Uh wait a minute there sporto, studies have shown that at best, there may be some psychological dependency but in the true definition of “addiction” marijuana doesn’t even come close.
2. It leads to addiction to other drugs
Well, if you mean the gateway theory, that has been thoroughly debunked by modern science and what’s more, studies prove that the very black market nature of marijuana’s criminalization are the reason people are exposed to drugs that really are dangerous.
98% of all Cannabis users are dead end users, meaning they never move on to any other drug.
3. Marijuana is dangerous
Every dangerous drug has an LD50. This is the amount of drug that would be enough to kill 50% of the test subject population.
There is NO SUCH THING AS A LETHAL TOXIC DOSE OF MARIJUANA!
4. Marijuana has no accepted medicinal use
Really? Why then has it been used as medicine since the dawn of time? Why is there no treatment to keep a glaucoma patient from going blind apart from marijuana? The burden of proof is on you, not proponents of MMJ, history and science supports that position well.
5. Todays marijuana is stronger than it was in the 70’s
Your point is? Coffee is much better today than it was back in the days of percolators too? That doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad for you.
You use less. In the same way an espresso does not come in a regular coffee cup, it is a dosage matter.
6. Marijuana use is a barrier to success
Tell it to Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Carl Sagan, Richard Branson, Sir Paul McCartney... Shall I go on?
7. More teens are in drug rehab for marijuana dependency than any other drug
What you have here is the classic mistaking correlation for causation. When you factor out teens who have been herded there at the point of a drug sentence from a Judge, then the argument falls on it’s face.
8. Smoking marijuana causes lung damage
On the contrary. Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA found that not only did smoking marijuana not cause lung damage, but among people who smoked cigarettes and marijuana, the marijuana mitigated lung damage caused by cigarettes.
9. If marijuana was legalized, more people would use it
You would think that but the truth is, in Countries that have legalized any drug, use has actually gone down.
10. If marijuana were legalized, there will be an increase in highway fatalities
In Colorado, after they made marijuana available over the counter under state law, drunk driving arrests went down 50%.
Give people a safer alternative and they will use it. People who use marijuana do it and drive now, marijuana is already here.
11. Buying marijuana supports terrorism
Prohibition of marijuana supports terrorism. No one is killing people in the streets of Chicago anymore because we ended alcohol prohibition. Marijuana prohibition is no different that the previous ill advised and unworkable policy.
12. Children will be exposed to marijuana more easily if it is legalized
When was the last time a drug dealer carded a buyer? They do not, but in a legal and regulated market such as alcohol or tobacco, access to marijuana is limited.
13. Marijuana is the “Devils Weed”
I give you Colossians 1:16: “ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”
And just for good measure, how about the Apostle John?
John 1:3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
Uh yeah so much for that one...
14. Marijuana is the most widely abused drug in the world
I would substitute “the most popular natural substance in the world” if you don’t want to sound like an “earth is flat” type...
People choose. When we have decided as a Country that alcohol is ok and that a certain amount of mind alteration is allowed as long as it is confined to lawful behavior, substances are just a choice.
Most rational people in the world understand and maintain that marijuana is a safer alternative to alcohol.
15. Marijuana decreases sexual potency and arousal
Got a cup and girly mag, let’s see?
16. “Smoking one marijuana joint is more harmful than being at the Bikini Atoll during nuclear testing.” Ronald Reagan
Sorry Gipper, ol pal, but “There you go again” with the rhetoric. Either that’s patently untrue or I am a medical miracle crossed with a super hero, because I have smoked around 3500 joints and I’m still smarter than that.
17. Only lowlifes use marijuana
Go back to #6. 17+6=23 or what I consider to be your IQ Didn’t see that coming did you?
18. Marijuana causes black men to crave white women
You live in a cave don’t YOU? That is called “Reefer Madness”
19. People on marijuana are violent
Ask any cop which house he wants to go to, the one where people drink alcohol or the one where the people use marijuana! They will always pick the marijuana users because they are NOT violent.
20. It has always been illegal
Wrong, marijuana prohibition is a relatively new phenomenon. Thousands of years of use by humans compared to 75 years of prohibition.
Lo ha annunciato il governo olandese attraverso il ministro della Giustizia Ivo Opstelten che ha comunicato la decisione al Parlamento lunedì.
Le amministrazioni locali potranno così scegliere come agire: se mantenere libero l’accesso alle droghe leggere vendute nei coffee shop anche ai turisti o se invece dare quest’opportunità soltanto ai locali.
La scelta è arrivata dopo un’attenta valutazione economica: grazie a questo nuovo cambiamento, infatti, Amsterdam non perderà i milioni di turisti che ogni anno scelgono l’Olanda come meta delle loro vacanze proprio per approfittare del fatto che il consumo di droghe leggere in questo Paese è legale. E soprattutto, le centinaia di coffee shop presenti nel Paese non saranno necessariamente costrette a chiudere per mancanza di clienti.
Nello stesso tempo, però, le città confinanti con Belgio, Francia e Germania, dove l’utilizzo di cannabis è vietato, potranno comunque imporre un veto sulle droghe ai turisti, per evitare l’aumento della criminalità e il pendolarismo esclusivamente legato al consumo di droghe. Ecco anche perché alcune città come Maastricht per esempio, hanno ridotto la possibilità di comprare cannabis soltanto ai residenti.
The name "United Mexican States," or "Estados Unidos Mexicanos," was adopted in 1824 after independence from Spain in imitation of Mexico's democratic northern neighbor, but it is rarely used except on official documents, money and other government material.
Still, President Felipe Calderon called a news conference Thursday to announce that he wants to make the name simply "Mexico." His country doesn't need to copy anyone, he said.
Calderon first proposed the name change as a congressman in 2003 but the bill did not make it to a vote. The new constitutional reform he proposed would have to be approved by both houses of Congress and a majority of Mexico's 31 state legislatures.
However, Calderon leaves office on Dec. 1, raising the question of whether his proposal is a largely symbolic gesture. His proposal was widely mocked on Twitter as a ridiculous parting shot from a lame-duck president.
Calderon said that while the name change "doesn't have the urgency of other reforms," it should be seen as a relevant issue. "Mexico doesn't need a name that emulates another country and that no one uses on a daily basis," he said.
The United States looms larger than perhaps any other country in the Mexican cultural imagination: Mexicans follow U.S. sports teams, watch U.S. television shows and buy U.S.-made products. For many, however, there is also resentment of a larger and more powerful northern neighbor that's often seen as ignoring or looking down its nose at Mexico.
Calderon has tried to keep Mexico's international image, and its vital tourism industry, from being tarred by the waves of violence set off by his six-year, militarized offensive against drug cartels. At least 47,500 people have died in cartel-related violence during his term in office, although the number is believed to be far higher, since his administration stopped releasing an official count last year.
A poll released this week by the Vianovo consulting firm said that half of all Americans view Mexico unfavorably and more than 70 percent believe it's unsafe to travel south of the border. The poll of 1,000 adults had a margin of error of four percentage points.
"It's time for Mexicans to return to the beauty and simplicity of the name of our country, Mexico," Calderon said. "A name that we chant, that we sing, that makes us happy, that we identify with, that fills us with pride."
At the Garrison Institute's 2011 Climate, Cities and Behavior Symposium, Dr. Dan Siegel of the Mindsight Institute discusses the neurological basis of behavior, the mind, the brain and human relationships in the contect of cities.
He explains one definition of the mind as "an embodied and relational emergent process that regulates the flow of energy and information," and describes the role of awareness and attention in monitoring and modifying the mind.
He recommends using the notion of health as a means of linking individual, community and planetary wellbeing.
We all deeply understand the catastrophic consequences of nuclear waste contaminating our communities. But residents of Koriyama, Japan face the real possibility of nuclear pollution of their parks, schools and neighborhoods -- but they don't know exactly where.
Japanese law does not require nuclear storage sites to be labeled or groundwater to be tested for contamination. In Koriyama, more than 1,000 schools and hundreds of parks and residential areas where kids play are nuclear storage sites.
The affects of radiation pollution is far too serious to tolerate such laissez-faire regulation of waste storage. It's time for Japanese officials to come up with a new, transparent way to store nuclear waste.
Japan's plan to safely store waste is a wonderful next-step--but please do not move forward with this plan until the proper regulation and transparency are in place to protect the public!
Storing nuclear waste at on-site storage places like schools, parks, and residential areas is troublesome enough. But doing so sneakily, without any signs or fences indicating that contaminated debris sits in heaps right next to where children play, is a vast transparency issue that keeps parents worried about exposing their children to radiation.
Your comments added here.
Please also implement the proper safety precautions, regardless of where the waste is buried. The testing of nearby groundwater should be required, as we can't just assume that buried contaminated debris remain isolated and untouched by the water supply.
Stop letting regulation slide and make a clear, safe, and transparent plan for storing Japan's nuclear waste!
In this broadcast Peter Joseph will read the first 2 essays from The Zeitgeist Movement's new Orientation Guide:
"THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT DEFINED: REALIZING A NEW TRAIN OF THOUGHT"
ESSAY #1 : OVERVIEW
ESSAY #2 : THE SCIENTIFIC WORLDVIEW
This critically important 4 part, 22 essay Guide is/has been prepared by the TZM Lecture Team over the past year and will be released in stages over the next two months.
About: Started in 2009, TZM Global Radio is a weekly radio show presented by various coordinators/lecturers of The Zeitgeist Movement in a rotational fashion.
In early summer, NATO had attempted to overwhelm Damascus and Aleppo with a torrent of psychological operations, communication disruptions, foreign terrorists crossing Syria's borders, and a devastating assassination of top Syrian officials in the heart of Damascus. The idea was to cause panic, division, mass defections and fold the Syrian state when in reality, it was more than able to fight on. Syria called the bluff and here it still stands.
With the Israel-Gaza charade concluded, it was reported that NATO would pivot back toward Syria - and it has. It has handpicked a new proxy-regime to act as the face of the terrorists battling Syrian civilians and soldiers alike within the country, while it has been conducting a concerted and refocused propaganda campaign to paint the Syrian government as once again, "imminently about to fall."
Reports are now trickling in that communications are failing across the country and another attempt at a Libyan-style "Mermaid Dawn" is being made by NATO and its terrorist proxies inside Syria. The hope is, that after several months more of terrorism, threats, sanctions, and pressure put on the border by both Israel on the Golan Heights, and Turkey along Syria's north, that this time the trick might work.
If operations are not already in progress, they will be soon, and one must recall historical instances when this tactic has been used before so as to recognize it when it is tried again.
Reposted below, is Thierry Meyssan's June 2012 warning regarding NATO psychological operations - and the information is as relevant now as ever. Inside Syria, unity and resilience is more important now than ever.
In a few days, perhaps as early as Friday, June 15, at noon, the Syrians wanting to watch their national TV stations will see them replaced on their screens by TV programs created by the CIA. Studio-shot images will show massacres that are blamed on the Syrian Government, people demonstrating, ministers and generals resigning from their posts, President Al-Assad fleeing, the rebels gathering in the big city centers, and a new government installing itself in the presidential palace.
This operation of disinformation, directly managed from Washington by Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, aims at demoralizing the Syrians in order to pave the way for a coup d’etat. NATO, discontent about the double veto of Russia and China, will thus succeed in conquering Syria without attacking the country illegally. Whichever judgment you might have formed on the actual events in Syria, a coup d’etat will end all hopes of democratization.
The Arab League has officially asked the satellite operators Arabsat and Nilesat to stop broadcasting Syrian media, either public or private (Syria TV, Al-Ekbariya, Ad-Dounia, Cham TV, etc.) A precedent already exists because the Arab League had managed to censure Libyan TV in order to keep the leaders of the Jamahiriya from communicating with their people. There is no Hertz network in Syria, where TV works exclusively with satellites. The cut, however, will not leave the screens black.
Actually, this public decision is only the tip of the iceberg. According to our information several international meetings were organized during the past week to coordinate the disinformation campaign. The first two were technical meetings, held in Doha (Qatar); the third was a political meeting and took place in Riyad (Saudi Arabia).
The first meeting assembled PSYOP officers, embedded in the satellite TV channels of Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Fox, France 24, Future TV and MTV. It is known that since 1998, the officers of the US Army Psychological Operations Unit (PSYOP) have been incorporated in CNN. Since then this practice has been extended by NATO to other strategic media as well.
They fabricated false information in advance, on the basis of a “story-telling” script devised by Ben Rhodes’s team at the White House. A procedure of reciprocal validation was installed, with each media quoting the lies of the other media to render them plausible for TV spectators. The participants also decided not only to requisition the TV channels of the CIA for Syria and Lebanon (Barada, Future TV, MTV, Orient News, Syria Chaab, Syria Alghad) but also about 40 religious Wahhabi TV channels to call for confessional massacres to the cry of “Christians to Beyrouth, Alawites into the grave!”.
The second meeting was held for engineers and technicians to fabricate fictitious images, mixing one part in an outdoor studio, the other part with computer generated images. During the past weeks, studios in Saudi Arabia have been set up to build replicas of the two presidential palaces in Syria and the main squares of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. Studios of this type already exist in Doha (Qatar), but they are not sufficient.
The third meeting was held by General James B. Smith, the US ambassador, a representative of the UK, prince Bandar Bin Sultan (whom former U.S. president George Bush named his adopted son so that the U.S. press called him “Bandar Bush”). In this meeting the media actions were coordinated with those of the Free "Syrian" Army, in which prince Bandar’s mercenaries play a decisive role.
The operation had been in the making for several months, but the U.S. National Security Council decided to accelerate the action after the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, notified the White House that he would oppose by all means, even by force, any illegal NATO military intervention in Syria.
The operation has a double intent: the first is to spread false information, the second aims at censuring all possible responses.
The hampering of TV satellites for military purposes is not new. Under pressure from Israel, the USA and the EU blocked Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, Libyan and Iranian TV channels, one after the other. However, no satellite channels from other parts of the world were censured.
The broadcast of false news is also not new, but four significant steps have been taken in the art of propaganda during the last decade.
• In 1994, a pop music station named “Free Radio of the Thousand Hills” (RTML) gave the signal for genocide in Rwanda with the cry, “Kill the cockroaches!”
• In 2001, NATO used the media to impose an interpretation of the 9/11 attacks and to justify its own aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. At that time already, it was Ben Rhodes who had been commissioned by the Bush administration to concoct the Kean/Hamilton Commission report on the attacks.
• In 2002, the CIA used five TV channels (Televen, Globovision, ValeTV and CMT) to make the public in Venezuela believe that phantom demonstrators had captured the elected president, Hugo Chávez, forcing him to resign. In reality he was the victim of a military coup d’etat.
• In 2011, France 24 served as information ministry for the Libyan CNT, according to a signed contract. During the battle of Tripoli, NATO produced fake studio films, then transmitted them via Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, showing phantom images of Libyan rebels on the central square of the capital city, while in reality they were still far away. As a consequence, the inhabitants of Tripoli were persuaded that the war was lost and gave up all resistance.
Nowadays the media do not only support a war, they produce it themselves.
This procedure violates the principles of International Law, first of all Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights relating to the fact of receiving and imparting information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. ”Above all, the procedure violates the United Nations General Assembly resolution, adopted after the end of World War II, to prevent further wars. Resolutions 110, 381 and 819 forbid “to set obstacles to free exchange of information and ideas” (like cutting off Syrian TV channels) and “all propaganda provoking or encouraging threats to peace, breaking peace, and all acts of aggression”. By law, war propaganda is a crime against peace, the worst of crimes, because it facilitates war crimes and genocide.
Peace, nonviolence, diplomacy, human and civil rights, as well as fundamental rule of law principles are systematically spurned. That's now rogue states operate.
Pillar of Cloud raged from November 14 - 21. Memorandum of understand terms ended eight terror bombing days. Israel violated its pledge multiple times. Its word isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Less than 24 hours after conflict ended, Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian. Another 19 were injured.
On November 25, three more Palestinians were shot. They were wounded, not killed. On November 26, another four Palestinians were injured. Soldiers opened fire on them. They threatened no one.
Since November 22, 15 fishermen were accosted at sea. Naval vessels used live fire. Israel claimed they exceeded a recently expanded zone. Believe nothing Israeli authorities say. They systematically lie.
Boats were damaged and confiscated or destroyed. Fishermen on board were arrested, detained, and interrogated. At least most were released.
No one assaulted did anything improper. Israeli claims were lies. Expect continued land and sea incidents ahead.
On November 28, seven Palestinians were shot and injured. At least one is in serious condition. Israel said "rioters" damaged a border fence trying to enter Israel.
Israeli authorities make this stuff up. They do it to justify persecution and at times murder.
Nonviolent Palestinians are called threats to Israeli security. These type claims are baseless. Israel pledged attacking Gazans would stop.
Similar promises were made before. Horrific oppression continues. Truce terms changed nothing. Believing otherwise is wishful thinking.
West Bank Palestinians are attacked, beaten and arrested. Apartheid is a way of life. Settlements exclude Arabs. Jews only roads exist. Segregated bus lines appear next.
Palestinian workers with legal permits are being ordered off buses. Settlers claim they pose a security risk. Israel's Transport Ministry may exclude Arabs. Buses henceforth may be for Jews only.
Jim Crow America relegated Blacks to the back of buses. Israel perhaps wants Arabs excluded entirely.
On November 27, B'Tselem headlined "Attempt at bus segregation appalling," saying:
Disclosure about possible segregated bus lines is uncalled for. Services "must be available on an equal basis to all and any who require them."
B'Tselem's executive director Jessica Montell said:
"The attempt at bus segregation is appalling, and the current arguments about ‘security needs’ and ‘overcrowding’ must not be allowed to camouflage the blatant racism of the demand to remove Palestinians from buses."
Israel plans greater occupation harshness. Conditions for besieged Gazans persist. Truce terms changed nothing.
December 10 is International Human Rights Day. It commemorates the General Assembly adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948.
World leaders pledged to "complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere."
In 1946, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was discussed at the General Assembly's first session.
Member States submitted the UNHR to the Economic and Social Council "for reference to the Commission on Human Rights for consideration....in its preparation of an international bill of rights."
On December 10, 1948, UN Resolution 217 A (III) adopted UNHR. No members dissented. Eight abstained. Despite emerging Cold War tensions, common ground was found.
UNHR's 30 articles pledged "to promote respect for (fundamental human) rights and freedoms....both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."
They affirmed life, liberty, security and dignity. They said no one should be held in bondage or subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. They scorned arbitrary arrests, detention, exile, and other human rights violations.
They said everyone may leave any country and return freely. Discrimination of any kind was deplored. Free expression, assembly, movement, thought, opinion and religion were championed.
Everyone has the right to work and receive equal pay for equal employment. Essential rights to healthcare, food, clothing, housing, and education were supported.
Articles affirmed that "(n)othing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for the State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."
Since 1945, the UN failed to uphold fundamental Charter and other international law principles. America, Israel, and other imperial partners bear full responsibility.
On Friday, December 7, human rights supporters will march in Tel Aviv. In solidarity, they'll express support for equality, democracy, peace, and social justice.
Arabs will march with Jews. A midday concert will be held. An official song is titled "Being Human." Avihu Medina wrote it. A special version called "Being a Woman, Being Human" will be performed.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) sponsors this year's march. Hundreds of organizations, activists, and others will participate. Together they say: "It's our right, to all human rights, for every human being." Jews, Arabs and all others.
It comes after Pillar of Cloud. It's when Israel plans greater occupation harshness. It follows multiple truce violations.
It's after Kairo USA's press advisory headlined "Christians and Jews Gather to Support Churches' Call to Investigate Unconditional Military Support of Israel," saying:
On November 29, they met in Washington. They demanded US support for Israel be contingent on its compliance with US laws and policies. Participating groups included:
Jewish Voice for Peace, Kairos USA, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, United Methodist Kairos Response, Friends of Sabeel North America, Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, The Palestine Israel Network of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and others.
Thousands of signatures were obtained. They seek justice for occupied Palestinians. Stopping the Israeli beast is crucial. It threatens humanity.
Violence in Gaza continues. Palestinians are isolated. They're trapped in concentration camp hell. They're on their own. They suffer horrendously out of sight and mind.
Israeli repression is relentless. Civilian deaths are commonplace. From January through October 2012, Israel killed 79 Palestinians. Eleven were in the West Bank. Others were Gazans.
UN and EU officials do nothing to help. They allow grave crimes against humanity. They ignore Palestinian suffering. Naked Israeli aggression and cold-blooded murder are called Israel's right to self-defense.
Palestinian rights are systematically spurned. It's been that way for decades.
Official Israeli policy reflects perpetual conflict, daily violence, intimidation, and repression. Children and infants are harmed most. A Gaza psychiatrist said:
"Children exposed to so much violence have no option but to terminate their childhood and move into a different frame. The likelihood is that they will never stabilize."
Their parents, siblings and friends are killed. Many don't expect to reach adulthood. Trauma devastates them. There's no place to hide.
No one helps. Israel attacks when it wishes. It's vicious and relentless. Violence never ends. Conflict prevents peace, security and freedom. Palestinians deserve better. They hope for what doesn't come.
Alia Kalajar said her seven-year old daughter, Nisma, "stopped talking, and we don't know if she will ever talk again." Israel bombed their home. Nisma sustained a head fracture and internal bleeding.
Dozens of other children and infants were killed or injured. Some won't ever recover. Many don't understand. Will war on Iran follow? More on that below.
James Petras called Israel's strategic goal "Genocide (for a) Greater Israel - the bloody purge of 5 million Palestinians, the creation of a 100 percent 'pure' Jewish State."
It's that and more. Israel wants Middle East hegemony. It wants rivals balkanized or eliminated. It wants Syria, Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, and Iran replaced by pro-Western puppet regimes.
It threatens regional war for dominance. Washington provides support. Together they threaten humanity. Media scoundrels cheerlead them. They endorse what they should condemn.
Syria tops their target list. Conflict rages daily. Civilians suffer most. Perhaps Lebanon is next. Strategy calls for isolating Iran. Plans call for replacing its independent government with subservient pro-Western puppet leaders. War may be prioritized. Israel urges it.
Propaganda wars precede hot ones. Conflicts and other forms of violence are glorified in the name of peace. Code language conceals policies.
War is humanitarian intervention. Invasions, slaughter, mass destruction and occupations are liberation. Plunder is economic development. Exploitation and dominance are called democracy.
Managed news mind manipulation inverts truth for public support. Big Lies suppress it. Terrorism is what they do, not us. Iran's moment of truth awaits. Washington vilified the Islamic Republic for decades.
Israel wants war. Mossad-connected DEBKAfile (DF) called Pillar of Cloud "Less a War than an Anti-Iran Coup." It claimed Washington, Turkey, and Qatar were involved.
Aborting Tehran's military ties to Hamas was planned, said DF. "In the short term, the Israeli miniwar was meant as a vivid lesson for Tehran about the fate awaiting its Arab allies. Hizballah is advised" to beware.
Washington and Egypt are involved in preventing Iranian arms from reaching Gaza. Propaganda wars continue.
Haaretz published a spurious AP report. It headlined "Iran allegedly planning nuclear weapon stronger than bomb used on Hiroshima."
It bears repeating. Annual US intelligence reports say no evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Israeli, US, and EU officials know it. They pretend otherwise.
Iran threatens no one. Alleging a nuclear threat is red herring cover for regime change. Haaretz/AP claim a "leaked diagram." The source was unnamed.
Concealed ones lack credibility. Claims about Iranian scientists running nuclear weapon computer simulations able to produce "triple the explosive force" that destroyed Hiroshima are meaningless.
Without proof, they're baseless. Haaretz/AP said an unnamed "country critical of Iran's atomic program" leaked information to help shut it down.
IAEA made similar claims last year. Proof was absent. It reported alleged diagrams showing Iran was calculating the "nuclear explosive yield" of potential weapons.
An unnamed senior diplomat said Haaretz/AP used old IAEA information. Israel and Washington fabricated it. It was proved baseless. Anti-Iranian pseudo-experts called it credible.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) weighed in. It called AP's diagram "nothing more than either shoddy sources or shoddy science. In either case, the world can keep calm and carry on."
AP embarrassed itself. So did Haaretz for publishing its rubbish. BAS added:
"The graphic has not yet been authenticated; however, even if authentic, it would not qualify as proof of a nuclear weapons program."
"Besides the issue of authenticity, the diagram features quite a massive error, which is unlikely to have been made by research scientists working at a national level."
AP's diagram "shows two curves: one that plots the energy versus time, and another that plots the power output versus time, presumably from a fission device."
"But these two curves do not correspond: If the energy curve is correct, then the peak power should be much lower - around 300 million ( 3x108) kt per second, instead of the currently stated 17 trillion (1.7 x1013) kt per second."
"As is, the diagram features a nearly million-fold error. This diagram does nothing more than indicate either slipshod analysis or an amateurish hoax."
"In any case, the level of scientific sophistication needed to produce such a graph corresponds to that typically found in graduate or advanced undergraduate-level nuclear physics courses."
Iran denies interest in developing nuclear weapons. No evidence proves otherwise. Bogus claims hype tensions. They surface repeatedly. Expect more next year, especially after Israel's January elections.
Rogue states never quit. America and Israel reflect the worst of what they represent.
Hours before the historic vote at the General Assembly on the upgrade status on Thurday, four senators presented legislation, threatening to stop the million-dollar assistance.
The 193-member General Assembly voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions at the United Nations for a resolution approving the upgrade. Nine countries, including Canada, Israel, and the United States, voted against it.
Having earned the observer non-member status, Palestinians will enjoy access to UN agencies and the International Criminal Court (ICC) where they could file complaints against Israel.
“The biggest fear I have is that the Palestinians achieve this status it won’t be very long before the Palestinians use the United Nations as a club against Israel,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
The legislation to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority would reportedly come into effect once Palestinians file war crime charges against Israel at the ICC. The Senate could wrap up the legislation by the week’s end.
Proponents of the measure, including Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said they expect it to win overwhelming approval.
Is the human species doomed to intellectual decline? Will our intelligence ebb away in centuries to come leaving our descendants incapable of using the technology their ancestors invented? In short: will Homo be left without his sapiens?
This is the controversial hypothesis of a leading geneticist who believes that the immense capacity of the human brain to learn new tricks is under attack from an array of genetic mutations that have accumulated since people started living in cities a few thousand years ago.
Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, has put forward the iconoclastic idea that rather than getting cleverer, human intelligence peaked several thousand years ago and from then on there has been a slow decline in our intellectual and emotional abilities.
Although we are now surrounded by the technological and medical benefits of a scientific revolution, these have masked an underlying decline in brain power which is set to continue into the future leading to the ultimate dumbing-down of the human species, Professor Crabtree said.
His argument is based on the fact that for more than 99 per cent of human evolutionary history, we have lived as hunter-gatherer communities surviving on our wits, leading to big-brained humans. Since the invention of agriculture and cities, however, natural selection on our intellect has effective stopped and mutations have accumulated in the critical “intelligence” genes.
“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues,” Professor Crabtree says in a provocative paper published in the journal Trends in Genetics.
“Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues. I would also make this wager for the ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia, India or the Americas, of perhaps 2,000 to 6,000 years ago,” Professor Crabtree says.
“The basis for my wager comes from new developments in genetics, anthropology, and neurobiology that make a clear prediction that our intellectual and emotional abilities are genetically surprisingly fragile,” he says.
A comparison of the genomes of parents and children has revealed that on average there are between 25 and 65 new mutations occurring in the DNA of each generation. Professor Crabtree says that this analysis predicts about 5,000 new mutations in the past 120 generations, which covers a span of about 3,000 years.
Some of these mutations, he suggests, will occur within the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that are involved in human intellectual ability, for instance by building and mapping the billions of nerve cells of the brain or producing the dozens of chemical neurotransmitters that control the junctions between these brain cells.
Life as a hunter-gatherer was probably more intellectually demanding than widely supposed, he says. “A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate,” Professor Crabtree says.
However, other scientists remain sceptical. “At first sight this is a classic case of Arts Faculty science. Never mind the hypothesis, give me the data, and there aren’t any,” said Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London.
“I could just as well argue that mutations have reduced our aggression, our depression and our penis length but no journal would publish that. Why do they publish this?” Professor Jones said.
“I am an advocate of Gradgrind science – facts, facts and more facts; but we need ideas too, and this is an ideas paper although I have no idea how the idea could be tested,” he said.
THE DESCENT OF MAN
Hunter-gatherer man
The human brain and its immense capacity for knowledge evolved during this long period of prehistory when we battled against the elements
Athenian man
The invention of agriculture less than 10,000 years ago and the subsequent rise of cities such as Athens relaxed the intensive natural selection of our “intelligence genes”.
Couch-potato man
As genetic mutations increase over future generations, are we doomed to watching soap-opera repeats without knowing how to use the TV remote control?
iPad man
The fruits of science and technology enabled humans to rise above the constraints of nature and cushioned our fragile intellect from genetic mutations.
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