Chinahand's Random Stuff

[Chinahand]

1 hour ago, the stinking enigma said:

North Korea have the right to defend themselves, as do all countries. Without a nuclear threat they are history, 

North Korea hasn't been invaded or attacked from the cease-fire in 1953 - caused by its aggression to the South - to today.  It has only had a nuclear weapon since 2006 and it is still doubtful their deterrence is operational.  Why weren't they history between '53 and '06?  They are creating the security dilemma and destabilising a situation which had been kept quiet for decades prior to their bellicose sabre rattling and abandonment of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

The NPT is the most successful and comprehensive nuclear anti-proliferation treaty the world has been able to advance so far, where countries do renounce the right to use or defend themselves with nuclear weapons.

South Korea has abandoned its right to defend itself with nuclear weapons, and is in alliance and hence under the US's nuclear umbrella.  North Korea is under China's - which sent troops to defend it despite Truman's threats to use nukes against it.  

It is via alliances that countries gain stability.  North Korea is abandoning that and destabilising a system which has worked since the 1950s.  More fool them to be doing it when someone like Trump is in the Whitehouse.

Edited August 6, 2017 by Chinahand

[the stinking enigma]

That reads like a white house press release.

[the stinking enigma]

One day sanctions may come to be regarded as the war crimes that in reality they are.

 

[the stinking enigma]

sorry to hijack your thread ( again) chinahand but i saw this and thought you might quite like it.

 

[Chinahand]

Great time lapse of life on the ocean waves:

 

[maynragh]

When you finally find that thing you’ve been looking for ages for...

https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.10378v1

[Chinahand]

Lots of interesting photos here.  It's called Strange Animals, but that's all down to perspective - fascinating animals would do just as well.

[Neil Down]

26 minutes ago, Chinahand said:

Lots of interesting photos here.  It's called Strange Animals, but that's all down to perspective - fascinating animals would do just as well.

MSN regularly runs one of these fascinating creatures page..some are cute others really strange 

[Chinahand]

This is a picture of 2 year old Rahima Banu.

The poor little girl isn't very well.  It is 1975 and something quite unique is about to happen.

Rahima has smallpox - a disease which has killed millions upon millions of people throughout time.

And what is special about Rahima is that she was the last human to ever have to suffer from it.

A huge medical health effort to vaccinate and eradicate every last case of smallpox basically came to an end with Rahima.

After her the thousands of doctors and health care workers who had worked so diligently to advance human health waited and waited, visiting remote villages and communities and listening for any reports of Smallpox's return.  None came.  Four years later - on this very day the 9th of December 1979 they felt confident enough to declare Smallpox extinct.

There hasn't been a single case since Rahima.  Millions of people safe from the terrible suffering smallpox brings.

Science, for the win.

[guzzi]

Truly a wonderful scientific achievement. Although it has to be said that Jenner's original experiment to vaccinate his gardener's eight year old son with cowpox pus and subsequently to expose hime to smallpox infected tissue might not meet modern ethical standards and was based solely on a folksy observation that milkmaids didn't seem to get smallpox. 

It isn't entirely true that Rahima was the last person to be infected with Smallpox.  in 1978, Janet Parker, a British medical photographer, was accidentally infected with Smallpox at Birmingham University Medical School.  The virus had been cultured on the floor below her workplace. She died of the disease  on 11 September 1978.

Edited December 11, 2017 by guzzi

[Chinahand]

Today on Radio 4 this morning finished with a discussion of a New Yorker article called Cat Person.  It peaked my interest so I looked it up.

It's available for free on the web: here.

I'm not quite sure what to think of it.

It seems a well written fiction of contemporary America.  There's a sex scene and an attempt to portray the mind of a 20 year old woman and her interactions with a 34 year old.  It works reasonably well.

My understanding is that most of the controversy swirls basically around the last word.

Men behave unacceptably.  That is a simple fact of life.  Women do too.

Parsing what society thinks of this essay is a bit beyond me ... but it seems to say something when it ends up being analysed at five to nine on Radio 4!

Ah, sexual politics and texting ... what ... hate?

 

[wrighty]

9 hours ago, Chinahand said:

Today on Radio 4 this morning finished with a discussion of a New Yorker article called Cat Person.  It peaked my interest so I looked it up.

It's available for free on the web: here.

I'm not quite sure what to think of it.

It seems a well written fiction of contemporary America.  There's a sex scene and an attempt to portray the mind of a 20 year old woman and her interactions with a 34 year old.  It works reasonably well.

My understanding is that most of the controversy swirls basically around the last word.

Men behave unacceptably.  That is a simple fact of life.  Women do too.

Parsing what society thinks of this essay is a bit beyond me ... but it seems to say something when it ends up being analysed at five to nine on Radio 4!

Ah, sexual politics and texting ... what ... hate?

 

Don't get the relevance of the cats, but it's a good read. Raises many issues. Her being 20, and thus underage, is one. Could it be considered that he'd plied a minor with drink in order to coerce her into sex? Even though from that perspective she's old enough? I'm sure there'd be those that could turn it into rape, although I don't think it was. 

And the final word? Up until that point you can sort of feel sorry for the guy, but he ruins it for himself. 

[maynragh]

10 hours ago, Chinahand said:

Today on Radio 4 this morning finished with a discussion of a New Yorker article called Cat Person.  It peaked my interest so I looked it up.

It's available for free on the web: here.

I'm not quite sure what to think of it.

It seems a well written fiction of contemporary America.  There's a sex scene and an attempt to portray the mind of a 20 year old woman and her interactions with a 34 year old.  It works reasonably well.

My understanding is that most of the controversy swirls basically around the last word.

Men behave unacceptably.  That is a simple fact of life.  Women do too.

Parsing what society thinks of this essay is a bit beyond me ... but it seems to say something when it ends up being analysed at five to nine on Radio 4!

Ah, sexual politics and texting ... what ... hate?

 

An interesting read thanks. My perception was that the point being made was about sexism and our preconceptions - i.e. that the story wouldn't have created the same feeling in our minds if it had been the other way round - older woman and younger man. I wondered if it would have worked were the relationship depicted as a same sex couple.

[guzzi]

The relevance of cats is that they pretend their cats are texting one another, even though it emerges later that he probably doesn't have a cat.  Good story, with themes that I have come across recently in several stories. The difficulty of saying no,  sex without enthusiasm, the sometimes sadly different perceptions of men and women. It leaves me wondering what the man will progress to next ...

Good, striking story and a very relevant commentary on what we are hearing and reading about so often these days. 

Edited December 17, 2017 by guzzi

[maynragh]

I think it was actually just about the dangers of disassortative mating.