February 2012
114 posts
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What Ails Europe? →
Things are terrible here, as unemployment soars past 13 percent. Things are even worse in Greece, Ireland, and arguably in Spain, and Europe as a whole appears to be sliding back into recession.
Why has Europe become the sick man of the world economy? Everyone knows the answer. Unfortunately, most of what people know isn’t true — and false stories about European woes are warping our economic...
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Wikileaks Reveals Privately Run CIA’s Dirty... →
Wikileaks has published five million emails from Stratfor, an intelligence company based in Texas that, looking at their practices, appears to be America’s very own privately run CIA. According to Wikileaks, their deals would also include the use of privileged information to make money in financial markets.
Stratfor’s clients are the US Government, other countries and military...
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Seattle to Create Nation’s First Public Food... →
In the heart of Seattle, a public park is planned like no other — an urban food forest that is free for the plucking.
With its mild temperatures and moist climate, Seattle is taking advantage of its vegetation-friendly environment. A seven acre plot of public land, a community of local planners and advocates are moving forward with plans to build the first, completely free, public food ...
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Could Iceland's Financial Meltdown Create The... →
It’s no secret that Iceland was hit particularly hard by the global financial crisis. Three of its largest banks were nationalized and the government collapsed. Reykjavik, the nation’s capital, saw unprecedented riots and the Icelandic currency— the Krona— plummeted along with the bank accounts of every Icelander. Forbes even went as far to declare it “the land without an...
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Global warming Could Shrink the Human... →
Modern mammals, including humans, could be at risk of shrinking as a result of global warming, just as teeny prehistoric horses shrank to an even smaller size when temperatures rose 56 million years ago.
Early horses were already quite tiny to begin with in comparison to modern beasts, which have been helped along by people breeding them for size, speed and strength.
However, during the...
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Xeroxiraptor: Boffins to print 3D robot... →
The researchers, from Philadelphia’s Drexel University, are using 3D printing to create dino-bones and then attaching artificial muscles and tendons to create dinosaur robots.
“Technology in paleontology hasn’t changed in about 150 years,” paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara said. “We use shovels and pickaxes and burlap and plaster. It hasn’t changed - until right now.”
The 3D...
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Forgetting the Past, One Military Movie at a... →
When philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” he meant it as an admonition–not as an endorsement of mass amnesia or historical revision. This should be obvious.
Yet those operating at the shadowy intersection of the Pentagon and Hollywood either don’t understand–or, more likely, refuse to understand–the thrust of the aphorism....
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Bioconservatives vs. Bioprogressives →
We are now living in the age of biopolitics, claims University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Jonathan Moreno in his new book The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America. “Biopolitics is the nonviolent struggle for control over the actual and imagined achievements of the new biology and the new world it symbolizes,” he writes. “The stakes are about as big as they can get.” Moreno is...
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Vandalism at Maldives Museum Stirs Fears of... →
MALE, Maldives — The broken glass from an attack by vandals on the National Museum here has been swept away, and the remnants of the Buddhist statues they destroyed — nearly 30 of them, some dating to the sixth century — have been locked away. But officials say the loss to this island nation’s archaeological legacy can never be recouped.
In the midst of the political turmoil racking this tiny...
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Afghanistan demands NATO put Koran-burners on... →
(Reuters) - Afghanistan wants NATO to put on public trial those who burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base, President Hamid Karzai’s office said on Thursday, after a third day of bloody protests over the incident.
It said NATO had agreed to a trial, but that could not be immediately confirmed.
Karzai had earlier accused a U.S. officer of “ignorantly” burning copies of...
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White House refuses to reveal ties with Monsanto →
Requests have been made under the Freedom of Information Act for President Obama to disclose discussions with Montanto-supporting lobbyists. Requests have been denied.
Public Employees for Environment Responsibility (PEER), a US-based non-profit group demands that the White House comply with a request for information that could link the Obama administration with lobbyists who are involved...
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Would We Have Drugged Up Einstein? How... →
In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by 1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians; and 2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.
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Single-Atom Transistor Is End of Moore's Law; May... →
The smallest transistor ever built — in fact, the smallest transistor that can be built — has been created using a single phosphorus atom by an international team of researchers at the University of New South Wales, Purdue University and the University of Melbourne.
The single-atom device was described Sunday (Feb. 19) in a paper in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Michelle...
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Penn Researcher Helps Discover and Characterize a... →
PHILADELPHIA — Pompeii-like, a 300-million-year-old tropical forest was preserved in ash when a volcano erupted in what is today northern China. A new study by University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn and colleagues presents a reconstruction of this fossilized forest, lending insight into the ecology and climate of its time.
Pfefferkorn, a professor in Penn’s Department of...
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Corporatocracy Is 'Driving Science Into a Dark... →
It’s called Corporatocracy and it’s what’s for dinner. It’s very concerning how many people fail to see the link between business interests and environmental standards being pushed aside. Some might call it epistemic closure, but whatever you call it…we’re all going to be in a sad state of affairs if we don’t wise up.
All one needs to do is look at the history of Big Tobacco buying off ...
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Anonymous And Internet Advocates: Where's Your... →
H.R. 1981, the nefariously entitled “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act,” is actually a wide-ranging Internet surveillance bill that has no place in the United States of America. (Why not call it the Protecting Kittens From Harm Act? Or the American Prosperity Guarantee Act — just a B.S. name so that politicians in the House and Senate are strong-armed into...
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MSNBC fires commentator Pat Buchanan →
Conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan has been fired from left-leaning news network MSNBC after more than four months of suspension, the longtime contributor revealed Thursday night.
In a lengthy screed published to his personal website, Buchanan tore into his former employer of 10 years for what he called “an undeniable victory for the blacklisters,” in which the former Nixon aide...
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Gary Johnson decries domestic drones: ‘Big Brother... →
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on Friday blasted Congress for making the United States a “wide-open playground for government snooping.”
Congress passed and Obama signed into law legislation to fund the Federal Aviation Administration through 2015. But the legislation also included provisions that would make it easier for law enforcement agencies to use unmanned aerial...
The Universe Gave Me an "A". →
andthentherewasplur:
I spend a lot of time worrying and a lot of time thinking. My greatest pass time would have to be thought, though thinking is work. Great things can come from it. Even if you are constantly thinking of the worst things it could engender, you are still thinking of ways to fix a problem. However,…
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Chomsky: The American decline is ‘increasingly... →
Linguist Noam Chomsky says the decline in American power has been “increasingly self-inflicted” in recent decades.
In the first part of a two-part column for TomDispatch, the political activist argues that America’s decline is very real.
To make the point that the damage has been self-inflicted, Chomsky cites a recent issue of Foreign Affairs that asks “Is America Over?”
“The title article...
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The invention of the heterosexual →
The history of straightness is much shorter than you’d think. An expert explains its origins
If you met Hanne Blank and her partner on the street, you might have a lot of trouble classifying them. While Blank looks like a feminine woman, her partner is extremely androgynous, with little to no facial hair and a fine smooth complexion. Hanne’s partner is neither fully male, nor fully...
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Anarchism Is Not What You Think It Is -- And... →
On February 8, 1921 twenty thousand people, braving temperatures so low that musical instruments froze, marched in a funeral procession in the town of Dimitrov, a suburb of Moscow. They came to pay their respects to a man, Petr Kropotkin, and his philosophy, anarchism.
Some 90 years later few know of Kropotkin. And the word anarchism has been so stripped of substance that it has come to...
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Punishing Protest, Policing Dissent: What is the... →
This year promises to be another historic year of people calling for change worldwide. Citizens took to the streets for a wide variety of reasons, from the Wisconsin Capitol to D.C., which hosted many actions last year including the highly visible civil disobedience of activists seeking to halt the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. The resulting mass arrests, totaling over 1,200 by early...
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Being a communist in 2012 →
Being a communist in 2012 is not a political choice, but rather an existential matter, writes Santiago Zabala.
Barcelona, Spain - Being a communist in 2012 is not a political choice, but rather an existential matter. The global levels of political, economic and social inequality we are going to reach this year because of capitalism’s logics of production not only are alarming, but also...
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Feds shut down Amish farm for selling fresh milk →
The FDA won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, D.C., region after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines and he told his customers he would shut down his farm altogether.
The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer’s supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six...
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Transgender Canadians barred from airline flights →
HAMILTON, Canada — Transgender people are effectively barred from flying on Canadian flights due to an obscure rule change that came to light last week.
Queer community and transgender blogs blew up with news that under the obscure identity screening regulations for air passengers in Canada, travelers whose gender identity on their identification doesn’t match their person will not be...
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The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech →
Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening. The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBIannounced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a...
