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.
Teachers and students have been striking across Spain this week, in response to the government’s spending cuts. It reminds me of a post my friend (American) made while studying abroad in Seville last fall and witnessing some of the outrage.
Today there were students running around the US campus with megaphones shouting “estudiantes, despiertan!” (“students, wake up!”) trying to grab some support for their protest tomorrow. They’re concerned about tuition increases and “recortes” (cuts) in education.
Wellsians – sounds familiar, right?
But here’s the plot twist:
Spanish students at US pay between 69-102 Euros for every six credits each semester, if I am understanding the handy-dandy BDSM-themed pamphlet that was distributed correctly.
So compared to Wells, where those who came in prior to 2009 pay $28,000/year for 12-20 credits, that’s… nothing.
Now, the tuition hikes shown here…
…Are projections for what might happen by 2020, long after these students have graduated. They also represent the worst case scenario, which is that students in their third year will have to pay 574 Euros for each six credits.
Seriously guys?
So I asked one of the protesters about this. I said…
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All Beloved Politicians Backtrack, Including Corey Booker
“It’s nauseating to the American public,” Booker said on the Meet the Press on Sunday, regarding Obama’s negative campaign strategies. “Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity.”
Glenn Greenwald I went back to the transcript. No one on the panel mentions Booker’s comments. But they quickly became a firestorm. It’s a reminder how different speeches and interviews and comments can look when viewed in context, as opposed to after they’ve been ripped from wherever they originated, spun into a separate narrative, and made into their own story.
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