Eugenics Is Still Kicking

Project Prevention

Having covered a lot of Swedish History, the topic of sterilization came up often, as it was a side affect of Swedish modernization that continued until the 1970's. Of course, I recently read about some Native American women in the US being sterilized in the 1970's, so Sweden wasn't alone.

Eugenics wasn't about just eliminating certain races, but reducing the number of unfavorable elements within society. Sweden justified this by having "voluntary" sterilization, although in practice this wasn't completely true.

In anycase, this site is about encouraging sterilization of drug addicts (specifically crack). Much like it was in Sweden, these efforts target women. Now, this of course isn't a government agency, so the sterilizations are completely voluntary. However, there is another fun twist, they pay these people to be sterilized. Nothing like giving drug addicts cash. The first 100 "clients" of this year received $500! I have no idea how much crack that would buy, probably a lot. They even set goals, they want to put 2006 drug addicts on long-term or permanent birth control by the end of this year. There's something a bit unsettling about that.

A 21st Century Betamax vs. VHS

BBC

Toshiba and Sony recently released two rival DVD formats, HD DVD and Blu-Ray respectively. Given that both formats require different players, but still offer basically the same content, it is difficult seeing them co-existing very long, much like in the case of Betamax and VHS.

There is a bit of an irony to the article as it's about making sure that Toshiba and Sony don't take part in monopolistic practices, when failure to license out Betamax technology was one of the factors in the technology's downfall. I doubt this is a mistake that Sony (creator of Betamax) wants to repeat. So I think the European Commission can relax, as I doubt either company will act monopolistically, and if one of them does, their technology won't be around much longer anyway.

Good News from Vanuatu

BBC

Some group has made a Happy Planet Index that ranks Vanuatu as the happiest nation. I'm a bit skeptical of their method of making the index, but nice to see Vanuatu ranked so highly.

BBC

Slovenia will become the first new EU member state to join the Euro on January 1, 2007. Despite their desperate attempts, Estonia will not be able to join for another year.

Dunedin?

Dunedin...

My friend Kate is doing a semester in New Zealand. Apparently it's cold there, being winter in the southern hemisphere and all.