Family values

The past couple of weeks the_weapon and I have been getting up at sparrowsfart to get him in for training. He is on the Falcon Academy team swim and they got through the district competition and on to the zones and regionals.

At the last meet I was sitting with the_weapon while we watched the team swim. One of the girls in his class MissyK was swimming. MissyK is from a family of evangelical Christians so in the past she has invited the_weapon along to her church. Needless to say being raised by a militant atheist he chose to decline, repeatedly.

MissyK swam stone dead last in her heat and she was pretty broken up about it, visibly upset as she got out of the pool and walking back. The_weapon got up and started to head over to her. I though what a caring, empathetic child I had.

I then remembered this is my child I was thinking about.

I jumped up and caught up to him before he spoke to her and said

"No asking, where is her messiah now, okay?"

The look on his face confirmed my suspicions. Fortunately by now one of the teachers was providing solace to distraught aquatic Christian.

So I think we have passed on the family value of atheism. As such I am excited that the Global Atheism festival is coming to Melbourne. Not enough stuff to hold a 10 year olds attention but still plenty happening around town like the atheism bus



and I am comfortable with that. What about you folk, any traits your family's have you want to ensure are passed on. Musicial talent, freakish recall of sporting minutia, ability to roll your tongue into a tube?

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and purely coincidental.

This week we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny, and helped usher in a future brighter than anything we could imagine.

1st WIN
The BBC has reported UK General Medical Council (GMC) has found that Dr Andrew Wakefield acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" when doing the research that led him to conclude that MMR vaccinations were linked with autism.

Dr Wakefield published a paper in the peer reviewed medical journal the Lancet 351 (9103): 637–41 in Feburary 1998 titled ‘Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children.’

What did he do wrong?

The panel found that his research (involving spinal taps of children) was against the children’s clinical interest, that he was unqualified to perform the test, and that he had no ethical approval to do them.

Since then 10 of the 13 authors have retracted the conclusions. Alsoevidence has come to light that that Dr Wakefield may have faked the results of the study. Also he failed at the time he was conducting his research to declare his conflict of interests that he was being paid to develop his own commercial rival to the MMR vaccine.

This paper launched the Vaccines cause Autism scare, which has and is still leading to people to not get their children vaccinated, which has lead to a reduction in herd immunity which has meant that children too young to yet be vaccinated are exposed to diseases which had, at least in western countries, almost disappeared as cause of death. If you think that parents who don't get their children vaccinated only endanger their own kids read this letter and if your heart doesn’t break then you are not human. And I know the plural of anaecdote is not fact so here is the report from the Age last year showing in Australia the rise in reported cases of measles (measles for Frak sake) is on the rise.

2nd win
No doubt in an attempt to put this whole thing to bed The Lancet has formally retracted the paper published by Andrew Wakefield back in 1998 that linked vaccines with autism. From the Lancet..

Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.

3rd win

Perhaps the sweetest is this tit bit of news posted by the young Skeptics. Meryl Dorey the anti-science nutter who was best described by the Australian skeptics as "the truth-impaired mouthpiece of the Australian Vaccination Network, a group of antivaccination conspiracy-mongers who couldn’t find reality with both hands, a compass, and detailed instructions" has said

“..After almost 17 years of running the AVN, it is my bittersweet duty to inform you that within the next 3–4 weeks I will tendering my resignation as President of this great organisation and moving on to the next stage of my own personal development as mother, wife, activist and researcher".

Ms Dorey was the one on national television said “no one dies from pertussis anymore” even when the parents of the four-week-old Dana McCaffrey who died of that very disease were in the audience.

So after all of this you would hope the Anti Vaccine movement would be on its last legs.

Pigs arse

The GMC panel chairman was heckled by supporters of Dr Andrew Wakefield during his delivery of the verdicts.

People, children are dying and it’s because of bad thinking.

We must stop this, and the first step is to be aware of the problem. Knowledge is half the battle. If we can't eliminate childhood diseases like this then how do we hope to prevent to spread of Zombie virus across the planet when it occurs?

We eat every part of the Hammerhead Titanothere

Last week GuruBob, Gentleman Jonathon and the Artist known as KPM caught up and along with fine dinning (try the shredded pig) and some L4D2 action (Crap we're all dead AGAIN) we went see AVATAR or as some have quipped 'Dances with Space Wolves'.

This is completely untrue as it is much closer to the Disney story of Pocahontas as you can see here. Not the real story of Pocahontas where she marries a white guy, goes to England, tries to return home and dies of illness.

Others have provided their take on the film, click on each for their full review

Chazfh – Sherlock Holmes was better and more original,

Moko –Spectacular,

PNB in spite of the near naked blue chicks found the 3D annoying, and

I am looking forward to Flintheart’s take on this one as he provids insights which I never pick up on but once he mentions them the little epiphany light bulb goes off above my head, like his analysis of Indiana Jones as a force of nature.

The movie has made elephant bucks and given James Cameron’s last outing TITANIC also made elephant buck as well this guy will no doubt get the green light to do what ever he wants for his next film. He has already said he considering a sequel. I bet he won’t be using the one mapped out by The Rhino here

“You do realize that the Nav'i only have approximately 14 to 16 years to live after the end of the movie don't you?...if I was the Corporation guy I would just sit back and pummel them with kinetic weapons from orbit."

Whatever eventuates we must STOP James Cameron from choosing the song to play over the closing credits. For Titanic it was ‘My heart will go on’ by Celine Dion and for Avatar it was ‘My heart will go on and on again’ by Leona Lewis or that’s what it sounded like to me.

Some commentators such as Armond White of the New York Press have claimed it misrepresents the facts of militarism, capitalism, imperialism — and their comforts. Australia’s Miranda Devine and Greg Sheridan are expectably annoyed by the "anti-American" or "anti-Western" message. University of Newcastle’s Hamish Ford has written a more nuanced reading click here where identifies the movie as “Towing the familiar liberal line, for the "other" to be "good" they must need one of us to save them.”

The Nav’i live in harmony with their forest moon world (anyone else wanted to shout Ewok at this point) where they spend their days running, jumping, flying and mindfracking the local wildlife. It is such a noble, idyllic life that some AVARTARDs are suffering depression at the thought that they can’t live on Pandora. Over at Naviblue.com - James Cameron's Avatar Movie Fan Site this was posted.

“Ever since i (sic) went to see Avatar i have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I cant stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers i got from it. I even contemplate suicide thinking that if i do it i will be re birthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in Avatar.. I cant find joy in this world since Ive seen it, and the only thing that makes me happy is thinking about it or when im seeing it next, which is Saturday at the imax.. I doubt anyone will understand the feelings I'm having..but if you are..tell me..”

Frak me

Being trapped on Pandora for me would be a nightmare. There can be no sense of change or development. I can imagine for the past 1000 years the Nav’I doing exactly the same thing. Obviosuly not for the next 100 years, see above. That’s not a thriving, dynamic culture, that’s a dead end. For me a world greatest achievements come from what is overcome and accomplished. Managing to ride a big bird contrast with flying across interstellar space. That sense of learning, discovery and boundless horizons. So it was the science team who wanted to explore this planetary network that I was rooting for, not the nav’i.

And I have to say Colonel Miles Quaritch was pretty fraking hard-core!

So I think AVATAR will be remembered like ‘The toll of the sea’ the first feature film in colour or ‘The Jazz Singer’ the first talking movie.

I'm a better parent than Nicolas Cage

Like every other parent I try to help my off-spring to be a strong, self reliant, mult-skilled survivor of the coming Zombie apocalypse. From the how-to-make-yourself Apocalypse ready guide here giving him cooking skills based on the London chef Will Sprunt's Apocalypse chow, and signing him up for CDC's Disease Detective Camp for the holidays I would like to think I am laying the foundation for a citizen who will standing against the coming darkness.

But in the recent clip from the soon to be released Movie adaptation of the comic book (sorry graphic novel) Kick-Ass I realise I have been neglecting an important aspect of the_weapon's training.

What a softie!

There's is no way I'd have agreed to ice cream with Chocolate Syrup and nuts.

I hate motherhood statements

The Falcon Academy’s handbook states they have '...a zero tolerance to bullying'.

Does anyone know any educational facility that claims to have anything OTHER than a zero tolerance to bullying? Anyone claiming a 25% tolerance, or a tolerance to within an acceptable margins, a zero plus or minus 2% tolerance?

Didn’t think so.

Couldn’t we all do with a few less meaningless, bleedingly obvious but pointless motherhood statements in our lives. If any of you says these claims are aspirational, I will have to hurt you.

Zero Tolerance.

For me it conjures up images of dedicated killer satellites in geostationary orbit above the school constantly monitoring conversation, phone calls, notes passed in class and the boys toilets for repeated flushing. The satellites poised to deliver a beam of coruscating energy to any transgressor.

Or perhaps a robot that patrols the grounds and is ready to intervene, something like the big white balls from 1970s TV series The Prisoner.

At a parents and teachers evening the head of the junior school explained this wasn’t the case. They identify any bully-like behaviour and seek to intervene as soon as possible to prevent it from occurring.

I wasn’t sure I wanted a policy that would lead to no bullying at all. If the school succeeds in this policy then the moment someone begins to harass someone else they are stopped and removed. This means the kids who would get picked on will be fine while they are on the school grounds but later off the grounds or in after leaving school they would have practice. This doesn't sound like good preparation for the real world.

I wonder if they’d be better off with a mix of strategies.

Its easy to spot the sort of kids that will get picked on at school. Ask any teacher and they will tell you which in their class are the targets. How about the school employs an elderly Korean guy, nominally as a janitor or gardener and he secretly trains up those likely kids with a few techniques so that when the do inevitably get picked on the bully gets his arse handed to him. This only has to happen a few times and the bully gives up on trying to pick on the chess team.

Identify the bullies in the school and then get the kids likely to be bullied to hire ninjas to go to town on them every time one of them gets picked on. An example if one kid’s lunch money gets stolen every bully on the list gets a visit from ninjas who steal all their clothes during swimming.

A shakedown scheme where the kids identify the biggest bully and pay him/her off to prevent any other bullies from picking on them.

Whenever a bully shows up all the kids just turn to face him, point and do the open mouth scream from ‘Invasion of the body snatches’.

After a month there is a two day battle royal (because this is SPARTA) where the kids just fight it out, after making sure that only the kids not identified as bullies have been taught how to organise and work as a team. Plus tell them where there is a stash of stuff to make traps.

But I would love to see a big white ball on playground duty.

Its better with Monkeys

As you may have guessed I am a massive fan of science, maths, engineering and technology.

In my fiction I'll take rayguns over wizard staffs; in my NEWS I'll twitter the Large Hadron Collider before I follow our prime ministers; and at cub scouts I'll demonstrate how to make carbon dioxide volcanoes over Christmas wreaths. My geek-fu is strong and science is so cool right now. Any one else notice in the US president Obama's speech on the 'Educate to Innovate Campaign' not only did he have Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters there but he put those sentient machines on notice -

"As President, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots, in case they try anything". Full speech here.

So for my family movies I'll take 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' over a misbehaving Max in a wolf suit.


The film is based (very loosely) on the Judi and Ron Barrett 1978 book. Instead the movie is an origin story, (SPOILER ALERT) with an unappreciated inventor type called Flynn who hummed his own action soundtrack when he moves through to his lab. This was so cool I now do this whenever I enter the office at work. He invents a number of things which become (in one case literally) running gags through out the rest of the movie.

This movie demonstrated to me the corrollary to my axiom that 'every story can be improved with zombies'. Every kids movie can be improved with monkeys.

They have chosen to go with The Incredibles style CGI for the characters thus avoiding the whole uncanny valley problem with animated people.

I found the story bright, colourful, fun and science can do great things as long as evil mayors are not involved. The_weapon is reading about the AZETCS at the moment or at least the horrible history bits of the AZTECS so he (SPOLIER ALERT AGAIN) went wild when Steve ripped the heart out of a person sized gummy bear and ate it.

I walked out thinking it was a great big great thumbs up for my Science is AWESOME philosophy. My_reason_for_living wondered if I missed that it was science that causes all the problems in the first place. I considered and replied - but it fixed it! The_weapon laughed through out much of the film but when we left he seemed quiet. When asked he replied he was thinking about 'the sad bit'.

I have no idea which was 'the sad bit' and he said he didn't want to talk about it. But he then said he really liked the movie. This has left me with the question.

What was the sad bit?

and does this mean my almost ten year old son is more emotionally developed than me.

Probably.