The 100 best films of the decade

The Times helps us by listing their hundred best pictures of the past decade. This follows the previous selection of the fifty most exciting blockbuster films for 2009 and 2010. And, of course, the 50 biggest movies of 2008.

Update. Time Out has 101 Films of the Decade.
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Rapture

Should you subscribe to make-believe entities such as god and the bible, be afraid, very afraid. On 11-11-2009 rapture is upon us, again. That is, the shrewd conman makes the prediction into an if X then Y-formula. Effectively ensuring that should the world not end, something rational people know it will not, he can escape uncomfortable questions.

Skiing

Just making a small overview of places I went to ski.

Together with a French friend I visited Valfréjus while I was starting my internship. It is a small village with about 60 km of pistes. For the more experienced I think just a weekend is enough to have seen everything. The aprés-ski is not bad if you don't mind spending time in just one or two spots. 

Went to Scotland and apparently they have got small stations for those that abhor long descents.

With nurses and doctors from the Intensive Care Unit I went to Briançon-Serre Chevalier. Clearly, this location is meant for those who detest doing more than ski since, aside from snow, they have little else..

Some friends and I rented an appartment in Val Thorens, which is part of Les Trois Vallées. It is a huge area (in excess of 600 km of pistes) where you can ski for days without going on the same piste twice. If you feel adventurous you can even go into the Italian Alps.

On of the hospitals I worked as resident Internal Medicine has an annual long weekend the first week of january in St. Christoph am Arlsberg, meant as team-building for the group of residents and specialists. Following a day in the snow, luncheon on the piste midday, we returned to the hotel for diner, copious wine and cocktails which were mandatory.

Eventhough my significant other is from Telemark, arguably the birthplace of Skiing, I have yet to try the Norwegian snow. Maybe this Christmas.

The medical community strikes a blow against woo-meisters

The Times reports that:

An Australian infant with a rare and usually fatal disease has been cured with treatment that has previously been used only on mice, in what doctors are claiming is the first medical procedure of its type in the world. 

 Nice.

Cause and effect

My view on the world around me, and as a doctor, is that nothing happens haphazzardly. At present we are confronted with Global Warming, which attracts alot of reality denying comments. A recent study has shown that actions taken by us do have effects on our chances of survival. The Times reports:

The standard explanation for the Nazca’s collapse is that the region was struck by an extreme El Niño event — the intermittent climate oscillation of the southern hemisphere that brings higher temperatures and increased rainfall.

But not so. By removing the Huarango trees surrounding them they made themselves vulnerable to floods:

“This catastrophe was preceded by human-induced changes, particularly chopping down the woodland,” he added. “In time, gradual woodland clearance crossed an ecological threshold, sharply defined in such desert environments, exposing the landscape to the region’s extraordinary desert winds and the effects of the El Niño floods. The climate wasn’t enough to induce collapse on its own. The Nazca partly wrought their own demise.”

This phenomenon is not unique to their civilisation:

Deforestation is also widely acknowledged as a factor in the demise of the Easter Island civilisation, and in the fall of the Anasazi people of the southwestern United States.

Clearly we can see that our influence upon the environment does indeed have an effect on our own survival. Global warming being the most pressing contemporary example. Hence the "medicine is to do as much nothing as possible" version of primum non nocere. To those with a bit of imagination it is evident that Newton may be applicable in the sense that every action will have a reaction. Translated this becomes: everything you do has consequenses. If we take note of this we might not have to clean up the mess we make, i.e. terrorism, adipositas causing diabetes, smoking causing cancer and heart disease, et cetera.