Thursday, December 05, 2002

It's Simple: Either America will Win or You will Lose Nicholas Berry writes: The U.S. president has adopted a simple foreign policy approach. "Either you are for us or against us." This fork-in-the-road approach can only be adopted by the world's most powerful state because it alone has the capability to amply endow benefits on those "for us" and to withdraw benefits and inflict heavy costs on those "against us." The lone superpower can afford to make its foreign policy contingent on the behavior of other governments. President George W. Bush's United States is sufficiently secure to let other governments choose their foreign policies because Washington can deal with whatever policies they select. This approach also contains a moral element. Whether a lesser nation gets no rewards or incurs punishment is not up to the superpower. The superpower's hands are clean. Rogue states and members of the "axis of evil" have put themselves in these immoral categories. Their suffering will be their own fault. Bush's approach is designed to identify and maximize friends. The ability to reward generously makes lots of friends. And since the U.S. response to foes guarantees penalties, this foreign policy is also designed to discourage foes. Simple. And some would say simply grand if one is the superpower.  (12/05/02) Approaches to Natural Ethics Donivan Bessinger, MD writes: We turn to a consideration of natural ethic. Though a natural ethic is grounded in all reality, most of the major lessons are derived from a study of life systems. Let us review those lessons:  (1) The universe with all of its subsystems is highly interactive. These interactions are manifest in many levels, and no subsystem can be understood without reference to at least the level below and the level above the reference level.  (2) Life is ordered toward the survival of the individual and the species. Meeting the survival needs of individuals and species is the primary ethical consideration. Life has needs which must be met. Natural ethics must affirm that there are not merely oughts; there are also ethical musts.  (3) Life-forms interact in a niche, that is, they must assume a functional position in the environment, contributing to and depending on, other life. No life can exist apart from other life. In the chain of life, all forms of life have value. No life is less important than an individual link in a chain.  (4) Life systems, and all other systems in the universe, function toward balance, not towards "perfection" (as that word is commonly used). This homeostatic principle is the major ordering force in all self-sustaining systems. Survival requires that excesses must be negated or moderated.  (5) All systems are evolutionary, tending toward the emergence of new form and function. That is not to say that life systems affirm a philosophy of social progress. Rather, it says that existence is a state not of being, but of becoming.  (6) Life is limited in its individual aspect. Death is a normal part of individual life. This lesson is especially pertinent to medical practice. Medicine does not give life; life is the given in which medical (and all other) practice functions. Ethical actions may only help restore life's own balance, but are ultimately limited in the ability to do so.  (7) Life requires the conjoining of both generative (male) and nurturing (female) creative functions. The conjoining must occur organically as the reproducing function within all sexual species. However, human survival also requires creativity in the maintaining and the fulfilling functions, such as the care of young, the ordering and promulgation of knowledge and its products, and the maintenance of the human spirit of awareness and inquiry. In that creativity too, all aspects of masculine and feminine expression must be balanced. Neither male nor female function can be deemed dominant or preferred.  (8) Where consciousness is sufficiently developed to permit willful action, consciousness carries the potential to negate unconscious homeostatic regulation. Survival requires the orderly functioning of consciousness. Homeostasis of the conscious domain must be imposed by conscious will.  (12/05/02) Fiddling While the Earth Burns New York Times: Science -- WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 — On Tuesday, the Bush administration convenes a three-day meeting here to set its new agenda for research on climate change. But many climate experts who will attend say talking about more research will simply delay decisions that need to be made now to avert serious harm from global warming. ... Tthe Bush administration is resisting calls for quick action. Its focus on more research comes straight from the president. In his first speech on climate, in June 2001, Mr. Bush defended the need for more research by saying, "No one can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided."  ... Scientists say, allowing things to go on as they are is like making minimum payments on a credit card while still using it: the balance grows and grows. In the long run, almost all experts agree, stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will be a century-plus process that will necessitate eliminating — or capturing — all releases of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. That will require a fundamental shift to energy technologies that do not yet exist. But it also requires emission cuts in the next decade or so, even as trends for such emissions are sharply up. "We will probably need everything in the tool kit to cut emissions enough to stop the worst things from happening," said David D. Doniger, the director of climate policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group. "A long-term technology program is definitely in order, but we also need to be acting now with the technology available now." (12/05/02) Video Games Damage Brain Cells ? UPI Science News -- Hours of playing violent video games can affect the way the brain works on a cellular level, causing misfiring of signals between nerve cells or slowing brain activity, researchers reported Monday. The researchers said the adverse effects are most apparent among teens that are diagnosed with a condition called disruptive behavior disorder or DBD. These kids, according to Dr. Vincent P. Mathews of the University of Indiana Medical School in Indianapolis, are the ones most likely to "act out by harming animals or property or fighting with other kids." When he used a high tech scanning device called functional magnetic resonance imaging to track brain function in adolescents with DBD, he discovered "less activity in the frontal lobes." The frontal lobe is the area of the brain that controls emotions and impulses as well as attention span. Moreover when the DBD kids were exposed to violent video games, "there was even less activity," Mathews said. He presented his findings at the 88th Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. (12/05/02) 7:07:01 AM

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