Wednesday, March 4th, 2015
Douglas Preston, - National Geographic
Stephan: Since I was at university, a major portion of what we thought we knew about the past has been rewritten, and whole chapters we didn't even know existed have come to light. It is a fascinating area of science, both for what it teaches, and because of how the trend plays out. The story gets more nuanced, blanks are filled in. This report is an example of the process.
A “were-jaguar” effigy, likely representing a combination of a human and spirit animal, is part of a still-buried ceremonial seat, or metate, one of many artifacts discovered in a cache in ruins deep in the Honduran jungle.
Credit: National Geographic/Dave Yoder
An expedition to Honduras has emerged from the jungle with dramatic news of the discovery of a mysterious culture’s lost city, never before explored. The team was led to the remote, uninhabited region by long-standing rumors that it was the site of a storied “White City,” also referred to in legend as the “City of the Monkey God.”
Archaeologists surveyed and mapped extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived a thousand years ago, and then vanished. The team, which returned from the site last Wednesday, […]
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Wednesday, March 4th, 2015
Joanna Rothkopf, Assistant Editor - Salon
Stephan: The Republicans in the House of Representatives, are trying to legislate willful ignorance. Really.
U.S. House of Representative with all members present.
Credit: www.ibtimes.co.uk
Two bills are up for a vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, both of which could significantly impact the way the Environmental Protection Agency is allowed to use science to come up with regulations. The Secret Science Reform Act and the Science Advisory Board Reform Act both require the EPA to consider only publicly available, easily reproducible data when making policy recommendations. Scientific organizations and environmental groups, as well as a number of Democrats, disapprove of the bills, arguing that they favor industry over real science.
Over 50 scientific organizations spoke out in opposition to the Secret Science bill, noting that large-scale public health studies would be ineligible for consideration because large sample sizes could not be easily reproduced. (emphasis added)
“I cannot support legislation that makes it easier for industry to implement their destructive playbook, because risking the health of the American people is not a game […]
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Wednesday, March 4th, 2015
Richard Schiffman, - Truthout
Stephan: I was very glad to see this essay. Across the globe, like looking at the sprouts in Ronlyn's gardens, I am beginning to see people talking in a rational way about the change of consciousness that is required if a democratic wellness oriented society is survive.
We’re closer to environmental disaster than ever before. We need a new story for our relationship with the Earth, one that goes beyond science and religion.
The world as we know it is slipping away. At the current rate of destruction, tropical rainforest could be gone within as little as 40 years. The seas are being overfished to the point of exhaustion, and coral reefs are dying from ocean acidification. Biologists say that we are currently at the start of the largest mass extinction event since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. As greenhouse gases increasingly accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures are likely to rise faster than our current ecological and agricultural systems can adapt.
It is no secret that the Earth is in trouble and that we humans are to blame. Just knowing these grim facts, however, won’t get us very far. We have to transform this knowledge into a deep passion to change course. But passion does not come primarily from the head; it is a product of the heart. And the heart is not aroused by the bare facts alone. It needs stories that weave those facts into a moving and meaningful narrative.
We need a powerful new story that […]
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Todd C. Frankel, - The Washington Post
Stephan: American education with its charter schools, core curriculum, and student debt is failing Americans. Here is the data that makes this point. This trend is one of a complex of trends, all arising because we put profit above all other considerations.
American millennials did not do well on this test.
Credit: Bigstock photo
There was this test. And it was daunting. It was like the SAT or ACT — which many American millennials are no doubt familiar with, as they are on track to be the best educated generation in history — except this test was not about getting into college. This exam, given in 23 countries, assessed the thinking abilities and workplace skills of adults. It focused on literacy, math and technological problem-solving. The goal was to figure out how prepared people are to work in a complex, modern society.
And U.S. millennials performed horribly.
That might even be an understatement, given the extent of the American shortcomings. No matter how you sliced the data – by class, by race, by education – young Americans were laggards compared to their international peers. In every subject, U.S. millennials ranked at the bottom or very close to it, according to a new […]
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Alan Yuhas , - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: I thought I had read or heard every banality, baseless garble, and general BS claim that the Marijuana Prohibitionists could advance. But stupidity in the service of bias and self-interest knows no limits. Like me you may find it hard to believe that a grown man could testify with a straight face and says such things. At first it was funny but, as I thought about it further I realized that this DEA agent was attempting to block access to medical marijuana that could bring relief to thousands, including children. It wasn't so funny then.
‘I was kind of shocked to find out the killer rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is actually in the Utah mountains,’ Jeremy Roberts told the Utah senate.
Credit: Supplied
WASHINGTON — Legalising medical marijuana in Utah could lead to absent-minded rabbits and other animals who don’t feel their natural instincts, a special agent for the DEA has warned the state.
In testimony last week before the Utah state senate, and first spotted by the Washington Post, special agent Matt Fairbanks expressed “some severe concerns” about marijuana as a cash crop. “Now I deal in facts. I deal in science,” he said, citing his experience ranging Utah’s mountains as a member of the state’s “marijuana eradication” team […]
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