There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.
A Calmer Iraq: Fragile, and Possibly Fleeting
Topic: Politics and Law
6:42 am EST, Dec 5, 2007
“We are in a holding pattern,” said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization. “The military solution has gained enough peace to last through the U.S. election, but we have a situation that is extremely fragile. None of the violent actors have either been defeated or prevailed, and the political roots of the conflict have not been addressed, much less resolved.”
Already, a walk through neighborhoods where the volunteer groups are active is an unsettling experience. Small groups of young armed men guard street corners, while others ride in open trucks. In many areas they wear camouflage uniforms that resemble military ones, making it hard to tell whom they work for.
First it was time of day. Now this. Are land lines the next to go? Or maybe paper phone books.
After years of seeing its public pay-phone business migrate to cell phones, AT&T Inc. said Monday that it will phase out its pay phones in Illinois and 12 other states by the end of 2008.
While AT&T's decision doesn't mean the end of the pay phone -- independent firms still will offer the service -- public phones will become even more difficult to find.
ACM has recognized 38 of its members for their contributions to computing technology that have brought advances in the way people live and work throughout the world. The 2007 ACM Fellows, from the world’s leading universities, industries, and research labs, created innovations in a range of computing disciplines that affect theory and practice, education and entertainment, industry and commerce.
"These men and women are the inventors of technology that impacts our society in profound and tangible ways every day," said ACM President Stuart Feldman. "They have pushed the boundaries of their respective computing disciplines to create remarkable achievements that have the potential to make our world more accessible, more secure, and more advanced. Their selection as 2007 ACM Fellows offers us an opportunity to recognize their dedicated leadership in this dynamic field, and to honor their contributions to solving complex problems, expanding the impact of technology, and advancing the quality of life for people everywhere."
Edward W. Felten, Princeton University For contributions to security and the public policy of information technology
First, even the scientists who achieved the latest success believe strongly that embryonic-stem-cell research should continue. No one knows for sure whether the new method of producing pluripotent cells will pan out or where the next big developments will come from. We are still many thresholds away from anything that can be of practical value to me and others. Scientifically, it makes no sense to abandon any promising avenue just because another has opened up.
Second, even if this were a true turning point in stem-cell research, people like me are not going to quickly forget those six lost years. I am 56. Last year I had a kind of brain surgery that dramatically reduces the symptoms of Parkinson's. It received government approval only five years ago. Every year that goes by, science opens new doors, and every year, as you get older and your symptoms perhaps get worse, doors get shut. Six years of delay in a field moving as fast as stem-cell research means a lot of people for whom doors may not open until it is time for them to shut.
Third, although the political dilemma that stem cells pose for politicians is real enough, the moral dilemma is not and never was. The embryos used in stem-cell research come from fertility clinics, which otherwise would discard them. This has been a powerful argument in favor of such research. Why let these embryos go to waste? But a more important point is, What about fertility clinics themselves? In vitro fertilization ("test-tube babies") involves the purposeful creation of multiple embryos, knowing and intending that most of them either will die after implantation in the womb or, if not implanted, will be discarded or frozen indefinitely. Even if all embryonic-stem-cell research stopped tomorrow, this far larger mass slaughter of embryos would continue. There is no political effort to stop it. Bush even praised in vitro fertilization in his 2001 speech about the horrors of stem-cell research. In vitro has become too popular for politicians to take on. But their failure to do so makes a mockery of their alleged agony over embryonic stem cells.
As Iraqis and American officials assess the effects of this year’s American troop increase, there is a growing sense that, even as security has improved, Iraq has slipped to new depths of lawlessness.
Theft and corruption have become survival tools, creating a spiral of dishonest transactions that leave nearly everyone feeling dirty.
“No one can stop it,” Abu Ali said. “Corruption runs from top to bottom.”
“The size of the corruption exceeds the imagination,” said Shatha Munthir Abdul Razzaq, a member of Parliament’s largest Sunni bloc.
You have to pay a bribe to join the police. This is not just some ill-qualified people trying to improve their chances. Everyone has to pay.
A few years ago, the man behind the Buena Vista Social Club, Nick Gold, approached a group of Senegalese musicians he was crazy about — the Orchestra Baobab. In the 1970s and '80s, they were masters of blending African and Cuban dance rhythms. Gold convinced them to get back on the road, and now they're more successful than ever, melding salsa rhythms with African beats on stage at Carnegie Hall.
These guys are awesome. (The link at "crazy" above is an entire concert!)
The Guardian reviewed their latest album:
Whoever coined the term "intelligent dance music" was probably thinking of digital basslines and tricky breaks, but the phrase will also do nicely for this set of newly recorded songs by the legendary Senegalese band. Orchestra Baobab, who reformed in 2001 after a 16-year break, are masters of an urban style that pairs rippling, fast-flowing guitar lines with impassioned vocals and sophisticated dance rhythms. These move effortlessly from rumba, reggae and highlife to more indigenous grooves such as mbalax and their own "mbalsa", an infectious salsa hybrid heard on the track Ami Kita Bay. The four vocalists - augmented by Youssou N'Dour for a new version of their 1970s hit Nijaay - are superb. Nick Gold's production and sequencing ensures we are never bored: there is always a new voice or groove around the corner. Star of the show, as always, is musical director and guitarist Barthélemy Attisso, whom I once compared to Hank Marvin and Mark Knopfler; that wasn't hyperbole.
Here's the back-story:
Orchestra Baobab are one of Africa’s great iconic bands, creators of one of the world’s most sublime and truly distinctive pop sounds. Founded in 1970, Orchestra Baobab fused Afro-Cuban rhythm and Portuguese Creole melody with Congolese rumba, high life and a whole gamut of local styles – kickstarting a musical renaissance in their native Senegal, which turned the capital Dakar into one of the world’s most vibrant musical cities. They produced more hits in less than a decade than other bands in a lifetime. While Baobab found themselves sidelined by the revolution they helped create and disbanded in 1985, a huge groundswell of international interest led to their triumphant reformation in 2001. Orchestra Baobab are still very much in business today.
You can listen to A Night at Club Baobab for free on Rhapsody. Try the first track, "Jin ma jin ma". (This is also the second song at the Zankel Hall performance, above.) Also try "Liti liti".
Watch a live performance:
Orchestra Baobab performing live at the Roll Back Malaria Concert
About their recent show in London, a reviewer wrote in The Independent:
Why are evolutionary biologists bringing back extinct deadly viruses?
That's an interesting question. See also the audio interview, in which the author "discusses what retroviruses can teach biologists about how humans evolved, and how they may hold the key to conquering AIDS and other diseases." See also coverage in Discover, complete with electron micrographs.
I especially liked this anecdote:
Harmit Malik grew up in Bombay and studied chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology there, one of the most prestigious technical institutions in a country obsessed with producing engineers. He gave no real thought to biology, but he was wholly uninspired by his other studies. "It was fair to say I had little interest in chemical engineering, and I happened to tell that to my faculty adviser," he recalled. "He asked me what I liked. Well, I was reading Richard Dawkins at the time, his book 'The Selfish Gene'” -- which asserts that a gene will operate in its own interest even if that means destroying an organism that it inhabits or helped create. The concept fascinated Malik. “I was thinking of becoming a philosopher," he said. "I thought I would study selfishness."
Malik’s adviser had another idea. The university had just established a department of molecular biology, and Malik was dispatched to speak with its director. “This guy ended up teaching me by himself, sitting across the table. We met three times a week. I soon realized that he was testing out his course on me. I liked it and decided to apply to graduate school -- although I had less than a tenth of the required biology courses. I had very little hope." But he had excellent test scores and in 1993 was accepted at the University of Rochester, as a graduate student in the biology department. He visited his new adviser as soon as he arrived. "He looked at my schedule and said, 'I see that you are doing genetics.' I had no clue what he was talking about, but I said sure, that sounds good. I had never taken a course in the subject. He gave me the textbook and told me that the class was for undergraduates, which made me feel more comfortable." It wasn’t until the end of the conversation that Malik realized he would be teaching the class, not taking it.
The lentiviruses are associated with a wide range of chronic diseases in mammals. These include immunodeficiencies (such as HIV/AIDS in humans), malignancies, and lymphatic and neurological disorders in prim... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]
While on our second patrol in Iraq, a civilian candy truck tried to merge with a column of our armored vehicles, only to get run over and squashed. The occupants were smashed beyond recognition. Our first sight of death was a man and his wife both ripped open and dismembered, their intestines strewn across shattered boxes of candy bars. The entire platoon hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours. We stopped, and as we stood guard around the wreckage, we grew increasingly hungry. Finally, I stole a few nibbles from one of the cleaner candy bars. Others wiped away the gore and fuel from the wrappers and joined me.
As Thomas Ricks says:
Staff Sgt. Bellavia brings it. This is life in the infantry, circa right now.
