U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade

U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade

U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade

Repecting Other Cultures

LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland (Reuters) - More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate.

King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts.

Wielding machetes and singing tributes to the king and queen mother, also known as the Great She-Elephant, the girls danced around the royal stadium in the hope of catching the eye of the 37-year-old monarch.
BREITBART.COM - Just The News

Just the local custom really. Nothing wrong with an absolute monarch plucking 16 year old virgins from a throng of half naked dancers. Everyone involved is quite happy with their lot and its no business of ours exposing them to eurocentric ideas of democracy and equality etc.

Creative Interviewing

'Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing,' Ms. Rice said in an interview. But she added, 'It cannot be Gaza only.'

Astonishing it seems, the NYT simply invented this quote!. Bizarre. The actual sentance in which those words appeared:

The other thing is, just to close off this question, the question has been put repeatedly to the Israelis and to us that it cannot be Gaza only and everybody says no, it cannot be Gaza only.

I share the NYT enthusiasm for dismantling settlements in the West Bank, but I'm not sure thats an adequate basis for manufacturing statements to further the agenda. Actually the transcript of the Q&A session is worth reading.

Roget's All New Politically Correct Dictionary and the Death of the Googlewhack

BREITBART.COM - Just The News

An online thesaurus struck a listing Monday for the word 'Arab' after Arab-American groups complained the entry listed derogatory synonyms.

The entry, which appeared on thesaurus.com, listed the word as a noun meaning 'beggar,' and gave 16 pejorative synonyms including 'homeless person' and 'welfare bum.'

Odd because the same site contains this

jew
tr.v. Offensive jewed, jew·ing, jews

1. To bargain shrewdly or unfairly with. Often used with down.
2. To haggle so as to reduce (a price). Often used with down.

[From Jews' supposedly extortionate practices as moneylenders in the Middle Ages.]

Personally I don't mind the definition standing - its offensive to use the word in this context, but if it is so used, then its the role of a dictionary and thesaurus to document it. Pity the poor ESL reader flipping through a Sherlock Holmes story and having the mystery compounded by the term 'street arab'.

I guess dictionary.com is going down the tube - since google.com stopped linking to it, its popularity has been going down the tube. Most discourteous of google ; it killed the game of googlewhacking, which relied on the authenticity of words being comfirmed by a an underlined link to dictionary.com. Now, do a search for say "Henry Kissinger" and the google bar is linked to Kissinger which, even by internet standards, is not a word.

Holy Cows

Very amusing counter-argument to PETA on the subject of the worlds religions and their teaching (or lack of) on vegetarianism. Apparently the Dalai Llama is not actually a vegetarian. Odd.
Holy Cows: How PETA twists religion to push animal 'rights.'

Reality Bites the 'International' Space Station

Finally consideration given to scrapping the Space Station. I've argued before, great idea - why should the US foot almost the entire bill for this hundred billion dollar boondoggle.

Only a few hundred people have been to space and the idea of astronauts floating aboard the station and living in orbit thrills the public. But many scientists believe this is not a good enough reason to keep pumping money into the project. Only a few hundred people have been to space and the idea of astronauts floating aboard the station and living in orbit thrills the public.

Thrill the public? Bollocks. Where does Reuters get this nonsense?

But many scientists believe this is not a good enough reason to keep pumping money into the project.

Right - so lets scrap it right now.

But NASA is unlikely to give up on its shuttle or the ISS very easily because of a feeling of duty to its international partners.

Well our 'international partners' already dislike us because we liberate oppressed Arabs, so lets not worry about them too much then hey? If they want it finished, let them share equally in the expense.

Ethics of AIDS Research - The Condom Ladies

Philadelphia Citpaper runs an article about the ethical potholes confronting U Penn's AIDS Vaccine trial. problem is that to test the efficacy of an AIDS vaccine, you need an 'at-risk' population. Paying them to participate in the trial may facilitate risky behavior and providing counselling to participants bias the outcome of the research. Great piece - the writer avoids the sort of strident angry tone (that would have been de rigeur for a similar article in Philadelphia Weekly) and teases out the moral conundrums by allowing individuals involved to speak for themselves.
Science and Human Nature

Their search often begins with a tip from a participant in a previous study, something like, 'When I turn tricks, I go to intersection X.' The scouts will go to the intersection, dig through the trash and walk around in search of telltale signs. Because they're so conspicuous (both are white), they assume the identities of outreach workers, carrying and distributing condoms.

'The outreach model is recognizable,' says Alex. 'It's a way to explain two white girls, and an ethical imperative.'

'We think of the condoms like our calling card,' Freeman adds.

The condom ladies gather as much information as they can about each area. Learning the price for oral sex, for example (anywhere from $3 to $60), gives them a sense of the local economy, which helps Penn determine the rate of compensation for study participants (Penn doesn't want pay to be inadequate, the scouts say, but it also doesn't want the compensation to be 'coercive' — so high that people can't afford to turn it down).

A Cheerful Missive to the Morning's Spammers

Dear All,

Thank y'all for taking the time to send me unsolicited junk mail. I only wish I had the time to reply individually and thoughtfully to all your generous offers - a larger penis, magazines, financial arrangements, dating services, mortgages and a veritable plethora of wonderful gadgets for making my life as a scientist happier and more productive.

Gosh, if only I didn't have to work, I'd be wedded, wealthy, well-hung and a wizard with biotinylated recombinant proteins. Alas, for now I'm a miserable wage slave, so please excuse my 'bulkmail reply' and lumping you together with today's spammers. I certainly don't mean to imply that your email was spam. Perish the thought. It was as welcome as summer rain over parched desert... the shy smile of a four year old girl... finding an imodium capsule for the 'backdoor trots'.

In the meantime, if you could all do one little thing for me - take me off your collective mailing lists? It's not that I'm not interested. Hell no. Its just that... well... call me a fuddy-duddy, but this electronic advertising enslaught don't fizzle my chizzle. I like a more personal touch. Tell you what - swing by the lab and we'll all head down to the bar. You can pull up some bar stools and give me the good oil in person. Over beer. Some crunchy snacks. Get to know y'all the old-fashioned way.

Till then have a lovely day. Chat amongst yourselves. I'll join you later. Promise!

Just remember, mama always says if you send too many emails you'll go blind.

Affectionately,

Fundamentalist... avatars!

Internet Haganah presents actual avatars from an Islamist website. Pretty amusing.

Worm Shuts Down CNN, ABC, NYT and My Blog

CNN.com - Worm strikes down Windows 2000 systems - Aug 16, 2005

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A fast-moving computer worm Tuesday shut down computer systems using Microsoft operating software, causing computer systems to crash across the United States and reportedly in Germany and Asia.

While the worm primarily affects Windows 2000, it also can affect some early versions of Microsoft XP, said Johannes Ullrich, director of the Sans Institute, a network security firm based in Jacksonville, Florida.

...

Among those hit were offices on Capitol Hill and media organizations, including CNN, ABC and The New York Times.

... and several of my computers too. No doubt CNN will update its list of casualties in later editions.

Re-Forestation: US versus Europe

I don't know who these people are but their analyses certainly runs counter to most people's perception of the fate of green spaces here and abroad:
2005 Environmental Index: The United States and Europe Compared: Forests p35

# Most of the deforestation in the United States took place between 1850 and 1900. America’s forest area has been stable for nearly a century, rising slightly over the last decade.

# In 2002, the continental United States had 622 million acres of forestland, about 32 percent of the total land area. At that time, Europe had 401 million acres of forestland, about 34 percent of total land area.

# Forestland is expanding more rapidly in the United States than in Europe—about four times faster, relative to overall land area.

Open Letter to the Designer

Effect Measure: Saturday Prayer

Cultured Meat

The moment of truth may be a few years off and the views of the world's great chefs are as yet unknown. But vegetarians would do well to address the issue now. Meat from once-living animals on the hoof is one thing. But what about meat derived from cells in a laboratory dish, where no animal suffering is involved and where the end product is healthier than anything produced on a farm?
Independent Online Edition

Let me address this right now. In principle I'd eat it happily. No suffering - no problem.

Of course, there are other ethical factors to consider. What sort of 'input' is needed to grow these cells? Many cells grown in culture require either plasma derived from animals, or cocktails of exotic factors that may be extremely resource intensive to derive. However, if muscle cells can be grown as meat in culture without animal products and at a reasonably environmental cost, I'm for it.

NYT Blames AP for Negative Iraq Coverage

NYT - Editors Ponder How to Present a Broad Picture of Iraq

For example, she said, the editors understood that it was much easier to add up the number of dead than to determine how many hospitals received power on a particular day or how many schools were built.

The NYT tacitly admits that the mainstream media coverage of Iraq is pathetic and largely confined to counting bodies. And apparently its because its easier to measure corpses than electricity. Pretty remarkable admission in my view - the media has now decayed to the point that it reports 'All the News that's Easiest to Print'. Probably explains the headlines given over to a sandstorm in Iraq last week - weather coverage is pretty much hassle free.

But this 'confession' is no more than a ploy. The AP, NYT and Co. consistently emphasize negative news from Iraq because they are implacably hostile to the Bush administration and secondarily to the war. Claiming their bias is somehow inadvertent is nonsense. Counting electricity is so easy even PECO can do it. And covering school openings is tricky? It's not like the media is being asked to infiltrate and expose the inside story on Al Qaeda.

40% of Food Wasted

For the last eight years, Jones has spearheaded a government-financed study that has documented how more than 40 percent of food grown in the United States is lost or thrown away - at a cost of at least $100 billion annually to the economy and over-taxing the soil and environment.

The article continues saying 10% of food at large fast food chains is wasted, 50% at small chains and 25% at convenience stores. Given the use of oil and water in agriculture, and the massive inefficiency in converting plant matter to meat, this represents an appalling waste of scarce resources.

The Guardian - New Role as Al Qaeda Trade Journal

Now the Guardian is publishing commentary pieces by Al-Qaeda shrills! Probably they overlooked Sa'ad al-Faiqih's affiliations. But this 1999 interview also hints that he's a pretty lousy commentator anyway:
frontline: hunting bin laden: interviews: dr. saad al-fagih | PBS

I have one final question. Does the average American tourist have reason to fear? ... Secondly, does the average American worker in an office in New York or Washington have reason to fear?

Well, you still have to fear from the 600 militia in America who have more power and more influence in America. ... The chance of having a terrorist attack by thousands of militia in America is probably one thousand times the chance of bin Laden in America. ... Of course there is a small risk of bin Laden doing something.

Debunk' the Myth?

The study, along with another one released in June, would appear to debunk the oft-held notion that science is incompatible with religion.

Those in the social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than researchers in the natural sciences, the study found.
Scientists' Belief in God Varies Starkly by Discipline

Which might also be interpreted as confirming the oft-held notion that social scientists aren't real scientists...

Holocaust Education Dutch Style

And now from the nation who gave more cooperation to the Nazis than any other...

AMSTERDAM — A video clip on the internet that advertised a techno dance party called Housewitz was just a tasteless joke.

MDI, a Dutch agency that deals with complaints about offensive material on the internet, revealed on Wednesday that 22-year-old economics student Dicky Thijssen has apologised for the offence caused by his video.

The video advertised a dance party called Housewitz on 4 May 2005, remembrance day in the Netherlands for the victims of World War II. No such dance party actually took place.
Expatica - Living in, moving to, or working in the Netherlands, plus Dutch news in English

Note the clever lad didn't use Srebrenica images.

Talk about leveraging taxpayer money...

A private company is teaming up with the Russians to send people around the moon. This may involve docking with the 'international' space station - the largely US financed $40 billion dollar boondoggle that's unnecessarily extending the life of the space shuttle program. The Russians are already financing their small share of space station costs by sending up tourists - wealthy businessmen who are enjoying the ultimate in luxury travel and massively leveraging US taxpayer funding for this useful hunk of metal. Now even if the space station was doing genuinely valuable research - which it isn't - this would be grossly unfair. But for US taxpayers to be forced to drop valuable space research projects in order to finance joyrides for billionaires? Shameful.
Private Company Plans $100 Million Tour Around the Moon - New York Times

Another Space Adventures client, Greg Olsen, who made millions in the sale of his camera technology company, Sensors Unlimited, is preparing to visit the space station for several days in October. Of the Moon trip, he said, 'It's certainly intriguing, and it's something I'd like to do.'

Dan Savage Speaketh

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish

IRAQ AND THE SINGLE SEX ADVICE COLUMNIST: I believe I was—correct me if I'm wrong—the only professional sex advice columnist in the United States, if not the world, to come out in favor of the invasion of Iraq.

Verizon are Thieves

Somehow their $35 monthly DSL service actually works out to $52 a month once special fees are included. Scoundrels. Worse, you ring to complain and are confronted with a computerized voice recognition service that specializes in creating a sense of confusion and frustration.