[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- LiquidPublication – Publishing Without The Peer Review Hassle
- [Science News]
LiquidPublication, an EU-financed research project, want to change how you do science. Namely by allowing you to do more of it, instead of sifting through journals.
- Millennia-old Bison killing field found in Montana
- [A Blog About History]
A bison kill site used at least 1,000-years-ago has been found along the Two Medicine River in Montana.
- Britain’s oldest house
- [A Blog About History]
Archaeologists have discovered Britain’s oldest house which dates back 11,500 years.
- Russian Heat and Asian Floods May Be Linked
- [Wired: Science - Brandon Keim]
Russia’s killer heat wave and monster South Asian monsoon floods could be more than isolated examples of extreme weather. Though separated by a continent, they could be linked…
“We haven’t done the studies, but there’s very good reasons to suspect that there’s a relationship,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “It’s simply related to the idea that you have a monsoon with very large circulation. There’s an upwards branch of it. There has to be a downards branch somewhere else.”
…Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters called it “one of the most remarkable weather events of my lifetime,” which is probably an understatement; Russian meteorologists say it’s the most intense heat wave in a millennium. Meanwhile, in South Asia and China, seasonal monsoons have been exceptionally intense, setting off the worst flooding in 80 years. Pakistan has been especially hard-hit, with 1,600 people dead and two million homeless…
- Forest loss slows in Brazilian Amazon
- [Science News]
Between 2004 and 2009, rate of clearing dropped almost 75 percent
- Breakthrough: Scientists use electron spin to expand computer memory
- [io9 - Alasdair Wilkins]
We've long known that encoding data using electron spin could revolutionize computer performance – and now it's been successfully demonstrated for the first time ever.
- P ≠ NP? It's bad news for the power of computing
- [io9 - Richard Elwes]
Has the biggest question in computer science been solved? On 6 August, Vinay Deolalikar, a mathematician at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California, sent out draft copies of a paper titled simply "P ≠ NP".
- Defining society: the anthropologist’s dilemma
- [Futurismic - Paul Raven]
Keith Hart think’s he’s uncovered anthropolgy’s biggest challenge, and the issue that’s hampering its progress as a science: defining the word ‘society’ in a way that makes sense for the times we live in.
- Beck, Geller push falsehood that Ground Zero "mosque" will open on September 11
- [Media Matters for America - J.V.B.]
- A depressing work of staggering ignorance
- [Fertile Feminism]
First, the good news: a major newspaper put an article about mothers in the workforce in the Economy section, not Life & Style or the Moms Like Me! section, where most news items about women go to die.
But before David Leonhardt and his sub-editors go patting themselves on the back too hard, I’d like to point out the major flaws in the story…
…Leonhardt assumes that the three female Supreme Court nominees he holds up as examples of women being forced to choose between family and career actually wanted children. Unless he’s been privy to private conversations with these women on their reproductive choices, I’m afraid this is what one would call Lazy Journalism…
Here’s where Leonhardt’s article simultaneously caught my attention and pissed me off: the ol’ It’s All Feminism’s Fault™ trick, number 323,982 in an infinite series…
Wait, what? You say that you weren’t in positions of power to make economic or social policies and that you did talk about these issues but were summarily ignored before resentfully being given the crappiest office in the building when you, as a senior manager, were finally removed from the typing pool where The Girls all sat? I think we all know that was a conscious choice on your part, Janet. [Note: Janet is the name of the 2nd wave feminist who participates in technically fictional but historically accurate role play situations in my head]…
- Republican Strategy: Vote Against Funding For Public Jobs, Unemployment Rate Goes Up, Reap Political Benefit
- [Crooks and Liars - karoli]
But what really frosts me is how the narrative begins and ends with "Unemployment is high. Voters will hand the Congress back to Republicans."
- Target's Anti-Gay Problems Look A Little Bigger Than Just One Political Contribution
- [Crooks and Liars - Susie Madrak]
It appears that Target's anti-gay PR problems are getting bigger by the day. Looks like they have themselves a few "the Bible tells us it's wrong" fundies at the helm…
- Patriarchy hurts babies too
- [Pursuit of Harpyness - SarahMC]
[Trigger warning for violence against a toddler.]
This is why I wasn’t amused when my co-worker told me her husband removed their toddler son from a park after he became interested in playing with a pink toy. Of course that’s not the same thing as murder, but it’s a difference in degree rather than kind. They exist on the same bigoted spectrum. The gender policing of little boys, especially, happens constantly, all around us.
- Gitmo Judge Patrick Parrish Allows Convicted Torturer Joshua Claus to Coerce Teen’s Confession Under Rape Threat
- [Firedoglake - Jim White]
…Monday’s decision from Guantanamo Military Commission Judge Colonel Patrick Parrish [allows] all confessions of Omar Khadr to be admitted into evidence…
Think about that just a moment. Col. Parrish has allowed to stand a confession that a convicted torturer openly admits was obtained after relating to the teenage suspect a story in which a non-cooperative suspect was sent to a prison to be raped and killed…
Khadr. While there are legal questions surrounding whether the act of which he is accused (throwing a hand grenade) rises to the level of a war crime rather than an act committed during a battle in a war, there can be no doubt that coercing a confession under threat of rape and/or death should itself be a punishable act. Yet, even though the perpetrator [former military interrogator Joshua Claus] of this war crime has been convicted [...] of torture, the presiding judge at Khadr’s military commission trial has decided to allow this and all other confessions obtained from Khadr when he was a 15 year old wounded boy.
This heinous decision by Parrish should remove all doubt on the question of the object of the military commission system at Guantanamo. This system is set up only to obtain convictions without regard to US and international law…
- Crude Violations: BP Is Dumping Toxic Waste In Low Income Communities of Colour
- [FWD/Forward - S.E. Smith]
…nine landfills in the Gulf region have been selected as sites for disposing of waste. Waste management authorities claim the material isn’t toxic, which means that regular municipal landfills, rather than landfills specifically designed to handle hazardous waste, are being used. Of the nine landfills chosen, five are located in low income communities of colour.
This is not a coincidence….
From the start, the oil spill has disproportionately impacted people of colour. Many of the cleanup workers were people of colour, and BP also used primarily nonwhite prison labour in oil spill cleanup and tried to hide it…
The Link(s): Tue, Aug 10th, 11am by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.