Overopinionated News: 24/10/2012

Don’t you just hate it when that ‘five more minutes’ of sleep turns into an hour and a half? Well, that’s what happened to me this morning, looks like I’m staying up until two getting work done today. Hurrah!

So I’m going to do a little news roundup today, because I’m no expert on any of these things, so when I make my opinion clear and half the world disagrees with me, they only have to disagree with me for about eighty words. And who can get mad at eighty words? Well, I probably could, but that’s besides the point.

BEGIN!

- Hyenas and humans are coexisting in northern Ethiopia because the amount of livestock they take is low enough not to make a whole lot of difference. Compare this to the farmers in England who would rather kill five thousand badgers than get their livestock vaccinated for tuberculosis and we are once again reminded that the western world is a stupid, stupid place in comparison to the credit we give ourselves. Nature isn’t something that gets in the way of humanity, we’re part of it and if you can’t learn that the world doesn’t revolve around you, you should be made to move into a bunker where you’re literally the only animal there. Isn’t that what you wanted?

- NHS encourages smokers trying to quit to ‘inhale less’. As much as I love that the NHS is a thing, I don’t know how much this could help. The approach is supposed to be a gradual move away from cigarettes, but once the thing’s in your mouth, surely the damage is already done, addiction wise? This is the topic I’m most ignorant about, I’ll admit, and I’d love a professional opinion on this. Leave some info in the comments if you can help me out here.

- World favors Obama. No surprises there, Romney’s not well loved outside America due to his great job in the US presidential campaign of insulting every country that isn’t America. Noted places he pissed off included the UK and Russia, with Putin getting very angry about Romney’s 80s spy movie attitude towards Russia.

Being A Good Sport

How many of you saw the opening ceremony last night? I suppose for those who didn’t and didn’t pay attention I should probably be more specific and say that I’m talking about the Olympics. I don’t really follow sport (a fact which will hopefully not put people off hearing what I have to say from now on, I appreciate the good things it does, I’m just not terribly excited about it), but I really enjoyed the celebration of some of the awesomeness that has come out of Britain, especially in regards to its music and literature, which I’m sure most would agree with. I’m no patriot, hell, I didn’t choose to live in this country, but I did feel a sort of tingle of identification. Whether or not that means that I’m being courted by the idea of associating everyone else who lived on this island with my immediate family I hope not, but it was nice to see.

The giant ‘NHS’ sign was probably a huge kick in the teeth to David Cameron, Britain’s current Prime Minister, who has recently been making it his duty to take a massive shit on one of the best things about this country. Apparently free health care for everyone just doesn’t sit well with his millions of pounds. Sorry about that Dave, perhaps if everyone acted a little more like you everyone would just magically come up with the money to get better.

It truly was important though. I don’t know about everyone else but the NHS is absolutely my favourite thing about this country. Nobody, in my opinion, should have to pay for for having accidents, harm that other people caused them, or indeed harm that is self-inflicted. First, do no harm. It should be the duty of those in charge of countries, as far as I see it, to make human life a priority and put other issues second, or even further down the running order.

So says me.

A Recipe For Snake Oil?

So, here comes today’s break from doing spreadsheets and worrying about my next driving test.

I’ve just come back from some strange corner of the internet where tables sit on ceilings, birds swim, sharks fly, cats dig up their own shit and a bunch of children have forced a guy called Kony to become their one-man army.

And while I would love to keep making stupid remarks about this reverse world, only in Soviet Russia does a blog write me, so I’d better explain myself.

In the prescientific world of 1796, a physician known as Samuel Hahnemann in Germany proposed the basic laws of a practice we all know today as homeopathy. This practice was based on the ‘law of similars’; the idea that ‘like can be cured by like’, which, as we all know, must mean that eating lots of cake cures type 2 diabetes.

Well no, it’s not like that, because according to the principles of homeopathy the more diluted a substance is, the stronger its effect. So the natural progression from that would turn out to be something like…

You will need:

-1 slice of cake
-shitloads of water
-shitloads more water
-an assload of water
-ridiculous amounts of water

step 1: first, take your slice of cake and add shitloads of water. Stir until there are but crumbs of cake in very sparse areas of the mixture.

step 2: then, take your mixture and add shitloads more water. By this point there should only be a few molecules of cake in each area of the mixture, but just in case, mix until there is basically no active ingredient.

step 3: add an assload of water; just in case there’s any chance of there being anything apart from water in this solution.

step 4: finish off your recipe with ridiculous amounts of water; making sure to take note of how many times it has been diluted; remember, diabetes is a thing of the past when you can drink water. I wonder why medical science didn’t think of this, I mean the stuff’s been around for a couple of hundred years now!

So in this strange world outside the republic of internet and in the strange district of the blogosphere known as ‘homeopath avenue’ there are strong criticisms being pushed towards people who are skeptical of these ideas.

And why wouldn’t there be? Obviously these ideas make perfect sense! Pharmaceutical companies should continue to make lots of money out of selling basically nothing!

I think on this issue it’s hard for me not to start taking the piss, mostly because I’m still baffled at how widespread homeopathy is in Britain.

The royal family doesn’t really help, but to be honest I’m not sure there’s a lot they do help with.

I fear that I am not yet done here.

Good News/Bad News: Acid Wielding Racists & Dementia Research

Hello and welcome to last week’s Good News/Bad News, which has now appeared more often on a Monday than a Sunday, making me question whether or not today’s post is actually this week’s edition. Regardless, each week I find two news stories, one good and one bad, both in my opinion of course before you get snappy, and I warm you all up at the end with something a little friendlier than taking acid to the face.

But only a little.

Alright then. I know that recently I’ve been hating on David Cameron a lot so today I’ll take a break from that and actually reveal a news story where despite his plan to bastardise the NHS in Britain we have a good call on health issues from the government’s size.

It’s nice when you break the stereotype isn’t it?

So this is the news that as the cost of dementia to the NHS rises continually, there are new plans to increase the funding for dementia research to sixty six million pounds by 2015, compared to the 26.6 million figure from 2010, although I couldn’t find a more recent figure.

I think most people would find it hard to argue that funding for dementia research is a bad idea. This illness is hard on the people it affects and everyone around them and the more we understand about it the better prepared we will potentially be to deal with it.

No information on whether Cameron has a family history or not so I can’t remark cynically about vested interests as my political leanings are encouraging me to.

Take a look at the story here and see if you can find anything that I missed etc.

Next up, we have some bad news, bad news that suggests to me that we should be careful about who we allow to possess corrosive acids. Perhaps we shouldn’t let racists into chemistry departments? Perhaps I should get some acid for the woman in the car right outside of my window that’s in the process of parking in the perfect place for the sun to glare in my eye while I’m wiring this?

In Salford, a black woman pushing her baby along in a pram got acid thrown at her to make some nice hatred sauce to go with the racist and sexual comments directed at her.

The woman suffered burns on her chest and back but her baby and her face were not harmed, rendering my earlier comment redundant.

The white, balding man in his 40s with a burn-like mark on his lip who did it should be careful after this stupid decision because it is being treated as a hate crime.

Take a look for yourself here.

Personally, I really can’t understand what would compel anyone to do something so pointless, hateful and stupid. Not only was it reckless and bigoted but he gained nothing from this except for the possibility of going to prison and being known around the UK as a massive dickhead.

Well done you racist guy for becoming infamous in the correct use of the word.

And now for something completely different.