How 'Humane' is Your City?

How 'humane' is your city? Well if you live in the United States of America you may be one step closer to finding this out. It's a shame that we Australian's don't have anything similar to go by, although I'm fairly certain that all our cities are 'in-humane', however, the Humane Society of the United States has undertaken a study to determine the most 'humane' cities in the USA. You can find the study HERE, and, if you're not inclined to follow the link, San Francisco came out on top and Chicago came up with the wooden spoon.

But is this study accurate or even necessary; is it even logically valid? Now, I'm not pretending to have access to the methodologies employed in the procedures of this study nor am I claiming that I even have access to the uncollated information, what I am claiming, however, is that according to the Humane Society's published information (link above) there are quite a few holes. It seems that there were only twelve criteria identified for a city to be measured against which all seem quite emotive in their focus. Quantity of 'seal protectors' for example or 'puppies in windows'. Euphemism is a general tool for hiding inadequacy, not something that an international organisation should be promoting.

Perhaps the most fundamental issue, however, is in the use of the word 'humane'. What is meant by this term? Is it relative? How do we judge its application appropriately? I think that the term 'humane' is logically inconsistent and is nothing more than an overt expression of prejudice and chauvinism. Most critics of the Humane Society seem to focus on some inconsistent claim like that we should not be treating animals 'humanely' because that would entail us treating them as if they were humans. This, I think too, is illogical, prejudiced and chauvinistic. Why devalue an animal's uniqueness by equating it with a human? Humans and most other animals are innately different and these differences are, necessarily, irreconcilable; they will likely remain so until someone, at least, answers Nagel's question 'what is it like to be a bat?'.

No, my hang up is in the question 'what is it like to be human?' Obviously the term 'humane' is to be seen in relation to the term 'human' but what do we mean when we use the term 'human'? From a brief exploration of the Humane Society of America's website, focusing on mission statements etc., it seems that what it is to be human is the possession of reason. I completely agree! This seems to be where the the Humane Society gets confused (Maybe they aren't confused however there are no documents on their website pointing otherwise). Their statement of Principles and Beliefs includes '...[w]e seek to forge a lasting and comprehensive change in human consciousness of and behavior toward all animals in order to prevent animal cruelty, exploitation, and neglect, and to protect wild habitats and the entire community of life...' So, to the Humane Society, the term 'humane' means a procedure of changing reason to make it more in line with a Moral Universalist's perspective. This universal morality places equal weight on the rights of animals as to the rights of humans.

I'm not going to make a claim here either for or against Moral Universalism however the Humane Society really needs to go over their statements and get some things straight. If I'm going to argue for a universal morality and a universal morality that limits reason, because reason will have no place in this universal morality as what is and isn't morally valuable is already decided, then how can I call this humane? Of course, as I've mentioned, the Humane Society seem to equate the term 'humane' to such a definition, one in which reason becomes limited, but this is not, at least in my opinion, what it is like to be human. Human = ability to reason not I will tell you what you can and can not reason about.

If you're going to remain logically consistent the please remove the term 'humane' from your name.

Ustad Rafiuddin Sabri - Tabla Solo - Teental

This tabla player is from Delhi and is simply amazing. In this recording the audio and video are slightly out of sync, as with most recordings of drut laya, but this doesn't detract from the quality. The timing is spot on and and Sabriji has such control over his fingers, wrists and, in effect, his entire upper body. Playing in drut laya for any duration of time is difficult for anybody!

Chain Reaction

How difficult is it to boil a bucket of water? I wasn't certain until I found this interesting video while browsing the net today. Have a look for yourselves.

Body and Mind Essay

I received my result for my Body and Mind essay on Homunculi-Headed Robots and I received a Distinction. While usually I'd kick and scream over such a grade I'm not going to this time. The reason you may ask, I'm not that happy with it myself. You see, because I had a holiday and didn't get as much work (Uni work that is) done while I was away my essay suffered. So in this case a Distinction is fine. If anyone cares to read the essay you'll find it on my Uni Papers Site under the Philosophy heading or, only if you're lazy, click HERE.

P.S. I've also uploaded a Buddhism essay on Mahayana to my Uni Papers Site too. I haven't updated the Religion page yet but if anyone's keen to get a sneak preview you can download it by clicking HERE.

The 'Terrorists' are loosing

According to <--THIS--> the 'Terrorists' are finally loosing popularity. Apparently their leader is 'stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes'. Take a look for yourselves if you're interested.

How Do You Organise Information?

With the amount of information available on the net now browser based bookmarks just don't cut it anymore. Even with the widespread use of broadband services page load times and navigational issues still cause many upsets. For example, every morning I like to check the weather forecast, my calendar, various news sites, my blogs for comments, other's blogs for new posts or replies to comments that I've left, pod cast updates, my university discussion boards and my various email accounts. It is easy to see how all of this could fill up a lot of time.

So how does one manage all of this? For a while now I've been using iGoogle but I was growing tired of the lack of features and customisability that someone like me, a non-programmer, could accomplish. Where I turned was to netvibes. So what do these (free) services offer that can reduce the time for me to finish all the tasks listed above? Let me see if I can describe it for you.

Both sites are relatively similar with both offering customisable home pages with tabs where dynamic content can be stored. For example, on my netvibes page I have ten tabs of sorted information. These tabs are Home, News, Personal Blogs, Friends Blogs, Philosophy Blogs, Religion Blogs, University, Pod Casts, MySpaces and Mail. I think you get the idea as to what content I place under each tab. Let's look at a few of these tabs so you get the idea of how such a service operates.

The News tab contains custom 'modules', little boxes that display dynamic content, in columns. In each 'module' I subscribe to a different news feed, a dynamic process that 'feeds' the news content to my 'modules'. The module then displays the news headlines as links which you can then follow for the entire story. iGoogle and netvibes handle this linking process differently but I'll discuss that more below.

The Personal Blogs tab displays 'modules' just like the other tabs but link to the 'feeds' from my personal blogs. I have this tab configured with two columns, the column on the left has my posts and the column on the right has comments on my posts. The other blog tabs are configured in the same manner. This way I can look at all of the posts and all of the comments on all of the blogs I'm interested in from a single page without having to load all of the individual graphics etc.

The pod cast tab has, you guessed it, 'modules' that subscribe to pod casts. What I like about netvibes over iGoogle with the pod cast subscriptions is that with netvibes I can opt to download or stream the audio/video from the module itself, no funny business.

Lastly the mail tab includes 'modules' that link to all of my email accounts, gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and POP accounts etc. I can see if I have any new emails, who they are from and their subject lines all from one page. A huge time saver.

Now, why have I opted for netvibes over iGoogle? Well, many reasons actually. On the tabs of the netvibes page a little number will display indicating how many unread feeds are present in that tab. For example, if I have 12 unread emails the email tab will have a number 12, the same goes for all the other tabs. Also, netvibes is so much more customisable. There are more themes, more 'module' options, more tab options, a great wizard for creating your own 'modules' and to add 'modules' you don't need to leave your page. iGoogle just can't compete with this.

I mentioned above about links to entire news stories or complete blog entries etc. and this is something that netvibes really have sorted. When the user clicks a link in netvibes you don't leave the page. The entire blog entry or news story etc. appears in a new 'module' in your page. What's more is that an archive of stories/feeds from the blog, news site etc. also appears so you can read other entries without leaving your page. Of course you can navigate to the blog, news site etc. page if you so desire.

There are also many more options that I haven't mentioned but I'd rather you take a look for your self. You'll find netvibes HERE and iGoogle HERE.

US 'Terrorists' hate Iraqis

Reading this mornings news <--link--> I was shocked to see the results of a survey of American military troops (hereby known as terrorists) on their attitudes towards Iraqis. The survey claims that one tenth of these terrorists have mistreated Iraqi civilians at some point in their 'service' and that one third condone torture to protect the life a one of their fellow terrorists.

Now this survey is credible, it was conducted by the terrorists' own mental health advisory team. This seems to be a common tactic of terrorist organisations, such as the United States Military, claiming that they don't value the life of any 'other'; 'you're either with us or against us' the leader of these terrorists has been quoted as saying. Fear is a fundamental aspect of terrorist politics.

So what else did this survey uncover? Well, more than 50% of the terrorists would not report a fellow terrorist for unethical behavior. This is shocking because of the limited definition of ethics that the terrorists already hold. If the terrorist holds 50% of the ethical concepts that I hold as, in fact, being ethical, and more than 50% of these terrorists would not report an unethical act then I can rest assured that less than 25% of the acts that I would deem unethical (and most other people too, I would assume) are currently being reported.

I'd love to post more of the survey's findings but the damn terrorists have censored it. It seems that just letting a little of their insanity out of the box creates more fear than if we knew the depths of it. Exploring in the dark is always more fearful than in the daylight but lets hope that this small torchlight of information helps to uncover the breadth of the terrorists' psychoses.

Centrelink is a Bastard

That's right, a bastard. Maybe not in a literal sense but that organisation has certainly pissed me off this week. For those readers not familiar with Australian social security have a look <--HERE--> for some background.

For a while now I've been receiving Disability Support Pension for an injury that prevents me from doing a lot. Not too long ago I received notification that the pension I was receiving was up for review so I attended the review interview and, to my disgust, found out that it was one of little Johnny Howard's neo-liberal 'get people off of their arses and supporting themselves' drives. I was asked, basically, to show cause as to why I should continue to receive the pension. The Centrelink officer in charge of my case gave me some forms for my doctor to fill out. No problem? Big problem! My doctor had recently retired so I was expected to see a doctor who had no knowledge of my disability. Naturally he was reluctant to fill out the form so just indicated that he was unsure.

This wasn't good enough for Centrelink who needed more information so they gave me a whopping whole month to find it. You see, neo-liberalism is all about removing the individual from this sort of process; there is no scope for my claim to be given 'special consideration', I am the same as every other number on the Centrelink database. Neo-liberals really need to discover the difference between qualitative and quantitative. Anyhow, I inquired about what would happen to me if I was deemed ineligible for the pension. My case manager happily informed me that I would be placed on another payment that I was eligible for. As I'm a full-time student I wasn't too worried at this point as I would be entitled to a student benefit; still, not the pension. You see I needed some 'special consideration' as my treating doctor (funnily enough 'treating doctor' is the name of the form I needed filled out. Absurd that I don't actually need my treating doctor to fill it out) had retired and the orthopedic outpatients department of the State hospital that I was receiving specialist treatment from had a two year wait list.

Sadly, I decided that I'd just accept my fate (although I'll never vote Liberal now no matter how rich I become John!) and be transfered over to Austudy. This is where the real problems began. I wasn't transfered! I went to the bank last Thursday to make a withdrawal and discovered that my bank account was empty! I hurried on over to Centrelink to see what was going on and was promptly informed that I was no longer a client of theirs; I had been canceled. This was a shock, I was supposed to be transfered, were my study details not apparent? Even so, why hadn't I been transfered to Newstart, the payment for the unemployed? After two days of being shrugged off between person to person, department to department I was informed that I wasn't to be transfered over to another payment, I never was. It turns out that my previous case manager had been lying to me; this never happens. I was informed that I had to reapply for a payment and that this process takes 21 days. I explained that that would mean that I would have no income for six weeks all up but, as mentioned above, neo-liberalism is unkind to the individual. My appeals fell on deaf ears.

So this is where I currently lay; poor and pissed off. Centrelink has a fiduciary duty to its clients, of which I was one (and, fingers crossed, soon to be again), that was flatly abused. I am in the process of making formal complaints about this situation to all levels of Centrelink management and all levels of Government but I'm not hopeful for a positive outcome. Frankly I just don't mean enough. I'll post all my letters of complaint here, and any replies that I don't expect to come, with the tag 'Centrelink Bastard if anyone cares to follow my predicament. It'd be nice to get paid soon though, I've got text books to buy for next semester. It's interesting how Centrelink is so happy to jeopardise a situation that will remove its clients from welfare dependency in the long term for such short term triviality.