Research shortage

Budgets Falling in Race to Fight Global Warming

Other articles in the Energy Challenge series in the NYTs

On the road to recoverini

Berlusconi, Mills indicted in Italy

just chill dude

Friends, neighbors, and countrymen of the Left: I hate your lying guts

This guy is not going to live long with this attitude, so much hatred is not a healthy disposition.

What the world needs to hear

Global warming could cost trillions of dollars

LONDON (AFP) - Global warming will cost the world up to seven trillion dollars in the next decade unless governments take drastic action soon, a major report will warn.

Former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern was commissioned last year by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to lead a review into the economics of climate change and will deliver his findings Monday.

Interestingly, the Tories are gaining support in the UK, and their leader, Cameron, won the position running on a green platform. If it takes conservatives to be green, so be it. I am beginning to think I am going to become a single issue voter: the environment.

The Slavador Option

Operation enduring chaos: The retreat of the coalition & the rise of the militias

Iraq's savage sectarian war is now regarded as a greater obstacle to any semblance of peace returning than the insurgency, and was the main reason for the Americans recently pouring 12,000 troops into the capital - an operation that, they now acknowledge, has failed.

Yet, ironically, the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out 'irregular missions'. The policy, exposed in the US media, was called the 'Salvador Option' after the American-backed counter-insurgency in Latin America more than 20 years ago, which led to 70,000 deaths and countless instances of human rights abuse.

Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff

Lakoff on: Stay the Course

Follow the money

Democrats Get Late Donations From Business

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 — Corporate America is already thinking beyond Election Day, increasing its share of last-minute donations to Democratic candidates and quietly devising strategies for how to work with Democrats if they win control of Congress.

The shift in political giving, for the first 18 days of October, has not been this pronounced in the final stages of a campaign since 1994, when Republicans swept control of the House for the first time in four decades.

This is a pretty good indicator of things to come.

Happy baby syndrome

googling on yahoo

Official Google Blog: Do you "Google?"

... words that fell victim to those products' very success and, as they became more and more popular, slipped from trademarked status into common usage.

Will "Google" manage to avoid this fate? This year has brought a spate of news stories about the word's addition to the Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English dictionaries, an honor that's simultaneously highly flattering and faintly unsettling. Consider, for example, this passage from a New York Times story published last May:

"Jim sent a message introducing himself and asking, 'Do you want to make a movie?'" Mr. Fry recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Buda, Tex. 'So we Googled him, he passed the test, and T called him. That was in March 1996; we spent the summer coming up with the story, and we pitched it that fall.'"

Now, since Larry and Sergey didn't actually launch Google until 1998, Mr. Fry's usage of 'Google' is as distressing to our trademark lawyers as it is thrilling to our marketing folks. So, lest our name go the way of the elevators and escalators of yesteryear, we thought it was time we offered this quick semantic primer.

Wankers.

Bush Reserves The Right To Repeat Katrina Failures

I'm hoping to here more about this in the coming 2 weeks.

Going green and Influencing people

WITTs, YOYOs, and Why Americans Don't Go Green

So, big news: Americans are shallow, misinformed, self-interested, and unsophisticated. But they're our neighbors, our colleagues, and our relatives. And they're likely your clients, customers, or constituents. If you want to move them toward greener behavior and actions, you'll need to deal -- carefully and creatively -- with all of these sobering realities.

When it comes to enivornmentalism, half the world is this way. The most interesting part is the divide between the more communal and more individualistic personality types. My feeling is that it is more complex than this, that it depends upon the topic and people are more or less communal or individual. Regardless, self-interest appeals to everyone, and short-term self-interest arguments appeal to everyone most strongly. So if you want to change peoples minds, "They're not about to make purchase decisions based on a maybe-someday rationale for stemming environmental problems. They want to know: what's in it for me, today?" I think that is more or less right, and I didn't need a whole series of studies to tell me that. Just go read the book: How to win friends & influence people by Dale Carnegie.

Here is a summary of his book (more detailed summary here). I love the internets and tubes!

Fundamental Techniques for Handling People:

• Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
• Give people a feeling of importance; praise the good parts of them.
• Get the other person to want to do what you want them to by arousing their desires.

Six Ways to Make People Like You:

• Be genuinely interested in other people.
• Smile.
• Remember and use people's names.
• Encourage others to talk about themselves and listen to them.
• Discuss what the other person is interested in.
• Make the other person feel important.

Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking:

• Avoid arguments.
• Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never tell someone they are wrong.
• If you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
• Begin in a friendly way.
• Start with questions the other person will answer yes to.
• Let the other person do the talking.
• Let the other person feel the idea is his/hers.
• Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
• Sympathize with the other person.
• Appeal to noble motives.
• Dramatize your ideas.
• Throw down a challenge.

Nine Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment:

• Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
• Call attention to other people's mistakes indirectly.
• Talk about your own mistakes first.
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
• Let the other person save face.
• Praise every improvement.
• Give them a fine reputation to live up to.
• Encourage them by making their faults seem easy to correct.
• Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.

Best advice you'll ever get.

List of Members of 109th Congress Being Looked at by DoJ

check it out

Wow

No wonder GOP freaking out at Michael J. Fox ad

A new national study revealed that American voters' support for stem cell research increased after they viewed an ad featuring Michael J. Fox in which he expresses his support for candidates who are in favor of stem cell research.

I thought it was a powerful ad when I saw it and I guess it is resonating. That is great. When people can actually see the consequences of policy, they generally think twice. Check this out:

Respondents were asked to indicate what candidate they would vote for in the U.S. House of Representatives election if it was held today before and after viewing the ad.

* Republicans who indicated that they were voting for a Republican candidate decreased by 10% after viewing the ad (77% to 67%). Independents planning to vote for Democrats increased by 10%, from 39% to 49%.

Here is a link to the original story on yahoo. It makes me glad that this guy can't completely overcome human decency.

The newest Asian tiger

Vietnam’s Roaring Economy Is Set for World Stage

I thought that this statistic was particularly amazing: "Vietnam has reduced the percentage of its people living in abject poverty — less than $1 a day — to 8 percent from 51 percent in 1990, a greater advance than either China or India." Growth while reducing poverty, how great is that.

What they are doing with AI...

'Tower of Babel' translator made

well, they still have a ways to go, but it is interesting. Made me think of the movie the Hitchikers Guide...

U.S. troops call for Iraq withdrawal

U.S. troops call for Iraq withdrawal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 200 active duty U.S. armed service members, fed up with the war in Iraq, have joined an unusual protest calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, organisers said on Wednesday.

The campaign, called the Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, is the first of its kind in the Iraq war and takes advantage of U.S. Defence Department rules allowing active duty troops to express personal (Advertisement) opinions to members of Congress without fear of retaliation, organisers said.

If this makes big news, I expect a lot of right-wing hate to come spewing at these guys. I always thought it was incredibly stupid that they were able to associate support the troops with war. I'd hate a war monger to be my spokseperson if I was in the military.

France accused on Rwanda killings

A former senior Rwandan diplomat has told a tribunal that France played an active role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Former Rwandan ambassador to Paris Jacques Bihozagara said French involvement stemmed from concerns about its diminishing influence in Africa.

France has denied playing any role in the 100-day frenzy of killing in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.

After the hearings, the Rwandan panel will rule on whether to file a suit at the International Court of Justice.

Search this blog for real.

Google personal search engine is nice, thanks Nick.

To search this and the old blog take a look at the bottom of the page, and give it a try. Much better than the old way.

[update] Hmm, perhaps it has to spider all the pages or something, but it seems to miss a lot.

Looking in der spiegel

A Superpower in Decline: America's Middle Class Has Become Globalization's Loser

Google Bomb

Source code from here

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Barney Frank tells it like it is

I wish all politicians could just speak the obvious. Follow the link to watch the video.

Dailing up poor quality sperm

Heavy mobile use 'damages sperm'

Researchers found those men who used a phone for four hours or more a day had fewer sperm and those they had moved less well and were of poorer quality.
...
But a UK expert said it was unlikely the phones were to blame, as they were in use and not near the testes, and it may be being sedentary was the cause.

I'm A Democrat

"Better"

bin laden and zawahiri

are Republican stars

check out the GOPs al queada video!

Iraq

The real story

Sean Smith, the Guardian's award-winning war photographer, spent nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq. Watch his haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country.

Bush prepares for life in exile

Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay

Buenos Aires, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Its where all the Germans went after WWII.

Wahee!

Want to Get Ahead? Get Hitched

at least in academia.

We Answer to the Name of Liberals

A manifesto

Another reason to look forward to a Dem controlled congress

The reintroduction of science into politics

Identity Economy

The other night I heard a interesting talk on the CBC by an Italian economist Pier Luigi Sacco. It was thought provoking enough that I will try to reproduce his argument here.

--
Global justice, in terms of performing some redistribution from in order to attack the problems of global poverty and inequity, is politically impossible in the west. How can we make it possible?

Normal economics is based upon a survivial economy. Many people lving in the so-called developing countries are just barely getting by. Resources are scarce. However, in the west, resources are not really as scarce. We don't have the same concerns for survival that people used to have. Hence, economics in the west is not really based upon scarcity in the same way. Instead it is based on the scarcity of identity. What is really scarce is the ability to have a unique identity. However we can not all be celebrities - so what do we do? We compensate with material purchases. We keep up with the Jones. We buy the new car, bigger house, cool clothes, etc. We have to satisfy our identity. So there is no way we can redistribute wealth because we need it to be able to keep purchasing stuff for our identities. Commercials of course completely reinforce this.

So. What to do? Well, his argument is that there are two ways one can build their identity; through compensatory material purchases or through experience. You can have very meaningful experiences in this world, which is full of opportunities for it. The only problem is that we are not educated in the correct way to appreciate these experiences. The commercials and flahsy entertainment keep us dumb and buying. So, consequently, what we need if we want global justice, is to educate people. Educate them so that they have the skills to develop their identities without the need for material compensation.
--

Food for thought.

Foleygate

Foley Tells Church About Alleged Abuser

This whole Foley thing has a nice twist to it. He is gay, so many homophobic religious people are saying that it is a gay thing, and his outing was some sort of gay conspiracy. But then Foley comes out and says he did it because he was molested by a Roman Catholic clergyman.

Is it any wonder things are FUBAR?

Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?

FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”

A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
...
But so far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?
...
Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.” (emphasis mine).

I always is just a bit worse than you can imagine.

Patient justice

Bush signs terror interrogation torture law

"We will answer brutal murder with patient justice," Bush said. "Those who kill the innocent will be held to account."

Here is what patient justice looks like:

Waterboarding, hey, we are no worse than the Khmere Rouge!

Hillary just lost my vote

Clinton Equivocates on Torture

Domestic spying

... only on "our" the enemies, right? Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests

Internal military documents released Thursday provided new details about the Defense Department’s collection of information on demonstrations nationwide last year by students, Quakers and others opposed to the Iraq war.

The documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show, for instance, that military officials labeled as “potential terrorist activity” events like a “Stop the War Now” rally in Akron, Ohio, in March 2005.
...

An internal report produced in May 2005, for instance, discussed antiwar protests at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and was issued “to clarify why the Students for Peace and Justice represent a potential threat to D.O.D. personnel.”

The memorandum noted that several hundred students had recently protested the presence of military recruiters at a career fair and demanded that they leave.

“The clear purpose of these civil disobedience actions was to disrupt the recruiting mission of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command by blocking the entrance to the recruiting station and causing the stations to shut down early,” it said.

It is a dangerously slippery slope when you start declaring UC Santa Cruz students a threat to D.O.D. personnel because they protested the presence of military recruiters. When is a bit of civil disobedience become a threat?

Copycat

The untouchables convert

Low-caste Hindus adopt new faith

Thousands of people have been attending mass ceremonies in India at which hundreds of low-caste Hindus (Dalits) converted to Buddhism and Christianity.

The events in the central city of Nagpur are part of a protest against the injustices of India's caste system.

By converting, Dalits - once known as Untouchables - can escape the prejudice and discrimination they normally face.

A moral middle path

A Moral Philosophy for Middle-Class America

Some people are religious conservatives, who believe that policies should align with the transcendent moral order of the universe. Other people are social libertarians, who believe government should be neutral on values issues, and individuals should be guaranteed their own private space to work out their own solutions to moral questions.

But others of us are social traditionalists. We differ from the religious conservatives in that we’re not sure about a transcendent moral order. Furthermore, we think it’s both too sectarian and too lofty to try to pattern government policies on God’s law.

We also disagree with the social libertarians. We don’t think government can be neutral on values issues. Nations are held together by shared beliefs. People flourish because they have been encouraged by society to adopt certain habits and behaviors. It’s a chimera to believe individuals come up with solutions to moral questions alone; human beings are social creatures whose actions and views are profoundly shaped by the social fabric that binds them.

We traditionalists observe that when policies fail, it’s usually because they are based on inaccurate assumptions about human nature. So we don’t base our thinking on the abstract arguments of theology. Nor do we base it on economics, with its image of profit-maximizing individuals. We begin our thinking with a study of what human beings in particular places are actually like.

I generally don't agree with Brooks but he isn't so far off on this one, although it isn't anything surprising. Most reasonable people would take this approach, it just doesn't sound that interesting in the media. More importantly I'm hoping it is just another sign of the GOP impending civil war with Brooks taking up traditional conservative side against "The Nuts". Although he is taking on the libertarians too. Perhaps the GOP will need federalism to keep them all under there big tent.

Bush is Unacceptable

Bush Confounded by the 'Unacceptable'

But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

In the first nine months of this year, Bush declared more than twice as many events or outcomes "unacceptable" or "not acceptable" as he did in all of 2005, and nearly four times as many as he did in 2004. He is, in fact, at a presidential career high in denouncing events he considers intolerable. They number 37 so far this year, as opposed to five in 2003, 18 in 2002 and 14 in 2001.

Happiness is an inside job

Willing your way to happiness

It also mirrors cutting-edge research that made news recently with an experiment at the University of Wisconsin on a Tibetan Buddhist monk who had spent 30 years meditating in the Himalayas.

Dr. Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, put the monk, Matthieu Ricard, into an MRI that videotapes functions of the brain. Inside the machine, as the monk meditated on compassion, his brain showed a dramatic increase in activity in the areas connected to enthusiasm and joy.

The result was magnified in a follow-up study where Davidson charted the normal, emotional states in the brains of 150 people, including the monk Ricard. Most people fell into the middle ground between positive emotions and negative emotions.

But Ricard, who had been deeply meditating on compassion when his brain was scanned, nearly soared off the chart of positive emotions - he had the highest level of happiness ever documented.
...
The good news is that you needn't have 30 years' experience meditating in the Himalayas to improve the quality of your life.

For example, studies are finding that meditation can benefit average people with little experience. Workers in a high-tech company participated in a two- month course in meditation, then were tested by Davidson and Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, bestselling author of "Wherever You Go, There You Are," and a Mind and Life board member.

Results showed decreased anxiety, improved immune function and significant changes in brain activity.

If employees in the notoriously high-stressed, high-tech world can feel better in just a few months, maybe there's hope for the rest of us.

and from the Happiest guy in the world: Happiness: a guide

Origins of the demonized liberal

The Nuts part II

Olbermann does his thing on the new book Tempting Faith: Christian conservatives duped by Bush co.

QT movie here

Seasons greetings

It is only Oct. 12, last week was relatively temparate, and today, where I am in the northern hemisphere, it is snowing.

US politics, staring, The Nuts!

Rove's office called evangelicals 'The Nuts'

National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo wrote. He added that Karl Rove called some of the nation's most prominent evangelical leaders "the nuts."

Collapse of elephant culture

An Elephant Crackup?

It has long been apparent that every large, land-based animal on this planet is ultimately fighting a losing battle with humankind. And yet entirely befitting of an animal with such a highly developed sensibility, a deep-rooted sense of family and, yes, such a good long-term memory, the elephant is not going out quietly. It is not leaving without making some kind of statement, one to which scientists from a variety of disciplines, including human psychology, are now beginning to pay close attention.

Why inspections wouldn't work in NK

Killing Iraqis to save them

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

I have always hated the question, "would you rather Saddam be in power?" It makes it sound as if this war was the only alternative. But even if it was the only alternative, as it has turned out, having been conducted in this horrible fashion, the answer now appears to be yes. We would be safer with saddam still in power (for about a million reasons), and things would be better off for at least 600,000 Iraqis.

On Habeus Corpus

Olbermann: “Why does habeas corpus hate America?"

Watch the video (QT)

Before Foley and After Foley

Some discussion here

GOP hold on both houses in peril

The money still has the dems winning the house and the GOP holding the Senate, although, the price of the GOP holding the Senate ticket went from 78% a few weeks ago to 60 or so today. (50 is even steven, and below 50 says they lose)

Educate yourself

Learn about Scientology

Heck of a job

Gosh, go away for 3 days and the N. Koreans test a nuke. Great. Although it looks like it didn't work.

Test

Page acting wierd. This is a test

Marijuana may stave off Alzheimer's

New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

brian said...

There have now been as many Americans killed in Iraq (2738) as died on 911. I think we need to work to get this into the public consciousness.

Fighting their demons

Mark Foley and the unmasked Republican Party

Cliff Schecter, democrat pit bull

West Texans in charge

Inside Bush's head

'If I catch anyone who leaks in my government,' Bush tells Chrétien in March, 2002, 'I would like to string them up by the thumbs -- the same way we do with prisoners in Guantanamo.'

deBasement

WorldNetDaily: GOP unworthy of governing

Following the revelations about Florida Rep. Mark Foley's sexually suggestive e-mails to a 16-year-old congressional page, I have concluded Republicans are unworthy of retaining control of the federal government.

This is an ultra social conservative who is writing this. Amazing, they don't mind all the other incompetence, but a sex scandal really gets them riled up.

Happy october surprise!

PBS: Moyers on America "Capitol Crimes"

Something to watch on Oct 4th

Debating corruption

I know you are but what am I?



This guy is a pitbull, well done!

Foley Fallout

Will Hastert be forced to step down?

Wow, nothing like a sex scandal to shake things up.

a WSJ blog entry about it: What did they know and when did they know it?

the FBI has opened a preliminary investigation on Foley

if you don't know the story, here is an overview.