Dangerous Chemical

Being the keen scientist that I am but also a bit of a hippy, I came across some info on this chemical that disturbs me slightly...

Dihydrogen Monoxide (liquid form)

Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is colourless, odourless, tasteless, and kills thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

Dihydrogen monoxide:

• is the major component of acid rain
• contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
• can cause severe burns.
• contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
• accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
• may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
• has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
  

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

• as an industrial solvent and coolant.
• in nuclear power plants.
• in the production of styrofoam.
• as a fire retardant.
• in many forms of cruel animal research.
• in the distribution of pesticides (even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical).
• as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme...

The government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." [America-who else?] Apparantly, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilise it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive huge amounts of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.

Storage Tank for Dihydrogen Monoxide

Geeez! I think its ridiculous that DHMO is not illegal yet, there are so many dangers... What does everyone else think??


Find out more about this dangerous chemical.

Sport- an alternative religion, an alternative to religion, or none of the above?

I was perusing blogs when I came across Sanisha's post, the beautiful game. Its an interesting concept, the idea of sport being a religion, one which many Aussies are quite passionate about... I found this article when I googled "footy" and "religion":

Sunday sport's a religion, mate

There I was, last weekend, still reeling from the shock! horror! front page story about Ian Thorpe's agony when, a few pages further into my Sunday tabloid, I discovered far more alarming news. The headline said it all: "Sunday for Mass, not sport: Pope." Fair dinkum, I almost choked on my cereal. Forget your footie sex scandals and the brawling in the bleachers. Forget Thorpie. Here was the real front-page story - a full frontal attack by the Vatican on our most hallowed sacred cow, Sunday sport.

What else is interesting, if you Google "AFL" and "religion" then the official AFL website comes up as the first search result... (being the scientist that I am, I decided to check that there weren't other factors involved- ie the fact that AFL was entered first- when "religion" and "AFL" are entered, the AFL website is 3rd after a dead link to some AFL-CIO page and some personal blog that happens to mention both...[I'm quite certain that this AFL-CIO thing is something political and unrelated to Australian Rules Football])

Also having fun with google, I found the A-Z of Melbourne, Birthplace of Aussie Rules. Under "F" for footy- AFL is said to be known as Melbourne’s alternative religion.

Are people neglecting religion because of their love for footy? Is it possible to love footy and still be religious?

THE HEYDAY.COM interviews Aussie Baha'i youth/Pro AFL player, Luke McPharlin about this potential dichotomy.


In fact McPharlin has had quite the coverage of both his Footy and his Faith in WA media.

"I'm a Baha'i and that 's the most important part of my life," McPharlin was featured as saying, in the Fremantle Herald.

"It's a faith for this day and age," he said. "It aims to eradicate old modes of thought and old prejudices so things like equality of the sexes and unity of all races are very important."

Perhaps all those footy fanatics haven't found what they are looking for in religion so they have to turn to sport for a sense of belonging, an instant solidarity with fellow fans, "gods" to worship...

Perhaps they need to look further...

blog

blog is just short for web log... who knew?

i'm tired, when you're tired words look strange. web log. who blogs? we blog... weblog... blob blog... (that last one was for shazza)

my typo told me that when you're tired worlds look strange- that is also a true statement.

54 Baha'is arrested in Iran

I recently read this article about 54 youth in Shiraz who were arrested whilst doing community service.

The arrests occurred on Friday, 19 May, while the Baha'is, along with several other volunteers who were not Baha'is, were teaching classes to underprivileged children in a school as part of a community service activity conducted by a local non-governmental organization.

It is one of the largest number of Baha'is taken at once since the 1980s.

In fact this brings the total of Baha'is arrested without cause to 125 since 2005! That's only last year...

This really makes you think twice about the excuses some people come up with for why they can't do community service- these guys have the chance of being arrested and they still go out and serve!!

On a more serious note, it's really saddening to hear that this kind of ridiculous behaviour (arrests based on religious intolerance) is going on in parts of the world...

Super Ramin

For all you Perthies out there that know Ramin but don't know Ruha or Lisa and so therefore wouldn't normally visit their blog, check out the video Ruha's posted on her blog about super heroes...

That is some fiiiiine acting!!

battle of the email providers

I used to use Hotmail til I started to get too much junk mail and was at uni anyway so I started to use my uni account. Then someone sent me an invite for gmail and I signed up but didnt use the account at all- what was the point, I was happy with my student account... Until I was made secretary of our LSA and needed a big inbox to get all the emails forwarded to... After using gmail for a while I realised that it was infact amazing! I started using gmail for everything, and rarely check my other accounts...

I still keep my hotmail, but mostly for msn messenger, although now I've discovered google talk- I love google, google knows everything, but I still think msn has got it over google talk.

I want to hear people's opinions: Which is best? hotmail, gmail, yahoo, westnet, iinet, some-random-european-net...

deleted...

Following Martin's lead and advice, I have also withdrawn my post about Iran's new religious-uniform laws...

Please feel free to investigate the matter further, why not google it?

have a look at the following articles if youre interested:
Iran may force color-IDs on Jews, Christians
Iran: Yellow badge report false

Together at last

I once had a pair of scissors; they were called Natasha (look closely- its true!)
I have a friend; she is called Natasha (you're just gonna have to believe me on that one)
I felt it appropriate that the two Natashas should be united...
Don't they look happy together??

Haifa Hot Shots

Here are some hot photos Pertl took in Haifa. He's there at the moment serving as a Security Guard...








For more amAzing photos from his journeys click here

Germany's most wanted

I was browsing the net and came across a list of Germany's most wanted. I recognised one of the people but I cant remember from where...

Do you know this man?

"This, verily, is a strange thing."

This title is an excerpt from Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet to Pope Pius IX (follow the link for the whole tablet).


I was following blog links when I came across this pic on Rox's blog. It seemed quite relevant to the post Shazza made He came back, like DUH!!! commenting on my own post Back to School about a Christian school that rejected me because I wasn't Christian...

Euro English

I also study linguistics as a prerequisite for teaching LOTE (Languages Other Than English) and came across this article:

The Conversion to Euro English... With the implementation of the Eurodollar underway in Europe these last few years, the European Union is trying to find new ways to standardize practices in Europe. The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!

constructivism, looking for a heart, and limestone walls...

Our Science Curriculum teacher, Rod Kemp, is quite the interesting man, very easy going, yet relatively firm, a tad crazy- typical scientist... does a lot of experiments, asks a lot of questions... you might say he's a constructivist- but that's besides the point. Well not entirely. Being a constructivist classroom, we do a lot of 'hands on' stuff in our lessons. The last class before the break all the students had to prepare a demonstration that was based on our lessons plans that we'd recently also had to do. My lesson was on the structure and function of the heart- he insisted that I bring in a heart and demonstrate a dissection for the class, I was reluctant, but it is true that I will have to do it as a teacher eventually. So on the Monday morning of our lesson, I looked everywhere for a heart to dissect- I stopped at 5 (maybe 6) butchers on the way from home to uni, I even missed the morning lecture so that I could find this heart... I found nothing! I make my way to class, a bit scared of what Rod's gonna say but with a good story of my attempt to bring in a heart, to find that the class had been cancelled! It seems that Rod was sick and couldn't come to uni...

Its now after the holidays and Rod is back. Apparantly he thought he was younger and fitter than he really is and had jumped off a limestone wall... lets just say it ended in tears (maybe not literally) and he couldn't sleep for about 2 weeks from the pain.

(Not quite sure why I needed to tell you that whole background leading up to this, but) As a result of Rod's wall jumping/falling, he decided it appropriate to share this poem with our class. I thought it quite amusing and am thus sharing it with you:

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS by Portia Nelson I I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost ... I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out. II I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place but, it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. III I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in ... it's a habit. my eyes are open I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. IV I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. V I walk down another street.

Rod decided not to jump off any more limestone walls...

Back to School

Not quite Billy Madison style but I am back at my old school now doing my teaching prac. UWA generally has a policy that per-service teachers don't go to their old schools to do prac, why, you may ask then, am I??

Well I was initially posted to another school in my area, a nice little private school, a Christian school (I wont mention any names coz the school doesn't sound so nice in a little while). As much as I wanted to go back to my old school, I couldn't and so I figured this was the next best thing, it was also relatively close to me and also a non-denominational Christian school. The woman organising the prac students emailed me to ask me to come into the school for a little interview, so she can introduce me to the teachers, and show me around the school, etc. I go to meet with her and she goes through the school policy with me, shows me around, tells me how the teachers all meet at 8.15am 3 days a week for morning devotions (which I said I thought was a lovely idea), shows me the science office and introduces me to a few science teachers, talks about how their staff is all so diverse and they come from all different backgrounds... As we're walking she asks me if I go to church, I answer that I'm a Baha'i, she proceeds to ask me what Baha'i is, so I do a very short spiel about how we believe that Christ was the Son of God and we believe in the Bible, in fact we believe that all the religions were sent to us by the same One God... -WRONG ANSWER! She quickly cut me off and said that I should run anything I want to say to the kids by my mentor teacher first (I'm here to teach SCIENCE, woman, not to try and enlighten your poor, brainwashed kids!). I smile and agree with everything she says. We head back to the front desk, they talk about making a name badge for me, she wishes me the best of luck and says she looks forward to seeing me on Wednesday.

The weekend passes, I'm now at uni on Monday (2 days before Wednesday, my first day of prac). I get a call from Amy in the School Experience office, she askes if I'm at uni, and can I come see her. So I go upstairs to her office, she's looking very apologetic and starts to tell me how the prac placement at **** Christian College has fallen through, it's not a personal attack on me or my Faith, but its because I'm not a Christian...

I was slightly baffled, I thought the government had policies to guard against religious discrimination like this. I guess this is a private school though and they can do what they want. She goes on to say that she will call and see if Helena College (my old school) is willing to take a prac student as such late notice. I asked "what about the policy of not returning to old schools?" "Basically with your prac in 2 days time, we don't really care about policy anymore! I'll give you a call to let you know what's happening, I'm so sorry about all this..."
I hear back the next day that they accepted me, that's a relief.

Aside from being shocked and a little offended by all the discrimination and changes in plans, I'm over the moon about being posted at Helena- That's what I wanted in the first place!

God works in mysterious ways...

Yay for being happy!

OK I'm gonna stop doing these now... (well at least for today!) but seriously guys, I wanna see everyone's results!

Your Inner Child Is Happy

You see life as simple, and simple is a very good thing. You're cheerful and upbeat, taking everything as it comes. And you decide not to worry, even when things look bad. You figure there's just so many great things to look forward to.

How Is Your Inner Child?

The Secret of the Soul

You Are a Peacemaker Soul

You strive to please others and compromise anyway you can. War or conflict bothers you, and you would do anything to keep the peace. You are a good mediator and a true negotiator. Sometimes you do too much, trying so hard to make people happy. While you keep the peace, you tend to be secretly judgmental. You lose respect for people who don't like to both give and take. On the flip side, you've got a great sense of humor and wit. You're always dimplomatic and able to give good advice. Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul, Hunter Soul and Visionary Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

You know the drill, leave a comment...

ahh... the sunset, best time of day!

You Are Sunset

Even though you still may be young, you already feel like you've accomplished a lot in life. And you feel free to pave your own path now, and you're not even sure where it will take you. Maybe you'll pursue higher education in a subject you enjoy - or travel the world for a few years. Either way, you approach life with a relaxed, open attitude. And that will take you far!

What Time Of Day Are You?

So this was me, leave me a comment to say what you are!

Who's hot, who's not?

This site I found on Mazza Rey's blog has many a silly, but fun quizzes... here's how hot I am:

You Are More Mild Than Wild

You're confident, and you really aren't concerned with how "hot" you are. Other people's ideas of what's sexy don't concern you. And this is exactly what makes you attractive.

Are You Hot?

Leave me a comment with your results!

Seussical the Musical

Last night I went to see Suessical the Musical. It was sooooo fun!! Did any of you grow up with Dr Seuss? The cat in the hat, the who's, oh the things you can think...

I grew up with Dr Suess, but watching this musical made me realise that I dont really remember the characters... So I went for a little search on google and found Seussville! This site is lots of fun! I especially liked the quote maker (in the catalogue). Oh the memories! If any of you are thinking of having kids soon, pleeeease read to them the Dr Seuss books!

Meanwhile, I've decided I want to be in a musical!!! It looked so fun!! These guys weren't getting payed or anything, but the quality was amazing! If anyone (in Perth) wants to see it, they are still showing at Hackett Hall in Floreat till the 6th May. Click here for more info.