screen, and I don’t have an issue with that. I admire and envy people for their acting talent just like I admire the All Blacks for their rugby skill. You watch them and think “Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to do that?” But that’s where it ends and that’s where it should end. Just because someone is talented in one field, does not automatically infer talent in another.

More and more often now we see movie stars and musicians making bat shit crazy pronouncements (I'm looking at you Tom) and it seems to be expected of everyone to say "Well he was in that movie with the dolphin, so he must be right!" Media saturation of these so called A-list celebs has lead many people to jump on just about any bandwagon, regardless of the cause. “I mean, look at the winning smile - surely someone who smiles so well couldn't possibly be wrong?”
Fame is not a substitute for intelligence, or critical thinking. If there is no evidence to support a claim, made by anyone, then it can be relegated to the waste heap of bullshit, cast out by the trowel of fact finding, and buried under the mounds of wooly thinking.

I don't have a beef with people believing weird things - no no, really I don't. If you believe that theres a omnipotent beardy weirdy in the sky, wtching your every molve, judging you against some shifting code of morals, and listening to your thoughts – go for gold. I will add the rider that if people state these beliefs, and try and coerce others to sing along, I reserve the right to ridicule them if there's no evidence to back them up. And that's where the three aforementioned actors come in.

Charlie Sheen has recently told his ex-wife Denise Richards that he will sue the doctor if she asks him to vaccinate their children. Yes, he is more concerned with his kooky ideas that vaccines have a link to Autism, than the benefits of vaccination. Rather than investigating the information at hand, and having even a remote grasp of reality, he is forcing his beliefs on his children who now will have no protection against measles, mumps or rubella. Has he ever seen a child with mumps? Wouldn’t he want to do anything in his power to avoid having his children go through that? I for one hope Denise tells him to shove it, and gets it done anyway.

Jenny McCarthy had a baby boy in 2002, and she stated on Oprah in 2007 that he had been diagnosed with autism. This, in no uncertain terms, sucks. I have no idea who Jenny McCarthy is, what she's like as a person, or how she performs as a mother, but I don't wish Autism on my worst enemy. It’s hard on the parents, and must be hell for the poor kids. And when you are in that unenviable position, you must be desperate to find someone to blame, someone to take the rap, and something you can point the finger of blame squarely at and say "that's the root cause of all my problems". That's a pretty common response - whenever something goes wrong, everyone wants to find that one root cause that started it all and squash it. Bush invaded Iraq because of the WMD's. Petrol prices keep rising because the US invaded Iraq. Autism cases are on the rise because more children get vaccines now than ever before.

But life is never that simple. When was the last time something that was subject to so many variables ever had a single root cause? A good analogy I think is the Coke and Mentos experiments. When people started firing Mentos into Diet Coke causing fountains of froth, people began to wonder why so much bang for such a little sweet? It was assumed to begin with that the substance in the sweet (gum arabic) and the carbonation of the Diet Coke was the root cause of the violent chemical reaction. This sounds plausible, until you actually do a bit of science and test it. If you throw a Mentos into soda water, the reaction is not that great, which means it ain't just carbonation or gum arabic. So individual testing of each Diet Coke ingredient plus the Mentos sweet showed that not one, but ALL of the ingredients played a role in the fountain effect. But there was something else - when one of the flavoured versions of Mentos was used, virtually no reaction was seen at all. This meant there must have been a difference between the flavoured and mint Mentos. And there was - the physical properties of the Mentos was found to be pitted, as opposed to the flavoured one which was smooth. This meant that the sweet had millions of nucleation sites, causing a sudden and violent out gassing of the CO2 in the Diet Coke. The point that I make here is that although we automatically assume one or two root causes for things, its often never that simple. In fact, when some outcome has several possible variables acting on it, you can guarantee the answer will most likely not be just one of the aforementioned variables. Something that only repeated and reliable testing can prove.

Jenny McCarthy however, decided not to take a scientific approach to discovering the cause of her sons Autism. She has linked his autism with his MMRI (Measles, Mumps and Rubella Inoculation) vaccination at the age of 15 months. I cannot say where she got this idea from, but its fair to say there's plenty of kook's out there peddling their stupidity, waiting for anyone to buy into it. And when you feel aggrieved like Jenny probably did, its a safe bet to say it was an attractive idea to blame the vaccine.

She, and her partner Jim Carey, have organised a group to protest against vaccinations called "Green our Vaccines" who's mantra is "pro-safe vaccines", but is pretty obviously leaning towards the anti-vaccine crowd. They are not alone in this idea that vaccines cause autism. Plenty of kooks and weirdos have come out of the woodwork over the last few years stating that they "know" there is a link, and big Pharma or the Government are conspiring to cover it all up. So what the hell are they on about? Here's a quick run down of their arguments

Too Many Vaccines at once
A popular argument is that there are too many vaccines given to children under the age of two. This began when a study of 12 children was done in England by Andrew Wakefield, who suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Subsequent peer reviews failed to support the hypothesis, and the CDC, along with the UK NHS have both concluded there is no link between Autism and the MMR vaccine.
Another variant of this is that anti-vacciner's say that too many at once will deplete the immune system, allowing other diseases to take hold where they may not have. The biggest problem with this hypothesis is that there is no correlation between the admittances to hospital or doctor visits, and vaccinations.

Thiomersal
An organomercury preservative used in vaccines since the 1930's, it is claimed there is a direct link between the mercury content of the vaccine and Autism. To date, there has been no reputable study that has concluded a link between Thiomersal and Autism.

Aluminium
Compounds containing Aluminium are used as immunologic adjuvants in vaccines, and there have been several recent studies into adverse effects of these compounds. All have come back with results showing no adverse effects.

We don't need no stinking vaccine
Some critics of the vaccines say that we don't really need to be vaccinated in the western world, and that all the major diseases always only break out in areas of high poverty, overcrowding and poor sanitation. This, however, is utter crap. We have outbreaks of disease such as measles every year in every developed country, and if immunisation rates weren't as high as they were, we would be in a lot more shit than we are now. heres a excerpt from an open letter to the US Government from a heap of US health and science groups :

A decision not to vaccinate is not just an individual decision. Because these diseases are spread from person to person, the decision to leave a child unvaccinated not only leaves that child susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases, but permits the spread of those diseases to the surrounding community, including infants too young to be immunized and those suffering from immunodeficiency conditions. The ongoing measles outbreaks across the nation are a clear, current example. In each instance, the outbreak was started by an unimmunized individual who spread the infection to others, including children whose parents had opted not to have them immunized and infants less than one year of age who were too young to have received measles vaccine.

Its all bollocks. The fact (and I emphasise the word fact) is that there have been no scientific links between autism and inoculation programmes. None. Nada. Zip. There have been several studies done into a possible link and every single one has come up negative. There is no evidence. Not a single shred has ever been produced that can prove a link between Autism and vaccinations.

But that doesn't stop the anti-vaccine crowd, oh no. All these bastards do is drum up fears in already nervous parents, who then make ill-informed decisions about their children putting not only them at risk, but everyone else in the community as well. Parents are supposed to make decisions based on the best welfare for their children, and they cant do that if whack jobs like Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are all over the TV saying crap like "don't immunise your child or they might become autistic!". Its annoying, its dishonest and its dumb. Like Orac said, I didn't know Dumb and Dumber was a documentary.

The only thing I can take heart from all of this, is that the number of people who believe there is an Autism-Vaccine link is still very small. A majority of people still understand the principles behind vaccination, and agree that the risk of complications during immunization are far lower than the risk of catching one of the diseases if you are not immunised, and that there is a large risk of even small percentages of the community not being immunised. As long as we take care not to listen to idiots like Jenny and Jim, and think a bit more skeptically about this sort of stuff, we'll all come through ok.

For more information check out these sites :

Science Blogs - Oracs Insolence
Autism News Beat
Science Based Medicine
AutismDiva - Autism : Its not like you think
Evidence Based Medicine

Blow Up Doll Gets Quick Ride To Work - No Pun Intended

Here in New Zealand just like most other countries there are issues with traffic congestion, especially Auckland which is the largest city. Some drivers have been coming up with some novel ways to beat the transit lane rules that have been put in place to reward those who carpool. Those who have three or more people in a car are allowed to drive in the same lanes as buses, taxis and motorbikes therefore making their journey shorter by up to fifteen minutes. Some enterprising commuters have started taking their blow-up dolls to work in an effort to make it look like they carrying the allotted amount of passengers.

Blow up dolls, mannequins and medium sized dogs dressed in children’s clothes have all been employed by drivers trying to get to work quicker. I commend them for thinking of ways to beat the rules but they should really just get more real people in the car. Drivers that get caught are fined NZ$150 and are usually caught by officers standing on the side of the road noting down registration plate numbers. They first noticed something was wrong when cars were stopping at lights had passengers that were not moving.

At least if it is a quiet day at work then there is something to do to break the monotony.

"There were some odd people that tried these antics," said North Shore city council officer Andre Dannhauser

Check out the video from one of our local news broadcasters who reported this after Reuters broke the story.

News Video

The Emperor : Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Some people have ordinary workstations, 1 monitor, crappy post-it notes all over everything, and more crap than you can shake a stick at. Well screw that. From now on, we should ALL be issued with new workstations from Novelquest, designed by Patrick Laflamme Duval. Modelled after a scorpion, the tail section rises up to let the user be seated, and then descends again with "the three monitors at the perfect height and angle for perfect viewing comfort". Nice. Click on the image left to embiggen.



NovelQuest via Gizmodo