Sunday, August 27, 2006

8-27-06 Comparable Magnitude

Way back on December 11, 1941, the United States congress declared war on Germany. That war concluded on May 7, 1945. That's 1,244 days.

On March 19, 2003, the US military invaded Iraq. This weekend, we're still counting the days and we're up to 1,267 now. Gee! That's more days than it took to squash Nazi Germany!

This coming december, we'll surpass the time it took to defeat Japan, as well.

Is the "Iraq War" of comparable magnitude to World War II? Well, obviously, it's not the same kind of conflict. At this point, really, I think the purpose of invading Iraq has been to keep the oil from flowing out of that country. It's just a trick, y'see...

As long as the oil doesn't flow out of Iraq and into the world market, the supply side of the equation can be kept down by just enough to keep the price of crude oil high. I mean, Dubya's an "oil man", and you've got Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice, all coming out of the oil industry... do we need a rocket scientist to explain the motives behind keeping the "Iraq War" going on and on and on?

What more can I say? Well, maybe referring back to an earlier post...

http://ka1ogm.blogspot.com/2006/06/6-27-06-quote-of-decade.html

...which is simply the following:

"We are supposed to believe that the US and Britain would have liberated Iraq even if its main export was pickles."
- Noam chomsky

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

8-22-06 Women's Rights - Upstate NY

This is just more than I can bear! Near the beautiful shores of Lake Ontario in upstate New York, an elderly woman who has been teaching sunday school for the past eleven years has been given her walking papers, told that she can no longer teach sunday school, because (please pay close attention, here!) she is a woman.

http://news10now.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=76479&

If you think this news story, this incident which is ongoing as we speak, has no significance in the wider picture of what's happening here in America, then you've got another think coming.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

8-19-06 Artificial Sun

As I posted in an entry here entitled "August 15", the Chinese Superconducting Research facility had announced last month that they planned to undergo their first test of what would, if successful, be the world's first functional fusion reactor.

Ever since August 15th, the date that the article I originally linked to said this was going to happen, I've done a daily search of any news. The most recent news, however, is just the old news, such as this...

http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cfm?id=56003&CFID=6526951&CFTOKEN=95996281

... which sums up the planned event, and a terse description of the dangers.

It's the dangers I'm concerend about. I'm sincerely hoping this upcoming test won't reduce any continental land mass to an uninhabitable wasteland. The further past August 15th we get, the more concerned I get...

Friday, August 18, 2006

8-18-06 Let's Be Scientific

An article on Wednesday describes the recent discovery of genetic material specifically related to the size of the brain in humans. It's a curiously interesting article, since (from my reading of it) it lends much more credence to the claims of the Intelligent Design crowd than it does to the Evolutionists...

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060816_har1_gene.html

...despite obviously being written within the context of a complete acceptance of evolutionary theory.

Here's the key quote from the article, "In the time since humans and chimps split about 6 million years ago, HAR1 has racked up 18 base substitutions when only one or none would be expected by chance."

Well, now, let's see... the "by chance" theory says that this is how humans evolved. Yet, the changes in this particular area of the human genome, unique to humans, has changed over the past 6 million years in a manner that completely goes against the odds of it happening "by chance". The odds are either 18 to 1, or they are 18 to infinity!

Within the dogma dichotomy between scientism and religionism, I'd be very understanding if the scientists involved never said another word about it. But outside of that war between faiths, I'd consider it an affront to science for anyone to skew this line of inquiry with either dogmatic assumption.

Evolutionary theory is applied in much too defensive a manner. If it weren't for the cultural dichotomy, long standing and quite emotional, between the embracing of science versus the embracing of traditional religion, objectivity in these matters would be so much easier.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

8-17-06 What About Afghanistan? - part 4

The commodities markets do not yet, as far as I know, deal with futures on opium prices. But opium is a commodity, and it is bought and sold all around the world. It's a very lucrative business, so the price of opium at any particular point will be of intense interest for all those drug lords out there. And any slightest bit of news that will affect the future of supply versus demand will be of tremendous importance to them. Of course, the basis of much of the way the futures market bids prices up or down on agricultural commodities is in projected crop yields. News that comes out about crop yields, one way or another, will result in commodities futures going up or down. It's very valuable information.

We're talking about annual flows of billions of dollars here, when we focus on opium. And Afghanistan is the world's number one producer of that particular commodity. Here's an August 16 article from Associated Press that will give the world's drug barons a good yardstick for their pricing strategies over the coming months...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_OPIUM_BOOM?SITE=FLMYR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I'm not particularly concerned with the morals or ethics involved in this, when I bring up the nature of this commodity being marketable. It's very marketable, and it's extremely profitable, therefore people will continue to grow poppies, harvest them, make opium, and sell it to the existing market. And as long as there is the danger of any law enforcement action against any of this activity, that price will continue to be high enough to bear the burden of that danger. Indeed, the "danger" to the future of any profit in opium is the prospect of making it "legal". If that were to happen, all those currently peddling influence in the world using their drug profits would be completely PUT OUT OF BUSINESS!

It's all just basically demonstrative of how markets actually work. Throw aside the moral issues of illegal drug usage, and focus on the market that exists, and will always exist, as long as the product continues to have its allure of "danger" and "underground". The end user is a created slave. The end user commits crimes to get the money to purchase the product. It makes neighborhoods unsafe. The money goes up the distribution ladder, thus there are people out there who make so much goddam money from this, money that is virtually untraceable, that they are vested with inordinate levels of power in the world.

...power enough to buy influence that can keep the drugs illegal, thereby perpetuating their power.

Now let's focus upon the loudest government champions of big business and free markets, the Bush administration.

Before the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan, opium production had been curtailed to such a low level by the Taliban that it was no longer a factor of any significance in the world market for opium. But after Afghanistan was taken over, the country sprang back onto the world market the very next year. And every year since then, the opium yield out of Afghanistan has gotten higher and higher. The net effect (on the world's opium market) of the invasion of Afghanistan has been, basically, to return that country back to its former position as the number one producer of opium IN THE WORLD! This is the most significant change that has happened, since this commodity is Afghanistan's BIGGEST export! More than HALF of Afghanistan's gross domestic product is the poppy crop, and the opium that's made from it!

So, first we have to assume that opium production in Afghanistan is hardly a difficult thing to, essentially, erase. I mean, the prospect of making that country no longer of any slightest significance in the world as a producer of opium has already been DEMONSTRATED by the Taliban.

Next, we have to assume that there's absolutely no question that the US government is overwhelmingly more powerful than the crew they chased out of that country. It was no contest! Yet, are we to believe that this same overwhelmingly powerful force in the world is COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE in achieving something that the people they DEFEATED found very easy to do???

The inconsistency here is beyond comprehension. The ease with which Afghanistan was rendered completely insignificant on the world opium market, compared to the skyrocketing production that has taken place after "our guys" went in there says one thing, and one thing only:

This IS the intended result.

Monday, August 14, 2006

8-14-06 Women's Rights

Aside from any other glittering generalities that infest the public forum these days, one thing that I think can be used as a true test of a society's backwardness would be how they treat their women.

Here's one spin on this generally acknowledged yardstick...

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/those_goatdiape.html

The post is about Iraqi shepherds being required to put diapers on their goats (I kid you not!), and how this (among several other things he mentions) can be viewed in terms relating to prohibitions regarding sex. It sheds a very bright light on why the treatment of women in any culture can be used as a pretty clear indicator of how backward they might be.

The future of any culture rests entirely upon how the children are brought up, and indeed, how the women who will give birth to those children are treated. The present-time state of any culture can also be measured by how much repression there is regarding sex.

Basic human rights begin with women's rights being exactly the same as men's rights. Wherever there's any difference, and the US government is backing the government that keeps such inequities in place, then there's most definitely no adherence to any policy purporting to support "democracy" OR "freedom".

Thursday, August 10, 2006

8-10-06 Islamic Fascists

Today's big news is the foiled plot to blow up airliners headed to America. In a press conference around mid-day, President Bush said, "...this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060810/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_9

Well, let's just look up the definition of "fascist". At answers.com, I found it defined as, 1) an advocate or adherent of fascism, and 2) a reactionary or dictatorial person. That was an interesting discovery for me, since I wasn't cognizant of the second definition having crept into popular usage. So, if Bush used the term to describe terrorists as fascists in the sense of the second definition, especially "reactionary", maybe he's really up on the latest definitions of such words, and I'm not. He is, after all, the leader of the free world.

But what's "fascism"? Again, I use answers.com only because it's right here at my fingertips. Compare these definitions to other sources if you're in doubt. According my reference, fascism also has two definitions, number one having two parts as well, with those being, A) A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. Or it can be, B) A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. Then definition number 2 is, "Oppressive, dictatorial control."

If you look into the history behind this particular ideology called fascism, you don't have to do much reading to recognize the similarities between fascist states of the past and the Bush administration's agenda. War crimes, media manipulation, aiding and abetting the power elite in raping the US treasury, bullying... sheesh! The list could go on and on!

Bush apparently has no limit to his power of propaganda bullshit, I would have to say. Having this man refering to ANYONE as a "fascist" is a whole lot more absurd than refering to the people who hijacked the planes on 9/11 as people who "hate freedom". And I thought this man's absurdity had reached new depths of "newspeak" back then!

There are no doubt Islamic extremists who hate the American government, and because the government in America is elected by the people of America, there are no doubt many more who hate Americans for letting this government get away with its terrorist activities around the world over the past three decades. Terrorism, by the way, is using violence or threat of violence to coerce people and/or governments into complying with demands, adhering to some ideology, etc. It's all about inspiring fear, and this administration has been capitalising on fear ever since 9/11.

On the other side of the issue, however, you won't ever see me arguing any sympathy for the "poor terrorists" that blow themselves up, take down buildings with bombs, etc. These guys are pretty sick. But they are no different than the terrorists who killed and maimed, blew things up, and used this extremist form of fanatic behavior against the British rule over Ireland. Those Irish terrorists were just as sick.

But the odd thing about the Irish terrorism was that a lot of money supporting them came out of places like Boston and New York. Using the same logic that Bush used to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the British government would have been equally justified in invading New York and Boston, bombing the shit out of those cities, and turning THEM into piles of rubble!

Of course, the Irish terrorists were Christians.... and nobody refered to them as fascists.

8-10-06 Scientific Proof of Evolution

It's things like the linked article (below) that make me laugh...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060801230141.htm

Restricting the underlying paradigm(s) of scientific research to the classic "religion vs science" playing field, we get these big controversies over, for instance, the existence of "junk DNA", genes with no discernable purpose, being a battlefield for "truth". So, for a while, the Intelligent Design crowd celebrated a victory in the big revelation that one of the "junk DNA" genes appeared to have a function. But now, with this new revelation, the one gene that the ID crowd was so excited about turns out to have no function at all, making the Evolution crowd cheer with the advent of yet another "win".

I have another suggestion. "Junk DNA" is solid evidence for DEVOLUTION. Species springing out of nowhere in the fossil record, then eventually dying out is solid evidence for DEVOLUTION. Having NO evidence that can explain species springing up out of nowhere in the fossil record, however, is evidence of NOTHING. And until some theory to explain THAT is put forward, depending upon the theory of evolution to explain the fossil record remains up in the air.

8-10-06 Third Hamdan Effect

As we move along on this new journey for the Bush administration in the wake of the Supreme Court's Hamdan Decision, the last couple of weeks have seen a few articles popping up here and there concerning the legislation that the administration wants to get into play. The link (below) is just one example of the terse and low key manner in which this is being treated by the press...

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060809-102629-6020r

The fact is that the Bush administration orchestrated, ordered, and is fully responsible for committing outright and blatant war crimes over the past few years, and now that the Supreme Court has clearly ruled that they failed to "cover their asses" in that regard, this rat-scrambling bunch of war criminals wants to legislate the whole thing away! And they want to get this accomplished before the elections, since it's a very real possibility that the majority of one or both branches of congress may well be Democrat, come January.

The Republican majority in the House and Senate is the ONLY THING that has prevented this administration from being put on a leash, so far.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

8-6-06 Blind Science

I've attempted many times, including here, to describe the influence of dogma within various scientific endeavors. It's a difficult pursuit for a guy like me, mainly because I'm not a scholar and I'm not a particularly ambitious person. I am, in fact, quite lazy. This leaves me somewhat handicapped in any endeavor to make convincing arguments along these lines because it takes an awful lot of work to locate and cite appropriate references for any spin I might feel like putting on it.

There's another side to this, however, which is merely how people outside of the academic or scientific communities view "science" and anything "scientific" with a sort of unquestioning acceptance. We read newspaper articles and see things on TV that purport to be "scientific" and unless the text of an article or a TV show calls attention to any dissenting views, I get a distinct sense from anyone and everyone I come into contact with that this stuff is swallowed whole, without question.

In my ongoing need to piss and moan about it, however, here's a link to an article entitled "Racial IQ Gap Narrows"

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060805/fob6.asp

This article caught my eye right away. First of all, the "racial IQ gap" is one of those so-called "scientific" things that's been wafting its way into the minds of Americans for decades. How did it get there? Well, it's been established as some sort of "scientific fact" all this time because of IQ testing.

Now, if you do a search on Yahoo or Google with the two words IQ and BLACKS, you'll get to see that this so-called "scientific fact" has been fomenting a classic debate across the globe for several decades in the form of the "nature versus nurture" question. This basically boils down to whether various traits of personality and life performance are the result of "nature" and genetic makeup, or if those things are molded by "nurturing" in the way people are brought up and live. In the case of the former, consequently, improving the human condition would require nothing short of genetic engineering. But in the case of the latter, there are many things that could be done to improve the human condition short of such a drastic measure as re-engineering the genetic makeup of the entire human race.

As you can easily discover for yourself, this is a hot topic, and it's been a hot topic for quite a long time. In other words, our sacred "science" has been pissing away decades of work just debating this question.

The funny thing about it, however, is that this debate is based in large part upon the results of IQ testing over several decades. In the article I referenced above there's one paragraph near the end that I'll just quote here:

A fundamental problem with studies of IQ test results is that "nobody really knows what intelligence is," says Psychometrician Peter H. Schonemann of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

It lends some sense of irony to the whole thing, doesn't it? Here you have a white dominated society since before World War II, financing scientifc research into how to measure intelligence, developing all sorts of testing procedures and using them to test people for decades, and after all this time it's so easy for someone deeply immersed in the field to toss off this statement which completely invalidates the whole ball of wax! Meanwhile, the rest of the article just assumes that it's true, that blacks are NOT as smart as whites, based upon tests done over decades to determine something they STILL have no clue about!

On this particular front, I have to conclude that "science" is not only "blind", but it's also about as objective as the King's New Clothes.