And that's how it is.

[silveradept]

It's good to be the king. Say it in your best Mel Brooks Louis XIV, and then go read the article. You'll understand why.

Missing something nice to round out the coverage, this article is. 13% of female teens in an "abstinence-only" sex-ed program got pregnant. What's missing? Statistics on comparable schools where contraception is taught. Far be it from me to defend "abstinence-only" education, which I find useless, but if you're going to make the claim that changes need to be made, there should be something that says, "Only X% of female teens in schools where contraception was taught got pregnant." For all we know, that school might have the lowest pregnancy rate in the area. Always be wary of statistics - they will tell you what you want to hear.

Because it's a classic, and because Jack Chick deserves every bit of mockery ever thrown at him, we have... Dark Dungeons, the one that started most people on the path to making fun of the fundies (the ones that deserve it, of course.). There are others available at the website, too, if this one has you rolling on the floor in laughter. Or, you can take a howl at stupid quotes heard in a bookstore.

Veterans fighting the effects of depleted uranium? Again, why fight with radioactive materials? The damage is much more permanent, and the casualties on both sides are higher from the poisoning. That is, of course, if anyone admits that depleted uranium is, indeed, toxic, radioactive, and just as willing to kill friendlies as enemies.

And if you want to think of what might have been, here's a series of bloggers and columnists all trying to answer the question What if the 11 September attacks never happened? Definitely worth reading, for those of you planning on crossing dimensions. Or perhaps this is a guidebook from someone who already has...

There were some interesting replies to my views of the Kingdom Hearts universe. From those who tell me that light's not so great (the pure ones are the Princesses of Heart), to those who will embrace their darkness and their light, and find the Way to the Dawn or die trying. Someone else asked a very salient question, though - do you consider darkness to be passive or active? Turning that question over in my head, I thought that darkness has at least some passive element to it, as it flees at the onset of light, and then recovers the lost ground when the light leaves. The agents of the darkness are more active - the Heartless and the villains of the story are trying to seize control using the darkness. Even then, though, one might strictly say that the darkness, and the Heartless, its agents, are passive. The Heartless can be controlled by those who have the strength of will to do so. The darkness can be controlled by those with the will, much like the light. Both forces as passive, manipulatable, magical, directed by will alone. I guess I don't see completely where the question lies. A passive darkness and light would not necessarily make one preferable to the other, I guess. Those who could use both would be the most powerful.

Trying to consider what constitutes an active darkness. Something that would move to snuff out the light brought into its presence. In a sense, light is active, in that it tries to repel away the darkness. What comes to mind are more like the agents of the darkness moving, not the darkness itself. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery about all of this?

Comments

[yarha.livejournal.com]

'Abstinent like Paris Hilton' shall become my phrase for the week. As a password, it shall open all doors, as 'twere.

There are several studies, one by the WHO, showing that depleted uranium isn't *that* big of a deal. It's depleted, after all, and is not a big radiation risk. We use depleted uranium in tank rounds 'cause it's 70% denser than lead, hence a round of the same size and aerodynamic drag as a lead round has more penetration power.

Yarha, Who's Definitely Depleted

[the-entity.livejournal.com]

Well, it's radioactive enough to pick up on a geiger counter if there's enough around (the article Silver linked mentioned the Dutch staying away from a DU-bombed site for that reason). The symptoms in that article don't sound like radiation sickness, though (might be wrong), so I'm guessing it's a chemical toxicity thing.

I don't know anything about the WHO study (don't suppose you could link?) but I gather DU's supposed to be safe as a weapon because it catches fire and disperses, and thereafter it's too dilute to cause any problems, which is probably true most of the time. But a widespread study of all soldiers wouldn't pick out the rare incidents like that described in the article, where people come across very contaminated zones and get sick afterwards - that'll just come out as a statistical outlier, and won't affect the results for the majority of soldiers who are lucky enough to avoid that problem.

(I know that one study found that DU had no ill-effects in Bosnia, but that's irrelevant if the argument's about uranium inhalation specifically. Toxic airborne particles will be a much more serious problem in the absence of rainfall to wash them away, and Bosnia has 50 times the rainfall of Iraq.)

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Linky-linky (http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2001/WHO_SDE_OEH_01.12.pdf)

"Even if present in areas in which large amounts of DU munitions were used, the possibility that significant quantities of dust and debris could have been inhaled or ingested by civilians is remote. Small intakes of DU will be passed quickly by the urine or faeces without residual effects."

It's a short report (12 pages).

Yarha, Rings Around Uranium

[the-entity.livejournal.com]

Aha, thanks.

[the-entity.livejournal.com]

(Nice avatar, by the way.)

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Made it myself ;) Or I stole it from other artwork fair and square.

Yarha, Liebig's Law of the Minimum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum)