Science Writing and Existence

Monday, October 19, 2009

Science, Writing and Existence

I don't think I wrote this.

Before the break, I promised I would say something about the difference between the logical and the existential conceptions of science. Heidegger makes this distinction in Being and Time, where he distinguishes between approaching science as "an interconnection of true propositions" and a "mode of Being-in-the-world" that discovers truths (H. 357). Heidegger is interested in the ontological conditions of "the theoretical attitude".

He emphasizes, however, that it is not merely the opposite of a "practical" attitude. Science ("theoretical exploration") is not a matter of "hold[ing] back from any kind of manipulation". On the contrary, Heidegger says, science requires a great deal of practical activity: setting up experiments in physics, preparing slides for observation through the microscope, digging up artifacts for archaeological research. Here, already in 1927, Heidegger is heralding the emergence of what we today call "science studies", i.e., the interdisciplinary study of science as variety of social and material practices. Playing on one sense of the German word "Betrieb", I have previously called this conception "science as hustle and bustle" (here and here).

Writing plays an important role in this regard. "Even the 'most abstract' way of working out problems and establishing what has been obtained, one manipulates equipment for writing, for example" (H. 358, my emphasis). In fact, Heidegger has earlier defined human existence by rereading Aristotle's famous characterization of human beings as "rational animals" as "that living thing whose Being is essentially determined by the potentiality for discourse" (H. 25). In this sense, then, Foucault's early work on "discursive formations" can be considered an "existential" analysis of science. It is also, of course, an important part of the transition from the philosophy of science in the traditional sense to contemporary "science studies". While writing is not the only practical aspect of modern research, it may be the most straightforwardly "existential", as the slogan "publish or perish" reminds us.

Ashraf City via the Deseret News

U.S. decision on dissidents will affect relationship with Iran

9/12/2009 3:25:58 PM

By John Hughes
Deseret News , Sept. 11, 2009

syndicated by Christian Science Monitor

reprinted by The People's Mohajhedeen

at english.mojahadeen.org

The Obama administration is facing a difficult foreign policy and humanitarian challenge that could have serious implications for its relationship with Iran. It concerns 36 Iranian dissidents, promised protection by the United States, held captive in Iraq by Iraqi soldiers. Without American intercession, they may be returned to Iran, where they face dire retribution from a regime that has shown how brutal it can be to those who defy it.

The decision the United States must take is whether to stand aloof from the disposition of the 36 dissidents, risking criticism on humanitarian grounds, or to intervene, irritating the sovereign government of Iraq and infuriating Iran.

The 36 dissidents are part of a force of more than 3,400 members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran who once mounted military operations against the Tehran regime from sanctuary in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military surrounded the PMOI’s Camp Ashraf, some 60 miles north of Baghdad. The PMOI surrendered their weapons and the Americans pledged protection of the camp and its inhabitants.

The Mujahedeen have been credited with supplying U.S. authorities accurate information about clandestine Iranian nuclear facilities and other intelligence.

With the signing of a Status of Forces Agreement and the beginning withdrawal this year of American forces to their bases, the United States ceded sovereignty over Camp Ashraf to the Iraqis. The United States sought, and received, promises from the Iraqi government that Camp Ashraf’s population would be protected after the handover.

But Iran has been pressuring sympathetic Iraqi politicians to close the camp and expel the PMOI members. On July 28, Iraqi forces, saying they were establishing a police presence in the camp, launched an attack, killing 11 dissidents, wounding 450 and taking 36 hostages. U.S. forces nearby remained aloof.

An Iraqi judge ruled that the 36 dissidents, who went on a hunger strike in captivity, should be released. But Iraqi Interior Ministry officials, using new tactics, have argued that the dissidents entered the country illegally and should be expelled - obviously to Iran. If this tactic is successful, it could be applied to the 3,400 or so PMOI members remaining in Camp Ashraf.

One bizarre complication is that the PMOI is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization, mainly on grounds of guerrilla action it took earlier against the present Iranian regime. The U.S. army was directed in 2003 to protect an organization banned by the State Department as terrorist, but which has provided helpful information to the United States.

Iranian exiles in the United States and the free world have been demonstrating for some time in support of the dissidents. Various entities have raised their concerns. In reply to a petition on behalf of a majority of British Members of Parliament and 200 members of the House of Lords, a senior State Department official, ’responding on the president’s behalf,’ declared the United States is doing its utmost to ensure that residents of Ashraf ’will not be transferred to any country where there are substantial grounds to believe they would be subject to persecution … or to torture.’

One solution to the Iranian dissidents’ problem would be for the United States to give them asylum as political refugees. However, the United States can hardly accept them as such while it continues to brand them members of a terrorist organization. Nor would that sit well with the Tehran regime, with which the United States seeks engagement on Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weaponry. In view of the political implications, an asylum decision would need to take place at the highest official level, at least the secretary of state, if not the president.

The PMOI has raised the prospect of the United Nations dispatching a monitoring force to Camp Ashraf. That is even less likely while such Iranian friends as Russia and China sit on the U.N. Security Council that would have to authorize it.

Clearly, the Ashraf dissidents should not be sent back to Iran against their will. That requires that the United States exerts enough pressure on the Iraqi government to keep its word.

John Hughes teaches journalism at Brigham Young University. He is a former editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret News and a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, which syndicates this column.

Special news available to servicemen and women in Churches harassed by the Christian Right who may be more serious about International Law and are less likely to commit any sort of rape or proselytize where the Government does not want it. They had an office on most US bases to deal with the legal problems of religiously persecuted servicemen and women last checked.

Ashraf City does need a return to the Geneva Convention and to good faith promised in individual contracts signed by the US with each Ashraf resident when they were disarmed. The good faith promised and not respected has caused us immense distrust in Europe and the world.. If anyone reading this can think of an acceptable way of assisting, please do.

Friday Prayers

Resistance Leader Massoud Rajavi Addresses People of Iran

4/14/2008 11:34:46 AM

Massoud Rajavi

Excerpts of [Reprinted] message

----------------------------------------------------

April 3, 2008

In a message broadcast by Sima ye Azadi, Iran National Television (INTV), Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the Iranian Resistance, congratulated the people of Iran on the advent of spring and the Persian New Year.

He said: Last year, in the formidable confrontation between the Iranian people and Resistance on the one hand and the mullahs’ regime on the other, three issues were proved to be true more clearly than ever:

First - The social conditions are ripe and the people of Iran are ready for a democratic change;
Second - The religious tyrannical (Velayat-e Faqih) regime is faltering apart as a result of its decision to get rid of all rivals inside its power structure and solidify its authority;
Third - The clerical regime is hysterically seeking to destroy the Iranian Resistance as its only challenging adversary.

Ripe Social Conditions

In the first of seven parts of his message, Mr. Rajavi noted the rising wave of spontaneous or guided public protests and the most extensive boycott of the recent election sham and said: The public hangings and amputations, throwing off heights (used as a form of execution), the serial security plans for social crackdown, the systematic suppression of women and youths, etc. are this regime’s response to a massive social insurgence.

For this reason, on September 29, 2007, the Revolutionary Guards’ new commander, Jaafari declared, “Based on the views of the leader of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC’s strategy will change. Namely, the main mission of the IRGCpresently is to confront domestic threats. In case of a foreign military threat, theIRGC would assist the Army.”
He said the IRGC was capable of confronting any ’missile’ or ’intelligence’ force, and described the 33-day war in Lebanon as ’an example of strategic confrontation with the enemy.’

On November 7, he declared, “U.S. military strike against the Islamic Republic is possible, but domestic threats are more dangerous than any other threat to the country.”

Meanwhile, the budget allocated for security has been increased twenty folds. On August 16, 2007, Mohammad Sha’eri, a deputy minister in the Interior Ministry, acknowledged: “Last year, these credits amounted to 7,000 billion Rials ($800 million) whereas now they amount to 140,000 billion Rials ($16 billion).”
On August 13, 2007, the Minister of Welfare and Social Security stated that 9.2 million Iranians live under the poverty line and 2 million live under the absolute poverty line (i.e. with an income of less than $1 per day). The price of gasoline has increased more than ten folds, and the price of housing has raised seven folds in some parts of Tehran.
On December 21, 2007, Rafsanjani said ’inflation and high prices’ are ’a very serious issue’.

The Phase of Disintegration

In another part, Mr. Rajavi said: In the recent elections, it became more evident that the regime is faltering apart, going through a phase of disintegration and defections. This is characteristic of the final stage of overthrowing this anachronistic regime. The mullahs’ supreme leader imposed his absolute authority on all three branches and the power structure became homogenous in its entirety. The recent elections, therefore, should be considered a turning point in two respects: its nationwide boycott by the people as well as the political ’surgery’ carried out within the regime.
In this election, Khamenei completed the plan he had started in 2005 by appointing Ahmadinejad as his regime’s president. Such an internal power balance has been unprecedented even under Khomeini, himself. Today we face a regime that stands on a ’single leg’ and is totally disabled.

Of course, the main objective in this election was not to purge the so-called ’reformist’ factions; this was a task already accomplished in the March 2004 Majlis elections and the subsequent empowerment of Ahmadinejad (in the 2005 presidential elections). The objective, however, was to pave the way and provide all the necessary domestic and international prerequisites for acquiring the nuclear bomb. The aim was to contain and close up the gaps within the pro-Khamenei so-called ’fundamentalist’ front and get ready for the looming attacks, counterattacks and crises.

On January 6, two months prior to the elections, Khamenei warned: “Those people who tend to be submissive, showing weakness before the (super) powers and those who tend to be passive in the face of international commotions, should not be allowed to the parliament.”

Immediately afterwards, Ahmadinejad declared that the outcome of the elections would safeguard ’the right to enjoy full nuclear energy capacity’.
Citing eyewitness reports from 25,000 polling stations across the country, Mr. Rajavi said the election’s outcome indicated extraordinary rigging measures and fraud on the part of the regime and the most wide-scale boycott on the part of the Iranian people.
All those in charge of this election were agents of the Ministry of Intelligence or the Guards Corps. Nevertheless, official figures indicate that despite astronomical fraud the regime obtained only 5 to 12 percent of votes in Tehran and seven other major cities -- with populations of over 1 million people -- for the first rank of candidates allowed to the Majlis.

On February 7, 2008, the Guards Corps commander said: “Fundamentalism has been revived after 25-26 years and put at the helms of two elected powers (i.e. the parliament and the government)… If (the paramilitary) Bassij (force) wants to have any activity in the elections, which is feasible with the permission of the leadership, it should safeguard, complete and expand the movement it has created… We should endeavor to expand our revolution to the world… We should get prepared for a more difficult future when we will expand the revolution. All past efforts to destroy, halt or divert the revolution are over… Our revolution has now become universal.’

In a word, like Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, the parliament was turned into an assembly of Khamenei’s disciples, to remove all obstacles and enable the regime to forge ahead “without gear or brake” in its nuclear efforts, terrorism and suppression.
Mr. Rajavi applauded the European Union in declaring that “the people of Iran deserve a democratic and fair election” and that “the election was neither fair nor free’. He said: “Our dispute with the Velayat-e Faqih regime is solely over our people’s suffrage and sovereignty and their right to a democratic election where everyone can cast an equal, direct and secret vote under the auspices of international organizations. So, the terrorist designation of the PMOI is a cause for shame. Which are we to believe? The lack of legitimacy of the regime’s elections or the terrorist designation of the PMOI for defending free elections and the Iranian people’s right to sovereignty?”

The Alternative

The leader of the Iranian Resistance said in another part of his message: The mullahs’ regime slandered and smeared the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance at least 9,876 times over the past year in its radio and television, press, news agencies and affiliated websites. The actual figure is higher since not all of the regime’s media were monitored. The articles and books distributed by the mullahs’ embassies and agents in foreign languages have not been included in this figure, either.

To find a complete sense of this hysteric antagonism, one should also take into account other measures like purchase of programs from Arab and western TV channels (for anti-PMOI broadcasts), paying unprincipled reporters and giving them receptions in Tehran to write articles against the PMOI, sending agents to ICRC offices, organizing meetings in Arab and western countries to misinform people about the PMOI, filing serial complaints against the PMOI in France, Iraq and Germany, attempting to manipulate Iraq’s judiciary to examine the alleged slaughter of Shiites and Kurds, etc.
The motive behind such an extensive, wicked misinformation crusade is a boundless fear from a dedicated resistance movement that holds the monster’s life bottle; a movement that has not been defeated despite all the forces and resources assigned to eliminate it.
In November 2007, Mike Gibbs, chairman of the British Foreign Relations Committee in the House of Commons, said upon return from Iran: “My colleagues and I were shocked by the number of times Iranian officials frenetically wanted to talk about what they called terrorist PMOI organization.” He asked the British deputy Foreign Secretary on November 28, 2007: “Why PMOI is so important to the Iranian regime?”

Crushing Blows to the Nuclear Projects

The Iranian Resistance leader noted the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in another part of his message and underlined the impact of the clerical regime’s concealment and deception on this report. He said: The contradictions contained in this estimate were obvious in the first glance especially in a year when all events are overshadowed by the (U.S. presidential) elections. In the outset, we said: “Very few people believe that the Iranian regime has actually repented and abandoned its deception and concealment in acquiring nuclear weapon.”

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, called on the NCRI Investigations and Research Committee, the PMOISocial Section and other sources of the Iranian Resistance inside the country to prevent the ruling religious fascism from continuing its deception in its efforts to obtain the Atomic bomb.
Soon afterwards, the Iranian Resistance revealed the mullahs’ big concealment and inflicted a crushing blow to their nuclear plans.

On February 20, 2008, in Brussels, the Iranian Resistance divulged the mullahs’ ’Command and Control Center for Production of Atomic Bomb and Nuclear Warheads.’
Tehran’s prime objective was to prevent the UN Security Council’s adoption of yet another resolution. From December 4, 2007, when the NIE was made public, until March 3, 2008, when the UNSC resolution was passed, it took only three months to defeat the clerical regime’s biggest intelligence ploy and political maneuver. The regime deployed all its financial, economic, political, regional and international capacity to evade a new resolution. Accordingly, one should realize that the impact of UNSC Resolution 1803 goes far beyond the articles contained in it. It would have been most preferable for the regime if it could avoid it.

Strategic Confrontation in Iraq: Iranian Resistance vs. Tehran regime

In another part, Mr. Rajavi said: Iraq is the scene of a strategic confrontation between the Tehran regime and the Iranian Resistance. Without warmongering, crisis-making and export of terrorism and fundamentalism, the mullahs’ religious fascism has no place in Iran.

The Iranian regime has set up its frontline in Baghdad and openly claims that Lebanon and Palestine constitute the ’strategic depth’ of their rule. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Hezbollah of Lebanon are the regime’s arms established upon Khomeini’s order.

If the mullahs’ Velayat-e Faqih regime decides, one day, to abandon its export of fundamentalism and terrorism to other countries and limit itself to the borders of Iran, it would lose its dynamism and would collapse from within. It is for this reason that peace in the Middle East and democracy in Iraq will hang the noose around the mullahs’ neck. That is why on August 28, 2007, Ahmadinejad said the regime’s strategy in Iraq and the Middle East is to ’fill the huge power vacuum’ and claimed that the United States’ ’power curve’ in Iraq is approaching the ’zero line’.

The Iranian regime is seeking to oust the U.S. from the Middle East and this is why it is in so much haste to acquire the nuclear bomb. This is while everyone knows it entered Iraq with all its agents and proxies under the U.S. cloak.
The enormous and unpaid for benefits the mullahs gained in Iraq have caused them a misunderstanding. The daily Kayhan, the mouthpiece of the mullahs’ supreme leader, wrote on March 7, 2007: “Today, thousands of Iranian specialists help in the reconstruction of Iraq which in the least has provided a $100billion virgin market for Iran for 10 years. But what have Americans gained in Iraq? And in future, are they able to retrieve even 5 percent of what they have spent in Iraq over a period of 20 to 30 years? We have many cards to play in the nuclear negotiations and we can use them to undermine international agreements against Iran. As for our influence in the region, Iran has created a strategic situation which joins the lands of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria together. This is a major achievement and an enormous success.”
Naturally, however, the first positive impacts of the blacklisting of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the terrorist Qods Force surfaced in Iraq. Those who had to understand did figure that it is most unlikely that the U.S. leaves any ’power vacuum’ for the Iranian regime.

On the other hand, Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq was a dismal failure so much that the regime was forced to claim that the PMOI had paid $100 dollars to every one who demonstrated in the streets against Ahmadinejad. Iraq’s democratic forces evaluated their people’s spontaneous and thunderous revolt against this visit as the most important development of the past five years in Iraq as regards the Iranian regime.

Today, the strategic motto of evicting the clerical regime from Iraq has turned into a popular demand, acting in favor of the (nationalist and democratic) Iraqi alternative and against the (fundamentalist) alternative offered for Iraq by Iran’s ruling mullahs.
As for the PMOI’s presence in Iraq, the country’s Sunni and Shiite leaders have repeatedly attested to the legal and political status of the PMOI as it concerns the people of Iraq.

Today, one can say with full confidence that absolutely nobody wants to expel thePMOI from Iraq except the Iranian regime and its agents and proxies. All antagonism and enmity towards the PMOI in Iraq are provoked a regime that sees the PMOI as a bulwark stalling its belligerent efforts to dominate Iraq.

Ashraf

In conclusion, Mr. Rajavi said: Over the past year, Ashraf was the scene of the most intensive strategic confrontation between the Iranian Resistance and the religious fascism ruling Iran.

Throughout the year, the clerical regime resorted to every hysterical means to drive out the PMOI: intimidation, terror and explosions, food, fuel and medical blockade, water cut-offs and power shutdowns, manipulation of the judicial, legislative and executive powers in Iraq as well as the press, incessant psychological war, filthy misinformation campaigns, massacre of PMOI’s workers, bombing of PMOI’s friends, repeated appeals to the U.S., pressuring innocent families and relatives of Ashraf residents in Iran, and the list goes on.

Nonetheless, the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance remained steadfast and adhered to their vows to bring their people freedom and national sovereignty. They refused to succumb to the enemy’s hollow shows of force, ruthless conspiracies and shameless propaganda.

They relied on their fellow countrymen and supporters of the Resistance and built every thing anew, creating a new balance. The numerous developments of the past year promise further achievements in the decisive year we have ahead of us.
It is time to rise up. We are the ones to determine our future. Listen and you can hear the chains of religious tyranny torn asunder!
Iran will be free!

Mrs.Rajavi and dignitaries before the French Press Club

Paris, August 11, 2009,

Madame Marianne Rajavi spoke at the French Press Club

on the Crimes Against Humanity in Ashraf City.

also speaking (unfinished list) were:

The Head of the International Committee of Jurists, consisting of 8,500 European and American Jurists and Lawyers, also speaking were the Eve Bonèt Head, of the French Counter-Intelligence, Ann Mario Lizanne Aliceè Bomedan, Jurist and First Lady during the Algerian Presidency under Houari Bomedan, Member and former Speaker of the Belgium Senate, Professor David Mitres of the Canadian Jurists, Eric Dauvitt President of the Center of International Law at the Belgium Free University, Mario Stazi former President of the Paris Bar, the Head of the Lavalas Bar in France.

My Note, June 11, 2010

Ashraf City was built on the site of Camp Ashraf. There, members of the Iranian Resistance took refuge after losing all tolled as many as 120,000 Mujahadeen meaning in Farsi, young people lost their lives after joining the Iranian Resistance

by as simple an action as writing a Resistance slogan on a junior high school wall or forgetting to adjust their Chadors properly. We have seen the return of these times, and rue their return.

Since it is illegal to execute a virgin under the Koran, after torture, girls and women are hastily temporarily married to their torturers and raped. Marital rape is not recognized by the Quoran as it is recognized by the Torah and in Mormonism. Two of Mrs. Rajavi were executed in this way and the only way of surviving is, as survival of any other abduction or forced marriage anywhere else, forming a bond with one's captor is the only way out because of the extreme power of the abductor or, colluding abductress or abductresees. (I can discuss the FLDS Yearning for Zion raid and marital age and sexual abuse among ordinary young women in the SOuth WEst and MExico with anyone with a serious interest in the matter via You Tube, but will delete any anti-Mormon or anti-Muslim queries I receive and block the sender.)

In the case of the Taliban, and Al Queda, our propaganda against Islam is ubiquitous,

and unending war which continued long after 911 and after all military objectives, such as detonating the armaments we had sold to Afganistan when they were at war with the Russians during the latest Cold War period.

I am not commenting on the prudence or any justification of American Military objectives, currently or in the past.

After 911, which had a profound effect on Americans of every political stripe, the newly appointed and very green Bush took a general term for a common Farsi and Arab expression and in our propaganda and subsequent military actions we created probably fictional political or military forces with fictional names. Then we asked trick questions under the most heinous torture of abducted and interned citizens, some taken to foreign countries where they would be out of the glare of scrutiny by the American and International Communities for even more barbarous torture.

What did we ask? We asked if they were taliban, normally translated as students of the Quoran. Did they belong to Al Queda? I don't know what this means but I have heard it in common speech often enough to know that it is a term of common speech. What were they trying to prove? According to recent Press accounts, they were trying to prove that Al Queda existed at all by finding people to admit what? That they were members of young students of the Quoran. Obviously all devout Muslims are students of the Quoran for life. Gitmo torture had the same objective, as did Cheney's personal

interrogations of Gitmo detainees in his basement. Whether all that is implied by the removal of Cheney's House from Google Earth, I can't say. There is satire in the American Centrist Media just as propaganda drives the right/Republican Media.

At present most propaganda is DOD driven and written by hastily schooled private writers and journalist.

You used to have to have been referred by someone who knew something about contacting the CIA to know where to send one's resume, but now they advertise on Google, working by keywords, the same way they present you with recommended

videos on You Tube. Where does privacy give way to commercialism in a Depression?

At every turn and I am beset by friendly ads that seek to recruit me into the CIA.

What the 36 Ashraf abductees were presented with, in their own city jail, sounded by

what the People's Mujahadin of Iran [PMOI] were able to ascertain, similar. They were handed confessions to sign written in Arabic. Like many Muslims, most in

Ashraf read the Quoran translated into the vernacular. To defend themselves from misinterpretation of the Quoran, most do use Arabic words and an Arabic dictionary in their own tongue. This is a involved process and is not given to any method of interrogation, whether pain inducing or not, and the risk of a misinterpretation or mistranslation are extreme.

I'll try to have at least a long summary of Mrs. Rajavi's French Press club speech for those who do not want to get the French version with English subtitles from the PMOI website.

Maybe M-J can freeze the frames and read the English subtitles for me. My eye muscles are far too uncontrolled for me to read all of themselves myself. It has been three weeks since the press club speeches and Iranian hunger strikers all over the world are in their 42nd day of their uninterrupted fast. They will not stop until the specter of return to Iran is removed from their lives and those of Ashraf friends and family members. Force feeding of hunger strikers or those unable to feed themselves is contrary to International law though countries involved in the INternational BLack Market for organs impose thus to maintain the conditions of organs. Those damaged by starvation or hunger strike would be easily recognized by any but the most cursory examination by physicians.

It is estimated that one in ten transplants in America are obtained from the complex black market, particularly kidney transplants. This reduction in price may expand insurance coverage of transplants creating a monstrous feedback loop that will tear the moral fabric of international medical ethics to shreds.

The administrator of the clinic I must be rid of by a September 15th, 2009 deadline refused a urinalysis for infection despite my Diabetes and infection and removal of a kidney. The infection was massive and involved both the kidney abscess and a massive abscess that filled the small of my back when they began to drain it. She cheerily praised the reduction in the price of kidneys and said that because of it, despite my badly damaged immune system, that urinalysis wasn't cost effective.

This has taken my entire working day--I used to do this for a living, and in contrast to my pre-1979 infection, this would have taken me an hour and I would have fussed about how much I hated doing transcriptions because I just wasn't any good at it.

Curiously, I could have transcribed a speech of Governor Matheson of Utah almost as he spoke and produced a final copy in 15 minutes. I worked under a Grant from The San Francisco Youth Project and was administered by the Western branch of the American Friends Service Committee. I think it was because I was so entrained to the speech patterns of my Californian Mormon Community and to those of my Matheson Mother, whose father was a Cousin of the Governor's father.

When he announced his bid for the Governorship, he was asked if he taught anyone would vote for him. Quoth he, As I recall, "My I think my family will, and that's half the State."

No urinalysis anymore because kidneys are so cheap?

Is a life less valuable because it's not your own?

I told an Osteopath today that she would not work out. Her hallmark phrase was: "I'm just not going there." Having taken over an Infectious Disease Doctor's practice as an osteopath, she is wears out the phrase while I gawked. She doesn't read and doesn't plan to. M.E. she says, is what doctors diagnose when they don't know what to diagnose.  I
wouldn't want such a Doctor, and no such Doctor diagnosed me.

I talked to someone working with Infectious Disease patients in the same area my former non-doctor serves. Many of us have similar tales to tell. My friend thought there was something odd about her when he sat down in her examination room and she announced "You're depressed."  Actually he has Prostate Cancer, a second surgery left him weak from radiation and he's never fully regained his strength. He has always worked in clubs and has, in the last year, decided to teach our neighbor his arrangements--and his band is finally getting the band back together, a few days a week. He is rearing grandchildren, one only seven, at 70--paying back child support he was unable to give to his daughter when

his musical star was just beginning to peek over the horizon.

Since he's taking the ant-sex shots I wonder whether she thinks all male Cancer patients have primary depression. This fine practitioner does not even read charts.  My goals and life purpose have been stable through the last 28 years,

My grandmother on the Utah side liked to say "I can't is a sluggard too lazy to try."

I have been sometimes brutally criticized for my singleness of purpose and application

of will. At some time I went from walking on the level to climbing sand dunes. Often it is one step forward and then the slide backwards, never knowing how far the slide would/will be. Akhie, Wizard of the lonely Dunes, now eight, helps me.

Kindness creates some stability. This doctor seems to take her power over her patients for granted--that is the difference between a "wellness" practice and an infectious disease practice. She has no power over Myalgic Encephalitis.

"Strange news flies up and down, strange news is carried." My body is under the arbitrary influence of fate and malefaction. There is a blogger in the Puerto Rican community who knows quite a bit about Cornelius Rhodes. His intentions toward that people were frankly genocidal and he conducted Cancer experimentation on them where all but a few of the patients died.  He worked without the complications of conscience via his conviction of the inferiority of everyone to himself. A burden of genius without conscience.

So we come to the kidney discussion. This clinic does not give urinalysis, even in the presence of blood. I was in the hospital on IV antibiotics for two months. But for the grace of God I would have died. I don't believe that the Grace of God is any substitute for a competent physician. After I developed massive abscesses, one on my kidney that burst taking my kidney with it, the Infectious disease Doctor began to check my urine more often.

How many urinalyses would my operations and protracted acute care have paid for?

You may do the math.  Life is cheap to such petty autocrats. But she did it--maintaining a professional manner, my Osteopath said that kidney disease was not what it used to be now that kidneys and transplant organs were so much less expensive than they used to be.

(There was a rumor of big Chinese vans on the streets of Tehran. And of empty graves, some without markers, in the main Muslim cemetery.) There is no limit to how inexpensive organs could be made.

I don't want to go down that road and that is where this HMO is going. The country needs to catch up--true prevention does not cost as much as acute hospital care, but the Hospitals need to pay for their equipment and they get their money like the schools do--from keeping their chairs/beds full.

Iran Nucleararity

Nukes for Iran

1957: The United States and its then-ally Iran sign

a civil nuclear cooperation agreement as part

of the U.S. Atoms for Peace program

1959: The Shah of Iran orders the establishment of a

nuclear research center at Tehran University.

1968: Iran signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Treaty on July 1, the day it is opened for signature.

1974: The U.S. and Iran reach a provisional agreement

for the U.S. to supply two nuclear power plants and

enriched uranium fuel to Iran. In the 1970s, Iran pursues

other nuclear power deals with Germany,

France and South Africa, among other allies.

1975: The Shah says his country has "no intention of acquiring

nuclear weapons but if small states began building them, then Iran

might have to reconsider its policy." Later in the '70s, the U.S. obtains

intelligence data indicating that the Shah has set up a

clandestine nuclear weapons development program.

1978: President Jimmy Carter and the Shah agree on a plan for

Iran to purchase between up to eight light water nuclear

reactors, pending approval by Congress.

1979: The Islamic Revolution forces the Shah into exile

and the taking of U.S. hostages severs U.S.-Iranian relations.

During the revolution, an adviser to the Ayatollah Khomeini,

who has returned to Iran from exile as a result of the revolution,

tells energy specialist Fereydun Fesharaki, "It is your duty

to build the atomic bomb for the Islamic Republican Party."

1981: Reza Amrollahi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, announces that huge uranium deposits have been discovered in four locations in Iran.

1984: Iran opens a nuclear research center at Isfahan with the assistance of China. Reports say that Chinese and Pakistani experts are assisting Iran with obtaining and processing enriched uranium.

1985: The foreign ministers of Iran, Syria and Libya say that their countries should develop nuclear weapons to counter the Israeli nuclear threat.

1985-86: Secret contacts between the United States and Iran lead to a complex deal in which the U.S. supplies conventional weapons to Iran in exchange for Iranian support in Lebanon and the funneling of money to support anti-communist guerrillas in Nicaragua.

Mid-1980s to early 1990s: Iran and North Korea begin cooperating on nuclear issues.

1995: The Clinton administration imposes sanctions prohibiting American companies and their foreign subsidiaries from doing business with Iran, including any financing or development of its oil and gas sector.

EnlargeDoug Mills/AP

President George W. Bush names Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, the "an axis of evil" during his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in January 2002.

1998: Shortly after taking office, Iran's new reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, calls for a "dialogue among civilizations," raising hopes of a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations.

2002: President George W. Bush names Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of "an axis of evil."

2003: Iran begins talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and British, French and German foreign ministers on nuclear facility inspections. The Khatami government agrees to suspend work on uranium enrichment and allow stepped-up inspections.

2004: Iran agrees — for the time being — to comply with IAEA demands to halt uranium enrichment.

2005: Khatami is succeeded by hard-line conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Soon after, Iran announces it is resuming work on uranium enrichment.

EnlargeStephen Chernin/Getty Images

Members of the United Nations Security Council unanimously approve sanctions against Iran in 2006.

2006: The U.N. Security Council imposes sanctions on Iran, blocking the import or export of sensitive nuclear material and equipment and freezing the financial assets of persons or entities supporting its proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear-weapon delivery systems. The sanctions are tightened in subsequent Security Council action in 2007 and 2008.

2007: The U.S. intelligence community releases a National Intelligence Estimate report that claims Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, though its intentions still remain unclear. The NIE says Iran could probably not produce a bomb until the middle of the next decade.

2008: Speculation that Israel could strike at Iran's nuclear program mounts after a large-scale Israeli air force exercise and reports that Israel had made a secret request to the U.S., deflected by the Bush administration, for specialized bunker-busting bombs.

EnlargeAFP/Getty Images

In May 2009, Iran test-fires a Sejil-2 missile, which could reach Israel and American bases in the Persian Gulf.

2009: In February, international inspectors say that Iran recently understated by one-third how much uranium it has enriched.

In April, the Obama administration says the U.S. would start participating with other major powers in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.

In May, Iran test-fires a Sejil-2 missile, which could reach Israel or American bases in the Persian Gulf.

In August, Iran agrees to grant United Nations inspectors greater access to its uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz and the nearly completed heavy water reactor outside Arak. The move comes in anticipation of a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency that is expected to be highly critical of Iran's nuclear program.

Sources: James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies/NTI, Council on Foreign Relations, Stratfor.com, Globalsecurity.org

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-274670

Iranian regime executed 5 Kurdish students (One was age 16) in the Kurdish City kermanshan(June 2009) by hanging all of them at once.

They were all accused of political activities.

© Kurdistan United News Agency

Please watch this video and send every where in the world, especially to the human right organisation in your location.

After five students were executed by Iranian revolutionary guard, Iranian regime asked the student family, to pay for government because the Iranian government spent some time for execution of their children.

Please watch this video film and send to the world, after you watched this video, you will understand the pain of those family.

We are calling on:

Human right organisation around world

Human right watch

Amnesty international

European court of human rights

European parliament

United States congress

News papers

Televisions

Web sites

And individual who care for human rights

Please watch this video and ask Iran to stop Execution of innocent Kurdish student.

June 2009

More info: kurdistanunited@yahoo.com.au