What Caught My Eye Today - Winter Olympics, Nicaragua, Global Warming, Potpourri

Winter Olympics - An online petition has been started to to move the 2014 Winter Olympics from Sochi, Russia, to Vancouver, Canada. For those of you who don't remember, Vancouver hosted the most recent edition in 2010.  I'm guess most of those facilities are still in working order. The petition has proposed Vancouver as an alternative to Sochi in light of Russia’s increasingly oppressive treatment of gays, both legally and culturally. The target is 150,000 signatures. Really, that's it? Seems to me this is little more than a political statement, rather than a serious attempt to actually re-locate the Games to Canada. which, short of a nuclear incident, is never going to happen. Russia’s crackdown on gay rights, which includes a prohibition on “propaganda” in support of “nontraditional” sexual orientation, has resulted in ever-louder calls for countries such as the United States to boycott the games. Personally, I think this is an admirable cause, but realistically we'd have a better chance of boycotting the games due to Russia granting asylum to Edward Snowden. Meanwhile, other observers complain that sitting out not only would be a disservice to the athletes who have trained for years, but it also would fail to encourage a productive alternative that actively confronts Russia's treatment of gays. Yet again, I'm baffled by this inexplicably fear of same-sex relationships.  It's not like this is a contagious disease. If someone doesn't want to play for your team, do you really think forcing them to stay is going to make your team perform any better? I think not.

Nicaragua - Here's a follow up to an item I posted a couple months back (click here). Nicaragua’s political opposition filed a Supreme Court challenge to the Sandinista government’s hastily approved canal law, arguing that the generous concession granted to an unknown Chinese firm violates 15 articles of the constitution, including national sovereignty. The law was passed last June along party lines, by a vote of 61 to 25. The Supreme Court challenge might be the least of the problems facing the proposed $40 billion canal project. Interesting. I was sort of curious if it was possible to put a price tag on national sovereignty.  It appears, in this particular case, the answer is yes to the tune of $40 billion. Despite spending big bucks on high-powered consulting firms and public relations efforts, the newly formed canal company, HKND Group, still struggles to be taken seriously. So the opposition party doesn't know who these guys are. Big deal. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Nothing to worry about...right?  At the company's first press conference, reporters were presented with a wildly distorted map of Nicaragua, which appeared to trace a canal route passing from Lake Nicaragua into Lake Managua, dead-ending in the capital city, about 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. Maybe the map wasn't drawn to scale. In a subsequent interview, the company described a more carefully laid out route of the canal, starting in the Caribbean port town of Bluefields and winding to a Pacific outlet in Brito, which also came as a surprise to Nicaraguans, who were just told by President Daniel Ortega that the canal’s route will be determined by the results of a two-year feasibility and environmental-impact study. Who's to say the feasibility study won't match the route that the company has laid out?  I for one applaud, their can-do attitude. Most recently, the company said it was "100 percent sure” canal construction would start at the end of 2014 and be completed by 2019. That means the largest and most expensive infrastructure project in the history of Central America will be built in five years – even faster than Panama’s current $5.3 billion canal expansion, which pales in comparison in scope and cost. Okay, this one is a bit tougher, but I'm game to give it a try. Just because the feasibility study won't be completed until 2015, doesn't necessarily mean you can't start digging. We all know the canal has to start somewhere on the Pacific. Granted, we're still a bit vague on where the canal will end up on the other side, but that's no reason not to get started. As for the time frame, how do you know how long it will take to build if you don't try and... Yeah, I think I'm going to stop now. This deal is a train wreck of epic proportions and the train hasn't even left the station yet.. 

Global Warming - Yet another groundbreaking study has been released announcing that the most brilliant minds in their field have figured out what us simpletons have known all along. A massive new study finds that aggressive acts like committing violent crimes and waging war become more likely with each added degree. Researchers analyzed studies on historic empire collapses, recent wars and violent crime rates and found a common thread over centuries: Extreme weather - very hot or dry - means more violence. So what they are saying is that extreme events, like drought, can have an adverse impact on civilizations, which could lead to extreme things like war or extinction.  Who could possibly have imagined that, I mean other than anyone who has every read a history book? Economists have created a formula that predicts how much the risk of different types of violence should increase with extreme weather. In war-torn parts of equatorial Africa, it says, every added degree Fahrenheit or so increases the chance of conflict between groups -- in the form of rebellion, war, civil unrest -- by 11% to 14%. Global temperature averages are expected to increase by about 3.6 degrees in the next half-century which implies a 40% to 50% greater chance for African wars than it would be without global warming. For the United States, the formula says that for every increase of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, due primarily to increases in carbon dioxide pollution,  the likelihood of violent crime goes up 2% to 4%. Another startling revelation. It seems that extreme weather has more of an impact on under-developed nations as opposed to fully developed nations. I don't know about you, but my mind is completely blown away by this.

Potpourri - More conversation starters for that dinner party where topics that might actually be relevant just aren't hitting the mark.

• Disease - To date, mankind has managed to eradicate just one human disease, smallpox, but polio's days are numbered. I would have thought, that we would have conquered more than one disease by now, what with our success in killing off so many other species. While most of the world is polio-free, the disease still lurks in areas of Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. New cases have plummeted by 99% since 1988, thanks to a vaccine that costs just 14 cents per dose.  At the current rate, wild polio-viruses are expected to be extinct by the end of 2018. Along with approximately 50,000 other species (assuming the current rate of .01%).
• Tomatoes - The age old question of whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable has a rather complex answer.  Botanically, tomatoes are fruits, but legally they are vegetables. Well that clear things up, doesn't it? In 1883, Congress instituted a 10% tariff on imported vegetables. A dispute on whether or not the tax should be collected ended up in the Supreme Court.  The plaintiff tried to persuade the Court by reading dictionary definitions of fruit, vegetable and tomato, while the defense countered that in matters of commerce and trad, tomatoes were really vegetables. The justices sided with the defense saying that while tomatoes were technically fruits, they were inevitably served "at dinner in with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert."  Makes total sense if you think about it. The plaintiff's argument was doomed from the beginning. What idiot relies on fact to justify his position?
• Information -  Digital data is stored as binary ones and zeroes, and the ones create data by holding electrons in place. Since a electron has mass (a whooping .00000000000000000000000000000009 kilogram), one could argue that data has mass. Based on this premise, a Harvard physicist decided to calculate the weight of the world's digital data. Adding up every scrap of data on the Interest (at the time), the world's digital information weighed in at just under two ounces.  And we wonder why physicists get stereotyped as nerds.