I have copied the entirety of John Piper’s Fresh Word’s from the day before he went into surgery for prostate cancer.
The original article is here.
My only response is WOW.

Don’t Waste Your Cancer

February 15, 2006

I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.
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They say that Africa is the “dark continent”. Honestly, I don’ know why. Maybe its because life and death in Africa is hard. Maybe its the disease, abject poverty, violence. Maybe its the African soil darkened with the blood of martyrs. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find out.

I admit that often my thoughts have tended toward viewing Africa as a really cool place. When I day dream of monkeys, lions, Maasai warriors in their traditional garb, the snows of Kilimanjaro, I have all the images the travel brochures want me to have. Almost like Africa is a continent-sized Disney World where you better not wander to the wrong place, except you don’t have to worry about pith-helmet-wearing security guards, but real bad guys like terrorists or poachers who would rather kill you for the sport or the politics of it. If the poachers don’t get you maybe the Black Mamba will. Or the malaria or tuberculosis or famine or AIDS or tribal conflict or tsunami or something else. I think really thats why they call it the dark continent. (more…)

William Easterly, former international development and World Bank economist, and author of The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, had this great op-ed piece in last weeks Washington Post on Aid to Africa. He touches on the most salient issue related to Africa and International Aid

Dare one hope that in 2006, it will finally be understood that Africa’s true saviors are the people of Africa, and that those who would help them in their task must also be accountable to them?

When International Aid shores up corrupt “crony” states it does little service for the poor of Africa. When it serves “private-sector entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and African political reformers” it truly serves Africa’s people. African’s salvation will come from within.

Steve

PS The timing of this post related to my brothers post onAfrica is coincidental. I applaud and praise my brother and his family’s committment to help the people of Africa.

Those of you who are familiar with this blog know that I love “the economics way of thinking”. In keeping with that, I hope to post some links to articles and blogs in the next few weeks that help expose the way economists think. Please click here, to go to an article written by Don Boudreaux in 2004 to start your tutorial.

Steve

My favorite technology company, Google, is bringing wireless internet access to Abuja, Nigeria and 6 other African cities.

Technology development in Africa is going to be interesting to watch.

Scott

Since they have had a problem laying fiber optic networks in Scotland due to local restrictions since such activity disturbs the sheep, a new Internet Protocol has been proposed called Packet Over Sheep Protocol.

Here are some excerpts from the proposed standard:

This memo describes a protocol for IP packet translation onto sheep,
and attempts to circumvent some of the expected wooliness from such
an interaction between two technological industries seperated by
millenia.

In Scotland, due to local restrictions it is impossible to lay
fiber across the country; the local authorities have made it quite
clear that the construction of digital fiber networks disturbs the
sheep. This memo proposes a compromise, a packet switching
technology that uses the existing network of sheep across the
country. Packet Over Sheep will revolutionize broadbaaaaand datacomm
in Scotland.

The sheep exist as a layer two (see Section 1 for changes to the
OSI model) transport carrier. Each sheep carries a packet through
the field and passes the packet to the first sheep it contacts in
the corresponding next field. Eventually, if the sheep routing is
kept under close control via Shepherd (sheep router/control
protocol) the packet should be transmitted to the desired field.

2. The Transport method

Velcro will be used to attach the data segment to the sheep. The
destination FGO (Frank Gate Opener - discussed in Section 3) is
responsible for ensuring the integrity of each data segment before
sending the sheep to the next field.

Higher layer protocols are encapsulated by the POS M/F-12 (boy or
girl age 12) interface into the data segments required. The M/F-12
interface must translate the higher layer protocol from it’s digital
form into a physical format which can be attached to the sheep with
velcro. See Section 3 under Layer 4 protocols for more detailed
discussion.

Intriguing new Technology. Check it out.

More Interesting Technical Internet Standards documents can be found HERE.

Scott

Do you remember the really cool sci-fi 3d halographic user interface that Tom Cruise used in the movie Minority Report?
He just used the movements of his hands and fingers to interect with the computer 3 dimensionally (in the air using a hologram).

Well Engadget pointed out this really cool touch screen demo that is very different from the old-fashioned touch screens in that you can interact with the screen with multiple points (for example all your fingers). It uses a technology called (I am not making this up) Multi-Touch Sensing through Frustrated Total Internal Reflection Display. The video reminded me alot of the UI in Minority Report.

Warning - very large video - don’t do this over a slow connection.
Check out the demo in action. Its really cool.

Now they just need to come up with the holographic 3d part.

Scott

In case you haven’t seen it, here it the text of the speech that Bush delivered yesterday at the Coretta Scott King funeral. Pretty good speech.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060207.html

Seth

A couple of months ago, I made a post on Fat Triplets that led to an intense discussion about Wal-mart. The commentors, who I consider friends of this blog for which I am grateful, with one voice expressed opposition to Wal-mart. At the time, I promised a reply but I never had a chance to compose it. I will be doing so in the next day or so. In the meantime, I wanted to post the comments that were made then. Please feel free to add to these comments if you have more to say.
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Very, very preliminary studies of a new compound being developed at BYU and tested at Vanderbilt seem to indicate that the compound can completely destroy the AIDS/HIV and possibly other virii.

INTERESTING - check it out

Scott

So theres this cool new startup called Bunchball that allows you to embed flash games in your own web pages. Sweet!!

BLAST AWAY!!!

HT to TechCrunch

I know that Chewy Mom intensely dislikes Amazon but my recent experience with them has just increased my loyalty. I recently bought and returned an item from Amazon. The return process was surprisingly easy and fast. But when I got the return recieved notice, they had incorrectly deducted $6.97 for the return shipment although I had used my own UPS account for the return. In principal, I have no problem with Amazon charging customers for returns except when the problem was caused by Amazon (as is clearly stated in their policies. For the record, Lands End, my favorite online clothing retailer has the gold standard for policies related to returns. They always pay for return shipping). Amazon’s error was that they had charged me for return shipping when I had paid for it directly. In less than two hours after notifiying them of their error I recieved this notice:

Hello from Amazon.com.

I received your request to check on the refund amount for your
recent return. After a little research, I discovered that there was
an error in the refund for your return. I apologize for the error.

To correct the problem, I requested an additional refund of $6.37
for the deduction for using Prepaid Return Label to bring the total
to $199.99.

Also, in an effort to compensate this inconvenience, we would like
to offer you a $10.00 promotional certificate for use on your next
online order. You will find the claim code and further instructions
below.

HERE’S YOUR PROMOTIONAL CERTIFICATE:

Amount: $10.00
Claim code (YOU’LL NEED THIS WHEN ORDERING!): XXX-XXXX-XXXXX
Expiration date: Mon Sep 3 00:28:10 2007

I also included some additional information about refunds below that
you may find useful.

Again, I apologize for the error. Thank you for shopping at
Amazon.com.

Wow. Maybe Amazon is getting better!

Steve

Pandora  is a really cool site / service that lets you create channels of music you’ll like, based on a song, artist or group you select. It uses something called the Music Genome project to identify particular qualities of the artist you like and then finds music with the same qualities and plays it in a radio style on the web. You can tell pandora if you like a track and even purchase from iTunes from within  the Pandora applet.

I have created 4 channels-
David Wilcox
Linkin Park
Joshn Groban
Nickel Creek

Check it out. Its really cool.

Scott

HT - TechCrunch

U2’s Bono, Time man of the year, spoke to the President and other world leaders today at the National Prayer Breakfast. I especially like what he says about Africa. Here are some excerpts:

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places”

**********************

And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.

Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.

And that’s too bad.

Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drugstore. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality.

Because there’s no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and, if we’re honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn’t accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the Tsunami. 150, 000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, “mother nature”. In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.

***********************

These goals—clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty—these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a Globalised World.

Now, I’m very lucky. I don’t have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don’t have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don’t have to make the tough choices.

But I can tell you this:

To give one percent more is right. It’s smart. And it’s blessed.

There is a continent—Africa—being consumed by flames.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did—or did not to—to put the fire out in Africa.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

Read the whole thing. It’s great.

Scott