Timothy Wilken, MD
writes:  Interestingly, the  advent of the Washington D.C.
area sniper in 2002 brought renewed interest in the subject of weapons and
their role in our present society.  …

Think of the power of the tools
we humans use everyday—a Boeing 747 airplane, our automobiles,
computers, cell phones, televisions, household appliances, the tools in
our garages and at our places of work.

The knowing in these tools
multiply our human power by orders of magnitude. They allow us to do
what was considered impossible just a few years ago.

It is the power of
the knowing embedded in these tools that give them their power. You
don’t have to be wise to use a tool full of genius. You don’t even have
to be knowledgeable to use such a tool.

Today’s fast food
restaurants, use picture icons of the food and drinks on the buttons of
the check out computers, so that the illiterate and innumerate humans
working there can operate the computers without reading, adding or
subtracting. The computer even tells the operator the correct amount of
change to return to the customer.

However, there is risk in using tools
you don’t understand. Remember, “a little knowing is a dangerous
thing.”

Today, we commonly put enormously powerful tools into the hands
of those who do not understand them. This means the risk of using these
tools in an unsafe manner is high. And since weapons are specifically
designed to hurt or kill, they are among the most dangerous tools
available in today’s society.

And yet they are easily available to
anyone who desires them. They can be purchased legally by any adult who
passes a background check for criminal record. If you are not a
convicted felon, you can legally purchase all the weapons and
ammunition you desire.

You are not legally required to be literate,
numerate, or have any knowledge of science or physics. No knowledge of
weapons or the consequence of their use or misuse is required before
becoming armed.

As to felons, minors, or non-citizens—anyone wishing to
avoid the background check of legal purchase, they can be purchased
illegally in any town in America. (05/15/08)
more…

In this
week’s guest article, we continue a theme I mentioned a few weeks ago:
agricultural needs are going to be a new and important force in the
world, and when coupled with energy may shift the balance of power in
the world in strange a different ways.

What countries are truly the have and have nots of the world?

Good
friend and business partner Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners
suggests we look at the old equation in a new way? Food and energy
resources may be at least part of the definition in the future.

When, as Niels points
out, Afghanistan poppy farmers are shifting to wheat farming, the world
is truly a different place. I think you will find the research he has
done to be truly worth a few minutes of your thinking time.

And
as a preface, I was reminded a little while ago that a Financial Times
headline story last Friday mentioned that China is buying African
farmland and building massive amounts of railroads and infrastructure
to get grains to the market. I have long been bullish on African
farmland.

This week’s article by Niels Jensen will tell you why. (05/15/08)
more…

BBC Nature — The
halting of logging in the world’s rainforests is the single greatest
solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said. He called for a
mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling
their rainforests.

The prince told the BBC that the forests provided the earth’s “air
conditioning system”. He said it was “crazy” the rainforests were worth
more “dead than alive” to some of the world’s poorest people. The
world’s forests store carbon in their wood and in their soils. …

In an interview to mark BBC World Service’s Amazon Day, Prince Charles
said: “When you think they [rainforests] release 20 billion tonnes of
water vapour into the air every day, and also absorb carbon on a
gigantic scale, they are incredibly valuable, and they provide the
rainfall we all depend on.”

He said a way had to be found to ensure people living in the rainforest
were adequately rewarded for the “eco-system services that their forest
provides the rest of the world”.  “The trouble is the rainforests
are home to something like 1.4 billion of the poorest people in the
world. In order to survive there has to be an effort to produce things
which tends to be at the expense of the rainforest. “What we’ve got to do is try to ensure that those forests are more
valuable alive than dead. At the moment there’s more value in them
being dead. This is the crazy thing.”

The prince called on governments, big business and consumers to demand an end to logging in the rainforest. (05/15/08)
more…