Read this Reuter's report on the Sunni Shiia divide in Pakistan.
More than 300 Shi'ites have been killed in Pakistan so far this year in sectarian conflict, according to human rights groups....--------------------------------------------
The risks are heightened by Pakistan's long-standing role as a battlefield in a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran, which have been competing for influence in Asia and the Middle East since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Aussie Brendan O'Neill writes in the UK Telegraph about the disdain of the US press for the hoi polloi:
Behind this is the old idea of the "philosopher king": only the wise should judge, and that the proletariot only votes for personality.
But if that is true, why is the roboRomney is ahead in the polls?
----------------------------------------
Making political hay on rape again.
The anchoress says it was dumb to talk theology during an election, but points out that the press will use this to to distract the public from very real questions about Benghazi, and adds:
They (the press) were going for strident bumper-sticker speech, which is much less threatening, and challenging, than contemplating the age-old question (Book of Job, anyone? Crucifix, anyone?) of whether God sometimes allows evil to happen so that something great may later come of it.It’s actually a very broad-minded question, and an invitation to talk and think about things larger than ourselves and our prideful ideas.If there is no God, no problem. The person in question is an A$$$$$$$$. Abort the kid and let mom get along with her life.
But if there is a God, you have to confront two deep questions:
One: The problem of evil. Why is there evil? Why does God allow evil to occur?
Two: can you do an action that it evil because you see it will have good result?
Religious folks know that although God may permit evil to occur, that ultimately he will arrange things so that good will ultimately result from evil.
And a child himself is not "evil" or the enemy: A child is a promise for the future. Most Christians would allow abortion in these hard circumstances, but Catholics point out that the proper response of Christians is to surround the mother with support and love, and maybe adopt the child if she cannot or will not care for it, but not to kill the innocent child who is not responsible for the crime behind it's conception.
--------------------------------------------------
An upcoming movie Argo is about the Iranian hostage crisis of Iran, but they did rewrite some parts for dramatic purposes.
The true story can be found HERE.
----------------------------------
There is a lot of talking points are being spun about Benghazi, but Instapundit links to Blackfive who said sending in a few jets from Italy to fly over the "demonstration" at treetop level might have scared the pants off of the "demonstrators", allowing the outnumbered and poorly trained local friendlies to get in and help, if not at the embassy then in the second attack on the safehouse.
And, of course we knew it was a professional attack, not a demonstration: VileRat told his gaming friends that he saw signs that an attack was coming 90 minutes before it started...
-------------------------------
Col Updraft sent a link about using a supercomputer to figure out which treatment works best for cancer.
Ideally, a treatment regimen that Watson concludes has a 95% confidence rating, for example, would help oncologists choose from the 28 different chemotherapy cocktails they have at their disposal.alas, here in the Philippines, a lot of chemo is still too expensive, so you might end up with the older, cheaper surgical treatments, although one can get sophisticated radiation treatment in Manila...
---------------------------------------
LATimes: Medical studies with striking results often turn out to be false.
Studies that reported striking results were more likely to be small, with fewer than 100 subjects who experienced fewer than 20 medical events. With such small sample sizes, Ioannidis said, large effects are more likely to be the result of chance.
Ya think?
--------------------
Now that the local government is winning, peace activists insist the local gov't "negotiate" with Kony,
and StrategyPage points out the real problem of the Kony video: free publicity.
side note: the Ugandan army is poaching elephants on the side, and selling ivory to China.
spectacular violence attracts media attention and it frightens defenseless Central African villagers....A fellow villager with a disfigured face or a missing hand serves as a bitter reminder to others that it is better to keep quiet than inform on the LRA. (Austin Bay)
Ivory sells for $1,000 a kilogram on the international black market, though reportedly Chinese buyers will pay as much as $2,500 a kilogram. China has money and its people have a huge appetite for carved ivory objects.then why did NatGeo make a big thing about a minor side operation selling possibly illegal ivory in the Philippines? Because unlike China we won't retaliate.
--------------------------------------------
NPR article on the supervolcano that almost wiped out man.
It's actually an old story, but I worry when major news outlets say things like this:
...7 billion human beings on earth, and clumped together we weigh roughly 750 billion pounds. That, says Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, is more than 100 times the biomass of any large animal that's ever walked the Earth. And we're still multiplying. Most demographers say we will hit 9 billion before we peak, and what happens then? Well, we've waxed. So we can wane. Let's just hope we wane gently.Much of the essay is propaganda for population decrease masquerading as science, and how we'd be better off if we didn't live in places that used to be forests (you mean like New York City, where the author lives ?)
------------------------------
Austen Bay on the US Navy issue. Part of the problem is the need to supply the fancy new high powered ships for wartime...but the other problem is: who protects the freedom of commercial ships at various chokepoints in commerce?
The candidates could have explored who should provide these ships. Gentlemen, whom do you trust to defend the U.S. economy? NATO ally Turkey controls the Turkish Straits; Denmark, Norway and Sweden handle the Baltic's Skagerrak, so they're cool. But, president, governor, do either of you trust the Chinese Navy to keep the South China Sea open to free commerce? Our allies Japan and the Philippines don't.
China casts wary eyes at the Indian Navy as it extends its reach to the Straits of Malacca. All right, India and China rely on free trade -- right now. Will they in a decade? It takes 10 years to build a new fleet. We agree no one trusts Iran at Hormuz. So, candidates, is it in America's interest to have a Navy that can patrol these distant chokepoints? To project power to defend these chokepoints? To project offensive power to open these chokepoints if a hostile force applies a chokehold?one point he brings up I hadn't thought of: The vulnerability of the internet which uses underseas cables.
Blackham and Prins note that the two superhighways confront maritime bottlenecks. "Ninety percent of global email traffic is conveyed via undersea fiber-optic cables. These cables bunch in several critical sea areas (off New York ... the English Channel, the South China Sea ... and off the west coast of Japan)."Actually, I know about this vulnerability, since a 2006 earthquake south of Taiwan knocked us off the internet for three months.
No comments:
Post a Comment