Feb 16, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
A free online video on the science behind Global Warming by Dr Art Robinson Instructor from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Here is the description:
A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge. [This lecture is ideal for anyone] who is concerned over the hysteria generated by the current misinformation about Global Warming.
Listen online or download a copy:
Play Video - HTTP Server [Real Audio required]
Download (7.5 MB)Feb 15, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Every wonder what's behind the simple and plain Google Search page?
According to ZdNet:- Over four billion Web pages, each an average of 10KB, all fully indexed.
- Up to 2,000 PCs in a cluster.
- Over 30 clusters.
- 104 interface languages including Klingon and Tagalog.
- One petabyte of data in a cluster -- so much that hard disk error rates of 10-15 begin to be a real issue.
- Sustained transfer rates of 2Gbps in a cluster.
- An expectation that two machines will fail every day in each of the larger clusters.
- No complete system failure since February 2000.
Continues the article:
When Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, he was alluding to the trick of hiding the complexity of the job from the audience, or the user. Nobody hides the complexity of the job better than Google does; so long as we have a connection to the Internet, the Google search page is there day and night, every day of the year, and it is not just there, but it returns results. Google recognises that the returns are not always perfect, and there are still issues there -- more on those later -- but when you understand the complexity of the system behind that Web page you may be able to forgive the imperfections. You may even agree that what Google achieves is nothing short of sorcery. ["The magic that makes Google tick", 02 December 2004]
The sorcery behind google? It's called reason.Feb 15, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--The on-going persecution of Wal-Mart, including the latest uproar over the closing of one of its Canadian stores, is a clear indicator of the malevolence of the anti-capitalist left, charged Dr. Andrew Bernstein, a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
Wal-Mart, which said that labor organizers would require it to hire 30 unneeded workers and submit to inefficient work rules, chose instead to close its unprofitable store in Jonquiere, Quebec, after its employees voted to form a union. CEO H. Lee Scott declared that Wal-Mart would not accept "altruism" as a way of doing business.
This is a remarkable identification on Wal-Mart's part, Bernstein emphasized. "The moral code of altruism--the idea that the good lies in sacrificing your wealth, happiness, and even life for the sake of others--is the weapon of choice for those who attack business and capitalism. In the end, the charge is always that productive companies and individuals are evil because they are advancing their own interests, not the interests of others.
"Wal-Mart should follow up by declaring that it proudly works only for its own profit. And it should point out that far from breeding a dog-eat-dog world, its relentless pursuit of profit creates harmony among productive, selfish, just individuals. It deals voluntarily with its suppliers, who prize the vast distribution network created by Wal-Mart, and who try to find ways to lower their own production costs. It deals voluntarily with its 1.5 million employees, who find Wal-Mart's jobs more profitable than others they could obtain, and who accept that they are paid their market value by their employer. And it deals voluntarily with its customers, who demonstrate with every single self-interested purchase at Wal-Mart that they want good products at low prices."
Bernstein concluded: "The fact that Wal-Mart's productivity enriches countless lives reveals that its attackers don't actually care about others. The doctrine of altruism is not a tool to advance man's welfare but a weapon to penalize the successful for being successful."Feb 14, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Professor Gary Hull on the meaning of Valentine's day:
To love a person is selfish because it means that you value that particular person, that he or she makes your life better, that he or she is an intense source of joy--to you.
...It is regularly asserted that love should be unconditional, and that we should "love everyone as a brother." We see this view advocated by the "non-judgmental" grade-school teacher who tells his class that whoever brings a Valentine's Day card for one student must bring cards for everyone. We see it in the appalling dictum of "Hate the sin, but love the sinner"--which would have us condemn death camps but send Hitler a box of Godiva chocolates. Most people would agree that having sex with a person one despises is debased. Yet somehow, when the same underlying idea is applied to love, people consider it noble.
Love is far too precious to be offered indiscriminately. It is above all in the area of love that egalitarianism ought to be repudiated. Love represents an exalted exchange--a spiritual exchange--between two people, for the purpose of mutual benefit.
You love someone because he or she is a value--a selfish value to you, as determined by your standards--just as you are a value to him or her.
Read the rest in his op-ed, The Meaning of Valentine's Day.
Feb 13, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From Reuters:
Saudi Morality Police See Red Over Valentine Roses.
Saudi Arabia's morality police are on the scent of illicit red roses as part of a clampdown on would-be St Valentine's lovers in the strict Muslim kingdom.
The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Saudi Arabia's powerful religious vigilantes, have banned shops from selling any red flowers in the run-up to February 14.
Florists say the move is part of an annual campaign by the committee -- whose members are known as "mutawwaeen" or volunteers -- to prevent Saudis marking a festival they believe flouts their austere doctrine of "Wahhabi" Islam. ...
Valentine's Day, or the "Feast of Love" in Arabic, is beyond the pale in a country where women must cover themselves from head to toe in public and be accompanied by a male guardian. ...
The government-funded mutawwaeen patrol the streets of Saudi Arabia, particularly Riyadh in the Wahhabi heartland, ensuring women are covered and five daily Muslim prayers are observed.
Shopkeepers who fail to shut down for half an hour during each prayer risk a night in jail if they are discovered.
Despite government calls for them to show greater leniency, and some recent efforts to improve their own image, the bearded volunteers are not universally popular.
"The mutawwaeen are just backward," Ahmed complained. "It's the Saudi women who want these roses anyway."
