Tip of the hat to Matt for this:

There seems to be two camps in the H1N1 vaccination debate (the fact that there even is a debate in the first place is slightly silly, but I say let the discourse flow on). There’s a “Pharmaceutical companies/government are going to test some weird shit on me”. This is based on two presumptions: that there is an exaggeration of the fear of the H1N1 virus (which I think is a valid claim), and that there are malevolent people out to get us so they can make major profits.

The other side seems to say that H1N1 really is something to worry about, and that the vaccine is very safe, despite a few low-probability incidents where people have had adverse effects.

I’m in between the two, which I think happens to be the less stressful: The vaccine is very safe, and I’m not at all worried about the gravity of the virus. I’m not into conspiracies, I dont think anyone’s out to get me. I think scientists are generally good people.

I also think the media is making a big deal out of this, even though this may be a pandemic. There are people who are more likely to die if they catch H1N1; pregnant women, children, and seniors. Therefore, I want to be vaccinated to prevent getting it…so I don’t pass it along to my grandparents, before it kills them.

Here is the link to Stewart’s latest awesome rant.

I thought conservatives were riled up enough when they decided to rewrite the Bible to provide: a “Framework against Liberal Bias”, “Express Free Market Parables, and other such noble goals. I’m not making this up.

But now the shit’s really going to hit the fan: Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t think it’s an appropriate time to give the award, but the commitee made no secret of the fact that they’re aware of his lack of time in office.

I hope hardline Republicans are shitting their pants. I’d love to see the froth on the side of their mouths, spewing in senseless anger. Someone should just remind them that God is responsible for everything, and that he works in mysterious ways, haha.

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Oklahoma passed a law forcing details of any abortion to be posted publicly, including age, race, marital status, county in which it was performed. I cannot think of a more disgusting law. I’d expect this from a crazy theocracy, not the US. Oh wait, some states are crazy theocracies. I pity what I would guess to be one of very few black women in Guymon, Oklahoma who needed an abortion. The whole town would know.

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We live in a time of great scientific advance, knowledge and understanding. (Here are three random articles I plucked out in less thanh a minute). But then you have lying, war-mongering, ignorant and very scared God-lovers that are just fucking ruining it for the whole godamned planet. Take these two Republican congressman who say the US should attack Iran first, not Israel. How about realizing that only 1.7% of Americans are Jewish? Nobody seems to care about the 15% that are non-religious…

Haven’t they learn that every single time they have meddled in the affairs of other countries, it has had negative consequences? Israel has nukes, and they’ve proven that they’re very willing to defy every Geneva Convention, every bit of morality, to wage war against Muslims. I understand Iran’s intentions of wanting to defend itself against Israel, although I don’t think anyone should have nukes. Have you noticed that the US is aiding a country that is lining up for a trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity? May we consider, for a moment that US foreign policy has made it “The bad guy”?

Healthcare is but a blip amongst the problems in the US. The economy, and its wars are far more important. But there is such internal struggle between an emotional and ignorant portion of the country and the rest, that even something as blatantly obvious, needed and cost-effective public health care can’t even get through Congress. Fuck me, our Southern neighbours are in a heap of trouble when China comes collecting its debts.

I try to be optimistic when I meet new people like my couchsurfers, when I read about new scientific advance and how we’re discovering new ways of harnessing renewable energy. But it’s things like these that make me very pessimistic indeed.

RNA Biology has decided to ask every author who submits an article to a newly created section of the journal about families of RNA molecules to also submit a Wikipedia page that summarizes the work. As Nature reports, this is the first time an academic journal has forced its authors to disseminate information this way. The initiative is a collaboration between the journal and the RNA family database (Rfam) consortium led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

(Via www.readwriteweb.com)

An Italian scientist has replicated the Shroud of Turin using simple medieval technologies.

Ther Shroud has been worshipped for centuries as the blanket that covered Jesus before his ressurection. However, in the 1980’s there was a stir, when it was dated to the 13th century.

Reuters has a report about research being done on the in-game economies of MMOs like EverQuest II and World of Warcraft to better understand much larger economic situations in the real world. The games are used as case studies where researchers can do controlled experiments that they couldn’t necessarily attempt if real money or goods were involved.

After studying 314 million transactions within the fantasy world of Norrath in EverQuest II, including trading in-game goods like armor, shields, leather, herbs and food, the researchers were able to calculate the GDP of one of the game servers (the back-end computer that hosts thousands of players in one world). As more people opened accounts and flocked to Norrath, spending money on new items, researchers saw inflation spike more than 50 percent in five months. ‘We have seen that kind of volatility during times of war and in developing nations in the real world,’ said [Dmitri Williams, assistant professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication]. ‘Our own economy has turned out to be less stable than we’d all assumed.’

(via Slashdot)