World

Andrew Williams got hammered, urinated in the street and drove drunk which is nothing in comparison to this mayor:

Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto has long been dogged by controversy over his often boorish behavior and less than diligent attention to work. On Friday, Mr. Ford faced his greatest political test following two reports that he is seen in a video apparently using crack cocaine.The Toronto Star and the Web site Gawker reported on Thursday night that they were shown the video on a smartphone by two men who were trying to sell it. The Star, which said that two of its reporters had watched the recording, reported that it was made by a man who said he had sold crack to Mr. Ford.

Mr. Ford called the accusations of crack use “ridiculous.”  Read more »

Cina has one of the strictest censorship regimes in the world but little by little information about their dodgy ratbags still seeps out:

Visitors from mainland China climb the narrow stairs to a cramped room here filled with forbidden delights: shelves of scandal-packed exposés about their Communist Party masters.

The People’s Recreation Community bookstore and several others on Hong Kong’s teeming shopping streets specialize in selling books and magazines banned by the Chinese government, mostly for their luridly damning accounts of party leaders, past and present. And at a time when many Chinese citizens smolder with distrust of their leaders, business is thriving.  Read more »

Teacher Unions are the same the world over. They all believe that their education sectors are “national treasures” despite results and empirical evidence to the contrary.

Every now and then a politician comes along to challenge them and they become public enemy number one for daring to challenge the status quo.

Michael Gove was ridiculed by the president of the National Association of Head Teachers, who compared him to a hyperactive personal trainer.

“At times it feels as though we are at the whim of some kind of fanatical personal trainer, constantly urging us all to go faster, faster, higher and higher on a constant treadmill,” Bernadette Hunter told delegates attending the organisation’s annual conference in Birmingham.  Read more »

New evidence suggests that marijuana maybe popular because it helps people cope with the pain of loneliness.

Why smoke marijuana? Users would probably reply that numbed-out bliss is its own reward. But if smoothing out the harsh edges of reality is your goal, what bruises are you attempting to avoid?

Newly published research suggests that, at least for some, the answer is: The intense discomfort of social exclusion.

“Marijuana has been used to treat physical pain,” reports a research team led by University of Kentucky psychologist Timothy Deckman, “and the current findings suggest it may also reduce emotional pain.”

Interesting. Got me fascinated.

[D]ata on 5,631 Americans, who reported their level of loneliness, described their marijuana usage (if any), and assessed their mental health and feelings of self-worth. Not surprisingly, the researchers found a relationship between loneliness and feelings of self-worth, but it was significantly weaker for regular pot smokers.

“Marijuana use buffered the lonely from both negative self-worth and poor mental health,” the researchers write.

Another experiment, featuring 537 people, found those who were experiencing social pain were less likely to have suffered a major depression in the past year if they smoked pot relatively frequently.

Still another experiment, featuring 225 people, used the computer game Cyberball to create an immediate experience of social exclusion. Half the participants in the three-person game received the ball twice early on, and then never again during the course of the game. They then reacted to a series of statements designed to assess whether their need for self-esteem and belonging felt threatened—statements such as, “I had the feeling that the other players did not like me.”

The results: Those who smoked marijuana relatively frequently felt less threatened than those who smoked it less frequently, or not at all.

I’m very interested on the effect mitigating loneliness caused by severe depression.

NSW is moving to ban unvaccinated kids from schools and child care facilities.

Both of my kids were un-vaccinated…for a couple of reasons and none of it hippy dippy shit. Simply they were both highly allergic to egg white and other substances. No doctor, either GP or at the hospital was prepared to put their signature on a piece of paper to say it would be ok. In fact they insisted if we were to vaccinate at all that it MUST be done in a hospital under supervision.

They have since grown out of their allergies…but my daughter still has to be careful with egg-white.

I’m not sure a ban will work though.

A move to ban unvaccinated kids from NSW preschools and childcare centres isn’t about discriminating against the children of vaccine refusers, the state opposition says.

Labor leader John Robertson will introduce amendments to the public health act which would give early childhood centres the right to refuse kids who haven’t had their shots.

The move comes amid concern about high rates of unvaccinated children in some parts of NSW as well as the emergence of so-called ”anti-vaxxers” who refuse vaccination.

Some parts of NSW had lower vaccination rates than Rwanda, Mr Robertson said.

Read more »

Look at Russel Norman…body like a half-sucked throatie…wimp, even had his flag taken off him by some Chinese…socialist. Look at most hipsters and green supporters..wimps…weeds. Not a real bloke among them.

Now we know why. Tough blokes are more right wing.

Arnold Schwarzenegger – massive biceps, huge shoulders, Republican…case closed

And stronger men are more likely to protect their resources while weaker males favour more socialist views such as wealth distribution, researchers claim.

Psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen of Denmark’s Aarhus University, and Daniel Sznycer of the University of California, say political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength.

The scientists say men’s upper body strength predicts and influences their political opinions and this link reflects psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to influence behaviour today.

“While many think of politics as a modern phenomenon, it has – in a sense – always been with our species,” they say.  Read more »

We don’t have to look far to know what will happen if a Green led Labour coalition wins government. One word…Detroit.

While the government moves to ban K2 and other synthetic cannabinoids there is some evidence too that dope growing is bad for the environment. Which is going to put a dampener on Metiria Turei’s assumptions that the far north maori weed growers are entreprenuerial heroes, when the reality is, it appears, that they are environmental. vandals

This news is sure to send the Greens into a weed induced tail spin.

Talk about sitting back and watching the grass grow. Greens and government officials in Washington State are normally fierce towards carbon emitters, pioneering tough standards on power stations, for example. But their principles go to pot when it comes to cannabis growing.

The practice, legalised there by a vote in last year’s presidential election, is immensely polluting. Growing just one kilo of marijuana, a study concluded last year, releases as much carbon dioxide as driving across the United States seven times. This is because it is mainly cultivated indoors – with bright lights, air-conditioning, fans, dehumidifiers and even machines specially generating the gas to produce more potent puffs.

Normally keen green groups, such as the Sierra Club and Conservation Northwest, have dopily told The Seattle Times that they have other priorities. Governor Jay Inslee – who hails Washingtonians as “the people who are destined to defeat carbon pollution” – declined to comment. And the City of Seattle, despite aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2050, is producing new zoning regulations to permit plenty of indoor reefer ranching.

Let’s see how the Greens deal with this shocking news.

It is bad enough being French so there has to be some blessings…champagne is one…foie gras another…but for the kids it seems they don’t have much incidence of ADHD.

In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France?

Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder? Surprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether you live in France or in the United States. In the United States, child psychiatrists consider ADHD to be a biological disorder with biological causes. The preferred treatment is also biological–psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall.

French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children’s focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child’s brain but in the child’s social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child’s brain.  Read more »

Despite France passing gay marriage legislation a survey has found that the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys don’t much like poofters, and prefer that they don’t live next door.

When is there going to be a survey to find out if we’d like cheese eating surrender monkeys living next door? France is apparently the most intolerant nation in Europe…I suppose you’d get that when since time immemorial other countries have used yours for practicing military manoeuvres.

World Values Survey: France is the least tolerant country in Western Europe, survey finds, despite moves to sign into law a gay marriage bill.

The information which has been monitoring the political and moral attitudes of various countries for more than two decades, shows that countries with more economic freedom have higher degrees of tolerance.

Read more »