Multae Sententiae

The Endangered US Dollar

2009-10-12T20:19:00.003-04:00

By Richard Heinberg

This is a copy of the Museletter #149 from Richard Heinberg published in August of 2004. He gave me permission to reproduce it here.

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. - Thomas Jefferson

For decades the US dollar has served as the world's default currency. The phrase "sound as a dollar" has expressed the faith and confidence of generations, not only of Americans, but people worldwide.
That situation is coming to end, and the consequences will be far-reaching.

A Brief History of Money In order to understand why this sea change is about to occur, and what is at stake, it is necessary to begin by examining in the briefest terms the history of money, banking, and the dollar.
Hunter-gatherer societies typically enjoyed a gift economy in which trade and barter occurred only with people external to the tribe or band. Everyone within the band was treated as family: whatever was available was shared without expectation of reciprocal exchange. The story of the rise of social complexity is also the story of the gradual shriveling of the gift economy and the expansion of the scope of trade - a story that culminates in our situation today, in which the market mediates nearly all categories of transactions between and among humans, sometimes even within families.
Even many relatively complex societies of the past (such as the ancient Egyptian and Inca civilizations) managed to do without money. However, this new tool, wherever it appeared, served to facilitate and accelerate trade. Its effects are predictable; French Historian Fernand Braudel, writing of Europe in the Middle Ages, described them as "steep variations in prices of essential foodstuffs; incomprehensible relationships in which man no longer recognized either himself, his customs, or his ancient values." The individual caught up in medieval Europe's monetization process found, again in Braudel's words, that "his work became a commodity, himself a 'thing.'"
The kinds of money people have used are almost endless; however, in societies that have adopted the widespread use of money, coins made of precious metals long ago became favored over other options (including shells, beads, cattle, and, in China, paper) due to their relative durability, portability, and rarity. Since money serves several possible functions-a store of value, a measure of value, a medium of exchange, and a standard of deferred payment - in some cases individual societies have used two or more forms of money simultaneously.
Monetary history took a decisive turn with the emergence of banking in Europe during the Middle Ages. Since traveling traders were frequently robbed of their coins or metal ingots, they took to depositing their metallic currency in the strongboxes of silversmiths and goldsmiths, and carried redeemable receipts instead. Gradually these receipts came to be regarded as being equivalent to the metal itself. This was the first paper money. Meanwhile, gold- and silversmiths discovered that it was possible to issue receipts for metal coins which they did not actually possess, a practice that would eventually give rise to fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking.
Fiat currencies did not appear in the West in any significant quantity until the 19th century, when governments and national banks began issuing notes not backed by any precious metal coinage whatever.
Fractional reserve banking emerged at about the same time as a system whereby banks were legally permitted to loan more money than they retained in deposits (regardless of whether those deposits were in the form of gold or fiat money). This process seems mysterious and perhaps even a tad unethical to most people when they initially learn of it. However, it has become the foundation of modern banking and currency systems. In effect, when a commercial bank makes a loan, it creates money from nothing; when the loan is repaid and is stricken from the books, that money effectively disappears. Since it has been loaned into existence, virtually all fiat currency in modern money economies is tied to debt, which requires the payment of interest. The regulation of the money supply therefore depends on someone's ability to set interest rates and thus encourage or discourage the seeking of more loans.

Early Life of the US Dollar From this point on, we will focus our attention on a particular currency - the US dollar.
During the Revolutionary War the provisional authorities issued paper money, which led to counterfeiting by the British and various other forms of fraud.
The 1792 US Coinage Act provided for a national Mint where silver dollars were to be produced along with gold coins, beginning in 1794. The Act states: "The Dollar or Unit shall be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, to wit, three hundred and seventy-one and one-quarter grains of silver." The Act also prescribed the death penalty for anyone debasing the national currency.
The framers of the American Constitution were divided on the question of whether their new nation should have a national bank. Proponents (who were themselves bankers or future bankers) argued that a national bank would be necessary for the proper regulation of a national currency; opponents argued that such an institution would effectively give a tiny banking elite control of the nation's economy. The opponents won: Article I of the US Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money.
However, the proponents of a national bank, led by Alexander Hamilton, did not give up. At the time, in addition to the fledgling national currency, other currencies were issued by local banks. The nation needed a single money and a way of financing the government. All of the government's financial needs, said the Hamiltonians, should be underwritten by funds borrowed from the national bank, and repaid by the government with funds raised by taxation from the people. Thomas Jefferson led the opposition.
Twice in the 19th century a national bank was established (in 1791 and 1817), and twice abolished (the first in 1811, the second in 1832, both times on charges that the bank was corrupt and unconstitutional). Further attempts were made to establish a national bank until the early years of the 20th century, but were rejected on constitutional grounds. The nation's money, controlled by the government, was sometimes a fiat paper currency, and sometimes gold- or silver-backed. Periods of inflation or deflation led to depressions. Private banks continued to issue their own bank notes as currency until the end of the Civil War, during which Lincoln floated millions of dollars in fiat "greenbacks" in order to finance the army. In 1878, Congress began to redeem greenbacks into gold, which effectively put the US back on the gold standard until 1933.
In general, the Republicans were married to gold, while Populists, Democrats, and the "Greenback Party" promoted silver and/or the printing of lots of paper money. They argued that gold had become concentrated in the hands of the bankers; if money were to get into the hands of "real people," the government would have to issue more fiat or silver-backed paper notes. The monetary question split the nation for decades. Clearly, gold as money acts as a barrier to the expansion of credit money. This can be both good and bad: it prevents hyperinflation, but it can also put a brake on economic activity, leading in the worst instances to deflation and depression. In 1896, the conflict came to a head as Populist William Jennings Bryan ran against pro-gold Republican William McKinley. Though McKinley won, gold's time had passed.
Following the depression of 1907, Congress passed the Owen-Glass Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which established the national banking cartel that controls the nation's currency to this day. The Federal Reserve (known colloquially as the "Fed") is a peculiar hybrid government-private institution whose chairman is appointed by the US president but whose stock is entirely owned by member banks. In effect, the Fed is a private corporation owned by the interests that it nominally regulates on behalf of the people.
After the Fed's establishment the government quickly recalled its Treasury Notes and the Fed began issuing Federal Reserve notes with a promise to redeem them for gold upon demand. Congress also handed the Fed control of the nation's gold. The Fed then began loaning back the gold, at interest.
The Fed's tools for controlling the economy are few but powerful. It sets the rules for member banks for fractional reserve banking (money creation), and sets the discount rate (the rate of interest charged to member banks for the privilege of creating money). When the federal government wishes to take out a loan to pay for a new bomber or highway, it effectively borrows the money from the Fed (though the debt usually then gets spread around to various domestic and foreign investors), which thus controls not only the nation's monetary system but government credit as well. The benefits issuing from the flow of insider information that results from that control are unknown but surely considerable. The Fed's deliberations occur in secret and the institution has never been audited.
Even after the Fed's creation, several kinds of currency existed from time to time during the early 20th century, including United States Notes, Gold Certificates, and Silver Certificates. But, from about 1965 to the present, virtually all US currency has consisted of Federal Reserve Notes - i.e. money created not by the government (which merely prints the paper notes themselves, which it sells to the Fed for the cost of printing), but by Federal Reserve and its member banks.
On March 9, 1933, at the deepest point of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Orders 6073, 6102, 6111, and 6260,effectively declaring the US bankrupt. On April 5, 1933, Roosevelt declared a National Emergency that made it unlawful for any citizen of the United States to own gold, and ordered all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates turned in to Federal Reserve banks by May 1 under the threat of imprisonment and fines. On June 5, 1933, Congress enacted a joint resolution outlawing all gold clauses in contracts.
Henceforth, for the next forty years, a dual monetary system would prevail which denied gold redeemability to Americans, while retaining it for foreigners.

The Dollar Triumphant This brings us to the story of the dollar's rise to international prominence.
Prior to World War II the British pound sterling came close to being a globally accepted standard currency, largely as a result of the fact that it was issued by an Empire upon which the sun never set. However, neither the Empire nor the British economy survived the War intact. The US economy, meanwhile, though having been hammered by the Depression, emerged from the Second World War more robust than ever.
A post-War economic and geopolitical regime gradually emerged during the years 1944 to 1948. Postwar geopolitics would consist of a long political Cold War (which was also an economic war between the US and the USSR, itself a major oil producer and goods exporter within its sphere); meanwhile, the non-Soviet-dominated global economy would be shaped in agreements settled upon at international meetings in held Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The Bretton Woods meetings of 1944 led to the establishment of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (which later became the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund. The chief feature of the Bretton Woods system consisted of the obligation for each country to maintain the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed range - plus or minus one percent - in terms of gold. This well suited the United States, which at the time happened to have the largest gold reserves of any nation.
The arrangement worked reasonably for all concerned, as long as America remained the world's foremost energy producer and goods exporter - which permitted it in turn to maintain its gold reserves. The US extended dollar credits by way of the Marshall Plan to finance the rebuilding of post-war Europe, while American oil companies (and the Texas Railroad Commission) maintained stable prices for petroleum globally.
During this period US foreign and domestic policy were characterized by liberalism: at home, economic inequality was at the lowest point in modern American history; while abroad the United States maintained minimal trade barriers between itself and Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea. It could easily afford to absorb exports from these nations in return for their commitment of support for the duration of the Cold War.
The US exercised leadership by consensus - again, because it could easily afford to do so. This consensus evolved through both GATT trade negotiations and geostrategic Bilderberg meetings, in which the main Western powers conspired to effectively control the economies and political destinies of most of the rest of the world's nations.
However, this first relatively benign phase of what Henry Luce called the "American Century" came to an end as a result of the confluence of three factors: the decline of US oil production, spiraling national debt brought on by the Vietnam War, and increasing European and Japanese economic strength.

1973-1999: The Petrodollar Era The members of the US-dominated consensus, while agreeing to cooperate, still had their own interests at heart, and sought advantages wherever possible. F. William Engdahl, in an essay in Current Concerns titled "Iraq and the Hidden Euro-Dollar Wars", describes the subsequent unraveling
All during the 1960s, France's de Gaulle began to take . . . dollar export earnings and demand gold from the U.S. Federal Reserve, legal under Bretton Woods at that time. By November 1967 the drain of gold from U.S. and Bank of England vaults had become critical. The weak link in the Bretton Woods Gold Exchange arrangement was Britain, the "sick man of Europe." The link broke as Sterling was devalued in 1967.That merely accelerated the pressure on the U.S. dollar, as French and other central banks increased their call for U.S. gold in exchange for their dollar reserves. They calculated that, with the soaring war deficits from Vietnam, it was only a matter of months before the United States itself would be forced to devalue against gold, so better to get their gold out at a high price.
By May 1971 even the Bank of England was demanding gold for dollars, and the drain on US reserves had become intolerable. Nixon did the only thing he could under the circumstances: he abandoned the Gold Exchange program altogether, and in August of that year a system of floating currencies was instituted. Engdahl again:
The break with gold opened the door to an entirely new phase of the American Century. In this new phase, control over monetary policy was, in effect, privatized, with large international banks such as Citibank, Chase Manhattan or Barclays Bank assuming the role that central banks had in a gold system, but entirely without gold. "Market forces" now could determine the dollar. And they did with a vengeance.
In 1973, with the dollar now floating freely, the Arab nations of OPEC embargoed oil exports to the US in retaliation for American support for Israel in the Ramadan/Yom Kippur War. By this time it was clear that US oil production had peaked and was in permanent decline, and that America would become ever more dependent upon petroleum imports. As oil prices soared 400%, the US economy took a nose-dive.
The US and Saudi Arabia had formed a cooperative partnership in 1945, following meetings between FDR and King Ibn Saud. US oil companies (Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco) were already controlling Saudi discovery and production through a partnership with the Kingdom, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco). In 1973, the Saudi Government increased its partner's share in the company to 25%, and then 60% the next year. In 1980, the Saudi government retroactively gained full ownership of Aramco with financial effect as of 1976.
At about the same time this was happening (1975), the Saudis agreed to export their oil for US dollars exclusively. Soon OPEC as a whole adopted the rule. Now, as a result, the dollar was backed not by gold but, in effect, by oil. Had the US permitted the Saudis to nationalize their oil industry in return for this extraordinary favor? Because the Saudi royal family and the oil companies are all notoriously tight-lipped, we may never know.
In any case, the oil shock created enormously increased demand for the floating dollar. Oil importing countries, including Germany and Japan, were faced with the problem of how to earn or borrow dollars with which to pay their ballooning fuel bills. Meanwhile, OPEC oil countries were inundated with oil dollars. Many of these oil dollars ended up in accounts in London and New York banks, where a new process - which Henry Kissinger dubbed "recycling petrodollars" - was instituted.
The process worked like this. OPEC countries were receiving billions of dollars they could not immediately use. When American and British banks took these dollars in deposit, they were thereby presented with the opportunity for writing more loans (banks make their profits primarily from loans, but they can only write loans if they have deposits to cover a certain percentage of the loan-usually 10% to 15%, depending on the current fractional reserve requirements issued by the Fed or Bank of England). Since the economies of industrialized nations were in no position to take on much new debt, the banks were faced with a problem: to whom could they loan a boatload of new petrodollar-based money? Kissinger, an advisor to David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan Bank, suggested the bankers use OPEC dollars as a reserve base upon which to aggressively "sell" bonds or loans, not to US or British corporations and investors, but to Third World countries desperate to borrow dollars with which to pay for oil imports. By the late 1970s these petrodollar debts had laid the basis for the Third World debt crisis of the 1980s (after interest rates exploded). Most of that debt is still in place and is still strangling many of the poorer nations. Hundreds of billions of dollars were recycled in this fashion. (Incidentally, the borrowed money usually found its way back to Western corporations or banks in any event, either by way of contracts with Western construction companies or simple theft on the part of indigenous officials with foreign bank accounts.)
Also during the 1970s and '80s, the Saudis began using their petrodollar surpluses to buy huge inventories of unusable weaponry from US arms manufacturers. This was a hidden subsidy to the US economy, and especially to the so-called Defense Department.
As Engdahl points out, the petrodollar era was characterized by the US attempt to slow its geopolitical decline (arising from imperial over-extension abroad and resource depletion at home) by making the dollar a hegemonic currency The IMF "Washington Consensus" was developed to enforce draconian debt collection on Third World countries, to force them to repay dollar debts, prevent any economic independence from the nations of the South, and keep the U.S. banks and the dollar afloat. The Trilateral Commission was created by David Rockefeller and others in 1973 in order to take account of the recent emergence of Japan as an industrial giant and try to bring Japan into the system. Japan, as a major industrial nation, was a major importer of oil. Japanese trade surpluses from export of cars and other goods were used to buy oil in dollars. The remaining surplus was invested in U.S. Treasury bonds to earn interest. The G-7 was founded to keep Japan and Western Europe inside the U.S. dollar system. From time to time into the 1980s various voices in Japan would call for three currencies - dollar, German mark and yen - to share the world reserve role. It never happened. The dollar remained dominant.
Simultaneously, during the 1980s the US effectively bankrupted the Soviet Union by forcing the Soviets to pump their oil reserves at the maximum rate in order to pay for the escalating arms race with America and the US-fomented Afghan war, while reducing oil income to the Soviets by asking the Saudis to keep world oil prices low. As foreseen by the CIA, Soviet oil production peaked; and, as it declined, the nation's economy imploded. The Cold War had been won.
The petrodollar era had worked to the American financial elite's advantage, but at a horrendous cost to the people of the Third World and to those of the former Soviet Union as well. Living standards declined in all of these countries as IMF "structural adjustment" policies opened markets to the predatory process of globalization led by US-based multinationals seeking cheap labor and raw materials. The people of the US suffered also, as America's manufacturing base was "hollowed out" through outsourcing. While a quarter-century previously 60% of the world's export goods had carried a "Made in USA" label, now American companies were interested primarily in "branding" products made in China or Central America. Jobs for US workers were consequently down-sized.
During the petrodollar era, American foreign economic policy and military policy continued to be dominated by the voices of the traditional liberal consensus, which required that the US acted in concert with its allies. But this was about to change.

1999-Present: Hegemonic Decline, Imperial Hubris As the Cold War ended, Europe was in the process of forging political and economic unity. Today the European Union and the euro - an entirely new pan-European currency - present a subtle but serious threat to continued American monetary hegemony. This challenge has developed slowly over the past 15 years, but its effects are cascading into view. In the US-British invasion and occupation of Iraq we see the dynamics of this new challenge at play, including the American response to it. The Washington neoconservatives have a term for this response: "democratic imperialism."
As Jeremy Rifkin documents in his new book, European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, Europe is ever less a collection of squabbling nations and ever more a cohesive economic superpower -one that exceeds the US in GDP, population, and productivity. Europe shares America's dependency on depleting foreign sources of oil and gas, and will likely be hit hard by the effects of global climate change. Thus, over the long term, Europe's prospects are dim-though no dimmer necessarily than those of any other region.
However, in the short term Europeans will enjoy some advantages over their American counterparts, including much greater energy efficiency (Europeans use energy at one-half the per-capita rate as Americans) and much less debt, resulting partly from much smaller military budgets. Moreover, Europe sits next to Russia, which still has considerable quantities of exportable oil and gas and stockpiles of nuclear and conventional weapons. A Eurasian alliance between Russia, Germany, and France would be a geopolitical nightmare for Washington -and such an alliance is beginning quietly and tentatively to emerge. Europe is also geographically closer to the oil and gas reserves of the Middle East and Central Asia, which are increasingly accessible to it by pipeline (the US must rely on tankers).
The development of this Eurasian challenge comes at a bad time for Washington, which is in no position to offer the kinds of trade concessions it did in earlier decades in order to maintain the G-7 consensus. America's only remaining strong suit is raw military power, and thus its only options are either to decline gracefully from its position as sole superpower, or use its military to enforce global dominance.
Engdahl suggests that the neo-conservatives gained influence in Washington because a majority in the U.S. power establishment finds their views useful to advance a new aggressive U.S. role in the world. Rather than work out areas of agreement with European partners, Washington increasingly sees Euroland as the major strategic threat to American hegemony, especially "Old Europe" of Germany and France. Just as Britain in decline after 1870 resorted to increasingly desperate imperial wars in South Africa and elsewhere, so the United States is using its military might to try to advance what it no longer can by economic means. Here the dollar is the Achilles heel.
To understand why the dollar is America's Achilles heel, a metaphor is useful. Imagine being able to write checks and then convince the people you give them to not to cash them. Perhaps they find the checks themselves comforting to hold onto; or maybe you have a friend who agrees to sell groceries or gasoline for your checks only, and then happily stockpiles and re-circulates them. In either case, you may be tempted to write checks for much more than you have in your bank account. As long as the checks themselves are regarded as valuable and not cashed, you get a free ride. But if people stop finding your checks comforting to hold onto, or if your friend starts selling groceries for other people's checks or for gold or silver, then the game is up. It will be revealed that your account is overdrawn and you will be in trouble.
The metaphor is not perfect. In fact, every nation in the world is attempting to write checks beyond its means. But the US has managed to do by far a better job of it than any other nation. The checks we are not talking about are not just hoarded paper dollars (though there are billions of these stuffed in mattresses around the world) but dollar-denominated investments and securities, including T-bills, stocks, and mortgages. Currently the US is running a $700 billion per year trade deficit, this on top of trillions in government debt and trillions more in consumer debt. No other nation in the world comes remotely close to this level of bad-check writing, on either a total or a per-capita basis.
If a run on the US dollar were to occur, then the only financial solution would be to create even more dollars (presumably through government borrowing), which of course wouldn't actually solve the problem and would in the long run make matters worse. The currency would become almost worthless, and in the process real wealth (land, factories, and natural resources) would be confiscated and turned over to creditors.
What could cause this to happen? A decision by OPEC to openly sell oil for euros could be a trigger. Some oil is already quietly being sold for euros, and several countries including Iran and Saudi Arabia have floated the possibility of valuing oil against a basket of currencies (meaning, effectively, dollars and euros). The Arab OPEC states have also toyed with an idea that must be equally worrisome to Brussels and Washington: to sell oil for gold (the gold dinar). If and when this happens, the full wrath of America will descend upon the Arab Middle East - and that's why it hasn't happened yet.
The other likely trigger would be a collapse of the US economy from within resulting from a bursting of the mortgage bubble. The recent US economic "recovery" arose almost entirely from low mortgage rates (set ultimately by the Fed), which allowed families to refinance their homes, cash out some of their equity, and use the money for immediate consumption. With oil prices soaring, the Fed will eventually have to raise interest rates steeply in order to contain inflation. But this may cause millions of homeowners to default on their currently low-interest adjustable-rate mortgages. In that event, property values would plummet, and with them would go the stock market and the economy as a whole.
If the Fed's real owners are confident in the present Washington leadership, they will do everything in their power to delay the inevitable until after the election (and this is what they seem to be doing). If they think it is time for a regime change, we may see the great unraveling begin even before November.
In either case, the response of US political leaders may be merely to seek foreign scapegoats. As Stan Goff writes in his recent essay, "Persian Peril" (www.fromthewilderness.com), it appears as if Iran is currently being set up as the next domino in the neocons' crusade for democracy in the Middle East. With Iranian and Russian cooperative energy agreements blooming, a US attack on Iran could be the trigger for another all-out conflict on the order of the World Wars of the 20th century. On the other hand, it is possible that the disastrous outcome of the Iraq invasion has sunk deep enough into the awareness of Washington elites that further similar adventures (however desperately sought by the neocons) will be headed off by cooler minds.

* * *

There is no solution to any of this - in that there is nothing we can do to make the problems go away. Their origins go far back in time and are intertwined with the history of money itself, though money per se is not at the heart of the matter. Access to resources is, as ever, the ultimate determiner of human destiny, but money has become a tool universally used by humans to gain and hold access to resources, and as such it introduces its own set of possibilities and perils.
While there is no solution, there must be responses, and some are better than others. Relocalization of economies (moving producers and consumers closer together) and local currencies are good places to start.
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What happened to the oil prices during 2009? What will happen in the future?

2009-09-26T20:07:00.005-04:00

The oil price reached a peak in July of 2008. As the financial markets collapsed and a severe recession established itself, the demand for oil decreased globally. This happened as a consequence of generalized diminished economic activity. As a result of this, the oil price decreased significantly reaching levels not seen in many years. Gasoline prices, natural gas and coal also decreased accordingly since they also are used to power economic activity. During 2009, the energy prices have increased steadily. News related to an economic recovery usually are associated with increases in oil prices. News related to the persistence of the recession such as the unemployment rate and the bank failures are associeted with decreases in oil prices. It is important to point out that the current oil price almost doubles the value at the start of the year, taking into account that the world economy has not fully recovered.

According to the information available, the oil prices depend on the following:

a.- The relationship between its supply and demand.

b.- Market speculators since the commodity can be traded easily.

c.- The purchasing capacity of the dollar.

The relationship between supply and demand seems to show a pattern of inability of supply to keep up with demand. This was clearly visible in the easily available charts of IEA and other entities. In the years leading to 2007, in the midst of global economic growth, the supply side of the equation was not able to keep up with demand increases, the consequence were price increases.

Market speculators probably helped pushing the price up, specially after the first signs of financial collapse when the cash available from the fleeing the financial sector was used to appreciate the value of commodities.

The purchasing capacity of the dollar has been diminishing progressively as more dollars need to be printed to cover the financial deficit. If we compare the value of oil with respect to gold, its increase has not been as steep.

What we are probably going to see in the future is an oil price that will increase and decrease based on the overall economic activity since the supply side is under too much stress. High oil prices will slow down economic growth and limit recovery attempts. Speculation will remain a player, making the swings in the oil price steeper than expected from regular supply/demand curves. The value of the dollar will continue to decrease and, as a result of that the oil price will have a trend towards always higher. How high? This will probably depend on the inflation rates of the U.S.A in the maintenance of the dollar as the global reserve currency.

This is an opinion post. What I have posted here reflects only the results of my understanding of issues about which I am not an specialist but an aficionado.

Peru, 1987-1992: Memories from Tough Times.

2008-12-21T17:16:00.003-05:00

Recession: the reduction of a country's gross domestic product (GDP) for at least two quarters.

Depression (economic): any economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent.

Hyperinflation: an extreme rate of inflation in which the general price level of goods and services, usually measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rises very rapidly.

Stagflation: an economic situation in which inflation and economic stagnation occur simultaneously and remain unchecked for a period of time.

Terrorism: the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain political goals.

Epidemic: a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease; many people are infected at the same time

Nobody knows how things started; however, many of us know what happened. Many theories float in the air. They blame the Spanish colonial rule of the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, the Chilean invasion in the late 19th century, the Great Depression, the World Wars, the Cold War, the military governments, el Nino phenomenon, the Oil crises, the debt crisis, etc. Nobody knows the real answer. The truth is that in those 5 years Peruvians experienced all the words that were defined at the beginning of this post.

In 1987, Peruvians had Alan Garcia as president. A young politician from an old party, elected president in 1985, and, probably, the best orator of modern times. He brought a social-democrat agenda and his populism filled up the Peruvians with hope. By mid 1987, the dream of getting rid of the epithets of “poor country” and “third world nation” was starting to become true. The country’s GDP had grown 12.1% in 1986 and it was growing at a similar rate during 1987. That year, the president decided to confront the economic elite because “they were not investing in the country”. This, together with ill-conceived financial decisions, worsened what was already in place: a high rate of inflation. The year ended with an annual inflation rate of 114.51% (One hundred and fourteen). At the same time, the Shining Path, a radical Maoist movement was challenging the government forces with ambush tactics and terrorizing the civilian population as a means of gaining power. Their actions, which had been restricted to the distant Andean regions started to pound the larger cities.

1988 was the end of the dream. The monthly inflation rate was over 12% and people were starting to feel the pain. Many people, especially government officials, had their salaries adjusted to inflation, but many people did not. In September, the government attempted to solve the issues announcing a package of economic measures. Many of these included getting rid of certain government subsidies, however, without tackling the fiscal deficit and the printing of new money. The result of the measures was that September had a monthly inflation rate of 114.12% and left a residual monthly inflation rate for the rest of the months of the year of around 40%. As a consequence of the economic problems 1988’s GDP dropped 9.4% placing us in the territory of an economic depression. The total inflation rate for 1988, was 1722%, completing the picture of stagflation. On top of everything, the Shining Path was gaining strength, causing massive blackouts in Lima, the capital city, and destroying the infrastructure of the country. Bridges, railroads, police stations, city halls, tunnels, etc, were blown up by explosives.

1989 was a year that seemed no government was taking care of the issues. The inflation rate remained at a monthly rate of 40%. People bought their groceries as soon as they got their paychecks and housewives got used to “cook for a whole week”. Businesses closed, restaurants and shopping centers were empty, and a curfew was in place which did not let people in the capital city wander in the streets after 10 pm. More than 80% of the country was under de facto military rule due to the suspension of the constitutional rights that came with the “state of emergency” caused by the Shining Path. The GDP fell for a second consecutive year at a rate of 13.4%. The overall inflation rate reached 2774.98% in 1989.

1990 brought some hope. It was election year. A new government was supposed to change the state of chaos that had engulfed Peru. Mario Vargas-Llosa, the famous writer, was leading in the polls as the leader of a right-wing coalition. He spoke clearly about the need of change and about the harsh measures needed to correct the economic and political environment. Alberto Fujimori appeared in the scene around March, out of nowhere. His campaign appealed to the people because the economic plan to solve the issues did not seem as hard as Vargas-Llosa’s. Eventually, Fujimori defeated Vargas Llosa. Due to the anxiety and speculation caused by the coming new government, inflation rate picked up steam and reached the level of 63.23% by July. By then, the inflation rate was being measured in a daily basis. It was common to watch the news at night and get the report of a 2% or 3% inflation rate for a given day. When Fujimori was sworn in as president, chaos caused by speculation soared in anticipation of the new package of economic measures. Gasoline was scarce, long lines in gas stations were common. Finally, 11 days after Fujimori took power, the Economy Minister delivered the economic measures. So harsh were the measures that he ended his address to the nation with the phrase: “God help us all”. The day after, the naturally chaotic streets of Lima were desolate. Soldiers were patrolling them. Violence was not absent. Supermarkets were sacked by desperate people; the highways were blocked by peasants. The fact was that the price of the most basic items went up by a factor of 5. Gasoline was up 33 times higher than the previous day. The whole country was paralyzed. August ended with a inflation rate of 396.98%. The year was the third in a row showing a negative growth in GDP, 5.1% and the inflation rate for the year was 7649.65%. The Shining Path did not stop its attacks; in fact they claimed to have achieved a strategic equilibrium in their battles with the army in the Andean regions.

1991 saw inflation slowing down due to the collapse in the buying capacity of the people, mainly because salaries were not adjusted anymore to it. However, as if being pounded by a depression, hyperinflation, a Maoist terrorist group were not enough, a cholera epidemic ravaged the country. Vibrio cholerae thrived in the collapsed water and sewer systems. 322,000 people suffered from it during 1991. Amazingly, the death rate was less than 1% due to the many years of people’s preparation (through TV ads and government programs) to treat acute gastroenteritis at home, especially in children. The Shining Path continued its offensive, showing for the first time deadly car-bombs in Lima, the capital city. 1991 ended with an inflation rate of 139%, taking into account that the monthly inflation rate by the end of the year was close to 3%. The GDP grew 2.1% that year meaning that the country could have been emerging from the depression.

In 1992 the country appeared to be failing as a country. Car-bombing by the Shining Path was common in Lima, together with “armed strikes” which would not allow people in the poorer areas of the city go to work. It was common to drive by a blown up building and to walk by police stations barricaded with cement bags. Inflation had been contained, but recession reappeared. The GDP dropped again 0.4%

Between the end of 1987 and the end of 1992, the Peruvian GDP dropped 24.6 %, the inflation rate was over 2 million percent. The buying capacity of the average Peruvian dropped by more than 50%. Unemployment an underemployment were the rule. The Shining Path was finally controlled after the capture of its leader in September 1992. During those years, people got used to a lifestyle characterized by uncertainness. Finances, health, and life were not taken for granted and people learned to live like that. Above all, Peruvians did not lose their sense of family, their sense of friendship and their sense of humor, which anyone who knows Peruvians well would be able to describe.

Energy, Population, Socialism and Capitalism

2008-08-05T17:57:00.002-04:00

Energy: is a scalar physical quantity that is a property of objects and systems which is conserved by nature. Energy is often defined as the ability to do work.1

Renewable Energy: energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat—which are renewable (naturally replenished). 2

Wealth: The value of one's total possessions and property rights. 3

Carrying Capacity: The number of individuals an environment can support without degradation. 4

Energy is the basis of everything. From energy we obtain wealth. It takes energy to make everything we see around. The more energy is invested into the creation of something, the more costly that something would be. 82% of our sources of energy are non-renewable and 18% are renewable5. As a consequence of this, wealth creation is limited. Even in an utopian 100% renewable energy world, the rate of energy conversion to wealth will always have to be less that the rate of energy availability. In a world with finite energy resources, the creation of wealth can occur at different rates. Wealth can be distributed amongst the world’s inhabitants in an egalitarian fashion or in a non-egalitarian one.

Capitalism creates wealth at a fast speed due to the natural human greed. In addition, it allows and promotes accumulations of wealth in a non-egalitarian manner. Individuals and corporations compete for wealth and obtain it from less effective individuals or corporations. So as the energy base is expanding, the system can be sustained in a more or less stable way if the masses are kept “happy” with the minimum necessary for happiness. This has been termed the trickle-down effect.

Socialism creates wealth from energy at a slower speed due to lack of incentive for individuals and corporations. Socialism does not allow unequal distributions of wealth within a population. In a world of an expanding energy base, the slow creation of wealth might generate impatient masses as they see other societies generating wealth in a faster manner. Socialist societies do not look rich in a world of growing energy availability.

If energy sources start to decrease, the creation of wealth will decrease. It would still have to be distributed between the current and future human beings.

In a capitalist society, the competition for the dwindling wealth would be fierce. Individuals and corporations will become more ruthless to the point of denying the masses of their acquired right to the minimum necessary happiness. Masses would revolt, the society would become unstable.

In a socialist society, everyone can have a share of the decreased wealth. Since wealth was not created at a fast speed, the decrease would not come at a fast speed either. Society would have time to adjust and take the necessary measures to increase efficiency and to survive.

All the prior paragraphs assume a constant or increasing total population, however, either system will have a better chance of surviving if population actually decreases. In a capitalist world, population decrease might be a consequence of social instability. War, famine, and disease could the means by which population decreases. A socialist, tightly regulated world might be able to plan population-stabilization-and-decrease policies that might lead us to a “soft landing” when we finally reach the point in which the Earth’s human population carrying capacity is achieved, together with a rational use of renewable and non-renewable energy sources.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy(Biology)
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy
3. http://www.ncbuy.com/credit/glossary.html?action=LETTER&term=W
4. http://web.missouri.edu/~flinnm/courses/mah/glossary.htm
5. http://www.ren21.net/pdf/RE2007_Global_Status_Report.pdf

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 9

2008-03-02T15:54:00.005-05:00

World Total Liquid Fuel Production -January 2008: 87.18 millions of barrels per day (mbpd)1.

The production is again the highest prodution recorded so far. However, the production of crude and condensate achieved its peak in May 2005. This means that the production of natural gas plant liquids (NGPL), ethanol, biomass to liquids (BTL), coal to liquids (CTL), gas to liquids (GTL) and processing gains is still increasing. According to certain estimates, the peak fossil fuel production will be reached in 2018, taking into account also coal and natural gas 2. In the meantime, the supply and demand mismatch will create oil price increases and a slowing of the world economies as an average.

References

1. http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/13feb08tab.pdf

2. http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3565

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 8

2008-01-13T00:59:00.000-05:00

World Total Liquids Production -November 2007: 86.55 millions of barrels per day (mbpd).

This is again the largest production recorded. However, the figure is very close to the ones on October 2007 and July 2006 so technically the global production is still at a plateau. The supply/demand relationship is still worrisome for 2008, which leads me to think that the barrel price will be more expensive than the average for 2007. If the world economy goes into a recession in 2008, the demand side of the equation would ease up the tendencies of price-climbing.

The Cyclic Nature of Nature. Dying and Rebirth, Essentials for Invincibility

2007-12-21T23:13:00.000-05:00

The Cyclic Nature of Nature.

Dying and Rebirth, Essentials for Invincibility.

The quest to understand the nature’s phenomena started the moment in which the first spark of conscience was lit in the evolving animal brain. This spark eventually led to the fire that illuminated the minds of the ones who have changed how we see the world. This spark was generated probably some millions years ago and, I am sure, did not lit a fire instantaneously. In millions of years, the fire grew in slow motion. Slow motion for us, of course, since we have such ephemeral lives. The light provided by the growing fire was sufficient for humans to realize that things come and go. The day, the night, the moon, the stars, the greenness of the trees, the whiteness of the snow, they all make a come back after leaving us for a while.

Some cyclic phenomena are more subtle and require more illumination. One of those is the cycle of daylight duration throughout the year. It took millions of years for the animal brains to figure out that there will be a shortest and a longest day, and a shortest and longest night. The durations of day and night changed slowly day after day. By trial and error and by the use of shadows and brighter light, the longest day and night were pinpointed and served as anchors for the development of calendars.

The Sun, the bearer of light, the bearer of heat and other electromagnetic waves for this planet, is also the bearer of life. If something gives us life it is logical to consider that something with some respect, just like a progenitor. Unlike us, progenitors and progeny at the same time, the Sun comes and goes, not only in 24 hour cycles but in longer cycles. After the longest night of the year, when it seems that the Sun will eventually fade away, it returns stronger and stronger, showing that impending death was momentarily. Soon, the empowered Sun is able to bring back the green, the bird and the food.

Invincibility, the ability to never be conquered, the capacity to make a come back when hope is fading, is a quality that our Sun posesses. Even now, when our minds have been lit up so much that we know that in a couple billion years, hydrogen for the nuclear fusion reactions that power our Sun will deplete and reach a terminal decline, for our minuscule duration and importance, our Sun is invincible.

Comment 1

2007-12-16T18:17:00.000-05:00

Here is my comment about the article "How Should We Be Thinking About Urbanization? A Freakonomics Quorum" in the Freakononomics-Opinion section of the New York Times. The article was posted on December 11, 2007. My comment is number 54.

There is a period of transition waiting for us. How is the transition going to be? I depends on us. It could be organized, gentle and civilized if the nations agree that we have to reduce our numbers, our toxic emissions and our use of energy. It could be tumultous, tragic and apocalyptic if we deny the realities of physics and geology, if we believe in growth-economics as a dogma and if we selfishly decide not to proceed as a community.
— Posted by Dr Marco

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 7

2007-12-02T17:48:00.000-05:00

World Total Liquids Production -October 2007: 86.43 millions of barrels per day (mbpd).

This is the record production so far. The only way we can say we are not at peak is if we see a continuous production increase in the following months and years. It is important to realize that the most important issue is the supply and demand relationship. If demands keeps rising faster than supply it would not matter if we are at peak or not, the prices of oil will continue to rise.

The other issue that I want to bring to the attention of my readers is that the crude and condensate (C&C) production peak occured in May 2005 and there are no signs that the record will be broken. So, what is the difference between C&C and total liquids? Total liquids include the following: Natural gas plant liquids (NGPL), ethanol, biomass to liquids (BTL), coal to liquids (CTL), gas to liquids (GTL) and processing gains. The increase in the non C&C liquid production has avoided a total peak so far.

Still the relationship between supply and demand does not look good for the 4th quarter of 2007 and the 1st quarter of 2008.

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 6

2007-10-31T18:40:00.000-04:00

All liquids Production- September 2007: 85.09 millions of barrels per day

The record production of all liquids was in July of 2006 as I always repeat in these updates. If we only take into account crude and condensate (C&C), the peak production month was May of 2005.

When I wrote my last update, we were in the third quarter, when all liquids demand started to surpass all liquids supply. Now, we are entering the fourth quarter during which the gap between supply and demand is going to get worse. The demand is going to be around 87.6 mbpd (million of barrels per day). This, together with the well known geopolitical concerns (Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, etc) will make the price of oil and its derivatives highly unstable for the next months.

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 5

2007-09-08T17:55:00.000-04:00

Oil Production July 2007: 85.26 millions of barrels per day

The highest production of all liquids ever recorded was in July of 2006 as I always emphasize. However, if we only count crude and condensate (C&C), the month with peak production was May of 2005. If oil demand were to stay steady, this would not matter too much. We are entering the third quarter of 2007, were oil demand is predicted to be 86.1 mbpd. Furthermore, in the fourth quarter the demand will be 88.1 mbpd. Guess how much the gasoline prices would rise...

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 4

2007-07-31T23:18:00.000-04:00

Oil Production June 2007: 84.28 millions of barrels per day

Are we seeing a pattern here? The month with highest production for all liquids is still July of 2007. As I said in my previous post regarding the oil production, the demand for oil will be significantly higher than the supply, and according to the IEA, the trend will continue in 2008. This will likely reflect in increased oil prices in the following months, taking into account the well known seasonal variations.

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 3

2007-06-27T01:54:00.000-04:00

Oil Production: May 2007: 84.94 millions of barrels per day.

There is a dip in the production of oil. The IEA report states that Nigerian decrease in supply is partially to blame. What is more alarming is that, in the third and fourth quarters of this year, demand is going to surpass supply without any major political event going on (as it happened in 1973 and 1979). July of 2006 continues to be the month with most oil production recorded.

Middle Class Dismantling 101. (MDM 101)

2007-06-07T00:22:00.000-04:00

The purpose of this course is to enable future aristocrats take active part in the destruction of the middle class. Middle classes, when they represent a significant percentage of the total population, create a pervasive environment that leads to common people acquiring positions of power that do not let hard working and smart individuals (and their offspring) achieve the power they deserve.

The course is directed to the young sons and daughters of the nascent aristocracy, who need to completely dismantle the decaying but still powerful middle class. It is an organized form of knowledge that will help in the building of the ideological backbone of the future aristocracy.

The syllabus of the course contains the following topics, which will be briefly described.

1. Democracy: The antithesis of Aristocracy.

The etymology of the words democracy and aristocracy is as follows. Demos is a Greek work for people. Kratia is the Greek word for government. As a summary, democracy is the government of the people. Aristos is a Greek work that means best. As a summary, aristocracy is the government of the best. Future aristocrats have to be completely convinced that they deserve to rule because they are the best of humankind. Why are they the best? Because they have inherited the power from a prior generation that was already the best and were educated to be the best. In addition, the common people usually are not well educated and lack the character for optimal decision-making. This is why aristocracy and democracy are opposites. The common cannot be the best.

2. The Corporation: The base of the Aristocracy

Corporations have to first make sure that they can have the same rights that people in a democracy. Once that is achieved, they have to grow accumulating always a greater proportion of the generated wealth than the common people. The future aristocrats will be always at the top of a corporation. A historical analogy can be made with the feudal system of the later Middle Ages. The lord of the manor (CEO) will provide protection to the peasants (workers) in exchange for loyalty. Achieving this, starting with a society with a large and strong middle class, with a two century old tradition of democracy should take a few generations, however, the goals have to be set up.

3. Destruction of democracy… using democracy!

As it was said before, the people lack optimal decision-making capacity. They will elect to office politicians based on charisma. They lack an intellectual framework that will be able to protect themselves and their offspring. The goal of this topic is to learn the tools that will enable the leaders who will destroy the middle class be elected. The process, once started cannot stop so if there is the risk of a setback in anyone of the electoral processes, mechanisms of fraud should be designed to avoid them, raising minimal suspicion. People tend to vote for candidates who show strength, who share beliefs in the supernatural with them and who are against “alternative lifestyles”. Fear, religion, ethnocentrism and homophobia should be exacerbated in electoral campaigns. It has to be taken into account that middle class people will be voting for their own destruction so electoral processes should always be taken seriously.

4. Socioeconomic tools for MDM

Once in power, measures that transport wealth from the common people to the best people should be implemented. Tax-cuts for the wealthy are essential. The unions have to be dismantled. Common people (95th percentile or less) should be more concerned about paying energy bills, medical bills and food than to save for a decent retirement. Once this is achieved things should go smoother since the energies of the common people will be concentrated in survival. Once this happens they will look for the new aristocracy for protection.

5. Educational tools for MDM

The educational system has to be reformed in a way that public education creates weaker children with useless knowledge. Fun has to be more important than intellect. In this way, superstition and fear will be able to be used more easily. Questioning should be discouraged. Socialism should become taboo. Established scientific theories should be placed at the same level with religious myths. A well educated middle class is the worst enemy of an aristocracy. The lessons from the French Revolution should not be forgotten. In other words, the Enlightenment should never happen again.

6. Why an Aristocracy?

The world of the future is a world in which energy will be scarce and wealth will be unevenly distributed. It is the right of the people with the best capabilities to rule and to guide the surviving common people to better grounds for survival of humanity.

By the end of the course the future young aristocrat will know how and why a middle class should be dismantled in order to establish a solid and stable aristocracy that will replace democracy as we know it.

Note from the author: For first visitors, I encourage to read the rest of my blog to get a feel of my real ideological positions. This post is intended to describe what kind of future is reserved if we let our precious middle class disappear.

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 2

2007-05-08T22:42:00.000-04:00

Oil Production:

March 2007: 85.28 millions of barrels per day

According to this, and looking at the figures of my previous entry, the production of oil seems to have reached a plateau since April of 2006. I think that it is still premature to call it a "peak oil", however, we have to keep an eye on it.

Monitoring Peak Oil Number 1

2007-02-12T18:45:00.000-05:00

Many people believe that oil production will soon achieve its peak. Some people believe that global oil production has already peaked. Regardless of individual opinions regarding the subject, if oil production starts to decline and it is not replaced by other energy sources at a greater rate than that of its loss, the global economy will enter a period of recession. The length and severity of the recession will depend, again, on the finding of new oil or the replacement of the oil loss by alternative energy sources.

The intention of this series is to provide an easy access to internet surfers to the latest reports on global oil production. I am obtaining the data from Oil Market Report, published by the International Energy Agency. The production figures are expressed in million of barrels per day.

Jan-05 83.95
Feb-05 84.45
Mar-05 84.89
Apr-05 84.89
May-05 85.31
Jun-05 84.87
Jul-05 84.48
Aug-05 84.77
Sep-05 84.07
Oct-05 84.09
Nov-05 84.86
Dec-05 84.65
Jan-06 84.29
Feb-06 84.44
Mar-06 84.72
Apr-06 85.21
May-06 84.79
Jun-06 84.98
Jul-06 86.13
Aug-06 85.52
Sep-06 85.14
Oct-06 85.35
Nov-06 85.39
Dec-06 85.45

According to this data, oil production seems to have peaked in July of 2006. However, as peak oil "experts" say, we would be able to identify the peak oil production some time after it had actually occured. There are many variables, like the finding of new oil fields, the production of oil from sources like tar sands and the arbitrary OPEC production quotas.

I will try to update this information in a monthly basis.

Dissecting Intelligent Design Number 2: “The Shakespeare Sonnet”

2006-12-16T22:28:00.000-05:00

In January of 2006, I wrote the Number 1 of this series, called “ The Mousetrap” in which I explained and criticized the idea of “irreducible complexity”. In this post I will concentrate in the Intelligent Design (ID) idea called “specified complexity.”

Specified complexity states that information that is “specified” can just be characterized as just a single informational unit. The example that is given is the one of the single letter of the alphabet. It could also be a bit or a pixel. A phrase, a novel or an article could also be regarded as units. By complex I understand “a group of single informational units”. A sequence of random letters would be complex, but not specific. A Shakespearean sonnet would be specified and complex, because it can be regarded as a unit on its own and it is composed of smaller units (letters of the alphabet). When something is specified and complex, ID says, it has to be designed by intelligence. The creator of the concept even defines specified complex information as anything with a less than 1 in 10150 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. So, the Shakespearean sonnet, by being specified and complex, would have a less than a 1 in 10150 chance to occur in nature without the intervention of a designer.

ID states that the DNA base sequences of living beings are specified and complex. According to it, they have a less than 1 in 10 to the power of 150 chance of being a consequence of random mutations aided by natural selection. ID implies that 4.6 billion years of molecular history is not enough to produce the genetic code of a bacteria or a human being.

First of all, this theory is not taking into account the actual nature of DNA. DNA is made by protein-coding exons and non protein coding introns. The introns, are located in between exons, interrupting coding sequences. Since their genetic code is not transformed into protein, mutations that locate in them are not subject to natural selection so they remain part of the DNA of any given species. This has given rise to a genetic tool called the molecular clock, which attempts to establish the temporal relationship between different species and their hypothetical common ancestor. This makes the DNA look more like puerile writing, corrected by a teacher than a Shakespearean sonnet.

Secondly, the creator of this theory has chosen the power of 150 to define when we are in front of creation by intelligence. He probably did some math, taking into account the mutation rates and the proofreading mechanisms; however, the theory cannot be tested by experiment, cannot generate any predictions, and cannot propose new hypotheses of their own.

My third argument against specified complexity is logical. If we take the statement: “Complex specified information does not occur without the aid of a designer, or the chances of it occurring without that aid are less than 1 in 10 to the power of 150”. The statement seems correct, so now we have to determine if it is a validity or a tautology. The definition of complex specified information involves what is mentioned in the second sub-statement. It is the same as saying that “oranges are not cubes, or they are spherical”, i.e., a tautology.

As a conclusion, I must say that it is clear that specified complexity cannot be counted as an argument against evolution by natural selection or for the existence of a designer. It fails the biological and the logical sense. In addition, it cannot be tested, like all other scientific theories, by the scientific method.

Epicurean Philosophy: Principle Doctrines 1-4 out of 40

2006-12-06T22:58:00.000-05:00

I consider myself an atheist due to my lack of belief in gods, a bright (noun) due to my naturalistic approach to life, a socialist because I believe in redistribution of wealth so that society can avoid phenomena such as billionaires or homeless individuals. Philosophically, I must say that I am an epicurean. After reading for some time what Epicurus meant about life and how to live it, I can say that my goal is to live as close as he said life should be lived.

I am going to show the 40 Principle Doctrines in different posts. After each Principle I am going to write a brief paragraph of what I understand of them.

1) A blessed and imperishable being neither has trouble itself nor does it cause trouble for anyone else; therefore, it does not experience feelings of anger or indebtedness, for such feelings signify weakness.

Weakness means a vulnerable state. We are vulnerable when we are angry; we are vulnerable in extreme joy; we are vulnerable in sadness. Why? We become vulnerable because extreme emotion makes us lose awareness of our surroundings. On the other hand, strength is the ability to keep our integrity despite the intensity of the aggression. By living a moderate life avoiding causing trouble for us and for the people we interact with, we avoid situations in which we could be the subject of the anger of the individual we interact with. In addition, we save energy for what is really important.

2) Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us.

This seems very logical. Why worry about death? Dead people do not feel. This is one of the situations in which the concept of afterlife is pernicious. It creates an extra worry. Personally, my only worry would be the financial one, to assure my family with a secure future in the event of my death. The other issue with afterlife is selfishness. People who believe in an afterlife are still concerned about themselves even as they are going to pass away. On the contrary, it is better to think about leaving a legacy and to assume that our memories are going to be our only survivors.

3) Pleasure reaches its maximum limit at the removal of all sources of pain. When such pleasure is present, for as long as it lasts, there is no cause of neither physical nor mental pain present – or of both together.

In the absence of disease and violence, which cause physical pain, the only source of pain is mental. Anxiety is a major source of “mental pain.” This is why, in order to achieve the state of maximum enjoyment of life, we have to live anxiety-free. This is difficult, especially in the 21stcentury world. The lesson here would be to remove minor daily problems as a source of anxiety and only worry about the important things of life. Of course, there will still be many major sources of anxiety for the common people, however, without the extra weight of the anxiety caused by the minor issues, the stress produced by the major ones would be better dealt with.

4) Continuous physical pain does not last long. Instead, extreme pain lasts only a very short time, and even less-extreme pain does not last for many days at once. Even protracted diseases allow periods of physical comfort that exceed feelings of pain.

This is a good observation. After a major injury, the human mind loses its consciousness and when it is regained the memories of the injury are found to be erased. When this does not happen, post traumatic stress disorder is the consequence. I see this Principle Doctrine as an optimistic message for the future sufferer.

Book Review Number 1: The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire by Alan Palmer

2006-11-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

Click at the picture to find book at Amazon.com

I just finished this book. I think it is well written, easy to follow. I perceived at some times the attempt to mimic Gibbon’s style, however, I believe that author wanted to keep it simpler than that.

The book gives the idea of an Ottoman Empire constantly in decline from the seventeenth century onwards, which is probably true. It places the pinnacle of the Ottomans at the siege of Vienna in 1683. It shows the multiple attempts and failures of ”westernization” within the Empire and the challenges the Empire had to govern the outer provinces.

This is not said, but one can obtain as a conclusion that the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment reversed the balance of power that existed between Europe and the Ottomans between 1453 and 1683.

**** 4 stars out of 5

Speciation and Creationist Mythology

2006-11-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

Speciation is the formation of a new species. Defined more properly would be: “the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise.” It is a concept key to the understanding of evolution. Unfortunately, we live in times in which there is a great rift between scientists and not-scientists. Concepts that are basic for the science student at the university level are completely unknown for other people.

The first step to understand the concept is to define what a species is. A good general definition of species is “the basic unit of biodiversity”. However, we need to get a little bit more specific. A working definition for the post, at least for the sexually-reproducing species, is “a set of actually or potentially interbreeding populations, which always generate fertile offspring.” Using this last definition makes us easily visualize that, for example, the dog, in spite of all its different morphologies is a species. A Fox Terrier, can breed with a Great Dane and have fertile offspring. On the other hand, a horse and a donkey can breed, but their offspring is not fertile.

One creationist myth is that we have not seen a new species being generated since humans populated the planet. This is not true. Species have been created artificially. For example, domestic sheep were created by hybridization, and no longer produce viable offspring with Ovis orientalis, one species from which they are descended. The best-documented creations of new species in the laboratory were performed in the late 1980s. Scientists bred fruit flies, using a maze with three different choices such as light/dark and wet/dry. Each generation was placed into the maze, and the groups of flies which came out of two of the eight exits were set apart to breed with each other in their respective groups. After thirty-five generations, the two groups and their offspring would not interbreed. Evolution can happen in front of our eyes.

The second step to understand the concept is to understand the mechanisms by which this happens. I am not going to go deep into this, however, I will explain the simplest theory which is the allopatric speciation.. During allopatric speciation, a population splits into two geographically isolated allopatric populations (due to geographical change or emigration). The isolated populations then go through genotypic and/or phenotypic divergence, through mutations, as they become subjected to different selective pressures. When the populations come back into contact, they have evolved such that they are reproductively isolated and are no longer capable of interbreeding. This is what happened in the experiment mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Creationism implies that the species we see are the species that were created 6000 years ago by a divine being. This can be seen in websites such as Answer in Genesis. Intelligent design, a refined form of creationism, argues that a superior intelligence engineered the morphology of the current species and not different selective pressures through to random mutations in the genetic code. Unfortunately for the ID supporters, that would not be able to be proven since someone superior would have to have designed the designer, then the designer of the designer and so on until we reach the level of the supernatural designer, not provable, since it is outside nature. On the other hand, proper scientists have shown that new species can be formed and that the key for this is differential selective pressure combined with geographical isolation for a given period of time, which can be short like in the example of the fruit fly or longer like in the example of domestic sheep.

Are You Really Free?

2006-11-02T23:18:00.000-05:00

Most people would answer “yes! We live in a free country!” However, in order to answer to this apparently simple question we have to clarify a couple of concepts.

First, we have the concept of political freedom, which is a combination of the ability to exercise, in an unrestrained form, the following rights: Assembly, association, education, movement (or travel), press, religion (or belief), speech, and thought. Anyone who lives in an environment that provides the above mentioned rights can consider itself living in a free society. However, is that enough?

There is also the concept of philosophical freedom. I went to the Wikipedia to find a good definition of this and I found this: “Freedom is a many-faceted, positive term encompassing the ability to act consciously, in a well-balanced manner and with self control in a given constructive direction”.” It is often measured by the degree of absence of external restraint or external control; however, the biggest restraints come from the self: ignorance, which leads to fear, then restraint; and the lack of self control”. External restraints (or control) are also the ones that make a society not free from a political point of view.

Given the two concepts, we must conclude that in order to be free, we have to live in an environment that provides enough rights {political freedom) and, at the same time, be able to act always consciously without internal restraints (philosophical freedom). Therefore, an individual who lives in a politically free society cannot consider itself free if its actions are limited by ignorance, fear and lack of self-control. Likewise, a person who is intellectually superior and emotionally balanced cannot consider itself free if it lacks the essential rights mentioned above.

Now, after the definitions have been provided, how many of us are really free? We can argue that we, in the U.S., live in a politically free society. So, in order to define ourselves as free we have to concentrate in the concept of philosophical freedom. We can reduce the issue to 2 simple questions. Are we ignorant? And, do we always exhibit self-control? (Or do I never let my emotions take control of myself?)

Ignorance is not an absolute term. We can be ignorant about some topics and knowledgeable about others. If we remain ignorant with respect, for example a potential threat, we become fearful, therefore prisoner of an emotion. This is a moment of weakness that can be used by other individuals to restrict our political freedom. The key to fight ignorance is to achieve high quality information. How do we achieve it in a world that seems to have an abundance of it? There are 3 elements that I took from an article by Sheldon Richman. They are independent thought, rigorous questioning and rational skepticism. If we exercise these 3 elements in our everyday gathering of information, we certainly become freer.

Emotion control is also important. Fear, rage, panic, sadness, extreme joy, can certainly impair the judgment and limit the range of options we have we confront situations. We are human beings, not machines, so we certainly will be moments in which our freedom will be restrained by an intense emotion.

Having said everything, I must conclude that freedom is not an absolute term. We can be free sometimes and prisoner in other times. However, I can say that there are people that are freer than other ones. Living in a politically free society that lets us speak our mind and travel where we want is certainly not enough.

Our most common recent ancestor might have lived only 3500 years ago

2006-10-29T22:05:00.000-05:00

This is bad news for all racists of the world. Anthropologic studies tied with computer simulations show that the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all humans could have lived as early as 1500 BCE. The reason for this is that human populations have migrated and interbred significantly throughout the millennia. By estimating how different groups intermingle, the researchers built up a picture of how tightly the world's ancestral lines are linked. What the researchers also stated is that if there were no oceans the MRCA would have lived much more recently. The investigation goes further and stated that the MRCA might have lived in East Asia. The reasoning behind this is that East Asia is close to the Pacific, the Bering Strait and is contiguous with Europe. “Nonetheless, the results show that we are one big family”, the author of the study said. He and his colleagues added: "No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors with those who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu."

I wonder how a racist would interpret this information. Would he or she question the research, its methodology or the statistical analysis? How would someone who ascertains the superiority of his or her race view the world after learning this? How about the ones who claim the “purity” of their genetic background? Most of my readers are not racists; however I am curious with respect to the opinion of a self-proclaimed racist.

I have researched the topic and the estimates for the time when MRCA existed range from 3500 to 15000 years ago. It does not matter. As the authors of the study said, we are all one big family.

Further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrca
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7008/abs/nature02842.html

Multae Sententiae responds to the pope

2006-09-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

Pope Benedict XVI recently gave a speech in Germany in which the most notorious part is his criticism of the violent methods of jihad. This will probably generate a lot of attention from outspoken Muslims, educated or not. It might inflame anti-Christian sentiment among the followers of Mohammed. However, if you read the whole speech, he dedicates most of his intellectual effort towards questioning the secular world and its use of reason. He criticised the West for rejecting god and faith and blames it for not understanding the way religious people think. He went ahead and said that the root of atheism is "being afraid of god"

First, I believe that one of the consequences of the Enlightenment is the opening of the mind of the common man, not only the ones of naturally illuminated scientists. It made possible the transition from societies that believed in supernatural beings and that were tied to superstitious ideas to societies which, by majority, reject gods and that at the same time enjoy the highest levels of human development like the Scandinavian countries. It made possible the advance of technology, the Industrial Revolution and the wonders for space flight and modern medicine. The Enlightenment allowed the Western world to finally surpass the once insurmountable achievements of the Classical Era. It is true that those same advances have placed us several times in the verge of a nuclear winter and that we have not yet solved the issues of fossil fuel scarcity and major climatic change, but it is only through the scientific method that we will be able to solve those problems, with more or less pain. The use of reason, using logic as a tool and knowledge as building blocks, has constructed the hope of a world that could finally live in harmony, freed from superstition, in equilibrium with nature and emotions, id est, the dream of Epicurus.

Second, I do not understand atheism as being originated in the fear of deities. I can only speak for myself in this area, however, I am sure that many atheists share a similar view. Atheism, according to me, is a misnomer. If we follow the Greek roots we conclude that it is the negation of god. However, the process of thought that leads to atheism in many people is not a rejection of a concept, but the construction of a whole intellectual framework that does not include the supernatural. The lack of need of superstition becomes a by-product of that framework, not the core of the atheist thought. The idea of seen a person praying or reading the horoscopes evokes amazement and not disgust.

Third, I do not understand what the pope means by saying "the West". Is the US the West according to his definition? Are only the East and the West Coasts of the US part of the West? What about Eastern Europe? Where does Latin America fit? If West means secular, we would have to divide countries according to unspecified parameters in order to determine which segment of the population belongs to the West and which does not. Suddenly, to be a Westerner would become a stigma, just as what happened with the word "liberal"

To conclude my response, I will repeat what I have said several times thoroughout this blog. The appearence of sets of beliefs that consider themselves unique, the only truth, the only bearers of the real message from the divinity has caused too much loss of life, too much misery and destruction, too much loss of knowledge that will never come back. The destruction of the Hellenistic culture and its replacement by a fundamentalist philosophy represents, the way I see it, the worst sociological and political disasters of known history.

Nature versus Man Number 5: The Toba Supervolcano eruption, 74000 BCE

2006-06-26T17:50:00.000-04:00

This is part of a series which is intended to show that we are not necessarily the architecs of our future. Sometimes, unexpected events shape our history in ways that we cannot imagine.

This topic came to a complete surprise to me, I must humbly accept that I knew nothing about it. I am referring to the existence of supervolcanoes. These are enormous deposits of magma that erupt from very large areas every tens or hundreds of thousands of years. I learned that the whole Yellowstone National Park is the largest supervolcano! and it erupts every 600000 years. (Approximately of course). These eruptions have been colossal events on a global scale. They have driven the extinction of species through catastrophic changes in the environment.

The specific event that I mentioned in the title is the eruption of Toba, the supervolcano that exists close to the island of Sumatra. This has been the only supervolcano eruption in which Homo sapiens has suffered its consequences. According to the evolutionary evidence, we, as species should have a greater genetic variability. This is taking into account that homo sapiens exists for about 200000 years in the planet. However, it has been a mystery, the reason why we are not as variable as predicted by the longevity of our species. Archaelogical and geological evidence has surfaced regarding a massive volcanic eruption in Toba, Sumatra around 74000 years ago. This has been associated with the genetic variability of Homo sapiens which seems to be a 700000-80000 year old species according to this parameter. Following complicated genetic and statistical models, it has been determined that the population of Homo sapiens was reduced to 1000-10000 individuals in eastern Africa. Modern man almost went extinct then. It took more than 40000 years for modern humans to repopulate the affected areas again and start replacing the populations of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo erectus that prevailed in Europe and Asia, respectively.

Events of this magnitude have happened before, they do not belong to science fiction. I am not being pessimistic or anything like that, I just want to raise the awareness of how weak we are compared to the forces of nature.

Nature sometimes works in ways we cannot predict.

Further reading

http://exodus2006.com/transcript.txt

http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/Weber-Toba/ch5_bottleneck/textr5.htm

Update regarding the Peruvian Presidential elections

2006-06-06T23:36:00.000-04:00

This is the final update regarding the elections in my country, which Diane S, very kindly asked me to write about 2 months ago. The runoff was finally won by Alan Garcia, a center-left politician ho was president of Peru in the period 1985-1990 and that was a disastrous government, which ended in hyperinflation, rampant guerrilla activity and corruption scandals. The loser, Ollanta Humala, is a newcomer to the Peruvian politics and tried to convince the people from a nationalist platform. Many people wrongfully believe that he is a left wing politician. He used the ideal of redistribution of wealth in order to obtain support for a nationalist, ethnocentric (respect to the Indian people), militaristic project. Hugo Chavez was, for sure, supporting his candidacy.

For Peru, I believe, that, in spite of the poor record of Mr. Garcia, democracy has won a a battle. He is a more mature politician now and he does not want to go into the history books as one of the worst presidents in Peruvian history. The socialdemocrat ideology has won a battle and this is positive.

For South America, it is also positive that the influence of Chavez has been at least controlled. Center-left, socialist goverments like the Brazilian and the Chilean have been struggling to control him. In Peru would have fallen into Humala's hands, Chavez would have won an important access to the Pacific Ocean, would have had a say in the handling of the enormous natural gas reservoirs and their ports for exporting it. Besides Colombia, there is no space of right wing governments in South America. The only reason for the maintenance the right there is the presence of the FARC and the need for an opposing ideology to fight it.

Finally one more thing. The exit polls were accurate, with a 0.2 % difference from the official results. For those who have an idea of how Peru is, meaning the difficulty of its geography, the countless ethnic groups and languages spoken, the nature of teh roads and the levels of literacy in some places, it is truly remarkable that the pollsters could achieve such a close approximation. In fact, this has been the case of all elections in Peru, except the one in the 2000, when in fraudulent elections Fujimori "won". After seeing this, for me it is very hard to interpret the 3-4% difference between the exit polls in Ohio and the official results of the US general election. Ohio has far more experienced pollsters, a more homogeneous population, better levels of literacy, it is covered by freeways and is is almost geographically flat compared to Peru. ... Just to think about it.

The Da Vinci Code outrage: It is about sex again

2006-05-19T15:59:00.000-04:00

The reason for the downgrading of sex to the level of immorality by the Christians has been always a mystery for me. It has been such a mystery that I blogged about it a couple of months ago in an attempt to find some answers. Today, we are witnessing the attempt to boycott the movie above mentioned by the Catholic Church.

The main issue arises about the claim that there might be a surviving bloodline among us coming directly for Jesus. The problem is that, in order to achieve a bloodline, you must have sex. Christianity has always equated sex with impureness. Jesus had to be pure, so he could not have had sex. But, what if we question the first premise? The conclusion becomes meaningless, so it should not matter if Jesus had sex or if he did not. He still would be a deity, a wise man, a flawless mythological character or whatever you choose to call him.

We always have had sex, at least since we are pluricellular beings. Even plants have sex in their own way. Sex is almost as common as eating, breathing, excreting wastes, being born or dying. It is part of life. There is no point in demonizing sex. Even the people who preach against it, end up having it, legally or illegaly.

I do not really mind if there is a bloodline for Jesus or not. I am not even completely sure if he existed. What worries me is that today, in the 21st century we still want to beleive things that are far from logical, we still want to name ourselves sinful and carriers of a "original sin" just because we were created from sex.

Are we witnessing the Sixth Mass Extinction?

2006-04-24T22:12:00.000-04:00

The title sounds alarming and catastrophic. Many people will dismiss it right away and would say that I am exaggerating by insinuating that something like that is actually going on. I cannot say for sure that it is happening, that is why the title of the post has a question mark, however, I am going to present some facts in an objective way.

The world has undergone 5 mass extinctions of species. The first is called the Ordovician-Silurian extinction and occurred around 439 million years ago. 25% of marine families and 60% of marine genera were lost. The second one is called the Late devonian extinction and happened 364 million years ago. 22% of marine families and 57% of marine genera disappeared. The third, and the worst of all, called the Permian-Triassic extinction, occured about 251 million years ago. 95% percent of all specias died out, 53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera and 70% of land species also were gone. The fourth one is called the End Triassic extinction and happened 200 million years ago. 22% of marine families and 52 percent of marine genera disappeared. The fifth one is called the Cretacous-Tertiary extinction and occured 65 million years ago.. It is famous because it included the death of the dinosaurs. 16% of marine families, 47% of marine genera and 18% of lnd vertebrate families became extinct.

Extinction occurs all the time. Species disappear at a rate that oscillates between 1-10 species per year. This is called background extinction rate. Mass extinction occurs when this rate markedly increases causing great number of species to disappear in a short period of time. We have to remember that short period, in a geological scale can mean a couple thousand years.

Mass extinctions occur due to a major disruption in the Earth's ecosystems, either by internal causes, e.g, melting glaciers or volcanic activity; or external causes like asteroid impacts.

Currently, and for some years now, species are disappearing at a rate of 30000 per year. It this rate continues, 50% of all species will have disappeared in 100 years, enough to call it a mass extinction. There is a major disruption of Earth's ecosystems going on, due to global warming and due to the space that humankind is occupying as its population keeps to grow.

The solutions are not easy and will have to include a limitation in the increase of the population and the stopping of global warming. Both processes would take tens to hundreds of years, so in my opinion, there is little that can be done, except to try to minimize the effects of our own activity. There is another pathway. In the event of the collapse of civilization due to lack of fossil fuels or lack of food to feed the billions of people that will be born, war, famine and disease will take care of the human population and would be the means of nature to restore the equilibrium that has been broken.

Importance of the Peruvian presidential elections

2006-04-19T16:17:00.000-04:00

I decided to write about the presidential elections in Peru, my home country, because Diane S, asked me to in a comment about another post. Sometime ago, (March 2005 and June 2006) I wrote posts regarding Latin American politics, however, I found that the topic was not of the interest of the regular crowd that reads my blog.

There has been a concern for the US that Latin America, specially South America, is electing left wing governments, with policies that are at odds with the USA's plan for the region. The most significant example is the government of Chavez in Venezuela. Currently, out of the 10 major countries in South America, 7 have left wing leaning governments. Of them, Venezuela's goverment is the most anti-US, as opposed to Chile's goverment which, in spite of being socialist, is at good terms with America. Only Peru, Colombia and Paraguay do not have leftist governments.

Peru had presidential elections on April 9th. The winner with about 30% of the vote was Ollanta Humala, a former commander of the Army who became notorious after he led an uprising in 2000 against the corrupt goverment of Alberto Fujimori. Unlike what many people believe (including an article in Wikipedia), he is not a left-leaning politician. He embraces a nationalist, populist ideology with elements of Indian supremacy ideas. The second place and third place in the elections have not been decided yet, because the count shows a very slim difference between the center-left politician Alan Garcia and the center-right candidate Lourdes Flores, who would be the preferred of the US. Ollanta Humala will compete against any of the 2 mentioned candidates in a run-off to be held in May.

I am open to questions regading the topic, hopefully some people find it interesting.

Root of all Evil

2006-04-11T23:24:00.000-04:00

Finally, and thanks to Kristine, I was able to watch Episode 1 of the documentary by Richard Dawkins called "Root of all Evil", named "The God Delusion". So many truths were said in the short duration of it. The only thing with which I would respectfully disagree with Dawkins is the treatment of all religions as completely negative. I think that religions that claim to have the unique truth and that claim to have the only real god are the ones who are to blame. Those are the religions portrayed in the documentary, the Abrahamic religions. However, there is no mention to more tolerant philosophies that do not carry the arrogant and pernicious idea of the "real god".

I enjoyed very much watching it, specially his interview with a Evangelical Christian religious leader in the American Midwest and the interview with a Muslim religious leader in the Middle East. You cannot miss it. Click on the link and take 45 minutes of your time to watch it. Comments will be welcomed of course.

For my theist friends, I would understand if you do not want to watch it, however, it is always good to have criticism from the "other side". I am sure that the most open minded of my theist friends will take their time and watch the whole documentary so that they can form an opinion about it.

Hypatia of Alexandria

2006-04-05T21:57:00.000-04:00

Hypatia of Alexandria was a Hellenized Egyptian female, philosopher, mathematician and teacher who lived in one of the worst times for a person with all the credentials I have just mentioned: The start of the Dark Ages. Although Egypt, as part of the Eastern Roman Empire escaped to the collapse of the Western state, it did not escape the destruction of knowledge and the thousand years of scientific stagnation brought up by the victorious Christian faith.

She was born in Egypt, either between 350 and 370 C.E. She was the last fellow of the Museum of Alexandria, associated with the once Great Library of Alexandria. She lectured in mathematics, philosophy and became head of the Platonist School circa 400 C.E. She is famous for commentaries on Diophantus's Arithmetica, on Apollonius' Conics and on Ptolemy's writings. None of those works have reached our times (I wonder why)

Hypatia lived the conflict between the dying Hellenistic culture and the rising Christian faith. The days of Julian were long gone. Theodosius "the Great" became emperor in the East in 379 C.E and of the unified Empire in 392 C.E. In 380 C.E. he decreed the end of religious diversity with the Codex Theodosianus 16.1.2. In 381 C.E. he started a campaign to end the remnants of the Arian Christianity. When he finished them, in 391 C.E he ordered the destruction of all hellenistic temples. Patriarch Theophilus complied with this request in Alexandria. Soon the Hellenistic temples and the libraries associated with them were looted and destroyed to its foundations to build Christian churches on top and with their remains. How many people died during those events? No one knows, we do not have records of that (I wonder why). The 95-year-old hierophant Nestorius predicted the "predominance of mental darkness over the human race"

Hypatia, corageously defended the remnants of the libraries and constantly was at odds with the Christian Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria. In 415 C.E., a Christian mob, tolerated by Cyril, killed her. According to John, Bishop of Nikiu, a 7th century author "a multitude of believers in God arose under the guidance of Peter the magistrate – now this Peter was a perfect believer in all respects in Jesus Christ – and they proceeded to seek for the pagan woman who had beguiled the people of the city and the prefect through her enchantments. And when they learnt the place where she was, they proceeded to her and found her seated on a (lofty) chair; and having made her descend they dragged her along till they brought her to the great church, named Caesarion. Now this was in the days of the fast. And they tore off her clothing and dragged her through the streets of the city till she died. And they carried her to a place named Cinaron, and they burned her body with fire. And all the people surrounded the patriarch Cyril and named him 'the new Theophilus'; for he had destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city." The Catholic encyclopedia describes the death like this: "and tore her flesh with potsherds till she died."

In these days, in which conservative Christians claim there is a "war" against them, we have to remind them of their history and what they did to humanity 1600 years ago. We should not let them silence the voice of knowledge to be replaced with the spider web of superstition. Let Hypatia be the hero and lets not forget her. As she taught: "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing."

Solution for illegal immigration problem

2006-03-30T22:46:00.000-05:00

The issue of the illegal immigrants in th United States is a very complex one. Some sort of solution has to be found so that the legality problem is solved without affecting the human rights of people who is working. Here is a set of measures that I am proposing, just let me know what you think.

1. Close the border to illegal immigration starting tomorrow. Declare any new person who crosses illegally a felon and deport him/her immediately.

2. Give a 90-180 day notice for the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the country to report themselves to the authorities.

3. When reporting themselves, the illegal person should bring documentation showing that he or she has a job. Employers will be in the obligation to provide that documentation and will be assured that no measures would be taken against them. After that, the immigrant would be issued an ID card and would be given the assurance that they can remain in the country. The employers should start paying benefits.

4. Illegal immigrants who are unable to provide documentation of a job, should be deported immediately. In the case of a family composed of two parents and children, at least one parent should be working to avoid deportation for the whole family.

5. After the 90 or 180 day period, if an illegal immigrant does not have an ID card, he or she should be deported immediately. No new ID cards will be issued after the 90-180 day period. People on student/working visas should always carry proof of it(including myself)

6. If, after a certain period of years, the immigrant (who would not be illegal anymore) is able to be always employed, he should be eligible for citizenship.

7. Crimes commited by the immigrant would mean immediate deportation.

8. After the 90-180 day period, to employ an illegal immigrant without an ID card would also be considered a felony.

9. A national ID card would have to be issued in order to avoid inconvenient situations with citizens of the US or with legal immigrants.

Many of this measures are hard to apply, but they would assure that the illegal immigrants who are working as nannies or at the fields would remain in the country, would have a legal status and a pathway to citizenship. Productive people will stay. Employers will have responsabilities. There would always be abusive employers that would blackmail the immigrants, however, they would not have many people to choose from, so they would have to care for their workers.

The issue of the national ID card is also a difficult one, but, if there is going to be a solution to illegal immigration, all citizens would have to participate. We have to remember that we are talking about 4% of the current US population.

Nature versus Man Number 4:Thoughts about Peak Oil

2006-03-23T19:39:00.000-05:00

This is part of a series which is intended to show that we are not necessarily the architecs of our future. Sometimes, unexpected events shape our history in ways that we cannot imagine.

Oil is a natural resource. It exists deep in the Earth's crust, unevenly distributed in the world. It is a dark fluid that has a very high energy density, therefore, is ideal as cheap fuel. It is also ideal to form polymers, such as plastics and to obtain fertilizers, pesticides, electricity, etc.

Oil is the foundation of the Western civilization and of the other civilizations that adopt Western ways of living. However, oil has not been an important part of our lives until well into the 19th century C.E. Once the Industrial Revolution could not sustain itself with coal, oil derivatives became the most important fuel. Nowadays, oil is everywhere in our lives. Transportation, agriculture, and hardware in general are just examples.

Oil is a fossil fuel. So, by definition, it cannot be replaced. It took hundreds of millions of years for dead organic matter to become oil. Being oil a limited resource, I always wondered when we would run out of it and what would happen to our way of life.

I did some research into the topic. I am not an environmental fundamentalist, but I understand that we need a better relationship with nature. I looked into many sources and always found the same answer: We are approaching a critical point in the history of this civilization. Some people argue that that point will arrive in 5 years other in 30 years. Some say that societies will disintegrate and everything will end up in nuclear war, others say that we will start a slow downward slope towards a new dark age.

I must accept that it is the first time in many years that I felt true anxiety about something I was reading. It was not the knowledge that oil will finish because I knew that. It was the fact that events seem to be so close in our future and the fact that there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Even if we stop using SUV's and we switch to ethanol-powered vehicles. The food we eat travels 1500 miles before reaching us and, in order to grow sugar cane to form ethanol, we need fertilizers and pesticides, i.e. oil. What about the plastics? What about electricity? Some will say nuclear energy is the answer. Well, to obtain nuclear energy we need uranium. Uranium is not abundant, and, so as to extract it, we need to drill, and to blow up mountains, i.e. oil. What about solar and wind power? Too low energy density, too intermittent of a supply.

The conclusions are pretty much obvious. Our current population is unsustainable. Some time in the course of this or the next generation we will experience economic- cultural-demographic decline in a planetary level. Nations and ethnic groups will fight for resources. States will fail to provide basic needs like security, education and healthcare. We will stabilize at a level which could be comparable to a pre-industrial society. How pre-industrial? I do not know the answer to that. The most pessimistic analysts say Stone Age, the most optimistic say Middle Ages. After all, it took between 1200 and 1300 years for Europe to recover Roman standards of living.

My sincere wishes are that, after everything happens and we start to develop again, we become a species that lives in more harmony with nature. I am an atheist, but I would understand much more a polytheistic, nature-based, supernatural mythology than an intolerant nature-serving-man monotheistic folly. I also wish that knowledge is preserved. The great tragedy of the 4th till the 7th century C.E. was the systematic destruction of knowledge due to religious intolerance. We should preserve everything we can to make this transition less painful.

Nature sometimes works in ways we cannot predict.

Further reading

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0129/p14s01-wogi.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1813695_1,00.html

March 15, 44 BCE

2006-03-15T17:27:00.000-05:00

This is is the date of the Ides of March of the year 44 B.C.E. It is also the date of the most famous magnicide of the ancient world. That day, Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered in the Roman Senate by a group of senators who desagreed with his ideas. The assassination by itself did not change history, it probably only delayed for a couple of years what was inevitable: the transformation of the Roman Republic in the Roman Empire.

During centuries, since 509 B.C.E., the Roman system of government, was the Republic, which means "things of the people". The balance of power was divided between the consuls, who were yearly elected (two of them each year), the Senate, the tribunes, other different assemblies, and the Pontifex Maximus. As the Roman territory grew beyond the Italian peninsula, the system started to show signs of stress. These were social, political and military in nature, most of the consequence of the use of a system intended to hanldle more a city-state than a large territory. In 133 B.C.E, reform was clearly needed, Tiberius Gracchus tried to pass them, but the extremely conservative Senate did not allow it. Not only that, but political violence was inserted as one of the tools to deal with problems within Roman politics, Tiberius Gracchus and his followers were murdered.

Many historians, believe that the Republic had its death sentence in 133 B.C.E. From then onwards, political instability, civil war, growing external threats and a disgruntled middle class undermined the Republican system of government to the point that Caesar could appear as a solution by concentrating power within himself. He became Pontifex Maximus and Dictator. The conservative senatorial faction, which was upset about the loss of traditions that were kept for centuries, plotted his murder. This did not change the trend. The Republic was not reformed, civil war continued and the Liberators were defeated in Phillippi by Marcus Antonius and Octavian(42 B.C.E.). Although the point of no return was probably crossed in 133 B.C.E, Octavian (Augustus) was not titled as Princeps (first citizen) and Imperator (a military honor of the victorius and powerful) until 27 B.C.E in order to establish the Principate, i.e., the Roman Empire.

Epicureanism

2006-03-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based on the teachings of Epicurus, who lived between the fourth and third centuries before the Common Era. After reading about it, I could consider myself an Epicurean since many of the teachings with the way I see things.

In order to understand this system of philosophy we have to be familiar with 2 concepts. The concept of ataraxia and the concept of aponia. Ataraxia is Greek for a state tranquility, freedom from disturbance of judgement and freedom from fear. This state is achieved through knowledge. Aponia is another Greek term that means absence of pain. So, for Epicurus, the combination of these 2 states constitutes the key to achieve happiness in its highest form.

For Epicurus all good and bad derive from sensation. The sensations that lead to pleasure are good and the sensations that lead to pain are bad. This has been misinterpreted as a rampant pursuit for pleasure, however, Epicurus was an advocate for moderation because he stated that excessive plasure leads to pain. Examples of this are gluttony, which leads to gastrointestinal discomfort and lust, which leads to eventual sexual dissatisfaction with the partner. In Epicureanism the value of friendship is so important that having a circle of friends you can trust is one of the most important means for securing a tranquil life.

With respect to religion Epicurus was a visionary. 2300 years ago he embraced the atomic theory of Democritus and had a materialistic view of the world. He preached freedom from superstition in all its forms and stated that the gods, if they existed, they must be neutral entities. The famous Epicurean paradox states the following "Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" After the official acknowledgement of Christianity by Constantine, Epicureanism was repressed. Epicurus' theory that the gods did not affect human affairs had always been at odds with the fear-inspiring Christian God. Christianity got much of its philosophical foundation from the Stoics.

Mercedinus

2006-02-24T20:22:00.000-05:00

Which is the leap day in the leap year? Many would answer "February 29th". That answer is not correct. As surprising as it could be, the answer is "February 24th". How do we get this answer? The explanation is as follows:

The old Roman Calendar was a lunar calendar. After the addition of February and January, it had a length of 355 days. Every other year an extra month had to be added in order for the calendar to keep pace with the seasons. This month was called Mercedinus, later Intercalaris, and had a duration of 23 or 24 days (or other lengths also, as decided by the Pontifex Maximus). This "leap month" was added after February 23rd. The rest of the February days were placed after Mercedinus ended. This is how the tradition of adding leap days to adjust the calendars to the solar cycle started. Today, we repeat February 24th twice in order to make February a 29 day month every 4 years.

Where is the modern Prometheus? Who will bring us the fire of knowledge?

2006-02-05T23:08:00.000-05:00

Prometheus, in Greek mythology, is the creator of man. He is not only the creator, but also the protector and mentor. He battled against Zeus, who was not interested in the development of human beings past the level of cavemen. In addition, Prometheus realized that man had a survival skill disadvantage compared to the rest of the animals, which had claws for defense; fur to protect them from cold and speed to hunt preys. In order to help humans, Prometheus did not hesitate in deceiving the greater gods. There are 2 stories that make him a famous mythological character. The one in which he makes Zeus believe that he will be getting a great meat meal and men end up getting it while Zeus got the bones and the one in which he steals the fire of the gods to bring light and warmth to humanity.

I relate the first story to social justice. Men, even being poor and hungry, had to offer sacrifices to the gods. Prometheus made them realize that they do not have to give everything, that they can keep sacrifices for themselves because they are products of their own effort. Nowadays, we live in the world of the few elites that concentrate power and wealth and the masses that work for them. Not only workers, but professionals also end up serving masters that decide on a salary, can fire them at will and do not hesitate in reducing benefits in the name of efficiency and productivity. This situation is especially bad in third world countries with capitalist economies, in which the law of free market becomes the “survival of the fittest”. The states with larger degrees of regulation of the economic activity have less unevenness and more social justice.

The second story has a more abstract meaning. In this case, fire and light represent knowledge. Dark are the places where ignorance, superstition and prejudice prevail. By stealing the fire that the gods wanted to keep from themselves, Prometheus gave humanity the best of the gifts, the gift of education. All humans have the potential to be enlightened, however, I see that education lags behind in the ranking of items in national budgets. Building a tank is more important than building a school for those states.

Now, we get to the point in which we can relate the 2 stories. It is easier for an elite, to preserve the present state of social injustice if the masses are uneducated. If you do not illuminate your surroundings with the fire of knowledge, how can you defend your rights? How can you be free of prejudice if you do not see more than your nose? How can you be free of superstition if you live in eternal fear? How can you protect yourself from the liars or the abusers?

The modern Prometheus is inside us. In some people, he is deeply buried below the weight of fear, ignorance and superstition, the triad of the unenlightened. Other people already possess the fire of the gods and they are doing the best they can to distribute it. What we need are more people committed for education and social justice to uncover those captive Prometheus that will assure us the freedom from that triad.

Atheists: How many of us are there in the world?

2006-01-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

The answer to the question is not simple. Many believe that atheists are not numerous and that we are out of the mainstream. In addition, some people use the term "atheist" as an insult and equate it with immoral or evil. After doing some research I found some surprises.

First, if we consider atheists; agnostics; seculars and people with no religion, as part of the same group, we are ranked third among the different beliefs (if atheism can be counted as a belief) with 1.1 billion people. this number only trails the ones that Christians (2.1 billion) and Islamists (1.3 billion) have. This might sound strange, but it can be explained by the way questions are asked in surveys. In most countries a small number of people (zero to a fraction of 1 percent) will answer "atheism" or "atheist" when asked an open-ended question about their religious option. If the question is phrased like this: "Are you an atheist?"A slightly larger number of people will answer "yes". A slightly larger number than that will answer "no" when asked if they believe in any type of god, deity, or supernatural being. A slightly larger number will answer "no" when asked if they "believe in God". Finally, a larger number of people answer "none" or "non-religious" when asked asked an open-ended question about what their religious preference is. Average numbers show that roughly half of the people who self-identify as "nonreligious" also answer "yes" when asked if they believe in God or a supernatural being.

Second, there are countries that have a very large number of non-believers like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan. They have percentages that range between 40 and 80% of their populations. The thing that has to be pointed out is that those countries are probably the most educated countries in the planet. What was surprising for me were the high percentages, not the fact that where there is more education there are less believers.

With respect to the U.S., about 13.2% of the population describe themselves as nonreligious, 0.5% describe themselves as agnostic, and a smaller number describe themselves as atheist (Kosmin, ARIS/American Religious Identification Survey, City University of New York, 2001).

Among scientists, 60.7% claimed "disbelief or doubt the existence of a god". This number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences.

As a conclusion I must say that our numbers are significant, however, there is sill a stigma associated with the name "atheist". Many people who de facto are non-believers hesitate about calling themselves atheists. Scientists are the group of people who show the greatest number of non-believers. This is very important, because in a country like the U.S., scientists and engineers, who are only 5% of the population, are responsible for 50% of the GDP.

Nature versus Man Number 3: Volcanic eruption of Thera and the end of the Minoan civilization

2006-01-26T22:22:00.000-05:00

This is part of a series which is intended to show that we are not necessarily the architecs of our future. Sometimes, unexpected events shape our history in ways that we cannot imagine.

The Minoan civilization flourished in the island of Crete, and in adjacent islands, in the Aegean Sea from 2600 BCE to 1450 BCE. It was the most important culture of the Mediterranean Sea at the time of the Bronze Age. It was known basically for its achievements in commerce and naval expertise. In addition, many palaces and urban centers were constructed. The Minoans had an undescifered writing called Linear A, which later evolved into Linear B, which was adopted by the Myceneans who developed it into ancient Greek.

Between 1650 BCE and 1450 BCE, the largest volcanic eruption of the last 10000 years occurred in the island of Thera, modern Santorini. The eruption triggered tsunamis that probably destroyed the Minoan fleet and devastated the ports. The large amounts of ash that have been recovered probably obscured the sun for enough time to induce climatic changes. Considering that Crete is located 110 km (70 miles) from Thera, it is reasonable to believe that the impact of the eruption was catastrophic.

Ihe next thing we know is that the Myceneans, from mainland Greece, took over the archipelago civilization around 1420 BCE. Since it is not known the exact date of the eruption, the theories that explain the decline of the Minoan civilization are varied. We can easily hypothesize that the destruction of the fleet, essential for trade, together with climatic changes that collapsed the agriculture, could have led to famine, political instability and progressive weakness compared to the strength its neighbors. Furthermore, at that time, the Iron Age was taking over and the Minoans, due to the mentioned effects of the volcanic eruption, could not have coped with the technological advances of the time, thus, leaving them in disadvantage.

Nature sometimes works in ways we cannot predict.

Further reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_Civilization
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/minoan.html

Dissecting Intelligent Design Number 1: "The mousetrap"

2006-01-23T19:42:00.000-05:00

Some time ago, in one of the comments to my post "We are apes", someone said the following: "...there is science to support creationism, take the time to look into it." Well, I decided to look into what many believers in ID call science.

First of all, I have to say that I am not a biochemist. I am a humble physician with some knowledge of biochemistry (because physicians have to know the basics of it). When I read the arguments of Michael Behe, a biochemist, I was surprised by the nature of the arguments he showed and by how easily they can be dealt with.

Behe, compares a complex biochemical pathway as a mousetrap. He starts by saying that a biochemical pathway is made of several sequential steps that lead the conversion of a substance numer1 into substance number 2. The biochemical pathway would not work if any of the steps is missing. So far everything is correct. He adds that a mousetrap is like a biochemical pathway because if any of its parts is missing, it would not work. Again, so far, everything is right. However, Behe jumps to the conclusion that it is impossible for all biochemical steps to have appeared at the same time in order to achieve the purpose of converting one substance into the second one. He calls this "irreductible complexity". The mousetrap could not have been created step by step because each of its parts (te wooden base, the spring, the metal hammer, etc) does not have a purpose of its own. He treats the whole biochemical pathway, as a complex structure that cannot be further reduced. Since it is too complex, it must have been designed.

The first thing that surprised me was the teleology of the argument. According to Behe, for things to happen, the have to have a purpose. The non-teleologist approach would say that "things happen, then a purpose is found for them". The nature of the biochemical reactions is probably closer to not having a purpose. That was the philosophical aspect, the aspect that makes Behe's argument a belief. The second surprising issue, specially in a biochemist's argument, is the fact that he is implying that the steps in the biochemical pathway will only lead to substance 2. The different steps are used by other pathways to produce different substances, just like the wooden base of the mousetrap can serve as a paperweight, the spring as part of a scale and the hammer as a paperclip. Evolution produces complex biochemical machines by copying, modifying, and combining proteins previously used for other functions or that still perform those other functions in slightly different environments.

I understand how people who have the will to believe in a superior being, will get impressed by the arguments from a PhD in biochemistry. However, I believe that it is the duty of the scientists to educate the community and to separate science from belief.

Congratulations

2006-01-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

A quick post to congratulate Michelle Bachelet for her victory in the Chilean presidential elections. She will not only become the first female president of that country, but she is a divorced woman, agnostic and socialist. With all those charateristics it is impossible to even become a representative in other countries. One last fact, she is a physician...

Some time ago, I read this book, as part of a search for information regarding the Eastern Front of World War II. I got to understand something very important: the Eastern Front was World War II!. The other theaters of war seem so minuscule compared to this enormous craziness into which the 2 most powerful armies of that time sank into. The Red Army and the Wehrmacht fought a war of annihilation like never before and hopefully never will happen again. I got to understand also the roots of the failure of the Soviet Union. How can a state be able to attempt to be a superpower if it lost in less than 4 years a quarter of its population? I got to understand also how much we are indebted to the brave Soviet soldiers, who, fought not only against the Nazis and fascism but against the fear created by their leaders. What I am saying does not justify what the Soviets did to the German civilian population as revenge 2 years after Stalingrad took place.

Take a couple of minutes to click on the link or on the picture of the book and see how Amazon.com can help you buy the book!

Did Jesus really exist?

2006-01-11T20:01:00.000-05:00

This is a question that is definitely controversial. Some people may even get offended for the sole fact that it is being posed. Furthermore, it can easily trigger acts of hate against people who voice it. However, in spite of possible negative reaction, it forms part of a fascinating subject which deserves to be analyzed in an objective way. In the following paragraphs I will show the information that is available. It has to be pointed out that there are extensive written records of the important events which happened in the times of the Roman Empire.

The people who would answer "yes!" to the question will argue that Jesus existed because it is in the Gospels. However, if we are analyzing the topic in an objective way, we cannot take the Gospels as necesarily being correct since they were picked up to be in the Bible in order to reinforce the belief in Jesus' existence and his godly nature. Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge that the Gospels might be referring to some historical figure because the Gospels that were not chosen to be in the Bible also mention Jesus, with variable degrees of divinity. So, the divinity of Jesus might not be part of history, but the existence of a being with that name who had followers around 30 CE could be true.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who lived in the first century CE, mentioned Jesus in his famous Testimonium Flavianum. However, it is also said that the document was forged in order to boost the belief in the existence of Jesus. The reason to believe there was a forge is the finding of a document with an alternate version of the paragraphs in which Jesus is mentioned.

Pliny the Younger, at the time governor of the Roman provinces of Pontus and Bithynia wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan in 112 CE. In that letter he asked for advise about how to deal with a group of individuals who called themselves "Christians" and who revered a "Christus" as a god. He does not mention the word "Jesus". "Christus" is Greek for anointed. Anyone who is to be revered has the right of being a Christus, therefore, although being a possible early mention to Jesus, it is not convincing enough.

Gaius Suetonius, also in 112 CE, wrote ,as part of the biography of Emperor Claudius, that there were Jews who were causing trouble inspired by "Chrestus". The problems with this reference is that the name Jesus is not used and that it seems to describe events that happened in 54 CE.

Tacitus wrote in 116 CE 2 paragraphs in which he described the existence of Christians in Emperor Nero's time and that they followed the example of Jesus, who was executed during Pontus Pilate's government of the Roman province of Judea. He expressed himself very negatively about the Christians, paradoxically giving more credibility to his account.

Summarizing, the fact that we have such minimal references to Jesus at times in which records were kept of important events, probably means that if he existed, it was not an important personality. His importance was therefore magnified by other writers and religious leaders of the early Christian churches. I personally lean slightly in favor of his existence, only after reading Tacitus's account. This article has nothing to do with faith, because in order for believers to believe, historical proof is not important.

Nature versus Man Number 2: The fate of the Greenland Vikings

2006-01-04T18:41:00.000-05:00

This is part of a series which is intended to show that we are not necessarily the architecs of our future. Sometimes, unexpected events shape our history in ways that we cannot imagine.

Around the end of the first millennium of the Common Era, the Vikings, an intrepid and courageous group of people founded colonies in what is now known as Greenland. Under the guidance of Erik the Red, two important settlements were created, the Eastern Settlement and 240 miles Northwest, the Western Settlement.

Initially, the settlements flourished. The economy was based on agriculture and trade with the European mainland, specially from Norway, where the Vikings came from. Furthermore, there was an active religious life and there was even a bishop appointed for the settlements.

What happened around the middle of the 14th century was described as a mystery, however, as our knowledge of the past has increased, this enigma started to clarify. From the 10th to the 14th century CE, the planet went through a period known as the Medieval Climate Optimum. It was a period of unusually high temperatures, of regression of the polar ice caps and of increased vegetation in areas usually barrened by endless winters. It was in this period in which the Vikings explored the North Atlantic arriving to Greenland and to North America. However, things started to change in the middle of the 14th century. The winters because harsher, the temperatures dropped and agriculture became impossible. Trade was limited by the icy sea and eventually, the Viking culture in Greenland collapsed and disappeared. The Little Ice Age had begun having the Greenland Vikings as one of its casualties.

Nature sometimes works in ways we cannot predict.

Further reading
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_ice_age

A test I took

2006-01-01T16:55:00.000-05:00

Dr Marco is a Social Liberal 66% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (15% permissive).

Dr Marco is best described as a: Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid

December 31, 406 CE

2005-12-31T08:20:00.000-05:00

The day mentioned in the title is one of the landmarks in history. Although the Roman Empire was showing already significant signs of decay in its economy, culture and military strength, the day represents one of the triggers for the final demise of the Western side. That day, the Vandals, together with other barbarian tribes, crossed the frozen Rhine, which formed the natural boundary of the Roman Empire in the northeast, near Mainz. The Rhine frontier had been denuded of its best troops by Stilicho to fight Alaric and his Visigoths in 401-2 CE, and Radagasius and the Vandals, Quadi and Marcomanni in 405-6 CE. The formidable natural barrier of the Rhine backed by the few remaining forces left behind by Stilicho were enough to hold the Vandals in check until the severe winter of 406-7, when the Rhine froze. For the next three years they ravaged Galia (modern France), before moving south in 409 CE into Hispania (modern Spain) and Africa (modern northern Africa) in 429 CE.

The disaster at Gaul led to the execution of Stilicho and the subsequent mutiny of some 30.000 Germanic troops that defended the Eastern border of the Western Empire. This changed the balance of power in Italy in favor of the Visigoths who finally captured and sacked Rome in 410 CE.

Io Saturnalia!

2005-12-20T20:23:00.000-05:00

The week before the winter solstice was known as Saturnalia in Ancient Rome. A week of complete relaxation, parties, food, pleasure, happiness. The winter solstice was the 25th of December according to the Julian Calendar, the day with the least sunlight in the whole year. The day prior to the solstice, toys were given to the kids in what it was called the Sigillaria. So, the solstice marked the moment of the rebirth of the Sun, Apollo and Mithras in the ancient era, Jesus Christ after the pagan worships were fused with the Christian ones in order to "convert" millions of non-believers.

So... Io Saturnalia!! and have fun.

Note: This is a copy of the original posting in Multae Sententiae, dated December 16, 2004

Why is sex so negative for Christians?

2005-12-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

Sex was always part of the normal life in the Classical era and in most ancient cultures. Since Christianity took over the Mediterranean world as a major religion, sex descended to the lowest level. References to the sexual act became taboo and the impureness of everything related to sex was enhanced. The reasons for that phenomenon are unclear for me and, I am sure, for many people. In the following paragraphs I am going to try to find answers that make philosophical sense, not necessarily logical sense.

Were the first centuries of the Common Era a time in history characterized by epidemics of venereal diseases? If the answer were yes, it would have made sense for the primitive clergy to try to stop people from practicing excessive sex. A way of trying to achieve that would have been to demonize sex in order for the common human beings to abstain from practicing it outside marriage. As a result of the use of the sacred influence of the priests, the epidemics would have been controlled. However, there are problems with this theory. History does not recall an epidemic of venereal diseases. In addition, human beings have probably had the same amount of sex then than the amount we have today or the amount we had in the Stone Age. Therefore, the explanation of the venereal diseases does not seem to be a plausible one.

Was the intention to suppress the feminine side of sex in order to better fight the Pagan beliefs that rely of the cult of fertility and mother Earth? A common aspect of the mysticism of the ancient cultures is the profound respect for the soil that give us food, for the fertility in general and for mother nature. All three are identified with our feminine side. In addition, sex was regarded as a way of communication with their gods. Thus, if the new religion had to show predominantly masculine elements, like the obviously masculine deity described in the Bible together with the masculine Christ, the logical course of action was to achieve minimization of the importance of females and sex in society. As a consequence of all this the female sex had to be, if not banned, devoid of all pleasurable experience in order for it to serve only for reproductive purposes. If it not were for reproduction, female sex would have been totally banned. There is one problem with this appealing theory. Masculine homosexuality should have been allowed and promoted, however, that never happened.

Where the early Christians morally concerned about the irresponsible generation of new life through sex? This seems to be a valid thought. By limiting sex, the family would have emerged stronger as the basis of a healthy society. There would be no unwanted children or children with no family as a consequence of the lascivious behavior of human beings. Moreover, the prohibition of sex would lead to a decreased rate of abortions. However, the record of Christians with respect to the respect of the most important of the human rights, life, is not the greatest. Prosecution of Pagans, Crusades, the Inquisition, are examples of the low regard for life of the Christians of those times. Furthermore, the characterization of sex as impure did not stop it nor decreased the number of unwanted children or abortions.

Was sex so powerful that would distract human beings from the divinity? Once religion becomes institutionalized, it becomes a political structure. It needs devoted people to secure and to increase the base of power. The early Christian philosophers probably realized this and decided that, by demonizing sex, they would make people turn their attention to godly things. By doing that through the new institution, it would assure the early Church with the number of people and money needed to show as powerful. The answer seems logical, nevertheless, incomplete. There are other aspects of the religion that had enormous appeal for the common people, like the afterlife and the promise of heaven

As it can be seen, there can be many ways of explaining a mysterious phenomenon. I would be interested if Christians with solid philosophical foundations help me in finding an answer.

Nature versus Man Number 1: The Plague of Justinian (541-542 CE)

2005-11-28T23:03:00.000-05:00

This is part of a series which is intended to show that we are not necessarily the architecs of our future. Sometimes, unexpected events shape our history in ways that we cannot imagine.

The Plague of Justinian (541-542 CE)

Justinian was the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire since 527 CE. At that time, the Byzantine Empire was the political continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Western Roman Empire had perished as a cause of the Germanic invasions which culminated in the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 CE, the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455 CE and the establishment of the Ostrogoths as the rulers of the Italian Peninsula since 493 CE. After 476 CE, the Germanic chieftains did not bother naming a new Western Roman Emperor.

Justinian had the wish of recovering the western part of the Empire and to unify it under a single ruler, as in the old times. He had the political will and the military might. Under the command of Belisarius, Justinian's armies started to recover the West from the hands of the "barbarians". In 533 and 534, he destroyed the Vandal kingdom of North Africa, occupied Sicily in 535, conquered Rome in 536 and had secured most of the Italian peninsula by 540 when he defeated the Ostrogoths at Ravenna.

In 541 CE, a disease which, according to the description of the historians of the time (specially Procopius), could have been the bubonic plague, arrived to Constantinople. This condition, decimated the population of Constantinople and most of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Accounts from that time say that the number of dead people in Constantinople alone numbered 5000-16000 per day. By the end of 542, it its believed that 30-40% of the population of the Byzantine territories was dead. This pandemic affected also the Persian Empire, but not the Western side of the Meditarranean Sea.

The immediate political consequences of this disaster, were the inability to sustain the newly acquired Italy. The Ostrogoths started to reconquer territories and brought the war into a stalemate. This situation remained unresolved until in 565 CE, the Lombard invasions finally settled the conflict. The weakened Byzantine Empire continued having outbreakes of the plague until the year 600 CE. A not so immediate consequence of these events was the unpreparedness of the Eastern Roman Empire to deal with the Arabic/Muslim invasions that spread from Arabia, through Egypt, North Africa and Spain between 632 and 711 CE.

Nature sometimes works in ways we cannot predict.

Further reading
http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1996-7/Smith.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_plague

We are apes

2005-10-04T23:22:00.000-04:00

This is information that has been around for a while. However, when is described in the way it is here, it really should make us think about our nature. We, humans, are the product of evolution, despite whoever speaks against it. The people who despise evolution describe it as a “mere theory”. As a matter of fact, a theory is: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena. The atomic theory explains the world, however no one has ever seen an atom. It is not necessary to see the atom. These are the situations in which theory and fact become one single entity. Finally, the only way of improving ourselves is understanding who we really are. We carry in our DNA the selfishness needed for survival. After all, the guys who invented the original sin were not lying to us.

If you are interested, read

A nuclear future?

2005-09-13T20:26:00.000-04:00

It seems that we are moving towards a future in which human beings will not be anymore restrained to use the nuclear option. If one country changes its doctrine, be sure that other nuclear countries will also do it. Morover, the threatened countries will try to develop their own nuclear weapons… A complete nightmare.

Please read

The Evolution Wars: Where are we heading in education?

2005-08-19T13:58:00.000-04:00

This is a topic which is extremely interesting and at the same time depressing. It is interesting because it addresses one of the most important questions that man has ever formulated, the one that inquires about our origin. It is depressing because we have witnessed the rise of non-scientific viewpoints regarding a topic that should be analyzed in the most rigorous scientific way. For the past months, here in the United States, there has been an advance of creationism in its new form: Intelligent Design (ID). Will ID be taught in the schools of the future?

Educating children and adolescents is probably the most important duty of adult people of a society. A well-educated human being is usually able to succeed in life based on carrying a sufficient amount of knowledge and having a solid moral behavior. It is clear that the knowledge that a person receives has to be the most current and that the morals that a person is taught have to be basically oriented to promote altruism and avoid disrespect for other people and elements of nature, essentially a human rights and pro-environmental approach.

Almost 100% of the knowledge gathered by humanity has been collected by science, either by empirical (in the antiquity) or more rigorous ways (presently). Many of the conclusions found in the past have been improved, changed or discarded based on more modern methods of measuring variables. As time passes, it is clear that the conclusions that scientists obtain explain the phenomena of the world and provide us with tools for newer technologies that let us solve previously unresolved questions or problems. The scientific method, defined as: a systematic approach of observation, hypothesis formation, hypothesis testing and hypothesis evaluation that forms the basis for modern science, is the basis for knowledge gathering. It has to be as unbiased as possible in order to be certain that the conclusions obtained will not be either challenged or modified in the future.

In the other hand, religion is a cultural phenomenon. It varies between societies. Some believe on one god, others believe in multiple. There are thousands of ways in which human beings communicate with their gods. Even within societies, individuals have their own approaches that differ amongst them. Some people choose not to have a god. Religion provides peace of mind, a hope for an afterlife, psychological support in hard times, however it does not provide knowledge. Even if the supernatural exists, it cannot be studied because it would be, by definition, outside nature. If it cannot be studied it cannot be taught in formal school educational programs.

Today, we are witnessing an attempt of religious conservatism to introduce the notion that an intelligent being had to be responsible for the design of life forms in our planet. This idea provides them a platform to introduce the study of religion in schools and to discredit hundreds of years of scientific knowledge gathering. As it was said before, beliefs are entirely personal, they should be taught at a personal or family level. The thrust is so strong that already in the most conservative regions of the United States politicians are trying to modify what is taught in schools. The current amount of knowledge makes impossible what 200 years ago was possible, which was the teaching planet Earth and its life forms was created in 6 days or that our creation occurred 4000 years ago. Scientists will never prove or disprove the existence of a supreme being. That is not its role. As it was said before, the supernatural cannot be studied. However, ID has not gone through the rigorousness of the scientific method. Therefore, it cannot be called scientific.

The response of the scientific community to this issue has been dual. Although it recognizes the non-scientific origin of ID, it has not done much marketing of those concepts. This is why we are getting increasing amounts of advocates of ID preaching their ideas and gaining space among politicians. The reasons for this lack of response are understandable. ID advocates are trying to introduce the idea that there is a debate in the scientific community with respect to this subject. By not talking, scientists are showing that there is no debate among them. No biology, molecular biology or biochemistry school will ever debate something that is non-scientific. In order to be unbiased, according to the scientific method, we should not let a personal belief alter the results of our research. In other words, if someone believes a supernatural being, that belief should not alter the conclusions of the experiments. The problem with this approach is that a poorly educated society, which did not receive all the pieces of information since childhood is at risk of accepting ID as a scientific “option” if taught in schools. There would not be any problem if ID were left as a matter of personal belief. This is why it would be satisfying to see scientists emerging from their universities, institutes and museums and attempting to educate the people through the mass media.

Are we going to finally teach religion in schools? Are we going to succumb to the conservatives who find hard to tolerate the notion that life evolved from simple, primitive forms to the complex structures seen nowadays? Are we going to discredit Darwin’s Theory of Evolution? (Theory is defined as: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena). The answer lies in 2 pillars. First, our ability to differentiate knowledge from belief, science from religion, natural from supernatural and, second, in the will of our scientists to surface up and to educate us all.

The Coming World Realignment

2005-06-25T00:41:00.000-04:00

I love to read the PINR. They seem to be very objective. In the article that I am recommending, we can see how a unipolar world is no longer possible. And guess what event might have proven it…The war in Iraq!!

Please read on

More on U.S. - Latin American relationships

2005-06-18T12:56:00.000-04:00

The U.S seems to be slowly losing its hegemony over Latin America, specially South America. The capitalist experiments of the 90’s have made possible a renaissance of a mature left wing tendency that could alter the balance of power in the region.

Please read…

Does the U.S. understand Latin America?

2005-06-12T23:31:00.000-04:00

This is a very interesting article which argues that the U.S. is gradually losing influence with in Latin American affairs. The causes for this are multifactorial, but, according to the article , they have to do with the new priorities that the U.S. has since September 2001. I must add that there is a longstanding cultural difference that has not been understood because of the focus on dominating the region rather than integrating it.

Please read..

Its taxes again

2005-06-07T20:16:00.000-04:00

General Pinochet might go to prison not because of human rights violations, but for… evading taxes.

To be honest, right now, it does not matter. I only want to see the assassin in jail.

Read please

A museum about Creationism?

2005-05-22T20:04:00.000-04:00

I was surfing the web for news as I always do when I saw something the I forund very hard to believe. There is a man in Kentucky, USA, who has invested 25 million dollars in the construction of a museum dedicated to creationism. In this museum, we will be able to appreciate the “evidence” that the Earth is 6000 years old, that it was created in 6 days, that humans coexisted with dinosaurs and that the Grand Canyon was formed in a couple of days.

It is said that people can do whatever they want with their own money. However, this money could have been better spent in activities like real scientific research or promotion of human rights (just to mention 2). The concept of redistribution of wealth would not have allowed something like this to happen. It would have allocated those resources somewhere else, in the form of road maintenance or school construction (just to mention 2) through an effective taxation system. Morover, it would not have allowed a single person to accumulate the mentioned amount of money.

If you do not believe me, take a look

South American independence

2005-05-16T18:57:00.000-04:00

It looks as if South America is taking its first steps towards becoming an independent group of nations. Throughout our history, many global powers have influenced our politics and have not made the pathway towards economic wealth an easy one. There is one truth about this. If you leave South America alone, it leans left immediately. The reasons for that are probably the existence of a highly educated middle class and a deep resentment in the poorer classes towards the elite.

Read this for further information

A little bit of respect for the USSR, please...

2005-05-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

Image of the capture of the Reichstag, Berlin, 1945

This post is directed to all people who disregard the enormous role played by the USSR in the shaping of the world as we know it. We would not be probably enjoying what we call freedom it it was not for the brave people of the Soviet Union, people who never surrendered, who gave their lives protecting and reconquering their land and who showed how more than 1000 years of harsh history can create the bravest of the people.

Here are the some facts that highlight what I have just said:

-75% of all casualties of WW2 occured in the Eastern Front (EF).
-At all moments of the war after June 22, 1941, more than 70% of the German war machine was in the east.
-The USSR made a gigantic effort to move most of the industries that later helped her in the war, effort to the east of the Ural mountains, where German bombers cannot reach them
-When German soldiers in the EF wanted a break, they were sent to Western Europe, North Africa or Italy
-The war in EF was a war of annihilation, compared to the other wars in which it was more strategically/politically/tactically driven. In order to understand this, we have to go back and analyze Hitler's "Mein Kampf". There, he said that the slavic people where subhumans (untermenschen) and the space they occupied had to be part of a greater Germany (lebensraum). That explains the savage behavior towards civilian population and prisoners. In the West, battles were won once a position was obtained and the enemy had retreated.
-The greatest military encounters of all times happened in the EF. The battle of Kursk saw the greatest tank and airbattles of all times.
-The most adverse conditions (like temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius (-40F) were seen in the EF
-Leningrad and Stalingrad never surrendered to the Germans in spite of German superior forces and eventually the USSR overcame this.
-The Soviet Union lost 27 million people, roughly equivalent to a quarter of its population.
- In spite of all this destruction, the Soviet Union rose as a superpower to rival the US in military capacity and space exploration.

At the same time I have to mention the negative aspects:

-The level of savagery shown by the Soviet soldiers towards the civilian German population (specially rape) and even towards the liberated Soviet prisoners has been considered as the worst example of revenge of all times.

- The lack of freedom and the repression experienced by millions before and after the WW2 was also unparallelled.

The analysis of history has to be always objective. I will never be ungrateful enough to forget the sacrifice that the USSR did for humanity when fighting the fascist monster. At the same time I will always criticize lack of freedom and repression.

Pourquoi Pas?

2005-04-30T19:14:00.000-04:00

I am proud to be part of the group of guys who write in the blog named Pourquoi Pas. I encourage my eventual readers to take a look and to make comments. Everyone is welcomed. Obviously, there might be dissent and some people might not be as tolerant as others, but it is fun.

Salvador Allende's last words

2005-03-17T19:09:00.001-05:00

This is the audio that I am posting by suggestion of Eponymous. The sole thought that these were the last words of a man who would die soon after this audio message reminds me that there are still people willing to sacrifice to set an example. He is not someone begging for his life, he is a corageous man with a calm tone of voice in the middle of a fascist coup. The best thing I can do is to contribute to his wish to be heard in the future by people who have truly decided to fight against the ones who believe in an unequal society.

As per a previous suggestion made by Whynot, the best thing to do is to right click with the mouse and download the audio so that you can play it afterwards.

Understanding South American politics. A superficial review

2005-03-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

In order to better understand what goes on in the mentioned region we have to know some parts of the recent history.

I decided to go back to the sixties, because there is still a direct link between the events that happened at that time with the events that we witness nowadays. During the sixties, inspired by the Cuban revolution and by a good number of left wing thinkers, many movements that tried to solve “the problems of society” emerged. One of these unresolved issues was the property of the land.

Since the times of the Spanish Conquistadores, the land had been property of people of Spanish/European descent. This situation created a lot of stress between the Indian/Mestizo people and the ruling elites, specially in countries with large Indian populations like Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. After witnessing the victory of Fidel Castro in New Year’s Eve of 1959, some of these movements opted for the violent revolution.

The Colombian FARC had its origin in the fight for land reform of those times. These movements failed to achieve their goals. Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia, the movements faded away in 1965 in Peru. The FARC continues until now, but I do not know if with its original goals.

After that, different countries had different evolutions. In Bolivia and Ecuador, land reform never happened. In Peru, the left wing military government of Velasco declared the land reform in 1969. In 1970 Salvador Allende was elected president in Chile. Socialist ideas were thriving. The USA thought that it would lose the region to the Soviet sphere of influence. In most countries, pressure from the US was felt.

In 1973, Allende’s government fell and Pinochet seized power. In 1975, Velasco’s government in Peru fell, leading to a pro US government by Morales-Bermudez, in 1976 Videla obtained power in Argentina, initiating a fierce hunt of socialist and communists, not only in Argentina, but in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay. The military governments of all those countries formed an association called AAA (Alianza Anticomunista Americana), with approval of the CIA. The executed a plan called “Condor” to wipe out the left wing ideology from South America.

At the same time, countries like Colombia (in spite of the FARC) and Venezuela remained more stable and were enjoying better economic times associated with the high oil prices in the international market. Human right concerns and the external debt crisis put pressure on the military governments and a democratic (and progressive) wave disseminated through the region. In 1982 Siles in the Bolivia, in 1983 Alfonsin in Argentina, in 1985 Garcia in Peru, in 1990 Aylwin in Chile obtained power by democratic means.

However, this wave of progressiveness did not last long since the economic models failed and led the countries into hyperinflation. A new wave of right wing governments, with more democratic manners emerged in Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay. Chile followed a stable pathway, Venezuela experienced the economic crisis for the first time and led to Chavez attempted coup in 1992. In Peru, Fujimori instituted an autocratic regime in 1992.

With the new millennium, the pendulum started to swing to the left again. Venezuela elected Chavez in 1999, Argentina elected Kirchner in 2002, Chile elected Lagos also in 2002, Brazil elected Lula in 2003, Ecuador elected Gutierrez in 2003 and Uruguay elected Vasquez in 2005. They are all left wing politicians. The case of Peru and Colombia is interesting. The Shining Path and the FARC, respectively, have created certain fear in the population towards the left wing movements.

The relationships with Cuba have changed based on the left or right wing orientation of the governments.

The actions of the US in South America have been felt ever since the cold war. The US is obviously interested in having control of the whole continent and uses their influences in order to achieve that goal. For this topic, I recommend strongly a CNN special called “The Cold War” available in VHS. One of its chapters is called “Backyard” and it refers specifically about the actions of the US in Latin America.

A Fascist America...How close are we?

2005-03-04T06:43:00.000-05:00

Please take a look and read the article, I believe it is very interesting. By the way, it is not written by a left wing guy. For the right wingers, please read the whole article before posting comments, I have noticed that sometimes you do not do it that way.

A Fascist America...How close are we?

Lima's Plaza de Armas or Plaza Mayor

2005-02-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

A quick view of Lima's main square, with the Government's Palace, the Cathedral and the Municipal Palace...

Update...I have found that the video is very slow to load. Just let me know if it happens the same to you. If this is the case, I can send an email attachment to the people interested in seeing it

Are you a fascist?

2005-01-29T15:04:00.000-05:00

Take this little quiz and find out.

This quiz is designed only for right-wingers since sometimes they do not know if they are be fascists or not. I am assuming that the people who take this test, believe already that the state should not focus in trying to redistribute wealth, an essential part of the right wing thought.

Instructions
Answer all questions only once
Assign 0 points if A is the answer, 1 if B, 2 if C, 3 if D, 4 if E
Please be honest
Good luck

1. Do you consider that the nation, religion, political group or ethnic group you belong to makes you a human being of a different class?

A.- Not at all.
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

2. Do you believe that there are situations (e.g. danger to national security, fear to enemies) in which human rights (e.g. right to life, right to a fair trial, right against torture, etc) can be disregarded?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

3. Do you usually focus your energy against any particular ethnic group, ideology, religion or minority?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

4. Do you believe in the glory of the armed forces of the country you belong to?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

5. Do you believe in traditional gender roles?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

6. Are you against gay rights?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

7. Do you believe that the government has the right to control the media in special situations (e.g. war, national security?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

8. Do you believe that the government has the right to use fear in order to make the general public aware of "a dangerous" situation?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

9. Do you believe that the highest authorities of a government have the right to use religious rhetoric in their communication with the people?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

10. Do you believe that the corporations and the government should have common goals?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

11. What do you think of labor power?

A. It is important and necessary
B. Usually necessary but occasionaly it is not
C. Sometimes necessary, other times not
D. Not necessary, with exceptions
E. Never necessary, useless.

12. Do you think artists are...

A. Important and necessary
B. Usually necessary but occasionaly not
C. Sometimes necessary, other times not
D. Not necessary, with exceptions
E. Never necessary, useless.

13. Do you think academics/intellectuals are...

A. Important and necessary
B. Usually necessary but occasionaly not
C. Sometimes necessary, other times not
D. Not necessary, with exceptions
E. Never necessary, useless.

14. In order to suppress/control crime you are willing to...

A. try to control it without violating the rights of the perpetrators or the privacy of the rest of the people.
B. try to control it without violating the privacy of the people.
C. attempt to reduce it as much as possible accepting abuses as "collateral damage"
D. violate the rights of perpetrators but trying to respect the privacy of the people.
E. violate the rights of perpetrators and the privacy of people, crime prevention and punishment is essential for the survival of society.

15. Do you believe that the state has the right to expropiate businesses or natural resources from their legitimate owners for the sake of national security or better economic handling?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes.

16. Do you believe that in case the liberals, socialists, communists, libertarians or anarchists are ahead on the polls, the government has the right to alter the results of the elections to avoid a government of any of those groups?

A.- Not at all
B.- Occasionally
C.- Sometimes
D.- Yes, with exceptions.
E.- Definitely yes

From 0 to 16 points: You are not a fascist. Try talking to your left wing partners to find common goals in the fight against fascism

From 17-48: You lean towards fascism. You have to clarify certain ideas and decide if you are willing to support what fascist governments have done in the past or what they are doing right now

From 49-64: You are a fascist. If you already knew about it, just acknowledge me as your political enemy. If did not know you were one of them, please start being honest to people and say what you are. There is nothing worse than hiding behind a conservative mask

Winds of change

2005-01-22T14:59:00.000-05:00

I have decided to change the style of this blog. Until now, I have been writing what came to my mind, based on thoughts present for years and on ideas that appeared randomly. I have decided to write in essay format, in a more formal way. By doing so, the ideas might be expressed in a more clear way. In addition, English is my second language so I think some extra work has to be put in what it is written by me. When I went back to my old posts, this was the feeling: chaotic!

People who read the blog will let me know their feedback.

Uncovering hypocresy

2005-01-18T15:02:00.000-05:00

Hypocresy

I read this in "The Art of Imperfection", the blog with the most beautiful name. At the same time it is an excerpt of an article that you can find in Common Dreams. As I said in my comment, I challenge the right to write something similar with respect to how the left thinks and lets see if there is at least 10% of their hypocrisy.

Here is the excerpt:

"Think about it for a second. Here's the way the extreme right-wingers - i.e., people you hear every day, all day, on TV and radio - have termed the debate:

If you fight for civil liberties, you're pro-criminal.
If you fight for justice in U.S. foreign policies, you're anti-American.
If you think people should have a right to determine their life partners and give them health benefits, you're pro-queer.
If you question the justice of a war based on false intelligence, you don't support the troops.
If you think the U.S. government should not be spying on its own citizens, you're pro-terrorist.
If you think the United States should not be torturing those it holds captive, you're coddling murderers.
If you think people should not be held indefinitely without trial or lawyers, you support terrorism.
If you think society should help the poor, you're soft on the shiftless.
If you want equal education for all, you're pro-black at the expense of whites.
If you want health care for all, you're a socialist.
If you think everyone has a right to a fair trial, you're soft on crime.
If you hope for a fairer tax system, you're for higher taxes.
If you want a government that helps people, you're for big government."

Another minor earthquake

2005-01-17T07:31:00.000-05:00

I was woken up by a minor earthquake in Lima, Peru, about 45 mins ago (0645 GMT-5). 3.8 in the Richter scale. This one came with a lot of rumbling.

Evolution, creationism, fact, theory

2005-01-14T01:35:00.000-05:00

This is a comment to a post in Crystal Clear

Here is a nice definition of theory
Theory: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested OR is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
So evolution is a theory since it is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Theory and fact are not mutually exclusive. Gravity is a theory, relativity is a theory.
In the case of evolution the fossil evidence show that species change and new ones are developed with time. So an association can be established. The association is between change in species and change in time. We can arrive to conclusions here in the same way we arrive to a conclusion from a retrospective study in medicine, i.e., establishing associations. Certain associations are powerful enough to accept a cause-effect relationship, i.e. change in time leads to change in species (there is no way that a change in species will lead to a change in time). How do you think we arrived to the conclusion of which antibiotics are best for pneumonia? Retrospective studies did it because ethical concerns made prospective studies impossible. In the same way, evolution cannot be proven prospectively due to lack of time.
Creationism is a belief, based on faith. There is no science there. It belongs to the territory of religion so it should not be included in school textbooks. Anyone is entitled to believe in creationism, even scientists if they wish.

The Edge of Infinity , from Paul Davies, is a book which I highly recommend if you find A Brief History of Time ,from Stephen Hawking, too difficult to understand. Personally , I believe that it explains similar concepts in a more didactic way. Try it! Just click on the link or on the same book to get access for purchase.

Minor earthquake

2005-01-10T18:42:00.000-05:00

At 1833 Peruvian time 2333 GMT a minor earthquake was felt in Lima. I was posting a reply in my blog and the floor started to move. I am quite used to these things, but hopefully this does not represent a mjor earthquake somewhere else or an earthquake in the middle of the Pacific that triggers a tsunami. If someone knows something significant about this, let me know and let other people know.

Not recommended

2005-01-06T19:27:00.000-05:00

In my flight to Peru I read this book from Dan Brown. Although I was already disappointed by "The Da Vinci Code". I decided to give "Angels and Demons" a try. Let me go into my analysis.

It is very easy to read. Do not expect great literature, remember Dan Brown is not Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The actions described in the book are interesting, but too fantastic (more than in the Da Vinci Code)to be taken seriously. The end of the book is very bad. I will not tell you what happened, just that is an overused type of ending.

With respect to the scientific background, it is well known that antimatter is made all the time in particle accelerators. Particle collisions are done all the time. The idea for storing antimatter is interesting, but if it were as simple as it is mentioned it would already have been done. I know it is just a novel, but some people might really believe it and that is a real problem.

There are some important historical facts that are correct, specially the ones regarding the history of the Catholic Church and the relation of the Sun´s worship and Christmas. Morover, I learned about the Illuminati. The book gives the wrong message when it suggests that science and religion can accept each other when they are the exact opposite. The scientific method does not have space for faith and religion is all about faith. A scientist can have faith in a god, and, so as it does not interfere with his or her work, it is ok.

As a summary, I do not recommend it, but you should judge for your own self.

For you to think...

2005-01-05T08:20:00.000-05:00

Hiroshima

The single-day human toll of the tsunami is comparable to the single-day human toll of Hiroshima. Humans can be as bad as the worst of nature. The difference is that nature does not know if there is people living along the shores of the ocean. The Hiroshima bombers knew it.

Tsunami

Racism against the tsunami victims?

2005-01-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

I am using the logo of the Youth against Racism from Germany so I am including a link to them.

This is a comment I wrote in Bouillabaisse, Dianne Maire's blog, I encourage you to read it and to post a comment there because was I saw was really astonishing. The title of the original article is "Racism is a crime and should be punishable by law"

This is my comment:

I always take some time to read Dianne Maire's blog. I am surprised to see such virulent replies that started just from a plea for the tsunami victims. Racism is the result of lack of education. Education is the only tool we have to cover up our selfish nature. It then becomes a paradox for the racist because the ones who claim to be superior are actually the less educated, the ones who are unable to control their instincts, the ones who are more animal-like. So what can be done about it? Wait until humanity mixes all up so that no one can argue that he or she is superior based on skin color? That will probably take too long. What we need to do is convince our governments to inject billions of dollars in education, in showing real values to people so that they can accept differences and cover up our intrinsic selfishness that lead us into egoism and ethnocentrism. If we do not do that now, what is awaiting for us is a mega-fascist state that will be the source of wealth for a few and that will convert those "superior people" into automaton workers for their masters, with no freedom but to do their own job.

Understanding the kidney-2

2005-01-03T22:34:00.000-05:00

The kidney is a very complicated organ as you could see from all the functions that it performs in Understanding the kidney-1. Animals also have kidneys and they function almost exactly as human kidneys, to answer one kid's question. This time I will focus in replacing the kidney when it stops working.

Life is not possible without kidneys. So if they fail, they have to be replaced. There are 2 forms of replacing kidneys that have stopped working. One is what is called dialysis and the other one is to have a kidney transplant.

Dialysis can be of 2 types. Hemodialysis is the one done with those big machines through which blood is passed. Blood is "cleaned up" by a filter and returned to the circulation. Although they are big machines, they do not work as effciently as a kidney and many substances are still retained in the body, which eventually might lead into harm. The second type is called peritoneal dialysis. It consists of a liquid that is placed in the abdomen (peritoneal cavity). In this case, the peritoneal membrane acts as a kidney helping in moving the waste products from the blood towards the liquid, which is exchanged several times a day. The exchanges can be done by the patient and need to be done in a very clean environment, to prevent bacteria to go into the abdomen.

Having a kidney transplant is the best way of replacing a kidney. However, it is not perfect because the person that receives the transplant needs to receive medication that will suppress his or her immune system in order to avoid rejection. Sometimes this suppression of the immune system can lead into severe infections. A patient with a kidney transplant needs to be very careful and responsible with the kidney he or she has received. A kidney transplant can come from a dead person or from a living donor. It has to pass lots of tests before being transplanted, because if not, it can be rejected very quickly. Not all people are good candidates to receive a kidney transplant.

Remember that these series are not intended to give personal advise, for that you need to seek help from your personal doctor. I am glad to receive questions so that I can post the next part.

Fear

2005-01-02T22:43:00.000-05:00

This post is actually one that should follow The marks of free people which I wrote a couple of days ago. Fear is a way of controlling the minds of people, is a way of making people do whatever the individuals inducing it want. Fear restricts freedom. Fear has been used and is continuously been used by governments, terrorists and religious leaders to control our behaviors and to increase their power. The government that magnifies the risk of national security threats is as guilty as the terrorist who explodes a car bomb or as guilty as the priest who threatens believers with hell. They all have as goal to limit our actions, to blurr our minds, to make us propagate fear and finally and most importantly, to increase their own power.

What is the recipee to avoid being controlled? The recipee is the same that the one who make us free according to what I said in The marks of free people. Independent thought, rational skepticism and rigorous questioning should be part of our modus vivendi. We should not trust our governments. Being well informed is not just turning on the TV at 9 pm and watching the news given by a particular news channel. It is looking for the information in different sources and looking for different opinions. We should not trust our priests, fathers, pastors, imams, etc if they threaten us with hell. They might be worse sinners that we are. We should not let terrorists dominate our minds. I remember when the Shining Path (Peruvian terrorist movement)threatened us by saying that they will bomb our universities if we went to study the days they declared "armed strikes". Guess what: We did not listen to them... we were free.

1904-2004

2004-12-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine sent me an email comparing aspects of our today's life with the life 100 years ago. I am posting it here. Have a happy new year all of you who read me and also all of you who do not read me.

Here is the email:

THE YEAR 1904: Maybe this will boggle your mind, I know it did mine! The
year is 1904 .. one hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for 1904:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated
than California.

With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most
populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower! .

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500
per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a
mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead,
they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and
by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks
for shampoo.

Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for
any reason.

The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and
Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two of 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at
corner drugstores.

According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy
to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect
guardian of health." (Shocking!)

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant
or domestic.

There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

And I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it
to you in a matter of seconds! Try to imagine what it may be like in another
100 years . it staggers the mind.

Tsunami 2

2004-12-29T08:01:00.000-05:00

If you are planning to donate to the tsunami victims, you can do it through the CARE.org website. It is really user-friendly

Isaac Asimov

2004-12-28T19:55:00.000-05:00

He was definitely one of the most influential writers for me. He was really prolific. He wrote about science, science fiction, history, religion. He wrote novels, short stories, essays and textbooks. In everyone of the books I read I could see a message, a message which I identify with. He saw the future in a way few people have done. He created the 3 Laws of Robotics which now seem logical for the development of robots.

Isaac Asimov's novels show us a fantastic and real universe at the same time. Humans behave as they always have, but they can travel to and from the stars. They can jump from planet to planet, however the politics, philosophies, religions are similar to ours. You can see an internal debate, which I am sure also went on in his mind, about what is more important, the individual or the society. He shows how can different concepts could be positive or negative, depending on the perspective of the observer. Civilizations rose and fell in his novels, just as it has happened in real history and as it probably will continue to happen in the future.

He died in 1993, after leaving a legacy of more than 500 books for us to enjoy. People will talk about him for centuries, will discuss his ideas and will be thankful for all his work

The second law of thermodynamics

2004-12-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

I am not a physicist, but I will try to explain what I understand of it. If there is any scientist over there that wants to give me some help in explaining this he or she is welcomed.

This law states that thermal energy (heat), is special among the types of energies. All the forms of energy can be converted into heat, but in a way that is not reversible. It is not possible to convert the heat back fully in its original form. This essentially means that in each reaction, there is some energy that is going to be lost as heat without converting into another "more useful" form of energy. This unusable heat is characterized by the random motion of molecules. The second law says that the amount of random movement(entropy) can only increase in a closed system. Being the Universe a closed system, the law says that entropy will always increase in the Universe. This means that the random motion will only increase with time. After billions of years the possible scenario is the even distribution of heat (random motion) throughout the Universe.

Many people have tried to imply that the evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. The Earth is an open system, receiving continuous new energy from the sun. The only way that life has been getting more complex in our planet as time passed is because the energy dissipated by the chemical reactions of life is replaced in excess by the sun' energy.

Links: The second Law of thermodynamics, Entropy

Tsunami

2004-12-27T18:03:00.000-05:00

I was apalled by the incredible death toll of the last tsunami in the shores of the Indian Ocean. I just find very hard to imagine the level of destruction. I cannot imagine myself in a situation like that. I guess it is a reminder of the power of the forces of nature and of the need for cooperation between countries. In this case what is needed for the future is an alert system, like the one that exists in the Pacific Ocean. The whole situation reminded me of what happened in Peru, my country, May 31st, 1970. Due to an earthquake, a huge block of ice fell from a mountain into a lake. The lake overflowed and a gigantic avalanche covered up an entire town. The remians of the town can still be seen.

Understanding the kidney-1

2004-12-25T13:57:00.000-05:00

I am currently training to be a nephrologist (kidney specialist). The kidney is probably the most complex organ of the whole body with respect to its functions. My goal of writing something about it here is to show that this organ is much more than a "pee-maker". If I see that people like what I write and become interested, I will post more information, basically answering questions. This and following posts are not intended to give individual medical advise, that is the job of your personal doctor.

Functions of the kidneys
- Participation in the maintenance of a constant extracellular environment for cells to function adequately.
- Hormone production and secretion, mainly to regulate blood pressure.
- Degrades some proteins and synthesizes glucose.

Facts about the kidneys
- Filters 180 liters of blood everyday.
- Produces between 1-4 L of urine everyday
- Senses the amount of hemoglobin we have in the blood and sends signals to stop or increase blood production.
- Receives 20% of all the blood flow of a person in a resting state.
- Consumes 7% of all the oxygen of a person in a resting state.

Post your questions in the comments section to see what my next post regarding this topic should be about. Remember thet I will not give individual medical advise.

Intelligent? Design

2004-12-23T18:42:00.001-05:00

Charles Darwin

To my surprise, I have started to see that religious conservatives want to "offer alternatives" to evolution. For some reason, they dislike evolution and when they do that they also show contempt for the science that lead into the development of the theory. What is somewhat encouraging is that, apparently, they have tacitly acknowledged that creationism cannot survive in a well informed world.

Intelligent design is creationism that tries to show itself as science. It is exactly the opposite to science. The word science has a Latin origin that means knowledge. It is knowledge acquired , to describe nature, to improve our living conditions and sometimes to beat our enemies. When Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution in his book Origin of Species, he did it based on observations he had made for years. Natural selection is a phenomenon that is seen all the time. Whenever a bacteria develops resistance to an antibiotic, whenever an insect develops resistence to a pesticide or whenever a population of birds changes its color to be more protected from predators we see natural selection. Evolution is just the appearence of new species based on it. Since the species that exist now, are not the same that the ones which existed 5 million years ago, we have to conclude that there has to be a process that leads into the formation of these new species. Natural selection is the strongest candidate. Intelligent design appears in order to contradict evolution, not to describe nature, so it is not science. It is interested, it has an agenda. It implies that a superior (intelligent) being created the complexity of the Universe. It want as to keep gods in our mind in view of the dying creationism.

Bridge maker, Pontifex maximus, Bishop of Rome, Pope

2004-12-22T18:03:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Francesca, for your reply. I am posting my reply as a new posting. I love this subject as you can see.

In Spanish, we still call the pope "sumo pontifice", which comes directly from the Latin "pontifex maximus". That title was the one used by the maximum religious authority. Julius Caesar was elected pontifex maximus in 63 BCE. This could be argued was one of the first steps on Caesar's accumulation of power that reached its maximum when he was appointed Dictator in 44 BCE. At that moment he was "de facto" an Emperor because he had religious, political and judicial authority, far more authority than the Senate. Caesar was not friend of the Republic and that was probably the reason why he was killed. "Pontifex" comes from "pontem faciens" which means "bridge maker", probably referring as the one in charge of communicating with the gods.

In 382 CE, The emperor Gratian leaved the title of "pontifex maximus" to the bishop of Rome named Siricius. Since then, the "pontifex maximus" was the bishop of Rome and not the Roman emperor. In 610 CE the Eastern Roman emperor, Phocas, addressed the bishop of Rome (or pontifex maximus) Boniface IV as "pope" for the first time.

Origin of certain Catholic practices

2004-12-22T01:10:00.000-05:00

I personally believe that we should know why we do the things we do. That is why I love history. It tells me so much about what I presently am. I was born and raised Catholic and for years I believed what I was told and practiced religion as I was taught. I had the notion that all we did as part of practising religion came directly from God and was ordered by Jesus after he "founded" the Church. As time passed and to my surprise, I noted that things were not as I was told. Many practices that were supposed to have started with the establishment of the Church, were not so.

I am providing a website that lists many of the practices I am referring to, but the ones that impresed me the most were the following:

- Mary as "Mother of God" was initially proclaimed in the Council of Ephesus, 431 CE.
- The title of "Pope" was first used to describe the Bishop of Rome in the year 610
- The worship of the cross, images and relics was authorized in 788
- The celibacy of the priesthood was declared in 1079

If Catholics want to really know their own religion I encourage them to go and look for their own history. And this is true for all religions.

Peru

2004-12-20T21:43:00.000-05:00

Seeing "The Motorcycle Diaries" reminded me much of my own trips inside my country. I did not travel for months like el Che, but I saw many of the things he saw. I got to do several 2-week trips whenever I had vacations in medical school. And most of the times I travelled with a friend, as Che did. I had very little money and I got to experience hospitality. People there will never let you leave a place without eating. They do not ask for money. They are poor, but do not hesitate in giving their own bread for the visitor. As a person born in the capital city, I got to respect the people who lived in the mountains. The impossible geography made me understand how difficult communications can be. Roads are built every year, but the mudslides destroy them in the following rainy season. Deep canyons, 6000 m (20000 feet) mountains, vast plateaus, no oxygen.

Furthermore, millenia of history watch you as you visit the Inca roads, the old temples and fortresses. Machu Picchu is just fantastic, but it is not the only one. The country is just an open book.

While I travelled, the Shining Path guerrilla was terrorising the people. I saw abandoned fields, abandoned towns and lots of fear. I had to speak in English with my friend so that people do not understand what we were talking about.

I will soon go back to visit my country again. I know that I am just visiting...

The Motorcycle Diaries

2004-12-20T07:02:00.000-05:00

If you would like to see Latin American scenes from the 1950's, if you would like to see Machu Picchu for a couple of minutes, and if you are sensitive to social injustice, go and see the movie. You would not be disappointed.

Censored!

2004-12-19T09:41:00.000-05:00

I have recently found out that my blog has been censored in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Or at least it is under observation, "pending for approval". I have a friend who, when she wants to log in, she obtains an old version of the blog, probably stored in the her temporary internet files or cookies. When I gave her a direct link to any of the new postings, she could read them, so I think thre an external source controlling the access to the main page. I might be mistaken, but if I am not, I would like to tell the ayatollahs that they should be concerned about more critical stuff for the development of their nation and that I am very interested in what my fellow friends form Iran think about my postings. So if the access to my site has been restricted, I ask them, please, to remove the restriction.

Response to a comment to "Prisoners"

2004-12-19T02:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks for commenting about my post. I consider your comment so important that I will place my response as a new post, basically because it gives me freedom to put some links.

First of all, predestination is not involved in the theory I tried to explain. Our genes form us, that is a fact, they do not give us a destiny. Genes are just instructions to build proteins. That is why I carefully used the verbs "to order" and "to dictate". A gene is not an intelligent being so it cannot "want" something.

I understand the use of the word "outlandish" because many people will find the concepts I used as bizarre since they are not familiarized with molecular biology or genetics, however, the word "ludicrous" is not acceptable in the debate of a topic that is philosophically deep and that has profound impact in the understanding of our behaviors.

I do not see a problem with reductionism. We have to accept what we are and not believe what we want to be. Being humble is the very first tool we need to give our marveolus brain to understand our surroundings. Carl Sagan said 2 things: "I do not want to believe, I want to know" and "We are star's dust"

I am a physician and I can to tell you that assuring that someone will or will not have malaria or AIDS due to "life choices" is not exact. You could be the one who receives the 6 genetic mutations that protect humans from malaria and there is the mutation in the CCR5 gene that protects people form acquiring the HIV infection, and therefore AIDS. So genes are definitely involved in the protection from the diseases you mentioned

We are the product of our genes, they are not foreign to us or "virus" as you implied I said. Genes created our mind and our mind has to be aware of its own weaknesses in order to avoid autodestruction from our instincts. Education helps a lot in keeping away egoism, ethnocentrism, racism, etc...Species come and go. Genes remain. There are genes hundreds of millions years old and remember that in 1962 and 1983, the human race and its civilization was almost wiped out from the face of Earth after a couple of hundred thousand years of existence.

The marks of the free people

2004-12-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

I was talking to someone yesterday and she asked me about how to really be free. As I wrote before in Prisoners, I believe e are not really free, but beings fighting for it, ones more than others. Sometime ago, I read this article in which, among other stuff,the author mentiones what should be the marks of free people. They are the following: Independent thought, rigorous questioning, and rational skepticism. I totally agree that those 3 characteristics will help us differentiate the free person from the prisoner.

If you ask regular people in a survey about their definitions of freedom, you will find weird answers...like the ability to move from one place to the other one without problems...etc

Celebrex

2004-12-18T02:15:00.000-05:00

Today, the expected news about Celebrex finally came out. Vioxx collapsed a couple of weeks ago. Was it not logical that Celebrex would follow the same pathway? After all, they are drugs that work through the same mechanism. However, the corporation had to wait for a couple of weeks, to create a little bit more money. Did you see all those ads to promote Celebrex even after Vioxx had fallen? This only proves my theory that corporations are not only nationless, but humaneless. The glorius end-product of capitalism showed its real face. They will say: "there was no proof until now"

We are heading directly towards the global corporate state, the dream of Mussolini. Conservatives should join liberals in the struggle against fascism, as they did 63 years ago. They should not be part of Mussolini's dream.

The limitation of governmental power means the enslavement of people by the great corporations.

Theodore Roosevelt.

Please take a minute...

2004-12-17T07:33:00.000-05:00

I have recently added some links to my blog. Please use the "Tell a friend" link if believe other people would appreciate what it is in here. If you want o get daily updates, use the "Subscription" link. If you want to carry conversations not necesarily related to the postings, use "Enter my Forum".

Go ahead and look Blogexplosion. It was Gindy's recomendation and I think it is worth it

Thank you

Moments in history...1241 CE

2004-12-17T01:56:00.000-05:00

This is the year in which the Western civilization was saved from destruction. The Mongols had subdued Russia and the areas corresponding to modern Poland and Hungary. They were determined to go west. The Western civilization was struggling to leave behind the Middle Ages. It was no match for the Mongolian armies, probably the most ferocious warriors in the history of mankind. Ogedei Khan, the son of Gengis, suddenly died in Karakorum, Mongolia on December 11, 1241. Batu Khan, the leader of the European expedition was forced to go back to Mongolia for political purposes. Western Europe was spared.

The question is. What would have happened if the Mongols complete the invasion of Europe in 1241? Based on their records of destruction of their conquered territories, probably the Western civilization would have suffered a major setback. This would have meant the prolongation of the Dark Ages far beyond the dates we currently handle. Internet, computers?... Probably not in the 20th century. The Chinese might have reached America before the Europeans. I do not know and there is no way of knowing.

My point is that a single event can change history. We can always create events, and their significance is not known at the moment they are created. It is always worth to fight for what we believe. We might be making history.

Io Saturnalia!

2004-12-16T01:32:00.000-05:00

Alexander

2004-12-15T23:58:00.000-05:00

I had the chance to see this movie a couple of days ago. I was very surprised at the fact that they showed Alexander's love life as it probably was. In those times, it was common practice to see male to male relationships, what we call now homosexual or gay relationships. I understand that some people might get upset seeing the great conqueror of the world depicted as he really was, a bisexual lover. The fact is that he conquered the world and we are talking about him 2300 years after his death. I would give everything if someone is still talking about me 20 years after my demise. Behavior, social rules, codes of conduct change with time. We have to be flexible to understand that. Our present world is so little compared with the ocean of history and smaller if compare it to the future.

DNR vs Full code

2004-12-14T23:40:00.000-05:00

As a doctor I have seen many times terminally ill patients decide between them. For the people who is not familiar with those terms, DNR means Do Not Resucitate and Full Code means that a full ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) protocol has to be started in the event of cardiorrespiratory arrest. It is a complex topic because it involves the patient's beliefs, his or her idea of his or her own death and the interaction with the family. As doctors, we cannot decide for a patient, however, we have to provide honest information with respect to overall prognosis and likelihood of brain functionality after a "code". Furthermore, we can advise the patient what is best for them. The final decision is made by the patient or the family.

One of the most rewarding experiences as a physician is to see that the terminally ill patient has understood the process of his or her terminal disease, has grasped the concept of irreversibility and has opted to be a DNR. It means that there has been a healthy and open communication with the health care providers and it ensures a peaceful death. On the other hand, one of the most difficult scenarios for a doctor is the case of a terminally ill patient who, in an attempt to remain attached to life, requests that "everything has to be done to remain alive". This usually means poor patient-physician relationships in the past associated to deep distrust in the health system. Many times the result of this is a violent death during an ACLS protocol or an artificially prolongued life in an intensive care unit.

My point is...if you are a doctor, talk with your patients, be honest and give sincere advise. If you are the patient, or the family, please ask for information and try to avoid the conflicts that lead to suffering and prolongued misery.

Stanislav Petrov

2004-12-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

He is the second person who I want to mention in my blog.

But... who is he? He is basically the reason why we are writing blogs, the reason why you are reading them, the reason why we do what we do and the reason why we are not dead or struggling for a miserable life. An example of flexibility, of intelligence and of knowing when to break a rule.

I will be brief because I will give you a link.

What where you doing during the evening of Sunday, September 25, 1983? Well, that evening, early Monday in the Soviet Union, in one of the computer rooms that controlled the thousands of nuclear weapon-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, the alarms went off. There was a warning that an American nuclear missile was heading towards the Soviet Union. Petrov's duty was to inform the Soviet leadership about an event like this for prompt retaliation. He said to himself "it must be an error, if the Americans were to attack , they would not fire one single missile". Seconds after that reasoning, the alarms went off again. Two, three, four, five missiles were supposed to be heading towards the USSR. There was no way he could prove it wrong since the satellites would only have confirmed it when it would have been too late. He trusted his intuition and declare the event a false alarm. Minutes passed and no nuclear attack was evident. It was a computer error. He basically saved the world from the nuclear holocaust. Another person in his place would have declared the imminence of the strikes and the Soviet Union would have launched their missiles towards every major city in the USA. The USA would have retaliated and the world would have been quite diffrent today.

Here is the link

How to explain human evolution to a creationist in seven simple steps.

2004-12-12T13:22:00.000-05:00

In order for a creationist to understand what we are talking about, first we have to make sure that understand the following concepts: fossils, methods of dating fossils, animals, primates, extinction and slow change.

Once they understand, which should not be very difficult, we have to go back 10 million years in time. Fossils dated 10 million years old do not show human remains, i.e, no humans existed 10 million years ago. There are animal fossils, of species we know and of species that are extinct. However, there are fossils of primates (creatures that are similiar to apes and humans) which have some humanoid characteristics, although they do not look human at all.

The next step is to take them 5 million years ago. They cannot deny that there is a fossil dated that age which has been given the name of "Lucy". Lucy was a primate, very ape-like, and, because of the characteristics of her pelvis, is thought to have been walked upright most of the time. There are still no humans at that time

The fourth step would not be to bring them to a specific point of time. It would be to explain them that from 5 million years ago till 2 million years ago, the fossils that have been found have a progressively larger skull and they look progressively more human, although they still look more like apes.

Our fifth step will introduce them to a species called homo habilis, 2 million years old. Still very similar to apes, but this time its fossils were found close to the first tools, made of stone. They are considered the most primitive form of human beings.

The sixth step would be to show the homo erectus which lived until about 400,000 years ago. Now, more human than ape and as similar to homo habilis as they were to homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens, as we know ourselves, exists since 400,000 years ago. The oldest fossil is very difficult to differentiate from an homo erectus one. From then onwards, the skulls and skeletons look modern. This is the seventh and final step

When talking to creationists, remember these important things.

- Do not let them interrupt you until you complete the seven steps.
- This is not a debate, you are explaining them science found by archaelogists, not your own point of view.
- Although you are not mentioning it, keep in mind that there is genetic evidence of our closeness to apes. This will only reinforce the explanations if necessary.
- Remember that human evolution is probably more complicated than the seven steps, these are only a simple way of explaining it
- Reassure them in the sense that thay can believe in whatever they want, just ask them not to deny the seven steps. You should let them know that by denying any of the seven steps, the are denying the concepts that thay already have accepted in the first step.

Very interesting...From Blogging Left

2004-12-12T09:48:00.000-05:00

My comment to the post:

Doctor Marco said...
I would say it is the plot against education. Something like this cannot happen in Europe. America is allowing (apparently on purpose) the creation of huge masses of poorly educated, easy to handle people. The sexual aspect of it is only the expression of who is dominating.

Multae Sententiae

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