Question...?

Worldmapper.org: GDP Wealth
This wealth map shows which territories have the greatest wealth when Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is compared using currency exchange rates. This indicates international purchasing power - what someone’s money would be worth if they wanted to spend it in another territory. For some their money will gain value when they move - others’ money will lose value. This facilitates the movement of some people, whilst severely limiting that of others.


Does Islam speak to the primary needs to organize a society “better” than Christianity, Judaism?

Could ability be one of the variables that make the Islamic faith so pervasive in the regions that contains much of the world’s poor?


The power of Islam to make sense of the world reminds me of that conviction that sustained African Africans during the 1800’s.

Perhaps there is a connection?

Cool new Gif

Steve Coleman - Def Poetry Jam

Heinlein - Specialization is for Insects

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein

Just a little perspective...

The end of one man's illusions...

Dear World,

I QUIT

I am now officially quitting runescape. I was once Dragon6851, but now, I am Daniel, a man with a life. I ask, however, for the assistance of the internet community, and all the sub communities like the one of runescape, second life, WoW, etc. PLEASE, for the love of god, log on to my account (I will provide the password later) and change the password and the recovery questions. I will not allow for the temptation to continue playing to exist. I simply cannot have it.

Current Info:

USERNAME: Dragon6851

PASSWORD: clemente7

Please, I beg of you, change the above.

Before I go, let me say a few things. The first is the reason I have quit. SO WHAT??????? so I played for hours and hours, 300k, full rune armor, lvl 48 tcl, thousands of runes and a (paid) membership later, it hit me. why? What do I get out of doing this? The answer is, absolutely nothing. I toiled long and hard for nothing. Has no one else realized this???? I was paying $5 a month to do nothing more than fratenize with asain 7th graders. My second reason is, lets face it, the graphics.... leave much to be desired.

So, along with my plea to change my password, I implore you. If you play any game of this sort,

GET A LIFE.

thank you. that will be all.

Daniel

Insight, Karma, & Compassion: Terrorism and Social Justice.

September 9, 2003

President Bush continues to make Iraq the centerpiece of the war on terrorism. As I considered the invasion and occupation, I came up with these possible results, that the war and occupation:

• makes the above statement into a self-fulfilling prophecy;
• creates a new Vietnam for the US, a Vietnam which also helps to spread global terrorism;
• creates a renewable source of national suffering and impoverishment for the US, and serves as a source of selective corporate enrichment.

Paul Dolinsky, Ph.D

Bacteria 0

Bacteria 0 by ~Xaviaro on deviantART

Race and Science

Most scientists today agree that Homo sapiens -- modern human beings --originated in Africa some 200,000 years ago, and that between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, small groups began migrating out of Africa and spreading out across the continents.

Over time, these groups of migratory humans became isolated from one another, and eventually mutation and other evolutionary pressures produced slight genetic changes, some of which are responsible for the differences in appearance we've commonly used to divide up human beings into racial groups. But periods of isolation were followed, as trade and transportation were developed, by periods of admixture -- the mixing of populations that had previously been separate.















Map of human migratory patterns over the past 100,000 years. A map of the migrations of early humans, as reconstructed via DNA studies. By tracing slight changes in DNA and by combining that data with a calculation of the rate at which genetic material changes over time, researchers have been able to reconstruct the general pattern of the historical migrations of peoples across the globe, starting in East or South Africa and extending north into Europe and Asia and eastward to the Pacific Islands and through the Americas, to the tip of South America. The research indicates that all humans alive today share a couple of common ancestors, a woman who lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago, and a man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago, at around the time human beings began to leave Africa to explore the rest of the world.












Considering that commonality, it's no surprise the amount of variation between even the most disparate groups of human beings is very small. It's estimated that people share some 99.9% of their DNA. Even looking at that .1% that does vary, 85% of the variation that has been observed is unconnected to membership in any particular group of people; only 15% of the variation is between defined groups. In fact, because as a species we spent the most time in Africa, the greatest amount of genetic variations are currently found among people living on the African continent -- on a genetic level, an individual of East African ancestry may have more in common with a European than with a West African.


© 2006 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Pioneer. Percy L. Julian (1899-1975), Research Chemist

On the day that Percy L. Julian graduated at the top of his class at DePauw University, his great-grandmother bared her shoulders and, for the first time, showed him the deep scars that remained from a beating she had received as a slave during the last days of the Civil War. She then clutched his Phi Beta Kappa key in her hand and said, “This is worth all the scars.”

By FELICIA R. LEE, Published: February 6, 2007

31 Days Iraq

How could the message of this graphic advance American foreign policy? How could the people of United States justify this reality?

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a doctoral student in political science at Columbia. Alicia Cheng is a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.

Lt. Ehren Watada: A gentleman of conscience

One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

Der Spiegel interview with CIA's former European Director

The former chief of the CIA's Europe division, Tyler Drumheller, discusses the United States foreign intelligence service's cooperation with Germany, the covert kidnapping of suspected terrorists and a Bush adminstration that ignored CIA advice and used whatever information it could find to justify an invasion of Iraq.

Der Spiegel: The German government was convinced that "Curveball" would not be used in the now famous presentation that then US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave in 2003 before the United Nations Security Council.

Then Secretary of State Colin Powell as he presented "evidence" of weapon of mass destruction in Iraq to the United Nations general assembly: "We probably gave Powell the wrong speech."




Then Secretary of State Colin Powell as he presented "evidence" of weapon of mass destruction in Iraq to the United Nations general assembly: "We probably gave Powell the wrong speech."

Tyler Drumheller: I had assured my German friends that it wouldn't be in the speech. I really thought that I had put it to bed. I had warned the CIA deputy John McLaughlin that this case could be fabricated. The night before the speech, then CIA director George Tenet called me at home. I said: "Hey Boss, be careful with that German report. It's supposed to be taken out. There are a lot of problems with that." He said: "Yeah, yeah. Right. Dont worry about that."

SPIEGEL: But it turned out to be the centerpiece in Powell's presentation -- and nobody had told him about the doubts.

Drumheller: I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech. We checked our files and found out that they had just ignored it.

SPIEGEL: So the White House just ignored the fact that the whole story might have been untrue?

Drumheller: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy. Right before the war, I said to a very senior CIA officer: "You guys must have something else," because you always think it's the CIA. "There is some secret thing I don`t know." He said: "No. But when we get to Baghdad, we are going to find warehouses full of stuff. Nobody is going to remember all of this."

Interview conducted by Georg Mascolo and Holger Stark.


If this is true then it all been a lie to advance American interests in the region exclusively. How could they/we have been so naive? How can a democracy work with compliant free press, special interests institutions and a willing populous? "Those who remain ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it". George Santayana: Philosopher, poet, literary and cultural critic.

Untitlable

Sometimes you watch someting that is so far from expected you end up laughing for days...

Enjoy

Sometimes

Sometimes, somedays are better than others
today i played with my son
we created new words that infer "chase me tickle me"
today i watched my wife fall asleep on the couch after dinner
she is the most beautiful woman, the kindness heart
sleeping or not
today was thursday

Namaste