Magic Statistics

Scientists from MIT have discovered trees living in a desert forest in Oman that water themselves by extracting moisture from low-lying mists.

The forest is especially unique . . . because it "is a water-limited seasonal cloud forest" that is kept alive by water droplets gathered from passing clouds — ground fog. The water dribbles into the ground and sustains the trees later when the weather is dry. The MIT work suggests the trees actually get more of their water through contact with clouds than via rainfall.

In general, cloud forests are not really rare. But they occur most frequently in moist tropical regions where there is ample rainfall. So it is unusual, the researchers said, to find a cloud forest in a region known for chronic dryness.

The extraordinary forest may be threatened by excessive camel grazing in the area, scientists warned.

h/t: Faith-Science News

The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed serious concern that children are being pressured to grow up too quickly and that this is contributing to mental health problems among youngsters.

The Very Rev Dr Rowan Williams said that a generation of young parents is failing to offer the right level of love and support to their children who, in turn, are becoming "infant adults".

In comments to the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the Archbishop said that a wide range of different influences, including family separations, the barrage of testing in schools and commercial pressures, were causing children to grow up before their time.
. . .
"We are talking about one in ten young people with measurable mental health problems, including depression and self harm. That is a very worrying statistic."

Dr Williams’s remarks came on the same day as the launch of the Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry, sparked by a letter from over 100 child care experts warning that aspects of modern life threaten the mental and social well-being of children.

He added that research by the Society, which is part of the Church of England, had shown concerns about the pressures on time in schools and outside including a pressure to get “measurable things” achieved in a very short space of time.“  Are we right to put such an emphasis on testing from such an early age and give that such prominence at a time when it seems to undermine children’s confidence and increase their levels of pressure?” Dr Williams asked.

He also suggested that too many parents, worried about paedophiles, are excessively protecting their children.  This, he said, has restrained volunteerism and instilled distrust.

Previous related posts:

• Children threatened by modern life, junk culture
• Problems with “sexualised” school children? Send in the social workers!
• Killing children with kindness

Several farmers forcibly removed from their property six years ago with the connivance of Dictator President Robert Mugabe were recently able to pay a visit to their old homesteads.  The farms that formerly earned the lion’s share of Zimbabwe’s foreign exchange have been allowed to fall into disarray.  This is what one farmer saw.

[I]t was desolate, unkempt. No farming appeared to have taken place on the 2,000 once-productive acres since they were forced off. The homestead was still locked up, no one had moved in.

The only mysterious change was why, with all that land, the tennis court had been dug up for a scruffy vegetable garden. Many of the farm workers were still there.

Farm workers generally supported the armed mobs who seized properties from their rightful owners.  Now, however, they have no work.  This particular farm has been given to a big-city policeman who visits his country estate only infrequently.

Previous related post: Mugabe to white farmers: No hard feelings

Satanists in the state of Mizoram, India, are burning Bibles and vandalising churches in a widespread campaign against Christians.

One such group entered a church after midnight on July 24 and burned Bibles, urinated on the pulpit and tore up pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

"It appears they sacrificed an animal on the pulpit and splattered its blood on the altar and chair of the worship leader," said the Rev. B. Sangthanga, the head pastor of the church in the Kolasib district of the northeastern Indian state.
. . .
Mr. Sangthanga said the acts of vandalism "carry signatures of the Mizo Satan followers. … Now their attack on our church proves that the number of Satanists is growing across the state with village youths joining them."

I'll bet those Christians were deeply offended and responded by demanding an apology, vilifying Satanists in the street, burning a Satanist in effigy, torching a few Satanist places of worship, shooting an elderly Satanist in the back, threatening to kill a bunch more, and generally puttin' the fear of God in 'em.

The villagers did not report the attack to the police, choosing instead to pray for "God's intervention to help the misguided youths return to the right path."

Never mind.

h/t: Pearcey Report

The tragic shooting at Montreal's Dawson College shows that the federal gun registry has not made Canada any safer, says SFU professor Gary Mauser in today's Globe and Mail.

While gun homicide numbers are indeed down, the total homicide rate has increased. This suggests that crime rates are driven by sociological factors rather than availability of just one method of murder.
. . .
Since 1998, when firearms were required to be registered, the homicide rate has increased by more than 3 per cent. Despite the outrageous cost of the registry, the percentage of gun homicides has remained fixed at 27 per cent. The percentage of family homicides involving firearms has remained at 23 per cent.

Last week's incident is already being used as a pretext to argue for more restrictive gun laws.  It's a familiar pattern that has often led to expensive and ineffectual government programs.

Both the United Kingdom and Australia brought in stringent firearms laws following garish media coverage of shootings in the 1990s. But despite the effort, police statistics show that the U.K. is enduring a serious crime wave. In contrast to the U.S., where the homicide rate has been falling for more 20 years, the homicide rate in the U.K. has been growing.

Nor did the introduction of stringent gun regulations in Australia make the streets any safer. The country's homicide rate remained basically flat from 1995 through to 2001.

Since the 1970s, Jamaica and the Republic of Ireland have banned possession of firearms by private citizens, but neither country has seen a reduction in the homicide rate.

Dr Mauser is one of Canada's foremost experts on gun laws in general and the federal gun registry in particular.  He has been an invited speaker at firearms-related conferences throughout the English-speaking world.  His website contains a wealth of information and documentation supporting the points made here.

For access to the full column, click here.

OK, I just made up that last phrase, but he really did say the first two.

Ferenc Gyurcsany, prime minister of Hungary, has been caught in an embarrassing scandal following the leak of a taped conversation in which he admits lying before and during the most recent national election.  Despite this, his party has affirmed its support for the liar prime minister.

Hungary's Socialist Party has publicly backed prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany after the leak of a tape in which he admitted lying to win April's general election, despite opposition calls for him to quit.

The taped comments, in which Mr Gyurcsany said "we lied in the morning, we lied in the evening" about the need to raise taxes, among other things, were made at a party meeting in which he urged the party to embrace economic reform to fix Hungary's persistent budget problems.

The tape, recorded months ago during a meeting of party leaders, was leaked yesterday and broadcast on Hungarian radio.

The recording, made in May at a closed-door meeting of Mr Gyurcsany and deputies in his Socialist Party, caught the Prime Minister saying his party had "screwed up".

"It's obvious that we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true," he said, referring to the health of the country's economy.

Just before the election, the Socialist-led government reduced taxes all the while knowing that austere economic measures had to be introduced to pave the way for Hungary's adoption of the euro.  Shortly after winning re-election, Mr Gyurcsany repealed the tax cuts and imposed higher taxes that were not in his party’s platform.

Opposition parties are calling for his resignation and protestors are rioting in the streets, unsatisfied with his explanation that he was referring to lies by "Hungary's political elite as a whole".

After emerging from the Socialist parliamentary caucus meeting that unanimously backed him and his economic program, Mr Gyurcsany called for restoration of public trust in Hungary’s democratic institutions.

That Ferenc Gyurcsany’s got some cheek.  He lies through his teeth to his countrymen for years, refuses to resign when exposed, and now bewails the public’s loss of trust in his government.  Are you sure this guy isn’t a Canadian Liberal?

Previous related post: Canada’s next Liberal leader