Anyone know the back story on this? Is MTV running a Holocaust awareness program? (If so, good for them!)

Shuffle off to the store. Buy some food. Buy the latest New Scientist magazine. Shuffle off back home. Try to figure out where you put the New Scientist magazine only to discover that you've already recycled it.

My brain is going all wonky on me right now. I've come up with a new theory of why the dinosaurs went extinct. Remember Tyranosaurus Rex? One word: thalidomide (I'm waving at you, Jen). It's all clear to me now.

By the way, don't get sick in London. When you blow your nose, it comes out dark grey. There are definite downsides to living here. I suspect that if I hadn't stopped smoking about three weeks ago, this would be much worse.

Hmm, or maybe the dinosaurs took up smoking instead?

And to make up for all of this drivel, have some Tim Minchin instead.

A lot of people talk about "Free Tibet". The basic idea seems to be that since China invaded an independent nation and took them over, the Tibetans have every right to have their country back.

Tibetan history is actually far more complicated than that, but few saying "Free Tibet" seem to know that. Mind you, I'm not saying that China's behavior is appropriate or that the Tibetans don't have a right to independence, but it would be nice, for a change, if people actually gave a damn about the truth and then formulated their opinions (don't even get me started on the Israeli-Palestinian situation). Failing that -- after all, it's easy to rush to judgment -- we should at least be willing to consider that our views may be wrong or simplistic.

So just for an interesting bit of contrast, here's an interesting report about the Dalai Lama suppressing freedom of worship. I'm not saying I know that this information is true or an accurate representation. I'm saying that it's worth knowing if you care about the situation in Tibet.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Corsica. I'm unsure of my internet connection there, so if you don't hear from me for a bit, I trust you'll understand. Of course, I may just feel like lounging on the beach all day.

And I leave you with this.

I highly recommend this video. At the first, it might sound "pro-liberal", though I suspect it's the speaker knowing he's speaking primarily to a liberal audience and he wants to hook them (a common technique in public speaking). In reality, the talk compares conservative and liberal values and explores their foundation and how both can contribute to the debate. If you would like to know more and help expand this knowledge, you can help with some of their surveys at yourmorals.org.


The speaker, Professor Jonathan Haidt, studies the psychological basis of morality in different cultures. It's a brilliant talk and I highly recommend you share it.

You know, I've always wanted to like Ralph Nader. Seems like a good, caring guy. As a presidential candidate, however, he's been an absolute disaster. Aside from possibly helping Bush acquire the White House in 2000, he's had no foreign policy to speak of and his economic policy is "let's beat up corporations" (which, come to think of it, is sounding more appealing every day). A few days, ago, he descended into the positively surreal. He's not even taking himself seriously any more, but if this is a tight race, he's going to hurt Obama more than McCain.

After this ad, I'm inclined to believe that he's more senile than McCain.

A while ago, the Lisbon, Portugal conference committee asked some programmers to make videos explaining why the next YAPC::EU should be in Lisbon, Portugal. I thought they were asking for something longer than what they were, so my video comes in at a minute and a half. They were happy with it anyway and apparently sent it with their proposal along with brian d foy's compilation. I might add that if you don't know Perl or the Perl community, some of this won't make sense, so there's a quick glossary after.

YAPC

Pronounced "yap-see", it stands for "Yet Another Perl Conference"

PHP

Another programming language with a friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) rivalry with Perl

Greg

One of my brothers, who's far more intelligent than the video would suggest. I'm grateful he let me portray him as a complete idiot.

In the US in the 1960s, we fought a hard revolution. It wasn't a revolution in the sense that most people would understand it as there weren't really "sides" in a well-defined sense, but it was a revolution nonetheless. Battles were fought. People died. The political landscape was irrevocably altered. No one particular side got everything they wanted, but great strides were made to fix some of the worst grievances in US society.

Some people say too much changed. I say not enough changed.



What a depressing way to start the day.

I stumbled across this fascinating video on thesoundofsnow's journal. This Swedish professor has a funny and fascinating talk about world health statistics. It really gave me pause to realize that in many respects, the world is doing a better overall job than many would give us credit for.



But here's the good part: a version of that wonderful software shown in the video is available online, complete with a tutorial. I decided to look at Zimbabwe (the "software link" should take you straight to that graph. It worked for me in Safari, but not in Firefox). Robert Mugabe is widely believed to be destroying his country, so I wanted a better look. I decided to take a look at two key indicators, child mortality and economic growth. (Chart reproduced in case the "software" link doesn't work for you).



Obviously, you want a lower child mortality and a higher economic growth. From 1965, when Southern Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then known) declared independence, to 1970, declaring itself the "Republic of Rhodesia", the child mortality and economic growth indicators generally improved. But as you can see from the chart, there was a sharp downturn in both indicators starting in 1970 and lasting until 1977. What happened?

Around this time period, Ian Smith, the prime minister of Rhodesia, led a white government that did not want to share power with the black minority and there was a constant civil war. In 1978 an accord was signed with black leaders and open elections were held, bringing blacks into power. After an initial strong spurt of economic growth, the growth slowed down, but generally remained positive until 1990. Child mortality dropped significantly during this period. Around 1990, everything fell apart. Infant mortality skyrocketed and economic growth plummeted.

Robert Mugabe, first elected in 1980, decided in 1991 to institute an austerity program which was a disaster and to this day, he's still all over the news for how well he's single-handedly destroying his country.

What's interesting is that I sound mildly educated about this topic, but it only took me a few minutes to learn all of that. Most of the time was spent writing this post and editing that graphic. I think the Gapminder software can be a fantastic tool for people to dig for information that was previously not available. The downside, of course, is that correlation is not causation. Merely because major events mark turning points on the Zimbabwe graph does not mean that the data and events are related. I suspect they are, but it's a useful caveat to keep in mind.

PS: If you really want to have fun, compare life expectancy and physicians per 1000 people and watch life expectancy drop like a rock starting in 1987. I was also startled to note that the US had a significant drop int the percentage of women using contraceptives, starting in 1995. It appeared to drop 12% over 4 years.

Was hanging out with velvetdahlia and her husband burryman and watching Eurovision (with liberal amounts of very necessary alcohol). This is basically some bizarre annual contest where the goal seems to be able to create the absolute worst song you possibly can yet still get your political allies (i.e., neighboring countries) to vote for what a great song it is.

Despite this, there was some good music this year. And the one which should have won, but didn't:



They are Elitsa Todorova & Stoyan Yankulov and the song is entitled "Water".

And now for something to make you smile. Being home sick gives me time on my hands, so I can share my boredom with you! Ignore the bit with the California Attorney General. The rest of this is wonderful.

Musa Abu Marzouk is allegedly the leader for Hamas in Amman, Jordan, and Damascus and is apparently responsible for coordinating and directing terrorist attacks against Israel. I have his date of birth and place of birth. Of course, if you read enough newspaper articles, you can probably glean this, too. However, I also have his US Social Security number and his Egyptian passport number and I'm going to tell you what they are and how to find them.

( More than you want to know )