Update Daniel Pipes

March 31st, 2009 by Erik

Het is een tijdje geleden dat ik nog eens wat schrijfsels van Daniel Pipes, Midden Oosten expert en oprichter van de Middle East Forum denktank, overnam. Na een korte hiatus blogde hij deze week wat af omtrent de partijdige pers in de VS, niet-moslims die moslimterrorisme steunen, en de mogelijkheid dat de regelmatige bosbranden in Australië een vorm van terreur zijn.

America’s Desultory Religious Reporting

by Daniel Pipes
March 29, 2009

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/03/americas-desultory-religious-reporting.html

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Of all the reporting on radical Islam in the United States, some of the least competent comes from precisely those reporters who should do the most outstanding job – those specializing in religion. I don’t recall a single one of them producing a serious analysis of the Islamist groups that dominate Muslim communal life – the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, and the like. Instead, they invariably write puff-pieces.

 

Geneive Abdo.

Some examples, culled over the years (with the caveat that some of these reporters no longer cover religion):

  • Geneive Abdo of the Chicago Tribune, who spoke at the 2003 annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
  • David Crumm of the Detroit Free Press glorified an Islamist religious leader “Dearborn’s Imam Qazwini: A champion for Islam’s future.”
  • Felix Hoover of the Columbus Dispatch, who was provided with meticulous, detailed information about problems at an Islamist school, the Sunrise Academy, only to ignore it.
  • Robert King of the Indianapolis Star, who covered the Islamic Society of North America convention as though it were the Elks or Masons.
  • Shirley Ragsdale of the Des Moines Register wrote a near hagiography of Ibrahim Dremali, still remembered for having exhorted a crowd in Florida, “not to be sad for the martyrs, or be afraid to die for what they believed in.”
  • Bill Tammeus of the Kansas City Star wrote the memorably bad “Women of cover,” a glorification of the hijab.
  • Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times, who celebrated an Islamist intellectual, Khaled Abou El Fadl as a “longtime champion of human rights” and for his “unflinching scholarship.”
  • Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press, who naively accepted that a supposed anti-terror petition supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, “Not in the Name of Islam” is what it purports to be.

But – no surprise - my nominee for worst religion reporter goes to someone I have been watching since 2004:

Comment: (1) Is this incompetence a result of the mainstream media being so liberal that it cannot understand religion in general and radical Islam in particular? Probably. (2) As the MSM loudly laments its own demise, we conservatives see this as a mixed development, one that offers a chance for real improvement – and nowhere more than in the realm of reporting on religion. (March 29, 2009)

Related Topics: Media, Radical Islam

Non-Muslims Who Help Islamist Terrorists

by Daniel Pipes
March 28, 2009

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/03/non-muslims-who-help-islamist-terrorists.html

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No, the title is not a typo. While all Islamists are Muslims, not all those who help Islamist terrorists need be Muslim. A number of such cases have come to light over the years, in which non-Muslims aid and abet violence. Cases that come to mind include individuals of Christian, Jewish, and Hindu background:

  • Yehuda Abraham: A New York jeweler of Jewish origins who pleaded guilty in 2004 to operating an illegal money-transferring business to provide terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles.
  • Lynne Stewart: An extreme leftist lawyer of Christian background who was found guilty in 2005, of, among other things, “providing material support” to terrorists, specifically the blind Egyptian sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman.
  • Tomer Grinberg: An Israeli of Jewish background who pleaded guilty in a U.S. court 2005 of exporting sensitive military equipment to Hizbullah.
  •  

    Tali Fahima.

    Hemant Lakhani: An Indian of Hindu origins and resident of London who was found guilty in 2005 of trying to sell 200 shoulder-fired missiles to an East African terror cell.

  • Tali Fahima: An Israeli of Jewish origins who pleaded guilty in 2005 to lesser charges; the real accusations was that she helped Zakaria Zubeidi, a Palestinian terrorist leader, by translating Hebrew for him, serving as a “human shield” for him, and other functions.
  • Michael Curtis Reynolds: A leftist from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania of Christian origins convicted in 2007 of attempting to provide material support to Al-Qaeda and related charges.

Comments: (1) It’s generally the far left that sympathizes with radical Islam to the point of joining in its violent actions. (2) Three of the six examples above involve individuals of Jewish origins. (March 28, 2009)

Related Topics: Conservatives & Liberals, Radical Islam, Terrorism

Bushfire Jihad in Australia?

by Daniel Pipes
March 26, 2009

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/03/bushfire-jihad-in-australia.html

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As fires swept through a hot and dry Victoria State, Australia in February 2009, some observers (including myself) wondered if this might not be an Islamist attack on the country. But one stayed quiet, not having proof.

Now, Mervyn F. Bendle, a senior lecturer in History and Communications at James Cook University, Queensland, has come out and made the argument in a 6,000-word article, “Australia’s nightmare: bushfire jihad and pyroterrorism,” in the National Observer. Bendle marshals an impressive body of evidence. But first, a review of what happened: The fires

began in the mountainous forest areas north-east of Melbourne, and in Gippsland, Bendigo and other parts of the state, on Saturday, 7 February 2009, and continued for several weeks. The fires broke out on a day of extraordinarily high temperatures (up to 47˚C) and gale-force winds (exceeding 100km/h), after an extended heat wave and a protracted drought. In a ghastly conflagration, they caused the largest ever bushfire death toll in Australian history, leaving at least 210 people dead, some 500 injured, and over 30 missing. Some towns were virtually wiped out, including Kinglake, Marysville, St Andrews, Steels Creek, Flowerdale, Strathewen, and Narbethong. The fires destroyed more than 2,000 homes and 1,500 other buildings or structures, and damaged thousands more, leaving an estimated 7,500 people homeless. An area of approximately 4,500km² (450,000ha) was burned out and millions of animals were destroyed. At one point, fires came close to the main electricity transmission lines supplying Melbourne from the Latrobe Valley, and also threatened the Hazelwood Power Station. Insurance payouts could reach several billion dollars.

 

A fire blazes on February 9, 2009, in Healesville, Australia.

Then to the evidence (mostly Bendle’s, some added by me):

  • Police believe that the Victoria fires were the result of human action, as are over 90 percent of Australia’s fires.
  • Australian authorities have long worried about this form of jihad; for example, in 2003, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Daryl Williams stated that “Arson attacks are just one of a wide range of scenarios which have been considered as part of our investigations into al-Qaida’s ability to conduct attacks in Australia.”
  • An article by Josh Gordon, “Islam group urges forest fire jihad,” appeared in Melbourne’s Age newspaper on September 7, 2008 and described how “a group of Islamic extremists [is] urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror” against Australia.
  • Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations not only celebrated the fire but held it up as a model for future action.
  • A number of non-Muslim groups have resorted to pyroterrorism, such as the Earth Liberation Front in the United States. “Globally, between 1968 and 2005, some 56 terrorist groups employed arson as their principal form of attack.”
  • This form of terrorism has increased greatly in recent years. Between 2003 and 2004, for example, the number of fatalities from fires jumped from 7 to 254.
  • Islamists have long engaged in pyroterrorism in Israel, starting in 1988. By 2002, the chief ranger od the Galilee region, Gilad Mastai, estimated that the vast majority of deliberate fires were started by Arabs with political motives.

Despite this evidence, Bendle notes, the Victoria Police hyperbolically dismissed the possibility of an Islamist attack even as the blaze was in full force and well before it had any knowledge of the fires’ cause. He worries that this willful blindness renders Australia (and, by extension, the entire West) vulnerable to this simple but devastating form of attack. (March 26, 2009)

Related Topics: Muslims in the West, Terrorism

Cryonics in Daily Mail

March 29th, 2009 by Erik

Een artikel over cryonics in The Daily Mail, met een foto van mijn Mancunian makker David, op dit moment “Group Organiser” van Cryonics UK,  en zijn vriendin Ellen, die intussen zelf ook een CI armbandje draagt. Merk op dat, hoewel cryonics doorgaans als onbetaalbaar duur beschreven wordt in de populaire media, Ellen, op dit moment 20 jaar oud en werkend in de zorgsector, er geen moeite mee heeft. Al moet ik zeggen dat, van alle cryonisten die ik ken, ik, als Belg, de duurste verzekering heb.

Naar wat ik gehoord heb is Simon Cowell in feite NIET van plan zich te laten invriezen, dat was slechts een kleine mediastunt à la Paris Hilton.

Het artikel bevat een suggestie die ik even de kop wil indrukken. Er staat dat de echtgenoten na hun dood liever verzekeringsgeld laten uitkeren aan een cryonics provider dan hun achterblijvende partner. De realiteit is, en dat zou evident moeten zijn (maar het is natuurlijk de Daily Mail, en we spreken hier over journalisten), dat wie de kosten betaalt middels een levensverzekering, doorgaans een TWEEDE levensverzekering neemt met de achterblijvende partner als begunstigde.

Het originele artikel heeft meer foto’s van koppels, maar ik neem enkel die van David & Ellen over. Bron.

Please freeze me! How scores of middle-class British couples are hoping to buy immortality for just £10 a week

t sounds like the loopiest science fiction, but - like Simon Cowell - scores of middle-class couples are paying £10 a week for their bodies to be frozen when they die. So can you really buy immortality for the price of a pizza?

When Adele Cosgrove Bray decided to share her hopes for the future with her husband, it was not quite the reaction she was looking for. ‘I’d never seen anyone laugh so much,’ she reflects ruefully. ‘It took me a good 15 minutes to convince him I was serious.’

In fairness to her husband, Richard, these weren’t your bog-standard dreams of a move to the country or a home in the sun. Adele’s plans are far more long-term than that. Permanent, if you like.

As she puts it: ‘I told Richard that I wanted to be frozen when I died, with a view to eventually being brought back to life to experience the future.’

Little wonder he was taken aback. But then he’s far from the only spouse having to confront such bizarre plans. Once the premise of creaky science-fiction plots, in recent years the cryonics movement, in which people have their bodies frozen in the hope they can be resurrected when science catches up, has gathered pace.

The Americans, unsurprisingly, have been doing it for years, setting up the first ’storage facility’ for frozen corpses in the Seventies. Over here, the notion has taken a bit longer to catch on, but while no British firm offers the technology to store bodies, a growing number of Britons have made arrangements to be flown to the U.S. when they die to await the next leg of their eternal journey.

Among them is music mogul Simon Cowell, who last month announced his wish to be frozen, perhaps with a view to returning and conducting X-Factor auditions into eternity.

Still, with a multi-million-pound fortune at his disposal he can easily afford it. But people less well-off can take out life insurance which pays out to the Cryonics Institute - an organisation which stores bodies - rather than to a loved one. It means putting a down payment on the afterlife does not have to come at a premium. Adele’s policy, for example, costs just £10 a month - ‘cheaper than a pizza’, as she brightly puts it.

Research for her latest novel led to her discovering cryonics last year, as she surfed the web for inspiration.

‘As I read into it I immediately knew that it was for me - the eternal quest for immortality and the possibility of being brought back to life to experience the future was just too much to resist,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I’d even get a chance to witness some of the things I wrote about in my stories? I decided I wanted to do it and told Richard my plans over dinner that night.’

As we have seen, her 41-year-old artist husband of 12 years wasn’t quite so thrilled by the notion - but undeterred, Adele ploughed on in her quest, taking up her life insurance policy and starting her ’suspension contract’ paperwork with the Cryonics Institute.

When she dies her body will be transferred to her local undertaker in the Wirral, with strict instructions as to what needs to be done.

‘They don’t need to freeze you, just keep your body cool,’ she says as though she were reading from a Delia Smith cookery book. ‘Richard finds the whole idea laughable, although he is supporting me, but I honestly believe that one day science will reach the stage where I can be unfrozen,’ she maintains.

‘Look at cloning. Everyone said that that would never be possible and yet scientists achieved it. There is no way to be certain but I’m fully open to the idea that science will eventually work out a way to bring those of us that have been frozen back to life - be it in 50 years or 500 - and even if they don’t, I will never know anyway, so in my eyes I really have nothing to lose.’

At least Karen Marshall knows her fiancè is in her corner on the issue. Mark Walker, 47, is a cryonics old-hand, having signed up with the Cryonics Institute in Michigan nine years ago.

Today, he is one of the founders of Cryonics UK, a British support group for those interested in the process, which also offers facilities to be temporarily ’suspended’ over here pending transfer across the Atlantic.

He has certainly persuaded his 38-year-old fiancée, who is in the final stages of sorting out her own cryonics contract. She probably didn’t stand a chance, given they even spent their first date discussing it.

‘Mark and I had worked together for a computer company in Leicester for a few months before we started seeing each other romantically. During our first date we chatted about everything from work to the weather,’ she recalls.

‘Then talk turned to hobbies, and as I wittered on about my love of football and motorsports I noticed Mark was starting to look a little bit edgy. I must admit I started to get nervous and was imagining all sorts. I honestly thought he was about to tell me he liked dressing in women’s clothing. Instead, he told me about his interest in cryonics.’

Some might have preferred cross-dressing to a desire to be suspended in liquid nitrogen, but Karen wasn’t put off.

‘It actually wasn’t half as scary as the other possibilities I had been imagining,’ she says. ‘And after that, I didn’t really think about it again - we continued dating and then, about six months into our relationship, Mark asked if I wanted to go along to one of the quarterly Cryonics UK meetings in Brighton.

‘I agreed, although I had no idea what to expect and was fully prepared to be a bit bored for the day.’

Instead, she found a number of ‘normal’ like-minded people - and the more she discussed things with them the more she was won over.

‘I’ve always been scared of dying - it’s not a pleasant concept. But I realised that cryonics offers a real chance to live on in the future, and let’s face it, the possibilities of being burned or buried underground with worms are not attractive alternatives.

‘The way I see it, science is moving at such a rate that the seemingly unachievable is being achieved every day.’

Unlike Adele and Richard, who have no children, Karen and Mark have got another factor to bring into the equation - two, to be precise. Their sons, Harrison, aged three, and one-year-old Lorcan. They are too young to understand their parents’ unorthodox plans, but the time will come when they must be told.

‘We know families that have signed up their children already, but Mark and I have decided to wait until they are old enough to make up their own minds,’ Karen says.

‘We’d probably broach the subject when they’re about 12, so that they are aware of the possibility, but we would never pressure them - they would be free to make up their own minds.

‘I would want them to know that it is what we want, and ensure that they understand the actions that would need to be taken if Mark or I died. I’ve heard through support groups about children who ignored their parents’ wishes over cryonics, and I wouldn’t want that to happen to us.’

What Karen and Mark want is for their ’suspension’ state to be activated as quickly as possible.

‘When people ask me what I would need to do if Mark drops dead, I usually say that we have to grab all the frozen peas out the freezer and cover his head to start the process. It’s always a giggle when they don’t know if I’m being serious,’ she says.

‘Many of our friends think we’re crazy, and I know Mark’s parents think that they let him watch too much Star Trek as a kid,’ Karen admits. ‘I’ve told my parents, too, but I’m not sure if they grasp the concept. But it’s the same as anything else - you explain your wishes to your nearest and dearest and even if they don’t agree, they respect your decision and honour your plans.’

For twenty-somethings Ellen Clark and David Styles, however, you’d imagine thoughts of death are a long way off. Far from it.

David, 24, has been a fully paid-up member of the cryonics gang since 2006, and his 20-year-old fiancèe is waiting for her own ’suspension contract’ to be finalised.

FML-4-DAVID STYLES-KHT

The couple, both care workers who share a home in Macclesfield, Cheshire, met on a school trip to Rome before getting together when Ellen was 17. By then, David had already been contemplating immortality, having extensively researched the concept of cryogenics. He kept his plans to himself and Ellen discovered them during a night snuggled up on the sofa about 18 months ago.

‘I noticed for the first time that he was wearing a silver bracelet,’ she recalls. ‘When I asked about it, he told me that it told people what to do when he died. It was then that he explained about cryonics and his wish to be frozen when he passed away.’

Ellen admits her first reaction was to laugh. But it quickly became clear David was not joking.

‘After the initial surprise, I had no doubt in my mind that he was serious. Most people would have been shocked, but David had always been quirky. It was what attracted me to him in the first place.

‘The next day, he handed me a computer disk with all the information about the process and I was really taken aback at what I saw. Being frozen wasn’t just a myth any more, it was really possible and with a specialist life insurance policy it wasn’t beyond my reach financially.’

Ellen was immediately taken by the idea. ‘I thought “why not?” Some people may think that it’s a bit morbid, but to me the alternatives when you die are a lot scarier.

‘I know it’s not a certainty that I will be brought back to life, but to me it’s just the natural progression of science; it is certainly not out of the realms of possibility.

‘Plus, I was completely in love with David, and we were planning our wedding. What could be a better way to say “I do”?’

In fact, David and Ellen have already decided to change their wedding vows at their nuptials in two years’ time to reflect their long-term plans. Instead of ’till death do us part’, they are having ‘as long as life and love endure’.

‘Of course, some people don’t take it seriously,’ she says. ‘My family, like many people whom I have spoken to since, have been a bit sceptical, but they understand that it’s my wish.

‘Most people you ask love the idea of immortality, but many don’t realise that it could actually be achievable. I love knowing that I really could be with David for ever.

‘We’ve both always had a passion for travel and exploration and the lure of being able to explore more of the world with David in another life was too much to resist.’

Back in the Wirral, Adele remains equally excited, for different reasons.

‘I’m really curious about seeing what the future may hold. And although technology will no doubt be radically different, I’m not scared in any way - a human will always be there to control the on-off switch,’ she says. ‘I imagine that I’ll be of as much interest to the new world as it will be to me. After all, I’ll be a living, breathing, walking and talking piece of history.’

Here in the present, Adele’s husband has yet to be tempted by the concept. As he says: ‘Who would want to see this body again?’

Richard seems unlikely to relent either and, in a more prosaic approach to death, has decided to donate his body to medical science.

‘Adele and I have always had radically different views on what to do when we die. To me, once you’re dead you’re dead,’ he says.

‘And I do sometimes worry about Adele’s choice. I think that if they ever do work out a way to bring them back, they will be like a zoo animal, too much of a curiosity to live a normal life. But I love her more than anything and if this is what she wants then I’ll support her all the way.’

Many questions, too, remain unanswered. Even if the science existed to ‘unfreeze’ patients and bring them back to life, quite what happens next remains a puzzle. Will their old physical ailments have been cured? Will they be frozen at the same age for ever?

And how would they cope without their family and friends - unless, that is, they have been frozen en masse?

‘That does concern me,’ Adele admits. ‘I worry about not remembering much of my previous life or not having Richard or my family around me. The impact is something I definitely want to minimise, so I have been keeping journals and photographs to be stored with me in my cryo-chamber.

‘I’m sure there will be the inevitable culture shock, but to me there is no negative side big enough to outweigh the positive - the eternal quest for immortality.’

Not to mention turning on the television 200 years from now to find Simon Cowell, back presiding over those X-Factor auditions.

Met Valentina in bed

March 28th, 2009 by Erik

Een bed geïnspireerd door de Valentina strips van Guido Crepax, een van mijn favoriete striptekenaars:

crepaxbed

Life Extension Europe

March 25th, 2009 by Erik

Het heeft zijn tijd geduurd, maar eindelijk heeft de Life Extension Foundation ook een Europese afdeling. Nuja, op hun website dan toch op zijn minst.

Ooit bestelde ik bij hen mijn niet-zo-coole-maar-wel-superieure zonnebril, maar door hun manier van verzenden kwam het me goedkoper uit om de bril bij een Amerikaanse vriendin te laten leveren, en dan gewoon op te pikken wanneer ik in de buurt was, dan hem hier aan de deur te laten leveren. De firma waarmee ze toen samenwerkten voor verzending naar Europa  verstuurde namelijk alles in bulk, en verdeelde de invoerrechten over de bestellingen, waardoor ik zou meebetaald hebben aan de hogere invoertarieven voor voedingssupplementen en vitamines.

Ik was wellicht niet de enige die daarover klaagde, en misschien mede daarom dat de verzendingskosten naar Europa omlaag gegaan zijn. Op de nieuwe LEF Europe webshop zou dat zichtbaar moeten zijn, in meerdere talen zelfs. Vandaag kreeg ik de aankondiging van de nieuwe site in mijn mailbox, maar de site zelf verschijnt echter vooralsnog niet…

De Life Extension Foundation is een bedrijf dat duidelijk kaas gegeten heeft van sales en marketing, maar tegelijk is het ook zo dat de producten hoge kwaliteit hebben, en een deel van hun winst altijd naar nieuw onderzoek gaat. De CEO, die regelmatig in documentaires over levensverlenging verschijnt, weigert te sterven (en heeft dus ook een cryonics contract), en dat vind ik een goede ingesteldheid. Ik zou geen supplementen kopen van bedrijven wiens bazen en personeel minder toegewijd zijn.

Zowiezo ben ik niet iemand die in het wilde weg supplementen zou slikken zonder grondige studie van de mogelijke effecten, het nut, de kosten en de baten. Mijn eerstvolgende bestelling bij het LEF zal dan ook het boek “Disease Prevention and Treatment” zijn. Ik las reeds enkele boeken over gezonde voeding en de zin van het toevoegen van de juiste supplementen (sleutelwoord is hier natuurlijk “de juiste”) aan de maaltijden, en heb er nog enkele op mijn “te kopen” lijstje staan vooraleer ik me in dat gebied zou begeven.

Echter, ik juich het uitbreiden van de activiteiten van de LEF naar Europa alleen maar toe. Ze hadden het al eerder moeten doen.

De aankondiging:

Dear Life Extension customer,

We are very happy to announce the release of  Life Extension Foundation’s new European
online shop www.lefeurope.com

This new online shop has been developed in a close cooperation with Life Extension Foundation USA over an extended period. The shop is based upon detailed research and feedback from many of our European Life Extension members gathered through the years.

The new European online shop will give you, as a valuable Life Extension customer, many advantages. Here are a few of these advantages:

  • You will now be able to process your order, all the way from the product description through the checkout process and credit card payment in either English, German or French.
  • You will find all prices in € Euros. All prices include European import tax/duties.
  • You will see our new lowered freight charges directly in your shopping basket.
  • By implementing new logistic handling procedures we have even managed to shorten the delivery time by 3-4 days.

As always, we will still be here to serve you personally if you need any help or further introduction to the new online shop at www.lefeurope.com

Feel free to call us at +45 7020 6900 or e-mail to:  info@lefeurope.com

Chinese condooms

March 25th, 2009 by Erik

Wetende wat voor rommel uit China komt, is het maar te hopen dat deze condooms niet geïmporteerd zullen worden voor verkoop in de VS zelf, en zeker niet Europa…

Waarom moet die term “aids preventing condoms” er trouwens steeds staan? Zijn er ook andere dan? En is het wel zo zeker dat het HIV virus AIDS veroorzaakt?

Bron.

U.S. move to cheaper Chinese condoms threatens American jobs

Call it a condom conundrum.

At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products?

In this case, Chinese condoms.

That’s the dilemma for the folks at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion U.S.-made AIDS-preventing condoms in poor countries around the world.

But not anymore.

In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China.

The switch comes despite implied assurances over the years that the agency would continue to buy American whenever possible.

“Of course, we considered how many U.S. jobs would be affected by this move,” said a USAID official who spoke on the condition that he would not be named. But he said the reasons for the change included lower prices (2 cents versus more than 5 cents for U.S.-made condoms) and the fact that Congress dropped “buy American language” in a recent appropriations bill.

Besides, he said, the sole U.S. supplier — an Alabama company called Alatech — had previous delivery problems under the program.

It’s clear that Alatech’s problems over the years, which apparently have been resolved, may have driven U.S. officials to seek much less expensive foreign-made condoms in the first place.

But that’s cold comfort to Fannie Thomas, who has been making AIDS-preventing condoms in southeastern Alabama for nearly 40 years in the small town of Eufaula.

“We pay taxes down here, too, and with all this stimulus money going to save jobs, it seems to me like they (the U.S. government) should share this contract so they can save jobs here in America,” Thomas said.

Thomas and others at the Alatech plant said there aren’t many alternatives for them if it closes down, which is a likely result of the contracting switch.

In fact, the government is close to accepting condoms from two offshore companies: Unidus Corp., which makes condoms in South Korea, and Qingdao Double Butterfly Group, which makes them in China.

Condoms from those companies will likely carry the USAID logo — two hands shaking over red and white bunting.

Formal protest

Alatech formally protested the federal contract going to its foreign competitors. But on March 9, the Government Accountability Office rejected the complaint, noting that it lacked jurisdiction in the case.

Instead of dealing directly with condom makers, as it had done in the past, the government hired a Massachusetts company to act as a middleman. That in turn protected the government from a successful bid protest, because USAID was no longer the “prime contractor.”

Larry Povlacs, Alatech’s president, says he thinks that was a deliberate move by USAID to follow through with what he says it wanted to do all along — cut Alatech out of the bidding. USAID officials deny that, saying the middleman was hired for other reasons.

The agency also said 12 countries had declined free Alatech condoms under the program. But Povlacs said the reason for that was design, which was dictated by the government, not quality. Povlacs said Alatech never was told directly that some countries wanted a thinner condom, more like those sold commercially.

Despite the fact that thinner condoms reportedly are more prone to breakage, Alatech has offered to convert to them, Povlacs said. But he said that USAID “has ignored this fact and still claims that we have field problems.”

In fact, Povlacs said, Alatech spent millions upgrading its manufacturing process and improving its ability to deliver under the contracts, based in part on implied assurances from the agency that it would continue to seek American manufacturers.

Now the company is turning to other methods, including pleading its case in Washington, and possibly a lawsuit that would attempt to enforce buy-American provisions and past promises.

‘Buy American’

In the Great Depression, Congress passed the Buy American Act, meant to give domestic suppliers an advantage over foreign companies in winning government contracts.

But the most recent congressional appropriations bill, passed two weeks ago, did not contain a buy-American provision for condoms, as it had in the past. One lobbyist suggested that failure was more an oversight than anything else.

Alatech officials and others, however, maintain there is more than just American jobs at stake. There is a health and quality issue, too.

The problems with Chinese products — including pet food, toys, toothpaste, drywall and more — have increased to the point where many consumers are now wary of the ubiquitous “made in China” label.

So why should condoms be any different? USAID officials maintain that tests have shown that Chinese condoms hold up well against those made in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Some condom experts disagree.

Bill Howe, president of PolyTech Synergies in Ohio, a consultant to the condom industry, said China is “learning” to produce better condoms, but their products are still “notoriously suspect.”

Howe, who has consulted for Alatech, acknowledges that the company got a “sweet deal” for years as the only supplier to the U.S. government for international condom distribution. Nonetheless, “they have a high level of integrity, and you don’t get that in China,” he said.

Even Chinese condom makers admit that some of their customers did not care for their products. Chinese buyers have complained their country’s condoms were “too thick, low quality and don’t feel comfortable.”

Problems persisted for some Chinese condom makers as late as 2007. Free Chinese-made condoms passed out by AIDS groups in Washington, D.C., were the subject of numerous complaints about unreadable expiration dates. Sometimes, just opening the packages damaged the condoms, some groups alleged.

Attempts to reach Chinese condom manufacturers for comment were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Alatech officials say their fight for condom supremacy is far from over. Workers aren’t giving up, either.

“I’ve made condoms here for 20 years,” said Cindy Robinson, a $9.50-an-hour employee at Alatech. “I understand why they bid the contract overseas, but they should buy American first, and I feel they are going back on their word.”

Angst voor “Designer Babies”

March 25th, 2009 by Erik

Hoe klinkt dit perspectief: Indien we de mogelijkheid hebben om kinderen vrij van bepaalde dodelijke ziektes geboren te laten worden, hebben we dan niet de morele plicht dat te doen?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127006.600-fears-over-designer-b
abies-leave-children-suffering.html?full=true&print=true

Fears over ‘designer’ babies leave children suffering

When a California fertility clinic withdrew its offer of ‘designer’
babies it revealed a deeper societal problem

MADELINE Kara Neumann, age 11, died of diabetes because her parents
prayed rather than taking her to doctors. Caleb Moorhead, age 6 months,
died after his deeply religious vegan parents refused a simple vitamin
injection to cure his malnutrition. The list of children killed by their
parents’ superstition or wilful ignorance is a long one.

Most people are rightly appalled by such cases. How can parents stand by
and let their children die instead of doing all in their power to get
the best medical care available?

Yet this is precisely what society is doing. We now have the ability to
ensure that children are born free of any one of hundreds of serious
genetic disorders, from cystic fibrosis to early-onset cancers. But
children continue to be born with these diseases.

All would-be parents should be offered screening to alert them to any
genetic disorders they risk passing on to their children. Those at risk
should then be offered IVF with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
(IVF-PGD) to ensure any children are healthy.

Why isn’t it happening? Because most people still regard attempts to
influence which genes our children inherit as taboo. When a fertility
clinic in Los Angeles recently offered would-be parents the chance to
choose their child’s eye colour, for instance, it provoked a storm of
criticism that forced the clinic to reconsider

Such fears are misplaced: IVF-PGD is little use for creating designer
babies. You cannot select for traits the parents don’t have, and the
scope for choosing specific traits is very limited. What IVF-PGD is good
for is ensuring children do not end up with disastrous genetic
disorders.

Nearly 150 years after Darwin unveiled his theory of evolution, we have
yet to grasp one of its most unsettling implications: having diseased
children is as natural as having healthy ones. Every new life is a
gamble, an experiment with novel gene combinations that could be a
brilliant success or a tragic failure.

Thanks to technology, we are no longer entirely at the mercy of this
callous process. Rather than regarding this ability with suspicion, we
should be celebrating it and encouraging its use. Instead, we continue
to allow children be born with terrible diseases because of our
collective ignorance and superstition. That makes us little better than
the parents of Madeline and Caleb.

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