Complexity Theory: the study of the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science.

1. Von Bertalanffy (1930-1940’s)- General System Theory - study of system, independent of its parts
2. Shannon (1948) - Information Theory - No communication is error free - noise in channel was information in and of itself
3. Lorenz (1993) - Chaos Theory - unpredictability of outcomes due to small changes in initial conditions
4. Mandelbrot (1997) - Fractal Theory - Something that inhibits partial dimensionality - fractals exhibit consistent complexity regardless of the scale at which they are observed.

How did this happen? According to this AP article there are 41 other countries whose people live on average longer than American. How can this be if we have the best healthcare in the world and spend on average more than other countries? Key word is lifestyle.

“Something’s wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Key factors according to the article are obesity; racial disparities; and infant mortality rates.

The War We Need To Win,  Barack Obama’s foreign policy speech lays out a strategy that is keenly aware of the danger at hand,  but also more comprehensive, practical and in keeping with the values of America than the failed policy of the current administration. Like the sound of it:

Just because the President misrepresents our enemies does not mean we do not have them. The terrorists are at war with us. The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, but the threat is real. They distort Islam. They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for.

The President would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of al Qaeda’s war against us, not an Iraqi civil war. He elevates al Qaeda in Iraq — which didn’t exist before our invasion — and overlooks the people who hit us on 9/11, who are training new recruits in Pakistan. He lumps together groups with very different goals: al Qaeda and Iran, Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents. He confuses our mission.

And worse — he is fighting the war the terrorists want us to fight. Bin Ladin and his allies know they cannot defeat us on the field of battle or in a genuine battle of ideas. But they can provoke the reaction we’ve seen in Iraq: a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies, ties down our military, busts our budgets, increases the pool of terrorist recruits, alienates America, gives democracy a bad name, and prompts the American people to question our engagement in the world.

By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world’s most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.

Good point from Bill Clinton at 2007 Havard Commencement (read full transcript):

• “When the human genome was sequenced, ….. the most interesting thing to me was the discovery that human beings with their three billion genomes are 99.9 percent identical genetically. ” Yet we focus much of our attention on the one tenth of one percent, on the differences we draw”
• “There is no challenge we face, no barrier to having your grandchildren here on this beautiful site 50 years from now, more profound than the ideological and emotional divide which continues to demean our common life and undermine our ability to solve our common problems. The simple idea that our differences are more important than our common humanity.”
• “Enjoy your differences, but realize that our common humanity matters much, much more. “

Serge Savard, Hall of Fame Defensemen during 17-year NHL career, and former captain and General Manager (12 seasons) of the Montreal Canadiens says fighting was “the toughest part of my career as a young player. I never wanted to fight, but I was forced to fight. That’s not the way I was born and raised, and I don’t think that’s sports.”

”You can live with the spontaneous fight. That’s something that can happen between brothers, two kids getting into a fight because of an argument. But you don’t want the designated hitter. That’s my view.”

Amen. (Where have you gone Stan Jonathan? 1977-78 G 24, A 25, Pts. 52; PIMs 116; +34)

Source: TSN