History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
Drifting Fish Larvae Allow Marine Reserves to Rebuild FisheriesScienceDaily (Dec. 26, 2010) — Marine ecologists at Oregon State University have shown for the first time that tiny fish larvae can drift with ocean currents and “re-seed” fish stocks significant distances away — more than 100 miles in a new study from Hawaii.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/science/earth/25fossil.html?_r=1&ref=science
12.24.10 – 11:22 AM
Much to Confess
by Abby Zimet
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/12/24-0
A Shameful Thought for the Day
by Richard Dawkins
Published on Sunday, December 26, 2010 by Al-Jazeera-English
An Education in Conflict In conflict-affected states, children are being left behind by state and private schooling networks.
by Asad Hashim
Published on Sunday, December 26, 2010 by Empire with Marwan Bishara on Al-Jazeera
Hollywood and the War Machine Empire examines the symbiotic relationship between the movie industry and the military-industrial complex.
War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public.
Published on Saturday, December 25, 2010 by Reuters
Fading Optimism in “New Normal” America
by Bernd Debusmann
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/25
Optimism is so deeply embedded in the American national psyche that it withstood the Great Depression in the 1930s and a string of recessions since then. But in the era some economists call “the new normal” in America, optimism is fading.
Published on Sunday, December 26, 2010 by The Boston Globe
From the Pentagon to the Private Sector
In large numbers, and with few rules, retiring generals are taking lucrative defense-firm jobs
by Bryan Bender
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/26
WASHINGTON – An hour after the official ceremony marking the end of his 35-year career in the Air Force, General Gregory “Speedy” Martin returned to his quarters to swap his dress uniform for golf attire. He was ready for his first tee time as a retired four-star general.
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Johan Galtung interviewed
by Amy Goodman
democracynow.org (June 07 2010)
The amount of money the United States has spent on wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq surpassed the $1 trillion mark last week, according to the National
Priorities Project Cost of War counter. To date, over $747 billion has
been appropriated for the war in Iraq and $299 billion for the war in
Afghanistan. The US is spending over $136 billion on the wars this year.
I’m joined now by Johan Galtung, who has spent the past half-century
pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. He’s
known as a founder of the field of peace and conflict studies. He has
spent the past half-century pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in
international relations. His latest book is called The Fall of the US
Empire (2009), in which he predicts the collapse of the American empire in
ten years, by 2020.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/7/johan_galtung_on_the_fall_of
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Republic vs Empire
Johan Galtung interviewed on the War in Afghanistan and How to Get Out
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now! (June 15 2010)
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to part two of my interview with Johan Galtung. Known
as the founder of peace studies, he spent the past half-century pursuing
nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. His latest book
is The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What?: Successors, Regionalization
or Globalization? US Fascism or US Blossoming? (2009)
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/15/i_love_the_us_republic_and
Tea and Antipathy
Did principle or pragmatism start the American Revolution?
American Revolution;
Tea Party;
“As If an Enemy’s Country” (Oxford; $24.95);
Richard Archer;
“American Insurgents, American Patriots” (Hill & Wang; $27);
T. H. Breen;
“Defiance of the Patriots” (Yale; $30)
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/12/20/101220crbo_books_crain#ixzz198xLooHL
The most remarkable thing about evolution is that science has not yet truly discovered what evolution is. World history provides us with a set of clues to its massive complexity, its continued action in the emergence of civilization, and its meta-genetic character.
Roast Dinosaur at Christmas By STEVE ZARA
Added: Friday, 24 December 2010 at 5:38 PM
http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/568586-roast-dinosaur-at-christmas
I was shopping in a local Morrisons when the label on a packet of frozen food caught my eye: “Turkey dinosaurs”. They are some vague pulp of turkey made into dinosaur shapes so as to appeal to children. A bit of fun.
It is good taxonomy though? From what we know of birds, it seems a tautology, because as far as most experts are concerned, birds aren’t descended from dinosaurs, birds are dinosaurs. Specifically, therapod dinosaurs. Even more specifically, birds are coelurosaurs, a group which includes Tyrannosaurs.
This gives a new perspective to the mass extinction of 65 million years ago. The object (asteroid or comet) that hit the Earth has been mis-named as the Dinosaur Killer. One of its main effects seems to be to wipe out most of the larger species. Animals which could burrow, or swim, or were in very large numbers seem to have been the survivors of the extinction event. Those animal species included small dinosaurs.
Millions of years later large dinosaurs re-appeared, such as Gastornis – up to two metres tall, and with a savage beak that may indicate that it was a predator. Other dinosaurs continued evolving and spreading into all kinds of niches.
Perhaps “bird” is an arbitrary label for post-extinction dinosaurs. What we do know is that dinosaurs remain a fantastically successful group of animals. They are the great flyers, and migrators. They can even live in vast numbers on lands that few mammals can deal with (think of penguins).
Some dinosaurs show considerable intelligence (the corvids). Another dinosaur can come close to speech (parrots). One dinosaur is a symbol of peace (the dove), another of summer (the swallow).
For 230 million years dinosaurs have been a dominant form of life on our planet, and there is no sign of an end to the dominance.
So now we eat dinosaur flesh shaped into dinosaur shapes to entice children.
At a time of year when millions will be cooking and eating the traditional meal of roast dinosaur, I’ll wish you all a very happy Christmas!
Published on Saturday, December 25, 2010 by Associated Press
Tax Cut Bill Signed By Obama Packed With Obscure Stocking Stuffers For Businesses
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/25-1
How to Delay Christmas Tree Needle LossScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2010) — Researchers at Université Laval, in collaboration with Nova Scotia Agricultural College, have discovered what causes Christmas tree needles to drop off, and how to double the lifespan of Christmas trees in homes. The authors presented their findings in a recent issue of the scientific journal Trees.
Preplay: How Past Experiences Subconsciously Influence BehaviorScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2010) — Researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report for the first time how animals’ knowledge obtained through past experiences can subconsciously influence their behavior in new situations.
Published on Friday, December 24, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
‘Twas the Night Before 2010 Christmas in America
by Donna Smith
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/24
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the nation,
Not a creature had true healthcare, except the richest in station.
The wealthy were planning, all smug and all flush,
For the days of their future, and their settings most plush.
Other children of poor folks were weary of hearing the fights.
No sugar plum fairies in poor neighborhoods tonight,
Dad in his sweatshirt, and I in my cap,
Had just checked the bank balance and prepared for a nap.
When out in the yard there arose such a clatter,
We wondered aloud if our efforts would matter.
I jumped from the bed to see what the noise was,
And I silently prayed Christmas hopes would not shatter.
But nothing I asked would change the dim truth,
Not even the fresh snow, on the weather-worn roof.
No healthcare, no income, no hope to save the house,
No lay-away Santa, no holiday open house.
Published on Saturday, December 25, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
And What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Gaza?
Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People
by Vincent Di Stefano
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/25-1
Published on Saturday, December 25, 2010 by The Capital Times (Wisconsin)
A Christmas Carol of Conservatives and Liberals
by John Nichols
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/25-3
Charles Dickens would find these times rather too familiar for comfort. In seeking to awaken a spirit of charity in his countrymen, the author called attention to those who callously dismissed the poor as a burden and the unemployed as a lazy lot best forced by hunger to grab at bootstraps and pull themselves upward.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-return-of-fascism-by-boris-kagarlitsky
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http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/136564-wikileaks-to-release-israel-documents-in-six-months.html
The Peninsula
(Qatar)
Thursday, 23 December 2010 WikiLeaks to release Israel documents in six
months
DOHA: WikiLeaks will release top secret American files concerning Israel in
the next six months, its founder Julian Assange disclosed yesterday.
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http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/eisenhowers-lament/
Eisenhower’s Lament
by Christopher Preble
Spurred on by a new release of documents from the
archives
the
past few weeks have witnessed a renewed interest in the military-industrial
complex (MIC), the term forever associated with Dwight David Eisenhower.
Or, at least, that *should* be the case. Eisenhower – the West Point
graduate, career military officer, and hero of World War II – was one of the
first to ever use the phrase, in a televised Farewell Address to the
nation
January 17, 1961. Over the years, however, the MIC has become a
mantra for progressives and left liberals, usually used in tandem with an
assault on private enterprise, writ large, or as part of an elaborate
conspiracy theory that equates crony capitalism with market economics. The
left’s capture of the term has enabled too many on the right to dismiss it
out of hand.
That is unfortunate. Dwight David Eisenhower was no liberal; far from it.
And though the neoconservatives have attempted to expunge Ike from our
collective memory, it is appropriate that his legacy is enjoying yet another
revival
what it’s worth, I’ll be doing my small part, at a half-day conference next
month
offer a perspective on the military-industrial complex that might appeal to
devotees of limited, constitutional government.
This work will focus not just on Ike’s farewell address, but also on one of
his first public addresses, the Chance for Peace
Speech
delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April 1953.
Taken together, the speeches highlight two of Eisenhower’s enduring
concerns: opportunity costs, money spent on the military cannot be spent
elsewhere; and the political and social costs of the United States becoming
a garrison state, the creation of a permanent armaments industry, Ike
feared, had already precipitated major changes in the nation’s economy, and
threatened to change the nation itself.
Speaking in January 1961, during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War,
Eisenhower viewed the MIC as a necessary evil. He viewed the threat posed by
the Soviet Union and its sometime communist allies as sufficient
justification for maintaining a large standing army, and a vast and
technologically advanced Air Force and Navy. He also presided over a
dramatic expansion of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, and realized (belatedly)
that he had far too little control over those weapons and the men tasked
with using them.
But I suspect that the permanence of the MIC would be most disturbing to
President Eisenhower, were he with us now. Twenty years after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, Americans today spend more on the military than at any
time since World War II, and more than twice as much — in inflation-adjusted
dollars — than when Ike left office. The general-president clearly failed
to convince his fellow Americans of the need to limit the military’s growth.
For all practical purposes, the MIC won.
Here’s hoping that many Americans will rediscover Eisenhower, and take heed
of his warning, starting in 2011. They could start by supporting
efforts to refocus
our military on a few core objectives and reduce the Pentagon’s
budget
The Raw Story (December 17 2010)
US empire could collapse at any time …
America’s military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but
predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is
unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who
spoke with Raw Story.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/untitled-chris-hedges-interview/
When the 2001 census-takers descended upon London, Ont., they found 83,680 people who described their religious beliefs as agnostic, atheist, humanist, non-existent or some “other response” such as “Darwinism.” (The census didn’t specify the number of smart-asses.) Assuming the numbers hold nearly a decade later, that makes roughly one in five Londoners pretty much godless. They outnumber Muslims by a factor of seven, Jews by a factor of 45. They’re everywhere, these people.
And they’re miserable. Or so Ian Hunter, professor emeritus at London’s University of Western Ontario, seems to think. “By and large,” he wrote in Tuesday’s National Post, “the appeal of agnosticism … is that it gives the illusion of a safe harbour in a roiling sea when, in fact, it … leaves the voyager without a compass (for Christians, the Bible); without a guide (for Christians, Jesus Christ); without a destination (for Christians, heaven); and without a hope (for Christians, resurrection).”
Blimey. If that’s the agnostics, imagine the despair of the atheists!
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Agnostic+doing+just+fine/4022161/story.html#ixzz193VimDvF
Pterygotid Sea Scorpions: No Terror of the Ancient Seas?ScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2010) — Experiments by a team of researchers in New York and New Jersey have generated evidence that questions the common belief that the pterygotid eurypterids (“sea scorpions”) were high-level predators in the Paleozoic oceans. This group, which ranged the seas from about 470 to 370 million years ago (long before the dinosaurs appeared), included the largest and, arguably, scariest-looking arthropods known to have evolved on planet Earth.
Growing Hypoxic Zones Reduce Habitat for Billfish and TunaScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2010) — Billfish and tuna, important commercial and recreational fish species, may be more vulnerable to fishing pressure because of shrinking habitat, according to a new study published by scientists from NOAA, The Billfish Foundation, and University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
Placebos Work — Even Without DeceptionScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2010) — For most of us, the “placebo effect” is synonymous with the power of positive thinking; it works because you believe you’re taking a real drug. But a new study rattles this assumption.
As the Arctic Ocean Melts,
A Refuge Plan for the Polar BearWith the Arctic Ocean heading toward a largely ice-free state in summer, scientists are looking for areas that may help preserve ice-dependent creatures. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, geologist Stephanie Pfirman talks about the need for a refuge north of Canada and Greenland that researchers say could be a kind of Noah’s Ark in the age of global warming.
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