(via Anja M.)

“Ich bin am Ziel, [...] hören Sie mich an. Ich liebe das Leben, – dies ist ein Geständnis. Nehmen Sie es und bewahren Sie es, – ich habe es noch keinem gemacht. Man hat es gesagt, man hat es sogar geschrieben und drucken lassen, dass ich das Leben hasse oder fürchte oder verachte oder verabscheue. Ich habe dies gern gehört, es hat mir geschmeckt; aber darum ist es nicht weniger falsch. Ich liebe das Leben … “

(aus “Tonio Kröger”, von Thomas Mann)

And after browsing through these pictures, imagine how the owner of the shop looked like.

Exactly!
Wow.

I think Dawkins gets more and more … readable, actually. I like his ideas, have always liked them, and agree with many of the things he says, although I feel he is not doing a very good political job by the way he states them. It is most certainly extremely condescending and arrogant.

However, this has reached a certain threshold of silliness for me that I can laugh about it. I find it amusing. He has become one of the old grumpy people, which does not invalidate his points.

“In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

Any other organization — a big corporation, say, or a university, or a learned society – -when seeking a new leader, will go to immense trouble over the choice. The CVs of candidates and their portfolios of relevant experience are meticulously scrutinized, their publications are read by a learned committee, references are taken up and scrupulously discussed, the candidates are subjected to rigorous interviews and vetting procedures. Mistakes are still made, but not through lack of serious effort.

The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities.”

Read the whole thing!

The study involved more than 1700 heterosexual couples, of whom one partner was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the other was not at the start of the trial. All those infected still had relatively intact immune systems. The study gave antiretroviral drugs to half of the infected people and delayed giving treatment to the other half until their immune systems declined to a dangerous degree. The results of this early treatment with a cocktail of antiviral drugs were dramatic, lowering the rate at which the HIV-free partner became infected 20-fold, while also improving outcomes for the infected partner. In combination with other promising clinical trials, the results have galvanized efforts to end the world’s AIDS epidemic in a way that would have been inconceivable even a year ago. “The goal of an AIDS-free generation is ambitious, but it is possible,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told scientists last month.

Bruce Alberts ends his summary about the year 2011 with very critical words:

Not all of the news for science has been good this year. Regrettably, we live in an age where “science denial” has become fashionable. For instance, in the United States, the pressure to conform has become so great that even many politicians who know better have become unwilling to speak out to support what science knows about climate change. Part of the reason is that politicians need to raise funds to compete effectively in elections, and the large amount of money spent by special interest groups distorts the public debate. To counter such science denial, I have repeatedly argued on this page that scientists need to pay much more attention to science education. Teaching is not the same as simply telling students what one knows—a common approach pursued through lecturing. Instead, the scientific community needs to strongly support evidence-based methods for improving how students learn science both in college and at lower levels, focusing on empowering all students with the reasoning and problem-solving skills of scientists [...]

– Source: Science Magazine