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Quebec’s Crack Down on Student Protestors’ Civil Liberties
Arcade Fire on SNL last week wearing red student solidarity patches.
Here’s some Orwellian bullshit from our northern neighbors.
On May 18, Quebec’s legislative assembly, under the authority of the provincial premier, Jean Charest, passed a draconian law in a move to break the 15-week-long student strike.Bill 78, adopted last week, is an attack on Quebecers’ freedom of speech, association and assembly. Mr. Charest has refused to use the traditional means of mediation in a representative democracy, leading to even more polarization. His administration, one of the most right-wing governments Quebec has had in 40 years, now wants to shut down opposition.
The bill threatens to impose steep fines of 25,000 to 125,000 Canadian dollars against student associations and unions — which derive their financing from tuition fees — in a direct move to break the movement. For example, student associations will be found guilty if they do not stop their members from protesting within university and college grounds.
The bill is deliberately vaguely-worded and the article reports that use of force among the police has increased since its passage. The recent protests in Canada fall in line with the trend of indicators of a global problem in education and tuition inflation.
Hat-tip for the link goes to a Canadian Clantily Scad reader.
Science Is Not About Certainty
All physicists have to look nerdy. It’s part of the job description.
Science is not about the data. The empirical content of scientific theory is not what is relevant. The data serves to suggest the theory, to confirm the theory, to disconfirm the theory, to prove the theory wrong. But these are the tools that we use. What interests us is the content of the theory. What interests us is what the theory says about the world. General relativity says space-time is curved. The data of general relativity are that Mercury perihelion moves 43 degrees per century, with respect to that computed with Newtonian mechanics.
Who cares? Who cares about these details? If that was the content of general relativity, general relativity would be boring. General relativity is interesting not because of its data, but because it tells us that as far as we know today, the best way of conceptualizing space-time is as a curved object. It gives us a better way of grasping reality than Newtonian mechanics, because it tells us that there can be black holes, because it tells us there’s a Big Bang. This is the content of the scientific theory.
I just discovered Edge. They have some good shit melding philosophical questions with scientific inquiry. The kind of stuff I want to write if I ever make it through my formal education. Totes subscribing.
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I have to add commentary on this particular post. I can see what Rovelli is getting at, but I don’t like the rhetoric. It’s too dismissive of the importance of data, of the relationship between reason and theory. The arrogance in the rhetorical question, “Who cares about these details?” is particularly grating.
Physicists often try to play with “deep” writing and often fail. (Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman is the other example that immediately comes to mind.) The nature of their occupation involves describing reality, and reality is undoubtably complex. But if you’re a scientist that wants to do metaphysics, you had better choose your language very carefully or risk sounding like a tool.
TIL Baby Deer Have a Crappy Defense Mechanism
I found this little guy/girl? just lying on my lawn today, right out in the open next to a fallen branch.
I walked right up to it and it didn’t stir an inch, not even blink.
Probably less than 2 weeks old, its presence confused me: Should I try to cover it from the rain? Shoo it back into the woods? Call animal control? Funny, how human babies are such hideous creatures, but fluffy critters (It had spots! On its nose!) can elicit something of a maternal instinct. Where did evolution go wrong there.
Google revealed that mother deer just do that–leave their babies alone to curl up all comatose-like while they forage for food. Considering its placement, deer obviously still do not understand suburbia.
[EDIT: A reader writes me, “You shouldn’t ever go up to a deer like that. Or else the mom will show up and KICK THE SHIT OUT OF YOU.”]
It disappeared, presumably with its mom, an hour later.
Maybe we’ll meet again one day, baby deer. But if we do, it’ll probably be a meeting of your lack of understanding about civilization and my car. Rats with hooves.
Ze Frank Contemplates Consciousness
If you were socially aware on the Internet in 2006, and frequented Fark or Reddit, then you, at the very least, have heard of Ze Frank. Yanno, the guy who did a webshow, The Show, every weekday for an entire year. He talked about Bush a lot, made the Whip Somebody’s Ass song famous, and created a form of community-following that didn’t really exist before the Internet.
ZeFrank fell off the face of the planet for the last couple years, doing projects like Star.me which weren’t bad ideas, but not good enough to reclaim former glory. (Watching Internet celebrities try to make a comeback and fail fills me with existential dread.)
So when he announced that he was coming back with A Show, similar to The Show, I was super excited. Alas, his attitude was old and tired. Nearly 20 videos later, I’m still not fully engaged.
But finally, he came out with one that got my attention. Here Ze uses his nueroscience degree from Brown University* and talks some intellectual mind-fuckery about the nature of being and consciousness.
The red book on the shelf behind him is “Free Will” by Sam Harris. ❤ ❤ ❤ <3!
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*Brown is doing a lot of cool stuff in the areas of brain research and nuerotechnology. Here’s a video of a paralyzed woman moving a robotic hand with her thoughts.
Results of November 5 Bank Transfer Day
According to a survey by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA):
- At least 650,000 consumers across the nation have joined credit unions in the past four weeks.
- Estimates are that $4.5 Billion have been transferred to new savings accounts.
- Aearches for credit unions continue to show surges on the website aSmarterChoice.org, with more than 56,000 visitors in October.
Overview of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Videos and Information.
The congregations of protestors loosely associated with the “Occupy Wall Street Protest” has hit the 12th day of their resistance movement in Lower Manhattan today, September 29, 2011.
Occupy Wallst dot org is the unofficial de facto planning group committed to providing support to the protestors supporting the movement against political influence of the business world. While a “leaderless group”–they have no official goals or support specific legislation–their base shares a general spirit to persuade the US people and government, according to the site, “to no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the [top wealthy] 1 percent.”
Video of arrests here:
Many more amateur videos can be found with the youtube search term “Occupy Wall Street.”
In their Sept. 29 video, Democracy Now! interviews Michael Moore and talks to one of the protestors that allegedly experienced police brutality. Michael Moore participated with the crowds, who were not allowed by public law to set up PA systems, by rallying them to repeat anti-Wall Street corruption chants aloud as a group in Liberty Square.
It is perfectly legal to video tape a police officer on duty. Stand up to police brutality. (Do this discreetly, when possible; police are often ignorant of the law and will destroy evidence of their abuse in situations with less accountability.) The right to film police was recently upheld as a constitutional right in New England’s First Circuit Court of Appeals.
Police who were caught on film pepper spraying female protestors, are currently under investigation by the NYC DA.
A Civil Rights Attorney comments on the right of the people to assemble and establish temporary tents of a reasonable size:
Writing Tip for Friday – from the Writers of South Park
^Video in the link. Matt Stone and Trey Parker know that telling a good story is all about flow. A story is not about things happening right after one another. Things happen and these things affect the subsequent things, keeping the plot flowing the viewer engaged. (Yeah, take that Family Guy.) Some great, classic advice right there.
I might break my cheapskate streak and upgrade my WordPress account soon, because this inability to embed non-youtube videos is pissing me off.
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