Weird News

[Sundae]

Meh. Part of that is conditioning too.

If I was told NOT to eat something, I would never have eaten it, no way.
Because I would have been terrified of the repercussions.

If I was told I COULD eat it, but it would be better if I waited, I would have eaten it. Because grown-ups lie.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Sundae

Because grown-ups lie.

We knew you could not trust anyone over 30. Today, it means we cannot trust anyone over 77 (Deja vue Nam).

[glatt]

Maybe this isn't so weird, but it is remarkable. China is planning to build a canal through Nicaragua. And Nicaragua just approved it. $40 Billion.

China is flexing its muscle. Building a bigger better canal than the Panama canal and controlling it for the next 50 years.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

China is planning to build a canal through Nicaragua. And Nicaragua just approved it. $40 Billion.

Only $40 billion? That number is many times too small. Suggesting these are only speculators; not serious builders.

[glatt]

Articles say there have been at least 3 attempts in the past to build a canal through Nicaragua, and none succeeded. Apparently the fractured political climate in Nicaragua is not conducive to getting big projects done. That's why I made sure to say they were "planning" a canal. We will see.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by tw

Only $40 billion? That number is many times too small. Suggesting these are only speculators; not serious builders.

That's the price of the shovels... China will provide all the hand-laborers.

[glatt]

Panama is so skinny, it seemed like Nicaragua would be much more difficult to cut through, but spending a couple minutes in Google Earth shows it actually wouldn't be so bad.

You'd want to cut a canal to Lake Nicaragaua. It's 12 miles from the Pacific to Lake Nicaragua, and you have to use locks to get up over a 1,200 foot mountain range and back down again to the lake. I'd guess about 50 locks total there. The lake is something like 100 feet elevation, and is about 30 miles from the Atlantic. But there is this nice wide meandering river that could be dredged. With a couple locks put in around rapids where it drops the 100 feet to the sea, it's really pretty doable. It is nowhere near as bad a location as I first suspected.

[glatt]

So there was the news yesterday that the supreme court ruled in Myriad Genetics that you can't patent genes that are naturally occurring. That pleases me, but it means that other genetically engineered genes can still be patented if they are new and man-made, so it's not a huge game changer.

The weird news part of it is that Justice Scalia agreed with the ruling in most ways, but wouldn't agree with some of the nitty gritty molecular biology because it conflicted with his personal (presumably religious) beliefs.

I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief.