It has to be said: what with David Leyonhjelm's continual sweary ripostes on twitter; his 70's era attempt at humour about how to trick a woman into letting her breasts be fondled; and Helen Dale's spectacularly high regard for her own abilities (yesterday's example from Facebook: "Since
I have probably forgotten more about how to write well than most people
will ever know, any and all literary advice is received with due
consideration and a grain of salt") I can't help but conclude that there is a glaring problem with immaturity in the Australian libertarian scene...
As for Jeff Sparrow's lengthy re-visit of the Demidenko affair: it seems quite an accurate account that aligns with my understanding, although I do think the connection with the wind turbine enquiry is a bit of stretch.
Helen Dale actually deserves a backhanded compliment for letting the cat out of the bag about her and her boss being mainly interested in infrasound sickness as a means to an ideologically motivated economic policy end. In that social media episode, her problem was being too honest, not dishonesty.
From Helen's Tweets:
ReplyDeleteIf the health nannies are going to persist with a prison smoking ban, why not give the prisoners #ecigs?
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It is a common and dangerous perception that ecigs are safe. Nicotine has bad effects on calcium regulation thus driving cardiovascular disease(yes, calcium dysregulation is a bigger problem than cholesterol), osteoporosis, some forms of arthritis, cerebral vascular calcification, and perhaps even type 2 diabetes. In experimental studies nicotine is used to induce tissue calcification!
Tobacco companies know this, most don't. I only became aware of it because my friend and former collaborator mentioned it, then I did the requisite reading. Just another con job by tobacco giants.
I wouldn't expect Helen or most people to be aware of this so I'm not having a dig at her. And yes it probably is literally true she knows a great deal about writing but she's no great author. By her own admission the novel that won her awards was clearly playing to the intended audience with the right tropes. If she produced a novel of otherwise nature that became successful I would think differently about her claim.
BTW Steve at the recent Press Club Address David L. said if he won another term(he won't) he would step down and nominate someone else for the position. We know who that someone would be eh? An interesting episode in Australian politics. If Helen Dale keeps commenting outside her range of knowledge as in the above example she will be mauled so I trust she would be much more prudent in the role. Academic, David L. is already the joke in Aus politics.
That's interesting about nicotine. I'd always wondered if there was any detriment with its use alone.
ReplyDeleteTobacco companies know this, most don't. I only became aware of it because my friend and former collaborator mentioned it, then I did the requisite reading. Just another con job by tobacco giants..
ReplyDeleteLol... a friend of a friend told , you right? That's gold standard science right there.
Look, doofus, nicotine is actually a wonder drug in of itself. it has a calming effect, it helps brighten you up mentally through alertness and it also helps in reducing the incidence of several diseases like Parkinson.
Stop pushing junk science on the vulnerable like Stepford.
Anonymous, that friend has presented many papers at the Annual SFN. So have I. Fool that you are. Learn something you moron ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18718366
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20209193
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15946696
Took me 30 secs to find these and there are many more. Will take you a lifetime to understand.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteBefore that self-proclaimed expert on the pharmacology of nicotine arrived I did some digging around on infrasound and there can be physiological effects across a wide range. The problem though is that if windfarms are a problem then so is living near a surf beach, aircrews in military aircraft can have serious problems from long term exposure, traffic, driving in a car, air conditioning, are all sources with high dBs. So if they are going to consistent about the dangers of infrasound they need to be more consistent and point out that there are much greater dangers from other sources.