Oíche Shamhna Shona!

Image source here.

'Very adept con artists'

Nice But Not Good: The Art of Spotting Narcissists

Judith Acosta, Huffington Post: Narcissists are very nice until they don't get their way. They are great charmers and can get most people to do and accept things that they wouldn't in their wildest dreams imagine themselves doing or accepting. Narcissists are often very adept con artists.

Narcissism, in psycho-therapeutic parlance, is a term used to indicate a superficial personality type with a hyper-inflated sense of self to compensate for a grievously wounded core. They need a huge amount of support and reinforcement or applause to feel that they have any existence at all... A narcissist is simply someone who puts himself in the center of the universe and fully, comfortably, and syntonically expects you to do the same for him.

As a result, what they want is paramount in any relationship -- intimate or fleeting. They are people who don't accept 'no' for answer easily because it so threatens either their plan, their sense of self-worth, or both. In order to keep things moving where they want them to go, they will manipulate with sweetness and charm. If that doesn't work, they will lie. And if that doesn't work, in many cases (though not all) they will rage. Sometimes that rage is malignant and can result in profound emotional or bodily harm to others...

Because our culture puts such a premium on niceness, charm, and pleasure, ordinary, good people are put at a disadvantage when it comes to discernment. A narcissist can appear quite innocent because she has so mastered the technique of ingratiation, so much so that she can make you feel that you have somehow committed a terrible injustice by denying her X or Y or Z as she positions herself as the victim. As Gavin de Becker points out, in The Gift of Fear, this failure to see behind the mask of niceness can make the difference between life and death.

Image source here.

Map: vulnerability to climate change

The new Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) released by global risks advisory firm Maplecroft evaluates 42 social, economic and environmental factors to assess national vulnerabilities across three core areas. These include: exposure to climate-related natural disasters and sea-level rise; human sensitivity, in terms of population patterns, development, natural resources, agricultural dependency and conflicts; thirdly, the index assesses future vulnerability by considering the adaptive capacity of a country's government and infrastructure to combat climate change. Additional image at New Scientist.

Event horizons: try this at home

How to Make a White Hole in your Kitchen Sink

WiredScience: That ring of water in your kitchen sink is actually a model white hole... Liquid flowing from a tap embodies the same physics as the time-reversed equivalent of black holes. When a stream of tap water hits the flat surface of the sink, it spreads out into a thin disc bounded by a raised lip, called the hydraulic jump... If the water waves inside the disc move faster than the waves outside, the jump could serve as an analogue event horizon. Water can approach the ring from outside, but it can't get in.

'The jump would therefore constitute a one-directional membrane or white hole,' wrote physicist Gil Jannes and Germain Rousseaux of the the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis in France in a study on ArXiv... 'Surface waves outside the jump cannot penetrate in the inner region; they are trapped outside in precisely the same sense as light is trapped inside a black hole.' The analogy is not just surface-deep. The math describing both situations is exactly equivalent... 'The concept of horizons is not limited to relativity.'...

'This is a brilliant experiment: Kitchen-sink physics is turned into a black-hole analogue,' commented Ulf Leonhardt, a physicist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who works on making analogue black holes in fiber-optic cables. 'Germain Rousseaux and his team used sophisticated equipment and did very careful measurements, but at its heart, the experiment is based on a simple idea everyone can understand and try at home.'

For a description of the experiment, go here.

Image source here.

Quote for the day

The technique of advertising and propaganda is to stun and demoralize the critical consciousness with statements too absurd or extreme to be dealt with seriously by it. In the mind that is too frightened or credulous or childish to want to deal with the world at all, they move in past the consciousness and set up their structures unopposed. What they create in such a mind is not necessarily acceptance, but dependence on their versions of reality...

What eventually happens I may describe in a figure borrowed from those interminable railway journeys that are so familiar to Canadians, at least of my generation. As one's eyes are passively pulled along a rapidly moving landscape, it turns darker and one begins to realize that many of the objects that appear to be outside are actually reflections of what is in the carriage. As it becomes entirely dark one enters a narcissistic world, where, except for a few lights here and there, we can see only the reflection of where we are.

-- Northrop Frye, in The Modern Century (1967)

Corruption: Canada in top 10 'very clean'

Transparency International

The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 178 countries around the world.

1. Denmark 9.3

2. New Zealand 9.3

3. Singapore 9.3

4. Finland 9.3

5. Sweden 9.2

6. Canada 8.9

7. Netherlands 8.8

8. Australia 8.7

9. Switzerland 8.7

10. Norway 8.6

....

22. United States 7.1

Books are our friends III

Jaqueline Rush Lee, Lorem Ipsum II

High latitude havens in global drought

Climate change: Drought may threaten much of globe within decades

UCAR: Heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai. The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times...

Using an ensemble of 22 computer climate models and a comprehensive index of drought conditions, as well as analyses of previously published studies, the paper finds most of the Western Hemisphere, along with large parts of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, may be a threat of extreme drought this century. In contrast, higher-latitude regions from Alaska to Scandinavia are likely to become more moist...

A climate change expert not associated with the study, Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, adds:... "The term 'global warming' does not do justice to the climatic changes the world will experience in coming decades. Some of the worst disruptions we face will involve water, not just temperature.'

Drought could hit world's populous areas -- study

Reuters: To get an idea of how severe the drought might get, scientists use a measure called the Palmer Drought Severity Index, or PDSI. A positive score is wet, a negative score is dry... An an example, the most severe drought in recent history, in the Sahel region of western Africa in the 1970s, had a PDSI of -3 or -4. By contrast, the new study indicates some areas with high populations could see drought in the -15 or -20 range by the end of the century.

Areas likely to experience significant drying include:

• the western two-thirds of the United States;
• much of Latin America, especially large parts of Mexico and Brazil;
• regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea;
• large parts of southwest Asia;
• southeast Asia, including China and neighboring countries, and
• most of Africa and Australia.

While Earth is expected to get dryer overall, some areas will see a lowering of the drought risk. These include:

• much of northern Europe;
• Russia;
• Canada;
• Alaska, and
• some areas of the Southern Hemisphere.

That doesn't necessarily mean that agriculture will migrate from the drought areas to these places in the high latitudes, Dai wrote. 'The high-latitude land areas will experience large changes in terms of warmer temperatures and more precipitation, and thus may indeed become more habitable than today,' he wrote. 'However, limited sunshine, short growing season, and very cold nighttime temperature will still prevent farming over most of these high-latitude regions.'

Source of this image here, plus others projecting to the end of the century.

The WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs

The Guardian

Al Jazeera

Le Monde

The New York Times

Der Spiegel

WikiLeaks

This is a screen shot. For interactive map, go here.

On Canada's resistance: US invasion of 1812

From the New York Review of Books:

The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies by Alan Taylor

Gordon S. Wood: Americans, says Taylor, tend to think of the war as a 'defensive triumph against British aggression.' But this perspective 'obscures the war's origins and primacy as an American invasion of Canada.'

Indeed, Taylor suggests that the Canadians have much more reason to celebrate the war than Americans do. In resisting the US invasion, theirs was a victory of 'a David over the American Goliath.' Americans remember the British burning of Washington, D.C., in 1814, but forget that the American invaders had burned the public buildings of Upper Canada's capital, York (present-day Toronto), the previous year.

The Canadians 'remember what Americans forget' -- that with a population that was just a tiny fraction of that of the United States, they repelled the American invaders and in the process created 'their own patriotic icons, particularly the martyr Issac Brock and the plucky Laura Secord, their equivalent of Paul Revere.'

Image source here.

Violence against women: 'pandemic proportions'

UN Report Sheds Light on Rape as Weapon of War

Agence France Presse: Sexual violence as a weapon of war and as an outcome of turmoil and disaster is inflicting a terrifying toll on women, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

'Women rarely wage war, but they too often suffer the worst of its consequences,' the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said in its annual snapshot of the world's population.

'Gender-based violence, including rape, is a repugnant and increasingly familiar weapon of war. The immediate toll it takes extends far beyond its direct victims, insidiously tearing apart families and shattering societies for generations to come.'...

UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said conflict today was less and less about soldiers confronting each other on the battlefield and more about seeking to break the will of civilians. 'In many of today's conflicts women are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from it,' she said. 'Girls are disempowered when they cannot go to school because of the threat of violence, when they are abducted or trafficked, or when their families disintegrate or must flee.'

Women and girls also become vulnerable in the aftermath of protracted emergencies, such as earthquakes and floods, where law and order have broken down...

'For war-affected women, justice delayed is more than justice denied -- it is terror continued,' said Margot Wallstrom, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

War Crimes against Women: A Private Hell

• At the turn of the 20th century, 5% of war casualties were civilians.
• In World War I, 15% were civilians.
• In World War II, the figure leapt to a 65% civilian death toll, as whole cities were bombed.
• By the mid-nineties, 75% of war deaths were civilians.
• Today, 90% of the human war toll are civilians -- the majority women and children.

Violence Against Women is a Global Struggle

One out of every three women worldwide is physically, sexually or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

Struggle for women's equality continues around the world

Globally, women are still disproportionately affected by violence and abuse, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, age, or socio-economic group. As noted on the United Nations Development Fund for Women's website, violence against women has reached 'pandemic proportions.' Among women aged 15-44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined,' a UNIFEM fact sheet states.

Image source here.

Stone Age dairy farmers invaded Europe

Neolithic Immigration: How Middle Eastern Milk Drinkers Conquered Europe

Der Spiegel: New research has revealed that agriculture came to Europe amid a wave of immigration from the Middle East during the Neolithic period. The newcomers won out over the locals because of their sophisticated culture, mastery of agriculture -- and their miracle food, milk...

At around 5300 BC, everyone in Central Europe was suddenly farming and raising livestock... Within less than 300 years, the sedentary lifestyle had spread to the Paris basin. New excavations in Turkey, as well as genetic analyses of domestic animals and Stone Age skeletons [indicate]:

• At around 7000 BC, a mass migration of farmers began in the Middle East to Europe.
• These ancient farmers brought along domesticated cattle and pigs.
• There was no interbreeding between the intruders and the original population.

The new settlers also had something of a miracle food at their disposal: fresh milk, which, as a result of a genetic mutation, they were soon able to drink in large quantities. The result was that the population of farmers grew and grew...

There are also signs of conflict... The old hunter-gatherers had long been accustomed to hunting and fishing. Their ancestors had entered Europe 46,000 years ago -- early enough to have encountered the Neanderthals... The crossing of the Bosporus did not occur until sometime between 7000 and 6500 BC. The farmers met with little resistance from the hunter-gatherer cultures, whose coastal settlements were being inundated by devastating floods at the time. Melting glaciers had triggered a rise in the sea level of over 100 meters...

With military determination, the advancing pioneers constantly established new settlements. The villages often consisted of three to six windowless longhouses, strictly aligned to the northwest, next to livestock pens and masterfully constructed wells. Their tools, picks and bowls... were almost identical throughout Central Europe, from Ukraine to the Rhine...

The newcomers were industrious and used to working hard in the fields. Clay statues show that the men were already wearing trousers and shaving. The women dyed their hair red and decorated it with snail shells. Both sexes wore caps, and the men also wore triangular hats. By comparison, the... existing inhabitants of the continent wore animal hides and lived in spartan huts. They looked on in bewilderment as the newcomers deforested their hunting grounds, tilled the soil and planted seeds. This... motivated them to resist the intruders...

It is clear, however, that the dairy farmers won out in the end. During their migration, they encountered increasingly lush pastures, a paradise for their cows. An added benefit of migrating farther to the north was that raw milk lasted longer in the cooler climate... Europe became the land of the eternal infant as people began drinking milk their whole lives... Milk played a major part in shaping history.

Image source here.

Quote for the day

I do many things on returning home from travels abroad, but smelling the air is always one of the first orders of business. I exit the plane. I make my way up the ramp. I collect baggage at the carousel. And then I head for the sliding glass doors, knowing exactly what's in store. I'm about to whisk free of airport and plane smells and emerge into -- deep breath now, draw it in, hold it, exhale -- Vancouver. Saline back scents, evergreen, pulp and fuel. Vancouver is many things when I leave. But when I return, it's always a port city hemmed in by a coastal Douglas fir rainforest. And it announces itself by scent.

-- Timothy Taylor, 'Ports of Call,' Vancouver Review (Fall 2010)

Scientists defy Harper gag rules

Federal scientists go public in face of restrictive media rules

Globe & Mail: The union that represents federal government scientists has created a website -- Public Science.ca -- to give a voice to the work of its members. The move comes weeks after it was revealed that new restrictive rules have been placed on scientists at the Natural Resources department requiring them to clear a number of hoops, including approval from the minister's director of communications, before they may speak with the press about their work.

While Natural Resources was singled out, reporters and scientists across a wide range of departments are well aware that the government frowns upon direct communication between its employees and the media without prior approval.

The website launched by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, the national union that includes 23,000 who work in scientific research and testing says: 'Public scientists use their skills and expertise to benefit all Canadians. Their job is to work in the public interest as independent experts protecting the health and welfare of Canadians and their communities.'

The union said in a release the recent decision to end the mandatory long-form census is the latest step in a worrying trend away from evidence-based policy making... Cutbacks to research and monitoring limit Canada's ability to deal with serious threats and potential opportunities, the union added... The website... is part of a broader campaign to underline the importance of science for the public good.

Image source here.