Numerous American Muslim clerics guilty of sexually abusing children.

Just imagine how incensed most Americans would be if they saw the above (untrue) headline on the front page of their daily papers. Do you have any doubt that they would quickly investigate and prosecute the offenders, then throw them into prison? How amazing that when we substitute "Catholic" for "Muslim," so many Americans forgive the rapists and lean upon their victims. This is a paraphrase of a line used by Christopher Hitchens in an Slate article where he describes the unwieldy Belgian "problem" of the Catholic church. Well, the Belgian criminal justice system is now starting to crack down and the Catholic clergy continues to condemn this intervention of government, all the while stifling the investigations by attempting to withhold the evidence. The Catholic clergy would much rather be left alone, of course, but Hitchens sees this new development--that of "earthly justice"--to be an important and necessary step. If only this interest in those who have obstructed justice would happen with vigor everywhere. I would offer this suggestion: Dress up the American Catholic clergy as though they were Muslim clergy--tell people that they were Muslim sexual predators rather than Catholic sexual predators--and then watch the American media and justice system go at the offenders like attack dogs. We might even see some action aimed at those numerous accomplices who have worked so hard to cover up the evidence. Hell, we might even see Americans tear down Catholic churches that were within 10 miles of ground zero, if only we could somehow convince Americans that the Catholic clerics were disguised Muslims.

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Anti-communist propaganda alive and well

For some reason, our government and its propaganda arm, the mainstream media, refuses to give up beating the dead horse that is Cuba. We've had it in for them ever since they went Commie, and we're not about to quit now! I just noticed this article from Newsweek entitled "Castro tells the truth about Cuba" which gives us the current bad news:

He has outlasted eight U.S. presidents, survived countless CIA efforts to do him in, and his communist regime has remained in power for a generation after the collapse of his Soviet sponsors. So what does the leader of the 1959 Cuban revolution think now of the system he created? Last week The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported Fidel Castro’s startlingly honest assessment: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Some observers suggest that the 84-year-old Castro’s unexpected honesty may be a belated attempt to throw himself on history’s mercy. After all, they say, Cuba is in tatters. According to Andy Gomez, assistant provost at the University of Miami, tourism on the island has declined 35 percent this year, and remittances are expected to drop to $250 million—far below the peak of $800 million earlier this decade. Cuba’s own National Statistics Office has reported that economic indicators, such as construction and agriculture, were down significantly in the first half of the year. And last month, President Raúl Castro began a process of dismissing or transferring some 20 percent of state employees—a major move, given that the government employs more than 90 percent of the country’s labor force. Says Gomez, “The Cuban economy is the worst it’s ever been.”
How dare Castro "survive countless CIA efforts to do him in", who does he think he is?? Anyway, some of these numbers are meaningless without comparison, so let's look at the good-old U.S. of A. [More . . .]

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The genesis of human cooperation

In the special "Origins" issue of Discover Magazine, evolutionary anthropologist Michael Tomasello discusses some of his findings based upon his most recent book, Why We Cooperate. The article is not yet available online. The author of this article (Carlin Flora) opens her interview with Tomasello by pointing out that the vast majority of projects done in today's world are done in collaboration with others. What makes humans such collaborative beings? Actually, willingness to collaborate is a quality that clearly separates us from the other great apes, says Tomasello. He argues that the reason we cooperate so well with each other is our deep desire to help others and work with them toward shared goals. He was startled to find the degree of the "natural tendency" of young children (aged 1 to 3 years old) to cooperate with each other, but also to demand that newcomers to a group follow the rules of their games. Tomasello sketches out what he thinks is the origin of cooperative behavior

I think cooperative behavior started with obligate collaborative foraging, which is just a fancy way of saying that we need one another's help to get food. If we have to work as a team to get food, all of a sudden you're really important to me, and I am motivated to make sure you get your fair share so the you will want to team up again. Were interdependent.
Tomasello argues that the "second booster rocket of our evolution of cooperation" was the development of social norms-agreements about how to act.
Humans have conformity norms. In our studies we will show a kid how a game works, and then we'll have a puppet come in who plays the game wrong. The children will say "no, no, no! This is not how you do it! You do it like this!" But conventions apply only to "us" in the group; it is "we" who prepare our food in this way and dress in this way. It's part of our identity that we do it like this. In contrast to those people on the other side of the river; they talk funny, they dress funny, the discussing things and we don't care whether they behave in this way are not.
How powerful is the human instinct toward cooperation? "We conduct our wars with armies that are highly cooperative." The big question for Tomasello is whether we can scale up our willingness to cooperate, which evolved in small groups. We haven't completely ruined the world yet, and "we are still here."

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