US debt ceiling parasitism

August 2, 2011

After the high drama and late night sittings and doomsday rhetoric and slap-stick performances in the US congress over the last few weeks, I can’t help feeling that Vladimir Putin has a point. The agreement reached last night could – and should – have been reached 2 months ago but the Congressmen and Senators could not resist trying to show how tirelessly they work for the nation’s benefit. Sometimes they remind me of the players in a cheap musical farce where the terrible music is only topped by the dreadful actors.

Wall Street Journal

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the U.S. “a parasite” because of its huge debt load. ….. 

In a speech Monday, Mr. Putin said Russia and other countries should seek new reserve currencies to hedge against “a systemic malfunction” in the U.S. Both Russia and China in the past have questioned the dollar’s pre-eminence as a reserve currency and its role in international trade and investment. Russia keeps almost half its reserves in dollar assets. “The country is living in debt,” Mr. Putin told a pro-Kremlin youth rally in central Russia. “It is not living within its means, shifting the weight of responsibility on other countries and in a way acting as a parasite.”

Kipper Williams US debt crisis: 02.08.2011

Kipper Williams US debt crisis: The Guardian 02.08.2011

The U.S. government’s debt will hit 100% of gross domestic product this year, up from 62% in 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. Russia has low sovereign debt compared with the U.S. and other countries, with its state debt representing just over 10% of GDP. Still, when all the debt of its state-controlled companies is taken into account, the state is on the hook for an amount equal to 20% of GDP, according to a Deutsche Bank report. Russia’s state debt is expected to rise to 30% of GDP by 2020, according to Deutsche Bank.

The deal to raise the U.S. debt limit announced Sunday by President Barack Obama was a relief, Mr. Putin said, “but it simply delayed a more systemic solution.”

Uncertainties about the U.S. economy already have pushed Russia to seek alternatives such as gold and other sovereign debt. Russia curtailed its purchase of Treasurys in the past year, down from $176 billion last October to $125 billion in April, according to Treasury Department data.

 

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Penn Psychiatrist Accuses Five Colleagues of Plagiarism

August 2, 2011

Update! 3rd March 2012

University of Pennsylvania whitewashes its own psychiatrists

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Researchers names were apparently appended to a draft prepared by a “communications company” working for and biased in favour of a particular drug company!!!

Ghost-writing for German PhD theses is not uncommon and the suspicion has always been around that medical papers about clinical trials of drugs are not entirely free from the influence of the drug companies involved. But ghost-writing of scientific papers by public relations agents of the drug companies and passing them off as unbiased, objective studies is more than just “scientific misconduct”, it approaches fraud. It reduces scientists to the role of used-car salesmen. In fact the ethics of the used-car salesmen are to be preferred. The Universities who employ such “scientists” are not averse to subordinating their ethics for the sake of funding from the drug companies.

Such scientific misconduct is revealed only when an “insider” feels aggrieved enough to break ranks. The point of aggravation usually involves some dissatisfaction with the financial benefits which often flow from the drug companies – directly or indirectly – to the compliant “researchers”. And when Universities  investigate such wrong-doing themselves they usually whitewash themselves. In this case the “whistle-blower” seems to have been aggrieved at having been “left-out”.

One of those accused – Charles Nemeroff – has already been in hot water for not declaring more than $1.2 million of income from drug companies.

From Science Magazine:

Penn Psychiatrist Accuses Five Colleagues of Plagiarism

A University of Pennsylvania researcher has accused five colleagues of scientific misconduct for allegedly allowing a drug company to put their names on a paper that they did not write. But although federal officials have said “ghostwriting” may be a form of plagiarism, which is prohibited, it’s not clear that the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) would act on this particular case.

The spat involves a June 2001 paper in The American Journal of Psychiatry on a small clinical trial of the antidepressant Paxil that was funded by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the National Institute of Mental Health. In a 8 July letter sent by his attorney to ORI, Penn psychiatrist Jay Amsterdam, a co-investigator on the study but not a co-author of the paper, accuses five colleagues of “allowing their names to be appended to a manuscript that was drafted by” Scientific Therapeutics Information (STI), a medical communications company, that had been “hired by” GSK (then SmithKline Beecham). The complaint also says that the widely cited paper “was biased” in favor of the drug’s efficacy and safety and that Amsterdam felt that Penn colleague Laszlo Gyulai “misappropriated” his data.

ORI should investigate, the complaint says, because National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins recently wrote that articles ghostwritten by NIH researchers “may be appropriate for consideration as a case of plagiarism.” (ORI only investigates misconduct that took place within 6 years of an accusation, but it makes an exception if the accused scientists are still citing the paper; Gyulai cited it in 2007.)

The accused include Gyulai; Dwight Evans, chair of the Penn psychiatry department; and three researchers at other institutions. They include Charles Nemeroff, who in 2008 was found by Emory University to have failed to report drug company income; he is now chair of psychiatry at the University of Miami.

The complaint has been posted online by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a Washington, D.C., watchdog group. Its staff includes Paul Thacker, a former staffer for Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) who led an investigation alleging that Nemeroff and other psychiatrists hid millions of dollars in drug income from their institutions. POGO wrote President Barack Obama Monday to complain that because Penn concluded that a separate ghostwriting accusation made by POGO against Evans last fall was unfounded, Penn President Amy Gutmann should step down as chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. “We do not understand how Dr. Gutmann can be a credible Chair of the Commission when she seems to ignore bioethical problems on her own campus,” the letter says.

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A nano-battery on a nano-wire

August 2, 2011

“Nano” will surely be the word of the year in science and “graphene” – I predict – will be the material of the year. No doubt the words will also be used to generate unjustified publicity in many cases. But such is the interest and the potential that the developments in nano-technology will accelerate  and it will not be long before applications are in every-day use. One of the limiting factors is the availability of energy sources at the nano-scale but even that limitation may soon be overcome.

A research team at Rice University have managed to squeeze a whole lithium-ion energy storage device into a single nanowire, which could be used as a rechargeable power source for future generations of nanoelectronics.  The work is reported in a paper published by the American Chemical Society’s Nano Letters

Building Energy Storage Device on a Single Nanowire by Sanketh R. Gowda, Arava Leela Mohana Reddy, Xiaobo Zhan, and Pulickel M. Ajayan, Nano Lett., DOI: 10.1021/nl2017042, July 14, 2011

Abstract Image

Nano-wire battery

Abstract

Hybrid electrochemical energy storage devices combine the advantages of battery and supercapacitors, resulting in systems of high energy and power density. Using LiPF6electrolyte, the Ni–Sn/PANI electrochemical system, free of Li-based electrodes, works on a hybrid mechanism based on Li intercalation at the anode and PF6– doping at the cathode. Here, we also demonstrate a composite nanostructure electrochemical device with the anode (Ni–Sn) and cathode (polyaniline, PANI) nanowires packaged within conformal polymer core–shell separator. Parallel array of these nanowire devices shows reversible areal capacity of 3 μAh/cm2 at a current rate of 0.03 mA/cm2. The work shows the ultimate miniaturization possible for energy storage devices where all essential components can be engineered on a single nanowire.

From PC World:

A team of scientists has created a battery so small that it fits into a “nanowire,” a wire whose thickness is less than the wavelength of visible light. It’s the smallest battery ever made, and it could end up powering a whole generation of nanotechnology.

The potential of nanotechnology—the practice of building machines so small that they can’t even be seen—has been talked about for decades. In medicine, for example, the idea of creating tiny robots that could enter a person’s bloodstream and target intruders or diseased cells has been touted as one of the most promising applications of the field, but it’s remained purely theoretical.

One of the hurdles standing in the way of such wondrous nanodevices is their power supplies—making batteries at such a tiny scale is difficult. Now a team of engineers from Rice University appears to have solved that problem by creating a battery just 50 microns, or about the thickness of a human hair.

To create the battery (see the diagram), the researchers first coated a nanowire template with a thin layer of copper. They then filled the pores (which create the individual nanowires) halfway with a nickel/tin alloy to create the anodes. At this point, they put on a thin layer of polyethylene-oxide gel, which acts as both an electrolyte and an insulator from the other nanowires. Next they filled the remainder of the pore with a polyaniline material to create the cathodes. A layer of aluminium goes on top to complete the circuit.

Every nanowire is just 150 nanometers (nm) thin. To put that in perspective, the lowest wavelength of visible light is about 400 nm. However, the complete battery is about 50 microns tall, or about the width of human hair. The researchers ended up creating an array of nanowire batteries that was about 0.08 square inches in area, though it’s theoretically scalable to even larger sizes.

With a larger array that includes several layers stacked on top of each other, the tech could theoretically lead to batteries with massive energy density. And since the electrochemical materials don’t contain lithium, they’re easy to synthesize and manipulate at room temperature.

The nanowire batteries aren’t without their limitations, however. After being charged and discharged 20 times, they lose their ability to hold a full charge. The researchers are working on addressing this limitation, however, by playing with the polymer thickness and trying out different kinds of electrodes.

Although it’s in the early stages, the new battery technology could help usher in an era of practical nanomachines. With a real microscopic power source, the science-fiction scenario of tiny machines acting as doctors, builders, and explorers just took a step toward reality.

The team had reported last December on the creation of 3-D nano-batteries

Last December, Ajayan’s team encased vertical arrays of nickel-tin nanowires in PMMA, which is a polymer known as Plexiglas. The Plexiglas was an electrolyte and insulator in this case, and the nanowires were grown by electrodeposition in an anodized alumina template on top of a copper substrate. The template’s pores were stretched with a chemical etching technique, causing a gap between the alumina and the wires, and then the researchers drop-coated PMMA to enclose the wires with a smooth covering. The template was removed with a chemical wash, and a forest of tiny electrolyte-encased nanowires appeared. This particular battery had encased nickel-tin as the anode and a cathode had to be attached to the outside, but in the new battery packs, the cathode is packed into the nanowires.

The team created two versions of the battery pack. The first combines a nickel-tin anode, polyethylene oxide (PEO) electrolyte and polyaniline (PANI) cathode layers, which allows for the efficient movement of lithium ions through the anode to the electrolyte and the cathode. The ions are stored in bulk allowing the device to charge (and discharge) rapidly.

The second version squeezes the same characteristics into a single nanowire, with centimeter-scale arrays containing thousands of nanowire devices where each is approximately 150 nanometers wide. 

The new process uses PEO as the electrolyte, which stores lithium ions and acts as a electrical insulator between the nanowires in an array. The widened alumina pores were drop-coated with PEO to coat the anodes, and leaves tubes at the top allowing PANI cathodes to be drop-coated as well. The circuit is finished off with an aluminum current collector placed at the top of the array. 

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Perhaps there is no life on other planets

August 1, 2011

The fundamental weakness of the Drake Equation is that it starts with the assumption that life on Earth is not unique. After that it merely applies a string of probabilities to derive the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible. Fermi’s paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations (such as given by the Drake Equation) and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

The paradox of course is resolved if there are no other such civilisations except on Earth which would be the case if life (as we know it) was unique to Earth.

It might not be what I would want to or like to believe but it is the simplest resolution of the apparent paradox. And if that is so then Drake’s equation starts with a false premise and is irrelevant and invalid. The existence of extraterrestrial life is still in the realms of belief and hope and is not (yet) science.

Now Bob Yirka of PhysOrg reports that

Astrophysicists apply new logic to downplay the probability of extraterrestrial life

David Spiegel and Edwin Turner of Princeton University have submitted a paper to arXiv that turns the Drake equation on its head. Instead of assuming that life would naturally evolve if conditions were similar to that found here on Earth, the two use Bayesian reasoning to show that just because we evolved in such conditions, doesn’t mean that the same occurrence would necessarily happen elsewhere; using evidence of our own existence doesn’t show anything they argue, other than that we are here.

…….. Spiegel and Turner point out, basing our expectations of life existing on other planets, for no better reason that it exists here, is really only proof that we are more than capable of deceiving ourselves into thinking that things are much more likely than they really are. ……

When taken at face value, some might conclude that such arguments hold no more logic than arguments for the existence of God, i.e. it’s more about faith, than science. At any rate, most would agree that the only concrete way to prove whether there is life out there or not is to prove it, by finding it.

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Politics of hate create strange bedfellows

July 31, 2011

The massacre in Norway by Anders Behring Brevik has created a dilemma for many of the extremist parties in Europe whose “ideology” he had adopted. They must now – at least publicly – distance themselves from his actions but without abandoning their politics which he ardently supported and which led to his actions. Many of the islamophobic, anti-immigration, nationalistic parties in Europe today have their roots in fascism or neo-nazism or racial hatred. Upto about 10 years ago their objects of hate were usually blacks, Jews, Asians, Turks, socialists, “big government” and communists. In the last decade or so all of these “hates” have been maintained but have manifested themselves increasingly under the convenient and opportunistic umbrella of islamophobism.

But for these so-called “right-wing, nationalist” parties, I think it is wrong to attribute anything other than “hate” as their ideology. As times change the object of their hate evolves and changes to whatever they consider is currently popular to fear and to hate. Their political strategy seems to be fundamentally based on the marshalling of the fears of the “common man” – by providing the objects of hate which can feed those fears.

Almost every country in Europe now has its version of a “hate” party: the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria, the Vlaams Blok (VB) in Belgium, the Danish Peoples Party (DPP) in Denmark, True Finns (PS) in Finland, the National Front (FN) in France, the Republican party (REP), German People’s Union (DVU) and National Democratic party (NPD) all in Germany, the Hellenic Front (HF) in Greece, Liga Nord (LN) and the Futuro e Libertà (FLI) in Italy, Pim Fortuyn’s List (LPF) in the Netherlands, the Fremskrittspartiet (FrP) in Norway, Partido Popular (CDS-PP) in Portugal, Sweden Democrats (SD) in Sweden, Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) in Switzerland and the British National party (BNP) in the UK.

They are now finding common cause with some strange partners in Israel and India and the US. They include Likud and the settlers in Israel, the fanatics of the RSS and Hindutva nationalists and even the extreme right wing of the Tea Party movement in the US. It is only a short step to move onto the hate parties of Japan (the Uyoku dantai groups), in Australia (United Australia Party) and those that are forming in the Balkans and in eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia). The juxtaposition of ideologies can – on the surface – seem strange (neo-nazis together with Jewish settlers or anti-Asian together with Hindu nationalism) but the common factor is always that there is somebody in common to hate.

Der Spiegel:

The Likud Connection:

Islamophobic parties in Europe have established a tight network, stretching from Italy to Finland. But recently, they have extended their feelers to Israeli conservatives, enjoying a warm reception from members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Some in Israel believe that the populists are Europe’s future.

Anders Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto is nothing if not thorough. Pages and pages of text outline in excruciating detail the ideological underpinnings of his worldview — one which led him to kill 76 people in two terrible attacks in Norway last week. 

It is a document which has led many to question Breivik’s sanity. But it has also, due to its myriad citations and significant borrowing from several anti-immigration, Islamophobic blogs, highlighted the deeply entwined network of right-wing populist groups and parties across Europe — from the Front National in France to Vlaams Belang in Belgium to the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

But recently it has become clear that Europe’s populist parties aren’t merely content to establish a network on the Continent. They are also looking further east. And have begun establishing tight relations with several conservative politicians in Israel — first and foremost with Ayoob Kara, a parliamentarian with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party who is also deputy minister for development of the Negev and Galilee districts.

The reason for the growing focus on Israel is not difficult to divine. “On the one hand,” Strache told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a recent interview, “we are seeing great revolutions taking place in the Middle East. But one can’t be totally sure that other interests aren’t behind them and that, in the end, we might see Islamist theocracies surrounding Israel and in Europe’s backyard.”

In other words, in the battle against what right-wing populists see as the creeping Islamization of Europe, Israel is on the front line. ….. 

At first glance, the European populists’ relationship with Israel would hardly appear to be a marriage built on love. Many see the FPÖ as being just one tiny step away from classic neo-Nazi groups and the same holds true for their partners throughout Europe.  …… And Kara was blasted in the Israeli press for a recent meeting in Berlin he held with Patrick Brinkmann, a German right-wing populist. “Deputy Minister Meets Neo-Nazi Millionaire,” read a headline in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this month, noting that Brinkmann, while now insistent that he is not anti-Semitic, once had close ties with the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). ….

Read article:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,777175,00.html

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What population problem? More brains and hands could well cater for the extra mouths to feed

July 30, 2011

Malthus’ ideas haven’t quite been discredited but his alarmism certainly has. As world population increases from the current 6 billion and approaches around 9 to 10 billion by 2100 studies suggest that population growth can have economic and environmental benefits.

A new article in  Science 29 July 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6042 pp. 544-546

DOI: 10.1126/science.333.6042.544

Are More People Necessarily a Problem?

by David Malakoff

In 1937, A bureaucrat serving in the British Empire’s Kenya Colony penned an alarming memo to his bosses about conditions in the Machakos Reserve, a hilly, drought-prone farming region 50 kilo meters south of Nairobi. “Benevolent British rule” had encouraged the explosive “multiplication” of the “natives,” he reported, leading to massive environmental degradation. “Every phase of misuse of land is vividly and poignantly displayed in this Reserve, the inhabitants of which are rapidly drifting to a state of hopeless and miserable poverty and their land to a parching desert of rocks, stones and sand.” The apocalyptic warning came as the region’s population approached 250,000.

Today, more than 1.5 million people call Machakos home. Rather than a cautionary example of the perils of overpopulation, however, for some experts Machakos has become a symbol of something very different: the idea that rapid human population growth, even in some of Earth’s driest, most challenging environments, is not necessarily a recipe for disaster—and can even bring benefits. They argue that, over the past 75 years, population growth in Machakos and nearby Nairobi has triggered social and economic shifts that have made it possible for residents to regreen once-barren hillsides, reinvigorate failing soils, reduce birth rates, and increase crop production and incomes. “A landscape that was once declared good for nothing is now like a garden when the rain falls,” says Michael Mortimore, a geographer with Drylands Research, a United Kingdom–based nonprofit organization, who helped document the turnaround in More People, Less Erosion, a 1994 study that is still influential—and controversial—today. “Too many people still have the simplistic notion that too many people is a problem,” he says. “What happened in Machakos challenges that pessimism.”…..

 ……. Many see crisis looming in those numbers for people and the environment. Others, however, see some hope for a transition to more sustainable livelihoods and cite Ester Boserup, a Danish economist who died in 1999, as one source of their optimism. In 1965, the then-little-known Boserup, who spent most of her career consulting for international development institutions, published a slim volume titled The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. (pdf Boserup1965) It examined the history of subsistence farming and offered a theory that essentially turned Malthus upside down. Instead of rising population density leading to barren fields and starvation, Boserup suggested it could naturally trigger “intensification”: the use of new technologies and more labor to get bigger harvests from less land.

“The idea was that people weren’t just mouths to feed but also brains that could think and hands and legs that could work very hard”.

….. In some parts of Africa, meanwhile, researchers are documenting a notable, Machakos-like “regreening” of arid areas with fast-growing populations. …. There’s some evidence that the extra greenery is helping to make poor farm communities more resilient to droughts and economic setbacks, but the long-term outlook remains at best unclear.

In the forest frontiers of South and Central America, researchers have found both Malthusian and Boserupian forces at work in deforestation. Depending on local circumstances, families faced with growing population densities have responded by both migrating to clear new farms in forested areas, the agricultural “extensification” predicted by Malthus, and intensified land use à la Boserup, a team led by David Carr of the University of California, Santa Barbara, reported in a 2009 study in Population and Development. Paradoxically, the result is that areas with relatively low population densities can have much higher deforestation rates than those with higher densities.

Read the whole article 

Related:

 Sustainable growth in Machakos by Francis Gichuki , Mary Tiffen , Michael Mortimore, ILEIA Newsletter • 9 nº 4 • December 1993

More People, Less Erosion, Overseas Development Institute UK, 1994

 

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Posted in Agriculture, Alarmism, Demographics, Development | 1 Comment »

New York Post implicated? Told to preserve emails following UK hacking scandal

July 30, 2011

UPDATE! News International ordered mass deletion of emails nine times

New York Post staff have been told by News Corp. to preserve any documents that may relate to phone hacking or payoffs to officials as the News of the World hacking scandal spreads across Murdoch’s empire. The clear implication is that something illicit has taken place at the New York Post – possibly connected with the victims of 9/11.

A memo to all staff from the legal department was followed by another from the editor Col Allen.

The text of the 2 New York Post memos is here – New York Post Memos

The documents to be retained were defined very broadly as:

“Any documents pertaining to unauthorized retrieval of phone or personal data, to payments for information to government officials, or that is related in any way to these issues, must be retained.

Please note that the term “documents” should be construed in its broadest sense, including but not limited to: written material, graphs, charts, files, e-mail, text messages, instant messages, any content in social media, voicemail, tape recordings, microfiche, video and film, handwritten notes, draft documents, memoranda, calendars, card files, appointment books, and the like whether in hard copy or on computer databases, hard drives, desk tops, laptops, thumb drives, disks, backup tapes, or any other storage medium, and regardless of whether the document is located on a company-issued or personal device. It also includes all copies of the same document.

The term “related in any way” should also be applied broadly. If you have any doubt whether a document should be preserved, you should err on the side of preserving it.”

Reuters reports:

In another sign that the phone-hacking scandal may implicate or at least taint News Corp.’s U.S. properties, the company’s legal team has asked New York Post employees to “preserve and maintain all documents and information that are related in any way” to phone hacking or bribery.

The email frames the demand as an effort to demonstrate how seriously it is taking the issues of hacking or bribery, improprieties — both confirmed adn alleged — which harpooned News Corp.’s famed British tabloid News of the World.

“Please know we are sending this notice not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful,” it reads.

However, the implication is that something illicit may have taken place. It asks that employees retain any documents “to unauthorized retrieval of phone or personal data, to payments for information to government officials, or that is related in any way to these issues.”

One possible reason is that the FBI has begun an inquiry into allegations that News Corp. newspapers hacked the phones of 9/11 victims.

As for what “documents” and “related” mean, the email asks the Post employees apply the terms as broadly as possible.

Post editor Col Allan sent out a memo to his staff regarding the email in which he says this should not be surprising.

“As we watched the news in the U.K. over the last few weeks, we knew that as a News Corporation tabloid, we would be looked at more closely,” he wrote.

Allan added that all employees must cooperate absolutely and that this edict should not endanger one’s ability to protect sources.

The legal team’s email instructed employees to contact Genie Gavenchak with any questions. A phone call to Gavenchak’s office was redirected to Rubenstein Communications. The PR firm did not immediately return a request for comment. 

In related news, the Guardian is reporting that Scotland Yard has opened up another inquiry involving hacking at News of the World, this time via computers.

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Another plagiarist politician is now appointed Turkish Minister of Education

July 29, 2011

Political and electoral imperatives often lead to people being placed in the most inappropriate positions and being given authority in areas for which they are completely unsuitable.

In Germany, Sylvana Koch-Mehrin had her doctorate rescinded by the University of Heidelberg for containing over 30% plagiarism in May 2011, and shortly after, in June,  she was named EU Commissioner for Research!!

And now in Turkey,   a plagiarist – Ömer Dinçer – has been appointed Minister of Education in Prime Minister Erdogan’s new government!!

Nature News reports:

German politicians found guilty of plagiarism have seen their careers stumble. First came the forced resignation in March of the German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg – the University of Bayreuth withdrew his PhD thesis after identifying extensive plagiarism. Other German politicians wielding doctor titles were then gleefully been targeted by plagiarism software users. Only last month, Silvana Koch-Mehrin of Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) was forced to withdraw from the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy after the University of Heidelberg had revoked her plagiarizing PhD. Her predecessor on the committee, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, had his own PhD revoked by the University of Bonn last week for plagiarism.

In Turkey, on the other hand, a controversial charge of plagiarism has not stopped Ömer Dinçer from being appointed minister of education in Prime Minister Erdogan’s new government. The new government was approved by parliament on 13 July.

Dinçer got his PhD from İstanbul University School of Business Administration in 1984. He went on to build up a high flying academic career in parallel with a political career, becoming chief undersecretary in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s first government in 2003, and minister of labour in Erdoğan’s second government after 2007 elections.

But he lost his title of professor in 2005 when the Turkish Council of Higher Education YÖK identified extensive plagiarism in his academic book Introduction to Business Administration. Dinçer appealed the charge, but it was upheld in court.

On 8 July newspapers reported that YÖK had quietly cleared him early this year to the dismay of many academics. YÖK confirmed to Nature that it had withdrawn the charge but did not provide reasons.

Dinçer has told newspapers that the charge of plagiarism was part of a smear campaign from a supposed network of people, known as Ergenekon, who favour a military coup.

Related:

The Guttenberg syndrome: Another German politician resigns over plagiarism

Plagiarism and the morphing of a Minister 

Widespread corruption within Turkish customs: Bribes pool of $125 million 


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Seeking notoriety Paul Ray would now like to have been Breivik’s “Richard”

July 29, 2011

Paul Ray (Lionheart) from his safe haven in Malta is spending a lot of blog energy in insinuating that Alan Lake and not he is the “Richard” referred to in Anders Behring Breivik’s “manifesto”. Ray is or was a member of the English Defence League and was apparently expelled which he disputes.

But probably seeking all the notoriety he can get he has now admitted that he was in contact with the killer and concedes to The Telegraph that he may have been the inspiration for Breivik:

Paul Ray, a British blogger who calls himself “Lionheart” revealed that his opinions could have influenced Breivik’s Islamophobic diatribe, which the killer published online hours before he massacred 76 people.

Speaking from Malta, where he has fled fearing arrest for inciting racial hatred, Mr Ray conceded that he had been in direct contact with the 32-year-old gunman online.

In his manifesto Breivik described a character very similar to Mr Ray as a mentor, claiming to have met him at an event in London in 2002. Mr Ray said on Thursday: “I am being implicated as his mentor. I definitely could have been his inspiration.

“It looks like that. He has given me a platform and a profile. But what he did was pure evil. I could never use what he has done to further my own beliefs.”

The Daily Telegraph can also disclose that Mr Ray played host to Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, former leader of the Ulster Freedom Fighters in Malta last February. … He is also known to be friends with Nick Greger, a German “known as Nazi Nick,” who describes himself as a “former neo-Nazi-leader, convicted terrorist, militiaman, artist, book writer and preacher”. ….. Mr Greger, who is banned from Britain, has traveled widely in Africa and currently lives in Malta, as does Mr Ray, who is originally from Luton, Bedfordshire. … Mr Ray was arrested in Britain in 2008 over blog postings allegedly inciting racial hatred but said he was never charged. He left the country the same year.

But he would love to be taken for being much more important than he is. He seems to be torn between avoiding any association with Breivik while at the same time he would be immensely gratified to have been the inspiration of anything to anybody. His incoherent ramblings would indicate that he is little more than a two-bit, publicity-seeking hoodlum skulking away in Malta – even if Breivik did take some inspiration from him.

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The victims of Oslo and Utøya: RIP

July 28, 2011

The torrent of words about Anders Behring Breivik is as nothing compared to the reality of the lives he snuffed out.

I found this montage of some of his victims unbelievably moving and more telling then many million words.

Courtesy and credit Aftonbladet:

The victims of the massacre in Norway : montage from Aftonbladet

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Posted in Behaviour | Comments Off on The victims of Oslo and Utøya: RIP

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