| Thursday,
February 2, 2006 I have figured out how to migrate Firefox,
and how to make the text look good on my new communications machine.
Now I need to know how to migrate Outlook EXPRESS news groups etc. from
the old machine to the new. It shouldn't be hard to do, but Microsoft Help
isn't very helpful.
There's a lot on algebra in
education over in mail.
=============
Subject: Fwd: More vindication
of Greg Cochran
Hi Jerry, looks like there is mounting evidence for
Greg Cochran's "almost all disorders are due to infections disease"
hypothesis:
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/01/30/hscout530627.html
Note the 'party line' opinions that refuse to believe
the physical evidence near the end of the article. The PC crowd marches on!
(Apologies if you've already seen this or related stories already, but it
just went up online).
Cheers,
-David Mercer Tucson, AZ
Cochran takes evolution seriously, and asks, "How can anything that makes
reproduction less likely survive to be an hereditary disorder?" Sometimes
there are answers. Sickle Cell is an adaptation to some environmental
conditions (note that Sickle Cell is almost unknown in Africa south of the
Zambezi; in the US it's a "racial" inheritance, but in Africa it's a
localized condition). But usually conditions that impede reproduction are
bred out in a few generations. Thus, Cochran concludes, many "hereditary"
disorders are in fact infectious diseases.
On the other hand, heredity plays a major part in development of
intelligence. For more on that see
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4032638 or
look here on "How
the Ashkenazi got their smarts."
His most controversial claim is that there are good theoretical reasons
to believe that homosexuality is an infectious disease. One reasonably
dispassionate (but disapproving) discussion of that theory is found at
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/calebcrain/gaygerm .
Science is science; or so we are told when the subject is inserting a 4
line section on Intelligent Design in the school curriculum of a place few
of those who got so excited about it have ever been, or inserting an
alternate view about Darwinism in the Kansas curriculum. We must have
science and only science, and we must all learn Darwinian evolution.
Of course we must not take it seriously if it leads to politically
incorrect hypotheses.
=============
I'm still looking for a way to migrate newsgroups from one machine
to another using Outlook Express and Outlook 2003. I only look at one
newsgroup on this machine, but I don't remember what the heck I did to get
access to newsgroups at all. I'll experiment with it another time I guess.
=========
Remind me never to drink Coke Zero again. I am weary of those stupid
advertisements in which some dimwit tries to bully someone on a help line.
What makes advertising agencies believe that having stupid people act like
bullies is a good way to sell their products? I don't need guesses --
do we have an advertising agency executive here? What is the theory of this
imbecilic ad campaign?
===========
Microsoft's Gates: information gets out, despite Web
censorship
.c The Associated Press
LISBON, Portugal (AP) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill
Gates said Wednesday that attempts by governments to censor Web site
contents were doomed, because banned information can seep out despite
official injunctions.
``The ability to really withhold information no longer
exists,'' Gates told a government forum on the Internet.
Gates said his company must comply with legal
requirements in the countries where it operates.
Late last year, Microsoft shut down the site of a
popular Chinese blogger at Beijing's request. The blog by Zhao Jing, writing
under the pen name An Ti, appraised sensitive topics such as China's
relations with Taiwan and media freedoms in China.
But the spread of free, private e-mail enabled users
to disseminate information anyway, Gates said. <snip>
=
Which is what I said back just after the Falklands Island war. Arthur
Koestler said that a sufficient condition for the destruction of
totalitarian society is the free exchange of ideas within it. I am not sure
that this alone is sufficient, but it's certainly one way to get there. I
pointed out back in those days that a modern society needs computing power
to survive -- but you can't have computer power without the free exchange of
ideas within your society.
Of course the politicians have to get into the act. Why Silicon Valley
puts up with Lantos is I suppose a question of abnormal psychology.
Politicos attack tech firms over China By Anne
Broache, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: February 1, 2006, 12:42 PM
PT
WASHINGTON--Politicians on Wednesday attacked
Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo for declining to appear at a
briefing about China's Internet censorship and called for a new law to
outlaw compliance with such requirements.
The four technology companies said earlier this
week that they were not able to schedule an appearance with short notice but
would testify at a similar House of Representatives hearing scheduled for
Feb. 15.
"These massively successful high-tech
companies, which couldn't bring themselves to send their representatives to
this meeting today, should be ashamed," said Rep. Tom Lantos, the California
Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which
organized the briefing.
"With all their power and influence, wealth and
high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive action
that human rights activists in China take every day," Lantos went on. "They
caved in to Beijing's demands for the sake of profits, or whatever else they
choose to call it."
Because his caucus is not an actual
congressional committee, it does not have the power to compel companies to
testify at its hearings. The U.S. House of Representatives International
Relations Committee, which plans to convene a Feb. 15 hearing on the topic,
does have that force.
Rep. Christopher Smith, the New Jersey
Republican who chairs the subcommittee holding the Feb. 15 hearing, showed
up late at Wednesday's briefing to issue a reminder that he and his
colleagues are working on a draft legislation related to the foreign
censorship matter.
"Our request to these companies is: Reverse
yourselves; you can," he said. <snip>
That ought to really do a lot of good.
================
If you want Cindy Sheehan's side of the story about what happened at
State of the Union it is here, and you can believe as much of it as you want
to.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020106Z.shtml I will tell you that
once, when in the House gallery as guest of the Speaker, an usher asked me
to remove a badge that had a mildly political statement on it. I did so at
once.
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