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Memorandum: Accelerated Mortality Rates of Vietnam Veterans | S. Brian Willson

1 save http://www.brianwillson.com/memorandum-accelerated-mortality-rates-of-vietn...

There is no certain way of knowing how many Vietnam veterans have died through suicide, motor vehicle "accidents," or illnesses. The available evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, however, suggests elevated mortality rates from suicides, motor vehicle accidents, and certain cancers for Vietnam veterans. In some cases the data suggests mortality rates are "significantly elevated."

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Stone Age painting kits found in cave | Science | The Guardian

233 saves http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/13/stone-age-painting-kits

The oldest known painting kits, used 100,000 years ago in the stone age, have been unearthed in a cave in South Africa.

Two sets of implements for preparing red and yellow ochres to decorate animal skins, body parts or perhaps cave walls were excavated...

The stone and bone tools for crushing, mixing and applying the pigments were uncovered alongside the shells of giant sea snails that had been used as [mixing pots]....

Other bones, including the shoulder blade of a seal, were among the ingredients for making the pigments. The bones were probably heated in a fire and the marrow fat used as a binder for the paint....

The remarkable discovery, reported in the journal Science, throws light on the capabilities and rituals of Homo sapiens who occupied the cave from at least 140,000 years ago....

"This is the first known instance for deliberate planning, production and curation of a compound," [and] the first known use of containers. "It's early chemistry...."

human

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TheLightedBridge

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Nouriel 'Dr. Doom' Roubini: ‘Karl Marx Was Right’ - International Business Times

25 saves http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/197468/20110813/roubini-nouriel-roubini-dr-...

Roubini said he did not think the U.S. or the world are [yet at the point where capitalism in self destructing. He added] that the current trend, if it continues, "runs the risk of repeating the second leg of the Great Depression"—the "Mistake of 1937"[, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite the first four years of massive New Deal fiscal stimulus having] lowered U.S. unemployment from a staggering 20.6 percent during the Hoover Administration at the start of the Great Depression to 9.1 percent, felt pressure from Congressional Republicans, and]—as current President Barack Obama did with the Tea Party-led House GOP in 2011—gave in to conservatives and cut government spending]. The result? U.S. unemployment started rising again, and hit 12.5% in 1938.
Cutting government spending prematurely hurt the U.S. economy in 1937 by reducing demand, and Roubini sees the same pattern playing out today, following austerity measures implemented by the U.S. debt deal act.

economics

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Massive River Found Flowing Beneath the Amazon [VIDEO] | IBTimes TV

2 saves http://tv.ibtimes.com/massive-river-found-flowing-beneath-the-amazon/1753.h...

Researchers at the department of geophysics of the Brazil National Observatory have showed evidence of the existence of an underground river that flows 13,000 feet beneath the Amazon.
The body of water has been named after Valiya Hamza, who led the research and found that the Amazon rainforest has two separate drainage systems: the surface drainage through the Amazon and the flow of groundwater through deep sedimentary layers.
[The Hamza is said to be 6,000 kilometers long, flowing 13,000 feet below the Amazon. Both rivers flow] west to east. The Amazon ranges from 1 kilometer to 100 kilometers in width, while [the] Hamza ranges from 200 km to 400 km, however the Hamza flows at only a fraction of the speed of [the] Amazon.
According to the BBC, an underground river of this scale would be the longest of its kind in the world by far.
A Brazilian expert said the groundwater is known to be very salty, which may explain the low level of salinity in the waters around the mouth of the Amazon.

Earth

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James Mollison's Photos of Children's Bedrooms Are a Commentary on Class and Pov...

1 save http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/where-children-sleep/?scp=1&sq=chi...

Mollison’s new book, “Where Children Sleep,” had its origins in a project...for a children’s charity several years ago. As he considered how to represent needy children around the world, he wanted to avoid the common devices: pleading eyes, toothless smiles. When he visualized his own childhood, he realized that his bedroom said a lot about what sort of life he led. So he set out to find others.
His subjects came from Boy Scout troops and sumo wrestling clubs. They were introduced through friends of friends. Mr. Mollison posed his young subjects—more than 200 of them—in front of blank white backgrounds for their portraits, leaving their bedrooms to do the talking. More than 50 pairings are in the book, which has a glow-in-the-dark cover (a nod to the glow-in-the-dark stars on so many childhood ceilings).
As much as the project is about the quirkiness of childhood, it is, more strikingly, a commentary on class and on poverty. But the diversity also provides a sense of togetherness.

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Why Perry Hates Those Regulators: They're Bad For (His) Business | National Memo...

2 saves http://www.nationalmemo.com/content/why-perry-hates-those-regulators-theyre...

"We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license...Then we got another law passed that said [the state can only issue one license. We] were the only ones that applied.”
Simmons and [Waste Control Systems manipulated state and federal law to allow building a nuclear-waste disposal site in West Texas. Construction has been delayed for years because the site overlays the Oglalla Aquifer, which supplies water to] 1.9 million people in 9 states....
Perry’s appointees on the [Environmental Quality commission voted 2 to 1 to license the WCS site; officials on a radioactive waste commission appointed by Perry allowed the site to accept nuclear waste from 34 other states in a] decision later ratified by the state legislature....
[The Texas official (and Perry appointee) who overruled his own scientists and approved the deal left government] to work as a lobbyist for Simmons. He says that no undue influence led to the favorable outcome for his new employer.

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Gay Teen Now Being Blamed for His Own Murder

3 saves http://gawker.com/5830022/gay-teen-now-being-blamed-for-his-own-murder

[Fifteen-year-old Larry King was shot twice in the back of the head by] classmate Brandon McInerney while sitting in school in Oxnard, California. Now that McInerney is on trial, the boy's legal team and the school administration are using the tried and true "he was asking for it" defense....
According to [the L.A. Times], "McInerney's defense attorneys [acknowledge that the boy pulled the trigger but say] he was pushed to the breaking point by King's taunts." Yes, it's the tried and true "gay panic defense" that preys on juries' homophobia to get confessed killers cleared for murdering gay people. It was even used against Matthew Shepard, when one of his killers said he was driven to kill the gay college student because he hit on him.
[King apparently] was wearing makeup and high heels to school and would follow around a group of boys taunting them by saying, "You know you want me." That enraged McInerney so much that he was compelled to kill King. At least, that's [his defense].

law

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Democracy vs Mythology: The Battle in Syntagma Square « sturdyblog

29 saves http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/democracy-vs-mythology-the-battl...

[Greeks] do not want the bail-out at all. They have already accepted [unfathomable cuts]....
My mother [is nearly 70, worked all her life for the Archaeology Department of the Ministry of Culture, paid tax, national insurance and pension contributions for over 45 years, and now has had her pension cut.] She faces the same rampantly inflationary energy and food prices as the rest of Europe.
A good friend’s grandad, Panagiotis K., fought a war 70 years ago—on the same side as the rest of Western democracy. He returned and worked 50 years in a shipyard, paid his taxes, built his pension. At the age of 87 he has had to move back to his village [to plant vegetables and keep] four chickens. So that he and his 83 year old wife might have something to eat....
GPs and nurses have become so desperate that they ask people for money under the table in order to treat them, in what are meant to be free state hospitals....The Hippocratic oath violated out of despair, at the place of its inception.

economy

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How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality - Yahoo! News

1 save http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110616/us_time/08599207794300

[Taxes] as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies....The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes....
Republicans confidently assert that their [health care] ideas will lower costs...[O]f the world's richest countries, the U.S. has by far the greatest involvement of free markets and the private sector in health care. It also consumes the largest share of GDP, with no significant gains in health on any measurable outcome.

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Weighing cancer risks, from cellphones to coffee

1 save http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-cancer-cellphones-coffee.html

You're sitting in a freshly drywalled house, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup[, using a cellphone. What is your greatest] cancer risk? It might be the sitting, especially if you do that a lot....
The rule is "RITE"—Risk Is equal to Toxicity times Exposure....
[David Ropeik ("How Risky Is It Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts") says we fear] risks we didn't choose, such as hazardous chemicals, more than those we did, such as lack of exercise, poor diets or smoking...
[Styrene in tobacco smoke is the most common exposure route. Smoking is the most easily preventable cancer risk.]
"If you [can smell formaldehyde, you want to vent the room before you spend a lot of time in it. That's common sense."]
If you're concerned about pesticides, you can peel fruit and vegetables or choose organics, though there is some evidence that organic products may be less safe in terms of germs like E. coli and salmonella.
"You can't live life in fear...You have to live life."

risk

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The Rise of the Second-String Psychopaths | Common Dreams

14 saves http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/05-1

[The Kochs and others of the super-rich] have undertaken a final push to consolidate control through the conversion of a marginally democratic to an essentially fascist state; extreme right-wing, authoritarian...demagogic. This kind of government is ideal for control of a populace by the moneyed elite. To carry this out requires the employment of many ‘kept’ politicians to excite and misdirect scared[, angry, and ignorant] voters. Lest the citizenry realize who stole their money and storm their castles with torches, the rapacious elite need politicians who will carry out the work of re-directing anger at teachers, or labor unions, or the poor. I can only conclude that the people who now own the country couldn’t find any first-rate psychopaths to carry out their work. Or maybe the smart ones were all occupied. So they had to go to second-stringers, people who could actually believe what they were told to say.
[Our country] has become second-best, even in the quality of our psychopaths.

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The Backfire Effect « You Are Not So Smart

331 saves http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/

3000 spoilers per second rippled away from Twitter in the hours before Barack Obama [told the world Osama bin Laden was dead].
[The world of information exchange had changed] since September of 2001 except in one predictable and probably immutable way. Within minutes of learning about Seal Team Six, the headshot tweeted around the world and the swift burial at sea, conspiracy theories began to bounce against the walls of our infinitely voluminous echo chamber. Days later, when the world learned they would be denied photographic proof, the conspiracy theories grew legs, left the ocean and evolved into self-sustaining undebunkable life forms.
As information technology progresses, the behaviors you are most likely to engage in when it comes to belief, dogma, politics and ideology seem to remain fixed. In a world blossoming with new knowledge, burgeoning with scientific insights into every element of the human experience, like most people, you still pick and choose what to accept...

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Digital democracy? Study finds elite viewpoints dominate online content | e! Sci...

1 save http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/06/08/digital.democracy.study.finds.e...

Schradie's latest study breaks new ground in that it tracks the relationship between socio-economic status and 10 online activities most likely to influence the public, opinion shapers and policy makers[:] such social networking activities as Facebook; website building and design; blogging; photo-and video-sharing...chat room and newsgroup participation; and the posting of comments and ratings.
In 17 surveys, [d]espite users' racial, ethnic and gender differences, all 10 online activities showed a socio-economic class divide.
Many observers of social media assume that participation rates will increase as younger generations, known as "digital natives," embrace new technologies and modes of communication. But by tracking 10 different activities over time, the study shows strong patterns of inequality that are not likely to disappear when the next social media tool appears...
"The working class is underrepresented on the Internet...Without their voices, their issues are ignored."

civic

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Ten Years After Bush Tax Cuts, An Emerging Movement « SpeakEasy

1 save http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/06/10/taxmovement/

The Patriotic Millionaires, organized by the Agenda Project and Wealth for the Common Good, released a video message to Congressional leaders to increase taxes on millionaires. “It is self-defeating to pursue these tax policies, and it is inconsistent with our values as Americans...We need to throw out the Bush tax cuts in a hurry and begin the process of restoring some fiscal sanity to the country’s budget"....
Opposition is also building against the idea, lobbied for by companies like Google, Apple, Pfizer, and Oracle, of a “tax holiday” for corporations that have shifted more than $1 trillion in profits to offshore tax havens—a move that would cost the U.S. Treasury $80 billion. Business for Shared Prosperity is circulating a business sign-on letter to Congress calling on them to “reject demands by U.S. multinationals for a tax holiday to “repatriate” the funds they shifted offshore to avoid paying taxes.”

taxation

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New Challenge for Parents - Children’s Gender Roles - NYTimes.com

3 saves http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/new-challenge-for-parents-childre...

By supporting their children’s wish to dress as gender-benders, parents may inadvertently put them at greater risk for taunting. When Harry, the Los Angeles boy whose father gave him a Barbie, was 2, he attended a dress-up birthday party for his sisters’ friend, in costume. One father called him “Little Liberace;” another compared him to an L.A. drag queen. The second-grade brother of CJ, star of the Raising My Rainbow blog, is teased. “The boys say, ‘Why does your brother like girls’ toys, that’s so gay,’ and run from him,” his mother said.
Parents say their job is not to change their children, but to help them withstand cruel comments. A 2010 study by the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University that focused mainly on adolescents found strong correlations between positive family attitudes toward their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children and decreased risks of depression, substance abuse and suicide.

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Hashtags, a New Way for Tweets - Cultural Studies - NYTimes.com

1 save http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/hashtags-a-new-way-for-tweets-cul...

“[A hashtag embedded in a short message with real language] starts exhibiting other characteristics of natural language...people start playing with it and manipulating it...You’ll see them used as humor, as [meta-commentary, where] what you really think is in the hashtag.”
“Because of the use of hashtags, you can use one word to describe something and it’s kind of a mental hashtag...So it’s like, ‘Awkward!’ or “Winning!’ And yes, definitely ‘Fail.’ For that one I often hear ‘Pound fail.’ ”
“The other funny thing that’s been happening is that people around the office have started to talk in hashtags—‘Hashtag sorry I’m late,’ or ‘Hashtag bad day.’ ”
[Some flash one another the hashtag sign—crossing the index and middle finger of one hand over the same two fingers of the other] to create a physical hashtag. #IronicGesture #WeHope
“I have pictures of people actually using the actual hashtag symbol, and it’s like they’re flashing a gang sign, but they’re doing a hashtag...really geeky.”

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BBC News - Japan pensioners volunteer to tackle nuclear crisis

48 saves http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607

[Over 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at Fukushima. Taking the place of younger workers at the power station is not brave, organizer Yasuteru Yamada says, but logical:] "I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live[. Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 years or longer to develop;] older ones have less chance of getting cancer"....
[Besides Mr Yamada and other retired engineers, volunteers include] former power station workers, experts in factory design[—even a singer and two cooks Mr Yamada says can help] keep his team amused and fed.
[Former school teacher Michio Ito now helps out in a cafe offering work experience to people with learning problems:] "I don't think I'm particularly special...Most Japanese have this feeling in their heart. The question is whether you step forward, or you stay behind and watch....To take that step you need a lot of guts...Most Japanese want to help out any way they can."

Japan

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Tables Turned: Bank Of America Pays Couple’s Legal Fees After Deputies Threaten ...

1 save http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/04/236594/bank-of-america-foreclos...

In Collier County, Florida, a pair of sheriff’s deputies turned the tables on the mega-bank and struck a blow for beleaguered homeowners everywhere. A Bank of America branch there had improperly been involved in a foreclosure lawsuit against a local couple, yet the bank was refusing to pay the couple’s legal fees when it was found to be in the wrong. So two sherrif’s deputies and an attorney showed up at a Bank of America branch with some help — a local William C. Hoff moving crew. The deputies and attorney offered Bank of America a choice: Either the mega-bank pay the couple’s $2,534 legal fees, or they would foreclose on the branch and and seize all of its assets. Bank of America decided to pay. Watch a local news station’s report on the incident: [link]
It should be noted that not only has Bank of America been involved in abusive practices against homeowners, but that it also is a major tax dodger that actually got away with paying nothing in corporate income taxes in 2009. [link]

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CNN poll: GOP losing the argument over Medicare - The Plum Line - The Washington...

1 save http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/cnn-gop-losing-the-argum...

The suggestion from CNN seems to be that the Ryan plan, in addition to being unpopular, has caused the GOP’s overall image to sink even as the arguments from both sides have been publicly litigated. That would square with the finding of other analysts who claim that Republicans are particularly vulnerable because the public finds arguments against the plan persuasive. Also, the nearly three-quarters of seniors who oppose Ryancare would suggest that they are rejecting a primary GOP defense of the program: That it doesn’t impact anyone over 55.

The poll, curiously, also finds that a majority of conservatives and even 50 percent of Republicans oppose the plan.

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