Sunday, June 29, 2008
Chilapa
Today was the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) primary in the State of Guerrero. I went to Chilapa, a beautiful town near the capital of Chilpancingo. There is an old Catholic Seminary there. The Cathedral has been “repaired”; where a traditional building use to stand, now we see a cement construction that made me wonder how the original one looked. What I was impressed more with though, were the long lines of the inhabitants of this region, patiently waiting in the main plaza of this town; some with babies in their arms, for more than an hour, to cast their vote in a primary.
This people have been living here, as a people, longer than most of my readers have been in this continent. They came through the Bering Strait more than ten thousand years ago, carrying babies in a similar way as I saw today. I was deeply touched.
A Democratic Revolution is happening in Mexico right now.
I could sense the presence of the Mayas from Chiapas, and Central America, the Incas from Bolivia, together with the Nahuas, Tlapanecos, Amusgos, and Mixtecs from Guerrero I was fortunate enough to witness.
Nobody knows, least of all this writer; what is the next stage of human evolution in this part of the world, I hope that what I saw, is what is coming: A people that finally wakes up from a five hundred year slumber, to claim what is rightfully theirs.
If you want to learn more about Chilapa, read this.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
AOL
In the early 2000s, I bought AOL stock. What went wrong?
First I was a novice, I lost my shirt, and second many people were wrong, like in: Nobody knew that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.
With hindsight I write this.
AOL LLC formerly America Online Inc. had a nice ring to it. American Telephone & Telegraph, also had that important adjective, American or America. AOL was the first American company to enter the Internet age with the full support of the American United States.
My mistake was to assume that the Twenty First Century, was going to be the American Century. After Vietnam and Iraq. I do not think that anymore. Mr. Bush is letting America burn while playing the violin, as Nero did with Rome.
The King is dead, long live the King (Hu Jintao).
In any case I lost my money and the dollar is getting close to ten Mexican pesos. Big empires come down. It hurts though, when one loses money.
First I was a novice, I lost my shirt, and second many people were wrong, like in: Nobody knew that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.
With hindsight I write this.
AOL LLC formerly America Online Inc. had a nice ring to it. American Telephone & Telegraph, also had that important adjective, American or America. AOL was the first American company to enter the Internet age with the full support of the American United States.
My mistake was to assume that the Twenty First Century, was going to be the American Century. After Vietnam and Iraq. I do not think that anymore. Mr. Bush is letting America burn while playing the violin, as Nero did with Rome.
The King is dead, long live the King (Hu Jintao).
In any case I lost my money and the dollar is getting close to ten Mexican pesos. Big empires come down. It hurts though, when one loses money.
What's to Be Done with AOL?
Jon Fine: It's always been easy to hate on AOL. It's a New Media property with Old Media problems, dependent on outmoded businesses — hello, dial-up subscribers! — and in need of reinvention. It's a technology company based on lousy technology. But in an ongoing mystery of modern media, it persists.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Human Suffering
“No sorrow can be compared to my torture experience in jail. That is the reason for my sadness.”
These are the words of a survivor of American caused torture. You can read Bob Herbert piece below.
These are the words of a survivor of American caused torture. You can read Bob Herbert piece below.
All Too Human: The Agony of Innocent Victims of US Torture
Once the green light is given to torture, the guaranteed result is an ever-widening landscape of broken bodies, ruined lives and profound shame to all involved.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, June 27, 2008
700 California Wildfires: Where the Hell Are the Resources?
Right now, there are 700 wildfires burning in California -- many unattended. Fire departments are working with skeleton crews. Residents are literally being told they're on their own. Where are the resources to save homes and lives?
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read more | digg story
Quantum Coherence as a Source of Selection
I listen to myself talking to my friend here in Chilpancingo. The most astounding aspect of Quantum Mechanics is non-locality. Then I remember the Generalized Selection Principle I have been writing about recently. I put two and two together and Bingo!
Correctly many thinkers have questioned random change as the source of the Endless Forms Most Beautiful, that Darwin wrote about.
Here I propose that Quantum Entanglement is at the source of this Generalized Selection Principle. Some form of quantum correlation ties All Matter, in a harmonious universal dance.
More to come.
Correctly many thinkers have questioned random change as the source of the Endless Forms Most Beautiful, that Darwin wrote about.
Here I propose that Quantum Entanglement is at the source of this Generalized Selection Principle. Some form of quantum correlation ties All Matter, in a harmonious universal dance.
More to come.
Selection 2
"That synthesis holds that mutations to DNA create new variants of existing genes within a species. Natural selection, driven by competition for resources, allows the best-adapted individuals to produce the most surviving offspring. So adaptive variants of genes become more common. Although selection is often seen, even by biologists who should know better, as primarily negative, removing poorly adapted individuals, Charles Darwin understood that it was a powerful creative tool."
I am not the only one looking for a Generalized Selection Principle. The paragraph above was taken from the NYT article by Douglas H. Erwin, that you can read below.
Douglas H. Erwin is a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
I am not the only one looking for a Generalized Selection Principle. The paragraph above was taken from the NYT article by Douglas H. Erwin, that you can read below.
Douglas H. Erwin is a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Darwin 2.0 - The Evolving Theory Of Evolution
Is Darwin due for an upgrade? There are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists for just such a revision, although they differ about what form this might take.
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read more | digg story
1968, 1988, 2008
I still remember forty years ago, October 2, 1968, looking out the balcony in the apartment I lived in Mexico City with my family: Military tanks headed towards the site of the peaceful student demonstration I was planning to go to. I decided then and there, not to go. That decision might´ve spared my life. Some five hundred other people were not so lucky, and the Mexican Government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, committed one of the worst political crimes of Modern Political History.You can see above a picture of a group of my friends in Puebla requesting City Hall to take away the name of President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, from an important street in Puebla City.
In 1988, twenty years later Prof. James Hansen went to the US Congress to testify on Global Warming. He was right, and the politicians did not do what was necessary. Now you can read in the note below that Prof. Hansen thinks it may be too late.
Now in 2008, something is going to give. Tell people that you read it here.
In 1988, twenty years later Prof. James Hansen went to the US Congress to testify on Global Warming. He was right, and the politicians did not do what was necessary. Now you can read in the note below that Prof. Hansen thinks it may be too late.
Now in 2008, something is going to give. Tell people that you read it here.
"Flooded London" and a NASA Scientists Prophetic Warning
Last Friday the Medcalf Gallery in London debuted the "Flooded London" series, a photographic depiction of the future of London as it is overtaken by the rising sea. On Monday, exactly 20 years after warning us about global warming, NASA scientist James Hansen told congress that time's up and he warned of such apocalyptic consequences.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Stephen Hawking's Explosive New Theory on the Universe
Prof Stephen Hawking has come up with a new idea to explain why the Big Bang of creation led to the vast cosmos that we can see today. Astronomers can deduce that the early universe expanded at a mind-boggling rate because regions separated by vast distances have similar background temperatures.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Bureaucrats
I will write here about a few of my encounters with these human beings, the bureaucrats. When I first applied for a US visa as a student, the agent denied it. I had the acceptance letter from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). A document number, granting the University of California the right to invite foreign students, was missing. After a few phone calls more, and a few dollars less, the nice lady at the other side of the line, at the UCSB Foreign Students Office could not figure out what I meant. Many foreign students from all over the world had gone through with the same document, without the alleged required number, apparently without problems. The lady at the consulate in Mexico City, granted me a tourist visa. When I was in California, for a fine of $75 US Cy., for entering the country on a tourist visa, instead of a student visa, I was finally granted the visa.
I married in the US to a woman I met at UCSB. We came to Mexico to live. As a foreigner she did not have permission to leave Mexico for extended periods of time. I was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). My plan was to stay two years in Cambridge. We went to the Justice Department in Mexico to request a waiver on the stay requirement in Mexico. The director of my department wrote a nice memo expressing the interest of the University in my work abroad. He believed, he wrote, that the academic activities of the department will greatly benefit from my stay at MIT. After several trips to the Justice Department, the government agent finnaly gave us a document in legalese. I thought we had succeeded. Unfortunatley I could only stay one year at MIT. Great was my surprise when on my birthday, back in the Mexico City airport, I was informed that my wife never received any such permit, and they kept her immigration papers, after keepeing us for more than an hour in their offices, while my Mexican family waited outside. Eventually we went to the Justice Department, actually the office in charge of foreigners is called, Secretaría de Gobernación, which corresponds to the Interior Departement in the US. At "Gobernación" they told us that we were a few days short of the days she could use with no consequences. I went to the office of the nice gentleman that did not give us permission to go and asked why he did not agree with my boss on the benefit to Mexico, and the school, of my experience abroad. He answered that he only saw benefit to my reputation, but not to Mexico.
Now I come to the interaction with this group of our brothers and sisters, in charge of procedures and proper paper work, today. The University of Guerrero, where I want to work, does not recognize the Ph.D. Diploma from UCSB that I showed them. They need the "stamp of approval" of the Secretary of the State of California. This procedure entails the physical handling of my Diploma by US officials in California. I decided over two months ago, to hire a company to do this for me. I paid their services already, and I haven´t received my "Certified Diploma" yet. My email inquire was answerd today. The agent in charge of my case, told me that the number they sent me more than ten days ago for the FedExp delivery is correct. I have been using that number to request information on my package, and all I get is the automatic response that the information about my Diploma was sent to them more than ten days ago. There is no information on: Where is the Diploma, at FedEx, or at the Company in charge of the case?. Obviously it is not in my hands.
You got to love them, we are in their hands. Their good will is essential to a successful case!
Today I received my Diploma. At the end bureaucrats come through. As I said, you gotta lov´em.
I married in the US to a woman I met at UCSB. We came to Mexico to live. As a foreigner she did not have permission to leave Mexico for extended periods of time. I was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). My plan was to stay two years in Cambridge. We went to the Justice Department in Mexico to request a waiver on the stay requirement in Mexico. The director of my department wrote a nice memo expressing the interest of the University in my work abroad. He believed, he wrote, that the academic activities of the department will greatly benefit from my stay at MIT. After several trips to the Justice Department, the government agent finnaly gave us a document in legalese. I thought we had succeeded. Unfortunatley I could only stay one year at MIT. Great was my surprise when on my birthday, back in the Mexico City airport, I was informed that my wife never received any such permit, and they kept her immigration papers, after keepeing us for more than an hour in their offices, while my Mexican family waited outside. Eventually we went to the Justice Department, actually the office in charge of foreigners is called, Secretaría de Gobernación, which corresponds to the Interior Departement in the US. At "Gobernación" they told us that we were a few days short of the days she could use with no consequences. I went to the office of the nice gentleman that did not give us permission to go and asked why he did not agree with my boss on the benefit to Mexico, and the school, of my experience abroad. He answered that he only saw benefit to my reputation, but not to Mexico.
Now I come to the interaction with this group of our brothers and sisters, in charge of procedures and proper paper work, today. The University of Guerrero, where I want to work, does not recognize the Ph.D. Diploma from UCSB that I showed them. They need the "stamp of approval" of the Secretary of the State of California. This procedure entails the physical handling of my Diploma by US officials in California. I decided over two months ago, to hire a company to do this for me. I paid their services already, and I haven´t received my "Certified Diploma" yet. My email inquire was answerd today. The agent in charge of my case, told me that the number they sent me more than ten days ago for the FedExp delivery is correct. I have been using that number to request information on my package, and all I get is the automatic response that the information about my Diploma was sent to them more than ten days ago. There is no information on: Where is the Diploma, at FedEx, or at the Company in charge of the case?. Obviously it is not in my hands.
You got to love them, we are in their hands. Their good will is essential to a successful case!
Today I received my Diploma. At the end bureaucrats come through. As I said, you gotta lov´em.
Oil Prices Jump to $141.50 a Barrel
Crude oil prices climbed to $141.50 a barrel Friday morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange, setting a record for a second consecutive day.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
How did the universe begin?
One of the most interesting questions considered by astrophysicists deals with the start of our universe. Indeed, there is a great deal of speculation on the subject, with different theories about how the universe began, and what may have existed before the universe came into being.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Abraham Robinson
This mathematician followed in the steps of Leibniz. You can read about him here.
I believe that Leibniz and Robinson will be remembered by future generations.
Prophets are born, sometimes indifference is what they get. Future men and women find them again to enrich everybodies´ lives.
I believe that Leibniz and Robinson will be remembered by future generations.
Prophets are born, sometimes indifference is what they get. Future men and women find them again to enrich everybodies´ lives.
Leibniz
" * Identity/contradiction. If a proposition is true, then its negation is false and vice versa.
* Identity of indiscernibles. Two things are identical if and only if they share the same properties. Frequently invoked in modern logic and philosophy.
* Sufficient reason. "There must be a sufficient reason [often known only to God] for anything to exist, for any event to occur, for any truth to obtain." (LL 717).
* Pre-established harmony. See Jolley (1995: 129–31), Woolhouse and Francks (1998), and Mercer (2001). "[T]he appropriate nature of each substance brings it about that what happens to one corresponds to what happens to all the others, without, however, their acting upon one another directly." (Discourse on Metaphysics, XIV) A dropped glass shatters because it "knows" it has hit the ground, and not because the impact with the ground "compels" the glass to split.
* Continuity. Natura non saltum facit. A mathematical analog to this principle would go as follows. If a function describes a transformation of something to which continuity applies, then its domain and range are both dense sets.
* Optimism. "God assuredly always chooses the best." (LL 311).
* Plenitude. "Leibniz believed that the best of all possible worlds would actualize every genuine possibility, and argued in Théodicée that this best of all possible worlds will contain all possibilities, with our finite experience of eternity giving no reason to dispute nature's perfection." (From Plenitude.)"
This is taken from:
Gottfried Leibniz.
This German Philosopher is taken more serioulsy now than in his time. Newton´s Absolute Conception of Time, was preferred for many years over the relationist view of Leibniz, which seems to be better for The Theory of Quantum Gravity".
One simple observation on the modern importance of this thinker, is the size of the Liebniz article in Wikipedia linked above.
Two more things, Leibniz writes:
"1. All our ideas are compounded from a very small number of simple ideas, which form the alphabet of human thought.
2. Complex ideas proceed from these simple ideas by a uniform and symmetrical combination, analogous to arithmetical multiplication."
This rings true.
* Identity of indiscernibles. Two things are identical if and only if they share the same properties. Frequently invoked in modern logic and philosophy.
* Sufficient reason. "There must be a sufficient reason [often known only to God] for anything to exist, for any event to occur, for any truth to obtain." (LL 717).
* Pre-established harmony. See Jolley (1995: 129–31), Woolhouse and Francks (1998), and Mercer (2001). "[T]he appropriate nature of each substance brings it about that what happens to one corresponds to what happens to all the others, without, however, their acting upon one another directly." (Discourse on Metaphysics, XIV) A dropped glass shatters because it "knows" it has hit the ground, and not because the impact with the ground "compels" the glass to split.
* Continuity. Natura non saltum facit. A mathematical analog to this principle would go as follows. If a function describes a transformation of something to which continuity applies, then its domain and range are both dense sets.
* Optimism. "God assuredly always chooses the best." (LL 311).
* Plenitude. "Leibniz believed that the best of all possible worlds would actualize every genuine possibility, and argued in Théodicée that this best of all possible worlds will contain all possibilities, with our finite experience of eternity giving no reason to dispute nature's perfection." (From Plenitude.)"
This is taken from:
Gottfried Leibniz.
This German Philosopher is taken more serioulsy now than in his time. Newton´s Absolute Conception of Time, was preferred for many years over the relationist view of Leibniz, which seems to be better for The Theory of Quantum Gravity".
One simple observation on the modern importance of this thinker, is the size of the Liebniz article in Wikipedia linked above.
Two more things, Leibniz writes:
"1. All our ideas are compounded from a very small number of simple ideas, which form the alphabet of human thought.
2. Complex ideas proceed from these simple ideas by a uniform and symmetrical combination, analogous to arithmetical multiplication."
This rings true.
Mexico, an Oil Producer, Hasn’t Benefited From Soaring Price
MEXICO CITY — Mexico is the world’s sixth-largest oil producer, and the steady climb in the price of oil has reached record highs. The soaring prices should have generated $3 billion above budget estimates for the state oil monopoly, Pemex. But now the government says that windfall just is not there.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
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