Crops that can survive Judgement Day
Norway has just done us all a favor by opening a 'doomsday vault' that will protect up to 4.5 million seed samples to protect crop diversity in the event that climate change, disease, natural disasters, or part of the world getting nuked require us to come up with resistant crops to feed whatever is left of the world's population. Located under a mountain on an island is the Svalbard archipelago, the facility was completed in less than a year for about $8 million US. Never hurts to plan ahead, especially with some of the people we've put in charge lately.
It seems one way to stop cops from killing people out of hand with supposedly safe weapons is to give them regular training on what constitutes a reasonable use of force and paying them top dollar for it. That's just what the Ottawa police have been doing, and it seems to be working. In the year since the training premium was introduced, Ottawa saw the fewest incident of Taser use, only 12 in a city of more than a million people. Use of guns and and just plain beating people up ("physical control") were also down, while use of pepper spray was flat. Which does slightly beg the question of why isn't training on the appropriate use of force mandatory? It seems like a reasonable thing to do to sit your officers down once in a blue moon and remind them that they're there to protect society and not be a threat to it. Because having more dirty cops is not an option.
In another positive development, Alberta's Privacy Commissioner has upheld the compliant of a man who felt a night club was going to far by scanning his driver's license before allowing him to enter. Just to be clear, bars are aloud to see your ID in order to verify your age, they are not allowed to scan the magnetic stripe and collect all your information. The club's owner claims the practice keeps away troublemakers. Oh, so this is another ridiculous trade of privacy and personal freedom for security? No thanks.
Eventually you discover that everything you learned in elementary school is wrong. A new study reported by National Geographic says that the 'eyespots' often seen on moths are not intended to mimic the eyes of a larger, meaner creature but instead are to give an indication of unpleasantness simply by being 'visually loud'. And now you know.
It seems one way to stop cops from killing people out of hand with supposedly safe weapons is to give them regular training on what constitutes a reasonable use of force and paying them top dollar for it. That's just what the Ottawa police have been doing, and it seems to be working. In the year since the training premium was introduced, Ottawa saw the fewest incident of Taser use, only 12 in a city of more than a million people. Use of guns and and just plain beating people up ("physical control") were also down, while use of pepper spray was flat. Which does slightly beg the question of why isn't training on the appropriate use of force mandatory? It seems like a reasonable thing to do to sit your officers down once in a blue moon and remind them that they're there to protect society and not be a threat to it. Because having more dirty cops is not an option.
In another positive development, Alberta's Privacy Commissioner has upheld the compliant of a man who felt a night club was going to far by scanning his driver's license before allowing him to enter. Just to be clear, bars are aloud to see your ID in order to verify your age, they are not allowed to scan the magnetic stripe and collect all your information. The club's owner claims the practice keeps away troublemakers. Oh, so this is another ridiculous trade of privacy and personal freedom for security? No thanks.
Eventually you discover that everything you learned in elementary school is wrong. A new study reported by National Geographic says that the 'eyespots' often seen on moths are not intended to mimic the eyes of a larger, meaner creature but instead are to give an indication of unpleasantness simply by being 'visually loud'. And now you know.
Labels: bad cop, doomsday vault, eyespot, police state, privacy, svalbard
posted by Colin at
7:47 p.m.
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