A long good life

and a very good long read. The best article I have read in some time:

“What Makes Us Happy?” by Joshua Wolf Shenk in The Atlantic Monthly June 2009

the story of a father who on Christmas Eve puts into one son’s stocking a fine gold watch, and into another son’s, a pile of horse manure. The next morning, the first boy comes to his father and says glumly, “Dad, I just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break.” The other boy runs to him and says, “Daddy! Daddy! Santa left me a pony, if only I can just find it!”

I want to want a pony. Sadly, I have done otherwise.

“On the bright side,” he has written, “reaction formation allows us to care for someone else when we wish to be cared for ourselves.” But in intimate relationships, he continued, the defense “rarely leads to happiness for either party.”

Yup.

not HIV that kills us but the hospital administration

Read this!

“No positive news” by Michael Buehler in Inside Indonesia 2008-12

However, in response to our queries and requests for action, representatives of most organisations responded by pointing to the ‘sensitivity’ of the issue or referring to obscure ‘political interests’ that would not allow their organisations to be more explicit about these obvious problems.

Dow there

Pollution makes small dicks.

Perhaps now we’ll see something done about it.

“It’s official: Men really are the weaker sex” in The Independent 2008-12-07

boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets

Hubble Advent Calendar

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008

Quote of the day

“Re:Break down the stereotypes!” by earlymon on Slashdot 2008-11-28

Creativity is not the exception—it is the norm. Introspection is a strict requirement for the creative mind—it is denigrated as introversion. Excitement and a need to express excitement over complex work is denigrated as yet another computer-wearing-tennis-shoes running his mouth without social skills. [emphasis added]

Mbeki killed 365,000

Conspiracy theories kill. Science matters. Getting it right saves lives. Getting it wrong cost 365,000 lives, including 35,000 babies needlessly born with HIV.

Lesson learnt yet again in hindsight—too damn often. Treating Mbeki with ‘diplomacy’ may have allowed organizations to work with some South Africans that had HIV and AIDS. But at too high a cost. Mbeki’s bullshit needed fierce and persistent condemnation. Not to persuade him. But condemnation may have helped the voices of reason in South Africa and may have hastened Mbeki’s departure. The death toll becomes millions—from silence.

“AIDS: a good example of why science policy matters” by Jonathan M Gitlin in Ars Technica 2008-11-26

This should serve as an abject lesson in why it’s vital for governments to receive effective science and health policy advice.

South Africa is well off compared to its regional neighbors—it had enough money for the former President, Thabo Mbeki, to splash out nearly $100 million on a new Boeing Business Jet. Mbeki claimed poverty when it came to providing his citizens with antiretroviral drugs, however.

A Johannesburg AIDS hospice in 2002 (Joao Silva for The New York Times)

And you thought orals were hard

Dance your dissertation, baby.

These are so cool.

“Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor Disputes” by Barbara Allen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1999

Makes me want to read the book.
Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor Disputes by Barbara Allen, MIT Press 2003