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5.12.2009

In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html?_r=1&hpw
Europe Imagines Suburbs Without the Car
VAUBAN, Germany — Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars.
Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.
As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.
[...]
Besides, convincing people to give up their cars is often an uphill run. “People in the U.S. are incredibly suspicious of any idea where people are not going to own cars, or are going to own fewer,” said David Ceaser, co-founder of CarFree City USA, who said no car-free suburban project the size of Vauban had been successful in the United States.
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Are Mexicans genetically susceptible to H1N1 virus?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-05-11-genome_N.htm
http://olympus.cs.cmu.edu/showcase/images/GATTACA_LogoW.png
Although the findings are preliminary, a study released Monday raises the possibility that the H1N1 flu has been deadlier in Mexicans than in others because they are genetically more susceptible to the infection.[...or genetically targeted!]
The research, from Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine, found genetic variations in Mexican Mestizos — people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry who represent more than 80% of that country's population — that could affect their risk of diseases and their response to treatments.
The Human Genome Project, a global effort that identified all the genes in human chromosomes, found that any two individuals' genomes are 99% identical. Compared with the world's three main "ancestral" populations — Caucasian, African and Asian — the Mestizos had significant genetic differences, researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Beyond the current topic of influenza, we're experiencing huge increases in very complex diseases like diabetes," Julio Frenk, Mexico's health minister when the genomic medicine institute was created five years ago, said at a news conference.
The study involved anonymous blood samples from 330 unrelated Mexicans who described themselves as Mestizos and lived in seven Mexican states, three of which are the main source of immigrants to the USA, said lead author Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez, genomic medicine institute head.
[In other words: Welcome to the age of genetic discrimination!]
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Universities Are Being Turned Into Corporate Research Departments

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/11/science-research-business
http://firgoa.usc.es/drupal/files/images/Corporate%20University_0.GIFhttp://www.edweek.org/media/2008/10/03/07boaler.jpg
Why is the Medical Research Council run by an arms manufacturer? Why is the Natural Environment Research Council run by the head of a construction company? Why is the chairman of a real estate firm in charge of higher education funding for England?
Because our[Not only in the UK] universities are being turned into corporate research departments. No longer may they pursue knowledge for its own sake: the highest ambition to which they must aspire is finding better ways to make money.[!!!]
Last month, unremarked by the media, a quiet intellectual revolution took place. The research councils, which provide 90% of the funding for acad­em­ic research, introduced a requirement for those seeking grants: they must describe the economic impact of the work they want to conduct. The councils define impact as the "demonstrable contribution" research can make to society and the economy. But how do you demonstrate the impact of blue skies research before it has been conducted?
The idea, the government says, is to transfer knowledge from the universities to industry, boosting the economy and helping to lift us out of recession. There's nothing wrong, in principle, with commercialising scientific discoveries. But imposing this condition on the pursuit of all knowledge does not enrich us; it impoverishes us, reducing the wonders of the universe to figures in an accountant's ledger.
Picture Charles Darwin trying to fill out his application form before embarking on the Beagle. "Explain how the research has the potential to impact on the nation's health, wealth or culture. For example: fostering global economic performance, and specifically the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom … What are the realistic time­scales for the benefits to be realised?" If Darwin had been dependent on a grant from a British research council, he would never have set sail.
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The Truth About Lying

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/12/psychology-lying-microexpressions-paul-ekman
http://www.fox40.com/common/medialib/image/125359.jpg
Forty years ago, the research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in training when he was asked a question whose answer has kept him busy pretty much ever since. Suppose, the group wanted to know, you are working in a psychiatric hospital like this one, and a patient who has previously attempted suicide comes to you. "I'm feeling much better now," the patient says. "Can I have a pass out for the weekend?"
You also know, of course, that psychiatric patients routinely make such claims, and that some, if they are granted temporary leave, will try to take their lives. But this particular patient swears they are telling the truth. They look, and sound, sincere. So here's the question: is there any way you can be sure they are telling the truth?
It set Ekman thinking. As part of his research, he had already recorded a series of 12-minute interviews with patients at the hospital. In a subsequent conversation, one of the patients told him that she had lied to him. So Ekman sat and looked at the film. Nothing. He slowed it down, and looked again. Slowed it further.
And suddenly, there, across just two frames, he saw it: a vivid, intense expression of extreme anguish. It lasted less than a 15th of a second. But once he had spotted the first expression, he soon found three more examples in that same interview. "And that," says Ekman, "was the discovery of microexpressions: very fast, intense expressions of concealed emotion."
Over the course of the next four decades, at the University of California's department of psychiatry in San Francisco, Ekman has successfully demonstrated a proposition first suggested by Charles Darwin: that the ways in which we express anger, disgust, contempt, fear, surprise, happiness and sadness are both innate and universal.
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Tomàs Pumarola: "Los virus nos modulan la vida"

http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=611673&idseccio_PK=1006&h=
 Foto:  NÚRIA PUENTES
--¿Estamos en manos de los virus?
--Virus y personas nos vamos modulando mutuamente la vida de forma constante. Ellos nos marcan pautas evolutivas y nosotros se las marcamos a ellos. De hecho, los virus estaban en la Tierra mucho antes de que apareciéramos los humanos y, muy probablemente, seguirán aquí cuando nosotros ya no existamos, porque son unos entes con una capacidad de adaptación tremenda. La historia de la humanidad ha avanzado a golpe de grandes epidemias infecciosas, víricas o bacterianas.
--¿Regulan la evolución humana?
--Han ido regulando la población del mundo, aunque no tienen esa función, como tampoco la tienen las guerras. Un ejemplo clarísimo de esto fue la caída del Imperio Romano. Estaba debilitado, pero en su hundimiento influyó de forma decisiva una epidemia de peste fortísima.
--¿Y ahora?
--Ahora estamos condicionados por el virus del sida y el de la gripe, entre otros. Nos marcan el comportamiento social y las relaciones personales. A diferencia de las bacterias, que las hay beneficiosas, los virus conocidos no aportan nada bueno.
--¿Hace un siglo eran distintos?
--No. Los virus siguen siendo los mismos. Somos nosotros los que los obligamos a cambiar de agresividad, a medida que entramos en sus áreas. O se transforman a través del movimiento de las poblaciones, que empezó con el comercio de esclavos y sigue imparable: virus que eran locales pasan a ser planetarios.
--¿Eso significa que cada vez habrá infecciones más complicadas?
--Es posible. El virus del sida es extraordinariamente complejo.
--¿Que es un virus?
--Un ente. En realidad, ni siquiera es un ser vivo. Es una estructura subcelular. Un ácido nucleico portador de una información que tiene como objetivo obligatorio entrar en una célula humana, instalarse allí y utilizar toda la maquinaria celular para nutrirse y multiplicarse. Eso, por supuesto, altera la vida de las células.
--¿Nos invaden y se quedan allí?
--No todos. Unos se eliminan una vez han causado una respuesta infecciosa, como el de la gripe. Otros, hacen lo mismo, pero se integran en nuestro genoma y permanecen allí, latentes, sin apenas dar síntomas. Unos terceros, se integran en el genoma y, además, no dejan de multiplicarse: el del sida. El VIH se aloja en la célula inmunitaria y va destruyendo las defensas de esa persona.
--¿Es habitual vivir con virus?
--Todos, usted y yo, llevamos dentro un montón de virus que adquirimos de niños. Hemos integrado en nuestro genoma el virus de la varicela --que si se reactiva da un herpes zóster--, el Epstein Barr --que se transmite por la saliva--, y otros. Esos virus se reactivan en situaciones de bajón inmunológico. Un 70% de la población española tiene un virus del herpes simple latente, pero solo algunos lo sufren. Son esas personas que, a veces, notan una pupa en el labio.
--¿Y no los eliminaría un antivirus?
--Un antivirus puede neutralizar a un virus pero, como vive gracias a los mecanismos de tus células, en realidad, lo que eliminas son las funciones de tu propio sistema celular. Los antivirus coartan la replicación del virus a cambio de una toxicidad enorme. Para que fueran algo efectivos, se tendrían que tomar en las primeras 48 horas tras el contagio.
--¿Cómo se transmiten los virus?
--Con la respiración --el de la gripe--, por vía sexual o sanguínea, o a través de un artrópodo que le hace de vector: mosquitos e insectos que son invadidos por virus y los transportan allá adónde van. Estos son un gran foco dispersor porque, con el cambio climático, los mosquitos van variando de continente. En España tenemos varios mosquitos vectores que pueden transmitir enfermedades si entran en contacto con una persona que los contagie a ellos. Es el caso del mosquito tigre.
--¿Es posible erradicarlos?
--Eso solo se ha conseguido con el de la viruela, porque variaba poco. La OMS pretendía haber erradicado el de la polio en el 2000. Sigue ahí.
--El de la gripe evoluciona a peor?
--El virus de la gripe ha demostrado desde hace un siglo que siempre cumple el mismo ciclo y con el mismo efecto: cada 30 o 40 años, aparece un nuevo virus que desplaza al anterior, causa una pandemia que dura dos o tres años y se estabiliza. Pasados otros 30 años, vuelve a empezar. Es más o menos igual de agresivo, pero repite su historia.
--¿Y porque se le teme tanto ahora?
--Porque hay incertidumbre. No sabemos cómo evolucionará.
--¿Podría seguir hasta el verano?
--En verano siempre hay gripe, pero poca. Ya se sabe que los virus no entienden ni respetan el cambio de estaciones, aunque con el frío viven mejor. La temperatura óptima de un virus de la gripe son los 33 grados, que es la que tenemos en el interior de nuestras narices en invierno.
[Fuente: elperiodico.com]

La televisión propicia relaciones interpersonales ilusorias

·A pesar de consolar, a largo plazo mina las habilidades sociales.
http://www.tendencias21.net/La-television-propicia-relaciones-interpersonales-ilusorias_a3204.html
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2008/0812/skimmer_tv_1202.jpg
Cuatro estudios realizados por dos universidades norteamericanas no dejan lugar a dudas: nuestros programas favoritos de televisión nos pueden consolar de la soledad o de tener baja autoestima. Sin embargo, este consuelo no debería llegar a sustituir nunca el esfuerzo por socializar ya que, según los expertos, darle la espalda a la familia o a los amigos por el consuelo de la televisión denota inadaptación y va minando los recursos sociales, a medida que pasa el tiempo. Esta conclusión concuerda con los resultados de otro estudio anterior basado en más de 30.000 personas, que no dejó lugar a dudas: los infelices ven más la televisión mientras que las personas felices son aquéllas socialmente más integradas.
Las relaciones ilusorias establecidas con los personajes o personalidades de los programas de televisión pueden proporcionar a las personas sentimientos de pertenencia o de integración social ilusorios, incluso en momentos de baja autoestima o tras haber sido rechazadas por amigos o familiares en la realidad.
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http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i308/abebogata/tv_kill.jpg

5.11.2009

The Living Matrix: The Science of Healing (Vid)

http://thelivingmatrixmovie.com/
New insight into our bodies, minds and health

In our full-length film, The Living Matrix - The Science of Healing -- we bring you breakthroughs that will transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well.
Now you can get an up-close look at the science of information as medicine. Leading researchers and health practitioners share their discoveries on the "miracle cures" traditional medicine can't explain.

The Living Matrix: The Science of Healing Pt.1/8
[This is part 1 of 8. For the remaining parts go to Disclose.tv]

Lemuria, Hidden History of Mankind's Motherland (Vid)

We live in very amazing times my brothers and sisters, it's time we abandon the snares of labeling reality and only living in a pre-defined matrix of experience and rid ourselves of this attachment for good.
This three-hour documentary series proves the existence of Mu, the Motherland of Man, how that all ancient religion was taken from the Motherland at one point or another, introduced to these civilizations which were her colonies, and gradually fell away from the real teaching as nefarious priest-classes used the knowledge to gain power over their populaces...
[This is part 1 of 21...the whole thing is 3 hrs. long! So for the rest, go to YouTube.]

Why Hulu scares TV execs

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-la-hulu-090511,0,4999088.story

Online video site Hulu trumpeted its ascension to the media big time a few months back with a dash of sardonic humor. In its debut TV commercial, in which Alec Baldwin mocks the audience's addiction to the very shows he creates as a fictional network executive, the site calls itself "an evil plot to destroy the world."
The joke is uneasily close to the truth for some in the television business.
Once dismissed as "Clown Co." by Silicon Valley critics who scoffed that old media giants could ever harness the Internet, the website with a name that sounds like a Hawaiian dance has quickly upset the status quo. Hulu's traction with users has entrenched entertainment companies worried that the video site's runaway success could undercut the financial underpinnings of the industry.
Those companies are fighting back, and the result could mean no more free passes for many signature cable programs that appear on Hulu.
NBC Universal and News Corp. publicly launched Hulu a little more than a year ago as a gamble on television's digital future. The website allows viewers to watch thousands of episodes of TV shows for free, from current hits like "Family Guy" and "The Office" to old favorites like "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "I Dream of Jeannie." Hulu's simple design, expansive catalog and no-cover charge has elevated it to one of the most popular websites for watching video.
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http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t205/jenniferjarhead_pb/killtv.jpg

It's not bankers Labour is watching, it's you

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/10/neo-liberalism-labour-policy-larry-elliott
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmSAJ9GVryvZ722hkBtDwTvR8HyAGVKG6py7JS5iPzoBEz6yFq5kj3ZXnNRduNV7HYo75im2Sr4pa_XPLdR2rmWt7_6Ygkc1k4YlMM2_YzXlrF-nMWOMwloIzgeje7y6-qCHohNu6WdHA/s400/big+brother.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IlwcTx9Q628/RkxbYSccFjI/AAAAAAAAApU/QFxeqBZTKDs/s400/surveillance-cameras-400.jpg
Here's how things stand. The follies of the big banks have caused the ­steepest plunge in output since the second world war. The economy is showing signs of stabilisation, owing largely to emergency cuts in interest rates and taxpayers' billions being used to prop up a ­financial system on the brink of collapse. Unemployment is rising, and it is rising most rapidly for the blameless, not the wretched bankers.
Even before the recession began, incomes for those at the bottom of the pile were below the level of three years ago. The longer Labour has been in power the slower incomes have grown. Inequality is higher than under Thatcher. Child poverty has increased in the past three years and the public finances are shot to pieces.
According to the prime minister, we are now living in a different world. The crisis of neo-liberalism has ushered in a new age in which there is a new and more important role for the state.
That is true, but only up to a point. The state is rather keener on controlling the people than the markets.
[...]
Labour is ploughing ahead with identity cards; it intends to keep the DNA records of innocent people on its database for up to 12 years; it sanctioned the aggressive policing of the G20 demonstrations. Britain already has more CCTV cameras per head than any other western industrialised country and the weakest laws on privacy and data protection. We have a surveillance society and prisons that are bursting at the seams.
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Labour plots to keep MPs’ allowances under wraps in the future

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6262083.ece
Cartoon
A Labour plot to suppress the future release of MPs’ expenses has been uncovered by The Times.
As the frenzy over MPs’ claims continues into a fourth day, senior figures from all parties will meet this morning to discuss how to salvage Parliament’s battered reputation and it emerged that the tax authorities are expected to investigate whether MPs have breached the law. Plans to bring in a private-sector company to run the expenses department have raised fears, however, that the move is being used as a smokescreen to suppress future embarrassing revelations.
[...]
Senior Labour figures say that the future privatisation of the Fees Office to process claims would exempt receipts from publication under Freedom of Information rules. This was branded unbelievable and unacceptable by Tony Wright, chairman of the Public Administration Committee.
A former Commons Deputy Speaker took the unusual step of urging Gordon Brown to hold an urgent general election to save the “foundations of democracy”[Which are what? Theft?]. Lord Naseby, formerly the Tory MP Michael Morris, told BBC radio: “I think frankly, if this runs and runs, then Parliament should be dissolved, I think they have to start again. The Great British public has lost their confidence and I think that it is extremely serious. And if it is that serious then there is only one way of dealing with it, that is to dissolve Parliament.”
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Child traffickers find it easy to operate in UK, say MPs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/10/child-trafficking-protection-laws
http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com/files/2007/03/cni-not-for-sale-photo.jpg
Child traffickers are targeting the UK because of the ease with which they can move victims through British ports and local authority care homes, the chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into human trafficking has warned.
Keith Vaz, head of the home affairs select committee, said he and colleagues were "very concerned" about low levels of funding for law ­enforcement agencies to fight trafficking, and he called on the ­government to hold an urgent review of the number of foreign children missing from local ­authority care.
[...]
Vaz also said there was "a growing ­connection" between local authority care facilities and trafficking, exemplified he said by the case exposed in the Guardian last week of 77 Chinese children missing from a single care home next to Heathrow airport since March 2006, only four of whom have been found. Two girls had been exploited as ­prostitutes in the Midlands, and others were suspected of having been forced to work in the drug trade and illegal labour.
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Israel elabora un plan secreto contra la división de Jerusalén

·Una oenegé local dice que el gobierno planifica más derribos en zonas palestinas.
http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=611378&idseccio_PK=1007
http://www.familiebinding.de/issi/photos1/images/2-16-jerusalem-temple_mountain.jpg
El Gobierno israelí ha preparado un plan urbanístico para alterar la demografía de Jerusalén y hacer completamente inviable una futura división de la ciudad que se disputan israelís y palestinos, según desvela el diario israelí Haaretz apoyándose en la información obtenida por la oenegé Ir Amin (Una ciudad para dos pueblos). El proyecto consistiría en rodear la Ciudad Vieja con nueve parques arqueológicos, senderos y lugares de interés turístico que se construirían en zonas donde reside mayoritariamente población palestina.
En zonas como Silwan el plan ya está en marcha. En este barrio, pegado a las murallas, la municipalidad ha ordenado la demolición de 88 viviendas donde residen unas 1.500 personas para dejar espacio a la expansión de un parque arqueológico gestionado por una organización de colonos de extrema derecha. No son las únicas órdenes de demolición pendientes. La ONU advertía hace unos días que 60.000 palestinos de Jerusalén Este podrían quedarse sin casa si la municipalidad cumple con los expedientes de derribo.
Según el diario Haaretz, el plan responde a una iniciativa del Gobierno del primer ministro Binyamin Netanyahu y de varias organizaciones de colonos, y su aplicación ha sido asignada a la Autoridad para el Desarrollo de Jerusalén.

AFIANZAR LA CAPITALIDAD
En un informe presentado en septiembre del año pasado al entonces primer ministro, Ehud Olmert, este organismo público, encargado de fomentar el desarrollo en la ciudad, afirmaba que el objetivo del plan es "crear una secuencia de parques que rodeen la Ciudad Vieja para afianzar Jerusalén como la capital de Israel".
Es difícil dudar de la verosimilitud de la información presentada por Haaretz. Tanto Netanyahu como el alcalde de Jerusalén, Nir Barkat, se oponen tajantemente a compartir la capitalidad de Jerusalén con la Autoridad Nacional Palestina (ANP) y ambos han declarado públicamente su intención de fomentar la colonización judía del este de la ciudad.
El primer ministro, que efectuará esta semana su primer viaje oficial a Egipto, tampoco considera negociable la devolución del Golán sirio. "Quedándonos en el Golán[...así como así...] nos aseguraremos una ventaja estratégica en caso de conflicto militar con Siria", dijo el viernes Netanyahu.
[Fuente: elperiodico.com]

"Tu mala suerte es culpa tuya, porque el sistema es perfecto" (Entrevista)

·Michela Marzano, investigadora del Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, afirma que la pornografía y la autoayuda coinciden en servirse de la ilusión de libertad individual para perpetuar la explotación de unas personas por otras.
http://www.lavanguardia.es/lacontra/lacontra.html
http://www.images.hachette-livre.fr/media/imgAuteur/039/MARZANO.JPG
M. Marzano- Vivimos el mejor momento para desenmascarar la impostura de los libros de management personal, autoayuda, coaching...
LaVanguardia- ¿Por qué ahora?
Las crisis ponen en evidencia que si quieres no siempre puedes, porque, por mucho que quieras, no lograrás nada si antes no desvelamos que las reglas del juego de la economía son tramposas, producen desigualdad y nos penalizan a la mayoría.
No veo nada malo en autoayudarte.
Es perverso hacerte creer que todo lo que te sale mal es culpa tuya y debes mejorarlo y que, en cambio, las reglas del juego establecido por una minoría en su provecho no necesitan ninguna mejora.
Algunos de esos libros son divertidos.
Pero la ideología que los alimenta no: lleva a pensar, por ejemplo, que si hoy estás en el paro, es porque no deseaste el éxito lo suficiente ni te esforzaste. No sólo eres un perdedor y un fracasado sino que encima es culpa tuya y eso exculpa, de paso, a todos los demás responsables de tu paro.
Antes había perdedores simpáticos.
Hoy esa superchería del autocrecimiento lo impide: si eres un perdedor es porque también eres un vago que no se ha molestado en automejorarse. Antes el sistema era paternalista: había un amo del que emanaban en cada momento todas las órdenes que todos cumplían y si las cosas iban mal, también se preocupaba y ocupaba de los suyos...
Ya no quedan señoritos de esos.
Porque a partir del año 90 el capitalismo, para seguir creciendo, necesita nuevos empleados emprendedores, ya que las tecnologías de la información han dejado anticuada la estructura patriarcal. Ahora cada empleado debe ser capaz de tomar sus decisiones por la empresa y asumir sus consecuencias.
Gente que sepa mandarse a sí misma.
En la era digital, las empresas para ser productivas deben tener apariencia - sólo es una apariencia-horizontal: los amos y sus capataces ponen objetivos y los empleados los cumplen por los medios que quieran.
La célebre dirección por objetivos.
Es la ilusión de la autonomía personal cuando, en realidad, sus objetivos a menudo o son incumplibles o sólo se pueden cumplir si renuncias a todo lo que no sea trabajar. Los amos te dan toda la libertad para renunciar de la manera que quieras a tu propia libertad. Por lo menos, cuando imponían un horario, tu tiempo libre era tuyo.
Pero el trabajo produce satisfacción.
Esa es la trampa - envuelta en toda esa palabrería de autoayuda-de la felicidad por el trabajo. Sostiene que el trabajo es el único camino de la realización personal hacia la felicidad. De esta forma sólo puedes ser feliz haciendo ricos a los amos. Yyano te queda ser el pobre e inocente desgraciado, de antaño, ahora si no eres feliz, encima eres un indolente culpable de tu desgracia.
Trabajar antaño fue maldición bíblica.
Era el peaje del sustento. En la sociedad patriarcal era el fatigoso pero inevitable modo de mantener a la familia: hoy la economía necesita más implicación personal: exige ejecutivos autoconvencidos que renuncian a la familia y amigos para invertir todas sus horas en la empresa, lo que les convierte - creen los muy alienados-en superhombres y supermujeres felices y admirados.
Eso si la empresa funciona...
Es la otra paradoja: se te hace creer que todo depende sólo de ti, pero, a la hora de la verdad, todo depende de los resultados de tu empresa que a su vez pueden tambalearse, como ahora, por una crisis financiera que comenzó a miles de kilómetros por culpa de quienes sí deciden y ponen las reglas.
Tampoco podíamos crecer siempre.
El crecimiento tiene límites, pero el éxito ilimitado que promete la filosofía de la autoayuda necesita de la ilusión de que eres tú solo quien pone los límites, como si el planeta no los tuviera. Cuando tú puedes permitirte tres coches y dos piscinas, pero el planeta y su atmósfera, no.
A veces, crecer es ser más pequeñito.
Sí, menos mal que hemos "fracasado" en conseguir todos nuestros objetivos y aún podemos salvar lo que queda de la Tierra.
Aquí aún estarían enladrillando playas.
Esa lógica de la autoayuda propicia, en crisis, enormes cantidades de sentimiento de culpa, que a su vez se transforma en depresiones. En Argentina y Francia, el psicoanálisis es una religión y de su sacramento, los antidepresivos, argentinos y franceses son los mayores consumidores del mundo.
¿Por qué?
Precisamente porque son países con egos enormes educados en la fe ilimitada en la propia capacidad de control de uno mismo y de su destino, al que se considera mero resultado de las decisiones tomadas a lo largo de la vida. Las terapias breves, la PNL y otras técnicas alimentan esa ficción de control ilimitado, que no es más que la ilusión infantil de omnipotencia.
Y resulta que la suerte también existe.
Llámele suerte, destino, imponderables, lo que quiera, pero se trata de la madura aceptación de que una parte de lo que nos sucede - por ejemplo, esta crisis financiera-no depende exclusivamente de nosotros.
Pero sí nuestra actitud ante ella.
Veo que ha leído mucha autoayuda.
He entrevistado a un montón de gurús.
Léalos, pero a veces es mejor fracasar. Fracase, hombre: no sé si será más feliz, pero seguro que vive más tranquilo.
[Fuente: lavanguardia.es]

5.10.2009

Crop Circles -2009 Update- Number 10

[Formation Nº 10 @ Peaks Down - nr Swindon, Wiltshire - reported May 9, 2009]

Memos shed light on CIA use of sleep deprivation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogate10-2009may10,0,1512131.story
http://photo.minghui.org/photo/images/u_persecution/torture_means/images/2004-12-23-lixiuzhen24.jpg
Reporting from Washington -- As President Obama prepared last month to release secret memos on the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods, the White House fielded a flurry of last-minute appeals.
One came from former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who expressed disbelief that the administration was prepared to expose methods it might later decide it needed.
"Are you telling me that under all conditions of threat, you will never interfere with the sleep cycle of a detainee?" Hayden asked a top White House official, according to sources familiar with the exchange.
From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA's interrogation program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, far more than the most violent approaches. And it is among the methods the agency fought hardest to keep.
[...]
Because of its effectiveness -- as well as the perception that it was less objectionable than waterboarding, head-slamming or forced nudity -- sleep deprivation may be seen as a tempting technique to restore.
But the Justice Department memos released last month by Obama, as well as information provided by officials familiar with the program, indicate that the method, which involves forcing chained prisoners to stand, sometimes for days on end, was more controversial within the U.S. intelligence community than was widely known.
Read more...

Jobless Spaniards sell kidneys to transplant tourists

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6257054.ece
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c52/paruvers2/kidney_sales_sm.jpg
A MACABRE traffic associated with poor countries in Asia and Latin America has sprung up for the first time in western Europe as the credit crunch reduces Spaniards to selling organs to “transplant tourists”.
Spanish “kidney for sale” advertisements have proliferated recently on the internet as people struggle to make ends meet in a country whose 17% unemployment rate is the highest in Europe.
Sergio, a 42-year-old welder and father of four, said he had received an offer of £20,000 from a German couple who needed his kidney for their five-year-old son. If tests showed them to be compatible, an operation would be performed in a “third country” since such transactions are illegal in Europe.
“Apparently, there’s a waiting list of at least five years for a kidney in Germany,” he told a television programme, “but in five years the kid will be dead.”
[...]
“The bank is on my back,” he said. “If I could think of some other way of raising the money, believe me, I would.”
Read more...

The end of the age of free

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/10/music-news-murdoch-free-google
http://jeremiasx.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/uglyrupert.jpghttp://www.doovive.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/news_corp_logo.jpg
In art, as in commerce, a price tag traditionally has magical powers. With the flick of a wand, a pound sign confers desirability on an item that might be thrown away if it was handed out for nothing.
And yet for almost a decade now, quality entertainment and culture, as well as mainstream sources of news, have been freely available on the web. The arrival of the internet has seen musicians, publishers and news organisations all slowly float off together into uncharted waters.
Consumers who have grown up during the past 15 years are completely at home in a world where much of what they want to hear, see or read will cost them nothing. True, in the case of some films and TV shows, the practices involved may skirt around the law a bit. Generally speaking, though, culture has become a happy free-for-all. Now may be the time to pay the bill.
Chris Anderson, a leading American commentator on the web and editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, puts the matter concisely: "Somehow an economy had emerged around 'free' before the economic model that could describe it." Anderson's next book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, will both celebrate and analyse the effect of all this giving-away.
[...]
One of the biggest players in the game last week questioned the rationale behind the current give-away culture. Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp, even went so far as to refer to it as a "flawed" business model when he spoke to reporters in New York. The media mogul – who owns the Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World in Britain, as well as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal in America – announced that he was considering charging for more of his internet sites.
"We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning," Murdoch said. His volte-face followed background news that profits from News Corp newspapers were down year-on-year from $216m to $7m and that British newspaper advertising revenues were down 21%.
Read more...

Aznar prefiere una "alianza de civilizados" a una de civilizaciones

http://www.lavanguardia.es/politica/noticias/20090509/53699923032/aznar-prefiere-una-alianza-de-civilizados-a-una-de-civilizaciones-gobierno-jose-maria-aznar-fernando.html
http://republicanos.bravehost.com/myPictures/aznarPEQUE.jpghttp://files.nireblog.com/blogs/arkimia/files/juicioaaznar1.jpg
Estoril (Portugal). (EFE).- El ex presidente del Gobierno José María Aznar no cree en una "alianza de civilizaciones" sino en una "de civilizados" que respeten los principios de la democracia y rechacen otros como el terrorismo.[!!!]
Otro participante en el mismo acto, el profesor de la universidad británica de Oxford Tariq Ramadán, replicó los argumentos de Aznar y calificó de "incivilizado" mentir sobre las armas de destrucción masiva atribuidas al régimen iraquí o participar en un conflicto "ilegal" para la ONU como el de Iraq.
Aznar manifestó que no cree en la alianza de civilizaciones porque no reconoce que haya un "choque de civilizaciones" y piensa que "civilización hay una" [La suya, no?].
No obstante, ante una pregunta del público, señaló que le aceptó el término "diálogo de civilizaciones" al ex presidente de Irán Mohamed Jatamí, cuando ambos se reunieron, como gobernantes, hace ocho años porque sí está de acuerdo con la necesidad de "dialogar" [Primero tendríamos que saber qué significa exactamente 'dialogar' para el Sr. Aznar].
"Puedo creer en el diálogo entre distintas culturas y países y no entiendo otra cosa que una razonable alianza de gente civilizada", agregó Aznar, que considera fuera de esa posibilidad a quienes no respetan el pluralismo, los derechos humanos, atacan las Torres Gemelas de Nueva York o ponen bombas en Madrid. [Uf! Con lo que ya sabemos tod@s acerca del 9-11, del 7-7 y del 11-M...Cómo se puede tolerar que siga diciendo semejantes cosas?!]
Aznar alertó también del peligro de que Irán tenga el poder nuclear y sostuvo que "un mundo con seis potencias nucleares es un mundo desagradable pero con veinte es inmanejable"[!!!] porque alguna acabará en manos de alguien sin escrúpulos [Porque EEUU, Rusia, Reino Unido, Francia, etc., son todas potencias ''con escrúpulos'', a que sí?].
En relación con Oriente Medio defendió la coexistencia de un estado de Israel y otro palestino pero cree "internacionalmente inadmisible" que se pretenda acabar con el estado israelí.
En el ciclo de Conferencias de Estoril, que concluye hoy, participaron también esta semana, entre otras personalidades, los ex gobernantes Tony Blair, del Reino Unido; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, de Brasil; y Mary Robinson, de Irlanda.
[Fuente: lavanguardia.es]

Revolta Global-Esquerra Anticapitalista

http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=611061&idseccio_PK=1008
http://www.ezkeralternatiboa.org/argaski/logo_izquierda_anticapitalista.jpghttp://www.pangea.org/llibertatsolidaria/NPA_logo.jpg
¿Existe vida a la izquierda de la izquierda? Al menos alguien intenta que la haya, sin traicionar los principios, pero adaptándolos a los tiempos que corren. A Olivier Besancenot (Levallois-Perret, 1974) el experimento le está yendo bien en Francia. Puede presumir de haber sacudido el espacio electoral izquierdista al ganarse el voto de millón y medio de franceses en las últimas presidenciales. Un golpe de efecto del que anhela contagiarse un partido presentado ayer en Barcelona y Madrid que busca aglutinar a la extrema izquierda cara a los comicios europeos.
La crisis económica puede ser el acicate para retomar una lucha contra el capitalismo que la caída del muro de Berlín parecía dar por terminada a finales del siglo pasado. Se trata de recuperar fuelle para "cambiar el mundo de base y derrocar el sistema". Utópico o no, con esa semilla germina Revolta Global-Esquerra Anticapitalista. Los principios suenan a otras épocas, pero los oradores han cambiado mucho y las palabras están matizadas.
Sin etiquetas
El referente, Besancenot, es un mileurista que trabaja como cartero cuatro días a la semana en Neuilly-sur-Seine, una rica ciudad contigua a París de la que fue alcalde Nicolas Sarkozy. Se le conoce como "el cartero trotskista", conjugando su oficio con la ideología que parece pregonar. Parece, porque él huye de etiquetas. "No soy ni trotskista, ni guevarista ni luxemburguista (por Rosa Luxemburgo; soy un revolucionario". Precisamente para no etiquetarse decidió disolver la trotskista Liga Comunista Revolucionaria (LCR) que presidía para fundar el Nuevo Partido Anticapitalista (NPA), del que Revolta Global-Esquerra Anticapitalista es discípulo. "El anticapitalismo requiere de un movimiento internacional como el de, por ejemplo, los comunistas o los verdes".
Así lo defendió ante entusiasmados "camaradas" catalanes, quienes comprobaron su perfil joven y contestatario y el aire fresco que intenta imprimir a su revolución con 35 años y una cara de niño que a algunos les recuerda a Tintín. Eso sí, a diferencia de la ácida sátira que el personaje de Hergé hizo del comunismo cuando viajó al país de los Soviets, el lavado de cara que impulsa Besancenot incluye autocrítica. "La revolución precisa de ser reinventada, porque ningún experimento revolucionario ha tenido éxito. Muchos de ellos terminaron como caricaturas sangrientas".
En resumen, una revolución corregida y aumentada, pero permanente (como decía Trotsky) y ahora también internacionalizada (como dice Besancenot). "De ilusión también se vive", pensarán algunos. "¿Por qué no?", responde el NPA español en su lema electoral.
[Fuente: elperiodico.com]

Famed UFO historian: humanity may be targeted by predatory Reptilian extraterrestrial species

http://www.examiner.com/x-2912-Seattle-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2009m5d7-Famed-UFO-historian-humanity-may-be-targeted-by-predatory-Reptilian-extraterrestrial-species
http://obskuristan.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/laura11.jpghttp://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/26/e6/000ae626_medium.jpeg
[...]
According to the Knight-Jadczyk field theory[defined as "a psychological theory which examines patterns of interaction between the individual and the total field, or environment. The concept was developed by Kurt Lewin, a Gestalt psychologist, in the 1940s and 1950s."], a substantial portion of alien abductions are conducted by Grey robotic probes on behalf of these negative Reptilians. The Reptilians have designed and created the Greys as synthetic robots in order to operate in the Third Density (in which we humans exist), as the Reptilians cannot yet exist on their own in the Third Density.
The intention of the Reptilians is "total replacement" of the human race, “to move in and take over…. That has been their intention for some time. They have been traveling back and forth in time as you know it, to set things up so they can absorb a maximum amount of energy with the transference from third to fourth level that this planet is going to experience, in hope that that can overtake you on the fourth level [fourth density] and thereby accomplish several things.
"1. retaining their race as a viable species;
"2. increasing their numbers;
"3. increasing their power; and
"4. expanding their race throughout the realm of the fourth density.”
Because of their ability to move backwards and forwards in time in the Fourth Density, the field theory states, the Reptilians, who feed off human fear and suffering, have manipulated human affairs over time, creating intentional war and conflict in the areas of human religions, politics, economics, social organization, and in territorial, ethnic and national issues. Human fear is sustenance to the Reptilians.
The dominant reason for alien abductions, according to the field theory, is “Replacement” or “creating a race to replace human beings. You see if one desires to create a new race, what better way to mass hybridize, then mass reincarnate. Especially when the host species [humans] is so forever ignorant, controlled and anthropocentric…. The Nazi experience [designed by the Reptilians] was a ‘trial run’….”
The ultimate Reptilian plan, the field theory states, is replacement of up to 94% of existing humans, through “total consumption” of parts – human physical bodies and fluids like blood as well as human emotional bodies.
Read more...

The Language of the Future: Evolutionary Math Breaks the Code

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/05/l-the-language-.html
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Brain-and-Cognitive-Sciences/9-402Language-and-ThoughtFall2002/072036C6-6082-47E2-A7A8-7C19F9CDD290/0/chp_9_402.gif
Harvard mathematicians have found that words evolve in a concise manner directly related to frequency of usage. The research looked at the evolution of the English language over the past 1,200 years and found that it’s the infrequently-used words with the habit of changing.
Apparently, just as genes and organisms undergo natural selection, words are also subject to a similarly intense pressure to "regularize" as the language develops. The researchers quantified this trend and compare it with biological evolution.
"Mathematical analysis of this linguistic evolution reveals that irregular verb conjugations behave in an extremely regular way- one that can yield predictions and insights into the future stages of a verb's evolutionary trajectory," says Erez Lieberman, a specialist in evolutionary math at Harvard University. "We measured something no one really thought could be measured, and got a striking and beautiful result."
What they found is that the less often a word is said, the faster it will change over time, whereas more commonly uttered words are much more resistant to change. The researchers believe this is because often-used irregulars are easy to remember and get right, whereas seldom-used irregulars are more likely to be forgotten. Speakers often mistakenly apply the ‘-ed’ rule. The most commonly used word that they found this happened to was the verb ‘to help’ – the past tense was once ‘holp’, but is now ‘helped’.
"We're really on the front lines of developing the mathematical tools to study evolutionary dynamics," says Jean-Baptiste Michel, a graduate student in systems biology at Harvard Medical School. "Before, language was considered too messy and difficult a system for mathematical study, but now we're able to successfully quantify an aspect of how language changes and develops."
Read more...

5.09.2009

History of the Internet (VOSE)

The World As I See It

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm
http://www.techshout.com/images/albert-einstein.jpg
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
---
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! [My thoughts exactly!]
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
Albert Einstein (signature)

24 horas de tráfico aéreo


[Pensar en lo que queda en la atmósfera...]

Warning: Sunspot cycle beginning to rise

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090508/ap_on_sc/us_sci_space_weather
http://folk.uio.no/gardini/xraysun.jpg
When the sun sneezes it's Earth that gets sick. It's time for the sun to move into a busier period for sunspots, and while forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems here.
Like hurricanes, a weak cycle refers to the number of storms, but it only takes one powerful storm to create chaos, said scientist Doug Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather prediction center.
[...]
The 1859 storm shorted out telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe, sent readings of Earth's magnetic field soaring, and produced northern lights so bright that people read newspapers by their light.
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Possible site of free will found in brain

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17092-possible-site-of-free-will-found-in-brain.html
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cssr/images/Free.gifhttp://angelrey.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/el-libre-albedrio1.jpg
Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests.
When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless.
"What it tells us is there are specific brain regions that are involved in the consciousness of your movement," says Angela Sirigu a neuroscientist at the CNRS Cognitive Neuroscience Centre in Bron, France, who led the study.
Learn more...
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El coche de aire comprimido

http://www.cochesdeaire.com/los-coches/air_car.html
http://www.cochesdeaire.com/imagenes/prototipos/Develp_Aircar_3005082.gif
El aire comprimido es un vector energético que permite, de forma viable, su utilización para el transporte de personas y mercancías.
El principal objetivo de Air Car Factories es el desarrollo y la fabricación de un vehículo propulsado por un motor de aire comprimido, cuyas prestaciones respondan a las necesidades reales del mercado actual. Con este fin, hemos desarrollado una completa agenda y un plan de acciones de I+D para el inicio de la producción.
Tenemos ya terminado el diseño de nuestros primeros modelos.
Hemos reservado espacio suficiente para equipar al coche unas bombonas de aire comprimido, con su correspondiente motor, o bien unas baterías para acoplar un motor eléctrico.
Tenemos la intención de poner en el mercado, a corto plazo, un primer modelo de coche eléctrico, a la espera de definir nuestro futuro motor de aire.
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Daniel Estulin Entrevista 2007

Pilar Rahola recibe el premio del Comité Judío Americano

http://www.lavanguardia.es/free/edicionimpresa/res/20090509/53698983515.html?urlback=http://www.lavanguardia.es/premium/edicionimpresa/20090509/53698983515.html
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjmsuF-jotsRahdM0PZmjl1YQ22nOwt3dwNtfIHX0nsDMlff-T4Vf-PkUQBagDKB0PMcS3hwynwPNOW3RQFu_rlq6HXwPyjU5IqzHN1tQwuFiyI7bC6BCRSOxQNTPWM-0-qqCNbnKD2XA/s320/tv3_Pilar_Rahola.jpg
WASHINGTON. La periodista y articulista de La Vanguardia Pilar Rahola recibió ayer en Washington el premio de comunicación del Comité Judío Americano. En la ceremonia de entrega, Linda Mirels, de la junta de gobernadores, elogió a Rahola por "contar sin miedo la verdad" y citó uno de sus artículos en este diario. En su discurso, Rahola alertó de que España "se está convirtiendo en el país más neo-antisemita de Europa" y dijo que el extremismo islámico es el "nuevo enemigo" al que tendrá que enfrentarse la humanidad en el siglo XXI, tras derrotar al nazismo y el estalinismo.
[Fuente: lavanguardia.es]

[Podría decir algo...pero, hace falta? Tal vez sí: sigo sin entender por qué un medio (aparentemente serio) como LaVanguardia deja que éste personaje tenga un espacio para esparcir sus mentiras...a no ser que desde LaVanguardia misma se fomente este tipo de 'periodismo'. Lamentable!! Si creéis que exagero, mirar esta entrevista de Tv3 del 2006, http://www.tv3.cat/videos/212887018. Rahola sale al final...]