Group Backs Ritual ‘Nick’ as Female Circumcision Option

In a controversial change to a longstanding policy concerning the practice of female circumcision in some African and Asian cultures, the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting that American doctors be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick or “nick” on girls from these cultures if it would keep their families from sending them overseas for the full circumcision.

The academy’s committee on bioethics, in a policy statement last week, said some pediatricians had suggested that current federal law, which “makes criminal any nonmedical procedure performed on the genitals” of a girl in the United States, has had the unintended consequence of driving some families to take their daughters to other countries to undergo mutilation.

“It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm,” the group said

But some opponents of female genital mutilation, or F.G.M., denounced the statement.

“I am sure the academy had only good intentions, but what their recommendation has done is only create confusion about whether F.G.M. is acceptable in any form, and it is the wrong step forward on how best to protect young women and girls,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, who recently introduced a bill to toughen federal law by making it a crime to take a girl overseas to be circumcised. “F.G.M. serves no medical purpose, and it is rightfully banned in the U.S.”

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Can you trust Science?

Toward a Science of Morality

An article in the Huffington Post by Sam Harris about why people are opposed to the idea of a scientific look at morality and perhaps why its time to change that negative stance:

In February, I spoke at the 2010 TED conference, where I briefly argued that morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science.

If nothing else, the response to my TED talk proves that many smart people believe that something in the last few centuries of intellectual progress prevents us from making cross-cultural moral judgments -- or moral judgments at all.

Many people also claim that a scientific foundation for morality would serve no purpose, because we can combat human evil while knowing that our notions of "good" and "evil" are unwarranted. It is always amusing when these same people then hesitate to condemn specific instances of patently abominable behavior.

I don't think one has fully enjoyed the life of the mind until one has seen a celebrated scholar defend the "contextual" legitimacy of the burqa, or a practice like female genital excision, a mere thirty seconds after announcing that his moral relativism does nothing to diminish his commitment to making the world a better place.

Many people believe that the problem with talking about moral truth, or with asserting that there is a necessary connection between morality and well-being, is that concepts like "morality" and "well-being" must be defined with reference to specific goals and other criteria -- and nothing prevents people from disagreeing about these definitions. I might claim that morality is really about maximizing well-being and that well-being entails a wide range of cognitive/emotional virtues and wholesome pleasures, but someone else will be free to say that morality depends upon worshipping the gods of the Aztecs and that well-being entails always having a terrified person locked in one's basement, waiting to be sacrificed.

Of course, goals and conceptual definitions matter. But this holds for all phenomena and for every method we use to study them. My father, for instance, has been dead for 25 years. What do I mean by "dead"? Do I mean "dead" with reference to specific goals? Well, if you must, yes -- goals like respiration, energy metabolism, responsiveness to stimuli, etc. The definition of "life" remains, to this day, difficult to pin down. Does this mean we can't study life scientifically? No. The science of biology thrives despite such ambiguities. The concept of "health" is looser still: it, too, must be defined with reference to specific goals -- not suffering chronic pain, not always vomiting, etc. -- and these goals are continually changing. Our notion of "health" may one day be defined by goals that we cannot currently entertain with a straight face (like the goal of spontaneously regenerating a lost limb). Does this mean we can't study health scientifically?

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Banking on Fuel-Sweating Flora

A start-up company has broken ground on a Texas pilot plant that is supposed to produce ethanol and diesel in a radical new way: with an organism that sweats fuel.

The company, Joule Unlimited of Cambridge, Mass., has developed several patented gene-altered organisms that absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide and combine these into hydrocarbons.

The organisms – basically single-celled plants – live in a panel that vaguely resembles a solar photovoltaic one. They lie under a glass sheet that is mounted on a frame to face the sun.

They live in brackish water and need small amounts of chemical nutrients, said William J. Sims, president and chief executive of Joule.

A move from the lab to the field will test their tolerance for temperature variations and other natural challenges, he said. They can survive cold, but the site, in Leander, about 30 miles north of Austin, was chosen because ice was unlikely, he said.

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Australia burka armed robbery sparks ban debate

An armed robbery allegedly carried out by a man wearing a burka has sparked a row in Australia on whether the full-face Islamic veil should be banned.

Opposition Liberal Sen Cory Bernardi said the robbery showed the burka was "emerging as the preferred disguise of bandits and ne'er-do-wells".

Both PM Kevin Rudd and Liberal leader Tony Abbott dismissed the comments and said they would not support a ban.

The row follows similar debates on the burka in European countries.

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Whatever Happened to the Hole in the Ozone Layer?

Article by Stuart Fox of Life Science talks about the Ozone Layer

Three British scientists shocked the world when they revealed on May 16th, 1985 — 25 years ago — that aerosol chemicals, among other factors, had torn a hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole. The ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging solar radiation, became an overnight sensation. And the hole in the ozone layer became the poster-child for mankind’s impact on the planet.

Today, the ozone hole — actually a region of thinned ozone, not actually a pure hole — doesn’t make headlines like it used to. The size of the hole has stabilized, thanks to decades of aerosol-banning legislation. But, scientists warn, some danger still remains.

First, the good news: Since the 1989 Montreal Protocol banned the use of ozone-depleting chemicals worldwide, the ozone hole has stopped growing. Additionally, the ozone layer is blocking more cancer-causing radiation than any time in a decade because its average thickness has increased, according to a 2006 United Nations report. Atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting chemicals have reached their lowest levels since peaking in the 1990s, and the hole has begun to shrink.

Now the bad news: The ozone layer has also thinned over the North Pole. This thinning is predicted to continue for the next 15 years due to weather-related phenomena that scientists still cannot fully explain, according to the same UN report . And, repairing the ozone hole over the South Pole will take longer than previously expected, and won’t finish until between 2060 and 2075. Scientists now understand that the size of the ozone hole varies dramatically from year to year, which complicates attempts to accurately predict the hole's future size.

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Briton jailed for kiss in Dubai condemns Emirate's 'hypocrisy'

Charlotte Adams, 26, who was deported on Friday after spending 23-days behind bars for "indecency", spoke of her horror when a local woman claimed she had publicly kissed and touched Ayman Najafi, a British friend, in a restaurant last November.

Miss Adams, from Mersea Island, Essex, who regularly visited Dubai on business, admitted "flirting" with Mr Najafi but said she had done nothing more than give him "a peck on the cheek".

In her first interview since her release, she said: "It is such a relief. I've thought of nothing else for the last few months.

"I love (Dubai) and it makes me sad that I'll never come back, although I think I'd struggle to ever feel free here again.

"The laws need to evolve to match the culture here. At the moment, it's all just hypocrisy."

America is Not a Christian Nation

Regardless what you hear from the Americans living below the bible belt, America was founded by people trying to escape the religious oppression of the "Old World". America's beloved Founding Father's vision for the New World was one that was totally secular, and where the freedom's pf its people were of the utmost importance.

Having faith in the divine is not the issue here. Whether you believe in Jesus, Mohammed and/or Moses doesn't bother me in the slightest. There are still people who believe that the power of the seance, or the Ouija Board, and these people don't bother me half as much as religious types.

Why?

Well, mystics and spiritual healers also don't try to impose these unprovable practices in a political arena.

You're not going to find someone who says that the answers to the big questions in life, or where to find a moral structure on how to live our lives can be found in their Ouija board, and that these methods should be taught in schools.

The extract below if from an interesting article for anyone who is interested American politics / historyby Phil Plait of Discover Magazine.

The problem tends to come in when some religious people try to impose their religion on others. If you go through my posts on religion, you’ll find that this is where I tend to step in. Want to teach creationism in the classroom? Uh uh. Want to oppress women? Sorry, fella. Think abstinence-only education works and you should get government grants to teach it? Keep it in your own pants, please.

The problem is amplified by the fact that pretty much every religion tends to think of itself as the One True Belief. And when they get some political clout, things get very itchy indeed. Or have we already forgotten what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyan?

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