Plus one other project – my YouTube Channel.  That one, I’ve got going regular.

Don’t know if this interests any of you folk – it’ll be just as all-over-the-place as this here blog, but a bit less vitriolic.  Long-form videos, probably averaging out at around twenty minutes.  Put ‘em on while you do housework; I’ve been told I’ve got a voice for radio, and a face for the Internet.

So, for your viewing pleasure, here are a couple of common science myths that drive me up the wall.  If you like the videos, subscribe – them and this blog are going to mostly be kept separate.

Take care.

Schrödinger’s Cat

33.5 Dimensions!

That said, it’s hard to take the long view when day-to-day life is kicking you hard enough in the nuts.

I’ve got some updates coming, but in the meantime I wanted to share a video with you that neatly sums up the basic principles of liberty.  Wish I could say that I made it, but I didn’t.  Enjoy.

But I stumbled across a video today which brought back some memories.  This past summer my girlfriend was going through some medical procedures, and the experience was just awful.  Arrogant, unknowledgeable physicians with no understanding of Bayesian Probability Theory, secure in the knowlege that – since this was Soviet Canuckistan – they were the only game in town.  If you don’t have a family doctor here (and good luck getting one if you don’t – their paycheque comes from the government) then you’re stuck with the plebian free clinics.  You’re just a number to be processed, and there’s no one to complain to.

Anyway, here’s the video, one of Reason TV’s best so far:

Now I’d like to address any Obama-care supporters out there directly.

One of my favourite exchanges in that video was:

Protestor: “All the corporations want to do is cheat to win.  That’s not the great American way.  The great American way is where we know there are rules of the game, we play within the rules, and the best one wins.”

Nick Gillespe: “Good point.  Drug companies hire armies of lobbiests to bend the rules in their favour, and that is a lot like cheating.”

Consider what will happen if the single-payer system does get implemented.  The pharmaceutical industry and the insurance providers have deep pockets and are huge lobbiers.  I have trouble imagining that they’ll be kicked out the door after the passing of this legislation.  Chances are that whatever law does get passed will simply induct them into the official government structure; they’ll remain ostensibly private, but they’ll be working hand in hand with the Ministry of Health (little 1984 joke there).  I’m all for being suspicious and vigilant of our evil corporate structures, but having the government get in bed with them doesn’t seem like the best way to keep them tranparent (say, isn’t there a word for this?).

A couple months ago I saw an episode of Law & Order:SVU which featured a group of Transexuals who were staging midnight raids on different Pharma companies to steal crates of sex-change hormones.  I’ve got a lot of sympahty for the Transgender movement; they’ve been stuck with a biological condition that’s not only expensive as hell to treat, but they suffer a lot of social ostracism and violence because of it, too.  It might not be the worst condition to be born with, but it ain’t no fun either.

But what you’ve got to keep in mind is that it ain’t the drug companies that afflicted them with it; the drug companies are the saviours, finally creating a solution after thousands of years of people being stuck in the wrong bodies.  They worked hard to invent this solution, and they deserve to profit off of it as much as I deserve to profit off of people reading my book.

Back to that line of dialogue again:

Protestor: “All the corporations want to do is cheat to win.  That’s not the great American way.  The great American way is where we know there are rules of the game, we play within the rules, and the best one wins.”

Nick Gillespe: “Good point.  Drug companies hire armies of lobbiests to bend the rules in their favour, and that is a lot like cheating.”

The other side of that coin is that the corporations deserve consistent rules when they show up to play the game.  Consider the push to nationalize drug patents, and what it’s doing to the companies fighting AIDS;

A number of pharmaceutical groups, including the Swiss giant Roche, have withdrawn from the HIV drug market, blaming increasing difficult commercial conditions.

So, do we extend a few hundred-thousand lives by taking away company’s right to profit off their hard work?  Or do we save a few billion, by giving them the incentive to find a vaccine?

The world’s got sharp edges, people.  The best we can do is keep the behemoths fighting against eachother.  The day they cosy up with eachother is the day when everything goes to the fuck.

You damned fools have passed another law out of spite and antipathy to your fellow man, but you never stopped for five minutes to consider what its actual effects might be. That’s right, suburbia, trust your government – I’m sure they’ve got nothing vile planned.

More in-depth details on the legislation here: “Reason Magazine: Sweet Lies About Kids and Smoking”

Document: An Accord on a Cooperative Government:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/bl…

Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/n…

Find your Member of Parliament:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compi…

Form Letter:

Dear ___

I deeply upset about the Liberal, NDP, and Bloc’s attempt to form a Coalition government. Such actions at this time are an undemocratic manipulation of our government. However, the Conservative attempt to Prorogue Parliament is nearly as bad. When the No-Confidence goes through, the government should be dissolved, and a new election scheduled. I’ve certainly had more than enough of elections, but I don’t see that there’s any other reasonable choice.

Sincerely,