January 6, 2010
To everyone on the political right who is now calling for an invasion of Yemen, take a breath. Reflect on the words of one of the few Presidents in history that actually commanded troops in the field before becoming Commander in Chief:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket…
January 5, 2010
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4Social Darwinism is one of those concepts that everyone knows what it is but few can define. I myself have sometimes reflexively used the concept without fully knowing the history of the term or its use as a political theory. In this series it is my goal to raise…
January 5, 2010
Recruitment poster calling for defense of the "Soviet Motherland." Woman holds a document that translates roughly to "military oath."My grandmother sends me a lot of chain e-mails. Many of them are of the right-wing Evangelical Christian variety that have been resent so many times that I have…
January 4, 2010
Dolphins, such as this individual caught and used by the US Navy, could be granted personhood rights that protect them from such abuse. Image: United Press InternationalIn Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy it turned out that dolphins were super…
January 2, 2010
Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada appeared on CNN Dec. 31 and was grilled tenaciously by Rick Sanchez. For those that haven't been following the issue, Senator Ensign started having an affair with the wife of one of his top aides, Douglas Hampton. When they were found out Ensign's family…
January 1, 2010
Goodbye 2009, hello 2010. It was supposed to be the year we made contact. We'll have to make do with a watered down version of healthcare reform instead. At each new year we often seek to look back in reflection and learn a few lessons as we continue our journey. We are also apt to atone. I…
December 30, 2009
Welcome to the newest installment of the four field anthropology blog carnival Four Stone Hearth. As the carnival enters into a new decade there were many wonderful voices clamoring for attention.
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December 25, 2009
"Presents Opening Children" / Rob Sheridan
December 17, 2009
Wall Street's shadow in New York CityAs the education reformer and philosopher John Dewey once stated, "politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." Unlike other critics of scientific communication, it is my contention…
December 16, 2009
Congratulations on four years of blogging to Martin Rundkvist at Aardvarchaeology (he's also the reigning deity behind Four Stone Hearth) and Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata (who celebrated his yesterday). Here's to many more!
December 16, 2009
The blogosphere's best (and only) anthropology blog carnival has just been posted at Anthropology in Practice. Krystal has collected together some fascinating posts that are sure to titillate the intellect and get those cultural juices flowing.
December 15, 2009
This week may be sporadic as I focus on my graduate work, so here are the top ten posts from November as chosen by readers:
#1 - I Am Extremely Terrified of Chinese People, But I'm Not Racist
This cracks me up, in more ways than one.
#2 - Reciprocity and the Anthropology of Organ Transplants
Thanks…
December 15, 2009
Sex workers in Denmark have offered free sex in response to Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard's attempt to discourage prostitution during the COP15 Climate Change Conference. The City Council had postcards delivered to 160 hotels where conference delegates and associates of COP15 would be staying…
December 15, 2009
The Guardian environment editor John Vidal, who first reported on the "Danish Text" that would seek to eliminate the Kyoto Protocol and allow wealthy nations to maintain double the carbon pollution as poor nations, has filed this report from Copenhagen. The outrage by developing nations was felt…
December 14, 2009
"Even the best of modern civilisations appears to me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to express the opinion that if there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of…
December 14, 2009
ScienceBlogs has the funniest ads sometimes. This image adorned the right hand side of my screen this morning (maybe now it's there twice). Intrigued I wanted to know more:
Compassion believes it takes more than education, healthcare and social programs to make a difference in the life of a child…
December 14, 2009
Image: Jesus! vs. Darwin! by The Searcher
It's a tired old routine, yet time and again the same argument is taken off the shelf, dusted, buffed and then presented with a sly smile as if it were something new. Evolution, it's asserted, is only progressive and builds on earlier adaptations in its…
December 14, 2009
Uncensored video below.
Yes, this is juvenile. But then, you're the one who clicked on it.
H/T Max Blumenthal
December 13, 2009
Alfred Russell Wallace, co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, was so great an admirer of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer that he named his first-born son Herbert Spencer Wallace on June 22, 1867. Ironically, Wallace later became a socialist, a view that was…
December 13, 2009
Journalist Robert Eshelman is blogging from Copenhagen throughout the UN Climate Conference and offers this cogent observation:
If there's going to be an agreement, it will come down mostly to money. The E.U. might offer more money and the U.S. might provide a counteroffer. There might be some…
December 13, 2009
Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, author of the international bestsellers The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, and the recent Rolling Stone article "Climate Rage," gave the following talks at the KlimaForum09 alternative climate conference in Copenhagen. As the US is insisting on a mere 17% reduction in…
December 10, 2009
Yep, this is pretty much how it works. Marc Roberts has this brilliant comic that sums up the spectacle currently underway in Copenhagen. Here's a taste, but make sure to click the link to see the whole thing.
December 10, 2009
Sharon Astyk is a writer, teacher and small farmer living in rural upstate New York and now writes at Casaubon's Book, after the character in the George Eliot novel Middlemarch who attempts to put everything in history within a single narrative. She writes and speaks frequently about peak oil,…
December 9, 2009
The so-called "Danish Text" agreement that was leaked to the Guardian newspaper has resulted in a firestorm of controversy. By far the most hostile reporting about the outrage that poor nations have expressed has been from the Financial Times.
FT Commentator Fiona Harvey wrote yesterday that:
The…
December 9, 2009
The following is an unconfirmed draft of the speech that President Obama plans to give before the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo later today. Daniel Simpson has transcribed the draft:
EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 10, 2009(Check against delivery)
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies,…
December 9, 2009
Executive Director of the South Center Martin Khor and Journalist Naomi Klein are interviewed in Copenhagen:
Martin Khor: I think that the US has a positive role to play in the climate negotiations, which it has yet to play, by allowing those countries who are in the Kyoto Protocol--and that's all…
December 8, 2009
Kyoto would be replaced with a protocol run by the World Bank, says Guardian.Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images
[updated below - Update II - Update III (Thurs.)]
The Guardian newspaper last night published a leaked draft of a climate agreement entitled only Draft 271109 but known as…
December 8, 2009
(updated below)
Media Matters is reporting that on December 4th Fox News manipulated the evidence from a poll to suggest that 94% of the US population thinks that scientists falsified evidence to support their beliefs about climate change. As can be seen, however, their numbers added up to 120…
December 8, 2009
There has been much ado about the hundreds of pages of stolen e-mails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia. The reality of course is that this is about creating a wedge by those who are opposed to the regulations necessary to circumvent climate change and is not about the…
