[8 December 2001]:
|
Hamas (etc.) or Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO):
Having the same goal but using different paths to
reach it - through violence or through peace. Is it a matter
of 'choosing either path'? It's a clever strategy but is either
choice really that clear-cut?
|
[15 December 2001]:
|
Cartel: firms which remain independent but
which enter into an agreement to set mutually acceptable prices for
their products. A cartel may restrict output or raise prices(costs)
in order to prevent entrants to the market and increase member
profits. They therefore represent a form of oligopoly. [Source:
The Hutchinson Concise Encyclopedia, 2nd edition 1991,
p.168] If their product is oil, can they actually prevent new
entrants into their market? Let's say there are currently one-
hundred members; then country xxx discovered another source of oil.
The cartel has no choice but to welcome country xxx as its 101st
member even though their profits will be watered down.
|
Osmosis: the movement of water molecules from
a high concentration of water (less salt or sugar dissolved in it)
to a low concentration of water (more salt or sugar dissolved in it).
This means that if some large molecule like a protein is in a cell,
the water moves into the cell faster than it leaves, and the cell
swells. The semipermeable cell membrane acts like a balloon, and
if too much water enters the cell, the cell can burst and die. When
the protein or other large molecule is on the outside of the cell,
the cell loses water faster than it comes in, and the cell shrinks.
This occurs when living systems (eg. cells) are not at equilibrium
during their task of exchanging gases, taking in water, minerals,
and food, and eliminating wastes/toxins in order to remain alive.
[Could this be applied to the Earth's self-cleaning mechanism as
a single cell or to its various ecosystems and land mass as groups
of cells?][6 Jan 2002: Could the same principle
be in operation when people tend to flock to gold mines
(or other perceived paradise) or tend to disperse amidst tyrants?]
|
[6 January 2002]:
|
Cloning?: (Ge 1:27)-God
created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them. (Ge 5:1) -This
is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created
man, He made him in the likeness of God.
Ge 5:21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became
the father of Methuselah. Ge 5:22 - Then Enoch
walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of
Methuselah, and he had {other} sons and daughters.
Ge 5:25 -Methuselah lived one hundred and
eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech.
Ge 5:26 -Then Methuselah lived seven hundred and
eighty-two years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had
{other} sons and daughters.Ge 5:27 - So all the days
of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.
Ge 5:28 - Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two
years, and became the father of a son. Ge 5:30 -
Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became
the father of Noah, and he had {other} sons and daughters.
Ge 5:31 - So all the days of Lamech were seven
hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died. [Are we then similar to
Dolly the sheep having shorter lifespan?]
|
[26 February 2003]:
|
Shareholder value?: (Source:
Good Weekend, August 17, 2002, page 37) If you look
at the hundreds of billions of dollars' debt that corporations
took on in the 1990s in order to pay for the cost of issuing
options, and you look at how little stock prices ended up
rising over that same period, it now appears as if the past
decade witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth from
shareholders to workers in the history of the U.S. economy.
Unfortunately, the workers were almost all ensconced in the
executive suite. (Title: "Greed" by James Surowiecki, which first
appeared in The Guardian)
|
