http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5WlQ54Sg0&NR=1

This is a nice video from Serious Change - which supports my post on perpetual growth. I'm left a bit confused about what one can actually do about it though... Even the apparently fantastic Obama is a touter of growth as the Number 1 priority - without questioning this doctrine at all.

The reason this bothers me is that

1. It reinforces people's denial of death, which in the end is bad for everyone.
2. It makes an artificial division between people who are terminally ill, die young etc... and people who die later on in life. People are afraid of terminally ill people for example because they remind them of their own mortality but they don't want to be reminded.

See this New Scientist Report for more facts and argumentation.

* Windows is searching for a solution to your problem...
*Windows is looking for drivers online...
*Multimedia Messaging (MMS) (Europe) - I have spent days trying to set it up and have only ever received one successfully in my life and that was from identical phone to identical phone on the same network provider.
*Video calls on a cellphone (would anyone want to use that on a cellphone anyway?)
*Chat on a cellphone

I'm interested to know if anyone else had the same experience with these or other technologies and if so, what they think can be the explanation for a company rolling out a technology which so patently does not work.

• Killed more than 20,000 Ndebele in the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland.


• LOST the most recent election despite extreme physical intimidation of the electorate in this and previous elections.


• Arrested opposition MPs since the last election.


• Used the army to intimidate any previous opposition members


• Made Zimbabwe, a country rich in natural resources and human resourcefulness into the country with the highest inflation rate in the world and 80% unemployment, due to his corrupt mis-management of the economy.

Am I missing something (maybe it really is the only way for Tsavangirai to get some form of power) or is this not a little unfair? Will the leopard really change his spots if he is allowed to retain such power? Who will control the funds allocated to the army? Will the next election be truly fair and free from violence?

Double blind tests are supposed to show whether a drug really works, or whether it is just down to the placebo effect because neither the researcher nor the test subject knows they are taking the drug.

This paper totally discounts this methodology because it shows that the very fact of BEING TOLD you are taking a drug has an effect on whether it works or not. The researchers tested a painkiller called a CCK-antagonist, first in a standard double-blind randomised controlled trial. The CCK-antagonist performed better than the placebo. So the CCK-antagonist must be an effective painkiller, right? But when the same drug was given to volunteers without telling them, it had no effect. If it was a real painkiller, there should be no difference compared to the test where subjects are told what they are taking. But if you don't tell people, the CCK-antagonist is ineffective in relieving pain.

So it seems some drugs only have an effect IN CONJUNCTION with expectation. Interesting stuff...

See here for more details

1. Doctors get more money for it
2. Doctors can have a regular predictable schedule

Here are some tactics they use:
1. Scaring women and blackmailing them with - what if your baby dies stories.
2. Doctor sees woman in before due-date and says - hey where's the baby - it's late - aren't you worried - I think we'd better induce it. Doctor gives woman drug (or maybe a placebo - this is pure conspiracy theory) to induce baby. Baby doesn't come so doctor says - oh dear - we have to do a cesarian.
3. Creating a culture where that is the done thing because it is more convenient.

On top of that, they:
1. Make it difficult for fathers to accompany their partners during the birth - you have to make a fuss to be allowed in.
2. Take the baby away almost immediately it is born and put it, screaming in a room with loads of other babies, away from its mother in it during the crucial first day of its life. Mother's breast milk then does not come and - oh mother has to buy formula milk.
3. Do not allow older children into the hospital to visit the mother/new child, because they have some strange infectious disease which adults apparently do not have.

Example usage: "Oh dear, I screwed the wiki - apologies - my Wiki-Fu is not up to scratch."