Martin C. Winer

Why TIME Magazine’s Karl Vick Doesn’t Care about Details
Why Israelis Shouldn’t Care About Karl Vick

There they are, the villainous Israelis sucking back ‘nargilum’ (a flavoured smoke) on a Tel Aviv beach, detached from the plight of the Palestinians and letting the world go to hell while they soak in the rays.  While Middle East Peace is a crucial issue to the rest of the world, these hoodlums could care less so long as they can make money and laze on the beach.

This is the life of an Israeli as portrayed in Karl Vick’s Sept 13, 2010 Time Magazine article:

“Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace”
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2015602,00.html

Vick has spun this distasteful tale using three main threads, a picture of beach bums, the testimony of two real estate agents, and a poll of critical issues.

Two Israeli real estate agents, Heli and Eli, it would seem, are sufficient witnesses to the moral state of a nation.  They claim proudly that even while the bombs were falling in Ashdod, real estate was still moving.  Eli claims Israelis are indifferent:

"They don’t care if there’s going to be war. They don’t care if there’s going to be peace. They don’t care. They live in the day."

In 1977 the Voyager Probe, launched by NASA, carried a ‘Golden Record’ containing images and sounds of the Earth.  Great deliberations went into the contents of this record to make sure that all races and peoples were equally represented.  Karl Vick would likely be quite surprised to learn that while composers from Beethoven to Chuck Berry are included, there are no real estate agents mentioned. 

If that was too delicate allow me to be blunt.  If God lived on Earth, a real estate agent would sell him a house with a leaky basement marketing it as “… with luxurious indoor swimming”.

Now on to Vick’s damming picture of beach bums.  If a picture is worth 1000 words then the scenery beyond the picture is worth a book; in this case the book is a tragedy.  Those ‘gluttonous’ beach bums are around 18 years old and likely on their way shortly to the army.  Israel has mandatory military service between high school and university for 3 years for males and females alike.  What Vick portrays as “Spring Break in the Middle East” is in fact a last dance before a tour of duty.  I’d say that deserves a toke or two.

Finally let’s deal with Vick’s appeal to statistics and polls.  Vick cites an Israeli poll asking participants to name the most urgent problem facing Israel.  Vick notes that

“just 8% of Israeli Jews cited the conflict with Palestinians, putting it fifth behind education, crime, national security and poverty.”

He the draws the conclusion that:

“…among Jews here, the issue that President Obama calls "critical for the world" just doesn’t seem — critical.”

First, ‘National Security’ likely subsumes the Palestinian conflict for many Israelis.  Next, Turnabout is fair play so let’s use the same logic on a recent US Poll.
When asked “what is the most important problem facing America?” Americans volunteered:
The Economy 49%
Health Care 8%  (Israelis cite the Palestinian conflict as their 8% issue)
Budget Deficit 4%
Wars: Afghanistan and Iraq 4%
Big Government 2%
Immigration 1%

(Apr 27, 2010: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20003551-503544.html)

So applying Vick’s logic symmetrically to this poll, it would seem Americans are callous war mongers who care about their own jobs and health well above the wars they’re actively involved in which have killed hundreds of thousands. 

I don’t support this conclusion, nor likely would Vick.  My point is that Vick uses polls, “as a drunken man uses lamp posts… for support rather than illumination”.  Israelis, by Vicks own admission, cite peace at 8% in their poll which carries equal weight to Health Care for Americans; Americans are anything but indifferent to Health Care.

I take exception with Vick’s swift and cobbled inference that Israelis are indifferent to peace.    Further I refuse to believe that a country with compulsory military service could possibly be indifferent to Foreign Relations.  Vick’s journalism is charlatanic at best.  In the nadir of the printed press, one would think attention to detail and quality would be paramount.  Perhaps Time Magazine need not ask why they are in their eleventh hour?

The TIME Magazine Cover:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=394892

Louis de Branges has made a critical error… he has tried to solve the Riemann hypothesis.  The problem is not so much that the Riemann hypothesis has remained unsolved since it was proposed in 1859 but more a human problem.  When a problem of this grandeur survives for such a long time it takes on a life of its own.  It is almost like Hank Aaron beating Babe Ruth’s record;  he was more hated for his accomplishment than admired.  The Riemann hypothesis is something like this… attempts to prove it are met with more derision and hatred than curiosity and exploration.

It’s no wonder than that de Branges titles his paper:  “Apology for the Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis“.  Admittedly, he has claimed to have solved the hypothesis before and has been proven wrong.  Just the same, he has successfully proven the Bieberbach Conjecture some 20 years ago winning him much accolade.  I think as such, he’s earned the tenure to make a few flubs without being dismissed as the mathematician who cried wolf.

This points to the basic human problem in the maths which isn’t getting much press.  A proof is offered by an individual, it is accepted or shot down, the end.  I see little evidence of teamwork.  In many failed proofs, there are parts which can be reused as building blocks for other proofs.  The maths are too much, in my mind, an individualistic science with people seeking too much fame and too little truth.  I speak from experience as I myself have published several proofs of the related Twin Prime Conjecture.

Here they are:

Prime Constellations
http://members.tele2.nl/galien8/twins/twins.html
http://www.rankyouragent.com/primes/primes_simple.htm
http://www.rankyouragent.com/primes/primes.htm

The proofs were met with such skepticism that I was never able to get a valid criticism as to the merits or failings.  I was dismissed out of hand as a neophyte know nothing who couldn’t possibly be right.  So much of perception is based on vantage point.  Because the Riemann Hypothesis perceived as unsolvable, it becomes actually unsolvable due to human error of parallax.

My mistake was slightly different than de Brange’s  I made an error in offering too simple a solution.  I didn’t say that my solution was incorrect mind you, just too simple.  When a grand problem survives this long, it’s answer must be 200 pages long.  This is the case with Andrew Wiles’ solution of the epic ‘Fermat’s Final Theorem’ which most experts agree couldn’t possibly be what Fermat himself had in mind when he scribbled ‘remarkable proof’ in the margins of his notebook.  I think it is likely that even though Fermat’s Final Theorem has been proved to the satisfaction of all mathematicians, the nugget of simple beauty that Fermat had in mind is likely yet to be filled in by some future mathematician on a few short sheets of paper.

This brings me to the final point regarding math and proofs of grandeous problems.  No one will be looking for the golden nugget of simplicity in Fermat’s Final Theorem or any others.  Seeking of fame rather than truth has corrupted mathematics.  The Riemann Hypothesis is intimately tied in with Quantum Physics.  If we only seek to prove it true or false, I fear we’ll miss crucial nuggets of beauty which could elucidate our understanding of the universe.

I’ve been watching with horror as the US economy is reduced to socialism.  Few are asking how much this will cost.  Those who do ask are getting nonsense answers like 25 billion dollars.  The Savings and Loan crisis of the 90′s took 250 billion dollars to bail out.  This current crisis dwarfs that crisis by orders of magnitudes.  So let’s cut through the bull and look at some math.

The Government is now on the hook for 5 trillion dollars in loans.  The only way they can lose money is if people default on those loans AND the value of the underlying asset (the home) has depreciated since the time the loan was issued.

So let’s say that 3% of people default on their loans.  The government is now on the hook for 150 billion dollars.  The government will now try to sell those foreclosed houses at market value.  Suppose those houses were inflated by a factor of 2 (that is they’ve now lost 1/2 their value).  Now the government sells the foreclosed houses at half the price and they’re on the hook for the left over half.  Thus the cost to the government would be 75 billion dollars.  The formula is thus:

bailoutCost = totalValueMortgages * defaultRate * (1 – (1/inflationFactor))

Now the question is where do we come up with values for things like the defaultRate and inflationFactor? (The totalValueMortgages is given as 5 trillion dollars by the government.)

Google mortgage deliquency rates or mortgage default rates and you’ll find numbers ranging from 2-5,  (I took 3 as an average).  Next to figure out the inflation factor, look at this chart:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/08/21/business/21real.graphic.html
and you’ll see that homes are around 2X inflated in value. 

So given these current numbers, the best case cost would be 75 billion dollars.  If the default rate increases or housing devalues beyond 2X the numbers could of course be much higher.  I welcome any polite criticism and/or suggestions for alterations.

 

Keith Olbermann is decrying what could be the most fundamental miscarriage of justice since Dred Scott v. Sandford, [1] declaring that a Black man had no right of citizenship in the United States.  This decision led, in short order to the Civil War. [2]

In the recently decided case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee [3] the issue before the court was the ability for a corporation to make campaign contributions, specifically to fund campaign ads.  Currently there is a cap on business campaign donations which have to be made through a political action committee.  The cap is in place to ensure that citizens can vote with their dollars early in the democratic process, specifically the funding of a candidate. 

The that has come down from Justice Roberts (a Bush Jr. appointee) has ruled that corporations, in line with previous rulings, are to be regarded as human beings in the eyes of the law, and thus limiting their ability to donate to campaigns is a fundamental violation of a corporation’s human rights. [4]

The previous ruling is the 1886 decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad [5] which had to do more to do with tax law.  It was decided that Southern Pacific Railroad was entitled to "the right to deduct the amount of their debts [i.e., mortgages] from the taxable value of their property, a right which was [previously only] given to individuals." [6]

During the pleading of the case, an orbiter dictum (legal: ‘passing comment’) was made that corporations were entitled to the same rights as humans.  The remark didn’t show up in the decision (merely the head notes) but from that point hereafter, corporations were regarded as human beings citing this ‘precedent.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution, indeed the Bill of Rights, (1791) establishes that "Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…".  The Supreme Court has taken this legislative gold and combined it with the dross of a passing comment in an unrelated case to produce an unholy alloy which now allows corporations, lacking human sensibilities aside from greed, all the rights of same. 

Olbermann concludes his commentary with a nod to another famous journalist famous for offering us a political conscience, Edward R. Murrow: “good night, and good luck.”

—–
Other Resources:
Jeff Toobin on the Colbert Report:
(United States) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/249057/september-15-2009/citizens-united-v–federal-election-commission—jeffrey-toobin
(Canada) http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-colbert-report/interviews-a-z/the-colbert-report—interviews-b/clip97669#clip215649
—–
Citations
[1] http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1856/1856_0 
[2] http://rawstory.com/2010/01/olbermanns-special-comment-freedom-speech-destroyed/
[3] , [4] United Citizens v. Federal Elections Committee: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf
[5] Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
[6] Carl Brent Swisher, "Motivation and Political Technique" in The California Constitutional Convention, 1878-1879 (New York: Da Capo, 1969), p. 78

Good News Toronto Nia Jam
Sun May 16, 2010

YouTube:

Inglourious Basterds : Bastardizing Holocaust Remembrance

Martin C. Winer

A comedy about nothing may be quite clever but a Holocaust movie about nothing is irresponsible at best.  For many years after the Holocaust, the film world observed a mourning period not even willing to touch the topic.  Then a spate of films came out seeking to portray with the utmost realism the horrors that had occurred.  The screenwriters did not use their imaginations in constructing the screenplays since Nazi imagination was as evil as it was complete.  Screenwriters dedicated themselves instead to rendering a faithful reproduction of those tragic events.

But now it seems as though enough time has passed such that the Holocaust can serve as comic foil to wrap and serve a helping of Quentin Tarentino gratuituous violence.  In Tarantino’s earlier works like Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction, violence was a backdrop against which he nourished his viewers with rich character development.  Many remember the character of Max Cherry, a Bail Bondsman who discovered the Delfonics and his youth in a passing romance with Jackie Brown.  Tarantino’s unique gift is in providing full Technicolor hues to seemingly ordinary characters.  In this sense, Inglourious Basterds fails as a Tarantino movie long before it fails as a movie dealing with the Holocaust.

The characters of this film are two dimensional and black and white.  Despite ample opportunity to shed light on the characters, the closest Tarantino comes is in his depiction of Col. Landa who is a master rat in a world of rats.  The closest Tarantino comes to any sort of message is delivered through Landa who reports that a squirrel and a rat are both very similar rodents, yet only the rat is detested.  By extension the reason Tarantino provides that the Jews have been so heavily targeted is a childish “Just So” story.  Any search for a broader meaning to the film will fall as flat as the remaining characters.

Beyond failed character development this film often offers mere caricatures.  Brad Pitt’s performance was notably poor in that he offers only a hyperbolic rendition of an American of southern descent with an obnoxious accent.  The ‘Basterds’ – a troupe of American Jewish soldiers out to scalp Nazis – are equally hollow depictions of people bent on revenge.  Tarantino shines at bringing out characters in films set in California.  But when it comes to developing characters in war torn Europe, it seems that he has bitten off more than he can chew.

The ending of the film is as disappointing as the character development.  Tarantino offers an alternate ending to World War II where the Nazis are brought down by a cunning act of espionage and subterfuge.  Anyone with the slightest sense of history will watch with raised eyebrows comparing this with the real ending of over 60 million people dead before Hitler and his Reich met its end.  To end Hitler with the flick of Tarantino’s pen, even though this be a work of fiction, seems irreverent of a painful history.

The ultimate concern of such a film is brought out in a line from the very film itself:  “Goebbels considers the films he’s making to be the beginning of the new era… an alternative to … the German-Jewish intellectual cinema of the 20’s.”  If Tarantino has decided for himself that it’s time to move beyond the painful and historically correct depictions of Holocaust films past, and that instead the Holocaust can be used as a mere backdrop for contemporary drama, what era in film making will this usher in?

Dumb:

Project Lifeline is a Bush administration initiative to give distressed mortgagees an additional month before their homes are foreclosed upon. This reprieve goes not only to subprime borrowers but to all distressed borrowers. The subtext to this move is that not only are subprime borrowers in distress. One month’s grace is dumb because the amount of debt that we’re dealing with coupled with the loss of equity from falling housing prices is not something that is going to resolve itself that quickly. This is akin to giving a starving man a rice cake. We all know that rice cakes are good only as coasters, so too is Project Lifeline.

Dumber:

Interest rate cuts are an even dumber idea. Last month the Fed cut rates by a staggering 1.25%. There is strong rumour that more cuts are coming. This is a dumber idea for a few reasons. First interest rate cuts are the cause of debenture spending. The reason we’re in the mess we’re in is because people are/were spending money they didn’t have. Next, lowered interest rates cause economic bubbles such as the housing bubble which is just in the process of bursting. Finally, interest rate cuts increase government debt. The way that the Fed lowers interest is by buying treasury bills with printed money. This devalues the currency and increases government debt. Thus, interest rate cuts are the cause of the current economic quagmire, and certainly aren’t the cure.

Dumbest

The US Stimulus Package is the dumbest possible idea. Under the package, people could see $600 to $1200 in tax rebates. First off, the amount itself is a pittance. Next, where is the money coming from? The money is being borrowed from China to be repaid with interest. Where is the money going? The money, it is hoped, will be spent into the economy to buy ‘stuff’. Where does all the stuff come from? The stuff comes from… China. The real underlying problem is that the US economy has shifted from a production based economy to a consumer based economy. Until you address that problem, any attempts to throw money at the problem will simply throw money in other people’s pockets. I’ll give the government some credit though, the US Stimulus Package does manage to stimulate an economy; perhaps the government will fund moving its citizens to Beijing where the positive effects can be felt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afIu492CyWMw&refer=home

Make no mistake about this folks, this is a depression era move.  Paulson, Bernake and Schumer are no less than a triumvirate of fools.  Ironically, Bernake claims to be a student of the depression.    There were so many bailouts that the government is forming a government agency to bailout companies.  As I read this article I seemed to remember a similar venture from the Great Depression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Finance_Corporation

There has been another corporation like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation which was used in the late 80′s as follows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_Trust_Corporation

Whatever the acronym, whatever the intent, the purpose is singular.  Let no one try to dissuade you from understanding.  The goal of any such organization is to pass the buck on to the taxpayer.

As far as finance goes, this is a hail mary pass which hurls the debt in the air and hopes the market has time to recover to land the touchdown.  Such a venture did work in the case of the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 80′s, however, many believe the Reconstruction Finance Corporation served only to prolong and worsen the Great Depression.

This latest crisis is by all accounts much worse than the Savings and Loan crisis and as far as the amount of debt shouldered per capita, could easily be a gre’08er depression than that of the 30′s.

Buckle up, we’re in for a wild ride.

My latest pet project www.simple2chat.com seeks to make the world of chatting, conferencing and blogging simple and accessible.

I currently have 4 messenger clients on my desktop. I have different collections of friends on each. If I want to conference them all in, it’s nearly impossible. I want to be able to talk to them all instantaneously and easily. I don’t want to have them all install software and exchange usernames, adding each other to friends lists well into the night.

I just want to chat. www.simple2chat.com seeks to accomplish this. Upon visiting the site, a conversation is set up for you automatically. All you need do is pass this link around to your friends and you can chat instantly.

Comparing the alternatives for this type of service we have:

Messenger programs: Yahoo!/MSN/Google/Skype.
Pro’s: They offer rich services. They have web interfaces but you can only access people on their respective networks.
Con’s: Need to install programs, register, add users and you can only conference people who are registered.

Net Meeting Software:
Pro’s: Rich functionality including the ability to share screens.
Con’s: Can be costly and requires installation and registration

Adobe Connect Now:
Pro’s: very rich, no login for your guests, ability to share screen.
Con’s: Needs the flash player plugin which may not be installed on a public computer. Requires a login for the meeting initiator (why? don’t we all have enough logins?!). Only supports THREE (?!) meeting participants in the free version.

www.simple2chat.com
Pro’s: No login, no software to install, no plugins, simple. Users can share images and screenshots using provided instructions.
Con’s: No video. (By the way, have you seen 12 people try to video conference? If 1 can be choppy 12 are definitely choppy.) Yes, video is great, but it doesn’t leave a transcript of the meeting so someone ends up typing the important points anyways.

Admittedly, this is my own site, so I may be biased. Don’t take my word for it then. Visit www.itssoeasytochat.com and try it out for yourself.

I had heard of the Toronto Opera Repertoire for some time.  I had always wanted to go but I never managed to find the time.  Finally I made it this year to the very last free (pay what you can, donation) concert of the season.

The Repretoire is made up of local talent with many performers having diverse day jobs ranging from physicists to journalists.  I walked into the unassuming theatre with no expectations.  It’s always such a delight when an event with no expectations exceeds even one’s wildest expectations.

All of the talent, conducting and accompaniment was top notch.  The range of music covered and the calibre of the performance was above or beyond most of the paid concerts I’ve attended.  With all due deference to the terrific talent that was there that night, there was one performer who outshone the others by several levels of brightness.

The performance of Hanny Djuwati was a pure joy to listen to.  She announced the name of the piece with such a soft voice I had to lean forward in my chair to make it out.  She had a somewhat heavy Asian accent which made the task even more difficult.   The piece was by Puccini, I never did catch the exact title.  I reclined back in my chair curious to see how this performance would turn out.

The next thing I knew, the room was filled with crisp clear ‘Bel Canto’ singing, all the words clearly audible with an authentic Italian accent.  I’m not often a fan of sopranos in opera as they tend towards being shrill with notes resonating painfully in my sinuses.  Not so with Hanny Djuwati.  The Bel Canto style of singing is a style which emphasizes ‘head voice’ which in turn focuses on clarity without pushing or straining.

After her performance, when I returned to earth, I double checked my surroundings to make sure I wasn’t at the Metropolitan Opera in $500 a seat chairs.  Djuwati certainly belongs there and I was glad to have been given a chance to hear her.

More information on Hanny Djuwati can be found here:

http://www.toronto-opera.com/2009_season/Carmen/djuwati_hanny.html

and the Toronto Opera Repertoire can be found at:

http://www.toronto-opera.com/

Suicide Prevention Doors

Introduction

The points herein are compiled from many sources, most listed in the ‘further reading’ section. These represent my research notes; I don’t claim this is my writing.

Costs and Timelines

Suicide prevention doors could be arriving on the Yonge St. subway line as early as 2013.

But TTC officials acknowledge it will take untold years and up to $690 million to bring the life-saving devices to the entire subway system.

Suicide / Mortality Statistics

In 2001 there were 56 traffic fatalities, 12 ttc suicides, 17 attempts, 1032 suicides in Ontario.

Population Ontario = 13 million, Population GTA = 5.6 million = 5.6/13 = 0.43

0.43 * 1032 = 443 in GTA

12/443 = 3% 3% of Toronto’s suicides occurred in the subway.

Cost is 10 million per station.

$690 million, $0.69 billion to solve 3% of the problem.

Statistics from the US NIMH

NIMH = National Institute of Mental Health

Suicide was the seventh leading cause of death for males and the sixteenth leading cause of death for females in 2006.1

Almost four times as many males as females die by suicide.1

Firearms, suffocation, and poison are by far the most common methods of suicide, overall. However, men and women differ in the method used, as shown below.1

Suicide by:	Males (%)	Females (%)
Firearms	56	31
Suffocation	23	19
Poisoning	13	40
Other	8	10

People Involved in the Debate

Lindsay Hill (Toronto Lawyer and Activist appeared before City Council)

Toronto lawyer Lindsay Hill, who has been diagnosed with a serious mental illness, told the commission that people whose brain chemistry is agonizingly out of balance may not be able to resist the opportunity to kill themselves even though they want to live.

“Suicide isn’t always a decision,” Hill said. “Sometimes you walk down to the TTC platform and you hear silence and then you hear the rushing wind and you think it would be so easy. And that calls to you and the decision is out of your hand.” (Toronto Sun)

Brian Beamish (Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Brian Beamish) – Released TTC Suicide Statistics

Toronto Sun, under freedom of information act (Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Brian Beamish) asked TTC to release information regarding TTC suicides

Beamish Ruled that “romanticized coverage of suicide may contribute to imitative effects but the simple publication of suicide statistics which do not focus on the details of a particular death."

Beamish offered a countervailing piece of research from the CDC "reporting of suicide can have several direct benefits. Specifically, community efforts to address this problem can be strengthened by news coverage that describes the help and support available in a community, explains how to identify persons at high risk for suicide, or presents information about risk factors for suicide."

Paul Links (WHO)

The World Health Organization and the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention have issued similar cautions. Paul Links, a psychiatrist specializing in suicide prevention, said copycat suicides are more likely to occur when media reports are sensationalized, there is close attention to the method used and when the story draws a link between an event in a person’s life and their decision to end it.

Toronto Transit Commission

The TTC has a policy of not publishing statistics or news revolving around suicide on TTC property. Despite the ruling and the one time revelation, the TTC remains committed to this policy going forward.

In 2009 19 people committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train, causing 23 hours of delays for commuters.

Mary Lynn Porto, the co-ordinator of the Gatekeeper Project, a suicide prevention training program for TTC booth collectors and subway drivers, says training helps avert five suicides a month.

What about slowing down?

Slowing trains down before entering a station would add on 15 minutes to a run per line and require the TTC to add six trains on each line, costing about $216 million more, according to a commission study.

The report adds that slowing down isn’t effective in stopping subway suicides anyway.

Suicide Prevention in Hong Kong

”We are suffering major losses from suicide,” said Masaki Ogata, general manager for transport safety of JR East. ”We’ve been studying the problem for 13 years now. There are various measures that we can take to reduce suicides, but in the end, man is the problem.”

The decade-long rash of suicides has coincided with an economic stagnation that is unequaled in modern Japanese history. In a society where much is driven by shame, record-high levels of unemployment have turned many men into despondent, daytime wanderers who pretend to have gainful occupations by staying away from home all day.

Suicide victim’s family charged for clean up! Train companies charge the families of suicide victims for damages caused by the suicides. JR East is just one of several train and subway companies operating in the Tokyo area, but it is widely rumored that JR East became the most popular line for suicides because it charged the bereaved families the least.

Newer train lines in Japan have suicide prevention platforms. 5-foot walls span the entire platform, with doors that only open when the train has safely stopped at the station. Jumping in front of a moving train is one of the most common suicide methods in Japan—it was, at least, until people started spreading information on how to gas themselves at home.

Death by Gassing at Home in Japan: The reason these suicides (by gassing) have been so newsworthy are because they all took place using household items to create the poisonous gas, hydrogen sulfide. The first one of these suicides took place last year, and since then, the methods for creating this gas have been spreading across the Internet. Since the beginning of this year, these suicides have been growing in number, finally coming to a head and breaking into the media spotlight this April with an astonishing 59 suicides.

More than 870 people have killed themselves in Japan by inhaling toxic fumes from household chemicals this year(2008), 30 times more than the total for all of last year, the government said today.

Suicide Prevention in Seoul South Korea

Between the roar of incoming trains, the soothing strains of Beethoven’s "Fur Elise" or Ben E. King’s "Stand By Me" float across the platforms of Seoul’s labyrinthine subway network.

The music fades and a preacher-like male voice intones: "Dear passengers, let’s think again about the parents and sisters and brothers we love and the preciousness of our life."

Driven by debt, lost love, terminal disease and other miseries, 95 people killed themselves in Seoul’s subway system last year.

Some nervous jumpers put black plastic bags over their heads to block out their surroundings and maintain their resolve just before leaping in front of an oncoming train.

The songs include Frank Sinatra’s "Send in the Clowns," "Sailing" by Rod Stewart, and Simon & Garfunkel’s "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

Electronic boards inside subway cars and platforms flash the sign:
"Giving up your life will inflict an unbearable pain on your family and the society!"

Subway suicides have also been a problem in Japan. In Tokyo, authorities once installed mirrors on the wall at the incoming end of platforms, where most people jump, theorizing that people would change their mind if they looked at their own image.

Pushing Incidents

Feb 16 2009, TTC fare collector chased and apprehended a man who pushed two men on to the tracks. Why is the media not afraid of copy cat pushing incidents in this case?

Other Suicide Magnets in the City: Bloor Viaduct

Bloor St Viaduct “Luminous Veil” cost 5.5 million (not luminous, ran out of cash).

Luminous Veil is a suicide barrier over the Bloor St Viaduct which until it was erected was the 2^nd most popular suicide location in the world, behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

Bloor Street Viaduct – in 1997 there were 17 suicides

Appendix A – MEDIA GUIDELINES ( via Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention)

News stories, articles, and dramatic presentations on the subject of suicide have come under question in the last few years. The concern has been that such presentations may have stimulated some persons to attempt suicide. There is confusion about how the subject of suicide should be treated to minimize this danger.

As a service to the news media and to the people making public presentation on the subject of suicide, the American Association of Suicidology and the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention offer the following guidelines. These are intended to be general statements to aid in a responsible presentation of information about suicide.

1. To discourage imitative or copycat suicides, it is important to avoid or minimize:

• Reporting specific details of the method

• Descriptions of a suicide as unexplainable e.g., "He had everything going for him."

• Reporting romanticized versions of the reasons for the suicide(s), e.g., "We want to be together for all eternity."

• Simplistic reasons for the suicide, e.g., "Boy commits suicide because he has to wear braces."

In addition, the print media can reduce the imitative effect by:

• Printing story on inside page

• If story must appear on first page, print it below the fold

• Avoid the word "suicide" in the headline

• Avoid printing a photo of the person who committed suicide

It is important to report a suicide in a straightforward manner so that the suicide does not appear exciting. Reports should not make the suicidal person appear admirable, nor should they seem to approve of the suicide.

2. To encourage prevention of suicide, it is helpful to:

• Present alternatives to suicide, e.g., calling a suicide prevention centre, getting counselling, etc.

• Whenever possible, present examples of positive outcomes of people in suicidal crises.

• Provide information on community resources for those who may be suicidal or who know people who are.

• Include a list of clues to suicidal behavior, e.g.:

Warning Signs of Suicide

Suicide threats

Statements revealing a desire to die

Previous suicide attempts

Sudden changes in behaviour (withdrawal, apathy, moodiness)

Depression (crying, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, hopelessness)

Final arrangements (such as giving away personal possessions)

What to Do

Discuss it openly and frankly

Show interest and support

Get professional help

Call your local Crisis/Distress Line

Appendix B – TTC Suicide Statistics

Below, are the subway suicide incidents and attempts from 1998 to 2009.

Year	Suicides	Attempts	Total Incidents
1998	12	13	25
1999	22	4	26
2000	21	12	33
2001	12	17	29
2002	16	11	27
2003	17	9	26
2004	15	8	23
2005	14	6	20
2006	8	11	19
2007	13	9	22
2008	N/A ♦	N/A ♦	19
2009	N/A ♦	N/A ♦	18

Further Reading

http://www.eopa.ca/newsletters/DialogueNL.June2001.pdf (pps 8-9)

http://casp-acps.ca/Publications/MEDIA%20GUIDELINES.doc

http://www.ipc.on.ca/images/Findings/MO-2466.pdf

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090216/090216_ttc_collector/20090216/?hub=CP24Home

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml

http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2008/09/suicide-prevent.html

http://www.japaninc.com/node/3240

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/06/world/kunitachi-city-journal-japanese-trains-try-to-shed-a-gruesome-appeal.html?sec=health&&scp=1&sq=chuo%20japan%20suicide&st=cse

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/asia_pacific/view.bg?articleid=1129152&

     — Martin C. Winer (special to The Inverter)
 
  (Woody Tiger Sr. and Jr. – Father and Child)

Woody Tiger continues his fall from grace as sponsors flee the tarnished tennis superstar.  In what was once a pure and inspiring tale of a rise from humble roots to tennis champion, damaging details continue to emerge. 

The number of extra carriage affairs continues to rise.  Formerly 8, now 13 children have come forward claiming that Woody Tiger is their father.  Paternity tests confirm the allegation.  Woody Tiger Jr., Woody’s Child has filed for adoption.  When word of the childresses came forward, Woody Jr. flew into a media spectacle rage hurling tennis rackets at Woody Sr. one impaling the back window of his SUV.  Woody Jr. has been seen at school not wearing his carriage cap.

Salacious details of text messages between Woody and his childresses show in one case he promised to attend his Child’s birthday and then attend a baseball game of a childress all on the very same weekend.  His divided loyalties have conservative groups screaming for blood.

Noted preacher and conservative Robert Pattison decried from the pulpit: “That we held such a man in such high regard — one who defiles the holy union of carriage — reveals our own failures.  The institution of carriage is a God given rule meant for the benefit of all: one child, two parents for life.  Can we finally have a serious discussion of family values before the fabric of the United States is burnt to ashes?” asks Pattison

In an offer to make amends, Woody Jr. was offered no less than 6 million dollars to remain Woody Sr.’s son.  A source close to the family reveals that “There is no love between Woody Jr. and Sr. these days.  Money can’t buy that love back.”  Like Woody’s Child, sponsors are making a beeline towards the exit.  In violation of the morality clauses of his sponsorship contracts, sponsors are taking their legal exits in fear that the taint may spread to their brands.

Most recently Thirsterator parted ways with Tiger.  A company representative remarked: “Thirsterator claims to be able to quench even the deepest thirst.  Clearly Tiger’s thirst for children can’t be quenched at all, and as such, he makes a poor representative for our product.” 

In a bid to restore his career and carriage, Woody entered rehab this week.  Offering a tearful and heartfelt apology in a news conference Woody was seen as humble and truthful, but can any apology suffice?  The damage he has done to the sport of tennis and carriage will be felt for many years to come. 

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” — Winston Churchill (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9051/msi_employees_stirling_engine_theory/index.html

I’ve posted information about Stirling Engines before:

can-stirling-engines-coupled-with-solar-power-be-the-key-to-meeting-our-energy-needs/

If you follow that link you’ll find a kit which can I used to build such an engine and video of it in operation.

What is cool about this latest application to cool a CPU is that it doesn’t require any additional energy to run.

Here is my latest mathematical work including a proof of the twin prime conjecture and interesting elucidating the mysteries of prime constellation distributions.

primeconstellations

primeconstellations_doc_Mar0509

updated Mar 5, 2009

It was with a sense of great loss that I learned of the passing of Cantor Louis Danto.  I sang for many years under his tutelage in the Beth Emeth Choir with Charles Heller as conductor.

Further details about Cantor Danto and his life can be found here:

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19571&Itemid=86

During his funeral there was a poignant recording of his played.  It is called “Elohai Neshama” which is recited in the Shacharit (morning) prayers.  The text for the prayer derives from the Talmud (Berachot 60b)

The text is as follows with audio below:

"My G-d, the soul which You have placed in me is pure. You fashioned it in me, You breathed it into me, and You preserve it within me and You will one day take it from me and restore it to me in the time to come. So long as the soul is within me I give thanks to You, LORD my G-d, and the G-d of my fathers, Sovereign of all worlds, Lord of all souls. Blessed are You, Lord, Who restores souls to dead corpses."

אלהי נשמה שנתת בי טהורה אתה יצרתה בי אתה נפחתה בי ואתה משמרה בקרבי ואתה עתיד ליטלה ממני ולהחזירה בי לעתיד לבא כל זמן שהנשמה בקרבי מודה אני לפניך ה׳ אלהי ואלהי אבותי רבון כל העולמים אדון כל הנשמות ברוך אתה ה׳ המחזיר נשמות לפגרים מתים׃

 

Click “>” Play:

[
Audio via: http://faujsa.fau.edu/danto/danto_playlist.php?jsa_num=100021&queryWhere=jsa_num&queryValue=100021
Translation via: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/189508.html
]

Same-Sex Marriage Rights:
Conservatives are not the Patent Holders on ‘Marriage’
religion.lilithezine.com – Sept 11, 2009
The debate continues to rage on about same-sex marriage rights.  In California flaming wildfires and flaming same-sex marriage partners are given equal treatment under the law: They are both invited to take a cold shower.  Behind the debate is the more fundamental debate over the use of the word ‘marriage’. It is almost as if conservatives are the patent holders on the term ‘marriage’ and same-sex proponents are infringing on that patent.

http://religion.lilithezine.com/Patenting-Marriage.html

As I continue my studies of the Economy, I’m continually shocked and horrified to find more evidence of mass corruption.

http://www.gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal

The Gold Anti Trust Action Committee has taken out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal asking, where is all our Gold?

For readers’ information… how did the gold get into Fort Knox in the first place? In 1933 Roosevelt passed a bill mandating that all citizens hand over their gold at base price. This gold was then melted down and stored in Fort Knox.

The last time a civilization was asked to hand over all its gold, they built a golden calf such that they could return to slavery. This time, there was no Moses to save us from our own stupidity. We don’t tromp in mud pits making bricks, but we do tromp to 9 to 5 jobs each day churning out contributions to our 401 K’s.

Fort Knox has never been officially audited. Moreover, strong rumours exist that the Federal Reserve has procured this gold as collateral against the US national debt. If there is no gold to be found in Fort Knox, perhaps with an open and honest audit, we may again find our liberty.

GATA has a video of a symposium they held. A summary can be found here:
http://www.gata.org/goldrush21

Marx once said that “religion is the opiate of the masses”.  If one is to believe this graph:

it would seem to suggest that the poorer you are, the more inclined you are to be religious.  Perhaps it’s not so odd that most religious television programs are constantly begging for money.  However, they may do better by making their pleas for money to the aetheists instead of ‘preaching to the [poor] choir’ as it were.

Most interesting are the outliers on this graph.  The US is more religious than its overall wealth would suggest, so perhaps George Bush does indeed hear the voice of God.  Also note Kuwait which is highly religious and relatively prosperous compared to countries with similar levels of religiousity.

More information can be found here:

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=258