Liquid Smoking

Pour yourself a cigarette: The new 'Liquid Smoking' drink that promises an instant high for smokers trying to beat the ban

By LUCY BALLINGER
Last updated at 2:45 AM on 27th October 2008

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It's the sort of news that will make a smoker's eyes light up.

A company has created a fruit-flavoured herbal drink that claims to deliver the same fix as cigarettes.

Called Liquid Smoking, it promises an instant high followed by a 'euphoric calming feeling'.

It is targeted at those who can no longer light up inside public premises under the smoking ban but want to feed their cravings.  more 

How to Tackle Terrorism article by Mihir Shah

 The Hindu Opinion - Leader Page Articles  Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008  

Cutting off the chain of hate

Mihir Shah



Adding hurt to this absolute distress are widening disparities. A recent World Bank study reveals that between 1820 and 1992, the income share of the bottom 60 per cent of the world’s population halved to around 10 per cent, while the share of the top 10 per cent rose to more than 50 per cent. A United Nations report covering the period 1950-1998, also reveals growing inequalities within nations. These inequalities revolve around multiple axes of class, community, region, religion and gender. Religion has emerged as a central axis of conflict. Violence as a response to perceived injustice is on the rise, reflecting in part the failure of democracies to function effectively across the world.

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Martin Luther King suggests a different response to injustice — the path of love. But the love he spoke of was no ordinary love. In an essay written in 1957, King elaborated the very different meanings of three words for love in the Greek New Testament. Eros, in Platonic philosophy, means the yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. It has come now to mean a sort of aesthetic or romantic love. Philia signifies the intimate love between friends, a reciprocal love, where we love because we are loved. But the love King advocates is best expressed in the Greek word agape. Agapeimplies understanding. It intimates a “creative, redeeming goodwill for all, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action.” Thus explained, agape comes very close to the ideal of lokasangraham — action motivated ultimately by the holding together of the peoples of the world — the climax of the enunciation ofkarma yoga in Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita.

Through a profound inversion of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, King provides a reconceptualisation of the relationship between power and love. Nietzsche sought to determine the conditions of a new affirmation of life by overcoming what he regarded as the nihilistic despair produced by Christian values. King interrogates the very terms of this problematique by providing a radical restatement of his own spiritual tradition. He questions the legacy of viewing love and power as polar opposites, where love appears as a rescinding of power, and power as a rejection of love. This again is similar to the case against sanyaas (abdication of action) in the Bhagavad Gita. King argues that “power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic.” And this new understanding of power helps King positively formulate the unbreakable bond between love and justice: “power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Love must necessarily take on the larger structures of injustice that stand in its way. This love includes but goes well beyond isolated acts of kindness. At the same time, because love is our weapon, we do not seek to defeat anyone and must try not to end up humiliating those positioned against us. For the struggle is not against persons, it is for transformation of the opponent’s view and the system of oppression. And even more for the self-renewal of those who work for change. As King says, “to retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the centre of our lives.”

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We must stop viewing conflict as an arena of our victory over the “other.” It is better regarded as a problem in search of a solution. A conflict needs not so much a victory, as a resolution. Indeed, a “defeat” that moves society forward on the moral landscape, that empowers the disadvantaged and sensitises those in power, deepening democracy in the process, could even be preferred to a “victory” that fails to achieve any of these.

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A key to moving forward in this direction is to give up the antediluvian unitary and insurrectionist conception of Revolution (with a capital R). The unique appeal of “scientific socialism” was its claim to have discovered the “laws of motion of society” that predicted the inexorable coming of a new dawn. This teleology has ended up becoming the chief weakness of Marxism. If change is visualised in these terms, means-ends questions will be run roughshod over and horrors of the Stalinist kind will continue to be perpetrated. Indeed, it would appear that without fana or annihilation of the ego as expounded in Sufi theosophy, without an outpouring of agape love that Martin Luther King evoked, movement towards a more just social order will remain a delusion.

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Unfortunately, activists typically push these questions into a hazy future, to be all answered after the revolution, so to speak. One of the greatest weaknesses of the socialist project in the 20th century was its failure to flesh out the details of possible alternatives to a capitalist society. These are difficult questions that necessitate intricate answers. And we need to begin looking for these here and now, in the living laboratories of learning of our farms and factories, villages and slums. Not in some imaginary distant future after a fictitious insurrection. Why do we forget that this love in action for justice constitutes a large part of the change that we must still dare to dream of?

(The writer is a social activist living and working for the last two decades with the Adivasis of central India.)

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Health and Medicine: Scout motto Be Prepared to include visits to sexual health clinics

The association's chief scout, Peter Duncan, said: "We must be realistic and accept that around a third of young people are sexually active before 16 and many more start relationships at 16 and 17.

"Scouting touches members of every community, religious and social group in the country so adults in scouting have a duty to promote safe and responsible relationships and, as an organisation, we have the responsibility to provide sound advice about how to do that."

The scouting movement has about 400,000 young members in Britain, approximately 85% of them boys.

The association said the new sexual health guidance was designed to help young people develop the confidence, maturity and self-esteem to resist peer pressure to be sexually active until they are ready to make safe and informed decisions.

Other suggested activities for explorer scouts include role plays on learning to say no

Health and Medicine: Scout motto Be Prepared to include visits to sexual health clinics

Assisted Suicide

Daniel James, 23, travelled to Switzerland with his parents last month to die – 18 months after he lost the use of his body from the chest down when a scrum collapsed on top of him during a practice session in March 2007. Sources close to the young player suggested that his condition was improving. He could eat and dress himself and there was a possibility that he might have been able to walk again with the use of calipers.

But yesterday, Daniel's parents, Mark and Julie, said that their son had become determined to die and had attempted suicide on several occasions. It is thought that friends and relatives of Mr James had known about his plan to die in Switzerland.  more 

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MS sufferer loses assisted suicide case

Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:45am GMT

 

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LONDON (Reuters) - A woman with multiple sclerosis lost her High Court bid on Wednesday to clarify the law to ensure her husband would not face prosecution if he helped her to commit suicide abroad.

Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford wanted the court to force the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to give assurances her husband would not be prosecuted if he helped her go to a euthanasia facility in Switzerland at some stage in the future.

The law states that assisting suicide is a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

But since 1992, almost 100 British citizens have ended their lives at the Dignitas facility in Switzerland -- where assisted suicide is legal -- without their relatives being prosecuted.  more

Woman in court to get love child back

13 Oct 2008, 0126 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: A woman who gave her love child to an acquaintance to avoid social stigma and is fighting a legal battle to get the child back has got a ray of hope. A trial court said the child was given to the present custodian only on a "temporary basis". 

Asking the Delhi Police to produce the one-year-old child before the court, metropolitan magistrate Naveen Arora said, "...(the) child was delivered by the complainant (woman) whose custody was voluntarily handed over by her to the accused (couple) but the circumstances in which the custody was given is quite understandable.

And that was given just to avoid the social stigma of delivering a baby before marriage but the fact that she married the father of the child later on itself shows prima facie that they must have given the custody of the child on temporary basis to the accused."

In her petition, the woman said she had handed over her 17-day-old child to the couple for four months. However, after she got married in November 22 last year, despite repeated pleas, the couple refused to fulfil their promise to hand over the baby.

When a legal notice was sent, they claimed that the baby had been given to them for adoption. But as the couple failed to produce documentary proof of adoption, the court said it was a fit case for issuance of search warrant for securing the custody of the child by the natural parent.

"The accused could not show that any ceremony took place for giving the child in adoption which is pre-condition for a valid adoption and in the absence of valid adoption the natural parents have all the rights to claim the custody of the child," the court said.   more 

Flesh trade of Indian women coded "Spices of India" In Malasia, Singapore

India, Malaysia, Singapore launch joint probe into "Spices of India" flesh trade. more 

Manual scavenging violated Articles, 14, 17 and 23 of the Constitution

 No human being should be allowed to get into sewerage and drainage lines to clear blocks, the Madras High Court said on Monday.

Passing interim orders on a public interest litigation petition, the First Bench comprising Chief Justice A.K.Ganguly and Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, said if any drain was choked, it was the responsibility of the authorities to get the block cleared, using mechanical devices. 

Human Rights and Civil Society

10 traditional Yamas and Patanjali's five yamas (Moral restraints)

Yama

 Patanjali lists five yamas

Yama is a “moral restraint” or rule for living virtuously. Ten yamas are codified in numerous scriptures, including the Hatha Yoga Pradipika compiled by Yogi Swatmarama, while Patanjali lists five yamas, and five niyamas (disciplines) in the Yoga Sutra.

The ten traditional yamas are:
* Ahimsa: Nonviolence. Abstinence from injury, or harm to any living creature in thought, word, or deed. This is the “main” Yama. The other nine are there in support of its accomplishment.
* Satya: Truthfulness in word and thought (in conformity with the facts).
* Asteya: No stealing, no coveting, no entering into debt.
* Brahmacharya: Divine conduct, continence, celibate when single, faithful when married.
* Kshama: Patience, releasing time, functioning in the now.
* Dhriti: Steadfastness, overcoming non-perseverance, fear, and indecision; seeing each task through to completion.
* Daya: Compassion; conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings.
* Arjava: Honesty, straightforwardness, renouncing deception and wrongdoing.
* Mitahara: Moderate appetite, neither eating too much nor too little; nor consuming meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs.
* Shaucha: Purity, avoidance of impurity in body, mind and speech.
Patanjali’s five yamas, or moral restraints, are ahimsa (non-injury), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (continence or chastity) and aparagriha (abstinence from avarice). He also lists five niyamas, or disciplines, which include shauca (purity), samtosha (contentment), tapas (asceticism), svadhyaya (study), and ishvara-pranidhana (devotion to the Lord).  source link 

Priest 'sorry' for gay comments

Gay Pride parades were described in the minister's blog as "obscene"A Church of England priest has issued a "full and complete apology" for remarks he made on gay people in his blog. The Reverend Peter Mullen suggested homosexuals should have their backsides tattooed with the slogan: "Sodomy can seriously damage your health". Mr Mullen, 66, a rector in the City of London, said he had been joking but admitted his words were "injudicious". He said he did not mean to criticise individual people but "the promoters of gay culture". On Monday a Diocese of London spokeswoman said the "highly offensive" remarks did not reflect its views.  I did not intend to cause offence when I made some joking remarks about homosexuals  The Reverend Peter Mullen The comments have since been removed from the clergyman's blog following talks with officials at the diocese. more

Medha Patkar welcomes Tata's Singur Pull out

Saturday,4 October 2008 19:48 hrs IST

Tata has some values: Medha Patkar  - New Delhi: Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), who had joined hands with the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in the struggle against land acquisition for Tata Motors' Nano project in West Bengal, has welcomed the company's decision to shift the project. “We are very happy with (Tata group chairman Ratan) Tata's decision to leave Singur. He has some values. He should have taken this decision long ago,” Patkar told IANS by telephone Saturday. --------------- Patkar said: “There are many things to be kept in mind before you acquire land. There is question of rehabilitation. One has to calculate the cost if it would be a profitable venture compared to the agriculture returns from the place and so on." ------------ Patkar said: “There are many things to be kept in mind before you acquire land. There is question of rehabilitation. One has to calculate the cost if it would be a profitable venture compared to the agriculture returns from the place and so on." ---------------------- Reminded of Ratan Tata's caustic remark on the source of funds for agitators, Patkar shot back, saying: “He refuses to share details about investments even with people who are involved (in the project) and asks us (about funding). He cannot ask this question. Such questions were raised against the Narmada Bachao Andolan too and the Supreme Court replied properly to it.”   read it all

: Smoking would Kill 83m in China in 25 years

Health and Medicine

Right to Die

We all have a right to die with dignity

Fiona Phillips 4/10/2008

At times I really wanted to kill my mum.

She actually died two years ago, but only after suffering the tortures of one of the worst chronic diseases, Alzheimer's.

Which is why I often wanted to kill her. She couldn't walk, talk, swallow. She had no dignity, no life, no point. So what is the point of that? Always glamorous and smiley, my mum would light up a room when she walked in.

If she'd known how she would end up, she'd have wanted a dignified way out.

Often when I was in her room in a nursing home - somewhere she always said she'd "hate to end up" - I could have put a pillow over her face to end her misery.

I could have, but I didn't relish the idea of a murder trial. That's why Debbie Purdy, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, is battling in a test case in the High Court.  more 

Let this woman die as she chooses, not in a death plant

Debbie Purdy says the present legislation on assisted suicide is cowardly. She's wrong - it's barbaric

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• 
• • Catherine Bennett
  • The Observer, 
  • Sunday October 5 2008
  • Article history

The last time assisted suicide was debated at Westminster, the Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Kenneth Stevenson, explained that death is too important to leave to dying people. 'Dying,' said the bishop, disclosing that he had been diagnosed with leukaemia, 'is not an entirely individual matter. It is corporate.' In the case of Debbie Purdy, it could hardly be more so.

The whole country now knows that Ms Purdy, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has thought in detail about when and how she wishes to die. When the pain of her illness becomes intolerable, she would like to have the choice, as the able-bodied do, of taking her own life. For her, physical incapacity may mean that she needs help to do this. Although suicide is legal in Britain, assisting suicide remains a crime which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

The most recent attempt to reform this law as it relates to terminally ill people, in a bill brought by Lord Joffe, was wrecked in the upper house two years ago after a debate in which successive men and women of faith proclaimed the sanctity of life. Lord Ahmed, for instance, could not countenance dying people, of any description, defying a section of the Koran in which it says: 'Do not kill yourselves. For verily God Almighty has been most merciful to you.'

So unless the law is changed before she is in unbearable pain, Ms Purdy will need to arrange her death in conformity with the wishes of God Almighty, as relayed to the House of Lords. 'My dearest wish,' she said last week, 'would be to die with dignity in my own home, with my husband and loved ones around me.' Instead, she will have to travel to Switzerland, to the peripatetic Dignitas facilities, recently located next to a brothel on an industrial estate near Zurich. Here, in exchange for £1,255 (not including services of a doctor, registry, cremation, accompanying visitors etc), she will be handed a lethal dose of barbiturates.

But what if Purdy's husband, Omar Puente, helps organises this suicide in Switzerland? Would not that make him her suicide assistant? On this, British law is stubbornly unclear and Ms Purdy would like it, for her husband's sake, to be clarified. 'For 13 years, I've been in love with this man, he's everything to me,' she said, 'and I'm not about to see him take a risk of prosecution.'  more 

India Bans Smoking from Oct 2, 2008

No Smoking in India

Smoking ban in different countries

Gay Rights: Ramadoss's views disowned by Govt.

Govt to HC: Ignore Ramadoss' views on allowing gay sex 30 Sep 2008, 0337 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: Stung by criticism of its casual approach to the sensitive issue of gay rights, the Central government on Monday distanced itself from NACO's affidavit and even went to the extent of asking Delhi high court to "ignore" health minister Anbumani Ramadoss's statement favouring scrapping of Section 377.  "No act of Parliament can be struck down due to an affidavit or a minister's statement," additional solicitor general P P Malhotra told HC, saying since Parliament passed a law criminalizing homosexuality, it represented the "will of the people of this country." "It doesn't matter what the minister says. It is also not important what the affidavit says. It is for the court to decide the issue," Malhotra said before a bench headed by Chief Justice A P Shah adding that the Centre is against decriminalization of gay sex.  more

All-community meet to restore peace in Kandhamal On Oct 2

Sister Nirmala’s appeal to Orissa Chief Minister"

Nun gang raped in Public: Police look on

Church in India Under Attack: All-community meet to restore peace in Kandhamal On Oct 2: "

Ente Keralam: Kottayam declared as the first tobacco-free district in the country

Ente Keralam: Kottayam declared as the first tobacco-free district in the country

In India Homosexuality a criminal offence Punishable with life imprisonment

Homosexuality a criminal offence: Govt tells court

Friday, 26 September , 2008, 21:08

New Delhi: The government on Friday told the Delhi High Court that it is not scrapping the present law on homosexuality as it is a "criminal offence" and would "disturb the law and order situation and create unnecessary problems in society." Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra said the government was not in a position to scrap the law at this time. "It (homosexuality) is a criminal offence," he said. “If we scrap section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (that makes homosexuality an offence), then it will disturb the law and order situation and might create unnecessary problems in the society,” Malhotra said before a bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S Muralidhar. The IPC at present holds homosexual acts as an offence and section 377 provides a punishment of up to life imprisonment for indulging in it. ...>more

Pope: Church canno t\recognize "irregular unions"

Church can't recognise divorcees remarrying - pope

Enlarge Photo Pope Benedict XVI speaks at the end of the Marian Procession of Light at the...Slideshow: Day in pictures: September 13 2008

Mon, Sep 15 08:53 AM

By Philip Pullella

LOURDES, France (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Sunday the Church could not recognise "irregular unions" of Catholics who divorce and remarry outside the Church.

"Initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted," he said in an address to French bishops in the shrine city of Lourdes.

Throughout the developed world, the Church has been struggling with how to administer to Catholics who have divorced and remarried without an annulment -- an ecclesiastical declaration that their first union is null and void -- but want to remain fully active in the Church.

The Church does not recognise divorce. It considers the first marriage still valid and teaches that those who divorce and remarry cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sexual relations with their new partner.

While bishops in several countries have been pushing for some opening on the difficult issue, the pope said the Church could not change its teachings on the indissolubility of marriage because it was instituted by Christ.

In other remarks, the pope ordered bishops to make space for traditionalists who use the Latin Mass.

A papal decision last year to allow a much wider use of the old-style mass -- a move which traditionalists demanded for decades but which was opposed by liberals -- has met with resistance in some countries, particularly France.

But the pope was firm in his position.

"Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home and never rejected," he said of those who preferred the Latin Mass instead of the new liturgy in modern languages introduced after the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965.

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Is Obeying conscience a Crime? Protests agaiinst the policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario

Archbishop, Rabbi, Physician Group Condemn Efforts to Curb Ontario Physician Conscience Rights

By Tim Waggoner

OTTAWA, September 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today marked the deadline for public comment on the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeon's draft policy that seeks to prohibit medical professionals from obeying their consciences. In light of this, several prominent parties have made concerted efforts to condemn the proposed policy that, if put into effect, will force medical professionals to "set aside their personal beliefs" and take part in grievous anti-life practices.

"We are deeply disturbed by the draft policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario," said Archbishop Terrence Predergast of Ottawa and Rabbi Dr. Reuven P. Bulka in a joint statement on the proposed policy. "Many doctors have expressed a reasonable fear that if this policy is passed, they might be disciplined, and even lose their licenses, for obeying their conscience. They would no longer be free to refuse to perform or refer for certain medical acts that are contrary to their firmly held beliefs."

Referring to the Canadian Charter and the freedoms it promulgates, they said, "To force anyone to violate their conscience would go against not only the text of these documents, but also against their underlying spirit. Such coercion would be fundamentally and shamefully un-Canadian.

They continued, "Freedom of conscience should never be viewed as the enemy of other human rights. Quite the opposite; without freedom of conscience, other human rights would be much more easily abused. Some people believe that doctors need to be forced to provide all medical services that are legal, because otherwise they might impose their values on others... However, forcing doctors to act against their own faith principles would be a radically unjust and dangerous solution. Forced medicine is never good medicine."

Physicians for Life have also sent a statement to the College, protesting the draft policy. They addressed "the ethical bankruptcy" of a society that coerces its medical professionals to partake in abortions and said the statement compromises the human rights of physicians:

"When physician and patient disagree about whether or not a procedure is a good thing, the OHRC's Chief Commissioner herself, Barbara Hall, apparently expects the CPSO to coerce and punish the physician for failing to agree with the patient, on the grounds that the College should endorse and enforce the patient's views at the serious cost of breaching the human rights of the physician."  ...full story

Science and Religion: Stem cells from Skin row

Teams at Kyoto University and at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the United States last year discovered how to use skin to produce stem cells -- which can develop into various organs or nerves.

The finding was hailed by the Vatican and US President George W. Bush because it can circumvent an ethical row over conventional stem cell research using human embryos.  

'End-of-life' debate

LONDON- Forty years after the concept of brain death was established, the Vatican City has reopened the debate over whether the cessation of all brain functions marks the definitive end of life. The Roman Catholic Church had adopted brain death, and not the absence of heart beat, as the "true criterion for death" in 1985 after scientists at the Harvard Medical School published the universally accepted definition in 1968. But, 23 years on, a front-page editorial in official Vatican newspaper, theL'Osservatore Romano , has suggested that life might continue even after the brain dies.  "The assumption of brain death is in contradiction with the concept of the person according to Catholic doctrine, and therefore in contradiction with the Church's directive on persistent comas," British newspaper The Daily Telegraph quoted the editorial as saying.  But the arrival of the Harvard definition enabled the Church to sanction life-support machines being switched off. However, the key beneficiary of the brain-death definition has been organ transplantation, according to the article. Read more

The law of conservation of violence By Edward S. Herman

The law of conservation of the level of violence thus rests on the structure of power and its reflection in politics. If you want to compete in politics in the militarized America of today you can't scrimp on money for "national security" and you need to display a readiness to exercise a "muscular" foreign policy. If you call for reduced forces in one country, you must urge their increase in another. Keep those muscles in shape and bombs dropping.

One of my favorite quotations from the Vietnam War era was: "I think maybe today we create many Vietcong," spoken by a Vietnamese collaborator and helicopter pilot when answering a question by Master Sergeant Donald Duncan while both were on a plane that had just dropped bombs on a Vietnamese target. The Vietnam War was a murderous capital-intensive war, with millions of tons of bombs dropped on villages deemed supportive of the indigenous enemy, along with napalm, phosphorus, and crop-destroying chemicals. (Napalm and rice-killing chemicals were used exclusively in the South, which we were allegedly "saving" from the North's "aggression.") In any case, this murderous behavior killed vast numbers, but also made any Vietnamese previously harboring doubts about the ongoing struggle extremely hostile to the United States and its local puppets. We had mastered the art of creating enemies.


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Is US VP Candidate Sarah Palin a Religious Nut?

Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." Read more