Reference: The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857

What we know today as "India" is a British invention and historians who ignore this detail and try to trace the history of India beyond its creation risk reading too much into isolated and unconnected events as Indian history. Such is the case with the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. It started as a labor dispute. Indians serving as armed soldiers for the East India Company resorted to violence when they were denied certain pension and promotion benefits that they had demanded and things came to a head when the initial mutineers were dealt with very harshly and when a rumor was spread that the Enfield rifle bullets that the soldiers were required to bite into contained objectionable substances. In the melee that ensued, outsiders such as the heads of princely states and the senile and irrelevant heir to the Moghul empire tried to use the mutiny for their own selfish advantage. All of this came to nought precisely because there was no single coordinated war against British rule but a cacophony of selfhish and localized actions within the context of British rule. Much too much has been made of these events. It was not India's first war of independence and it did not lead to partition in 1947 nor to the rise of Isamlic extremism, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

On the matter of assisted suicide in Switzerland, October 2008

Darwinian thought paints a scary picture of who we really are. Suppose that there were once more rational human able to choose between life and death and between reproduction and celibacy using nothing but pure cold logic. After many generations we would find that nature had weeded these people out of the population simply because the mathematics of natural selection favors the unlimited desire to cling to life and to mate. Natural selection does not promote rational thought. It selectively breeds crazies like us and we are who we are because of that. Nature selectively breeds insanity until the insane take over and then they get to make the rules that discriminate between sanity and insanity.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: The chance to bring about an Asian Century, Bangkok Post, October 15, 2008

By the time the dust settles in the global financial crisis, we may find that Western supremacy has weakened and that the door has opened for China to take the lead in the global economy and to usher in the much anticipated Asian Century.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Arctic to be ice free due to man made global warming

For over a year now global warmists have expressed a great deal of alarm with respect to their projection that the Arctic will soon be ice free because of man made global warming. Nature, however, appears to be marching to a different drummer. The data show that the summer melt of Arctic ice in 2008 was less extensive than the melt in 2007. The 2008 melt bottomed out earler than usual and the ice extent in the Arctic basin is now growing at a very rapid rate. Over the last month it has grown by 800,000 sq km. The IPCC has taken note and has revised its projection of an ice free Arctic first from 2008 to 2013 and then again from 2013 to 2030. The way things are going it may be revised again to the year 2100. They played the same game with their projection of sea level rise changing their proejctions to anything from 6 meters to 50 centimeters and the time frame from 2030 to 2100. And yet, they appear to retain a great deal of credibility with the media.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Taiji's annual secret dolphin genocide, Bangkok Post, October 15, 2008

The word 'genocide' is used to describe an attempt to eliminate a human tribe or ethnic group by carrying out mass murder of the targeted individuals. Killing mammals for their meat - whether pigs, cattle, sheep, whales, or dolphins - cannot be described as genocide because these creatures are not human beings and also because the purpose of the kill is not to eliminate human beings but to sustain them with food. Individuals who find it shocking to see mammals being killed with knives and their blood being spilled should stay away from slaughterhhouses and they should stay away from Taiji during the annual dolphin hunt. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Smugglers of fake medicine target Thailand, Bangkok Post, October 13, 2008

Drugs that are chemically identical to patented brand name drugs but are sold under a different name as a less expensive substitute are generic drugs and may not be described as either counterfeit or fake. Drugs that are identical to patented brand name drugs in chemical composition, appearance, and brand name but made without a license by another manufacturer are counterfeit drugs and may not be described as fake as long as they work. Drugs that do not contain the active ingredients claimed and are either placebo or even harmful are fake drugs. These distinctions need to be made because fake drugs are a public health issue whereas countefeit drugs constiture nothing more than an issue involving patent violation or the infringement of intellectual property rights. Generic drugs are often beneficial to society because they offer a cheaper alternative to essential medication. A reference to all three of these categories of pharmaceuticals as "fake" is misleading (Smugglers of fake medicine target Thailand, Bangkok Post, October 13, 2008).

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: West is accused of shameless blackmail, Bangkok Post, October 4, 2008

The government of Kenya accused envoys from donor countries of shameless blackmail and gross condescension because they blamed the head of the election commission there for mishandling the election held last December (West is accused of shameless blackmail, Bangkok Post, October 4, 2008). Yet, it is the not only the right but the duty of donor countries to ensure that their aid is not misused by the government of the people for whom the aid is intended. Aid recipient governments find themselves in this fix because they are corrupt and dysfunctional. If they wish to regain their sense of sovereignty they may do so by improving governance and balancing the budget without the use of foreign aid. Until then they must be held accountable by the donors. If it is colonialism then it is voluntary colonialism and the onus still lies wth the government of Kenya and not with the donors. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Sarah Palin's alternative universe, Sunday Forum, October 5, 2008

I think that Bob Herbert has been irrationally mean spirited in his condemnation of Sarah Palin, in effect declaring her a clueless bimbo from the hintenaland (Sarah Palin's alternative universe, Sunday Forum, October 5, 2008). His intimation that Sarah Palin has not offered a fix for the miliary crisis in Afghanistan, the financial crisis on Wall Street, and the unemployment crisis on Main Street omits the obvious observation that no one else has either. He is right that Palin likely did get the context wrong when she quoted Reagan, but what does that have to do with Afghanistan, Wall Street, or unemployment? Mr Herbert's partisan colors are showing.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Finding it hard to stand, Bangkok Post Mylife Magazine, October 2, 2008

In cases where bicycling has interfered with the erectile function, it has done so by putting excessive and prolonged pressure on the perineum. In men, the perineum is the narrow soft tissue between the scrotum and the anus, and it contains blood vessels and nerves that are necessary for an erection to occur. Contrary to what has been published in MyLife Magazine (Finding it hard to stand, Bangkok Post, October 2, 2008) male cyclists are not forced to sit on their penis, and the higher rate of erectile dysfunction among cyclists is not explained in terms of the effects of of sitting on one's penis.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Worrisome cracks in ice, Bangkok Post, October 1, 2008

A scientist in Ohio looking through satellite pictures found a crack in the Petermann glacier in Greenland. He said that it could speed up sea level rise because huge chunks of ice the size of Manhattan were hemorrhaging off. He raised a global warming alarm based on these observations (Worrisome cracks in ice, Bangkok Post, October 1, 2008). The concerned, worrisome, and alarming nature of the article is completely undone, however, by the last paragraph. It quotes a scientist who has been travelling to Greenland for years to study glaciers. He said that the crack in the glacier is not different from other cracks he had seen in the 1990s, that such cracks are normal, and that the new crack observed is not alarming. As a footnote, earlier this summer it was predicted that the Arctic basin would become ice free this summer from a record summer melt due to the effects of global warming. This prediction has proven to be false. The data show that the annual sea ice melt in the Arctic Basin has bottomed out. Arctic ice is now increasing in area. At its lowest point there was more sea ice this year than last and the Arctic Basin did not become ice free. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: How green can you get, Bangkok Post, September 30, 2008

It is proposed that we should reduce our carbon footprint by using renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels as a way of mitigating climate change (How green can you get, Bangkok Post, September 30, 2008). It should be recognized in this context that promoting the carbon footprint as the overarching environmental issue does more harm than good because it trivializes more important pollution issues and also because some measures taken to reduce the carbon footprint create more environmental problems than they solve (Beyond carbon, Bangkok Post, September 30, 2008). For example, the use of fertilizer to grow renewable energy crops is causing an extreme form of water pollution by nitrogen compounds called eutrophication. The carbon people have run afoul of the nitrogen people. Environmentalism has gone awry.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: And then there were none, Bangkok Post, September 28, 2008

Contrary to what is reported in the Bangkok Post (And then there were none, Bangkok Post, September 28, 2008) there was no radical overhaul of the city of London in 1986 called the Big Bang. That event refers to new rules implemented by the government of the UK to deregulate and modernize the London Stock Exchange. On October 27, 1986, the Exchange opened for trading with a new set of regulations, a new market microstructure, and full conversion to electronic screen based trading. The event was named in anticipation of a dramatic increase in trading activity. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Hit me, Brunch Magazine, Bangkok Post, September 28, 2008

I read the article on CMS collision avoidance technology for cars in Brunch Magazine (Hit me, Brunch Magazine, Bangkok Post, September 28, 2008) and I found the language more suitable for junior high school kids than for adult consumers of automotive technology. Overall, I think the idea of having something like a Brunch Magazine is good but I would urge you to find adult wrtiers. I gather from the content of the articles that you are targeting an adult readership.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: The emissions issue, Bangkok Post, September 26, 2008

An article in the Bangkok Post says. with respect to motoring, that "The ever increasing amount of CO2 being released is significantly increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. As a consequence the earth is getting hotter due to the greenhouse effect." (The emissions issue, Bangkok Post, September 26, 2008). These sentences summarize what has become the global warming religion preached by Al Gore and followed like sheep by the media. While it is true that the annual mean atmospheric CO2 measured at Mauna Loa has risen from 315 ppm in 1960 to 383 ppm in 2007, no theory or experiment has shown that a change in CO2 levels in this range can have a measurable effect on temperature. In actual greenhouses where they grow vegetables during winter, they inject carbon dioxide to maintain CO2 levels at 1000 to 1500 ppm during daylight to feed carbon to the plants, and that is why we call CO2 a greenhouse gas, but there is no evidence of a temperature effect of CO2 even at these high levels. The correlation between temperature and CO2 presented by Al Gore is derived from historical data and it implies neither causality nor the direction thereof. Further, the idea that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is caused by our use of fossil fuels is pure speculation and without a scientific basis.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: A lighter skin color, Bangkok Post, September 25, 2008

As journalist Nikki Assavathorn has articulated so well, the marketing of skin whitening products to Asians promotes what she calls "skin racism" because their sales depend on developing low self esteem for women with darker skin (A lighter skin color, Bangkok Post, September 25, 2008). The same may be said of the thriving cosmtic surgery business in Asia that promises to make Asian eyes and noses more Aryan looking. However, this nature of the cosmetic business is not restricted to Asia and is possibly more intrusive in the West than it is here. All of their marketing and sales, whether there or here, depend on low self esteem or what Ms Nikki calls self-loathing. Decades ago the "does she or doesn't she" ad campaign caused millions of American women to dye their hair blonde to be more beautiful. More recently the push has been for breast enlargment worldwide and for skin whitening in the Asian market. These people make a living by selling low self esteem to women. I congratulate Ms Nikki for speaking out for women and I wish that all women both in Asia and in the West would heed her call and say no to extreme cosmetics. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Corruption is humanitarian disaster, Bangkok Post, September 24, 2008

Singapore, a country that has been taken over through state capture by an elite few is considered less corrupt than open, democratic, and transparent societies in Europe by the TI corruption perception index (Corruption is humanitarian disaster, Bangkok Post, September 24, 2008). This upside down ranking tells us more about the instrument than about corruption. I am guessing that the TI instrument is good at measuring corruption in the small, not very good at measuring corruption in the large, and completely unable to detect state capture.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Weather history at house offers insight into global warming, Bangkok Post, September 24, 2008

It is reported that temperature data taken very diligently at Mohonk, NY since 1896 show a temperature increase of 16 Centigrade degrees over 112 years, equivalent to 0.14285 Centigrade degrees per year (Weather history at house offers insight into global warming, Bangkok Post, September 24, 2008). It is likely that this report contains a typographical error. Temperature data from all weather stations in the United States are available from the USHCN (United States Historical Climatology Network) and they show that over the same period the temperature at the Mohonk weather station increased by 0.0133 Centigrade degrees per year, not 0.1428 Centigrade degrees per year as reported in the Bangkok Post. Over the same period, on average, the temperature at Rochester, NY increased 0.0056 degrees/year, at Albany, NY it decreased 0.00167 degrees/year,and at Maryland, NY it decreased 0.0074 degrees/year. Clearly it is not possible to use data from a single weather station to draw conclusions about temperature trends even in just the state of New York, much less the entire world, no matter how diligently the data were taken.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Foreign invasions unacceptable, Bangkok Post, September 21, 2008

In his address to parliament, Pakistan's newly elected president said that he would not tolerate intrusions into Pakistani territory by US forces and that the independence of the judiciary and all the judges fired by Musharraf should be restored (Foreign invasions unacceptable, Bangkok Post, September 21, 2008). Both of these statements are hollow. There is not much that Pakistan can do against cross border attacks by the Americans because they have allowed themselves to become financially dependent of American military aid. As for the judiciary, there is a danger that independent minded judges may find that the deal between Musharraf and Ms Bhutto that gives the new president amnesty from corruption charges, is illegal and unconstitutional. It is therefore unlikely that the new president will take any action to establish an independent judiciary.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: US criticizes Asian governments on religious freedom, Bangkok Post, September 21, 2008

It is certainly a good thing that the US promotes genuine religious freedom in Asia (US criticizes Asian governments on religious freedom, Bangkok Post, September 21, 2008). In the US itself the first amendment to the constitution requires that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" and thereby guarantees genuine religious freedoms to all its citizens. A problem arises however, when you try to define religion. For a religion to be a religion it has to meet certain requirements and if it fails to meet those requirements it may be deemed a cult and denied religious freedoms in the same way or in more severe ways than we do out here in Asia.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand