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Ontario School Bans Wi-Fi
St. Vincent Euphrasia elementary school in Meaford, Ont. is the latest Canadian school to decide to save its students from the harmful effects of Wi-Fi by banning it. Schools from universities on down have a history of banning Wi-Fi in Ontario. As usual, health officials and know-it-all scientists have called the move ridiculous. Health Canada has released a statement saying, "Wi-Fi is the second most prevalent form of wireless technology next to cell phones. It is widely used across Canada in schools, offices, coffee shops, personal dwellings, as well as countless other locations. Health Canada continues to reassure Canadians that the radiofrequency energy emitted from Wi-Fi equipment is extremely low and is not associated with any health problems."
or you could tell them they are being stupid and ignore their hysterics. That is more straight forward and takes less time. Not to mention you can still use WiFi.
This is because the average person is an uneducated half-wit, who can be scaremongered by cranks and crooks (look at the whole MMR vaccine-autism "controversy").
If people are that concerned about radiation, then I suggest they move into salt mines and pray to whatever deity they hold dearest that neutrinos do indeed only interact weakly with other matter.
Fucking stupid rubes. What a pack of retards.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That's okay, but this quote is WAY better:
"A group of Ontario parents dubbed the Simcoe County Safe School Committee believes Wi-Fi transmitters in schools may be responsible for a host of symptoms their kids show -- from headaches to an inability to concentrate -- all of which disappear on weekends."
In grade eight my mother noticed that I tended to be sick on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Rather than blaming the t-ness of those days, she correctly deduced that those were the days I had health class with the evil principal.
I wonder how many of those kids have wifi at home?
No... crackpot.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Part of the problem with that is that everybody seems to want to start with the position that "this is safe unless you can irrefutably prove otherwise", and they go ahead and load everything up with chemicals/whatever and assume it's safe. Which does lead to stuff that you might expect to be dangerous being used until someone can prove it is dangerous. Pharma companies do it all the time, and, have been proven to have lied about risks they knew were there. Think Thalidamide, for instance.
I don't always trust people when they say "oh, sure, this radioactive corn with spiders-silk genes must be perfectly healthy there's no proof to the contrary". The companies introducing these things want us to believe that their chemicals are safe, but it's all discovered after-the-fact.
Assuming everything is safe generally leads to companies pursuing profit with absolutely no regard for if their product is safe. Then they get the rules changed so they're not actually required to tell you about what's actually in it because it hasn't yet been proven to be a possible risk. I wouldn't trust Monsanto on any claims they make about product safety, and I think that to a certain extent, companies should be doing more testing before they release it to the market.
You can go ahead and eat the experimental green goo -- personally, I'd rather they had to put it on the label so I could choose, instead of just saying that it hasn't been proven harmful. It's too damned late by the time they 'discover' that a something we've never tested is, in fact, dangerous.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
OK /. help me match the list of irrational beliefs with the county.
Canadians think RF affects the body in a non-thermal way, which is hilarious.
South Koreans believe in fan death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
(North Koreans don't have the electricity to run the fans...)
USA has all kinds of irrational beliefs vaguely revolving around religion, abstinence education works, creation science etc.
Any other "funny" ones?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Obviously not, and there's a certain level of sarcasm there. But the underlying point is valid - you don't want to make decisions just because the irrational minority makes a lot of noise.
In this case it's probably not worth dealing with them over something as insignificant as WiFi, but figuring out when something is important enough to fight for is the difficult question.
Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.