8 Years Of Bush in 8 Minutes! -- Keith Olbermann

A whirlwind of the last 8 years under George W. Bush that has left so much demolished.

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Poll Finds Faith in Obama, Mixed With Patience

Americans are confident Barack Obama can turn the economy around but are prepared to give him years to do so, according to the latest Times/CBS News Poll.

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CARING FOR ANIMALS: A FEMINIST APPROACH by Josephine Donovan

Philosophical discussion about the moral status of animals intensified in sophistication and scope in the later decades of the twentieth century, thanks in part to groundbreaking works like Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975) and Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights (1983). The latter book especially helped to formulate the idea that aspects

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: WISDOM FOR LEADERSHIP by Robert Thurman

Please indulge me at this world-crucial time to speak to you very bluntly and urgently, with fierce compassion.

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: WISDOM FOR LEADERSHIP by Arthur Green

America needs a revolution in values. The economic downturn provides a terrible burden for your administration; we wish you Godspeed in response to this challenge. But the downturn also provides a moment of extraordinary opportunity for a nation to examine itself, to question where its values have gone astray, and to bring about an event of collect

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: PEACE by Deepak Chopra

You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952, when Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War. But ending a war isn't the same as bringing peace. America has been on a war footing since the day after Pearl Harbor, sixty-seven years ago. We spend more on our military than the next sixteen countries combined.

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: NUCLEAR WEAPONS by Jonathan Granoff

A two-class world, with nuclear weapon “haves” and “have nots,” is incompatible with the cooperation needed to effectively protect the global commons, address crushing poverty, and ensure sustainable development.

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: POVERTY AND IMMIGRATION by Tony Campolo

During these hard times, we Americans are tempted to think only of our own economic interests and to lay aside concerns for people in the Third World. But we are all well aware that the troubles our people are enduring are not to be compared with the sufferings of people in the poorest countries of the world. We Americans must remember that ours ..

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: ISRAEL/PALESTINE/MIDEAST by Bradley Burston

Soon you will take the measure of the new prime minister of Israel. You will surely hear how the premier views the present and the future. But what you will need to know, at bottom, is how the new leader of Israel looks at history and specifically his or her place in it.

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MEMOS TO OBAMA: THE ECONOMY by Riane Eisler

Here are my recommendations for your consideration, as well as some of the research and reasoning behind them—along with my warmest good wishes!The ground has shifted, and we all know it: the issue is breakdown or breakthrough. Through decades of research, I’ve identified strategies that will move us from unbridled consumption and accumulation ..

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HOW TO AVOID BEING CO-OPTED by Peter Gabel

Dear Barack,The outburst of tears, joy, hope, and worldwide celebration that we have all witnessed and been part of in the days following your election is a beautiful expression of what you and we have accomplished at this historical moment—namely, a breaking through of the years of sedimented fear, doubt, and authoritarian control that have ..

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Trusting Obama by Michael Lerner

Dear Barack,I have faith that you are going to advance the cause of human liberation and act as a faithful servant of God during your presidency. And to do that, I think you are going to need the support of spiritual progressives who can counter all the inside-the-Beltway realists who will be surrounding you in the coming years and who will do.

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Imagining the Inaugural

Some advice about where to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration as the next president of the United States.

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Zimbabwe Is Dying

The world is ignoring the brutality of Robert Mugabe’s reign of Zimbabwe, which was once prosperous and medically advanced nation.

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The Man Who Made Stars and Planets

Thirty-five years ago, astrophysicist Alan Boss set off on a seemingly quixotic project: He wanted to figure out how planets form around stars. At the time astronomers knew little about the early history of our solar system. Boss has had an uncanny ability to guess how stars and planets are formed and has spent thirty years doing so.

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Astronomers retrace Galileo's discoveries with a replica of

For astronomy buffs, the arrival of 2009 brings more than just resolutions to eat better or live more frugally. The fledgling year has been designated the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Astronomical Union.

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Nortel files for bankruptcy

Nortel Networks Corp., North America's biggest maker of telephone equipment, filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, as the global economic downturn further erodes its once high-flying business. Its shares plunged more than 76% to 7.5 cents in electronic pre-market trading.

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Why we need Edubuntu to succeed

I say that is that Ubuntu and Linux/FLOSS in general needs advocates on behalf of students, educators, and the next wave of technolgy users. People generally tend to stick with the OS they first learn so one of the best ways to make Linux maintstream is to get it into schools.

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How Birds Can Down a Jet Airplane

Basically, if the birds get too close to the engine's intake, it's like a vacuum - the birds just get sucked in. "The initial stages of a jet engine are made up of a lot of compressor blades. Those aren't very big and they can be very easily damaged," Oderman told LiveScience.

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Forgive and Forget?

If we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years, this means that those who hold power are above the law and can abuse their power.

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Chávez Reopens Oil Bids to West as Prices Plunge

The shift shows how the global financial crisis is hampering Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s ideological agenda and making him more pragmatic as he seeks to bolster his country’s stream of income.

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Scenes from a Farmers’ Market in Monterrey, Mexico

Honey on the comb, stewed nopalitos, cabrito liver sausage, roasted corn, chiles, tamales, gorditas, and plenty more photos of raw and fried deliciousness...

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Our world may be a giant hologram

Could our three dimensions be the ultimate cosmic illusion? A German detector is picking up a hint that we are all mere projections.

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Breaking: Steve Jobs takes medical leave

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personalwith the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal healthcontinues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone elseat Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that myhealth-related issues are...

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Democrats in House Unveil $825 Billion Stimulus Bill

The package, developed by Congressional Democrats in partnership with President-elect Barack Obama, includes an expansive combination of spending and tax cuts.

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He’s Leaving. Really.

George W. Bush has been saying goodbye for so long now, he’s come to resemble one of those reconstituted rock bands that has been on a farewell tour since 1982.

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Magic and Realism

Smart power alone cannot usher in the promise of the 21st century.

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A Chinese blog explosion

China gained 88 million Internet users in 2008. Online political dissent also jumped. That can't be an accident.

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How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastr

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

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It’s the Diesel, Stupid!

Mexico’s fishermen have been on strike for 11 days. The government initially tried to play down the extent of the Zero Fish protest, which began small in Sinaloa and Oaxaca, but spread quickly to other states. No longer. Last week, the protesters stood up the head of the National Aquiculture and Fishing Commission, and demanded to speak directly to

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Israel’s Goals in Gaza?

The focus for Israel and Barack Obama’s team should be on creating a clear choice for Hamas for the world to see: Are you about destroying Israel or building Gaza?

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Robert Fisk: Wherever I go,I hear the same tired comparisons

Wherever I go, I hear the same tired Middle East comparisons

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Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders

A federal history of the U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts the effort as crippled by poor planning, waste and deception.

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Eight Years of Madoffs. Perspective

While our new president indeed must move on and address the urgent crises that cannot wait, Bush administration malfeasance can’t be merely forgotten or finessed. There has to be consequences.

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Physics at MIT

I was a postdoc at MIT; even though I only stayed there for one year, it was enough to sense the intellectual strength of students and professors. I was trained at the Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, with a similar rigor and discipline as MIT. Back then I would´ve thought it was for sissies what I read today in the NYT: "After years of debate and research, M.I.T. has replaced a large introductory physics course with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive learning."

To me that would've sounded like Micky Mouse stuff.; hands-on, interactive learning?


Nevertheless, starting in the early nineties, by the suggestion of colleagues I started to look into more enlightened teaching and learning methods. I even took some short courses on Math and Science Education. Slowly but surely I realized that there is more than meets the eye in the works of Piaget, Vygotsky, and a score of other thinkers, that did actual research on issues of the mind and learning.

Now I see that the MIT Physics faculty "saw the light." I guess this is a good time to take all those soft subjects as Biology and Neuroscience more seriously. Psychology is still too much in the soft side for my taste. Maybe as I grow older I see the point of that too.

At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboar

After years of debate and research, M.I.T. has replaced a large introductory physics course with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive learning.

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War and Peace

Reading about the war going on in the Gaza Strip for the past two weeks it is hard for me not to wonder about peace in my country, and Peace in general.

When the ownership of resources gets muddled, I believe conflict arises. If my neighbor covets my possessions, he may quarrel with me. I do not fight with other living organisms that I don't perceive as threatening. There is Peace as a consequence.

In my neck of the woods there is not much arable land to be had, as a consequence the revolution war that devastated my country a hundred years ago, was not as virulent as in other parts where big landlords made a pest of themselves. Greed generated grief.

Israel and Gaza are in the middle of the dessert. Israel is famous for its technological prowess getting water out of rocks, so to say. Not enough, the fight continues. Some may believe the problem is Allah and the God that gave Israel the right to live there. I am not a religious person, and I cannot stop there my analysis. Actually I do not understand it. How could one God, let alone two Gods, require so much blood of innocent children.

If there is going to be Peace on Earth, I believe we first have to recognize the rights of our brothers and sisters, and then work together to a better common life. Any other course of action seems doomed from my present perspective. I had this feeling at least since I was fifteen years old, if not before. Now the feeling is getting buttressed by actual knowledge about the dire moment humanity is going through.

Peace on Earth.

Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza? - TIME

The assault on Gaza, no matter how it ends, will not ease the Jewish state's existential anxiety. Peace, not war, is its only hope

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In Mexico, Curbing Violence Before It Is Learned

A bill to toughen a ban on toy weapons in Mexico is part of an effort to address the violence tied to drug traffickers.

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One Religion that’s Actually Embracing Science: Buddhism

More than 30 Tibetan monks, plus a handful of nuns, will be collaborating with a team from San Francisco's Exploratorium to build exotic machines to create patterns from sunlight using cardboard, dowels, reflective sheets of mylar and electronic components. They will return to their monasteries and start spreading the joys of scientific exploration

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For Redress of Grievances, Mexicans Turn to Bureaucracy Cont

A woman who had to endure a monthly bureaucratic odyssey to get medication for her son won a government-sponsored contest to identify Mexico’s most useless red tape.

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Israeli Troops Push Into Gaza City

Senior Israeli officials said for the first time in the war that they believed Hamas was beginning to crack.

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Mideast Dream Team? Not Quite

U.S. enlightenment about the Middle East will require a fresher, broader team than Barack Obama is contemplating.

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Ideas for Obama

President-elect Barack Obama’s economic plan falls well short of what’s needed. To fix it, he needs to stop talking about “jump-starts” and focus on long-term investment.

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The Leaves Have It

The Bush White House so totally regarded senators as potted plants that it was a wonder that senior aides didn’t attempt to water them. But hopefully no more.

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Obama’s Biggest Challenge

With credit tight, savings depleted, the stock market in the tank and home prices in a state of collapse, the only way to get real money into back into the economy is through employment.

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gOS 3.1

gOS, the Ubuntu-derived Linux desktop that's focused squarely on Google products and other webapps, has updated with newer versions of its core products, including the Windows-app-running WINE, Firefox 3, and support for newer Google Gadgets.

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The Obama Gap

President-elect Barack Obama explained why the nation needs aggressive action to deal with the economic crisis, and he’s right. But his economic plan falls well short of what’s needed.

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Earliest Americans Took Two Paths

The ancestors of Native Americans took at least two different paths into the Americas, a new genetic analysis suggests. Although both groups traveled across the Bering land bridge, the migrants later took divergent paths: one along the Pacific coast, and the other following a route that ...

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New Tech Makes Classroom Computers a Reality Worldwide: Scie

Great read on the new Classmate PC architecture that Intel will introduce at CES tomorrow.

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Senate Allies Fault Obama on Stimulus

The president-elect’s economic recovery plan ran into cross-fire from his own party, suggesting that it could take more time to pass than Democrats once hoped.

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In San Francisco, Where Flower Power Still Blooms

Haight-Ashbury was once a place to buy psychedelic T-shirts and so-called tobacco-enjoyment products; but the San Francisco neighborhood is stepping out of its own shadow.

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Obama Presses for Action on Economy

A recession could last for years unless a stimulus plan is passed, Barack Obama said on Thursday.

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CNN - is Microsoft Vista dead?

The news suggests the world's largest software maker may be giving up efforts to rehabilitate its often-maligned Vista operating system, which was released worldwide in January 2007.

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GnuEducacion

We just started this holiday season a site for Education Research based on opensource or free software. If you read Spanish go to:

GnuEducacion

This is going to succeed.

We need to understand the present moment in technological development, together with the HUGE political and social changes going on all over the place.

Here I make an initial effort to understand this historic moment.

We are in the very beginning of the new millennium. Among other things, this means that there are two thousand years of continuous cultural development. I can only think of the two thousand year Egyptian Empire, as a possible comparison.

I believe that society is the product of continuous human activity. Social practices get embedded in social conventions. If you sell the same product for a higher price, breaking public trust, your peers will isolate you and you will fail. The US broke the trust of humanity. Right now Israel is bombing Hamas leaders, together with the poor Palestinians living in the Gaza strip. The Israeli people, blinded by fear, do not see the injustice of killing one hundred poor people, for each rich person they save.

I am not an Islamist, neither am I a Cristero, the Mexican version of the same mental disease; but I see that if an Israeli citizen believes that it is OK to kill one hundred enemies to save one friend, Islamists are going to proliferate.

Here in Mexico we are going through our own version of a low intensity war. In Chilpancingo today we learn that some drunken soldiers were arrested in front of the City military barracks, in a bar where they were drinking. This is the closest to a war situation I have experienced in my country. In 1968, there were not enough weapons to empower poor people. Now if Islamists can send homemade rockets to Israel, Mexican drug dealers can burn cars in front of the Guerrero State capital military barracks. That action is as close to a declaration of war that I have seen here.

Robert Fisk, as you can read in this blog, has been reminding us of the dangers entailed in seeing the "other" as less than human. Any human being will respond with all their intelligence and knowledge to a threat on his or her life.

That is all the social law that I understand, "treat others, as you would like others to treat you". To me that is almost a tautology, the only one that can harm us, is another human being.

I read today that Nicholas Negroponte is having a hard time with his enlightened efforts to provide poor people with more tools to make a living. Hugo Chávez from Venezuela, signed an agreement with the Portuguese Government to provide enough laptops and communication infrastructure for a cultural and technical revolution of his people.

I believe that only through science and technological progress will we get out of these trying times we are going through.

Please join us in these efforts to start the new millennium successfully.

Classmate PC gets a boost with million-unit Venezuelan order

The government of Venezuela has ordered one million low-cost Classmate PC laptops to be shipped to students with Linux preinstalled.

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New Freescale processors target Linux netbooks

According to Freescale the chip is designed to power "low-power, gigahertz performance netbooks at sub-$200 price points". Sporting an ARM Cortex-A8 core, Freescale claims that the i.MX515 performs from around 600mHz to 1 GHz and provides up to 2,100 Dhrystone MIPS (million instructions per second).

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OLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which aims to build low-cost mobile computing devices for students in developing countries, has announced major layoffs.

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Trailer 1937

As seen in theaters.

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“Twilight” and Hot Topic

My beloved daughter has had a particular attraction to the other side of things. When she was just a tot, made an opposite version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".

I was very impressed at her ability to understand Spanish, while we spoke only English at home, and her ability to make a mathematical transformation. Every positive statement, was changed into a negative. The bad witch, turned into a good witch, and so on.

Now I read in the NYT (below), that she belongs to a generation that sees the world upside down. One of the only stores to make a profit this holiday season, was Hot Topic, selling “Twilight” paraphernalia.

I believe this means something; some change of paradigm, or maybe fear of what is coming.

Ominous clouds in the horizon.

Actually my daughter did "Sleeping Beauty"  in Reverse.

Holiday Sales Were Dismal, New Retail Figures Show

The nation’s retail chains confirmed Thursday that they suffered one of the worst holiday shopping seasons in decades.

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The Illinois Senator Checklist

Was the selection of Roland Burris by the Rogue Governor Rod Blagojevich “tainted,” in the words of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, or “what the Lord has ordained,” in the words of Mr. Burris?

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The Dominion of the Dead

Other bitter historical hatreds have cooled. But in the Middle East the dead still rule.

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Revolution or Evolution?

I had an eerie feeling when I saw all the living presidents in the cover of the NYT. What was I expecting, change?

Now I read in the NYT that Obama may rein on the budget. That means we baby boomers are getting squat from these kids.

Oh well.

I am reading on the Mexican Revolution; that Revolution changed a set of rich people for another set. Not even revolutions do much.

Obama Says He Will Seek to Rein In Retiree Spending

Should the president-elect take on a serious effort to address the growing costs of entitlement programs, he would be opening up a potentially risky battle.

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Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?

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Science magazine names top 10 breakthroughs of 2008

The news writers at Science magazine describe what they believe were the 10 biggest scientific breakthroughs this year. From changing cells to modeling protons, and seeing planets outside our solar system, the discoveries cover a wide swath of natural science and represent some astonishing finds.

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Perelman Again (Tao's Version)

One can read in Professor Tao's Lectures the following:

[Geometrically, positive scalar curvature means that infinitesimal balls have slightly less volume than in the Euclidean case; positive Ricci curvature means that infinitesimal sectors have slightly less volume than in the Euclidean case; and positive sectional curvature means that all infinitesimally geodesic two-dimensional surfaces have positive mean curvature. I don't know of a geometrically simple way to describe positive Riemann curvature.]

Terence Tao 

I am trying to understand the "big deal" in Poincarés Conjecture, now Perelman- Hamilton's Theorem. Maybe Tao is a good place to start.

Cold Sore Virus Linked To Alzheimer's Disease: New Treatment

The virus behind cold sores is a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers, University of Manchester researchers have revealed.

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Gravity off Neutrinos?

We suggest that this may actually be the gravity that we observe.

Thus ends Bob McElrath (below) proposal for a Theory of Gravity.

Neutrinos are stable neutral particles with very small masses. What are they good for?

McElrath's proposal is intriguing.

Spin 1/2 produces spin 2 if the right conditions are satisfied. Kohn-Luttinger Effect and some such. Who knows. The idea is physical enough for me to wait for specific predictions and eventual rejection or reluctant acceptance.

And life goes on.

Here I remember my friend Vinod Jhangiani , God be with him.

Emergent Electroweak Gravity

We show that any massive cosmological relic particle with small self-interactions is a super-fluidtoday, due to the broadening of its wave packet, and lack of any elastic scattering. The WIMPdark matter picture is only consistent its mass M ≫ MPl in order to maintain classicality. Thedynamics of a super-fluid are given by the excitation ..

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The Age of Cloud Attached Storage Begins

A new Israeli-based company, CTERA Networks, is not only officially launching at CES today, but it is ushering in a brand-new product category: Cloud Attached Storage. Cloud Attached Storage--or at least CTERA's approach to it--takes a seamless approach to providing onsite and offsite storage for consumers and small business.

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The state of free software

25 years on from the birth of GNU, we pick the brains of three Linux luminaries.

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Data Uncover Bigger Galaxy in Cosmos, and It’s Ours

Astronomers said Monday that the Milky Way is more massive than previously thought, expanding Earth's galaxy to roughly the heft of Andromeda.

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2009 Resolutions

I am back at work. I teach future Math Teachers.

China has a high literacy rate and a lot of people. There is already a car manufacturing plant in the state next door from Guerrero, Michoacán.

During break I read the history of my family. My uncle Arturo Figueroa Uriza wrote one classic account of the Mexican Revolution. Professor Ian Jacobs from the University of Texas at Austin wrote: Ranchero Revolt , making extensive use of my relative´s work.

I am inspired by the high opinion of Professors Jacobs and John Womack of my uncle's work.

I have my work cut out for me. I have to prepare Guerrero students to bring our land to a better way of life.

Bosses lay off thousands of workers throughout Mexico

With 80 percent of its exports dependent on a rapidly contracting U.S. market, Mexico has been hard hit by a series of factory closings and layoffs. Mexico is Latin America’s second largest economy after Brazil.

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The Mideast’s Ground Zero

Barack Obama’s goal has to be a settlement in Gaza that eliminates the threat of Hamas rockets and opens Gaza economically to the world, under credible international supervision.

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Gravity Emerges…From Neutrinos?

A very interesting paper appeared on the arXiv last week, from Bob McElrath. Bob is a former theory postdoc at UC Davis and now at CERN. He’s spent a good deal of the last several years on this idea, and now it’s out there in print, though not yet peer-reviewed. This is more Sean’s and Mark’s territory, but to me it seems that if he’s right a ..

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Markets Surge on the First Trading Day of the New Year

Wall Street began 2009 in optimistic territory it had not seen since the day after Election Day: above 9,000 after a 2.9 percent jump.

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Massive iPod Touch Sales Over Christmas

Apple's new iPod Touch appears to have been a huge hit this holiday season with evidence that the high end iPod has seen massive gains in marketshare.

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Open source programming languages for kids

Some toolkits aim to create entirely new ways of envisioning and creating projects that appeal to younger minds, such as games and animations, while others aim to recreate the "basic"-ness of BASIC in a modern language and environment.

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Bigger Than Bush

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years is a consequence of that decision.

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Hold Bush Responsible for the Damage

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speech

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Lipan Apache to Obama: Stop Border Wall

Apache in Texas sent a strong message to President-elect Obama to halt the construction of the border wall. Eloisa Tamez said Homeland Security is attempting to build the wall north of the border, on Lipan Apache land, and deny them access to their lands south of the levee. "We have had enough lawlessness in Texas at our expense,"

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Why You Might Be Using Linux in 2009

Whatever you do, 2009 is looking to be a big year. That no exception when it comes to Linux. Applications and large projects continue to develop and make major releases multiple times per year. And while every year people predict that the next might be “The Year” for Linux adoption, here’s a list of some major products and trends that will play..

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Israel bombs university in Gaza

Israeli air force jets have bombed the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip, a significant cultural symbol for Hamas. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and is now calling up 6,500 army reservists. Witnesses in Gaza said they saw six separate air strikes on the Islamic University, hitting a laboratory building, just after midnight.

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Israeli Aircraft Continue Raids on Gaza; Arab Anger Rises

The Israeli army declared some areas around Gaza “closed military zones,” as Israeli aircraft attacked key Hamas symbols of power, raising the death toll to more than 300.

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Four Decades After Milgram, We’re Still Willing to Inf

It appears that ordinary Americans are about as willing to blindly follow orders to inflict pain on an innocent stranger as they were four decades ago.

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Fifty Herbert Hoovers

Even as Washington tries to rescue the economy, the nation will be reeling from the actions of 50 Herbert Hoovers — state governors who are slashing spending in a time of recession.

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Win, Win, Win, Win, Win ...with a

We have got to stop “taking off the table” the gasoline tax, the tool that would add leverage to everything we want to do at home & abroad. It’s a blessing for those who've been hammered by the economy are getting a break at the pump. But for our long-term health, getting re-addicted to oil & gas guzzlers is one of the dumbest things we could do.

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Time to Reboot America

We don’t just need a bailout in this country, we need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history.

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The Coming Oil Train Wreck

Only a true contrarian can worry about high oil prices, shortages and global economic shockwaves when the price of oil has fallen from $147 to under $40 per barrel in less than six months and gasoline is now less than $2 a gallon! I should be singing “Happy (driving) days are here again,” but I’m not. The facts speak otherwise, and the time for pr

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Two Shoes for Democracy

The message behind an Iraqi journalist’s insulting gesture — which was in a sense a democratic act — is that the Green Zone should be eliminated.

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Life Without Bubbles

It may take a lot longer than many people think before the United States economy is ready to live without bubbles. And until then, the economy is going to need a lot of government help.

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Fairness

On Friday I heard a presentation on how some isolated people in the State of Guerrero, weigh and measure, and sell.

The idea is that fairness determines good measurements. If somebody doesn't measure right, cutomers don't come back.

Today I am downtown Chilpancingo, this is Guerrero State Capital. Old ladies, kids, everybody, is waiting for an annual Christmas celebration, "El Pendón".

I believe there is some kind of penance. Actual pain inflicted on some young people.

Is this fair?

Fairness is a socially constructed institution.

Yesterday I saw "Rudo y Cursi", the new film with Diego Luna, and Gael García Bernal, the Mexican heartrobs from "Y Tú Mamá También" fame.

One issue is if life is fair.

Franck Rich writes today on the NYT (below) about a fairness movie from India: "Slumdog Millionaire"

I find it fascinating that in the poorest county of Mexico, near Metlatónoc , fairness sets weighs and measurements.

This is a discovery for me, and thinking about it, it is to be expected.

Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire?

Without transparency and accountability in Washington, as well as on Wall Street, no one will trust the system.The Treasury prefers to look at “general metrics” indicating the program’s overall effect on the economy. Well, we know what the “general metrics” tell us already: the effect so far is nil.

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Obama to name pro-union Rep. Hilda Solis to Labor post - Los

The California congresswoman is a leader in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and is called a coalition-builder.

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Hope Amid the Gloom

Even as Americans by the thousands sign up for jobless benefits, or line up to declare bankruptcy, or stand aside as their homes are foreclosed upon, there are some slender reasons to hope.

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Shocker: Gonzales And Rice Appear To Have Lied To Congress

The information the Oversight Committee has received casts serious doubt on the veracity of the representations that Mr. Gonzales made on behalf of Dr. Rice.

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It Costs Digg $5 Million a Year to Run the Internet

Perhaps Digg really is the future of the news business. The headline-discussion site, once an icon of the Web 2.0 movement, is losing millions of dollars a year.

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