Month: November 2006

Cuban Rock Climbers Inspired by Foreigners Irk Castro Regime

Cuban Rock Climbers Inspired by Foreigners Irk Castro Regime – WSJ.com
Some of the official anxiety over climbing seems to be based on Cuba’s revolutionary history. The revolution that brought Mr. Castro to power in 1959 was launched from a clandestine encampment in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on the eastern end of the island. Mr. Castro became intimately familiar with Cuba’s highest mountain, 6,500-foot Pico Turquino. “The Revolution was the work of climbers and cavers,” Mr. Castro once said, according to a history by Antonio Nuñez Jimenéz, a prominent revolutionary leader and naturalist.

Now the Cuban government may be worried that history will repeat itself. “The system is paranoid about Cubans’ private activities, but especially when those activities are occurring in hills away from sight and when foreigners are involved,” says Vitalio Echazabal, one of the first Cubans to take up rock climbing in the 1990s. Continue reading “Cuban Rock Climbers Inspired by Foreigners Irk Castro Regime”

Russia agrees to shut down Allofmp3.com

Russia agrees to shut down Allofmp3.com | CNET News.com
Russia has agreed to shut down Allofmp3.com and other music sites based in that country that the U.S. government says are offering downloads illegally. We warned about this in an earler post

The nation has struck the agreement with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as it seeks entry to the World Trade Organization. The U.S. has suggested that it would hold up Russia’s acceptance in the WTO unless leaders there took action against digital piracy

Surge in Violence Shocks Even Weary Mexico

Surge in Violence Shocks Even Weary Mexico – washingtonpost.com
“We moved very quickly from a government that was too tough to a government that has lost control,”

The PRI was known for negotiating with drug cartels, a practice that often corrupted officials but may have lessened violence.”In the old days there were rules. We’d say, ‘You can’t kill the police. If you kill the police, we’ll send in the army,’ ” said a former high-ranking PRI official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We’d say, ‘You can’t steal 30 Jeep Cherokees a month; you can only steal five.’ ”

Fox has sought to limit corruption and has declared “the mother of all battles” against drugs and jailed several of the country’s most notorious drug lords. But the underworld power struggles that followed have been unspeakably violent, particularly since the arrests in 2001 and 2003 of the leaders of Mexico’s two most powerful drug gangs, the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels.

Losing the Enlightenment

OpinionJournal –A civilization that has lost confidence in itself cannot confront the Islamists.
Ever more insulated by our material things from danger, we lack all appreciation of the eternal thin veneer of civilization.

We especially ignore among us those who work each day to keep nature and the darker angels of our own nature at bay. This new obtuseness revolves around a certain mocking by elites of why we have what we have. Instead of appreciating that millions get up at 5 a.m., work at rote jobs, and live proverbial lives of quiet desperation, we tend to laugh at the schlock of Wal-Mart, not admire its amazing ability to bring the veneer of real material prosperity to the poor. Continue reading “Losing the Enlightenment”

The ghastly predictability of nihilist violence in Lebanon and Iraq.

The ghastly predictability of nihilist violence in Lebanon and Iraq. – By Christopher Hitchens – Slate Magazine
The fate of those who criticize the Syrian presence in Lebanon is rather like the fate of those who oppose Vladimir Putin. The former are shot or blown up, and the latter are victims of exotic poisons.

It is true, a prudent Syrian or Iranian government would not wish for an implosion in either Lebanon or Iraq, and a sensible Pakistani regime ought to desire a peaceful Afghanistan. A next-door war of all against all can lead to interethnic and interconfessional rivalry within their own societies and in the meantime is a threat to the orderly exploitation of things—like the trade in narcotics—that benefit the regimes and their clientele. However, chaos is a tremendous way of waging asymmetrical warfare and canceling the vast military superiority of the United States.

Decoding the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/112706widernet.html

The Mechanism is named after the Greek island of Antikythera [antih-KITH-ehra], where in 1900 a sponge diver taking shelter from a storm found an ancient shipwreck 200 feet below the Mediterranean’s surface. Archeologists removed an array of artifacts, but it wasn’t until mid-1902, that one of them noticed that embedded in what was thought to be a lump of broken calcified bronze statuary was a gear wheel.

Since its discovery in 1902, the Antikythera Mechanism — with its intricate and baffling system of about 30 geared wheels — has been an enigma. Our knowledge of its functions has increased as computer-based imaging, analysis and X-ray technologies have evolved. During the last 50 years, researchers have identified various astronomical and calendar functions, including gears that mimic the movement of the sun and moon.

But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C. The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project,

From Wired magazine Imaging the Antikythera Computer

Women talk three times as much as men, says study

Women talk three times as much as men, says study | the Daily Mail
In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day – 13,000 more than the average man.

Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat – and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests. Continue reading “Women talk three times as much as men, says study”

THE ‘EURABIA’ MYTH

THE ‘EURABIA’ MYTH

Don’t let Europe’s current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.

THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened – even when the threat’s concocted nonsense – they don’t just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And Europeans won’t even need to re-write “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” with an Islamist theme – real Muslims zealots provide Europe’s bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe’s Muslims. Europe hasn’t broken free of its historical addictions – we’re going to see Europe’s history reprised on meth.