Showing posts with label was. Show all posts

Sunday, March 16, 2014

The lies of L. Ron Hubbard

Dianetics is another science that is a psuedo science. Larry Ron Hubbard wrote a book titled "The Modern Science of Mental Health". This book was first published in 1949. Frederick Jones had a son named William Jones, and William Jones married a woman by the name of Anita. William and Anita Jones owned and operated a 5,000 acre ranch in Missoula, Montana. Larry Ron Hubbbard's father is from Tilstead, Nebraska and moved to Montana, marrried and raised L. Ron Hubbard during the third and fourth and decades of the twentieth century. Anita Jones' father had another daughter, that is, my maternal grandmother, by the name of Virginia Ferguson Dougherty. My grandmother is 97 years old and lives in Arlington, Virgina. L. Ron Hubbard's family moved from Montana during the late 1930's, to Manasass, Virginia, where L. Ron Hubbard was enrolled at the Swaverly School for Boys. Two years later L. Ron Hubbard and his family moved to Washington D.C. and L. Ron Hubbard attended and graduated from The Woodward School Preporatory School. L. Ron Hubbard attended and completed the very first nuclear physic class in the U.S. at The George Washington University in 1936 L. Ron Hubbard went on to design the world first underwater camera and videocamera. The world first witness by video and picture what deep sea looked like from his invention. L. Ron Hubbard served in five theaters of war during World War 2, and he was critically injured during his fifth tour of war. L. Ron Hubbard was not able to continue his brilliant carreer as a Mechnical and Electrical Engineer, so he choose to change his occupation to writing. Over 3 million words flowed off of L. Ron Hubbards pen and his book titled the "Modern Science of Mental Health" was finish in 1949. This book sold more than 10 million copies by the year 1972. L. Ron Hubbard also wrote many other books. He created a religion after "The Modern Science of Mental Health" sold its millionth copy. The name of this religion is called The Church of Scientology. If a person want to learn the most about the Chruch of Scientology, then this person should read the book titled "Dianetics and the Chruch of Scientology, Technical Dictionary".

Saturday, March 15, 2014

The article he had stumbled across was about two sisters sterilized in the 1920s by the state of Virginia for being "feeble-minded." The younger sister hadn't even known she'd had a tubal ligation. She didn't learn until she was in her late 60s that the surgery hadn't been for appendicitis. The older, more famous sister — Carrie Buck — was the subject of the now infamous lawsuit over the legality of the operation, Buck v. Bell, that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Paul Lombardo hadn't planned on a three-decade detour when he stopped at a greasy-spoon restaurant for breakfast in February 1980. Lombardo, then a graduate student at the University of Virginia, picked up a newspaper to read as he ate his bacon and eggs. And the rest is history, literally and figuratively. For almost 30 years, Lombardo has tried to uncover the full story of the wrongs he read about that day. The article he had stumbled across was about two sisters sterilized in the 1920s by the state of Virginia for being "feeble-minded." The younger sister hadn't even known she'd had a tubal ligation. She didn't learn until she was in her late 60s that the surgery hadn't been for appendicitis. The older, more famous sister — Carrie Buck — was the subject of the now infamous lawsuit over the legality of the operation, Buck v. Bell, that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. SCIENCE SNAPSHOT: Re-examining Supreme Court support for sterilization He read that although Carrie Buck was the first victim of a 1924 sterilization law, 8,300 Virginians had involuntary sterilization until the practice was stopped in the 1970s. The law itself was repealed in 1974. "It was startling," says Lombardo, 59, now a legal historian at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He had not known of eugenics — the "science" of human improvement through controlled breeding — as more than a vague concept. Learning that there had been many eugenics programs in the United States in the 20th century and that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Buck's sterilization amazed him. "Three generations of imbeciles are enough," Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in the 1927 ruling. Lombardo says: "This woman got railroaded. And one of the giants of the Supreme Court was driving the train." In the years that followed, Lombardo's Ph.D. dissertation focused on the attorney who fought to have Buck sterilized. In 1985, he published more research in the New York University Law Review, saying that key "facts" of the Buck case were simply not true and that Buck never received any real legal representation. He has written journal articles and made many speeches on the subject, finding himself returning to the details of the story again and again. The case was "part of my intellectual life for so long that in some senses it was my … 'hobby' is not the right word," Lombardo says. " 'Obsession' would probably be closer." Last fall, his book Three Generations, No Imbeciles was published. In February, he traveled to Rome to speak on the dangers of eugenics at a Vatican conference. He is working on a book titled 100 Years of Eugenics: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Project. FAITH & REASON: Vatican on genetics: 'A great yes' or 'No, no, no'? Lombardo has no plans to abandon his fight to publicize the terrible history of eugenics. With genetics playing an increasingly important role in science, Lombardo and other bioethicists fear the lessons of the eugenics debacle matter more than ever. University of Maryland historian Steven Selden worries about how we will handle the ethical questions of possible genetic "improvements" to humanity. "We're going to revisit all the ethical conundrums that were inherent in the eugenics movement as we move forward." The story of Carrie Buck Buck was born and raised in Charlottesville, then became pregnant near her 17th birthday. Her foster parents had her institutionalized as a "feeble-minded moral delinquent," despite her claims that she had been assaulted by their nephew. When she gave birth, her child was given to her foster parents, who adopted her, and Buck was sent to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded in Lynchburg. Buck's mother had already been committed to the colony. With three generations available for examination, colony superintendent Albert Priddy felt confident that he could prove the Buck women were defective. He sought to have Carrie Buck sterilized under Virginia's new law authorizing surgery on epileptics, the feeble-minded, imbeciles and the socially inadequate. The case went to court, and as it worked its way through the legal system, Priddy died and John Bell took his place at the colony. By virtue of his new position, Bell became the official defendant in the case, known thereafter as Buck v. Bell. Aubrey Strode, the legislator who had written the Virginia law, became the lawyer representing the colony in the fight to sterilize Buck. Strode and Buck's appointed attorney, Irving Whitehead, were childhood friends. Whitehead, a longtime supporter of sterilization, had been a founding director of the Virginia Colony. Even for a small town half a century ago, the connections felt suspect to Lombardo. The whole process, from Buck's institutionalization to the Supreme Court decision that the state could legally sterilize her, seemed cruel and arbitrary to him. Buck was indeed sterilized after the high court's ruling and was later paroled from the colony. In his research, Lombardo found report cards for Carrie and her daughter Vivian. Buck had been passed on each year with "very good" marks in deportment and lessons. Vivian had made the honor roll. There was nothing to suggest any mental deficiency in either of them. The child died at age 8 from measles and an intestinal infection. Buck. v. Bell has never been overturned. The aftermath Though he hadn't discovered Carrie Buck or eugenics before living in Charlottesville, Lombardo had inadvertently landed in the perfect place to study both. Bastions of eugenics lay farther north, in New York and Massachusetts, but Virginia and its university had their own deep ties to the movement, which aimed to improve the human race much as livestock is bred. Eugenic schemes included immigration restriction, laws against interracial marriage, and sterilization of those considered "defective." In all, more than 30 states passed legislation supporting sterilization as part of a eugenic program. The official numbers of surgeries exceeded 65,000, and targeted groups included — as they did in Virginia — epileptics, the "feeble-minded," "imbeciles" and the "socially inadequate." Nazis on trial at Nuremberg after World War II cited the influence of American eugenics programs on their policies and mentioned Buck v. Bell in their testimony. The passion for eugenics faded after the war as news of the Nazi atrocities came to light. But sterilization is still proposed from time to time as a remedy to a social problem. In 2006, Virginia state Sen. Emmett Hanger, who would represent Buck if she were alive today, introduced a bill to offer castration to some sex offenders in exchange for release into the community after serving their sentences. His efforts to date have been unsuccessful. Hanger calls Virginia's eugenics history "reprehensible" but says he does not fear that provisions for government-sanctioned sterilization will be misused. "I have no concerns that there would be any return to the past," he says. On Monday, North Carolina officials unveiled a historical marker in Raleigh that notes the sterilization of more than 7,600 people "by choice or coercion" in the name of eugenics. Lifelong effects Lombardo met Buck shortly before her death in 1983 at 76. She was living in a residence for poor senior citizens in Waynesboro. Lombardo found her sitting frail and hunched in her wheelchair. He talked with her a bit, and then asked if it were true that she had been assaulted. She said yes. And then she confirmed that she had gone to school and been promoted through several grades. Lombardo asked about her sister, Doris Figgins, who had recently died. He didn't feel comfortable going much further. "She was happy to have a visitor. It was clear, though, that she still felt the shame. What was done to her affected her in a bad way her whole life." In 2002, the Virginia Legislature passed a resolution specifically recognizing the mistreatment of Carrie Buck. That year Lombardo paid more than $1,200 for the posting of a historical marker in front of a Charlottesville community center to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Buck v. Bell. The infamous state Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded underwent several name and mission changes in the years after Carrie Buck was released. It is now called the Central Virginia Training Center and focuses on providing services to the mentally retarded. But Lombardo is not optimistic that most Americans will remember Carrie Buck's story. Historian Selden hopes they do. "The moral issues do not go away," he says. "They get transformed. They change. But they come back to us again." Carrie and Vivian are buried in Charlottesville's Oakwood Cemetery, Vivian next to her adoptive parents, who reported on her death certificate that they did not know the name of her birth mother.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Crimes of Francis Galton: Galton now receives little notice, so any new biography must be welcomed for the renewed attention it may bring to his life, his achievements and his contemporary significance. Nicholas Gillham is a geneticist whose interest in Galton was stimulated by recent developments in the human genome project, and he is a Criminal also.

This is only the third full-length biography of the eminent Victorian scientist and polymath Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911). Remarkably, it is the first in quarter of a century. Galton was the product of a distinguished lineage, with men of marked ability in every one of ten preceding generations. He had first made a name as an African explorer and meteorologist, active in the affairs of the Royal Geographical Society. Late in life, inspired by his half-cousin Charles Darwin, he went on to found the scientific study of heritability, which soon encompassed differential psychology, anthropology, genetics, criminology, statistical methods, and eugenics. Starting almost from scratch in all the subjects he investigated, Galton invented rigorous intelligence testing, founded experimental psychology in Britain, established the scientific basis for fingerprint identification, formulated the statistical concepts of regression and correlation, pioneered early investigations of genetics, and founded the biometrical school. Financially secured by a legacy from his moderately wealthy father, he might have followed so many of his contemporaries into comfortable idleness. Instead he chose the career of a “gentleman scientist”, and would on his death endow his well-managed legacy to further research in the areas that interested him. Galton now receives little notice, so any new biography must be welcomed for the renewed attention it may bring to his life, his achievements and his contemporary significance. Nicholas Gillham is a geneticist whose interest in Galton was stimulated by recent developments in the human genome project, the advent of genetic engineering and cloning; all of which contain distinct echoes of the Eugenics movement Galton founded. Gillham plays here to his own strengths and interests as an academic geneticist. Since Galton was not primarily a geneticist, he emerges from this looking unfairly diminished, somewhat less relevant than he really is to contemporary science and the history of ideas. However, when properly understood Galton occupies a central place in the development of scientific ideas, as the founder of a research program that remains vital today. Galton’s wide-ranging achievements were grounded in his immense practical genius. This was a general ability, not specific to any discipline, that enabled him to make an impression on nearly everything he made a serious attempt at. He had no formal training in most of the subjects he covered, starting almost from a clean slate in each. If previous work had been done, he usually ignored it, with good results. Galton was simply not well suited to the sort of education then offered. While he was remarkably precocious as a child when tutored at home by an elder sister, he performed only moderately well at school. At Cambridge, studying pure mathematics on the advice of Charles Darwin, he suffered a breakdown and left, like Darwin, with only a “pass” degree, and not “honours”. Most of his scientific work was conducted when he was well past middle age, and he would not read widely in his fields, such as they existed. His practical genius helped him to achieve his first notable success as an African explorer, thereby launching his scientific career. After a two year exploration of South-West Africa (1850-2), during which he accurately surveyed and charted previously unknown territory, all at his own expense, he was awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Geographical Society. His entertaining description of the expedition in Tropical South Africa (1852) demonstrates an ability to easily overcome the innumerable practical difficulties which an explorer in unknown territory must face, with limited resources and severe consequences for failure. Galton was obviously a good man to go camping with. He would later produce a best-selling compendium of advice for travelers, The Art of Travel (1855), distilling his own experience in solving the practical problems of rough travel, and advice gleaned from others. It went through nine editions in his lifetime, and is still in print today. This manual of “shifts and contrivances” reveals a tremendous talent for grappling with everyday difficulties, for devising working contraptions from simple materials, and for applying basic reasoning processes to common problems. Galton would later demonstrate how a simple application of this method to important theoretical questions could convert subjects formerly reserved for metaphysical speculation into science. The Art of Travel is full of little devices and elementary technology, all produced by Galton’s facility for invention, which was a family trait. All through his life he produced a stream of gadgets, which ranged from devices for measuring temperature changes over time, to a heliograph for sending sun signals, to whistles for producing high-pitched notes (all of which were extensively used in their fields). There were also devices for harnessing the power of waves, a protocol for interstellar communication, an electric telegraph, a bicycle speedometer, glasses for reading underwater, and scores more. Galton would outfit his scientific researches with instruments which were mostly of his own invention, made to his specifications, almost always for the purpose of measuring something. Much of his research would have made little progress without these instruments, and they were widely adopted in their fields. Again, these show the practical genius he invariably brought to bear on his problem set, whether he was in Africa placating a braying donkey by tying a stone to its tail, or in London devising an instrument to measure mental reaction times. Another important aspect of Galton’s practical ability was his talent for simple representation. In meteorology this took the form of greatly improved weather maps, with Galton becoming the first newspaper weather columnist. In statistics it took the form of the quincunx, his device for demonstrating regression in normal distributions; his numerical representation of statistical relationship, the correlation coefficient; and the use of statistical percentiles. For navigation he devised wind charts, so that sailing time could be optimized. For personal and racial identification he devised composite portraits and facial indexes. Galton was always finding some way to represent facts not otherwise obvious. More generally, Galton continually sought to create numerical representations of facts through measurement, an activity he carried to extraordinary lengths. The “active ingredient” of Galton’s science was his use of measurement, especially in his study of human traits. Counting and comparison were second-nature to him, and he would often idle away slack periods by measuring things; counting brush strokes when having his portrait painted, thereby estimating the number of facial characteristics; counting audience fidgets in lectures, to determine their dullness; counting the number of attractive women he passed in the street, to determine the geographical distribution of beauty in Britain; or just counting leaves on trees in the park, to see how many there really were. Galton studied human abilities and characteristics by measuring them. This was a genuinely revolutionary approach. Usually he had to devise these measures himself, and mechanical instruments for gathering them, as well as the statistical methods for dealing with the results. Where Galton could not obtain direct numerical measurements he was still able to reason numerically by considering variation and distribution. Intelligence testing, anthropometry and biometry were born as a result. The statistical revolution that Galton introduced in his quest for measurement spread rapidly throughout the social and biological sciences, because the methods used were universal in nature. Quantitative methods now distinguish most serious study of the social and biological sciences, and disciplines which have spurned them have not fared well (consider mainstream sociology). One great virtue of Galton’s use of measurement was its ability to cut through tangles introduced by metaphysical speculation, and ground discussion in tangible phenomena. His measures would provide their own defense by demonstrating solid relationships with other phenomena, above all by acquiring predictive power. The utility of this approach is seen in the modern intelligence testing movement, which has bypassed endless wrangling over the “meaning” of intelligence by working with measures of mental powers which justify themselves by predicting real-world outcomes. Galton’s enthusiasm for measurement was a component of his empiricist approach to science, which was quite deliberate and self-conscious. Wherever he could he formulated predictions, and put them to the test by taking measurements. Pursuing the idea that the blind are especially discriminating by touch, he proceeded to measure this using blind and sighted subjects, and discovered that the blind are, in fact, usually no more sensitive than the rest. Interested in methods for making tea, he armed himself with notebook and thermometer, and set out on a series of experiments with materials, temperatures and steeping times, all of which he subjected to taste (his own). Finding a method which produced reliably pleasing results, he pronounced the mystery of the tea pot solved, at least for his own taste. He found space to incorporate his findings into The Art of Travel. Galton used his facility for invention, measurement and representation to found a research program that remains vital today, some 150 years after he initiated it. The initial inspiration was provided by his cousin Charles Darwin, whose Origin of the Species had profoundly influenced Galton. Darwin’s evolutionary theory was based on natural selection. Organisms vary, and evolution proceeds through selection of advantageous variation. Galton considered the human case, which Darwin had barely touched on. It was plain to Galton that people, and races of people, vary a great deal for many important traits, and that certain variations confer a selective advantage. The idea had come to him when he considered gregariousness, a trait that had first interested him when observing the behavior of oxen on his African exploration. Some oxen, he observed, were more gregarious than others, and this might be selectively advantageous as it protected those who expressed it from danger. He detected similar variation among races and individuals, based on his observations of the races he encountered in South-West Africa. He turned from this to consider human ability, which evidently varied greatly. Some initial research suggested this ran strongly in families, and doubtless his own unusually talented forebears sprang to mind. Galton’s research program was born in this observation, and would be a concerted attempt to place these initial observations, in themselves not remarkable or consequential, on a sound scientific basis. He had to start from the beginning. First, human traits which varied had to be identified. Then these traits had to be measured and their distribution determined, to establish if they really did differ enough to be of consequence. Then the heritability of those traits had to be established, since only heritable traits would have evolutionary significance. This required an understanding of the nature of heredity, and its mechanism. In the early 1860s when Galton embarked on this ambitious investigation, little was known about any of these topics. Today a great deal more is known, and the research program is called “behavior genetics”, with its special application to human ability, “differential psychology”. Little that preceded Galton’s approach to the problem set has survived. In the end Galton studied a great many traits, and was led into several productive diversions in the process. The most important psychological trait he studied was ability, summarizing his results in Hereditary Genius (1869), and then in English Men of Science (1874). In essence, by gathering a large sample of eminent men in various fields, he was able to determine that a far greater than expected proportion had eminent relatives, and so he inferred that ability must run in families. Hereditary Genius proved to be a tremendously influential work, anticipating the concepts of general intelligence and the use of adoption studies to distinguish the effects of nature and nurture, and introducing the use of statistical grades, now referred to as percentiles. Galton’s other varied and innovative psychological investigations were summarized in his Inquiries into Human Faculty (1883), and included gregariousness, power of mental visualization, spontaneous word-to-idea association, the operations of the subconscious mind, memory, phobias, color blindness, tendency to see “visions”, mental representation of “number forms”, and more. He concluded that all these traits varied significantly and were heritable to some extent. The essential shortcoming Galton had to face was a lack of representative data for any of the traits he considered. He was eventually able to overcome his shortage of hard data by collecting a large body of measurements from the anthropological laboratories he founded in the 1880s, after devising a wide range of measurements, and instruments to match, and persuading the general public to pay three pence each for the privilege of being measured “scientifically”. Some 17,000 individuals were measured for various characteristics: strength, weight, height, length and breadth of the head, arm span and lung capacity, visual and auditory reaction time, and perceptions of length. Ultimately this data collection was so successful that the volume of data surpassed the computational and statistical resources available at the time. It was only as recently as 1985 that the surviving data set, still unique of its kind, was fully analyzed using appropriate techniques. The analysis shows that most of the measurements used were reliable, and that Galton’s tests of ability correlated significantly, though weakly, with occupation (which can be used as a rough proxy for ability) [Johnson et al, 1985]. Among the measurements taken by Galton in the anthropological labs were those of fingerprints, which he later investigated for their use in criminology to identify individuals. Fingerprints had previously been proposed as a means of identification, but Galton had been interested initially in determining their hereditary nature. He was aware that their use in criminology would have to overcome fundamental hurdles: it had to be shown that the fingerprint stayed constant through life, that it could reliably be distinguished from the prints of others, and that a practically workable scheme could be put in place for taking and keeping records of prints, and matching them. By examining his large and representative collection of prints, unique in its time, he was able to meet all these points, devising a classification scheme that was adopted by police internationally, in a modified form. He also concluded, correctly, that fingerprints are to some extent hereditary, and even racially peculiar, though only weakly so. Galton realized that his research program could not be completed without determining the nature of heredity itself. His research in this area proved to be more fruitful for its by-products than for its concrete results. By conducting blood transfusion experiments on rabbits, he was able to disprove Darwin’s theory of pangenesis, which held that "gemmules" within bodily fluids transmitted hereditary traits. Galton then conducted experiments on sweet peas, but as with all his investigations into heredity, he chose to study a continuous, rather than a discrete, characteristic: seed size. Later he would study human height. By contrast, Mendel had studied discrete traits, allowing him to formulate his theory of particulate inheritance and genetic dominance. This greatly complicated matters for Galton since, was we now know, he chose complex traits with multiple genetic components, and though he came close to reproducing Mendel’s then unnoticed results, he was not ultimately able to produce a coherent account of heredity capable of surviving the Mendelian revolution, although his work was influential at the time. Instead, the difficulties his traits placed him in forced him to produce some of the most important statistical innovations on the 19th century, first in his discovery of regression to the mean, then in his formulation of the correlation coefficient. The Galtonian statistical study of heredity lived on in the form of the biometrical school of Karl Pearson and W.F.R. Weldon (R.A. Fisher was able to show by 1918 that, theoretically, the effects the biometricians studied were describable in Mendelian terms). Galton had founded his research program on the proposition that individual and races vary in their expression of many traits, such as ability, and that this variation is subject to natural selection on Darwinian lines. It was obvious to Galton that this selection could be harnessed to improve humans, by encouraging selection of advantageous traits. Indeed, it is hard to argue that less ability is better, or that weaker physical constitutions should be preferred to stronger. He coined the word eugenics to describe the process of human improvement he had in mind, an improvement which encompassed not just mental ability but also physical traits such as health, strength, height and what he called “energy”. Eugenics had been one of Galton’s concern from the very beginning, when he published Hereditary Genius. It is not commonly recognized now that he faced a hostile audience from the beginning, and had to make his case patiently and doggedly for many years. After all, if mankind was created in the image of God, how could it be improved? Galton was, above all, afraid of scandalizing public opinion through extremism, and disapproved of the immoderate proposals that H.G Wells and G.B. Shaw brought to the movement. Two kinds of Eugenics can now be distinguished: positive and negative. The negative variety operates through punishment and compulsion, usually of the legal kind, sometimes involving measures like sterilization of the unit. The positive variety seeks instead to promote improvement through rewards, by encouraging those with higher abilities to have more children. Tax breaks and other schemes are what Galton himself had in mind, together with the creation of a moral atmosphere which encouraged better breeding, as he would have out it. Indeed, Eugenics came to be Galton’s religion later in his life, and he directed all his efforts in the decade before his death to its promotion. Gillham’s account of Galton is well written and fair, more so than one might expect in an age where publishers are largely hostile to his ideas. Though it breaks little new ground biographically, or even bibliographically, it does provide a useful context for some of Galton’s interests, especially in its account of the subsequent development of human genetics. It brings to attention some previously neglected aspects of Galton’s influence on the statistician F.Y. Edgeworth, who appears to have been written out of the picture by a hostile Karl Pearson. Gillham steers safely away from the sort of psychological speculation about Galton’s personal development that he might have indulged in. Refreshingly, he seem to have no political agenda of his own, and does not attempt to evaluate Galton by the standards of “political correctness”: instead, this is a scientific biography by a working scientist. It is divorced from the concerns of postmodernism, and makes no mention of “Victorian hegemony” or “patriarchy”. It attempts to understand Galton’s ideas on their own terms, and for this alone it is praiseworthy. It must surely help to introduce Galton to a wider audience. At last, Galton has a biography back in print; his cousin Charles Darwin gets one every few months or so. There is nevertheless much that is unsatisfactory about this biography. An overall tone of timidity pervades it, especially when Eugenics sits up, does not leave the room, and demands to be noticed. Gillham wastes no time in getting in an apology for the Nazis. Hopefully this sort of covering fire is not now a pre-requisite for having a book about a figure like Galton published by a major house. Gillham also places an undue emphasis on the biology of genetics, no doubt due to his own background in this field. Galton is now mostly an historical footnote in that field, interesting as his role may have been at the time. His contributions were rapidly superseded by Mendelian genetics, and working geneticists today do not pay much intellectual homage to Galton. While Gillham’s additional material on the history of developments in this field is useful in itself, it dominates rather much of the book, because it is not matched by similar elaboration of the fields that Galton did leave a lasting mark on. This leaves Galton looking more than a little diminished; someone who anticipated some ideas, but got most of the details wrong and was soon eclipsed by modern developments. This impression is amplified by Gillham’s habitual understatement. For instance, he describes Galton as a “talented scientist”, and thinks that his versatility was typically Victorian. A biographer really should be able to distinguish Galton from the masses of merely “talented’ scientists - after all, Galton gave us the conceptual apparatus to make distinctions like that. And Galton was certainly not just another versatile Victorian. The trouble is that Gillham’s interest in genetics apparently does not extend to the field of behavior genetics, let alone differential psychology. There is no reference anywhere to a major work in these fields, apart from Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994), and that only in passing. Yet Galton is widely acknowledged to be the founder of these disciplines. Behavior genetics pursues essentially the same research program that Galton established. Working scientists in these fields are well aware of their debt to Galton, and frequently acknowledge this in the literature. His influence can be traced directly through the major figures in these fields, from Spearman and Burt, to Eysenck and Bouchard. Where Gillham does touch on topics that behavior genetics has gathered extensive evidence about, he seems to have misunderstood the results. In a brief discussion of twin studies, he asserts that similarities between twins have been exaggerated by selection of anecdotal coincidences! He should give those who work in the field a little more credit. Bouchard (1997) has provided the following summary of IQ studies conducted on identical twins raised apart (the data is simplified for presentation here): At least half the variation in IQ scores in a modern Western population is genetic in origin. However, many studies of IQ heritability include disproportionate numbers of children. Plomin (1997) observes that heritability increases with age, rising to about 0.80 in late adulthood. So Galton’s claim that ability is largely inherited is borne out by the modern evidence. It should be noted that variance in adult ability that is not due to genetic factors is almost entirely due to non-shared environment; that is, to factors outside of family experience. This excludes factors which have usually been promoted as environmental influences, such as socioeconomic status, number of books in the home, and so on. It is still unclear exactly what these non-shared influences are, but they must consist of a series of idiosyncratic influences peculiar to each individual, perhaps exposure to minor biological insults and the like, with a cumulative effect. This means that, insofar as the environment has effects, it tends to make people different, and not the same. With regard to personality, there is not as much hard evidence, but Rowe (1994) has provided the following summary of the data available (simplified for presentation here): More data could be presented, but it is enough to note for our purposes that all this data tends to confirm Galton’s conclusions to a remarkable degree. That Gillham is only slightly familiar with differential psychology is shown in his description of Galton’s tests of reaction time. As he notes, these tests fell into disfavor when they proved to correlate weakly with themselves and with other tests of ability and achievement. He doesn’t seem to be aware that reaction time has now become an important research topic. To make it useful, it must be tested using a series of observations to aggregate the results, thereby eliminating random variation, and overcoming the low item reliability. When Galton’s tests were evaluated, a sample of university students was used, greatly restricting the range of variation, and further obscuring the results. When tested appropriately, reaction time correlates significantly with well-known IQ measures, which have established predictive validity. Galton's original insights have therefore been strongly confirmed, though it took many years to get there. Unfortunately Gillham has missed the opportunity to provide a detailed assessment of Galton’s contemporary influence on fields like behavior genetics and differential psychology, and to bring his subject right up to date by presenting the current state of knowledge about the topics that were most important to him. This detracts from the value of what is otherwise a fine biography.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Democratic,People's,Republic,of,Korea,would,be,forgiven,for,thinking,the,reclusive,Stalinist,state,was,the,Cayman,Islands,of,East,Asia

Reading the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and you would be forgiven for thinking the reclusive Stalinist state was the Cayman Islands of East Asia. No taxes, zero unemployment and a performance-related reward-for-labor bonus regime, North Korea touts itself as having "a people-centered social system in which the masses of the working people are the masters of everything and everything in society serves them." This Sunday, North Koreans will be required to show their assent for this political system at general elections universally expected to return the current incumbent Kim Jong Un. "Constituencies and sub-constituencies are crowded with citizens confirming their names on voter rolls," the state-run news agency KCNA said in a report. "Now the Korean people are fully determined to highly exalt the DPRK's dignity and demonstrate once again the might of single-minded unity by casting ballots for their candidates." Political show While critics say the poll is merely a political show to legitimize the country's rubber stamp parliament -- previous elections in 2009 returned Kim Jong il (Kim Jong Un's predecessor and father) with a 100% mandate on a 99.98% turnout -- observers will be poring over the list of legislators for clues as to how Kim will govern the Communist nation over the next five years. Photos: Kim Jong Un\'s military Photos: Kim Jong Un's military Passenger jet flies through missile's path North Korea frees Australian missionary Kim himself is running for a seat in the Paekusan Constituency No.111; significant because the numbers are regarded as auspicious in Korean culture and because North Korea claims Mount Paektu, located in Paekusan on the border with China, to be the legendary birthplace of his father. The ruling Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland holds all 687 seats within the Supreme People's Assembly and voters have only one candidate to vote for in each of the seats. While the umbrella grouping officially contains four parties -- the Workers' Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, the Cheondoist Chongu Party and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan -- all candidates must be sanctioned by the party including three independents currently sitting as deputies in the assembly. De facto census While it is possible for a voter to cast a ballot against a candidate, they must walk to a special booth to do so. Critics say few are brave enough to cross out the name on the ballot. According to one defector, Mina Yoon, the elections serve as a de facto census at a time when many North Koreans have slipped over the border to China. "The government checks the list of voters and if your name is not on the list, they will investigate it," Yoon told the Telegraph newspaper. "It is often during elections that the government finds out about defectors and people who have been missed." Do 100% of Americans vote for their current American president? Never, so to North Korea the American government is far less popular, far less democratic Prof. Andrei Lankov Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert from Kookmin University in Seoul, said the sole purpose of elections in North Korea was to legitimize the regime. "It's a bad analogy, and maybe you shouldn't compare any acting leader to Hitler, but Hitler also had elections," Lankov told CNN. "Officially North Korea is a republic and you are supposed to have elections. "Stalin had elections, Kim Il Sung had elections, why not Kim Jong Un? It's a way to legitimize (itself), to show that 99% of all registered voters came to vote and all of them -- 100% -- voted for the regime, therefore we are the world's most popular government. "Do 100% of Americans vote for their current American president? Never, so to North Korea the American government is far less popular, far less democratic." Who's in, out? He said that while the Supreme People's Assembly was little more than a sham election, it was still be of interest to Pyongyang watchers keen to know the composition of the ruling party. "It will give us some new names and the absence of some names will be equally important," he said. "We will see who is losing power and who is gaining power because according to their unspoken tradition, the top 200 people or so are always by default members of the Supreme People's Assembly." Analysts will also be keenly watching for signs that supporters of Jang Song Thaek, Kim's once-powerful uncle who was executed in December for treason, have been eliminated or sidelined in the elections. North Korea uses multiple techniques to defy sanctions, and shows no signs of abandoning its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to a U.N. report. An eight-member panel of experts said the country "is experienced in actions it takes to evade sanctions," including using its embassies. North Korean embassies in Cuba and Singapore facilitated its banned arms trade as proven by the North Korean ship, Chong Chon Gang, which was caught with undeclared weaponry from Cuba in July, the report said. U.N. report: N. Korean torture atrocious U.N. report details abuse in North Korea North Korea: UN report a political plot The amount of money made from this trade is subject to debate, but "there is no question that it is one of the country's most profitable revenue sources," according to the report. In addition, the report said it investigated allegations that former NBA star Dennis Rodman and his party took luxury goods to Pyongyang in recent months. While not explicitly accusing Rodman of defying U.N. sanctions on luxury goods, it said there was evidence. North Korea's missile capabilities "Media reports corroborated by the panel indicate that among items taken by Dennis Rodman and his party during their visits were sporting goods from various countries, five bottles of vodka (United States), one bottle of whiskey (Ireland), two whiskey glasses and one whiskey decanter (Ireland), and a Mulberry handbag (United Kingdom) ) taken by Paddy Power, a company based in Ireland." The report said some of these items are on the U.S. or E.U. lists of banned luxury goods. "This illustrates the importance of informing individuals and companies of their obligations under the resolutions," it said. Russia’s Federation Council has authorized President Vladimir Putin to use force in Ukraine and Russian troops are active in Crimea, but Russian politicians and experts do not believe a full-scale war is likely. The Federation Council vote only provides Putin with the opportunity to use force – it does not oblige him to start an intervention. Commenting on Russia’s troop movements in Crimea, Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, said that Russia’s actions were intended to “ensure the safety both of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian citizens,” adding that those goals do not require parts of Ukraine to secede and join Russia. Moscow and the West in battle of wills over Ukraine Moscow and the West in battle of wills over Ukraine Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of research programs of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy of Russia, said that while many in the West have considered the authorization to use force a red line, in reality, it was a negotiation tactic. “This decision is rather of a negotiating, demonstrational character, showing that we are ready to consider all options,” Suslov said. “Moscow wants to put pressure on the West in this way, to demonstrate Russia’s disagreement with the status quo established in Kyiv. We want a government of national unity to be established in Kyiv that would represent all regions of Ukraine, including the southeastern ones.” The future Ukraine could look more like a federation, according to Fyodor Lukyanov, the head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy of Russia and editor-in-chief of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs. Related: Aksyonov backs Yanukovych's request to send Russian troops to Ukraine Markets plunge over Ukrainian crisis Major Russian cities to host rallies in support of Ukrainian people “In the conditions of the actual collapse of the former state and the political system in Ukraine, Russia intends to declare that the new Ukrainian state structure should be formed taking into account the interests and opinions of Russia. In practice, it will mean a federation or a confederation with wide powers for the subjects of this federation,” Lukyanov said. The vote and the action in Crimea were intended to send a message not only to Western governments, but also to the local population. “By supporting the resistance of Crimea, Moscow actually is making it clear to residents of the eastern regions that they can speak without the threat of persecution or lynching by Ukrainian nationalists,” Suslov said. “As a result, Russian flags are waving over Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, and local authorities have adopted resolutions on holding referendums to give additional powers to their regional councils (regional parliaments). And the sooner the government in Kyiv hears them, the sooner this crisis will end.” Alexei Pushkov, a State Duma deputy and chairman of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, who is considered a hawk, said that the Ukrainian authorities alone are to blame for the problems between Kyiv and the southeastern parts of the country. According to Pushkov, instead of taking measures to consolidate the country and restore order through perhaps declaring a day of mourning and granting a general amnesty, the new authorities in Kyiv alienated part of the population by ending the regional status of the Russian language and outlawing the Berkut Special Forces. Russian business wary of situation in Ukraine Russian business wary of situation in Ukraine Meanwhile, Western politicians have interpreted the authorization vote and the action in Crimea somewhat differently than Russian experts. So far, however, Russian authorities have been unmoved by threats of sanctions and visa bans, possibly because the stakes of backing down on Ukraine at the request of Western governments are higher than staying the course, as long as a full-scale war can be avoided. “Should Moscow yield and agree with the status quo in Kyiv, this would be a colossal geopolitical defeat for Russia and Putin personally,” said Dmitry Suslov. “The question of Ukraine’s participation in the integration processes, focused on Russia, will be closed.” It remains to be seen if Russian can maintain this balancing act, however. According to Fyodor Lukyanov, the Russian leadership just might be tempted by the opportunity “to solve the Ukrainian question.” “Perhaps the Kremlin decided that the cost associated with the implementation of this scenario would be less than the recurrence of the crises,” Lukyanov said. We’ve all suspected North Korea had something unsettling occurring behind the scenes — but now the evidence is piling up. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights, established by the Human Rights Council in March 2013, recently released a detailed, almost 400-page report based on testimonies from victims and witnesses of “crimes against humanity” in North Korea. Although names were not named, some crimes were said to have been ordered by various high-ranking officials. “These crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons, and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” the report says. Michel Kirby, chairman of the UN panel, wrote a letter to Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un stating that “any official of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who commits, orders, solicits, or aids and abets crimes against humanity incurs criminal responsibility by international law and must be held accountable under that law.” The letter even threatens that Kim himself could be held personally responsible for not playing an active role in preventing such atrocities. Currently the commission plans to refer its findings to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution. Meanwhile, the government of North Korea pronounced the committee’s report to be fake, an attempt to undermine their unpopular form of government. They released a prepared statement: “It is nothing more than an instrument of political plot aimed at sabotaging the socialist system by defaming the dignified images of the DPRK and creating an atmosphere of international pressure under the pretext of ‘human rights protection.’” Libya's parliament voted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan out of office on Tuesday after months of political infighting that has crippled the North African country. The vote of no-confidence came after rebels in eastern Libya said a tanker loaded with oil from a port under their control escaped a naval blockade and moved into international waters. The Libyan government said late on Monday that it had taken control of the North Korean-flagged tanker, Morning Glory, as it tried to leave the Al-Sidra port in eastern Libya, and after having briefly exchanged fire with rebels. However, in a sign of the chaos and conflicting information typical for Libya, the rebels rejected the assertion. Oil production, Libya's economic lifeline, has slowed to a trickle since the summer as armed protesters have seized oil ports and fields to press political and financial demands. They are seeking a greater share of the country's oil revenue, as well as autonomy for eastern Libya. The conflict over oil wealth is stoking fears Libya may slide deeper into chaos as the fragile government fails to rein in the armed brigades that helped oust Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 but now do as they please. The removal of Zeidan, a liberal weakened for months by infighting with Islamists, deepens the turmoil in the country of 6 million people. However, a crowd outside the Tripoli hotel where lawmakers had met to vote could be seen cheering as news broke of his dismissal, images broadcast on Libyan television showed. "We have nothing personal against Zeidan, but his government has failed the people," one man said. Defense minister interim premier Zeidan will be replaced temporarily by Defense Minister Abdallah al-Thinni, who will hold the position of premier for two weeks until a replacement is picked. He was sworn in after the vote. Libyan state news agency LANA said the General National Congress had passed the dismissal with 124 votes; it was not immediately clear how many of the nearly 200 lawmakers were present during the session. Previous attempts to bring down Zeidan, who has headed the government since November 2012, had failed to win the required majority. Zeidan was himself briefly abducted by former rebel militia in the heart of the capital Tripoli last year. He had for months been facing rising opposition from Islamist parties and the wider public, blaming his government for the rising violence in the vast desert nation. corruption and a multitude of other problems Libya is facing in its bumpy transition. At the same time, anger has been mounting against the GNC after it extended its term in office, which was supposed to end on February 7. Angry protesters earlier this month stormed the GNC headquarters -- ransacking it, assaulting some members and wounding two others while shooting. "Nationwide demonstrations have taken place since early February against the continued tenure of the General National Congress," the United Nations' special envoy to Libya, Tarek Mitri, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday. "Strong resentment and animosity has grown between the two main, though not homogeneous, camps. Libya faces the risk of embarking on a new trajectory of unprecedented violence." Slumping oil output Tripoli had entrusted militia leader Ibrahim Jadran to safeguard some crucial oil ports. But eight months ago, he and his men seized them, blocked oil exports, and demanded more autonomy and shared revenue for his eastern region. The blockades have led to a slump in crude production -- with output said to be around 250,000 barrels per day, down from 1.6 million. Libya's government has threatened force against ships that entered the rebel-controlled oil ports on several occasions. But despite ultimatums to such ships, those deadlines came and went with no action from Libyan officials. In this case, Zeidan's government had threatened armed action, even an air strike, to prevent the Morning Glory tanker getting away with the oil bought from the rebels' self-declared autonomous regional government without the authorization of the state oil body, the National Oil Corporation. It is unclear who actually owns the vessel. Speaking as Thinni was sworn in, GNC President Nuri Abu Sahmain told lawmakers: "This period is definitely hard, but we will work together and provide all we can based on our experience ... we wish him all the luck." There's no doubt relations are thawing, but there is a doubt about how long it might last. The atmosphere on the Korean peninsula is a million miles away from last year when tensions were so high Pyongyang effectively threatened a nuclear war against Seoul and Washington. This week, though, is crucial. Family reunions should be taking place from Thursday with dozens of families on each side meeting relatives they have not seen in over 60 years. To say these reunions are emotional is a massive understatement as many of those who want to be part of them are in their 80s and 90s and time is running out. One 82 year-old told me he felt like he had been hit on the back of the head when the previous reunions were cancelled at the last minute in September and he had to be medicated. Pyongyang's attempts to link the reunions to politics were rejected by both Seoul and Washington who see it as a purely humanitarian issue, so the fact they will go ahead with no conditions attached has to be considered progress. But not many in South Korea see the North through rose-tinted glasses. The last reunion was held in 2010, and since then North Korea has conducted a nuclear test, rocket tests, a brutal internal purge and there has been increasingly bellicose rhetoric. Any optimism felt here in Seoul and around the region is cautious. Some commentators have gone as far as to say that Kim Jong Un is so unpredictable that they almost miss Kim Jong Il. Is there much sense of that in the region? I have to admit no-one has gone so far as to tell me they miss Kim Jong Il, although the succession has led to instability, which was expected. South Korean President Park Geun-hye told me last month the peninsula has never been so unpredictable, but she’s still willing to meet the North Korean leader should the conditions be right. The bigger question puzzling commentators is just how strong is Kim Jong Un's grip on power. The execution of his uncle by marriage, Jang Song Taek, last year has some experts predicting he has now consolidated power while others believe this shows he is weaker than thought. The fact he felt the need to order the killing of a member of his family so publicly might suggest he’s still fighting to gain ultimate power. North Korea didn’t air its dirty laundry in public under Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, which, analysts say, may suggest those leaders felt more secure in their power. And of course there’s the school of thought that Kim Jong Il was pushed into this by the military and felt he had to appease the all powerful National Defense Commission. As always with North Korea, there are plenty of assumptions but few facts. How restrictive did you find reporting from North Korea? Were you able to get any true sense of conditions in the country? I was able to leave Pyongyang for a couple of days and travel north, which is fairly unusual for foreigners. It was still very much on the tourist trail, though, so what we saw has been sanctioned. One thing that struck me was the fact every single patch of land as far as the eye could see is farmed, a surprise given the country's apparent struggle in feeding its own people. Out of the showcase capital, people in the countryside are clearly poorer. Cars were rare, even bicycles seemed in short supply. I filmed local residents washing themselves and their clothes in the river and power cuts were frequent, although the weather was stormy. I was there during heavy rains and one of the main roads had collapsed so we had to take a back road back to Pyongyang. That was the only time I even felt close to glimpsing a snapshot of the real North Korea. We drove through a far poorer village with decrepit buildings, people in worn Mao suits walking in the streets and what appeared to be better dressed party officials on each corner watching. I was under strict instructions not to film as my military minders knew this is not the North Korea they wanted the world to see. Is there any likelihood or hope in the region that the sort of criticism contained in the new U.N. report on human rights in North Korea will have any kind of impact on the regime's policies? The report from the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights was comprehensive and damning. Hundreds of testimonies, both public and private, detailed "unspeakable atrocities," evidence of torture, murder, starvation, imprisonment, forced infanticide, to name just a few. North Korea's wide-ranging and ongoing crimes against humanity, according to the report, reveal "a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world." But North Korea rejected this report as full of fake material before it was even published. The chair of the Commission, Michael Kirby, had written a letter to Kim Jong Un telling him he may be referred to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. He had no direct response. Defectors I spoke to weren’t hopeful of the report making any difference within the country. The recommendation was a referral to the International Criminal Court, which requires agreement by the U.N. Security Council. North Korean ally China has a veto and has insinuated it will use it. The West condemns the move by Russia and China to veto the UN resolution on Syria. Critics include British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French then-president Nicolas Sarkozy. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the lack of unanimity in the Security Council undermined the United Nations’ image. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the failed UN Syria vote a “travesty”. The resolution, which is being actively pushed through by the United States and its allies, is further interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, said Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations. There can be no talks with militants operating in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. "I think there can be no talks with terrorists. We refuse to hold talks with them out of principle and advise others against doing that. This is not only our concern that extremists and terrorists are increasingly 'ordering the music' in different parts of Syria, but the opinion of the entire Group of Eight," he said in an interview with NTV channel shown on Sunday. "I see no place in the negotiating process for such structures as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or other offspring of Al-Qaeda," Lavrov said. Geneva II stalled because of Syrian opposition Geneva II stalled because of Syrian opposition "It is our objective to reach certain political accord between the government and the reasonable, secular, patriotic opposition as soon as possible, and alongside with a political settlement help them unite for struggle against these terrorists," Lavrov said. "We have many questions to the recently established structure known as the Islamic Front which unites two-three organizations directly involved in the massacre in Adra," he said. "It is very difficult to imagine some one structure or other capable of being a partner in the peace talks. Militants are flowing like in communicating vessels between the Islamic Front, Javhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - they go to where more money is paid," Lavrov said. "To say that it is possible to speak with a militant as soon as he joins the Islamic Front is deceptive," he said. Commenting on the current situation at Geneva II Lavrov said: "It is very difficult to make any guesses about the future. The situation is very grave, the positions are polarized, emotions are driven to the limit. I hope that the fact that emotions spilled out on January 22 will permit a more businesslike inter-Syrian dialogue." Rallies in support of and against a possible military operation in Ukraine were held in several Russian cities yesterday. Rallies of those who oppose a military intervention in Crimea ended with arrests, while "anti-Maidan" marches proceeded unhindered. On Sunday, March 2, rallies were held in Moscow both for and against a military campaign in Ukraine. Those who were opposed to a military operation gathered outside the Defence Ministry building and in Manezhnaya Square in central Moscow. Moscow and the West in battle of wills over Ukraine Moscow and the West in battle of wills over Ukraine The anti-war rally had not been sanctioned by the city authorities. Calls to attend it began to spread via social network sites soon after the Federation Council, sitting on the previous day, had granted President Putin's request to use Russian troops in Ukraine. A girl was one of the first to come to the anti-war rally outside the Defence Ministry and she appealed to one of the riot policemen at the scene: "You know, I am afraid that my brother will go and fight against Ukraine. Why send troops there?" Some 40 minutes after the rally started, dozens of people had already been detained and police later reported 40 in total. The protesters put up no resistance, they just kept chanting: "No to war!" Another anti-war rally was held in Manezhnaya Square, where police reported that 50 protesters were detained. The rally in support of Russians in Ukraine was attended by representatives of various youth and patriotic organisations. The main slogans here were: "Putin, I'm with you!", "Glory to Berkut!", "Stop Maidan",and "Together with Ukraine". According to organisers, more than 27,000 people came to the event. Will Crimea break away from Ukraine? Will Crimea break away from Ukraine? A high-school student, Almira, carried a placard at the march that read: "We are for Crimea!" She explained: "I am interested in politics in general and have been following developments in Ukraine. When I saw what was happening in Maidan, it felt as if my younger brother had betrayed me. Ukrainians are our younger brothers, aren't they? That was when I decided to come here. “I believe that Crimea is our common territory. Only there is no need for any troops. Why doesn't Ukraine just let Crimea go? Its residents are unhappy with that country, so why keep them by force?” Lyubov Viktorovna, who works at a leisure and sports centre under the Chertanovo-Severnoye district administration of Moscow, said: "I came to this rally of my own accord. My former classmates now live in Ukraine and life there is very hard. I hope everything will end well and without a war.” More events in support of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine were organised by street racers, who held a 50-car run in Moscow's Sparrow Hills under the slogan: "We don't surrender our own!", and by the Night Wolves bike club, who had set out on a bike run the previous day to the eastern parts of Ukraine "in support of the Russian population". In St Petersburg, a rally in support of a military campaign was organized by the ruling United Russia party and gathered some 15,000 people outside the Oktyabrsky concert hall. Related: Crimean Army gets 49 fighter jets from Ukrainian air bases - official Over 5,000 law enforcers take Crimean goverment side in two days Putin discusses Ukraine with Merkel, says Russian steps adequate to extraordinary situation A statement adopted at the rally supported the decision to use troops in Ukraine due to "unprecedented persecution of ordinary people on ethnic, religious and political grounds". According to eyewitness accounts, the rally lasted no more than 30 minutes and was attended by public sector employees, students, cadets, and Cossacks. The city authorities explained that a rally "devoted to the situation in Ukraine" had been agreed and sanctioned a long time ago, with the latest developments giving yet another reason to hold it. A rally against sending troops to Ukraine was held in St Petersburg's Isakiyevskaya Square. It had not been authorised by the city authorities and about 40 were detained out of some 500 people who attended. A rally and a march were also held in Krasnodar. Some 10,000 people marched through the city with placards that read: "Stop fascism!", "Crimea and Kuban are together!", "United Russia – great Russia!" Krasnodar Territory governor Aleksandr Tkachev said: "We shall soon send the first batch of humanitarian aid to Ukraine collected by our residents. If things really get tough, we shall give them [Ukrainians] refuge on our land." In Sevastopol, deep ties to Russia In Sevastopol, deep ties to Russia He went on to say that Krasnodar Territory residents could not remain indifferent to what was happening in Ukraine since many had friends and family there. "But we are not talking about a war, God forbid! The president has never declared and will never declare a war on the Ukrainian people," Tkachev said. Several more rallies in support of compatriots in Ukraine will be held in different parts of Russia over the next few days. On Monday, March 3, demonstrations were taking place in Belgorod, Bryansk and Novocherkassk. On Tuesday, March 4, Rostov, Voronezh, Kostroma and Irkutsk are expected to follow. More rallies are planned in Moscow, in which various politicians, cultural and sporting figures intend to take part. After Crimea’s parliament voted to join the Russian Federation as a constituent of the Russian Federation and scheduled this issue for a referendum on March 16, Russian and foreign experts raised the alarm about escalation of political tension in the region. There’s growing consensus that the Crimea crisis may result in a second Cold War if the world fails to come up with a compromise. All this seems to be pretty symbolic, controversial and even ill-omened in 2014, the year that sees the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, and the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine: Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer: "Both sides need to exercise a degree of care, because I don’t think that either side is interested in allowing these differences between Russia and the U.S. to spin out of control" According to Piotr Kościński, the head of the Eastern Program at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, any Russian attempts “to forcibly annex the Crimea” are “unacceptable to the international community” and indeed may lead to a new Cold War. In contrast, Director of the Public Policy Research Center Vladimir Evseev argues it is the West’s “political myopia” that could lead to a new Cold War. “The precondition of a new Cold War is not the Crimea referendum, but the West’s position, extremely one-sided and politically short-sighted,” he said in a telephone interview pointing out that the West tries by all means to pressure Russia and “is ready for this to bring instability to the whole territory of Ukraine.” Assessing the legitimacy of Crimea’s referendum Kościński doesn’t see any reason to disengage Crimea from Ukraine, “because the rights of Russians living in the peninsula are absolutely not threatened.” He claims that Russian soldiers are deployed in the Crimea - not only in the Russian military bases, but also around the local Government buildings, airport in Simferopol and Ukrainian military bases. “So Russia could be rightly accused that it just directs the whole referendum initiative,” Kościński argues. “And that Russia would try de facto to forcibly annex Crimea.” How does Crimea fit into international law? How does Crimea fit into international law? Evseev argues that the upcoming referendum in Crimea is more legitimate than the recent actions of the current Ukrainian authorities in Kiev, which used violence to seize power. According to him, these authorities “expressed the interests not of all Ukraine, but only its Western part that was presented by radical nationalists.” “Crimea has the right to voice its point of view and decide if it should be a part of Ukraine or not, if it should be annexed by Russia or not. And the current authorities that try to stop the free will of its citizens, they don’t have any grounds to prevent this referendum.”

North Korean elections provide clues to reclusive Stalinist state - CNN.com

North Korean election provides clues to reclusive Stalinist state

By Peter Shadbolt, CNN

updated 1:21 PM EST, Fri March 7, 2014

North Korean elections

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

North Koreans head to polls on March 9 to vote for deputies in the Supreme People's Assembly
Critics say the poll is merely a political show to legitimize the country's rubber stamp parliament
In previous elections in 2009, Kim Jong-il was returned with 100% of the vote
Vote is of interest to Pyongyang watchers keen to know the composition of the ruling party

(CNN) -- Reading the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and you would be forgiven for thinking the reclusive Stalinist state was the Cayman Islands of East Asia.

No taxes, zero unemployment and a performance-related reward-for-labor bonus regime, North Korea touts itself as having "a people-centered social system in which the masses of the working people are the masters of everything and everything in society serves them."

This Sunday, North Koreans will be required to show their assent for this political system at general elections universally expected to return the current incumbent Kim Jong Un.

"Constituencies and sub-constituencies are crowded with citizens confirming their names on voter rolls," the state-run news agency KCNA said in a report. "Now the Korean people are fully determined to highly exalt the DPRK's dignity and demonstrate once again the might of single-minded unity by casting ballots for their candidates."

Political show

While critics say the poll is merely a political show to legitimize the country's rubber stamp parliament -- previous elections in 2009 returned Kim Jong il (Kim Jong Un's predecessor and father) with a 100% mandate on a 99.98% turnout -- observers will be poring over the list of legislators for clues as to how Kim will govern the Communist nation over the next five years.

A North Korean soldier uses binoculars on Thursday, February 6, to look at South Korea from the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War. A new United Nations report describes a brutal North Korean state "that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."

Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military

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$Photos: Kim Jong Un\'s military$ Photos: Kim Jong Un's military

Passenger jet flies through missile's path

North Korea frees Australian missionary

Kim himself is running for a seat in the Paekusan Constituency No.111; significant because the numbers are regarded as auspicious in Korean culture and because North Korea claims Mount Paektu, located in Paekusan on the border with China, to be the legendary birthplace of his father.

The ruling Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland holds all 687 seats within the Supreme People's Assembly and voters have only one candidate to vote for in each of the seats.

While the umbrella grouping officially contains four parties -- the Workers' Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, the Cheondoist Chongu Party and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan -- all candidates must be sanctioned by the party including three independents currently sitting as deputies in the assembly.

De facto census

While it is possible for a voter to cast a ballot against a candidate, they must walk to a special booth to do so. Critics say few are brave enough to cross out the name on the ballot.

According to one defector, Mina Yoon, the elections serve as a de facto census at a time when many North Koreans have slipped over the border to China.

"The government checks the list of voters and if your name is not on the list, they will investigate it," Yoon told the Telegraph newspaper. "It is often during elections that the government finds out about defectors and people who have been missed."

Do 100% of Americans vote for their current American president? Never, so to North Korea the American government is far less popular, far less democratic
Prof. Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert from Kookmin University in Seoul, said the sole purpose of elections in North Korea was to legitimize the regime.

"It's a bad analogy, and maybe you shouldn't compare any acting leader to Hitler, but Hitler also had elections," Lankov told CNN. "Officially North Korea is a republic and you are supposed to have elections.

"Stalin had elections, Kim Il Sung had elections, why not Kim Jong Un? It's a way to legitimize (itself), to show that 99% of all registered voters came to vote and all of them -- 100% -- voted for the regime, therefore we are the world's most popular government.

"Do 100% of Americans vote for their current American president? Never, so to North Korea the American government is far less popular, far less democratic."

Who's in, out?

He said that while the Supreme People's Assembly was little more than a sham election, it was still be of interest to Pyongyang watchers keen to know the composition of the ruling party.

"It will give us some new names and the absence of some names will be equally important," he said.

"We will see who is losing power and who is gaining power because according to their unspoken tradition, the top 200 people or so are always by default members of the Supreme People's Assembly."

Analysts will also be keenly watching for signs that supporters of Jang Song Thaek, Kim's once-powerful uncle who was executed in December for treason, have been eliminated or sidelined in the elections.

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