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.

Is This Still Going On?

BBC
The flag burning amendment comes up and fails once again, this time by only one vote. Given the likelihood that the Republicans will lose a few seats this election, I'm hoping we can put the matter behind us.

BBC
In European news, some German guy wants to start an airline for smokers. I don't really expect this to be a terribly sucessful venture. Who is really willing to pay premium prices just so they can smoke on a plane or to be on a plane where everyone is smoking?

We Paid for Slave Labor!

Mercury News

The US State Department confirmed in a recent report on human trafficking that contractors hired by the Department of Defense in Iraq were involved in human trafficking in order to procur workers for menial task. Despite such a strong critique of current policies in Iraq, the report makes no comment on human rights abuses in India, Mexico, Russia, and China, even though all of these nations are known to have major issues with human trafficking.

Movie Madness

Criticker

Found this thanks to Heather. Basically, you rank the movies you've seen and you can compare your ranking to others to get an idea of what movies you might like. I'm "mucow" on the site if you'd like to see my ranking.