- Hormones Linked to Dementia in Women:
- Women who take hormones for years run a higher risk of Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, according to yet another startling study that turns upside down what doctors have long believed about supplements.
- Seeing Islam as ‘Evil’ Faith, Evangelicals Seek Converts:
- “Here in the Koran, it says slay them, slay the infidels!” said the teacher, who said he did not want to be identified because being a missionary to Muslims put his life at risk. “In the Bible there are no words from Jesus saying we should kill innocent people.”
God’s invitation to the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites to the last man is an obvious example of how this argument against Islam is ludicrous. In fact, it only points out the dangers associated with religious zealotry of any flavor.
- An American road map will lead nowhere:
- So how is Sharon going to handle Bush’s road map? He will envelop it in kind words while simultaneously slowing it down with reservations. He will try to hold out until the 2004 American presidential elections, trusting that the Palestinians will deliver the final death blow to the plan with their insane and self-defeating terrorism. Sharon is counting on Bush not to repeat the mistake of his father, who, while campaigning for a second term, took on the state of Israel and its loyal American Jews, and subsequently lost his job.
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May 03
Hormones Linked to Dementia in
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May 03
Linkage
- U.S. Youths Rebel at Harsh School:
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Students said Mr. Lichfield set up a system typical of Wwasps programs. Children were divided into six levels, the lower ones forbidden to speak freely or raise their eyes, the higher ones free to discipline and punish inferiors. A muscular cadre of minimum-wage staff members enforced the system. Communication between parents and children was barred or closely edited. Parents were told that complaints from children were manipulative lies.
- Proposal: Webcams to keep homeland safe:
- But if onsite cameras beamed photos to the World Wide Web, Americans could monitor these sites from home. If they spied a potential attacker — a masked man trying to scale a power plant fence, or a van parked next to a reservoir — they could alert security agents with a click of the mouse. Agents would call local authorities and help avert disaster.
- HP’s Linux Laptops Prove Popular
- Putin and Hu Find Common Ground on Korea and Iraq:
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As permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the two countries opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq, but have now backed the U.S. plan for post-war development. Both leaders reaffirmed their common view on Iraq, saying the role of the United Nations had to be central to its future reconstruction. On energy, a fast-growing area of joint economic interest, Hu and Putin agreed to strengthen cooperation, including building a pipeline that will allow Russia to boost exports and help China diversify its imports.
- Texas education funding tied to tuition deregulation:
- Yet, if House Speaker Tom Craddick gets his way, more than $500 million in the total higher education budget could still vanish unless lawmakers agree to immediate and complete deregulation of college tuition.
When you hear the words deregulation check for your wallet.
- NY Times: Trust in the Military Heightens Among Baby Boomers’ Children:
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Researchers argue that the trend in part reflects simple experience. Young people coming of age during quick and successful military actions, like the Persian Gulf war in 1991 — “It looked and felt like a video game, and America won it decisively,” Professor King said — or the action in Iraq this year are quite likely to have very different attitudes from those who came of age during the Vietnam War.
- China bans eating wild animals
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May 03
Cultural decay or just evolution?
I wonder if kids are getting stupid or if it’s just changing. Are we losing something when we can’t write papers?
Boston Globe Online: Writing term papers has become a lost art:
Although some students and critics contend that teachers are lazier than in the past, many educators say they can’t grade piles of papers for overcrowded classes while trying to meet the increased demands of standardized testing, many of which involve multiple-choice questions. Other teachers believe that term papers are meaningless exercises, because the Internet has made plagiarism more common and difficult to spot. And many say long (10- to 15-page) research papers are pointless, because many students’ basic writing skills are weak and are more likely to improve with shorter and more frequent assignments.
A report released recently by the National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges, a panel of academics gathered by the College Board, found that 75 percent of high school seniors never receive writing assignments in history or social studies. The study also found that a major research and writing project required in the senior year of high school ”has become an educational curiosity, something rarely assigned.” In addition, by the first year of college, more than 50 percent of freshmen are unable to analyze or synthesize information or produce papers free of language errors.
The commission chairman, C. Peter Magrath, blamed societal changes. ”We don’t write letters anymore, because we use telephone and e-mail and watch television,” he said.
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May 03
I’ve been thinking the same thing
Newsday.com – Assad Doubts Existence of al-Qaida:
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KUWAIT CITY — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published Sunday that he doubts the existence of al-Qaida, the terror group blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks and recent strikes in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
“Is there really an entity called al-Qaida? Was it in Afghanistan? Does it exist now?” Assad asked, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anba.
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic extremist who heads al-Qaida, “cannot talk on the phone or use the Internet, but he can direct communications to the four corners of the world?” Assad said. “This is illogical.”
Such speculation is popular among some in the Arab world who say Washington has manufactured or exaggerated the threat posed by al-Qaida in order to paint Muslims as dangerous.
He makes a good point. It is a catchall for extremist militancy. Maybe ‘terrorism’ is the only way possible to fight global hegemony on an even footing.
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May 03
U.S. troops under fire again
U.S. troops under fire again in Iraq, two killed:
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The casualties from the attack with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms in Falluja were the heaviest suffered by U.S. forces in a single incident since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.
It brought to four the number of fatalities in 24 hours from ”hostile actions.” …
It was the second attack on U.S. troops reported from Falluja in recent days. Last Wednesday, U.S. soldiers killed two people in retaliatory fire.
Some Falluja residents interviewed by Reuters in recent weeks have expressed nostalgia for the days of Saddam. In two incidents late last month, U.S. forces opened fire on angry crowds, killing at least 15 people, according to witnesses.
Two American soldiers were killed and four wounded in two ambushes on Monday, one in Baghdad and one north of the capital.
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May 03
US adds power to India’s
US adds power to India’s Israeli links:
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Both moves highlight the burgeoning alliance between the two most potent non-Islamic militaries in the Middle East and South Asia, a trend that has the enthusiastic support of Bush administration hawks, particularly in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. That alliance will again be spotlighted with next month’s scheduled visit to India by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
While Israel sees India as a comrade in the fight against Islamic militants, the US has a somewhat broader agenda to pursue with New Delhi, particularly its possible role as a counter-balance to China, which US hawks see as Washington’s strategic competitor in Asia. “India is the most overlooked of our potential allies in a strategy to contain China,” according to Lloyd Richardson of the Hudson Institute, a think tank very close to the administration.
With India determined to build a naval force capable of projecting power into the South China Sea, says Conn Hallinan, an analyst at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Washington has especially courted India’s navy, most recently with the Malabar IV joint exercises involving thousands of sailors and pilots from both countries.
Not coincidentally, some of the biggest boosters of US-Indian military ties both in and outside the Bush administration are also prominent neo-conservatives with close ties to Israel’s ruling Likud Party.
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May 03
India rediscovers kama
Asia Times: India rediscovers kama:
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It was the land of Mahabharat, the greatest epic known to mankind, where Lord Krishna, whose divine exhortations are contained in the Bhagwad Gita, could be worshipped with his beloved Radha, who was someone else’s spouse, perhaps that of his maternal uncle. It was the land of Khajuraho temples depicting copulating couples and multiples on its inner walls that prudes consider pornographic. It was the land of Kalidasa, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets who celebrated sex with an openness unparalleled in world literature.
With its decline, for some obscure reason ascribed to a natural cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations, India turned prudish and guilt-ridden about free sex. The introduction of Islamic and Judeo-Christian morality did not help. India ceased to be proud of Khajuraho and Kalidas. Krishna and Radha were still worshipped together, but children would not be told about their open illicit love affair. Both kama (sensual pleasure) and artha (wealth creation), the two essential aspects of the Indian way of life (dharma) suffered. India ceased being itself.
But as artha was revitalized with the introduction of new economic policies of liberalization and globalization and new technologies such as computers and the Internet in the early 1990s, it seems now that kama too has made a comeback. Perhaps the two go together.
Several sex surveys carried out recently point to a definite resurgence of guilt-free extramarital sex, as much on the initiative of women now as it was on the bidding of men before. Commenting on the findings of the KamaSutra Cross Tab Sex Survey 2003, conducted in association with Indiatimes, published on Thursday, sex expert Prakash Kothari said, “One can easily kiss that crummy era goodbye. A nation of 1 billion is getting sexy and kicking the guilt.” Psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh, MD, is jubilant: Finally, “it” is happening in India.
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May 03
Stupid stupid
Today, when I logged in to update my website I discovered everything was hopelessly screwed up. Namely my webhost did a little upgrading but was a little sloppy. The Perl modules weren’t upgraded and when they upgraded Berkeley DB it wouldn’t read my old database files. Argh. Consequently, no comments or anything which accessed or used the database would work. Luckily, I am not too bad at fixing things, and it was a real learning experience.
Note: Thanks, Phillip, for the help.
