Notes

This section contains posts describing noteworthy news items or commentary from other websites.

Keeping the public in the dark about animal cruelty

March 18, 2013
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Keeping the public in the dark about animal cruelty

The picture below comes from a 2010 video provided by the US Humane Society showing a slaughterhouse worker in California forcing a “downed” cow onto its feet by ramming it with the blades of a forklift. According to this news piece in the Associated Press, the video led to the largest meat recall in US history.  The massive meat recall occasioned by this video clearly shows that many people are disgusted by the cruelty its depicts. And consumers obviously want to know, or at least have the right to know, the conditions in which their meat is being raised. In…

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Studying economics increases the tendency to lie

March 9, 2013
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A working paper by Raúl López-Pérez and Eli Spiegelman, from universities in Montreal and Madrid, suggests that studying economics at the university might increase a student’s inclination to lie. The abstract for the paper reads as follows: “Recent experimental evidence suggests that some people dislike telling lies, and tell the truth even at a cost. We use experiments as well to study the socio-demographic covariates of such lie aversion, and find gender and religiosity to be without predictive value. However, subjects’ major is predictive: Business and Economics (B&E) subjects lie significantly more frequently than other majors. This is true even after…

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Western support for the slave trade

February 24, 2013
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Western support for the slave trade

The historical Arab slave trade, which began in the 7th century and lasted for than a millennium, brought millions of East Africans to the Persian Gulf to work as laborers, servants, and sex slaves. While it ended officially in the 19th century, something strikingly similar continues to the present day. Each year a global network of recruiters carries thousands of men and women from developing countries in East Asia and Africa to work as housemaids, waitresses, and construction workers. Paid a pittance for their work, often abused by their employers, denied basic rights, and housed in squalid compounds, these laborers…

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Electric cars just can’t get a break

February 24, 2013
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Who Killed the Electric Car? (shown below) is an excellent documentary detailing the rise and fall of one of the first electric automobiles in North America, GM’s EV1. Although it was produced, marketed, and leased to customers for a brief time in the 1990s, GM eventually decided to cancel the leases, reclaim the cars, and destroy them against the wishes of many enthusiastic customers. The film offers a complex explanation of why this popular car line was terminated, one that implicates the car manufacturers and the oil industry in a conspiracy of sorts to halt the production of these vehicles that…

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Lives well lived: Amy Goodman

February 21, 2013
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Democracy Now is perhaps the best daily news programs anywhere in the world and a shining example of the power and importance of independent media. The success of Democracy Now is due to a large number of dedicated individuals who do the hard work of putting together a show each day as well as a larger group of listeners and viewers who voluntarily donate to the program to keep it going. But at the heart of this success story is Amy Goodman, a remarkable individual who has spent her life informing, enlightening, and ultimately empowering others. She’s a role model…

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Life in a cage

February 10, 2013
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Life in a cage

At one extreme end of the spectrum of enlightened architecture, there are the Earthships and other forms of biotecture that are the subject of several earlier posts. These amazing houses, built mostly of recycled material, are eco-friendly, affordable, and aesthetically pleasing. Most importantly, they maximize human potential and freedom in the sense that they enable their inhabitants to live self-sufficient lives, free from the chains of mortgages, commuting costs, and utility bills. Here is a photo of the interior of one Earthship. At the other extreme end of the spectrum of enlightened architecture, there are cages, slightly larger than coffins,…

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Mondragon Corporation

January 31, 2013
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While technically a corporation, Mondragon is actually federation of worker cooperatives operating mainly in the Basque country. Quite different from the typical capitalist corporation, it is one of the most promising developments in area of business management. It was founded in 1956 by a progressive Catholic priest named José María Arizmendiarrieta, who had a mission to spread a form of humanist teaching emphasizing solidarity and participation. From the outset, the purpose of Mondragon was not simply to earn profits, but to provide employment and other social benefits to the local community. It is now the largest business group in the Basque…

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Rise of the machines (documentary)

January 23, 2013
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Drones can be used to do much more than kill innocent civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Drones are being developed right now, not only for the US military, but also for border control agencies, police and fire departments, for government surveillance, and for a host of commercial purposes. As this short documentary Rise of the Machines (shown below) makes clear, aviation is about to undergo a radical change,  and there are important ethical and political questions that need to be addressed immediately. In the very near future, our skies will be littered with cop drones, paparazzi drones, robotic kamikaze drones, and…

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Will the Internet bring an end to religion?

January 17, 2013
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Not any time soon, but organized religion is on the decline in many places around the world,  and in this interesting article Valerie Tarico argues that the Internet is one of the principal causes of this phenomenon.  Here are the six kinds of web content that she thinks are leading the faithful astray:  1. Radically cool science articles and videos;  2. Curated collections of ridiculous beliefs. 3. The kinky, exploitative, and violent side of religion 4. Supportive communities for people coming out of religion. 5. Lifestyles of the fine and faithless. 6. Interspiritual okayness. Could it be that the internet…

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Google translate and the Tower of Babel

January 16, 2013
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How well is meaning preserved when moving from one language to another in Google translate? The folks at cdza provide a rather convincing demonstration of the limitations of Google translate. To be fair to Google, even the best possible translation could not succeed in preserving exact meaning when filtering a pop song through 64 languages. Still, it’s hilarious to see how quickly the translations become ridiculous.

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Ronald Wright and progress traps

January 15, 2013
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The title of a recent op-ed by Chris Hedges is “Will we adjust to life on a finite planet or continue devouring our future.” The article features an interesting interview with Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress, which was recently made into a documentary by Martin Scorsese called Surviving Progress (below). The article, the book, and the film are all worth reading/watching. At the core of each is the idea of a progress trap, which, according to Wright, humanity currently finds itself in.    

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Inequality and conservatism in Korea

January 15, 2013
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Individual income in relation to gross national income (GNI) is declining everywhere in the world but recent data from the Bank of Korea (reported in the Korea Herald) indicate that it is falling faster in Korea than in just about any other country. Since the 1990s it has declined at twice the average rate of OECD countries. Meanwhile, the profits of Korean corporations are exceeding all expectations. Samsung recently projected record profits of 8.3 billion for the quarter ending December 2012, which gives it a run of five consecutive record-breaking quarters.  So, as was recently pointed out in the Chosun Ilbo of all places,…

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African National Congress endorses Israel boycott

January 15, 2013
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Here’s an interesting experiment: Google the sentence “African National Congress approves Israel boycott.” You’ll see from the results (at least as of January 115, 2013) that the only sources with any information on this story are those related to the BDS movement or a few Israeli news organizations. Here are related pieces from The Jerusalem Post, Jewish News online, and the Jewish Journal.  Remarkably, there is virtually no coverage of this story in the mainstream media in the West.  And yet it is highly significant that the ANC, South Africa’s ruling party, voted in December 2012 to make boycotts, divestment and sanctions…

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Birthright Israel

January 13, 2013
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Following the UN vote to grant Palestinians non-member observer state status at the UN General Assembly, Israel immediately announced plans to construct settlements in the E1 area, which would cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and effectively destroy all hope for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As this article from Philip Weiss makes clear, talk of a one-state solution is now becoming more common and more frank. The real questions that seem to be emerging from the rubble of this conflict concern the nature and boundaries of the only viable state that will remain in that area.…

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The Israel lobby in the UK

December 14, 2012
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The US and Canada are not the only countries with influential lobby groups working to ensure that the majority of politicians support Israel no matter how illegal or immoral its policies may be. One of these groups in the UK is the Conservative Friends of Israel, which claims on its website to have 2,000 activists and 80% of Tory MPs as its members. It sponsors trips to Israel for these Conservative parliamentarians and candidates and campaigns hard to get them elected in their districts. In this article in the Telegraph, Peter Oborne describes how the CFI has helped to push the…

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The ten myths of Israel

December 11, 2012
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Ilan Pappe, the Jewish historian and professor at Exeter University in the UK has complied an insightful list of the ten dominant myths surrounding Israel, myths that  impede the understanding and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ten myths are as follows: Myth 1: Palestine was a land without people, waiting for the people without a land Myth 2: Palestinians resorted to acts of terror against Jewish settlers prior to the creation of Israel Myth 3: Myths around the creation of Israel Myth 4: Israel was a benign democratic state prior to 1967 Myth 5: The Palestinian struggle has no…

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Canada’s support for Israel

December 11, 2012
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First the bad news. At the recent vote for an upgrade to the status of the Palestinians (to non-member observer state) at the UN General Assembly, Canada went out of its way to demonstrate that it is as strong (if not stronger) a supporter of Israel and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as is the United States. It also made it clear to the world that the Canadian government could not care less about the morality or legality of the occupation, world public opinion, or Canada’s reputation as a good global citizen. Following the lop-sided vote, in which Canada…

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How to help the people of Gaza

November 20, 2012
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According to this report, 38 aid agencies are now warning of a humanitarian crisis if the military assault on Gaza is not stopped immediately. And yet according to this Democracy Now interview with the Gazan human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, Israel has just dramatically escalated its bombing campaign on the trapped population in Gaza. Whether or not this escalates into a full-fledged ground invasion remains to be seen (here are Finkelstein’s thoughts on the relevant factors behind’s Israel’s decision-making at the moment). International pressure must obviously be brought to bear on Israel to force it to end this murderous campaign,…

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How to stop Israel

November 19, 2012
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With the latest cycle of violence in Gaza thoughts naturally turn once again to the important question of how to bring an end to Israeli aggression, the Israeli stranglehold on Gaza, and the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. There is obviously no realistic military solution to this problem, and a diplomatic settlement is virtually impossible given the position of the U.S. government, which would veto any attempt of the UN security council to constrain or even criticize Israel. One alternative approach is for people of conscience from around the world to put pressure on the Israeli government by boycotting…

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The Science of Morality (CBC radio interviews)

October 30, 2012
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One of the jewels in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is the radio series Ideas, which does a good job of providing Canadians with in-depth journalism on issues of scientific or cultural significance. Here are links to a two-part series on the new science of morality (Part 1; Part 2).  The series provides a nice introduction to the field and investigates what light science is shedding on our moral beliefs and behavior. The series features interviews with Frans de Waal, Paul Bloom, Jon Haidt, Joshua Greene, and Sam Harris.

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