Sun : Blood Donor
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When I walked to the waterfall did I walk | a) the bare minimum or b) did I completely over do it ?  I started off on the wrong path, but realised after 500m. I traced the correct path as it had a sign in Thai, it wasn't well used, as in parts exposed to the sun it was grown over. I was expecting leeches, but saw none. I soldiered on following rope guides up steep bits and after 30 mins was at the base. The path continued seemingly to the top, but it faded out so I turned back . On the way back I followed another path through an orchard seemingly to head towards the top of the falls. It was clear, but got tricky. One section was completely blocked by fallen down trees. Further on I felt a little faint.. strange, whty would I feel faint ?. After another 10 minutes another blockage so I turned back. 2 hours later it was only when I climbed into a car that I noticed the back of my ankle it was covered with crusts of dry blood 0.5cm think. .......No wonder I had felt faint I'd been bitten by a leech which must have got knocked off, but cos of the anaethetic bite and leech's anticoagulent I'd lost more than an eggcup of blood. Back at the hotel I washed the huge lumps of blood off, and then noticed somehow I had a leech on my arm. It must have come out of my shoe. So I put it on my nail and showed it to the hotel receptionist. It looked like a small "alien" sitting on the end of my thumb the mouth end swinging around in search of blood. I guess she doesn't see many leeches ..she screamed and went to hide
The Price of rice needs to go up
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I heard a social worker on a RN ABC report make the connection, between low food prices and girls ending up being trafficked into Australia.
| Rice is ridiculously cheap 20B/Kg about $0.50. This is cos like in many Asian countries the government say the price needs to be kept low so the poor can afford to eat so it has imposed price controls. This keeps most people quiet; the rich are laughing, and the government and private sector can get away with paying low salaries. Meanwhile the poor rice farmer is kept poor cos he's not getting a fair price for his labour . Japan & Korea have always gone another way, by fixing the price of products the farmers sell high and keeping out cheap imports. This is outrageously protectionist, but now I can understand that other countries are artificially keeping world prices low. So J & K farmers have money, which they spend in the economy, meanwhile the government keeps it workers wages high enough to buy rice, so pushing up wages in the private sector. In Thailand and other countries keeping the price of rice low keeps farmers in poverty. What can they do except keep on trying to grow rice ? They uneducated so are unlikely to come up with innovations or organise to fight for their rights. No, instead they are vulnerable to a whole range of exploitation. When the price of rice is higher this exploitation will be reduced. Dentists
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I 've had a space at the gum line at the back where food would get trapped for 2 years. I suddenly realised I could get it filled. I was expecting a big hassle, but it took her 15 minutes and charged 7 quid.
| MSG is not Dangerous
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I was surprised to read in the guideboook that 1. After extensive testing it is classified in the safest food group. 2. that it started as natural product in that it's been extracted by Japanese from seaweed for 200+ years. I checked in the Wikipedia. It seems one in a million might be allergic to it, but even then it might be something else. In the 60s a journalist wrote an article about how he seemed to get sick when he went to Chinese restaurants and hypothisised it was the MSG. This spawned a myth about Chinese Restaurant sickness syndrome, which mutated into "MSG & other things give you cancer". In the same vein no study has found that sweetners are dangerous, though there 100s of myths.
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BBC bad science again
| The BBC news this morning led with "... levels of CO2 the leading greenhouse gas...", | Unbelievable the BBC has been reporting CO2 stories for many years and must have staff experienced with science and yet they still make a fundamental error like that. (water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas, but levels may have stayed the same, wheras levels of CO2 have increased). The report talked about CO2 levels being 30 % higher than predicted 7 years ago. Seems like a manufactured and spun 1. Surely there are many similar studies; like one made 1 or 2 years ago are more accurate. 2. It doesn't say much for their climate predictions for 50 years if they are so inaccurate over 7. July BBC had a big report Echinacea wonder-herb works in new test .. seemed obvious some company had paid a test got the expected results, got a PR person to spin a good story , pushed this onto a na?ve journalist who had failed to check his facts ie failed to check
1. that many many big previous other studies had yielded no positive results and 2. that it had not been peer reviewed. One has to conclude that when 50 well run tests have come up negative then it doesn't work. One could run 1000 studies and the natural variability would mean eventually you'd get a good result. Still if anyone can replicate the positive study then it adds weight.
Blackwater - cowboys
| R4 Saturday Live - An ex-British soldier spoke of his work with private security. He praised all the companies and workers for their professionalism EXCEPT Blackwater as their attitude was different. He spoke of them with contempt. He described an incident where they were driving a US diplomat inside the Green Zone when a Blackwater convoy bumper-car-ed the diplomat's car off the road.
| Jamie Whyte -right wing philosopher
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| Read something about seems he writes books about good thinking techniques. But when I checked he seems to be a raving right winger using logic to slag off left wing arguments, but not right wing ones. Like analysing politicians speeches he disects Tony Blair, but not the right who Tony learnt his tricks from. Paul Mckenna ??
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| Paul Mckenna was plugging his book "I can make you Rich", he was quick to point out he wasn't just talking about money, but general happiness. It's easy to point out he did make himself rich, but he can't call his book "I can make you Happy", cos he's not been so successful at that himself, living as a bachelor unable to keep a girlfriend. Also a lot of people don't seen to like him, but I don't think he's evil. He moved from hypnosis into the NLP mind programming, where you try to copy the traits of a successful person. NLP is seen as a bit dodgy, cos neither the science behind it, nor the results stack up, but the theory is you have to believe in it for it to work. Jon Ronson of the Guardian a good article about it : seems it is a bit of a " high pressure sales ethic" behind it ie a lot of power chanting etc so it looks like brainwashing from the outside. Though he was able to show aspects of it that really works e.g. every salesman should buy a clipboard as looking up is associated in the brain with positive things, If you put the contract on the table doubts might come in. Also by looking at people you can see their fears are associated with part of their field of vision. So use the dual technique of 1. wave your hand over this field and 2. say it's s now being replaced by something positive. One problem I can see is the type of people who are attracted to this technique are bunch of egomaniac flakey nutcases to start off with and they end up with a set of new powerful tools. Imthink : Be yourself otherwise you are lying and being fake
God behaves like a devil : Al Gore threatens critics
| The BBC's environmental reporter William Harrabin who a great believer in GW and supporter of Al Gore talked about interviewing Al Gore. see Climate Panic Blog |