Soccer criminals, PRN Professional Red Neck,food prices, nanosolar panels, flavanols, quantum photosynthesis

Soccer as root cause of Trrrism
edge

"Farhin, in all those years, after you and the others came back from Afghanistan, how did you stay a part of the Jihad?" I asked.

I expected him to tell me about his religious fervor and devotion to a Great Cause.

"The (Indonesian) Afghan Alumni never stopped playing soccer together," he replied matter-of-factly, "that's when we were closest together in the camp." He smiled, "except when we went on vacation to fight the communists, we played soccer and remained brothers."
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Five of the seven plotters in the 2004 Madrid train bombing who blew themselves up when cornered by police grew up in the tumble-down neighborhood of Jemaa Mezuaq in Tetuan, Morocco. ... All went to the same elementary school, all but one to the same high school. They played soccer as friends,
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Hamas's most sustained suicide bombing campaign in 2003 (Hamas suspended bombings in 2004) involved seven soccer buddies from Hebron's Abu Katila neighborhood,
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edge
more from edge on changing yur mind...

I am not the only one who has had his mind changed about this. The reality of a working Wikipedia has made a type of communitarian socialism not only thinkable, but desirable. Along with other tools such as open-source software and open-source everything, this communtarian bias runs deep in the online world.

In other words it runs deep in this young next generation. It may take several decades for this shifting world perspective to show its full colors. When you grow up knowing rather than admitting that such a thing as the Wikipedia works; when it is obvious to you that open source software is better; when you are certain that sharing your photos and other data yields more than safeguarding them — then these assumptions will become a platform for a yet more radical embrace of the commonwealth. I hate to say it but there is a new type of communism or socialism loose in the world,

[I have changed my mind about privacy (at least one edge famous person also similarly has) I believed that anonymous electronic money, ubiquitous encryption, and public key signatures, would lead to privacy, multiple 'personas' limited to subsets of credentials, the ability to restrict information pooling. Now I see that Visa credit, facebook profiles, gps in cell phones, mean that we dont care about privacy much at all. ]
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carbonrationing
travel carbon
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nzherald
Tourism, NZ's wealth, NZ's global damage...

in 2005, the CO2-equivalent emissions from the 2.4 million international visitors' return air flights was nearly 7.9 million tonnes, about the same as the emissions from all the country's coal, gas and oil-fired power generation.
...10% of the country's Kyoto-liable greenhouse gas emissions for that year.
tourism is New Zealand's No 1 export earner ... international tourism produced 9% of the country's GDP ... .. 19.7% of total exports.

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grow up cool down video
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Exercise combats alcohol damage?
ncbi

Mice given access to ethanol consumed large amounts of ethanol, and mice given access to a running wheel ran long distances, with the combined groups' behavior being comparable to that of the ethanol access alone group and of the running wheel access alone group. Neural stem cell proliferation was assessed by treating mice with bromodeoxyuridine (12 days, 300 mg/kg/day, i.p.) and evaluating consequent immunoreactivity. Exercise increased bromodeoxyuridine immunoreactivity in dentate gyrus, but not in other brain regions studied. Self-administration of ethanol decreased bromodeoxyuridine immunoreactivity by approximately 60% (P <.01) in dentate gyrus; 70% (P <.001), in forebrain; and 80% (P <.001), in corpus callosum. Findings for exercise and ethanol consumption combined were remarkably similar to those for exercise alone. The opposing effects of ethanol consumption and exercise on neurogenesis could contribute to the CNS pathology and health benefits, respectively, of these two behaviors.

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alcohol continued...

UC San Diego School of Medicine have halted the formation of the scar tissue by blocking a protein RSK, which is released .. as part of the healing...

...mice with severe liver fibrosis, some of which were given a chemical which countered RSK.
..Dr Martina Buck, who led the study, said she felt that the treatment might be able to go further, and actually repair damage already caused.
"Our latest finding proves that we can actually reverse the damage," she said.
....
"Irrespective of whether cirrhosis is fully reversible there is clearly a lot of benefit to be derived from reducing the amount of liver fibrosis as this allows the liver cells to resume normal function."

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cru
"global warming has stopped"

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it can be seen how this graph could be interpreted to say 'global warming has ceased' if you were a PRN of a particularly tendentious bent.
nb 'global warming' is itself a prn term, introduced by the shrubs, to sound nicer than 'Climate Change' or 'Climate Chaos'

( this via http://aldaily.com/ which is an oddly prn source of info on the humanities)
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PRN Professional Red Neck
what is the set of beliefs that prn's share. Why do we see a commonality?

eg
prns believe that
Anthropogenic Climate Change is a myth, or a conspiracy
Big cars are wonderful, Mandated fuel efficiency is an unnecessary imposition
Hunting is fine

Feminism has gone too far
Homosexuality is a danger to society
Abortion is murder
Non-white races are inferior (assuming that PTRNs are white. Other races have their ownsuperiority complexes)
Racial mixing is a danger
Welfare payments are too high,
Success equals wealth,
Each individual is responsible for his own success.
Our soldiers must be supported
The main media have a liberal bias
Drugs are bad (but not nicotine, alcohol?)
Things were better in the past (1954)
'liberals' (aka progressives) are communists in disguise
socialism saps initiative
Drug users should be imprisoned
Prisoners get treated too well
Non-whites get too much preferential treatment
School bussing is wrong
Gun ownership is a precious right
Nuclear family is the basis of society
Hippies were dirty
The UN is a danger to sovereignty
Universities are hotbeds of radical idealogy
Islam is a world danger, partly because it is a state religion
Prayer in schools is a good (nb contradiction)
The bible is the word of god
evolution is a faith
Jesus saves
Celebrity is the greatest (Ed Clamped 1962?)
great wealth is the peak of the best
Industrial society is the greatest
pollution is exaggerated
clean streams are a god given right
catch and release is great
modern art is a con
art should be realistic
the greatest (actors, politicians,...) are all dead
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Saddam was behind 11Sep01
Osama Bin Laden was behind 11Sep01Europeans are effete
USA backed coups are always correct
Death Squads are fictions
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Mostly: (nb some contradictions here)
Jews are superior to Arabs
Israel must be supported whatever
Jews own Hollywood
Jews have too much ....
???
what do prns believe about ???...
cancer - caused by chemicals
but: Industrial society is the greatest
diet (vitamins are scientists fads?)
exercise
whales
conservation
Native spirituality
Buddhism
non-violence
Jazz
Rock and Roll
heavy Metal?
Aids?
birth control
???
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Trying to detect a commonality:
a lot of prn beliefs are a reaction to the 69ers, the CR cultural revolution 60s - 70s (aka Counter Culture) that gave us
feminism, sexual liberation, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, general human liberation
This was simultaneous with the Chinese Cultural Revolution, RAF, PLO...
ie the PRN agenda is fundamentally anachronistic, stuck in a 1976 reaction to the CR
Also a huge swing in Western birth rates: high 45-67 very low from 70 on (oral contraception)
nb in non-western societies, high birth rates continued, absent female education & liberation
Green revolution
Haber-Bosch 1909
707 1960?
747 1970??
Kashmir, Bali, Thailand, Vietnam
moonshot

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Food prices
In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, .the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, ...
..Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency's food price index rose by more than 40% this year, cf 9% the year before -... wheat stores declined 11% this year, ..lowest level since 1980. ...12 weeks of the consumption -cf 18 weeks during 2000-2005. ....
Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52%, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel oil......
"We're concerned that we are facing the perfect storm for the world's hungry," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program,

...oil prices have doubled shipping costs in the past year
... it's a long-term trend, reversing decades of decreasing food prices," Sheeran said.
... "unusual weather events," linked to climate change - ... have decreased production in important exporting countries like Australia and Ukraine, Diouf said.

In Southern Australia, a significant reduction in rainfall in the past few years led some farmers to sell their land and move to Tasmania, where water is more reliable, said Howden, one of the authors of a recent series of papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on climate change and the world food supply....

Sheeran said, that on a recent trip to Mali, she was told that food stocks
at an all time low.
[but note Mail had big floods this year (Nina?) so sub-sahara might not starve?]
The recent scientific papers concluded that farmers could adjust to .1-3° C...of warming by switching to more resilient species, changing planting times, or storing water...

But that after that, "all bets are off," said Francesco Tubiello, of Columbia University Earth Institute. ...there is a strong potential for negative surprises."
...
Diouf noted that there had been "tension and political unrest related to food markets" in a number of poor countries this year, including Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania. ...Part of the current problem is an outgrowth of prosperity. More people in the world now eat meat, diverting grain from humans to livestock. A more complicated issue is the use of crops to make biofuels, which are often heavily subsidized....

Mann said the European Union had intentionally set low targets for biofuel use - 10% by 2020 - to limit food price rises and that it plans to import some biofuel. "We don't want all our [sic] farmers switching from food to biofuel," he said. [so its ok if Indonesian or Mexican farmers switch??]
iht
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globalpublicmedia
An article by John Vidal published in the Guardian on November 3, titled "Global Food Crisis Looms As Climate Change and Fuel Shortages Bite," began this way:

Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.

Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18% food price inflation in China, 13% in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10% or more in Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50% higher than a year ago and rice is 20% more expensive. . . .

Last week the Kremlin forced Russian companies to freeze the price of milk, bread and other foods until January 31. . . .

India, Yemen, Mexico, Burkina Faso and several other countries have had, or been close to, food riots in the last year. . . . Meanwhile, there are shortages of beef, chicken and milk in Venezuela and other countries as governments try to keep a lid on food price inflation
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guardian
The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.
the company, which claims to lead the "third wave" of solar electricity, is notoriously secretive and has not answered questions about its panels' efficiency or their durability.
[my guess is they're not very durable. If they are, then this is very big news]
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the most common backboned creature on our planet is a fish known as the benttooth bristlemouth, and it is only found in the deep sea. Yet who has ever heard of it?
[and just how many are there? Some reports say that since we depleted fish (90% of fish > 30 cm??) fast growing squid now outmass humans]
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a Lancet editorial... the very thing that makes chocolate good for you — the antioxidants called flavanols – also make chocolate taste bitter. As a result, confectionery makers often take out the flavanols..., .labels usually don’t tell you whether your chocolate comes with or without flavanols,
nytimes
....... The darker the chocolate, the higher it’s likely to be in flavonoids
..
while many flavanoids are good for you, it’s only certain ones that show these pronounced cardiovascular effects.... procyanidins and proanthocyanidins, they are common to cacao, apple skins, red wine, grape seed extracts, pine bark extracts, hawthorn berries and barley. ... increase flexibility in the endothelial lining of blood vessels
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aboutmyplanet
When it comes to countries who lead the pack in positive changes that could stop their negative impact on climate change? Those currently set to win are New Zealand, Costa Rica and Norway according to U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) during talks in mid December in Bali.

Norway is on target to be completely climate neutral by the year 2050, according to Erik Solheim, environment minister for Norway New Zealand believes that goal will be reached by 2041. Costa Rica, is truly leading the pack. The hope for the country is to completely wipe out emissions by the year 2021, which will be time for a 200th independence anniversary party.
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physorg
quantum secrets of photosynthesis

remarkably long-lived wavelike electronic quantum coherence plays an important part in energy transfer processes during photosynthesis,"
..
The photosynthetic technique for transferring energy from one molecular system to another should make any short-list of Mother Nature’s spectacular accomplishments.
... Surprisingly, this quantum beating lasted the entire 660 femtoseconds."
Engel said the duration of the quantum beating signals was unexpected because the general scientific assumption had been that the electronic coherences responsible for such oscillations are rapidly destroyed.
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[But... the experiments were done cold...] ...FMO complexes kept at 77 Kelvin.
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food prices, nanosolar panels, flavanols, quantum photosynthesis
Soccer criminals, PRN Professional Red Neck