Evolution Of A Song – Songwriters Circle – Never was to Be http://songwriterscircle.co.uk/evolution-of-a-song/
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Evolution Of A Song Songwriters Circle Never was…
http://distributedresearch.net/status/evolution-of-a-song-songwriters-circle-never-was/
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February 4 2012, 5:33pm | Comments »
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Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military
Noooooo, don’t accept it.Masses reject foreign intervention Western Intervention can only serve to try and derail the Region-wide revolution of the Arab people
This article titled “Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military” was written by Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor, for The Guardian on Friday 4th March 2011 19.57 UTC Britain is to send a team of experts capable of giving military advice into eastern Libya to make contact with opposition leaders as the struggle for control of the country escalates. The move is a clear intervention on the ground to bolster the anti-Gaddafi uprising, learn more about its leadership and see what logistical support it needs. Whitehall sources said the diplomatic task force would not be providing arms to the rebels, as there is an international arms embargo. It came as Interpol issued a global alert against Muammar Gaddafi and 15 other Libyans, including his daughter and seven sons, in an effort to enforce sanctions. David Cameron has been determined to back the resistance partly because, following advice this week by experts and Libyans in the UK, he believes that it is neither simply tribal nor Islamist, but is built round democratic demands that could in the medium term mark a decline in anti-western mood in the Middle East. The foreign secretary, William Hague, has been in telephone contact with General Abdul Fattah Younis Obaidi, the former Libyan interior minister, now based in Benghazi, who is seen as a likely successor to Gaddafi. Obaidi was placed in charge of military defences in the city in a sign that he is at the helm of the opposition. British officials know the identity of all the members of the broad-based Benghazi committee currently focused on keeping essential services and defences going. As the situation regarding international involvement developed rapidly , Nato commanders were instructed to draw up plans for a wide range of military options, including a no-fly zone. Cameron had earlier faced criticism – including from the Pentagon – for raising the idea of a Nato no-fly zone. The UK government believes the national council in Benghazi is focused on keeping essential services running, but where it can is “now thinking about how they can take the struggle forward to other parts of the country. They are not yet calling themselves a government in waiting and we have not yet seen a coherent programme”, one source said. The UK diplomatic task force is to assess humanitarian need and keep the opposition leaders in the east of the country better informed about diplomatic activity. The national council is focused most on what it can do to help the isolated rebel towns close to Tripoli. British diplomats quit Libya last week as the fighting escalated. They remain unable to access the largely pro-Gaddafi west of Libya, from which all aid agencies, including the Red Cross, have been barred. Ambassadors representing the 28 Nato countries instructed military commanders to start planning for what an alliance spokesperson described as “all eventualities”. However, the spokesperson added that “operational steps” had not yet been taken and that the UN security council had not authorised the use of force. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary general, has made it clear that in his view a no-fly zone would require a specific UN resolution. The decision to draw up contingency plans was not officially announced, because of the sensitivity surrounding an issue on which the alliance is far from united. The decision to task Nato commanders with contingency planning was taken despite serious reservations expressed by Robert Gates, shared by British military chiefs. “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down,” Gates said earlier this week. However, President Barak Obama subsequently said he was placing US military assets near Libya to ensure he had the “full capacity to act” if the situation deteriorated further. But the government has placed on alert air, sea, and ground forces that could quickly intervene in the conflict if ordered to do so. Typhoon jets would be deployed to RAF Akrotiri in one of the two sovereign base areas in Cyprus, while 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland – the Black Watch – is on 24 hours’ notice to help in evacuation and humanitarian operations, defence officials said. An RAF airborne radar and early warning aircraft is based in Malta where the MoD has also set up a forward joint task force headquarters. Officials declined to say what intelligence they had gathered on the quality and number of pro-Gaddafi aircraft and armour. Meanwhile, a ship understood to contain £100m worth of Libyan dinars has been seized and escorted into Harwich docks in Essex by the UK Border Agency Vigilant, the Home Office said. The vessel had returned to the UK after failing to dock in Tripoli last weekend. She was tracked by British authorities and intercepted off the coast. The chancellor, George Osborne, froze Gaddafi’s £900m of UK-based assets last Sunday.
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March 4 2011, 2:12pm | Comments »
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When is it acceptable to discriminate against evolution sceptics?
Unsurprisingly the Guardian takes a liberal and academic position. In this world, compartmentalisation of disciplines leads to the incorrect notion that evolution, astronomy and religion can be treated as completely separate aspects of philosophy. This article titled “When is it acceptable to discriminate against evolution sceptics?” was written by James Hannam, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 16th February 2011 13.21 UTC In 2007, Dr Martin Gaskell applied for the position of director at the new MacAdam student observatory at the University of Kentucky. He stood “breathtakingly above the other applicants in background and experience” according to the chairman of the selection panel, but he did not get the job. Unsurprisingly, he sued. It is not controversial to state that English-born Gaskell is a devout Christian. He has also said that he is sceptical about certain aspects of evolutionary theory and that he respects creationists for being true to the bible. However, his own views have more nuance and he probably belongs somewhere in the broad church usually labelled “theistic evolution“. But the mere fact he was sympathetic towards creationists and kept an open mind about evolution appears to have disqualified him from being director of the observatory. As the chairman of the selection committee emailed afterwards, “no objective observer could possibly believe that we excluded Martin on any basis other than religion … ” The case was about to go to trial. But, last month, the university caved in and settled out of court. Gaskell was given a payoff of $125,000, although the university refused to admit any wrong-doing. Nonetheless, this appears to be an unambiguous example of religious discrimination within the American academy. It is hard to imagine the university would have settled if they were sure of their ground. The case has given rise to a certain amount of hand-wringing in anti-creationist circles. Clearly, Gaskell’s doubts about evolution have not curtailed his ability as an astronomer. His achievements in the field tell us that much. He is a respected expert on supermassive black holes and a long-serving research fellow at the University of Texas. But his religious faith has been enough for some to doubt his ability as a scientist. Professor Lawrence Krauss, physicist and neo-atheist sympathiser, writes in the New Scientist that doubting evolution should have disqualified Gaskell because it showed he had a “lack of understanding of the nature of scientific theory”. Richard Dawkins called the university’s decision to capitulate “a farce“. There are some mitigating factors. Kentucky hosts a creationist museum that shows dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden, so we should have a smidgeon of sympathy for the local university. When viewed from the Appalachian mountains, the conflict between evolution and creationism looks like an existential struggle for the soul of science. It appears the selection committee consulted with their colleagues in the biology department about Gaskell’s views and the feedback they received put them in a very difficult position. None of this can justify religious discrimination. Liberals stand for a pluralistic society where people can both hold and express a wide variety of beliefs, some of which others might find absurd or distasteful. That means the proper forum for disagreements is open debate, not private emails between members of an academic selection committee. To assert that it was acceptable to exhibit prejudice against Gaskell is to concede that similar treatment can be meted out to others. Should a hospital be allowed to reject a brain surgeon because he supports abortion? Should a Christian school refuse to employ an atheist? For this reason, those who oppose discrimination must oppose all discrimination. But the University of Kentucky’s actions were worse than a crime against liberalism. In the narrower context of the struggle with creationists, they were a mistake. The 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed declared that proponents of “intelligent design” were subject to systematic persecution by universities as a result of their views. The cases actually cited in the film were weak and there was nothing that could be described as actionable. However, during the same year, Michael Reiss was forced out of an educational role at the Royal Society when he suggested that teachers should treat creationism as a world view rather than a misconception. Reiss is a clergyman as well as a scientist and it was hard to escape the conclusion that many atheists saw this as a problem. So the last thing the scientific community should have done was to engage in patent discrimination against a Christian. Although the Gaskell case relates to events in 2007, the university has had more than three years to find an amicable (and cheaper) solution. Creationists could scarcely have asked for a better propaganda coup, and a brief scan of their blogs show that they are milking it for all it is worth. Gaskell, on the other hand, is not keen to become a creationist poster boy. Interviewed after the case was settled, he said he wanted to counter the perceived incompatibility between religion and science, describing it as an “illusion”. It is unfortunate that in neo-atheist circles even such moves towards accommodation are far from welcome.
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February 16 2011, 8:17am | Comments »
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