Photo by Chris McVeigh.
- - -
Misc Blogs
Terribly Important Silliness
NYC
NY(C) Politics
IseTile
« September 2011 | Main | November 2011 »
BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Tonight
Rory Bremner's new show on Radio 4, "Tonight," is very good. A great mix of comedy and informed comment on important issues. (Each episode can be heard online on deman for several days after the first live broadcast.)
Rory Bremner hosts a topical satire show with a mix of stand-up and sketch, investigative satire and interviews
via www.bbc.co.uk
Top 25 hedge fund managers earned more than all S&P 500 CEOs combined
From Tyler Cowen's "The Inequality That Matters," The American Interest, January-February issue:
For 2004, non-financial executives of publicly traded companies accounted for less than 6% of the top 0.01% income bracket. In that same year, the top 25 hedge fund managers combined appear to have earned more than all of the CEOs from the entire S&P 500. The number of Wall Street investors earning more than $100 million a year was nine times higher than the public company executives earning that amount. The authors [Tyler Cowen quoted] also relate that they shared their estimates with a former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, one who also has a Wall Street background. He thought their estimates of earnings in the financial sector were, if anything, understated.
Those "V for Vendetta" masks are a bit problematic....
via www.flickr.com
I doubt most Occupiers sporting Guy Fawkes masks (these particular ones are licensed TimeWarner products) realize they're wearing the face of a homicidal, Papist, anti-democratic royalist bent on blowing up what was at the time one of the most democratically representative national governing assemblies since Antiquity.
BBC News - Old American theory is 'speared'
The rib, from a tusked beast known as a mastodon, has been dated precisely to 13,800 years ago.
This places it before the so-called Clovis hunters, who many academics had argued were the North American continent's original inhabitants.
News of the dating results is reported in Science magazine.
In truth, the "Clovis first" model, which holds to the idea that America's original human population swept across a land-bridge from Siberia some 13,000 years ago, has looked untenable for some time.
A succession of archaeological finds right across the United States and northern Mexico have indicated there was human activity much earlier than this - perhaps as early as 15-16,000 years ago.
The mastodon rib, however, really leaves the once cherished model with nowhere to go.
The specimen has actually been known about for more than 30 years. It is plainly from an old male animal that had been attacked with some kind of weaponry.
It was found in the late 1970s at the Manis site near Sequim, north-west of Seattle, in Washington State.
Although scientists at the time correctly identified the specimen's antiquity, adherents to the Clovis-first model questioned the dating and interpretation of the site.
To try to settle any lingering uncertainty, Prof Michael Waters of Texas A&M University and colleagues called upon a range of up-to-date analytical tools and revisited the specimen.
These investigations included new radio carbon tests using atomic accelerators.
via www.bbc.co.uk
Smiling Victorians
"....by the 1890s the Collodion [photographic] process had cut exposure times to two or three seconds.
.....
These pictures are drawn from the Flickr group 'The Smiling Victorian' and show a perhaps surprising side to the people who’s “now” was a hundred years before our own."
via isebrand.tumblr.com - from howtobearetronaut.com.
Click photo for enlarged view.
BBC News - Upper Gereshk: The Helmand plan meets tough reality
It's the brazenness of the Taliban that is unexpected - within 20 minutes they are throwing grenades from hidden positions just a few metres from the patrol and firing others from low-slung launchers. The grenades dance towards the landing zone as a medevac helicopter lands to pick up the casualty.
The contact lasts the best part of an hour and it is not until the helicopters overhead finally open up with their missiles that the insurgent guns lie quiet.
In the silence, all you can hear is the metallic click-clack of weapons being reloaded and the song of the swallows that flit through the air.
And it's like that every single day.
via www.bbc.co.uk
A gripping and grim telling of the situation with US and UK troops in Helmand. "Britain's 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment is currently moving into the area, taking over from US marines of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment."
The weekly Saturday meetings with the handful of prematurely old men with deep facial lines and hawkish features who attend are little more than convivial sit-downs with the fathers of the local Taliban. They know it, the marines know it, and the Afghans laugh among themselves, talking in circles as they often do when sitting down with foreign soldiers.
"Why is my son in jail?" asks Mohammed Sarif. Tall and with a large, round face adorned with a white beard, his eyes glisten with emotion.
"Because your son is a bad man," states the CO. "We caught him with explosives on his hand, and we have seen him laying bombs in the ground."
"My son has not done these things."
"Yes, he has, and we have seen him do it."
"Then I will kill him myself."
"He will be brought to justice."
"Give us tanks and guns and we will fight for justice in our area."
"That's good, we are recruiting for local police. Get 15 men and we will give them all the training they require."
"We cannot join the police."
"Why not?"
"The Taliban would kill us."
Impasse.
"Money is not an issue," says Captain Terrell afterwards.
"We've got plenty of money we can bring to the area but since nobody cares about projects here there's little point in spending money because it won't improve the situation.
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Etruscan Civilisation
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Etruscan civilisation.
Around 800 BC a sophisticated civilisation began to emerge in the area of Italy now known as Tuscany. The Etruscans thrived for the next eight hundred years, extracting and trading copper and developing a sophisticated culture. They were skilled soldiers, architects and artists, and much of their handiwork survives today. They are also believed to have given us the alphabet, an innovation they imported from Greece. Eventually the Etruscan civilisation was absorbed into that of Rome, but not before it had profoundly influenced Roman art and religion, and even its politics.
to listen to the program: www.bbc.co.uk
