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Wednesday, January 29, 2003
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: In 1921, Alfred Korzybski, a mathematician and scientist, classified Life with precise and accurate operational definitions of plants, animals, and humans. He defined the plants as energy-binders, the animals as space-binders, and we humans as time-binders. Korzybski explained that the plants adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of energy. The animals adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of space. And we humans adapt to our environment through our awareness and control of time. ... Plants possess the power of energy-binding which is growth and organization. Animals possess the power of space-binding which is mobility and some of the power of energy-binding. Humans possess the power of time-binding which is understanding, and some of the power of space-binding and some of the power of energy-binding. The natural law of plants is Neutrality – they ignore other. The natural law of animals is Adversity – they hurt other. The natural law of humans is Synergy – they help other. Plants have no relationship with other. They are the independent class of life. Animals depend on others as a source of food. They are the dependent class of life. Their lives are filled with conflict – the struggle to avoid being hurt. Humans share the animal body and physiologically we depend on others as a source of food. However, psychologically and socially, sometimes we depend on others and sometimes others depend on us. We are the interdependent class of life. Interdependence gives us humans the option for co-Operation. (01/30/03) | |
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The total costs to American, including both the direct and indirect expenses of a new war with Iraq, might exceed $1 trillion ( 1 million million dollars) plus the unquantified suffering of the American combatants their families, and the rest of us. But this is not the true cost of the war. As Andrew J. Galambos stated: “Humans develop evermore powerful knowledge and therefore evermore powerful tools. When tools are used to harm other humans they are called weapons. Since human knowledge can grow without limit then tools themselves can be made without limit. And limitless tools can will produce limitless weapons.” And, limitless weapons (progress) combined with leveraged adversity (warfare) must by all definitions and understanding of science produce human extinction. In the 1983 movie WARGAMES, NORAD’s computer — Joshua realizes after playing out all possible outcomes for Global Thermonuclear War: “A strange game, the only winning move is not to play.” (01/30/03) | |
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The site has been getting a lot of hits recently. In the last week alone over 500,000 page views, or approx. 140,000 people. Yikes! And you're all coming to see the Gulf War game. (01/29/03) | |
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The Observer -- Paradox: Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help - Iraq. Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela. After the loss of 1.5 million barrels per day of Venezuelan production in December the oil price rocketed, and the scarcity of reserves threatened to do permanent damage to the US oil refinery and transport infrastructure. To keep the pipelines flowing, President Bush stopped adding to the 700m barrel strategic reserve. But ultimately oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell saved the day by doubling imports from Iraq from 0.5m barrels in November to over 1m barrels per day to solve the problem. Essentially, US importers diverted 0.5m barrels of Iraqi oil per day heading for Europe and Asia to save the American oil infrastructure. The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN's oil for food programme. (01/30/03) | |
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On the lighter side. ; >) If you liked that one you might enjoy a visit to Home Despot. (01/30/03) | |
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Washington Post -- Norman Schwarzkopf wants to give peace a chance. The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq. ... Some at the top of the Army see Rumsfeld and those around him as overly enamored of air power and high technology and insufficiently attentive to the brutal difficulties of ground combat. Schwarzkopf's comments reflect Pentagon scuttlebutt that Rumsfeld and his aides have brushed aside some of the Army's concerns. "The Rumsfeld thing . . . that's what comes up," when he calls old Army friends in the Pentagon, he says. "When he makes his comments, it appears that he disregards the Army," Schwarzkopf says. "He gives the perception when he's on TV that he is the guy driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him -- or else." That dismissive posture bothers Schwarzkopf because he thinks Rumsfeld and the people around him lack the background to make sound military judgments by themselves. He prefers the way Cheney operated during the Gulf War. "He didn't put himself in the position of being the decision-maker as far as tactics were concerned, as far as troop deployments, as far as missions were concerned." Rumsfeld, by contrast, worries him. "It's scary, okay?" he says. "Let's face it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that training, is of concern." As a result, Schwarzkopf is skeptical that an invasion of Iraq would be as fast and simple as some seem to think.(01/30/03) | |
10:41:43 PM 
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: All human choices and all human relationships can be described as falling on a continuum. ... Each participant determines for himself whether a relationship is synergic or adversary. This is determined from his point of view, and he cannot be fooled. He is either more happy, more effective, more productive because of the relationship; or he is less happy, less effective, less productive because of the relationship, or he is unchanged by the relationship. The truth is in the eye of the beholder. (01/29/03) | |
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George Monbiot writes: Mr Bush and Mr Blair might have a tougher fight than they anticipated. Not from Saddam Hussein perhaps - although it is still not obvious that they can capture and hold Iraq's cities without major losses - but from an anti-war movement that is beginning to look like nothing the world has seen before. It's not just that people have begun to gather in great numbers even before a shot has been fired. It's not just that they are doing so without the inducement of conscription or any other direct threat to their welfare. It's not just that there have already been meetings or demonstrations in almost every nation on Earth. It's also that the campaign is being coordinated globally with an unprecedented precision. And the people partly responsible for this are the members of a movement which, even within the past few weeks, the mainstream media has pronounced extinct. Last year, 40,000 members of the global justice movement gathered at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This year, more than 100,000, from 150 nations, have come - for a meeting! The world has seldom seen such political assemblies since Daniel O'Connell's "monster meetings" in the 1840s. Far from dying away, our movement has grown bigger than most of us could have guessed. (01/29/03) | |
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New York Times -- Earlier this month, at the North American International Auto Show here, G.M. — previously the industry's most vocal skeptic — publicly embraced the technology. The company said it would sell a hybrid version of its Saturn Vue sport utility vehicle in 2005 that would approach 40 miles a gallon in fuel economy, compared with mileage in the low 20's for current models. G.M. said it would offer vehicles with more limited forms of hybrid power, too, promising 10 to 15 percent improvements in fuel economy on four other models by 2007. ... A hybrid's battery is recharged by the internal combustion engine and by collecting energy when the car brakes. The battery powers an electric motor that supplements, or takes over for, the gasoline-powered engine. In the Honda Civic hybrid, an electric motor assists when the car is climbing hills or accelerating sharply. In the Toyota Prius, the electric motor takes over at low speeds. In both, the gas engine shuts off when the car stops. ... Hybrids, vehicles that save gasoline by combining electric motors with internal combustion engines, are emerging as the first alternative-powered cars to show signs of catching on with automakers and some consumers since the automobile's early days. (01/29/03) | |
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Asahi Shimbun -- Monday's ruling in the Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court on the prototype fast breeder-reactor Monju questions not only the effectiveness of safety inspections but also the nation's nuclear energy policy by challenging the intent of a policy that uses plutonium in fast breeder-reactors. The key point of the ruling is that it invalidates approval for installation of a reactor, thus exercising the authority to prevent operation of the reactor. In previous rulings in similar court cases, courts have found safety standards and executive decisions valid, as long as there was no clear illegality or defect in operation. But the Monju ruling adds the position that a plan can be invalidated if there is a large, even though unspecified, flaw in the assessment of the potential danger of nuclear reactors. ... Japan has 52 nuclear power plants. A key aim of the government is to establish a nuclear fuel cycle that uses plutonium in fast breeder-reactors. If that objective is obscured in the future, the nation's international vow not to possess surplus plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons would also be questioned. (01/29/03) | |
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BBC Business -- It is comforting how a little history can put everything into perspective. If you think things looked bleak in the first half of 2002, spare a thought for 28 October 1929, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 12.8%. Or the day after, when it lost a further 11.7%. Or indeed the great granddaddy of them all, 19 October 1987 - aka Black Monday - when the US market lost almost one-quarter of its value in a few hours. And then there are the bear markets, where shares die the death of 1,000 cuts, suffering agonising losses stretched imperceptibly over months or even years. Measured against the mightiest of these, the current share slump may not look impressive - but it is catching up fast. ... As of 15 July 2002, the FTSE 100 is 24% down from its mid-May peak, and some 43% off its all-time high of 6,930 points on the last trading day of 1999. The more sedate Dow is only some 17% off in this latest flurry, and 26% down from its historical high. Which, depending on your point of view, either means that things are not so bad, or that they have miles further to fall. (01/29/03) | |
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The London Guardian -- The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today said for the first time that Iraq was in "material breach" of UN demands for it to disarm, and conceded that war had become more likely since the beginning of the year. Iraq would be left open to "serious consequences" under the terms of a UN resolution passed in November if the security council was to agree with Mr Straw's opinion. He had previously put the odds on war at 60-40 against, but today said that Iraq's "unbelievable refusal" to comply with the resolution had lessened the chances of a peaceful end to the crisis. Mr Straw's comments follow yesterday's report on Iraq's compliance with UN demands by senior weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohammed el-Baradei, who spoke to the 15-nation security council. Mr Blix said that Iraq had not come to a "genuine acceptance" of the need for disarmament, and accused Baghdad of lying about its stockpiles of VX gas, anthrax and plans to develop long-range missiles. "As of today, according to the reports we have received, Iraq is now in further material breach," Mr Straw told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. "So it is profoundly serious for Iraq." (01/29/03) | |
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Kathryn Casa writes: This country today is poised on the precipice of a war that could alter the world as we know it -- a conflict that could fundamentally change who we are as a nation, the rights we enjoy and the way the rest of the world relates to us. War's curtain call shrouds pressing domestic priorities including jobs creation, environmental protection, health insurance and education. In his State of the Union speech tonight, George W. Bush is expected to promote his new economic stimulus package. Doubtless we will also hear more arguments in favor of the push for war with Iraq, and rhetoric dismissive of the European position against such action. What we are not likely to hear is the other state of the union -- the one that a war with Iraq would so helpfully obscure. Statistics compiled recently by the minority staff of the House Appropriations Committee reflect the precarious nature of our situation. They hold a mirror to the country George Bush does not want us to see. (01/28/03) | |
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New York Times -- President Bush had two dress rehearsals yesterday for his State of the Union speech, one in the morning and another in the late afternoon, as he put finishing touches on another address that the capital is once again calling the speech of his life. Mr. Bush also had a private lunch with Vice President Dick Cheney, then met with a group of newspaper and magazine columnists to preview his speech. Today, he is to have lunch with the television anchors and Sunday news program hosts who will comment on his speech throughout the week. Among them are Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert of NBC and Peter Jennings and George Stephanopoulos of ABC. As the expectations continued to build for a State of the Union address that was being talked about in historic proportions, at least among the capital's chattering class, White House officials cast Mr. Bush as the relaxed center of the storm. He was only making small revisions in the speech, they said. ... The speech is tonight at 9:00 PM EST. (01/28/03) | |
3:44:06 AM
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
2/2/2003; 7:50:43 AM.
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