Japan's 'Last Ninja' is a 63-year-old engineer

Iga, Japan:?A 63-year-old former engineer may not fit the typical image of a dark-clad assassin with deadly weapons who can disappear into a cloud of smoke. But Jinichi Kawakami is reputedly Japan's last ninja.

As the 21st head of the Ban clan, a line of ninjas that can trace its history back some 500 years, Kawakami is considered by some to be the last living guardian of Japan's secret spies.

"I think I'm called (the last ninja) as there is probably no other person who learned all the skills that were directly" handed down from ninja masters over the last five centuries, he said.

"Ninjas proper no longer exist," he said as he demonstrated the tools and techniques used in espionage and sabotage by men fighting for their samurai lords in the feudal Japan of yesteryear.

Nowadays they are confined to fiction or used to promote Iga, some 350 kilometres (220 miles) southwest of Tokyo, a mountain-shrouded city near the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto that was once home to many ninjas.

Mr Kawakami, a former engineer who began teaching ninjutsu - the art of the ninja - ten years ago, said the true history of ninjas was a mystery.

"There are some drawings of their tools but we don't always find all the details," which may have been left deliberately vague, Mr Kawakami said.

"Many of their traditions were passed on by word of mouth, so we don't know what was altered in the process."

And those skills that have arrived in the 21st century in their entirety are sometimes difficult to verify.

"We can't try out murder or poisons. Even if we can follow the instructions to make a poison, we can't try it out," he said.

Survival techniques

Kawakami first encountered the secretive world of ninjas at the age of just six, but has only vague memories of first meeting his master, Masazo Ishida, a man who dressed as a Buddhist monk.

"I kept practising without knowing what I was actually doing. It was much later that I realised I was practising ninjutsu."

Kawakami said training ranged from physical and mental skills to studies of chemicals, weather and psychology.

"I call ninjutsu comprehensive survival techniques," though it originated in war skills such as espionage and guerrilla attacks, he said.

"For concentration, I looked at the wick of a candle until I got the feeling that I was actually inside it. I also practised hearing the sound of a needle dropping on the floor," he said.

He climbed walls, jumped from heights and learned how to mix chemicals to cause explosions and smoke.

"I was also required to endure heat and cold as well as pain and hunger. The training was all tough and painful. It wasn't fun but I didn't think much why I was doing it. Training was made to be part of my life."

Kawakami said he was "a strange boy" growing up but his practice drew little attention at a time when many in Japan were struggling to make ends meet in the hard post-war years.

Just before he turned 19, he inherited the master's title, along with secret scrolls and special tools.

Kawakami is careful not to claim the title of the "last ninja" for himself and in the sometimes sectarian world of ninjutsu there are doubters and rival claimants, with the disputes centring on the authenticity of various teachings.

"Perching on your enemy's eyelashes"

Kawakami says much of the ninja's art lies in catching people unawares, rather than in brute force.

"Humans can't be on the alert all the time. There is always a moment when they are off guard and you catch it," he said.

It is all about exploiting weaknesses that allows the ninja to outfox much bigger or more numerous opponents; distracting attention to allow a quick getaway.

It is possible to hide - in a manner of speaking - behind the smallest of things, Kawakami said.

"If you throw a toothpick, people will look that way, giving you the chance to flee.

"We also have a saying that it is possible to escape death by perching on your enemy's eyelashes; it means you are so close that he cannot see you."

Kawakami recently began a research job at the state-run Mie University, where he is studying the history of ninjas.

But, he said as he showed an AFP team around the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum and its trick house with hidden ladders, fake doors and an underfloor sword box, he is resigned to the fact that he is the last of his kind.

There will be no 22nd head of the Ban clan because Kawakami has decided not to take on any more apprentices.

"Ninjas just don't fit in the modern day," he said.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NdtvNews-TopStories/~3/zRZgf-874to/story01.htm

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Wikileaks' Assange gives media statement in London: photos

U.K. police guard the front door of the Ecuadorian embassy. Ecuadorian soil is an apartment on the ground floor of the building. The hallways inside and the front door are still considered U.K. soil.

All images are in chronological order from 11 a.m. BST.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zdnet/BTL/~3/N-QwEQBm5dk/

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Irtiqa: Friday Journal Club: "Science, Religion, and Society"

by Salman Hameed

For our Friday Journal Club, here is a recent paper by biologist Jerry Coyne: Science Religion, and Society: The Problem of Evolution in America, published in the journal Evolution.

Summary:?
The paper looks at the reasons why a majority of Americans reject biological evolution. Coyne attributes the central reason reason to the "extreme religiosity of the United States". I think the Abstract does a pretty good job of laying out the basic position of the paper:

American resistance to accepting evolution is uniquely high among First World countries. This is due largely to the extreme religiosity of the United States, which is much higher than that of comparably advanced nations, and to the resistance of many religious people to the facts and supposed implications of evolution. The prevalence of religious belief in the United States suggests that outreach by scientists alone will not have a huge effect in increasing the acceptance of evolution, nor will the strategy of trying to convince the faithful that evolution is compatible with their religion. Because creationism is a symptom of religion, another strategy to promote evolution involves loosening the grip of faith on America. This is easier said than done, for recent sociological surveys show that religion is highly correlated with the dysfunctionality of a society, and various measures of societal health show that the United States is one of the most socially dysfunctional First World countries. Widespread acceptance of evolution in America, then, may have to await profound social change.

I have to say that I expected more from this paper. I think the topic is really interesting and it is, of course, worth exploring the reasons why a majority of the population in the world's most advanced nation reject evolution. The paper, instead, turns into a polemic against religion and is often sloppy with definitions. Even if religiosity (or religion) is the main correlation with the rejection of evolution, one has to look into the reasons why evolution became a controversial topic for American religions. Just saying "religion is the cause" is too simplistic and too broad. For example (from the Pew Survey), within the US, 81% of Buddhists, 80% of Hindus and 77% of Jews agree with the statement that "evolution is the best explanation of human life on Earth" (in case, you are wondering 45% of US Muslims also agree with this statement). So one has to be careful in using the term "religion" or "religiosity" for the causation.

Now it is true that much of the US resistance to evolution comes from Evangelical Christians. But that opposition has a particular context rooted in the politics and culture of early 20th century US. For example, it became part of the Evangelical opposition as a reaction to the spread of public education, as well as a legitimate complaint of having Social Darwinism (which is not biological evolution, but its application to society) and Eugenics as part of biology textbooks (plus, Eugenics-based compulsory sterilization was part of 30 US states in the early 20th century). This is not to excuse the poor reception of evolution in the 21st century, but to provide some context of why most Evangelical groups ended up rejecting evolution. I find it a bit odd that a paper focusing on the reasons for the rejection of evolution in the US does not mention - even in a cursory manner - any historical or cultural context.

Much of the remaining paper focus on showing the incompatibility of science and religion, and then arguing that the only reasonable solution to increasing the acceptance of evolution is by reducing religion in the US:

After having taught evolution for years, we have finally recognized where our real opposition lies: creationism is simply one of many symptoms of religion. A continuous stream of anti-evolution propaganda pours from the religiously motivated, distorting the public understanding of evolution. It follows that naturalistic evolution will not attract a majority of Americans until our nation becomes less religious. That, of course, is contrary to accommodationism, which takes religion as a given.

Okay - now these are huge topics to cover - bit couple of quick points. Coyne argues that "religion breeds resistance not only to evolution, but also to science itself (emphasis in the original paper). Well - it depends on what science and what religion. I know that Coyne is critiquing Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)?- and indeed there are some valid critiques out there - but a blanket statement regarding religion and science is equally problematic. Most religions (and most religious beliefs) do not have much to say about most sciences. It is only a small sub-set of sciences - usually dealing with the questions of origins - where there is explicit interaction with some (or most) religions. But then we have to address the myriads of ways individuals address these questions of origins and interpret those within their own religious traditions. Wait a minute - but then this becomes a complicated mess which cannot be reduced to a simple answer: "religion did it". In fact, the blame for all this messiness goes to the long process of evolution that led to these complex bipedal species that defy simple explanations.

Towards the end of the paper, Coyne looks at socio-economic factors that may explain the high religiosity of America, which for him, explains the high rates of rejection of evolution. Josh Rosenau on his Thoughts from Kansas blog has done a thorough job addressing this part of the paper, so I will let him deal with this:

Coyne?s causal model holds that income inequality (and economic insecurity in general) -> religiosity -> creationism. To back this causal model, he works from aggregate levels of support for evolution in 34 industrialized nations, correlating those with national measures of religiosity, then correlates national religiosity with national income inequality. As we know, correlation is not causation, and this pattern of correlations could imply many other causal pathways: e.g., religiosity -> creationism -> income inequality or income inequality -> creationism -> religiosity.?

Certainly, the inequality -> religion -> creationism causal chain has an intuitive logic, but there?s an intuitive logic to other causal chains of these three items. Correlation alone doesn?t let us decide what order makes the most sense for a causal chain. For instance, Coyne and other gnu atheists have long sought to attribute all manner of social ills to the persistence of religion, so might high levels of religiosity cause both social inequality and creationism? Or might income inequality create little incentive to learn science, and then low science literacy leaves the population without a viable alternative to religious explanations? There are, naturally, ways to statistically test these different causal chains, but this would require Coyne to have tested his model by seeking to falsify alternative explanations, or even in considering potential confounding factors, and he shows no interest in rigorously testing his model.?

As with all such correlational studies, it?s also possible that the three variables at issue are connected by some fourth factor not present in Coyne?s model. The most obvious factor which Coyne ignores is education. Studies consistently show that, even after controlling for religiosity, how educated someone is has a tremendous impact on his or her views on evolution. Countries with better educational systems also tend to be more accepting of evolution, and countries with high income inequality tend to have worse education systems. The correlations Coyne uses to justify his causal model may, then, be spurious. Oddly, his paper never even mentions differences between national educational systems in discussing different nation?s attitudes towards science. Nor does the paper discuss differences in economic and social development, as measured by GDP or GNI or broader measures like the Human Development Index (which includes economic factors, life expectancy, educational statistics, and other factors to generate a more comprehensive picture of a nation?s development).?

This omission is surprising because controlling for GNI per capita is common in such international comparisons. Lots of things correlate with economic development, and factoring that out of a comparison is usually an important first step. Indeed, among the 34 countries Coyne examines, income inequality has a strong negative correlation with GNI per capita, and the median years of schooling among adults has a strong positive correlation with GNI per capita. Many measures of religiosity also correlate with GNI per capita and income inequality. These correlations make causality especially tricky to ascertain, though he could have controlled for them if he wanted to.?

You should read his full post here.

One final thought on the paper. I think it is important to understand the impact of religion on evolution acceptance, ?debates over stem cells, issues related to the beginning and the end of life, etc. However, we need to do it in a way that takes into account the complex ways people interact with their beliefs. Plus, we need to appreciate the interplay of religion with culture and politics - and devise ways to distinguish them for a study on evolution acceptance.

Also see last week's Friday Journal Club: "Science Teachers' Views of Science and Religion vs the Islamic Perspective".

_________________
Coyne, J. A. (2012), SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY: THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION IN AMERICA. Evolution, 66: 2654?2663. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01664.x

Source: http://www.irtiqa-blog.com/2012/08/friday-journal-club-science-religion.html

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pest-free living, pest control - Pest Control Solutions That Work

Pest control is unfortunately a necessity because of the bug-rich environments in the southeast. Common problem pest include termites, ants, wasps and hornets, yellow jackets, mosquitos, and more. From early spring through the summer months into fall, these types of pest -- if not controlled -- can cause frustration, stings, and in some cases like with termites, a significant amount of money and resources. There are lots of ways to tackle the problem, and two ways in particular are showing great results.

A safer, more effective and environmentally friendly approach to pest control is a process called Integrated Pest Management. An IPM program involves inspection of the property, identification of pests and harborage areas, sealing off entry points, treating attics, basements, crawl spaces, the use of traps and sanitation. An Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program is a more comprehensive approach to pest control. IPM goes beyond simply spraying pesticides until the problem goes away, as this is not a safe or effective long-term strategy. An IPM approach first performs a thorough inspection to gather information. Once the pests are identified you can then determine what is causing the pest problem (i.e. what can be done besides using pesticides to eliminate the problem). Next, you can implement a plan of action, make suggestions to homeowners, and finally apply a limited amount of pesticide if necessary. Many pest problems are solved without pesticides and just taking a little time to investigate.

Exterior perimeter services are another effective way of reducing pests, and were introduced a few years ago with the increasing ant populations in Georgia. Many who are on quarterly service would commonly say "I knew it was time for our next service because we started seeing bugs". The pest treatments begin to wear down and become ineffective with time, thus there is a need for on-going maintenance. However, you do not want to see bugs at all - even if it is time for your next service.

Experienced pest control companies can perform treatments on alternating months and on the exterior only. Because most bugs come from the exterior, these treatments are able to control them before they enter your home or office. With the change to an Alternate Month Perimeter Service, you can expect to see instant results and an improvement in long term pest control performance. The need to schedule an interior appointment can be virtually eliminated due to ongoing exterior service, and the number of customers reporting bugs is reduced dramatically. It turns into a win-win service as pest control companies don't have to interfere with your schedule, and you don't have to worry about pest getting into your home.

Some say the best approach to pest management is the combination of an IPM and the exterior perimeter service. The IPM eliminates problems and seals off potential bug entry points, and the exterior service can keep them at bay as an added layer of protection. If you have bug problems, or are concerned about inside use of pest control chemicals, you should look into an IPM and/or exterior service.

Expest Exterminating is an Athens Pest Control company who works with clients on greener, safer and more effective pest control strategies to protect the environment and families.

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People found living in secret 8-story 'anthill' in Russia

KAZAN, Russia?? When Russian police came crashing in on a secretive Muslim community in the city of Kazan last month, they were hunting weapons and violent suspects following attacks on leading clerics in the mainly Muslim region of Tatarstan.

What they found, in their own words, was an "anthill" of tunnels and chambers delving eight stories deep below a modest brick house where dozens of people, including 20 children, had been living peaceably hidden from the world for years, in thrall to a self-styled prophet in his 80s called Faizrakhman Satarov.

What they did not find, however, after removing the children to great fanfare in the local media and accusing their parents of neglect, was any evidence that the "Faizrakhmanists" have any role in the kind of militant rejection of Kremlin-approved Islam which the Russian authorities say threatens state security.

Somewhat dazed by the global attention - and angry that their children are now in orphanages and hospitals - residents of the community, including their aged leader, are still living sequestered lives in the compound and vow to stay on in what they insist is their own, independent micro-state.

"Whatever they do to us, whatever charges they impose on us, we will not go to any court," said a tall, dark-bearded and green-turbaned man called Gumar Ganiyev, Satarov's deputy, who spoke to Reuters at the metal gate of the enclosure one day last week after evening prayers. "We will ask only God for help."

"They came, robbed us, took away children, took away books and call us a sect," he added, describing himself as "caliph of this state." "We are no sect; we are a community of God."

Followers: We are scapegoats
Content to restrict such demands for an Islamic "state" to the immediate confines of their scruffy suburban home in Kazan, Satarov's followers, critics of the police say, have been made scapegoats in an effort by officials to show, first, that there is a local Islamist threat and, second, that they can crush it.

"All that's happening now is an ideological campaign, they need to prove that they are fighting against something," said Alexei Malashenko, an expert on religion at the Carnegie Moscow Centre. "They have a report to file."

The drama began last month when a man named Ildus Faizov was wounded in a car bombing on July 19 and an associate was shot dead the same day. Faizov was last year named mufti, or chief cleric, of Tatarstan and won praise from the Kremlin for taking a strong line against radicals Moscow fears may bring to the oil-rich region the kind of mayhem seen in the Muslim Caucasus.

Russian court sentences Pussy Riot rockers to 2 years in prison

Police are now hunting men they call terrorists from a group named the "Tatarstan mujahideen." They have proclaimed loyalty to a rebel Chechen Islamist and condemn Faizov for betraying the faith by working with Russian officialdom - though the mufti also seems to have made enemies of Tatar businessmen, over a lucrative local concession to fly pilgrims to Mecca.

But the fact that authorities both in Tatarstan and Moscow, 500 miles away, have now largely let Faizrakhmanists be - as they had for many years until this summer - appears to reflect a common view that their eccentric lifestyle is simply a manifestation of the extreme religiosity to which some Russians turned when Soviet Communist ideology evaporated 20 years ago.

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The white-bearded Satarov faces a possible charge carrying a maximum jail sentence of six months, and some followers could be jailed for up to three years for parental neglect. But none have been arrested and most remain in the compound, spending long periods closeted away underground and rarely seen by neighbors.

No contact with outside world
Some of the children taken away in the raid, some just a few months old, were born in the warren-like haven of the community where rules were set by Satarov, whose age is variously given as between 83 and 86 and who pronounced himself a prophet half a century ago, at a time when Soviet rulers stifled religious faith.

Said by his followers to hear the voice of God in his sleep, Satarov presides over a brick house at the heart of the compound, topped by a somewhat makeshift minaret. But what police had not expected when they stormed in on Aug. 1 was the jumble of narrow corridors, steep stairs and small rooms, some windowless, which extended deep below ground level.

Inside they found, babies, children and a 17-year-old girl who was discovered, after being taken to hospital, to be pregnant. Without medical care or schooling, the youngsters, officials said, had had no contact with the outside world.

"The place consists of cells without natural light or ventilation, located in the basement of the building and dug out from the ground," said Kazan Deputy Prosecutor Irina Petrova, who also described the compound shown in police footage of underground rooms and corridors as an eight-level "anthill."

"The Faizrakhmanists live in conditions that are not suitable for normal human life," she added.

Mainstream Muslim leaders in Tatarstan have also disparaged Satarov's group and say it is time to stop "negative elements" they fear are harming the region's reputation for moderation.

'Very kind'
Neighbors of the compound, who reckoned they saw about 10 adults outside fairly regularly, saw little threat, however.

"They walk by every day, they go through trash bins," said one man working at a taxi firm next door. "They may be dirty but they are never aggressive, they are very kind. What goes on behind their fence I don't know - and I don't care."

And those residents willing to talk vehemently disputed the most unflattering descriptions of life among the Faizrakhmanists and spoke of bending or breaking rules of the sect with ease.

Yunus Ibragimov, 63, said that members in principle needed Satarov's permission to venture outside the gate but that children had been allowed outside into the yard. Ibragimov added that he personally no longer followed Satarov's rule, but still chose to go on living in the compound, along with his son.

Shamil Ibragimov, 29, said he too had often ignored Satarov and absconded in the past to go and work on construction sites. But he was now planning to leave in order to reclaim custody of his four children, taken away by the authorities two weeks ago.

Yet Satarov's deputy Ganiyev insisted the community would hold fast.

"We'll lie under the bulldozer, we'll lie under the tank, if they blow us up ... We will all be blown up together if they do that to us, but we will not give up a single piece of this land."

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48704476/ns/world_news-europe/

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German official: Facebook must delete faces

BERLIN?? A German data protection official called Wednesday for social networking site Facebook to delete biometric profiles of people stored without their explicit consent, saying they breach European privacy rules.

In other words, he wants Facebook to delete users' faces from its databases.

Johannes Caspar, head of the Hamburg office for data protection, said talks with Facebook to bring its business practices in line with German and European Union privacy rules had failed. Caspar said in a statement that he is now re-opening a stalled probe of the Menlo Park, California-based company "in order to find a legally sound solution with regard to the use of biometric data."

Caspar is highly critical of Facebook's photo tagging feature, which asks users to attach the names of people in pictures they have uploaded. Facebook then uses the unique facial characteristics in each picture to automatically identify the same person in other photographs on its site. Users can opt out of the service, but Caspar wants them to have to opt in.

"Facebook will be obliged to delete this data unless it obtains approval by all concerned users," he said, adding that "due to the immense potential of misuses of biometric data the explicit consent is a legal requirement for the collecting and processing of biometric data."

Facebook responded with a statement saying that it believes the photo tagging feature "is fully compliant with EU data protection laws."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48687257/ns/technology_and_science-security/

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