Look mommy! I tied my shoe all by myself!

Thursday, December 13th 2007 – South Korean ‘scientists’ have successfully cloned cats that glow in the dark. Through the manip- ulation of a particular gene, the cats are born or ‘xeroxed’ into existence with a protein that becomes a dull red in the dark. This extra- ordinary accomplishment (up there with penicillin and electricity) is allegedly the first step in furthering the genetic sciences. The ‘scientists’ affirm that: ‘The ability to manipulate the fluorescent protein and use this to clone cats opens new horizons for artificially creating animals with human illnesses linked to genetic causes’. This is true in the same way that buying a pound of cement is the first step towards building the Empire State Building.

I apologize to the South Korean ‘scientists’ for mocking their discovery, they must understand that I am especially mocking the effort poured into this endeavour and the great amount of pride they take in its accomplishment. An undisclosed amount of financial investment and time were spent in the goal of creating glowing cats. They call it a pioneering marvel for science, I call them GLOWING CATS! Nevertheless, you will excuse me if I was not surprised because I had read about the ig Nobel prizes a few months ago.

The ig Nobel prizes are given to the scientific breakthroughs or studies, in various fields, that offer the least amount of scientific promise. They ARE actual science yet will make you almost speechless through their uselessness. I use the word ‘almost’ because you will still be left saying …why? why? ....w…why? For example, in 2007, for aviation – the scientist who won, discovered that a hamster can recover from jet lag more rapidly when given Viagra. For Physics, the winners conducted a theoretical study of how sheets become wrinkled. For literature, a woman performed an extensive study of the word ‘the’. Finally for linguistics, my favorite, three scientists discovered that rats sometimes can’t tell the difference between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards. Once again, these ‘breakthroughs’ make us laugh yet we must not lose sight of the fact that massive amounts of money and time were used up by a, let’s be honest, utterly fruitless pursuit. Some less humorous examples can also be historically cited.

When we talk of useless scientific experiments and add the epithet ‘cruel’, the Nazi regime of Germany (1932-1945) comes to mind. Apart from Doctors C. Clausberg and J. Mengele, a slew of shady physicians experimented on human subjects using a simple methodology of ‘trial and error’. For example, 1000 subjects at Dachau camp were given nothing but sea water to drink to see the effects and to randomly try counteracting the effects with various substances. They developed the cheapest way to sterilize a woman, namely to inject their uterus with acid. Their other random attempts at sterilization included massive amounts of x-rays, surgery, silver nitrate, iodine… Also, many subjects were deliberately injected with different poisons or shot with poisoned-tip bullets. This was not to see how much time the poison would take to act since the subjects were killed shortly after the administration, if they survived the injection. The autopsies divulged…..absolutely nothing relevant.

I am not comparing glowing cats with Auschwitz THIS time. I am simply demonstrating 1 of the 2 reasons I have observed for which people would run useless experiments. The first is ‘just for kicks’. The Nazi officers (Sturmabteilung, Scutzstaffel) were sadistic and psychopathic (75-90% of them according to various studies) and thus the experiments were easily justified in their thirst for blood, even if they are hiding behind a scientific justification. The second reason, which probably applies more to the glowing cats, is pure curiosity combined with ignorance. Humans have a compulsion to know things that they don’t, to the point of researching trivial things. The ignorance factor is a lot less pronounced today since we have researched, at least partially, most things that have any importance on our daily lives. It wasn’t always so.

Further back in history, the first medical breakthroughs were also largely conducted with a ‘trial and error’ approach. Trepanation (drilling of the skull to remove a fragment) was widely used from Antiquity to the Modern period to relieve pressure of excess blood. They tried bleeding the patients everywhere and the head worked the best; probably because the hole relieved pressure on the brain that had swelled with various infections. Furthermore, Leonardo da Vinci (1442-1519) was among the firsts to pop open the human body and give a tentative function to all the weird sacs he found; the muscles were red because they were stained with blood. The blood, of course, comes from food… Finally, my favorite treaty of human remedies comes from the Greek, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) in his Natural History (77 AD). This gem gave us the obvious treatment for headaches in women, fumigation of the uterus. Also for hemorrhoids, he suggests a nice enema of herbs and mud. I am guessing most of Pliny’s experiments involved doing something random and if the person got better, what he did works.

Whether for reasons of cruelty or curiosity, the magnanimous level of knowledge that we have achieved in 2007 has marginalized the potential of original experimentation. We are thus treated to glowing cats and are told that it is a ‘breakthrough’.

(Pictured: Leonardo da Vinci's anatomy of a man - Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele - Glowing cats, ie: the same result as when you put a flashlight under their belly)

End.

Oil is a four-letter word

Friday December 7th, 2007 – An oil tanker has ruptured off the coast of South Korea, leaking 10,000 metric tones of crude oil into the yellow sea. It was struck by a passing barge during ideal weather conditions; the ensuing slick presently covers over 20 kilometers of water. An emergency ecological operation was launched earlier in the day yet any efforts to avert this complete disaster will be purely symbolic.

Maritime oil transportation, in my opinion, is no safer today than it was 50 years ago. In fact, the increasing enormity of ships, the rising traffic in main commercial straits and the rising price of the barrel all contribute to the construction of money-saving mega-tankers bumping up against each other as they slowly make their way to a Western refinery. Presently, the straits in the Persian Gulf, Red sea, Yellow and South China seas are the most congested commercial paths on the planet. Areas that can’t exactly afford the effects of an oil spill. If these oil tankers can be sunk by a simple barge on a sunny day, perhaps we should rethink this method of transportation. Don’t get me wrong, I am not offering a solution; no current method of transportation would be able to even come close to the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the tanker. On the other hand, we have to be willing to deal with these disasters of epic proportions until will develop a solution.

At this point, some of my regular readers will be screaming out ``hypocrite!`` at the top of their lungs for I am not an environmentalist and even have a profound conviction that ecological concerns have slowed down the development of our civilization by impeding on it with frivolous preoccupations (and guilt). I am simply stating the social and economic implications of these much-too-frequent oil spills. Firstly, the national resources that will be rerouted to clean the water, sanitize the coastline, save the marine life and go on a massive ecological media blitz will amount to an extraordinary sum of capital in a region riddled with poverty, famine and disease. Secondly, the massive amount of coastline and marine life affected by the spill will render destitute the hundreds, even thousands, of workers that depend on fishing for basic subsistence and/or small exporting businesses. Being a peninsula with a population density of close to 500 people per square kilometer, the seas around it provide the only agrarian outlet for the majority of the South Koreans.

All media (that is, all media that isn’t hell bent on showing us that the mall killer from Omaha was justified in killing people for media recognition), will assign the epithet of ‘ecological disaster’ to this ‘Hebei Spirit’ oil tanker spill yet, as I have shown above and affirmed through my beliefs, the ‘green’ factor is a detracting element that prevents us and international organizations from focusing on the real social end economic facets of the disaster. This has also been the case in the past.

On March 24, 1989, an Exxon oil tanker struck a reef and excreted 11 million metric tones of oil off of Valdez, Alaska. To a much more marginal degree, the inhabitants of Alaska’s southern coast were, and still are, heavily affected by the economic implications of a ruined coastline and wasted marine resources. I say to a lesser degree because the standard of living in Alaska permits a diversified economy that could cushion this loss of resources. Nevertheless, all media coverage was about the limping baby seals and blackened rocks. Brigitte Bardot can save all the baby seals she wants but I think, once again, famous people missed the point and prevented the focus to be directed on the real problems of the region.

All in all, environmentalism is at the very top of Maslow’s pyramid of human wants and needs. People will always have to eat, drink and procreate before they can worry about the health of shrimp and the colour of rocks.
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(Pictured: The Exxon tanker in Alaskan waters - the Hebei Spirit off of Taean, South Korea)

End.

National treasure to just plain awkward

November 21st 2007 – Singer and songwriter Neil Diamond finally revealed that his 1969 #1 hit ‘Sweet Caroline’ was actually inspired and about president John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s last surviving child, Caroline Kennedy. Diamond (69) revealed this to Kennedy at her 50th birthday celebration via satellite link. You now have all the data necessary to figure out my problem with this declaration that has been branded cute, ‘sweet’ and a great honour. SHE WAS 12 AT THE TIME!

Furthermore, Diamond went on to explain that the inspiration from the song came from a picture of young Kennedy (9 years old) riding a pony in a tabloid newspaper. If we stick to the title (Sweet Caroline), it evokes a celebration of a Kennedy princess full of innocence and unblemished by the geopolitical context she was born into. Then again, if we analyze the lyrics, and I mean graze over them since it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get my point, things take a turn for the worst. ‘But now I look at the night-and it don't seem so lonely-We fill it up with only two-Hands, touchin' hands…Warm, touchin' warm-Reachin' out-Touchin' me-Touchin' you-Sweet Caroline-Ta ta ta…’, my mind is screaming IT’S WRONG yet my foot is still tapping. Damn that catchy tune. It might be a joke yet the lack of media interest in this story and the fact that we can’t find this 3-day old story on any major news site anymore (CNN, MSNBC, BBC), makes me want to search Neil Diamond’s computer…just to be on the safe side.

Some people may say: ‘it was different back then’ yet it NEVER EVER has been. I don’t care if it was 2330 years ago that Aristotle befriended (please imagine my air quotes for that word) a young Alexander the Great, the acts and attractions remain very, very wrong. I have to say I am not surprised at the lack of American reaction because a patriot can do no wrong. Some of the founding fathers of North America have been serious cradle robbers.

Founding father of Quebec City and some more of the first settlements in Canada 400 years ago, Samuel de Champlain, married one Hélène Boullé. He was in his thirties and she was 12. The only thing of importance that was ‘different’ back then was that the average age of puberty was 16-17. SO WRONG! Later, during the American Civil War, Captain Russell Conwall was ‘attended to’ by a 16 year-old Johnny Ring, his official job was ‘safeguarding the Captain’s saber’. Giggle but WRONG!

I do hope Neil was kidding and didn’t weigh his words yet we can’t be too careful in a society where the prisons are filled with sexual predators.

(Pictured: Samuel de champlain - A shifty Neil Diamond)

End.

Darn terrorists ruined my democracy

November 3^rd, 2007 – President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan has declared martial law, sequestered the judges of the “Supreme Court” and has suspended the Pakistani constitution, pausing or perhaps destroying a very precarious democracy. These actions followed an impending court decision that would have declared Musharraf’s bid for his joint responsibility between a continued presidency and as chief executive of the national armed forces illegal. The state of emergency and martial law will be upheld and maintained at least until the summary elections which Musharraf claims he will hold in early January 2008. How and under what circumstances these elections will occur is not known, without a constitution, it could be as simple as outlawing all other parties before sending out ballots with Musharraf as the only option.

If we were to draft up a list of the 10 or 20 ideal world democracies in this day and age according to popular opinion, I am willing to bet that Pakistan would not be even close to entering the proposed nations. Great political upheaval, presidential assassination attempts, coups, active terrorism and constant racial and religious tensions have long been and remain the plagues of a relatively young country (1948). This new action gives a square punch in the middle of democracy and Musharraf’s explanation for it is a square punch in the face of the Pakistani people. He claims that these drastic actions were taken to preserve democracy and to counter an increasingly violent wave of terrorism. He states: “there is visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, IED [improvised explosive device] explosions, rocket firing and bomb explosions and the banding together of some militant groups have taken such activities to an unprecedented level of violent intensity posing a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of Pakistan’’ (BBC News Service). This is not very convincing on many levels.

Firstly, if this was even the true and only motive for a state of emergency, it is not a very good one. Revoking the people’s right to vote can only keep the head of state in power, it cannot dissuade, reduce or counter terrorism in any way. Secondly, his initial actions against the supreme judges in the nation’s capital, Islamabad, seem to implicate them directly in the crisis situation. Unfortunately, these judges have not been accused of setting up any explosive equipment or of secretly producing anthrax in the Supreme Court basement. Once again, suspending the judiciary branch of Pakistan’s democracy has no impact on the dissuasion, reduction or countering of terrorism. It HAS some unforeseen and, I’m sure, purely coincidental effects on the presidency.

Primarily, suspending the constitution means the elimination of any elections. Thus, the current head of state, and current head of the national army, remains in place indefinitely, personally names the other magistrates of the country’s institutions and effectively gouverns by decree without any accountability. Furthermore, Musharraf’s sequestering and silencing of the supreme judges mere hours before they could have declared his presidency illegitimate is a fantastic coincidence that permits him to carry out a plan of action against the immediate threat of terrorism…..that has existed for decades. Finally, former Pakistani president and new candidate against General Musharraf, Mrs. Benazir Bhutto, has made a triumphant return to the country after a self-imposed exile. The suspension of the constitution has unforeseeably defeated her democratic bid for the presidency along with her massive supporter base. She is now under house arrest and has survived at least 2 attempts on her life in the last month, reportedly perpetrated by Musharraf’s army corps. Heads of State must be careful when governing by decree, if they are not, all sorts of perverted effects could guarantee their indefinite presidency and eliminate their opposition.

I can elaborate a myriad of examples of burgeoning or unstable democracies that quickly turned to a dictatorship under a charismatic and powerful wolf in sheep’s clothing with righteous sounding motives: Pisistrates overturned a young Athenian democracy and became their tyrant to protect the people from themselves in the 6^th century BC, Caius Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony claimed the unlimited dictatorship of Rome to destroy it’s enemies, enemies being whoever opposed them in the 1^st century BC, Napoleon Bonaparte 1^st became first consul and then emperor of an infant French republic to spread his liberal ideas on the continent (Free yourselves of tyranny by joining my Empire?) in the early 19^th century, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin imposed a communist dictatorship on most Eastern European countries to get rid of the yoke of capitalist democracy in the early 20^th century and finally Jimmy Carter financed and sent troops to eliminate a Nicaraguan president (Anastasio Somoza) whom was democratically elected yet socialist, populist and anti-American in the 1970s (the country’s institutions have not fully recovered). The point is, all these people had the best and purest motives…according to themselves. Unfortunately, the small people, you and me, cannot see the genius or dementia that comes into these decisions that seem fundamentally wrong for the world and generally bad for us.

I don’t know about you but I feel that president/general/supreme overlord Musharraf, along with these significant historical personalities, are feeding me grapes with one hand and stabbing me with the other. Suspending the constitution was clearly in the interest of his presidency and ONLY for this goal yet we are made to believe a noble story of anti-terrorist emergency legislation. Keep in mind, Hitler and the German NSDAP claimed that the Jewish populations of the world had to be eliminated to prevent governmental corruption, national treason and to make the European people safe again.

(Pictured: Napoleon 1st and General Pervez Musharraf, they both seem like they can really connect with people)

End.

A Drowning Dollar

November 2nd 2007 – The American dollar keeps plummeting versus other inter- national currencies. After the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and Armenian genocide row making the price of the oil barrel skyrocket, currencies such as the European Euro, the British Pound and the Canadian dollar have achieved all-time highs against Uncle Sam’s buck and show no sign of stopping.

To give the example of the Canadian dollar, in January of 2002, it was trading against 61.79 cents US. This brought about a plethora of derogative jokes against the ``monopoly money`` that the Canadians used. American media are not so smug anymore; this morning, the Canadian dollar was worth 1.07$ American, an all-time high that denotes a 45 cents rise in the exchange rate in just a few years. Unfortunately, this rise in the value of the Canadian dollar has not been reflected in the prices of gas or consumer goods. This has created a massive consumer exodus to frontier American cities such as Buffalo or Detroit where Canadians are just going wild. A situation that is similar yet properly European is occurring with the Euro.

From a modest starting point of 1 Euro for 1.0015 dollars American in 1999, it proceeded towards a downward plunge to 82.52 American cents for 1 Euro in October of 2000. Following the disastrous economic events of the Bush administration enumerated above, it has climbed to an unbelievable 1.44 American Dollars to buy a single Euro on this Friday before the Celtic New Year. The similarities with Canada include the reticence of big consumer goods to drop their prices. Car companies such as Volkswagen have even pulled back their American ties of production to justify their constant prices. Europe is different in that the small consumer can’t pop over a border to buy American products for a lot less. Their neighbours without the Euro such as the U.K. or Russia have either a higher exchange rate, therefore no advantage or a constantly very low currency, with very high import/export taxes. This just leaves the Great British Pound.

The Pound Sterling has long had one of the highest exchange rates in the world. Nevertheless, the American Dollar has long kept its status of world template because of the overwhelming American share of world production. Once again, primarily for the reasons in my introduction, The Pound has exploded from 1.60 American dollars for 1 Pound to a rate of 2.08 USD for a British Pound. Almost a 50¢ rise in 3 years! This all smells of a recession and possible depression for the American Economy…why does that sound familiar.

Depreciation of world currencies is not a new thing. As an example, I will use the German Deutsch Mark following the unstable 1920s and 1929 crash. After their loss of the First World War and their consequent ``signature`` of the Treaty of Versailles Germany was obliged to make drastic reparation payments to the rest of Europe and to America (132 billion Gold Marks). Furthermore, an unstable republican government (Weimar) forced the country to not only borrow massively from the Americans to pay back a war debt…to the Americans but they were also forced to print ridiculous sums of money that were unjustified. This created a perfect contexte for hyperinflation. In 1922 for example, prices were doubling every 29 hours. When the crash finally hit Wall Street in 1929, the Americans called back all their loans to Germany instantly. Close to a hundred German banks declared bankruptcy and the already worthless Deutsch Mark became less valuable than the paper it was printed on. Try to imagine you are a German entrepreneur that has been saving up 5 DM of his 12 DM weekly pay since 1900. Now, imagine living in 1923, when the Mark reached an all-time low versus the American dollar. 1 USD was trading for 4,200,000,000,000 marks. That’s right, 1 USD for 4.2 TRILLION DM. Your life savings of, perhaps, 5,200 marks (5 DM X 52 weeks X 20 years) are now worth an infinitesimal fraction of an American penny. No wonder suicide then became the national sport. Could the US get all depressed again?

I am not saying that the United-States is heading for hyperinflation of German proportions; it will probably bounce back with a Democrat government. The underlying story here is that it has become obvious that globalisation has brought about a corporate economy that no longer follows world economic rules. I am still paying 15 dollars more in Canada for an American book. Someone must be laughing hysterically as they roll around in piles of Canadian ``monopoly money``.

(Pictured: A 1000 Deutsch Mark Bank note stamped to read 1 million DM - a good old 100$ Bill)

End.