Followups « Tikkunista!

Feb. 3rd, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 5

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (1)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: All the followups have to do with extremes. We start with an In Focus photo spread on this week’s “Tough Guy” competition, another extreme sport many readers will not feel the need to partake of. But all readers partake in the debate on Foxconn, maker of the computers on which you read this. We link to a fine debate on Reddit: the excerpted quote is the top comment and makes a strong argument for Foxconn as a positive role in China. Many respondents don’t agree…. Continuing with our Apocalypse Soon investigation. we link to the recently web-restored Apocamon a comic adaptation of the Book of Revelations as performed by Pokemon. And following last week’s brain feature, we look at the ethics of upsizing your intelligence.

* Tough Guy 2012 In Focus – The Atlantic

Billed as “the toughest race in the world,” the Tough Guy 2012 competition took place yesterday in Perton, England. Every year, thousands of men and women tackle the course, which is described on the Tough Guy website as eight country miles filled with freezing mud and “barbed wire, cuts, scrapes, burns, dehydration, hypothermia, acrophobia, claustrophobia, electric shocks, sprains, twists, joint dislocation and broken bones.” Gathered here are some images of the fun had by the tough competitors in this year’s event.

* Foxconn And Workers Rights Reddit comment

“In a poor country like ours, the alternative to low-paid jobs isn’t well-paid ones, it’s no jobs at all.”-Jesús Heroles, Fmr. Mexican Ambassador to the US

I’m not going to lie, Foxconn doesn’t sound like a terribly fun place to work. That being said, it’s crucial to note that Foxconn employees are not slaves. Every employee is there of their own accord and is perfectly free to leave whenever they want (in fact, Foxconn has a 30-40% turnover rate). That’s critically important to realise. It’s important because the fact that someone would choose to work at Foxconn means that it’s better than any other option they have. Remember that for the vast majority of Foxconn workers, the alternative is farming rice in a country where there’s 1 tractor for every 200 farmers. It should be axiomatic that if a person is offered a choice, they will take the option that improves their life. Unless you’re of the opinion that all people to the East of the Himalayas are stricken with some kind of mass delusion, the fact that people are wilfully choosing to work at Foxconn should be indisputable evidence that Foxconn is having a positive effect on their lives.

* Apocamon: The Final Judgement (NSFW) Written by St. John the Divine, Illustrated by Patrick Farley

Warning: Some people will find this offensive and rude; others will find it very funny. Caveat lector.

* The Ethics Of Brain Boosting Oxford University

Recent research in Oxford and elsewhere has shown that one type of brain stimulation in particular, called transcranial direct current stimulation or TDCS, can be used to improve language and maths abilities, memory, problem solving, attention, even movement.

Critically, this is not just helping to restore function in those with impaired abilities. TDCS can be used to enhance healthy people’s mental capacities. Indeed, most of the research so far has been carried out in healthy adults.

TDCS uses electrodes placed on the outside of the head to pass tiny currents across regions of the brain for 20 minutes or so. The currents of 1–2 mA make it easier for neurons in these brain regions to fire. It is thought that this enhances the making and strengthening of connections involved in learning and memory. The technique is painless, all indications at the moment are that it is safe, and the effects can last over the long term.

Jan. 27th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 4

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: A fine quartet of pieces that arrived too late for last week. We start with a superb War Tard column on just why the US wants to attack Iran, and it’s not about nuclear bombs, but oil. The first piece in a long while that’s made sense of the oncoming war. As always, War Tard does a fine job of looking at strategies. A quick and powerful graph shows the congressional support for PIPA/SOPA the day before and the day after the Internet blackout. Meet the Preppers! A subculture with the slogan, “Armegeddon ready: are you?” And music! The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, and the Thai Elephant Orchestra produce sounds the like of which you’ve never heard. Click on.

* Why The Us Wants To Attack Iran War Tard

Iran is sitting on the fourth largest oil deposit on the planet and has huge reserves of natural gas and that’s a sweet energy prize by any account. It’s kind of like Inca gold and the Spanish Main in the 16th century… everybody wants a piece of the action. …

The interesting player here in all this is China. Though a long way from being a military superpower, its economic power is rising fast, so fast that the US and Europe fear the loss of traditional Western dominance of the global economy. The gaping weakness of the Chinese rise is energy supply. And without a credible naval fleet to protect the flow of spice, the weakness of China gets exposed… Chinese dependence on sea borne oil delivery and their susceptibility to a blockade sometime in our proxy resource war future. What the West really fears here in the global energy game of Risk, is Iran having unfettered control of its own huge energy reserves, selling those reserves outside the dollar to geopolitical rivals (China) and facilitating the rise of a pan Pacific hegemon that could contest Western dominance at some point later this century.

That’s why Iran is in the cross hairs. Their whole nuke program is symbolic of their determination not to play nice in the petro dollar chess game and the question remains, will they get Tomahawked this year because of it?

* How The Internet Blackout Affected Congressional Support For Pipa/Sopa Boing Boing

* Subculture of Americans prepares for civilization’s collapse Reuters

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon. “In an instant, anything can happen,” she told Reuters. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.” Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as “preppers.” Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

…Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a “survival center,” complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon. “I think this economy is about to fall apart,” she said.

* New Music Futility Closet

The 10-member Vienna Vegetable Orchestra plays instruments created entirely from fresh vegetables, including the carrot recorder, the pumpkin tympanum, the zucchini trumpet, and the bean maraca. These must be fashioned anew before each concert, because the old instruments are made into soup.

The Thai Elephant Orchestra, created by American expatriate Richard Lair and Columbia neurologist David Sulzer, improvise on drums, gongs, harmonicas, and sawmill blades. To date they’ve released three CDs.

Jan. 20th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 3

Jan-20-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: We open with a fine article by Will Hutton that takes a wide range of current changes we’ve looked at in past issues, and looks at how they share the rejection of reason. Well worth the read. Two contrasting pieces follow up on last week’s education piece: in the UK “creationism” is banned from science courses (as it’s not science); in Tuscon, “The Tempest” is banned from schools because students might feel sympathy for Caliban (and extend that to contemporary victims.) Sadly, this is not from The Onion. And we end with two funny commentaries on the US election, one Stephen Colbert and one that is from the Onion.

* Now is not the time to turn our backs on Enlightenment values Will Hutton The Observer

The dynamic element on the political right across the west is giving up on the Enlightenment. No longer does it want to embrace tolerance, reason, democratic argument, progress and the drive for social betterment as cornerstones of society. Tolerance is dismissed as an indulgence and a lack of moral standards; progress is trashed as an opportunity for social engineering and a cloak to enhance state power and also as featherbedding the feckless, undeserving poor.

Reason, runs this argument, too often identifies problems that require collective rather than individual responses, amplifying the dread power of the state, and democracy means respecting opponents who have views you consider noxious. Away with the whole damn thought system! Altogether, Enlightenment values are not the reason why the west has advanced so far so fast for the last two centuries and more; rather, they are why the west’s economies are in crisis and its societies are fragmenting.

… This is very much the position of President Zuma’s faction in the African National Congress as the party celebrates its 100th anniversary. Once one of the great forces in the African liberation struggle, it is now competing with Victor Orbán in manipulating a constitution to enlarge the party’s discretionary power… An anti-Enlightenment ANC will shamelessly champion its tribe, the Zulu. Reason, democracy, the rule of law and respect for dissent are values of the declining west. Thus the ANC can cock a snook at the scientific evidence that HIV is linked to Aids. If former President Mbeki, like his successor, believes differently, that is all that matters; everybody knows that science makes mistakes and is not objective. If senior American politicians such as Rick Santorum can argue that the scientific evidence supporting climate change is “junk science” and “an excuse for more government control of your life”, then the ANC can dismiss scientific evidence on Aids.

* Richard Dawkins Celebrates A Victory Over Creationists The Observer

The Department for Education has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are “evidence-based views or theories” that run “contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations”.

The British Humanist Association (BHA), which has led a campaign against creationism – the movement that denies Darwinian evolution and claims that the Earth and all its life was created by God – described the move as “highly significant” and predicted that it would have implications for other faith groups looking to run schools.Dawkins, who was one of the leading lights in the campaign, welcomed confirmation that creationists would not receive funding to run free schools if they sought to portray their views as science. “I welcome all moves to ensure that creationism is not taught as fact in schools,” he said. “Government rules on this are extremely welcome, but they need to be properly enforced.”

* Who’s Afraid of “The Tempest”? Salon

As part of the state-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today. According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.” Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies.

….Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” In a meeting this week, administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.

* Mitt the Ripper YouTube

Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC Attacks Mitt Romney (Serial Killer)

* Obama Asks Why on Earth He Would Want To Serve Another Term Onion (Thanks, Dave!)

(Note to readers: If you hit the Onion “paywall”, you can easily circumvent it – just click the stop loading button when the entire article is visible, and you won’t get paywalled. Or just pay them. Or don’t go. Your karma.)

Citing three years of exhausting partisan politics, constant gridlock in Congress, and an overall feeling that the entire nation has “completely lost it,” President Barack Obama openly asked a campaign-rally crowd Tuesday why he’d want to serve another term as president of “this godforsaken country.”

…”I’m dead serious,” the president continued, saying that any reasonable person would have walked away the moment the Senate minority leader announced his main priority—above creating jobs and improving American health care—was to make Obama a one-term president. “I’m asking if anybody out there can come up with even one reason why I’d want to endure this unmitigated shit show for another minute, let alone through 2016. What’s in it for me, exactly? Can anyone answer that? Anyone at all?”

After a long silence during which crowd members mostly just shuffled their feet and stared at the ground, Obama said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Jan. 13th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 2

Jan-13-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: We open with a followup to the continuing martial beat of anti-Iranian war drums, one that reminds us of when Iranian nukes were good. If you like extreme sports, here’s a new one: Castelling, in which the object is to build a higher human tower with your crew than they can with theirs. A lovely stop-motion video celebrates Type, the wonderful Toronto book store (ex-pat. Cory Doctorow enthuses), and we round off our US Pre-pre-election coverage with a look at why 00bama will win.

* Back When Iranian Nukes Were Good Nukes

* Casteller (via The Presurfer)

In the city of Tarragona, Spain, castellers gather every two years to see who can build the highest, most intricate human castles. This uniquely Catalan tradition requires astonishing strength, finesse, and balance. Not to mention courage.

* Stop-Motion Video Shows Books At Play After The Bookshop Owner Has Gone – Boing Boing

The good folks at Toronto’s Type Books have made this smashing stop-motion animation of their shelves mysteriously and mischievously reorganizing themselves after everyone has gone home. They position the video as a case for printed books, which it is, but it’s also a great case for Type Books, which is an absolutely marvellous bookshop with great curated tables and a wicked kids’ section. It’s also smack in the middle of a really nice place to be: across the road is Trinity Bellwoods park (which, in the summer, includes a supervised kids’ maker workshop with saws, hammers and other real tools, as well as music and costume play), and on the same block are The Japanese Paper Place (just what you’d expect!), White Squirrel Coffee (which does an amazing cold brew in the summer and great espresso year round) and Preloved, a store that makes beautiful clothes out of thrift-store finds, seconds and surplus textiles.

* Arms Dealer Obama Will Win by Default Robert Scheer NationofChange

Barack Obama will be re-elected not as a vindication of his policies but because the Republicans are incapable of providing a reasonable challenge to his flawed performance. On the central issue of our time—reigning in the greed of the multinational corporations, led by the financial sector and the defense industry—a Republican presidential victor, with the possible exception of the now-sidelined Ron Paul, would do far less to challenge the kleptocracy of corporate-dominated governance.

As compared to front-runner Mitt Romney, who wants to derail even Obama’s tepid efforts at regulating Wall Street, and who seeks ever more wasteful increases in military spending, the incumbent president appears relatively enlightened, but that is cold comfort. Not only has Obama been a savior of the banking conglomerates that so generously financed his campaign, but he also has proved to be equally as solicitous of the needs of the military-industrial complex. He entered his re-election year by signing a $662 billion defense authorization bill that strips away some of our most fundamental liberties and keeps military spending at Cold War levels, and by approving a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

2. Followups: Durban, Ron Paul, Canada’s Kyoto Cut

Dec-23-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: A trio of followups to last week: Monbiot contrasts governments swift action to save banks as opposed to their reluctance to save the planet. Curious, that. Ron Paul, currently leading Iowa polls, was omitted last week from our GOP smackdown. While the good doctor is rational, he is no less insane than his partners in grime, and Monbiot explores where his policies lead us. And while we covered Canada’s flight from Kyoto, we didn’t fully dissect Harpo’s claim that this would save Canada money. Well, it won’t.

* Why Is It So Easy to Save the Banks – but So Hard to Save the Biosphere? George Monbiot Common Dreams

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades.

Nicholas Stern estimated that capping climate change would cost around 1% of global GDP, while sitting back and letting it hit us would cost between 5 and 20%. One per cent of GDP is, at the moment, $630bn. By March 2009, Bloomberg has revealed, the US Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks. That is just one government’s contribution: yet it amounts to 12 times the annual global climate change bill. Add the bailouts in other countries, and it rises several more times.

This support was issued on demand: as soon as the banks said they wanted help, they got it. On just one day the Federal Reserve made $1.2tr available – more than the world has committed to tackling climate change in 20 years.

* This Bastardised Libertarianism Makes ‘Freedom’ An Instrument Of Oppression George Monbiot The Guardian

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

* Canada’s Kyoto Math Doesn’t Add Up Pembina Institute (Thanks, Dave!)

It wasn’t particularly surprising to hear that Canada is withdrawing. Minister Kent’s painful efforts to neither confirm nor deny rumours of Canada’s intentions made it perfectly clear what those intentions were. Nor was it news that Canada will miss its Kyoto commitments to reduce emissions by a wide margin: a complete lack of effort on the part of Liberal and Conservative governments alike gave our country no chance of meeting them.

What was surprising was the Minister’s attempt to spin this withdrawal as a positive step for Canada’s economy. While taking action on climate change does come with costs, they are entirely manageable. The costs of inaction — in Canada, let alone on a global scale — are not….“Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment avoided before 2020, an additional $4.3 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

Dec.16th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 38

Dec-16-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Followups.

Bird’s Eye: The bird’s eye sees nothing compared to what drones see. Two major additions to last week’s drone notes: smaller mobile drones are being used domestically, and they are lethal. Are we feeling safer yet? Iran brought down the US drone last week not by malfunction or missile, but by hacking into its computer system, by the way. A simple stat followup to the “People vs Corporations” item of a few weeks back contrasts a half century ago to present day taxes. And “Dogs in Cars”, a followup video on dogs is a pointless but very well filmed video on…you’ll never guess.

* The Growing Menace Of Domestic Drones Salon

I noted last week… an article hailing the Switchblade as “an ingenious, miniature unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is also a weapon” and “the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems.” Because of how small, light and easily deployable it is, the article dubs this new product “the ultimate assassin bug.” Basically, controlled by the operator at the scene, it worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in his face. …Drones enable a Surveillance State unlike anything we’ve seen. Because small drones are so much cheaper than police helicopters, many more of them can be deployed at once, ensuring far greater surveillance over a much larger area. Their small size and stealth capability means they can hover without any detection, and they can remain in the air for far longer than police helicopters. Their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than military satellites.

*Iran Displays Drone Juan Cole Informed Comment

This news has significant technical dimensions and consequences, which is highly worrisome for the Americans. The fact that Iran was able to take the plane out of the Americans’ control and take possession of it amounts to a scientific advancement for Iran.

* Who has the power?Business Insider

1952 corporate tax as a % of GDP = 32.1%

2010 corporate tax as a % of GDP = 1.3%

(A 95% drop)

1952 Payroll taxes (Social security) as a % of total federal revenue = 9.7%

2010 Payroll taxes (Social security) as a % of total federal revenue = 40.0%

(A 400% increase in the burden on workers)

* Dogs In Cars The Presurfer

Dogs in cars doing what they love to do. A video by Keith Hopkin.

Dec. 9th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 37

Dec-09-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Followups.

Bird’s Eye: Following up on Aushlander’s desire and hidden guilt piece, Alexandra Molotkow looks at the sexual rites of passage in the digital age. Now you’ll really have some reasons to worry about your kids.☺ The EU moves closer to one government to rule them all, thus making elections even more pointless. And following up on the exploitation and destruction of the Arctic, we bring you the polar opposite: the exploitation and destruction of the Antarctic. Who would have guessed?

* Toronto writer Alexandra Molotkow shares the secrets of her cybersexual education Toronto Life

I am part of the first generation to come of age online, and my adolescent development dovetails with that of the social web. …. My friends and I crowded around the computer, logged in to a chat room with the sexiest screen name we could think of, and cyber-scored within minutes. We giggled as he cyber-groped us. It was more like a computer-enhanced form of truth or dare than anything resembling sex itself: a way to articulate our desires and pool our knowledge of how it all worked without embarrassing ourselves (sex trivia is a currency among kids). Truth or dare breaks down inhibitions by making the person who sits out more shameful than the person who participates; cybersex does it by making a scapegoat out of the anonymous masturbator on the other end of the exchange. After all, he’s the one calling you “baby” and describing his penis. You’re just responding in kind. Afterward we sat around recapping and laughing, pretending it had all been a naughty joke.

*Radical Eurozone Shakeup Could See Brussels Get Austerity PowersGuardian

The European commission could be empowered to impose austerity measures on eurozone countries that are being bailed out, usurping the functions of government in countries such as Greece, Ireland, or Portugal.

Bailed-out countries could also be stripped of their voting rights in the European Union, under radical proposals that have been circulating at the highest level in Brussels before this week’s crucial EU summit on the sovereign debt crisis.

* Pawns in play on Antarctic ice-cap Guardian Weekly

The opening manoeuvres may have begun. During the Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting in Buenos Aires last June, Russia stated its intention to start prospecting for minerals, oil and gas in the white continent and surrounding seas. The document submitted by the Russian delegation listed the key points of the “strategy for the development of the Russian Federation activities in the Antarctic for the period until 2020, and longer-term perspective”.

…The Russian project to carry out “complex investigations of the Antarctic mineral, hydrocarbon and other natural resources … both on the continent and in surrounding waters” would jeopardise the Antarctic’s special legal status and go against the Madrid protocol, which makes this near-virgin territory a “natural reserve devoted to peace and science”. At present, any form of prospecting and mining is, in theory, forbidden…. Like all international treaties this one depends on the good will of its signatories and it could be seriously undermined if one country were to take liberties with the text.

Dec. 2nd, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 36

Dec-02-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Followups: A Kink in Harper’s Pipeline Plans; US Approves Infinite Detention, Sans Trial; IOC – Faster, Higher, Richer

Bird’s Eye: In a pleasingly postmodern reversal on cowboy mythology, the Indians are galloping out of the west to save the day. BC’s First Nations announce there will be no pipeline across their lands. New US law says “We can do anything we want to people we don’t like.” The Olympics approves new technology, hoping new swimming records will lead to new profit records in 2012.

* B.C. First Nations Form ‘United Front’ Against PipelineCBC News

First Nations leaders will not allow the proposed Enbridge and KinderMorgan pipelines to cross their unceded territory, saying they will stand in front of bulldozers if they have to. The pipelines would run from Alberta’s oilsands to the B.C. coast, carrying oil to tankers for export to the US and Asia. “Everyone involved — including myself — have made commitments that we’ll do whatever it takes legally and otherwise,” said Haisla elder Gerald Amos.

….55 First Nations leaders from across B.C. signed a declaration promising to halt the proposed Enbridge and KinderMorgan pipelines. “These First Nations form an unbroken wall of opposition from the U.S. border to the Arctic Ocean,” they said in a written statement. “Harper wants to force pipelines through B.C., ignoring our rights and ignoring the majority of British Columbians. Well I have news for you Mr Harper: You are never going to achieve your dream of pushing pipelines through our rivers and lands and putting oil tankers on the coast.”

* US Senate Passes Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans Without Trial

The Senate passed a bill today allowing indefinite detention of American citizens living within the U.S. While some have claimed that this is incorrect, and that American citizens would be exempted from the indefinite detention within U.S. borders authorized by the Act, the Committee chairman who co-sponsored the bill – Carl Levin – stated today in Senate debate that it could apply to American citizens.

Levin cited the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants: “The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“ Under questioning from Rand Paul, co-sponsor John McCain said that Americans suspected of terrorism could be sent to Guantanamo.

* Speedo fires first salvo in Olympic swimsuit warToronto Star

Among the Fastskin3’s other features, touted at a splashy unveiling Wednesday in New York that featured Michael Phelps, included the following specs: 16.6 per cent in passive drag reduction; 11 per cent increase in a swimmer’s oxygen economy; and a 5.2 per cent reduction in full-body active drag….those numbers add up to a whole lot of fast swimming, something not seen since the ban on some of the high-tech bodysuits (which were found to aid buoyancy) at the end of 2009. After 276 world records in a two-year span, only seven have been set since full-body swimming armour was outlawed.

Nick Thierry, who as editor of the influential SwimNews magazine has watched the world record book shredded by high-tech swimsuits, isn’t impressed by the latest development. “FINA is no longer protecting the sport; it’s looking for revenue sources,” said Thierry. “It’s the IOC model: Shake the money tree as much as you can while you can.”

Nov. 25th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 35

Nov-25-2011 | Comments (1)

1. Followups: Seymour Hersh on Iran, Mind the GOP, New Leonard Cohen

Bird’s Eye: Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker’s foreign policy star, examines in detail the I.A.E.A. report on Iran, and how people distort it. David Frum, who coined the phrase “Axis of Evil” for George Bush, is repulsed by today’s Republicans. And you can hear a song from the new Leonard Cohen album, “Old Ideas”, due out in three months.

* Comment: Iran and the I.A.E.A. Seymour HershThe New Yorker

Greg Thielmann, a former State Department and Senate Intelligence Committee analyst who was one of the authors of the A.C.A. assessment, told me, “There is troubling evidence suggesting that studies are still going on, but there is nothing that indicates that Iran is really building a bomb.” He added, “Those who want to drum up support for a bombing attack on Iran sort of aggressively misrepresented the report.”….

The new report, therefore, leaves us where we’ve been since 2002, when George Bush declared Iran to be a member of the Axis of Evil—with lots of belligerent talk but no definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons program.

* When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?David Frum NY Mag

It’s a very strange experience to have your friends think you’ve gone crazy. I’ve been a Republican all my adult life… But as I contemplate my party and my movement in 2011, I see things I simply cannot support.

America desperately needs a responsible and compassionate alternative to the Obama administration’s path of bigger government at higher cost. And yet: This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners. When I entered Republican politics, during an earlier period of malaise, in the late seventies and early eighties, the movement got most of the big questions—crime, inflation, the Cold War—right. This time, the party is getting the big questions disastrously wrong.

* Leonard Cohen’s new song Show Me The Place Vancouver Sun

Master poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen has revealed the first single from his new album Old Ideas, to be released in early 2012.

The song, entitled Show Me The Place, is a mournful yarn few others could deliver the way Cohen does. You can listen to the shiver-inducing track below.

11.11.11 :: Year 8, Issue 33

Nov-11-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: In a week when it became clear that Keystone wouldn’t even supply jobs, there was some light at the end of the pipeline, as Obama effectively killed the it (at least as an election issue.) Malcolm Gladwell explores the particular genius of Steve Jobs, and reviews Isaacson’s bio en route. A simple map of the countries who voted for or against Palestinian admission to UNESCO is very revealing: click and look. And two revelations about Fukushima, one expected, one revelatory. Expected: they lied about how much radiation was released; it was twice as much as they said. News: At least one of the plants was already emitting radiation after the earthquake, but before the tsunami hit.

* Keystone Rejected. We Won. You Won.

A few minutes ago the President sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. There’s no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the world’s second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster. And he has made clear that the environmental assessment won’t be carried out by cronies of the pipeline company — that it will be an expert and independent assessment.

* THE TWEAKER: The real genius of Steve Jobs.by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker

Not long after Steve Jobs got married, in 1991, he moved with his wife to a nineteen-thirties, Cotswolds-style house in old Palo Alto. Jobs always found it difficult to furnish the places where he lived. His previous house had only a mattress, a table, and chairs. He needed things to be perfect, and it took time to figure out what perfect was. This time, he had a wife and family in tow, but it made little difference. “We spoke about furniture in theory for eight years,” his wife, Laurene Powell, tells Walter Isaacson, in “Steve Jobs,” Isaacson’s enthralling new biography of the Apple founder. “We spent a lot of time asking ourselves, ‘What is the purpose of a sofa?’ ”

It was the choice of a washing machine, however, that proved most vexing. European washing machines, Jobs discovered, used less detergent and less water than their American counterparts, and were easier on the clothes. But they took twice as long to complete a washing cycle. What should the family do? As Jobs explained, “We spent some time in our family talking about what’s the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table.”

*Interesting infographic on the recent UNESCO vote Mondoweiss

red state blue state: who voted for and against Palestine at UNESCO

* Fukushima Released ‘Twice As Much’ Radioactive Material As First Thought The Guardian

(Editor’s note: Gee, the plant owners lied. Who would have expected that?)

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have released twice as much radiation into the atmosphere as previously estimated, according to a study that contradicts official explanations of the accident. In a report published online by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, experts from Europe and the US estimated that the quantity of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 released at the height of the crisis was equivalent to 42% of that from Chernobyl. Significantly, the report says the plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, may have started releasing radiation between being hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake on 11 March and the arrival of a tsunami about 45 minutes later.

Nov. 4th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 32

Nov-04-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Human #7 billion has been born, so the BBC offers you the chance to find out what number human you were when you were born. Seconds of fun for the whole family! Neurotribes (a fascinating new – to us – blog) looks at Steve Jobs and Buddhism in a surprisingly good examination of contemporary Buddhist teachers and paths. And Hadley Freeman thinks the Repuglicans are unelectable this year, in a funny and entertaining piece.

* 7 billion people and You: What’s Your Number?BBC (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Enter your birth date, and find out what number human you are. (Full disclosure: I am number 2,491,054,363!)

* What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really? NeuroTribes

Isaacson does a fine job of showing how Jobs’ engagement with Buddhism was more than just a lotus-scented footnote to a brilliant Silicon Valley career. As a young seeker in the ’70s, Jobs didn’t just dabble in Zen, appropriating its elliptical aesthetic as a kind of exotic cologne. He turns out to have been a serious, diligent practitioner who undertook lengthy meditation retreats at Tassajara — the first Zen monastery in America, located at the end of a twisting dirt road in the mountains above Carmel — spending weeks on end “facing the wall,” as Zen students say, to observe the activity of his own mind.

Why would a former phone phreak who perseverated over the design of motherboards be interested in doing that? Using the mind to watch the mind, and ultimately to change how the mind works, is known in cognitive psychology as metacognition. Beneath the poetic cultural trappings of Buddhism, what intensive meditation offers to long-term practitioners is a kind of metacognitive hack of the human operating system (a metaphor that probably crossed Jobs’ mind at some point.) Sitting zazen offered Jobs a practical technique for upgrading the motherboard in his head.

* The Republican Presidential Candidates Are Farcically Unelectable Hadley Freeman The Guardian

Look, I don’t want to start another conspiracy theory about President Obama but clearly the man has sold his soul to the devil. There is simply no other explanation for recent developments and I am selflessly willing to take up birther investigator Donald Trump’s mantle and discover the truth because (catch in the throat) I love my country and (menacing tone of voice) something is definitely up. Maybe Obama really was born in America, but he has definitely made a pact with Satan…. Just a few months ago he was being widely dismissed as a “one-term president”; now, … I can say that his Republican rivals are fast becoming farcically unelectable. Some might argue that this is the inevitable result of a Republican party that has painted itself into a corner by focusing so much on social values and twisting its economic ones into such a knot that it claims to be a party for lower earners (it is, but only in the sense that it wants lower earners to pay high taxes so the rich don’t have to). But I say that only something truly satanic could conjure up what the GOP has vomited out this time round and, to prove it, I bring you the York Notes guide to the Republican candidates….

Oct 28th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 31

Oct-28-2011 | Comments (1)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Two retrospective looks this week: the first at the war in Libya. Milne’s Guardian article makes it abundantly clear that the war in Libya was only a victory in a political sense, but an utter defeat in a humanitarian one. And after reading way too many pieces looking at Steve Jobs as either a god or the anti-christ, Salon’s review of Isaacson’s book gives a pretty balanced perspective on the man.

* If The Libyan War Was About Saving Lives, It Was A Catastrophic Failure Seumas MilneThe Guardian

Amnesty International has now produced compendious evidence of mass abduction and detention, beating and routine torture, killings and atrocities by the rebel militias Britain, France and the US have backed for the last eight months – supposedly to stop exactly those kind of crimes being committed by the Gaddafi regime.

Throughout that time African migrants and black Libyans have been subject to a relentless racist campaign of mass detention, lynchings and atrocities on the usually unfounded basis that they have been loyalist mercenaries. Such attacks continue, says Bouckaert, who witnessed militias from Misrata this week burning homes in Tawerga so that the town’s predominantly black population – accused of backing Gaddafi – will be unable to return.

All the while, Nato leaders and cheerleading media have turned a blind eye to such horrors as they boast of a triumph of freedom and murmur about the need for restraint. But it is now absolutely clear that, if the purpose of western intervention in Libya’s civil war was to “protect civilians” and save lives, it has been a catastrophic failure….What the Libyan tragedy has brutally hammered home is that foreign intervention doesn’t only strangle national freedom and self-determination – it doesn’t protect lives either.

* Steve Jobs And The Quest For Iphone Enlightenment Salon

One of the great mysteries of Steve Jobs is the question of how a man so sincere in his commitment to Zen Buddhism and Eastern spirituality could at the same time be such a flaming asshole. If there’s one thing that comes shining through in Isaacson’s warts-and-all biography, it’s Jobs’ consistent tendency to act like a jerk; to make his friends, employees and family miserable with his insults and put-downs. His tantrums, manipulations and lies (or “reality distortions”) are the stuff of legend. But by golly, he also dedicated himself obsessively to cultivating the perfection and purity of his inner spirit. Uh, how exactly does that compute?

…The most serious flaws in Isaacson’s ultimately unsatisfying “Steve Jobs” are that the author doesn’t step back and grapple with how the world has changed as a consequence of Steve Jobs’ passage through it, and also fails to resolve the contradictions in Jobs’ character into a coherent narrative. This is disappointing, especially when one considers that the level of access Isaacson enjoyed to Jobs and his family during the last days of his life is, of course, impossible for anyone else to duplicate.

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Jan. 20th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 3

1. Followups

Jan. 13th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 2

2. Followups: Durban, Ron Paul, Canada’s Kyoto Cut

Dec.16th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 38

Dec. 2nd, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 36

Nov. 25th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 35

11.11.11 :: Year 8, Issue 33

Nov. 4th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 32

Oct 28th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 31

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