LinkedIn is hoping to let its users tap into their professional network across the Web.

On Monday, LinkedIn will make its technology available to software developers who want to use it in their own sites and applications. By incorporating information about someone’s professional profile and connections, LinkedIn can make those sites more useful, said Adam Nash, LinkedIn’s vice president of search and platform products.

Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s chief executive, has said he wants the site to be the hub of all conversations about business on the Web. LinkedIn’s recent partnership with Twitter was one step in that direction, and this is another. As more businesses use Web-based applications for professional communication, LinkedIn wants to be there, Mr. Nash said.

A few developers have already been experimenting with LinkedIn’s new platform. Microsoft is integrating LinkedIn into its 2010 version of Outlook e-mail. TweetDeck, the Web-based Twitter application, will let people do things like view other Twitter users’ LinkedIn profiles and post and reply to LinkedIn updates from TweetDeck.

LinkedIn has let some companies build applications on its Web site. Amazon.com, for example, shows LinkedIn users which books others in their professional network are reading and lets users post a list of recommended books.

LinkedIn has also let some developers create applications for other Web sites using its technology on a case-by-case basis. Xobni, the Outlook e-mail plug-in, pulls photos and titles from LinkedIn, for example. The New York Times Web site offers readers who are also LinkedIn members a list of articles that pertain to their industry.

“We tried to use each of those partnerships to figure out, where can LinkedIn add the most value to how you use business applications?” Mr. Nash said. “What we see happening is an increasing demand for business applications, and we think that LinkedIn uniquely has the right quality of content.”

I have been trying to think of a good subject for this week – one that isn’t too dire and downbeat – while we in the United States are in the midst of our national feast called Thanksgiving.   We’re living in a country where I can get a free range turkey with all the bells and whistles – or soybeans from Texas, the best orange marmelade from Scotland or fresh raspberries from Chile.  This abundance comes at a cost -  it is estimated that if United States’ consumption rates were mimicked by the entire human population,  it would take the resources of 5.3 Earths.(1)  It is this abundance that allows us to ignore what is happening in the rest of the world.  Doesn’t have a direct bearing on textiles, but the long term implications are there.

An inescapable fact in most of the developing world – and largely unnoticed in the United States except in slightly higher food prices -  is that in the past couple of years, food prices have soared.  Between the mid-1970’s and 2005,  grain supplies rose and prices fell by about a half, leading “many experts to believe that there was no limit to humanity’s capacity to feed itself.” (2)  But then in 2006, the situation reversed:  food prices rose slightly that year, then increased by about a quarter in 2007, and finally skyrocketed in 2008.  Between 2006 and 2008, average world prices for rice rose by 217%, wheat by 136% and corn by 125% (3)  These rising prices meant that many people could not afford food – and  this led to riots  in 15 countries around the world in 2008.  Countries that could produce enough food for export worried about feeding their own populations, and placed restrictions on exports.  This became a serious problem for countries which were not fully self sufficient in food production.

Susan Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, said that by 2020 they think there could be genuine food shortages in the world.   During a talk on Africa’s agricultural potential, she showed a series of slides citing chilling statistics:

• grain stocks worldwide are at their lowest levels in 60 years
• global warming is turning arable land into desert
• freshwater is dwindling and China is draining its reserves
• and the really big problem:  the world’s population is growing by 80,000,000 hungry people each year.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that in order to feed the world’s projected population in 2050, we need to increase the amount of cereals in the world’s food supply to an amount equal to the total production of Australia in 2008.

Indeed, the food crisis of 2008 has put the spotlight on a new area of business potential, where the payoff could be immense: the area of agricultural investment and the newly lucrative world of food trade.  Financial firms like Goldman Sachs and BlackRock have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in overseas agricultural projects.   Africa is the focus of their interest because in Africa land and labor come so cheaply that the risks are assumed to be worthwhile.  As a example, an Ethiopian farmer’s  yields for their wheat crops  are only about a third as much per acre as their counterparts in other parts of the world.  But with the addition of advanced implements, and improved seeds and fertilizer, these yields can be doubled.  Ethiopia, like all of Africa, is full of such opportunities.

Andrew Rice wrote an article in the November 22 New York Times Magazine in which he describes what some of the wealthy nations are doing to ensure a food supply for their people.

The nations of the Persian Gulf already import 60% of their food, and Saudi Arabia plans to phase out wheat production by 2016 in order to maintain its supply of underground freshwater.  Instead of relying on technology to increase their capacity for growing food  (along the lines of the Green Revolution of the 1960s),  these countries feel that they must control the means of production.  They want land.

The Saudi Arabian government and individual Saudi bankers and executives have said they intend to spend billions of dollars to establish plantations to produce rice and other staple crops in Africa, in nations like Mali, Senegal,  Sudan and Ethopia.  A newly formed company, Saudi Star Agricultural Development, announced it’s plans to “obtain the rights” to more than a million acres – that’s about the size of Delaware – in Ethiopia.  And in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia, farms are already growing fruits and vegetables for export to the Persian Gulf.(4)

This raises the question:  what about the people who live in Mali, Senegal, Sudan and Ethopia?  Do they benefit from these investments?  Am I the only one who thinks this spells trouble?

(1) New Economics Foundation, http://www.naturalnews.com/022890.html

(2) Rice, Andrew, “Agro-Imperialism”, New York Times Magazine, November 22, 2009

(3)  “Cyclone fuels rice price increase”, BBC News, May 7, 2008

(4) Rice, op.cit.

What the market "wanted" during the "first many decades" of the nation's history.

I would file this entry under the heading: “Bad Prose: Platitudes and Simplification.” For today, pundit David Brooks writes as follows: “During the first many decades of this nation’s existence, the United States was a wide-open, dynamic country with a rapidly expanding economy. It was also a country that tolerated a large amount of cruelty and pain—poor people living in misery, workers suffering from exploitation.”

Now, I want to suppose our man Brooks an educated man, even though he sat at the foot of W.F. Buckley. But in its “first many decades,” the U.S. “tolerated” not merely “misery” and “exploitation” of labor, but hereditary bond-slavery. Perhaps Mr. Brooks thinks slavery falls under the general heading of “workers suffering from exploitation.” But if he does, he has never read an honest account of the development of wealth in the “first many decades” of this nation’s existence. In 1860, one commodity alone accounted for 53% of revenues derived from exports: cotton. Which cotton, of course, was cultivated by laborers numbering in the millions (slaves), who were beaten, murdered, sold off, and raped with perfect impunity. Add to the revenues from cotton those from rice, sugar, and tobacco (all grown with slave labor) and you begin to get a clearer picture than the one our man Brooks would paint. And what did it take to resolve that problem of this peculiar form of “worker exploitation”? More than 600,000 dead in a Civil War. And then, after the Reconstruction was destroyed by white-supremacists, many more thousands dead black folk during the nations “many decades” of lynching terror. And then, finally, in 1964-65, America began to have a right to call itself a democracy.

Has David Brooks every opened a book by Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, or James Baldwin? Or by James McPherson? or by George Frederickson? Or by Winthrop Jordan? Or by Philip Dray? Or Rayford Logan? If he has, it availed him nothing.

David Brooks, pundit.

Next our man Brooks writes: “The unregulated market wants to direct capital to the productive and the young. Welfare policies usually direct resources to the vulnerable and the elderly. Most social welfare legislation, even successful legislation, siphons money from the former to the latter.”

Now, insofar as an abstraction like “the unregulated market” can “want” to do something, it “wants” to find the cheapest labor and resources and the least regulation it possibly can. So, it “siphons” capital from U.S. labor markets to China, Mexico, Indonesia, and so on.

I suggest that Mr. Brooks visit Detroit, unescorted, and that he ask the impoverished people there what the market seems to “want.” I suggest that he visit Iowa to see what the market “wants” “Agri-business” (so-called) to do there in its unholy name: turn an entire state into a cornfield to produce not food, but raw materials for industrial production of chemicals that are then fabricated into “food”; and to use not the sun to grow that corn, but “fertilizers” derived from the energy of the sun as stored billions of years ago in petroleum. What the market “wants” in Iowa, if we are to know it by its fruits, as the Bible hath it, is this: depopulation & destruction of communities; one of the largest underground economies of methamphetamine in the U.S.; wash-out pollution into the rivers that winds up in the Gulf, where the “market” has apparently decided that it “wants” a dead-zone the size of thirty or forty counties. As Milton puts it in “Comus“:

“If every just man, that now pines with want,
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pamper’d luxury
Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
Nature’s full blessings would be well dispensed
In un-superfluous even proportion,
And she no whit incumber’d with her store;
And then the giver would be better thank’d,
His praise due paid; for swinish gluttony
Ne’er looks to heav’n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.
Shall I go on? Or have I said enough?”

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php

On Sep 29, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Michael Mann wrote:

Hi Andy,
I’m fairly certain Keith is out of contact right now recovering from an operation, and is
not in a position to respond to these attacks. However, the preliminary information I have
from others familiar with these data is that the attacks are bogus.
It is unclear that this particular series was used in any of our reconstructions (some of
the underlying chronologies may be the same, but I’m fairly certain the versions of these
data we have used are based on a different composite and standardization method), let alone
any of the dozen other reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature shown in the
most recent IPCC report, which come to the conclusion that recent warming is anomalous in a
long-term context.
So, even if there were a problem w/ these data, it wouldn’t matter as far as the key
conclusions regarding past warmth are concerned. But I don’t think there is any problem
with these data, rather it appears that McIntyre has greatly distorted the actual
information content of these data. It will take folks a few days to get to the bottom of
this, in Keith’s absence.
if McIntyre had a legitimate point, he would submit a comment to the journal in question.
of course, the last time he tried that (w/ our ‘98 article in Nature), his comment was
rejected. For all of the noise and bluster about the Steig et al Antarctic warming, its now
nearing a year and nothing has been submitted. So more likely he won’t submit for
peer-reviewed scrutiny, or if it does get his criticism “published” it will be in the
discredited contrarian home journal “Energy and Environment”. I’m sure you are aware that
McIntyre and his ilk realize they no longer need to get their crap published in legitimate
journals. All they have to do is put it up on their blog, and the contrarian noise machine
kicks into gear, pretty soon Druge, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk (in this case,
The Telegraph were already on it this morning) are parroting the claims. And based on what?
some guy w/ no credentials, dubious connections with the energy industry, and who hasn’t
submitted his claims to the scrutiny of peer review.
Fortunately, the prestige press doesn’t fall for this sort of stuff, right?
mike

I’m sure you’re aware that you will dozens of bogus, manufactured distortions of the
science in the weeks leading up to the vote on cap & trade in the U.S. senate. This is no
On Sep 29, 2009, at 4:30 PM, Andrew Revkin wrote:

needless to say, seems the 2008 pnas paper showing that without tree rings still solid
picture of unusual recent warmth, but McIntyre is getting wide play for his statements
about Yamal data-set selectivity.
Has he communicated directly to you on this and/or is there any indication he’s seeking
journal publication for his deconstruct?
–
Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times / Environment
620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018
Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556
Fax: 509-357-0965
[2]http://www.nytimes.com/revkin

–
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075
503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663
The Pennsylvania State University email: [3]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16802-5013
website: [4]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
“Dire Predictions” book site:
[5]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Since I’m going to be seriously MIA this week (Happy Thanksgiving everyone!), I’ll just share a list of my favorite sites to get green news/updates/stories/anything from.

1. I could read articles on TreeHugger for days, even though the site is a little over-powering at times.
2. Grist.org calls itself “the beacon in the smog.” LOVE it.
3. Stop Dodo - thank you KL! Green job listings.
4. And on a related note… Green Dream Jobs!
5. Living green at Fairfield U… The Reluctant Environmentalist.
6. Sorry Boston… The New York Times wins hands down for their coverage of environmental topics (extra points for Revkin’s blog Dot Earth).
7. The WHOI Pictures of the Day never cease to take my breath away – for natural beauty or in amazement of the variety of research in one little place. No rhyme intended.
8. I don’t know much about these but they look fun! Environmental Graffiti and Earth Spark International.

You should also check out my friends page to see what else keeps me entertained. See you next week!

Also check out David Cassuto’s thoughts on Gary Steiner’s Sunday op-ed that I wrote about on Sunday. I agree with his thoughts on rigidity.

According to CNN’s American Morning and the NYT, the cheap, cute Zhu Zhu hamster made in China is the “hottest toy” this holiday season. In fact, American parents are scrambling nationwide to get the popular toy for their little ones in time for Christmas. According to the American toymaker’s founder Russell Hornsby, “zhu zhu” denotes “little pig”: However, babynamescountry.com says that the name “Zhu” means “master or owner.”

Perhaps, Zhu Zhu means both “little pig” and “master master.” If so, it would be a propos. I.e., if American consumers continue to be “little pigs” in their purchases of such Chinese imports (vis-a-vis Chinese consumption of U.S. exports) and America continues to borrow money from China at an ungodly rate, China may well become the “master master.” As Solomon sagely said, “[T]he borrower is servant to the lender.” [Proverbs 22:7] This truth is beginning to sink in for the American people as they see values that their leaders had once clarionly championed, e.g., freedom of religion, human rights, etc., get shorter and shorter shrift in American/Chinese dialogue in tandem with the increase in American indebtedness.

However, even if “Zhu Zhu” merely means “little pigs” as a euphemistic moniker for hamsters as it most probably does, it would do well to remember its other possible meanings. Whether it be a Chinese dig or an ironic name, either (or, in fact, both) can be instructive for Americans and their children as they celebrate this special season and plan for another economically challenging year.

The last couple of weeks there has been a huge debate on Eric Holders decision to prosecute the 9/11 conspirators in civilian criminal court instead of a military tribunal. I’m not sure why the decision was made, I believe it probably has more to do with National Security than anything political. I believe in civilian court if things get to close to revealing something of a confidential nature prosecutors can site  “ it’s a matter of National security” to keep things from coming out. If they’re tried in a Military Tribunal which is not a public hearing everything must be put on the table, prosecutors can’t site “a matter of National Security” because theoretically everything that would be in a military tribunal would fall in that category so that can’t be used and tactics or secrets could come out and you know as well as I do even though it’s not a public hearing it doesn’t mean it’s a private one.

But that’s not what gave me the clue that he (Holder) made the right decision. What did it was last night Former Bush Administration Vice President Dickhd Cheney was on some radio show and said Holder was wrong and the Bush Admin. probably wouldn’t have made that decision. They would have PROBABLY tried them in a military tribunal. Well that did it because the Bush admin. DID NOT make one right decision during there two terms in office.

“I resolved at length to enquire whether there existed a true good, one which was capable of communicating itself and could alone affect the mind to the exclusion of all else, whether, in fact, there was something whose discovery and acquisition would afford me a continuous and supreme joy to all eternity” -Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Baruch Spinoza

Perhaps it is not supreme joy that motivates the scientists at CERN, but it is certainly a drive to understand the underpinnings of eternity, a drive which led them to go ahead early with their plans to collide particles, as the New York Times reports. Yesterday, just three days after firing up the long-delayed Large Hadron Collider, physicists geared up the system and collided protons, having produced what they’re calling “candidate collision events.”

The collision, which came in at a fraction of the maximum power the LHC will eventually operate at, was essentially a test to verify the beams that race around the 17-mile-long track would line up correctly. The protons met injection energies of 450 billion electron volts and generated a very pretty picture when they actually collided.

I Know! We Told Them December 3rd! Ha!

CERN hopes to get the system up to 1.2 trillion electron volts by the end of the year and hopes to get up to 3.5 trillion electron volts early in the coming year. Apparently, unsatisfied with these seemingly huge numbers (I am curious how electron volts equate to gigawatts, if it’s anywhere above 1.21, they need to back the fuck down) the scientists will press the machine to produce 7 trillion electron volts (!!!) after shutting the machine down in a year and running repairs and upgrades. Sure, the planet hasn’t been sucked into a black hole, but that doesn’t mean that CERN isn’t trying its damnedest. Cheers.

P.S. Happy birthday, Baruch Spinoza.

Lynn Hirschberg needs to upload more screen tests. The one or two she does every now and then isn’t enough to satisfy my hunger for more stylistic interviews. Whatever it’s just an interview right? I suppose you’re right, but what sets these apart for me is the black and white close-ups with only their responses cut together.

To be honest with you, I’m not a huge fan of Megan Fox. I’m not involved in the Fox hotness craze. I enjoy the likes of Marion Cotillard, Melanie Laurent, Cintia Dicker or better yet, Sonya Sydoryshyn more than Megan Fox. However, I’ve got to admit that she’s pretty enjoyable to watch when she’s not filmed as a super sex vixen ready to sizzle your heart with her pouty lips. My favourite screen tests are still Jospeh Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, Marion Cotillard, and (surprise) Tyra Banks. The designer series featuring Alber Elbaz, Stefano Pilati, and Takashi Murakami are also pretty interesting. If you want to see the entire collection, you can find it here.

The school year in Kenya has now been over for 4 days (we go January to late November/early December).  I have finally had time to get in some perusal of news in education outside of my immediate school and would like to take the following article and opinion letters in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/education/15plans.html?scp=1&sq=lesson%20plans%20online&st=cse

one step further.

In Kenya, many teachers do not write lesson plans in the way Americans are used to doing.  Kenya has schemes of work which is a broad ‘lesson’ if you will, with few details indicating the steps, methodology, etc. of delivering education.  Part of the reason for this is the fact that everyone must use the Kenyan mandated textbooks. The lack of access to other books and materials makes it difficult to teach something that is not in the ‘textbook’.   Since there is no true difference, teachers have a tendency to copy the rough syllabus and direct quotes from the text book, do a few limited elaborations/examples and call it a day.  This then promotes the chalk and talk mentality common in many classrooms. It also increases the likelihood of education not ‘improving’ to the degree that it can from one generation to the next as direct copying from a text is not an effective method of learning.

To add insult to this stupefying lack of depth in  lesson planning, it is also common for teachers to buy whole sets of exams from another school so that teachers can avoid having to construct meaningful exams. Learners  in high schools are graded on two exams – middle of term and end of term, material being cumulative from Form 1 (freshman year) to Form 4 (senior year).   Because there are very few ways to ask the same questions, especially when using memorization, listing and repeating back said copied notes, the bought exams are nothing more than a money making scheme.

I explained to my teachers it would be much more effective to get a cadre of teachers from a variety of schools to craft an exam, deliver it, and have another teacher (not yourself) grade your exam and in exchange you do the same.  This process allows for teachers to develop their skill set, to share information and essentially improve/overhaul the education system.

What I find terribly sad/disturbing about the American purchasing of lesson plans is the lack of effort on the part of teachers to construct a meaningful lesson and improve their skill set in understanding, delivery of ideas to students. No, it is not easy to do lesson planning – it is also not easy to be a neurosurgeon, airline pilot, member of the armed forces or farmer.

The logic which teachers are using for selling lesson plans (not taking a vow of poverty to be a teacher) is merely obscuring the flagrant misuse of capitalism.  It is this same abuse of logic that allows Kenyan teachers to purchase exams.

For the sake of education, I look forward to working with teacher colleagues who are willing to put in the effort, time, energy to improve their craft and create a learning environment in their classroom.  Merely facilitating/ imparting a pre-measured portion of information (standards in the states and syllabus in Kenya) is insufficient to raise up students to the level of being ever inquisitive and applying their knowledge.

I believe the comments American teachers might want to think about would be the implications of being lazy and uncommitted in the face of doing one of the most important jobs in the world- passing on knowledge, culture and improving the conditions of living standards for everyone.  For my Kenyan teachers, it is not necessarily about ease of work as lack of exposure to what actually needs to happen.  Kenya has only had compulsory education for 11 years. It will take somewhere in the vicinity of another 40-90 years to ‘push’ education through the population to make it a force of bringing improvements in Kenya.

If American teachers truly wanted to obtain recognition and achieve something, they would do a stint in Peace Corps and go to a third world country.  Once one sees what happens when people are not educated (by  politics, government, poverty, etc.) and have to survive by ignorance, then they are able to reframe how they look at the SIGNIFICANCE of their career.  Education is not about test score numbers or profits (those are business concepts – see The Black Swan -by N. Taleb), rather it is about improving the human condition.

• The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says 90210 is “succeeding.”
• TVGuideMagazine.com has 90210 casting spoilers.
• The New York Times has an article on the webseries trend, which mentions Jennie Garth (Kelly, Beverly Hills 90210) and The Broadroom.
• I watched Grey’s Anatomy for the first time last night and saw that James Pickens Jr. (Henry, Beverly Hills 90210) is in it.
• Beverly Hills 90210 on DVD made EW.com’s Holiday Gift Guide. (I heard Dawson’s Creek is in there, too, but I can’t find it.)
• Brian Austin Green (David, Beverly Hills 90210), Ed Westwick (Chuck, Gossip Girl) and Jessica Szohr (Vanessa, Gossip Girl) are all included in PEOPLE.com’s Couples Watch.
• PEOPLE.com has an interview with Szohr about her style compared to Vanessa’s.
• Blake Lively (Serena, Gossip Girl) will host Saturday Night Live on December 5.
• Kristen Bell (Gossip Girl, Gossip Girl) was a presenter at the American Music Awards.
• Examiner.com has more on the Sophia Bush (Brooke, One Tree Hill) and Austin Nichols (Julian, One Tree Hill) appearance on a USO Tour.
• James Lafferty (Nathan, One Tree Hill), Robert Buckley (Clay, One Tree Hill) and Eric Balfour (Eddie, The O.C.) are all starring in The Legend of Hell’s Gate: An American Conspiracy.
• There’s an interesting reference to The O.C. in this Huffington Post piece.
• SoapNet will air the two O.C. specials–The O.C.: Obsess Completely and Welcome to The O.C.: A Day in the Life–Tuesday at 1 and 2pm.
• Joshua Jackson (Pacey, Dawson’s Creek) will star in UFO, a film based on a British television show.

Trading Women’s Rights for Political Power
By KATE MICHELMAN and FRANCES KISSLING

A grim reality sits behind the joyful press statements from Washington Democrats. [The health care bill passed. What is so grim?] To secure passage of health care legislation in the House, the party chose a course that risks the well-being of millions of women for generations to come. [Are women not being allowed to have health care coverage or something?]

House Democrats voted to expand the current ban on public financing for abortion and to effectively prohibit women who participate in the proposed health system from obtaining private insurance that covers the full range of reproductive health options. [Actually a woman buying insurance from a company participating in the exchange cannot purchase abortion coverage unless she pays for every penny of it with her own money. Let's not distort what the Stupak amendment actually says.] Political calculation aside, the House Democrats reinforced the principle that a minority view on the morality of abortion can determine reproductive health policy for American women. [A "minority view" on the morality of abortion? It is clear that prior to writing this piece neither author bothered to do any research on American opinion on abortion funding.]

Many House members who support abortion rights [how exactly do they support a “right” that doesn’t exist?] decided reluctantly to accept this ban, which is embodied in the Stupak-Pitts amendment. They say the tradeoff was necessary to advance the right to guaranteed health care. They say they will fight another day for a woman’s right to choose. [I don’t remember anyone saying that. Did you two miss the House members that opposed the amendment on the floor during the debate? Did you miss them whining about it after the fact? Did you miss the letter threatening to kill the health care bill if the Stupak isn't removed in the end? They fought all summer and throughout the fall against pro-life Democrats on this issue. The issue came up to a vote and they were defeated. Do either of you follow the news at all?]

Perhaps. But they can’t ignore the underlying shift that has taken place in recent years. The Democratic majority has abandoned its platform and subordinated women’s health to short-term political success. [Really now?] In doing so, these so-called friends of women’s rights [Precisely. These pseudo-feminists advocating abortion are out to subordinate women to men, make women objects, and maintain the status quo rather than elevate women to a status worthy of their dignity. I fully agree!] have arguably done more to undermine reproductive rights than some of abortion’s staunchest foes [say what?]. That Senate Democrats are poised to allow similar anti-abortion language in their bill simply underscores the degree of the damage that has been done. [There has been pro-abortion language in the Senate bill since the summer. You have 58 pro-choice Democratic votes...I do not understand the concern?]

Many women — ourselves included — warned the Democratic Party in 2004 that it was a mistake to build a Congressional majority by recruiting and electing candidates opposed to the party’s commitment to legal abortion and to public financing for the procedure [You mean the year that our party lost, again?]. Instead, the lust for power yielded to misguided, self-serving poll analysis by operatives with no experience in the fight for these principles. They mistakenly believed that giving leadership roles to a small minority of anti-abortion Democrats [What leadership roles? The party barely wants to fund their campaigns. Even worse instead of adding a link to one pro-life Democratic group on the DNC website, to maintain "fairness" the DNC removed every link to liberal Democratic groups to keep from promoting the pro-life cause. Yet you two think pro-life Democrats have leadership roles?...........Are you two delusional?] would solve the party’s image problems with “values voters” and answer critics who claimed Democrats were hostile to religion.

Democrats were told to stop talking about abortion as a moral and legal right [as if that has helped at all] and to focus instead on comforting [Comforting? Hardly. By the way, if abortion is a "right," it is a good thing. We don't have rights to bad things; we have rights to things that fulfill our human nature and leads to flourishing. If anything the Democratic spin is absurd – Democrats are basically saying they support women’s right to “choose” as long as they don’t exercise this “right” too much. How are pro-lifers comforted by this terrible logic?] language about reducing the number of abortions. In this regard, President Obama was right on message when he declared in his health care speech to Congress in September that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” — as if this happened to be a good and moral thing [Come again? How is it not a good and moral thing?]. (The tone of his statement made the point even more sharply than his words.)

The party has distanced itself from the abortion-rights movement in other ways [Good God, you women are crazy! The Democratic Party has distanced itself from the pro-abortion movement? In what parallel universe?] . It has taken to calling Democrats who oppose a woman’s right to choose “pro-life” (and not “anti-choice”) [You are anti-choice. Choice indicates more than a single option; what you two are advocating is fascism in the form of coercing everyone into choosing only abortion]. The group Democrats for Life of America, whose Congressional members ultimately led the battle to exclude private insurance companies that cover abortions from health insurance exchanges, was invited to hold a press conference in Democratic Party offices [This group was launched in 1999 and has been shunned by the party from its genesis until now. Not to mention this group is so insignificant in party influence; DFLA has one of the smallest, saddest political budgets (six figures) in Washington which is practically nil compared to the likes of pro-abortion groups. This warrants sounding off the alarm?]. The party has promoted “pro-life progressives” like Sojourners, Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, organizations whose leaders have stated that abortions should be made “more difficult to get.” [You mean groups that the party uses to get more Democrats elected but then proceeds to neglect its promises of "common ground" and inclusiveness, even after these groups go to great lengths to perform intellectual gymnastics to put up smoke-screens for the party on certain divisive, moral issues?]

This, then, is where we stand as party leaders celebrate passage of the House bill. [I am not sure if many are standing with you…] When it comes to abortion, they seem to think all positions are of equal value so long as the party maintains a majority. [So you admit that not all issues are of equal importance. By what standard do you make this judgment I wonder? Better yet, do you not insist to pro-life Americans that they should not base their political decisions on just one issue? Why should you be allowed to do it?] But the party will eventually reap what it has sown. If Democrats do not commit themselves to defeating the amendment, then they will face an uncompromising effort by Democratic women to defeat them [I really doubt it], regardless of the cost to the party’s precious majority [Who cares? Maybe a pro-life Democrat will win in the primary if all the pseudo-feminists stay home].

In the meantime, the victims of their folly will be the millions of women[because somehow the Stupak amendment has overturned Roe and for some inexplicable reason all women facing unplanned pregnancy will migrate in large masses to their local back alley, the sure place for an illegal abortion -- right?] who once could count on the Democratic Party to protect them [From what? Love and support?] from those who would sacrifice their rights for political gains. [Would their sacrifices make abortion illegal? I don't think I'd care...silly pro-abortion pseudo-feminists. Get a hobby, or maybe even a decent IQ.]

Kate Michelman is the former president of Naral Pro-Choice America, a pseudofeminist organization committed to the perpetual subordination of women. Frances Kissling is the former president of Catholics for Choice, an organization of pro-abortion advocates who are wolves in sheep skin trying to convince Catholics of their intellectually schizophrenic position.

• (in progress)
• 24.11.2009 – Allarme dell’Oms sul vaccino dell’H1N1 “Gravi reazioni allergiche in Canada”

http://twitter.com.lucamarcon

Blogger’s Note: Following today’s entry, I’ll take a hiatus until next week. So today, I offer you a broader assessment of how the discount retail shopping game is shaping up this week.

Who knows where we’ll be a year from now, but at least for this season of store and online retail bargains, the killer sales are already going on. Although there will still be big store sales this Friday and probably even bigger ones online next Monday, the big retailers already began to duke it out for the lowest prices earlier this month.

As an article on the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times noted about the biggest store retailer (Wal-Mart) and online merchant (Amazon.com), the gloves have already come off. And as the Times article points out, Wal-Mart has used the media to pick apart Amazon.com’s discounting efforts, trying to ensure the public that its prices will always be the lowest. Meanwhile, Amazon.com has taken more of a high road, noting that bargains can come from all over, not just Wal-Mart.

These two “shopping holidays” haven’t been around all that long. Although Wikipedia tells us that the term “Black Friday” dates all the way back to 1966, it also notes that it didn’t take on a true shopping connotation until 2000. Cyber Monday didn’t hit its stride until just four years ago.

Now, however, with cash-strapped consumers perhaps looking to get back in the shopping game this holiday season, they’re hungrier than ever for a good bargain. Retailers, e-commerce merchants and catalog sellers are equally eager to offer the bargains to show some sort of sales gains this season to make up for the miserable time they’ve had throughout the Great Recession.

Then, you have to factor in the tragedy that took place at a Valley Stream, Long Island, Wal-Mart store just 12 months ago when bargain-hungry shoppers trampled over a defenseless Wal-Mart employee as the store opened at the stroke of 5:00am on Black Friday, fighting their way to the store’s sale items. Wal-Mart announced just last week that although its stores will open at 5am again this Friday, it would keep its stores open a full 24 hours thereafter to try to prevent more The Who’s 1979 Cincinnati concert-like stampedes from occurring again.

What this all adds up to is the likelihood of these two shopping holidays expanding beyond just the two days. This year will offer just a taste of it. Next year could see a considerable expansion of sales days at this time of year.

It’s a trend not unlike the so-called “fifth quarter” of retail business that evolved over the past 20-plus years as the holiday shopping season took on greater and greater importance to retailers, catalog marketers and later, online sellers. What started as a surge of sales immediately following Dec. 25 kept expanding week by week over the years, leading all the way back to this very week we’re now in.

If you can date yourself all the way back to the recession of the early ’80s, you might recall the last extended period of time in American retail when cut-throat discounting reached such levels. As the economy picked up in the mid-’80s, discounting eased up, full-priced retailing edged back and service levels improved. Perhaps that could occur as soon as next year at this time, but I’m guessing that the current state of binge discounting will prevail.

“Groups fortified by religious belief would have prevailed over those that lacked it, and genes that prompted the mind toward ritual would eventually have become universal.”

An article in the New York Times, In Search of the God Gene, flies a kite for religion as an evolutionary benefit. But it takes a very particular view of what religion amounts to. According to the article the traits regarded as religion are those that promote a [high-group, low-grid]  egalitarian society, but then also those which favour a [high group, high grid] hierarchical society. However, the view that these cultures are the most effective and therefore the most likely to be selected for in evolutionary terms does not stand up to scrutiny. It begs the question of the relationship of nature to culture. Neither does it take account of the possibility raised by Cultural Theory of [low grid,  low group] Individualist, or [high grid, low group] Fatalist religions and religious practices.

No organised religion in the world today is claimed to have lasted more than 40,000-60,000 years. Most are far, far younger than this. Indeed we could characterise religion itself as a very recent phenomenon, far too recent to have affected evolution to any significant extent. Supposedly timeless ‘Religious’ practices such as ritual dancing or induced trance states are so general as to transcend any useful definition of religion, or else not actually necessary for a definition of religion.

The evidence cited in the article itself contradicts the claim that religion helps societies to survive over generations. Note that far from being static, the religious activities identified in the NY Times article change and involve discontinuity. Communal religious dancing floor, ancestor cult shrine, astronomical temple – it is our modern category of religion that links these structures, not the experience of those societies which changed, perhaps drastically, from one to the next. What seems to be selected for, if that is the right term, is the ability of humans to abandon their religious beliefs and practices and adopt different ones, often radically different ones. Apostacy seems to be the intergenerational norm, and even loyalty as the intra-generational norm can take a big hit from time to time. Letters of reply to the article were interesting, with some supporting the alternative view that religion is a byproduct of evolution, not a factor, and others pointing out that many ethically questionable human behaviours can be seen as adaptive.

Estou me preparando para assistir o filme, espero que hoje. Mas, confesso: tenho minha opinião formada sobre alguns assuntos, porém o fim do mundo não é um deles. O fato é: estamos adiantando boa parte do processo. Aliás, mais uma coisinha: muito cuidado com o que ensinam aos seus filhos. Talvez sejam eles a ver, realmente, algo mais próximo do fim. Fico triste ao constatar isso, sabendo que muito do que fizemos – e fazemos – poderia e pode ser evitado.

Depois, não reclamem dos buracos que se abrem na cidade com a chuva, da água que entra, das pessoas que morrem e perdem casas…

Daniel Pinheiro

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Cientistas criticam proposta de “2012″ e indicam cenários de fim do mundo

DENNIS OVERBYE

do New York Times

A Nasa (agência espacial norte-americana) criticou a Sony em outubro por sugerir, em sua campanha publicitária para o filme “2012″, que o mundo acabaria em 2012.

No ano passado, o Cern (Centro Europeu de Pesquisas Nucleares), também assegurou que o mundo não acabaria tão cedo –portanto, acho que tudo isso é uma boa notícia para quem fica nervoso facilmente. Com que frequência vemos duas instituições científicas top de linha como essas nos garantindo que está tudo bem?

Por outro lado, é meio triste, se você estava ansioso por tirar umas férias das prestações do imóvel para financiar uma última festança.

As declarações do Cern tiveram a intenção de aliviar temores de que um buraco negro sairia de seu novo Grande Colisor de Hádrons (LHC) e engoliria a Terra.

O pronunciamento da Nasa, na forma de vários posts em sites e um vídeo postado no YouTube, foi uma resposta a temores de que o mundo fosse acabar no dia 21 de dezembro de 2012, quando um ciclo de 5.125 anos conhecido como Grande Contagem no calendário maia teoricamente chegaria a um fim.

Filme

O burburinho em torno do fim dos dias atingiu o auge com o lançamento do filme “2012″, dirigido por Roland Emmerich, que já trouxe desgraças fictícias para a Terra anteriormente, com alienígenas e geleiras, em “Independence Day” e “O Dia Depois de Amanhã”.

No filme, o alinhamento entre o Sol e o centro da galáxia, no dia 21 de dezembro de 2012, faz com que o astro fique ensandecido e lance na superfície da Terra inúmeras partículas subatômicas ambíguas conhecidas como neutrinos.

De alguma forma, os neutrinos se transformam em outras partículas e aquecem o centro da Terra. A crosta terrestre perde suas amarras e começa a se enfraquecer e deslizar por aí.

Los Angeles cai no oceano; Yellowstone explode, causando uma chuva de cinzas no continente. Ondas gigantes varrem o Himalaia, onde governos do planeta tinham construído em segredo uma frota de arcas, nas quais 400 mil pessoas selecionadas poderiam se abrigar das águas.

Porém, essa é apenas uma versão do apocalipse. Em outras variações, um planeta chamado Nibiru colide com o nosso ou o campo magnético da Terra enlouquece.

Existem centenas de livros dedicados a 2012, e milhões de sites, dependendo de que combinação de “2012″ e “fim do mundo” você digite no Google.

“Tolices”

Segundo astrônomos, tudo isso é besteira.

“Grande parte do que se alega que irá ocorrer em 2012 está baseada em desejos, grandes tolices pseudocientíficas, ignorância de astronomia e um alto nível de paranoia”, afirmou Ed Krupp, diretor do Griffith Observatory, em Los Angeles, e especialista em astronomia antiga, em um artigo publicado na edição de novembro da revista “Sky & Telescope”.

Pessoalmente, adoro histórias sobre o fim do mundo desde que comecei a consumir ficção científica, quando era uma criança sem afeto. Fazer o público se borrar nas calças é o grande lance, desde que Orson Welles transmitiu a “Guerra dos Mundos”, uma notícia falsa sobre uma invasão de marcianos em Nova Jersey, em 1938.

No entanto, essa tendência tem ido longe demais, disse David Morrison, astrônomo do Ames Research Center da NASA, em Moffett Field, Califórnia. Ele é autor do vídeo no YouTube refutando a catástrofe e um dos principais pontos de contato da agência sobre a questão das profecias maias prevendo o fim dos dias.

“Fico com raiva de ver como as pessoas estão sendo manipuladas e aterrorizadas para alguém ganhar dinheiro”, disse Morrison. “Não há direito ético que permita assustar crianças para ganhar dinheiro”.

Desesperados

Morrison afirmou receber cerca de 20 cartas e mensagens de e-mail por dia de pessoas até da Índia, assustadas até o último fio de cabelo. Em uma mensagem de e-mail, ele anexou exemplos que incluíam uma mulher perguntando se deveria se suicidar, matar sua filha e seu bebê ainda no útero. Outra mensagem veio de uma pessoa questionando se deveria sacrificar seu cachorro, a fim de evitar o sofrimento de 2012.

Tudo isso me fez lembrar os tipos de cartas que recebi no ano passado sobre o suposto buraco negro do Cern. Isso também era mais ficção científica do que fato científico, mas aparentemente não há nada melhor que a morte para nos aproximar de domínios abstratos como física e astronomia. Nessas situações, quando a Terra ou o Universo não estão nem aí para você e seus entes queridos, o cósmico realmente se torna algo pessoal.

Morrison disse não culpar o filme por todo o burburinho, não tanto quanto os vários outros divulgadores das previsões maias e a aparente incapacidade de algumas pessoas (e isso se reflete em vários aspectos da nossa vida nacional) de distinguir a realidade da ficção. Porém, ele disse, “meu doutorado foi em astronomia, não em psicologia”.

Em mensagens de e-mail, Krupp disse: “Sempre estamos incertos em relação ao futuro, e sempre consumimos representações dele. Somos seduzidos pelo romantismo do passado longínquo e pela escala exótica do cosmo. Quando tudo isso se junta, ficamos hipnotizados”.

O porta-voz da Nasa, Dwayne Brown, afirmou que a agência não faz comentários sobre filmes, deixando essa tarefa para os críticos de cinema. No entanto, quando se trata de ciência, disse Brown, “achamos que seria prudente oferecer um recurso”.

Aquecimento global

Se você quer ter algo para se preocupar, afirma a maioria dos cientistas, deve refletir sobre as mudanças climáticas globais, asteróides ou guerra nuclear. Porém, se a especulação sobre as antigas profecias mexem com você, aqui estão algumas coisas, segundo Morrison e outros, que você deve saber.

Para começar, os astrônomos concordam que não há nada especial em relação ao alinhamento do Sol e do centro galáctico. Isso ocorre todo mês de dezembro, sem nenhuma consequência física além do consumo exagerado de panetones. De qualquer forma, o Sol e o centro galáctico não vão exatamente coincidir, nem mesmo em 2012.

Se houvesse outro planeta lá fora vindo em nossa direção, todo mundo já teria percebido. Quanto às violentas tempestades solares, o próximo auge do ciclo das manchas solares só ocorrerá em 2013, e será no nível mais suave, afirmam astrônomos.

O apocalipse geológico é uma aposta melhor. Já houve grandes terremotos na Califórnia, e provavelmente haverá outros. Esses tremores poderiam destruir Los Angeles, como mostrou o filme, e Yellowstone poderia entrar em erupção novamente com uma força cataclísmica, mais cedo ou mais tarde.

Nós e nossas obras somos, de fato, apenas passageiros frágeis e temporários na Terra. Porém, neste caso, “mais cedo ou mais tarde” significa centenas de milhões de anos –e haveria bastante aviso quando chegasse a hora.

Os maias, que eram astrônomos e cronometristas bons o suficiente para prever a posição de Vênus 500 anos no futuro, merecem coisa melhor.

O tempo maia era cíclico; especialistas como Krupp e Anthony Aveni, astrônomo e antropólogo da Colgate University, afirmam não haver evidências de que os maias achassem que algo especial ocorreria quando o marcador da Grande Contagem atingisse 2012. Existem referências em inscrições maias a datas antes e depois da atual Grande Contagem, afirmam os especialistas.

Sendo assim, continue pagando suas prestações normalmente.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Every year since 1952, the Book Review has asked a panel of judges to select 10 books from among the several thousand children’s books published that year.”

One of my favourite authors is on the list this year, Emily Gravett:

For the full list go to:

Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009 – The New York Times.

Efter sex veckors fångenskap släpptes spanjorerna. De hade hållits fångna av somaliska pirater. Det ryktas om att en lösensumma på 3,5 miljoner dollar utbetalades. New York Times berättar:

In the pirate stronghold of Xarardheere, Somalia, witnesses said that 80 luxury automobiles crowded the shore as friends and family members of pirates clamored to get a share of the ransom money being divided among the pirates. “I came here to get some money from my friend, who is receiving his share today,” said one resident, Mohamoud Elmi.

Ska regeringar ge efter för skurkars krav? Frågan är svår och kan närmas på olika vis. Om vi kort begrundar konsekvenserna av handlandet finns två problematiska punkter.

1. Om skurkarna får sina pengar finns det ingen anledning för dem att sluta.
2. Hur skulle spanska allmänheten reagerat om deras landsmän hade dödats.

I en annan liten artikel i New York Times läser jag:

A retired British couple snatched from their yacht by Somali pirates said in a video broadcast Friday that they feared they could be killed within a week or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom demand was not paid.

Samma fråga igen. Ska brittiska regeringen betala lösensumman?

De fångades vid Seychellerna och det är en allmän trend att piraterna sprider sig allt längre från Somalia.

Last week, pirates attacked the MV Nele Maersk, a container ship flying under the Danish flag about 1,100 miles east of Mogadishu, Somalia. It was the farthest recorded attack off the Somali coast and took place close to where another tanker, BW Lion, was attacked a day earlier.

Det är ett jätteområde piratena rör sig inom. I tidigare artiklar i New York Times läser man att Somalias kust är ungefär lika lång som Västeuropas, dvs. från Gibraltar till ryska gränsen. Eller som löjtnant Nate Christensen i amerikanska flottan säger:

Patrols cover one million square miles from the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian Sea and around the Seychelles, he said.

Att problemet kräver en lösning är självklart. Men vilken? Att betala lösensumman är naturligtvis kortsiktigt, men i sig inte så dumt. Möjligen kan det vara bra för literaturen om en och annan får sitta kvar, som en viss Cervantes, som satt i Algeriet i fem år.

Undertiden som diskussionen pågår trappas våldet upp mellan besättningar och pirater om detta kan man läsa om i Pirate Attack Maersk Alabama Again.

Åtgärderna mot pirateriet kan bli mer drastiska och kan leda till en attack mot själva Somalia. Men:

“Much like Afghanistan, it’s easy to get in and much more difficult to get out,” said Peter Lehr, an expert on terrorism and political violence at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, “And I fear it will get much worse before it gets better.”

Här återvänder diskussionen till inledningsfrågan och om den enskilde får offras?

Jag tänker alltså inte på brottslingarna utan på civilbefolkningen i Somalia. Ska de offras?

Dessutom finns det all anledning till oro angående en attack av Somalia och om vi jämför med det krig som nu är i Afganistan förstår jag varför många länder tvekar.

Jag tror hellre, som Nederländerna, att piraterna prövas i en internationell domstol. Det gör också att länder som Spanien inte prövar dem i landet utan inför det internationella samfundet. Det gör att ett enskild land inte kan spelas ut på samma sätt.

Ett P.S. till inlägget är frågan hur de västerländska skurkarna, dvs. de som dumpar miljöfarligt gods eller fiskar obehindrat längs den somaliska kusten, kan kontrolleras?

Piratkaptenen Röda Tänderna anger det som skäl till deras handlingar:

“We will keep attacking on foreign vessels until illegal fishing and toxic dump is stopped.”