Best of the Web:


Dollar

Best of the Web: US: 2008 Record for billion-dollar weather disasters tied - frequency and cost of extreme weather are rising


MSNBC
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 04:19 UTC
Image
© Nati Harnik / Associated PressA tractor sits in floodwater from the Missouri River in Plattsmouth, Neb., on Aug. 10.
With four months still to go in 2011, the United States has already tied its yearly record for the number of weather disasters with an economic loss of $1 billion or more, the U.S. government reported Wednesday.

With the bulk of the hurricane season ahead and winter storms after that, National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes said 2011 could surpass the record, first set in 2008.

"I don't think it takes a wizard to predict 2011 is likely to go down as one of the more extreme years for weather in history," he told journalists on a conference call.

The "new reality" is that both the frequency and the cost of extreme weather are rising, making the nation more economically vulnerable and putting more lives and livelihoods at risk, Hayes said.
Read More...
Meteor

Best of the Web: Cosmic smoke and mirrors, or how crumbs of truth are mixed with confusion and lies: The mystery of Comet Elenin


Russia Today
Fri, 19 Aug 2011 02:23 UTC
Astronomers and other outer space experts are speaking out on a comet expected to make a close call with colliding into Earth later this year. The consequences could be dire, so why are so many people unaware of it?


"I think it's worth a raised eyebrow" says author Brooks Agnew. He's done a lot of research on Elenin and tells RT that there are some rather strange coincidences regarding the comet that people should take into consideration.

"A lot of people are concerned about it," says Agnew. "We've done a lot of research on Comet Elenin and what we've found is there's a lot of missing data on this comet"

Agnew says that NASA calls the comet just "a harmless little fuzzball of ice" that won't come within more than 20 million miles from Earth. Others, he says, are claiming that this comet should raise concern since it doesn't look like a comet, doesn't act like a comet and is coming from outside of the area where most comets are accustomed to originate out of.

"There are a lot of things about this comet that don't make sense," Agnew says.

Comment: There has been much disinformation and plain hysteria around the topic of Comet Elenin that contribute to the general confusion regarding possible effects of the comet on Earth and our civilization.

We advise our readers to take a look at the following articles that bring sanity to this highly charged topic.

Elenin, Nibiru, Planet-X - Time for a Sanity Check

Cosmic Propaganda Alert! Comet Elenin: Just Passing By - With SOTT Commentary

Interview with Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin - The discoverer of Comet Elenin

Read More...
Dollar

Best of the Web: Psychopaths and Big Money - It All Adds Up

Phil Taylor
New Zealand Herald
Sat, 20 Aug 2011 22:28 UTC
psycho coin in cup
© ThinkstockCommerce students returned 'significantly higher primary psychopathy scores than science or arts majors'.
Psychopaths prefer commerce degrees - that's the finding of a world-first study examining university students' personalities and course preferences.

Victoria University students with higher scores for psychopathy traits tended to opt to study commerce, with law next most popular.

The study of 903 undergraduates found that significantly fewer with high psychopathy scores chose science and fewer still went for arts.

The paper - "Greed is Good? Student Disciplinary Choice and Self-Reported Psychopathy" - published this month in the international Journal of Personality and Individual Differences was sparked by fallout of the world financial crisis.

The role of high-profile financiers in the global recession made the idea of the psychopath in organisations increasingly relevant, said Victoria University associate professor of psychology Marc Wilson, who conducted the research with colleague Karena McCarthy.
Read More...
Better Earth

Best of the Web: Nature bats last: Radical political theology

Robert Jense
Al Jazeera
Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:57 UTC
Image
© GALLO/GETTYRather than succumb to strictly religious or technological fundamentalism, a radical political theology 'leaves behind fear-based protection rackets and arrogance-driven control fantasies'
Politics without theology is dangerous, and we must construct a new worldview not reducible to just evidence and logic.

[An edited version of this talk was presented to the Veterans for Peace conference in Portland, OR, on August 4, 2011]

My title is ambitious and ambiguous: revolution and resistance (which tend to be associated with left politics), revelation and redemption (typically associated with right-wing religion), all framed by a warning about ecological collapse. My goal is to connect these concepts to support an argument for a radical political theology.

First, I realise that the term "radical political theology" may be annoying. Some people will dislike "radical" and prefer a more pragmatic approach. Others will argue that theology shouldn't be political. Still others will want nothing to do with theology of any kind. But a politics without a theology is dangerous, a theology without a politics is irrelevant, and radical is realistic.

By politics, I don't mean we need to pretend to have a traditional political programme that will lead us to the land of milk and honey; instead, I'm merely suggesting that we always foreground the basic struggle for power. By theology, I don't mean that we need to believe in supernatural forces that will lead us to a land of milk and honey; instead, I'm merely pointing out that we all construct a worldview that is not reducible to evidence and logic.

And all this needs to be radical - an unflinching honesty about that unjust and unsustainable nature of the systems in which we live. Whatever pragmatic steps we take in the world, they should be based on radical analysis if they are to be realistic.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: UK: The Stench of a Police State

Julie Hyland
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
London Riots
© unknown
The events of the last 12 days are a warning to the working class in Britain and internationally. The state repression and right-wing hysteria unleashed in response to youth rioting in London and other cities reveal the preparations of the ruling class for police-state forms of rule.

The riots were triggered by the police execution of Mark Duggan, a black 29-year-old father of four, in Tottenham, north London on August 4, followed by an unprovoked police assault on a peaceful protest over his killing two days later. Almost a fortnight later, no officer has been identified, let alone charged, for these crimes.

Instead, the political elites who sanctioned the looting of public funds to bail out the banks and the super-rich, and who covered up the illegal phone hacking of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, have sought to whip up a lynch mob atmosphere against the "criminality" and "immorality" of working class youth.

Cheered on by the Labour Party, Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative-Liberal Democrat government have organized vicious state repression, authorizing the use of water cannons and plastic bullets and the possible use of the army against further social unrest.

Basic democratic rights have been thrown to the winds. The presumption of innocence has been jettisoned as police carry out mass arrests, with those detained subject to show trials presided over by courts acting directly at the behest of the authorities.

Comment: For more information on the London riots check out the SOTT focus:

Who Started The London Riots?

and

Where The Rubber Hits The Road

Read More...
Bug

Best of the Web: Mind-Control Parasite Makes Fear Sexy

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:00 UTC
Cat and Mouse
© Live Science
When the bizarre parasite Toxoplasma gondii infects rats, it turns the rodents fearless, reducing their natural aversion to the odor of cat urine. But despite this bravery, infected rats remain terrified of other scary stimuli.

Now, a new study hints at how T. gondii, or "toxo," makes this strangely specific fearlessness happen: In infected rats, the smell of cat urine activates sexual attraction pathways in the brain, spurring the animals to approach the odor rather than run away.

Although T. gondii can infect many mammals, including humans, this rodent mind control is likely an adaption by the parasite to ensure it gets into the intestines of a cat, the only place it can reproduce sexually.

"Something is perturbing these pathways, and it looks like that something is toxo," said study researcher Patrick House, a neuroscientist at Stanford University.

Comment: From wikipedia:

The U.S. NHANES (1999--2004) national probability sample found that 10.8% of U.S. persons 6--49 years of age, and 11.0% of women 15--44 years of age, had /Toxoplasma/-specific IgG antibodies, indicating that they were infected with the organism.

It is estimated that between 30% and 65% of all people worldwide are infected with toxoplasmosis. However, there is large variation between countries: in France, for example, around 88% of the population are carriers, probably due to a high consumption of raw and lightly cooked meat. Germany, the Netherlands and Brazil also have high prevalences of around 68%, over 80% and 67% respectively.

In Britain about 22% are carriers, and South Korea's rate is 4.3%.

See also:

The Return of the Puppet Masters

Research supports toxoplasmosis link to schizophrenia

Toxoplasmosis infection trick revealed by scientists

Toxoplasmosis found more severe in Brazil compared to Europe
Toxoplasmosis Parasite May Trigger Schizophrenia And Bipolar Disorders

A curious clue? Women infected with toxoplasmosis are more likely to have boys

Toxo: A Conversation with Robert Sapolsky about Toxoplasmosis

Read More...
Bad Guys

Best of the Web: US: Meet the Christian Dominionist 'Prayer Warriors' Who Have Chosen Rick Perry as Their Vehicle to Power

Rachel Tabachnick
AlterNet
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:53 UTC
Rick Perry
© Veronica Zaragovia/AFP/Getty
The New Apostolic Reformation seeks dominion over society and government -- and it looks like Perry is their chosen candidate.

Since he announced his candidacy on Saturday, Texas Governor Rick Perry has been hailed as the great GOP hope of 2012. Perry's entry into the chaotic Republican primary race has excited the establishment in part because he does not have Michele Bachmann's reputation for religious zealotry, yet can likely count on the support of the Religious Right.

Another advantage for Perry is support from an extensive 50-state "prayer warrior" network, organized by the New Apostolic Reformation. A religious-political movement whose leaders call themselves apostles and prophets, NAR shares its agenda for control of society and government with other "dominionists," but has a distinctly different theology than other groups in the Religious Right. They have their roots in Pentecostalism (though their theology has been denounced as a heresy by Pentecostal denominations in the past). The movement is controversial, even inside conservative evangelical circles.

Nevertheless, Perry took the gamble that NAR could help him win the primaries, a testament to the power of the apostles' 50-state prayer warrior network.

Comment: For more information on the Seven Mountains and Dominionism see:

America's own Taliban

The Terrifying Christian Right

Hijacking The Holy - C Street, Dominionism and Sarah Palin

America's Dirty Secret: How a Psycho-Sexual Cult Holds America Prisoner

Read More...
Attention

Best of the Web: Children of the Corn: GMOs Don't Qualify As Food

C. Stone
Salem-News.com
Sat, 28 May 2011 17:03 UTC
Image
© Salem-News.orgIf GMOs are highly associated with infertility and spontaneous abortions in animals, is a similar rate of infertility (20%) occurring in people and are there increases in spontaneous abortion?
Antibodies from women with a rare condition known as immune infertility are used in the creation of GMO food

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs. Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex. The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify.

William Engdahl wrote in March of 2010 about a USDA funded project to create a GM corn that sterilizes people.
Read More...
Blackbox

Best of the Web: US: Tax the super-rich or riots will rage in 2012

Paul B. Farrell
Market Watch
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:35 UTC
Image
© ReutersPolice officers in riot gear drag a man along a street in London Aug. 8, 2011.
Commentary: 6 reasons we can't stop coming economic meltdown

What a year. Rage in London, Egypt, Athens, Damascus. All real. Just a metaphor in the new "Planet of the Apes" film? No, much more. Warning: More rage is dead ahead. Across our planet a new generation is filled with rage. High unemployment. Raging inflation. Dreams lost. Hope gone. While the super -rich get richer and richer.

Listen to that hissing: The fuse is rapidly burning, warning us. Wake up before the rage explodes in your face. This firestorm is endangering America's future. From forces outside, yes. But far more deadly, from deep within our collective psyche. We have lost our moral compass. We are self-destructing.

Crackpot warning? No. This warning comes from the elite International Monetary Fund. A recent IMF report looked at "the causes of the two major U.S. economic crises over the past 100 years, the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2007," writes Rana Foroohar, an economics editor at Time magazine.

"There are two remarkable similarities in the eras that preceded these crises. Both saw a sharp increase in income inequality and household-debt-to-income ratios." And in each case, "as the poor and middle-class were squeezed, they tried to cope by borrowing to maintain their standard of living."
Read More...
Ambulance

Best of the Web: Corrupt Science: Cancer Research of 10 Years Useless: Fraudulent Studies, Says Mayo Clinic

Heidi Stevenson
Gaia-Health
Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Gaia-HealthMoney passing hands in front of death's head caduceus
Lancet's editor calls fraudulent medical research a 'scar on the moral body of science'. But it's really just part of an entire system of fraud in medicine.

Medical science is rampant with fraud. At the Mayo Clinic, ten years of research that appeared to be leading towards harnessing the immune system to fight cancer is worthless because of fraudulent studies and later research based on the fraudulent ones.

Retraction of medical research papers is at an all-time high. Though error was cited at a 3 to 1 rate over fraud, one must seriously question whether simple error is the primary reason. After all, these studies are peer-reviewed. They are supposed to have passed rigorous examination. But, what's the reality?

Of course, as Gaia Health readers have seen over and over, the reality is that flaws in much of medical research are blatant. Often, merely examining a study, instead of taking it at face value, demonstrates that the conclusions are not supported by the evidence.

Nonetheless, those same studies are cited as evidence of efficacy of drugs and procedures. Even after papers have been retracted, the impression they've given doesn't disappear. Research based on those papers is already designed and in process.
Read More...