AAAS Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is to take place on 16–20 February 2006 in St. Louis, Missouri. There will be more than 200 symposia, plenary lectures, topical lectures, seminars and other sessions. It looks like a meeting that will greatly interest people who visit this blog. (I wish I could go!)

Some of the sessions that I think would be especially interesting are listed below:

The "International Challenges" Track:

Whither UNESCO? Science, Poverty, and Peace
Friday, February 17, 2006, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Science and the End of Poverty
Friday, February 17, 2006, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Research on Global Desertification and the Reclamation of Arid Lands
Friday, February 17, 2006, 1:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Mobilizing Science To End Poverty in the Developing World
Friday, February 17, 2006, 1:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Climate Change, Risk Management, and the Next 100 Years
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Management and Leadership of Multi-Institutional and Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 1:45 PM - 3:15 PM

Agricultural Biotechnology in the Public Sector: Overcoming Challenges To Reach Developing Country Markets
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 1:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Disasters and Development: Natural Disaster Mitigation and Developing Countries
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Science and Technology for Economic and Social Development: What Works, and How Do We Know It?
Monday, February 20, 2006, 9:45 AM - 12:45 PM

Microbial Resistance: A Threat to Global Health
Monday, February 20, 2006, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

The "Science Policy" Track:

Evaluating the Evaluators: A Critical Self-Assessment of R&D Evaluation Practices
Friday, February 17, 2006, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Scientists, the Public, and Policy-Makers in Dialogue: Principles and Applications
Friday, February 17, 2006, 10:30 AM - 12:00 Noon

Stem Cells and Society: Assessing a Grand Challenge
Friday, February 17, 2006, 1:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Radical Innovation in Science and Technology: Management and Measures
Friday, February 17, 2006, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Constitutional Principles and Legal Strategies in the Creation and Evolution Debates
Saturday, February 18, 2006, 9:45 AM - 11:15 AM

Challenges from Risk-Risk Trade-Offs
Saturday, February 18, 2006, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Shaping Public Policy: A Case Study on Stem Cell Legislation
Saturday, February 18, 2006, 3:45 PM - 5:15 PM

The Dichotomy of Intellectual Property as Both an Incentive and an Impediment to Innovation: Are There Better Alternatives?
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Risk and Society
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 10:30 AM - 12:00 Noon

Particles, Policy, and Public Health
Sunday, February 19, 2006, 1:45 PM - 4:45 PM

How Basic Research in the Social Sciences Improves Public Policy
Monday, February 20, 2006, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

A window of opportunity for USAID

Read the full editorial by David Dickson in SciDev.Net. (24 January 2006.)

A decision to reorganise the US Agency for International Development (USAID) — and to appoint the former head of a major pharmaceutical company as its new administrator — could boost the role of science and technology in the agency's efforts.

SciDev'Net's editor expresses cautious optimism that the newly announced reorganization of U.S. foreign assistance and the appointment of Randall Tobias as both Administrator of USAID and Tzar for development assistance (with rank equivalent to that of the Deputy Secretary of State) will lead to needed improvements in U.S. foreign assistance. He hopes that the improvements will include a strengthening of science and technology within U.S. foreign assistance, as do I.

I hear from Pat Koshel that the long-awaited National Academies of Science report on S&T in foreign assistance has just been approved for publication. She is hoping to the publication will be out soon!

Global Land Use Database

Go to the project website.

The Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) has been developing global databases of land use and land cover by combining satellite data and census data. This website provides access to its datasets of the distribution of the world's natural vegetation, croplands, grazing lands, major crops, etc.

The Center has recently published new maps, made by Navin Ramankutty and other SAGE researchers, tracking the changing patterns of agricultural land use around the world. (See examples above and below.)

The exercise is already beginning to cast light on some emerging trends. Countries such as Argentina and Brazil, for instance, have increasingly cleared forests to grow soybean, a legume that has never been a traditional crop of Latin America. Scientists say the surge in soybean production there has a lot to do with the booming demand for soy all the way at the other end of the world - in China. Meanwhile, Monfreda notes, long-time soybean farmers in the U.S. - the world's top soybean producer - are growing increasingly insecure about their place in the global market.

How good is the Washington Post?

Deborah Howell, Ombudsman for the Washington Post, wrote an article last week on the Abramoff affair. She wrote:

he (Abramoff) had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.

And:

Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money.

On Sunday, January 22, 2006, her column stated:

I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.

On Saturday, January 21, 2006, Paul Farhi wrote in the Washington Post

Howell wrote in a column published Sunday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." That is incorrect.

His article was in fact titled, "Deluge Shuts Down Post Blog:
Ombudsman's Column Had Sparked Profane Responses". It stated:

The newspaper company has temporarily shut down Post.blog -- a section of Washingtonpost.com that invites reader comments -- after receiving hundreds of posts, many using profane or sexist language, responding to columns by The Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell......readers had begun flooding Post.blog with comments, most of them criticizing Howell. Many of them used language unsuitable for a public forum. Unable to keep up with a stream of more than 1,500 postings, editors of the Web site decided to close it down until order could be restored.

The same story was apparently spread by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. According to Media Matters:

On the January 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly modified a false claim he made three days before that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff donated money to both Democrats and Republicans, saying: "His personal donations were to Republicans." In modifying his claim, however, O'Reilly made no admission of his previous error, nor did he apologize for having berated a caller to his nationally syndicated radio show for correctly noting that Democrats received no money directly from Abramoff.

That an error published by the Washington Post is comparable to that of the Fox News is surprising! In an earlier post on this blog today, an anonymous comment questioned the relative merits of The Financial Times (UK) versus the Washington Post -- and not to the advantage of the WaPo. Not long ago, following the Judy Miller affair, the Jayson Blair affair, and the Times coverage of Wen Ho Lee, some observers suggested that the Washington Post had now replaced the New York Times as the most trustworthy paper in the United States. Perhaps that was too early a judgment. I would further note that the stories on why the Washington Post blog was shut down seemed different to me in the broadcase of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (Tuesday, January 24, 2006) and that published by the WaPo.

I am impressed by the power of the Internet, as demonstrated in this case. Stories such as that in The Daily Kos clarified the facts in the case. I am equally impressed that thousands of feedback emails poured in to the Washington Post blog, that they had an effect, and that the blog comments themselves became a story! While the original error, coming as it did from the Ombudsman, was very disappointing, the willingness of the Post to open itself to criticism is commendable. Too bad it blotted the copybook by handling the comments badly.

So why am I addressing this matter in a blog dedicated to discussions of knowledge for development? So much of our knowledge of key current events has in the past come from the media, and especially from newspapers, that it is important to recognize that the papers can get it wrong. Moreover, the story suggests that free discussion in cyberspace has the potential to improve the quality of knowledge on important matters that becomes available to the public.

It is important in the upcoming election for the public to know whether the Abramoff scandle is a Republican scandle or a generalized Congressional scandle. Perhaps the public will have a better chance "to throw the (right) bums out" as a result of the Washington Post blog and the furror in cyberspace.

WHAT IS GOING ON AT THE WORLD BANK

Mohamed Muhsen in a happier moment

Read the full article titled "World Bank Staffers Protest Appointments" by Paul Blustein in The Washington Post. (January 24, 2006.)

In defending recent appointments (including that of Suzanne Rich Folsom to head the unit that investigates misconduct and corruption at the bank), World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz told an interviewer

"that staffers had grown too 'comfortable' with the laxness of the Institutional Integrity Department, which he said had been run with 'very puzzling negligence' until Folsom took over as its acting director in October. Although he emphasized that the overwhelming majority of bank staffers are honest, he said, 'I'm aware of a particularly serious set of allegations' involving a senior bank official."

The article further states:

Wolfowitz declined to name the individual under suspicion, because the investigation is continuing. But internal bank documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the watchdog unit is investigating Mohamed Muhsin, who retired three months ago as the bank's chief information technology officer. Sources familiar with the investigation said it involves alleged improprieties in the bank's procurement of technology services.

Muhsin's attorney, Joshua Hochberg, said Muhsin "is shocked, as are his colleagues, that unfounded rumors have circulated at the end of his 17 years of dedicated service during which his integrity was never questioned." He added that Muhsin expects "full exoneration."

I believe Mohamed Muhsin has played an important role in making the World Bank a leader in use of ICT in the community of donor agencies, and a leader in the dissemination and utilization of ICT in developing nations. I find it really distasteful that the President of the World Bank would make comments that would lead to the publication of Muhsin's name in the context of this investigation. I believe in the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. I regret that some will believe the worst of Mr. Muhsin due to this publicity without waiting for the conclusion of the investigation, and that his reputation will be damaged even if and when he is fully exonorated.

"The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet"

Read the full opinion piece By Christopher Stern in the Outlook Section of The Washington Post. (January 22, 2006.)

"Public interest groups, including the Consumer Federation and Consumers Union, have been lobbying the (U.S.) Congress and the (U.S.) Federal Communications Commission to write the concept called 'network neutrality' into law and regulation. Google and Yahoo have joined their lobbying efforts. And online retailers, Internet travel services, news media and hundreds of other companies that do business on the Web also have a lot at stake.

"Meanwhile, on the other side, companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are lobbying just as hard, saying that they need to find new ways to pay for the expense of building faster, better communication networks. And, they add, because these new networks will compete with those belonging to Comcast, Time Warner and oth er cable companies -- which currently have about 55 percent of the residential broadband market -- this will eventually bring down the price of your high-speed Internet service and television access."

The U.S. "Congress is taking first steps toward updating and rewriting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a key legal underpinning for media, telecommunications and Internet activity. This process, required by technological advances, will probably take a year to complete."

Public Knowledge, a consumer rights NGO focusing on the digital world, "had been having trouble convincing members of Congress that there was a network neutrality problem. Legislators and staffers repeatedly had noted to Sohn that no major telephone company had ever used its network to discriminate against other companies."

However, recently "AT&T Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. complained that Internet content providers were getting a free ride: 'They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any wires. . . . They use my lines for free -- and that's bull,' he said. 'For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!'"

Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge is quoted: "Whitacre just made the case for regulation. This was as good as it can get."

USAID "Invisible Conduit" Supporting the Palestinian Authority Incumbents

Read the article by Scott Wilson and Glenn Kessler in The Washington Post. (January 22, 2006.)

According to this article, approximately $2 million is being used by a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) "to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas......no U.S. government logos appear with the projects or events being undertaken as part of the campaign, which bears no evidence of U.S. involvement and does not fall within the definitions of traditional development work."

I assume that the purpose is not to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority as such, but to support the incumbents running the PA in the election.

The article states:

Elements of the U.S.-funded program include a street-cleaning campaign, distributing free food and water to Palestinians at border crossings, donating computers to community centers and sponsoring a national youth soccer tournament....Plans called for roughly 40 small projects or events, ranging in cost from $5,000 to $50,000 each, that would benefit the Palestinian Authority. No USAID logos would be used......The point man in Abbas's office was his chief of staff, Husseini, a member of a prominent Jerusalem family. In an interview last week, Husseini said U.S. officials told him they had about $2 million to spend on 30 or so projects before the elections. He said his office provided them with "names of people who could do this best."

The article states that the program was controversial in USAID. I bet it was!

On the one hand, creating a fund to support small, "bottom-up" projects seems well within USAID's charter, and something the Agency could do well. Setting a deadline so that such funds would be dispersed in a timely fashion might be a good precedent to set for other donor programs.

On the other hand, the effort could easily be seen as a covert approach to influencing an election, and using USAID as a cover for the program.

I think long-term nation building is an ethical imperative to attack poverty. Long-term nation building is also needed if we are to really reduce the numbers of people who so dislike the United States that they are willing to support terrorists. Our bilateral assistance programs should be a valuable tool in such nation building, since bilaterally we can allocate the resources where they will most serve priority interests of the United States. If, however, bilateral assistance is perceived as a cover for fixing elections and interfering in the affairs of other nations, it will be much less effective at nation building!

If there really is a need to spend a couple of million dollars to shore up the election of Abbas and his party, surely there are other, better ways to channel the money than through USAID! Doing this in so clumsy a manner that it hits the front page of the Washington Post just before the election is just dumb.

CommInit: "Avian Influenza Public Information and Guidance/Instruction"

Go to the Communications Initiative website for "Core Bird Flu Messages".

The site provides links to the primary

Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO),
Hong Kong Government,
World Health Organization (WHO) and
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

communication messages related to Avian Influenza.

It also extracts the core messages from longer and more detailed documents on the original websites.

Diagnostic Decision-Support Software

Read the full article, featuring Larry Weed, in the December 8, 2005 Technology Quarterly published in The Economist. (Subscription required.)

Dr. Larry Weed M.D. is a real pioneer in the area of medical knowledge systems. He developed the patient oriented medical record, and eventually started the PKC corporation to develop diagnostic software for doctors to use. This is part of what the Economist says about his software:

"There is simply too much new (medical) information (for doctors) to absorb and retain. Medline, a medical database, indexed 3,672 articles about adult coronary heart-disease studies in 2004, notes Elizabeth McGlynn, of RAND Health, part of the RAND think-tank......

"The PKC software stands apart within the little-known niche of “diagnostic decision-support” software: with other diagnostic aids, doctors generally use software on an as-needed basis, such as during a complex case. But PKC takes patients and health-care providers through a thorough—and documented—question-and-answer routine at each encounter. PKC engages patients, who enter information about symptoms, family medical history and so forth. During or after the medical exam, the health professional enters physical findings and test results. PKC then returns a list of diagnoses and care options to consider, with links to journal articles on which the recommendations are based.

"Doctors who have used PKC for years tell endless tales of improved office efficiencies, better patient involvement and diagnoses that they might otherwise have missed. A study from 2001 validates their experience, indicating that PKC's systematic approach can improve outcomes in chronic conditions such as diabetes. America's Department of Defence has been impressed enough to build PKC into its own Composite Health Care System, called CHCS II, so that Dr Weed's software helps to look after some 9m people. “PKC has a fairly unique capability to bounce a person's health record up against medical literature,” says Colonel Bart Harmon, the army's chief medical information officer. He adds that PKC's list of potential diagnoses and care options are the opposite of the so-called “cookbook” medicine that many doctors fear will result from automation.

"As with POMR, PKC's software has appeal outside America, too. 'I would be very pleased if we could get all the general practitioners in Britain to use his software,' says Brian Jarman, a professor emeritus at London's Imperial College School of Medicine and a former president of the British Medical Association. 'It's virtually impossible for a doctor these days to remember everything. Computers don't let you forget things.'"

In the country of the blind, better rule by the one-eyed than by the apes.

Dick Arndt

"GLOBAL HEALTH: The New World of Global Health"

Read the full article by Jon Cohen in Science. (13 January 2006.) Subscription required.

"A revolution is under way that is fundamentally altering the way the haves of the world assist the have-nots. Over the past 7 years, a cadre of deep-pocketed, impassioned players has committed more than $35 billion to fight the diseases of the world's poor. At the forefront of these efforts is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which since 1999 has pledged $6 billion--roughly the budget of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the same time--to battling HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other long-underfunded diseases.

"Close on the foundation's heels are a half-dozen other massive new efforts, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, which has promised $4.8 billion to 128 countries, and the President's Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from the Bush Administration that has pledged $15 billion to help selected countries. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), with half of the $3 billion in its coffers supplied by the Gates Foundation, is helping 72 countries fortify the immune systems of their children."

New Direction for U.S. Foreign Assistance

Go to the USAID announcement of the proposed reforms. The webpage also provides a transcript of the Secretary's remarks, streaming audio of her meeting with USAID staff, and related material.

U.S. Secretary of State Rice has announced a major change in the way the US government directs foreign assistance. This reorganization is described as intended to:

* Ensure that foreign assistance is used as effectively as possible to meet our broad foreign policy objectives
* More fully align the foreign assistance activities carried out by the Department of State and USAID
* Demonstrate that we are responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.

The Secretary announced the intention of creating the new position of Director of Foreign Assistance to serve concurrently as USAID Administrator. She stated that

the Director will also provide overall leadership to foreign assistance that is delivered through other agencies and entities of the U.S. Government. He will coordinate our development efforts, for example, with the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator and with the Millennium Challenge Corporation which operates under unique, conditions-based standards for assistance.

The White House concurrently announced the nomination of Amb. Randall L. Tobias as USAID Administrator.

This change is to be implemented consistent with current law. No new legislation is seen as required at this time. USAID's status as an independent organization with an administrator reporting directly to the Secretary of State is to remain unchanged.

Bradley Graham and Glenn Kessler covered the announcement in today's Washington Post. (January 20, 2006.)

Rice took the unusual step of holding a town-hall-style meeting with hundreds of USAID employees after announcing the creation of a high-level State Department position to oversee all foreign aid programs. Rice said the position -- director of foreign assistance -- is intended to bring greater coherence and efficiency to a broad patchwork of often overlapping assistance programs that now total about $19 billion. Randall L. Tobias, a former pharmaceuticals industry executive who has headed the administration's global AIDS program for the past 2 1/2 years, was named to fill the position and also to serve as the new USAID administrator......Several longtime USAID officials who heard Rice said in brief interviews afterward that her decision to hold the meeting was itself a significant gesture, but they also made clear that they will be withholding final judgment about the revamped management structure.....The choice of Tobias drew some criticism. He has little experience in development issues other than the anti-AIDS effort, and some activists have faulted him for placing less emphasis on condom use than on abstinence to reduce the spread of AIDS, and for moving too slowly to promote inexpensive generic drugs.

The idea of a high-level official to coordinate U.S. foreign assistance is not new, and in fact was enacted into law a quarter century ago -- the last legacy of Hubert Humphrey. However, the implementation of that law was weak to non-existant. The Bush Administration has chosen to implement major foreign assistance initiative outside of USAID, and I am pleased to see that they are now trying to bring the various aid programs of the government together under a combined leadership. I hope that in doing so the Administration does not sacrifice the long term nature of development assistance to the short term objectives of military and economic policy, and that the leaders that they choose have the background and experience to fully understand the nature of development assistance.

Larry Wilkerson on Decision Making in the Bush Administration.

Read the profile of Larry WilKerson by Richard Leiby in The Washington Post. (January 19, 2006.)

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson's discussion of the Bush Administration's National Security Policy at the New America Foundation last October were widely reported. Today he is the subject of a profile article in the Washington Post.

Wilkerson held the title of Chief of Staff in the U.S. Department of State under Secretary Colin Powell. According to his State Department biography:

Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired) Larry Wilkerson joined General Colin L. Powell in March 1989 at the U.S. Army’s Forces Command in Atlanta, Georgia as his Deputy Executive Officer. He followed the General to his next position as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as his special assistant. Upon Powell's retirement from active service in 1993, Colonel Wilkerson served as the Deputy Director and Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia. Upon Wilkerson’s retirement from active service in 1997, he began working for General Powell in a private capacity as a consultant and advisor. In December 2000, Secretary of State-designate Powell asked Wilkerson to join him in the Transition Office at the U.S. State Department and, later, upon his confirmation as Secretary of State, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to his Policy Planning Staff with responsibilities for East Asia and the Pacific, and legislative and political-military affairs. In June of 2002, the Director for Policy Planning, Ambassador Richard Haass, made Wilkerson the associate director. In August of 2002, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to the position of Chief of Staff of the Department.

Wilkerson is a veteran of the Vietnam war as well as a U.S. Army 'Pacific hand,' having served in Korea, Japan, and Hawaii and participated in military exercises throughout the Pacific. Moreover, Wilkerson was Executive Assistant to US Navy Admiral Stewart A. Ring, Director for Strategy and Policy (J5) USCINCPAC, from 1984-87. Wilkerson also served on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, RI and holds two advanced degrees, one in International Relations and the other in National Security Studies. He has written extensively on military and national security affairs–especially for college-level curricula--and been published in a number of professional journals, including the Naval Institute’s Proceedings, The Naval War College Review, Military Review, and Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ).

He is quoted in the Post profile as stating:

As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate.

"Wilkerson says he may write an academic text about presidential decision-making. This month he began supplementing his retirement with part-time teaching jobs at George Washington University and the College of William & Mary."

Reorganization of U.S. Foreign Assistance

Read the full article in the Washington Post by Glenn Kessler and Bradley Graham about State Department reorganization. (January 19, 2006.)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "today plans to unveil a restructuring of U.S. foreign assistance, including announcing the nomination of Randall L. Tobias as the new administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Officials said Rice plans to elevate the USAID post, giving Tobias -- a former Eli Lilly chief executive who now heads the administration's global AIDS relief program -- an office and a planning staff in the State Department. Rice will designate Tobias as having a rank equivalent of deputy secretary of state. Although the move stops short of merging USAID with State, it is intended to draw the agency closer into the department's fold, the officials said. Additionally, the new director will be given broader authority over a range of foreign assistance accounts now managed by separate entities. 'Effectively, this will allow a single person to have visibility into these various accounts,' a State official said."

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, I suppose, is the other founding father of "Knowledge for Development" in the United States of America. He was, in addition to a statesman and diplomat, an architect, naturalist, and linguist. In the Virginia House of Delegates he introduced bills to create a free system of tax-supported elementary education for all except slaves, to create a public library and to modernize the curriculum of the College of William and Mary -- all of which failed to pass into law. He experimented with a new plow and other ingenious inventions on his farm, Monticello. He was one of the founding fathers of the Patent Office, and held the post as examiner of American patents. He conceived University of Virginia at Charlottesville, planned it, designed it, and supervised both its construction and the hiring of faculty. As President, he sponsored the Lewis and Clark expedition, which advanced scientific knowledge of the western United States greatly. By 1814 Jefferson had acquired the largest personal collection of books in the United States, which sold to Congress as a replacement for the collection destroyed by the British during the War of 1812. It formed the permanent basis of the Library of Congress. And he was author of the Declaration of American Independence and of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom.

Quotations:

"it (liberty) is the great parent of science & of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free."
Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Willard, March 24, 1789

"our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
Thomas Jefferson to Dr. James Currie, January 28, 1786

"nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."
Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, June 11, 1807

"The expedition of Messrs. Lewis & Clarke for exploring the river Missouri, & the best communication from that to the Pacific ocean, has had all the success which could have been expected."
Thomas Jefferson's Sixth Annual Message to Congress, December 2, 1806

"I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country."
Thomas Jefferson to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1823

"I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give."
Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald, February 7, 1788

"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."
Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789

"I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time."
Thomas Jefferson to John Wyche, May 19, 1809

"I cannot live without books."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, June 10, 1815

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody...(letter to Isaac McPherson, 1813 as cited in Kock & Peden, 1972).

"Dying Too Young: Addressing Premature Mortality and Ill Health Due to Non Communicable Diseases and Injuries in the Russian Federation"

Go to the World Bank website for the report.

Despite strong economic growth, Russia is facing an alarming population decline, due in large part to untimely deaths from heart disease, traffic accidents, and alcoholism, says a World Bank report released December 8, 2006. A continuation of current trends means a shrinking adult workforce, destabilization of families, growing regional disparities, and national security risks, warn Bank experts.

Short, brutal lives for Russia’s men are taking a toll on society and families

Russia is one of the few middle-income countries in the world where life expectancy is falling. Life expectancy in Russia is 12 years less than it is in the US, a startling gap for a fellow-member of the G-8. Between 1992 and 2003, the Russian population declined by 6 million people to an estimated 143 million. If current low fertility and high mortality trends continue, the Russian Federation will lose approximately 18 million people by 2025.

Russian men are particularly at risk, they live16 years less on average than men in Western Europe and 14 years less than Russian women. The large difference by sex suggests that specific behavioral factors are implicated, rather than factors related to the external environment or adequacy of health care. If current ill health and disability continue, the healthy life expectancy of Russian males will fall to 53 years. According to Dying Too Young, since the late 1990s, the burden of chronic illness on families is estimated to have contributed to an annual loss of 5.6% of per capita income per year negatively affecting household incomes.

Rusian & European Live Expectancy

Science magazine

"Funds promised to fight bird flu, new deaths probed"

Read the full article by Ben Blanchard on today's Yahoo!News.

" International donors pledged $1.9 billion on Wednesday for a global fund to combat bird flu, while Iraq tested a dead teenage girl for the virus.

"The funding promised at the end of an international conference in Beijing was well in excess of an initial target set by the World Bank to raise at least $1.2 billion.....

"The World Bank has estimated that a pandemic lasting a year could cost the global economy up to $800 billion. Across the globe, millions could die if the H5N1 avian flu virus mutates just enough to pass easily among people.....

"Of the $1.9 billion pledged, about $900 million would be in the form of loans, and the rest in grants.....

"The United States pledged about $334 million, saying in a statement the money would be mainly in the form of grants and technical assistance. The total EU pledge is nearly $250 million."

"AVIAN INFLUENZA: More Cases in Turkey, but No Mutations Found"

Read the full news story in Science magazine. (Science 13 January 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5758, p. 161; subscription required.)

"The H5N1 avian influenza strain has sprung another surprise on public health experts, infecting at least 14 people in Turkey in the past few weeks. That's a "very high and worrying" number, says virologist Albert Osterhaus of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, given that fewer than 150 people (half of them fatally) are known to have been stricken during its 2-year rampage across large swaths of Asia.

"The slim bit of good news this week is that the virus does not appear to have mutated and become more dangerous to humans, says epidemiologist Guénaël Rodier, who leads a 10-member World Health Organization (WHO) team of experts investigating the incidents and assisting the Turkish government. But the outbreak among birds, first reported in October, is much worse than originally believed, Rodier says, and the lack of control and protection measures has given the virus ample opportunity to cross the species barrier."

The World Values Survey

Go to the website of the Survey.

The World Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It is conducted by a network of social scientist at leading universities all around world. Interviews have been carried out with nationally representative samples of the publics of more than 80 societies on all six inhabited continents. A total of four waves have been carried out since 1981 making it possible to carry out reliable global cross-cultural analyses and analysis of changes over time.

The survey seems to show that as countries get richer, their values show a shift from "survival" toward "self-expression". The current edition of the Atlantic Monthly however, reprints a figure from Ronald Inglehart's latest book suggesting that the place on the continuum from traditional to secular-rational values remains (to me) surprisingly constant.

The U.S. should pay its dues to the United Nations

On October 1, 2005, a statutory provision went into effect that prohibits the United States from paying in full its UN peacekeeping dues. This is not a time to for the UN to cut back on peacekeeping!

Moroever, it left unchanged the shortfall may well cause the United States to lose influence with other UN member states as the members consider important changes to the organization.

Legislation has been introduced in the Senate that would lift this prohibition and enable the United States to pay its full UN peacekeeping assessment. It is critical that senators are notified of this problem and are encouraged by their constituents to support S. 2095, which will enable the United States to meet its financial obligations to the United Nations and will ensure that American diplomats negotiating important UN reforms are not undermined by a return to unilateral withholding of US dues.

To quickly send letters to your senators, CLICK HERE.