It’s the Inequality, Stupid!

It’s the inequality, stupid! (Mother Jones)

Former Nazi soldier appointed to Latvian parliamentary committee

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/latv-n20.shtml

On November 8, a former member of the National Socialist Waffen SS was elected chairman of the parliamentary committee of the Latvian government responsible for dealing with the Russian minority in the Baltic state.

The 86-year-old deputy, Visvaldis Lacis, will head the parliamentary committee responsible for the implementation of new nationality laws. Lacis is member of the neo-fascist party All for Latvia! which entered parliament following the October 2 elections. The party demands a prohibition of the Russian language in schools and the deportation of ethnic Russians, who constitute around a quarter of the country’s inhabitants.

Lacis, who fought in the Second World War against the Soviet Union as a member of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS, has published numerous articles and books glorifying Hitler’s Germany, the Waffen SS and the war against the Soviet Union. He is admired by Latvian neo-fascists and maintains close contact to extreme right-wing thugs and organizations responsible for a series of provocations and acts of violence against minorities. Together with such elements, Lacis regularly celebrates the invasion of the Soviet Union by German troops in 1941.

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US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

Neutron star

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11639458

Astronomers have discovered what they say is the mightiest neutron star yet.

The super-dense object, which lies some 3,000 light-years from Earth, is about twice as massive as our Sun.

That is 20% greater than the previous record holder, the US-Dutch team behind the observation tells the journal Nature.

 

It’s nice to know there are still plenty of surprises in the universe.

Assassin bug

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11628322

Assassin bugs plucked the web’s silk threads that replicate the vibrations of a fly or other insect, causing the fooled spider to head towards the bug.

Once within reach, the bug slowly tapped the spider with its antennae before lunging and stabbing the lured arachnid with its sharp snout

Tea Party Plans To Recruit More Coloreds This Fall

http://www.theonion.com/articles/tea-party-plans-to-recruit-more-coloreds-this-fall,18296/

“The time has come for everyone, Orientals even, to take America back.” Kealey went on to say that the inclusion of homos in the movement would be “out of the question,” unless they were the normal kind.

U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels

New York Times – U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels

Even as Congress has struggled unsuccessfully to pass an energy bill and many states have put renewable energy on hold because of the recession, the military this year has pushed rapidly forward. After a decade of waging wars in remote corners of the globe where fuel is not readily available, senior commanders have come to see overdependence on fossil fuel as a big liability, and renewable technologies — which have become more reliable and less expensive over the past few years — as providing a potential answer. These new types of renewable energy now account for only a small percentage of the power used by the armed forces, but military leaders plan to rapidly expand their use over the next decade.

If there’s anything that should be sustainable, it’s killing others.

Nikon Small World Winners

Link

Not So Silent Spring

I came across this while reading the 2010 copy of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. If you’ve never checked out the series, I highly recommend it.

Not So Silent Spring – Conservation Magazine

A male European blackbird was terrorizing the neighborhood. For several months, he started singing at around 5 a.m. each day, but this was no ordinary song. The bird imitated the sounds of ambulance sirens and car alarms at a jarringly life-like volume. It even produced cell-phone ring tones that went unanswered for hours.

The tale of the annoying blackbird in Somerset, U.K., was not unique. Hans Slabbekoorn, an assistant professor of behavioral biology at Leiden University in The Netherlands, had heard similar stories—but he was skeptical that such bizarre reports could be true. So he started asking people to send him recordings of the off-kilter blackbirds. Sure enough, what he got back was pitch-perfect imitations of urban noises, including not just sirens and car alarms but even the distinctive sound of a golf cart backing up—mimicked by blackbirds living near a golf course.

While the sounds seemed artificial, the reason birds were making them was surprisingly natural. Living amid a growing cacophony of man-made noises, the blackbirds started incorporating human sounds into their repertoire. And Slabbekoorn says the unusual strategy might actually help the birds: song variety indicates maturity in male blackbirds, and female blackbirds prefer older guys.

Federal judge orders end of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’

Link

A federal judge in California on Tuesday ordered the U.S. military to stop enforcing the 17-year-old policy banning openly gay service members, the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Judge Virginia Phillips issued a permanent injunction against “don’t ask, don’t tell” from her court in Riverside, Calif., declaring that the policy “infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members and prospective service members.”

Score one for civil rights!