When Florida, Hockey, And Stupidity Collide

I know I write about hockey a lot, be it here, on my Collectibles blog, on Facebook, or even on Twitter. I also call out stupid people a lot, particularly when it comes to methheads and/or Floridians, which oftentimes are one and the same.

Here's a case of mixing it up: a player for the Florida Everblades in the ECHL (the third-world of North American pro hockey after the NHL and the AHL), Justin Agosta, was arrested for arson a couple of weeks ago... for a fire that started when he poured gasoline on pictures of his girlfriend and got out of control when he tried to kill it with water and a towel.

Kids, here's a fun science tip: water doesn't stop gasoline fire, it spreads the gasoline out so it can burn more things. Yay, science!

Aliens Of The Sea

I read this article about a month ago, and it made me think. Essentially, they're taking one bit of actual scientific news (octopi have a unique and entirely different genetic DNA composition) and went wild with it (so they're aliens).

But... what if?

The first whole cephalopod genome sequence shows a striking level of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes identified – more than in a human.

Not only that, the octopus DNA is highly rearranged – like cards shuffled and reshuffled in a pack – containing numerous so-called “jumping genes” that can leap around the genome.

It changes from most modern movies where aliens are depicted as close relatives to insects, instead being far more complicated creatures.

Say What?

You've heard about growing ears on rats' backs, right?

How about on human forearms? How about on human forearms for no one's actual benefit but as an arts/science experiment to eventually hook the thing online and have everyone on the planet hear what's going on in his life?

Well, that's what a Perth, Australia artist has in mind for the one growing on his fucking arm.

You don't like it? Grow your own and do whatever you want with yours.

Yep, the miracles of modern science.

The Canadian Environment

There's yet a another petition making the rounds in Canada, asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper to not go overboard in allowing the complete destruction of our environment. It's a weekly occurrence, it seems.

He does not see the small picture, let alone the big one.

Whether (or not) federal elected officials prefer to support big businesses instead of the people who elected them and whom they represent is irrelevant.

The bottom line remains: if they allow anyone or anything to compromise our environment, we are all screwed. And not just Canadians. Pollution and devastation knows no borders, no boundaries.

Even the businesses who pillage nature to sell it back to us need it to not be a finite resource. That's in addition to biodiversity proving everyone its actual food sources. Basing decisions we know are wrong on some half-assed biased research is worse than just a skewed lack of vision, it's step-by-step suicide.

I mean, shit, right, the companies have proven for a long time that their profit-driven ways go in just one direction with blinders on, and always need us to protect them from themselves - not help them fuck the rest of us up more.

This is a fast way to get to a post-apocalyptic world, when ''I told you so'' won't mean anything anymore.

Darren Aronofsky and Leonardo DiCaprio took a trip to the Albertan tar sands earlier this year and came back with a troubling report. Once pioneers in progress and progressive views, and formerly the voice of reason on the international scene, Canada has become the laughingstock of the international community, particularly on environmental and scientific issues.

Ironic that the country who wouldn't let the U.S. back out of the Kyoto protocol now won't even come close to meeting its own objectives on the matter.

Word Of The Day: Cliteracy

New York artist Sophia Wallace has a chip on her shoulder about society and mankind's illiteracy about the clitoris, and she decided to do something about it, just not he way Annie Sprinkle - whom I saw live at (the old) Club Soda in the mid-1990s - would have done it...

Instead of baring it all and equipping spectators with flashlights to facilitate exploration, Wallace ditched the facile/obvious/exploitation way of doing it (through performance) and instead built elaborate pieces, such as the street art panels 100 Laws of Cliteracy, sampled below:

"It is a curious dilemma to observe the paradox that on the one hand the female body is the primary metaphor for sexuality, its use saturates advertising, art and the mainstream erotic imaginary. Yet, the clitoris, the true female sexual organ, is virtually invisible," Wallace told Creem magazine earlier this year.

"Even in porn, the clitoris is treated as this optional, kind of freaky, 'wow he's doing her this huge favor' thing," she told HuffPost, adding that women often feel "embarrassed" to ask their partners to pleasure them. "It's insane to me that this is still happening in 2013."

Last year, during her tenure in the Art & Law Residency, Wallace started work on a multi-media project that she hoped would serve to challenge these misconceptions and to lift the veil on this enduring ignorance about the female body.

From the Huffington Post:

According to a 2011 post by Museum of Sex blogger Ms. M, the internal clitoris (highlighted in yellow in the images above) is a complex erectile structure consisting of two corpora cavernosa (that are said to wrap around the vagina when erect), two crura (erectile bodies that branch out from the clitoral body), clitoral vestibules or bulbs, and the clitoral glans (the part that you can see).

"This work has never meant to be behind the white walls of a gallery. It's really about cliteracy becoming a meme and creating new language for bodies and sexuality," Wallace said, adding that she wants to soon take her street art project global.

I also hope it becomes a meme, and chances are this installation, made with sculptor Kenneth Thomas, will help achieve that. I give you, Clit Rodeo:

She also goes one step further and ups the ante with a political stance:

Not only is the project for everyone ("I love seeing men standing up for the clit," Wallace says, adding that this is a conversation that liberates people of all genders), but she says that the clitoris can be seen as a "metaphor for freedom, body sovereignty and citizenship."

"Cliteracy is about not having one's body controlled or legislated," she said. "Not having access to the pleasure that is your birthright is a deeply political act."

Amen.

Now buy the shirt, join the cause, and by all means respect the clit enough to educate yourself on it.

Deadly Foods From The Gulf Of Mexico

The April, 2010 BP oil spill still causes damage to the area's wildlife, and the crap it causes goes right back to our plates... as usual.

Fish rotting alive

Cancer-ridden shrimp

Eye-less shrimp

I won't just copy-and-paste the whole article, it would be unfair tot hose who wrote it, but passages such as hese abound:

Among the disturbing mutations: Shrimp with tumors on their heads; fish that lack eyes or are missing flaps over their gills; fish with oozing sores; crabs with holes in their shells; crabs that are missing claws and spikes, or are encased in soft shells instead of hard ones.

Keath Ladner, a third generation seafood processor in Hancock County, Mississippi, is also disturbed by what he is seeing. "I've seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out," Ladner told Al Jazeera. "The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday."

It's not just the oil spill itself, but also the oil dispersants used to clean up the mess... sure, to the naked eye, it looks like the oil ''left the water'', but that's just because dangerous chemicals just separated their chemical components.

Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact. Health impacts can include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitisation, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage. They are also teratogenic - able to disturb the growth and development of an embryo or fetus - and carcinogenic.

And, of course, both BP and local authorities are hiding behind government regulations (or lack thereof):

"Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is among the most tested in the world," the energy company says in a statement. And "according to the FDA and NOAA, it is as safe now as it was before the accident."

Al Jazeera contacted the office of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who provided a statement that said the state continues to test its waters for oil and dispersants, and that it is testing for PAHs. "Gulf seafood has consistently tested lower than the safety thresholds established by the FDA for the levels of oil and dispersant contamination that would pose a risk to human health," the statement reads.

Well, then, let me ask this: is it, maybe, that the FDA's requirements are too low? Why satisfy yourself with the lowest possible standard when you know for a fact they aren't adequate? This could be the one chance we have to get FDA standards up to par, but instead, we'd rather let our people eat poison for a few more years or generations. It's no wonder the U.S. accepts radioactive food from Japan, seeing as the FDA accepts between 4 and 10 times the radiation levels the Japanese authorities do.

The AIDS And The Bees

In the future, you might be able to tell your kids the tale ''about the AIDS and the bees''... turns out bee venom could kill AIDS cells.

Too bad their population is decimated...

I like how we humans keep fucking with nature and only realize we've made a mistake when it's on the verge of becoming critical.

There Goes Gun Control

3D printing is here, we hear about it more and more.

And our inventiveness keeps getting better and better, and while society is getting dumber, some members of it are definitely getting smarter.

Which brings us to this story: a man has started a company who will provide plans to print your own plastic gun at home. The only thing not included is a small nail, which acts as its firing pin.

I particularly like this part of the story:

And it’s complied with the Undetectable Firearms Act by inserting a six ounce chunk of non-functional steel into the body of the Liberator, which makes it detectable with a metal detector–Wilson spent $400 on a walk-through model that he’s installed at the workshop’s door for testing. “Our strategy is overcompliance,” he says. (There’s no guarantee, of course, that anyone who downloads and prints the Liberator will insert the same chunk of detectable steel.)

Ah, a loophole the size of the moon - Republicans will love it!

And The Survey Says...

A study shows that ''making love'' is the activity humans find the most enjoyable and rewarding, ahead of drinking alcohol - far ahead of religion and caring for children.

Duh.

Things you can feel, that are found in nature, and that distract from the useless daily grind we have invented as a means to be in control of one another should always have priority over make-believe and duties, in terms of what you take from it in the immediate moment.

Having kids, teaching them about Life, nurturing them - that's a long-term commitment that only seldom reaps benefits, and more often than not in the long run, not right away.

Logic would have dictated that, but I guess some people weren't sure. That's what scientists do: they test out even the most obvious stuff to have what they call 'empirical evidence', even though that evidence is usually a result of testing a sample population and, technically, is merely a representation of what some might feel, not all.

What a waste of time, resources and money.

Rats In New York

What a weird way to take care of the rat overpopulation - scientists are eying (chemical) sterilization to stop them from procreating in the New York City underground. Especially since poison wasn't working all that well...

“This technology, if successful, could complement our current strategies of poisoning and exclusion for rodent management,” Thomas Lamb, the chief of innovation and technology for New York City Transit, told the committee.

For those of you who are wondering:

The authority said that the typical city rat, known as the Norway rat, reaches sexual maturity at 8 to 12 weeks and can have as many as 12 pups a litter and as many as seven litters a year, “depending on refuse and track litter access.” The rats’ typical life span is 5 to 12 months.

Welcome... To Jurassic Park!

Ironic that I watched all three Jurassic Park movies last weekend, and landed on this story a week later...

After cloning a sheep when I was a teenager, scientists have now cloned... an extinct frog. Which raises, once again, the question: just because we can, must we?

Here are a few quotes from Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum):

God help us, we're in the hands of engineers. 

Gee, the lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me. 

God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. 

John, the kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is.

And, of course, this exchange:

Dr. Ian Malcolm: If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now
[bangs on the table]
Dr. Ian Malcolm: you're selling it, you wanna sell it. Well...
John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.  

 I mean, ok, these frogs were extinct because of massive deforestation, perhaps more by human force than nature's. On the other hand, they disappeared 30 years ago; are they suited to our world? Are we suited to house them? As the world has evolved, so have bacteria, disease, and wildlife - a disease that disappeared 300 years ago could still kill humans today if it were re-introduced to us because our bodies have since forgotten how to deal with it - or it could just mutate with what's around. Same goes for animals, who can destroy ecosystems by their mere presence and need to feed, or lack of hygiene (or too much of).

You cannot right a wrong by double-wronging without assessing what you can of a possible bigger picture first, and that includes playing God.

Rick Perry Versus Evolution

Remember Rick Perry, the Republican Presidential candidate I was telling you about last week? In this video, a kid's mom wants him to talk about evolution/science/creationism, trough the young'in's mouth, but Perry has ears. And a well-prepared answer scripted by press release and public relations experts, full of empty phrases that mean next to nothing.

Rats Exonerated For Plague

Nearly 700 years after the fact, a British archaeologist named Barney Sloane claims rats can now be considered off the hook for the infection which cost countless human lives - perhaps up to two-thirds of London in 1348 and 1349.

That's a relief. For rat lovers.

It now leaves the rest of us with more questions than answers, though.

It's Evolution, Baby...

So, according to this BBC article, research shows that male chimpanzees are into the habit of exchanging meat with female chimps... for sex. That's right, some people still believe Evolution doesn't exist (and it also seems there are more of these people now than there were 10 or 20 years ago, dpesite science advancing and not regressing in that time span...) yet chimps are now where humans were in the Stone Age, which isn't so bad, considering.

Chimpanzees have found out that if you feed a woman her daily protein need, she will be more inclined to give you sex - even later in the course of your relationship with her.

Now I'm not saying I advocate ''keeping the woman in the kitchen'' at all, just that we, as a species, also started out coupling with one another out of a certain survival instinct - and because for some reason or another we stopped being nomads.

And since those monkeys aren't going anywhere either, nature dictated some common sense into them. The next step is giving her the right to hunt herself, then the right to have her say in how the tribe handles itself.

Chances are that won't take 2000 years and countless wars, so, in the end, which species will have made the most significant progress?