Top 10 Greatest GOP Moments of 2011

The ever-infuriating Westboro Baptist Church, which made its reputation picketing the funerals of soldiers while holding signs saying “god hates fags” and “thank god for dead soldiers,” says it is heading to Norway to lend its presence to the funerals of those killed in the July 22 massacre.

via Yahoo! News

Just 10 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Rais Bhuiyan was working at a gas station in Dallas when he was shot in the face by a man named Mark Stroman. Stroman was on a shooting spree, targeting people who appeared to be Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent. Stroman is due to be executed July 20; Bhuiyan, the only survivor of the attacks, is fighting to save his life.

via 9/11 Hate-Crime Victim Seeks To Save His Attacker : NPR.

The global war on drugs has “failed” according to a new report by a group of politicians and former world leaders.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy report calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users.

The panel includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

…

The 19-member commission includes Mexico’s former President Ernesto Zedillo, Brazil’s ex-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, as well as the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and the current Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou.

The panel also features prominent Latin American writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, the EU’s former foreign policy chief Javier Solana, and George Schultz, a former US secretary of state.

via BBC News – Global war on drugs ‘has failed’ say former leaders.

Bill Maher talks about how Christian the Christians of the world really are with reference to the reports of celebrations on Osama’s death. Love the way he rips them apart! Some gems:

Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian because he actually practiced loving his enemies. And Gandhi was so f**king Christian, he was Hindu!

He (Jesus) has lines like, “Do not repay evil with evil,” and “Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you.” Really! It’s in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people!

…non-violence was kind of Jesus’ trademark. Kind of his big thing. To not follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales.

But you see, I can say that because I’m a non-Christian. Just like most Christians.

I’m just saying logically, if you ignore every single thing Jesus commanded you to do, you’re not a Christian. You’re just auditing. You’re not Christ’s followers. You’re just fans. And if you believe the earth was given to you to kick ass on while gloating, you’re not really a Christian; you’re a Texan!

James Richard Verone woke up June 9 with a sense of anticipation.

He took a shower.

Ironed his shirt.

Hailed a cab.

Then robbed a bank.

He wasn’t especially nervous. If anything, Verone said he was excited to finally execute his plan to gain access to free medical care.

via Bank robber planned crime and punishment | bank, richard, hailed – Gaston Gazette.

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
…
Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.”

Thomas Jefferson

I was reading a letter Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States (and probably one of the greatest) wrote to his nephew in 1787. Amongst other things, he talks to him about religion. The lines above are an excerpt. The full version is below.

Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth’s motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureâ. See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19. §. 28. 3. & Lipsius Lib 2. de cruce. cap. 2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, & several others. They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all.

Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision. I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost. There are some, however, still extant, collected by Fabricius, which I will endeavor to get & send you.

South Park creators warned over Mohammed depiction – BBC

The threatening post in question on the website of the group has a photo of Theo van Gogh lying dead on the pavement, after he was murdered for making a film which criticized the treatment of women in Islamic societies. But the post insists that this was not a threat but a ‘warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them’!

As a result of this threat, Comedy Central, the channel that runs South Park, decided to heavily censor the 201st episode which had more references to Mohammed.

‘South Park’ Episode Altered After Muslim Group’s Warning – The New York Times

Jon Stewart, whose ‘The Daily Show’ also runs on Comedy Central, uses humour to talk about this issue in his own way (Video below). But his anger is evident in these words,

“This group, residing in the shadows, or should I say, former shadows of the World Trade Center are allowed to praise Osama Bin Laden, celebrate the anniversary of 9/11, and try to intimidate the creators of South Park, all while enjoying our lovely theatre district, our many diverse restaurants, including some of the best Jewish delis you can find… And these numbnuts get to enjoy it, all because we, in this country, value and protect even their freedom of expression.”

This controversy has even led to a Facebook event called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

By the way, according to this archive, Mohammed has been depicted in images throughout history by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

“Vaccine-autism claims, “Frankenfood” bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public’s growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. He warns the trend spells disaster for human progress.”

Courtesy TED Talks.

A Facebook post of a friend led me to this article in The Wall Street Journal titled The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery. And through this and subsequent googling I discovered the man behind the name Dr. Devi Shetty, a name I have heard a hundred times amongst friends and family in India.

Whenever heart disease and its remedies are discussed in India this name inevitably pops up and I knew that Dr. Shetty is a famous heart surgeon who started in a hospital in Calcutta, became Mother Teresa’s doctor and then founded a couple of his own hospitals in Calcutta and Bangalore. But what I did not know are the following:

• His Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital in Bangalore charges around $2,000 for open-heart surgery. The same operation costs around $5,000 in other Indian private hospitals and anything between $20,000 and $100,000 in the U.S.
• Almost a third of Narayana’s patients are covered by a farmers’ insurance plan started by Dr. Shetty in partnership with the state government of Karnataka. This insurance costs just $3 a year per person and pays $1,200 for each cardiac surgery, which is lower by $300 from the hospital’s break-even cost of $1500 per operation.
  
• 3,174 cardiac bypass surgeries were performed in Narayana in 2008 – a huge number, compared to the 1,367 in the renowned Cleveland Clinic, U.S.A. 2,777 operations were performed on children – Children’s Hospital Boston performed only 1,026.
  
• But quality does not suffer. Narayana’s mortality rate within 30 days of coronary artery bypass graft surgery, a common procedure, is around 1.4%. The U.S. average in 2008 for the same procedure was 1.9%.
• And they still make profits! Narayana Hrudayalaya Private Ltd., which runs the hospitals, reports a 7.7% profit after taxes. This is slightly higher than the 6.9% average for a U.S. hospital.

Astounding! And all of this is possible thanks to one man’s vision and private enterprise!

Before Devi Shetty, it was considered impossible to drive down costs to such levels; even now, no one has been able to replicate this. Top-flight management researchers want to understand how Shetty does it. “The mortality rate in Narayana Hrudyalaya is much lower than in New York State for similar kinds of heart disease,” says University of Michigan’s C.K. Prahalad. The hospital has been discussed extensively in his 2004 bestseller, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. It has also become a case study at Harvard Business School. Adds Kokila P. Doshi, professor of Economics at University of San Diego’s business school, “Till now the trend was that government serves the poor. Shetty has shown that private enterprise can serve the poor profitably.”

Forbes India - The World’s Largest Heart Factory

The WSJ article reports that a couple of Mother Teresa’s pictures adorn the walls of Dr. Shetty’s office. One of them has the following words,

Hands that serve are more sacred than lips that pray.

Additional Link:

Forbes India Slideshow – Day in the life of Devi Shetty

(Photo courtesy Narayana Hospitals)

(Thanks PD for the WSJ link!)