Intelligence wins out!

U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III has decided the controversial case concerning the teaching of the so called intelligent design (ID) in public schools. He defined ID as being creationism relabeled:

By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in the early drafts is identical to the definition of ID [intelligent design]; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist) which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards.

and that intelligent design isn't science at all.

After a six week trial that spanned twenty-one days and included countless hours of detailed expert witness presentation, the court is confident that no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area [and] . . . in the hope that it may prevent the obvious waste of judicial and other resources which would be occasioned by a subsequent trial involving the precise question which is before us.

Intelligent design, as well as creationism, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they can not be tested. Their axioms are based on authority, revelation, or religious belief.

source: NEJM 2006 Volume 354:2277-2281.

Human rights

Human rights by far are the most misunderstood rights humans have. These are the most basic rights. We have to defend them at all costs for everyone, because in that is its only argument, the basic right any human should have. People tend to forget that.
So when in Brazil hundreds of inmates start rebellions (which the government in the first place "allowed", by letting them use cell-phone within prison walls to say the least), and they start to do ugly things people just want them shot down...
First of all, to let these rebellions happen was a very stupid thing and it seems, completely avoidable. I mean the state has power to control the inmates very well, but it doesn't do so due to lack of control, of planning, of sheer stupidity, or just members of the government don't care as they are too busy stealing money for themselves.
Now just because one thing is wrong (our loss of the right of security, and to go where we please), when these rebellions happen doesn't mean we can commit another wrongdoing (taking out their human rights). One wrong doesn't justify another! When a government enters into a war situation within its borders or there is political anarchy, one of the first things that risks being lost is the very human rights people so easily tend to forget, exactly for these same people. Which is why society must be very firm and united in relation to its rulers about human rights. That it is an outrageous atrocity to not abide by them.
Second, things should never have been allowed to get this far. People should have access to education! I think this is the main issue. Governments want stupid masses so they can do with them as they wish, but this is the side-effect: unemployment, and mass criminal ratings. So deal with it! Nobody ever wants to start a change in this trend. It would be something for so long in the future it doesn't have any electoral value. I've already stated before the elected people govern to be elected again!!!! Who would want to spend money on something that would take at least 30 years to give fruit and perhaps to a politician who will be on the spot 30 years from now. Nobody wants that, besides the already stated fact that educated masses are much harder to control. So deal with it!
What to do with so many unemployed and so many people in jail right now? That's an unanswearable question... We have to make do with what we have. But it would be imperative to revert the trend, otherwise instead of looking at a distant future with maybe a little light at the end of the tunnel things could get even worse.

Software cathartic

Why do we feel the need to use windows in our computer systems? Why does it seem that having a computer means having a windows installed as your OS. I have been asking myself more and more that question and I think their days on my system are starting to be numbered. What do I really use that can only be done in a windows only environment? Office style applications? PDF files? Internet? Easier to use/install? Faster??????? Open office is a de facto clone of microsoft office. Besides there being other application which I have considered to be better such as wordperfect. Internet doesn't even need comments, I already don't use internet explorer as my browser, except in the cases where sites have been made to work only with it... Many free linux distributions are very easy to use/install nowadays, and it definitely isn't the fastest. How about Zeta from yellow tab? It boasts a 2 second boot up! The ultimate answer in my case comes down to software made only for windows, mainly, computer games. So I´m just keeping windows in the sake of games?!?

More reading. Try also this. Microsoft even had a site that stated, so called linux myths.... Click this!

Democracy

Who says that democracy is really the best possible way to direct a country? Of course in comparison to previews regimes we have had in the past, it certainly is much better, but democracy holds within itself the possibility of its self-defeat. It only works where the citizens that live in it have at least a moderate/high level of education and culture. Why is that? Let's review how the system works:
Everyone decides what is best for everyone, and since we can't do multiple things at once, we vote and take the course of the majority. Herein already we have a couple of problems. First of all, who says that we know what's best for ourselves? I mean if we get sick, do we take our own decisions on what we should do, like medications we should take, or do we go consult a specialist in the area, a doctor. If we are going to build a house, do we decide for ourselves the plan of the house or does an engineer do that? So when running a country what makes us think that anybody can do that job irrespective of his formation or education?!? Second point, we do what the majority wants, so effectively, the democracy is the dictatorship of the majority, it is a majorcracy. In countries that don't have multiple minorities in it, it probably works well. But imagine in countries like Rwanda where we have two factions, the Hutu's in majority and the Tutsis in minority, and you can see how we are going to have problems there. Think about Iraq!
Because of technical problems (which nowadays may not exist anymore), it is not possible for every single person of a country to make decisions, so democracy also consists of representation, where a group of people is represented in different places by one person, i.e. senators, deputies, governors, mayors and the president. This is a major problem. This person isn't necessarily concerned with the voters who voted for him. Many times this person is concerned only for himself, voting measures that will benefit himself. Seemingly the only time they don't do that in when the public opinion is heavily against them and there is pressure from the media.
To elect these representatives of the people we have elections... The so called feast of democracy. This in itself produces the main bias. The people who get elected, they act out their terms not trying to what might be the best for the people. Instead they plan how to get re-elected or somebody they have appointed. How can anybody take impopular measures this way? How can anybody take measures that will take over 30-50 years to reach results? In countries where the education is low, people want to see things being built, they believe that is what makes a good government! It's the guy who makes the most hospitals, bridges who is a good president! This way he ensures his own election, and the people have suffered the more from it.

Grier's Grief

Can you actually believe this!

Irresponsible freedom in public health

In Brazil health is a right guaranteed by the constitution. What this amounts to in this country is a very heterogenous map of services distributed throughout the country. Whereas in some parts even the most basic service are hard to come by, as well as shortage of even the most basic medications, in other parts patients have access to practically all of the state of the art medicine and expensive medicines for free. An example of this is the AIDS program in my country distributes many of the medications necessary for the first line of treatment and even backups for AIDS treatment in case of resistance(HAART therapy).
Much of the mortality and morbidity of many diseases come from inexpensive measures such as life style changes. A recent report in circulation (see Iestra) shows that these so called life style changes isolated have at least two times effectiveness of an isolated medication! This includes of course excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages and smoking.
Diseases generated by these two conditions generate considerable expenses for health providers. Practically all cases of lung cancer have smoking as its cause. Alcohol is associated with numerous diseases, for example, liver failure and liver cancer.
Changing life styles is very complicated but goverment should start taking its responsibility in offering services to try and help the general population with this problem because of course everyone knows that prevention is much cheaper than treatment. Instead everyone just wants instantaneous solutions, like building a brand new hospital (where, incidentally, a lot of money can be diverted...), instead of long term solutions what I'm proposing would bring.
I would go so far as to suggest that the SUS (sistema único de sáude=unique health system, Brazil's health public system), should not authorize treatment of patients that weren't at least attached to some program of trying to break the drinking or smoking habit.
Probably that wouldn't work either. City halls would pretend to make centers for rehabilitation, patients would pretend to go and hospitals would admit everyone anyway...

Moore support

All things Michael Moore are very cool, and they are as much as cathartic as anything! So here I am advertising for something that may well become his new documentary
. So go ahead tell him your stories.