I must say, this has to be one of the most disrespectful things anyone could do, how dare someone go to another country and have the audacity to use their holy book as target practice! I am not Muslim, obviously, but how would you feel if someone of another faith came over and shot up a Bible????? The Korans look just like our bibles, as far as the size and types of coverings, there's no excuse to not knowing it was the Koran!! I just think it sets a horrible impression of Americans, especially when we're over there trying to help, yet this is an awful setback for all their hard work. The Muslim culture is VERY different than ours, and rather than learning and accepting it as a way of life for some people, many would just rather judge! When living overseas, especially in Egypt, which is primarily Muslim, I sometimes felt embarrassed because it was as if we came to their home, and acted as if they needed to cater to us, and the ways we are used to living, and that's not how it's supposed to be at all. I think, many a times, we forget we are guests there, and should be respectful of other people's cultures, regardless where we are, but ESPECIALLY when we're guests in their country! For those of you who aren't familiar with Islam, here's the rundown:

God is Allah

Prophet is Mohammed

Pillars of Islam:

1. Faith - Believe Allah is the one and only God
2. Prayer - Must Pray 5 times a day, which is why the call of prayer goes off so much
3. Fast - Annually, during Ramadan, it's about a month's time, and they fast from sun-up to sundown, no water, and they must abstain from sexual relations w/ their spouses as well (which I didn't know until now, but i guess they wouldn't tell you that in middle school)
4. Pilgrimage - All Muslims must make at least one pilgrimage (hajj) in their lifetime to Mecca (in Saudi Arabia)
5. Giving Alms - Every Muslim has a financial obligation, but is dependent on the individual.

Now, a lot of people are aware they (the men) are polygamists, and they are, however, their reasoning for this is that by having so many wives (4 max), they are guaranteed to have a male heir. What most outsiders don't realize is that they all MUST be treated equally, so if he buys one wife a diamond ring, they all get a diamond ring, so there is no special treatment, or at least, there's not supposed to be.

Islam isn't for me, but it really isn't as bad as a lot of people make it out to be...And just like any religion, there are the extremists, who will take it a whole lot further, but that's why they're called fundamentalists!

Two things that get to me:

First - like her, I look forward to the day when nobody notices that there is either girls (or boys) are winning science competitions. She said as much a few months ago when girls swept the top awards at the Siemens competition. Much like my earlier blogpost on literacy, the important thing is that young people are taking part.

Secondly - is it true that a competition winner will actually go on to contribute in the field? What factors really do encourage people in careers in science and how significant is this sort of kudos to them?

I also wonder how diverse are the students who make it to ISEF - not ethnicity or gender, but location of school ('rural vs public vs magnet vs private schools' as one commentator put it; of interest to me since I'm currently helping with some research on rural and remote schools in Western Australia)?

Of course, the selection is made without knowledge of the backgrounds, but how many of them came from enriched environments? How do we factor in mentoring by grad students / faculty or even parental support? Of course, there are always keen science teachers who are committed to promoting and encouraging their students. Is it that much of a crapshoot?

For example, another NY Times article about Stuyvesant High School, which "led the nation’s schools in finalists in the latest round of the Intel Science Talent Search, the country’s most celebrated high school science competition" - New York Leads the Field in a High School Science Competition:

Katie, a senior whose mother is a librarian and father an electrician, is the only New York State finalist who did not work on a project at an outside research institution. She did her math project, on the nonagon anomaly, in consultation with Peter Brooks, who teaches math and computer science at Stuyvesant.

Yes, she deserves recognition for her work, sure. But note what environment she came from? You may have also noted this NY Times article on the same issue, earlier this year - A Science Prodigy in an Unlikely Place:

Mr. Delgado, 18, one of the 40 finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s most prestigious high school science laurel, won his prize in a way that defied the formula. That formula may not be as unforgiving as E=MC2, but it goes something like this:

A) Attend a top-flight school with high-octane students.

B) Join a freshman program that teaches you how to do research and then perform ever more challenging experiments into the senior year.

C) Pair with scientists and adapt an unresolved sliver of their research.

Is that necessarily true? Looking over the winners that are being lauded as examples of how "any society that relegates women to an underclass is, at the very least, throwing away half their brain trust" - yes, but what may be thrown away if such women are already in an 'underclass' NOT based on their gender but based on socio-economic, location and educational factors? Just how many brains are being thrown away regardless of 'girls kicking arse, doing science'?

On the same day that it is blogged, another news article points out the lack of teacher mentors in the USA, who are presented as a factor in such successes - Do The Math: We're Lacking.

Like many other states, Georgia suffers from a serious shortage of teachers qualified as math and science instructors.. around the country... why only about 15 percent of American high school students earn math or science credit in rigorous Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate programs.That represents a lot of missed opportunity in a country that adds 100,000 new computer-related jobs a year. As Bill Gates pointed out in his March testimony before the House Committee on Science and Technology, "Only 15,000 students earned bachelor's degrees in computer science and engineering in 2006, and that number continues to drop."

"Does the 'cool factor' really count?" another news article asked:

Indeed, here at the ISEF, the Kennedy twins are getting a taste of the new competition: The growth of the fair comes primarily from overseas, where contestants from Sweden, India, and even, for the first time, Nigeria showcase the up-and-coming brains of the global scientific community.

"The kind of competitiveness that plays into [events like ISEF] has to in a few years take care of the bigger issue, global competition," says Skip Fennell, an education professor at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. "One level of competition will hopefully infuse the other."

The US has spent $600 million since 2002 through the National Science Foundation on 52 national projects that attempt to reform the way science and math are taught at the elementary and secondary level. Some of that money has gone to seed local science bowls and math bees, fueling what appears to be a growing interest among kids and parents in math and science smackdowns.

'Science Smackdowns'? Is that what it takes, a step beyond reality TV gurge like 'Beauty and the Geek'?

Too few students from urban minority districts and rural areas are enticed by the exploratory aspects of the heavy sciences. Competitive math and science events raise interest, but it's not enough, experts say.

"In many ways, science fairs and math competitions amplify to the self-selected that they've made the right choice, but it doesn't bring in that other 20 percent that we need," says Dr. Chappell in Nashville. "We're trying to push them into math and science, but we haven't pulled them into math and science."

So, excuse me if I'm more questioning about this news and wanting to know more rather than just praising to the skies? Because after reading this article about commercially available Science Fair kits, I noticed a few other factors that influence children's attitudes - It's A Science Fair, Not the Nobel Prize:

...Professor Bellipanni found that by the early 1990s, more than 60 percent of about 400 national finalists had either been mentored by a professional scientist or prepared their projects in a university or other research lab.

And yes - I found the research paper that is mentioned: The Science Fair Experience: Profile of Science Fair Winners (pdf version here):

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if a significant relationship existed between the criterion variable of receiving or not receiving awards at the 1993 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) and the predictor variables of resources and facilities, resource personnel, personal costs, time, and personal characteristics...

...Nonwinners made significantly more use of high school labs and parents' or friends' personal shops. Winners made significantly more use of parents' or friends' businesses, medical schools, and other research facilities.

Furthermore in the NY Times article, it appears that science projects can mean profit too:

...Mr. Carlson’s site offers free science projects, but for access to “over 1,000 Super Science Projects Right Now!” he charges $17 a month or $27 a year.

Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, said he had seen how these Web sites had flourished, but that parental involvement — or over-involvement — is nothing new.

“It depends how intrusive parents get — if instead of guiding, Mommy and Daddy are helping with the display,” he said. “I’ve judged some science fairs, and it’s clear when parents have done it.”

What's the point of it all anyway?

And too many kits are more science demonstrations than experiments, he said, which do not give a child “a sense of process, of answering questions,” he said. “The hardest part is often coming up with the question and seeing if the experiment gives them the answer they expected. It’s even better when it doesn’t.”

At the moment, I'm still working on my 'Educational Resources link', but you can see how 'ask an expert' is a useful feature:

Mr. Hess, whose www.sciencebuddies.org site has corporate sponsors, said, “We feel it’s important to make resources available to some parents who don’t have the money.” His site also offers an “ask an expert” option, using volunteer scientists to answer questions.

Mr. Carlson says children need to be taught that while science can be fun, it is also hard work. “If you only tell them science is fun, then when it gets to be hard work, you raise their expectations, only to dash them,” he said. “Then they get turned off.”

I have, in my own experience, seen award winners go into fields unrelated to that they won prizes for, for various reasons. Mostly due to finding something else that is their 'passion' as opposed to a subject they were pushed into or had an environment that nurtured it in conjunction to the science project.

I also know from my own experience of seeing 'scholarships' being handed out to other people to attend a conference - and none of them have demonstrated any particular projects or initiatives, programs or teaching materials that have been brought to my attention... or anyone else's, it seems. Do people keep tabs on 'what happens next'? Or is it assumed that the be-all and end-all is the award?

Sure, winners are winners. But I'd like to see progress beyond a medal - and I'd like to know what factors would encourage those like Mr Delgado - because if science teaching professions, more scientists and more progress in science-related fields requires more people in general... then why not keep track of 'what's next'?

So, here's to the research papers and journal articles on the issue and the stats - I'll keep in touch.

Oh, nearly forgot - "Professor Lyn Beazley, eminent neuroscientist and Chief Scientist of Western Australia, will conduct a series of workshops, seminars and media interviews in Johannesburg, Durban, Grahamstown and Bloemfontein" - networking, internationally!

One of the most fascinating stories of all time is taking place and our very own Hollywood correspondent, Jose Buergo is right on the story. The piñasera is in Miami and Valeria Liberman accused the world renowned singer Christian Castro of being gay, and beating her and his mother up during the times she was married with the Mexican singer. The beautiful Valeria filed police reports, while her husband's famous mom, Mexican vedette, Veronica Castro, now claims that she never liked Ms. Liberman. Things are getting hot and we gonna have to call the Chinese Doctor on this one. Stay tune while we call Maria Elvira Salazar and Agente Otto.

Mexican singer CRISTIAN CASTRO has admitted to hitting his own mother during a hearing in his ongoing divorce battle with wife VALERIA LIBERMAN.

Castro admitted he was guilty of the offences and even said on one occasion he slapped his mother at least four times and pulled her hair until a security guard put an end to their fight at her home in Mexico.

It has also been reported that Valeria could have in her possession compromising pictures of the singer that are irrefutable proof of his homosexuality. Cristian Castro denies he is gay. He also seems to have developed a strong dislike for his gorgeous wife, whom he is fighting in court to avoid his alimony responsibilities.

AP reports that:

"Cuba's gay community celebrated unprecedented openness — and high-ranking political alliances — with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on Saturday.

[...]

"Cuban state television gave prime-time play Friday to the U.S. film "Brokeback Mountain," which tells the story of two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair.

"Prejudice against homosexuals remains deeply rooted in Cuban society, but the government has steadily moved away from the Puritanism of the 1960s and 1970s, when homosexuals hid their sexuality for fear of being ridiculed, fired from work or even imprisoned.

"Now Cuba's parliament is studying proposals to legalize same-sex unions and give gay couples the benefits that people in traditional marriages enjoy.

"Parliament head Ricardo Alarcon said the government needs to do more to promote gay rights, but said many Cubans still need to be convinced."

The significance of this move from a political perspective should not be overlooked. There is not a single Latin American country that recognizes same-sex marriages due to the high religiosity of the Latin American culture.

Thus, when we look at the recent good moves on this file in Cuba in concert with the multiple attempts by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to make Venezuela the first country on the face of the planet to explicitly recognize same-sex marriages in the text of the constitution, it is clear that socialism, when done right, is a way forward for everyone.

There's still a lot of work to be done throughout Latin America for the GLBT community, and we should especially make sure not to let the governments -- even allied socialist governments -- guide the agenda. But, I think, there is very good reason for optimism given these developments.

Mr Lantsberry, a retired teacher who has lived on the road for 55 years with his wife, added: "We were told last year that the street was going to get speed limits, but now to get two different signs is inexplicable."

Manchester City Council has admitted that a mistake was made installing the signs, which were intended to reduce the speed limit in the road from 30mph to 20mph.

A spokesman for Manchester City Council said: "We are aware that a mistake has been made in the mounting of the signs and it will be rectified as soon as possible."

Here's the backstory on how the Rev. John Hagee got religion (the Catholic kind).

When the San Antonio televangelist burst onto the national political scene in February with his endorsement of John McCain, it wasn't pretty.

Instantly, the Internet was filled with snippets from sermons and provocative YouTube clips of the portly pastor calling the Catholic church "the great whore" of Revelations and suggesting the Vatican was complicit in the Holocaust.

Catholics, particularly Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, howled in protest. Publicly, Mr. McCain scrambled to distance himself from the pastor, whose endorsement was aimed at winning evangelicals.

Behind the scenes, there's been a campaign to repair the damage.

Key to the effort was Deal Hudson, a former Southern Baptist turned Catholic from Fort Worth who in 2000 was tapped by political guru Karl Rove to help win Catholics for George W. Bush. This year, Mr. Hudson is on Mr. McCain's Catholic outreach team.

Faith-based voters are a staple in the GOP base. And the Rev. Hagee, who broadcasts worldwide from a 19,000-member megachurch with a flotilla of satellite dishes, is an influential figure in among evangelicals.

Mr. McCain had been wooing the San Antonio pastor for more than a year. And when Rev. Hagee finally agreed to endosre him in the breezeway of a San Antonio hotel last February, the media asked about the pastor's end-times theology. But nothing about Catholics.

At Catholic League headquarters in New York, Bill Donahue was instantly on the case, denouncing the Rev. Hagee as an anti-Catholic bigot. He was everywhere: CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews.

The McCain camp now had a pastor problem, like Barack Obama.

Enter Mr. Hudson and the Hagee Catholic Rehabilition Tour.

Over lunch in Washington a few weeks ago, a contrite Rev. Hagee told Mr. Hudson his remarks had been misconstrued. He explained his "the great whore" quote was really about the apostate church, Catholic and Protestant and said some of his best friends were former Catholics – his wife and many Hispanic members of his congregation.

Clearly, there was work to be done. For one thing, you don't build bridges with Catholics by touting how many people have left the church.

More to the point, the Rev. Hagee's views had been informed by, among other things, the book "Hitler's Pope." Mr. Hudson offered a countervailing view of history, emphasizing how so many in the church had opposed the Nazis.

Last Friday, the Rev. Hagee sat down with 13 Catholic leaders in Washington. Mr. Hudson called it "upbeat and positive."

As for Mr. Donahue, he said he wouldn't meet with the Rev. Hagee until he got a public letter of apology. On Monday, he got it.

A meeting between Mr. Hagee and Mr. Donohue was arranged for Thursday at the Catholic League office in New York. Mr. Hudson recalled the scene.

"I hear a Southern accent," declared Mr. Donohue with a Boston Irish ring. "It must be Pastor Hagee."

The two got along fine, Mr. Hudson said.

Mr. Donohue showed the pastor and his wife the window where, from the 34th floor, he'd watched the Twin Towers fall on 9/11. He expressed shared support for Israel against Islamic extremists and said it's important, politically, that conservative Catholics and evangelicals work together.

"That is the liberals' worst nightmare," Mr. Donohue said.

In the fall, when the controversy over Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright likely bubbles up again, Democrats will point to the Rev. Hagee. This time, they won't have the conservative Catholics to count on.

"By looking at the vehicle pull up, we can tell that's a pickup," WDSU crime and safety specialist Howard Robertson said. "And if you look at the rims -- you know that's not a Ford or GM. The other thing I wanted to look at was whether he got out the driver’s or passenger’s door to see if he had an accomplice, somebody who was driving his vehicle when he left. But he got out the driver's side."

Robertson said the thief is probably a genuine cross-dresser because his necklace matched the dress, his nails appeared to be painted and the wig was well made.

"Most of the time when somebody puts on a wig they're just trying to hide their identity by putting on something like a Halloween mask, but he's pretty," Robertson said.

Robertson said he was surprised the thief didn't cover his face, though he said it doesn't matter in this case.

"There's a strong possibility that this person is a cross-dresser and someone in that community will know this guy, especially if they see him on the TV, someone will know him," Robertson said.

Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile, May 2, 2008. (Carlos Gutierrez/Reuters)

 

Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanos are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. Picture taken May 2, 2008. REUTERS/Carlos Gutierrez (CHILE)

 

A gosling looks for food in front of a plastic coyote posted as a scarecrow on a lawn, in Tewksbury, Mass., Thursday, May 15, 2008. The plastic model is designed to scare away geese and keep them off the lawn, but appeared to have little effect on the young bird. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

This Monday, May 22, 2006 file photo provided by Mary Sage shows a polar bear watching a whaling crew off shore near Barrow, Alaska. Polar bears were declared as a threatened species by the Interior Department on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 saying polar bears must be protected because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Mary Sage, Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage)

Driving through rapeseed : A car seems to drive in the middle of a rapeseed field near Bautzen, in the eastern German state of Saxony. (AFP/DDP/Norbert Millauer)

A protest by pensioners, which disrupted traffic in Melbourne against the Rudd government's lack of support for seniors (AFP/William West)

- Abdou Bala Marafa, the Emir of Gobir (Niger)

About a week ago, I stumbled upon the story of Abdou Mala Marafa, a tribal chieftan in the African nation of Niger. I learned about his work in the midst of doing some work on those who are working to end child marriage. Sometimes it's easy to feel that the situation is nothing but grim - but men like this particular tribal leader really do give me hope.

In Niger, child marriage has been a common occurrence. In fact, more than three quarters of Niger's female children are wed before the age of 18. Read the horrific story of Habiba, whose early pregnancy left her physically impaired and subsequently ostracized.

The West might assume that this is all the fault of the Muslim men in communities like Habiba's. However, in the case of Niger (and elsehwere in Africa), Islamic leaders have done phenomenal things to protect women and end their suffering.

Abdou Bala Marafa - the Emir (tribal king) of Gobir, Niger - has lead the way in protecting girls from such a fate.  

Abdou Bala Marafa, one of Niger's most prominent Islamic leaders, has lead the way in the effort to improve the lives of women in his country. He's pioneered efforts to educate the population about HIV/AIDS, literacy, and more.

But one of his boldest initiatives has been to protect young girls from being married too early. He's organized the Good Conduct Brigades - a group of trained men (and women!) who travel from village to village not just to educate and organize rallies on the issue of child marriage -- but also intervene in cases where a girl is in danger.

They just might be the coolest Muslims on motorcycles I've ever heard of.

But, above all, they're saving lives - in a context that would otherwise look bleak.

Non-Muslims in particular might want to click here to read a Al-Azhar University's document on the rights and protection of children. It explains how the violation of a child is clearly forbidden in Islam; and how children must be protected.

If interested, click here to learn what you can do to help.

Justin Raimondo’s Speech in Maine
May 16, 2008 in News by Eric Garris | 1 comment

Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo spoke to the Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations in Maine April 21.

Yesterday, Maine Public Radio broadcast the one-hour talk in its entirety.

Listen here.
------------------------------
This is the text of Justin's speech reproduced on antiwar.com
The Middle East: Turning the Page on US Foreign Policy
Turning the Page on US Foreign Policy, Part 2

-----------------------------

I attended this event and was happy for it. Nice atmosphere, met a few folks and had a good lunch while listening to the featured speaker, Justin, speak on The Israel Lobby.

Myself and a friend were the youngest attendees. While in our twenties, everyone else must have at least been fifty.

This forum has 150 members, roughly, and we were able to attend as "students".
Registration is $100 per year plus the cost of lunch that is provided for each event. The fee this day was $20.

Sgt. Twiggs had served his country well. Four tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, but when it came time for the debt to be repaid, it seems as if the country, he fought so hard for ... let him down.

Last month Staff Sgt. Twiggs and a group of Iraq war veterans (Wounded Warriors Regiment) went to the White House to meet the president.

“Sir, I’ve served over there many times,” Sgt Twiggs said, “and I would serve for you anytime.”

He concluded his statement by grabbing the president and giving him a big hug. Sadly, Sgt. Twiggs loyalty was not returned. When he needed help to combat his affliction with PTSD, the medical treatment he received was gravely inadequate.

Sgt. Twiggs wrote of the ordeal of trying to win the war against PTSD in the January issue of the Marine Corps Gazette. http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat.” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml

The symptoms would disappear when Staff Sgt. Twiggs began his tour of duty, but came back stronger each time he returned home.

His wife Kelly Twiggs stated in a telephone interview:

“All this violent behavior, him killing his brother, that was not my husband. If the PTSD would have been handled in a correct manner, none of this would have happened.”

Mrs. Kelly went on to say that her husband was treated in the psychiatric ward at Bethesda Medical Center and then sent for four months to a Veterans Affairs Department facility.

After so many successful tours of duty ... Marine Staff Sgt. Twiggs, perhaps unable to deal with the alienation he felt towards those closest to him——took his and the life of his brother after an 80 miles chase on Interstate 8 in southwestern Arizona.

Perhaps, Sgt. Twiggs is finally at peace. He served his country valiantly——but discovered too late that when he needed help, to win the war that raged within him ... there was no place to call home.

1. humans only contribute to 33% of global warming

2. the other 67%? nature

3. if we go back to basic science, we may be able to understand and address the issues concerning our environment

the article then goes on in naming 9 errors found in gore's award-winning documentary.

in my opinion, global warming may be caused by a million things, man, nature, need, etc... but if everyone will do something, even in their own little way (energy conservation, research and scientific studies) i believe that we may be able to finally find the answers on how to save the world.

A number of men enter a bank. The guard's log lists them simply as "policemen". No forced entry. The guard is shot point blank. So is a manager. Other employees are herded into a back room and executed - a shot to the head, point blank. No one in the area hears a thing. Security cameras were off. The bodies were hidden from view. The men lock the door on their way out.

Now nine people are dead and one is in critical condition (although some reports say he's dead too) and people are scrambling. The president is "disappointed", politicians pledge reward money for publicity speedy arrests, and everyone's shocked by how ruthless and eeevil these people were.

I'm impressed by their efficiency.

Don't get me wrong, I want them dead, even though Malacañang doesn't (I wonder how many people you have to kill "summary execution"-style before they reinstate the death penalty). But if you get past the usual "oh, that's so horrible!" reaction, and the "to think we could die just as easily!" crap, you have to appreciate how this bit of news is so much different from the usual garbage we see on Philippine TV.

For one thing, there's no foul-up, no one to blame for being stupid. Bank security was normal, sufficient for the usual things. The police (as an organization) had nothing to do with it, no fumbled hostage situations or reckless shooting. And it's not linked to any political scandal that I know of. It's a clear-cut case of bank robbery.

And it's not a crime of passion. There's no spurned lover behind it, no drug-crazed man holding a knife to a boy's neck, no vengeful employee fighting for more benefits. It's just not talk-show material. You can't interview a psychologist on TV and get her opinions about how human rights or drug policies could have prevented such bloodshed because they couldn't. And you can't blame it on poverty either because we don't even know if the perpetrators were poor. Which brings me to my next point.

There are no faces, no names. None on TV at least. There is no "bad guy", no wanted poster, no "Alias Dodong" who's linked to 3 other bank robberies and a fraternity. There's no footage of an encounter, no tank crashing through the main entrance, no statement by militant groups claiming responsibility. This is a bad thing. It eliminates the human element behind the deaths, and the human element is all most of us know how to deal with. We all understand that someone was behind the robbery, but without anything else to go on "someone" can easily become anyone, and perhaps no one. And no one is easily forgotten.

I wonder how long until this disappears from the news.

But back to the efficiency. Ignoring the fact that nine, possibly ten people have been killed, you can't deny that these people, whoever they are, are very good at what they do. They weren't stupid, they weren't idealists, they weren't activists. They didn't want to change the country, to oust Gloria or to fight for human rights. They just wanted the money, and the people were in the way, so from the beginning they planned to kill them. It was all premeditated; In and out in a few minutes, all settled before bank hours. No wasted bullets, no broken glass, probably enough cash stolen since plenty was still left in the vault. No struggle, no alarms, no malice.

No offense ma'am, we just want your money. Bang.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

Hm.

To be sure, I don't condone murder (except the death penalty) or theft (except taxes), so when I say I'm impressed I mean that in a purely academic sort of way. And if you think about it (about the robbery, not the murder), aren't you also at least a little bit impressed?

Guess not.

The full run-down is here on the iTricks blog and you can listen to the show on the site or download via this link!

Now, I wonder. This is an election year. Who do you think, perhaps, the President might've had in mind when he made those remarks? McCain, possibly? Could be. Condoleeza Rice? I mean, she is the SecState, and her job is one of engaging in diplomacy, though she seems unaware of this sometimes.

But I wonder, though, if he might've had someone else in mind?

Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Obama by name, and White House officials said he was not taking aim at the senator, though they were aware the speech might be interpreted that way. New York Times, 5-16-2008

What?! Really?! People might've thought he meant... Obama?! No, say it isn't so! I mean, how could you possibly dervive that from Bush's remarks? At least one commentator on CNN (forgive me, but I don't remember her name. She's the black apologist they've been sending out more and more lately now that Obama is the likely nominee), seemed amazed the Democrats would think this, and made some remarks along the lines of "methinks they doth protest too much".

Of course, it's a no-win for us, right? I mean, if we'd stayed silent on this issue, the GOP could've sat back smugly and said to themselves, "Ah-ha! So that is what they have in mind!" But by responding, they can appear all wounded, and wonder why the media is so eager to paint them as a villain. After all, Bush never said Obama's name during the speech! Again from the Times article:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said, in a speech otherwise devoted to spotlighting Israel’s friendship with the United States.

“We have an obligation,” he continued, “to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

For those who don't know, "appeasement" generally refers to efforts by the Allies, most notably UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, to stave off a massive war in Europe by giving Hitler what he wanted in return for, as Chamberlain famously said, "peace in our times". This didn't work, though arguably it did buy the Allies some time to prepare for the oncoming war. Which they won.

But there is a difference between talking with ones enemies and appeasing them. Through the Cold War, administrations both Democractic and Republican engaged in talks with people like Nikita Kruschev and other Soviet leaders, as well as several other more odious people. Simply talking with your enemies, learning what they want and their point of view, is not a bad thing. As Obama said the other day:

I constantly reject this notion that any hint of strategies involving diplomacy are somehow soft or indicate surrender or means that you are not going to crack down on terrorism.

Exactly. Talk is not surrender. Talk is not appeasement. Talk is... talk. Diplomacy. There's nothing wrong with it, despite what Bush and company might think.

Case in point. A sample conversation I overhear at work on a regular basis:

Colleague #1: Mareregular na si (insert Colleague #2's name here) next month!

Everyone else in the room: Talaga? Pacheeseburger ka naman!

Colleague #1: Burger! Burger! Burger!

Colleague #2: Tse! Wala pa akong pera!!!

Can I just say that to an outsider, this will sound completely absurd. But who the heck cares? People seem to think it's a funny way of coaxing a free meal out of anyone who's had a recent run-in with luck. Just your average Pinoy humor I guess. It never occured to me how odd our sense of humor is until I took a shot at translating this joke to a Brazilian friend:

Bebentahan kita ng original Rolex. Brand new! Three hundred pesos lang... Pero Motolite yung battery.

I thought it was funny. She didn't even wince. Something obviously got blown up in translation there, I don't know. Anyway, I stopped trying.

Stupid, stupid man...

What's interesting to note here, though, is the US reaction to this. In particular this line from Maj Gen Hammond, where he said, "The actions of one soldier were nothing more than criminal behavior." Criminal, eh? Really? Not in the USA it isn't. Here you can shoot up a Koran, a Bible, a phone book, a flag, a copy Dianetics, or just about anything else you'd like. I think it's tacky as hell to use any book as a target for gunfire, but it's hardly criminal.

Of course this is really about making our "hosts" in Iraq feel better, and not trampling on Muslim sentiment with regards to the Koran. I don't have a huge problem with that, except that it's catering to the kind of religious extremism (ie: shooting a book is criminal, but blowing up people who think differently than you), that leads to terrorism.

I'd never shoot a Koran, or any book, myself. I respect books too much to do that. But that said, shooting a book, unless it's someone else's, of course, isn't a crime. Period. Shooting people is.

Currently, there are four major transformations that are shaping political, economic and world events. These transformations have profound implications for American business owners, our culture and our way of life. - Neil P.

1. The War in Iraq

There are three major monotheistic religions in the world: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the 16th century, Judaism and Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward. Religion remained at the center of life, church and state became separate. Rule of law, idea of economic liberty, individual rights, human rights all these are defining points of modern Western civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn't take off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened, it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of art, literature and music the world has ever known.

Islam, which developed in the 7th century, counts millions of Moslems around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical streak within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward. Islam lost and went backward Interestingly, the date of that battle was September 11. Since them, Islam has not found a way to reconcile with the modern world.

Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things. First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity. Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. That's what our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about.

The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a world where a small number of people can kill a large number of people very quickly. They can use airplanes, bombs, anthrax, chemical weapons or dirty bombs. Even with a first-rate intelligence service (which the U.S. does not have), you can't stop every attack. That means our tolerance "for political horseplay" has dropped to zero. No longer will we play games with terrorists or weapons of mass destructions.

Most of the instability and horseplay is coming from the Middle East. That's why we have thought that if we could knock out the radicals and give the moderates a chance to hold power, they might find a way to reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at Afghanistan or Iraq, it's important to look for any signs that they are modernizing. For example, women being brought into the workforce and colleges in Afghanistan is good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a constitution is good. People can argue about what the U.S. is doing and how we're doing it, but anything that suggests Islam is finding its way forward is good.

2. The Emergence of China

In the last 20 years, China has moved 250 million people from the farms and villages into the cities. Their plan is to move another 300 million in the next 20 years. When you put that many people into the cities, you have to find work for them. That's why China is addicted to manufacturing; they have to put all the relocated people to work. When we decide to manufacture something in the U.S., it's based on market needs and the opportunity to make a profit. In China, they make the decision because they want the jobs, which is a very different calculation.

While China is addicted to manufacturing, Americans are addicted to low prices. As a result, a unique kind of economic codependency has developed between the two countries. If we ever stop buying from China, they will explode politically. If China stops selling to us, our economy will take a huge hit because prices will jump. We are subsidizing their economic development, they are subsidizing our economic growth.

Because of their huge growth in manufacturing, China is hungry for raw materials, which drives prices up worldwide. China is also thirsty for oil, which is one reason oil is now at $60 a barrel. By 2020, China will produce more cars than the U.S. China is also buying its way into the oil infrastructure around the world. They are doing it in the open market and paying fair market prices, but millions of barrels of oil that would have gone to the U.S. are now going to China. China's quest to assure it has the oil it needs to fuel its economy is a major factor in world politics and economics. We have our Navy fleets protecting the sea lines, specifically the ability to get the tankers through. It won't be long before the Chinese have an aircraft carrier sitting in the Persian Gulf as well. The question is, will their aircraft carrier be pointing in the same direction as ours or against us?

3. Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization

Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy.

When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them. The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany, and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integrated into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don't support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020, more than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.

The huge design flaw in the post-modern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don't wish to have children, so they are dying.

In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics.

Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant. The second reason is economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regards to having families and raising children.

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the "elder dependency" ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society understands, you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That's how a society works, but the post-modern secular state seems to have forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security or Medicare problems.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids, which was a huge consumer market that turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today's dollars would cost $12,000 per child.

China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China and India, many families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never find wives. When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100 girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100 girls.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has one-sixth of the earth's land surface and much of its oil. You can't control that much area with such a small population. Immediately to the south, you have China with 70 million unmarried men - a real potential nightmare scenario for Russia.

4. Restructuring of American Business

The fourth major transformation involves a fundamental restructuring of American business. Today's business environment is very complex and competitive. To succeed, you have to be the best, which means having the highest quality and lowest cost. Whatever your price point, you must have the best quality and lowest price. To be the best, you have to concentrate on one thing. You can't be all things to all people and be the best.

A generation ago, IBM used to make every part of their computer. Now Intel makes the chips, Microsoft makes the software, and someone else makes the modems, hard drives, monitors, etc. IBM even outsources their call center. Because IBM has all these companies supplying goods and services cheaper and better than they could do it themselves, they can make a better computer at a lower cost. This is called a "fracturing" of business. When one company can make a better product by relying on others to perform functions the business used to do itself, it creates a complex pyramid of companies that serve and support each other.

This fracturing of American business is now in its second generation. The companies who supply IBM are now doing the same thing, outsourcing many of their core services and production process. As a result, they can make cheaper, better products. Over time, this pyramid continues to get bigger and bigger. Just when you think it can't fracture again, it does. Even very small businesses can have a large pyramid of corporate entities that perform many of its important functions. One aspect of this trend is that companies end up with fewer employees and more independent contractors.

This trend has also created two new words in business, integrator and complementor. At the top of the pyramid, IBM is the integrator. As you go down the pyramid, Microsoft, Intel and the other companies that support IBM are the complementors. However, each of the complementors is itself an integrator for the complementors underneath it. This has several implications, the first of which is that we are now getting false readings on the economy. People who used to be employees are now independent contractors launching their own businesses. There are many people working whose work is not listed as a job. As a result, the economy is perking along better than the numbers are telling us.

Outsourcing also confused the numbers. Suppose a company like General Motors decides to outsource all its employee cafeteria functions to Marriott (which it did). It lays off hundreds of cafeteria workers, who then get hired right back by Marriott. The only thing that has changed is that these people work for Marriott rather than GM. Yet, the headlines will scream that America has lost more manufacturing jobs. All that really happened is that these workers are now reclassified as service workers. So the old way of counting jobs contributes to false economic readings. As yet, we haven't figured out how to make the numbers catch up with the changing realities of the business world.

Another implication of this massive restructuring is that because companies are getting rid of units and people that used to work for them, the entity is smaller. As the companies+ get smaller and more efficient, revenues are going down but profits are going up. As a result, the old notion that "revenues are up and we're doing great" isn't always the case anymore. Companies are getting smaller but are becoming more efficient and profitable in the process.

Implications Of The Four Transformations

1. The War in Iraq

In some ways, the war is going very well. Afghanistan and Iraq have the beginnings of a modern government, which is a huge step forward. The Saudis are starting to talk about some good things, while Egypt and Lebanon are beginning to move in a good direction.

A series of revolutions have taken place in countries like Ukraine and Georgia. There will be more of these revolutions for an interesting reason. In every revolution, there comes a point where the dictator turns to the general and says, "Fire into the crowd." If the general fires into the crowd, it stops the revolution. If the general says "No," the revolution is over. Increasingly, the generals are saying "No" because their kids are in the crowd.

Thanks to TV and the Internet, the average 18-year old outside the U.S. is very savvy about what is going on in the world, especially in terms of popular culture. There is a huge global consciousness, and young people around the world want to be a part of it. It is increasingly apparent to them that the miserable government where they live is the only thing standing in their way. More and more, it is the well-educated kids, the children of the generals and the elite, who are leading the revolutions.

At the same time, not all is well with the war. The level of violence in Iraq is much worse and doesn't appear to be improving. It's possible that we're asking too much of Islam all at one time. We're trying to jolt them from the 7th century to the 21st century all at once, which may be further than they can go. They might make it and they might not. Nobody knows for sure. The point is, we don't know how the war will turn out. Anyone who says they know is just guessing.

The real place to watch is Iran. If they actually obtain nuclear weapons it will be a terrible situation. There are two ways to deal with it. The first is a military strike, which will be very difficult. The Iranians have dispersed their nuclear development facilities and put them underground. The U.S. has nuclear weapons that can go under the earth and take out those facilities, but we don't want to do that. The other way is to separate the radical mullahs from the government, which is the most likely course of action.

Seventy percent of the Iranian population is under 30. They are Moslem but not Arab. They are mostly pro-Western. Many experts think the U.S. should have dealt with Iran before going to war with Iraq. The problem isn't so much the weapons, it's the people who control them. If Iran has a moderate government, the weapons become less of a concern.

We don't know if we will win the war in Iraq. We could lose or win. What we're looking for is any indicator that Islam is moving into the 21st century and stabilizing

2. China

It may be that pushing 500 million people from farms and villages into cities is too much too soon. Although it gets almost no publicity, China is experiencing hundreds of demonstrations around the country, which is unprecedented. These are not students in Tiananmen Square. These are average citizens who are angry with the government for building chemical plants and polluting the water they drink and the air they breathe.

The Chinese are a smart and industrious people. They may be able to pull it off and become a very successful economic and military superpower. If so, we will have to learn to live with it. If they want to share the responsibility of keeping the world's oil lanes open, that's a good thing. They currently have eight new nuclear electric power generators under way and 45 on the books to build. Soon, they will leave the U.S. way behind in their ability to generate nuclear power.

What can go wrong with China? For one, you can't move 550 million people into the cities without major problems. Two, China really wants Taiwan, not so much for economic reasons, they just want it. The Chinese know that their system of communism can't survive much longer in the 21st century. The last thing they want to do before they morph into some sort of more capitalistic government is to take over Taiwan.

We may wake up one morning and find they have launched an attack on Taiwan. If so, it will be a mess, both economically and militarily. The U.S. has committed to the military defense of Taiwan. If China attacks Taiwan, will we really go to war against them? If the Chinese generals believe the answer is no, they may attack. If we don't defend Taiwan, every treaty the U.S. has will be worthless. Hopefully,China won't do anything stupid.

3. Demographics

Europe and Japan are dying because their populations are aging and shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young people start breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so low it will take two generations to turn things around. No economic model exists that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some countries are beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger families. For example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having children. However, it's a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of money. Europeans aren't willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles in order to have more children.

In general, everyone in Europe just wants it to last a while longer. Europeans have a real talent for living. They don't want to work very hard. The average European worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time per year than Americans. They don't want to work and they don't want to make any of the changes needed to revive their economies.

The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation. That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children didn't even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them.

This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn't trigger any change in French society. When birth rates are so low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attractive option. That's why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most European countries. The only country that doesn't permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.

The European economy is beginning to fracture. The Euro is down. Countries like Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the European Union because it is killing them. When things get bad economically in Europe, they tend to get very nasty politically. The canary in the mine is anti-Semitism. When it goes up, it means trouble is coming. Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever. Germany won't launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier, more dangerous and less pleasant to live in.

Japan has a birth rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in immigrants. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be 70 years old. Property values in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14 years. The country is simply shutting down.

In the U.S. we also have an aging population. Boomers are starting to retire at a massive rate. These retirements will have several major impacts:

• Possible massive sell-off of large four-bedroom houses and a movement to condos.

• An enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only country in the world where there are no age limits on medical procedures.

• An enormous drain on the health care system. This will also increase the tax burden on the young, which will cause them to delay marriage and having families, which will drive down the birth rate even further.

Make sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the action is. For example, you don't want to be a baby food company in Europe or Japan. Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of where the opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the customers are.

4. Restructuring of American Business

The restructuring of American business means we are coming to the end of the age of the employer and employee. With all this fracturing of businesses into different and smaller units, employers can't guarantee jobs anymore because they don't know what their companies will look like next year. Everyone is on their way to becoming an independent contractor. The new workforce contract will be, "Show up at the my office five days a week and do what I want you to do, but you handle your own insurance, benefits, health care and everything else."

Husbands and wives are becoming economic units. They take different jobs and work different shifts depending on where they are in their careers and families. They make tradeoffs to put together a compensation package to take care of the family. This used to happen only with highly educated professionals with high incomes. Now it is happening at the level of the factory floor worker. Couples at all levels are designing their compensation packages based on their individual needs. The only way this can work is if everything is portable and flexible, which requires a huge shift in the American economy.

The U.S. is in the process of building the world's first 21st century model economy. The only other countries doing this are U.K. and Australia. The model is fast, flexible, highly productive and unstable in that it is always fracturing and re-fracturing. This will increase the economic gap between the U.S. and everybody else, especially Europe and Japan.

At the same time, the military gap is increasing. Other than China, we are the only country that is continuing to put money into their military. Plus, we are the only military getting on-the-ground military experience through our war in Iraq. We know which high-tech weapons are working and which ones aren't. There is almost no one who can take us on economically or militarily. There has never been a superpower in this position before.

On the one hand, this makes the U.S. a magnet for bright and ambitious people. It also makes us a target. We are becoming one of the last holdouts of the traditional Judeo-Christian culture. There is no better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The U. S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put it into the marketplace. We take it for granted, but it isn't as available in other countries of the world.

Ultimately, it's an issue of culture. The only people who can hurt us are ourselves, by losing our culture. If we give up our Judeo-Christian culture, we become just like the Europeans. The culture war is the whole ballgame. If we lose it, there isn't another America to pull us out.

Herbert Meyer

Friday Harbor, WA 98250

Herb Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. In these positions,he managed production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top-secret projections for the President and his national security advisers. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union's collapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the intelligence community's highest honor. Formerly an associate editor of FORTUNE, he is also the author of several books.

usawakeup.org/global.htm

Full essay here.

Pinker attacks "dignity" arguments put foward by the President's Council On Bio-Ethics in Human Dignity And Bioethics.

He's not impressed with the set of largely conservative ideas he finds there, a few of which are rooted in Catholic doctrine.  Who's putting them foward?

"...a group of intellectual activists, many of whom had jumped from the radical left to the radical right, has urged that we rethink the Enlightenment roots of the American social order. The recognition of a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the mandate of government to secure these rights are too tepid, they argue, for a morally worthy society."

A group grimly attaching its interests and enfringing upon our cherished enlightenment values as enshrined in the Constitution.

So is Pinker trying to define himself as closer to national goals?  His concept of "dignity" is:

"...a phenomenon of human perception...

...Just as the smell of baking bread triggers a desire to eat it, and the sight of a baby's face triggers a desire to protect it, the appearance of dignity triggers a desire to esteem and respect the dignified person..."

"...This explains why dignity is morally significant: We should not ignore a phenomenon that causes one person to respect the rights and interests of another. But it also explains why dignity is relative, fungible, and often harmful. Dignity is skin-deep:"

In this view, "dignity" is not a deep enough argument upon which to base the kind of moralism that will end up restricting progress.  Instead, Pinker is seeking to define and create more freedom for this progress to occur where biology, medicine and technology meet.

In fact:

"Even if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos (to say nothing of the threat of criminal prosecution), millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die. And that would be the biggest affront to human dignity of all."

These people are morally responsible to all the sick people that would have been helped had they not gotten in the way!

That seems a little extreme.  I'm glad that neither Pinker nor the "dignity" crowd is the final word on any of this, nor solely responsible for moral thinking. 

See Also:  Ross Douthat has more here at Pinker vs. Humanism

I've been following the NPR coverage of the quake in China, and it's heartbreaking. Robert Siegel and Melissa Block were in Sichuan Province for a series of stories on China when the quake hit, so they have an unique perspective on the catastrophe. This hasn't been a good month on the Man v Nature front, and if you want to help, here are some good links to help start-these are all established international organizations with excellent track records for delivering useful aid:

I also saw a ten-year-old documentary called 'Soldier Child' this week. It was difficult and disturbing to watch, and it led me to follow up and discover a group called Invisible Children, Inc.  I urge everyone to make a contribution to either them or directly to GUSCO to help support the work they are doing in Uganda. Joseph Kony continues to lead an army of child soldiers and elude justice.

I find myself in many ways agreeing with this writer regarding invading Myanmar/Burma while I simultaneously find the essay terribly naive. The military junta that rules that country has proved it's irresponsible criminality many times over and it's behavior during this crisis is the capstone in the case against them. If one considers the rhetoric that President Bush and his supporters used to justify their invasion of Iraq as sincere and true, then one must wonder why the Marines aren't right now protecting the innocents of Burma. Of course, Burma has no strategic significance or abundance of natural resources worth exploting, the neocon rhetoric was neither sincere nor true, and besides, imposing one's will on another is an unwise thing to do no matter how pure one's motivations may be. The Battle of Mogandishu should be a recent enough memory to illustrate this point. However, in my reading of history, the mistake there was withdrawing from Somalia rather than fully committing a serious force to stabilize that nation. The nightmare chaos of nations like Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and so many others is where the forces that threaten global civilization ferment. When Bush I deployed the force to Somalia and Clinton gave that force the mission of nation building, neither of their administrations grasped the nature of the situation they were committing to. Somalia should have been a lesson the planners of the Iraq War should have heeded-that the technological advantages of our conventional forces could be greatly reduced or even negated by a foe who engaged in unconventional assymmetrical tactics. In other words, insurgents with homemade bombs could stymie the most advanced military force the world has ever known. 

Julius Caesar understood the threat that barbarians posed to civilization at large and so he subdued Europe. It was a costly and unpopular move, at least from the point of view of his politcal enemies but it ultimately enriched Rome immensely and secured her civilization for centuries. The ideas of the first, second and third worlds, or the West and the East, or however you would like to compartmentalize the globe are no longer truly relevant and have a dangerous tendency to create an attitude of isolationism amongst those who dwell in the Western First World. This attitude also encourages an ignorance of the so-called Third World and an inability to comprehend the events unfolding there.

Those child soldiers in Uganda were abducted from their homes by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and trained in Sudan where they have been given support by the government there, the same government that is murdering the people of Darfur, the same government that gave Osama bin Laden support around the time of The Battle of Mogandishu. The chaos of this part of the world is understandable when it is not dismissed as 'just the way things are there' or some such other nonsense. President Bush's 'Axis of Evil' got it completely wrong; the leader of North Korea is a spoiled self-indulgent brat only concerned with his own skin, the Mullahs of Iran have no desire to lose their positions, and Saddam Hussein was, by the time of 9/11 busy composing operas and writing romantic novels where he was the hero. No stable state with conventional armies could hope or truly desire to threaten the United States of America-the destruction of the US would destabilize the entire world and anyone in power understands that chaos is bad for them personally, to say nothing of the nations they lead. If there is an Axis of Evil in the world today, it turns in Sudan. From there demons are being birthed into the world.        

En la barriada del capitalino Municipio de Regla un grupo de opositores se reunieron para conmemorar la jornada por el nacimiento y muerte de Pedro Luis Boitel.

Boitel realizo numerosas huelgas de hambre durante su encierro y fue uno de los presos políticos que mas maltratos recibió de parte de sus carceleros, él representa para la oposición cubana un ejemplo a seguir por su firmeza a sus ideales que le provocaron la muerte, nos cuenta Alberto Suarez Vega miembro del PRC y fuente de esta información.

Las sombras jamás podrán tocarte
hijo luz de tu tierra mal herida
cuánta madre llora cuánta vida
servirá tu sangre de estandarte

La rosa martiana inconfundible
alumbrará al pueblo que tanto amas
tu descansa, hermano, eres libre
Tú y la patria: azules llamas.

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