Facts to go...

The GOP cares!

2011-06-22T10:19:00.000+02:00

Open-mindedness

2011-03-28T13:29:00.001+02:00

Now this is what being open-minded really is.

Data Visualisation

2011-01-06T11:07:00.001+01:00

Good presentation: 80% how it looks, 15% how it sounds and 5% what it says. This is why Data Visualisation is important! Read the profile on Hans Rosling (first link on the page) for more info about the man.

QOTD

2010-10-13T09:47:00.002+02:00

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."

- Unknown

Is food less nutritious than it used to be?

2010-09-12T09:41:00.001+02:00

Looks like the cheaper we want to produce the food we eat, the crappier the quality gets. Sure we can produce meat, chicken, veggies twice as fast as 50 years ago but what is the point if we not only get less out of it but it is also worse for our health (more fat, less protein, more omega-6 compared to omega-3, less vitamins and minerals...).
I suspect the reason behind all this is once again the fact that we go for the easy solution to produce food so we can maximize the profit. Consumers have to be informed to be able to make a proper choice and to stir the production towards the healthy alternative in some way. But don't hold your breath! More people are concerned about eating cheap than eating right!
Read the whole article here.

Faith School Menace

2010-09-09T09:45:00.001+02:00

Just watched a documentary by Richard Dawkins called "Faith School Menace?" (more info about it here).
It so nicely embodies my point of view, that believing in superstition and fiction can not bring humanity anywhere near anything good for itself.
Be spiritual all you want, but base your decisions and opinions on facts!

More on Running

2010-01-28T14:10:00.002+01:00

"Shoes may have changed how we run", article from the BBC here.

Landing on your heel is clearly not a good idea... :)

QOTD

2010-01-11T11:59:00.002+01:00

Some languages have two words for “we”, inclusive (me and others and you) and exclusive (me and others but no you). In English there are three: the regular we meaning you and I, as in “we had dinner together”; the royal we meaning I, as in “we are not amused”; and the marital we meaning you, as in “we need to take out the garbage.”

- The Economist Readers' letters

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

2010-01-10T13:11:00.003+01:00

Plastic in the Ocean: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, twice the size of Texas, plus how it pollutes life on Earth and our own organisms. The article is here.

If you wanna dig deeper, there is good stuff to read here, here and here.

Sustainable Energy

2010-01-10T13:08:00.004+01:00

How did a Cambridge physics professor come to write this year's must-read book about tackling our future energy needs, here or here.
Someone finally gathers the numbers so we can talk about the problem in a fact-based fashion!

You can read the book online, download the PDF for free or buy a hard copy on Amazon.

Coal and China FTW

2009-12-24T12:51:00.004+01:00

China is clearly not too worried, or not too concerned, about limiting the the effects of climate change...
And anyway, as the saying goes, in the long run we are all dead!

More info in this article:
"Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen."
The rest is here.

Constant growth in finite system conundrum

2009-12-12T17:06:00.002+01:00

Why is it not a good idea to have x% growth a year on anything in a finite system? If you do not know watch this! :)

QOTD

2009-12-10T14:57:00.001+01:00

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."

- Doris Egan

Key oil figures overestimated

2009-11-10T16:50:00.002+01:00

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The whole article from The Guardian is here.

Cheap carbon = high emissions

2009-09-27T11:29:00.005+02:00

Global carbon-dioxide emissions have grown by 25% since Kyoto was adopted in 1997 (source is here). Now can anyone tell me how we are going to achieve even 1% reduction by 2020 compared to our 1990 levels with the policies we have now? As long as the environmental cost is not factored into the price of carbon based energy sources, why would anyone care about doing the right thing? Let's have a carbon tax on ANYTHING pumping CO2 (and other climate change gases) into the atmosphere so that the final cost of using them is really reflected in the price the consumers pay. Then and only then will the free market really work its magic. And it would be so easy to regulate how much climate change gases would be emitted, just adjust the tax according to how far we are from the emission targets. The market would do the rest. The other beauty of the carbon tax would also be that it could be phased in incrementally and would send a powerful and proper signal to consumers and industries from which they could adapt knowing it is here to stay.
It is either this or ,as Cypher said, "It means fasten your seat belt Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye."

Population control debate

2009-09-09T17:00:00.003+02:00

This is from an online debate hosted by The Economist:
"During the past few years, the size of the world’s population has become a matter of public debate in a way not seen since the 1970s. The total number of people, 6.7 billion now, is forecast to surpass 9 billion by 2050. Many observers fear that an environment degraded by climate change will not be able to support so many. Half the British population, according to one opinion poll, think people should not have more than two children. Yet at the same time governments in Japan, Germany and Russia have been trying to reverse those countries’ falling populations. When is a growing population a blessing and when is it a curse? Is there a best size for the population of the world, or of any particular country? Should governments introduce population-control policies, whether voluntary or mandatory? And how important to demographic matters is climate change?"

You can follow how the debate went here.

Interesting to see that the people in favor (aka agreeing that we are too many) actually increases during the debate, to a total of 80% when it closed.

Running barefoot

2009-08-24T17:39:00.004+02:00

I was directed by a friend to a very interesting article about running shoes.
The main point is that we actually do not need any fancy shoes when running, and that we are actually more at risk of developing injuries when using them.
The theory behind this is that we run the wrong way (i.e. against Nature's design) and all these extras cushions simply prevent the foot and the leg to sense the terrain and react accordingly.
In response to these facts, Nike actually came up with the Nike Free line.

The article is here.
Make sure you read it all the way to the end, this is where you have all the good studies!

Oil supplies are running out fast

2009-08-03T21:27:00.003+02:00

Very pessimistic article from The Independent about oil supplies, here.

Here are the first 3 paragraphs:
"The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.
Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.
In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated."

If we do not manage to use less energy within the next 10 to 15 years and produce more energy from renewables, the shit will hit the fan big time....

Going gently or at least when you want

2009-07-23T14:53:00.003+02:00

Some days ago I read an article (here) reminding me how little freedom we have in some areas.
Here is the first paragraph:
"ON JULY 10th two people died whose lives, though long, were shortened by design and with others’ help. Sir Edward Downes, a British conductor, and his wife Joan had travelled to Switzerland, where the law on assisted suicide is the world’s most liberal. He was 85, partly deaf and almost completely blind; she was 74 and had terminal cancer. Holding hands and watched by their son and daughter, they drank a lethal dose of barbiturates and died."

And to know that I will not be able to end my life when ever I wish feels like a tremendous lack of freedom to me! Of course as long as you have freedom of movement noting can stop you from going to a shop to by barbiturates or even jumping from a high building of a cliff.

But that we live in a society where, even though you have all your head and you clearly decide to end your life, you are not allowed to do so (except in Switzerland and few other places) is incredible.
Is it the in heritage of our judeo-christian culture?

Special report on ageing populations

2009-07-08T10:48:00.003+02:00

In the issue dated from June 27th 2009, The Economist has a special report on ageing populations. It is an eye-opener in many regards and I highly recommend it !
Huge population changes are ahead of us and will influence our lives more than the current economic crisis...
You will finds the links to all the articles in the top part of the left column.

John Pilger at Democracy Now

2009-07-08T10:36:00.002+02:00

Good interview from Democracy Now.

"Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the media, health care, and Obama’s wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pilger has has written close to a dozen books and made over 50 documentaries on a range of subjects including struggles around the world for a more just and peaceful society and against Western military and economic intervention."
The page with the audio and video is here.

Wildlife crisis

2009-07-02T11:26:00.003+02:00

Thanks to all humans, the wildlife is in grave danger...

But let's carry on polluting, reproducing and overloading this poor planet by any mean we see fit!
Fuck wildlife, fuck Nature and he, even fuck ourselves...

Being smart when not seeing the big picture is of no use.

"Life on Earth is under serious threat, despite the commitment by world leaders to reverse the trend, according to a detailed analysis of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™."
The whole article is here.

JFK and the Unspeakable

2009-06-29T21:14:00.003+02:00

The author meticulously examines the evidence and draws conclusions which ring
with unassailable truth:
1. The CIA coordinated and implemented he assassination of President Kennedy, an act of treason which destroyed democracy in the U.S.
2. The Warren Commission was created to propagate lies to conceal the truth from the American people.
3. There has been a continued cover-up by successive administrations and their stooges in the mass media.
4. The murder of JFK is directly related to the current domination of the American people by powerful oppressors within a shadow government that will continue to insist that only sustained war can keep the country safe from its enemies, never admitting that they themselves are the supreme evil.

You can find a good review here.
And the Amazon page is here.

Canadian health care myths

2009-06-28T19:37:00.004+02:00

Health care reform is a heated debate in the US of A. and it should be based on facts, instead of emotions and hearsay.
Too many people are afraid that their precious model will be changed to a socialist (meaning bad) model like the Canadian one.
This article, here, from the Denver Post presents the facts as they are, and it is not very flattering for the current American model.

The Myths:

Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.
Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.
Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.
There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.
Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.
Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.
There aren't enough doctors in Canada.

Monetary Birth Pains

2009-05-19T10:04:00.003+02:00

How does the monetary system work and what is the best model? The Economist had a nice piece in this week's edition.
The full article is here.

911 - Demolition job?

2009-05-10T22:07:00.003+02:00

Scientists discover both residues and unignited fragments of nano-engineered thermitic pyrotechnics in debris from the twin towers. Articles here and here.

One has to admit that the collapse of the WTC towers looks suspiciously similar to a control demolition job... Let's hope that with time we will get to the bottom of this!

Bad apples

2009-04-23T15:24:00.003+02:00

So thanks to the memo release, we know that the whole "we have only a few bad apples" from Rumsfeld is pure bullsh*t! Not that we did not know it from before...
The article from CNN is here.

Waste handling

2009-03-08T12:44:00.003+01:00

Last week's Economist had a very informative report of waste and how it is handled in different countries but also on a world base (since countries ship their waste to others). Here are the articles:

My conclusion of the whole thing is that this culture of infinite growth we have is madness and will only make us more miserable in the long run.
Indeed, we live in a finite space, with finite amount of energy and water available. As if this was not enough, we are not able (yet?) to do many basic things in an environmental friendly way (we use and release so much chemicals in nature!). So we are basically destroying the planet we depend on for our survival.
So I say:

Always aiming for more humans is wrong (I am not talking about population control but more about a change in mindset)
Zero pollution must be the aim
GDP growth for its own sake is not the answer. What matter is people well being not how much they consume
Water is getting so scarce in places that they have to filter and drink sewage water. Alarm bells anyone?

The evolutionary role of cookery

2009-03-08T12:33:00.003+01:00

The Economist had an article not so long ago about cooking and its role for the evolution of humans, here.
Several interesting to note:
- Pre-agricultural man confined to raw food would have starved.
- Heat physically softens food. That makes it easier to digest, so even though the stuff is no more calorific, the body uses fewer calories dealing with it.
- The more processed food you eat, the more calories you have to store compared to the same intake of calorie with raw food.

Add water

2009-03-08T12:23:00.003+01:00

Many places around the world are getting drier and drier. This chart shows how much water is need to produce several beverages. Shocking!
Original article from The Economist, here.

World of Trouble

2009-03-01T14:04:00.005+01:00

Interesting report from 60 Minutes, here, about how the banks in the US oversold loans to people who could not afford them, fueling the housing bubble in the process and making the fall even steeper.

"How did the mortgage industry destroy itself and set off an economic collapse that ruined the finances of millions of Americans? Executives tend to hold themselves blameless, saying that no one could have seen the disaster coming."

Darwin's theory

2009-02-22T21:39:00.004+01:00

For Darwin's 200th birthday, The Economist had a good article about what his theory was and what others thought/think of it. It is well worth the read, here.
The religious implications for the time were quite earth shaking.

A little extract:
"The idea of evolution by natural selection is not hard to grasp. It just requires connecting some uncontentious propositions. These are that organisms vary from one another, even within a species, and that new variation can arise from time to time; that some of this variation is passed from parent to offspring; and that more individuals are born than can exist in the available space (or be sustained by the available resources). The consequence is what Darwin described in his book as a “struggle for existence”. The weakest are eliminated in this struggle. The fit survive. The survivors pass on their traits to their offspring. Over enough time, this differential transmission of characters will lead to the formation of a new species.
But what was missing was the mechanism.
Malthus argued that natural populations grow at an exponential rate, whereas the increase in food supply is linear. In other words, more individuals are born than can possibly survive, [hence] winners and losers."

Darwin also stated that living creatures (humans included) have 2 purposes: survive and reproduce, the latter being of higher priority.

Unaware of own biases

2009-01-21T09:44:00.003+01:00

NOBODY likes to admit an uncomfortable truth about himself, especially when charged issues such as race, sex, age and even supersized waistlines come into play. That makes the task of the behavioural scientist a difficult one. Not only may participants in a study be lying to those running a test, but they may also, fundamentally, be lying to themselves.

Find out more in this article, here.

QOTD

2009-01-19T17:23:00.000+01:00

"Remember that if a bear attacks your campsite you do not have to be faster than the bear. You only have to be faster than the slowest camper."

- Barry Silverthorne

Oil Price Swings

2009-01-18T16:53:00.003+01:00

This 60 Minutes reports (here) tries to explain why oil prices changed so quickly, both up and down, during the last year or two.
They clearly point the finger at the speculators and investors buying oil on paper and betting that they could sell it for more later on.

The good side of oil costing so much is that prices at the pump went over USD 4 and forced people into buying less gas guzzling vehicles, even maybe to understand that an all oil strategy is not sustainable for very long.
It even forced the big 3 from Detroit to start producing hybrids and electrical cars!

BBC Why We Fight

2009-01-17T21:09:00.003+01:00

The "Why We Fight" from the BBC (more info here and here) is really a One To Watch.

It shows very well the disconnect between what we are told as citizens and what is really going on behind the scenes when a nation goes to war.

One should always be critical and try to hear the opposite opinion on a subject before making one's own, but this documentary is a good starting point for those who want to learn more on the subject or even only realize that things are not always what they seem to be.

Why we are as we are

2008-12-30T22:33:00.003+01:00

Very interesting article from the Christmas 2008 special from The Economist about Darwin's theories.

It goes through several aspects of Darwinism but the following is one of the most interesting:

"For a Darwinian, life is about two things: survival and reproduction. Of the two, the second is the more significant. To put it crudely, the only Darwinian point of survival is reproduction."
And even more interesting:
"That murderers are usually young men is well known, but Dr Daly and Dr Wilson dug a bit deeper. They discovered that although the murder rate varies from place to place, the pattern does not. Plot the rate against the age of the perpetrator and the peak is the same (see chart). Moreover, the pattern of the victims is similar. They, too, are mostly young men. In the original study, 86% of the victims of male killers aged between 15 and 19 were also male. This is the clue as to what is going on. Most violence (and thus most murder, which is simply violence’s most extreme expression) is a consequence of competition between young, unemployed, unmarried men. In the view of Darwinists, these men are either competing for women directly (“You looking at my girl, Jimmy?”) or competing for status (“You dissing me, man?”)."

The whole article is here.

Religulous

2008-12-25T13:08:00.005+01:00

Bill Maher's new documentary, entitled Religulous, talks about the absurdity of religion. Bill does not state that God does not exist, only the religion is complete bullsh*t and that following what it says blindly is the best way to destroy ourselves.
I could not agree more...
Don't get me wrong, humans will always try to control and use each other for personal gains, but having rules based on fantasies and fear is much worse than having rules based on logic and openness. Doubting, experimenting, finding things out for yourself, being able to accept that sometimes you just do not know instead of just blind faith is the way we can grow as a species.
Adapt or die...

Recycling e-waste... or not

2008-12-14T19:58:00.003+01:00

Another 60 Minutes report (as you might have noticed I am catching up on the ones I did not watch yet!), this time about how e-waste is recycled and how people, both in the rich world and in China, are cheating the system to send e-waste overseas to enrich themselves and destroy the health of the poor population trying to make a living of recycling 21st century waste with 17th century methods.

The article and the video are here.

Saudi Arabia and Oil's Future

2008-12-14T13:15:00.002+01:00

60 Minutes takes us to the Saudi Kingdom and shows us what their vision for the future of oil is.
Make sure you watch the 2 parts :)

The article with the videos is here.

Funny Stuff

2008-12-14T13:07:00.004+01:00

Click on image for full size.

USA 2008 election summary

2008-11-11T16:03:00.003+01:00

Great summary from The Economist, with all the relevant statistics and results, here.

The US financial crisis

2008-10-26T20:19:00.003+01:00

Here are 2 reports from 60 minutes explaining what and how things went south for the US financial system.

Here and here.

Update, 25Dec08: And one more report about "A Second Mortgage Disaster On The Horizon", here.

Sinfest

2008-10-12T11:19:00.002+02:00

Palin debate flow chart

2008-10-04T12:27:00.001+02:00

It says it all :)

Palin/Clinton at SNL

2008-09-15T17:19:00.002+02:00

Very funny :)

Russia's intervention in Georgia

2008-08-17T14:36:00.002+02:00

Russia seems to be all powerful in the Georgia conflict and this is a bad sign for the future of Europe energy security but also for the relations between Russia and the USA.
Russia is not willing to let go the remaining of its old satellites go west and it letting everyone know.

Read the 2 articles from The Economist, here and here.

The True price of Oil

2008-07-22T20:35:00.001+02:00

"You need to know the story of the Niger Delta, a once lush land of mangrove swamps at the base of Nigeria. In the late 1950s, in the final days of British imperial rule, Shell's local subsidiary discovered it lay on top of vast pools of oil. Britain immediately became its number one user, with the US close behind. In the long decades since, more than $200bn worth of oil and gas has been pumped from beneath the Delta people's feet.

So you would imagine the Niger Delta must now be an oasis of riches, with its 30m people bathing in wealth. But no: they live with nothing and die by the age of 40. While the lifeblood of twenty-first century techno-life is pumped from their land, they live in the Stone Age, with no schools, no hospitals and barely any electricity. They have felt three effects from the petrol. Their land has been poisoned by oil spills; the fish they lived off have been turned into stunted, toxic rarities; and when they ask for compensation, they are shot at."

The full article from The Independent, here.

Ask the Tough Questions About Oil

2008-07-21T21:02:00.001+02:00

"As journalism has passed from a hungry to an elite profession, there's no shock value in the fact that Exxon Mobil paid only $5 billion in U.S. income taxes last year while it paid $25 billion to foreign governments. Even with Exxon Mobil making $76,000 a minute, the last thing that occurs to many assignment editors and reporters is to investigate whether a windfall-profits tax would drive Exxon Mobil, BP, and other oil companies to invest in the alternative-energy strategies they boast about in their television commercials.

Then there's the problem of letting general-assignment reporters, rather than energy specialists, cover gasoline prices mainly as a story of consumer suffering."

The whole article from Wired is here.

Iran's handling of protesters

2008-07-13T13:25:00.001+02:00

NINE years ago, Ahmad Batebi appeared on the cover of The Economist. He was a 21-year-old student, one of thousands who protested against Iran’s government that summer. He was photographed holding aloft a T-shirt bespattered with the blood of a fellow protester. Soon afterwards, he was arrested and shown our issue of July 17th 1999. “With this”, he was told, “you have signed your death warrant.”
During his interrogation he was blindfolded and beaten with cables until he passed out. His captors rubbed salt into his wounds to wake him up, so they could torture him more. They held his head in a drain full of sewage until he inhaled it.

The whole article from The Economist, here.

Zimbabwe Vote Rigging

2008-07-05T21:30:00.002+02:00

Video secretly recorded by a Zimbabwean prison guard appears to show evidence of vote-rigging in the country's recent presidential runoff election.
The footage, shot with a secret camera provided by the British newspaper The Guardian, was posted on the paper's Web site Saturday. The paper said the guard had since fled the country with his family.
The video shows the guard being summoned along with other prison guards to an office at Harare's central jail days before the June 27 runoff between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Once there, a supporter of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party instructs the guards to vote by postal ballot while he watches. The ZANU-PF supporter takes careful note of the guards' ballot numbers and which candidate they vote for, and even helps a guard properly fold his ballot and put it inside the envelope.

More info from the CNN article here.

The video on YouTube here.

The Science of Sleep

2008-06-28T13:40:00.002+02:00

I am very interested in everything related to sleep. Not so much because I like to sleep long, but more because I think it has so much impact on our life that I think it is worth trying to understand how it works and how to optimize it.
The report confirms that with less than 7.5h of sleep a day, we do not function properly, and that we actually expose ourselves to premature type 2 diabetes and other problems.
Deep sleep is also very important and the bummer is that we get less of it (even if we sleep as much) as we get older...

The whole report/video from 60 Minutes is here.

George Carlin, 1937-2008

2008-06-24T13:09:00.001+02:00

RIP George :(

Watch the video I posted about some time ago, here.

Oil price and speculators

2008-06-24T13:04:00.003+02:00

Many politicians in the USA now blame the oil price on speculators and tell us that fixing the "Enron loophole" would take the gas price down to $2 a gallon.
I am very skeptical about this and it seems that economist Paul Krugman is as well...

I read somewhere that the blame is to be put on bankers who want to make money to offset the loses they made during the subprimes crisis. I am not too convinced about that either...

More info on Paul's post here.

The Economist also has a piece on it, here.

How to take a nap

2008-06-22T19:51:00.002+02:00

Napping is a great idea, and many studies tend to proves that one is more efficient after a nap (better concentration, more energy, etc...)
But you have to do it right....

More info here.

Circumcision

2008-06-22T19:45:00.001+02:00

CIRCUMCISION and other forms of male-genital mutilation are commonplace in many societies around the world. The origin of these practices, however, puzzles anthropologists and evolutionary biologists. They wonder what benefit they could bring, especially given the obvious risks of infection and reduced fertility.

The whole article is here.

QOTD

2008-06-18T20:42:00.000+02:00

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

- Bertrand Russell

Make petrol from bugs

2008-06-15T16:09:00.002+02:00

It looks like making petrol from bugs is not that difficult.
And the good thing is that they produce petrol directly, not heavy oil which needs to be refined. The other good thins is that the process is carbon negative.

Read more here.

QOTD

2008-06-14T13:50:00.003+02:00

"There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know."

- Ambrose Bierce

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

- Samuel Johnson

New Presentation from Al Gore

2008-05-01T11:51:00.001+02:00

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

Watch or download the video here.

Rendition

2008-04-13T16:59:00.001+02:00

At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one.
The story Kurnaz told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley is a rare look inside that clandestine system of justice, where the government's own secret files reveal that an innocent man lost his liberty, his dignity, his identity, and ultimately five years of his life.

The whole case, and the video, here.

Torture: They knew

2008-04-13T16:55:00.001+02:00

The discussions in the White House were top secret and sources say, involve some of the President’s most senior and influential advisors, principals of the National Security Council. In dozens of private talks and meetings, sources said that a handful of top advisors discussed specific high-value al Qaeda prisoners and exactly how those prisoners would be interrogated. Whether, for example, they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding. The discussion about the “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, sources said, the interrogations were almost choreographed, down to the number of times the CIA could use a specific tactic. Former CIA director George Tenet, in an interview last year with ABC News told Charles Gibson,
“It was authorized. It was legal, according to the Attorney General of the United States.”
It also was discussed and approved in meetings by the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a group that included Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, John Ashcroft.

More info and the video, here

Le Monde Selon Monsanto

2008-03-24T17:24:00.003+01:00

A new movie has dealt yet another severe blow to the credibility of US based Monsanto, one of the biggest chemical companies in the world and the provider of the seed technology for 90 percent of the world’s genetically engineered (GE) crops.
The French documentary, called “The world according to Monsanto” and directed by independent filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, paints a grim picture of a company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals.

More here and here.

It hurts!

2008-03-01T21:19:00.002+01:00

Hillary attacks Barack, playing on fear:

Barack replies, playing on making right decisions:

Then Bill, from the past, plays against his wife:

Good stuff :)

West’s deadly nuclear secrets

2008-01-13T13:20:00.001+01:00

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.
Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

The whole article is here.

Energy Saving Bulb Warning

2008-01-13T13:04:00.000+01:00

Energy-saving light bulbs are so dangerous that everyone must leave the room for at least 15 minutes if one falls to the floor and breaks, a Government department warned yesterday.
The startling alert came as health experts also warned that toxic mercury inside the bulbs can aggravate a range of problems including migraines and dizziness.

More here.

Don't invent, evolve

2008-01-06T20:02:00.000+01:00

“I HAVE not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” That is how Thomas Edison described his laborious attempts to perfect the incandescent light bulb. Yet an emerging technique for developing inventions knocks even Edison's exhaustive approach into a cocked hat. Evolutionary design, as it is known, enables a computer to run through tens of millions of variations on an invention until it hits on the best solution to a problem.

It is interesting to see that with this method we find designs that are the most efficient and which we would never have thought of trying.

The while article is here.

Science vs Faith

2008-01-06T19:58:00.000+01:00

Click to enlarge.

Changes since hunter-gatherers

2007-12-30T14:30:00.000+01:00

Human daily life has changed quite a bit since we were hunter-gatherers.
It is interesting to see that we went from a life in harmony with Nature and a 14h a week work to an overpopulated, overstressed, unsustainable and overworked life.
Of course we have advantages and comfort hunter-gatherers could never even imagine but it is amazing to see how we still think like animals (fear, reproduction, war, etc...) and not like intelligent beings (respectful of Nature, helping each others, open, etc...)

The article is very interesting and to be read here.

Mao and management

2007-12-30T14:25:00.000+01:00

Mao did not run his country so well in terms of improving the life of Chinese people, but there are a few lessons we can learn on the way he ran things and why he was popular:

A powerful, mendacious slogan
Ruthless media manipulation
Sacrifice of friends and colleagues
Activity substituting for achievement

The full article is here.

US sub-prime crisis explained

2007-12-19T21:15:00.000+01:00

The US sub-prime mortgage crisis has lead to plunging property prices, a slowdown in the US economy, and billions in losses by banks. It stems from a fundamental change in the way mortgages are funded.
The BBC has a very easy to understand yet not too simplistic description of the phenomenon.

Read the article here.

Krugman gave a good presentation at Google on the same subject

The 2004 Election Was Stolen

2007-12-18T22:56:00.000+01:00

It's Not the People Who Vote that Count; It's the People Who Count the Votes.

All five voting systems used in Ohio, a state whose electoral votes narrowly swung two elections toward President Bush, have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election, a report commissioned by the state’s top elections official has found.

The NYT article here.
The piece from Democracy Now with Harvey Wasserman, author of “What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election.” here.

US says it has right to knidnap UK citizens

2007-12-09T16:41:00.000+01:00

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.
Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The whole article is here.

Borrowing designs from Nature

2007-12-09T16:05:00.000+01:00

It is really inspiring to see what can be done to save energy when one looks at Nature as a source of inspiration. One can often achieve the same effect with a quarter or less of the energy used in conventional designs.

The complete article is here.

Election à la Putin

2007-12-09T15:59:00.000+01:00

The Economist has a nice little article about how the elections in Russia went. It is here.

Pretty amazing to see how everything is controlled!

Money is Debt

2007-12-09T14:07:00.000+01:00

Start from the first YouTube video here and follow the thread to the next ones :)

The total amount of money is linked to the total amount of debt since money is created through debt. But of course not only.

So basically money is now an agreement, a contract between all the people using it. The value of money is fixed by the market or by what everyone thinks is fair at a given time.
And debt is basically a promise made by the borrower to work until he produces, in one way or another, the amount of money he borrowed (plus interest!).
The thing is that bankers lend you money they never had, that does not exist until you create it with you labor.
Money represents work. So the more work been done, the more money you need.

To finish I would say that I am not completely convinced that interests have to increase all the time. To take the example of the US government debt, nothing prevents it to be repaid if the government wanted to do so (of course it would be less money for the economy).

The CIA and the destroyed tapes

2007-12-09T13:37:00.000+01:00

It seems like there is much more to it than just protecting the interrogation agents.
Many people have died in some very strange circumstances.

More info here.

The Putin System

2007-12-05T19:55:00.000+01:00

Documentary about Putin, how he got to power and what he has done there since then.
Very interesting.

More about this, here.

Chavez and fair-play

2007-12-05T19:53:00.000+01:00

Chavez loses contitutional vote and labels those who voted against him traitors!

I think he has a funny way to make friends ;)

George Carlin on Religion

2007-12-03T12:19:00.000+01:00

Funny and still very wise!
Good stuff :)

The video is here.

Zeitgeist The Movie

2007-12-02T13:19:00.000+01:00

So I watched Zeitgeist The Movie yesterday...
You can watch it online here (or get the file from P2P), and also have a look at the official page here.

You get a lot of info during these 2 hours, and some might be true and some not, but I think the real message is that everyone of us should stop being a sheep and research things for yourself. Get educated, be critical of what you are being told and do make sure you manifest your position when you disagree with what officials or companies do.

Salt water can burn

2007-12-02T13:04:00.000+01:00

If you put salt water into a specific micro-wave field, it will produce H2 and O2 which can be burnt and produce water again.
Now of course what matters is the energy balance of the whole thing :)
Because indeed if the energy you need to spend on the micro-waves is equal or higher than what you get by burning the produced hydrogen you did not create anything.
But let's see where the coming research on this will take us and maybe we can get something useful out of this discovery.

The article at National Geographic is here.

The Curve Ball story

2007-11-18T10:13:00.000+01:00

The most compelling evidence about Saddam's biological weapons presented to the Security Council came from one obscure Iraqi defector. He turned out to be a fraud.
But what is the most disturbing is how the CIA used him even though his story was patchy and inspectors on the ground, 3 weeks before the start of the war, proved he was lying.

The full story from 60 minutes and the video is here.

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

2007-11-17T22:12:00.000+01:00

Very good read!
Bush managed to generate such a waste in so little time...

The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.

The Full article here.

Sadad Al-Husseini is talking

2007-11-17T14:56:00.000+01:00

Sadad Al-Husseini, former executive of ARAMCO (Saudi Arabia's national oil company), is now talking about what could bring a halt to the ever increasing of oil production.
Indeed, according to him, production is not going to increase much between now and 2020 (and then will start declining inexorably), the official reserves are overestimated by 300 billion barrels and oil price should go up $12 a year from now on.

So how are we going to produce the 116 millions barrels per day (mbpd) needed in 2020 (which is the forecast) if we are stuck at 85 mbpd from now on?
We might manage to affect the amount we need in the future by being more efficient at using what we have, but ultimately it means that world growth will have to be fueled with something else.

The source article is here.
Another one here.

USD losing world currency status?

2007-11-17T10:52:00.000+01:00

The USD is in free fall, and more and more countries are abandoning their pegs toward the US currency. What would be the consequences for the world, for the USA if the we would move over to a monetary system where there is not only one world currency anymore? What if the USA had to borrow money in Euros or Yuan? I know we are not there yet (maybe even never), but what a blow to US imperialism that would be.

Here is what the UAE is doing...
The United Arab Emirates may link the dirham to a basket of currencies, ending its 30-year-old peg to the dollar, central bank Governor Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi said.
More here.

Funny Stuff

2007-11-17T10:09:00.000+01:00

Click on image for full size.

Doing it the Sharia way

2007-11-17T10:02:00.000+01:00

A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.

The whole article is here.

The rewriting of history

2007-11-13T16:03:00.000+01:00

Think what we tell you to think!

“RUSSIA'S past was admirable, its present is more than magnificent and as for its future—it is beyond anything that the boldest mind can imagine.” Thus Count Alexander Benckendorff in the 1830s, on how Russia's history should be viewed and written. This advice from the head of the country's first secret police is now being heeded in the Kremlin, where a new Russian history is being forged.

The article from The Economist is here.

New Privacy Definition

2007-11-13T16:00:00.000+01:00

Intelligence official says people need to redefine privacy, adjust to loss of anonymity
(full article here)

"As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information."

Someone said 1984? V for Vendetta?

Project Censored 2008

2007-11-03T09:54:00.000+01:00

Project Censored keeps track of all the important news that never made it to the headlines during the year. Some are more important than others, some can be controversial, but all in all a very interesting list.

And the winners of the 2008 edition are:

#1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
#3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
#4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
#6 Operation FALCON Raids
#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
#8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
#9 Privatization of America’s Infrastructure
#10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations’ Debt Relief
#11 The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan
#12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops
#13 Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants
#14 Impunity for US War Criminals
#15 Toxic Exposure Can Be Transmitted to Future Generations on a “Second Genetic Code”
#16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
#17 Drinking Water Contaminated by Military and Corporations
#18 Mexico’s Stolen Election
#19 People’s Movement Challenges Neoliberal Agenda
#20 Terror Act Against Animal Activists
#21 US Seeks WTO Immunity for Illegal Farm Payments
#22 North Invades Mexico
#23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
#24 Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President
#25 Who Will Profit from Native Energy?

A lot of this stuff was on DemocracyNow... So feel free to subscribe to their RSS!

More info here.

Guiliani and Prostate Cancer

2007-11-03T09:20:00.000+01:00

In order to make proper decisions, you have to know the facts, all the facts.
Half truths and misleading information is often spread around by ignorant people (which we all are in one way or another).

But Presidential Candidates should try to be a bit more worthy of the office they are running for...

Here is the first paragraph of the latest piece of Paul Kurgman on Rudy Guiliani:

“My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and thank God I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent,” says Rudy Giuliani in a new radio ad attacking Democratic plans for universal health care. “My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent, under socialized medicine.”
It would be a stunning comparison if it were true. But it isn’t. And thereby hangs a tale — one of scare tactics, of the character of a man who would be president and, I’m sorry to say, about what’s wrong with political news coverage.
Let’s start with the facts: Mr. Giuliani’s claim is wrong on multiple levels — bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear.

Read the full article from Paul Krugman, here.

Funny

2007-10-28T10:54:00.000+01:00

Click on image for full size.

The Results of Buddha's Teachings

2007-10-21T16:14:00.000+02:00

"It is only a question of time before our meditations will bring a steady state of bliss comparable only to union with our best partners. No outer means can create joys which are not inherently in ourselves. Searching for happiness through possessions or the impressions of our senses is like trying to move something from a long distance with a wobbly pole. It is very imprecise and one often gets unwanted results."
-Lama Ole Nydahl

His website is here.

Inside France's secret war

2007-10-21T16:06:00.000+02:00

For 40 years, the French government has been fighting a secret war in Africa, hidden not only from its people, but from the world. It has led the French to slaughter democrats, install dictator after dictator – and to fund and fuel the most vicious genocide since the Nazis. Today, this war is so violent that thousands are fleeing across the border from the Central African Republic into Darfur – seeking sanctuary in the world's most notorious killing fields

Read the whole article here.

Under The Influence

2007-10-17T21:23:00.000+02:00

Amazing report from 60 minutes showing how Congress voted the Medicare prescription drug law which is basically a very bad deal for the people and a very good one for the pharmaceutical companies. It shows how the lobbyists did their work and how arms were twisted and rules bent to get the law the possibility to get through.

Read the whole report here.

Funny

2007-10-13T22:42:00.001+02:00

Click on image for full size.

Appendix may be useful

2007-10-07T10:47:00.000+02:00

The appendix “acts as a good safe house for bacteria,” . The location of the appendix — just below the normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of gut cul-de-sac — helps support the theory.
Also, the worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory, cultivating the good germs.
That use is not needed in a modern industrialized society. If a person’s gut flora dies, they can usually repopulate it easily with germs they pick up from other people. But before dense populations in modern times and during epidemics of cholera that affected a whole region, it wasn’t as easy to grow back that bacteria and the appendix came in handy.

Full article here.

Funny Stuff

2007-10-06T11:02:00.000+02:00

Click on image for full size.

Ethanol not so good

2007-10-05T22:48:00.000+02:00

Ethanol is actually not a good alternative to petrol at all!

It usually takes oil to make ethanol, the amount of heat you get from burning a liter of ethanol is a third less than that from a liter of petrol. What is more, it absorbs water from the atmosphere.
But scientist might find other ways to make engineered fuels.

More info from The Economist, here.