The Chinese Capricorn One.

I find China very interesting - for it never ceases to surprise by its actions. That is not to say that I find it admirable, however. I am interested in the fact that they think they can continue to ignore global behavioural norms, while seeking to be part of the global economy. They don't seem to understand that they have to change, to truly become a part of it.

Now, you might be puzzling over the title of my post. Capricorn One was a 1978 film about a Mars mission that was faked: no mission took place, though TV footage was created to make it look as if it had. This week, the Chinese seemed to have taken a lesson from this fictional story and staged their own Capricorn One - at least, momentarily.

China's state news agency, Xinhua, posted a dispatch reportedly from the country's three latest astronauts describing their first night in space. The dispatch was filled with details, such as describing the Shenzhou VII orbiting the Earth and even carried the outline of a conversation which had supposedly happened between the astronauts, while in space. There is nothing wrong with that, you might think - only there was. You see the mission hadn't taken off, yet.

Think about that. China had scripted an event which had not yet happened - and would, in fact, never happen in the way described - for the astronauts could not have had a conversation in an orbit they had not yet visited. Nor would they have such a conversation once in space - unless they truly have to follow a script and act out one like a play. Thus, the whole story was fiction. It has the same status as Capricorn One - an official description of something which hadn't happened.

There is one difference, of course: this mission is meant to happen. However, that is beside the point, for what this event tells us is that the astronauts on board Chinese space missions are not truly free to describe what they see. Their "descriptions" and "eye-witness statements" are scripted by others and fed to the state media. It is just like Capricorn One - a fiction for the public. They don't even get to speak their minds and be on record for having uttered them. No: words are put in their mouths for public and permanent record - words they never said and may never read.

I find it unnerving that the story even recorded the reactions of people to a successful mission: "Ten minutes later, the ship disappears below the horizon. Warm clapping and excited cheering breaks the night sky, echoing across the silent Pacific Ocean." Beautiful stuff - only it hadn't happened.

The world is learning, this year, much about China. The greatest lesson perhaps is that everything that comes out of China is fake - the food is fake, the news is fake, the gymnasts are fake (underage)...I am even left to wonder: is China fake? Does China exist? I wouldn't be surprised to learn that that is fake, too.

I don't think that the Great Faker, actually has as bright a future as people generally believe. Once the world realizes that nothing is as it seems, much of the world won't want to deal with them. Without people to buy their goods (fake goods), China won't have such a great economy after all. It is only a matter of time. Already it is beginning to happen. In Singapore, sales of Chinese goods are off at least 50 % according to reports in the Straits Times and Today newspapers. I think that is just the beginning. When the source can't be trusted, no-one will buy from it. Sometimes cheap is not cheap enough - or perhaps too cheap. There are other considerations...like is it real?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

China's eternal food scandal.

China will always have a food supply problem. In fact, China's food supply problems will be one of the world's few eternal facts: human nature will make it so.

I shall explain. China's political elite don't eat the food others eat. They don't shop at the local supermarket and have to put up with whatever contaminants might (will) be in the frequently toxic foods - no, you see China's elite know there is a problem with Chinese food. Now, in a rational, advanced, democratic state the answer would be to solve the food problem by ensuring that all Chinese food was safe. However, in communist China they have another solution: special food for the elite. Indeed there is a Special Food Supply Centre, whose purpose is to arrange organically grown foods of the highest quality for the ruling elite (and retirees) of the Chinese government.

You would, perhaps, be a little stunned at the type of food these elite people have access to, while their proletariat eat the equivalent of swill. They drink organic tea from the foothills of Tibet, organic hormone free beef from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, rice watered by melted mountain snow. To me, those foods sound wonderful. Contrast those with what the ordinary people of China have to eat: vegetables laced with poisonous levels of pesticide residues, fish tainted with cancer causing chemicals, eggs coloured artificially with dye, fake "alcohol" that causes blindness and death, pastries stuffed not with goodies, but bacterial colonies - and not forgetting the baby killing milk.

So, in China we have a strange situation in which anyone of Vice-Minister rank or above, active or retired, and their families, get to eat exclusive organically grown foods of the highest world beating standards, while the ordinary Chinese person is subject to a daily Russian roulette with a frequently toxic cocktail of nasties in their food supply chain.

It doesn't take much knowledge of human nature to conclude that the ruling elite KNOW there is plenty wrong with the food of China - and so have arranged to ensure that they, at least, don't have to eat it. Theirs is the best of food, the safest of food. It seems not to move them at all that, meanwhile, their people are suffering and dying from the simple act of eating.

Now, while this situation persists - the ruling elite being insulated from the food problems of the proletariat - there will be no incentive for that ruling elite to improve matters for the ordinary Chinese person (or foreign export consumer for that matter). The problem of toxic food is not something that will ever bother the ruling class personally - so it is something that they can safely ignore.

One obvious change would bring an overnight improvement for all: if the ruling elite were not allowed special food and had to eat what everyone else ate. The day that happens is the day that the Chinese people will suddenly find their food safe to eat.

Sadly, for the people of China, being a communist state that it is, the ruling party will always be insulated from the concerns of the ordinary person. They will ever eat the best of food - and everyone else will continue to suffer random poisoning. It is not going to change, until China's political system changes. When the rulers eat the food of the ruled, then the food will be worth eating - but not until then.

I think the Chinese people will have a long time to wait, for this to be truly solved. They might even have to wait for democracy to arrive - and that is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Good luck China.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

A toddler's memory for names and faces.

One of the great things about having children is that they, more than anyone else, have the ability to surprise. Tiarnan is most gifted in this department.

Have you ever wondered how much attention children pay to conversation around them? Have you pondered how much they absorb? Tiarnan showed a surprising grasp of the social situation last week. In a social environment in which there were many people - people that he had not seen very often at all, people who were adults and, therefore, remote to him, Tiarnan did something unusual: he used each person's name. He spoke of Auntie Kyna and Auntie Sasha and Auntie Bev, addressing each person correctly, among others. He got the name of each person right. Now, I don't know about you, but, for most adults, social events with many people present and many faces, can become a bit of a challenge on the names and faces front. Not, however, for Tiarnan, it seems. Though only two years old, he has already grasped how to remember the right name for the right face - and use it at the right time. It struck me as unusual, since most toddlers don't address adults much, apart from their own parents - and few would, I would think, pay enough attention to other adults, to know the names of many of them.

So, this goes to show that little children can absorb much more than you think they can. There might be a blizzard of names falling all around them, but a toddler can pick them up, nevertheless and remember them for use later.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Laziness in today's students.

In my time as a teacher, I often saw the most surprising laziness in students. Today, one memory came to mind.

There was a student in my class, from Mongolia, who liked, at times, to use the catchphrase: "I'm lazy." to explain why he wouldn't do something. I heard it a little too often from him. He was an unusual boy: very charming in his own way, with an engaging demeanour. He had big dreams for himself but utterly lacked the will to work at them. I didn't see him attaining any of those dreams unless he changed his ways.

One day, I wrote an essay title for the students on the board. It wasn't a long task, really: I just wanted them to write something in the class on a topic that I thought would interest them, to give me something to feedback on their grammar.

Now, my Mongolian student was somewhat short-sighted. He squinted up at the board, from his customary seat at the back of the classroom - then raised his hand and gestured me over to him.

As I drew near, he offered me his pen which, reflexively, I took in hand. Then he pointed at the board and spoke: "Write that, here." he said, presumptuously, nodding at his notebook.

I stood there, pen in hand, with astonishment on my face. This young man was too lazy to walk to the front of the classroom to read the board - but wanted me to write the essay title, again, in his own notebook, especially for him.

He didn't get anywhere. "You are lazy...now go to the front of the classroom where you can see it better."

He looked somewhat surprised at this, but rose slowly from his seat and slouched to the front of the class where he wrote down the title. Then he slouched back to the back of the classroom.

Forty-five minutes later, I gauged that all should have finished the task and asked them each, in turn, to stand and read their work out to the class (for these were second language speakers and the challenge of public speech was good for them).

When it came to the Mongolian boy's turn, he just shrugged: "I haven't done it."

I walked over to him and looked down at his notebook. He sure was lazy, as he himself noted. There on the page was the essay title - and nothing else. He hadn't even written one word. I said nothing but turned to the next student. Sometimes, you have to know when it is pointless to pursue a student. This one did as little as possible, all the time - and there was little chance of changing that.

There are other students like that Mongolian boy. I just thought his particular story was interesting in the way he seemed to think he was entitled to special treatment - but did nothing to deserve it. All the students like him share a common mindset: that the world owes them a living and that success is theirs without effort. However, I think that all of them are going to be rather surprised at what reality has in store for them. The world doesn't tend to reward too highly those who make no effort to strive within it.

It would be interesting to see how the Mongolian boy's dreams turn out. However, I doubt that I will ever get to know.

The funny thing about him is that Genghis Khan is his great hero - yet it never seems to occur to him that Genghis Khan's particular success came at great personal effort his whole life long. It didn't just happen.

How many other young people think that success just happens - and that it is theirs for the taking, without ever trying hard to get it?

If you have any revealing tales, please share them in the comments. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

53,000 babies and Chinese values.

Do the Chinese value human life? Or do they value money? A society answers this question not by what it says, but by what it does. Repeatedly, China has answered my first question in the negative, by doing something that shows a disregard for human life. As I write, 53,000 Chinese babies (up from 6,200 yesterday) are ill, some seriously, some dead, from melamine poisoning from contaminated milk. China, once again, has answered the question.

It is not possible, in a country in which its people value the lives of others as much as their own, for such a food poisoning scandal to occur. You see, melamine has been found in the dairy products of 22 companies in China. Melamine is more commonly used in fire retardants, floor tiles, kitchen ware and in the making of fertilizers. It is not a foodstuff and, indeed, causes death by renal failure if ingested in toxic quantities. That, of course, is just what is happening: babies are suffering kidney damage and some have died, others being seriously ill.

The fact that companies throughout the width and breadth of China are all manufacturing poisonous milk products can only mean one thing: hundreds, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of suppliers and milk processors in China are adulterating the milk with melamine in the quest for additional profits, at the expense of the lives and health of unknown, random babies, by the thousand.

Think about that. The poisoning of babies on a large scale is considered a reasonable way to make money in modern China, by hundreds, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of people. Furthermore, it was thought reasonable, by the Chinese authorities, to keep the whole thing quiet, while babies continued to drink poisonous milk, so that there was no embarrassment leading up to the Olympics. You see, first awareness of the problem goes back to March this year. Shortly after that, the relative of a leading Sanlu executive made a report to the authorities about it: she was told to keep quiet, apparently until the Olympics had passed. Thus, we return to the lies and deceptions surrounding the Olympics and the image of perfection China wished to present - at whatever cost. It seems, now, that one of those costs was the lives and health of 53,000 babies (and counting...after all the number declared was only 6,200 yesterday). How many of them could have been spared if the milk had been cleaned up in March?

Now, a toddler in Hong Kong has been revealed to have developed kidney stones after consuming Yili milk - one of the contaminated brands. How many others around the world are there, showing unusual sickness for their age...but unidentified because their doctors have not put two and two together? The contaminated milk has ended up in less than obvious locations - in everything from yogurt, to ice cream to confectionery...yes, that is right, your kid's favourite Chinese sweets, could kill them.

Everyone talks of the need for better regulation on the issue in China, but I don't really think regulation is the problem. The problem is a lack of basic humanity in their business people. Everyone knows you don't poison your customer to make a quick buck - everyone except the Chinese, it seems. There is no need for a regulation that states: "Don't poison your customer". That should be needless in any society that has reached even the most basic level of civilization. Perhaps China, in truth, hasn't reached that basic level yet - at least, its business people haven't.

What is needed in China is an elevation not of its economy (which will grow on the backs of lots of sick and dying people unwise enough to buy their products), but an elevation of its people: they must become responsible global citizens, thinking not just of the dollar today, but of people and society tomorrow. They must think of the consequences of their actions, beyond the immediate financial rewards that can be made by a particular course of action. If an action is sure to make more money, but the price is that it kills babies - then NO-ONE should be taking that course of action. Shockingly, however, in China it seems that hundreds, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of people in the dairy supply chain took just that decision: to make money, while killing babies.

I don't think I will be visiting China in a hurry - and if I ever do, I won't be drinking the milk.

By the way, I have heard of something else that finds its way into Chinese milk to enrich the nitrogen content and thus the apparent protein content: urea. That's right: they are pissing in the milk supply. It gives a new meaning to "Made in China".

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Baroness Warnock, the unethical "ethics expert".

Baroness Warnock wants you to die. More specifically, if you become ill with dementia she wants people to be "licensed" to put you down - just like an old dog. Baroness Warnock is, I contend, a far from ethical medical ethics expert.

Let us a take a closer look at what she believes. She thinks that an old person should be killed for the sake of their loved ones or society in general. She believes that such ill people are a burden on society and their loved ones and should be put down, like animals, to save others the burden of caring for them. This is, she considers, the "ethical" thing to do. I am left to wonder if she is quite sane. I think not.

Baroness Warnock thinks that if one burdens others, one should die. She is putting the convenience of society as a whole as a higher value than individual human life. I have seen this kind of thinking before: the Nazis were particularly enamoured of it, putting down whole swathes of people for violating the convenience of society as a whole, as they defined convenience. The convenience of society is NOT and can never be a higher value than human life itself. There is no higher value than human life - and one who does not place human life as the highest of values is not and can never be considered an ethical authority.

Baroness Warnock has revealed herself as a monster. I use the word deliberately, for she shares the outlook on human life (that its value is contingent on what others want) with the Nazis and other monstrous people before them. Human life is of the highest value - and is never and can never be considered contingent on what others want, in any civilized, ethical society. Baroness Warnock's reasoning is monstrous - or perhaps she is, herself, showing signs of dementia (she is 84). By her own reasoning, Baroness Warnock should be put down, therefore, for the demented nature of her own utterances. I don't see her being too quick to volunteer, however - perhaps she places a high value on her own life, but a low value on the life of others (another definite sign of a monstrous personality).

Baroness Warnock says that old people in mental decline are "wasting people's lives", due to the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if not in pain. She insisted that there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of loved ones or society. She has previously been recorded as saying that old people, who did not want to become a burden, should be helped to die. Now, she wants people to be licensed to do just that: go around killing old people. To my mind, she seems quite mad, in holding such views.

Baroness Warnock holds the kinds of views typical of despots and tyrants and monsters through the ages. Yet, she is supposedly a "medical ethics expert" who has been an adviser to the British government. I am puzzled as to how someone with so little grasp of what constitutes an ethical position could ever have been considered an ethics expert - or allowed to be an adviser on it. Her remarks show her to be most unethical - profoundly so - for she places no value on individual human life, but values the convenience of others above it.

It seems to me that more careful vetting is needed of candidates for the position of ethical adviser. Clearly, the British made a serious error in ever allowing Baroness Warnock any influence on ethical matters at all. Her influence can only be highly dangerous. Just think of what kind of world would come into being if Baroness Warnock were heeded on this matter: a world in which any human who fell sick and therefore inconvenienced others, would be put down. It is a world in which Stephen Hawking would have been killed off in his twenties when his motor disease overcame him. It is a world in which no-one would be allowed to live who troubled others. It is a world in which the handicapped would be executed at birth. It is world in which the stupid would be eliminated. For is not a mentally impaired person a burden on others? It is a world in which all would be relatively young, because the old would be consistently eliminated. It is a world that has been tried before. It is the world of the Third Reich.

Baroness Warnock is clearly impaired mentally, herself. She is clearly not thinking of the broader implications of advocating the death of one inconvenient class of people. Before long ALL inconvenient classes of people would be executed. Then again, what does "inconvenient" mean? Would it be extended, in some countries, to mean all those who don't support a particular political viewpoint? Would it extend to homosexuals? Or holders of another religion other than the official one? You may say that I am extending her argument too much - but I am most assuredly not. Once the idea that society has the right to execute one class of inconvenient people has become entrenched, it will soon be generalized. The taboo against taking human life would have been broken and this would open the way for all kinds of people to be ruled against as "inconvenient". Before long the few classes of people who survive will be living in a much duller, sanitized world - the world of Baroness Warnock "ethical expert".

Baroness Warnock is not a very intelligent woman. That much is clear. Her contribution to the world is not a positive one. What she advocates would destroy the civility of the modern world as we know it. Far from being a burden that must be killed, sick old people should be the focus of a duty of care: it is our responsibility, as fellow humans, to ensure that their lives are as comfortable as possible. In fact, I will go further than this: it is our duty as fellow humans to TREAT their illness and make them better if we can. Our ethical duty is not to kill them, to spare ourselves the trouble of bothering with them, as "ethical", oops, monstrous Baroness Warnock contends, but to cure them of their illnesses. A civilized culture would invest greater funds in research on dementing illnesses so as to cure them. They would not invest in the apparatus of death which Baroness Warnock would like to see brought into being.

The ethical thing to do, in this situation, would be to ensure that Baroness Warnock's plan is never implemented. Furthermore, to safeguard the future of society, the ethical thing to do would be to ensure that Baroness Warnock has no further influence over ethical matters. The ethical thing to do would be to review ALL of Baroness Warnock's past "ethical" decisions and check them for ethical content, against a more humanistic view of the world.

Baroness Warnock, by advocating the early deaths of millions of people, has become an inconvenience to society - for there could be no greater inconvenience to members of that society than wholesale deaths. Therefore, by her own reasoning, it is time for Baroness Warnock to say goodbye to the world. Perhaps she would like to try to establish the wisdom of her own reasoning by providing an example to the world of how a "sick old person" can benefit society by their own euthanasia.

I very much doubt whether she will take her own advice - which just goes to show how valueless it is.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)