AIDS medics in Libya - Nature

http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/aidsmedicslibya/index.html

In this focus

Lawyers defending six medical workers who risk execution by firing squad in Libya on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV have called for the scientific community's support. They want international pressure put on Libya to order an independent scientific review of how the children became infected, in a bid to prove the medics' innocence.

Since Nature published an Editorial and News article on the issue, the blogosphere has since amplified the lawyers’ initial call. Nature will continue to follow developments and collect them in this web focus, so check back here for updates and reader comments. You can post your thoughts on this case to the Nature Newsblog. All articles are FREE ACCESS.

self-deception - The Skeptics Dictionary

This is fun!

Sailom

http://skepdic.com/selfdeception.html

Ninety-four percent of university professors think they are better at their jobs than their colleagues.

Twenty-five percent of college students believe they are in the top 1% in terms of their ability to get along with others.

Seventy percent of college students think they are above average in leadership ability. Only two percent think they are below average.
--Thomas Gilovich How We Know What Isn't So

Eighty-five percent of medical students think it is improper for politicians to accept gifts from lobbyists. Only 46 percent think it's improper for physicians to accept gifts from drug companies.
--Dr. Ashley Wazana JAMA Vol. 283 No. 3, January 19, 2000

A Princeton University research team asked people to estimate how susceptible they and "the average person" were to a long list of judgmental biases; the majority of people claimed to be less biased than the majority of people.

A 2001 study of medical residents found that 84 percent thought that their colleagues were influenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, but only 16 percent thought that they were similarly influenced. --Daniel Gilbert, "I'm OK; you're biased"

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains....This overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.
--"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," by Justin Kruger and David Dunning Department of Psychology Cornell University, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134.

Our capacity for self-deception has no known limits. -- Michael Novak

Self-deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Self-deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs to ourselves.

When philosophers and psychologists discuss self-deception, they usually focus on unconscious motivations and intentions. They also usually consider self-deception as a bad thing, something to guard against. To explain how self-deception works, they focus on self-interest, prejudice, desire, insecurity, and other psychological factors unconsciously affecting in a negative way the will to believe. A common example would be that of a parent who believes his child is telling the truth even though the objective evidence strongly supports the claim that the child is lying. The parent, it is said, deceives him or herself into believing the child because the parent desires that the child tell the truth. A belief so motivated is usually considered more flawed than one due to lack of ability to evaluate evidence properly. The former is considered to be a kind of moral flaw, a kind of dishonesty, and irrational. The latter is considered to be a matter of fate: some people are just not gifted enough to make proper inferences from the data of perception and experience.

However, it is possible that the parent in the above example believes the child because he or she has intimate and extensive experience with the child but not with the child's accusers. The parent may be unaffected by unconscious desires and be reasoning on the basis of what he or she knows about the child but does not know about the others involved. The parent may have very good reasons for trusting the child and not trusting the accusers. In short, an apparent act of self-deception may be explicable in purely cognitive terms without any reference to unconscious motivations or irrationality. The self-deception may be neither a moral nor an intellectual flaw. It may be the inevitable existential outcome of a basically honest and intelligent person who has extremely good knowledge of his or her child, knows that things are not always as they appear to be, has little or no knowledge of the child's accusers, and thus has not sufficient reason for doubting the child. It may be the case that an independent party could examine the situation and agree that the evidence is overwhelming that the child is lying, but if he or she were wrong we would say that he or she was mistaken, not self-deceived. We consider the parent to be self-deceived because we assume that he or she is not simply mistaken, but is being irrational. How can we be sure?

A more interesting case would be one where (1) a parent has good reason to believe that his or her child is likely to tell the truth in any given situation, (2) the objective evidence points to innocence, (3) the parent has no reason to especially trust the child's accusers, but (4) the parent believes the child's accusers anyway. Such a case is so defined as to be practically impossible to explain without assuming some sort of unconscious and irrational motivation (or brain disorder) on the part of the parent. However, if cognitive incompetence is allowed as an explanation for apparently irrational beliefs, then appeals to unconscious psychological mechanisms are not necessary even in this case.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to know whether self-deception is due to unconscious motivations or not in order to know that there are certain situations where self-deception is so common that we must systematically take steps to avoid it. Such is the case with belief in paranormal or occult phenomena such as ESP, prophetic dreams, dowsing, therapeutic touch, facilitated communication, and a host of other topics taken up in the Skeptic's Dictionary.

In How We Know What Isn't So, Thomas Gilovich describes the details of many studies which make it clear that we must be on guard against the tendencies to

misperceive random data and see patterns where there are none;
misinterpret incomplete or unrepresentative data and give extra attention to confirmatory data while drawing conclusions without attending to or seeking out disconfirmatory data;
make biased evaluations of ambiguous or inconsistent data, tending to be uncritical of supportive data and very critical of unsupportive data.

It is because of these tendencies that scientists require clearly defined, controlled, double-blind, randomized, repeatable, publicly presented studies. Otherwise, we run a great risk of deceiving ourselves and believing things that are not true. It is also because of these tendencies that in trying to establish beliefs non-scientists ought to try to imitate science whenever possible. In fact, scientists must keep reminding themselves of these tendencies and guard against pathological science.

Many people believe, however, that as long as they guard themselves against wishful thinking they are unlikely to deceive themselves. Actually, if one believes that all one must be on guard against is wishful thinking, then one may be more rather than less liable to self-deception. For example, many intelligent people have invested in numerous fraudulent products that promised to save money, the environment, or the world, not because they were guilty of wishful thinking but because they weren't. Since they were not guilty of wishful thinking, they felt assured that they were correct in defending their product. They could easily see the flaws in critical comments. They were adept at finding every weakness in opponents. They were sometimes brilliant in defense of their useless devices. Their errors were cognitive, not emotional. They misinterpreted data. They gave full attention to confirmatory data, but were unaware of or oblivious to disconfirmatory data. They sometimes were not aware that the way in which they were selecting data made it impossible for contrary data to have a chance to occur. They were adept at interpreting data favorably when either the goal or the data itself was ambiguous or vague. They were sometimes brilliant in arguing away inconsistent data with ad hoc hypotheses. Yet, had they taken the time to design a clear test with proper controls, they could have saved themselves a great deal of money and embarrassment. The defenders of the DKL LifeGuard and the many defenders of perpetual motion machines and free energy devices are not necessarily driven by the desire to believe in their magical devices. They may simply be the victims of quite ordinary cognitive obstacles to critical thinking. Likewise for all those nurses who believe in therapeutic touch and those defenders of facilitated communication, ESP, astrology, biorhythms, crystal power, dowsing, and a host of other notions that seem to have been clearly refuted by the scientific evidence. In short, self-deception is not necessarily a weakness of will, but may be a matter of ignorance, laziness, or cognitive incompetence.

On the other hand, self-deception may not always be a flaw and may even be beneficial at times. If we were too brutally honest and objective about our own abilities and about life in general, we might become debilitated by depression.

See also ad hoc hypothesis, cold reading, communal reinforcement, confirmation bias, control study, Occam's razor, pathological science, placebo effect, post hoc fallacy, selective thinking, subjective validation, testimonials, and wishful thinking.

further reading

Self-deception bibliography (from the Consciousness in the Natural World Project)
Beyond Science
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, Department of Psychology, Cornell University
Recommendations of the Commission on Professional Self Regulation in Science

Dupuy, Jean Pierre. Editor. Self- Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality (Cambridge University Press 1998).

Fingarette, Henry. Self-Deception (University of California Press, 2000).

Gilovich, Thomas. How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life (New York: The Free Press, 1993).

Kahane, Howard. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life, 8th edition (Wadsworth, 1997).

Kruger, Justin and David Dunning. "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134.

McLaughlin, Brian P., Alelie Rorty, Amelia O. Rorty. Editors. Perspectives on Self-Deception (University of California Press 1988).

Mele, Alfred R. Self-Deception Unmasked (Princeton University Press 2001).

Taylor, Shelly E. Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1989).

Wiseman, Richard. Deception & Self-Deception: Investigating Psychics (Prometheus, 1997).

Rover arrives at prime location - BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5388058.stm

Last Updated: Thursday, 28 September 2006, 09:41 GMT 10:41 UK

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Opportunity has reached the rim of Victoria Crater

Enlarge Image

Nasa's robotic Mars rover Opportunity has arrived at what researchers hope will prove to be a "dream" location - the 800m-wide Victoria Crater.

The depression has high walls with layers of exposed rock that should reveal significant new information about the Red Planet's geological past.

Opportunity has been exploring Mars' Meridiani Plains since January 2004.

Its "twin", the Spirit rover, continues to explore Gusev Crater on the other side of the Red Planet.

Both robots have continued working far beyond their designed mission lifetimes.

Opportunity has now driven more than 9.2km (5.7 miles) across the planet's dusty surface, examining rocks and studying the Martian environment.

Water story

It has found strong evidence that its region of Mars was covered with shallow waters many millions of years ago. The investigation of rocks at Victoria is expected to fill out the story still further.

"This is a geologist's dream come true," said Professor Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the principal investigator on Nasa's rover programme.

The rovers are still going after more than two-and-a-half years on Mars

"Those layers of rock, if we can get to them, will tell us new stories about the environmental conditions long ago.

"We especially want to learn whether the wet era that we found recorded in the rocks closer to the landing site extended farther back in time. The way to find that out is to go deeper, and Victoria may let us do that."

The Spirit rover has been holed up at one northward-tilted position through the southern Mars winter in order to collect the maximum energy supply for its solar panels.

Spirit is conducting studies that benefit from staying in one place, such as monitoring effects of wind on dust. It will begin driving again when the Martian spring increases the amount of solar power available.

Both rovers will be on a reduced workload through October as Mars passes behind the Sun as viewed from Earth. This makes communication with the robots more difficult than usual.

Victoria Crater Image: Nasa/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Opportunity has been travelling to Victoria crater for about half its mission ( Nasa/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems)

Virgin boss aims to save the planet - Nature

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060925/full/060925-8.html

News

Published online: 27 September 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060925-8

Airline entrepreneur tackles climate change.

Katharine Sanderson

Aviation is a big contributor to global warming.

Virgin Atlantic

British business mogul Richard Branson made headlines last week by pledging to invest a whopping US$3 billion in programmes and businesses that tackle climate change. Less than a week later, he is back on the trail, announcing plans to cut carbon emissions in British aviation by up to 25%.

Both moves are winning applause from environmental groups and scientists, although they note that the money is an investment rather than a donation, and that the scheme for air emissions looks extremely optimistic.

Branson wrote to the major airlines operating in Britain two weeks ago, and is organizing a forum for them through his company Virgin Atlantic. He has suggested a number of initiatives he wants to see implemented by all airlines, worldwide.

"What we're suggesting would save over 150 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year," he claims. That would be 25% of total global airline emissions.

It all adds up

Each initiative suggested is small, but could add up to definite fuel savings if widely adopted, says Douglas Thompson of the University of Glasgow's aerospace engineering department.

At the forefront of Branson's scheme is a plan to tow planes to runways, instead of making them taxi there. The amount of fuel saved this way, as a percentage of that used during a seven-hour transatlantic flight, would be tiny, says Thompson. But, he adds, "each thing is an improvement."

Branson also advises that pilots start their descents from higher altitude, to improve efficiency. And a raft of other small steps to make aircraft lighter and so more fuel efficient are suggested, such as using carbon-fibre oxygen bottles, and even painting aircraft with lighter paint.

Streamlined air-traffic control systems would make for better efficiency and less time in the skies. "The mess of European air traffic control is punishing the environment," says Branson.

Climate sceptics

Others don't think the changes will add up to a 25% reduction in emissions.

"It's playing around at the margins, there's very little going on in the air," says Peter Lockley, a spokesman for the UK Aviation Environment Federation (AEF).

Jeff Gazzard, also at the AEF, adds that towing planes out to runways will not be practical. "We don't know of any airport in the world that would be prepared to introduce this system," he says. It would be much easier, and similarly effective, to have aircraft taxi on half engines, he says. "That's practical, they can do that now."

Gazzard guesses Branson's plan would actually cut emissions by only 1%. There are more effective ways to cut emissions, says Thompson, including switching to synthetic fuels.

A spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic says that preliminary talks with the British Aviation Authority are being held, in an attempt to get it to implement some of Branson's suggestions.

Digging deep

Branson's biggest push towards putting the brakes on climate change came last week at the Clinton Global Initiative, a meeting where he pledged to invest ten years' worth of profits from his transport business (expected to be $3 billion) into climate-change initiatives.

Branson is not the only celebrity digging deep to save the planet. In California, film producer Stephen Bing has pledged $40 million to the campaign to pass the state's proposition 87, which will see oil taxed as high as 6%, with the proceeds going towards alternative energy vehicles, fuel stations and research.

Sun's Activity Increased in Past Century, Study Confirms - space.com

An increase of the solar activity might have had an impact on the Earth's climate sometimes during the 20th century. However, the solar activity has stabilised since the 1970s. Given that during the past 30 years, global warming has accelerated, the man-made greenhouse effect is still the only factor that can explain recent climate change.

Sailom

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060926_solar_activity.html

By Jeanna Bryner Staff Writer
posted: 26 September 200602:29 pm ET

The energy output from the Sun has increased significantly during the 20th century, according to a new study.

Many studies have attempted to determine whether there is an upward trend in the average magnitude of sunspots and solar flares over time, but few firm conclusions have been reached.

Now, an international team of researchers led by Ilya Usoskin of the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory at the University of Oulu, Finland, may have the answer. They examined meteorites that had fallen to Earth over the past 240 years. By analyzing the amount of titanium 44, a radioactive isotope, the team found a significant increase in the Sun's radioactive output during the 20th century.

Over the past few decades, however, they found the solar activity has stabilized at this higher-than-historic level.

Prior research relied on measurements of certain radioactive elements within tree rings and in the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica, which can be altered by terrestrial processes, not just by solar activity. The isotope measured in the new study is not affected by conditions on Earth.

The results, detailed in this week's issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, "confirm that there was indeed an increase in solar activity over the last 100 years or so," Usoskin told SPACE.com.

The average global temperature at Earth's surface has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1880. Some scientists debate whether the increase is part of a natural climate cycle or the result of greenhouse gases produced by cars and industrial processes.

The Sun's impact on climate has only recently been investigated. Recent studies show that an increase in solar output can cause short-term changes in Earth's climate, but there is no firm evidence linking solar activity with long-term climate effects.

The rise in solar activity at the beginning of the last century through the 1950s or so matches with the increase in global temperatures, Usoskin said. But the link doesn't hold up from about the 1970s to present.

"During the last few decades, the solar activity is not increasing. It has stabilized at a high level, but the Earth's climate still shows a tendency toward increasing temperatures," Usoskin explained.

He suspects even if there were a link between the Sun's activity and global climate, other factors must have dominated during the last few decades, including the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Images: Sun Storms
VIDEO: Goldilocks and the Greenhouse
Inside the Sun: What Triggers Major Eruptions
All About Global Warming
Mysteries of the Sun

Earth Nears Warmest in 12,000 Years - Discovery News

A few things are missing in today's news:
The Earth's global warming is 3 times faster if we compare the past 30 years with the 20th century as a whole. This acceleration of global warming is what matters.
If we keep this in mind, the expected global warming in the 21st century will be much more than 2 degrees celsius.
Now, if we want to know what it means, it's better to read the following website. However this analysis was done a few years ago and should be understood as a conservative estimate...
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/english.html

Sailom

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/09/25/warmingtrend_pla.html?category=earth&guid=20060925163830

Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

Sept. 25, 2006 — Earth's climate is now moving into unknown territory — warming up more than any time in the last 12,000 years, report top U.S. climate researchers. Accelerated warming over the last 30 years has pushed up world surface temperatures to the highest they've been since the last ice age ended.

And the mercury is still rising.

That means there is no time to waste in slowing the burning of fossil fuels that releases the majority of greenhouse gases which, in turn, are causing the warming, say the researchers.
The alarming conclusion is based on climate data gathered from instruments around the world over the last century, combined with ancient paleoclimate data from ocean sediments. The conclusions are reported in a paper in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paleoclimate data indicate more than just a 12,000-year record on the brink of being smashed. We are now closing in on the warmest climate for any of the warm periods between ice ages — called interglacials — in the last million years, said James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"We're within one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of the warmest interglacial," Hansen told Discovery News.

That's a crucial degree, he said. If warming can be held below that level, the effects of global warming should stay within those of other interglacials, which were fairly similar to today.
"But if further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius," said Hansen, "we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."

The last time Earth's climate exceeded that critical 1 degree Celsius was in the Pliocene, three million years ago, when sea level was 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today. Among the possible effects are more La Niña events in the Pacific, followed by an almost permanent El Niño condition, which causes droughts, floods and other dramatic weather changes worldwide.
The 20th century data show that Earth has been warming at the steep rate of approximately 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius) per decade for the past 30 years. This pretty much matches the warming rate predicted in the 1980s in the first global climate simulations of the effects of rising greenhouse gases.

"The big picture is very clear," said paleoclimatologist Christina Ravelo of the University of California at Santa Cruz. Ravelo has been looking for signs of what El Nino did during the Pliocene, when things were so much warmer, in hopes of finding clues to our the future, if global warming continues unabated.

Mystery surrounds French oyster ban - Nature

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060918/full/060918-8.html

News

Published online: 21 September 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060918-8

Shellfish spat highlights problems with generic safety tests.

Declan Butler

Are these oysters toxic? It's hard to tell.

NICOLAS TUCAT/AP/EMPICS

A ban on the sale of France's famous Arcachon oysters this August provoked angry demonstrations by oyster farmers, who say that there's no way of proving the shellfish were actually toxic. The controversy has thrown a spotlight on the shortcomings of current safety testing.

The oysters were pulled on 31 August when they failed the standard test: mice injected with shellfish juices died. Two people in the area have died. Although an autopsy later showed that one patient died of causes unrelated to shellfish, the other case is still unclear.

No rush of people appeared at clinics with complaints of poisoning, and no toxic algae could be detected in the water. Laurent Rosso, director of food-quality research at the French Food Safety Agency at Maisons-Alfort in the southwest suberbs of Paris, admits that they have no idea what killed the mice. So what's been going on?

Tricky assay

The mouse assay is the current gold standard for testing for the risk of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning, an unpleasant and debilitating illness that can lead to severe dehydration.

The problem is that it's just a global test.

Zouher Amzil
Ifremer's Phycotoxin laboratory in Nantes

In the test, the fatty part of the digestive glands of shellfish are extracted using solvents, the solvents are washed away, and the result is injected into three mice. If two of the three mice die within 24 hours, a ban is placed on human consumption. The ban is lifted after two consecutive tests turn up negative (as happened in this case on 14 September).

But events have highlighted problems with this bioassay. The dead mice don't indicate which toxins are present, or in what concentrations. "It's just a global test," says Zouher Amzil, head of the main phycotoxin laboratory at France's national marine research agency, Ifremer, in Nantes.

And false positives, though rare, can happen. The solvent used to pull material from the oysters can be itself fatal to mice, so if it isn't properly washed from the extract then the mice can die even when the shellfish are clean.

The specifics

For these reasons, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin, for one, argues that the mouse test should be replaced with more specific chemical tests for known phycotoxins.

"Chemical assays are better than the mouse assay," agrees Russo. He thinks that mouse deaths almost always mean there is a problem, but concedes that the lack of detail can be problematic.

Chemical tests would allow experts to assess the threat to humans better. This in turn would allow authorities to weigh up whether a ban on shellfish sales was warranted.

However, such tests aren't necessarily simple and they haven't been validated for the purpose of keeping people safe from toxins, points out Rosso. "There are no tests that are sufficiently robust and reliable to be used accurately on an operational basis," he says. Some specific bioassays are being developed by a European project called BIOTOXMARIN, for instance. But, says Rosso, "they are still in the research phase".

Unknown unknowns

Other experts, including Amzil, say a mouse test would still be needed to catch any as-yet-unknown toxins.

Cases of such 'mystery' toxins are very rare. They have shown up in other places around the world, but have inevitably been traced back to a toxic plankton not typical of the region, perhaps transported in the ballast water of ships. Amzil expects that a similar explanation will be forthcoming in this case.

Researchers are now scouring the oysters and the water for any signs of toxin. "We will search for what killed the mice, and see if it was a potential risk for man," says Amzil.

Visit our newsblog to read and post comments about this story.

Campaign in Iraq has increased terrorism threat, says American intelligence report - Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1880275,00.html

· Views of 16 government agencies pooled
· Study contradicting Bush was not made public

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Monday September 25, 2006
The Guardian

A portrait of Saddam Hussein lies behind a bullet hole in a shop window in Baghdad. Photograph: Faleh Kheiber/Reuters

An authoritative US intelligence report pooling the views of 16 government agencies concludes America's campaign in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism.

The National Intelligence Estimate was completed in April but not made public. Its conclusions, which were first reported by the New York Times, contradict assertions made by President George Bush and White House officials during the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

"It's a very candid assessment," said one official who has seen the report. "It's stating the obvious."

The report, Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States, points out the "centrality" of the US invasion of Iraq in fomenting terrorist cells and attacks. One section of the 30-page report, Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement, describes how the American presence in Iraq has helped spread radical Islam by providing a focal point for anti-Americanism.

While arguing that there has been success in dismantling the leadership of al-Qaida and its ability to plan major operations, the report says that radical cells have moved to more than 5,000 websites to organise and spread their message.

The report's tone contradicts recent optimistic assertions by the US administration. It also furthers the divisions between the military and politicians in their assessment of the impact of US policy in Iraq.

In his speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, President Bush said: "The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad."

But in a speech in April, thought to be largely based on the report, CIA chief General Michael Hayden, then deputy director of national intelligence, painted a more alarming picture. "New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge," Gen Hayden said. "If this trend continues, threats to the US at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide."

Democratic senator Edward Kennedy said in a statement that the report "should put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phoney argument about the Iraq war. How many more independent reports, how many more deaths, how much deeper into civil war will Iraq need to fall for the White House to wake up and change its strategy in Iraq?"

But the White House said yesterday that press coverage of the intelligence report did not give the whole picture. A spokesman said terrorist extremism "did not develop overnight" after the US invaded Iraq. "Those seeds were planted decades ago," he said. "Instead of waiting while they plot and plan attacks to kill innocent Americans, the United States has taken the initiative to fight back."

The Republican Senate leader, Bill Frist, said that while he had not seen the report, "we've got to win this war on terror, wherever it is, and it's going to be fought overseas, or if we don't win there, it's going to be fought here in the United States".

The NIE report, the first formal assessment of global terrorism by US intelligence agencies since the invasion of Iraq, was started in 2004 under the leadership of David Low, an officer at the National Intelligence Council. The council, under the auspices of the national intelligence director, John Negroponte, is made up of present and former intelligence officials. It is charged with providing long-term assessments and analyses for the president and officials rather than policy prescriptions.

Its record, however, has been patchy. A NIE report issued in 2002 concluded that Iraq had "continued its weapons of mass destruction programmes", had biological and chemical weapons and "probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade". A July 2004 NIE report concluded that the possible outcomes in Iraq ranged from a government with tenuous control to civil war.

The report comes days after the House intelligence committee warned that Iraq had become a breeding ground for terrorists and that the danger facing the US was "more alarming than the threat that existed" before 9/11.

The violence continued in Iraq over the weekend with 38 people killed in a suicide bombing in Sadr City on Saturday. Twenty people were killed in violence around Iraq yesterday, as well as two US soldiers in the Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The confusion surrounding Saddam Hussein's trial on genocide charges deepened yesterday when his defence team announced that it would boycott the trial indefinitely.

Five days after the judge in the case was unexpectedly removed, and four days after the new judge ejected the former Iraqi president from the court, Saddam's lawyers said that the court had violated the law. "The court committed several violations of the law and we will not just sit there gagged to give it legitimacy," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, who heads the former president's defence team. He cited the court's refusal to hear non-Iraqi lawyers in the case.

In their own words

"My administration, the Congress, and the United Nations saw the threat - and after 9/11, Saddam's regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take. The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power"
George Bush's address to the nation, September 11 2006

"I think it's clear that we are safer but not really yet safe. We've done a lot ... our ports are more secure, we have a much stronger intelligence sharing operation. We've clearly hurt badly the al-Qaida organisation"
Condoleezza Rice, September 10 2006

"I don't know how much better you can do than no attacks for the past five years. The fact is, the world is better off today with Saddam Hussein out of power. Think where we'd be if he was still there"
Dick Cheney, September 11 2006

Sailom's Philosophy: 2 Years On

OK, given I started this blog about 2 years ago, I'ld like to have a quick look at what it had become...

First, I called this blog "Sailom's philosophy" as I expected this blog to be a kind of monologue on whatever issue matters to me.
The thing is... I found out that observing the world's events is a much more rewarding activity than describing my own intellectual speculations! In other words, I do read a lot of stuff every day and I only choose the few things that make sense to me, copy them and paste them in this blog. I also try to give some personal comments on the issues I have some knowledge about. Off-course, most of the time I have nothing to add to the article and my blog looks like a collection of stuff written by other people....

About the topics I enjoyed talking about in this blog:

1> Astronomy

This blog is a "space-enthusiast" one. The space exploration of the solar system is specifically discussed. The solar system is huge yet it can be reasonably explored within a lifetime. The pictures are beautiful... The scientific issues are challenging...

2. Man-made disasters are major issues as well. Wars are sources of untold suffering and the Iraq War in particular have proven to be unreasonable and unethical. Global Warming is a long-term disaster with abundant evidence that it is man-made.

3. Natural disasters left a big mark on this blog. I was in Bangkok when the Asian tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people. Fortunately I was far from the tidal waves but I did notice the amazing display of solidarity from Thai people and the international community as a whole.

4. "Broad" Scientific news are introduced in this blog. I already mentioned space science. Paleontology and the related Evolution vs. "intelligent design" debate are regularly updated. Health issues are often discussed given their importance on people's wellbeing.
Genetics and Animal Science are the next most discussed topics.

5. Philosophy! My favourite philosophers have been introduced during the past 2 years. I could also try to describe my own perception of the subject of EPISTEMOLOGY (Truth): I have become an empiricist... someone who think that knowledge comes primarily from experience. The scientific methodology (verification principles) is the main tool for testing the truth in whatever topic. However, scepticism is also an important concept for me: The essence of things are hidden to us and we can only describe what we see, most further intellectual speculations are bound to failure (even if they are necessary to give meaning to what we perceive). A form of idealism and subjectivism are also in my mind: We don't experience the real world directly, we are only sure of our own perception. This perception is "polluted" by our own cultural bias... making it inherently subjective even if we do our best to be aware of this bias. "Know thyself" is a number one priority in Epistemology.
About the subject of Ethics (Good vs. Evil): I am pretty much an utilitarist: Someone who thinks that as long as our actions don't bring suffering, they are "OK". About happiness, we all have our own ways to reach it and it's best not trying to define it in too much details. I also make a distinction between "Reason" (important for Epistemology) and "Empathy" (the basis for making ethical judgements). Our ability to be compassionate is central to ethical issues.

I will finish by acknowledging that this blog is not very popular in the sense that few people give their own comments to my posts! However I won't make any change to the way I organize it. I consider this blog as a way to speak my mind and... know myself.

Cheers,

Sailom

Photo Gallery: "Lucy's Baby" Adds to Early-Human Record - National Geographic News

The 3.3 million-year-old skull of a female Australopithecus afarensis was recently unearthed by paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged—22 years after the discovery of "Lucy," the most famous fossil of the early human ancestor species (read the full news story).

Some experts have taken to calling the young ape, who died at the age of three, Lucy's baby, despite the fact that the toddler's fossil is tens of thousands of years older.

The new fossil will provide scientists with a crucial piece of evidence that was missing from the Lucy find. The baby's skull and skeleton not only represent arguably the best example of A. afarensis found to date, but unlike Lucy the child's fossil includes fingers, a foot, a complete torso, and a face. (See more images of the discovery of "Lucy's baby" in National Geographic magazine.)

Scientists hope that the fossilized face will provide innumerable clues to what our ancient human ancestors looked like.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060920-baby-photos.html

Optimism under martial law - The Guardian

This article reflects my opinion on the issue. The paradox is - if the junta keeps its promises - this coup d'etat could be a new start for Thai democracy: A new constitution, a new election process ... without the interference of a despot. However, it remains to be seen that the generals give back their power to the people smoothly.

Sailom

Jonathan Fenby

September 20, 2006 02:47 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_fenby/2006/09/post_413.html

Generals who stage coups on the promise of democracy are bound to be a suspect quantity, given their track record of either clinging to power or ensuring that only favoured politicians get to run in the elections they promise to put in place.

So the knee-jerk reaction is bound to be to take a dim view of the pledge by the General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, Thailand's army commander, to step down from power in a fortnight following yesterday's coup against its prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. The general's promise to open the way for a new leader "who is neutral and upholds democracy" will inevitably raise questioning eyebrows.

The military intervention, 15 years after the last coup in Thailand, is bound to jolt the perception of the country as an ever-strengthening democracy. But the truth is that Thaksin brought his downfall on himself, and that the army - with the crucial backing of the king, who, presumably, did not stand in the way of yesterday's action - may be the only instrument for getting things back on an even keel -Thai-style.

Democracy has seen the country swinging to extremes - from a highly corrupt government to a progressive reformist regime and then to Thaksin, a billionaire who originally won election as the bright new face of entrepreneurial Thailand but who also won a fervent following among country folk - along with the enmity of the Bangkok elite.

The trouble was that he just did not know where to stop. He accreted political power, and tried to put his men in key posts in the military. He used heavy-handed methods against Muslims in the south of the country. A $1.9bn deal to sell his family firm with an arm of the Singapore government was so structured that no tax was paid.

An opposition boycott of the last general election hollowed out his mandate, but, despite promises, he would not step down, and appeared increasingly autocratic. Now, while on a visit to New York from where he is reported to have flown to London, he has paid the price.

The question now is whether General Sonthi, having headed off the Thaksin faction in the army, will genuinely allow a re-shaping of civilian politics. That would probably bring a decline in the power of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thais) party, and its fragmentation as his guiding hand and deep pocketrs leave the scene. The opposition Democrats, who were seen out of office due to their lack of the popular touch and the hangover from the Asian financial crisis that began in Thailand in 1997, can be expected to muster themselves. There could also be a re-shaping of the contitution to reduce the powers of the prime minister, which Thaksin used to such great effect.

If that happens in a peaceful manner before elections are held in a year's time, the coup could actually strengthen the cause of democracy which the prime minister was leading up his own personal path. The danger in that will be of a confrontation between Thaksin's supprters among the rural poor, and the Bangkok elite which could find itself deferring to the army. What happens to pro-Thaksin elements in the armed forces is another open question as is the role which the much-revered king will play.

If, on the other hamd, the Thai generals conform to the habitual military pattern, south-east Asia would find itself with army-ruled Thailand sitting next to army-ruled Burma and nearby to Singapore, dominated by one party. With authoritarian tendencies and a free-wheeling approach to elections always rippling below the surface in several other countries of the region, what happens in Thailand will be a litmus test for the progress of democracy in an area which has seen military and authoritarian regimes replaced by elected civilian governments in Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines as well as Thailand in an advance towards electoral democracy to rival that experienced in Latin America.

At a time when spreading democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan is be proving a lot harder than Washington had figured; preserving it in south-east Asia is all the more important - even if it requires generals to do the trick.

With premier at UN, Thai military stages coup - IHT

Foreigners in Thailand might feel scared for their safety after hearing about the military coup. They should stay at home for the moment and wait until they have more news.
However, this coup d'etat has enjoyed genuine support in the streets of Bangkok for one reason: Former PM Thaksin Shinawatra had become a despot. Democracy was no longer working.
By the way, this kind of Thai-style military putsch has been "bloodless" in the past. There are no signs so far that it would be different this time.
Off-course, the new rulers are not elected but they also promised to "give back the power to the people as soon as possible". It seems like people are willing to believe them after feeling relieved that Thaksin is gone.

Sailom

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/20/asia/web.0920thai.php

With premier at UN, Thai military stages coup

By Seth Mydans and Thomas Fuller International Herald Tribune

Published: September 19, 2006

BANGKOK In Thailand's first coup in 15 years, military leaders seized control of Bangkok on Tuesday night, suspended the Constitution and declared martial law in the capital, effective immediately.

There were no reports of violence.

The moves came while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York preparing to address the United Nations. He declared a state of emergency on Thai television, but was cut off in mid-speech. Later, he canceled his address to the General Assembly.

The coup, led by the army chief, General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, also "terminated" both houses of Parliament, the cabinet and the Constitutional Court.

The events on Tuesday returned Thailand to a time that most experts here thought was finally past, raising questions about the future of Thai democracy and the stability of a country that is a prime tourist destination with strong economic links to the West.

The coup came at the height of a drawn-out political crisis. In April, Thaksin was forced by huge street protests to step aside despite an overwhelming electoral mandate. In fact, though, he continued to lead the government and to wage political battles against his opponents.

After a long break, demonstrations against the prime minister had been due to resume this week, bringing with them the danger of violent clashes between his supporters and opponents.

Late Tuesday night, Sondhi was shown on television in an audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a clear indication that the highly revered constitutional monarch endorsed the move.

On a military-controlled television station, a general in civilian clothes said a "council of administrative reform" had seized power in the name of the king.

Speaking for Sondhi, who has publicly feuded with the prime minister, General Prapas Sakultanak said that the military did not intend to rule the country and that it would "hand power back to the people." He gave no timetable.

The military has a long history of political involvement, staging 18 coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. The last one, in 1991, installed a military leader who was pushed from power by a popular uprising the next year.

Under heavy rain, tanks and armored personnel carriers took up positions blocking the entrance to the prime minister's office on Tuesday night. Other tanks arrived at government offices and major intersections. Witnesses reported that roadblocks had been set up on roads leading into the city. The streets were quiet, and even at the prime minister's office there was little tension. Some bystanders photographed one another standing near the tanks.

Kitichai Songkeattisi, 40, a commercial photographer, said: "The last time was much more intense. People were more afraid."

Thaksin is one of the most popular - and unpopular - prime ministers in recent Thai history. Thais' different viewpoints demonstrate a sharp social divide that he has played on during the crisis.

Thaksin's party, Thai Rak Thai, or Thais Love Thais, has won three elections by landslides, in 2001, 2005 and again in April. Because of his broad support among rural voters, he was widely expected to win any new election.

But as he has tightened his grip over much of the political scene, opposition to him has swelled among the elite, mostly in Bangkok. Public indignation rose after his family's tax-free sale of its $1.9 billion stake in a giant telecommunications company to a Singapore company.

On television, the military spokesman, Prapas, accused Thaksin of corruption and constant interference with the legislature and the courts. He apologized to the public for any inconvenience caused by the coup.

In an effort to end the demonstrations and reassert control, Thaksin called an early election in April, which he won in a landslide. But the opposition boycotted the vote and a court annulled the result, in a severe setback for the prime minister.

An election commission loyal to Thaksin set a new vote for Oct. 15, but its members were removed and jailed by a court for malfeasance. A new commission has said that election would be delayed.

The televised announcement on Tuesday was made after reports of large-scale military movements around the capital. The military has been sharply divided between officers loyal to the prime minister - some of them his relatives - and others who oppose him.

There has been tension over an impending military shuffle that would determine which faction would dominate.

Interviewed in New York by CNN soon after early reports of a coup, Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said, "We hope that the situation should return to normal soon because the prime minister is constitutionally and legally elected prime minister and this is an elected government, so we have to do everything we can to uphold the principle of democracy."

Prapas, speaking in Thailand, laid out the rationale for the military's move.

"The government's performance destroyed harmony in society," he said. "Everyone tried to win over each other, and the situation continued to worsen. Most people don't trust the government because there are many signs of corruption."

He said the prime minister had hobbled independent bodies created by the 1997 Constitution to provide checks and balances. A leading demand of the prime minister's opponents is the writing of a new constitution that would temper executive power.

Prapas said many attempts had been made at compromise but had failed. "That is why we, the Party for the Reform of Governance under the Constitutional Democracy, which consists of the army commanders and national police commander, have to seize power."

He added: "We would like to insist that we have no intention of governing the country. We will return the power of constitutional monarchy back to Thai people as soon as possible to maintain peace and stability."