buzzkill

After legalising marijuana throughout the country back in June, it gave its provinces some time to prepare for cultivation and sales when the law goes into effect one month from now on 17 October.
US border control authorities, however, do not recognise the legitimacy of the lifestyle and trade options that this change in the law heralds and reserves its right to bar any individual entry who uses or trafficks in the substance (actual possession or intent to distribute is immaterial), which is illegal on the federal level in America. What if Canada were to retort that they didn’t recognise America’s attitude on firearms as a legitimate and banned visitors accordingly? Though there are no plans presently to interrogate every Canadian visitor about his or her cannabis use at the border, those figures who already have public ties to the emerging markets have received a lifetime ban on entering the US. Despite consternation and at a time when diplomatic relations between America and Canada are under significant strain, Trudeau offers he is in no position to telegraph to another nation how to patrol its borders.

times are bum and getting bummer, still we have fun

Our thanks to Boing Boing for the timely and annotated reminder of how only a few journalists really were prepared to ask the tough and probing questions in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, precipitated by one bank’s declaration of bankruptcy that revealed the fantastic nature of six hundred billion dollar portfolio, and most were to believe hard-scrabble legends to keep up the charade. As one of those exceptional reporters, Matt Taibbi, prefaces “history is written by the victors” in his reflection on the lost decade—not hyperbole, especially when one considers the regressive caution and pessimism and the generation caught in risk adverse times—and a legacy we are still very much heir to. An overly elaborate narrative, deflecting and assigning blame, was offered as sort of an allegory to explain something as immediate as a greedy and fraudulent practises, which the public could have easily digested and understood and not find themselves in an even more compromised position later.
It was a truth that one couldn’t squeal to the proletariat since their confidence and complicity in the system—contributing to pension-schemes and the dream of home-ownership—not only generated wealth for those barons of industry that can spin straw into gold but was also already entrenched as a matter of national security and a question of macroeconomics eschatology. As big and over-leveraged as US debt is, supply exceeds demand for foreign countries who would like to park its cash in government-backed bonds, considered as safe an investment as anything and with a guaranteed rate of return but with retirement-funds and pension-schemes competing for a safe bet, foreign governments resort to the next best thing: real estate in the form of home loans and mortgages. In order to keep the faith that internal and external backers have in all bonds, the financial system’s junk bonds have to be buoyed up as well by shielding dishonest brokers from the wages of capitalism. This calculated behaviour on the part of economists was the disdain that fostered the attitude that allowed some to be turned away from experts—lumping in those not worthy of their trust in with legitimate and helpful institutions—and by extension the establishment.  And now we are all living with the effects of that misplaced anger.  

from the annals of improbable research

Ludicrous as some of the entrants may be, none of the laureates of the Ig Noble prize (previously here and here)—a competition started back in 1991, meant to engage and to “first make people laugh and then make them think”—are without scientific merit and this year’s winners have recently been announced.
All of them have something innovative and thought-provoking behind their mad scientist persona but we particularly liked the winner in the category of chemistry, who undertook a serious trial to better understand the efficacy of human saliva as a cleaning agent (or indeed as a styling product) and discovered that the intuition and resourcefulness of mothers and conservators was correct and may even lead to isolating the responsible compound and creating a synthetic version.

evil red janet

We’re fortunate enough to have an old sort variety of apple tree growing in our backyard called der Schöner aus Boskoop (the nice one from Boskoop) or just Boskop for short—in reference to its nineteenth century pedigree from the orchards (in Boskoop, the Netherlands) of noted Dutch pomologist Kornelis Johannes Wilhelm Ottolander, who was responsible for many other fruit types as well—and waiting for the right time to harvest these winter apples (I think they’re keeping ripe), we were quite impressed with some of the names for heirloom apples as suggested by a neural network (previously). The Lady Fallstone, Spitzenborn, Bramboney, Winesour and Galler’s Baldwilling seemed like especially plausible names but do check out all of them and other taxonomical projects at the links above.