Ookings of d00m

Conservative boycott shuts down Afghan detainee hearing - The Globe and Mail

This is really pissing me off.

“It's not the time to be having meetings that are implying, intentioned or not, that Canadians are somehow guilty of war crimes,” Laurie Hawn, the parliamentary secretary for the Defence Minister, said on CTV's Power Play after the aborted meeting.

It's not the time? If Canadians are "somehow" guilty of war crimes, then it bloody well is the time!

"The olypmics are coming" is not an excuse.

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I'd also really love to see the Olympics disbanded, if for no other reason than host nations seeming to use it as justification for authoritarian crackdowns and all sorts of crazy shit. Like detaining journalists at the border to make sure they're not planning to write anything negative about the olympics, or forcing the removal of public art critical of the games.

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I really need some positive political news. All I'm seeing lately is a boot stomping on a human face, forever.

Linkies (time to clean the tabs edition):

(apologies - I have liften these from all over, and have for gotten who I swiped them from)

NHS Behind the Headlines

The UK's NHS gets into the science behind popular news stories.

Behind the Headlines on BPA

As an example - what the most recent study on BPA plastics actually says. In brief - it establishes that drinking from BPA bottles increases BPA in your body. There isn't much in the way of research explaining exactly what that does to a person. Which isn't to say that it's proven safe, just that isn't hasn't been proven harmful, either.

You Ask, They... Answer?

Natural remedy store Neal's Yard Remedies agrees to do a "You Ask, They Answer" with the Guardian. Skeptics catch on, ask a lot of awkward questions.

Warning! Teenagers hug!

Moral panic about teenagers hugging. Even guys! Danger! 3 second hug limit instituted.

E is not the drug that destroys your brain, Speed is

An old article about the much touted study claiming that MDMA destroys the brain. Apparently the study was done with meth instead of E. OTOH, after some looking I did find more recent studies linking E to long term sleep pattern disruption and depression.

Cola destroys muscles!

I wonder what the Behind the Headlines site has on this? Anyway, according the the Beeb, "Excessive cola consumption can lead to anything from mild weakness to profound muscle paralysis".

Vacuum Buoyancy

The math behind a vacuum-driven airship.