Friday, March 11, 2005
Sightings
Marriage reduces crime risk in communities : Social factors such as family instability have a more direct link to crime than economic factors, according to an Australian study which looked at urban and rural communities of different sizes. Residential stability, less ethnic diversity and a higher proportion of married people were some critical factors in reducing crime. In fact, ethnic diversity presented much less of a risk for crime when there were fewer sole parents, more married people, and residential stability.
Children can’t be trusted: Rod Liddle says it is time that British teachers took back control of the classroom.
The man who should be pope : Piers Paul Read looks over the candidates to replace John Paul II.
Australia's government plans to outlaw inciting, promoting or teaching people how to commit suicide on the Internet, but Justice Minister Chris Ellison said on Tuesday the laws were not a bid to spark a euthanasia debate. Use of the Internet to organise suicide pacts has emerged as a grim new problem for Japan, where at least 54 people killed themselves in 2004 in Internet-linked group suicides. Police say the real number was probably higher.
The UN General Assembly has urged governments to ban all human cloning, including the cloning of human embryos for stem-cell research, in a divided vote that handed a symbolic victory to the administration of US President George W Bush. Capping four years of contentious debate, the 191-nation assembly voted 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions, to approve a non-binding statement on cloning. The measure was proposed by Honduras and generally supported by predominantly Roman Catholic countries, in line with Pope John Paul's condemnation of human cloning. It was generally opposed by nations where stem-cell research is being pursued.
Marketing a new god: Is this just a clever marketing ploy, or is something deeper going on? "ghd" is apparently pronounced "god". Particularly look at the Gallery section.
Os Guinness says we are illiterate when it comes to evil. Sadly, the terrorist strike found the United States as unprepared intellectually and morally as it was militarily. The USA is the country with the most radical and realistic view of evil at its core—expressed in the notion of the separation of powers in the Constitution because of human nature and the abuse of power. But various philosophies and ideas have undermined that view over the last 200 years, so that American views today are weak, confused, and divided. Many postmoderns actually think it is worse to judge evil than to do evil.
In a bid to prod their government into changing the law on euthanasia, a group of senior Dutch doctors have reported themselves for killing 20 disabled infants. The Dutch Justice Ministry has so far declined to say whether it will prosecute them. Currently, euthanasia is allowed even for children as young as 12, provided that their parents approve.
A Stanford University ethics committee has approved a proposal by stem cell expert Irving Weissman to create a mouse whose brain cells are 100% human. Using cells from aborted human foetuses, Dr Weissman has applied to create human-mouse hybrids for his research on diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Researchers are already producing mice with brains that are about 1% human. Professor Weissman says that it is impossible to predict whether the hybrids will show human-like behaviour until they are born. (Note: Parliament is already producing humans with a mouse brain!)
Marriage reduces crime risk in communities : Social factors such as family instability have a more direct link to crime than economic factors, according to an Australian study which looked at urban and rural communities of different sizes. Residential stability, less ethnic diversity and a higher proportion of married people were some critical factors in reducing crime. In fact, ethnic diversity presented much less of a risk for crime when there were fewer sole parents, more married people, and residential stability.
Children can’t be trusted: Rod Liddle says it is time that British teachers took back control of the classroom.
The man who should be pope : Piers Paul Read looks over the candidates to replace John Paul II.
Australia's government plans to outlaw inciting, promoting or teaching people how to commit suicide on the Internet, but Justice Minister Chris Ellison said on Tuesday the laws were not a bid to spark a euthanasia debate. Use of the Internet to organise suicide pacts has emerged as a grim new problem for Japan, where at least 54 people killed themselves in 2004 in Internet-linked group suicides. Police say the real number was probably higher.
The UN General Assembly has urged governments to ban all human cloning, including the cloning of human embryos for stem-cell research, in a divided vote that handed a symbolic victory to the administration of US President George W Bush. Capping four years of contentious debate, the 191-nation assembly voted 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions, to approve a non-binding statement on cloning. The measure was proposed by Honduras and generally supported by predominantly Roman Catholic countries, in line with Pope John Paul's condemnation of human cloning. It was generally opposed by nations where stem-cell research is being pursued.
Marketing a new god: Is this just a clever marketing ploy, or is something deeper going on? "ghd" is apparently pronounced "god". Particularly look at the Gallery section.
Os Guinness says we are illiterate when it comes to evil. Sadly, the terrorist strike found the United States as unprepared intellectually and morally as it was militarily. The USA is the country with the most radical and realistic view of evil at its core—expressed in the notion of the separation of powers in the Constitution because of human nature and the abuse of power. But various philosophies and ideas have undermined that view over the last 200 years, so that American views today are weak, confused, and divided. Many postmoderns actually think it is worse to judge evil than to do evil.
In a bid to prod their government into changing the law on euthanasia, a group of senior Dutch doctors have reported themselves for killing 20 disabled infants. The Dutch Justice Ministry has so far declined to say whether it will prosecute them. Currently, euthanasia is allowed even for children as young as 12, provided that their parents approve.
A Stanford University ethics committee has approved a proposal by stem cell expert Irving Weissman to create a mouse whose brain cells are 100% human. Using cells from aborted human foetuses, Dr Weissman has applied to create human-mouse hybrids for his research on diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Researchers are already producing mice with brains that are about 1% human. Professor Weissman says that it is impossible to predict whether the hybrids will show human-like behaviour until they are born. (Note: Parliament is already producing humans with a mouse brain!)
