Posts by Thomas Lumley
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I'd be worried about teratogenic effects without animal testing -- which seems to have been the initial sticking point for the 'rodents only, ie, not rabbits' version of Psychoactive Substances animal testing.
One difference between medicinal and recreational drugs is that we might be willing to tolerate a lot more false-positive rejections from in vitro tests for recreational drugs, and get fewer false-negative safety problems. That is, it's not a disaster if huge swathes of THC analogues gets turned down by a computer, but it would be a pity if that happened to a new class of diabetes treatments.
The other question is what level of human trials (with what level of monitoring of users) get done before approval. Something like the Parkinson's disease from that synthetic opioid back in the 1980s might well not get caught in animal testing, but under protocols for medicinal drugs it would probably get caught in Phase I clinical testing and be a tragedy rather than a catastrophe.
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Also, however annoying Ken Ring's lunar lunacy is, he at least tries to warn people when he thinks there are going to be earthquakes. Brian Tamaki claims to have known Christchurch was at higher risk than anyone else thought, but didn't use this knowledge to try to help people. Assuming he's lying is the charitable interpretation.
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It might be useful to have some non-hateful openly-Christian bloggers to suggest to anyone who’s in danger of taking Tamaki seriously (ie, seriously believing him, not seriously worrying about him). I’d recommend Fred Clark at Slacktivist. He was brought up American white evangelical and is still Baptist; he posts most days; he’s considerate thoughtful and understands the issues; and he writes… well, let me give you some examples:
And down in the hollow space where the soul is supposed to be, this seems to be how the “Bible prophecy” heresies condition their adherents to respond to earthquakes, hurricanes and all kinds of natural disasters. Such things should not be viewed with horror and empathy and a generosity proportionate to our gratitude. They should just be seen as exciting — as gleeful reminders that every moment we are closer to the day when we will be proved right and others will be proved wrong.
And on Pat Robertson, who has similar gay-baiting tendencies to Tamaki
But it’s not really that easy to ignore the substance of Robertson’s hateful post-tragedy statements. If you love God, or if you love GLBT people, or if you love both God and people, then it’s not easy to ignore Robertson’s habitual suggestion that every natural disaster is the product of a petty, reckless, sloppy god indiscriminately pouring out wrathful destruction due to some divine “gay panic” defense. That’s blasphemy. And the scapegoating of GLBT people as the alleged focus of this poorly aimed divine wrath invites Robertson’s many followers to imitate his churlish god by directing their own animus toward Those People as well.
Robertson’s post-disaster ritual thus isn’t just abstractly hateful, it’s tangibly hurtful.
He’s far from just negative. That second quote is from a post that also has two examples of Pat Robertson behaving like a human being.
Recommended
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There's one big problem left unaddressed. I haven't seen any mention of baseline testing, so it seems that presence of meth (over the new threshold) will still be taken as evidence that the current tenant is responsible.
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Smartmotion are changing their specs pretty quickly. My bike is the equivalent step-through model from a year ago, but it had simpler electronics, front-wheel motor, and 3-speed planetary gears.
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I think I've noticed a change, too -- though I have to confess it could easily just have been recall bias.
I read a lot of medical/health/nutrition science stories for StatsChat purposes. There have always been stories that are overstated or just wrong, especially via the UK press. What I think I'm seeing more is cases of rare things happening to cute children overseas, and completely oversold nutrition stories.
I won't link, but an example of the former is a kid in South Carolina who got an amoebic brain infection. An example of the latter is the story claiming that Australians are less healthy now than at any time in their history ,and blaming omega-6 polyunsaturated oils such as canola.
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Younger respondents (18-29) were by far the most conservative on both questions
I have been surprised to find this from undergraduates talking about cannabis. Interesting to see it isn't just my selection bias.
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sprayed with actual poisons like acetone.
Acetone isn't especially toxic, and it's extremely volatile, so if the leaves aren't actually damp there's probably no more than a trace present. And it's extremely flammable, so it will go up in the smoke.
Also, I'm pretty sure that acetone has always been one of the solvents of choice for synthetic cannabis even back in the days when it was the less-nasty JWH series of compounds being used.
The report does say In some regions, groups are producing “synthetic cannabis” which does not even contain cannabinoids, but is made by spraying plant material with substances such as fly spray or weed killer, and that's obvously dangerous, but I don't see anywhere in the report worrying about acetone as toxic.
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Polity: English canards, in reply to Sacha,
I've written about it a few times, too. I think it's a contagious and dangerous sound-bite.
StatsChat
the 'shorter and with more swearing' version on my blog
StatsChat again
and StatsChat again, with numbers from Kiwiblog -
If Parliament passes a law with 75% super-majority that conflicts with something in the constitution, what actually happens to the constitutional provision?
Does it just not apply where it conflicts with that specific law, or is there a general interpretation principle that it won't apply in similar conflicts with other laws, or does it have to be changed to remove the conflict?
And does the approach change depending on whether Parliament agrees there's a conflict or just says the courts are thinking about it wrong?