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Watch this African Bullfrog exact sweet, sweet revenge on its goading owners
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IBM Explains How Mind-Reading Machines Will Change Our Lives
In five years, we’ll simply be able to think something, and a computer will respond.
[And that's when we'll discover that most people don't think clearly enough to execute most tasks. On the bright side, many people will *learn from the experience*. -L]
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…let’s add “When are you going to finish your dissertation?” to the list of “So, when will you be leveling ‘up’? questions, with the understanding that “leveling up” is a totally subjective thing based on a lot of sometimes ridiculous and narrow assumptions about what people “should” do or “should want” or what things are considered achievements.
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Cotton fabric cleans itself when exposed to ordinary sunlight
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Elephant Seal Tracked by WCS Travels 18,000 Miles – Wildlife Conservation Society
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World’s smallest frogs discovered in New Guinea | e! Science News
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Daily Kos: Ancient China: The Bronze Age
The transition from copper to bronze was a major technological advance. In China, the Bronze Age began about 2000 BCE and lasted until the beginning of the Iron Age about 750 BCE. Chinese bronze is an alloy of copper mixed with small amounts of tin and lead. …
According to the oral traditions and the early historic writings, Yu the Great was the legendary founder of the Xia dynasty.
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2 women share 1st kiss at US Navy ship’s return | News from The Associated Press
A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted “first kiss” on the pier after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.
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Daily Kos: Three cheers for the Obama administration’s new mercury and acid emissions rules
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Daily Kos: This week in the War on Women: Bloodlusting ‘pro-lifers’ go to the movies
On Wednesday, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and the Ricks Perry and Santorum convened in Iowa to suck up to wannabe kingmaker Mike Huckabee at the screening of his anti-choice “documentary” produced with Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United). …
[Informative news roundup is informative with a side order of ranty; I link because I didn't know Citizens United was connected to the forced birth movement. -L]
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40,000 People Call on U.S. Mayors to End Journalist Arrests | Save the News
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A Lesson in Love From the Protest at the Port by Reverend John Helmiere:
On Monday evening, I was brutally beaten by my brothers on the Seattle Police force as I stood before an entrance to Pier 18 of the Seattle Port, wearing my clergy garb and bellowing, “Keep the peace! Keep the peace!”
An officer pulled me down from behind and threw me to the asphalt. Between my cries of pain and shouts of “I’m a man of peace!” he pressed a knee to my spine and immobilized my arms behind my back, crushing me against the ground. With the right side of my face pressed to the street, he repeatedly punched the left side…
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Occupy Wall Street on the Waterfront by Madeline Ostrander – YES! Magazine
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New Rights for California’s Undocumented by Jen Horton — YES! Magazine
Several laws signed by California Governor Jerry Brown this autumn will improve life in the state for undocumented immigrants, recognizing their civil rights and improving their prospects for education and employment.
One of these, AB 131, builds on AB 130, signed this summer. These two laws, collectively known as the “California Dream Act,” enable eligible undocumented students at California colleges and universities to receive private or state-funded financial aid as of January 1, 2013….
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Occupy Your Diary: New Platform Links the Intimate Moments That Make Up an Event – Technology – GOOD
Even if you’re not politically inclined, Cowbird provides many features that make the platform stand out from other publishing tools. Storytellers can easily post full-screen photos, geotag moments to create a map of their lives, create subtitles for audio to play alongside images, and even turn those subtitles into links.
Cowbird is slowly adding new members, so if you’re interested, click here to apply for an invitation.
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Exclusive: North Korea’s military to share power with Kim’s heir | Reuters
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BBC News – Syria crisis: ‘Nearly 200 lives lost’ in last two days
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BBC News – Russian protest blogger Alexei Navalny leaves jail
After serving 15 days for obstructing police, the anti-corruption blogger was freed in the early hours.
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Mercosur approves Palestinian free trade deal – Yahoo! News
The Mercosur trade group of four South American nations has signed a free trade agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
It’s the first trade deal between the Palestinian territories and a bloc of nations outside the Arab world.
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Get Ready to Starve – By Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy
The West was just gearing up to send food to a hungry North Korea. Then came the death of Kim Jong Il.
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7 Holiday Games for Wonks – By Michael Peck | Foreign Policy
…subtler games — those that illustrate the currents of history, illuminate the intricacies of politics, and explain why the world is and what it might be… that require thought and guile, and not just a quick wrist and a big bottle of caffeinated Mountain Dew.
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The Growth of Degrowth Economics – Miller-McCune
Degrowthists argue that only a contraction of the world’s developed economies can help reduce dependence on fossil fuel and other environmental resources, slow climate change, and shrink income disparities in developed nations while building wealth in emerging ones. “Constant and instant growth is a failed paradigm,” suggests Nicolas Kosoy, an ecological economist at McGill University…
Degrowthists distinguish their ideas from sustainable development and steady state economic theory — both of which strive for equilibrium between consumption and the Earth’s carrying capacity but which at times suggest growth may be desirable. Degrowth theory is more radical: a downscaling of production and consumption as a means of preserving resources while re-engineering a more equitable society.
…mainstream economists reject degrowth theory as a kind of macroeconomic science fiction.
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Why a Democracy Needs Uninformed People – Miller-McCune
Animals in a given herd have different preferences — the thirsty ones want to head for a watering hole, for example, while the hungry ones hope to set out for a feeding ground. How does the group decide? Do the hungriest individuals sway everyone else? In nature, there’s a high cost to not reaching consensus. If the group doesn’t make a single decision, it loses many of the advantages of traveling en masse.
To study how this decision-making process works, Couzin and his colleagues applied findings from a series of mathematical models in designing experiments with golden shiner fish. …
Individuals with no particular preference — they could go to the blue target or the yellow one, the watering hole or the feeding ground — essentially dilute the influence of the vocal minority.
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Why Isn’t Climate Change on More Lips? – Miller-McCune
Eighty-three percent of Americans believe the Earth is heating up, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsons poll.
Yet most live as though global warming isn’t taking place, even while knowing that it is. …
Norgaard studied that collective denial during a year of living in a Norwegian village and through focus groups and interviews she later conducted in the U.S. In her recently published book, Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, she describes distinct signs of global warming in the unidentified village, including so little snow that the local ski area didn’t open until December, with artificial snow. Yet the villagers rarely discussed climate change and took no action to slow it down.
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Scientists Deflated by Obama’s Policy Decisions – Miller-McCune
…NOAA scientists are now permitted to talk directly to the media — in other words, the public — about their research findings, without first seeking permission or deferring to agency spokespeople. This was a key demand of scientific integrity advocates, who feared that the work of government scientists was sometimes muzzled or mediated for political reasons during the Bush administration.
Ironically, though, some of EPA’s most high-profile work this year — leading to recommendations for stricter national ozone standards — was also dismissed by the White House.
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Proposed Domestic Workers’ Rights Bill Raises the Ire of Disabled – The Bay Citizen
Disability Rights California opposes the bill unless it is amended. They say it will put financial strain on people living with disabilities who are dependent on personal attendants. “It has unfortunately pitted groups against each other who are natural allies,” said Legislative Advocate Deborah Doctor.
People with disabilities are disproportionately low-income, Doctor said. Disability Rights California is afraid that if this population has to pay more for their personal attendants they would be forced to stop working and go on state benefits.
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“What we’ve seen is that the courts are starting to look at parentage issues from a child’s perspective, which is a very big shift. Before, children were treated more like property.
“Now the courts are starting to ask, ‘Who do these children think their parents are?’ It’s a child-centered approach that relies on looking at behavior. Courts aren’t willing to take children away from people whom they rely upon.”
Niemi, the lawyer for S.B., took away a different lesson from the case.
“If you are a single parent, and there’s not another parent somewhere,” she said, “you have to be careful about who you allow to have a relationship with your kids.”
[Well, that sounds fair to me. -L]
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Pop Charts Still Dominated by Men – Miller-McCune
“In 1997, Rolling Stone magazine famously celebrated the rise of the female pop star, boldly declaring that “Women are ruling the roost.”
It took less than a decade for that dominance to decisively shift back to men.
That’s the key finding of a newly published study…
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Thousands of Women Mass in Major March in Cairo – NYTimes.com
Although women stood at the forefront of the initial revolt that ousted President Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago, few had prominent roles in the various revolutionary coalitions formed in the uprising’s aftermath. Almost no women have won seats in the early rounds of parliamentary elections. And the continuing demonstrations against military rule have often degenerated into battles in which young men and the security police hurl rocks at each other. …
The women’s demand for a voice in political life appeared to run counter to the recent election victories of conservative Islamists. But the march was hardly dominated by secular liberals. It contained a broad spectrum of Egyptian women, including homemakers demonstrating for the first time and young mothers carrying babies, with a majority in traditional Muslim head scarves and a few in face-covering veils. And their chants mixed calls for women’s empowerment with others demanding more “gallantry” from Egyptian men.
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Derailing: How not to talk to people who are telling you something sad. « CaptainAwkward.com
Even when it’s not a specific question of sexism, racism, able-ism, I think people derail each other all the time without meaning to. When someone you like and consider to be a generally intelligent, capable person is telling you something bad that they are going through or that happened to them, here are four well-intentioned, totally normal, understandable, routine things you can do or say that will derail them and probably make them feel crappy (+ one bonus dick move).
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ActBlue | Contribute to Recall Scott Walker
The numbers show that since Scott Walker signed his devastating budget into law in June, our state has been hemorrhaging jobs each and every month. In fact, Scott Walker’s regressive policies have harmed our state to such a degree that another report shows that Wisconsin has the worst economic indicators of any state in the entire country. …
Please donate $5 right now so we can hold Scott Walker accountable for all the harm he has done to our state’s economy and our middle class.
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Open Thread: Darth Vader conducts Carol of the Bells | Geek Feminism Blog
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Judd Apatow now knows that making a great movie targeted at women is a way to make money. You get the women and you get the men. Even though he looks prescient, he admits that he was making a movie targeted at women. But you gotta give him some credit because his whole point was that if you make a GOOD movie men and women will come. He just got them to walk through the women’s door first which most people are afraid of. Now if only we could get the rest of Hollywood to understand this too.
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