Some interesting things from the past few days.

No real theme here, just too much too post on Facebook.
1) The Climate scientist who came up with the now disproved 'hockey stick' climate graph, admits no serious global warming has occurred in the last 15 years. Couple this with a weak global economy, and it looks like little will be done to stop climate change. This could either be a good thing or bad thing, depending on one's opinion.
2) Sort of relating too the above. The common misconception that locally made food is better for the environment is not true!
3) I know most people are enamored with pharaohs. So, it has been discovered that King Tut probably died of malaria. Stupid mosquitoes. Also, he had a club foot.
4) Good article about Amnesty International, and how it has lost its way.
5) David Brooks in the New York Times portrays a grim outlook for people seeking work in the current job market, especially men.
6) Sports is beneficial to women later on in life. Now I don't feel bad how much of it I watch on TV.
7) David Miller is ruining Toronto, by not knowing how to balance a budget. You're supposed to spend the same amount that you're able to take in. Doesn't take a genius!
8) Doctors in Qubec hold human life in such high regard, they want to be able to kill you if you want them too. Don't worry, they'll only do it if the patient is deemed lucid. You can pretty much print out lucid evaluation forms on the internet, so there should never be confusion.
9) A tracker of the cliched words used at the Olympics.
10) Worst date movie ever? A Clockwork Orange. Who knew people wouldn't want too watch brutal rape scenes on a first date? I could also propose most other Kubrick, Tarantino, and some choice Scorceses movies as bad choices too. And anything with Rob Schneider.

Provoking questions.

In the National Post, Kelly McParland posted an interesting article. It focuses on an article in The Washington Post, called "Why are liberals so condescending?" He then posted an article from the Guardian, which tried to disprove this article, but ended up showing the condescension of some liberals.
I only really want to focus on the thesis of the first article, although it's fun to read the second one. As an aside this is not a general statement about all Liberals, rather I think a fairly neutral observer can see truth in the argument. Indeed, if anyone has watched The Daily Show recently you would know what the article was talking about. Liberals like to portray the Republican party as a party with no ideas, and although many in the party are brainless, this is a gross generalization. The sort that so called 'smart people' should not make. Sometimes this arrogance manifests itself in such a way, that it is just as stupid as the people they are trying to attack.
Case in point. John Oliver on The Daily Show had a segment in which he talks about how everyone in Hawaii has free health care. He then proceeds to interview 5 random guys for Hawaii, who love free health care. Who wouldn't? But that is a pretty shallow reason for saying everyone should get free health care, even if I don't disagree with that idea per se. He then talks to members of the Republican National Committee who claim free health care would never work. Yes. What buffoons. Can't they not see that carrying out this experiment in Hawaii, is the exact same as trying it across a country of 300 million! What idiots!
Some supporters of the health care bill say, we need a public option, lower Medicare to people who are 55, etc... Nobody would disagree with that idea. But you need to pay for it. People get what you're saying Obama. They don't need to hear you give 50 speeches about health care. They're not dumb. They can see that someone needs to pay for all this. That is a totally legitimate argument against health care.
The article also alludes to the idea that if one is in favour of a trendy topic he must be right. People in favour of global warming, free health care, anti-oil companies, are seen as paradigms of virtue, while opposition are idiots. Maybe that's why people think Obama is out of touch. He either sees half of America as too stupid to follow his enlightened ideas, or he is too dumb to see the legitimacy of their arguments.
I hope this somewhat mad sense. It's a pretty random spew. I just thought it was pretty thought provoking. It also seems pretty intuitive that if half a country disagrees with something, their ideas have legitimacy.

Another brief article. A guy in The Independent bring up the ticking time bomb scenario. The author of the article advocates potentially torturing one's family to obtain information from him, if it would stop an imminent devastating attack. I don't like to think of myself as a moral relativist, but then again I don't know if the torture issue can be looked at in a vacuum. It is easy for someone in Iceland to say torture is always wrong; different for security services in Pakistan trying to stop a potential attack. I think in the end of the day we would in fact torture to get this information. In one sense it's terrible, but I think human life is worth more than an ideal.
That is probably one of the pressing moral issues of our time.
Let me know what your opinions are.