Archive for February, 2011
France Wants New System Of Global Currencies
Are the days of each nation having its own currency numbered? France is calling for a global financial system based around “international currencies,” RTE News reports:
France, as current head of the Group of 20 countries, will help the transition to a global financial system based on ’several international currencies’, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said today.
Lagarde, speaking ahead of a G20 finance ministers meeting in Paris on Friday and Saturday, said the world had to move on from the ‘non-monetary system’ it now has to one ‘based on several international currencies’.
Accordingly, France wants to see less need for countries, especially the emerging economies, to accumulate huge foreign reserves, she said.
At the same time, international capital flows should be better regulated and the role of the Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund should be reinforced by the inclusion of China’s yuan in the system.
China, whose booming economy now ranks…
Celebrating Valentine’s Day With Animal Sacrifice And Whipping Women
St. Valentine by Bassano.
Yes, you read the headline right: Valentine’s Day was celebrated by the Ancient Romans in a variety of more or less (un)appealing ways, depending on your tastes (and gender, one suspects). Arnie Seipel reports for NPR:
Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.
Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.
From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.
The Roman romantics “were drunk. They were naked,” says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women…
Negative Health Effects Of Sports And Energy Drinks
Photo: Grendelkhan (CC)
Scientists at University of Miami School of Medicine have reviewed the effects, adverse consequences, and extent of energy-drink consumption among children, adolescents, and young adults. Here’s what they found in their study:
RESULTS According to self-report surveys, energy drinks are consumed by 30% to 50% of adolescents and young adults. Frequently containing high and unregulated amounts of caffeine, these drinks have been reported in association with serious adverse effects, especially in children, adolescents, and young adults with seizures, diabetes, cardiac abnormalities, or mood and behavioral disorders or those who take certain medications. Of the 5448 US caffeine overdoses reported in 2007, 46% occurred in those younger than 19 years. Several countries and states have debated or restricted their sales and advertising.
CONCLUSIONS Energy drinks have no therapeutic benefit, and many ingredients are understudied and not regulated. The known and unknown pharmacology of agents included in such drinks, combined with reports of toxicity,…
Designers Create Meat-Powered Robots
Discovery News provides the latest on the impending robo-pocalypse:
A fly-catching clock, pest-control lampshade and mouse-eating table all together make for one hungry living room. But if you’re into cyborg, self-sufficient furniture, incorporating carnivorous robots into the design is one way to go.
Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots from Auger-Loizeau on Vimeo.
Designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau are working on it. As part of a conceptual project to rethink how robots could fit into our lives, the duo has created a set of autonomous household objects that each perform both a regular function (like “table”) and a technological one (like “digital clock”). But instead of going for solar power or some other renewable source of energy, they decided bugs and rodents could do the job. Not sure I’d want to put my mug on the cheese-baited mouse-eating coffee table though…
Finance Capitalism is Causing Starvation
We all know Soviet-style communism causes starvation. Looks like American-style capitalism does the same thing in a different way. Johann Hari in the Independent, from this past July:
It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people — mostly children — couldn’t afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made…
Study Claims Ogling Women Makes Them Worse at Math
I wonder what the first person to win two Nobel prizes, Madame Curie, would make of this study. Oh, I know the answer from a classic Simpsons episode … Stephanie Pappas writes on LiveScience:
Getting the once-over from a man causes women to score lower on a math test, a new study finds.
Despite this drop in performance, women were more motivated to interact with men who ogled them, perhaps because they were trying to boost their sense of belonging, psychologists report in the February issue of the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly.
“It creates this vicious cycle for women in which they’re underperforming in math or work domains, but they’re continuing to want to interact with the person who is making them underperform in the first place,” study researcher Sarah Gervais, a psychologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, told LiveScience.
Marijuana Arrests in New York City Skyrocket
Alice Speri writes in the NY Times’ City Room:
More people were arrested last year in New York City on charges of marijuana possession than during the entire 19-year period from 1978 to 1996, according to an analysis released this morning by the Drug Policy Alliance.
Last year, the sixth year in a row that marijuana possession arrests increased, 50,383 people were arrested, according to a report recently released by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services and obtained by the policy alliance, which advocates for reform of drug laws.
The figure adds up to 140 arrests a day, making marijuana possession the leading reason for arrest in the city, and represents an 8 percent increase over 2009 and a 69 percent increase since 2005, the alliance reported in a statement issued Thursday.
From 1978 to 1996, there were 49,326 marijuana possession arrests, according to an analysis for the alliance done by Harry…
What Does Google’s Subtle Censorship Say About Us?
Interesting article from Eli Rosenberg in the Atlantic Wire:
The latest news from Google is that searches related to online piracy through torrent downloads are being dropped from the much touted ‘autocomplete’ and ‘instant search’ functions. As we have noted in the past, the notion of Google shaping or even suggesting searches is a relatively strange concept on its own. And now terms like ‘BitTorrent,’ and ‘Vodo’ will no longer show up automatically in your search bar. Yet the filter seems somewhat arbitrary: An autocomplete search for ‘how to pirate music’ yields the large torrent site the Pirate Bay, and as plenty of critics have buckle to pressure from the MPAA, RIAA, and other entertainment industry interests?
Even if we were to pretend that all torrent downloads were illegal, Google’s blocking has raised some interesting questions about its relationship with potentially criminal activities. Last I checked, making an explosive is a pretty serious crime; but when we…
Drinking Diet Soda Increases Risk Of Stroke
No matter what new chemical concoctions the corporate food companies put in “diet” (i.e. low calorie) carbonated beverages (variously known as soda, pop or other terms depending on where you live) to replace sugar, it’s not natural and it’s not good for you. Just think of the various health risks later discovered from saccharin and aspartame. Now it turns out that stroke is another of the health hazards. Stick to sugar — in moderation! From the South Asia Mail:
New research is raising fresh worries about diet soft drinks, noting that people who drink them every day have a higher risk for strokes and heart attacks compared to those who drink no pop at all.
But the researchers are quick to point out that their study does not prove that diet soft drinks cause heart attacks or strokes. They note there could be other aspects about diet pop drinkers that accounts for…
Conservatives Pick Ron Paul For 2012 Presidential Race
Confirming that Ron Paul is likely to be many people’s choice for President in 2012, the influential Conservative Political Action Conference picked him over the likes of Mitt Romney. (That woman from Alaska received only 1/10 of Congressman Paul’s votes.) From the Miami Herald:
Texas Rep. Ron Paul won the straw poll of conservative activists Saturday as their top choice for the 2012 presidential nomination, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished a strong second-but among the newer faces, no one showed much strength.
Paul was the first choice of the 3,742 voters at the Conservative Political Action Conference with 30 percent. Romney got 23 percent.
Paul and Romney also finished one-two in last year’s poll, with almost identical percentages.
In 2007, Romney won the straw poll, followed by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the eventual nominee, never a favorite of conservative activists, was fifth.
Perhaps just as significantly, the…
UK To Bring ‘Gay Lessons’ To Classrooms To Promote LGBT History Month
Photo: Blackcatuk (CC)
The Telegraph reports:
Children are to be taught about homosexuality in maths, geography and science lessons as part of a Government-backed drive to “celebrate the gay community”.
Lesson plans have been drawn up for pupils as young as four, in a scheme funded with a £35,000 grant from an education quango, the Training and Development Agency for Schools.
The initiative will be officially launched next month at the start of “LGBT History Month” – an initiative to encourage teaching about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues.
The lesson plans, spread across the curriculum, will be offered to all schools, which can choose whether or not to make use of them.
But critics last night called the initiative a poor use of public money which could distract from the teaching of “core” subjects.
Among the suggestions are:
- Maths – teaching statistics through census findings about the number of homosexuals in the population, and using gay characters in…
‘Polite Robber’ Repeatedly Apologizes While Holding Up Convenience Store
Sad sign of the times? CBS News reports:
The owner of a Seattle, Wash., convenience store says the man who robbed him at gunpoint was polite.
Shell station owner John Henry told the police that the man bought a cup of coffee and then asked for a favor – empty the till.
When Henry asked what he meant, the man said, “I’m robbing you, sir.”…
Anthropomorphism: The Pathetic Fallacy
Esther Inglis-Arkell writes on io9:
It starts when you’re young. In fact, it’s encouraged when you’re young. You’re given stuffed animals or little dolls. You’re asked to name things around your house. Things are explained to you in terms of ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’. For example, I was told that the toilet dislikes having all my clothes flushed down it — apparently, that makes it ’sick’. The world is sketched out for you in terms of relationships, and inanimate objects have relationships as readily as humans do.
And then one day it stops. Thinking that a Christmas tree left out on the side of the road is ’sad’ or that you owe an old pair of sneakers better than just dumping them in a trash can isn’t indicative of a childlike sense of wonder, a lot of empathy, or a good imagination; it’s just needlessly crazy. There’s even a psychological disorder to describe…
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Readies National Guard Against Unions
Scott Walker. Photo: WisPolitics.com (CC)
Bah! Who needs democratic rights like freedom of association or collective bargaining? Americans weren’t really usin’ ‘em anyways. From the Huffington Post:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Friday that he was willing to mobilize the state’s National Guard force in order to address the potential repercussions of his stated proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights for state employees.
The Associated Press reports:
Gov. Scott Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond wherever is necessary in the wake of his announcement that he wants to take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from state employees.Walker said Friday that he hasn’t called the Guard into action, but he has briefed them and other state agencies in preparation of any problems that could result in a disruption of state services, like staffing at prisons.
On Thursday, Walker told the Associated Press that he will propose removing nearly all public…
Chicago Installs ‘Virtual Shield’ Of 10,000 Surveillance Cameras
From AFP via Discovery News:
A vast network of high-tech surveillance cameras that allows Chicago police to zoom in on a crime in progress and track suspects across the city is raising privacy concerns.
Chicago’s path to becoming the most-watched U.S. city began in 2003 when police began installing cameras with flashing blue lights at high-crime intersections.
The city has now linked more than 10,000 public and privately owned surveillance cameras in a system dubbed Operation Virtual Shield, according to a report published Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
At least 1,250 of them are powerful enough to zoom in and read the text of a book.
The sophisticated system is also capable of automatically tracking people and vehicles out of the range of one camera and into another and searching for images of interest like an unattended package or a particular license plate.
“Given Chicago’s history of unlawful political surveillance, including the notorious ‘Red…
Dr. Russell Blaylock Explains Fluoride’s Deadly Secret
Dr. Russell Blaylock M.D. is a retired neurosurgeon and author whose trailblazing research has tirelessly documented the fact that there is an epidemic of neurological disorders in the western world which are directly connected to toxins in our environment.
The Pets We Kept Before Dogs Found In 16,500-Year-Old Cemetery
Source: Mariomassone (CC)
Alasdair Wilkins writing at io9.com:
A burial site recently uncovered in Jordan is the oldest ever discovered in the Middle East, at least 1,500 years older than any other cemetery previously discovered. But it’s not just its great age that makes it special — the cemetery also reveals what animals humans kept as pets long before the domestication of dogs.
The site, which dates back about 16,500 years, was discovered in ‘Uyun al-Hammam in Jordan. The University of Toronto researchers discovered the site back in 2000, but it’s taken eleven years just to come to grips with what the site has to teach us. Indeed, this cemetery stands to be particularly useful, as it has eleven different sets of human remains — more than all other burial sites of this type combined.
But it isn’t just the human corpses that have attracted attention, as they’ve also discovered remains of ancient pets.…
