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Right to Protect
The slaughter in Libya is appalling. There's a U.N.-approved doctrine, "Right to Protect," that in extreme circumstances the international community can use military force to prevent a leader from killing his people. I suggest that Egypt and Tunisia invoke Right to Protect and bomb air strips from which Qaddafi warplanes are taking off.
So. . . .Do we believe in the sanctity of human life or not? How many deaths will it take 'til you decide that too many people have died?
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20110220
20110219
100 Top CEOs
Copyright © 2011 Ernest Bloom.
see the list here
You gotta feel sorry for Michael W Laphen being stuck at the bottom of the list. I'm sure he's working as hard as he can to change that. Let's assume he works every weekend and every holiday and never goes home from his office and never sleeps. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He's working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. If true, he's earning a paltry $1777.40/hr. What we really need is some kind of government assistance program for down and out CEOs like him.
So he's being paid 50¢ per second, even if he's just picking his nose while waiting at a traffic light. Hmm. . . .I think I read something about this somewhere once. Something about those who can't learn from the past being condemned to repeat it. Oh, now I remember. . . .Anyone else ever read A Tale of Two Cities?
But let's be more realistic. Actually, if he's really working a bit more like a normal human being, all of whom are biological constructs that have to sleep every now and then no matter how much they spend on cocaine and methamphetamines, then let's say he's working, like us, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and unlike us (the souls of executives being fashioned of a more ethereal substance than our own, after all), he takes no vacations or holidays. Then he's earning $2.07 every second. But it's also true that this would require that he pick his nose while waiting at a traffic light totally off the books. Hey, no one ever said that life is easy or fair.
(As an aside: for some reason I'm suddenly reminded of middle-managers who squeeze you for more and more and more productivity while a steady flow of crocodile tears issues from their eyes cos there's no money left to even think about hiring more staff. Well, all I can say is: thank goodness we can look up to our Captains of Free Enterprise as inspirational, shining examples to be emulated!)
On the other hand, now that I think about it more carefully, the obvious solution is to offer more and more corporate tax breaks and outlaw collective bargaining.
(Oh, I'm sorry; didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.)
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20110217
An Eye-Opening Look At America's Academic Standards : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
An Eye-Opening Look At America's Academic Standards : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
i like to keep my politics and my science and my religion separate so they can all prosper. could it be that some of these have been inadvertantly contributing to a crippling of the american mind for generations now? certainly.
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US UnCut PRI Interview
UK online protest inspires US group PRI's The World
big ceo bonuses and bailouts and no corporate taxes. by the way, we're closing your libraries and turning off your heat and shutting down public television and raising your tuition. you'll just have to tighten your belt and wait for the trickledown.
big ceo bonuses and bailouts and no corporate taxes. by the way, we're closing your libraries and turning off your heat and shutting down public television and raising your tuition. you'll just have to tighten your belt and wait for the trickledown.
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Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool: guaranteed to be one of the coolest things you'll see today!
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Poetry Will Not Solve Your Problems
Poetry will not solve all of life's little problems, in case you thought otherwise.
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Deadly crackdown in Bahrain
Bahrain's King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa
Hundreds of police officers surrounded a makeshift encampment - where many protesters, including women and children, were asleep in tents - and launched tear gas and rubber bullets. . . .
read the story here
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20110216
Frank Delaney: re: Joyce
Welcome to Re:Joyce, Frank Delaney's spirited, smart and satisfying deconstruction of Jame's Joyce's Ulysses, in a five-minute podcast. Here is the Introduction and the first episode, and to your right you'll find the entire archive, working backward from the most recent, and added to each week.
You can also download the episodes from iTunes, for free. Hope to see you, right here - every Wednesday, for the next twenty-two years.
Frank Delaney: re: Joyce
You can also download the episodes from iTunes, for free. Hope to see you, right here - every Wednesday, for the next twenty-two years.
Frank Delaney: re: Joyce
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Consciousness, Mind, Brain, Quantum Mechanics, etc.
In the concluding chapter of The Road to Reality, mathematician Roger Penrose asks, “What is reality?” He goes on to state, “I do not believe that we have yet found the true ‘road to reality,’ despite the extraordinary progress that has been made over two and half millennia, particularly in the last few centuries. Some fundamentally new insights are certainly needed.... Some readers may still take the view that the road itself may be a mirage. Others might take the view that the very notion of a ‘physical reality’ with a truly objective nature, independent of how we might choose to look at it, is itself a pipe dream.” Penrose’s inquiry provides the parameters for this roundtable—can physics and mathematics fully describe reality? Is it possible that reality will never be fully described within a mathematical framework, thus questioning whether mental processes and consciousness can be fully explained within the physics/mathematics paradigm? Is it possible that a future, yet undiscovered physics/mathematics will accurately define reality? . . . .
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A Nine-Planet Solar System Once More? NASA Telescope May Reveal New Planet, Tyche
When Pluto was demoted from its planet status five years ago, we were pretty shook up. Having eight planets just isn't so catchy. Classroom wall charts around the globe were taken down and new rhymes had to be learned. Luckily, scientists have strong evidence to suggest that there is a ninth planet lurking beyond Pluto, and what's more, it's a big one. . . .
20110215
UK UnCut
The banks — at the heart of the financial crisis of 2008, seem to be feeling much better now. British stalwart Barclay’s topped the business news Tuesday, announcing 32 percent profits. This has created a recipe for public discontent. Combine big bank profits with multi million dollar bank bonuses for executives. Then throw in corporations who avoid paying millions more in taxes. . . .
read the story here
FBI overstated science behind anthrax probe
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — Federal investigators overstated the strength of the scientific evidence against a late Army researcher blamed for the anthrax mailings that killed five people in 2001, a panel of scientists said Tuesday after an 18-month review. However, the panel didn't contradict the FBI's conclusion that the researcher was behind the letters. . . .
(sub)Mission Statement
Copyright © 2011 Ernest Bloom.
NOTICE: Work on the novel has kept me from posting a lot of fiction here in the last year. Intermittent posting of fiction will continue. In addition, I expect to be posting increasing amounts of nonfiction here in the future; in particular, news items of interest to me, and possibly more video and pictures.
-- THE MANAGEMENT
NOTICE: Work on the novel has kept me from posting a lot of fiction here in the last year. Intermittent posting of fiction will continue. In addition, I expect to be posting increasing amounts of nonfiction here in the future; in particular, news items of interest to me, and possibly more video and pictures.
-- THE MANAGEMENT
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