Ratios

I just checked my e-mail inbox(es), the ratio of spam to real mail was 25:1. This is with filtering active on all my mail servers! Maddening.

Some bits of news that caught my eye this morning: A German paraglider in Australia was caught in a storm that swept her higher than Mt. Everest with temperatures dropping to -40C. She encountered hail the size of oranges and passed out from lack of oxygen. As she glided down again she revived to find herself coated in ice. What a tale to live to tell! A Chinese pilot caught the same way by the storm died.

There was a conference on Canada's Bill of Rights this week, according to the news. Canadian Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie presented the widely held Canadian philosophy of interpreting the Charter to reflect modern society's values and protect minorities. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia extolled that "what democracy means is that the majority rules", apparently suggesting that minorities should shut up and do as they are told. Regarding extending rights, Scalia is of the opinion that judges aren't to be trusted. The only acceptable route is to explicitly change the constitution. He also said that he had "not seen a case where I thought there was the slightest doubt about the person's innocence". Scalia's words say more about his own vision than they do about justice. The list of wrongly convicted, even wrongly executed, Americans is long, and I don't think America's hallowed founding fathers had the faintest idea of how their society would change (thank god the American constitution was written after the whole witchcraft thing was set aside).

Listening to: Blue Sky Mine by Midnight Oil from Blue Sky Mining.