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Sunday, February 02, 2003
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: It appears that NASA missed the opportunity to rescue the Astronauts. --On Fri., Jan. 16: NASA’s flight director says a piece of what appeared to be foam insulation fell from the shuttle’s external tank just after launching and hit the shuttle’s left wing, but says NASA has “no concerns whatsoever,” and landing will proceed as planned. On Sat., Jan 31: As the shuttle Columbia returned to Earth, that same left wing started exhibiting sensor failures and other problems 23 minutes before Columbia was scheduled to touch down. With just 16 minutes to go before landing, the shuttle disintegrated over Texas.-- In retrospect, the left wing was obviously damaged at liftoff on Jan 16. If NASA has even acknowledged the possibility that the wing was damaged, things could have gone different. NASA could have lifted a second shuttle into orbit, rendezvoused with the Columbia, and transferred the astronauts to the rescue shuttle and brought them all safely home. But, they were sure the left wing was not damaged. What was the basis for this surety? They had not examined the wing. In their surety, they further neglected to order an emergency space walk by the astronauts to inspect the wing. Why? (02/03/02) | |
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The collective term we humans use to describe what we value is "wealth". Jared Diamond makes the point, that for 99.9% of the seven-million-years that our species has existed, we have been hunter-gatherers. And, for that same period, our species has been dominated by the adversary way, and all human values have been adversarial values. Physical force is what adversarial humans value most. The force to physically control other humans. Adversarial wealth is weapons, fighting men, horses, fortresses, that which gives me the adversarial advantage. In our modern world, adversarial wealth is B2 bombers, F15 fighter aircraft, aircraft carriers, tanks, military satellites, explosives of all types from hand grenades to nuclear weapons, trained soldiers and last but not least guns. ... Money is what neutral humans most value. The money to purchase help. Neutral wealth is any negotiable security – cash, stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, that which can be exchanged in the fair market. Neutral humanity uses money to purchase their wants and needs. By purchasing the actions of others with money, they seek to protect their own lives and well being. They seek to insure their individual survival and make their individual lives meaningful by ignoring others. ... In a synergic culture wealth is defined very differently. Synergic wealth is that which supports life for both self and other. It is mutual life support. Synergic wealth by definition excludes adversary wealth – physical force that hurts other human beings, and neutral wealth – money that ignores other human beings. Synergic humans recognize that interdependence is the human condition. They recognize that all humans need help unless they wish to live at the level of animal subsistence. They choose to help others and trust that others will choose to help them. They know that adversarial humans use coercion to force others help them. They know that help obtained with force or fraud is the lowest quality help because the helper is hurt. They know that neutral humans use money to buy help from others in the fair market. They know that help purchased in the market place is of average quality because the helper is ignored. They understand that synergic humans use co-Operation to attract help from others. They help others and trust others to help them. They know that help attracted by helping others is of highest quality because the helper is helped. (02/03/02) | |
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Washington Post -- Charles Krauthammer writes: My son long ago introduced me to the joys of the Onion, the hilarious Web site that features such parodies of the news as "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia; Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to be First Recipients." So when, on the night of the State of the Union address, my son handed me an Internet printout headlined "Iraq to Chair U.N. Disarmament Conference," I was sure he'd been dipping again into the Onion. "It's better than that, Dad," he said. "It's off CNN." I should have known. You can't parody the United Nations. It inhabits -- no, it has constructed -- a universe so Orwellian that, yes, Iraq is going to chair the May 12-June 27 session of the United Nations' single most important disarmament negotiating forum. Iran will co-chair. Defenders of the United Nations will write this off as a simple accident, pointing out that the chairmanship rotates alphabetically under the U.N. absurdity that grants all member states equal moral standing. Fine. How, then, do U.N. defenders explain the recent elevation of Libya to the chairmanship of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights? You couldn't make this one up either. It was no alphabetical accident. Libya was elected, by deliberate vote, by overwhelming vote -- 33 to 3. The seven commission members from the European Union, ever reliable in their cynicism, abstained. They will now welcome a one-party police state -- which specializes in abduction, assassination, torture and detention without trial -- to the chair of the United Nations' highest body charged with defending human rights. ... The United Nations is on the verge of demonstrating finally and fatally its moral bankruptcy and its strategic irrelevance: moral bankruptcy, because it will have made a mockery of the very resolution on whose sanctity it insists; strategic irrelevance, because the United States is going to disarm Iraq anyway. Having proved itself impotent in the Balkan crisis and now again in the Iraq crisis, the United Nations will sink once again into irrelevance. This time it will not recover. And the world will be better off for it. (02/03/03) | |
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New Scientist -- Transplants of fetal eye tissue seem to have improved the vision of two out of four people with a degenerative eye disease. It is too early to be sure the improvements are real and lasting, but on the strength of the results the team pioneering the surgery has asked regulators for permission to carry out further operations. Before the experimental surgery on her left eye a year ago, Elisabeth Bryant, who is 63, could barely see anything with it. "Now I can see people's eyes, noses and mouths when they're sitting across the room from me." Like the other patients in the trial, she has advanced retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary disease that causes degeneration of the retina. It affects around one in 3500 people in Western countries. ... Robert Aramant and Magdalene Seiler at the Doheny Eye Institute in Los Angeles think these obstacles can be overcome by transplanting a double layer of cells from the retinas of aborted fetuses. In their treatment, surgeons insert two-millimetre squares of tissue, which include the supporting layer of epithelial cells as well as the top layer of light-sensing rods and cones, behind the degenerating retina. The idea is that the epithelial cells, which nourish and support the light-sensing cells, will help halt the progress of any disease, while the retinal cells will replace those already lost. (02/03/02) | |
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The Daily Yomiuri -- An influenza epidemic forced 2,494 schools nationwide to either temporarily close or cancel certain classes during the week ending Jan. 25, according to a survey conducted by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The number of schools that either have closed or canceled selected classes since the start of the outbreak, including those closed during that period, has reached 3,667--three times as many as the previous week. However, ministry officials said the public did not need to panic over the outbreak as the epidemic has not been widespread. They cautioned: "To prevent influenza, people should avoid crowds and gargle and wash their hands well. Should they feel ill, they should see a doctor as soon as possible." According to a recent nationwide ministry survey of nurseries, kindergartens, primary and middle schools, about 129,000 children had suffered from influenza as of Jan. 25, up about 89,000 from the previous week's survey and about 10 times as many cases compared with the corresponding period last year. This year's outbreak started earlier than usual, the officials said, adding that the public may feel that this winter's epidemic has been more widespread due to the relatively limited outbreaks of the previous two years. (02/03/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Two decades of war have laid waste Afghanistan's environment so badly that its reconstruction is now compromised, the United Nations says. A UN Environment Programme (Unep) survey found more than half of Kabul's water supply is going to waste. It found children working 12-hour shifts in dangerous factories, and sleeping at their machines. More than half the forests in three Afghan provinces have been destroyed in 25 years. A team from Unep's Post-Conflict Assessment Unit worked with the Afghanistan Transitional Authority to carry out the survey. It involved 20 Afghan and foreign scientists in visits to 38 urban sites in four cities, and to 35 rural sites. ... In Herat, only 10% of the 150 public taps were working. (02/03/03) | |
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Calgary Herald -- A flu outbreak at a Calgary school and four other cases has prompted the city's health region to remind the public to get flu shots. "With the onset of these first cases of influenza, and especially with the cases in a school, it is only a matter of time before cases are reported in care centres and lodges," said Dr. Judy MacDonald, the Calgary Health Region's deputy medical officer of health. "It is important that those in the high-risk categories get a flu vaccine -- it is the most effective action that people can take to prevent themselves from getting the flu and infecting others." Flu season usually runs from October to the end of March. The number of yearly cases are hard to track because many go unreported. But last year, roughly 100 cases were reported. Four cases of influenza A have been reported to CHR officials since late December, with three of these in the last two weeks. An outbreak occurred at an unnamed Calgary junior high school this week. (02/03/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Millions of middle-aged Britons could soon be able to throw away their reading glasses. A new treatment, which reverses the damage caused to the eyes by ageing, has now become available in this country. The painless five minute procedure, called conductive keratoplasty (CK), uses radio waves to reshape the eye without surgery. Patients are first given anaesthetic drops to numb the eye. Doctors then use a tiny probe, which is as fine as human hair, to emit tightly-focused radio waves at specific points on the surface of the eye around the cornea. The number of points can range from eight to 32 depending on the severity of long-sightedness.This heat helps to slightly shrink the collagen in the eye. This in turn squeezes the cornea and steepens its curvature, correcting sight. The technique can be used on both eyes to correct long-sight. But it can also be used on just one eye. This is particularly useful for people who need glasses to read. They develop what is called "blended vision". They use one eye to read and the other to see in the distance. The procedure is painless and patients can return to work or drive home that day. The improvements are almost instant. (02/03/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Surgeons in Italy have carried out the world's first ever whole jaw transplant. In an 11-hour operation at Rome's Regina Elena Hospital, an 80-year-old man suffering from a cancerous tumour of the mouth received the new bone from a donor half his age. Membrane was taken from the patient's own arm to envelope the new jaw bone and to substitute the gums of the mouth. There are as many as 3,000 cases of cancer of the mouth in Italy each year - the majority of which are caused by smoking - and in 15% of cases the tumour is too diffuse to be removed by traditional invasive surgery. (02/03/03) | |
http://www.synearth.net/
9:35:28 PM 
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Thom Hartmann writes: The respected Washington, DC publication The Hill has confirmed that former conservative radio talk-show host and now Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel was the head of, and continues to own part interest in, the company that owns the company that installed, programmed, and largely ran the voting machines that were used by most of the citizens of Nebraska. Back when Hagel first ran there for the U.S. Senate in 1996, his company's computer-controlled voting machines showed he'd won stunning upsets in both the primaries and the general election. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely Black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. Six years later Hagel ran again, this time against Democrat Charlie Matulka in 2002, and won in a landslide. As his website says, Hagel "was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska." What Hagel's website fails to disclose is that about 80 percent of those votes were counted by computer-controlled voting machines put in place by the company affiliated with Hagel. Built by that company. Programmed by that company. (02/02/03) | |
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Abraham, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus understood the underlying connectedness of all humanity. Their admonitions to us contain high awareness of our human INTERdependence. This is why they taught us not to kill, not to steal, not to molest, not to fraud, not to coerce. They understood that the conflict of Adversity was not for humankind. They understood that the indifference of Neutrality was not for humankind. They understood that humans were meant to be Synergists. So, they taught us to be our brother's keeper. (02/02/03) | |
7:47:34 AM
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
2/28/2003; 12:46:52 AM.
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