Archive for November 2010
The Republican Party made a terrible blunder by not advancing “Con dolcezza”, (a name which means “with softness” that her mother Angelena used as it appeared on piano partitions), to challenging Hillary Clinton in the latest Presidential campaign. Condoleezza Rice would have been beaten: The Republicans had to be kicked out after two disastrous terms of the Jr. Bush, two wars, and the financial crash of the century. Nevertheless, Condo would have infused a colorful campaign instead of the decrepit, decaying, boring dinosaur of McCain.
The “No dolcezza” Condo was born in 1954 in Baton Rouge (Louisiana), as her father John Wesley, originally from Birmingham (Alabama), was teaching and preaching at a Presbyterian church. Condo then moved with her family to Birmingham till the age of ten. At the time, Birmingham was the most racist city in the US and applying the stringent segregation laws. Her father was a Presbyterian preacher and inherited the church that his father established in Birmingham. Her mother was a science and piano teacher. The Rice and Ray married in their thirties and decided to concentrate all their resources and energy in the only child girl. The grandmothers of Condo had been house slaves, attached to the mistress of the plantation after the mister got satisfied for a short time. Their husbands were field slaves with diminished privileges but they managed to get some education: three generations of Rice and Ray went through university studies because only education was the surest way not to returning to the cotton fields.
The Rice family protected Condo from trespassing to the white districts in the city: The family didn’t need to mingle with the white citizens and could afford everything in their own quarters. Condo joined a black school and she was a bright achievers: She participated in all sorts of contests, especially piano and singing. Condo learned French with a private teacher. The mother was the organist and Condo the pianist in the choral of the father. Sundays at 11 am was the time of the mostly segregated hour in the city: They all joined their respective churches. The father was a football fan and initiated Condo to that sport.
The parents were mentally aware of the terribly discriminating behaviors of the citizens but they built barriers around the house and their emotions; the father owned a car and never had to ride any bus; they traveled westwards, out of Alabama and the southern States, and visited museum, zoos, university campuses. The parents continued their education and acceded at higher social status and encouraged Condo to keeping her scholarly schedule pretty busy.
At the age of ten, Condo transferred with her family to Denver (Colorado) and joined a private religious school. Soon after, the mother discovered that she had breast cancer and survived the sickness for another 14 years. The father had risen in the university administrative positions. Condo would wake up at 5 am and practice ice skating for 3 hours, go to school, and then practice piano for another 3 hours in the evening.
At the last year in high school, Condo decided to formally finish high school and participate in the diploma ceremony, while taking courses at the Denver university. She went to the prom at the arm of the most famous university football player. The year 1974 was a critical stage: Condo had to decide on her specialty and the university to attend. Condo decided not to integrate the famous music university of Julliard in New York: She had attended a music instrument competition and realized that many musicians had talents that she lacked. Condo had to be the best in everything she does.
Condo decided in the second semester to major in international politics because she got impressed with her professor Joseph Korbel (father of the infamous Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s State Secretary). Joseph Korbel was the secretary of Czechoslovakia President before the WWII and then ambassador until Russia annexed Czechoslovakia and ended up teaching in Colorado. Condo opted to specialize in Russia and had to learn the language, the literature, the music and the history of Russia. She also learned the Check language to satisfy Korbel.
Condo finished her Masters within a year in Notre-Dame (Indiana) and returned to finish her Ph.D in Denver. She received a grant for a post-doctoral study in Stanford in 1981 and remained there for 20 years. She became professor, chairman of the humanities and political sciences department, and then provost at Stanford. As provost, she managed to eliminate the university debts within two years but alienated the Afro and Latino activists colleagues in the university.
Condo was chaperoned, prepared and formated by the Republican think tanks: She spent sabbatical at their main think tank bastions such as the Hoover Institute (Stanford), the Rand Corporation, Carnegie Foundation, JP Morgan and Chase, Chevron (oil multinational). George Shultz and Brent Scowcroft were her mentors: She became a member of the Bush family and spent her week-ends in Houston and in Maine.
Bush Sr. introduced Condo to his son Bush Jr. when governor of Texas: He planned to assigning Condo to give his son private lessons and prepare him for the presidency; she tailor-made her program to conform with Bush’s short-term attention span and frivolity. Bush Jr. was not excited to becoming President of the USA, but as he was elected against his will, he sent for Condo to support him and further his education at the White House. By then, Condo had become an expert in missiles and the balance of power between the USA and Russia: She was appointed in the first term as Bush national security advisor and then Secretary of State in the second term. Bush Jr. saw Condo first in the morning and the last person before going early to bed.
I would have voted against “No dolcezza” no matter what; I would have campaigned aggressively against this technocrat who was formatted to becoming unethical, immoral, and not exhibiting compassionate behavior. I vividly recall the way Condo barged in Lebanon, for a swift visit, as Israel has been pounding Lebanon for 30 days, in July 2006. Israel by now had destroyed all the infrastructures in Lebanon, totally demolished 10 villages to the ground, pulverized a ten-block quarter in Beirut, using freshly US donated implosion bombs. Israeli aggression killed 1,500 civilians, half of them children and women, injured and handicapped 4,000 civilians, and displaced 800,000 from their homes for 33 days.
Condo moved to shake hands with Lebanon oligarchy leaders, with her peculiar gait, the behind profusely protruding “out”; she assured the oligarchic leaders, who were anxious for the war to resume and getting rid of the Lebanese Resistance that checked the all-out Israeli military machines, that Israel is about, in a few additional days, to resurrect Bush’s public wishes of a newer democratic Greater Middle-East and that liberty will sweep the region with the total and unconditional backing of the USA.
The oligarchic Lebanese leaders were greatly pleased of Condo’s confirmation that Hezbollah is to be on its knees: the oligarchy leaders were rubbing their hands in joy because soon, the rich Arab oil States will be donating millions for the “reconstruction” of the country and their private bank accounts will swell beyond imagination. They believed that no political opposition parties would dare challenge their plundering project.
The consequences of the war were contrary to expectations: Condo realized that she was looking more stupid than Bush and equally as bloody and senile a political figure as Cheney.
Posted this week (Nov. 28)
Posted on: November 27, 2010
- Let’s experiment on: “What do I know about the universe and life?”
- Greedy Financial Managers say: “Blame it on greedy human nature”
- Oligarchy on the way out in Lebanon
- Referendum to partitioning a nation: How Sudan to fair?
- Heart of earth: Newest theory
- A child girl must be married quickly: Why and how?
- Twelve lessons: From history of Sovereign Debts
- Nonsense: Why Aristotle’s positions must be opposed to his teacher’s Platon?
- Arundhati Roy badge of honor: The foremost Indian “seditionist”
Consider a large inner core of iron of 2,200 km in diameter. The heart of earth is swimming in a temperature around 5,000 degree celsius, and a pressure of 3 million atmosphere. There are lighter elements in this magma of iron such as sulfur, silicium, and oxygen.
By convention, the west side of the core is situated under Latin America and the east side under Japan. The overall core has a diameter of 2,900 km and is way down beneath a thin solid crust of less than 100 km, and the viscous mantel of 3,000 km.
On the west side of the core, iron crystals (of less than 700 meters in diameter) move eastward, a translational movement of 0.5 mm per year, they grow larger and reach the east side with diameters of less than 15 km. On the east side, under Japan, the iron crystals are in a state of fusion and overflow on the surface of the core returning to the west side as the flow cools down, liberating on their way the lighter elements, which are directed inward to the core. Thus, the iron in fusion becoming heavier than the mixture of iron forming the inner core .
The entire cycle last 100 million years for the rejuvenation of the core. Every rejuvenating cycle of the core adds a thickness of 0.5 mm to the outer layer of the core since less iron crystals go in fusion than what is formed.
Apparently, this flow of heavy iron returning to the west side generates the magnetic force or field on earth. It is assumed that only gravity is powerful enough to getting iron crystals of such magnitude moving forward in the translation activity.
This theory explains three anomalies provided by seismograph data that need to be interpreted. The first anomaly observed is the elastic anisotropic: the seismic waves travel faster from north to south than east to west. The second anomaly is called asymmetric phenomenon: the irregularity experienced in seismic waves manifested in the western hemisphere where the speed is slower in the first 100 km of the outer layer of the core than in the east side. The third anomaly is that the deeper layers (around 250 km) must be heavier than the upper iron layers because the seismic waves slow down in this layer: In a mixture of two salted fluids with different densities, the denser fluid sinks in the bottom regardless of temperature or atmospheric pressure.
The questions that geophysicists need to resolve are: First, how rigid is the grain of the core? If the grain is deformable then, more headaches for validating this theory, if there is a way for such validation. Second, are the iron crystal of cube shape or hexagonal.
What I understood is that: the first layer of the core is 100 km, the second layer is 1,220 km thick, and the deepest and denser layer is 250 km. Second, it is that the 250 km layer is responsible of the movement from west to east and reaching the fusion stage and generating the magnetic field. Third, the iron crystals in fusion liberate the lighter elements as they cool down before arriving to the west side of the core.
My set of questions are many:
First, If the liberated lighter elements on the upper layer of the core do not reach the deeper layer then, after each rejuvenation cycle, it will become harder for the iron crystals to reach fusion and to cool down; thus, the return cycle will slow down and the magnetic field will diminish and the most inner 250 km layer of iron acquires heavier density with each cycle. The middle iron mixture (with abundance of lighter elements) is squeezed between two denser layers. To which layer would the lighter elements converge? It must be to the deeper layers, otherwise we are in trouble as the ratio of lighter elements to iron decreases with each rejuvenation cycle.
Second, how gravity functions in the lowest location on earth is not clear to me? Since earth rotates, then what is described as translational movement must be understood as a tangential circulation; a normal centrifugal force exerted on the flowing iron in fusion attracts the lighter elements (does that make any difference in the theory with the snail pace of moving iron crystals?)
Third, the mixture of iron in the middle layer of the core does not rejuvenate quickly.
Fourth, does quantum mechanics play a role in such a hot environment with such a huge atmospheric pressure?
Note: This article was inspired by the French monthly Science and Vie, number 1118.
Posted this week (Nov. 24)
Posted on: November 23, 2010
- A child girl must be married quickly: Why and how?
- Twelve lessons: From history of Sovereign Debts
- Nonsense: Why Aristotle’s positions must be opposed to his teacher’s Platon?
- Arundhati Roy badge of honor: The foremost Indian “seditionist”
- Sovereign public debts and wars: Uncanny connection
- Lessons made easy: Sovereign Debts to “stupid citizens”
- What is war? Forget the avowed purposes
- Charles Darwin (1809-1882): Power of scientists’ cooperation
- Simon Bolivar (1783-1830): “Slavery is the worst human indignity”
A child girl must be married quickly: Why and how?
Outside the Western societies, girls must be married quickly, preferably before the age of 16, and at 13 is perfect, regardless of religion or race. Why?
Because boys must get married quickly and early on. Why?
Communities and societies’ stability depend on boys marrying and settling down the sooner the better.
I can hear you mumbling: “Man, your deductive reasoning got me lost”. Never mind; your turn to exercising the power of your imagination.
Anyway, I disagree with these customs and so-called pragmatic realities, but what do I know? Besides reading about many cases of pains and suffering and humiliation among young couples, who even never met before the wedding ceremony, traditions are considered to have longer memories and vaster imagination than my limited capacities.
Now that the “why” part is taken care off, let us attack the “how” portion of the problem.
With many modern appendages added to the customs for wedding ceremony, prior, during, and after the wedding expenses are serious barriers to contracting out marriages for younger generations.
It is no longer as simple as borrowing a separate tent for the couple and planting it a few yards away from the main family tent.
It is no longer as organizing a quick razzias and rounding up sheep, cows, horses, and camels and satisfying the legitimate dowry for the bride.
Here are a list of stages, steps, and requirements before , during, and after the wedding ceremony.
First, the groom and his family must secure the negotiated dowry that does not have to be paid before the ceremony. The dowry is an obligation paid to the wife for emergency cases such as legal divorces or problems in the inheritance procedures. The dowry represents the current market price of either 10 camels, 100 cows, or 1,000 sheep.
The family of the groom might start negotiations based on the cheapest of the three options, and the bride’s family by the highest of option. In Iran, the dowry was regulated to be around $6,000 and in Saudi Arabia about $8,000. In the Palestinian occupied territories, mayors, head of clans, and deputies have agreed on a charter reducing the dowry to $2,000, including ring, and jewlery (or the dowry publicly recorded).
Second, the tradition requires that the family of the groom pays for the “white night” or the feast among the male friends; the formal feast among the females: the formal feast offered to the bride’s family and cousins; the formal feast to the community and the slaughter of a sheep; and the night of the “henna” for coloring and painting the bride.
The Palestinian charter circumvent all these unnecessary and expensive customs to the bare minimum.
Third, the groom has to offer seven formal dresses to the bride in various colors and shapes for all the occasions before, during, after the wedding ceremony. The groom has also to extend dresses to all the female members of the bride’s family. The Palestinian charter reduced these expenses according to customs.
Fourth, the groom is to arrive to the wedding ceremony in a rented luxury car and the feast to be at an expensive hotel charging no less than $20,000. The Palestinian charter encourages the couple to come in regular cars; limiting the number of the train of cars; the feast be held in public places; and that the number of plates to feeding the crowd be reduced.
Fifth, the family of the groom and cousins are invited for the dinner feast at the bride’s family after the wedding.
Sixth, the Palestinian charter proposed to cancel all cash gifts by the invitees to the wedding ceremony, except those who need to repaying debts.
Seventh, the Palestinian charter proposes that the bride’s family share in the expenses by one-fourth of the total expenses.
Note: After the couple give birth to children, boys of 12 are rounded up by the Israel prison service, supposedly for questioning on the “terrorist” members in the family and incarcerated for several months as advanced punishment and a reminder of their fate: 60% of Palestinian males were made to pass by Israel prison service.
The little girls suffer the same treatments and are threatened to be raped in front of all their family members.
