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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

6 Jan - Science,Secrets and Scares


“Deconstructing” Scientific Research: A Practical and Scalable Pedagogical Tool to Provide Evidence-Based Science Instruction

There is growing interest among scientists and science educators to include active learning approaches that allow students to appreciate how primary evidence is used to construct scientific knowledge [1],[2]. Indeed, the National Academies and others have recognized four essential objectives for science education at elementary, middle and high school, and undergraduate levels: (1) understanding and utilizing scientific explanations of the natural world, (2) knowing how to generate and evaluate scientific evidence, (3) understanding the nature and development of scientific knowledge, and (4) participating productively in scientific practices and discourse [2][5]. In the life sciences, both discovery-based research courses and journal clubs accomplish many of these learning goals with undergraduates [6][10], although each has significant limitations. Hands-on research classes have proven to be a successful entry point for training new students in the process of scientific discovery, but, with the exception of bioinformatics-based classes [10], the heavy demand for space and resources constrains the scalability of these strategies. Journal clubs are logistically easier to run, but are only effective in small formats and are usually limited to more advanced students.
To address these issues, we have designed a strategy we call “research deconstruction” that trains first- and second-year undergraduates to analyze real data from current, cutting-edge research, presented to them in the form of a high-level research seminar. We teach the deconstruction course in two five-week modules, each module beginning with an hour-long, full-scale research seminar by an invited faculty speaker. At this point, the students have at best a rather superficial comprehension of the seminar, as we encourage the speaker to deliver his or her standard research presentation, replete with experimental data normally presented to a more sophisticated audience. A separate course instructor then distils the content of the seminar over 10 contact hours of classroom instruction. As the research seminar is videotaped and archived, students can refer back to it regularly. Each classroom lecture typically focuses on approximately 5–10 minutes of the seminar, allowing the instructor to approach each fragment independently from many different angles and explore the fundamental concepts underlying the creation of the data. (For examples of seminar excerpts and their deconstruction, see Videos S1S2, and S3), also athttp://www.mcdb.ucla.edu/research/Banerj​ee/ResearchDeconstruction/ ).



The "War on Terror" Has Been About Scaring People, Not Protecting Them
 to forestall a near-calamitous terrorist atrocity in the US the authorities didn't even have to go in search of information or informants. The alleged terrorist's father came to the US embassy in Nigeria of his own free will and warned them that his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had disappeared and could be in the company of Yemeni terrorists.
Meanwhile the National Security Agency had heard that al-Qaida in Yemen was planning to use an unnamed Nigerian in an attack on the US. If that were not enough, then came Abdulmutallab himself, a 23-year-old Nigerian bound for Detroit who bought his ticket in cash, checked in no bags and left no contact information. For seven years the American state manipulated the public with its multicoloured terror alerts. But when all the warning lights were flashing red, it did nothing.
To brand this near miss a "systemic failure", as Barack Obama has done, is both true and inadequate. It reduces the moral vacuity, political malevolence and enduring strategic recklessness that has been the enduring response to the 9/11 attacks to a question of managerial competence.
 In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the US government undertook the "preventative detention" of about 5,000 men on the basis of their birthplace and later sought a further 19,000 "voluntary interviews". Over the next year, more than 170,000 men from 24 predominantly Muslim countries and North Korea were fingerprinted and interviewed in a programme of "special registration". None of these produced a single terrorism conviction.





“Obama Has Kept the Machine Set on Kill”–Journalist and Activist Allan Nairn Reviews Obama’s First Year in Office

In an extended interview, award-winning journalist and activist Allan Nairn looks back over the Obama administration’s foreign policy and national security decisions over the last twelve months. “I think Obama should be remembered as a great man because of the blow he struck against white racism,” Nairn says. “But once he became president…Obama became a murderer and a terrorist, because the US has a machine that spans the globe, that has the capacity to kill, and Obama has kept it set on kill. He could have flipped the switch and turned it off…but he chose not to do so.” He continues, “In fact, as far as one can tell, Obama seems to have killed more civilians during his first year than Bush did in his first year, and maybe even than Bush killed in his final year.”




The Iran Nuclear Trigger Forgeries

New revelations about two documents leaked to The Times of London to show that Iran is working on a "nuclear trigger" mechanism have further undermined the credibility of the document the newspaper had presented as evidence of a continuing Iranian nuclear weapons program.
A columnist for the Times has acknowledged that the two-page Persian language document published by The Times last month was not a photocopy of the original document but an expurgated and retyped version of the original.
A translation of a second Persian language document also published by The Times, moreover, contradicts the claim by The Times that it shows the "nuclear trigger" document was written within an organization run by an Iranian military scientist.
Former Central Intelligence Agency official Philip Giraldi has said U.S. intelligence judges the "nuclear trigger" document to be a forgery, as IPS reported last week. The IPS story also pointed out that the document lacked both security markings and identification of either the issuing organization or the recipient.
The new revelations point to additional reasons why intelligence would have been suspicious of 


 the "nuclear trigger" document.




The IAEA suggested in reports beginning in 2004 that Fakhrizadeh's interest in these dual-use items indicated a possible role in Iran's nuclear program.
That same year someone concocted a collection of documents – later dubbed "the alleged studies" documents - showing a purported Iranian nuclear weapons project, based on the premise that Fakhrizadeh was its chief.




Yemen rejects direct intervention by foreign troops







Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said that U.S. forces are currently helping train Yemeni counterterrorism troops, and that more American soldiers acting only as trainers would be accepted.
"But not in any other capacity," he said.
"Direct intervention complicates things."


Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010

Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010
December 31, 2009
ProjectCensored.org


The Army suicide rate of 20.2 per 100,000 personnel is higher than that registered among males aged 19 to 29, the gender age bracket with the highest rate among the general population. Before 2001, the Army rarely suffered 10 suicides per 100,000 soldiers.
The Navy lost at least 47 active duty personnel in 2009, the Air Force 34 and the Marine Corp, which has been flung into some of the bloodiest fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 42. The Marine suicide rate has soared since 2001 from 12 to at least 19.5 per 100,000.
For every death, at least five members of the armed forces were hospitalised for attempting to take their life.






Questions about whether these machines really work-and about who stands to benefit most from their use. When it comes to high-tech screening methods, the TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies, and there are signs that the latest miracle device may just bring more of the same.





On Monday it was revealed that, in the days leading up to the Obama inauguration, American terrorism experts reacted to a tip that Somali extremists were poised to launch an attack on Washington after crossing the border from Canada.

The RCMP says it now believes the tip was a "hoax," likely sparked by clan rivalries in Somalia.



The threat resulted in high-level White House meetings to plan reactions to any possible assassination attempt.








Viva Palestina Convoy Press TV News Analysis - PART 1
Viva Palestina Convoy Press TV News Analysis - PART 2 





More Debit Card Madness




Merchants said they had no choice but to continue taking the debit cards, despite the higher fees, because Visa’s rules required them to honor its debit cards if they chose to accept Visa’s credit cards.



One large retailer, who requested anonymity to preserve its relationship with Visa, provided data that showed Interlink’s share of PIN purchases rose to 47 percent in 2009, from 20 percent in 2002, even as its fees steadily increased ahead of most other networks — to 49 cents per $100 transaction in 2009, from 38 cents in 2006.Merchants said they had no choice but to continue taking the debit cards, despite the higher fees, because Visa’s rules required them to honor its debit cards if they chose to accept Visa’s credit cards.


New Year in America: A portrait of social misery By Tom Eley
5 January 2010
The new decade finds the US working class suffering a level of social misery not seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment, poverty, hunger, utility cutoffs, homelessness, foreclosures and bankruptcies have become common experiences for millions.
But unlike in the Great Depression, when limited reforms were put in place in response to the crisis, the Obama administration, Congress, and state and local governments are taking no serious measures to provide relief. On the contrary, the two parties of big business are exacerbating the crisis through budget cuts at the state and local level and the federal government is preparing new austerity measures.
Unemployment: At over 10 percent, the official US jobless rate reached in October and November was the highest since June of 1983. A broader measure of unemployment, taking into account those who have fallen out of the official workforce, reveals that something approaching one in five workers is unemployed or underemployed.
The economy has not added jobs since December 2007, and in that same time span has lost 7.2 million jobs overall. Coupling these losses with population growth—the economy must add about 150,000 jobs per month to break even—the net jobs deficit in the period is well over 10.5 million.







Advocate urges change following Alberta freezing death




 A consultation process should be set up in Alberta involving the utility industry, government and consumer groups to look at how best to deal with low-income and vulnerable consumers.
The idea is one of the recommendations a member of the province's Utilities Consumer Advocate made Tuesday during his testimony at the fatality inquiry into the death of John Davis.
Davis froze to death in his home in November 2006 because the natural gas wasn't restored after it was disconnected, even though his mother had paid the outstanding balance and repeated calls were made to customer service agents.
The 58-year-old Davis was an alcoholic with physical and mental health difficulties.
The gas retailer in question was Direct Energy, and the distributor was ATCO Gas.



A year after the biggest bailout in US history, Wall Street lobbyists don't just have influence in Washington. They own it lock, stock, and barrel. F



or three decades they had us convinced that the success of the financial sector should be measured not by how well it provides financial services to actual consumers and corporations, but by how effectively financial firms make money for themselves.



Madagascar feels the heat

Deforestation, drought and political instability have ravaged a nation rich in wildlife but poor in infrastructure. And, reports David Smith, climate change is blamed for playing havoc with harvests and the seasons.


Lindsey Graham Censured for Climate Stance, Again


Four former chairmen of the county party have also circulated a letter condemning this move by the party, and standing behind Graham, whom they call a "conservative problem-solver" in "the mold of his predecessor Strom Thurmond.



Mega Giant Corporations Are Very Bad for America
Wal-Mart delivers at least 30% and sometimes more than 50% of the entire U.S. consumption of products. Why the monopolization of our economy should scare you.


Research Unlocks Secrets of Protein Linked to Spread of Viruses

The Rev protein plays an essential role in the propagation mechanism of certain types of viruses within an organism. The work of researchers Archambault and Gomez Corredor focused on this protein, and more particularly on a structure called the "nuclear localization signal" (NLS). They used as a model the Rev protein of the bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV), a retrovirus related to the AIDS virus in humans.By binding to the viral RNAs found in the nucleus, it contributes to the transition of an infection from the early to the late stage. To fulfil this primary function, the Rev protein must first be able to enter the nucleus. To do so, it needs a "key," its "NLS" composed of amino acids.



Ubuntu 10.04 to Include Beginner's Manual

The Ubuntu Forums are helpful, if slightly chaotic. The wikis are better organized, but inconsistent and occasionally outdated. Now a team of users and contributors to the free Linux distribution have organized tocreate a beginner's manual for Ubuntu, to be included by default with the next release (Lucid Lynx) in April. The manual aims to include "comprehensive guides, how-tos and information on anything you need to know after first installing Ubuntu," and is, as you might imagine, being written in wiki form, so anyone can contribute. What newcomer topics and how-tos would you like to see covered in an Ubuntu manual? [viaKabatology]

Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.





Wipe The Slate Clean For 2010, Commit Web 2.0 Suicide
Update: Looks like Facebook blocked the site’s IP address

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