11.30.09
Prologue to Copenhagen
Prologue to Copenhagen: Fasts, Lock Downs, Sit-Ins, Die-Ins for Climate Justice Across the Nation
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/30-9
Houses of the Rising Sun
Houses of the Rising Sun: Research Sheds New Light on Ancient Greeks
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2009) — New research at the University of Leicester has identified scores of Sicilian temples built to face the rising Sun, shedding light on the practices of the Ancient Greeks.
Modern, postmodern, and the left(s)
1848+: Theory, Ideology, and Revolution
A way to connect world history, evolution, and the politics of modernity/revolution.
Another post-revolutionary generation
When Charles II stepped ashore in Dover on May 27, 1660, and then entered London in a glorious procession two days later, on his 30th birthday, he was greeted with tolling church bells, cries of joy and expressions of hope. More than a decade had passed since his own exile to The Hague, the execution of his father and the rise of Oliver Cromwell’s republican Commonwealth—regarded as a dictatorship by the many who chafed under the rule of the “Lord Protector.” With the arrival of Charles—a tall, dark-haired man of physical grace—England’s monarchy was splendiferously restored.
Early in “A Gambling Man,” a detailed and thoroughly engrossing examination of the Restoration’s first decade, Jenny Uglow notes that Charles Stuart, upon his ascension, “wanted passionately to be seen as the healer of his people’s woes and the glory of his nation.” Cromwell’s regime had featured constant war and constant taxes. The population was bitterly divided among Anglicans, Catholics and dissenting Protestants—Presbyterians, Puritans, Quakers, Baptists. A huge standing army had burdened the people financially and frightened them; such an army, it was not unreasonably thought, could be used to impose a tyranny.
Leftist traffic collisions
Two articles on the current confusion on the ‘left’: Michael Berube’s war on the left
The Left At War, Michael Berube
I find it hard to make anything out of this bickering.
We commented on this here a few days ago re: Chavez’ call for a Fifth International.
The verdict here is simple: we don’t have a left. Since 1989 ‘left’ has fallen into chaotification and succumbs to incoherence at the babbling level at regular intervals.
I have often suggested the need to adopt a critique of Marxism and start over from scratch. Bickering over the politics of the last two decades is hardly productive. Everyone, left or right, is frozen in place, and unable to think.
Fast onset of Younger Dryas
Big Freeze Plunged Europe Into Ice Age in Months
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009) — In the film The Day After Tomorrow, the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.
Global poor and climate crisis
Published on Monday, November 30, 2009 by The Nation
Global Day of Action on Climate Crisis
by Peter Rothberg
As world leaders start gathering next week in Copenhagen, the people hit hardest by the climate change crisis — the global poor — will continue to be systematically excluded from formal discussions of how to address problems like water shortages and crop failures stemming from global warming.
Bias and reductionist limits in bioethics
Is bioethics and ally of atheism?
The very nature of the question is somehow alarming, and a warning that ethical judgments from atheists/darwinists are all going to be reconciled with scientism, a recipe for disaster in the end. It is a form of bias.
Atheists insist atheism is not a religion
Video Attempts to Explain that Atheism is NOT a Religion
Ed. Note: John W. Loftus says nothing bothers atheists more than when people call atheism a “religion,” or when they say you need “faith” to be an atheist. They will tell you that atheism is actually “the absence of faith.” This video offers a more detailed explanation of the controversy:
Puzzle: why ID gang stuck on GW??
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/11/green_totalitarianism.html
Scientism and Totalitarianism
Michael Egnor
There’s a totalitarian subtext to scientism. Scientism entails a militant certainty of truth, and an utter intolerance for dissent that is remarkably akin to totalitarian political movements. Scientism is increasingly a spawn of the political left, which has been the primary source of totalitarianism in the past century.The reaction of Darwinists or of global warming scientists to even the most mild skepticism is remarkably vicious.
The ID group often raises a significant issue, only to throw it away on a critique of global warming, a puzzling sign the victims of economic ideology are victims of its totalitarian effect!
The Royal Society puts historic papers online
by BBC News
from dawkins site
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8385560.stm
Bioethics an ally of atheism?
Is bioethics an ally of atheism?
by Michael Cook – BioEdge
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/8756/
from dawkins site
From a professional bioethicist’s point of view, one of the disturbing facts to emerge from the heated debate over Obamacare is that “bioethicist” has become a dirty word for many Americans. Few had ever heard of bioethics before, but healthcare rationing is being justified by guys called “bioethicists” — and they don’t like it. Furthermore, it is being associated with atheists, and many Americans are deeply suspicious of such people.
So is it good public relations for atheist bioethicists to trumpet their atheism and call for more petrol to be thrown on the fires of religious controversy? Apparently Udo Schuklenk, the editor of the leading journal Bioethics, and Russell Blackford, an Australian bioethicist, think so.
They recently published an article in the Guardian’s “Comment is free” blog, under the headline, “Stand up, stand up, against Jesus” ( http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4577). They reject accommodationist atheism which cozies up to religious people if they are prepared to support evolution. Schuklenk and Blackford, however, call for more robust criticism:
“Religion cannot be eradicated — that is not a realistic goal — but the many problems with religious dogma can and should be highlighted. As atheists, we should state clearly that no religion has any rational warrant, and that many churches and sects promote cruelty, ignorance, and civil rights abuses.”
More Russians support creationism than Darwin’s evolution theory
30 November 2009, 11:02
More Russians support creational theory than Darwin’s evolution theory - poll
Moscow, November 30, Interfax –
As many as 44% of Russians support the creationist theory compared to 35% believing in Charles Darwin’s evolution theory, a poll of 1,600 respondents conducted by the VTsIOM public opinion research center in 140 Russian communities on November 20-21 has found.
TLS and Darwin books
Although this year has been widely touted as the “Year of Darwin” because of its big Darwin-related anniversaries, the book reviewers at the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) in London seem less than enthralled with the year’s crop of pro-Darwin retreads from the publishing industry. Indeed, the TLS’s “Books of the Year” issue just released last Friday fails to include any of the year’s big pro-Darwin tomes such as Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True or even Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth among its “Books of the Year.”
New brain connections and learning
New Brain Connections Form Rapidly During Motor Learning
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009) — New connections begin to form between brain cells almost immediately as animals learn a new task
Out of Africa scenarios and Sahara
Greening of Sahara Desert Triggered Early Human Migrations out of Africa
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009) — A team of scientists from the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the University of Bremen (Germany) has determined that a major change in the climate of the Sahara and Sahel region of North Africa facilitated early human migrations from the African continent. The team’s findings will be published online in the Nov. 9th installment of Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. Among the key findings are that the Sahara desert and the Sahel were considerably wetter around 9,000, 50,000 and 120,000 years ago than at present, allowing for the growth of trees instead of grasses.
People’s summit
Published on Monday, November 30, 2009 by The Independent/UK
Countdown to Copenhagen: The ‘People’s Summit’
Seven days to go: It’s not just world leaders who will be gathering in Denmark next week. Environmental activists will be there too
War president
Published on Monday, November 30, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore
by Michael Moore
Dear President Obama,
Do you really want to be the new “war president”?
Pseudo-news
Published on Monday, November 30, 2009 by TruthDig.com
Addicted to Nonsense
by Chris Hedges
Obama’s war
A “Necessary War” — for a Gas Pipeline
It’s Obama’s War Now
By GARY LEUPP
There are now at present some 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 allied forces occupying Afghanistan, in league with the Northern Alliance warlords and the corrupt and feeble Karzai regime in Kabul. President Obama clearly wishes to increase the figure and will announce before an audience of West Point cadets Tuesday that he will add over 30,000 more while pushing the Europeans to add 10,000. This will bring the total number of occupation forces to around the level of the Soviet deployment at its peak in the 1980s.
The Soviets were trying to protect the secular government in Afghanistan and to discourage Islamic fundamentalism, a potential threat to the neighboring Soviet Central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan. What is Obama trying to do?
Minimalist bacterium
gnxp
First “blueprint” of a minimalist bacterium show it is not so simple after all – challenging textbook accounts of the way genes work together
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18206-simple-bacterium-shows-surprising-complexity.html
Green plastic?
gnxp
A genetically engineered bacterium makes a greener plastic
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14960045&fsrc=rss
Risks of surgery for mental ills
gnxp
Hundreds have undergone brain surgery for problems like depression, anxiety, even obesity
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/health/research/27brain.html
Map of fundamental brain receptor
gnxp
Map of fundamental brain receptor opens doors to treatments
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091129/full/news.2009.1114.html
Vegetarianism catching on
10 Signs Vegetarianism Is Catching OnBy Kathy Freston, AlterNet. Posted November 30, 2009.
Martha Stewart promotes a vegetarian Thanksgiving? Recently, much attention has been lavished on the horrors of factory farming and the advantages of a meatless diet.
Free markets myths destroy the economy
How Free-Market Delusions Destroyed the Economy
By Raj Patel, Picador Press. Posted November 30, 2009.
The worship of free markets set off the economic meltdown.