December 6

National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

For visitors to this post from other countries:

Status of Women Canada: Established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada, this day marks the anniversary of the murders in 1989 of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal. They died because they were women. As well as commemorating the 14 young women whose lives ended in an act of gender-based violence that shocked the nation, December 6 represents an opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the phenomenon of violence against women in our society. It is also an opportunity to consider the women and girls for whom violence is a daily reality, and to remember those who have died as a result of gender-based violence. And finally, it is a day on which communities can consider concrete actions to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.

Image source here.

VIDEO: Naomi Klein: On becoming an activist

1917: Halifax Explosion

Government of Nova Scotia: The Norwegian vessel SS Imo, carrying Belgian relief supplies, and the French freighter SS Mont Blanc, carrying munitions, collided in Halifax Harbour. The explosion killed more than 1,600 people instantly and injured over 9,000 others, in a metropolitan area of 65,000 people. Schools, churches, factories and private homes were swept away by the force of the explosion. Then hot furnaces and upset stoves ignited the wreckage and large areas were reduced to charred ruins. More Nova Scotians were killed in the explosion than were killed in World War I.

Image: Roome Street School. Eighty-eight students were killed in the explosion. Source here.

Beautiful ceilings

Turabeg Khanym Complex, Konye-Urgench, Turkmenistan

Gallery of images here.

How the US sabotages climate negotiations

Wikileaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord

Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid

Wikileaks cables: Cancún climate talks doomed to fail, says EU president

The Guardian: The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tacking global warming; how financial and other aid is used to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial 'Copenhagen accord,' the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected...

The US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA... Diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental 'treaty circumvention' and deals between nations...

The Copenhagen accord, hammered out in the dying hours but not adopted into the UN process, offered to solve many of the US's problems... The accord cannot guarantee the global greenhouse gas cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming. Furthermore, it threatens to circumvent the UN's negotiations on extending the Kyoto protocol, in which rich nations have binding obligations. Those objections have led many countries -- particularly the poorest and most vulnerable -- to vehemently oppose the accord...

Along with finance, another treacherous issue in the global climate negotiations, currently continuing in Cancún, Mexico, is trust that countries will keep their word... Trust is in short supply on both sides of the developed-developing nation divide...

At the mid-point of the major UN climate change negotiations in Cancún... the biggest shock has been Japan's announcement that it will not support an extension of the existing Kyoto climate treaty. That gives a huge boost to the accord. US diplomatic wheeling and dealing may, it seems, be bearing fruit.

Image: Greenpeace activist with hot air balloon; source here.

Brainbow

An Odyssey Through the Brain

From Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain From Antiquity to the 21st Century, by Carl Schoonover, newly published by Abrams. Schoonover, midway through a Ph.D. program in neuroscience at Columbia, decided to draw the general reader into his subject with the sheer beauty of its images.

Map of the day: swap by pop

Map of the World's Countries Rearranged by Population

To enlarge image, go here.

Brazil, Ireland, the US and Yemen stay put. Every other country moves.

Quotes for the day

Julian Assange:

Every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become a party to injustice. Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility. Most witnessed acts of injustice are associated with bad governance, since when governance is good, unanswered injustice is rare. By the progressive diminution of a people's character, the impact of reported but unanswered injustice is far greater than it may initially seem. Modern communication states through their scale, homogeneity and excesses provide their populace with an unprecedented deluge of witnessed, but seemingly unanswerable injustices.

-- 'Conspiracy as Governance' (pdf.)

Foresight requires trustworthy information about the current state of the world, cognitive ability to draw predictive inferences and economic stability to give them a meaningful home... Secrecy, malfeasance and unequal access have eaten into the first requirement of foresight ('truth and lots of it'). Foresight can produce outcomes that leave all major interests groups better off. Likewise the lack of it, or doing the dumb thing, can harm almost everyone.

-- 'The Road to Hanoi: Of Potholes and Foresight'

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive 'secrecy tax') and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaptation.

Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance. Only revealed injustice can be answered.

-- 'The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance'

An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think is powerless to preserve itself against the opponents it induces. When we look at an authoritarian conspiracy as a whole, we see a system of interacting organs, a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it falls, stupefied; unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment... New technology and insight into the psychological motivations of conspirators can give us practical methods for preventing or reducing important communication between authoritarian conspirators, foment strong resistance to authoritarian planning and create powerful incentives for more humane forms of governance.

-- 'Conspiracy as Governance'

'That's really rapid evolution'

How the demise of the dinosaurs led to super-sized mammals

The Independent: A worldwide study of fossilized mammals has demonstrated beyond any doubt that it was the extinction of the dinosaur some 65 millions years ago that was the key trigger leading to the explosive growth of the warm-blooded mammals...

The study found that for the first 40 million years or so of their existence, the mammals were mostly small, shrew-like creatures that lived in a narrow range of habitats. However, after the dinosaur disappeared, larger creatures capable of exploiting a wide variety of ecological niches, from leaf-eating giant sloths to tundra-munching mammoths.

'Basically, the dinosaur disappear and all of a sudden there is nobody else eating the vegetation. That's an open food source and mammals start going for it, and it's more efficient to be a herbivore when you're big,' said Jessica Theodor of the University of Calgary in Canada... 'Within 25 million years the system is reset to a new maximum... That's actually a pretty short time frame, geologically speaking. That's really rapid evolution.'...

The study in the journal Science found that many different types of mammals grew into gigantic forms on different continents... John Gittleman of the University of Georgia, who took part in the study, said... 'Having so many different lineages independently evolve to such similar maximum sizes suggests that there were similar ecological roles to be filled by giant mammals across the globe.'

Image source here.

'Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds'

Surviving Cameramen Recall Nuclear Test Shoots

Der Spiegel: By 1963, the United States had detonated more than 200 nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Cameramen and photographers working for a secret special unit recorded the acts of destruction. Some of their sensational images have now been declassified, and the last remaining eyewitnesses are now sharing their experiences...

Between 1947 and 1969, the material was edited to make more than 6,500 motion pictures in a secret film studio in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles... The studio on Wonderland Avenue was called the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station...

At the height of the Cold War, the superpowers embarked on a spectacular race to develop nuclear weapons. It was accompanied by an unparalleled propaganda war that involved large numbers of tests... The goal, from the very beginning, was to create impressive images to convince politicians to approve ever-growing military budgets. But the public never saw most of the images...

Most of these images are still under lock and key today. Only military physicists are permitted to analyze the images for the purpose of improving the designs of bombs. The US government is still hesitant to release the photos and films completely. But it is critical, says [Peter] Kuran, that the material be processed and digitized, 'before it turns to dust.'

He has already assembled five documentaries from the film and photographic footage, which he distributes through his website. A sixth film, about the neutron bomb, is in the works. More images here.

[Post title quote from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita was recalled by J. Robert Oppenheimer upon the detonation of the first atomic bomb at White Sands, New Mexico, July 16, 1945.]

Wikileaks 'meltdown' for US foreign policy

The US Diplomatic Leaks

A Superpower's View of the World

Der Spiegel: The development is no less than a political meltdown for American foreign policy. Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information... It is now possible to view many political developments around the world through the lens of those who participated in those events... An image emerges of a superpower that can no longer truly be certain of its allies... On the whole, the cables from the Middle East expose the superpower's weaknesses.

WikiLeaks website: Secret US Embassy Cables

(includes search function)

WikiLeaks: The cables, which date from 1966 up until February of this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington, D.C... The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomacy crisis

The Guardian: The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year... At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables -- many of which are designated 'secret' -- the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN's leadership.

Browse Guardian database: Interactive guide with map

State's Secrets

The New York Times: A mammoth cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the last three years, provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats... The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States' relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism.

Les révélations de WikiLeaks sur les coulisses de la diplomatie américaine

Le Monde: Cette fuite de câbles est un troisième revers pour l'administration américaine. Mais il est beaucoup plus grave les Etas-Unis car il n'implique pas uniquement, cette fois, leur armée. C'est, à travers les télégrammes du département d'Etat, toute le diplomatie mondiale qui se trouve en partie dévoilée.

Los secretos de la diplomacia de Estados Unidos, al descubierto

El País: Será muy costoso, por tanto, para ese país reparar el daño causado por esta filtración, y llevará años poner en pie un nuevo sistema de comunicación con plenas garantías. Lo más importante, sin embargo, es el valor informativo que esos documentos tienen actualmente. Estamos ante una serie de relatos... que servirán para una mejor comprensión de algunos conflictos y de personalidades que afectan determinantemente a nuestra vida y que pueden abrir a nuestros lectores a una nueva interpretación de la realidad que les rodea.

Image source here.

'America's national ego carries on'

America the Material

Excerpts from a review by Nomi Prins in Truthdig:

A Question of Values is an alternately sobering and inspiring collection of essays by noted historian and cultural critic Morris Berman... In the unswerving style of his other writings, he rips apart the national illusion of greatness [of] a country caught in a societal malaise of promoting external accumulation over internal compassion...

In Section I, the second essay, 'Conspiracy vs. Conspiracy in American History,' Berman dissects America's profound sense of self-importance, a central theme of the entire collection [and] lists four descriptive conspiracies (or fallacies): First that we are a chosen people (so we get to do whatever we want); second, that America itself is a kind of religion; third, that we must endlessly expand, whether it be geographically or financially; and lastly, that our national character is composed of extreme individuals going back to our colonization. This he considers to be the main reason why 'American history can be seen as the story of a nation consistently choosing individual solutions over collective ones.'...

Berman brings us to his conclusion that the only hope for America is to stop believing its own hype -- something he doesn't consider very likely... Berman's lament isn't for an America that lost its way, but for one that never had a heart, a colossal ego that raids other nations with self-righteous impunity... If we measure progress by consumption, how can it ever stop until there's nothing left? According to Berman, it can't, which underscores a phenomenon he dubs 'catastrophism.' As he puts it, 'it is a fair guess that we shall start doing things differently only when there is no other choice.'... America's national ego carries on.

Quote for the day

I have no qualifications in the career, or, rather, pursuit I chose for my journey through life... In the end, though, I lost sight of my fellow runners, the ones you're so conscious of at first, when you're in your twenties of thirties and keep glancing out of the corner of your eye at those behind, intent (or so you believe) on overtaking you, meanwhile calculating how big a lead the runners ahead have over you and conserving your energies as you imagine the best way of getting past them for the final sprint.

But there are no sprints, and certainly no final sprints. Indeed, I stopped running a long time ago. There's no point. Just walk at the pace that suits your feet and you'll end up arriving at the place you set out for. Or else keep quite still: lately, I've had the feeling that it's simply a matter of sitting and waiting, that it isn't us who do the walking, but the things around us, and they won't fail us; they never do, because nothing ever fails and everything ends up happening anyway.

-- Javier Montes, in 'The Hotel Life,' Granta 113: The Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists/Los Mejores Narradores Jóvenes en Español. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Snow balcony, Vancouver

First and Vine, Kitsilano

World Battleground

1000 years of war in 5 minutes

This is a screenshot. For animated presentation, go here.

A disaster in the making

A world without birds

Could we be facing a future without birds? Our reliance on pesticides has cut a swathe through their numbers.

The Independent: According to Hank Tennekes, a researcher at the Experimental Toxicology Services in Zutphen, the Netherlands, the threat of DDT has been superseded by a relatively new class of insecticide, known as the neonicotinoids. In his book The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making... Tennekes draws all the evidence together, to make the case that neonicotinoids are causing a catastrophe in the insect world, which is having a knock-on effect for many of our birds.

Already in many areas, the skies are much quieter than they used to be... Ornithologists have been trying desperately to work out what is behind these rapid declines... Tennekes thinks there may be a simple reason. 'The evidence shows that the bird species suffering massive decline since the 1990s rely on insects for their diet,' he says. He believes that the insect world is no longer thriving, and that birds that feed on insects are short on food...

'Neonicotinoids are revolutionary because they are put inside seeds and permeate the whole plant... (which is why they are called systemic insecticides). Any insect that feeds on the crop dies.' explains Tennekes. Even small doses can kill... The damage is cumulative... And unfortunately the robust nature of neonicotinoids means that they can travel far beyond the crops they were used to treat.

'Neonicotinoids are water-soluble and mobile in soil. They can be washed out of soils and into surface and groundwater... As a result, neonicotinoids are probably readily taken up by wild plants as well, and in this way spread throughout nature, causing irreversible damage to non-target insects,' says Tennekes... 'The message is that we must act quickly and ban these compounds, to avoid a catastrophe.'

Image source here.