World Affairs

[Bplax15 2]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

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And to brighten our day, this from CBC News.

The interesting thing is where did this nut job get his automatic weapon (had it left from his job he was just fired out of?).  I don't think much of the Phillipine police security people if that's the case.  In any case, automatic weapons have only one use:  Killing people.  Every effort should be made everywhere to get stuff like this out of the hands of both the public at large, and criminals in general.  Penalties for unauthorized possession of one of these should be the equivalent of a life sentence, even on a first offense.  Sentencing like this is draconian, but the weapons are miniature WMD's, and should be kept from the wrong hands. 

{fantasy} Judge:  You had an AK-47?  Well, then, 47 years, no parole.  (/fantasy}

I know it is impossible, but life should be made as difficult as possible for people who possess these things.

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quote>

That whole situation was a mess. Especially in the way the Phillipine "SWAT" team took care of it. A sniper shot the gunman, but other soliders freaked and started shooting, most likely all the innocent deaths were caused by "friendly fire". Just a complete mess all around.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The absolutely worst aspect of the whole thing is that the whole thing was televised live.  The hostage taker watched the SWAT team in action on the on-board TV on the bus.  The Phillipinos need to get control of their news media.  Things like this should never be allowed on the air live.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

New day, new topic.  What say to this one, folks.

I have a seldom used facebook account that I use to keep up with my grand daughter in Newfoundland.  My daughter is a social web user from way back, and that is the only way I can keep contact without spending a lot on air fare.

You know, of course, that the child porn crowd will use any vehicle available to spread their disease.

[DocRorlach 25]

Cannot comment on Facebook or MySpace or any such - in my never humble opinion - absolute time wastes; but how about this article for food for thought:

Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change

'Nuff said..

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Clearly, he has had an epiphany of some kind.  Suppose he got wet feet when he visited Greenland?  I understand there are now lakes of standing water on the ice sheets.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

New Topic:  Feeding the world's hungry mouths.  Read this article, and comment please.

This is serious.  World hunger has been a problem for a long time, but we have been pulling the old "head in the sand" trick with regard to managing the fishery.  If we damage the fish stocks enough, we will have a first class famine.

I am interesting in commentary especially from fishing countries whose diet is dependent on fishing.  There are several that don't have enough other resources to feed their people.

[DocRorlach 25]

Sorry, World, but the starving masses will find little sympathy in my corner as long as their reproduction rate outstrips the rest of the world. This planet was never meant for five or six billion humans.

Evolution is neither fair nor kind or merciful. Nor does it care who is to blame for the misery of others. And this is part of the evolution of mankind - in its cruelest form.

As for the findings of Mr. Sumalia I would sugest he visits his colleagues in Aberdeen, Scotland, or Bergen, Norway; the North Atlantic has been over-fished for decades. I recall a headline about the deplation of the common hering that sounded utterly devastating - ten years ago.

Our approach to these things, even when we do find undeniable warning signs, is usually focused on on facet, in this case the fishing industry and its impact on one corner of the planet. What we fail to see, more often than not, is that ever since WWII there has never been a "single-science approach" to any given problem.  Yes, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (environmet: geology, several branches of technology) will have an impact on marine life for decades to come; and yes, the over-fishing of the coastal waters from Canada to Scotland to Scandinavia will only enhance this devastation (marine biology, economics), and the only way to prevent such desasters in the future is by reducing national territorial waters (diplomacy, political science, economics) and the fishing rights therein.

But to suggest that we feed the world's hungry from that quickly diminishing bounty is not just overly optimistic - it is downright hair-brained. We need to reduce the world's population, not increase it, if anyone plans to survive past 2100.

[sneakeypete 16]

Population will stabalise out though. Its not like "if one person can't eat, noone can eat, everyone dies". It wouldn't be pretty though.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The biggest problem in the poorest countries is that once the sun goes down, there is generally only one form of entertainment available.  This quite often results in yet another mouth to feed.  So now, we get the do-gooders in the act, trying to stop the dike from bursting by putting straw in the cracks.  They use straw because they ran out of fingers long ago.

Bye the way, if people are reproducing, they are not starving.  If a woman can carry a child to term and can nurse it, then she may be malnourished, but she isn't starving. 

As far as fish stocks are concerned, we, the fishing nations, are just a bunch of hypocrites when it comes to this type of report, IMHO.

[DocRorlach 25]

More fishy stories anyone?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

So?  Who's surprised?  That ecosystem has sustained major damage and will take decades to recover unless Neptune (Poseidon) rises from the depths and smites the stupid people who are the cause, and using his god powers, restores the sea.  A nice myth, but about as likely as my learning to fly without assistance in the next second or two.

However, the Earth Shaker has been having his innings around the world.  There have been a lot of force 6 and above tremors lately, and that's to remind us that we really don't own the planet.

Someone reading the article I posted suggested freshwater fish farms.  The reply from someone else was short and sweet, saying that only works if you have potable water.

Besides, we are talking about ocean fish, caught from sampans or equivalent, that feed the fisherman and his family, and maybe some of his village.  Some people just don't know what the words subsistence economy mean.  No fish, then its lemon grass for supper.  (Lemon grass has no food value, it has only flavinoids and cellulose.)  Pretty soon, no fish, no people.  To people who don't understand, the words subsistence economy mean as much as polar bear.  Meaningless words for meaningless people.

Someone pointed out that the world isn't fair.  Well it isn't unfair either.  It just works on one rule: survival of the fittest.  Nature is neither malevolent nor benevolent because nature is not a person and has no intelligence.  It just is, and we have to suffer the consequences of living in a system that doesn't notice any of us, or anythng else for that matter.  It is not surprising that primitive peoples worship nature as a god because it is completely immovable.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

Originally posted by: DocRorlach

More fishy stories anyone?

quote>

So disturbing...

Regarding fisheries...  we are going to be in a world of hurt very soon.  For the most part, the damage has done.  It is harder and harder to make a worthwhile catch, and I am glad for it (sorry, fishermen).

Barbarossa

quote>

{My italics} Perhaps you would like to amplify that remark?

On a continuing topic:  The old tensions in Europe are just beneath the surfacve.  link.

The Franks and the Deutsch are at it still.  Those tensions have been there for centuries, and have been a big factor in European conflicts for the base two or three centuries.  Deport is a key word over there.

[DocRorlach 25]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

[....]

Someone pointed out that the world isn't fair.  Well it isn't unfair either.  It just works on one rule: survival of the fittest.  Nature is neither malevolent nor benevolent because nature is not a person and has no intelligence.

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Apart from that statement depending entirely on the definition of "intelligence" as being individual or symbionic, when it comes to the species known as humans, the comonly assumed law of survival of the fittest ceased to apply about a century or so ago.

In today's world it has been swiveled into the law of the most reproductive which are - in most cases - the least fit for survival. I recently saw the opening sequence of what perchance must have been the worst-made movie in a decade: Idocracy, with Luke Wilson.

That sequence, however, encapsuled neatly what is really happening in the first world: the unfit, the dumb, the obese, the lazy - they all breed like even rabbits never would consider, while those who perhaps could help to restore sanity to this world are dying out. If you doubt that hypothesis, take a look at the queues in fast food places, or the news programs on television.

As for the second & third world: we covered that earlier: those unfit to feed even themselves outbreed the rest of the local populations. The net result will be a truly "weighted" planet population of some 10 billion by 2050: the absolute obese lolling about in the West, while the rest of the planet's populace falters into absolute undernourishment and starvation.

[fukuda 351]

What humans consider as fit and what life "considers" fit don't necessarily overlap. Life has no teleologic drive towards betterment or increased intelligence, transmission and adaptation are the things that matter.

It never was "survival of the fittest individuals", it's survival of the fittest traits".

Usually the fittest will be the ones with the highest chances of transmission and the best adapted. The happiest, less stressed, "most reproductive"... are the best adapted to their environment. "Dumb", "Lazy", "Unfit" people usually fall into this category.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You both make very good points.  The fittest are the ones who can populate the earth and squeeze out the rest.  With the present "crypto-eugenics" programs being practiced around the globe, I expect that south-east Asia and Africa will win this lottery for survival.  All they need to do is to shuck the white man, and they are doing a good job by simply going to bed at night.

The Chinese law that limited parents to two children is only enforced if they get caught.  Getting caught is fatal for the extra child and painful for the parents.  However, we are made with a serious reproductive drive, and only cap it philosophically.  We are thinking ourselves out of the gene pool.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, greed goeth before a fall, as surely as nemesis follows hubris.

You know that old saw about teaching a man to fish, but nothing in it says anything about taking more fish that you can eat or sell.  They say that well-rotted fish makes a good fertilizer, but I would no more like to be near that than hog manure sprayers.  Some of the farms around here are hog producers, and they sell their feed results to various people for liquifaction and ultimate spraying.  Gaaaah!  However, it does defeat outfits like Monsanto who pollute the soil with chemicals.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

However, it does defeat outfits like Monsanto who pollute the soil with chemicals.

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Pollute the soil? You mean like with pesticides and fertilizers that produce higher crop yields and thus mean more efficient, more sustainable farming?

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

However, it does defeat outfits like Monsanto who pollute the soil with chemicals.

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Pollute the soil? You mean like with pesticides and fertilizers that produce higher crop yields and thus mean more efficient, more sustainable farming?

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Which leach through the water table in trace amounts exposing you and me to possible long-term, unstudied effects.

New Topic:  Sino-Nipponese relations seem to be more sour than ever.  Link.

[DocRorlach 25]

Although not on topic, I could not resist - for once - to report what I consider good news (does not happen too often):

Swiss women outnumber men in government

The article goes on to mention the other country where women outnumber men in the governing body, namely Finnland. Funny, isn't it? If one were to choose the most stable economies and national consensus in the western hemisphere, surely both these countries could vie for the top spot?

And: both countries can claim to be among the most "connected" in terms of broadband, wireless, and mobile communications.

Maybe all governments ought to head in that direction?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

An interesting proposition.  You'll notice the bad boys in parliamentary question periods are usually boys.  Do you suppose there is a certain aggressive drive there that women have less of?  (God, what an awful sentence.) Notice the longest serving mayors in Canada have been Charlotte Whitten at Ottawa, and (Hurricane-)Hazel McCallion (still sitting) of Mississauga.  Also, our last two governors general have been women, which made them the commanders in chief of all the boys and girls in uniform.  The new guy is a well-(politically)-placed academic.  God save the Queen.

I have worked for both women and men in my time.  Working for a woman can be trying at times because they seem to have a management style that brooks no nonsense at all, and are always direct to the point, while male managers quite often walk all around Robin Hood's barn before coming to the crux of a matter.  I think that women are more able to see the root of a matter, probably because they get all the pain in life before the guys get a chance to feel it most of the time.  If you think that is not so, try birthing a child sometime.

If we had more women in Parliament, maybe there could be better decorum in question period.

[Wrightguy0 40]

indeed mr moose, we need to have more women in politics here, and we need to have a better attitude towards them from our male MP's. I also believe the Spearker should have more Authority on the floor to bring the House to a calm demeanor, faster, because QP tends to get way out of control fast in all levels of government

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One of the many reasons why fighting an international guerilla movement is so difficult.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100102502.html

It has never been clear to me whether Pakistan is on board with the effort next door, or just an interested bystander.  Given her history and present problems with India, I suspect that any support for NATO's effort is grudging at best. 

The Muslims in India made a great mistake in 1947 when they decided to form their own country.  Jinnah was a stiff-necked old bounder who didn't get along well with Ghandi.  The result was a vast volkerwandrung that included a bloodbath.  The Muslims and the Hindus in India could never see eye-to-eye because the Muslims considered the Hindus to be heathens, and things were pretty black and white at the time.  It was one of the greatest blows to civilization in modern times.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[saltandsauce 0]

Then again, Margaret Thatcher clung on to power for 11 years and managed to screw up at almost every turn. She's a woman (sort of)

as for the thing about smartest/strongest/fittest that's one reason why contraception doesn't work it only allows those who don't use it to reproduce.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: saltandsauce

Then again, Margaret Thatcher clung on to power for 11 years and managed to screw up at almost every turn. She's a woman (sort of)

as for the thing about smartest/strongest/fittest that's one reason why contraception doesn't work it only allows those who don't use it to reproduce.

quote>

Maybe its me, but I don't get the context.  However, I agree with your last sentence.  If the best of us don't reproduce, then we deserve what happens.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Many of the editorialists and tv talking heads seem to think that Pakistan to a degree duplicitously prefered a weak and malleable Afghanistan in its pocket to control Pakistan's west as a hedge against India, hence all the previous support and under-the-table protection by the sympathetic Pakistani military for paramilitary Islamist guerilla groups operating out of their western frontier zones and in disputed Kashmir. Even the Taliban owes its early and continued existence and even outright manpower to Pakistan and poltical parties there. However, this has now erupted in the classic blowback pattern, with those viperous terror groups turning upon Pakistan itself and hoping to bring down the shakily paralyzed government there. Play with vipers, and you will eventually get bitten. It's still a wonder if it will be a tensely wounded and nuclear-armed Pakistan that implodes next. Ironically makes us really wish back for Benazir Bhutto now!

Actually, it almost makes me wish pre-partition India never opted to dismantle the system of the British Raj quite at the time, as the whole history of the first half of the 20th century could be called ethnic nationalism run amok, with states carved out from fracturing empires along ethnic identity lines, culminating in liebensraum and genocide in old civilized Europe, entrenched turmoil in the Middle East, and religious strife and partition of India. Perhaps Gandhi's catalytic self-determination movement came to India too early...his earnest efforts have been long drowned out by the greater chaos.

Maybe instead of Bhutto or Ghandi or another appointed Viceroy, we needed another Akbar the Great! Okay, maybe that is just too much armchair geopoliticking from the Anglosphere to stomach!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, that's a pretty good summary of the way I've been feeling as well.  We really don't know the ground unless we've been there, and what we see is what is reported by an undoubtedly biased source or sources.

Pakistan seems to always have been a crisis ready to explode into something.  The fact that they are members of the nuclear club makes the possibility of some kind of radical take over very scary indeed.  Because of this, it is impossible for the west to say "A plague on all your houses" and pull out.  Some idiot suicide would try to start WW III by blowing up New Delhi.