Posts by Neil Morrison
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that link should be looking and finding more answers
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Science is useful, but it is arrogant to believe that is has more than a small part of the answers.
Yes, the world is a complex place and to a degree a lot of science relies on simplfied models but that just means that what passes as "alternative" has got even less chance of finding out the facts.
If science can't provide answers to some health issues then nothing can. It's just as well science at least keeps looking and finding more answers.
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Adams and Paisley should spend the rest of their lives on their knees, thanking God they're not being held in a cell awaiting their trials for crimes against humanity.
That's for them and their conscience. I'm no fan of either but I think they played a big role in bringing the psychopaths on both sides under control. They may have been a part of the problem to begin with but once they became a part of the solution then that's when it's time to move on.
From what I've read of Uribe he might be playing a similar role. What I've seen of Chavez is that he's definitely an Adams or Paisley from the 70's.
I'm far more impressed with Lula da Silva than with Uribe or Chavez and don't spend a lot of time angsting over Castro, the Cuban revolution having lived up to some of its ideals at least. But I'm not going to accept that US support for Uribe is tantamont to supporting rigth wing death squads without a bit more evidence.
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It could be argued that he hardly needs to, given that persons unknown do quite a good job of killing journalists who venture on banned subjects.
And those persons unknown include left wing guerillas not just right wing militias. I haven't seen any evidence that Uribe is responsible for any of that.
He might be, I genuinely don't know. But all I've seen is that maybe he was involved with drug cartels and/or the militias to some extent in the past. But given that a lot of his political opponents came in from the (left wing guerilla/drug dealing) cold I'd like to see a bit evidence that he's a bad guy now.
I'm quite prepared to believe that most of the left wing guerillas left their bloody past behind them when they entered politics. And am prepared to give Uribe the same benefit of the doubt, if he needs it.
It's like with Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley. They were both aligned with very unsavory elements but that doesn't mean that what they are doing now should be continually held to ransom because of their past.
But if Adams, Paisley or Uribe were shown not to have left their past behind them, not to be working for peace, then I would condemn them.
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A quick googling on Uribe paints a mixed picture. He's managed to get political violence down and has moved to confront both the left wing guerrillas and right wing paramilitaries.
The current allegations about connections to paramilitary groups are historical in nature - going back 20 years. At the time the person making these allegations, Gustavo Petro, was himself a left wing guerrilla.
He, or his family, may have been connected to drug cartels in the past. On the other hand if government officials are at present being arrested and investigated for ties with paramilitaries then that suggests he's now doing his job.
The violence from the Left and Right has been long standing in Colombia so it's not really a good comparison with Venezuela.
Uribe may have a murky past, so has Chavez, but the comparison is really about what they are both doing now. Uribe may be in the pocket of paramilitaries, the evidence is not convincing yet, or he may be trying his best in circumstances far more difficult than those Chavez faces.
It depends on whether or not Uribe is seriously committed to dealing with the right wing militias. But he doesn't appear to shutting down opposition media.
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but there seems to be quite a lot of evidence that RCTV abetted the overthrow of a legitimately elected government.
I'm not an expert either but all that evidence suggests is that RCTV supported the anti-Chavez protests, not any violent coup.
Compare the allegations against RCTV with Chave's latest evidence against another TV channel as reported in the - Guardian
Communications minister Willian Lara asked prosecutors to investigate Globovisión for inciting attempts to kill Mr Chávez, citing its airing of footage of the 1981 assassination attempt against John Paul II in Rome accompanied by This Does Not Stop Here, a salsa song by Ruben Blades, now Panama's tourism minister.
In Venezuela's political climate this was a coded message to kill Mr Chávez, said Mr Lara, adding that he had consulted semiologists. "The conclusion of the specialists is that [in this segment] they are inciting the assassination of the president," he told a press conference.
It's all made up and a bit crazy.
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pointing out, among other things, that the station urged the violent overthrow of an elected government in 2002),
And the evidence? And if this were true why wasn't the station shut down then rather than now?
Chavez has now turned his attention on another independent media voice. Of course Chavez and his apologists are alleging much the same sort of thing.
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I find it horrible that the producers picked three from hundreds.
But, as the programme makers point out, that happens anyway in the hospital system. Is that any worse in a moral sense?
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The programme makers make the reasonable claim that what they are doing is in essence what happens anyway with donors and recipients. So they argue there should be no moral objection to the programme.
It reminds me of Marc Hauser's train scenarios from his book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong.
1. There's a train hurtling along the tracks heading for 5 people. You see this and can prevent these 5 deaths by pushing a lever to send the train down another track. But on that track is a man.
2. 5 people are once again walking along the railroad tracks about to be hit by an oncoming train. You see this but also so that the train can be stopped by pushing a heavy object in front of the train. the only heavy object at hand happens to be a very fat man.
In both cases one life can be sacrificed to save five. But Hauser found that most people would accept 1 but not 2.
The normal donor/recipient process sounds to me like scenario 1 whereas the programme sounds like 2.
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Still, it's nice to know my reaction to Angelina Jolie and Toni Marsh is 'relatively indiscriminate'.
Scientists have such a way with words.
I take your point about the invisibilty of bi-sexuality in all of this. I suppose one problem is that these sorts of studies reflect averages. On average men and women do things differently. You are saying "what about those that don't act averagely?".
Your questions have certainly made me think a bit harder about sex and sexuality.