Where's Gaza?

I wanted to post these stories about the importance of women in warzones
<http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/02/21/why-women-belong-i
n-war-zones> , when something in the first article caught my eye: the
errata.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 21, 2011

An earlier version of this article included a photograph with a caption
that misspelled the name of a reporter. She is Lara Logan, not Laura.
Also, an earlier version erroneously referred to Gaza as being "in
Israel."

Nothing about the error takes away from the points, of course:

Several commentators have suggested
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/02/17/2011-02-17_violated
_then_betrayed_which_is_worse_egyptian_sex_assault_or_us_pundits_saying_
.html> that Ms. Logan was somehow at fault: because she's pretty;
because she decided to go into the crowd; because she's a war junkie.
This wasn't her fault. It was the mob's fault. This attack also had
nothing to do with Islam. Sexual violence has always been a tool of war.
Female reporters sometimes are just convenient.

Women can cover the fighting just as well as men, depending on their
courage.

More important, they also do a pretty good job of covering what it's
like to live in a war, not just die in one. Without female
correspondents in war zones, the experiences of women there may be only
a rumor.

Watch the world get fat

This interactive chart from the Washington Post <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/health/weight-of-the-world-bmi/> shows how the average body mass index has risen in most countries since 1980. The European men getting comparatively heavier than European women (against the general trend of the rest of the world) is interesting

Source <http://kottke.org/11/02/watch-the-world-get-fat> (kottke)

Mub-bye

White House: The president was informed of president Mubarak's decision
to step down during a meeting in the Oval Office. He then watched TV
coverage of the scene in Cairo for several minutes in the outer Oval
(office).

It was only real once seen on the screen, one assumes.

One Man's Dark Meat is Another Man's Poison

Yet more evidence of toxic eating concerns:

Why do we treat dark meat—perfectly edible dark meat, savored abroad—as a waste product?

Tenderness isn't the only reason Americans reach for breasts above all other parts; color also shapes this choice. According to Dr. Marcia Pelchat of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, consumers unconsciously perceive dark meat as dirty when compared to the breast, perhaps because it's situated at the back and bottom of the animal. There's nothing actually harmful about dark meat: The brown hue comes from a compound called myoglobin, which helps transport oxygen to the muscles so that they function efficiently. As chickens spend most of their lives standing, their legs are full of it. Inversely, since chickens don't fly, as ducks or geese do, their breast muscles contain only a negligible reserve of myoglobin resulting in significantly lighter meat in their upper bodies. Of course few people care to study up on chicken biochemistry before dinner—which brings us squarely to another reason why chicken legs rarely make it into our shopping carts: We're squeamish. "When you're faced with a chicken leg, there's no hiding the fact that it's the leg of an animal," says Pelchat. The modern consumer is nearly as averse to seeing a leg on their plate as they are to seeing a fish head. We have grown accustomed to buying boneless, bloodless slabs of meat in cellophane-wrapped trays and don't want to be reminded of the provenance of our meal, that it came from an animal that was once living, breathing, and moving. A nondescript breast fillet appeals since it bears little resemblance to an actual chicken.

Another solution would be for fast-food companies to save the day by carrying a dark meat product, which, despite everything you've just read, might actually happen in the not-too-distant future. But only because science has managed to transform dark meat into white.

Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2282473/

Corrected

Fingers crossed.

Prosecutors to request Italian prime minister face trial over allegations he had sex with an underage prostitute

Prosecutors are to ask for Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to be put on trial because of his relationship with a teenager alleged to have been an underage prostitute.

"Tomorrow morning, we shall submit our requests in relation to the position of Silvio Berlusconi and put out a statement," Edmondo Bruti Liberati, the chief prosecutor of Milan, told reporters.

Later today, he and the three members of his department involved in the investigation will hold what he called "a conclusive meeting" to discuss which charges should be laid and how.

Last month it emerged that Berlusconi had been formally placed under investigation in December, suspected of paying an underage prostitute and then trying to cover up the fact by abusing his authority <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/14/berlusconi-under-investigation-underage-prostitute?intcmp=239> .

Together, the two offences carry a maximum sentence of 15 years. Berlusconi denies any wrongdoing, as does the girl at the centre of the affair – Karima el-Mahroug, a Moroccan immigrant runaway turned nightclub dancer.

Last May, while still aged 17, Mahroug was arrested on suspicion of theft and taken to a Milan police station. Instead of being returned to care, she was handed over to a friend of the prime minister after Berlusconi spoke by phone to a senior police official.

According to leaks from the subsequent investigation, the friend found her a home with a Brazilian woman alleged to be a prostitute.

The inquiry into the affair uncovered evidence, which Berlusconi's lawyers dispute, that Mahroug had several times visited the prime minister's home near Milan. Documents submitted to parliament last month contained witness statements and wiretap transcripts indicating dinners at the villa, attended by large numbers of women, led to "bunga bunga" sessions involving striptease and sex play.

Under Italian law, the age of consent is 14. But paying for the services of a prostitute aged under 18 is an offence, punishable by up to three years in prison. Juvenile prostitution is widely defined and, to secure a conviction, the prosecution does not have to prove full sexual intercourse took place.

Italy's prime minister risks being in the dock by Easter. The prosecutors who oversaw the police investigation have made clear they want him put on trial without committal proceedings.

It is unclear if they will ask the judge for a direct indictment on both charges. Normally, cases involving defendants accused of paying an underage prostitute require pre-trial hearings. The judge will have five days in which to decide for or against an indictment.

View article... <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/silvio-berluscon-prosecutors-seek-trial>

World Runs Out of Challenges, Wastes Time

Samples of the world's oldest beer have been taken in a bid to determine
its recipe - and brew it again.

In July 2010, a Baltic Sea shipwreck dated between 1800 to 1830 yielded
many bottles of what is thought to be the world's oldest champagne.

Five of the bottles later proved to be the oldest drinkable beer yet
found.

The local government of the Aland island chain where the wreck was found
has now commissioned a scientific study to unpick the beer's original
recipe.

Divers found the two-mast ship at a depth of about 50 metres in the
Aland archipelago, which stretches between the coasts of Sweden and
Finland in the Baltic Sea.

The ship was believed to be making a journey between Copenhagen in
Denmark and St Petersburg, then the capital of Russia.

The salvaging operation to bring up 145 champagne bottles - since
determined to include vintages from Heidseck, Veuve Clicquot, and Juglar
- had one casualty: a bottle that burst open at the surface, revealing
itself to be beer.

The brew has already been sampled by four professional beer tasters.

"They said that it did taste very old, which is no surprise, with some
burnt notes. But it was quite acidic - which could mean there's been
some fermenting going on in the bottle and with time it's become acid,"
said Annika Wilhelmson of the Technical Research Centre of Finland
(VTT).

VTT has now been commissioned to get to the bottom of the sunken beer's
recipe.

"We're going to try to see if we can find any living yeast or other
microbial cells, because that would be very interesting with respect to
reproducing the beer," Dr Wilhelmson explained.

"So far we have seen under microscopes that there are yeast and
bacterial cells, but we don't know if they're dead or alive yet. If we
can't find living microbes, we will look at the DNA and try to compare
it to brewing yeasts that we know today, to see how similar or different
the yeasts are."

Pinning down which hops have been used on the basis of further chemical
analysis may be difficult, Dr Wilhelmson added, meaning that reviving
the 200-year-old brew for modern drinkers may prove difficult.

"Whatever we analyse, we're going to have to do a lot of interpreting,"
she said. "We need to analyse what it is today and start thinking about
what it was like when it was made - when it was fresh, because it
clearly isn't fresh now."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12393875

Nazi graphics standards manual (via kottke)

Steven Heller had heard rumors of a Nazi graphics standards manual for years and finally tracked one down <http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=24358> .

Nazi Graphics Standards<http://www.kottke.org/plus/misc/images/nazi-graphics-standards.jpg>

Published in 1936, The Organizationsbuch der NSDAP (with subsequent annual editions), detailed all aspects of party bureaucracy, typeset tightly in German Blackletter. What interested me, however, were the over 70 full-page, full-color plates (on heavy paper) that provide examples of virtually every Nazi flag, insignia, patterns for official Nazi Party office signs, special armbands for the Reichsparteitag (Reichs Party Day), and Honor Badges. The book "over-explains the obvious" and leaves no Nazi Party organization question, regardless of how minute, unanswered.

More photos and a copy for sale here <http://www.usmbooks.com/ns_organisationsbuch.html> .

Parecon (en castellano)

La economía participativa —frecuentemente abreviada como parecon— es un sistema económico propuesto que usa una toma de decisiones participativa como mecanismo económico en una sociedad dada. Propuesto como alternativa libertaria a las economías de mercado capitalistas vigentes, y también al socialismo de planificación central, y ante la necesidad de aplicación presente de los principios y aspectos constructivos del anarquismo: autogestión y federalismo en las empresas. Surgió del trabajo del activista y teórico político Michael Albert, y del economista radical Robin Hahnel, en las décadas de 1980 y 1990.

Creo que el propio parecon es un proyecto económico anarquista, porque realiza funciones económicas deseables, de manera de incorporar rápidamente la influencia y el envolvimiento de cada persona. El parecon no posee jerarquías fijas y estructura de clases. Genera, no solo participación y justicia en los resultados sociales y materiales, como también autogestión real, lo que es claramente un objetivo del anarquismo. Debo pensar, en otros términos, que los anarquistas no deben hallar el parecon simplemente adecuado, y sí verlo como un compañero muy próximo de sus aspiraciones. (Michael Albert)

La idea de la economía participativa o parecon, fue construida mezclando parte de los conceptos anarquistas colectivistas, del cooperativismo, parte de los conceptos de otras corrientes socialistas de cuño libertario, como es el caso de los comunistas consejistas, y desenvuelve características propias, profundizando o modificando algunas de las tradiciones clásicas.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econom%C3%ADa_participativa

Fwd: Support the People of Egypt Now

http://billayers.wordpress.com/?p=285

Global Village Construction Set

In effect, the products serve as a sufficient, but incomplete, basis for a Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). We are talking about resettling land to become its stewards - whether in locations already settled or on frontiers.

Economy creates culture and culture creates politics. Politics sought are ones of freedom, voluntary contract, and human evolution in harmony with life support systems. Note that resource conflicts and overpopulation are eliminated by design. We are after the creation of new society, one which has learned from the past and moves forward with ancient wisdom and modern technology.

Furthermore, it should be noted that this is a real experiment, and product selection is based on us living with the given technologies. First, it is the development of real, economically significant hardware, product, and engineering. Second, this entire set is being compiled into one setting, and land is being populated with the respective productive agents. The aim is to define a new form of social organization where it is possible to create advanced culture, thriving in abundance and largely autonomous, on the scale of a village, not nation or state.

Welcome to the world of Open Source Ecology (OSE) and the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), also known as the Resilient Community Construction Set. See http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/10/global-village-construction-set-gvcs-in-2-minutes/ for the corresponding update. We used this in our Buckminster Fuller Challenge application. Pass this on to your friends, and encourage them to subscribe to the True Fans - http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=True_Fans . We are also going on OSE Tour USA in 2011.