Rotundus.com

One month ago, the World Economic Forum released it's The Global Gender Gap Report 2010. Here's what page 3 of the report had to say:

Gender equality vs. women’s empowerment:

The third distinguishing feature of the Global Gender Gap Index is that it ranks countries according to their proximity to gender equality rather than to women’s empowerment. Our aim is to focus on whether the gap between women and men in the chosen variables has
declined, rather than whether women are “winning” the “battle of the sexes”. Hence, the Index rewards countries that reach the point where outcomes for women equal those for men, but it neither rewards nor penalizes cases in which women are outperforming men in particular variables.

As it "neither rewards nor penalizes" cases in which women are outperforming men, but penalizes instances in which men are outperforming women, despite its claims otherwise isn't this doing exactly what which it claims not to do: i.e. it's a measure of "women's empowerment" (as opposed to, e.g., average female happiness) rather than a measure of a global gender gap.

This seems to become more explicit later on. To quote a later section of the report (p. 4/5):

The type of scale chosen determines whether the
index is rewarding women’s empowerment or gender
equality. To capture gender equality, two possible scales
were considered.One was a negative-positive scale capturing
the size and direction of the gender gap.This scale essentially penalizes either men’s advantage over women or
women’s advantage over men, and gives the highest points to absolute equality.The second was a one-sided scale
that measures how close women are to reaching parity
with men but does not reward or penalize countries for
having a gender gap in the other direction.Thus it does
not reward countries for having exceeded the parity
benchmark. We find the one-sided scale more appropriate
for our purposes.

They've also adjusted the meaning of "equality" itself, "the healthy life expectancy benchmark is set to be 1.06" (i.e. under equality women are expected to live 6% longer lives).

This seems fairly typical in the developed world, but you should also take into account that women account for a significant majority of healthcare spending, with most of this additional spending being incurred outside childbearing years. (See, e.g., Gender differences in health care expenditures, resource utilization, and quality of care).

Politics as usual...

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

"For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals." ... and, sure enough, even on such a diet you can wind up losing weight. Do note that he did have some vitamins, etc.: "Two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a can of green beans or three to four celery stalks." Overall results seemed to indicate better health. What made Supersize me a little hokey was that the author immediately stopped exercising when commencing his McDonalds diet.

Amazon patents bad gift defense system: "gift conversions"

Sounds wonderful... "For example, the system would allow you to set up a rule like 'Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred' that would automatically convert any online gift orders from Mildred into a gift certificate." Of course this does tie you to Amazon's site.

Quebec Court Rules Common Law Couples Owe Alimony

I've said it before and I'll say it again... marriage as a legal institution exists in name only.

Ethiopia using aid to suppress dissent: rights group

One reason to be caution about what you give money to.

I seem to fit in the half-hippy half-skeptical-about-climate-change camp. I think that there are some legitimate environmental concerns, and also a lot of hype. Consider the issue of bird deaths caused by energy-related activities.

(Cartoon from MacKay Editorial Cartoons, reposted as per their usage policy)

The deaths of birds due to wastewater (AKA tailings) ponds in the Alberta oilsands has attracted quite a bit of criticism, and lead to some fairly hefty fines. Some examples:

• Exxon Mobil fined $600,000 for 85 bird deaths at various facilities across 5 US states (Source: CNN). That's $7059/bird.
• Syncrude was fined $3,000,000 for 1600 bird deaths in 2008, and are likely to be fined again due to an incident last month involving a couple of hundred additional bird deaths (Source: CTV). That's $1875/bird.
• EnCana Oil & Gas was fined $200,000 for the deaths of 55 birds. (Source: The Denver Post). That's $3636/bird.

Now compare to wind generation. For example, this is what was found at just one wind farm:

A study last year by the California Energy Commission estimated that up to 4,720 birds from 40 different species are killed each year at the wind farm, including as many as 1,300 protected raptors. (Source: Planet Ark)

Where they to be fined the same amount on a per-bird basis for birth deaths, this wind farm alone would be looking at an annual fine somewhere between $2,625,000 and $33,318,480. In other words a whole lot of money.

And it's not just birds that you need to worry about, wind farms may be more hazardous to bats due to the changes in pressure caused by the movement of turbines. To quote a New Scientist article:

In May 2007, the US National Research Council published the results of a survey of US wind farms showing that two bat species accounted for 60% of winged animals killed. ... a new study shows that the moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the delicate lungs of bats suddenly expand, bursting the tissue's blood vessels.

With bats no direct contact with the blades is actually required to result in their deaths.

I'm still a fan of wind power as a viable energy source, but think that it's essential to remain aware of the drawbacks of such sources as well. In addition to bird deaths, these include effects such impacts on electrical pricing, sometimes leading to negative power prices and an increased possibility of brownouts given sudden changes in windspeed.

What Will San Francisco Ban Next?

A recently approved law "bans people from sitting or lying on city sidewalks from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m." Guessing this measure is aimed at displacing the homeless. Don't go for a walk there if you feel you might get tired and want a break along the way.

SunChips War Spreads to Canada

They stopped using this bag in the US due to noise complaints, but apparently Canadians are hippies who tend not to complain about the noise of these things.

New study shows seeing meat makes people less aggressive

"Results from a McGill University study, released Monday, suggest that people — men, anyways — become less aggressive at the sight of meat." ... om nom nom?

Snoop Dogg Tried to Rent Country of Liechtenstein for Video

Here's a story that's been floating around a bit: "No, we don't mean he wanted to film at a specific lot or property -- we mean the entire country."