According to a Boston Globe article, the federal government has ordered that some pamphlets already issued to federal depository libraries be taken out of circulation and returned because they are internal. Librarians note that the information has long been in the public domain and are resisting the order.
from boston.com.
Pretty much work safe, just don’t blast the volume!
JibJab presents This Land Is Your Land.
From friend and geologist colleague, SC, on Indo-Pak-Bangla relations. There’s nothing like a pack of irate Hindus, let me tell you.
Dear Friends,
I have been getting it in the neck recently, mainly from Stephane, about a subject close to my heart: my views of Pakistan and Islamic separatism in general. Meant to send you this for a while. It provides some useful historical background on a major issue affecting India, Pak and Bangladesh, and affecting Hindus and Muslims. If you would like a little further education on one of the biggest, but least known genocides of the last 100 years read on otherwise stop now!
A quote from the website I liked: “There is no doubt that the mass killing in Bangladesh was among the most carefully and centrally planned of modern genocides. A cabal of five Pakistani generals orchestrated the events: President Yahya Khan, General Tikka Khan, chief of staff General Pirzada, security chief General Umar Khan, and intelligence chief General Akbar Khan. The U.S. government, long supportive of military rule in Pakistan, supplied some $3.8 million in military equipment to the dictatorship after the onset of the genocide,
‘and after a government spokesman told Congress that all shipments to Yahya Khan’s regime had ceased.’ (Payne, Massacre, p. 102.)”
This shows that the US politicians and advisors (esp that #@?#@ Kissinger) were underhanded even back then. No one lives in a vacuum, we are each a product of history. Is Musharaff to be trusted? Where was he in the 1971 genocide? Give you one guess –
Musharraf Article.
Stephane – do you expect nice quiet logical argument from Jews about the Nazis? I doubt it. So don’t be surprised at my reaction as a Bengali Hindu on the subject of Pakistan and Muslim fundamentalists (even if I did have a couple of drinks first). It was entirely normal … I am not Mahatma Gandhi or Jesus to ask to be slapped on all my cheeks. And who follows their advice anyway – not “Christian” leaders like Bush or Blair, though these jackasses never tire of telling Indians to be nice to Pakistan.
The major question today is how we should handle these religious fundamentalists. It will take more than banning headscarves and Sikh turbans to stop French swimming pools being segregated by sex, to stop the National Front in France, and to stop anti-Semitism [BBC Article], Sharon asks French Jews to move to Israel to be safer!!.
Regards, and happy educational reading.
Latin Americanist decides which US govt-funded scientists may speak at conferences? Ok, I go crawl in hole now.
Bushwhacked
Ben Goldacre . Thursday July 15, 2004 . The GuardianPointing out that the current American government is manipulative, deceitful and interventionist is hardly news: although it hadn’t occurred to naive little me that it’d started meddling in science. The Bush administration has decreed that the World Health Organisation must clear US government-funded researchers with the health and human sciences department, before they can speak at conferences.
Nice. The editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the largest US academic journal, has already criticised the ban on authors of papers on Aids going to conferences, talking about their work and sharing knowledge, just because they have ideas counter to the Bush administration.
The man who decides who can speak is William Steiger. His qualifications are a PhD in Latin American history and having George Bush Snr as godfather. He was behind the attack on WHO’s reasonable suggestion that no more than 10% of people’s energy intake should come from sugar: he said there was no supporting scientific evidence. The US has a 25% guideline. That’s a quarter of your dietary intake of energy “safely” coming from pure sugar.
It gets worse. The American “Union of Concerned Scientists”has collected the signatures of dozens of Nobel prizewinners, in protest at government interference in “independent scientific review panels”. You can read the full report at
www.ucsusa.org, but it’s pretty depressing. It includes examples of the Bush administration blocking research and twisting evidence on issues as diverse as safe levels in lead poisoning, the environmental impact of mining, farming, drug abuse and patterns of infectious diseases. It’s practically impossible to research a lot of these things without being part of government infrastructure.Funny things happen when political ideologies start interfering with science. Trofim Lysenko was the top Soviet biologist for decades: he thought natural selection was too individualistic, and spent his career growing plants really close together, in the hope they would develop collectivist tendencies. Challenge him and you were out of a job.
Governments that interfere with science, with the lies of alternative therapists, the fluff of cosmetics adverts, and childish dramatisations of science stories in the news, all contribute to the popular impression that it is nonsense concocted by boffins pursuing their own peculiar agendas.
And that’s bad.
Please send your bad science to bad.science@guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited C Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
In retrospect, the only memorable aspects of the movie were the cameos of Will Smith’s birthday suit (I got to see what Jada sees everyday … sigh) and the flawless animation of the new-fangled robots.
I, Robot; How About You? from USA Today:
“I, Robot,” a new movie inspired by Isaac Asimov’s classic story collection of the same name, “might be a useful insight into our own future, and into other societies’ past,” writes Seth Shostak of Space.com. “If you think you can beat Nature, you’re not merely afflicted with hubris; your affliction could prove terminal. That’s the message of cautionary cinema sci-fi. This popular movie genre proclaims that man’s quest to control his environment with technology is no stroll along a yellow-brick road to wondrous things, but a green-mile march to self-destruction… Ideas about how we treat, or will be treated by, synthetic cerebrals, is more than just grist for a film. It’s speculation for our own future. And keep this in mind, too: what happens on our world is likely to have analogs on others. If we find intelligence elsewhere in the Galaxy, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be their robots; beings whose interests and activities may go well beyond walking pets or collecting the garbage. ‘I, Robot’ is gripping entertainment. But it might also be a useful insight into our own future, and into other societies’ past.
CEM writes:
“… This trip was then followed by a pair of visits to the doctor’s office. One of my doctors has decided that all of my problems will go away if I just have a baby. A baby would make [me] happy. (I think this very odd. This is not the first time I have been told this, and it’s always by people who know me a bit, but not well. Sometimes I wonder if they know something I don’t. Then, I see a baby… It doesn’t matter how fresh, and I think to myself, “Oh, it’s a baby. Yeah, the only thing it’s got goin’ for it is that it’s small.” Then, I start wondering what’s wrong with me. My biological clock should go boink any moment now … I should suffer from baby lust, but if I do, it’s brief and intermittent).
Personally, I think it would be remarkably cruel to a child to raise them with the idea that Bah-no-theism is an acceptable religion, or, worse yet, that Bah-no actually has talent as a singer! Perhaps it’s also a factor that I realize I come up short in so many important areas, motherhood is just bound to be one of them … And I know that, as hope as I would, I will not find happiness in a baby’s eyes, or anyone else’s for that matter … I have to figure out how to find it in me.
Bingo! The doctor who told you that having a baby will make you happier should have his/her license taken away. That’s the worst possible advice to give someone who is suffering from depression, or whatever echelon of malaise or poor health you are experiencing right now. This is not intended for you because you don’t seem too keen on the prospect and have realized that self-esteem begins at home. It pains me, in general, to observe a woman who depends on externalities to make her whole. She reasons that marriage will make her feel better. Then, the purchase of a house and an SUV will make the gloom melt away. Following that, to have a baby, that will complete the couple’s lives and bring them closeness and a family. If she has a baby, she will now have someone who depends on her for life and unconditional love.
What a crock of double standard!!!
Babies aren’t tools of therapy, they are new humans that require a mother’s attention and love. One should have a baby because one is whole and wants to share her confidence and nurturing capabilities with a new human being. One cannot gain happiness solely from a little baby that needs love and guidance. What an onus to put on this child to be your provider of love and belonging! Get a dog or a cause and get it over with.
In truth, this phenomeneon is what places expectations on kids from the moment they are born. ” This kid will be my –insert fantasy here–. This kid will grow up to be a doctor/lawyer/engineer and bring me pride. I will live through this child.” Live through yourself, and let the kid grow up to be what he/she wants to be.
If I were your doctor, I would have told you to get your thesis finished and finished well. I have a strong feeling that will increase your mental and physical wellbeing. You are strong and wise even if you don’t know it. Hmmm … if I were your doctor … you know, a doctor, like Hunter S. Thompson. The one who prescribes the good drugs. Thinking …
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