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Jessica Milne – Presentation on Decentralizing Trust at the California Transhumanist Party Leadership Meeting
February 11, 2018 Jessica Milne Comments 1 comment
Jessica Milne
The California Transhumanist Party held its inaugural Leadership Meeting on January 27, 2018.
Jessica Milne, the California Transhumanist Party's Director of Information Science and Technology, delivered a presentation entitled, "De-Centralizing Trust: A map to a better tomorrow", on the subject of organizational dynamics and the various roles individuals tend to fall into in today's organizations (as well as whether there might be a better way). This video includes a recording of the presentation and the subsequent interaction with the audience, including U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, California Transhumanist Party Chairman Newton Lee, and California Transhumanist Party Director of Networking Charlie Kam.
Watch the first video from the California Transhumanist Party Leadership Meeting, featuring a presentation by Newton Lee and ensuing discussion on Transhumanist political efforts, here.
Visit the website of the California Transhumanist Party:http://www.californiatranshumanistparty.org/index.html
Read the U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution: http://transhumanist-party.org/constitution/
Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free: http://transhumanist-party.org/membership/
(If you reside in California, this would automatically render you a member of the California Transhumanist Party.)
California Transhumanist Party Leadership Meeting – Presentation by Newton Lee and Discussion on Transhumanist Political Efforts
February 10, 2018 Newton Lee Comments 1 comment
Newton Lee
Bobby Ridge
Charlie Kam
The California Transhumanist Party held its inaugural Leadership Meeting on January 27, 2018. Newton Lee, Chairman of the California Transhumanist Party and Education and Media Advisor of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, outlined the three Core Ideals of the California Transhumanist Party (modified versions of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's Core Ideals), the forthcoming book "Transhumanism: In the Image of Humans" – which he is curating and which will contain essays from leading transhumanist thinkers in a variety of realms, and possibilities for outreach, future candidates, and collaboration with the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Transhumanist Parties in other States. U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II contributed by providing an overview of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's current operations and possibilities for running or endorsing candidates for office in the coming years.
Visit the website of the California Transhumanist Party: http://www.californiatranshumanistparty.org/index.html
Financing the Future – Article by R. Nicholas Starr
February 6, 2018 R. Nicholas Starr Comments 1 comment
R. Nicholas Starr
Editor's Note: As noted by the author, Mr. Starr, the U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes this article to motivate discussion on a topic where individual transhumanists have varying perspectives. In May 2017 the U.S. Transhumanist Party adopted the following position on taxation in its Platform in Article III, Section XXXVI, of its Constitution:
Section XXXVI [Adopted by a vote of the members during May 7-13, 2017]: The United States Transhumanist Party supports the elimination of graduated taxation and income taxation more generally. Instead, the United States Transhumanist Party advocates a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold. This tax should be built into the price of goods from such large businesses and should not impede transaction efficiency in any manner. Transactions pertaining to wages, salaries, gifts, donations, barter, employee benefits, and inheritances should remain completely untaxed, as should transactions involving solely individuals and/or small businesses, for whom the establishment of a tax-reporting infrastructure would be onerous. Furthermore, all taxes on land and property should be abolished.
~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, February 6, 2018
Since 2016, the U.S. Transhumanist Party has expanded, both in membership and in policy initiatives. And while we have created an ideal foundation for how we want to change our country and our world, voting on ideas isn't enough. We must take the next step making these ambitions a reality, and it is one step that many of us would rather avoid talking about: how do we pay for all of this?
Individual transhumanists come from all shades of the fiscal spectrum. Many believe that a techno-libertarian approach would be the best way to fund the transhumanist movement, while others look towards traditional taxation methods to provide the necessary capital. While there are many ways to skin this lab-grown bio-engineered pig, the Party as a singular entity needs to determine the best method for funding our lofty goals.
Allow me to make the first controversial suggestion.
The United States is, at this point, completely reliant on capitalism. So reliant, in fact, that we lean on it for political-decision making like the exoskeletons we hope to mass produce in the near future. It's what holds this country up. And yet it is this political-economic system that is creating staggering wealth inequality. Corporations continue to grow massive wealth while the general public struggles to afford their products.
I propose reorganizing the tax structure so that corporations actually pay taxes and eliminate personal income taxes. By relieving this financial burden on the American citizen, it is possible to enable people to actually afford to improve their lives while increasing the amount of money running through the economy. Sadly, removing personal income tax is not enough, especially when you begin to consider that many employees will likely be replaced by automation. Simply put, corporate entities need pay up. They need to support the political system that supports them. But will that cause business to simply abandon the country all together? While technically possible, it seems unlikely. For as long as there are consumers in the country, business will always want to be located as close as possible to their target market.
There is also an option to modify the above recommendation. Automating the workforce comes with some financial burdens, this has been widely discussed. But there is another, less thought of, burden – that of computing power. How can large-scale automation be achieved without large-scale processing? So instead of shifting the tax burden entirely from individuals to businesses, we could establish a blockchain distribution of computing that businesses would pay individuals to use during times when your computer is otherwise idle. A modest portion would then be taxed to support the infrastructure that both the business and the individual are using. In essence, this is a Universal Basic Income that is supported by capitalism.
Is this an oversimplification of a complex issue? Yes. And I hope that the neglected details spark a healthy and productive discussion on the matter. This is just the opinion of one member, and not the position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. I encourage every reader to give their thoughts on this difficult and divisive topic in the comments.
Ryan Starr (R. Nicholas Starr) is the is the leader of the Transhumanist Party of Colorado and founder of the Transhumanists of the Sierras.
Longevity Industry Systematized for First Time – Press Release by Biogerontology Research Foundation
February 5, 2018 Biogerontology Research Foundation Comments 0 Comment
Biogerontology Research Foundation
CREDIT: The Biogerontology Research Foundation, Deep Knowledge Life Sciences, Aging Analytics Agency and Longevity.International platform
Editor's Note: Below is a press release by the Biogerontology Research Foundation on the longevity industry, which has been systematized for the first time in the report entitled The Science of Longevity. This press release was originally published here.
~ Dinorah Delfin, Director of Recruitment, U.S. Transhumanist Party, February 5, 2018
Friday, Feb. 2, 2017, London, UK: The Biogerontology Research Foundation has embarked on a year-long mission to summarise in a single document the various emerging technologies and industries which can be brought to bear on aging, healthy longevity, and everything in between, as part of a joint project between The Global Longevity Consortium, consisting of the Biogerontology Research Foundation, Deep Knowledge Life Sciences, Aging Analytics Agency and Longevity.International platform.
For scientists, policy makers, regulators, government officials, investors and other stakeholders, a consensus understanding of the field of human longevity remains fragmented, and has yet to be systematized by any coherent framework, and has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive report profiling the field and industry as a whole by any analytical agency to date. The consortium behind this series of reports hope that they will come to be used as a sort of Encyclopedia Britannica and specialized Wikipedia of the emerging longevity industry, with the aim of serving as the foundation upon which the first global framework of the industry will be built, given the significant industry growth projected over the coming years.
Experts on the subject of human longevity, who tend arrive at the subject from disparate fields, have failed even to agree on a likely order of magnitude for future human lifespan. Those who foresee a 100-year average in the near future are considered extreme optimists by some, while others have even mooted the possibility of indefinite life extension through comprehensive repair and maintenance. As such the longevity industry has often defied real understanding and has proved a complex and abstract topic in the minds of many, investors and governments in particular.
The first of these landmark reports, entitled 'The Science of Longevity', standing at almost 800 pages in length, seeks to rectify this.
Part 1 of the report ties together the progress threads of the constituent industries into a coherent narrative, mapping the intersection of biomedical gerontology, regenerative medicine, precision medicine, artificial intelligence, offering a brief history and snapshot of each. Part 2 lists and individually profiles 650 longevity-focused entities, including research hubs, non-profit organizations, leading scientists, conferences, databases, books and journals. Infographics are used to illustrate where research institutions stand in relation to each other with regard to their disruptive potential: companies and institutions specialising in palliative technologies are placed at the periphery of circular diagrams, whereas those involved with more comprehensive, preventative interventions, such as rejuvenation biotechnologies and gene therapies, are depicted as central.
In this report great care was taken to visualize the complex and interconnected landscape of this field via state of the art infographics so as to distill the many players, scientific subsectors and technologies within the field of geroscience into common understanding. Their hope was to create a comprehensive yet readily-understandable view of the entire field and its many players, to serve a similar function that Mendeleev's periodic table did for the field of chemistry. While these are static infographics in the reports, their creators plan to create complimentary online versions that are interactive and filterable, and to convene a series of experts to analyze these infographics and continually update them as the geroscience landscapes shifts. Similar strategies are employed in Volume II to illustrate the many companies and investors within the longevity industry.
These reports currently profile the top 100 entities in each of the categories, but in producing them, analysts found that the majority of these categories have significantly more than 100 entities associated with them. One of their main conclusions upon finishing the report is that the longevity industry is indeed of substantial size, with many industry and academic players, but that it remains relatively fragmented, lacking a sufficient degree of inter-organization collaboration and industry-academic partnerships. The group plans to expand these lists in follow-up volumes so as to give a more comprehensive overview of the individual companies, investors, books, journals, conferences and scientists that serve as the foundation of this emerging industry.
Since these reports are being spearheaded by the UK's oldest biomedical charity focused on healthspan extension, the Biogerontology Research Foundation is publishing them online, freely available to the public. While the main focus of this series of reports is an analytical report on the emerging longevity industry, the reports still delve deeply into the science of longevity, and Volume I is dedicated exclusively to an overview of the history, present and future state of ageing research from a scientific perspective.
The consortium of organizations behind these reports anticipate them to be the first comprehensive analytical report on the emerging longevity industry to date, and hope to increase awareness and interest from investors, scientists, medical personnel, regulators, policy makers, government officials and the public-at-large in both the longevity industry as well as geroscience proper by providing a report that simultaneously distills the complex network of knowledge underlying the industry and field into easily and intuitively comprehensible infographics, while at the same time providing a comprehensive backbone of chapters and profiles on the various companies, investors, organizations, labs, institutions, books, journals and conferences for those inclined for a deeper dive into the vast foundation of the longevity industry and the field of geroscience.
It is hoped that this report will assist others in visualising the present longevity landscape and elucidate the various industry players and components. Volume 2, The Business of Longevity, which at approximately 500 pages in length aims to be as comprehensive as Volume 1, is set to be published shortly thereafter, and will focus on the companies and investors working in the field of precision preventive medicine with a focus on healthy longevity, which will be necessary in growing the industry fast enough to avert the impending crisis of global aging demographics.
These reports will be followed up throughout the coming year with Volume 3 ("Special Case Studies"), featuring 10 special case studies on specific longevity industry sectors, such as cell therapies, gene therapies, AI for biomarkers of aging, and more, Volume 4 ("Novel Longevity Financial System"), profiling how various corporations, pension funds, investment funds and governments will cooperate within the next decade to avoid the crisis of demographic aging, and Volume 5 ("Region Case Studies"), profiling the longevity industry in specific geographic regions.
These reports are, however, only the beginning, and ultimately will serve as a launching pad for an even more ambitious project: Longevity.International, an online platform that will house these reports, and also serve as a virtual ecosystem for uniting and incentivizing the many fragmented stakeholders of the longevity industry, including scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers, regulators and government officials to unite in the common goal of healthspan extension and aversion of the looping demographic aging and Silver Tsunami crisis. The platform will use knowledge crowdsourcing of top tier experts to unite scientists with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs to investors, and investors to policy-makers and regulators, where all stakeholders can aggregate and integrate intelligence and expertise from each other using modern IT technologies for these types of knowledge platforms, and all stakeholders can be rewarded for their services.
The consortium behind these reports is interested in collaboration with interested contributors, institutional partners, and scientific reviewers to assist with the ongoing production of these reports, to enhance their outreach capabilities and ultimately to enhance the overall impact of these reports upon the scientific and business communities operating within the longevity industry, and can be reached at info@longevity.international
About the Biogerontology Research Foundation:
The Biogerontology Research Foundation is a UK non-profit research foundation and public policy center seeking to fill a gap within the research community, whereby the current scientific understanding of the ageing process is not yet being sufficiently exploited to produce effective medical interventions. The BGRF funds and conducts research which, building on the body of knowledge about how ageing happens, aims to develop biotechnological interventions to remediate the molecular and cellular deficits which accumulate with age and which underlie the ill-health of old age. Addressing ageing damage at this most fundamental level will provide an important opportunity to produce the effective, lasting treatments for the diseases and disabilities of ageing, required to improve quality of life in the elderly. The BGRF seeks to use the entire scope of modern biotechnology to attack the changes that take place in the course of ageing, and to address not just the symptoms of age-related diseases but also the mechanisms of those diseases.
We Must Unite for an International Ban on AI Weaponry; A Real Solution to Survive the Singularity Along with What Lies Beyond – Article by Bobby Ridge
February 5, 2018 Bobby Ridge Comments 0 Comment
I urge the United States Transhumanist Party to support an international ban on the use of autonomous weapons and support subsidies from governments and alternative funding into research for AI safety – funding that is very similar to Elon Musk's efforts. Max Tegmark recently stated that "Elon Musk's $10M donation to the Future of Life Institute that helped put out 37 grants to run a global research program aimed at keeping AI beneficial to humanity."
Biologists fought hard to pass the international ban on biological weapons, so that the name of biology would be known as it is today, i.e., a science that cures diseases, ends suffering, and makes sense of the complexity of living organisms. Similarly, the community of chemists also united and achieved an international ban on the use of chemical weapons. Scientists conducting AI research should follow their predecessors' wisdom and unite to achieve an international ban on autonomous weapons! It is sad to say that we are already losing this fight for an international ban on autonomous weapons. The Kalashnikov Bureau weapons manufacturing company announced that they have recently invented an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), which field tests have already shown better than human level intelligence. China recently began field-testing cruise missiles with AI and autonomous capabilities, and a few companies are getting very close to having AI autopilot operating to control the flight envelope at hypersonic speeds. (Amir Husain: "The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence")
Even though, in 2015 and 1016, the US government spent only $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion in AI research, respectively, according to Reuters, "The Pentagon's fiscal 2017 budget request will include $12 billion to $15 billion to fund war gaming, experimentation and the demonstration of new technologies aimed at ensuring a continued military edge over China and Russia." While these autonomous weapons are already being developed, the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) couldn't even come up with a definition for autonomous weapons after 4 years of meeting up, despite their explicit expression for a dire concern for the spread of autonomous weapons. They decided to put off the conversation another year, but we all know that at the pace technology is advancing, we may not have another year to postpone a definition and solutions. Our species must advocate and emulate the 23 Asilomar AI principles, which over 1000 expert AI researchers from all around the globe have signed.
In only the last decade or so, there has been a combined investment of trillions of dollars towards an AI race from the private sector, such as, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, Baidu, and other tech titans, along with whole governments, such as, China, South Korea, Russia, Canada, and only recently the USA. The investments are mainly towards making AI more powerful, but not safer! Yes, the intelligence and sentience of artificial superintelligence (ASI) will be inherently uncontrollable. As a metaphor, humans controlling the development of ASI, will be like an ant trying to control the human development of a NASA space station on top of their ant colony. Before we get to that point, at which hopefully this issue will be solved by a brain-computer-interface, we can get close to making the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and weak ASI safe, by steering AI research efforts towards solving the alignment problem, the control problem, and other problems in the field. This can be done with proper funding from the tech titans and governments.
"AI will be the new electricity. Electricity has changed every industry and AI will do the same but even more of an impact." – Andrew Ng
"Machine learning and AI will empower and improve every business, every government organization, philanthropy, basically there is no institution in the world that cannot be improved by machine learning." – Jeff Bezos
ANI (artificial narrow intelligence) and AGI (artificial general intelligence) by themselves have the potential to alleviate an incomprehensible amount of suffering and diseases around the world, and in the next few decades, the hammer of biotechnology and nanotechnology will likely come down to cure all diseases. If the trends of information technologies continue to accelerate, which they certainly will, then in the next decade or so an ASI will be developed. This God-like intelligence will immigrate for resources in space and will scale to an intragalactic size. To iterate old news, to keep up with this new being, we are likely to connect our brains to it via brain-computer-interface.
"The last time something so important like this has happened was maybe 4.2 billion-years-ago, when life was invented." – Juergen Schmidhuber
Due to independent assortment of chromosomes during meiosis, you roughly have a 1 in 70 trillionth of a chance at living. Now multiply this 70-trillionth by the probability of crossing over, and the process of crossing over has orders of magnitude more possible outcomes than 70 trillion. Then multiply this by probability of random fertilization (the chances of your parents meeting and copulating). Then multiply whatever that number is by similar probabilities for all our ancestors for hundreds of millions of years – ancestors that have also survived asteroid impacts, plagues, famine, predators, and other perils. You may be feeling pretty lucky, but on top of all of that science and technology is about to prevent and cure any disease we may come across, and we will see this new intelligence emerge in our laboratories all around the world. Any attempt to provide a linguistic description for how spectacularly LUCKY we are to be alive right now and to experience this scientific revolution, will be an abysmally disingenuous description, as compared to how truly lucky we all are. AI experts, Transhumanists, Singularitarians, and all others who understand this revolution have an obligation to provide every person with an educated option that they could pursue if they desire to take part in indefinite longevity, augmentation into superintelligence, and whatever lies beyond the Singularity 10-30 years from now.
There are many other potential sources existential threats, such as synthetic biology, nuclear war, the climate crisis, molecular nanotechnology, totalitarianism-enabling technologies, super volcanoes, asteroids, biowarfare, human modification, geoengineering, etc. Mistakes in only one of these areas could cause our species to go extinct, which is the definition of an existential risk. Science created some of these existential risks, and only Science will prevent them. Philosophy, religion, complementary alternative medicines, and any other proposed scientific demarcation will not solve these existential risks, along with the myriad of other individual suffering and death that occurs daily. With this recent advancement, Carl Sagan's priceless wisdom has become even more palpable than before; "we have arranged a society based on Science and technology, in which no one understands anything about Science and technology and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces." The best chance we have of surviving this next 30 years and whatever is beyond the Singularity is by transitioning to a Science-Based Species. A Science-Based Species is like Dr. Steven Novella's recent advocacy, which calls for transition off Evidence-Based medicine to a Science-Based medicine. Dr. Novella and his team understand that "the best method for determining which interventions and health products are safe and effective is, without question, good science." Why arbitrarily claim this only for medicine? I propose a K-12 educational system that teaches the PROCESS of Science. Only when the majority of ~8 billion people are scientifically literate and when public reason is guided by non-controversial scientific results and non-controversial methods, then we will be cable of managing these scientific tools – tools that could take our jobs, can cause incomprehensible levels of suffering, and kill us all; tools that are currently in our possession; and tools that continue to become more powerful, to democratize, dematerialize, and demonetize at an exponential rate. I cannot stress enough that 'scientifically literate' means that the people are adept at utilizing the PROCESS of Science.
Bobby Ridge is the Secretary-Treasurer of the United States Transhumanist Party. Read more about him here.
Tegmark, M. (2015). Elon Musk donates $10M to keep AI beneficial. Futureoflife.org. https://futureoflife.org/2015/10/12/elon-musk-donates-10m-to-keep-ai-beneficial/
Husain, A. (2018). Amir Husain: "The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence" | Talks at Google. Talks at Google. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcC5OV_oA1s&t=763s
Tegmark, M. (2017). Max Tegmark: "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of AI" | Talks at Google. Talks at Google. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmKOgeoOz4&t=1208s
Conn, A. (2015). Pentagon Seeks $12 -$15 Billion for AI Weapons Research. Futureoflife.org. https://futureoflife.org/2015/12/15/pentagon-seeks-12-15-billion-for-ai-weapons-research/
BAI 2017 conference. (2017). ASILOMAR AI PRINCIPLES. Futureoflife.org. https://futureoflife.org/ai-principles/
Ng, A. (2017). Andrew Ng – The State of Artificial Intelligence. The Artificial Intelligence Channel. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKpuX_yzdYs
Bezos, J. (2017). Gala2017: Jeff Bezos Fireside Chat. Internet Association. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqL3tyCQ1yY
Schmidhuber, J. (2017). True Artificial Intelligence will change everything | Juergen Schmidhuber | TEDxLakeComo. TEDx Talks. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y7PLaxXUrs
Kurzweil, R. (2001). The Law of Accelerating Returns. Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence. Kurzweilai.net. http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
Sagan C. (1996). REMEMBERING CARL SAGAN. Charlierose.com. https://charlierose.com/videos/2625
Sbmadmin. (2008). Announcing the Science-Based Medicine Blog. Sciencebasedmedicine.org. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hello-world/


Rather than relying on least-bad alternatives, consider design strategies that can avoid the hazards all together. Through looking to historical precedents, fabrication methods, material innovation, and design strategies, we can take agency as designers to find creative solutions to making healthier spaces.
Created for residents, building owners, designers and anyone else involved in public and affordable housing, this guidebook will not only discuss the relationship between color and human health, but it will also provide a simple guide for choosing color palettes and selecting better paints.
The Room to Daydream, opening November 30th at Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global, introduces healthier materials to the world of healthier sleep habits. Our design is a 20 minute "daydream" experience in an environment that is attuned with the body's mechanisms for napping, providing a comfortable and healthy space for a respite. Twenty minutes is proven to improve mood, alertness and motor skills. A visitor emerges relaxed and rejuvenated.
The first commercial office building to meet the Living Building Challenge's 20 specific imperatives within seven performance areas (or "Petals"), including Red-List Free, with a published As-Built Product List of all building materials.
A catalogue of products used throughout the construction of the Bullitt Center, a six-story commercial office building in Seattle, Washington, opened in 2014. All products used in the building were screened for compliance with the Living Building Challenge's Red List, which represents the "worst in class" materials, chemicals, and elements known to pose serious risks to human health and the greater ecosystem.
The following case studies are snapshots of school districts that have implemented the IAQ Tools for Schools guidance successfully — detailing how they have worked to achieve this success. Each profile demonstrates strategies from the Framework for Effective School IAQ Management that schools have applied to create effective and enduring IAQ programs.
MycoWorks has developed a mycelium-based leather alternative that is less resource intensive and safer for humans than traditional leather production processes.
Ecovative is growing building products from mushroom roots and agricultural waste that are free of synthetic materials, naturally water resistant, and flame retardant.
ReWall is a formaldehyde-free composite board made from recycled beverage cartons that can be used as a replacement for exterior sheathing, wallboard, and floor underlayment.
Green Cell Foam uses cornstarch to create a fully biodegradable foam that can be used as a replacement for polystyrene.
Scientists at the Institute work in collaboration to solve challenging chemical problems and invent sustainable technologies and processes. Our goal is to provide our scientists with an environment that both allows development and expansion of expertise, and enables scientific and professional growth through interaction with a diverse and multi-disciplinary team.


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Description: The purview of regulatory affairs is compliance. Professionals in regulatory affairs work in government or the private sector. The largest governmental agency employing scientists in the capacity of regulatory affairs is the Food and Drug Administration, for which the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has the responsibility for evaluating new drugs before they can be sold, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health has the responsibility for regulating firms the manufacture medical devices, and the Office of Regulatory Affairs has the responsibility for oversight of medical products and inspections of facilities producing those products. Within the private sector, individuals in regulatory affairs advise on legal requirements (operational) and/or shape the regulatory environment (strategic), almost always in the capacity of interfacing optimally with governmental regulatory agencies. They can work with any number of different teams within a company, for example those dealing with clinical design, pre-market approvals, and adverse effect monitoring. Responsibilities include project delivery, dossier quality, and response to questions by regulatory agencies. The work is noted by all in the profession as quite detail-focused. It involves writing and reviewing documents that are not infrequently thousands of pages long. As one individual put it, "if you can't manage tiny nuances of data in a multigigabyte document, you're in trouble." The job requires an understanding of basic and clinical science, and to some extent business, as well as government language and procedures.
Advantage of advanced degree: Formal training in science is essential for regulatory work. While scientists with BS, MS, PharmD, PhD, and MD degrees are all found in the profession, most agree that advanced degrees are essential for advancement to upper level positions. Advanced degrees can be essential, as well, in landing entry-level research positions within a company that in turn permit eventual transition to regulatory affairs, as many companies prefer to recruit from 'within'. Advanced degrees are also noted to help with the technical aspects of the science and to provide greater degree of credibility in interactions with scientific colleagues and government agencies.
Key competencies: The most widely cited competency is attention to detail, but this presupposes a knowledge of the information that requires the detail. This is generally related to basic and clinical science, hence all areas of scientific pursuit are essential. The information required of the private sector also relates to government requirements, but the focus of scientific training on detail is conceded to benefit this as well. Highly cited, as well, are competencies relating to excellence in written and verbal communication and to teamwork.
On-campus student organizations: None.
First steps: The most practical step beyond evaluation of printed and web-based resources is, as almost always, contacting alumni who work in the field. There are no on-campus student organizations devoted regulatory affairs, however Penn's Institute of Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT) sponsors a Masters program in Regulatory Affairs and can therefore be a good source of information. Indeed, the growth of such programs has provided an increasingly important source of viable candidates for companies. Many recommend RAPS (Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society) as a source of information and of online courses and certificate programs.
Alumni network:
Contact Rebecca Lopez
Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society
David Jensen, Tooling Up: The Regulatory Affairs Career Track | Science Careers
James Austin, Regulatory Affairs: Interview With a Contact Recruiter | Science Careers
Katherine Poulin-Kerstien, Regulatory Affairs: A Lifetime of Learning | Science Careers
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FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health
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Roberts, Clare, Williams, Rachel, Kane, Robert, Pintabona, Yolanda, Cross, Donna, Zubrick, Stephen and Silburn, Sven Robert (2011). Impact of a mental health promotion program on substance use in young adolescents. Advances in Mental Health,10(1):69-79.


Named after David Mancuso, the ragged priest of disco who created a safe place for everyone and anyone to freely dance and be themselves. Oversized square acetate frames, dramatic colorways and bold tints. Wear them with your record on.
Mancuso has a Medium/Wide fit and goes particularly well with Heart, Square, or Oval faces.


2018 looks to be a great year for the U.S. exascale program. The last several months of 2017 revealed a number of important developments that help put the U.S. quest for exascale on a solid foundation. In my last article, I provided a description of the elements of the High Performance Computing (HPC) ecosystem and its importance for advancing and sustaining this strategically important technology. It is good to report that the U.S. exascale program seems to be hitting the full range of ecosystem elements.
As a reminder, the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) assigned the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to execute a joint program to deliver capable exascale computing that emphasizes sustained performance on relevant applications and analytic computing to support their missions. The overall DOE program is known as the Exascale Computing Initiative (ECI) and is funded by the SC Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program and the NNSA Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program. Elements of the ECI include the procurement of exascale class systems and the facility investments in site preparations and non-recurring engineering. Also, ECI includes the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) that will conduct the Research and Development (R&D) in the areas of middleware (software stack), applications, and hardware to ensure that exascale systems will be productively usable to address Office of Science and NNSA missions.
In the area of hardware – the last part of 2017 revealed a number of important developments. First and most visible, is the initial installation of the SC Summit system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the NNSA Sierra system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Both systems are being built by IBM using Power9 processors with Nvidia GPU co-processors. The machines will have two Power9 CPUs per system board and will use a Mellenox InfinBand interconnection network.
Beyond that, the architecture of each machine is slightly different. The ORNL Summit machine will use six Nvidia Volta GPUs per two Power9 CPUs on a system board and will use NVLink to connect to 512 GB of memory. The Summit machine will use a combination of air and water cooling. The LLNL Sierra machine will use four Nvidia Voltas and 256 GB of memory connected with the two Power9 CPUs per board. The Sierra machine will use only air cooling. As was reported by HPCwire in November 2017, the peak performance of the Summit machine will be about 200 petaflops and the Sierra machine is expected to be about 125 petaflops.
Installation of both the Summit and Sierra systems is currently underway with about 279 racks (without system boards) and the interconnection network already installed at each lab. Now that IBM has formally released the Power9 processors, the racks will soon start being populated with the boards that contain the CPUs, GPUs and memory. Once that is completed, the labs will start their acceptance testing, which is expected to be finished later in 2018.
Another important piece of news about the DOE exascale program is the clarification of the status of the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Aurora machine. This system was part of the collaborative CORAL procurement that also selected the Sierra and Summit machines. The Aurora system is being manufactured by Intel with Cray Inc. acting as the system integrator. The machine was originally scheduled to be an approximately 180 peak petaflops system using the Knights Hill third generation Phi processors. However, during SC17, we learned that Intel is removing the Knights Hill chip from its roadmap. This explains the reason why during the September ASCR Advisory Committee (ASCAC) meeting, Barb Helland, the Associate Director of the ASCR office, announced that the Aurora system would be delayed to 2021 and upgraded to 1,000 petaflops (aka 1 exaflops).
The full details of the revised Aurora system are still under wraps. We have learned that it is going to use "novel" processor technologies, but exactly what that means is unclear. The ASCR program subjected the new Aurora design to an independent outside review. It found, "The hardware choices/design within the node is extremely well thought through. Early projections suggest that the system will support a broad workload." The review committee even suggested that, "The system as presented is exciting with many novel technology choices that can change the way computing is done." The Aurora system is in the process of being "re-baselined" by the DOE. Hopefully, once that is complete, we will get a better understanding of the meaning of "novel" technologies. If things go as expected, the changes to Aurora will allow the U.S. to achieve exascale by 2021.
An important, but sometimes overlooked, aspect of the U.S. exascale program is the number of computing systems that are being procured, tested and optimized by the ASCR and ASC programs as part of the buildup to exascale. Other computing systems involved with "pre-exascale" systems include the 8.6 petaflops Mira computer at ANL and the 14 petaflops Cori system at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL). The NNSA also has the 14.1 petaflops Trinity system at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL). Up to 20 percent of these precursor machines will serve as testbeds to enable computing science R&D needed to ensure that the U.S. exascale systems will be able to productively address important national security and discovery science objectives.
The last, but certainly not least, bit of hardware news is that the ASCR and ASC programs are expected to start their next computer system procurement processes in early 2018. During her presentation to the U.S. Consortium for the Advancement of Supercomputing (USCAS), Barb Helland told the group that she expects that the Request for Proposals (RFP) will soon be released for the follow-ons to the Summit and Sierra systems. These systems, to be delivered in the 2021-2023 timeframe, are expected to be provide in excess of exaFLOP/s performance. The procurement process to be used will be similar to the CORAL procurement and will be a collaboration between the DOE-SC ASCR and NNSA ASC programs. The ORNL exascale system will be called Frontier and the LLNL system will be known as El Capitan.
2017 also saw significant developments for the people element of the U.S HPC ecosystem. As was previously reported, at last September's ASCAC meeting, Paul Messina announced that he would be stepping down as the ECP Director on October 1st. Doug Kothe, who was previously the applications development lead, was announced as the new ECP Director. Upon taking the Director job, Kothe with his deputy, Stephen Lee of LANL, instituted a process to review the organization and management of the ECP. At the December ASCAC conference call, Doug reported that the review had been completed and resulted in a number of changes. This included paring down ECP from five to four components (applications development, software technology, hardware and integration, and project management). He also reported that ECP has implemented a more structured management approach that includes a revised work breakdown structure (WBS) and additional milestones, new key performance parameters and risk management approaches. Finally, the new ECP Director reported that they had established an Extended Leadership Team with a number of new faces.
Another important, element of the HPC ecosystem are the people doing the R&D and other work need to keep the ecosystem going. The DOE ECI involves a huge number of people. Last year, there were about 500 researchers who attended the ECP Principle Investigator meeting and there are many more involved in other DOE/NNSA programs and from industry. The ASCR and ASC programs are involved with a number of programs to educate and train future members of the HPC ecosystem. Such programs are the ASCR and ASC co-funded Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF) and the Early Career Research Program. The NNSA offers similar opportunities. Both the ASCR and ASC programs continue to coordinate with National Science Foundation educational programs to ensure that America's top computational science talent continues to flow into the ecosystem.
Finally, in addition to people and hardware, the U.S. program continues to develop the software stack (aka middleware) to develop end users' applications to ensure that exascale will be used productively. Doug Kothe reported that ECP has adopted standard Software Development Kits. These SDKs are designed to support the goal of building a comprehensive, coherent software stack that enables application developers to productively write highly parallel applications that effectively target diverse exascale architectures. Kothe also reported that ECP is making good progress in developing applications software. This includes the implementation of innovative approaches that include Machine Learning to utilize the GPUs that are part of the future exascale computers.
All in all – the last several months of 2017 have set the stage for a very exciting 2018 for the U.S. exascale program. It has been about 5 years since the ORNL Titan supercomputer came onto the stage at #1 on the TOP500 list. Over that time, other more powerful DOE computers have come online (Trinity, Cori, etc.) but they were overshadowed by Chinese and European systems. It remains unclear whether or not the upcoming exascale systems will put the U.S. back on the top of the supercomputing world. However, the recent developments help to reassure the country is not going to give up its computing leadership position without a fight. That is great news because for more than 60 years, the U.S. has sought leadership in high performance computing for the strategic value it provides in the areas of national security, discovery science, energy security, and economic competitiveness.


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Hinduism Studies and Dhimmitude in the American Academy
Oct 19 2009 | by Bill Warner
M. Lal Goel
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, www.uwf.edu/lgoel
Pro-Islamic and anti-Hindu mindset known as dhimmitude (described more fully later) is prevalent in sections of the American academy. The case in point is the recent book by Dr. Wendy Doniger [1] , The Hindus: An Alternative History, The Penguin Press, 2009.
Doniger's 779-page tome is laced with personal editorials, folksy turn of the phrase and funky wordplays. She has a large repertoire of Hindu mythological stories. She often narrates the most damning mythical story—Vedic, Puranic, folk, oral, vernacular—to demean, damage and disparage Hinduism. After building a caricature, she laments that fundamentalist Hindus (how many and how powerful are they?) are destroying the pluralistic, tolerant Hindu tradition. Why save such a vile, violent religion, as painted by the eminent professor? There is a contradiction here.
This review focuses on Doniger's discussion of Islamic incursions into India. Islam entered south India in the 7th Century with Arab merchants and traders. This was peaceful Islam. Later, Islam came to India as a predatory and a conquering force. Mohammad bin Qasim ravaged Sindh in 712. Mahmud Ghazni pillaged, looted and destroyed numerous Hindu temples around 1000 AD, but did not stay to rule. The Muslim rule begins with the Delhi Sultanate, approximately 1201 to 1526. The Sultanate gave place to the Mughal Empire, 1526-1707. Doniger makes the following dubious points regarding the Muslim imperial rule in India (1201-1707).
Muslims marauders destroyed some Hindu temples, not many.
Temple destruction was a long-standing Indian tradition. Hindus destroyed Buddhist and Jain stupas and rival Hindu temples and built upon the destroyed sites.
Muslim invaders looted and destroyed Hindu temples because they had the power to do so. If Hindus had the power, they would do the same in reverse.
The Jizya—the Muslim tax on non-Muslims—was for Hindu protection and a substitute for military service.
Hindu "megalomania" for temple building in the Middle Ages was a positive result of Muslim demolition of some Hindu temples.
The Hindu founders of the Vijayanagara Empire double-crossed their Muslim master in Delhi who had deputed them to secure the South.
Hindus want Muslims and Christians to leave India for Hindustan is only for Hindus.
Let us take each point in turn to examine Doniger's mistaken views.
Muslim invaders beginning with Mahmud Ghazni in 1000 CE looted, pillaged and destroyed not few but many Hindu and Buddhist temples. Muslim chroniclers describe the humiliation and utter desolation wrought by the Muslims on the kafirs (unbelievers). Alberuni, the Muslim scholar who accompanied Mahmud to India, describes one such event: "Mathura, the holy city of Krishna, was the next victim. In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and finer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted. The Sultan was of the opinion that 200 years would have been required to build it. The idols included 'five of red gold, each five yards high,' with eyes formed of priceless jewels. . . The Sultan gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and leveled with the ground. Thus perished works of art which must have been among the noblest monuments of ancient India." [2]
At the destruction of another temple, Somnath, it is estimated that 50,000 were massacred. The fabulous booty of gold, women and children was divided according to Islamic tradition–the Sultan getting the royal fifth, the cavalry man getting twice as much as the foot soldier. Hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist shrines were destroyed.
Dr. Doniger asserts that Hindus too persecuted minority Jain and Buddhist religions and destroyed their shrines. She narrates the now discarded story about the impaling of Jains at the hands of Hindu rulers in the Tamil country. Then she says that "there is no evidence that any of this actually happened, other than the story." (p 365). Then why narrate the story? Hindu sectarian violence pales in comparison to what happened either in Europe or in the Middle East. The truth is that both Jainism and Buddhism were integrated into Hinduism's pluralistic tradition. The Buddha is accepted as one of the Hindu Avatars (God in human form). Exquisite Jain temples at Mt Abu at the border of Gujarat and Rajasthan built around 1000 CE survive in the region dominated by Hindu Rajput rulers, falsifying notions of Hindu carnage of Jain temples.
Doniger says that Hindus would do the same to Muslims if they had the power to do so. Hindus did come to power after the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, when the Mughal rule rapidly declined. The Marathas were the strongest power in Western and Southern India in the 18th and 19th centuries, as the Sikhs were in North India. There is no account of large scale demolition and looting of Muslim places of worship either by the Marathas or the Sikhs. If a copy of the Quran fell into the hands of Maharaja Shivaji during a campaign, the same would be passed on to a Muslim rather than being burned.
Contrary to what Doniger says, Jizya is a long held Muslim tradition. It was levied to begin with on the defeated Christians and Jews, the People of the Book, as a price for the cessation of Jihad. Hindus, not being one of the People of the Book, did not deserve to live by paying the special tax. If defeated in battle, their only option was Islam or death. This was the position taken by the Islamic clergy. Unlike the clergy, however, the Muslim governors were practical men. If they had killed the Hindus en masse for failing to adopt Islam, who would build their palaces, fill their harems, cut their wood and hue their water? [3]
Doniger argues that Hindu 'megalomania' for temple building resulted from Muslim destruction of some Hindu temples. In other words, because the Muslims destroyed some of the Hindu temples, the Hindus went on a building spree. If Doniger's argument is accepted, Hindus should thank Islamic marauders for looting and desecrating their shrines. The truth is that in northern India which experienced 500 years of Islamic rule (1201-1707), few historical temples of any beauty remain. In contrast, temple architecture of some beauty does survive in southern India, the region that escaped long Muslim occupation.
That the Hindu founders of the Vijayanagara dynasty in the South double-crossed their Muslim master in Delhi is one among the innumerable editorial negative portrayal of Hindu character. One may ask: why wouldn't a slave double cross his oppressor?
The view that Muslims and Christians should leave India is not one held by most Hindus, only by a small minority on the extreme fringes. Muslim population has increased in India from about 9 percent at the time of Independence to about 13 percent now (1947-2009). In contrast, in Pakistan, Hindu population has declined and now constitutes less than one percent. In Muslim Bangladesh in the same period the Hindu population has declined from 29 percent to less than 10 percent. Muslims hold important positions in government and business in contemporary India, which is 83 pct Hindu. The richest person in India has been a Muslim, Premji; the most popular film stars are Muslim; Christian and Muslim chief ministers and governors head several of the states. The single most important leader in India is an Italian-born woman Sonya Gandhi and the Prime Minister is a Sikh, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The past President APJ Kalam was a Muslim and before that K R Narayanan, a lower caste. In Federal and State civil service, 50 percent of the jobs are reserved for backward classes and Untouchable, in order to compensate for past discrimination. India has moved.
Let us look more closely. Doniger describes the invasion of Sindh by Arab soldier of fortune Muhammad bin Qasim as follows:
Qasim invaded Sindh in 713. The terms of surrender included a promise of guarantee of the safety of Hindu and Buddhist establishments. "Hindus and Buddhists were allowed to govern themselves in matters of religion and law." Qasim "kept his promises." The non-Muslims were not treated as kafirs. Jizya was imposed but only as a substitute for military service for their "protection." He brought Muslim teachers and mosques into the subcontinent. (paraphrased)
From Doniger's assessment, Qasim should be regarded as a blessing. Contrast Doniger's description with that written by Andrew Bostom in "The Legacy of Islamic Jihad in India." [4]
The Muslim chroniclers al-Baladhuri (in Kitab Futuh al-Buldan) and al-Kufi (in the Chachnama) include enough isolated details to establish the overall nature of the conquest of Sindh by Muhammad b. Qasim in 712 C.E. . . . Baladhuri, for example, records that following the capture of Debal, Muhammad b. Qasim earmarked a section of the city exclusively for Muslims, constructed a mosque, and established four thousand colonists there. The conquest of Debal had been a brutal affair. . . Despite appeals for mercy from the besieged Indians (who opened their gates after the Muslims scaled the fort walls), Muhammad b. Qasim declared that he had no orders (i.e., from his superior al-Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq) to spare the inhabitants, and thus for three days a ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter ensued. In the aftermath, the local temple was defiled, and "700 beautiful females who had sought for shelter there, were all captured."
Distinguished historian R. C. Majumdar describes the capture of the royal Fort and its tragic outcome:
Muhammad massacred 6,000 fighting men who were found in the fort, and their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoners. Sixty thousand slaves, including 30 young ladies of royal blood, were sent to Hajjaj, along with the head of Dahar [the Hindu ruler]. We can now well understand why the capture of a fort by the Muslim forces was followed by the terrible jauhar ceremony (in which females threw themselves in fire kindled by themselves), the earliest recorded instance of which is found in the Chachnama. Cited in Bostom.
Doniger extensively footnotes Romila Thapar, John Keay, Anne Schimmel and A. K. Ramanujan as her sources for Islamic history, providing an impression of meticulous scholarship. Missing are works of the distinguished historians: Jadunath Sarkar, R. C. Majumdar, A. L. Srivastava, Vincent Smith, and Ram Swarup.
Doniger writes at page 458: when Muslim royal women first came to India, they did not rigidly keep to purdah (the veiling and seclusion of women). They picked the more strict form of purdah from contact with the Hindu Rajput women. Doniger finds much to praise in Muslim women during this period: some knew several languages; others wrote poetry; some managed vast estates; others set up "feminist" republics within female quarters (harems) some debated fine points on religion; some even joined in drinking parties (chapters 16, 20). Such descriptions are patently negated by distinguished historians. See The Mughal Harem (1988) by K S Lal, available free on the Internet.
If Hinduism is the source of strict purdah among Muslim women, as Doniger contends, how does one explain the strict veiling of women in the Middle East, a region far removed from Hindu influence? Or, the absence of it in southern India, a region that escaped Islamic domination?
Doniger writes at page 627, "the Vedic reverence for violence flowered in the slaughters that followed Partition." And, Gandhi's nonviolence succeeded against the British. But it failed against the tenaciously held Hindu ideal of violence that had grip on the real emotions of the masses.
What is one to make of these weighty pronouncements uttered in all seriousness by the author? These are an expression of the hurt feelings on the part of a scholar. While discussing the Hindu epic Ramayana in London in 2003, Doniger put forth her usual gloss: that Lakshman had the hots for his brother Rama's wife Sita, and that sexually-charged Sita reciprocated these feelings. An irate Hindu threw an egg at her and conveniently missed it. This incident is her cause célèbre.
Doniger's uncritical review of the Islamic marauding raids in India (712-1200) and later the Islamic empire (1201-1707) suggests dhimmitude. The concepts of dhimmi and dhimmitude were developed by the Egyptian born Jewish woman writer, Bat Ye'or (Daughter of the Nile), who fled Egypt in 1958 in the wake of Jewish persecution following the Suez Canal crisis. Her meticulous research puts to rest the myth of peaceful expansion of Islamic power in the countries of Middle East and Eastern Europe. [5]
Dhimmitude is a state of fear and insecurity on the part of infidels who are required to accept a condition of humiliation. It is characterized by the victim's siding with his oppressors, by the moral justification the victim provides for his oppressors' hateful behavior. The Dhimmi loses the possibility of revolt because revolt arises from a sense of injustice. He loathes himself in order to praise his oppressors. Dhimmis lived under some 20 disabilities. Dhimmis were prohibited to build new places of worship, to ring church bells or take out processions, to ride horses or camels (they could ride donkeys), to marry a Muslim woman, to wear decorative clothing, to own a Muslim as a slave or to testify against a Muslim in a court of law.
Ye'or believes that the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of Jihad. Jihad embodies all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. She believes that dhimmitude was once the attribute of defeated Christian and Jewish communities under Islam. Now it is a feature of much of the Western world, Europe and America. Her theory of dhimmitude applies to many Hindus in India. Whereas dhimmitude in previous centuries resulted from real-life powerlessness and humiliation, modern dhimmi syndrome results from some combination of the following.
The corrupting power of oil money to influence think tanks, lobbyists and academic institutions.
De-Christianizing of Europe. It is now also happening in the U.S. See Pew research reports.
Guilt feelings in the West on account of the Crusades to liberate the Holy Land (1095-1291).
Multiculturalism: the belief that all cultural practices and ways of life are equally valid.
Violence by radical Muslims is on account of being poor and exploited by colonial hegemony.
Islam provided the West its basis for advancement in math and science.
The rising number of Muslim populations in Europe and America.
The rising level of alienation from one's own culture in the West.
Doniger's inflammatory book on the Hindus makes sense only in the light of a larger global trend—a trend that seeks to re-package Islamic history as a force for tolerance and progress. Doniger is not alone in holding such views. Dhimmi attitudes of subservience have entered the Western academy, and from there into journalism, school textbooks and political discourse. One must not criticize Islam. For, to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today. To do so would endanger chances for peace and rapprochement between civilizations all too ready to clash. See, http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/by_lecture_10oct2002.htm
The field of Middle East Studies in the U.S. is now controlled by pro-Middle East professors, according to Martin Kramer, editor of the Middle Eastern Quarterly. "The crucial turning point occurred in the late 1970s when Middle East studies centers, under /Edward/ Said's influence, began to show a preference for ideology over empirical fact and, fearing the taint of the 'orientalist' bias, began to prefer academic appointments of native-born Middle Easterners over qualified Western-born students," contends Kramer. The book is summarized at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_17_119/ai_90989239/.
In contrast, the field of Hinduism studies is controlled by non-Hindus and anti-Hindus, with some notable exceptions of course. Hindu gods and goddesses are lampooned and denigrated. Hindu saints are described as sexual perverts and India in danger of being run over by Hindu fundamentalists. In these portrayals, Doniger is joined by Martha Nussbaum, Paul Courtright, Jeffrey Kripal, Sarah Caldwell, Stanley Kurtz, to name a few of the leading academicians. For a critique of the American academy, see Rajiv Malhotra at www.sulekha.com, and a 2007 book titled, Invading the Sacred. [6]
Doniger is quite harsh on the British record in India (1757-1947). She compares the British argument that they brought trains and drains to India to Hitler's argument that he built the Autobahn in Germany (p. 583). Censuring Britain and giving a pass to the more draconian Islamic imperialism in India fits with the dhimmi attitude that I have described.
Consequently, attitudes of concession and appeasement are on the rise. A reversal of language occurs. Jihad is called 'struggle within' or struggle for liberation. Dhimmitude is called tolerance. Jizya is called protection. Tony Blair declares Islam is a religion of peace and that the terrorists are not real Muslims. Parts of London have been ceded to the control of radical mullahs. Sharia arbitration courts are now part of the British legal system. Melanie Phillips tells that London is becoming Londonistan. [7] Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe. The destruction of life and property caused by Islamic extremists in the last thirty years is simply horrendous. Of course, distinction must be made between moderate Muslims and radicals who wish to bring back the 7th century version of Islam.
The British helped abolish the horrible practice of Suttee (widow burning) in India in the 19th century. At its peak in the 19th century, the practice of Suttee claimed the lives of 500 to 600 women a year in India. The honor killing of women, genital mutilation, and the caning of girls for minor sexual impropriety raises only a limited protest in the 21st century. Amid the rising level of alienation, multiculturalism and the feelings of guilt in the West, the moral compass has been lost.
[1] Dr. Wendy Doniger is a distinguished professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. She has written some 30 books, several dealing negatively with Hinduism. Her writing has been described as "rude, crude and very lewd" by the BBC.
[2] Vincent Smith, The Oxford History of India, Delhi, 1981, pp. 207-08. Smith derives his account of Mahmud's raids from the account written by Alberuni, the Islamic scholar who traveled with Sultan Mahmud to India.
[3] See Ram Swarup's Hindu View of Christianity and Islam, 1992. And, Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, 2005, at: http://www.andrewbostom.org/loj/.
[4] Published in 2005 in the American Thinker by Andrew Bostom and available at: http://www.islam-watch.org/Bostom/Legacy-of-Islamic-Jihad-terrorism-in-India.htm
[5] Bat Ye'or's writings include: Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001. The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996. Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005.
[6] Krishnan Ramaswamy; Antonio de Nicolas; Aditi Banerjee ed. Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America, Rupa and Co., Delhi, 2007.
[7] Phillips, Melanie, Londonistan: How Britain is creating a terror state within, Encounter Books, 2006. See summary at:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/07/britians-war-ag.html
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Buddhism's Disappearance from India
Vinay Lal
One of the supreme ironies of the history of Buddhism in India is the question of how Buddhism came to disappear from the land of its birth. Many scholars of Buddhism, Hinduism, Indian history, and of religion more generally have been devoted to unraveling this puzzle. There is no absolute consensus on this matter, and a few scholars have even 8-contended that Buddhism never disappeared as such from India. On this view, Buddhism simply changed form, or was absorbed into Hindu practices. Such an argument is, in fact, a variation of the view, which perhaps has more adherents than any other, that Buddhism disappeared, not on account of persecution by Hindus, but because of the ascendancy of reformed Hinduism. However, the view that Buddhists were persecuted by Brahmins, who were keen to assert their caste supremacy, still has some adherents, and in recent years has been championed not only by some Dalit writers and their sympathizers but by at least a handful of scholars of pre-modern Indian history. [1]
What is not disputed is the gradual decline of Buddhism in India, as the testimony of the Chinese traveler, Hsuan Tsang, amply demonstrates. Though Buddhism had been the dominant religion in much of the Gangetic plains in the early part of the Christian era, Hsuan Tsang, traveling in India in the early years of the 7th century, witnessed something quite different. In Prayag, or Allahabad as it is known to many, Hsuan Tsang encountered mainly heretics, or non-Buddhists, but that is not surprising given the importance of Prayag as a pilgrimage site for Brahmins. But, even in Sravasti, the capital city of the Lichhavis, a north Indian clan that came to power around 200 AD, established their capital in Pasupathinath, and in a long and glorious period of reign extending through the early part of the ninth century endowed a large number of both Hindu and Buddhist monuments and monasteries, Hsuan Tsang witnessed a much greater number of "Hindus" (ie, non-Buddhists, such as Jains and Saivites) than Buddhists. Kusinagar, the small village some 52 kilometres from Gorakhpur where the Buddha had gone into mahaparinirvana, was in a rather dilapidated state and Hsuan Tsang found few Buddhists. In Varanasi, to be sure, Hsuan Tsang found some 3000 Bhikkus or Buddhist monks, but they were outshadowed by more than 10,000 non-Buddhists. There is scarcely any question that Hsuan Tsang arrived in India at a time when Buddhism was entering into a state of precipitous decline, and by the 13th century Buddhism, as a formal religion, had altogether disappeared from India. [2] But even as Buddhism went into decline, it is remarkable that the great seat of Buddhist learning, Nalanda, continued to flourish, retaining its importance until the Muslim invasions of the second millennium. Moreover, it is from Nalanda that Padmasambhava carried Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century. Consequently, even the story of Buddhism in India cannot be unequivocally written in a single register of decline.
To consider the question somewhat more systematically, we might wish to consider in serial order the various reasons advanced for Buddhism's decline and disappearance from India. The various arguments can be grouped under the following headings: sectarian and internal histories, focusing on schisms within the Buddhist faith, the widening differences between the clergy, Bhikkus, and laity, and the growing corruption within the sangha; histories focused on Buddhism's relations with Brahmanism, dwelling on the alleged persecution of Buddhists by Brahmins, the defeat of the Buddhists by the great theologian Shankara in public debates, as well as on the supposedly characteristic tendency of Hinduism, or rather Brahmanism, to absorb its opponents; and, finally, secular and political histories, which emphasize the withdrawal of royal patronage from Buddhism and, later, the Muslim invasions which had the effect of driving into extinction an already debilitated faith.
Turning our attention to what I have described as sectarian histories, it is generally conceded that the Buddhist clergy paid insufficient attention to its laity. Buddhist mendicants kept their distance from non-mendicants, and as scholars of Buddhism have noted, no manual for the conduct of the laity was produced until the 11th century. Non-mendicants may not have felt particularly invested in their religion, and as the venues where the mendicants and non-mendicants intersected gradually disappeared, the laity might have felt distanced from the faith. The contrast, in this respect, with Jainism is marked. Some scholars have also emphasized the narrative of decay and corruption within a faith where the monks had come to embrace a rather easy-going and even indolent lifestyle, quite mindless of the Buddha's insistence on aparigraha, or non-possession. The Buddhist monasteries are sometimes described as repositories of great wealth.
The secular and political histories adopt rather different arguments. It has been argued that royal patronage shifted from Buddhist to Hindu religious institutions. Under the Kushanas, indeed even under the Guptas (325-497 AD), both Buddhists and adherents of Brahmanism received royal patronage, but as Brahmanism veered off, so to speak, into Vaishnavism and Saivism, and regional kingdoms developed into the major sites of power, Buddhism began to suffer a decline. The itinerant Buddhist monk, if one may put it this way, gave way to forms of life less more conducive to settled agriculture. The Palas of Bengal, though they had been hospitable to Vaishnavism and Saivism, were nonetheless major supporters of Buddhism. However, when Bengal came under the rule of the Senas (1097-1223), Saivism was promulgated and Buddhism was pushed out — towards Tibet.
Though Buddhism had already entered into something of a decline by the time of Hsuan Tsang's visit to India during the reign of Harsha of Kanauj in the early seventh century, it has also been argued that its further demise, particularly in the early part of the second millennium AD, was hastened by the arrival of Islam. On this view, Buddhism found competition in Islam for converts among low-caste Hindus. Even Ambedkar, whose animosity towards Hinduism is palpable, was nonetheless firmly of the view that Islam dealt Buddhism a death blow. As he was to put it, "brahmanism beaten and battered by the Muslim invaders could look to the rulers for support and sustenance and get it. Buddhism beaten and battered by the Muslim invaders had no such hope. It was uncared for orphan and it withered in the cold blast of the native rulers and was consumed in the fire lit up by the conquerors." Ambedkar was quite certain that this was "the greatest disaster that befell the religion of Buddha in India." We thus find Ambekdar embracing the "sword of Islam thesis": "The sword of Islam fell heavily upon the priestly class. It perished or it fled outside India. Nobody remained alive to keep the flame of Buddhism burning." [3] There are, of course, many problems with this view. The "sword of Islam" thesis remains controversial, at best, and many reputable historians are inclined to dismiss it outright. Islam was, moreover, a late entrant into India, and Buddhism was showing unmistakable signs of its decline long before Islam became established in the Gangetic plains, central India, and the northern end of present-day Andhra and Karnataka.
Many narrative accounts of Buddhism's decline and eventual disappearance from the land of its faith have been focused on Buddhism's relations with Hinduism or Brahmanism. Nearly 20 years ago the historian S. R. Goyal wrote that "according to
many scholars hostility of the Brahmanas was one of the major causes of the decline of Buddhism in India." The Saivite king, Shashanka, invariably appears in such histories as a ferocious oppressor of the Buddhists, though the single original source for all subsequent narratives about Shashanka's ruinous conduct towards Buddhists remains Hsuan Tsang. Shashanka is reported to have destroyed the Bodhi tree and ordered the destruction of Buddhist images. Hindu nationalists appear to think that many Muslim monuments were once Hindu temples, but partisans of Buddhism are inclined to the view that Hindu temples were often built on the site of Buddhist shrines.
If some scholars focus on outright persecution, others speak of a long process during which Buddhist practices became absorbed into Hinduism. The doctrine of ahimsa may have originated with the Buddha, and certainly found its greatest exposition in the Buddha's teachings, but by the second half of the 1st millennium AD it had become part of Hindu teachings. The great Brahmin philosopher, Shankaracharya (c. 788-820 AD), is said to have engaged the Buddhists in public debates and each time he emerged triumphant. Monastic practices had once been unknown in Brahminism, but over time this changed. Shankaracharya himself established maths or monasteries at Badrinath in the north, Dwarka in the west, Sringeri in the south, and Puri in the east. The Buddha had, as is commonly noticed, been transformed into an avatara (descent) of Vishnu. The tendency of Hinduism to absorb rival faiths has been commented upon by many, though one could speak equally of the elements from other faiths that have gone into the making of Hinduism. Was Buddha absorbed into the Hindu pantheon so that Buddhism might become defanged, or is it the case that Buddhism stood for certain values that Hinduism was eager to embrace as its own?
Though many Dalit and other anti-Brahminical writers would like to represent Brahminism as a tyrannical faith that wrought massive destruction upon the Buddhists [see http://www.dalistan.org], the matter is more complicated. A recent study of the Bengal Puranas indubitably shows that the Buddhists were mocked, cast as mischievous and malicious in Brahminical narratives, and subjected to immense rhetorical violence. But rhetorical violence is not necessarily to be read as physical violence perpetrated upon the Buddhists, any more than accounts of thousands of Hindu temples destroyed at the hands of Muslim invaders are to be read literally. Similarly, the absorption of the Buddha into Vishnu's pantheon may have represented something of a compromise between the Brahmins and Buddhists: since so much of what Buddhism stood for had been incorporated into certain strands of Brahminism, the Buddha was at least to be given his just dues. This anxiety of absorption continues down to the present day, and one of the more curious expressions of this anxiety must surely be a letter from the All India Bhikkhu Sangha to the-then Prime Minister of India, P. V. Narasimha Rao. In his letter of 23 February 1995, the President of the Sangha complained that the actor Arun Govil, who had played Rama in the TV serial Ramayana, had been chosen to play the Buddha in the TV serial by the same name. Could anyone really play the Buddha? "As you know," the letter reminds Rao, "the Buddha was never a mythological figure as Rama & Hanuman but very much a historical figure." [5] If nothing else, we might at least read the disappearance of Buddhism from India as a parable about how myth always outlives history.
1.	See, for example, D. C. Ahir, Buddhism Declined in India: How and Why? (Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 2005).
2. For Hsuan Tsang's travel narrative, see the translation by Samuel Beal, Si-Yu Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World (London: Trubner & Co., 1884; reprint ed., Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation).
3. Vasant Moon, compiler and ed., Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 1987), Vol. 3, pp. 232-33.
4. S. R. Goyal, A History of Indian Buddhism (Meerut, 1987), p. 394.
5. See Detlef Kantowsky, Buddhists in India Today: Descriptions, Pictures and Documents (Delhi: Manohar, 2003), p. 156.
Short Further Reading:
Padmanabh S. Jaini, "The Disappearance of Buddhism and the Survival of Jainism: A Study in Contrast", in Studies in History of Buddhism, ed. A. K. Narain (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Co., 1980), pp. 181-91.
1. Islam means peace.
Islam comes from the root word 'salaam', which means peace. It also means
submitting one's will to Allah (swt). Thus Islam is a religion of peace, which is
acquired by submitting one's will to the will of the Supreme Creator, Allah (swt).
2. Sometimes force has to be used to maintain peace.
Each and every human being in this world is not in favour of maintaining peace
and harmony. There are many, who would disrupt it for their own vested
interests. Sometimes force has to be used to maintain peace. It is precisely for
this reason that we have the police who use force against criminals and antisocial
elements to maintain peace in the country. Islam promotes peace. At the
same time, Islam exhorts it followers to fight where there is oppression. The
fight against oppression may, at times, require the use of force. In Islam force
can only be used to promote peace and justice.
3. Opinion of historian De Lacy O'Leary.
The best reply to the misconception that Islam was spread by the sword is given by
the noted historian De Lacy O'Leary in the book "Islam at the cross road" (Page 8):
"History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping
through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races
is one of the most fantastically absurd myth that historians have ever repeated."
4. Muslims ruled Spain for 800 years.
Muslims ruled Spain for about 800 years. The Muslims in Spain never used the
sword to force the people to convert. Later the Christian Crusaders came to
Spain and wiped out the Muslims. There was not a single Muslim in Spain who
could openly give the adhan, that is the call for prayers.
5. 14 million Arabs are Coptic Christians.
Muslims were the lords of Arabia for 1400 years. For a few years the British
ruled, and for a few years the French ruled. Overall, the Muslims ruled Arabia
for 1400 years. Yet today, there are 14 million Arabs who are Coptic Christians
i.e. Christians since generations. If the Muslims had used the sword there would
not have been a single Arab who would have remained a Christian.
6. More than 80% non-Muslims in India.
The Muslims ruled India for about a thousand years. If they wanted, they had
the power of converting each and every non-Muslim of India to Islam. Today
more than 80% of the population of India are non-Muslims. All these non-
Muslim Indians are bearing witness today that Islam was not spread by the
sword.
7. Indonesia and Malaysia.
Indonesia is a country that has the maximum number of Muslims in the world.
The majority of people in Malaysia are Muslims. May one ask, "Which Muslim
army went to Indonesia and Malaysia?"
8. East Coast of Africa.
Similarly, Islam has spread rapidly on the East Coast of Africa. One may again
ask, if Islam was spread by the sword, "Which Muslim army went to the East
Coast of Africa?"
9. Thomas Carlyle.
The famous historian, Thomas Carlyle, in his book "Heroes and Hero worship",
refers to this misconception about the spread of Islam: "The sword indeed, but
where will you get your sword? Every new opinion, at its starting is precisely in
a minority of one. In one man's head alone. There it dwells as yet. One man
alone of the whole world believes it, there is one man against all men. That he
takes a sword and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must get
your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can."
10. No compulsion in religion.
With which sword was Islam spread? Even if Muslims had it they could not use
it to spread Islam because the Qur'an says in the following verse:
"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from
[Al-Qur'an 2:256]
11. Sword of the Intellect.
It is the sword of intellect. The sword that conquers the hearts and minds of
people. The Qur'an says in Surah Nahl, chapter 16 verse 125:
"Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching;
and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious."
[Al-Qur'an 16:125]
12. Increase in the world religions from 1934 to 1984.
An article in Reader's Digest 'Almanac', year book 1986, gave the statistics of
the increase of percentage of the major religions of the world in half a century
from 1934 to 1984. This article also appeared in 'The Plain Truth' magazine. At
the top was Islam, which increased by 235%, and Christianity had increased
only by 47%. May one ask, which war took place in this century which converted
millions of people to Islam?
13. Islam is the fastest growing religion in America and Europe.
Today the fastest growing religion in America is Islam. The fastest growing
religion in Europe in Islam. Which sword is forcing people in the West to accept
Islam in such large numbers?
14. Dr. Joseph Adam Pearson.
Dr. Joseph Adam Pearson rightly says, "People who worry that nuclear
weaponry will one day fall in the hands of the Arabs, fail to realize that the
Islamic bomb has been dropped already, it fell the day MUHAMMED (pbuh) was born.
August 23, 2013 | Log in to Reply
Well analyzed post. I just want to add a few things:
I have NEVER met an extremist who was of the view that Christians should leave India. Though there may some (very few, but then there are always some) who feel this way. Somehow Jesus Christ, Buddha and Mahavira Jain have been assimilated into mainstream Hinduism as Gods.
Though, I have met some people who feel that Muslims should go back to "their country" (Pakistan). Again this is a minority view and has to do with a turbulent Islamic history of India.
BJP (considered to be a right wing) party had to lost two consecutive general elections, mainly because Hindus associated it with Gujarat 2002 riots.
Hinduism has a very old history, so one can always find stories in some book which were of violent form.
But the best way to get an insight into modern Hinduism is Bhagwat Gita's Karma theory and the theory that you will have rebirths till you wipe out all sins and attain Moksha (which is what most Hindus try to achieve).
November 6, 2010 | Log in to Reply
Thanks to Prof M. Lal Goel
for his painstaking, analytical and logical review of the book.
November 26, 2009 | Log in to Reply
One should study closely what effect the spread of the islamic religion has on the psychology of the non-muslims. Across history and nowadays, it seems that muslim rage and intolerance causes people to prefer avoiding conflict and yield to some demands that they would not normally accept.
Please note that I don't consider muslims in general to be enraged people. However, there's a large amount of anger emanating from that religion, starting with its founder, who had very intense (pathological?) bouts of anger.
Such anger and paranoia results in very active militantism. In recent years it has taken the form of a worldwide, gigantic reaction against the Danish caricatures – published in a newspaper unknown outside of that country! There is probably not a similar phenomenon in other religions and it should take all of our attention finding out exactly what effect this has on all of us "kafirs" (that is, people who refuse to relinquish their own tradition!).
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Q: Trouble getting Grunt to run node.js script I am a grunt and node noob but I managed to write a node script that does what I want it to and works from the command line.  I don't want to publish the script as a node module but I would like to run it from my grunt file.
What changes (if any) do I need to make to the script for this to work?
The more I read about configuring grunt files and custom tasks the more confused I get.  I currently have something that looks like this:
module.exports = function(grunt) {

    grunt.initConfig({
        'mytaskname': 'what goes here?'
    });

    grunt.loadNpmTasks('./node_modules/script_name');

    grunt.registerTask('run-from-command-line', 'description', function() {
        grunt.log.writeln('Not running...');
    });
}

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A: You could use the grunt-execute plugin for doing this which executes files in a node.js child process.
Example:
If your node script is in "node-scripts/script.js", Gruntfile.js would look something like this:
module.exports = function(grunt) {
    grunt.initConfig({
        execute: {
            target: {
                src: ["node-scripts/script.js"]
            }
        }
    });

    // Load the plugins
    grunt.loadNpmTasks("grunt-execute");

    grunt.registerTask("default", ["execute"]);
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Home Editorial Stories Unforgettable Childhood Memories :- Sharing some stories in 2021
Unforgettable Childhood Memories :- Sharing some stories in 2021
Saibal Ghosh
With my age advancing, childhood memories now-a-day often crowd my mind. I spent my childhood in Madhya Prades, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra.
I could not resist recounting one such memory in this column.
Once during our stay at Kanpur, our neighbor caught a thief while he was trying to escape on a stolen bicycle. The cycle was stolen from the premise where, on the evening of Holi, a homely musical mehfil (musical soiree) was going on. The cycle belonged to Tabla player Sunil Dev.
The loud noise 'CHOR CHOR' called a halt to the mehfil. We all came out to see our neighbor bashing a youth who was in his twenties. They were unmoved by his cries for mercy. Soon the police came and took the thief away.
WordPress.com: memories of childhood games
The incident, like any other, was forgotten.
Mr Dev interestingly enough did not get back his cycle. As it happens in major police cases, the cycle was heaped on junkyard of the police station.
After a few years of incidence, my mother got to be admitted to the city's 'Hallet hospital for orthopedic surgery. The hospital was far away from our residence. In those days, conveyance was a major problem. Buses were confined to a few routes, so, I, along with my sister and father, used to take a rickshaw from a nearby 'cross-road' ('chouraha'). On almost all the days we happened to get the same rickshaw puller. Naturally, our daily meeting brought us closer. His name was 'Shyam.
'Shyam was jolly and told us good stories. In the subsequent days during my mother's stay in hospital, he used to pick us up from our residence itself.
I was then a child of hardly 7 to 8 years old. Many times, when my father went to the hospital directly from office, Shyam use to pick up us from our residence itself. He had won our hearts.
Www.reddit.com: memories
During this period, I got through the admission test in a reputed school in Kanpur. The school was in Ashoknagar and my area was not falling on the school bus's route. My father was worried about convenience for me.
In the course of a conversation, one day my father mentioned it to 'Shyam. Shyam roped in my father to buy a rickshaw. He also cut a deal with my father. He would take me to school and drop me home too. In between times, he would make his living from it. At the end of the day, he would pay a rent of Rupees four to my father.
In those days, a day's rent of rupees four was not a bad deal. The rickshaw would be with us in the evening. My father made up his mind to buy the rickshaw after my mother's discharge from the hospital.
In my mother's absence, my father was having a hard time managing both office and home. I was too young to lend him a hand in kitchen work. When 'Shyam came to know about it, he said his mother did domestic work in our own locality. On asking, he said her name was 'Lata'. The name 'Lata' rang a bell with my father.
Alumniyat.com: childhood memories
"Is she the same Lata whose son was caught stealing a cycle!", asked my father. We were all in a big shock as 'Shyam blurted out "Yes I am the same thief". He said that he was beaten up by police in a lockup, and they later released him on bail.The case was under trial in court.
The ignominy of theft brought an end to the rapport he built up in the last few days. He fell from the grace of my father. My father dropped the idea of buying the rickshaw. Maybe 'Shyam had shed his criminal life, but then old habits die hard. The matter was in court, and he had yet to be exonerated.
At that tender age I wished my father could ignore his unpleasant realities, more so, for pleasure of buying a new rickshaw, but my father had got both his feet on the ground. The memories of early childhood have become faint now but this particular episode is still tucked in somewhere in me.
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I am Saibal Ghosh.
I Lost My Lucky: A tragic story of 1974.
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What is stem cell and it's therapy? Is stem cell treatment...


The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) just announced to cancel and redevelop their previously published draft proposals on the glass general chapters. New chapter proposals are scheduled to come in 2019.
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Use this opportunity to provide your feedback and ask your questions directly to FDA, USP, EDQM and glass experts from industry. For more details please visit the GLASS meets PHARMA conference website.


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If you really want to nitpick, Strasburg's last start in Cleveland was less than stellar. He walked five (5) batters, people! He still struck out 7 and gave up only one earned in 5.1 innings. His return to the friendly confines of Nationals Park would go much better than his Cleveland trip. Even President Obama made it out to watch him pitch because, you know, there's not too much going on right now.
When I previewed this game earlier, I was pretty stunned to learn the White Sox had struck out the fewest times as a team in MLB. But strange things happen when a 21-year-old kid takes the mound and throws a 100 MPH fastball and a 91 MPH change up. Strasburg gave up a swinging bunt, infield single to Juan Pierre and a bloop single to Omar Vizquel to open the game. Then he retired 15 straight while striking out 9. He didn't get a decision but a 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 10 K stat line is pretty solid world domination. Let's take a look at those K's in tonight's strikeout rewind.
Top 1st:
Strasburg struck out Paul Konerko swinging. Get used to the word "swinging." You might see it a couple more times.
Strasburg struck out Carlos Quentin swinging. See, I wasn't kidding.
Top 2nd:
Strasburg struck out Gordon Beckham swinging. Tonight won't be the night Beckham breaks out of his slump.
Top 3rd:
Strasburg struck out Gavin Floyd looking. The reason Floyd struck out looking is because he was about 5 feet away from the plate. If he did swing, the ump didn't see it.
Strasburg struck out Juan Pierre swinging. 3 pitches.
Top 4th:
Strasburg struck out Alex Rios swinging. 3 pitches.
Strasburg struck out Quentin swinging again.
Strasburg struck out Alexie Ramirez swinging. Who didn't see that coming?
Strasburg struck out Beckham swinging again.
No strikeouts this inning but I thought it was funny that Gavin Floyd would be the one to break up Strasburg's streak of 15 straight retired batters. An AL pitcher, sure, why not?
Strasburg struck out Ramirez swinging again. 3 pitches.
Strasburg threw an efficient 85 pitches, 59 for strikes, over 7 innings. He also now owns the record for most strikeouts (32) for a pitcher in his first 3 games. Let's recap.
Strasburg's first 3 starts: 19.1 IP, 2-0, 1.86 ERA, 32 strikeouts, 5 walks.
For comparison, Mark Prior's first 3 starts: 15.2 IP, 1-2, 5.74 ERA, 22 strikeouts, 7 walks.
How about another one? Dwight Gooden's first 3 starts: 13.1 IP, 1-1, 4.73 ERA, 16 strikeouts, 9 walks.
This next one is pretty crazy, ready? Nineteen-year-old Felix Hernandez's first 3 starts: 21 IP, 2-1, 0.86 ERA, 21 strikeouts, 3 walks. Yikes.
I could do this all night. Damn you, Baseball-Reference. My point, I think, is that we're entering into one of those special breakout seasons that only come along every so often. So take off work on days that Strasburg pitches (I suggest calling in with the plague, do you know how contagious that is?). If he's coming to your city, get your tickets now. But most importantly, read all of my Strasburg posts.
Labels: nationals, stephen strasburg, tigers, world dominance