Monday, November 10, 2003

The Struggle for Russia Stephen F. Cohenwrites: The arrest last month of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the principal owner of Russia's biggest oil company, Yukos, and the richest of the country's seventeen state-anointed billionaire oligarchs, on charges of fraud and tax evasion has put Russia back in the forefront of US media attention. But is the story being reported the full, or essential, one? It's being told as follows. Although Khodorkovsky, like all of Russia's "wealthy businessmen," acquired his company (currently valued at roughly $45 billion) at little if any cost to himself through "murky" insider dealings in the 1990s, when the enormous natural resources of the former Soviet state were being privatized under then-President Boris Yeltsin, he has since transformed Yukos into a model for a new capitalist, democratic Russia--"transparent," exceedingly profitable, even philanthropic. So much so that it has helped fuel a Russian "economic rebound" while becoming a potential source of oil for the United States. Unlike other, less "clean" oligarchs, the story continues, Khodorkovsky is being persecuted by President Vladimir Putin chiefly because the oil baron became active in Russia's democratic politics, funding opposition parties in next month's parliamentary elections and even aspiring to the presidency. To crush Khodorkovsky and make an example of him, Putin is relying on a Kremlin faction he has recruited largely from the KGB, where he began his own career, which wants Yukos's wealth for itself. The result will therefore be a grievous blow to Russia's "booming economy" and democracy, replacing free-market-oriented "liberal oligarchs" with much worse and less efficient ones and driving away needed foreign investment. ... Various motives are behind the Khodorkovsky affair, but none would matter if that system had not failed to alleviate Russia's most profound problems. After a decade, and despite a purported "economic boom"--really little more than a bubble inflated by high world oil prices--most of the country's essential industrial, agricultural and social infrastructure is still starved for investment and disintegrating. The human toll continues to grow in the form of more poverty, disease, crime, premature deaths and homeless children. From the vast provinces beyond "booming" Moscow, one hears persistent reports that "Russia is dying." And indeed, the population is shrinking by nearly a million people a year.   (11/10/03) TIME-BINDING: The General Theory (II) Alfred Korzybski writes: THE present paper is the outline of a further elaboration of Time-Binding, The General Theory. presented before the International Mathematical Congress of 1924 in Toronto, Canada, to be referred to here as the General Theory (G. T.). Nearly two years have elapsed since its publication, and I am happy to find that I have nothing to retract. I find it wise, however, to amplify that former outline to furnish those who use the Anthropometer (to be referred to as the A.), which is now available, with more adequate information. The present paper is written for a very limited class of readers, namely, those already familiar with my work and who are willing to look over the references indicated in the G. T. and here. I assume therefore that the reader is acquainted with quite a number of subjects. Both papers are outlines and far from exhaustive. I emphasize only special points which are known but disregarded in general, or else not known. Usually all the additions that an intelligent and unprejudiced reader can make to this outline are foreseen and legitimate; most of the possible objections of the old kind are also not disregarded, but the theory takes care of them in the form and by the method in which it is expressed. Quite often I use at present words admittedly vague; it would be impossible to make them more exact without expanding this paper into many chapters. In most cases this vagueness is intentional, to be eliminated in a fuller exposition to be published later. It should never be forgotten that the G. T. as outlined in this and in the preceding works is deliberately treated as a branch of natural science; it is descriptive, but in a language allowing fewer incorrect inductions and deductions than the older forms of representation. It is not a speculation, which gives me more freedom in handling and adjusting, the system to facts known in 1926. The main difficulties encountered by the mature reader are precisely in this new, non-familiar form of representation, while he has already a mature and established habit of thinking in the old terms of his language, which may give quite different characteristics, or emphasis. Quite often objections in one form of representation are eliminated in another form because they are purely verbal and due to habits hundreds of thousands of years old, and to unrevised premises and creeds. My work is deliberately a non-aristotelian system, to follow up which, to the point of familiarity, is inherently difficult—as difficult perhaps as the study of the non-euclidian systems. The Greek gods are still potent, firmly rooted in our habits and in the structure of the generally accepted form of representation. Historically non-aristotelian attempts have been even more numerous than the non-euclidian, but no system has been built as yet to the best of my knowledge. The primitive form of representation which Aristotle inherited, his metaphysics, and his philosophical grammar, which we call "logic," are strictly interconnected, so much so that one leads to the other. In my non-aristotelian system I reject Aristotle's metaphysics (circa 350 B. C.) and accept modern science (1926) as my metaphysics. I reject his postulate that man is an animal, the postulate of uniqueness of subject-predicate representation, the postulate of cause in the form he had it, the elementalism of "percept" and "concept," his theory of definitions, his postulate of cosmical validity of grammar, his predilection for intensional methods, etc., etc. I accept man as a man, use functional representation whenever needed, expand the two-term relation cause-effect into a series, introduce organism as-a-whole form of representation in the language of time-binding, orders of abstractions, accept postulational methods as the foundation for a theory of definitions and therefore of meaning. which bridges the conscious with the unconscious, introduce modern "logical existence," relations, differential and four dimensional methods, use the extensional methods, etc., etc., and so build up my system. ... (11/10/03) Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid! New Scientist -- Forty per cent of all the health injections given globally in 2000 were performed with reused needles, according to a World Health Organization study. In some countries, three out of four injections were unsafe. The researchers say that reusing needles contributes to the spread of numerous blood borne infections, including hepatitis B and C, HIV, malaria, septicaemia and viral haemorrhagic fevers. The study should bolster efforts in the US Senate to push through a bill that requires a minimum $75 million of the AIDS funding for Africa to be used on injection and blood safety. "It's so easy to fix and so inexpensive to do," says the WHO's Yvan Hutin, who led the study. He believes that providing developing countries with safe injection kits, such as needles that cannot be reused, should be a priority.  The new research draws together data from 25 published studies on injection practices in developing countries. Perhaps surprisingly, the analysis did not reveal the same pattern shown by other measures of healthcare effectiveness. For example, unsafe injections make up around three-quarters of the total in some South East Asian countries and in the Middle East. But in Sub-Saharan Africa, where levels of HIV are high, the proportion is much lower at 17 to 19 per cent. Eastern European injection safety is also relatively poor, with 10 per cent of using recycled equipment. The risk posed by this is compounded by the fact that patients in the region receive on average about 11 injections per year, compared with about four in South East Asia and two in Africa. The researchers think the relatively low rate of unsafe injections in Africa is due to a greater awareness of the dangers prompted by the AIDS epidemic. "Re-use of syringes and needles has become socially pretty unacceptable," says Hutin. He cites a 2001 study in Burkina Faso which suggests that 52 per cent of patients were aware of the dangers. (11/10/03) Nanotech Tool for Police New Scientist -- Oil-seeking nanoparticles could give police the clearest fingerprints yet, suggests new research. Law enforcement officers currently search for prints by dusting a crime scene with fluorescent powder. This sticks to the oily residue left by the fingertip, showing up the whorls and ridges. But sometimes the prints are not clear enough to finger a suspect. The new dust made of sticky nanoparticles could help. The powders used today work because oily prints have a natural tackiness. But the nanoparticle dust being developed at the University of Sunderland in the UK will actively seek out any oil.The nanoparticles are tiny glass spheres between 200 and 600 nanometres in diameter. As well as being speckled with a fluorescent dye, they are coated with hydrophobic molecules, which are repelled by water and attracted to oil. So they fix tightly to the fingerprint. (11/10/03) British May Restrict Cattle Movement BBC Health -- The movement of cattle could be restricted under government plans to eradicate bovine tuberculosis. The minister responsible for animal health, Ben Bradshaw, told BBC Radio 4's Farming Today This Week programme that farmers would be consulted on the issue soon. He said he expected opposition from some following his decision to stop killing badgers, which are suspected of spreading the disease. Farmers have described the decision to halt badger culling in areas surrounding farms where there have been outbreaks of bovine TB as "a dereliction of duty". It is estimated that bovine TB could cost taxpayers up to £1 billion in compensation to UK farmers. Just last month, vets ordered the slaughter of an entire herd of cattle on a farm in Lanarkshire following an outbreak of the disease. Cases are mostly dealt with by killing only the infected animals and monitoring the rest. (11/10/03) Solar Flare Biggest Ever BBC Science -- Solar scientists have confirmed that Tuesday's explosion on the Sun was, by far, the biggest flare ever recorded, capping an energetic solar period. Powerful flares get an "X" designation. Prior to this week, the biggest ever seen was X20. Last Tuesday's was X28. The blast sent billions of tonnes of superhot gas into space - some of it directed towards our planet. In the past fortnight, space weather forecasters have been busy tracking the impact of geomagnetic storms on Earth. Astronomers say that Tuesday's flare was by far the biggest ever observed. There had been a build-up to it with an X8 and an X3 event on Sunday. And on Monday, there was an X3 flare followed by smaller ones. The previous week had seen X7 and X10 events that took place back-to-back. Tuesday's flare went off the scale; at the time researchers said it was "well above X20". A precise description was difficult because some monitoring satellites were briefly blinded by the scale of the event. Now, scientists have had time to asses its importance, classifying Tuesday's event as X28. The associated coronal mass ejection (CME) came out of the Sun's surface at about 2,300 kilometres per second (8.2 million km/h). (11/10/03) 8:18:59 AM

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