All of you out there who are engrossed in this debate between science and religion ought to recognise that one of the things that religion uses to its benefit is the power of song. When science starts using song to promote its own visions and ideals, it will be a wonderful day.

This is an "auto-tuned" mash up of words from Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, Neil de Grasse Tyson... four people who were/are passionate about science.

For those of you with slightly different tastes in music, here's a more grayscale melody by the same youtuber.

There is a saint who is the President of East Timor. This country seems to have enjoyed peace and good relations with Indonesia in the past ten years since it won its independence from Indonesia. The man is very wise and caring, and is very pragmatic at maintaining this neighborly relationship with Indonesia. And central to this, is the forgiveness of people who oppressed East Timor between 1975 and 1999.

The interviewer here, is cute... but is rather malicious and headstrong in how she wishes to press the president for vindictive policies to "punish" those who hurt the country. She somehow doesn't see that these kinds of policies could easily return the region to a violent struggle struggle between the two nations.

The first segment of this broadcast, can be found here.

This might bore some people out of their skull. But, for those of you who work with children, or in management in any way, I think you'll get a lot out of it. This is a person talking about different styles of directing orchestras. He has some important insights. Neither a laissez faire, nor an authoritarian approach works when you are in a management position. One prominent metaphor that Itay Talgam uses is the people themselves build a roller coaster, and ride on it. And their actions are guided by the physics of their environment. It's important to relish what your people are doing, and be nurturing them, and be bringing them into fruition.

This is a fascinating 20 minute video with Lawrence Lessig, who has been a very erudite campaigner for reforming the government in Washington DC. Here, he again shows how noble he is by refusing to play one side or the other in a debate. Instead, he wants to talk about his honest reasoning.

This is a very amazing film which shows how the different parts of the human cell work.

The "New Democrats" in Canada are the political party which is the strongest progressive left-leaning party in the country. They seem to dominate ridings (what we in the Usa call "congressional districts") in British Columbia, for example... and they just got a parliamentary majority (and thus got the right to form the executive branch (governership) of Nova Scotia. They have 36 seats in the national parliament in Ottawa, where there are 308 total members. This is over half of what the Liberal party has (which is the most mainstream left-wing party). And this is enough seats to give the New Democrats significant leverage on parliament hill. Most recently, the New Democrats chose to prevent the Liberals from succeeding in a non-confidence motion which would have led Canada into a national election where the executive branch of government would be contested by all the major parties.

It may be that in order to really appreciate the humour in this video where Jack Layton pokes fun at himself and his own party, you need to have more of a sense of Canadian politics than you can get from that short synopsis above... but I want to share this video, anyway. This man's talent and humour is very refreshing... and I think that his attitude is a bellweather of good things on the horizon for Canadian government. I wish we had a person in congress in the Usa who had this much influence, and who was this progressive. Watching canadian politics is a refreshing change from watching the events in Washington DC.

Oh, one thing you will need to know for sure: The word "government" in many countries such as Canada means what we in the States call "the executive branch." This is formed by the party with the most seats in government after a national election. So theoretically, Jack Layton, as party leader, would become prime minister of Canada, if his party would ever achieve the most seats in parliament (an event which is highly unlikely in conservative Canada). Also, it's important to know that the word "grits" is slang for the Liberal party.

In Thailand, there is a group of folks who is teaching domesticated elephants the art of painting. Their website can be found here