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Strong Aftershock Strikes Chile

Aaron Ortiz — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:21:04 +0000

USGS Image

This morning a very strong aftershock has struck very close to the epicenter of last month’s earthquake in Chile. The USGS is reporting it’s magnitude as 7.2 in the Richter Scale. There is very little data yet in the international media. I’ll be publishing more as I know more.

Since the Richter Scale is logarithmic, each number in the scale is many times the strength of the number below it. So, a 7.2 earthquake is not as serious as an 8.8, but is much stronger than usual for aftershocks.

Carol Cabrera Survives Second Murder Attempt

Aaron Ortiz — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:37:50 +0000

Politically-motivated murders have been the grisly aftermath of the 2009 constitutional crisis in Honduras. Journalists, both in favor and against former President Manuel Zelaya have been killed in the last few months. Enzo Micheletti, the nephew of former President Roberto Micheletti was murdered as well.

In December an unsuccessful attempt was made on Carol Cabrera, a journalist who spoke against Zelaya, and in favor of Michelleti. Her pregnant daughter, who was in the car with her, died instead. Doctors saved her unborn child.

At the time, President Micheletti attributed the murder attempt to “terrorism” by the “Resistencia”, Zelaya’s supporters. The chief of the General Directorate for Criminal Investigation said, however, that Cabrera and her daughter had been caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival bands of hooligans. The fact that Cabrera was being threatened constantly was ignored, and President Micheletti was forced to publicly apologize for his comment.

Once again Cabrera was attacked a few days ago. As a result fellow journalist Joseph Ochoa was killed. She was calling a radio station at the moment of the attack; her frantic pleas and the many gunshots were broadcast on the air. You may hear a recording of the attack here.

The mainstream media have mostly ignored the event. Leftist websites have reported attacks on journalists in favor of Zelaya, but neglect to mention that both sides are being attacked.

Jobs Sues Google Through HTC

Aaron Ortiz — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:26:54 +0000

Photo by acaben

Steve Jobs could be on the verge of a self-destructive move that would ruin Apple. Again.

The idolized CEO’s leadership led to his dismissal many years ago, from the company he founded. The buildup to this was aggravated by his arrogant and unfriendly manner, and unwillingness to unclench his fist from the steering wheel. His triumphant return to Apple in 1996 marked the comeback of Apple, and for years it seemed that he could do no wrong. But lately, he’s started wars or distanced himself from former allies like Adobe and now Google.

The Wikipedia entry on Jobs and and his dismissal from Apple are very laudatory and barely mention anything about the topic, have you been editing them Steve? (Joking aside, I suspect a PR executive or an overzealous fanboy is the culprit of it).

A few months ago, HTC released the first Google-branded phone, the Nexus One. It uses a touchscreen, and but doesn’t look more like an iPhone than dozens of handsets by Nokia, LG and others. But HTC has been singled out by Apple for a lawsuit. Apple claims HTC has violated 20 of its patents. But it deems like an indirect attack at Google, and all handset manufacturers that use Google’s open-source Android operating system.

This can only be interpreted as the first move of a major legal battle with Apple suing all other handset makers for imitating the iPhone. This is a terribly misguided thing. I hope the lawsuit fails, because otherwise, Apple is shooting itself in the foot, by generating waves of anger, and a likely backlash.

Hubris is your Achilles’ heel Mr. Jobs.

Clinton Hails Honduras as Success

Aaron Ortiz — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:15:21 +0000

Today Secretary of State Clinton called Honduras a success story, making explicit what some socialist critics have been denouncing since the crisis began. Whatever his leanings at home, Obama’s international policy is not leftist at all.

“The Honduras crisis has been managed to a successful conclusion,” Clinton said.

“It was done without civil war, it was done without violence, and I think that our policy in the vast majority of countries in Latin America is either given high marks or great respect.”

I read some say that Obama misspoke when he called the ouster of Zelaya a “coup” and had to follow through on his words. If so, it would have been much simpler to apologize. But I doubt we’ll see him apologizing anytime soon. Instead, after swaying left and right unpredictably, he managed to offend all sides.

In contrast, the US’s attitude toward Niger almost applauds the real military coup that occurred in that country a few weeks ago. This is appalling, and hypocritical, as I wrote earlier, and La Gringa has blogged recently about as well. In Niger’s case, uranium mining interests are at play.

The razor-thin calculus of silence and speech that characterized the US response to Zelaya’s ouster reveals who Obama was appeasing in Honduras’s case: Chavez and Castro. I think Obama has given up on them, just as Chavez has given up on him. Business as usual returns.

Major Earthquake Rattles Chileans

Aaron Ortiz — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:03:01 +0000

A major earthquake struck Chile early this morning, followed by many aftershocks. The US Geological Survey has stated its magnitude as 8.8 in the Richter scale. Chile is much more prepared for earthquakes than Haiti, for its economy is first among emerging nations, approaching the level of a first world country. Also, because of its location on the Pacific “ring of fire” major earthquakes occur in Chile with much greater frequency than in the island nation, and buildings are built to withstand them.

Nevertheless, news sources put the death toll at around 80. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet expects the toll to rise. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has put her travel plans to Chile on hold for the moment.

A tsunami warning has been issued for the entire Pacific ocean, including Honduras, whose Gulf of Fonseca could conceivably channel a tsunami to destroy the coastal town of San Lorenzo. I’ve personally seen a mere tide advance on San Lorenzo like a tsunami because of the shape of the gulf, alarming locals.

For those who pray, let’s pray that any of the victims who might be trapped in the rubble are rescued soon, that the people of on the pacific islands and coast may seek higher ground in time, and that the towns that have been leveled may receive all the help they need to rebuild.

General Velasquez Dismissed, Who’s to Blame?

Aaron Ortiz — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:56:52 +0000

Proceso Digital Image

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has removed General Romeo Vasquez Velazquez from his position as head of the armed forces of Honduras. He will retire and lead a civilian life. This is transparently the result of international pressure for his dismissal for his role in the 2009 constitutional crisis.

This is quite sad. It was not the military, although many refuse to believe this, that removed Manuel Zelaya from office. It was Congress and the Supreme Court. But with people like Guardian reporter Mark Weisbrot constantly and blatantly publishing the opposite, who will left-leaning secretaries of state believe?

Lobo’s Limbo dance continues. How low can he go?

Consciousness: Algorithm or Soul?

Aaron Ortiz — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:58:55 +0000

Body, Soul and Spirit

A few days ago during a conversation, the topic of the difference between body-soul-spirit came up. On that occasion I replied that the body was the biological engine that keeps the soul and the spirit together. But what is a soul? I have heard the soul defined as mind, the seat of intellect, heart, the center of emotion, and will, the throne of decision. But then, what is the spirit? I spit out my learned-by-heart definition that the spirit was that which allowed us to communicate with God. Someone else who was there said the Spirit was God himself present in human beings.

Is the soul the same as consciousness?

This morning I was musing about the difficulty in enforcing mental hygiene, i.e. keeping my mind clear of destructive thoughts. It struck me that all I can truly control is my will. My mind seems to bring up destructive and counterproductive thoughts almost randomly. My emotions are almost completely impossible to control, except by patient mental discipline enforced by willpower.

All I can control is my will. I can’t stop the endless flood of sensory data entering my mind through my eyes, ears, smell, taste, and touch. But by my decisions I can move away from unpleasant or unwanted sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations. I can’t stop my mind from bringing back memories, but I can choose whether to let them remain in my conscious thought. I can also choose which thought I can express as words or deeds.

Is the human essence a matter of will alone?

I was reading last night about the work of David Cope, an emeritus professor of music at the University of California. His lifelong goal, to produce a musical composition that would move a young person to the awe and love of music he himself experienced when he heard Tchaikovski’s Romeo and Juliet.

He had produced highly regarded music, and his works have been performed worldwide. But during a severe episode of creative block, he decided to examine the creative process itself. He dove into the study of Mozart, and Bach, and was surprised to discover that their music was very much based on rules.

So he taught himself how to program computers, so he could create a program to compose music using the rules he synthesized from Bach. He named his program EMI, and nicknamed it Emmy. But, the initial resulting music was uninspiring and mechanical. He then realized that Bach intuitively knew when to break his own rules. He modified Emmy to break the rules occasionally, in exactly the same ways that Bach did. The result was thousands of compositions that many musicologists were unable to distinguish from authentic Bach creations.

Many composers were aghast. Their opinion of the very same compositions were drastically changed once they realized that a computer algorithm had created them. They wanted music with soul. The professor decided to renounce his experiment, and even went as far as deleting his databases.

But the rejection of his colleagues challenged him, and a few years later he created a new computer program, that he named Emily Howell, an improvement of his earlier work. Emily uses the earlier algorithm to suggest musical themes, and responds to the criticism of a human, who decides whether a particular set of notes is accepted into the finished composition, or rejected.

The continual acceptance and rejection of musical themes trains the program and makes it better at creating music that is pleasing to its trainer. The result is brilliant; my experience of listening to some of Emily’s compositions is truly awe-inspiring. I wish I could compose music like that.

Is the mind a complex computer, and thus “only” a machine?

In my musings about the will and the mind, I found a parallel with professor Cope’s painstaking study and research of music, and the role of the will in shaping our minds. Professor Cope unraveled the rules that made Bach’s music so timeless and poignant, and taught a computer algorithm to follow them to a degree of perfection almost undistinguishable from Bach himself. Once this was done, Cope coached the algorithm, teaching it what was good and wasn’t.

This is very similar to the training we receive as children and continue in our own minds day by day. We receive a synthesized set of rules to establish what is good and what is isn’t. Then we train our minds to reward thoughts we consider pleasing, and punish or reject those that are unpleasant.

The soul could easily be seen as an interface between the hardware of the physical brain, a vast storage and interconnected network of neurons with emotions as its language, the mind, which would be the algorithm or software running inside it, and finally, the will, the “trainer”, who through continual grooming of thought can control the entire system.

Practicing Hope

This would give hope of the mind being guided to challenge its most basic tenets, and after a great deal of dissonance, be transformed into a new creation. This is the process theologians call “conversion”.

If we believe in the training the Spirit of God gives us, we can change our minds to a degree where they will be “prepared for every good work” , but not so completely that they would be free of what the apostle Paul called “the sin in me”. To me there are many unanswered questions in this, and great hope.

A Protest the MSM Refused to Air

Aaron Ortiz — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:17:44 +0000

The above footage is from a protest from the “camisetas blancas”, Hondurans in favor of the Constitution. It was held in “Plaza la Libertad” before the presidential palace, the day that OAS president José Miguel Insulza visited Honduras to demand the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as president, and before Zelaya’s subreptitious return to Honduras. Insulza snubbed president Micheletti, and instead met only with Zelaya’s supporters.

This was one of several multitudinous protests, none of which got any video coverage from CNN, as far as I know. They got cursory mention in the news websites, if any. Instead, the “mainstream” media presented footage of “red-shirt” (pro-Zelaya) protesters throwing rocks at police and burning tires. But ironically, they ommitted coverage of when they destroyed businesses, homes and restaurants.

Clearly the “mainstream” media is not representing the mainstream of Honduran people, and after reading the latest gallup poll, neither the mainstream of US citizens either. The poll states that 63% of people polled sympathize with the Israelis rather than with the Palestinians, something that should discourage all those who have sought to indoctrinate the public with newscasts dripping with their ideological bias.

Alliances that Divide

Aaron Ortiz — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:07:05 +0000

The AFP published an article today that troubles me. I’m jaded already with AFP and Reuters imprinting their ideology on the news about Honduras, but there are some facts they let slip that could show what this summit was all about.

Honduras was not invited to the summit. And, that the organizers of the summit should snub Honduras because Honduras is not a member of the OAS is telling. The summit was held to create an alternative to the OAS, a regional “alliance that would exclude the United States and Canada”, AFP reported Mexican President Felipe Calderón as saying. So if it is an alternative to the OAS, why wasn’t Honduras included? Why should it matter if Honduras isn’t a member of the OAS any more?

But even more telling is this: the next summit will be held in Caracas, Venezuela. Smell the sulfur already? The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas is another alliance created by Hugo Chavez to “liberate us from the yoke of the dollar”, and the “imperialist project that oppresses us and leads us to barbarism.” This new “alliance” seems to be going in the same direction.

The AFP reported Raul Castro as “one of the first to laud the new regional bloc as a historic move toward ‘the constitution of a purely Latin American and Caribbean regional organization.’ ” That AFP should only report host Felipe Calderon’s and Castro’s comments show their leanings a little too clearly.

Calderón’s quote seems very anti-US as well. What do you think? I would shudder to see Honduran president Porfirio Lobo go to the Caracas summit next year, almost as if he were going to Berlin during the Third Reich.

US Hypocrisy: Niger and Honduras

Aaron Ortiz — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:48:34 +0000

Photo by SkyTruth

Thursday, US State Department assistant secretary Philip J. Crowley made the following statement about Niger:

MR. CROWLEY: Right. Very fluid situation and the Embassy there is monitoring it closely. Indications are it could be an attempted coup. There was evidently an attempted assassination of President Tandja. My understanding is that our Embassy staff is safe. We do have Congressman Mark Grayson of Florida who happened to be in the country at the time and he is currently at the Embassy and is also safe.

This is a difficult situation. President Tandja has been trying to extend his mandate in office. Both the United States and ECOWAS have expressed our concerns about that, and obviously that may well have been an act on his behalf that precipitated this act today. Clearly, we do not in any way, shape, or form, defend violence of this nature. But clearly, we think this underscores that Niger needs to move ahead and – with the elections and the formation of a new government.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was removed from power 7 months before his term expired by an order from the Supreme Court and Congress of Honduras. Admittedly, the order was carried out by the military. But, no power of the state was dissolved, and the elections that were already planned for November were carried out as scheduled. Zelaya was against the elections and was trying to push through constitutional reform to “refound Honduras”, presumably as a socialist state in the image of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

On the other hand in Niger, the military dissolved all the powers of the government. The president of Niger had been successful in reforming the constitution a few months before, and was removed after a 4-hour gun battle.

With Honduras, minutes after Zelaya landed in Costa Rica, President Obama said: “We believe the coup was not legal … I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seing military coups as a means of political transition.”

Where is the outrage of the United States! Where is the State Departments decency! Where is their commitment to truth! Or at very least, their consistency! All of these seem to be sold out to uranium mining interests. Niger is has the fifth largest Uranium reserves on Earth.