June 28,
2002 -
15 Answers to Creationist
Nonsense - By John
Rennie, Scientific American,
Opponents of evolution want to
make a place for creationism by
tearing down real science, but
their arguments don't hold up.
When Charles Darwin introduced
the theory of evolution through
natural selection 143 years ago,
the scientists of the day argued
over it fiercely, but the
massing evidence from
paleontology, genetics, zoology,
molecular biology and other
fields gradually established
evolution's truth beyond
reasonable doubt. Today that
battle has been won
everywhere--except in the public
imagination. Embarrassingly, in
the 21st century, in the most
scientifically advanced nation
the world has ever known,
creationists can still persuade
politicians, judges and ordinary
citizens that evolution is a
flawed, poorly supported
fantasy. They lobby for
creationist ideas such as
"intelligent design" to be
taught as alternatives to
evolution in science classrooms.
As this article goes to press,
the Ohio Board of Education is
debating whether to mandate such
a change. Some
antievolutionists, such as
Philip E. Johnson, a law
professor at the University of
California at Berkeley and
author of Darwin on Trial, admit
that they intend for
intelligent-design theory to
serve as a "wedge" for reopening
science classrooms to
discussions of God...
June 27, 2002 -
Present at the creation -
From The Economist print edition, For
the first time at least since 1989, but
arguably since 1945, America has both
the chance and the motivation to reshape
the world, writes Bill Emmott, the
editor of The Economist - WHEN Dean
Acheson, Harry Truman's post-war
secretary of state, wrote his
autobiography, he chose a grandiloquent
title to describe his dozen years in
government. He had been “Present at the
Creation”, he said, by which he meant
the building by America of a new world,
out of the wartime rubble of the old—or,
at any rate, of half a new world, the
free half, while an ally turned enemy,
the Soviet Union, built the other half.
He was in turn quoting a 13th-century
Spanish king, Alfonso X, who apparently
said with equal immodesty: “Had I been
present at the creation, I would have
given some useful hints for the better
ordering of the universe...”
June 27, 2002 -
The acceptability of American power
- From The Economist print edition,
American primacy will continue to be
welcomed by many, and tolerated by
others, even if through gritted teeth.
“YOU can always rely on America to do
the right thing,” quipped Winston
Churchill, one of America's greatest
20th-century fans. “Once it has
exhausted the alternatives.” That
quotation contains both the main
components of what remains a typical
European view of American foreign
policy...
June 27, 2002 -
New friends, new opportunities -
From The Economist print edition,
A grand new partnership with Russia
could make the task of controlling
weapons proliferation easier. “OUT of
these troubled times”, said the
President Bush who was in office in
1990, “a new world order can emerge. A
new era—freer from the threat of terror,
stronger in the pursuit of justice and
more secure in the quest for peace.”
Those words, intended as a rallying call
for the Gulf war, were poorly chosen for
anything beyond that immediate cause.
The world since then has been as
disorderly as ever. Yet the elder Bush's
much-derided phrases did contain
elements of truth...
June 27, 2002 -
Saddam and his sort - From
The Economist print edition,
Toppling Saddam Hussein would be to
strike three birds with one stone. IN
THE litany of anti-American criticism,
one of the main charges is that the
arrogant superpower ignores multilateral
laws and procedures and goes its own
unilateral way. A prime example is said
to be its headstrong desire for a
“regime change” in Iraq, a plan
virtually all its allies except Britain
currently oppose. It must just be a Bush
family feud, say some, given the elder
Bush's failure to complete the Gulf war
in 1991. Or a macho disregard for
others' views, led by Republican hawks.
Yet Iraq is actually the best example
there is of America following
multilateral procedures, which an
arrogant unilateralist called Saddam
Hussein proceeded to flout. The
question, then, is what you do when
international deals and procedure are
broken. Sit back and pretend it hasn't
happened? ...
June 27, 2002 -
Building countries, feeling generous
- From The Economist print edition,
Like it or not, America is going to have
to get involved in nation-building.
LEBANON, 1982. Somalia, 1992-93. Haiti,
1994-95. Bosnia, 1995-present. These are
the prime exhibits in the case against
getting involved with “nation-building”
abroad. George Bush rubbished such
involvement during his election campaign
in 2000. Opponents of trying to help
others rebuild and then run their
countries deride it as turning foreign
policy into social work. They say that
countries do better without interference
from outside, that it wastes money and
enriches criminals, and that it turns
American soldiers into targets for
terrorists. All those criticisms are
valid, though not in every instance. Yet
circumstances dictate that President
Bush's America is going to have to get
involved in it. So it had better find
ways to make it work...
June 27, 2002 -
Our law, your law - From The
Economist print edition, Treaties
and global law are often a cheaper way
to shape the world than military power.
IT IS a country founded on the rule of
law, as a better alternative to the rule
of mad King George. In the past half
century, it has been instrumental in
spreading the principles of that law
around the world, through the Nuremberg
and Tokyo trials, the UN Charter, dozens
of conventions and treaties and, most
recently, the ad hoc war-crimes
tribunals set up in The Hague for
Yugoslavia and Arusha for Rwanda.
International commerce increasingly uses
American law and even its courts to
govern deals, and America's Justice
Department (like the European
Commission) applies its antitrust powers
well beyond its own borders. Since the
1940s, moreover, America has helped to
establish and then use big multilateral
institutions with collectively set
rules—the International Monetary Fund,
the World Bank, the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade, and GATT's successor,
the World Trade Organization—to regulate
trade and stabilize international
finance...
June 27, 2002 -
Imperial overstretch? - From
The Economist print edition, More a
question of psychology than economics.
PAUL KENNEDY, a British historian based
at Yale, made himself notorious in 1988
by suggesting in his magisterial book,
“The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”,
that dominant powers had in the past
fallen because of “imperial overstretch”
and that the same might well happen to
the United States. His judgment soon
looked premature: the next year the
Berlin wall's fall reduced the stretch
with a twang, and the next decade
America's economy became a world-beater.
But that does not mean he will be wrong
for ever...
June 27, 2002 -
New world ahead - From The
Economist print edition, What might
future historians say about this new
period of “creation”? THE opportunities
are great. The resources with which to
grasp them are great, as is the
determination. Yet the obstacles are
great too. Will they, can they, be
overcome? When assessing his period in
government after 1945, Dean Acheson
wrote, in “Present at the Creation”,
that:
To the responsibilities and needs of the
time the nation summoned an imaginative
effort unique in history. Yet an account
of the experience, despite its
successes, inevitably leaves a sense of
disappointment and frustration, for the
achievements fell short of both hope and
need. How often what seemed almost
within grasp slipped away...
June 27, 2002 -
PAUL DECRIES FEDERAL COURT
RULING ON PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
- Washington, DC- Congressman
Ron Paul today condemned a
federal appeals court ruling
that the Pledge of Allegiance
cannot be recited in schools
because it contains the phrase
"one nation under God." "The
judges who made this unfortunate
ruling simply do not understand
the First amendment," Paul
stated. "It does not bar
religious expression in public
settings or anywhere else. In
fact, it expressly prohibits
federal interference in the free
expression of religion. Far from
mandating strict secularism in
schools, it instead bars the
federal government from
prohibiting the Pledge of
Allegiance, school prayer, or
any other religious expression.
The politicians and judges
pushing the removal of religion
from public life are violating
the First amendment, not
upholding it..."
June 19, 2002 -
Huddled masses: stay out -
From The Economist Global Agenda, Following a wave of support for
far-right, xenophobic parties, immigration is top of the agenda at the
Seville summit of European Union leaders on June 21st and 22nd. European
leaders say they want harmonious EU action against illegal immigration.
In reality, nearly all governments are still sticking to policies of
their own...
June 27, 2002 -
Who
trusts Microsoft's Palladium? Not me - By Matt Loney,
ZDNet (UK), COMMENTARY--The
words 'Microsoft' and 'trust' only really seem to fit together with the
help of an 'anti' somewhere in the middle. I find it somewhat odd
therefore, to find this particular company proposing the development of
a 'trusted computer platform'...
June 13, 2002 -
It's a long, hard road to homeland security - By Dan Farber,
Special to ZDNet, COMMENTARY--By now, we all know how the FBI and
other government agencies failed to connect the dots. The FBI, CIA, NSA
and other intelligence gathering agencies have been encouraged to play
together nicely. The FBI acknowledges that it needs significant
changes--especially on the technology front--to be more effective in the
21st century. And to top it all off, we have the proposed Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) as an umbrella agency empowered to protect the
American people from terrorists...
June 03, 2002 -
Crackpots, Cranks, and
Conspiracies - By
John C. Dvorak, PCMAG.com,
The planes that hit the World
Trade Center were operated by
remote control. That's the
assertion of more than a few
conspiracy Web sites, and gosh,
it's possible, isn't it?
Crackpot, crank, and conspiracy
Web sites are more popular than
ever, and it's hard to know
their immediate effect on
society...
June 10, 2002 -
Reorganizing government - Does a Department of Homeland Security make
sense? - By William Saletan, SLATE.COM,
Not long ago, Al
Gore was going around the country bragging about “reinventing
government,” and Republicans, led by George W. Bush, were making fun of
him. Gore claimed that reinventing government wasn’t the same as
expanding it. Republicans pointed out that while Gore and President
Clinton shuffled bureaucrats and pared the federal work force, spending
grew...
