Doug Nielson's Public Library

17 Nov 09

Tariq Ali: Short Cuts in Afghanistan

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It was thought that if Karzai could be painlessly removed and replaced with his former colleague Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik from the north, it might create the impression that an unbearably corrupt regime had been peacefully removed, which would help the flagging propaganda war at home and the relaunching of the real war in Afghanistan.
The fact is that the insurgents decided some years ago to apply for police and military training and their infiltration – a tactic employed by guerrillas in South America, South-East Asia and the Maghreb during the last century – has been fairly successful.
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- Most of Obama’s friends in the US media recognise this, and support a planned withdrawal, while worrying that pulling troops out of both Iraq and Afghanistan might result in Obama losing the next election, especially if McChrystal or General Petraeus, the supposed hero of the surge in Iraq, stand for the Republicans. Not that the US seems likely to withdraw from Iraq. The only withdrawal being contemplated is from the main cities, restricting the US presence to the huge air-conditioned military bases that have already been constructed in the interior of the country, mimicking the strongholds of the British Empire (minus the air-conditioners) during the early decades of the last century.

15 Nov 09

Dave Lindorff: Blaming the Workers

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As the strike by transit workers in Philadelphia entered its fifth day, it is clear why unions have such a tough time in the United States, where fewer than one in eight workers is covered by a union contract.
People don't get mad at the workers. In Italy, it's understood that when one group of workers fights for better pay or working conditions, everyone benefits in the end.
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- working conditions for American workers have been getting progressively worse in recent years, while pay has actually been falling in real dollars, because union representation has been falling for several decades from a high of over 35% back in the early 1950s.

22 Oct 09

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

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health insurance 911

Because of the expense, time and paperwork it would take to record each of the assignments of the thousands of mortgages in each securitization, Wall Street firms decided to just issue blank mortgage assignments all along the channel of transfers, skipping the actual physical recording of the mortgage at the county registry of deeds.
No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.”
3 more annotations...
- Opposition to the war and the slaughter of the masses apparently stops and flees at the hideous possibility of causing embarassment to the San Francisco Labor Council. There is not a hint in Mackler’s lengthy email suggesting that the Labor Council might owe anti-war forces an explanation for having invited Pelosi in the first place.
- “Our partners in the anti-war movement have been calling me to say they are condemning this protest as irresponsible and divisive. U.S. Labor Against the War has written an email condemning this action. The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition is also not supporting Zeltzer,
- For all too many on the left, the so-called 9/11 conspiracy has become the magic key. If it can be turned, then history at its present impasse will be unlocked and we can move on.

19 Sep 09

First 4G Android-Based Smartphone May Arrive in 2010 From Sprint - PC World

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Talking to Clearwire and Sprint executives here, I heard the mantra of "open networks" and "open devices" many times.
Samsung has just completed its first Android phone, the Galaxy. And rumors have already been flying in wireless circles that Sprint has been testing a Samsung 4G smartphone

15 Aug 09

NIOSH Topic Area - Indoor Environmental Quality

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this

NIOSH conducts investigations of possible health hazards in the workplace.
These investigations, called Health Hazard Evaluations (HHEs), are conducted
under the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970
and the authority of the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, which authorize
the Secretary of Health and Human Services, following a written request
from employees, authorized representative of employees, or employers,
to determine whether any substance normally found in the place of employment
has potentially toxic effects in such concentrations as used or found.

Some recent HHE reports related to indoor air quality have been listed
below, but for a comprehensive listing, please search the HHE
Database.

HowStuffWorks Can air pollution affect heart health? P.2 "Particulate Matter and the Heart"

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Particulates in diesel exhaust can cause blood vessels to constrict, limiting blood flow.

These particulates appear to be especially damaging in terms of heart health.
Particulates are tiny bits of liquid or solid matter. When we talk about this type of air pollution harming the heart, we're usually talking about PM2.5 -- particulate matter that's less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. That's roughly 1/10,000th of an inch, or about one-tenth the diameter of a human hair. These particles are small enough to get deep into the lungs. The American Heart Association reports a 1.4 percent increase in heart-related deaths for each 10 micrograms of particulates per cubic foot of air [source: AHA]. And 10 micrograms is not a lot. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the low concentration of 35.5 micrograms (average over the course of 24 hours) to be acceptable for health purposes [source: GADNR].
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- Some researchers have found that even those EPA-approved levels can cause damage to the heart and blood vessels, though, especially in people already suffering from heart disease. And now they might know why.

Facemasks Help Prevent Adverse Cardiovascular Effects Caused By Pollution

www.sciencedaily.com/...090312205224.htm - Preview

"Acute exposure to diesel exhaust is associated with an immediate and transient increase in arterial stiffness.
In general, those masks designed to reduce occupational exposure to dusts in the workplace were more efficient than those marketed to cyclists and pedestrians."

HowStuffWorks "ST-segment Depression and Pollution"

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particulates dust heart pollution health

A recent study, published in 2008, found a reason why hearts seem to react so badly to air pollution: Particulate matter can interfere with the heart's electrical system [source: Science Daily].
Harvard University scientists studied 48 heart patients after they left the hospital, and tested their heart function after having been exposed to Boston air after weeks and then months. What they found was a change in heart conductivity, called ST-segment depression. ST-segment depression is essentially a reduction in the heart's ability to conduct electricity.

Not only particulates but also black carbon, a general term describing traffic exhaust, was found to correlate with ST-segment depression. When levels of black carbon and particulates in the air increased, there was an increase in ST-segment depression among the test subjects.
1 more annotations...
- The short of it seems to be that an already damaged heart is more susceptible to the effects. In people with atherosclerosis (clogged arteries), air pollution has actually been shown to speed the rate at which plaque builds up on artery walls. Still, while people with healthy hearts are less at risk for cardiovascular trauma related to air pollution, we all feel the effects. The AHA estimates that, on average, we could all be losing one to three years of life expectancy due to pollution-related heart issues [source: AHA].

13 Aug 09

Email: Target, Recruit and Engage | DemocracyInAction

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organizing email list

21 Jun 09

A Field Guide To Narcissism | Psychology Today

Deep desire to be at the center of things is served by extreme self-confidence, a combination that makes narcissists attractive and even charming. Buoyed by a coterie of admiring friends and associates—protected by the armor of positive self-regard—someone with a mild-to-moderate case of narcissism can float through life feeling pretty good about himself. Since they feel entitled to special treatment, they are easily offended, and readily harbor grudges. Yet narcissists are often very popular—at least in the short term.

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narcissism

Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868

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My conscience — one never becomes completely free of this sort of thing — is pricking me for leaving Dietzgen so long without a reply. You also promised to tell me something about his personality.
Since the English press paid no attention to this farce, we also would have passed it over in silence.
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- Thereupon we — i.e. the General Council — officially announced, in 6 lines in the Cigale, that F. Pyat had absolutely no connection with the ‘International’, of which he was not even a member.
- Now you know all there is to know about this solemn, highfalutin and important event. Just one thing more. We had the satisfaction that Blanqui, through one of his friends, writing ditto in the Cigale, made Pyat absolutely ridiculous, leaving him only the alternative of being either a monomaniac or a police agent.
- How can a man whom I crammed orally for 15 years (he was always too lazy to read) have such things published as, for instance, Society and State, in which ‘the social’ (and that’s a fine category too!) is treated as the secondary, and ‘the political’ as the essential ? This would be incomprehensible were it not that Liebknecht is a South German, and seems always to have confused me with his old superior, the ‘noble’ Gustav Struve.

Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868

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sect marx

In fact, every sect is religious.
And just because he was the founder of a sect, he denied all natural connection with the earlier movement, both in Germany and abroad. He fell into Proudhon’s mistake of not seeking the real basis of his agitation in the actual elements of the class movement, but of wishing, instead, to prescribe for that movement a course determined by a certain doctrinaire recipe.
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- You yourself know the difference between a sect movement and a class movement from personal experience. The sect seeks its raison d'être and its point d'honneur not in what it has in common with the class movement, but in the particular shibboleth distinguishing it from that movement. Thus when, in Hamburg, you proposed convening a congress to found trades unions, you could only suppress the opposition of the sectarians by threatening to resign as president. You were also forced to assume a dual personality, to state that, in one case, you were acting as the leader of the sect and, in the other, as the representative of the class movement.
  
  The dissolution of the General Association of German Workers provided you with an opportunity to take a big step forward and to declare, to prove s'il le fallait [if necessary], that a new stage of development had been reached and the sect movement was now ripe to merge into the class movement and end all ‘eanisms’. With regard to the true content of the sect, it would, like all former workers’ sects, carry this as an enriching element into the general movement. Yet instead you, in fact, demanded that the class movement subordinate itself to a particular sect movement. Your non-friends concluded from this that you wished to conserve your ‘own workers’ movement’ under all circumstances.
- You ought, therefore, to have reached an agreement with the leaders outside the Lassallean circle, worked out the plan together with them, and convoked the congress. Instead of this, you left them only the alternative of either publicly joining you, or lining up against you. The congress itself appeared to be only an extended edition of the Hamburg Congress.
- As for the draft statutes, I regard them as unsuitable in principle, and I believe I have as much experience as any of my contemporaries in the field of trades unions. Without going further into detail here, I shall merely remark that a centralist organisation, suitable as it is for secret societies and sect movements, contradicts the nature of the trades unions. Were it possible — I declare it tout bonnement to be impossible — it would not be desirable, least of all in Germany. Here, where the worker is regulated bureaucratically from childhood onwards, where he believes in authority, in those set over him, the main thing is to teach him to walk by himself.
- 1. The Committee, elected by the trades;
- 2. the President
- Thus — collisions everywhere,
- elected by a general vote;
- 3. the Congress, elected by the local branches.
- The latter is mostly concerned with financial issues, and you will soon discover that all dictatorialism finds its end here.
- I promise you, under all circumstances, the impartiality that is my duty. On the other hand, I cannot promise that I shall not, some day, acting as a private author, — as soon as I feel it to be absolutely dictated by the interests of the labour movement — publicly criticise the Lassallean superstition, in the same way as I dealt, in its time, with the Proudhonist superstition.

Letters: Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

www.marxists.org/...43_05-alt.htm - Preview

The Germans are such prudent realists that not one of their wishes and
their wildest fancies ever extends beyond the bare actualities of life.
And this reality, no more no less, is accepted by those who rule over
them. They too are realists, they are utterly removed from all thought
and human greatness, they are ordinary officers and provincial Junkers,
but they are not mistaken, they are right: just as they are, they are
perfectly adequate to the task of exploiting and ruling over this animal
kingdom – for here as everywhere rule and exploitation are identical
concepts. When they make people pay them homage, when they gaze out
over the teeming throng of brainless creatures, what comes into their
minds but the thought that occurred to Napoleon on the Berezina. It is
said that he pointed to the mass of drowning men and declared to his
entourage: Voyez ces crapauds! ["Look at those toads!"] The story is
probably invented, but it is true nevertheless. Despotism's only
thought is disdain for mankind, dehumanized man; and it is a thought
superior to many others in that it is also a fact. In the eyes of the
despot, men are always debased. They drown before his eyes and on his
behalf in the mire of common life from which, like toads, they always
rise up again. If even men capable of great vision, like Napoleon
before he succumbed to his dynastic madness, are overwhelmed by this
insight, how should a quite ordinary king be an idealist in the midst of
such a reality?
There is only one
scandal, and one source of embarrassment: abdication. As long as
caprice remains in its place, it is in the right. It may be as fickle,
inane, and contemptible as it pleases; it is still adequate to the task
of governing a people which has never known any law but the arbitrary
will of its kings. I do not claim that an inane system and the loss of
respect both at home and abroad can remain without consequence; I am
certainly not prepared to underwrite the Ship of Fools. But I do
maintain that as long as the topsy-turvy world is the real world, the
King of Prussia will remain a man of his time.
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- He proclaimed that henceforth his own heart and feelings
  would constitute the basic law of the Prussian domains, of his state;
  and in Prussia the King really is the system. He is the only political
  person. His personality determines the nature of the system. Whatever
  he does or is made to do, whatever he thinks or is put into his mouth,
  constitutes the thought and action of the Prussian state. It is
  therefore a positive good that the present King has admitted this so
  frankly.
- The King of Prussia tried to change the system with the help of a theory
  such as his father did not possess. The fate of this attempt is well
  known: it failed utterly, naturally enough. For once you have arrived
  at the animal kingdom of politics there is no reaction that can go
  further back and no way of progressing beyond it without abandoning its
  basis and effecting the transition to the human world of democracy.
- Not the dead letter of the law, but the
  living heart of the King would govern all his subjects. He wished to
  set all hearts and minds in motion to fulfill his heart's desires and
  his long-mediated plans. And people were set in motion, but their
  hearts did not beat at one with his and the governed could not open
  their mouths without demanding the abolition of the old form of
  authority.
- things began to
  be transformed into people and some of these people even had names,
- It was not difficult to bring about a palpable conflict
  between the wishes of the King who dreamed of a great past epoch full of
  priests, knights, and bondsmen, and the intentions of the idealists who
  simply aspired to realize the aims of the French Revolution – i.e., who
  in the last analysis wanted a republic and an order of free men instead
  of an order of dead things. When this conflict had become sufficiently
  acute and uncomfortable, and the irascible King was in a state of great
  excitement, his servants, who had formerly managed affairs with such
  ease, now came to him and announced that the King would be unwise to
  encourage his subjects in their idle talk, they would not be able to
  control a race of people who talked.
- it meant a return to the old ossified,
  servile state in which the slave serves in silence and the owner of land
  and people rules as silently as possible over well-trained, docile
  servants. Neither can say what he wishes – the one that he wishes to
  be human, the other that he has no use for human beings on his
  territory. Silence is therefore the only means of communication. Muta
  pecora, prona et ventri oboedientia. ["The herd is silent, docile and
  obeys its stomach."]
- This then is the abortive attempt to transform the philistine state on
  the basis of itself; its only result was that it revealed for all the
  world to see that, for a despotism, brutality is necessary and humanity
  impossible.
- You will hardly
  suggest that my opinion of the present is too exalted and if I do not
  despair about it, this is only because its desperate position fills me
  with hope.
- However, the system of industry and commerce, of property and
  exploitation of man, will lead much faster than the increase in the
  population to a rupture within existing society which the old system
  cannot heal because, far from healing and creating, it knows only how to
  exist and enjoy. The existence of a suffering mankind which thinks and
  of a thinking mankind which is suppressed must inevitably become
  unpalatable and indigestible for the animal kingdom of the philistines
  wallowing in their passive and thoughtless existence.

13 Jun 09

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American

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The wide range of sizes, shapes and temperaments seen in dogs—consider the Chihuahua and Great Dane—is absent in cats. Felines show much less variety because, unlike dogs—which starting in prehistoric times were bred for such tasks as guarding, hunting and herding—wildcats were under no such selective breeding pressures. To enter our homes, they had only to evolve a people-friendly disposition.

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American

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Even today most domesticated cats are free agents that can easily survive independently of humans, as evinced by the plethora of feral cats in cities, towns and countrysides the world over.
In all likelihood, then, some people took kittens home simply because they found them adorable and tamed them, giving cats a first foothold at the human hearth.
2 more annotations...
- As agriculture spread out from the Fertile Crescent, so, too, did the tame scions of F. s. lybica, filling the same niche in each region they entered—and effectively shutting the door on local wildcat populations.
- In one famous experiment, begun in 1959, Russian scientists using highly selective breeding produced tame silver foxes from wild ones in just 40 years. But without doors or windowpanes, Neolithic farmers would have been hard-pressed to control the breeding of cats even if they wanted to. It seems reasonable to suggest that the lack of human influence on breeding and the probable intermixing of house cats and wildcats militated against rapid taming, causing the metamorphosis to occur over thousands of years.

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American

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(Humans unwittingly took advantage of this structure by supplanting the alpha individual, thus facilitating control of entire cohesive groups.)
let us just say cats do not take instruction well. Such attributes suggest that whereas other domesticates were recruited from the wild by humans who bred them for specific tasks, cats most likely chose to live among humans because of opportunities they found for themselves.

America's socialism for the rich | Joseph Stiglitz | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

zombie or near zombie banks – with little or no net worth, but treated as if they were viable institutions – are likely to "gamble on resurrection". If they take big bets and win, they walk away with the proceeds; if they fail, the government picks up the tab.

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banks bailout

we will end up with a banking system that is less competitive, with the large banks that were too big too fail even larger.
Officials know that if they wait too long, zombie or near zombie banks – with little or no net worth, but treated as if they were viable institutions – are likely to "gamble on resurrection". If they take big bets and win, they walk away with the proceeds; if they fail, the government picks up the tab.
9 more annotations...
- In a financial restructuring, shareholders typically get wiped out, and bondholders become the new shareholders. Sometimes the government must provide additional funds; sometimes it looks for a new investor to take over the failed bank.
- The Obama administration has, however, introduced a new concept: too big to be financially restructured. The administration argues that all hell would break loose if we tried to play by the usual rules with these big banks. Markets would panic. So, we not only can't touch the bondholders, we also can't even touch the shareholders – even if most of the shares' existing value merely reflects a bet on a government bailout.
- But what is clear is that the Obama strategy's current and future costs are very high – and so far, it has not achieved its limited objective of restarting lending. The taxpayer has had to pony up billions, and has provided billions more in guarantees – bills that are likely to come due in the future.
- Most Americans view it as grossly unjust, especially after they saw the banks divert the billions intended to enable them to revive lending to payments of outsized bonuses and dividends.
- But this new form of ersatz capitalism, in which losses are socialised and profits privatised, is doomed to failure. Incentives are distorted. There is no market discipline. The too-big-to-be-restructured banks know that they can gamble with impunity – and, with the Federal Reserve making funds available at near-zero interest rates, there are ample funds to do so.
- By contrast, the US has provided little help for the millions of Americans who are losing their homes. Workers who lose their jobs receive only 39 weeks of limited unemployment benefits, and are then left on their own. And, when they lose their jobs, most lose their health insurance too.
- America has expanded its corporate safety net in unprecedented ways, from commercial banks to investment banks, then to insurance and now to cars, with no end in sight. In truth, this is not socialism, but an extension of longstanding corporate welfarism. The rich and powerful turn to the government to help them whenever they can, while needy individuals get little social protection.
- We need to break up the too-big-to-fail banks
- they are too politically powerful. Their lobbying efforts worked well, first to deregulate and then to have taxpayers pay for the cleanup. Their hope is that it will work once again to keep them free to do as they please, regardless of the risks for taxpayers and the economy. We cannot afford to let that happen.

Commodities - How Natural Resources Affect a Country's Economics | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

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Reference resources

12 Jun 09

Letters: Letters from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher by Karl Marx

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But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.

08 Jun 09

7-Day Forecast for Latitude 47.67°N and Longitude 122.34°W (Elev. 200 ft)

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weather NOAA

Doug Nielson's Public Library

Tariq Ali: Short Cuts in Afghanistan

Dave Lindorff: Blaming the Workers

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

First 4G Android-Based Smartphone May Arrive in 2010 From Sprint - PC World

NIOSH Topic Area - Indoor Environmental Quality

HowStuffWorks Can air pollution affect heart health? P.2 "Particulate Matter and the Heart"

Facemasks Help Prevent Adverse Cardiovascular Effects Caused By Pollution

HowStuffWorks "ST-segment Depression and Pollution"

Email: Target, Recruit and Engage | DemocracyInAction

A Field Guide To Narcissism | Psychology Today

Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868

Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868

Letters: Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American

America's socialism for the rich | Joseph Stiglitz | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Commodities - How Natural Resources Affect a Country's Economics | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

Letters: Letters from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher by Karl Marx

7-Day Forecast for Latitude 47.67°N and Longitude 122.34°W (Elev. 200 ft)

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