10 bucks is 10 bucks

This is a real ad:

SURVIVAL SYSTEMS LTD.
Research Subjects Wanted!!! EC

Dartmouth, NS, CA

1/19/2008 12:00:00 AM

Research Subjects Wanted!!! "ECG responses to Helicopter Underwater Escape Training"

We are looking for 30 healthy men to participate in an experiment in our helicopter underwater escape trainer at Survival Systems Ltd in Dartmouth to be arranged between March 25th and April 6th, 2008.

If you are in a helicopter accident over water you will be flipped upside down and submerged. Therefore, we want to see what your heart rate and response is when you are inverted in our helicopter underwater escape trainer. You will be compensated for your time with $100 cash! For more details about the study please e-mail us at some@email.address

Originally published in The Daily News, Halifax, Nova Scotia

I can't help but think that there are very few people who would do this for $100 but wouldn't do it for free. For some reason, I immediately thought of this.

those who can't teach...

Here's one that the child psychologists will make a killing on (sorry, bad pun).

A group of teachers in Tennessee thought that it would be a good idea to discuss with their students what to do if a gunman attacked them. All in all, not necessarily an absolutely completely terrible idea. I mean, we've all heard about the school shootings, and having a pre-plan of how to deal with such a horrific situation is probably not the worst thing imaginable. But talking and doing are two different things, you could argue, so maybe it's not a bad idea to actually have a drill where you go through the routine of what you should do.

So following that logic, it is usually a good idea to talk about the exercise before being immersed in it, so that you can at least try to apply your knowledge. However, as you know, and as I know, and as everyone knows, it takes a lot of discipline to go through a drill with the same urgency as a real situation. And chances are if you discussed it first and then were suddenly thrust into a real situation, you would probably assume it was a drill. And let's face it... If adults would likely not treat it as seriously, neither would 12-year olds. I guess that's why we never knew exactly when the fire drills were going to happen in grade school. So perhaps, it's best not to tell the kids that it's a drill, and perhaps it's best not to talk about it before.

So far, the logic is impenetrable. But there's more. Surely if a gunman is going to shoot a bunch of school-kids, he wouldn't do it at, say, a school. Nooooooooo, he'd probably do it in a place that is unfamiliar to the kids. And it would probably be at night, too. Because that's when bad people come out from their poorly lit, dingy trailers.

So, what did the bright teachers decide to do? Stage an attack at night while on a field trip. They told the students a gunman was on the loose in the area, that it was not a drill, and that they should hide under the tables. Then a teacher, who disguised himself by wearing a hoodie (!), tried to get into the room while the kids cried and pled for their lives.

So who's idea was this brilliant plan? The assistant principal.

That kind of reminds me of a line somebody once wrote on a blackboard in high school. Those who can do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach become principals. Seriously, though, how did this guy become a principal? And how did the teachers go along with it?

Flubber-gusted, Arrrrrrr

So, I don't have a lot of sea-going experience, but I've got enough to see this as going too far.


Some activist group was chasing down a Japanese whaling vessel in the Southern Ocean (i.e. between Antarctica and Africa/South America), which -- despite the calm seas in this picture -- is notorious for having some of the roughest seas in the world. From the sounds of things, these activists on board their ship The Robert Hunter got in the way of a whaling ship and got rammed by it, as was later reported from another one of their ships The Farley Mowat.

Now, based purely on the names of their ships, it's hard to take this activist group (the Sea Shepherds) seriously. Their actions make it even harder. As the photo above suggests, these people think of themselves somewhat as pirates, arrrrr. They tried to jam the whaling ship's propeller with ropes. They were harassing the whaling ship so much that it sent out a distress call. And they were reckless enough with their own lives and those of the sailors on board the whaling ship, that they forced two collisions, one of which left a gash in their hull! Apparently, they also temporarily lost a couple of their members who were in a small raft. Luckily for those in the raft, they were found.

Now, while Japanese "scientific whaling" operations may be suspicious, there is a limit as to what should be done to stop them. The adventure of almost getting killed while acting like a stupid-ass pirate (arrrrr) in one of the most treacherous oceans might get your adrenaline going, but I must say these people are idiots. Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't exactly call myself an advocate of whaling or a believer of the science Japan uses to suggest commercial whaling should be brought back into full practice. In fact, I think they need to be stopped. Whether you agree with the law or not, these whalers were acting within international law, so don't think you're being some hero by hating the player.

You want to go change the world? Great! Be my guest. Go lobby, generate attention through civil disobedience, do your thing. But try not to get yourself killed in the process. And maybe while you're at it, try not to threaten the safety of other people's lives, either. What would have happened if somebody was actually killed here?

In parting, I'll just close with a shot of the "R/V" Farley Mowat (that stands for "Research Vessel"...riiiiight) with a Pirate Flag! Arrrr!



Gotta love the Canadian flag and the pirate flag! Um, excuse me, Arrrrr, eh? Oh, you don't like pirates, sorry.

Monolithic actions

This is too funny. An emeritus scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada was apparently dismissed (but quickly reinstated) because he felt it was stupid that "Canada’s New Government" should replace "Government of Canada" in official correspondence. Somewhat embarrassing that something this ridiculous has been published in Harper's.

(Via Rick Mercer's Blog.)

Bienvenida a Tijuana

So it appears as though currupt police officers in Tijuana have forced a rather unusual situation:

President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana last week to hunt down drug gangs. The soldiers swept police stations and took officers' guns for inspection on Thursday amid allegations that some officers supported smugglers who traffic drugs into the U.S.

That was 3 weeks ago, and the officers still have not had their guns returned. One effect of this move has been that police have been receiving death threats from local thugs. They've been travelling either with the army as their escorts or in large numbers for protection. In search of a reasonable solution, it seems that the Tijuana police department, some 2,000 strong, have issued a total of 60 slingshots to their officers...

!Aye Caramba!

Snow Driving

So the west coast has been hit by some bad snow storms lately, creating havoc among drivers. This video taken from a balcony in Portland shows you how to play billiards with your car on an icy hill:


And, on a related note, this one goes out to Templeton and Lil' Lightnin', for their little fling in the snow last year (their version was a little more successful than what transpires in this video):

What's black and white all over?

So you know that riddle, why don't polar bears eat penguins? (If you don't know the answer, I'll leave it for you to solve. But below are a few hints...)

In today's Guardian, there is an article about these guys who are trying to ski across Antarctica. It's an interesting adventure story type deal, and the protagonists seem to fit the stereotype, even having an "Ovary Award".

But I digress...

Somewhere near the end of the article, is a little blurb about how this is not a purely selfish endeavour.

The team ... has spent time scouring the horizons for penguin colonies. If penguin numbers are great enough, the continent may have enough natural food to support a limited number of polar bears in an ambitious relocation programme to save the Arctic bears from the perils of climate change.

Okay, so a couple of points...

• Don'tcha think that maybe qualified bird spotters who can quantify what they are seeing should do this job?
  
• Am I the only one that feels that, you know, since we're just about done screwing up the polar bear's habitat, maybe we shouldn't just accelerate our meddling with the antarctic ecosystem?
  

I mean seriously...do these people know anything about the antarctic? Did they research penguins at all? Maybe they should go see March of the Penguins, and imagine a Polar Bear stumbling upon that colony of emperor penguins balancing their eggs on their feet during their over-wintering...