kband: bluprnt 4 rvolution

beware the caterpillar, my son!

Today I was reading on this beautiful lawn on this beautiful day with the wind caressing my face and ruffling my school papers. I was under a tree and these tiny little pieces of dirt kept on falling on my papers. It made me think about how fast succession happens and nature will cover all traces of humans with dirt. Such tiny little movements, but they add up to such great powerful actions over time. Like streams carving mountains. I briefly wondered if the pieces of dirt were falling from the tree but kept on working. Later, I looked up at the tree again and noticed little caterpillar nests. Looking at other trees, they were everywhere. I surpressed thoughts of gross bug nests and thought about the cute green caterpillars within. "It's all part of nature la la la." I kept working and more little pieces of dirt kept falling. There were even cute tiny insects running around on my papers. Nature everywhere.... Suddenly, I had a thought, and looked closely at the dirt. Yes, they did bear a striking resemblance, though miniature, to the droppings of my leaf bugs on my desk. It took me a few more moments to register that I was being crapped on by caterpillars. I tried to be cool about it: “part of nature, hmmm hmmm hmmmm, so tiny, really just processed leaf, hmm hmmm hmmm” but I got up pretty quick and moved to the center of the field.

Cinderella and submission

Crazy article on the unrealistic expectations of love promoted in fairy tales. Which is interesting, if you think of stories and myths as ways of promoting and passing on social values and certain bahaviours through time.

"Young girls who enjoy classic romantic fairy tales like "Cinderella" and "Beauty and the Beast" are at greater risk of becoming victims of violent relationships in later life, a British researcher says.

A study of both parents of primary school children and women who have been involved in domestic abuse claims than those who grew up reading fairy tales are likely to be more submissive as adults.

"They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their partner's behaviour," Darker-Smith said. "Girls who have listened to such stories as children tend to become more submissive in their future relationships."

natural selection

Funny bra add copped from StayFree:

"Built-in sculpted graduated cups are designed to create a natural cosmetically enhanced look. "

So post modern, I can't handel it!

There's a pretty good chance you're reading this from jail

There were 2,131,180 United States citizens in jail last year.
An increase of 2.3 percent over 2003.

The US has incarcerated 726 people per 100,000 of its population 7 to 10 times as many as most other democracies.
That's 7 people in jail for every 1,000 in the country.

12.6% of black males in their late twenties were behind bars! Insane.

The comparable rate for Hispanic males was 3.6% and for whites 1.7%

Even though violent crime in the US fell by over 33% from 1994 to 2003
and property crimes fell by 23%.

Yet the prison population has risen at an averate of 3.5% every year since 1995

Why? Because 2 of every 3 prisoners are back behind bars within 3 years of their release.

Which means JAIL DOES NOT WORK. The system is fucked. Non-violent drug offenders should not be in jail.

Plus it costs around $22,000 to lock up one person for a year.

Reuters Article.

Dangerous men are cool.

Yet another "duh' article from New Scientist. Well, sort of, I guess. It's not big surprise that men preform for each other. Feminists wrote about this decades ago with the whole "homoerotic triangle" thing: the idea being that much of male womanizing is for the sake of other males, rather than the woman in question. All you have to do is watch men look at each other for approval and you can see what's happening.

But part of me distrusts the article. No rational woman would say "yes, I think it's hot when a guy does a backflip off a swing." but you've got to admitt that it's cool when you see it. And you can't help but be impressed. Or, I can't, I guess.

But then again (watch, as rebecca argues with herself in blog form), in one particularly blissful event in my recent past, I was surrounded with 5 guys, all hot, all wanting to make out with me, as we swang on the swings under the stars at a park in Victoria. One of them showed us all how to do backflips and we all tried and it was lovely. And then we had a contest to see who could jump the farthest off the swings. Except one guy didn't participate in this plumage flaunting, was thuroughly disgusted by the whole affair, and let me know it the next day. We dated for 6 months. So maybe there is some truth to it.

But for the record, I could jump the farthest.

"WHETHER it's driving too fast, bungee-jumping or reckless skateboarding, young men will try almost anything to be noticed by the opposite sex. But a study of attitudes to risk suggests that the only people impressed by their stunts are other men.

Futile risk-taking might seem to have little going for it in Darwinian terms. So why were our rash ancestors not replaced by more cautious contemporaries?

One idea is that risk-takers are advertising their fitness to potential mates by showing off their strength and bravery. This fits with the fact that men in their prime reproductive years take more risks. To test this idea, William Farthing of the University of Maine in Orono surveyed 48 young men and 52 young women on their attitudes to risky scenarios. Men thought women would be impressed by pointless gambles, but women in fact preferred cautious men (Evolution and Human Behaviour, vol 26, p 171).

“Men thought women would be impressed by pointless gambles, but women in fact preferred cautious men”Reckless thrill-seekers might be trying a more subtle route to women's affections. Men say they prefer their same-sex friends to be risk-takers, and women prefer high-status males. "So if he has higher status among other men, women might like him for his status, even though they don't like the risk-taking in itself," Farthing says."

Cultures as species

An interesting article from Discover on how human cultures could (have) be(en) subgroups splitting off in the process of becoming other species before massive gene mixing and unifying from the likes of Europeans traveling all over and killing and unifying the many smaller groups.

Yes, this gets a big "Duh," but he has an interesteing theory that the more resources a place has (Central America, Australia), the more seperate cultures it can accomodate. That there is some innate aspect of humanity that will attempt to split off if the resources allow for it. Seems to make sense, like cancer.

Remote Control Animals

Crazy article on humans out of control with frankensteined flies:

"The 18th-century Italian anatomist Luigi Galvani found that a spark could make a frog's leg kick. His experiments established that electricity was the hidden force nerves used to control the body. Now researchers at Yale have done Galvani one better. They can make fruit flies walk, leap or fly by shining a laser at the insects, setting off certain neurons inside them.

It's possible, at least in theory, that this method could someday be developed into a sort of animal remote control. "

WOAH! "Decapitated flies can survive a day or more without their heads, although they spend that time standing motionless. "

Yes, it's in the New York Times. So it must be true. Please be advised that Blueprnt for Revolution does not advocate the decapitation of flies to test this. Well, more than one fly, I guess.

"But when the flies were injected with ATP and then zapped with a laser for a fifth of a second, they jumped up and began flapping their wings in 60 to 80 percent of the trials.

"When we saw these headless bodies flying away, we were absolutely stunned," Dr. Miesenböck said" NO KIDDING! Mad scientists....

Let them eat bombs.

A message from the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force.

Terry Jones's take on the war in Iraq.

"Man Dates"

This article form the New York Times is funny specifically because it is so foreign to me. I think every guy I know has friend who he woudl go to dinner with and discuss life. Plus the spread of the term might even make people uncomfortable. I don't even know why I'm posting it. But there are some interesting points:

"Dinner with a friend has not always been so fraught. Before women were considered men's equals, some gender historians say, men routinely confided in and sought advice from one another in ways they did not do with women, even their wives. Then, these scholars say, two things changed during the last century: an increased public awareness of homosexuality created a stigma around male intimacy, and at the same time women began encroaching on traditionally male spheres, causing men to become more defensive about notions of masculinity.

"If men become too close to other men, then they are always vulnerable to this accusation of, 'Oh, you must be gay,' " said Gregory Lehne, a medical psychologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who has studied gender issues. At the same time, he added, "When you have women in the same world and seeking equality with men, then all of a sudden issues emerge in the need to maintain the male sex role."

How to avoid cancer (yeah right)

My ex and I used to talk about what we would do when we got cancer. I pretty much accept it as an innevitability. But here are ways to hold it off from New Scientist. (No, they're not paying me.)

The cancer prevention diet
YOUR DIET SHOULD BE...

high in starchy, unprocessed cereal foods, such as maize, wheat and unpolished, unrefined rice; roots and tubers, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes; and pulses such as beans and lentils

high in fruit and vegetables, at least five portions a day. A portion can be: 1 large banana, 1 medium apple, 3 plums, 2 satsumas, 2 kiwis, half a fresh pepper, 2 spears of broccoli, 3 heaped tablespoons of sliced carrots. The Greek government and the US National Institutes of Health recommend nine portions a day

high in foods that are as fresh as possible. Mouldy food produces aflatoxins, which are known carcinogens

low in saturated fat (down to 30 per cent from 40 per cent), particularly reducing saturated fat in meat or dairy products

low in red meat - a maximum of 80 grams per day - lots of fish or white meat (no limits but keep to average daily female/male calorie intakes: 2000/ 2400)

low in salt - no more than 6 grams per day

little or no alcohol. Despite evidence that wine is good for the heart, it is linked to breast cancer. Maximum 1 or 2 units per day

low in meat and fish cooked at very high temperatures - barbecue-style food, in other words - as this produces carcinogenic chemicals called heterocyclic amines

YOU SHOULD ALSO:

avoid being overweight. Aim to have a body-mass index of 20 to 25

take exercise. If your life is sedentary, walk briskly for an hour daily and take vigorous exercise for an hour very week

Optical Illusion

Ouch.

groked

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. "

-Robert A. Heinlein

END OF WORLD! (pg. 15)

My dad pointed out how hillarious it was that the following report by over 1,000 scientists, about the fact that humanity's time on earth is coming to an end was on PAGE 15 of the New York Times and relegated to 3 paragraphs while Teri Schivo was all over the front page. And you wonder why we're at risk...

It's also funny that there's one of those ads for the HUGEST TURCK IN THE WORLD, romantically driving over nature right underneath the article.

I went to hear William Reese (Ecological Footprint guy) speak last year and he talked about societies that had limited resources and didn't pay any attention to sustainable living until it was far too late and they got wiped out (Easter Island, for example). So it's funny to see the warning signs all around us and watch people ignore them. Or even just not care. Fatilism is a growing trend (I must admit it is seductive) and more and more of my friends seem to feel that "Eh, humanity's demies is a good thing. Why try to stop it?"

But I also think we're just wired for optimism. If one person is smart and presents a view of the future that requires work and is not so positive (say...John Carey) and another completly lies and says everythign is awesome and will be that way forever (like W.) I think people liek to sway to the positivity regardless of reality. Which only backs up my theory that happy people are stupid.

Here is a good article on the study from the Guardian. And interesting points are below:

* An estimated 24% of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated

* Humans now use between 40% and 50% of all available freshwater running off the land

* An estimated 90% of the total weight of the ocean's large predators - tuna, swordfish and sharks - has disappeared in recent years

* An estimated 12% of bird species, 25% of mammals and more than 30% of all amphibians are threatened with extinction within the next century.

* Since 1980, about 35% of mangroves have been lost, 20% of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed and another 20% badly degraded.

* The value in US dollars of the Earth's natural processes is $33 trillian a year.