Human Trafficking: The Modern Slave Trade

Thank you Economist!

Human trafficking

A horrible business
Jun 14th 2008
From Economist.com

The modern slave trade is thriving

AP
CONSIDERING it is a business that has provoked wars in centuries past, scant attention is paid to the modern slave trade. But one way to track the trade in people is the recently released annual report on trafficking in persons from America’s State Department. And it makes for gloomy reading. Though there have been improvements of late, the numbers of people involved are still appallingly high. Approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders each year and millions more are traded domestically. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are at least 2.5m people in forced labour at any one time, including sexual exploitation, as a result of trafficking.

Efforts to wipe out this modern slave trade are hampered because human trafficking is a big business. It is impossible to know the exact sums involved but recent estimates of the value of the global trafficking trade have put it as high as $32 billion. The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking describes it as a high-reward and low-risk crime. People come cheap and many countries lack the necessary laws to target traffickers, or they are not properly enforced. Worse still, it is often the victims of the traffickers that are treated as criminals.

Women suffer most in this respect: the report estimates that 80% of victims of international trafficking are women forced into some form of prostitution. Women are involved in trafficking too, though this is less common. In Europe and Central and south Asia women are often recruited by other women who were themselves the victims of trafficking. In part to avoid detection by the authorities, traffickers grant victims limited freedom while simultaneously coercing them to return home to recruit other women to replace them.

The report also casts a light on the increasingly important role that technology is playing in the trade, both in combating it and its perpetration. The internet helps to identify and track down the perpetrators but increasingly it is becoming part of the problem. Chatrooms are used to exchange information about sex-tourism sites; people are targeted through social-networking sites where pornographic records of sex trafficking are also bought and sold; victims are ensnared through instant messaging.

There are a few bright spots. Ethiopia is commended for its efforts to combat the trafficking of children by establishing child-protection units across the country. Romania’s creation of a national database to identify and respond quickly to trends in trafficking is also praised as is Madagascar’s campaign to wipe out sex tourism.

The report ranks countries into 3 tiers determined by how compliant they are deemed to be with America’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Predictably, some countries listed in tier 3, the worst offenders, have responded to the accusations with outrage. But these are not the only countries that have a problem. There is also “special watch list” of tier-2 countries that need careful monitoring.

The foreign ministry of Cuba, a country the report places in tier 3, firmly denied that the report had any value and used the opportunity for a customary jibe at America, saying that “the government of the United States has a lot to do in its own country to combat the rampant phenomenon there of prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labour and the trafficking of people.”

Of the six Gulf states, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were listed as Tier 3 and Bahrain crept up to the tier-2 watch list. Only the United Arab Emirates made it to tier 2 on the basis of its efforts to combat abuse against foreign domestic servants and construction workers. Foreign ministers from the Gulf Co-operation Council simply said that the information in the report was wrong. They claim that America “aims to practise unjustified pressure for political ends”.

And there is some evidence they could use to back up this assertion. One country exempt from the rankings is America itself. Self-analysis is always difficult but the report, though comprehensive, might have more force if America were to turn the spotlight fully on itself.

Great American Song Writer / Philosopher Utah Phillips Passes

Utah Phillips, the legendary folk musician and peace and labor activist, has died at the age of seventy-three. Over the span of nearly four decades, Utah Phillips worked in what he referred to as “the Trade,” performing tirelessly throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. The son of labor organizers, Phillips was a lifelong member of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies. As a teenager, he ran away from home and started living as a hobo who rode the rails and wrote songs about his experiences. In 1956, he joined the Army and served in the Korean War, an experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life. In 1968, he ran for the US Senate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. For the past twenty-one years he lived in Nevada City, where he started a nationally syndicated folk music radio show. He also helped found the Hospitality House homeless shelter and the Peace and Justice Center.

-Democracynow.org

below is an interview of Utah presented to us by the wonderful program "Democracy Now" produced in 2004

Other Reasons not to follow the Tredny

Nalgene, the brand that popularized water bottles made from hard, clear and nearly unbreakable polycarbonate, will stop using the plastic because of growing concern over one of its ingredients.

The decision by Nalgene Outdoor Products, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Rochester, came after reports that the Canadian government would declare the chemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, toxic. Some animal studies have linked the chemical to changes in the hormonal system.
Those reports also prompted many of Canada’s largest retailers, including Wal-Mart Canada, to remove food-related products made with plastics containing the compound chemical, like baby bottles, toddler sipping cups and food containers, from their stores this week.

“Based on all available scientific evidence, we continue to believe that Nalgene products containing BPA are safe for their intended use,” Steven Silverman, the general manager of the Nalgene unit, said in a statement. “However, our customers indicated they preferred BPA-free alternatives, and we acted in response to those concerns.”
The National Toxicology Program in the United States released a draft report on Tuesday reporting that some rats that were fed or injected with low doses of the chemical developed precancerous tumors and urinary tract problems and reached puberty early. While the report said the animal tests provided “limited evidence,” it also noted that the “possibility that bisphenol-a may alter human development cannot be dismissed.”
Late Thursday, the American Chemistry Council, which says that there is no evidence suggesting that the chemical has an adverse impact on people, asked the Food and Drug Administration to review the chemical.
“We hope that the leading regulatory agency charged with protecting the public’s health, including evaluating the safety of food containers, will put to rest questions about the safety of bisphenol-a,” the industry group said.
Nalgene’s decision to drop the plastic that transformed it from an obscure maker of laboratory equipment into a consumer brand does not mean the company is leaving the drinking bottle business. It has long made bottles from other plastics that lack the glasslike transparency and rigidity that made polycarbonate popular.
Last month, Nalgene introduced a line of bottles made from a relatively new plastic from the Eastman Chemical Company, Tritan copolyester, that shares most of polycarbonate’s properties, including shatter-resistance, but is made without the chemical.
A person knowledgeable about Canada’s chemical review program said this week that the government had decided to list the compound as a toxic substance under the country’s environmental protection act. Because of confidentiality rules, he spoke on the condition he not be identified.
Tony Clement, the minister of health, has scheduled a news conference for Friday to discuss the issue.
Designation of the chemical will begin a two-year regulatory process that ultimately could lead to restrictions or a ban on the use of the compound.
But some retailers in Canada say that interest in food-related products made with the chemical, particularly those intended for infants and small children, is fast vanishing.
“Consumer demand for BPA products had largely dried up,” said Hillary Marshall, a spokeswoman for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The retailer removed all baby-related products made with plastics that contained the chemical from its 94 department stores and 280 Zellers discount stores this week. It is working on removing other merchandise made with polycarbonates.
Not all consumers are pleased by the actions. Because of Health Canada’s review, London Drugs, which is based in Richmond, British Columbia, began withdrawing merchandise that contained the chemical Jan. 10 and replacing it with alternatives made of other plastics or stainless steel. Wynne Powell, the company’s president, said the last 10 products were taken away this week.
“I had some complaints come to my desk complaining that we were fear-mongering by pulling products,” Mr. Powell said. “The public was not totally on board.”
Asked whether it plans to follow the lead of its Canadian operations in the United States, Wal-Mart said in a statement, “We are working to expand our BPA-free offerings and expect the entire assortment of baby bottles to be BPA-free sometime early next year.”
A difficult question for retailers will be how to handle products, including soft drinks, that are packaged in aluminum or steel cans.
For the last two decades, the interiors of most cans have been coated with an epoxy resin that is made using the chemical to extend the shelf life of the contents and prevent the metal from affecting the flavors of food and drinks.
John M. Rost, the chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, an industry group, said that there was no evidence that the linings expose humans to significant amounts of the chemical, a position not shared by all scientists. He added that researchers had been unable to develop an alternative lining that performs as well as the current epoxy.
“The epoxy resins are the gold standard right now,” said Dr. Rost, who is a chemist. “The speculation of what’s to be published has led to reactions from retailers that is not based on any actual data from Health Canada. So we are encouraging a release as soon as possible.”

Gangryaru

When I was gangyaru hunting in Tokyo, my mistake was going to Harajuku, not Shibuya. Damn, I shoulda watched this video first.

Urban Dictionary: a call to add new words, i.e. Kwamelicious

Just the other day i went through the process of what i believe is certifying a new word to try and introduce it into the slang of modern society... It was quite simple and very satisfying... i recommend that everyone who has a non traditional word that they use and is uniquely their own submit it to UD so we can all benefit.

my submission:

kwamelicious

Adj.
1. ability to Lie, Cheat, Sexy Text, Steal Taxpayers Money, or kill strippers with no repercussions
2. the resemblance in action to the Mayor of the City of Detroit who's name is found in the root of the word
3. Professional Thug
4. Bureaucratic Thug
5. Overall Thugishness

Example 1:
person 1: man i sent that bitch a sexy text she should be over here any minute now....
person 2: damn, thats kwamelicious

Example 2:
person 1: so this joker hired a stripper for a party at his mansion, and now shes dead.
person 2: damn, thats kwamelicious

India Tunes in: FM Radio Provides Community Access to Programs in Bihar

News Post India
Bihar To Set Up FM Radio Stations In Schools
Sunday 23rd of March 2008
The Bihar government plans to set up Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations in schools across the state to make education more effective and user-friendly.

Initially, the government would set up FM radio stations in 11 high schools in Patna and Nalanda. 'The government would select more schools for the purpose later,' the state's Minister of Information & Public Relations Arjun Rai said.

Rai said the decision to set up school FM radio stations was taken in view of the fact that the world was using information technology in schools for easy access to knowledge.

'Programmes on FM radio would be made to educate and inform students about community development, health and disaster management,' Rai said.

These FM radios would help revive local and folk music and art, and provide opportunities to local people to generate employment, particularly in the rural areas.

'The FM radio station would air four to five hours' programme daily, including entertainment,' an official in the information and public relations department said.

The state government has already applied for licence and the decision is pending with the central government. After the licence is issued, the state will set up FM radio stations in selected schools and relay programmes, the official said.

The core programming will be done in Patna and the peripheral programming in the districts. The channels would host phone-in programmes featuring guest lectures, career counselling, and quizzes based on general and subject knowledge.

According to a government estimate, the cost of setting up one Community Radio Station (CRS), including equipment and installation charges, is nearly Rs.480,000.

The cost of studio, which would be optional, would be Rs.230,000. The operational cost per radio station, as worked out by the government, is Rs. 46,965 per month while the expected monthly revenue per CRS is Rs. 50,400.

Sixty per cent of the cost will be borne by the human resources development department of the state and the remaining will be taken as loan from banks.

Half-a-dozen schools in Patna were selected and five in Nalanda, the home district of chief minister Nitish Kumar. 'We were told by our class teacher that the government would set up a FM radio station in school. It is a big step,' Aprajita Singh, a student of Bankipore Girls High School, said.

Another student of the same school, Sanjana Kumari, said they were excited after being told that they would learn new things through FM radio station. 'The experience will be different,' she said.

Ramesh Ranjan, a student of Miller High School, said the FM radio station would help the students to connect to the changing world. 'It will be handy for us,' he said.

Deserts Sand and the World

Legitimacy of Pot Tax Revenue Remains Hazy

A short piece from All Things Considered that i found rather interesting, you can hear the story in its entirety by clicking the link in the title of this post and clicking the Listen Now.


Nation
Legitimacy of Pot Tax Revenue Remains Hazy
by Richard Gonzales



Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Cannabis is known as marijuana or ganja in its herbal form and hashish in its resinous form.


All Things Considered, April 3, 2008 · California's potential $16 billion budget shortfall has led state officials to an unusual source for tax revenue — medical marijuana storefronts. In a state where it's legal to buy prescription pot, those shops generate millions of dollars each year. But there's just one problem — buying and selling marijuana is still a federal crime.

Richard Lee, owner of a coffee shop and marijuana dispensary in Oakland, says he's proud of the more than $200,000 a year he pays in sales tax. His store sells marijuana buds in one-eighth ounce bags.

"We have one medium grade on our menu, that's $30 an eighth plus tax," Lee says. "And three high grades, that's $40 an eighth plus tax, so it comes to $44 with tax, sales tax included."

Medical marijuana advocates estimate that the aggregate annual sales tax revenue that's paid by the approximately 400 dispensaries in California is $100 million. Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, says the state actually makes it easy for pot venders to do business without revealing their product by issuing generic "sellers permits."

"This goes a few steps forward in legitimizing medical marijuana at the state level," he says. "And you would expect that the state would like to protect that revenue source."

California's Board of Equalization, the agency that collects sales taxes, wants to protect that revenue stream.

"We view medical marijuana dispensaries as law-abiding businesses," board member Betty Yee says. "Many of them have complied with state tax laws. And when there's aggressive federal action to shut these businesses down, it's awfully difficult for a state tax agency like the Board of Equalization to work to ensure compliance with state tax laws."

Yee says this could be a "make or break" year for medical marijuana dispensaries. The vendors are under constant pressure from the Drug Enforcement Administration either through raids or threats of taking action against their landlords. The Internal Revenue Service may get into the act as well.

"From a federal criminal tax standpoint, all income is reportable. Income is income, whether it's legal or illegal, it needs to be reported to the IRS," says Arlette Lee, a spokeswoman for the IRS' criminal investigations unit.

But Lee says right now the situation in California is murky. Medical marijuana dispensaries may be paying federal tax, but there's not always a paper trail to prove it. Medical marijuana vendors hope that their contribution to the state's tax coffers will bolster their legitimacy.

I like booty

Lemme just lay it out for you....

I like apple booty; curvy booty; supple booty.
I like booty that jiggles. I like booty w/ giggles. I just like booty.

I like Brazilian booty in particular. I like Nice n’ Soft booty.
I like smooth and yummy booty.
I like 32 flavas of booty.

I wanna play Boggle with that bubble on yo ass.

I like booty in bars.
They call me Mr. Magoo from afar.
I get drunk and I see stars.

I’m not gonna lie, I like-a bigga booty.
A cutie with a booty is like oh-so delicious.

Don’t like snooty booty, down with cyber booty.
But not the undercover kind that gets you in trouble with Dateline

Maybe I should start a Foundation for Booty?


javascript:void(0)
Publish Post

Korean Kosmetics Kommercial Uses Hitler!

Check out this Korean chick in a Wehrmacht uniform selling cosmetics. Notice the loud “hiel” in the background.




The woman's hat features a Reichsadler, by the way.

Translation:

Even Hitler couldn’t grasp East and West. (Korean: 히틀러도 동과 서를 다 갖지는 못했다"
Not sure if there’s an idiom in there--seems a little strange)

Containing mung bean extract…*

moisturizing and toning at the same time…

A 28-day revolution. An ampoule [that contains] 28 [day's worth of] mung bean.

Meet skin care experts at Mi-Pul (the name of a skin care center).


Err…must make more sense to a female Korean consumer because I have not the slightest idea what the connection is between Hitler and make up. If any experts on the ins-and-outs of Korean advertising happen to stumble upon this post, perhaps you could enlighten us.

Also, do keep in mind--before you go off the deep and start thinking Koreans or Korean companies are racist-- that while the use of Hitler to sell products is irresponsible (not that I should be talking), Koreans and Asians don’t have the same emotional reaction to Hitler that we do in the West, since they never felt the brunt of Hitler’s atrocities. On the flip side, while images of Hideki Tojo and Hirohito and old imperial Japanese flags bring out extreme reactions in Asians, they do little to Westerners.

*note: while mung beans taste good, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that mung bean extract improves your skin.

Pennsylvania's Political Geography

Map representing the political geography of Pennsyvania. The blue line is the Susquehanna River. The red line in the corner is Route 202. The lines in the northeast represent the influx of New Yorkers, while the lines in the Southeast represent the influx of Marylanders. The cirlce at the center of the state is Duaphin County. Pittsburg is circled in the west. Philly is in the east (click to enlarge).


With the Pennsylvania primaries just around the corner (April 22nd) CBS News takes a look at Pennsylvania's political geography. As a geography nut, I could help but find this article fascinating.

Twenty-two years ago, as a Democratic strategist working on a gubernatorial
race, Carville described the state as Paoli (a suburb of Philadelphia) and Penn
Hills (a suburb of Pittsburgh) with Alabama in between.

[...]

Interviews with a dozen Pennsylvania political experts suggest it’s time for Carville’s quip to be put to rest. It may have been accurate at one time, they say, but only marginally.

The Democratic cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh sit in opposite corners of the state, and the hundreds of miles in between are a mix of suburbs, rural communities and small cities and towns that lean more Republican and offer far less racial diversity.

But beyond that, the axiom begins to look less accurate.

Philadelphia is an East Coast city with suburbs long dominated by liberal and moderate Republicans. Pittsburgh, where Democrats are culturally conservative, looks to the Midwest.

An influx of New Yorkers is altering the Poconos and the Lehigh Valley. Marylanders are moving into south-central Pennsylvania, where residents have always rooted for the Orioles over the Phillies and the Pirates. Some of the largest spikes this year in Democratic voter registration this year have occurred in Dauphin County, where the state capital of Harrisburg sits almost halfway between Piladelphia and Pittsburgh.

In part to debunk Carville, Franklin and Marshall College pollster Berwood Yost reviewed 20 opinion surveys between 1996 and 2001 to determine whether an urban-rural divide existed. There were considerable differences on the death penalty and gun rights. Rural residents supported both in larger numbers. But on gay rights, gender equality and abortion rights, an equal percentage of urban and rural dwellers oppose all three, the study found.

“It’s really difficult to capture those differences that Carville was talking about,” Yost said. “The state has continued to evolve. The state has some conservative elements, but those elements can be among Democrats and Republicans. It’s hard to give it much credence. If that statement was ever true, it’s probably less true now.”

When it comes to voting, Pennsylvania voters prefer moderation. The state elects Republicans who support abortion rights and Democrats who oppose them. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a conservative Republican who lost in 2006, was always viewed as an outlier in the state’s political culture.

So a handful of political analysts propose a new description.

Michael Young, a Hershey pollster, suggests using the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania as the dividing line between political regions.

Shanin Specter, the son of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and a close political adviser to
the five-term incumbent, also favors a two-region solution, but he would use Route 202 as the dividing line. Those who live northwest of the highway generally hold similar political philosophies as the rest of the state, while Philadelphia and its suburbs sit to the southeast, Specter said.

“I know that is not very colorful,” Specter said. “It doesn’t sort of Alabamize the good citizens of Pennsylvania like James Carville sought to do it. But it is another way to look at Pennsylvania.”

Google News

Anybody using Google News as their primary news source? I just set up my personalized news page today, and let me tell you: it is awesome. You can really personalize the hell out of it and make you own custom news searches. including news sources in other languages. Right now, here’s what I’ve got:

-Top stories
-North Korea news
-South Korea news
-World
-Business
-Sci/tech
-Korean politics (in Korean)
-U.S. elections
-Korean economy (in Korean)
-Korean society (in Korean)
-Psychology
-Iraq

You can check it out here.

Highly recommended!!

Spring Break: Destination Colombia!!!!

The Audacity of the Government - This American Life

This past weekend I was tuned into This American Life, contently getting my fill of National Public Radio when their first segment caught my attention and compelled me to write here and relay a story. One that involves the current executive administration of the USA and its disregard for treaties… hmm new concept no…
But who really cares what we do with people we capture in “war” time, or what really defines torture, or whether we simply allow a single entity to decide that we should no longer partake in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Well this story involves one of the most non threatening treaty in American history one deals with our neighbor to the north. This story is about the USA Canada border and the International Boundary Commission that patrols and governs the border. It covers land rights issues and the politicking around a Cement Wall and the fiasco that surrounds it. Now don't get me wrong, i am all about personal property and personal land rights, but this story exemplifies what is wrong with the Administration of the day. I will leave the story telling to Ira Glass you can listen to the story: (this is the entire show... but you'll enjoy it)



Just another example of the abuse of executive privilege by our own “Dear Leader”
Here are some other reads regarding the border issue.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/239991
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003785546_border12m.html

Street art in Seoul

Street art in Seoul. 'Nuff said.

Open Source Education: What a Revolutionary Idea

Free Online College Courses Are Proliferating
Asia Has Embraced The Global Movement To Spread Knowledge
By JEREMY WAGSTAFFMarch 28, 2008

A revolution of sorts is sweeping education.
In the past few years, educational material, from handwritten lecture notes to whole courses, has been made available online, free for anyone who wants it. Backed by big-name universities in the U.S., China, Japan and Europe, the Open Education Resources movement is gaining ground, providing access to knowledge so that no one is "walled in by money, race and other issues," says Lucifer Chu, a 32-year-old Taiwanese citizen and among the thousands world-wide promoting the effort. He says he has used about half a million dollars from his translation of the "Lord of the Rings" novels into Chinese to translate engineering, math and other educational material, also from English into Chinese.
The movement started in the late 1990s, inspired in part by the "open source" software movement, based on the notion computer programs should be free. Open-source software now powers more than half the world's servers and about 18% of its browsers, according to TheCounter.com, a Web-analysis service by Connecticut-based Internet publisher Jupitermedia Corp. Behind its success are copyright licenses that allow users to use, change and then redistribute the software. Another inspiration was the proliferation of Web sites where millions share photos or write encyclopedia entries.
Educators recognized that open-source software, with its emphasis on harnessing the contributions of volunteers to develop and perfect code, was a great model. "Let's try to build on the momentum of open-source" software, David Wiley, an associate professor of instructional technology at Utah State University, recalls of the thinking among academics in 1998 when he joined up.
The first university to offer course material free online was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 2001. Its OpenCourseWare project now offers lecture notes, exams and other resources from more than 1,800 courses spanning the institute's entire curriculum. The material has been accessed by 40 million visitors from nearly every country, with visitors averaging a million a month, according to its Web site. Nearly half -- 49% -- are self-learners; a little more than a third are students; and 16% are educators.

Continue here

Please Support the Kwame Kilpatrick Legal Defense Fund

Really!...

... Yeah that's Kwamelicious!!!

You have to wonder how such a person who has royally ripped off the most Miserable and Economically depressed city in America of hundreds of thousands of dollars could have the audacity to ask people to donate to his defense fund... and all because he was dishonest, lied on the stand, had wild parties, had a stripper die at one of them... and spent tax-payers money to live the "Fabolus Bling-Bling Thug-Life"... and then expect peoples' respect... Come on Detroit! His Immaturity should no longer be tolerated Tell him to Resign.

Kilpatrick to set up legal defense fund

By M.L. ELRICK • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 26, 2008

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will soon announce that he is establishing a legal defense fund, a spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

Chris Garrett of Impact Strategies, the Washington, D.C.-based communications firm hired to speak for Kilpatrick’s legal team, said it would be a not-for-profit fund.
He declined to say whether city contractors would be asked to contribute or whether some contributions would not be accepted to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.
"We’ll fully comply with all applicable laws and regulations,” Garrett said.
He also said Impact Strategies -- like the mayor’s legal defense team led by Dan Webb, a former U.S. Attorney from Illinois -- would not be paid with city funds.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/NEWS01/80326084

Former Buddhist Monk Re-incarnated as Paris Hilton's Pet

Praying dog joins temple

A chihuahua has begun joining in daily prayers at a Buddhist temple in Japan.



Attendances have increased by 30% since temple pet, two-year-old Conan, started attending.
Conan sits on his hind legs, raises his paws and puts them together at the tip of his nose, reports the BBC.
"He may be showing his thanks for treats and walks," says a priest at Jigenin temple on Okinawa island.
Priest Joei Yoshikuni would like Conan to meditate, but "it's not like we can make him cross his legs", he says.
Mr Yoshikuni said it only took Conan a few days to imitate the motions of praying.
"I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it too," he said.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2783164.html?menu=

Midget Watch: Wulanchabu, China

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2784955.html

Wee man
A Chinese man has been recognised as the shortest adult in the world.

He Pingping, 20, of Huade town, Wulanchabu city, who is 2ft 5ins tall, has received a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records.
Guinness confirmed his world record after his height was recorded three times - morning, noon and night - at the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region Hospital.
His parents and two sisters are all normal height, reports Northern News. His record and picture will be in the 2009 edition.

Bakar mısınız? gerçekten çok seviyorum!

Strange Finds in Istanbul... Turkish Street Art and Toilets with Automatic Douches!!!

Travel Post Double Feature: From Tokyo to Turkey

Istanbul was Constantinople Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople.... That annoying Four Lads song is what kept resonating in my head on my trip to a city of wonders. Istanbul is a perfect blend of what is Europe, and Central Asia/Middle East. The city is cut in half by the ever present Bosphorous river separating Europe from Anatolia. Immediately exiting the Airport one can sense they are in the orient, with smells of incense, spices, tea, sheesha, and Kebaps swirling through the air.

Word of Caution: when taking a taxi ride... make sure to take a few anti-anxiety pills... the drivers there are simply insane but they will get you to where your going relatively safely and alive!.


I found that the best way to take in the city is by foot. things are much more interesting on the ground level at a strolls pace rather than in a taxi fearing for your life.

Points of Interest: Taksim, and Beshtikash, Sultanahmet, Fatih

Taksim/Bestikas (Besh-Tikash): Taksim is a quite a progressive section of town, most of the Istanbul Sub-Culture hangs out here... many Bars, Cafes, Clubs, and Alternative type people loiter these streets. A great place to shop, and just have some fun. Architecturally there are many historic Ottoman Government buildings here and much of the styles are Roman or Baroque period architecture (counter to the typical styles of Mimar Sinan that are prevalent throughout the city). Bestikas is the home of the Dolmabache Palace the palace of the last sultan. simply an incredible site. (both these districts are located in the golden horn home of the high class hotels!)

Dolmabahche Palace:







Sultanahmet:

These districts located on the main European peninsula are the home of many of the Historic Ottoman and Roman (Constantine) sites.

Sultanahmet is home to Suleymaniyeh, Fatih Jami, The Blue Mosque, AyaSophia, AyaIrini, and many other Mosques, Synagouges, and Cathedrals. These area are truely amazing as you walk through the streets to get to each one of these cites you can see the way that the infrastructure was built in that there are circular walls built surrounding the great buildings acting as a type of fortress and also creating sub districts of residences and retail. One thing you will notice is that there are shops and stores that have are located within these walls and narrow winding streets. and these shops are all part of a contnuing endowment that was set up during the Ottoman years centuries ago to help maintain and take care of the area, its surroundings, and the poor and indigent that live within its confines.

When in Sultanahmet one must visit the bazars and try the food... i suggest being prepared to gain at least 5 lbs... Try: Burek, Kuru Fasulleyah, Musakah, any type of fish dish there, and the Kebaps (there are so many different types and they are all good). Once you have tasted Turkish food, nothing will taste as delicious to you any more.


Finally there is no better way to relax in Istanbul than taking in a traditional Turkish bath (or hamam) and lazing in the steam filled rooms washing your worries away... you can literally spend a whole afternoon in there... and after you have refreshed yourself at a bath house, you can spend the rest of the evening in good company at a cafe sipping exquisite Turkish Coffee, or Tea. I would recommend trying all available type teas. (the elma and oralet are apple and orange teas respectively and are truely a delicacy to be had.) While at the cafe make sure to play a few games of Backgamon and puff on a Nargeleh (hookah) with Turkish Sheesha on a cool spring evening. I promise you there is nothing better.

Enjoy the Pics!

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

From Istanbul 08

RETARD ALERT!! Parents Choose Prayer Over Medicine

Yet another story on the dangers of believing in pseudoscience. I hope this parents rot in prison for this nonsense. I have no sympathy for these RETARDS. None whatsoever. The only bright side: anyone who is that retarded needs to be eliminated from the gene pool anyways. Let's hope those parents choose not to have anymore progeny.

From the AP:

Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.

An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.

She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.

The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.

She insisted her youngest child, a wiry girl known to wear her straight brown hair in a ponytail, was in good health until recently.

"We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks," she said Wednesday. "And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering."

Her daughter — who hadn't seen a doctor since she got some shots as a 3-year-old, according to Vergin — had no fever and there was warmth in her body, she said.

The girl's father, Dale Neumann, a former police officer, said he started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body.

Family members elsewhere called authorities to seek help for the girl.

"My sister-in-law, she's very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors ...," the girl's aunt told a sheriff's dispatcher Sunday afternoon in a call from California. "And she called my mother-in-law today ... and she explained to us that she believes her daughter's in a coma now and she's relying on faith."

The dispatcher got more information from the caller and asked whether an ambulance should be sent.

"Please," the woman replied. "I mean, she's refusing. She's going to fight it. ... We've been trying to get her to take her to the hospital for a week, a few days now."

The aunt called back with more information on the family's location, emergency logs show. Family friends also made a 911 call from the home. Police and paramedics arrived within minutes and immediately called for an ambulance that took her to a hospital.

But less than an hour after authorities reached the home, Madeline — a bright student who left public school for home schooling this semester — was declared dead.

She is survived by her parents and three older siblings.

"We are remaining strong for our children," Leilani Neumann said. "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time."

The Neumanns said they moved from California to a modern, middle-class home in woodsy Weston, just outside Wassau in central Wisconsin, about two years ago to open a coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. A basketball hoop is set up in the driveway.

Leilani Neumann said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because "our lives are in God's hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do."

Magical Thinking: Why People Believe Silly Things

From Psychology Today (via the Situationist), a facinating look at the psychology behind magical thinking. People sure are crazy.

There are many layers of belief,” psychologist Carol Nemeroff says. “And the answer for many people, especially with regard to magic, is, ‘Most of me doesn’t believe but some of me does.’” People will often acknowledge their gut reaction and say it makes no sense to act on it—but do it anyway. Other times, they’ll incorporate superstition into their worldview alongside other explanations. “For example,” says Susan Gelman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, “God puts you in the path of an HIV-positive lover, but biology causes you to contract the virus from his semen.”

Often we don’t even register our wacky beliefs. Seeing causality in coincidence can happen even before we have a chance to think about it; the misfiring is sometimes perceptual rather than rational. “Consider what happens when you honk your horn, and just at that moment a streetlight goes out,” observes Brian Scholl, director of Yale’s Perception and Cognition Laboratory. “You may never for a moment believe that your honk caused the light to go out, but you will irresistibly perceive that causal relation. The fact remains that our visual systems refuse to believe in coincidences.” Our overeager eyes, in effect, lay the groundwork for more detailed superstitious ideation. And it turns out that no matter how rational people consider themselves, if they place a high value on hunches they are hard-pressed to hit a baby’s photo on a dartboard. On some level they’re equating image with reality. Even our aim falls prey to intuition.

[...]

1. Anything can be sacred.

To some, John Lennon’s piano is sacred. Most married people consider their wedding rings sacred. Kids with no notion of sanctity will bust a lung wailing over their lost blanky. Personal investment in inanimate objects might delicately be called sentimentality, but what else is it if not magical thinking? There’s some invisible meaning attached to these things: an essence. A wedding ring or a childhood blanket could be replaced by identical or near-identical ones, but those impostors just wouldn’t be the same. What makes something sacred is not its material makeup but its unique history. .
. .

In many cases the value of an object comes from who owned it or used it or touched it, an example of “magical contagion.” . . . Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania and Nemeroff contend that magical contagion may emerge from our evolved fear of germs, which, like essences, are invisible, easily transmissible, and have far-reaching consequences. Well before humans had any concept of germ theory, we quarantined the ill and avoided touching dead bodies. The deep intuition that moral or psychological qualities can pass between people, or that an object carries its history with it, could just be an extension of the adaptive tendency to pay close attention to the pathways of illness.But that doesn’t mean we’re good at evaluating sources of contagion. Nemeroff found that people draw the germs of their lovers as less scary-looking than those of enemies, and they say those germs would make them less ill. She also found that undergrads base condom usage on how emotionally safe they feel with a partner more than on objective risk factors for catching STDs.

2. Anything can be cursed.

Essences are not always good. In fact, people show stronger reactions to negative taint than to positive. Mother Teresa cannot fully neutralize the evil in a sweater worn by Hitler, a fact that fits the germ theory of moral contagion: A drop of sewage does more to a bucket of clean water than a drop of clean water does to a bucket of sewage. Traditional cleaning can’t erase bad vibes either. Studies by Rozin and colleagues show that people have a strong aversion to wearing laundered clothes that have been worn by a murderer or even by someone who’s lost a leg in an accident. Magical contagion can also flow in reverse. Many people wouldn’t want an AIDS patient taking over a hospital bed that they had just left, and about a third of
undergrads would feel uncomfortable if an enemy possessed their used hairbrush. “This rests on the assumption that there is no separation of space and time,” Nemeroff says. “The hairbrush and I were in contact, we merged. At that mystical level where all is one, acting on it is acting on me.”

3. Mind rules over matter.

Wishing is probably the most ubiquitous kind of magical spell around, the unreasonable expectation that your thoughts have force and energy to act on the world. Who has not resisted certain thoughts for fear of jinxing oneself? Made a wish while blowing out birthday candles? Tried to push a field goal fair mid-flight using nothing but hope and concentration? Emily Pronin and colleagues at Princeton and Harvard convinced undergrads in a study that they had put voodoo curses on fellow subjects. While targeting their thoughts on the other students, hexers pushed pins into voodoo dolls and the “victims” feigned headaches. Some victims had been instructed to behave like jackasses during the study (the “Stupid People Shouldn’t Breed” T-shirt was a nice touch), eliciting ill will from pin pushers. Those who dealt with the jerks felt much more responsible for the headaches than the control group did. If you think it, and it happens, then you did it, right? Pronin describes the results as a particular form of seeing causality in coincidence, where the “cause” is especially conspicuous because it’s hard to miss what’s going on in your own head.

4. Rituals bring good luck.
Whenever I fly, I place my hands on the fuselage as I step onto the plane. The habit began when I was a kid innocently in awe of flying machines, but over the years as I continued to touch the plane and continued to not die horribly, my brain decided I was keeping the apparatus aloft, and now I do it for peace of mind. To witness the mindless repetition of actions with no proven causal effect, there’s no better laboratory than the athletic field. The anthropologist George Gmelch of Union College in Schenectady has paid close attention to the elaborate dances players do during baseball games. Because performance while hitting and pitching is so unpredictable (compared to fielding), most behavioral tics occur on the mound or at the plate. Mike Hargrove was nicknamed “the human rain delay” because of his obsessive shenanigans while at bat. B.F. Skinner famously showed “superstition” in pigeons by locking them in a box, feeding them at regular intervals, and watching them associate random behaviors with food rewards, eventually building up intricate routines of behavior. When you combine kicking dirt and readjusting your helmet with strikes and home runs, you can see how the batter’s box would quickly become an open-air Skinner box.We use ritual acts most often when there is little cost to them, when an outcome is uncertain or beyond our control, and when the stakes are high—hence my communion with the fuselage. People who truly trust in their rituals exhibit a phenomenon known as “illusion of control,” the belief that they have more influence over the world than they actually do. And it’s not a bad delusion to have—a sense of control encourages people to work harder than they might otherwise. In fact, a fully accurate assessment of your powers, a state known as “depressive realism,” haunts people with clinical depression, who in general show less magical thinking.

6. Karma’s a bitch.
In eighth grade, a conniving kid named Kevin made a sport of getting under my skin, mocking me for everything from my haircut to my shoelaces. I wanted nothing more than to kick him where it counted. But I never had to. On field day he had a little incident with a bicycle handlebar. With his manhood maimed, I couldn't help but feel a sense of justice in the universe. He was asking for it. Belief in a just world puts our minds at ease: Even if things are beyond our control, they happen for a reason. The idea of arbitrary pain and suffering is just too much for many people to bear, and the need for moral order may help explain the popularity of religion; in fact, just-worlders are more religious than others. Faith in cosmic jurisprudence starts early. Harvard psychologists showed that kids ages 5 to 7 like a child who found $5 on the sidewalk more than one whose soccer game got rained out. But belief in a just universe can also prevent one from fighting for more justice—the blame-the-victim effect. If a test subject is submitted to painful shocks that he can't escape, people think less of him; it's comforting to assume that he must deserve it somehow.
Jinxes—in the form of tempting fate—are closely related to karma. Jesse Bering, a psychologist at Queen's University in Belfast, studies the evolutionary psychology of religion. He argues that assuming that an omniscient being can read our minds and strike us down for our immorality keeps us from misbehaving and thus being ousted by our social group. I'm an atheist, but I asked him if fear of targeted lightning bolts might explain why I nevertheless feel the need to knock on wood when I merely think to myself something like, "Gee, I haven't had a cold in months" (a habit that also implicates rules 3 and 4). "We're still thinking that the universe is keeping moralistic tabs on us; if we think we've outsmarted this agency or somehow cheated it—from giving us a cold like everyone else, for example—it will seek to humble us through a sharp dose of reality. The ritual of wood-knocking somehow satisfies or pleases the universe and preempts it from intentionally punishing us."

7. The world is alive.
To believe that the universe is sympathetic to our wishes is to believe that it has a mind or a soul, however rudimentary. . . It’s not that we think all matter is fully alive—even babies are surprised when inanimate objects appear to move on their own—it’s that we feel all matter has that potential. . . . Lindeman Marjaana, a psychologist at the University of Helsinki, defines magical thinking as treating the world as if it has mental properties (animism) or expecting the mind to exhibit the properties of the physical world. She found that people who literally endorse phrases such as, “Old furniture knows things about the past,” or, “An evil thought is
contaminated,” also believe in things like feng shui (the idea that the arrangement of furniture can channel life energy) and astrology. They are also more likely to be religious and to believe in paranormal agents. [Eugene] Subbotsky says there are benefits to thinking animistically. “It’s much more comfortable to think that your fate is written down in a constellation of stars than that you’re one of a certain group of intelligent animals who are lost in frozen space forever.”

Journey Through the Sahel

From National Geographic:

“Stay in the car,” Daoud said.

But it was already too late. Even as the gunmen sauntered up, their hair matted in dreadlocks and their chests slung with small blackened things that looked like dried ears but which were Koranic amulets, we still hadn’t grasped that we had crossed a threshold where it no longer mattered what passport you carried, that you were young and loved, that your skin was supposedly not of a torturable color, or that you were a noncombatant. Words had lost all currency as words, and by the time the grinning teenager with the Kalashnikov reached for my door handle, we were condemned to live and die according to choices made by others. We had become truly Sahelian.

The Sahel is a line.

[...]

The war in Darfur has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced more than two million. It may be the first genocide of the new century. But it also happens to be one of several similar, if smaller, conflicts boiling across the Sahel. Chad, Niger, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal—low-intensity battles smoldered in each nation I visited. Niger was expelling its Mahamid nomads. Tuaregs were ambushing African soldiers in Mali. These clashes were parochial, obscure, yet part of an overarching quarrel: the eternal struggle over grass, water, and soil between pastoralists and settled peoples. Viewed this way, the Sahel represents the oldest killing field in human history. In the Sahel, Cain is still trading blows with Abel.

Read the full story here.

tokyo no kawaii sashin!

What words should I use to describe the world’s largest urban conglomeration? Just to give you an impression of just how urbanized Tokyo is, I ask you to imagine the typical American big city (with, perhaps, the exception of New York). An American “metropolis” is comprised of a high-density core surrounded by a much larger ring of low-density structures. That high-density core, often referred to as “downtown,” is comprised of skyscrapers forming deep urban canyons for several blocks at most. Now, stretch that high-density core over an area comprising hundreds of square miles and you’ll have a pretty good impression of what Tokyo is actually like. No matter where you turn, you’ll find yourself amidst miles and miles of unbroken canyons formed of steel, glass, asphalt and neon.

Tokyo is post-modern, cutting-edge and trendy and every other adjective you would use to describe one of the world’s premier cultural centers. Tokyo has no past. It exists right on the boundary of where the present meets the future. Tokyo is not so much one city as it is a multitude of semi-autonomous districts, each with its atmosphere and flavor. Each district is like a city-within-a-city, complete with their own town halls, train stations and downtown core areas.

Instead of carrying on with empty flowery language, I’ll let the pictures doing the talking. There really isn’t much of a story to tell. I arrived on Thursday night and went to my hotel in Ikebukuro district. I took the bus from Narita airport (Y3000), then stopped by a pharmacy to pick up some OTC Codeine and hit Junkudu Bookstore for a few hours before grabbing a quick dinner of Soba noodles and Miso soup and then retiring to my hotel.

The next day, with little else to do, I went district hopping. I begin by riding the subway to Ginza, probably the most famous of Tokyo’s districts. You’ve probably seen this scene a thousand times:

It’s funny because in real life, I hardly recognized that corner as the Ginza corner. I was wandering down the street, when suddenly I looked up and had this sneaking suspicion that the view I was partaking in was somewhat familiar. Suddenly It dawned on me that that this was the Ginza corner.

Ginza is basically a shopping district. Mostly high class department stores and retailers.

There is no outdoor smoking allowed at Ginza, except at designated locations, such as this one. Judging by the lack of people smoking on the streets, I’ve drawn the conclusion that all outdoor smoking in Tokyo has been banned.

Here’s another one:

The sign reads: “smoking on the street is prohibited.”

A taxi driver waiting to pick up a fare. Taxies in Tokyo start at Y750! That’s equivalent to $7.50!!!!! By comparison, taxies in Seoul start at W2500, or around $2.50. Tokyo is expensive.

No, that’s not the Eiffel Tower, that’s the Tokyo Tower:

As post-modern office tower at the end of an alleyway:

More department stores in Ginza:

After I got bored with Ginza, I moved on to Harajuku, another shopping district known for its “Harajuku Street Style.” The people who regularly frequent Harajuku are known for their strange getups, and it’s not unusual to see people dressed up as anime characters, Goths, punks, and strange hodgepodges of the aforementioned. I did see some pretty crazy stuff, but not wanting to seem like pervert, I passed on the opportunity to take photographs. I was hoping to spot some Ganguro Gyaru, but alas I could find none. Perhaps that trend is no longer “in?”

It’s impossible to escape the crowds, even in Harajuku:

Haha, Lotteria--For those of you who don’t know, Lotteria is the Korean version of McDonald’s (Well, technically it's Japanese-Korean). Home of the "IMF Burger!"

I concluded my day in Shinjuku, a major administrative and business center in Tokyo. Shinjuku is home to one of the world’s busiest train stations, as measured by passenger volume.

An urban forest outside Shinjuku station:

Shops and neon outside of Shinjuku station:
A glass pyramid in Shinjuku:

Near Kabuki-cho, a famous Yakuza hangout and red-light district where anything goes:

And finally, a traveler’s caution: if you’re going to catch a flight at Narita, give yourself plenty of time. It take 4 hours by local train and two hours by express train to get there from central Tokyo. I missed my flight and had to pay an a sum so-large-I'd-prefer-not-to-mention to get back to Seoul. Other than that, it was a great trip.

The Writings on the Wall

Over the past few years of living within the city and commuting to work out in the burbs... i often get stuck in the frustrating and all to annoying Michigan construction and rush hour delays. So when confronted with these hassles of daily commute, what does the impatient person I typically am I do? take the first exit (even if it looks shady) and venture through the side streets home. On many of these leisurely detours i have noticed the interesting displays of language, signs, symbols, and artwork displayed on walls. And as I drive through the city i often take note that only about 20% of these writings (better known as Graffiti) are even gang related; the rest are either very creative works of art, social or political commentaries, awareness, or pure artistic genius. For the past year i have been driving past a Large building on W. Grand Blvd (just east of Mid-Town) and there was a phrase painted on an old building which caught my eye... and would make my day whenever i saw it. It said "667...... Beyond Evil" and that was it... simple short yet so creative and thought provoking.... well on my ride through this area again a few weeks ago is saw that this had been cleaned up painted over, as were many of my other favorite graffiti murals through out the city. A picture of a Turtle (which appeared all over the city from east to west and the letters Turdl)... A mural picturing the sars and ebola epidemic under the major Mid-Town Railway Via-Ducts... and many others that have faded behind the cakes of gray cover up paint. So i have decided to do justice to the art that is neglected and seen as inappropriate by photographing and post pictures of them here. before they are painted over and lost to the cold dull gray concrete. I begin with the following...

Rat-tastic shrimp-flavored crackers!

We've all heard the story about fingers in hamburger meat and fried mice in the chalupa. Well, Korea isn't immune to such stories either. Just check out the picture on the left. Allegedly, that's a deep fried rat head someone found in their bag of shrimp-flavored snacks.

Here's the story, from the Korea Times:

The nation's largest snack maker, Nongshim, made a public apology Tuesday for one of its best-selling items containing the head of a small rodent. The company shut down the snack production line, and supermarkets are already removing them from their shelves.The apology came after gray skin-like material, 1.6 centimeters in length, was found last month inside a jumbo-sized Nongshim snack, ``Saewookkang'' (shrimp snack). The Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued a correctional order to the snack manufacturer. The ``material'' was very hard and covered in oil and burnt hair, and it also had the remains of eyes and a nose, which led the administration to conclude it to be the head of a rat.A customer had reportedly called Nongshim asking for a refund and a recall on all of its product made on that day. Initially her requests were denied. However, later the company tried to compensate her and recalled all the products in the market, she said. The company explained that a factory in China makes the dough and sends it to a factory in Busan to fry, pack and distribute it. ``I doubt the frying process in Busan is unhygienic, but we are looking into the possibility of the material being added during the dough process at our factory in China,'' a Nongshim spokesman said during the public apology.

Kim Young Sam makes a syllogism

Background: with the election of Lee Myung Bak, Korean politics are undergoing a bit of a shakeup. Lee, a member of the conservative Grand National Party (Korean: Hannara Dang, lit: ‘one-nation party’), is attempting to purge the party of those who oppose him, especially those in the Park Geun Hye faction. This April, South Korea will hold elections for the unicameral National Assembly (Korean: Gukhue). Unlike U.S. elections, the parties select the party nominees without public input. Also, unlike the U.S., 234 of the seats are selected from single-member districts and the remaining 56 seats are distributed amongst the parties based on proportional representation. So, the GNP is currently in the process of selected its nominees and Lee, as the head of the party, wants to do away with an intra-party opposition that could weaken his presidency. This of course, comes at the risk of splitting the GNP, one of the Korea’s more stable parties.

Anyways, Lee’s biggest rival is Park Geun Hye. a former GNP chairwoman and daughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee. In order to get his way, Lee Myung Bak instituted a tougher ethics code for party nominees, which is hilarious because being a white-collar criminal is a necessary condition for becoming a politician in South Korea(^^). Amoung those barred from running was the son of Kim Young Sam, Korea’s first democratically elected president. Kim was irate, and had the following to say:

“The nominations did not respect the people’s opinion at all, so I think it is a complete failure,” Kim said in a lecture at Kyungsung University in Busan. “The nominations are particularly wrong for Busan. Problems are serious in Seoul, too; the Grand Nationals will never win a majority of seats in Seoul.”Kim supported President Lee Myung-bak in last year’s presidential race, but he was pointedly upset yesterday as both his son and several political allies have been rejected by the party.“Whether a candidate is supported by the public or has contributed as a lawmakerwas not considered,” Kim said. “The [leadership] nominated people they like. Seeing this, I cannot say that democracy in Korea is going well (via Joongang Ilbo).”

We can convert the bolded section into a syllogism.

Kim provides us with a major premise and a conclusion::


All democracies in which a candidate’s popular support or contribution as a lawmaker is considered as a factor for party nomination are democracies that are going well.

Therefore:

No democracies equivalent to Korea are democracies that are going well.

The minor term is enthymatic, so we need to deduce it based on the conclusion and the major premise. Thus, we get:

All [some] democracies equivalent to Korea are NOT democracies in which a candidate’s popular support or contribution as a lawmaker is considered as a factor for party nomination.

Next, we need to obvert the minor premise so our syllogism has only three terms. Thus, the final syllogism is:

All democracies in which a candidate’s popular support or contribution as a lawmaker is considered as a factor for party nomination are democracies that are going well.

No democracies equivalent to Korea are democracies in which a candidate’s popular support or contribution as a lawmaker is considered as a factor for party nomination

Therefore:
No democracies equivalent to Korea are democracies that are going well.

We now have a syllogism of the form AEE-4:

All P are M
No S is M
---------------
No S are P

So, AEE-4 is a valid syllogism. That is, assuming both of its premises are true, the conclusion of the argument cannot possibly be false. Whether or not the argument is sound, that is--the premises are true-- is whole ‘nother story.

Critical thinking and you

A great article explaining the basics of critical thinking. Read it; marinate on it; memorize it; use it.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-02/thinking.html

There are three components of critical thinking: critical thinking skills, worldview and values. Critical thinking skills are things like logic, statistics, understanding values, strategic thinking, creativity, and so on. A great introduction can be found here.

Having the proper critical thinking worldview is defined as follows:

From this perspective, the world is a deceptive place-not just occasionally but inherently. Such a worldview goes beyond the usual suspects (e.g., deceptive
TV ads and phony crop circles) to incorporate a broader recognition of the deceptive nature of the world, including such insights as:
-Like fish who are unconscious of the water that envelops them, we are often unaware of the constraints imposed on our thinking by the taken-for-granted social forces surrounding us-not to mention the gene-based forces within us.
-Some aspects of the social world appear natural, but are actually human contrivances. And vice versa.
-The social roles we play can shape not just our behavior but our identity-often we unwittingly become what we play at.
-We are often ignorant of our ignorance. And the more incompetent we are, the more likely we are to overestimate our competence.
-It is normal for seemingly contradictory things to occur together.
-All good things have costs. Many bad things have benefits.
-Issues frequently appear black-and-white, when in fact they usually consist of grays.
-We typically mistake pieces of the truth for the whole truth.
-Partial truths can be just as misleading as outright lies.
-We are more likely to be misled by people who sincerely believe what they are saying than by liars.
-Self-deception can be an even bigger problem than deception by others.

In short, since it is so easy to misperceive reality, a critical thinker is disinclined to take things at face value, suspicious of certainties, not easily swayed by conventional (or unconventional) wisdom, and distrustful of the facades and ideologies that serveas the ubiquitous cosmetics of social life.

Finally, on critical thinking values:

Like the honest juror, the critical thinker is ethically committed to the concept of due process-intellectual due process-as the best way to increase the likelihood of finding the truth. This code of intellectual conduct demands giving ideas their day in court before rendering an informed and reasoned verdict. It requires such traits as these:

-Being unwilling to subordinate one's thinking to orthodoxies that demand to be swallowed whole-at the risk of being charged with heresy
-Refusing to dismiss possible merits in ideas that otherwise may be deeply repugnant-at the risk of appearing immoral
-Being capable of saying, "I don't know"-at the risk of appearing unintelligent
-Being willing to judge the truth value of ideas sponsored by demographic and cultural groups to which one does not belong-at the risk of being accused of prejudice
-Being willing to change one's mind-at the risk of appearing capricious
-Being open to the arguments of adversaries-at the risk of appearing disloyal
-Having an acute awareness of the limits and fallibility of one's knowledge-at the risk of seeming to suffer from that dreaded malady, low self-esteem

The best part about critical thinking is listening to some jackass spout off an ignorant argument and then knowing exactly why the argument is wrong and how to counter it.

The Crazy Things You Find on Youtube

This commerical used to scare the crap out of me as a kid. That screaming lady used to haunt my dreams.

Also, look at how ghetto the TV is. Remember back in the day before TVs had remote controls and you had to turn a knob to change the channels? One knob was UHF, the other was VHF. It's also sad how they have to note that it's a "color" TV. Hahaha, what a bunch of backwards rubes people in the 80s were.



Oh, and in case you're wondering, Detroit-based Fretter Appliance went out of business in 1995.

The Vice Guide to North Korea

This is a sweet 13-part documentary on North Korean travel (don't worry, each part is only 3-5 minutes long). Actually, it's one of the best travel documentaries on North Korea I've ever seen. Well worth a few minutes of your time.

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:



Part IV:



Part V:




Ok, go see the other 8 episodes here.

Why are house values in Hamtramck stable?

So as I look at the current economy in the State of Michigan I only see things getting worse. Rising unemployment, the Big Three no longer so big, our largest city is rated as the most miserable city in America. Yet in this bleak future of falling house prices and foreclosures there seems to be a strange anomaly. The City of Hamtramck, as a home-owner and concerned citizen of this town I often wonder about the future and outcome of an ethnically diverse town in the middle of one of the most depressed cities in America and think, what is it that makes this place unique. When the housing values are dramatically declining around Metro-Detroit and the rest of SE-Michigan what is it that keeps the value of Hamtramck up there?

My Conclusion: The big sausage on Holbrook Ave. What says gentrification better than a honking red wiener in the middle of your town? And seriously this landmark along with the many other oddities that are this city, creates a culture that is unique and of it own. In my following post i will be discussing all that is Hamtramck and why you should really care!

Why didn't we get in on this on the ground floor?

Holy crap, look at the price of Rhodium:

http://www.kitco.com/charts/rhodium.html

$9400 per f'in ounce?? If we'd invested $1,000,000 back in May of 2003 when the price was $200 an ounce...wow, I don't even wanna think about it.

Creation-Science Fair

This is hilarious.

http://objectiveministries.org/creation/sciencefair.html

1st Place: "Life Doesn't Come From Non-Life"

Patricia Lewis (grade 8) did an experiment to see if life can evolve from non-life. Patricia placed all the non-living ingredients of life - carbon (a charcoal briquet), purified water, and assorted minerals (a multi-vitamin) - into a sealed glass jar. The jar was left undisturbed, being exposed only to sunlight, for three weeks. (Patricia also prayed to God not to do anything miraculous during the course of the experiment, so as not to disqualify the findings.) No life evolved. This shows that life cannot come from non-life through natural processes.

(Yes, it's a parody)

Kick-ass and not-so-kick-ass Ideas...

Wanna start wearing ascots? I mean, seriously, why'd they even go out of style in the first place?

On the not-so-kick-ass-idea front, Korea's Chosun Ilbo has an article on the booming male cosmetics industry. Here's the article

More and more Korean men are willing to do everything they can to make themselves look good. This trend has prompted the fashion and beauty industry to focus on the emerging men's grooming market, as the women's beauty market has reached saturation point.

Beauty product makers have recently released a number of shampoos for men. Elastine has introduced Elastine Homme, a scalp-care product exclusively for men, and CJ has released CJ Lion shampoo, also formulated for men. Even men's hair styling devices are appearing. Unix's X1 Sports Style and World Electronics' CNS men's hair styling kits are designed to help men with short hair to easily style their looks.

But wait! It gets worse:

Body-shaping underwear is no longer considered just for women. Body Shapers has begun marketing Nipper for men, which makes the belly and waist look slimmer. In the men's body care product department, L'Oreal's Biotherm Homme has released Abdosculpt body gel and slimming patch. "We released them last year, and have received a good response from male consumers," Biotherm Homme said.

The Face, Korea's no. 3 cosmetics company, last year saw men's products
account for over 10 percent of its total sales. The proportion of male shoppers
in online shopping malls has gradually increased to more than 30 percent.

"As looks are being considered an element of competitiveness in society,
basic cosmetics like whitening and anti-aging items are getting more popular
among men. Some men who like to style themselves even use light make-up
products," an industry insider said.

Modernizing Catholic Guilt

The Catholic Church in recent times has been taking issue with its members not showing up to church and confessing their sins to the priest who will then absolve them of those sins in the sight of God. But it seems that mere sloth, gluttony, lust, greed, or any of the other seven deadly sins are just not shaking it for your average sinner anymore. So Pope Benedict now presents you with the Seven Modern Mortal Sins:

• Environmental Pollution
• Genetic Manipulation
• Accumulating Excessive Wealth
• Inflicting Poverty
• Drug-Trafficking and Consumption
• Morally Debatable Experiments
• Violation of Fundamental Rights of Human Nature

In an article from the BBC Online:

Archbishop Girotti said he thought the most dangerous areas for committing new types of sins lay in the fields of bio-ethics and ecology.
He also named abortion and paedophilia as two of the greatest sins of our times. The archbishop brushed off cases of sexual violence against minors committed by priests as "exaggerations by the mass media aimed at discrediting the Church". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7287071.stm)

Guinea-Bissau: Narco-State

A facinating article from the Guardian about how Guinea-Bissau, a West African failed state, has become a magnet for South American drug traffickers trying to get their product into European markets:

The roads outside the X Club nightspot in Bissau, capital of the world's fifth poorest country, are cracked and pot-holed. They have not been repaired since they were torn up by the tracks of military vehicles during Guinea-Bissau's civil war of the late 1990s. But the cars that are parked outside - Porsche and Audi four-wheel drives -wouldn't look out of place in the wealthiest quarters of London. Inside, the music is thumping Europop, a beer costs more than twice the average daily income of a dollara day. Many of the clubbers, though, are knocking back the imported whisky,which costs up to $80 a bottle. One of the regulars points out the people who represent the various stages of the cocaine supply chain from South America via Guinea-Bissau in West Africa to the UK and the rest of Europe. 'He's a pretty big dealer, and that's one of his security guys. That guy there thinks he's big news but he's just small-time. That woman is a mule. She's been to Europe a couple of times.
Down a street of elaborate colonial-style buildings is Ana's restaurant. Beneath red-tiled roofs, giant candles flicker in the gentle, humid evening breeze - it could be mistaken for an exotic tourist destination. But 'the only visitors we get are the Colombians', sighs Ana, 'this country is being destroyed by drugs. They're everywhere. A few weeks ago, the man who used to be my gardener knocked at the door and offered to sell me 7kg of cocaine.' Among the destitute locals are scores of wealthy, gaudy Colombian drug barons in their immodest cars, flaunting their hi-tech luxury lifestyle, with beautiful women on their arms. Outside Bissau city areexclusive Hispanic-style haciendas with wide verandahs, turquoise swimming pools and gates patrolled by armed guards. By day, Guinea-Bissau looks like the impoverished country it is. Most people cannot afford a bus fare, never mind a four-wheel drive. There is no mains electricity. Water supplies are restricted to the wealthy few, and landmark buildings such as the presidential palace remain wrecked nine years after the end of the war. But this wreck of a country is what the UN - which declared war last week on celebrity cocaine culture - calls the continent's 'first narco-state'. West Africa has become the hub of a flow of cocaine from South America into Europe, now that other routes have become tough for the traffickers.

GB's windfalls are due to its favorable geography:

senior official at the US's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) with a long record of fighting transatlantic drug trafficking, explained how and why the capture of Guinea-Bissau took place, and the trail to Europe. 'Geographically, West Africa makes sense. The logical things is for the cartels to take the shortest crossing over the ocean to West Africa, by plane - to one of the many airstrips left behind by decades of war, or by drop into the thousands of little bays - or by boat all the way. A ship can drop anchor in waters completely unmonitored, while fleets of smaller craft take thecontraband ashore. 'A place like Guinea Bissau is a failed state anyway, so it's like moving into an empty house.' There is no prison in Guinea-Bissau, he says. One rusty ship patrols a coastline of 350km, and an archipelago of 82 islands. The airspace is un-patrolled. The police have few cars, no petrol, no radios, handcuffs or phones. 'You walk in, buy the services you need from the government, army and people, and take over. The cocaine can then be stored safely and shipped to Europe, either by ship to Spain or Portugal, across land via Morocco on the old cannabis trail, or directly by air using "mules".' One single flight into Amsterdam in December 2006 was carrying 32 mules carrying cocaine from Guinea-Bissau.

Even the government (or the institution formerally known as the Guinea-Bissaun government) has a finger in the pot:

Guinea-Bissau's armed forces and some politicians are thought to be deeply involved in the drugs trade. Last year, two military personnel were detained along with a civilian in a vehicle carrying 635kg of cocaine. The army secured the soldiers' release and so far there is no sign that they will face charges. In his large, carpeted, air-conditioned office, a refrigerator humming quietly in the corner, the army spokesman, Colonel Arsenio Balde, brushes aside suggestions the incident proves the army's complicity in the drugs trade. He says the soldiers were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time: 'They were on the road hitching a ride and they saw this car driving by. They asked for a ride and then this guy stopped, and later on this car was stopped and they were arrested. You don't have any evidence of high-level involvement. Just please, bring the evidence. That's what we're asking for.'
Government spokesman Pedro da Costa gives a similar response when asked if the government is involved in the drugs trade. 'I don't have any information on that,' he says, curtly. He insists the authorities are keen to tackle drugs traffickers, but don't have the resources. Like many others in Guinea-Bissau, though, he's worried that disputes over control of the trade could break out, pushing the country back to civil war. 'We're worried, of course. We're all concerned. If it's going to bring consequences to our people similar to the war of 1998-99, I think today the motivation would be different. But of course, there is a danger for the country.'

Russia and the Caucasus

The Atlantic Monthly (always a good read) brings us the story of Russia's machinations in the Caucus region. For the geographically-illiterate, the Caucus region is that strip of land between Europe and Asia, bordered on one side by the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea on the other. Geopolitically, it’s an important region, and one to keep your eye on, because the Caspian Sea has a crap-load of oil that both the U.S. and Russia want. There’s a lot of shady stuff going on there. U.S. and Russia are trying to play all the countries in the region. It is also the home of Europe’s only majority-Buddhist region: Kalmykia. The Kalmyks are related to the Mongols, in case you were curious as to why there is a majority-Buddhist state in the middle of Eastern Russia. Anyways, on to the quote:

Russia has infuriated Tbilisi by lifting a trade ban on Abkhazia, the breakaway region of the Republic of Georgia.

Vladimir Putin is picking up where another Vladimir left off eighty years ago. After the Great War, Lenin (and later Stalin) worked to reconstitute Russia's empire in the Caucasus, which had been steadily weakened by the presence of the British, particularly around the oil-rich territory of Baku. Today the Caucasus is again in disarray and revolt against Moscow, and the firm hand of the president is exerting its discipline. Abkhazia is a site of that discipline. Putin took power in a moment of chaos for Russia and its near-abroad. Azerbaijan and the Republic of Georgia had risen up against Moscow, and the West saw their potential as transit points for pipelines. Now, NATO's territory is spreading inexorably across Europe, almost as far east as Georgia, and Putin is trying to stave off Western influence and reassert control, just as Lenin did. Serbia, one of Russia's few remaining footholds, just lost Kosovo over Russia's protests. The more Putin strengthens Abkhazia, the enemy of a weak central government in Tbilisi, the more Georgia will need to treat Moscow, rather than Washington or Brussels, as its most vital partner. — Graeme Wood

Interview with Yi So Yeon-- Korea's First Astronaut

Part I:


Part II:


Hat Tip: Metropolitician

First!

Number 1!