01.28.11
Posted in Evolution at 1:03 pm by nemo
Mass Extinction Linked to Ancient Climate Change, New Details RevealScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2011) — About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history — the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has discovered new details supporting the idea that the mass extinction was linked to a cooling climate.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:02 pm by nemo
Modern Humans Reached Arabia Earlier Than Thought, New Artifacts Suggest
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2011) — Artifacts unearthed in the United Arab Emirates date back 100,000 years and imply that modern humans first left Africa much earlier than researchers had expected, a new study reports. In light of their excavation, an international team of researchers led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany suggests that humans could have arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as early as 125,000 years ago — directly from Africa rather than via the Nile Valley or the Near East, as researchers have suggested in the past.
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Posted in General at 1:01 pm by nemo
Potential ‘Cure’ for Type 1 Diabetes?ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2011) — Type 1 diabetes could be converted to an asymptomatic, non-insulin-dependent disorder by eliminating the actions of a specific hormone, new findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers suggest.
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Posted in General at 12:57 pm by nemo
Enumerated Rights are Hanging by a Thread
The Dissolving Constitution
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01282011.html
While people in Tunisia and Egypt have taken to the streets in attempts to gain their liberty, Americans are losing their liberty with minimal protest. Even the American Civil Liberties Union seems unfocused. At a time when we are being surrounded by a police state and the federal judiciary is being taken over by the Federalist Society and unitary executive theory that places the president above the law, we need a heightened appreciation of civil liberty and the Constitution on the part of the American people. The American people need to come together and to take a united stand against the police state and unaccountable executive branch power.
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Posted in General at 12:56 pm by nemo
Counterpunch Weekend Edition
January 28 – 30, 2011
Escalating Reaganomics
Inside Obamanomics
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in In the News at 12:54 pm by nemo
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/28/liveblog-egypts-protests-erupt
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:50 pm by nemo
Robert C. Koehler: The National Empathy Divide
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4212?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=32
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:49 pm by nemo
Amira Nowaira: Egypt’s Day of Rage Goes On. Is the World Watching?
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4209?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=26
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:49 pm by nemo
Dedrick Muhammad and Chuck Collins: New Hope for Bridging America’s Economic Divide
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4207?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=22
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:48 pm by nemo
Al Jazeera Interview with US State Department Exposes US Hypocrisy on ‘Democracy’
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4204?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=16
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:47 pm by nemo
Financial Crisis Inquiry Panel Blames Greenspan, Wall Street, Says Crisis Was ‘Avoidable’
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4202?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=12
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:46 pm by nemo
Chemical Dispersants Used by BP Linger in Deep Sea Plume
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4200?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=8
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:45 pm by nemo
Revolution Spreads as Thousands of Yemenis Urge President to Quit
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4199?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=6
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:44 pm by nemo
123 US Lawmakers Support Polluters Over Health of Children
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4198?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=4
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:44 pm by nemo
Centrism Wins! Media Marvel at Obama’s Move to the Right
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4197?akid=358.96588.y3dGy1&t=2
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:43 pm by nemo
RG mail
Why Military Spending is Untouchable
By ANDREW BACEVICH
In defense circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again become a
topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse that talk with
reality. Any cuts exacted will at most reduce the rate of growth. The
essential facts remain: U.S. military outlays today equal that of every
other nation on the planet combined, a situation without precedent in
modern history. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:39 pm by nemo
RG mail
by Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate (January 19 2011)
In 1995, I published a book called The World After Communism. Today, I
wonder whether there will be a world after capitalism.
That question is not prompted by the worst economic slump since the 1930s.
Capitalism has always had crises, and will go on having them. Rather, it
comes from the feeling that Western civilization is increasingly
unsatisfying, saddled with a system of incentives that are essential for
accumulating wealth, but that undermine our capacity to enjoy it.
Capitalism may be close to exhausting its potential to create a better
life – at least in the world’s rich countries.
By “better”, I mean better ethically, not materially. Material gains may
continue, though evidence shows that they no longer make people happier.
My discontent is with the quality of a civilization in which the
production and consumption of unnecessary goods has become most people’s
main occupation.
This is not to denigrate capitalism. It was, and is, a superb system for
overcoming scarcity. By organising production efficiently, and directing
it to the pursuit of welfare rather than power, it has lifted a large part
of the world out of poverty.
Yet what happens to such a system when scarcity has been turned to plenty?
Does it just go on producing more of the same, stimulating jaded appetites
with new gadgets, thrills, and excitements? How much longer can this
continue? Do we spend the next century wallowing in triviality?
For most of the last century, the alternative to capitalism was socialism.
But socialism, in its classical form, failed – as it had to. Public
production is inferior to private production for any number of reasons,
not least because it destroys choice and variety. And, since the collapse
of communism, there has been no coherent alternative to capitalism. Beyond
capitalism, it seems, stretches a vista of … capitalism.
There have always been huge moral questions about capitalism, which could
be put to one side because capitalism was so successful at generating
wealth. Now, when we already have all the wealth we need, we are right to
wonder whether the costs of capitalism are worth incurring.
Adam Smith, for example, recognized that the division of labor would make
people dumber by robbing them of non-specialized skills. Yet he thought
that this was a price – possibly compensated by education – worth paying,
since the widening of the market increased the growth of wealth. This made
him a fervent free trader.
Today’s apostles of free trade argue the case in much the same way as Adam
Smith, ignoring the fact that wealth has expanded enormously since Smith’s
day. They typically admit that free trade costs jobs, but claim that
re-training programs will fit workers into new, “higher value” jobs. This
amounts to saying that even though rich countries (or regions) no longer
need the benefits of free trade, they must continue to suffer its costs.
Defenders of the current system reply: we leave such choices to
individuals to make for themselves. If people want to step off the
conveyor belt, they are free to do so. And increasing numbers do, in fact,
“drop out”. Democracy, too, means the freedom to vote capitalism out of
office.
This answer is powerful but naive. People do not form their preferences in
isolation. Their choices are framed by their societies’ dominant culture.
Is it really supposed that constant pressure to consume has no effect on
preferences? We ban pornography and restrict violence on TV, believing
that they affect people negatively, yet we should believe that
unrestricted advertising of consumer goods affects only the distribution
of demand, but not the total?
Capitalism’s defenders sometimes argue that the spirit of acquisitiveness
is so deeply ingrained in human nature that nothing can dislodge it. But
human nature is a bundle of conflicting passions and possibilities. It has
always been the function of culture (including religion) to encourage some
and limit the expression of others.
Indeed, the “spirit of capitalism” entered human affairs rather late in
history. Before then, markets for buying and selling were hedged with
legal and moral restrictions. A person who devoted his life to making
money was not regarded as a good role model. Greed, avarice, and envy were
among the deadly sins. Usury (making money from money) was an offense
against God.
It was only in the eighteenth century that greed became morally
respectable. It was now considered healthily Promethean to turn wealth
into money and put it to work to make more money, because by doing this
one was benefiting humanity.
This inspired the American way of life, where money always talks. The end
of capitalism means simply the end of the urge to listen to it. People
would start to enjoy what they have, instead of always wanting more. One
can imagine a society of private wealth holders, whose main object is to
lead good lives, not to turn their wealth into “capital”.
Financial services would shrink, because the rich would not always want to
become richer. As more and more people find themselves with enough, one
might expect the spirit of gain to lose its social approbation. Capitalism
would have done its work, and the profit motive would resume its place in
the rogues’ gallery.
The dishonoring of greed is likely only in those countries whose citizens
already have more than they need. And even there, many people still have
less than they need. The evidence suggests that economies would be more
stable and citizens happier if wealth and income were more evenly
distributed. The economic justification for large income inequalities -
the need to stimulate people to be more productive – collapses when growth
ceases to be so important.
Perhaps socialism was not an alternative to capitalism, but its heir. It
will inherit the earth not by dispossessing the rich of their property,
but by providing motives and incentives for behavior that are unconnected
with the further accumulation of wealth.
http://www.skidelskyr.com/site/article/life-after-capitalism/
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:37 pm by nemo
RG mail
Per: irc://irc.anonops.ru/opTunisia or irc://irc.anonops.ru/ #opTunisia
text messages are off as well. There is NO
communication in egypt beyond phonelines that are gradually getting cut
“The news of the Internet outage came minutes after the Associated Press
published a video of an Egyptian protestor being shot.”
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01.27.11
Posted in General at 12:57 pm by nemo
Random Evolution: Climbing Mt. Improbable
Dawkins confusion over random evolution started out as his muddle, soon turning into the confusion of a whole generation of students, thence turning into a clear deception, as his mistakes were pointed out, but then not corrected.
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 12:55 pm by nemo
Econostream != Eonic Sequence: Shouting back at capitalism propaganda, and its ideology of market exploitation.
The success of the right in the ideology of markets game is often hard to understand: it succeeds even in making the exploited revolt against those trying to help, as with the Tea Partiers.
But more than anything the hyped up versions of capitalist ideology seem to leave even the left paralyzed.
Actually, if you look closely even Marx and Engels couldn’t get it straight.
The issue in the post linked above shows the broad outlines of the issue: the dynamics of history (if any) and the question of markets are entirely different.
The question of markets is simple: if they exploit, the exploited have the right to dismanatle them, or make them less exploitative.
The constant hype over the inevitability of markets as natural systems is totally false. They are rigged economic artifices designed to serve the interests of capitalists are criminal enterprises run by the gangster class of Wall Street types, et al.
To repeat the obvious: market systems that exploit are criminal enterprises.
These can be easily made to run right with social democracy, or abolished altogether on the way to socialism.
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Posted in General at 12:46 pm by nemo
New Ages
Discussion today over at The Gurdjieff Con of the braindead New Age astrological ideas of epochs.
The reality of historical division into intervals, whatever its basis, solves the problem on an empirical basis, making modernity the true successor to the Axial Age.
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Posted in General at 12:36 pm by nemo
Europe’s Promise, a review
The current whacko right in this country is hard to understand: an intelligent conservatism created the social democracies of Europe (not the same as socialism), but the Amerian right is intent on a kind of Nietzschean nihilism that wishes to sabotage the whole democratic framework.
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Posted in General at 12:02 pm by nemo
New Book Shows How Evolution’s Co-Discoverer Rejected Darwinism, Embraced Intelligent Design
This is going to be unfair to Wallace. This perspective fails to consider that ID comes in a thousand versions, of which the Discovery brand is one of the most treacherous, with its Christian/rightwing framework.
These people wish to make their brand look like science, and then claim that Wallace agrees with them.
Wallace’s views were very nuanced, and never resembled anything produced by the Discovery group.
One of the best brands of non-ID would an an theist, leftist deisgn argument that sees history’s deep structure. Marxism was actually accused of this, once.
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Posted in General at 11:54 am by nemo
A clockwork revolution
By STEVE ZARA
Added: Wednesday, 26 January 2011 at 8:14 AM
http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/584373-a-clockwork-revolution
This article amusingly wonders why scientists can’t win the mind-reduction debate!
Granting the nonsense that arises here, the fact remains that mind problem doesn’t reduce so far to materialism. That simple.
There have been long and fruitful discussions about the nature of mind and consciousness on RichardDawkins.net. I will try here to express the nature of the problem of mind, and the consequences of the discoveries of science in this area.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 11:47 am by nemo
The new shape of the debate
Posted on Jan 26, 2011 | by R. Albert Mohler Jr.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–The debate over Darwinism rages on, with almost every week bringing a new salvo in the great controversy. The reason for this is simple and straightforward — naturalistic evolution is the great intellectual rival to Christianity in the Western world. It is the creation myth of the secular elites and their intellectual weapon of choice in public debate.
Read the rest of this entry »
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