07.29.09
Democracy Now on Gates
RG mail
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/22/cornel_west_and_carl_dix_on
Democracy Now July 22, 2009
Amy Goodman Interviews Cornell West, Carl Dix
Tapped
RG mail
http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/29/profit-in-a-bottle
Review: Dahlia El-Shafei
Profit in a bottle
Dahlia El-Shafei reviews the new documentary Tapped about the bottled water industry.
July 29, 2009
THERE IS unarguably a trend in mass media to promote a “green” lifestyle, and the propagators are cleverly shifting strategies to divert blame and responsibility. Not to mention convincing us to buy more products to keep up with the new social standards.
Drive down the street in your brand-new Prius, take a bag made from recycled materials on your next shopping trip, and always carry bottled water. Tapped, the new film from directors Stephanie Soechtig and Jason Lindsey, dispels the notion that drinking bottled water is part of a healthy life, and proves how it is damaging our health and the future of our planet’s resources.
Deflation
RG mail
The Deflating Economy
by Mike Whitney
CounterPunch (July 13 2009)
There should be a modest uptick in GDP in either in the fourth quarter
2009 or the first quarter 2010. This will mark the end of the current
twenty month-long recession, but not the end of the crisis. The blip in
growth doesn’t mean that the troubles are over or that the economy is
on the way to recovery. It simply means that Obama’s $787 billion
fiscal stimulus is beginning to kick in, giving a boost to consumer
spending and generating short-term economic activity. Regrettably, when
the stimulus runs out, the economy will slide back into negative
territory. That’s because the US consumer has crossed an important
threshold and no longer has the ability to drive the economy through
debt-fueled consumption. The data indicates a critical change in
consumer behavior which portends a shift away from the current model
for economic growth. It’s a whole new ballgame.
http://www.counterpunch.com/whitney07132009.html
07.28.09
Evolution and the aesthetic dimension
Comments on Darwin Propaganda and its Devices
James said,
July 28, 2009 at 5:10 pm
My comment wasn’t meant to be serious, but I agree with you. The so-called increase in beauty is due to techniques (cosmetic surgery, etc.) and products (lipstick, makeup, etc.) that are common in the modern marketplace.James said,
July 28, 2009 at 5:27 pm
…and I agree that this pop science bullsh*t is supported to induce an inferiority complex in people so that the Madison Avenue cult can increase its clout.
A strange surprise awaits those who would reduce aesthetics to pure reductionist/Darwinian categories.
A close look at the eonic effect (which noone can seem to tune in to) gives fair warning:
Art, Evolution, and the Tragic Genre
Kant’s critiques give a unique insight into the relationship of causality, ethical issues, and aesthetics.
Darwin propganda, and its devices
Comment on: Verdict on evolution/beauty
James said,
July 28, 2009 at 2:37 pm
It is humorous that this article appears on an English website given that a large percentage of that country’s population would do well in an “Ugliest People on Earth” contest.
This news item reports something without any scientific backing, except the usual evo-psych mystique that allows any kind of outrageous claim to be made in public and taken as true. I find it very hard to believe that it is true, btw, since we have had tens of thousands of years to see results, and we have really seen them. Much of the ‘change’ is really just cosmetic illusion.
In general elites of many types are the real backers of Darwinism: it was always so, with figures such as Galton giving the game away. The rich and powerful think they are the pinnacle of evolution. Which is bullsit.
Verdict on evolution/beauty
Anecdotal evidence suggests these scientists are blind.
People in general are getting less beautiful, and more generic.
Onward to lumpenproleness!
— On Tue, 7/28/09, gnxp
> From:
> Subject: [gnxpforum] [Times UK] Women are getting more beautiful
> To: gnxpforum@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 11:35 AM
> Scientists have found that evolution
> is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men
> remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman
> ancestors
>
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6727710.ece
>
Marilynne Robinson: an older post
One of the most popular posts on this blog, a perennial favoriate:
http://darwiniana.com/2006/10/23/marilynne-robinson-on-dawkins/
Scientists as sore losers
Scientists won’t ever admit it, but the inability to produce a ‘science of freedom’ makes science forever limited in principle from constructing a Darwinian or reductionist account of human evolution, and psychology.
The point was clear in the Enlightenment period, but the rise of scientism has caused amnesia, and a new kind of ‘science stupidity’.
Two hundred years of being stupid….
Fossey’s gorillas
No mountain gorilla is ordinary, but those found in northwest Rwanda are especially fascinating. They are the gorillas studied by legendary primatologist Dian Fossey — the “gorillas in the mist.” Now, researchers are exhuming the descendants of those gorillas, in the search of clues to primate evolution. Researcher Erin Marie Williams is part of that team, and has sent dispatches from the field
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106812455
Archive: Dennett on ghost detection
Archive: January 4, 2006
George Johnson reviews a new Dennett book on religion, which I will have to read, unfortunately. Here we go again. Get a grip on it, Dan. First, Johnson is a closet Darwin heretic, the ghostwriter it seems of ‘At Home in the Universe’. So I won’t trust what I read on evolution or religion. No matter. Dennett is at it again. Belief in ghosts is the beginning of religion, and cybenetic metaphors are on the verge of explaining it, on the verge, mind you. Good to start off with a good Just So story, since we don’t really know too much at all about Paleolithic man and religion. Close to zero in fact. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive: arrogance of the scientists?
Archive:; December 6, 2005
______________________
Kristof has an editorial in the Times (Times Select): The Arrogance of the Humanities.
How about the arrogance of the Scientists? Especially the Darwinians.
Read the rest of this entry »
Archive: Darwin’s Use of the Term ‘Evolution’
I am starting to sort out some of the older posts on this blog (which has an incredible seventeen thousand pots). This is from November 27, 2005
The Letters to the Editor at New York Review of books has an exchange over the term ‘evolution’: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18570.
Darwin was reluctant to use the term ‘evolution’ Read the rest of this entry »
Collins attacks
Monday must be Pick On Francis Collins Day!
by PZ Myers – Pharyngula
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/monday_must_be_pick_on_francis.php
from dawkins site
Meyer and Scopes
Steven C. Meyer and the modern day monkey trial
by Sean P. Harris – Austin Independent Examiner
from dawkins site
http://www.examiner.com/x-13390-Austin-Independent-Examiner~y2009m7d21-Anniversary-of-the-Scopes-Monkey-Trial
Observing bacteria
Observing Bacteria As They Infect A Living Host
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — Researchers have developed a new technique that allows them for the first time to make a movie of bacteria infecting their living host.
Focus on faces
Chimps, Like Humans, Focus On Faces
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — A chimp’s attention is captured by faces more effectively than by bananas. A series of experiments suggests that the apes are wired to respond to faces in a similar manner to humans.
Contraceptive pill for men?
Mutation Causing One Type Of Male Infertility Found: Contraceptive Pill For Men Next?
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — A genetic mutation that lies behind one type of male infertility has been discovered by researchers
March into a charge
Soldiers Turn A March Into A Charge
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — Engineers at Leeds are developing a way to capture the kinetic energy produced when soldiers march and use it to power their equipment.
New vision cell in fish
Vision: New Type Of Cell That Can Sense Light Found In Fish
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — Nearly all species have some ability to detect light. At least three types of cells in the retina allow us to see images or distinguish between night and day. Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have discovered in fish yet another type of cell that can sense light and contribute to vision.
Faster than predicted…
World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns
New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics
Secret GW evidence
Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world’s weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating
Latest scheme–or scam, high frequency trading
Published on Monday, July 27, 2009 by Huffington Post
Wall Street on Speed
by Robert Kuttner
The New York Times recently reported that the latest scheme–or scam–on Wall Street is something called High Frequency Trading. Very sophisticated financial firms, such as Goldman Sachs, are tipped off by the New York Stock Exchange’s own computers to pending buy and sell orders. Armed with ultra sophisticated computer algorithms, the insiders anticipate the direction of the market based on what they learn about supply and demand for a given security. They can make an extra penny here and an extra penny there at the expense of us suckers, adding up to billions.
“Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed,” wrote the Times’ Charles Duhigg in a front page piece that was the talk of New York and Washington. “High-frequency trading is one answer.”
The unthinkable
Published on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by AdBusters
Thinking the Unthinkable: Not Growing the Economy
At what point does economic growth become uneconomic growth?
by Tim Jackson
Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate, the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.
Climate vs defense spending
Published on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by Inter Press Service
Better Balance Between Climate and Military Spending Urged
by Marina Litvinsky and Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON – Despite its conviction that climate change represents a serious threat to national and global security, the administration of President Barack Obama has proposed spending one dollar on addressing the challenge for every nine dollars it intends to spend on the U.S. military, according to a new report by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
Oil companies doomed?
Published on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Greenpeace Study Finds Oil Companies May Be Doomed
Environmental activist network argues that the oil industry might be approaching a tipping point from fall in the price, advances in technology and policies on climate change
Traders Blamed for Oil Spike
mxmail
Wall Street Journal
JULY 28, 2009
CFTC Will Pin ’08 Price Surge on Speculators, in a Reversal From Bush
By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN and ALISTAIR MACDONALD
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to issue a report next
month suggesting speculators played a significant role in driving wild
swings in oil prices — a reversal of an earlier CFTC position that
augurs intensifying scrutiny on investors.
Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard
mxmail
——————————————————————————–
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/harvard200908
Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard
Only a year ago, Harvard had a $36.9 billion endowment, the largest in
academia. Now that endowment has imploded, and the university faces the
worst financial crisis in its 373-year history. Could the same lethal
mix of uncurbed expansion, colossal debt, arrogance, and mismanagement
that ravaged Wall Street bring down America’s most famous university?
And how much of the turmoil is the fault of former Harvard president
Larry Summers, now a top economic adviser to President Obama? As
students demonstrate, administrators impose Draconian cuts, and
construction is halted on an over-ambitious $1.2 billion science
complex, the author follows the finger-pointing.
By Nina Munk August 2009
In defense of Goldman Sachs
mxmail
(Warning to the irony-impaired. This is satire.)
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a2X3hNaWcbeg#
Bashing Goldman Sachs Is Simply a Game for Fools: Michael Lewis
Commentary by Michael Lewis
Assassinations Anyone?
RG mail
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23103.htm
CIA Claims of Cancelled Campaign are Hogwash
In 2001, U.S. Special Forces oversaw the murder at Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan,
of thousands of captured Taliban fighters by Uzbek forces of the Communist
warlord, Rashid Dostum. The CIA was paying Dostum, a notorious war criminal
from the 1980s, millions to fight Taliban. Dostum is now poised to become
vice-president of the U.S.-installed government of President Hamid Karzai.
By Eric Margolis
July 20, 2009 “Toronto Sun” — CIA director Leon Panetta just told
Congress he cancelled a secret operation to assassinate al-Qaida leaders.
The CIA campaign, authorized in 2001, had not yet become operational,
claimed Panetta.
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