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crystal blogwrote:
Es algo inexplicable, Tal vez son un montón de instantes, Son esos días que transcurren Y así, poco a poco, Se comparte, se sueña, se sonríe... Es sencillamente estar allí. Maduran sin saber muy bien por qué... Amistad es una unión Una simple palabra MIL BESOS!!! CRYSTAL.
May 27
maria luciawrote:
Mar. 3
maria luciawrote:
GRAZIE DELL'INVITO.
BUONA DOMENICA
Feb. 22
山人 san_znwrote:
Feb. 20
__L i s e t h __wrote:
I wish you a Mery Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Dec. 19
Le lewcowichwrote:
i would like to eat a corn and jam cake / wish you a great weekend
Dec. 18
loredanawrote:
Thanks for the invitation...en embrace, Loredana.
Dec. 2
IS LOVELY TO BE YOUR SPACE FRIEND, ENJOY YOUR WEEK
Dec. 2
MARYwrote:
CIAO E BUONA NOTTE....
Nov. 30
♥ ღ♫ ♥ Lidywrote:
En los más profundos sueños,
corre descalza, huye por miedo, se siente sola y perdida, juzgada por su vida. Y siente una gran derrota, Ya casi no habla, Frío en la húmeda calzada, Amanece en su habitación, Alguien dijo en las noticias, (No dejes morir tus sueños) FeLiNa&LiDy
Nov. 28
David Chisesiwrote:
Thanx for the add.
Greetins from Italy,
David
Nov. 28
Lida Jaramillo Robinsonwrote:
Greetings from Jujuy, Argentina!
Nov. 25
Le lewcowichwrote:
Human Sir Moan decirte that in Argentinean the nourishing base is the meat - we killed thousands of cows per day to eat - there are vegetarian restaurants but the people are enough very who visit them - I send a bear hug to You and I hope you understand that if worries the extinction to me about animals
Nov. 24
cristina casserawrote:
que tengas una buena semana
Nov. 24
♥ ღ♫ ♥ Lidywrote:
FeLiz fin de semana!
espero q estes bien
muchas gracias por tu comentario!
FeLiNa&LiDy
Un simple abrazo nos enternece el corazón;
FeLiNa&LiDy
Nov. 23
╬✞♛ Nadir ♛╬✞wrote:
L'amicizia è distanti, raccontarci tutto anche quando non abbiamo nulla da dirci, gioire per
l'altro anche quando per noi ci sarebbero solo lacrime, è utopia? no è,
l'AMICIZIA! nadir
Nov. 23
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Maynard's Veggie and Boston BlogMaking connections for plant-based diets: all kinds of good, legitimate, and sustainable connections - economics, intellectual, historical and sociological, strategic Thanksgiving Day - The OFFICIAL ViewThanksgiving Day: "Americans across the country will sit down together, count our blessings, and give thanks for our families and our loved ones" So let's list what it's about OFFICIALLY: Americans
So many international visitors are wondering what this distinctively 'American' holiday is, we ought to look at 'the official view' (the nondescript, nonpartisan, nonsectarian OFFICIAL - Presidential - STATEMENT 'saying over' the general public). No mention of food (food can be VERY touchy and volatie, as we vegetarians and vegans know We do a little mathenatics here: we COUNT our blessings, and we do HAVE them, too, don't we? We express thanks by GIVING thanks - we 'give back' So let's be 'about' the holiday. FOOD is NOT at the CENTER of the event, however MUCH the media and advertisers try to make the event INTO a self-destructive orgy of gorging. Sitting down is important; food is not at the center. Thanks, Mr. President. I agree with you 100% The US Constitution does NOT bar health reform's individual mandate Constitution no bar to health
reform By Ruth Marcus
Is Congress going through the ordeal of trying to enact health-care reform only to have one of the main pillars -- requiring individuals to obtain insurance -- declared unconstitutional? An interesting debate for a constitutional law seminar. In the real world, not a big worry. "This issue is not serious," says Walter Dellinger, acting solicitor general during the Clinton administration. But it's being taken seriously in some quarters, so it's worth explaining where the Constitution grants Congress the authority to impose an individual mandate. There are two short answers: the power to regulate interstate commerce and the power to tax. First, the commerce clause. Spending on health care consumes 16 percent -- and growing -- of the gross domestic product. There is hardly an individual activity with greater effect on commerce than the consumption of health care. If you arrive uninsured at an emergency room, that has ripple effects through the national economy -- driving up costs and premiums for everyone. If you go without insurance, that limits the size of the pool of insured individuals and -- assuming you are young and healthy -- drives up premium costs. The clause empowers Congress "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states," which may not sound terribly far-reaching. But since the New Deal, the Supreme Court has interpreted this authority to cover local activities with national implications. In the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn, the justices ruled that even though an activity may "be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." Thus, the court said, Congress was entitled to tell Roscoe Filburn how much wheat he could grow to feed his own chickens. Surely, then, Congress could require Filburn's grandson to buy health insurance. The court has narrowed the reach of the commerce clause in recent years -- but also reaffirmed Wickard. The times it has found that Congress overstepped involved situations where the connection to interstate commerce was strained: carrying guns near schools or engaging in gender-based violence. In United States v. Lopez, the court found that the Gun-Free School Zones Act "is not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated." The individual mandate is "the mirror image of Lopez as a commerce clause case," says Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe. Granted, there is a difference between regulating an activity that an individual chooses to engage in and requiring an individual to purchase a good or service. Granted, too, there is a difference between making automobile insurance compulsory, as a condition of the privilege of driving a car, and making health insurance compulsory, whether an individual wants it or not. But the individual mandate is central to the larger effort to reform the insurance market. Congress may not be empowered to order everyone to go shopping to boost the economy. Yet health insurance is so central to health care, and the individual mandate so entwined with the effort to reform the system, that this seems like a different, perhaps unique, case. Congress clearly has authority to, in effect, require employees to purchase health insurance for their old age by imposing a payroll tax to fund Medicare. It's odd for the conservatives bemoaning a government takeover of health care to complain about requiring that people turn to the private marketplace. Which brings us to the alternative source of congressional authority, the "Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises." The individual mandate is to be administered through the tax code: On their forms, taxpayers will have to submit evidence of adequate insurance or, unless they qualify for a hardship exemption, pay a penalty. Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin likens this to Congress raising money for environmental programs by taxing polluters. "Congress is entitled to raise revenues from persons whose actions specifically contribute to a social problem that Congress seeks to remedy through new government programs," he concludes. Balkin cites a 1950 Supreme Court case upholding a tax on marijuana distributors. "It is beyond serious question that a tax does not cease to be valid merely because it regulates, discourages, or even definitely deters the activities taxed," the court said. "The principle applies even though the revenue obtained is obviously negligible, or the revenue purpose of the tax may be secondary." Sounds like the individual mandate to me. Development, Publication, and Results of Charles Darwin's Evolutionary TheoryFurther developmentSee also: Development of Darwin's theory
Darwin continued to research and extensively revise his theory while focusing on his main work of publishing the scientific results of the Beagle voyage.[27] He tentatively wrote of his ideas to Lyell in January 1842;[29] then in June he roughed out a 35-page "Pencil Sketch" of his theory.[30] Darwin began correspondence about his theorizing with the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in January 1844, and by July had rounded out his "sketch" into a 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his research results and published if he died prematurely.[31] 
In November 1844, the anonymously published popular science book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers, widened public interest in the concept of transmutation of species. Vestiges used evidence from the fossil record and embryology to support the claim that living things had progressed from the simple to the more complex over time. But it proposed a linear progression rather than the branching common descent theory behind Darwin's work in progress, and it ignored adaptation. Darwin read it soon after publication, and scorned its amateurish geology and zoology,[32] but he carefully reviewed his own arguments after leading scientists, including Adam Sedgwick, attacked its morality and scientific errors.[33] Vestiges had significant influence on public opinion, and the intense debate helped to pave the way for the acceptance of the more scientifically sophisticated Origin by moving evolutionary speculation into the mainstream. While few naturalists were willing to consider transmutation, Herbert Spencer became an active proponent of Lamarckism and progressive development in the 1850s.[34] Hooker was persuaded to take away a copy of the "Essay" in January 1847, and eventually sent a page of notes giving Darwin much needed feedback. Reminded of his lack of expertise in taxonomy, Darwin began an eight year study of barnacles, becoming the leading expert on their classification. Using his theory, he discovered homologies showing that slightly-changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions, and he found an intermediate stage in the evolution of distinct sexes.[35] Darwin's barnacle studies convinced him that variation arose constantly and not just in response to changed circumstances. In 1854, he completed the last part of his Beagle-related writing and began working full-time on evolution. His thinking changed from the view that species formed in isolated populations only, as on islands, to an emphasis on speciation without isolation; that is, he saw increasing specialisation within large stable populations as continuously exploiting new ecological niches. He conducted empirical research focusing on difficulties with his theory. He studied the developmental and anatomical differences between different breeds of many domestic animals, became actively involved in fancy pigeon breeding, and experimented (with the help of his son Francis) on ways that plant seeds and animals might disperse across oceans to colonise distant islands. By 1856, his theory was much more sophisticated, with a mass of supporting evidence.[35][36] Events leading to publication
An 1855 paper on the "introduction" of species, written by Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that patterns in the geographical distribution of species and fossils could be explained if every new species always came into existence near an already existing, closely related species.[37] Charles Lyell recognised the implications of Wallace's paper and its possible connection to Darwin's work, although Darwin did not, and in the spring of 1856 Lyell urged Darwin to publish his theory to establish priority. Darwin was torn between the desire to set out a full and convincing account and the pressure to quickly produce a short paper. He decided he did not want to expose his ideas to review by an editor as would have been required to publish in an academic journal. On 14 May 1856, he began a "sketch" account, and by July had decided to produce a full technical treatise on species.[38] Darwin was hard at work on his "big book" on Natural Selection, when on 18 June 1858 he received a parcel from Wallace, who was working in Borneo. It enclosed twenty pages describing an evolutionary mechanism, a response to Darwin's recent encouragement, with a request to send it on to Lyell if Darwin thought it worthwhile. The mechanism was similar to Darwin's own theory.[38] Darwin wrote to Lyell that "your words have come true with a vengeance, ... forestalled" and he would "of course, at once write and offer to send [it] to any journal" that Wallace chose, adding that "all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed".[39] Lyell and Hooker agreed that a joint paper should be presented at the Linnean Society, and on 1 July 1858, the papers entitled On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, by Wallace and Darwin respectively, were read out but drew little reaction. While Darwin considered Wallace's idea to be identical to his concept of natural selection, historians have pointed out differences. Darwin described natural selection as being analogous to the artificial selection practised by animal breeders, and emphasised competition between individuals; Wallace drew no comparison to selective breeding, and focused on ecological pressures that kept different varieties adapted to local conditions.[40][41][42] On 20 July 1858, Darwin started work on an "abstract" trimmed from his Natural Selection, writing much of it from memory. Lyell made arrangements with publisher John Murray, who agreed to publish the manuscript sight unseen and to pay Darwin two-thirds of the net proceeds. Darwin had initially decided to call his book An abstract of an Essay/on the/Origin/of/Species and Varieties/Through natural selection/, but with Murray's persuasion it was eventually changed to the snappier title: On the Origin of Species, with the title page adding by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Here the term "races" is used as an alternative for "varieties" and does not carry the modern connotation of human races—the first use in the book refers to "the several races, for instance, of the cabbage" and proceeds to a discussion of "the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants".[43] Time taken to publishBy December 1838, Darwin had his basic theory of natural selection "by which to work", yet when Wallace's letter arrived on 18 June 1858 Darwin was still not ready to publish his theory. It is commonly thought that Darwin avoided or delayed making his ideas public, and scholars have suggested various reasons, including fear of religious persecution or social disgrace if his views were revealed, and concern about upsetting his clergymen naturalist friends or his pious wife Emma. Charles Darwin's illness caused repeated delays. His paper on Glen Roy had proved embarrassingly wrong, and he may have wanted to be sure he was correct. David Quammen has suggested all these factors may have contributed, and notes Darwin's large output of books and busy family life during that time.[44] A more recent study by science historian John van Wyhe has determined that the idea that Darwin delayed publication only dates back to the 1940s, and Darwin's contemporaries thought the time he took was reasonable. Darwin always finished one book before starting another he had been researching, and he told many people about his interest in transmutation without causing outrage. While he firmly intended to publish, it was not until September 1854 that he could work on it full time. His estimate that writing his "big book" would take five years was optimistic.[45] Publication and subsequent editionsOn the Origin of Species was first published on Thursday 24 November 1859, priced at fifteen shillings. The book had been offered to booksellers at Murray's autumn sale on Tuesday 22 November, and all available copies had been taken up immediately. In total, 1,250 copies were printed but after deducting presentation and review copies, and five for Stationers' Hall copyright, around 1,170 copies were available for sale.[46] The second edition of 3,000 copies was quickly brought out on 7 January 1860,[47] and incorporated numerous corrections as well as a response to religious objections by the addition of a new epigraph on page ii, a quotation from Charles Kingsley, and the phrase "by the Creator" amended to the closing sentence.[48] During Darwin's lifetime the book went through six editions, with cumulative changes and revisions to deal with counter-arguments raised. The third edition came out in 1861, with a number of sentences rewritten or added and an introductory appendix, An Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species,[49] while the fourth in 1866 had further revisions. The fifth edition, published on 10 February 1869, incorporated more changes and for the first time included the phrase "survival of the fittest", which had been coined by the philosopher Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology (1864).[50] In January 1871, George Jackson Mivart's On the Genesis of Species listed detailed arguments against natural selection, and claimed it included false metaphysics.[51] Darwin made revisions to the sixth edition of the Origin, using the word "evolution" for the first time,[52] and added a new chapter VII, Miscellaneous objections, to address Mivart's arguments.[53] The sixth edition was published by Murray on 19 February 1872 with "On" dropped from the title. Darwin had told Murray of working men in Lancashire clubbing together to buy the 5th edition at fifteen shillings and wanted it made more widely available; the price was halved to 7s 6d by printing in a smaller font. It includes a glossary compiled by W.S. Dallas. Book sales increased from 60 to 250 per month.[53] Publication outside Great Britain.jpg)
In the United States, Asa Gray negotiated with a Boston publisher for publication of an authorized American version, but learned that two New York publishing firms were already planning to exploit the absence of international copyright to print Origin.[54] Darwin was delighted by the popularity of the book, and asked Gray to keep any profits.[55] Gray managed to negotiate a 5% royalty with Appleton's of New York,[56] who got their edition out in mid January 1860, and the other two withdrew. In a May letter, Darwin mentioned a print run of 2,500 copies, but it is not clear if this referred to the first printing only as there were four that year.[46][57] The book was widely translated in Darwin's life time, but problems arose with translating concepts and metaphors, and some translations were biased by the translator's own agenda.[58] Darwin distributed presentation copies in France and Germany, hoping that suitable applicants would come forward, as translators were expected to make their own arrangements with a local publisher. He welcomed the distinguished elderly naturalist and geologist Heinrich Georg Bronn, but the German translation published in 1860 imposed Bronn's own ideas, adding controversial themes that Darwin had deliberately omitted. Bronn translated "favoured races" as "perfected races", and added essays on issues including the origin of life, as well as a final chapter on religious implications partly inspired by Bronn's adherence to Naturphilosophie.[59] In 1862, Bronn produced a second edition based on the third English edition and Darwin's suggested additions, but then died of a heart attack.[60] Darwin corresponded closely with Julius Victor Carus, who published an improved translation in 1867.[61] Darwin's attempts to find a translator in France fell through, and the translation by Clémence Royer published in 1862 added an introduction praising Darwin's ideas as an alternative to religious revelation and promoting ideas anticipating social Darwinism and eugenics, as well as numerous explanatory notes giving her own answers to doubts that Darwin expressed. Darwin corresponded with Royer about a second edition published in 1866 and a third in 1870, but he had difficulty getting her to remove her notes and was troubled by these editions.[60][62] He remained unsatisfied until a translation by Edmond Barbier was published in 1876.[46] In 1864, translations were published in Dutch, Italian and Russian.[58] In Darwin's lifetime, Origin was published in Swedish in 1869, Danish in 1872, Polish in 1873, Hungarian in 1873–1874, Spanish in 1877 and Serbian in 1878. By 1977, it had appeared in an additional 18 languages.[63] Modern influence
Various evolutionary theories proposed during "the eclipse of Darwinism" became untenable as more was learned about inheritance and mutation. The full significance of natural selection was at last accepted in the 1930s and 1940s as part of the modern evolutionary synthesis. During that synthesis biologists and statisticians, including R. A. Fisher, Sewall Wright and J.B.S. Haldane, merged Darwinian selection with a statistical understanding of Mendelian genetics.[148] Modern evolutionary theory continues to develop. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, with its tree like model of branching common descent, has become the unifying theory of the life sciences. The theory explains the diversity of living organisms and their adaptation to the environment. It makes sense of the geologic record, biogeography, parallels in embryonic development, biological homologies, vestigiality, cladistics and other fields, with great (and arguably unrivalled) explanatory power; it has also become essential to applied sciences such as medicine and agriculture.[170][171] Despite the scientific consensus, a religion-based political controversy has developed over how evolution is taught in schools, especially in the United States.[172] Interest in Darwin's writings continues, and scholars have generated an extensive literature, the Darwin Industry, about his life and work. The text of Origin itself has been subject to much analysis including a variorum, detailing the changes made in every edition, first published in 1959,[173] and a concordance, an exhaustive external index published in 1981.[174] Worldwide commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species and the bicentenary of Darwin's birth were scheduled for 2009. They celebrate the ideas which "over the last 150 years have revolutionized our understanding of nature and our place within it".[175] Anniversary of Evolutionary Theory? Not Quite, but ... Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species,
published on 24 November 1859, is considered to be the foundation of
evolutionary biology. Darwin's book presented evidence that the
diversity of life arose through a branching pattern of evolution with common descent caused by the mechanism of natural selection.
Prior to its publication various evolutionary ideas had been proposed
to explain new findings in biology, but the English scientific
establishment, closely tied to the Church of England, believed that
species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and had rejected
ideas of transmutation of species
and of humans being related to animals. The book attracted widespread
interest, and generated scientific, philosophical, and religious
discussion. This debate contributed to establishing secular science based on scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution had occurred, but until the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 20th century there was much less agreement on the significance of natural selection. (more...) "Origin of Species" redirects here. For other uses, see Origin of Species (disambiguation).
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a seminal work of scientific literature, considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. For the sixth edition of 1872, the short title was changed to The Origin of Species. Darwin's book introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation. Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream. The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T.H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During the "eclipse of Darwinism" from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, now the unifying concept of the life sciences. Biologist Ernst Mayr summarized Darwin's theory of evolution as follows:[1]
Developments before Darwin's theoryIn later editions of the book, Darwin traced evolutionary ideas as far back as Aristotle;[2] the text he cites is a summary by Aristotle of the ideas of the earlier Greek philosopher Empedocles.[3] Early Christian Church Fathers (including the vegetarians?) and Medieval European scholars interpreted the creation according to Genesis allegorically rather than as a literal historical account;[4] organisms were described by their mythological and heraldic significance as well as by their physical form. Nature was widely believed to be unstable and capricious, with monstrous births from union between species, and spontaneous generation of life.[5] 
The Protestant Reformation inspired a literal interpretation of the Bible, with concepts of creation that conflicted with the findings of an emerging science seeking explanations congruent with the mechanical philosophy of René Descartes and the empiricism of the Baconian method. After the turmoil of the English Civil War, the Royal Society wanted to show that science did not threaten religious and political stability. John Ray developed an influential natural theology of rational order; in his taxonomy, species were static and fixed, their adaptation and complexity designed by God, and varieties showed minor differences caused by local conditions. In God's benevolent design, carnivores caused mercifully swift death, but the suffering caused by parasitism was a puzzling problem. The biological classification introduced by Carolus Linnaeus in 1735 also viewed species as fixed according to the divine plan. In 1766, Georges Buffon suggested that some similar species, such as horses and asses, or lions, tigers, and leopards, might be varieties descended from a common ancestor. The Ussher chronology of the 1650s had calculated creation at 4004 BC, but by the 1780s geologists assumed a much older world. Wernerians thought strata were deposits from shrinking seas, but James Hutton proposed a self-maintaining infinite cycle, anticipating uniformitarianism.[6] Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin outlined a hypothesis of transmutation of species in the 1790s, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published a more developed theory in 1809. Both envisaged that spontaneous generation produced simple forms of life that progressively developed greater complexity, adapting to the environment by inheriting changes in adults caused by use or disuse. This process was later called Lamarckism. Lamarck thought there was an inherent progressive tendency driving organisms continuously towards greater complexity, in parallel but separate lineages with no extinction.[7] Geoffroy contended that embryonic development recapitulated transformations of organisms in past eras when the environment acted on embryos, and that animal structures were determined by a constant plan as demonstrated by homologies. Georges Cuvier strongly disputed such ideas, holding that unrelated, fixed species showed similarities that reflected a design for functional needs.[8] His paleontological work in the 1790s had established the reality of extinction, which he explained by local catastrophes, followed by repopulation of the affected areas by other species.[9] In Britain, William Paley's Natural Theology saw adaptation as evidence of beneficial "design" by the Creator acting through natural laws. All naturalists in English universities were Church of England clergymen, and science became a search for these laws.[10] Geologists adapted catastrophism to show repeated worldwide annihilation and creation of new fixed species adapted to a changed environment, initially identifying the most recent catastrophe as the biblical flood.[11] Some anatomists such as Robert Grant were influenced by Lamarck and Geoffroy, but most naturalists regarded their ideas of transmutation as a threat to divinely appointed social order.[12] Inception of Darwin's theorySee also: Charles Darwin's education and Inception of Darwin's theory
Darwin went to Edinburgh University in 1825 to study medicine. In his second year he neglected his medical studies for natural history and spent four months assisting Robert Grant's research into marine invertebrates. Grant revealed his enthusiasm for the transmutation of species, but Darwin rejected it.[13] At Cambridge University starting in 1827, Darwin learnt science as natural theology from botanist John Stevens Henslow, and read Paley, John Herschel and Alexander von Humboldt. Filled with zeal for science, he studied catastrophist geology with Adam Sedgwick.[14][15] 
In December 1831, he joined the Beagle expedition as a geologist and naturalist. He read Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and from the first stop ashore, at St. Jago, found Lyell's uniformitarianism a key to the geological history of landscapes. Darwin discovered fossils resembling huge armadillos, and noted the geographical distribution of modern species in hope of finding their "centre of creation".[16] The three Fuegian missionaries the expedition returned to Tierra del Fuego were friendly and civilised, yet to Darwin their relatives on the island seemed "miserable, degraded savages",[17] and he no longer saw an unbridgeable gap between humans and animals.[18] As the Beagle neared England in 1836, he noted that species might not be fixed.[19] Richard Owen showed that fossils of extinct species Darwin found in South America were allied to living species on the same continent. In March 1837, ornithologist John Gould announced that Darwin's Rhea was a separate species from the previously described rhea (though their territories overlapped), that mockingbirds collected on the Galápagos Islands represented three separate species each unique to a particular island, and that several distinct birds from those islands were all classified as finches.[20] Darwin began speculating, in a series of notebooks, on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain these findings, and around July sketched a genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree, discarding Lamarck's independent lineages progressing to higher forms.[21] Unconventionally, Darwin asked questions of fancy pigeon and animal breeders as well as established scientists. At the zoo he had his first sight of an ape, and was profoundly impressed by how human the orangutan seemed.[22] In late September 1838, he started reading Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population with its statistical proof that human populations breed beyond their means and struggle to survive. Darwin related this to the struggle for existence among wildlife and botanist de Candolle's "warring of the species" in plants; he immediately envisioned "a force like a hundred thousand wedges" pushing well-adapted variations into "gaps in the economy of nature", so that the survivors would pass on their form and abilities, and unfavourable variations would be destroyed.[23][24] By December 1838, he had noted a similarity between the act of breeders selecting traits and a Malthusian Nature selecting among variants thrown up by "chance" so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected".[25] Darwin now had the framework of his theory of natural selection "by which to work",[26] but he was fully occupied with his career as a geologist and held off writing a sketch of his theory until his book on The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs was completed in May 1842.[27][28] Dr. Randall Lockwood, HSUS
The nonconfrontational way - towards Abolition My thinking is that the nonconfrontational (less confrontational) way - the kind and gracious way - is to have all the paths cleared and pointed out - so that smart persons of good will can TAKE those paths and shine a light of reason while they're taking those non-hinsic paths. Thus, one NEEDS to be able to clear the way for a shift towards the abolition of all animal exploitation, area by area.
Despite all the kciking and screaming, the yelling and name-calling, wholistic thinking about the social path towards and past abolition must be done- by US who care, 'cause (apparently) many of 'them' don't care... Can civility guide debates on evolution and intelligent design  
Let's restore civility to the debate on evolution and intelligent design
By: Casey Luskin Washington D.C. Examiner November 13, 2009 Link to Original Article In his new book, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” biologist Richard
Dawkins brands those who doubt Charles Darwin’s ideas on evolution as
“history deniers,” even stooping to compare them to “Holocaust deniers.”  The work of Discovery Institute is made possible by the generosity of its members. Click here to donate. Harvard Med's Dean Flier Pessimistic about the State of US Health Care Industry ?? HMS Dean criticizes health care Harvard Crimson, November 23, 2009 – By Christina C. McClintock Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier’s recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal is discussed. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/11/23/flier-health-healthcare-garber/ HMS Dean Criticizes Health Care
By Christina C. Mcclintock, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Published: Monday, November 23, 2009
Last week Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier gave the debate over health care reform a “failing grade.” In a Wall Street Journal editorial, Flier criticized the nature of the debate, the economic logic of the spending plan, the efficacy of proposed legislation, and the plan’s transparency. “I wanted to express my personal opinions to stimulate a more vigorous discussion of the issues,” Flier wrote in an e-mailed statement. “Informed debate should characterize a community such as [Harvard], where we have leaders in the field of health policy at many schools where innumerable individuals are contributing scholarship and opinions on every aspect of this discussion,” Flier wrote. Flier, an endocrinologist and researcher, began his article by criticizing the nature of Congressional healthcare debates. “Those of us for whom the central issue is health—not politics—have been left in the lurch,” he wrote. For Flier, the proposed legislation does not do enough to solve the underlying issues of the healthcare system and focuses too much on reducing the number of uninsured. Flier’s editorial was published on Nov. 17, the day before Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) introduced his version of the overhauling healthcare legislation, a plan with an $848 billion price tag. The need for innovation and research in healthcare reform has been echoed by prominent economists, according to Alan M. Garber ’77, director of Stanford’s Center for Health Policy. Garber co-wrote a letter to President Barack Obama about controlling cost in healthcare. The letter was signed by 20 economists, including two Nobel Laureates, Kenneth J. Arrow and Daniel L. McFadden. A third Nobel Laureate, William F. Sharpe, asked for his name to be added to the list of signers. “There is a growing consensus that such research should study better ways to deliver health care and to design health insurance,” Garber wrote in an e-mailed statement. “There is a controversy about whether the legislative proposals go far enough to control costs or to promote innovation.” Garber did not take as harsh a view as Flier did on the state of the national healthcare debate. “I’d give [the health reform effort] an incomplete [grade],” Garber said. “Whether it is fiscally responsible must be judged in the context of other federal activity, such as other legislation directed at Medicare revenues and payments.” “So that incomplete grade may remain for a very long time,” he added. Thinking with Maynard Clark - Being Together IS ThinkingDragging through Monday in the LMA: yet, this is a happy day for some odd reason, I cannot explain. Mobile post sent by vegetarian using Utterli. US& China may set up framework for climate deal in DecemberNEWSObama ready to clinch dealUS President Barack Obama says the US and China must set up a framework for a climate deal in December. Obama is ready to travel to Copenhagen, if he can clinch a deal.Marianne Bom10/11/2009 10:55 If the world is close to agree on a framework deal on climate and his presence is likely to make a difference for a positive outcome, US President Obama will participate in the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December. "If I am confident that all of the countries involved are bargaining in good faith and we are on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over edge then certainly that's something that I will do," Obama says to Reuters in an interview. Obama acknowledges that the US Senate will not pass climate legislation before the climate conference, but he remains optimistic that the UN climate conference can yield a "framework" agreement. "I think the question is can we create a set of principles, building blocks, that allow for ongoing and continuing progress on the issue and that's something I'm confident we can achieve," he says. Later this month Obama will go on an Asia tour, and talks during the tour with Chinese leaders will be crucial for preparing an accord, Barack Obama says. "The key now is for the United States and China, the two largest emitters in the world, to be able to come up with a framework that they, along with other big emitters like the Europeans and those countries that are projected to be large emitters in the future, like India, can all buy into," he says. "I remain optimistic that between now and Copenhagen we can arrive at that framework."
LOGIN TO SUBMIT A COMMENTNEW USER COMMENTSAladar Stolmar 10/11/2009 11:12First the Russian Federation shall give a timetable to shut down the 11 still operating RBMK (Chernobyl type) nuclear power plant units and the UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE shall define the following roadmap for a goal of reaching that the atmospheric carbon dioxide level dropped below 300 ppm (where historic record indicates to be for over 800 thousand years): New electric power generating capacity can come online only nuclear after 2013 The existing railroads to be converted to electricity before 2013 The transportation of merchandize and goods to be done by train on the distances over 25 km from 2014 Short distance transport of goods and merchandize to be done by electricity driven trucks from 2014 The coal burning power plant units to be replaced by nuclear starting from 2014 and completely phased out before 2030 New coal burning power plant unit could be put in service in the future only after the atmospheric carbon dioxide level dropped below 300 ppm The public transport is turned to electric before 2015 The private transportation is supplied with replaceable rechargeable electrical batteries and on the highways replacement batteries are available in new refueling station system for long distance travel from 2014 Only electric cars are sold from 2015 The following recommendations also shall be issued for the (fossil) energy sector: The oil and gas industry shall follow the shift in the energy source and invest in power plants of the nuclear type instead of their traditional fields The oil and gas industry is responsible for developing the “drop & pick” refueling station systems for on the highway long distance use of electric cars including the inventory of replacement batteries The oil and gas industry shall accept that no permits will be issued for oil and gas exploration and new field development after 2012 until the atmospheric carbon dioxide level drops below 310 ppm The coal mining industry shall invest in nuclear power plants and electrical grids and accept that no new mine will be opened and the coal mining will be scaled down until the goal of 300 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide level is reached The following recommendations shall be issued for governments of states possessing nuclear weapons: 90% of the weapons grade materials shall be converted to nuclear power plant fuel before 2015 90% of nuclear weapons related resources shall be turned over to the nuclear fuel cycle industry before 2015 Will work for US as well. frank fog 10/11/2009 13:02Borat Obama was marketed to election by the bankersHis popularity slipping at home, will he loose the next election, and become UN leader ? Obama is a smoker, an air polluter He might as well point the finger to himself Richard Levicki 10/11/2009 13:09The time for procrastination about climate change has long since passed; the world is in a state of emergency and further inaction is gross negligence.Please see: http://www.climatechangecopenhagen.org/ Mr Obama must stop posturing and agreetto implement actions that would discharge the obligations incurred when they signed and ratified the UNFCCC (provisions of the UNFCCC have become international peremptory norms and as such are binding) and be forced to repay the emission debt. Historic emissions should be calculated and an assessment made of the degree of dereliction of duty in the implementation of the UNFCCC. Because of the global urgency, there must be the political will to strive to contain the rise in temperature to less than 1°C above pre-industrial levels. and strict time frames must be imposed, so that overall global emissions will begin to be reversed as of 2010. There must be a target of 30% below 1990 levels by 2015, 50% below by 2020, 75% by 2030, 85% by 2040 and 100% below by 2050, while adhering to the precautionary principle, the differentiated responsibility principle, and the fair and just transition principle. Under the Framework Convention, every state signatory incurred the obligation to conserve carbon sinks; thus the destruction of sinks, including deforestation and elimination of bogs must end. Current research only shows cumulative emission budgets for a 2 °C target, the targets in this submission are based on trying to not be above a 1 °C target. If the dangerous level is to be avoided, emission pathways to eliminate CO2 must arrive at the pre-industrial level of 278 ppm at least by 2050. In Copenhagen the requirement for consensus must be waived, and a binding agreement on all states will be deemed to exist, if over 66 % of the states concur. That means that the US must act fast and now. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri is the spiritual leader of the opposition in Iran Cleric Wields Religion to Challenge Iran’s Theocracy
Islam looks DIFFERENT to Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazerithan to Iran’s Theocracy
Published: November 21, 2009
CAIRO — For years, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri criticized Iran’s supreme leader and argued that the country was not the Islamic democracy it claimed to be, but his words seemed to fall on deaf ears. Now many Iranians, including some former government leaders, are listening. Skip to next paragraph
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri is the spiritual leader of the opposition in Iran.
Ayatollah Montazeri has emerged as the spiritual leader of the opposition, an adversary the state has been unable to silence or jail because of his religious credentials and seminal role in the founding of the republic. He is widely regarded as the most knowledgeable religious scholar in Iran and once expected to become the country’s supreme leader until a falling-out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 revolution and Iran’s supreme leader until his death in 1989. Now, as the Iranian government has cracked down to suppress the protests that erupted after the presidential election in June and devastated the reform movement, Ayatollah Montazeri uses religion to attack the government’s legitimacy. “We have many intellectuals who criticize this regime from the democratic point of view,” said Mehdi Khalaji, a former seminary student in Qum and now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He criticizes this regime purely from a religious point of view, and this is very hurtful. The regime wants to say, ‘If I am not democratic enough that doesn’t matter, I am Islamic.’ “He says it is not an Islamic government.” Now in his mid-80s, frail and ill, Ayatollah Montazeri has remained in his home in Qum, the center of religious learning in Iran, issuing one politically charged religious edict after another, helping keep alive a faltering opposition movement. The man whom Ayatollah Khomeini once called “the fruit of my life” has condemned the state he helped to create. “A political system based on force, oppression, changing people’s votes, killing, closure, arresting and using Stalinist and medieval torture, creating repression, censorship of newspapers, interruption of the means of mass communications, jailing the enlightened and the elite of society for false reasons, and forcing them to make false confessions in jail, is condemned and illegitimate,” he said in one of a flurry of written comments posted on Web sites since the election. Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has limited religious credentials. But Ayatollah Montazeri, a marja or source of emulation, has achieved the highest standing a cleric can hold in Shiite Islam. He is also the architect of Velayat-e Faqih, or guardianship of the jurist, the foundation of Iran’s theocracy and the source of the supreme leader’s legitimacy. Indeed, when Ayatollah Khamenei was a student, Ayatollah Montazeri was one of his teachers. “He is able to delegitimize Khamenei more than anybody else on the Earth,” Mr. Khalaji said. Some Iran experts argue that Ayatollah Montazeri’s involvement in politics has undermined his religious credibility, and that he does not have as large a following as other grand ayatollahs. But there is evidence, others say, that the recent conflict has increased his popularity among younger Iranians who knew little of him, and that his edicts resonate with the pious masses. Despite the arrests of thousands of protesters and reformists, with many complaining of torture and even rape, the government has failed to silence the opposition, led mostly by the clerics who built the Islamic Republic from the earliest days: a former prime minister and presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi; a former speaker of Parliament and presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi; and a former president, Mohammad Khatami. These men have now adopted positions that Ayatollah Montazeri has argued for years, that even in a religious state legitimacy comes from the people. “The government will not achieve legitimacy without the support of the people, and as the necessary and obligatory condition for the legitimacy of the ruler is his popularity and the people’s satisfaction with him,” Ayatollah Montazeri said last month in response to questions the BBC sent to him. In the early years of the revolution, he did not attract a broad following, in part because he was so plain-spoken. He was mocked by the elite and the middle class. Despite his religious learning he came off as a sort of country bumpkin. In one joke that circulated after the revolution, he visited a medical school where students were studying to be pediatricians. Ayatollah Montazeri, the joke went, told them that if they studied harder they could become doctors for adults. He was embraced by Ayatollah Khomeini because he promoted the concept of Velayat-e Faqih, which called for a religious leader to reign supreme over the government. The concept was ultimately embedded in the bedrock of the Islamic Republic. But Ayatollah Montazeri has also repeatedly said that he meant the faqih, or leader, should serve as an adviser, not as the final arbiter of all matters of state and religion. Ayatollah Montazeri’s disillusionment, and his alienation from the state, came within a decade of the revolution. He mocked Ayatollah Khomeini’s decision to issue a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” saying, “People in the world are getting the idea that our business in Iran is just murdering people.” The breach with Ayatollah Khomeini became irreparable in January 1988, when Ayatollah Montazeri objected to a wave of executions of political prisoners and challenged the leadership to export the revolution by example, not by violence. “He was not willing to sell his soul to stay in power,” said Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California. The next month, Ayatollah Khomeini criticized Ayatollah Montazeri in a letter and then forced him to resign as his deputy and heir apparent. He returned home to Qum where he remained relatively quiet until the rise of the reform movement, which he embraced. In 1997, Ayatollah Khamenei placed him under house arrest, which was lifted in 2003 under growing political pressure. “There is no one else in the current leadership of the Green Movement who risked as much, as publicly, as early, as consistently as he has, and has lost as much,” said Abbas Milani, a professor of Iranian studies at Stanford University who as a young man shared a jail cell with Ayatollah Montazeri during the time of the shah. In recent times, Ayatollah Montazeri has kept up the pressure, taking the unprecedented step of apologizing for his support for the 1979 takeover of the United States Embassy. He also has said that the Islamic Republic is neither Islamic, nor a republic, and that the supreme leader has lost his legitimacy. “Independence,” he said in a recent speech on ethics, “is being free of foreign intervention, and freedom is giving people the freedom to express their opinions. Not being put in prison for every protest one utters.” 7 AT-YOUR-DESK Stretches that Reduce Stiffness and Tension- AND FEEL GREAT !!
- November 21 
Seated Stretching Routine
7 Stretches that Reduce Stiffness and Tension When you spend a lot of time sitting, especially at a desk or computer, it's important to take stretch breaks. A couple of breaks each day will help you stay alert and keep stiffness at bay. This set of stretches is perfect for people who are already sitting or those who prefer to stay seated for balance reasons. Make sure the chair you are using is sturdy. Remember never to stretch to the point of pain.  Read Entire ArticleRelated Articles VIDEO: 15-Minute Desk Workout Energy Boosts at Work Seated Stretching Routine7 Stretches that Reduce Stiffness and Tension-- By Nicole Nichols, Fitness InstructorSparkPeople Sponsors help keep the site free! 
Hold each stretch listed for 15-30 seconds, repeating two or three times, depending on how you feel. For detailed instructions and larger photos, click on the name of each stretch. Please note that while some of these stretches depict various body positions, you can perform these upper body stretches while sitting in a chair.  Neck StretchSit or stand with shoulders relaxed, back straight. Bring your left ear toward your left shoulder and hold. Roll your head toward the ground and bring your chin to your chest. Hold and finally, roll your head to the right and bring that ear to your right shoulder. Inhale and exhale in a slow and controlled manner.  Chest and Biceps StretchStand tall or sit upright (not pictured). Interlace your fingers behind your back and straighten your arms. With arms straight, lift arms up behind you while keeping your back straight and your shoulders down. Keep the shoulders relaxed away from the ears.  Triceps StretchStand tall or sit upright (not pictured). Place your left elbow in your right hand. Reach your left arm overhead, placing palm on the center of your back and supporting the elbow in your right hand. Reach your fingertips down your spine. Keep the shoulders relaxed away from the ears. Repeat with opposite arm.  Shoulder StretchStand tall or sit upright (not pictured). Bring your left arm across your chest, holding it below the elbow with your opposite. Keep the shoulders relaxed away from the ears. Breathe deeply and hold. Repeat on opposite side.  Wrist and Biceps StretchStand tall or sit upright (not pictured). Extend left arm in front of you, palm facing outward and fingertips pointing downward. Use your right hand to apply light pressure to the hand, as if pulling your fingertips toward your elbow. Keep the shoulders relaxed away from the ears. Breathe deeply and hold. Repeat on opposite side.  Wrist and Forearm StretchStand tall or sit upright (not pictured). Extend left arm in front of you, palm facing outward and fingertips pointing upward. Use your right hand to apply light pressure to the hand, as if pulling your fingertips toward your shoulder. Keep the shoulders relaxed away from the ears. Breathe deeply and hold. Repeat on opposite side.  Torso StretchClasp hands together and slowly raise them above your head toward the ceiling. Reach as high as you can while inhaling deeply and hold for 20-30 seconds. Bring your hands down slowly while exhaling. China's Massive Dam Project StalledSetbacks Stall Finish Of China's Massive Dam Projectby Anthony Kuhn November 22, 2009 Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Sunday will be available at approx. 12:00 p.m. ET  Anthony Kuhn/NPR Looking upstream on the Three Gorges Reservoir in China. The massive reservoir behind China's Three Gorges Dam was supposed to be filled to capacity this month. But landslides on the reservoir and water shortages downstream have delayed the process. The dam is the world's largest hydropower project, and the government says it allows the country to burn 30 million fewer tons of coal a year. The dam is also supposed to improve flood control and navigation on the Yangtze, the world's third-largest river. China's Three Gorges Dam Credit: Alyson Hurt/NPR But unforeseen problems have surfaced, raising questions about the river's fate. In Wushan county in China's Chongqing municipality, the dam has tamed the river's rushing currents, turning them into a 360-mile-long lake. Barges laden with coal and cruise ships with tourists glide through the placid, jade-green waters. It's been 15 years since China began building the dam. The rising waters of the reservoir have submerged the old Wushan county town, just one of many along the river. A new Wushan has been built farther up the hill. Tan Songxiang, a local official in charge of relocating residents, says the new Wushan is a big improvement over the old one. "Ordinary citizens have reaped real benefits from relocation, and standards of living have improved in all respects," Tan says. "I've experienced it myself. When I was a student, my family lived five or six people to a room, with only curtains separating us. In the new town, I have my own home." Tan denies widespread allegations that officials have embezzled relocation funds, and he says government audits prove his point. Repeated Relocation Local governments have already relocated 1.3 million residents to make room for the reservoir. Some residents have had to move several times. Speaking in a friend's shack near the river, farmer Wang Chuanju says the Wushan county government relocated her and her husband to a piece of land that was later taken by the municipal government to build a road.  Enlarge Anthony Kuhn/NPR Mountain villages in Fengjie county, China, near the Three Gorges Reservoir.  Anthony Kuhn/NPR Mountain villages in Fengjie county, China, near the Three Gorges Reservoir. Wang says that inadequate compensation has left them so poor they are forced to pick food from the garbage. "I signed a contract with the government to be permanently relocated there," Wang says. "If they don't like me complaining about it, then why did they relocate me there in the first place?" Wang says that when she protested inadequate government compensation, police detained and beat her. Her husband, Zou Xinrui, says they are desperate. "If I weren't so old, I might be out robbing, stealing and killing. Why? Because when people are driven past a certain point, there's nothing else they can do," he says. "I might even join some counterrevolutionary group just to fill my belly." A Thin Layer Of Land Many of the problems on the Yangtze's middle reaches come down to this: Too many people are living on the land and overwhelming its fragile ecosystems. The reservoir means there is now even less land. An hour upstream in Fengjie county, farmer Fan Zhuxian tends to his fields. Before the reservoir was constructed, his fields were mostly level. Now, 70 percent of them are on steep hillsides.   Anthony Kuhn/NPR Farmer Fan Zhuxian plants seedlings on a hillside in Fengjie county, China. Fan squats down to plant seedlings. Every blow of his small pickax seems to hit a rock. The earth here is a thin layer covering the mountains, and it is easily washed away. "I try to hold the soil in place with stone barriers," Fan explains, "but when it rains, they just collapse." Fan says his sweet potatoes only grow to a size somewhere between that of a golf ball and a baseball. Dwindling Water Resources An increase in landslides in recent years, caused by fluctuating water levels, has forced the government to go slow in filling the reservoir. China now says it wants to double hydropower generation by the year 2020 to reduce its reliance on coal. But experts fear more dams on the Yangtze could lead to conflicts over dwindling water resources. Pu Yongjian, a professor at the Sustainable Development Research Institute at Chongqing University, says local governments are keen on damming their sections of the river to generate energy and jobs. "There's no solution to this problem. Local governments have to set goals to raise their economic output, and they have to reach those goals," Pu says. "This is a conflict between economic development and environmental protection." What's needed is a holistic management of the entire river, Pu says. Otherwise, the mighty Yangtze — which China has tried for millennia to tame — could one day run dry before it reaches the sea. Related NPR StoriesChina's Three Gorges: Assessing the Impact Jan. 2, 2008 Will AMERICAN Evangelicals EVER Embrace a Post-Partisan Christianity?Rachel Stark's editorial is evidently an appeal to social liberals to allow inclusion to include, not merely exclude everyone else but themselves, which has long seemed to be the case.
OPINION A Post-Partisan Christianity
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2009
As the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama approaches, every
single detail of the ceremony has come under intense scrutiny from
supporters and critics alike. Of all the minor controversies that have
broken out thus far, the selection of Rick Warren, who has been
described as ⁴he most prominent evangelical preacher of the post-Billy
Graham generation, †to deliver the invocation at this historic event
has been by far the most publicized. While some have charged that Obama
is merely pandering to the Religious Right, the truth is that Warren's selection symbolizes Obama's hopes to move into a post-partisan
dialogue for believers and skeptics alike.
There is no doubt that the Religious Right is a powerful force in American politics. Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska is merely the latest in a long series of political leaders who have exemplified its outspoken and often divisive stands on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Since the founding of the Moral Majority in 1979, the GOP has managed to link political and religious conservatives in a surprisingly successful electoral strategy based on these ⁷edge †issues. But in turn, the rise of the Religious Right has deepened the gulf between secularists and believers. It hasn't always been this way. Throughout American history, evangelical Christianity and more progressive political movements have often found themselves intertwined. During the nineteenth century, many who believed in a literal and inerrant interpretation of Scripture fought for an agenda of social progress, including the abolition of slavery and women's equality. But ever since the late 1970s, when the IRS declined to grant tax-free status to fundamentalist Bob Jones University any evangelical leaders have become increasingly conservative in their political demands. As a result, in recent years, "religious " has become synonymous with the aims of a few influential leaders in the Republican Party. But these religious leaders cannot claim to speak for all Christians. Much of their agenda is either extra-scriptural or plainly illogical. For example, the parts of the Bible that pro-life activists cite to justify their cause are not explicit and can often be interpreted in different ways. Of course, nothing addresses abortion directly, †concedes Willem A. VanGemeren, a professor of the Old Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Nor have the champions of the Religious Right bothered to explain how their support for the death penalty or the tragically costly War in Iraq lines up with the Ten Commandments. Thankfully, some evangelicals, including Warren, the author of The Purpose-Driven Life —have tried to change the tone of the debate. In 2004 the National Association of Evangelicals created the Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility, which focused on social issues like poverty, AIDS, human rights, and the health of the environment. Other evangelicals, who believe just as strongly in the injunctions of Jesus Christ, have become eloquent spokesmen for the cause of peace. ... By reaching out to evangelicals on these broader economic and social issues, secular liberals can create a much larger coalition behind a progressive agenda, and evangelicals can feel like they are not compromising the Biblical roots of their faith. In doing so, they should follow the example set by Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus, who has argued forcefully for the inclusion of environmental issues in any evangelical policy agenda. Given the importance of Barack Obama's inauguration to the entire country, his selection of Warren is an encouraging sign. While Warren's stances on social issues might understandably alienate some of the President-elect's supporters, our new President should not waste any time before tackling critical issues like climate change and poverty reduction. Beyond that, a new outreach program may help liberals and progressives to persuade the younger generation of evangelicals to moderate their stance on the divisive but important issues ... Those who criticize Warren's selection are missing a valuable opportunity. Rachel A. Stark, a Crimson news writer, is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House. I wish I had read this in January. From Widener to the WebFAQ or white paper on how to set up an online VEGAN how-to-do-it for college food services - Windows LiveHelp me think about and develop a useful and much-needed FAQ or white paper on how to set up an online VEGAN how-to-do-it for college food services I'm thinking about developing a FAQ or white paper on how to set up an online VEGAN how-to-do-it for college food services, and I need your help. Maynard S. Clark Chat Contact Me FAQ or white paper on how to set up an online VEGAN how-to-do-it for college food services I'm thinking about developing a FAQ or white paper on how to set up an online VEGAN how-to-do-it for college food services, and I need your help. Here's how I got going on this 'thought project' (and I'd be THRILLED for some vegan STUDENT to do it FOR the world - instead of depending on me to make it happen FOR the student world). Ted Mayer, the Executive Director of HUDS, has shared results from the Fall Satisfaction Survey on his blog. Check it out at www.harvarddining.blogspot.com to see what new menu items Harvard undergraduates can anticipate for upcoming weeks. Info about vegetarianism: "55% of respondents are not interested in seeing and eating more meatless entrees for sustainability reasons. As such, we’ll keep the balance of entrees as it currently exists (1 vegetarian or vegan at each meal). That said, we met with a focus group of vegetarian and vegan diners, and as a result will develop some new entrees, with greater emphasis on proteins beyond tofu. We’ll also work to make more of the soups vegan-friendly, and may even introduce some vegan desserts. We’ll also share menu ideas and do-it-yourself combos at a new site on our home page: http://www.dining.harvard.edu/vegvgn " Do I hear in Ted Mayer's suggestion that "We’ll also share menu ideas and do-it-yourself combos at a new site on our home page: http://www.dining.harvard.edu/vegvgn" a potential undergraduate THESIS (or at least paper) coming on: Pro-vegetarian strategies of college & university food/dining services? The strategies could be compared. A clearinghouse of strategies produced. The clearinghouse could include links to various online vegetarian and vegan recipe lists. The clearinghouse could include lists of various volume feeding vegan cookbooks AND links to the Amazon.com pages where the university/college food services could PURCHASE the books (so that college/university vegetarian groups wouldn't need to 're-invent the wheel' every several years for each campus. And this could be an ONLINE thesis project, comparable to the Several 'national' vegetarian groups could be EAGER to HELP any student(s) in this project, and the world would, indeed, be BETTER for that student's having attempted that as an undergraduate (or graduate) thesis. http://www.VegWeb.com (of Veggies Unite) was an undergraduate thesis done by Yvette Norem. Reportedly, she finished the project during her freshman year (in the mid-1990s) in a day when web programming was NOT commonplace, and she spent SO much time MAINTAINING the site that she dropped out of college. Her mother agreed to maintain the website FOR Yvette if only she (the daughter) would return to college. Now Yvette Norem (VegWeb founder) has completed the undergraduate degree, is happily married (I'm told), a mother (I'm told from another source; I cannot validate that assertion), and her undergraduate honors thesis/project with its searchable online vegetarian recipe database at VegWeb.com - goes on (and we're all the better for it). Other such resources could ALSO be included in an online VEGAN how-to-do-it for college food services. Surely someone would HOST it (perhaps at YOUR school! but BigVegSupport would probably step in offering to 'take it on'), but such a resource could bring GREAT visibility (and praise) to Harvard. It would be comparable to the Vegetarian Food Festival 'how-to-do-it' online handbook which I commissioned from a graduate student in English when I was VUNA Vice President and which now is hosted on the VUNA website at: http://ivu.org/vuna/foodfair/ http://ivu.org/vuna/guide/ [ YOUR thesis project could be here... http://ivu.org/vuna/unifoodsrvc/ ] Check out the Harvard College Vegetarian Society at: http://lists.hcs.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/veg-list Maynard Maynard S. Clark http://www.HSPH.Harvard.edu/bioethics @ HSPH http://www.HSPH.Harvard.edu http://GHSM.HMS.Harvard.edu/ - GHSM @ HMS http://maynardclark.spaces.live.com - Links to my blogs and photos http://maynard.clark.googlepages.com - Links to my blogs and photos 617-571-4794 (cell) Businesses & Scholars Chat; Let's Do So, Also... http://veggieguy.gather.com http://myspace.com/maynardclark http://myspace.com/maynardsclark Photos: http://community.webshots.com/user/maynardclark http://maynardclark.spaces.live.com/feed.rss http://picasaweb.google.com/maynard.clark http://www.Frappr.com/maynardclark Chat  Google Talk: Maynard.Clark  Skype: MaynardClark  MSN: HarvardVegan  AIM: THots8421 AIM: VegResCtr AIM: SanDiego95  Y! messenger: MaynardClark Y! messenger: MaynardSClark AIM: MaynardSClarkContact Me              Barbara Frale, a Vatican Archives Researcher, Believes Shroud of Turin is Burial Cloth of JesusResearcher Says Shroud of Turin Is RealBy ARIEL DAVID , AP
comments: 191
filed under: World News ROME (Nov. 21) - A
Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of
Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial
cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into
the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud
being a medieval forgery.
Barbara Frale, a
researcher at the Vatican archives, says in a new book that she used
computer-enhanced images of the shroud to decipher faintly written
words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the cloth.
Skip over this content
She asserts that the
words include the name "(J)esu(s) Nazarene" — or Jesus of Nazareth — in
Greek. That, she said, proves the text could not be of medieval origin
because no Christian at the time, even a forger, would have mentioned
Jesus without referring to his divinity. Failing to do so would risk
being branded a heretic.
"Even someone intent
on forging a relic would have had all the reasons to place the signs of
divinity on this object," Frale said Friday. "Had we found 'Christ' or
the 'Son of God' we could have considered it a hoax, or a devotional
inscription."
The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping from his hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen's fibers at the time of his resurrection. The fragile artifact, owned by the Vatican, is kept locked in a protective chamber in a Turin cathedral and is rarely shown. Measuring 13 feet (four meters) long and three feet (one meter) wide, the shroud has suffered severe damage through the centuries, including from fire. The Catholic Church makes no claims about the cloth's authenticity, but says it is a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering.
There has been strong debate about it in the scientific community. Skeptics point out that radiocarbon dating conducted on the cloth in 1988 determined it was made in the 13th or 14th century. But Raymond Rogers of Los Alamos National Laboratory said in 2005 that the tested threads came from patches used to repair the shroud after a fire. Rogers, who died shortly after publishing his findings, calculated it is 1,300 to 3,000 years old and could easily date from Jesus' era. Another study, by the Hebrew University, concluded that pollen and plant images on the shroud showed it originated in the area around Jerusalem sometime before the eighth century. While faint letters scattered around the face on the shroud were seen decades ago, serious researchers dismissed them, due to the results of the radiocarbon dating test, Frale told The Associated Press. But when she cut out the words from enhanced photos of the shroud and showed them to experts, they concurred the writing style was typical of the Middle East in the first century — Jesus' time. She believes the text was written on a document by a clerk and glued to the shroud over the face so the body could be identified by relatives and buried properly. Metals in the ink used at the time may have allowed the writing to transfer to the linen, Frale said. She said she counted at least 11 words in her study of enhanced images produced by French scientists in a 1994 study. The words are fragmented and scattered on and around the image's head, crisscrossing the cloth vertically and horizontally. One short sequence of Aramaic letters has not been fully translated. Another fragment in Greek — "iber" — may refer to Emperor Tiberius, who reigned at the time of Jesus' crucifixion, Frale said. She said the text also partially confirms the Gospels' account of Jesus' final moments. A fragment in Greek that can be read as "removed at the ninth hour" may refer to Christ's time of death reported in the holy texts, she said. In her book "The Shroud of Jesus Nazarene," published in Italian, Frale reconstructs from the lettering on the shroud what she believes Jesus' death certificate said: "Jesus Nazarene. Found (guilty of inciting the people to revolt). Put to death in the year 16 of Tiberius. Taken down at the ninth hour." She said the text then stipulates the body will returned to relatives after a year. Frale said her research was done without the support of the Vatican. "I tried to be objective and leave religious issues aside," Frale told the AP. "What I studied was an ancient document that certifies the execution of a man, in a specific time and place." Frale's work usually focuses on medieval documents. She is noted for research on the order of the Knights Templar and her discovery of unpublished documents on the group in the Vatican's archives. Earlier this year, she published a study saying the Templars once had the shroud in their possession. That raised eyebrows because the order was abolished in the early 14th century and the shroud is first recorded in history around 1360 in the hands of a French knight. Her latest book on the shroud raised even more doubts among some experts. On one hand, it is true that a medieval forger would label the object with Christ's name, as were all relics produced at the time, said Antonio Lombatti, a church historian who has written about the shroud. The problem is that there are no inscriptions to be seen in the first place. "People work on grainy photos and think they see things," Lombatti told the AP. "It's all the result of imagination and computer software. ... If you look at a photo of the shroud, there's a lot of contrast between light and dark, but there are no letters." Further criticizing Frale's work, Lombatti said that artifacts bearing Greek and Aramaic texts were found in Jewish burials from the first century, but the use of Latin is unheard of. He also rejected the idea that authorities would officially return the body of a crucified man to relatives after filling out some paperwork. Victims of that form of execution used by the Romans would usually be left on the cross or were disposed of in a dump to add to its deterrent. Lombatti said "the message was that you won't even have a tomb to cry over." Another shroud expert, Gian Marco Rinaldi, said that even scientists who believe in the relic's authenticity have dismissed as unreliable the images on which Frale's study was based. "These computer enhancements increase contrast in an unrealistic way to bring out these signs," he said. "You can find them all over the shroud, not just near the head, and then with a bit of imagination, you see letters." Unusual sightings in the shroud are common and are often proved false, said Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia. He recently led a team of experts that reproduced the shroud using materials and methods available in the 14th century — proof, they said, that it could have been made by a human hand in the Middle Ages. Decades ago, entire studies were published on coins purportedly seen on Jesus' closed eyes, but when high-definition images were taken during a 2002 restoration, the artifacts were nowhere to be seen and the theory was dropped, Garlaschelli said. He said any theory about ink and metals would have to be checked by analysis of the shroud itself. The last public display of the shroud was in 2000, when more than 1 million people turned up to see it. The next is scheduled for 2010, and Pope Benedict XVI has been asked to visit it. Animal Rights Attorney DORIS LIN Bumped From Dr. Phil Show - PROTEST DR. PHIL
Bumped From Dr. Phil ShowTuesday September 15, 2009
Well, I found out this morning that I've been bumped from the Dr. Phil show. I was scheduled to appear on the show as a representative of the Animal Protection League of NJ, in a segment about Michael Vick's return to the NFL. My position was that Vick should not be allowed to play because professional athletes are viewed as heroes in our society. The producer told me this morning that things got crazy and they had to "condense the panel." Being bumped is common in TV, if they decide to scrap a segment, or take the topic in a new direction, or if a more desirable guest becomes available. (But who could be more desirable than me?!) This is one woman's story about being bumped from Dr. Phil. Add to Technorati FavoritesShare on Facebook Follow Me on Twitter Brazil takes a step closer to a full ban on animals in circusesBrazil takes a step closer to a full ban on animals in circusesPosted: 18 November 2009. Updated: 18 November 2009 Progress towards a Brazilian ban on animals in travelling circuses took another step forward today as Bill No. 7291 was passed in the Commission for Constitution, Justice and Citizenship of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. Animal Defenders International (ADI) welcomes the law’s progress which entered the Commission in August 2009. Deputy Ricardo Tripoli, who championed the law, defended its conformity with the Brazilian Constitution. He argued that circuses are cruel to animals and that, in fact, the use of animals is even contrary to the Constitution. ADI applauds the members of the Commission for Constitution, Justice and Citizenship for its unanimous vote in favour of Mr. Ricardo Tripoli’s report. ADI has been lobbying hard at all stages of the process as part of the Stop Circus Suffering campaign in Brazil. The bill proposes a ban on the use of both wild and domestic animals in circus shows, and has now gone through all the relevant commissions in the Chamber of Deputies. It can now progress to the Plenary vote, before returning to the Senate. ADI has studied the use of animals in travelling circuses for many years; and have compiled a wealth of evidence, film footage and photographs, taken by undercover officers worldwide for its global ‘Stop Circus Suffering’ campaign. These investigations have shown that that the travelling and temporary nature of a circus means that even with the best will in the world, circuses cannot provide animals with adequate facilities to keep them physically or psychologically healthy. Welfare is always compromised. ADI’s Stop Circus Suffering Campaign Brazil was launched in 2008 in conjunction with Brazilian animal protection groups and with the backing of cruelty-free cosmetics company Surya. Earlier this year, Bolivia banned the use of all animals in circuses, and a similar debate is currently being held in the Peruvian Congress, soon to be discussed in the full parliament. Helder Constantino, ADI Head of Parliamentary Affairs, said: “We are delighted that this law is continuing to progress through the Brazilian Parliament. A ban in Brazil would have a huge impact on the circus industry in South America and would be the largest ever loss of territory to the circus industry. We are now calling on the members of the Plenary of the Chamber of Deputies to act decisively to ban all animals in travelling circuses in Brazil.” Heat and CPU usage problems in Firefox November 21, 2009 9:15 AM PST Firefox: Heat and the CPU usage problemFirefox has a CPU usage issue and, consequently, can cause overheating problems in some laptops, particularly ultraportables. That's what I've found over the last couple of years. 
But don't take my word for it. This is documented on a Mozilla support page entitled "Firefox consumes a lot of CPU resources." The page states: "At times, Firefox may require significant CPU [central processing unit] resources in order to download, process, and display Web content." And forum postings like this one about a Dell Netbook are not uncommon: "Mini9 would get way too hot." The Mozilla support page goes on to say that "you can review and monitor CPU usage through specific tools" and describes ways to limit CPU usage, such as: "A Firefox add-on, called Flashblock, allows you to selectively enable and disable Flash content on Web sites." Let me describe my experience. I find that tab for tab, Firefox uses decidedly more resources than other browsers--Safari, for example. And in the past (when I was actively using a Windows Vista-based machine) Firefox also compared unfavorably with Microsoft's Internet Explorer for CPU usage. More specifically, here's the behavior as I see it. When I'm accessing sites with multimedia content such as the CNET front door, Firefox CPU usage will bounce around between 30 and 60 percent, and sometimes spike higher (80 percent and above), as indicated by the Mac OS 10.6.2 Activity Monitor. On the other hand, the Safari CPU usage with the same pages open is much lower--typically between 2 percent and 10 percent. My theory is that most users don't notice this because in mainstream laptops, this isn't an issue. But it can become an issue in ultraportables--typically under an inch thick--which are more sensitive to heat because of the design constraints. The ultrathin Apple MacBook Air, which I use as my main machine, is a good example. The fan is usually an audible indicator of CPU usage issues. When I'm using Firefox and I have tabs open on multimedia-rich sites (which is par for the course these days), the Air's fan will almost invariably kick on and stay on until I close the tabs. As I write this, the fan has finally shut down after I closed the Firefox tabs (e.g, CNET front door). Those same tabs in Safari are still open and not causing any significant spike in CPU usage or fan activity. When I contacted Mozilla, a technical support person guessed that Safari is possibly better at optimizing Flash-based sites compared to Firefox. And that may be true. However, I had similar issues before when I was using a Hewlett-Packard business ultraportable (also very thin like the Air) that were not necessarily tied to Flash usage. In short, Firefox was less efficient with CPU usage compared to Microsoft's IE 8. And the behavior was similar. The HP laptop would quickly heat up and the fan would kick on. Finally, let me reemphasize that I'm guessing that most users don't notice this because heat dissipation is not a big issue for mainstream laptops that are not necessarily thermally-challenged when accessing multimedia-rich Web pages. That said, this has been a steady problem for me because I use ultraportables almost exclusively and has forced me to limit my use of Firefox. 
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec.
Scientists, Evangelicals Speak Out On Climate Change
This figure shows the predicted distribution of temperature change due to global warming from Hadley Centre HadCM3 climate model. These changes are based on the IS92a ("business as usual") projections of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions during the next century, and essentially assume normal levels of economic growth and no significant steps are taken to combat global greenhouse gas emissions. Photo Credit: Robert A. Rohde With decidedly partisan fervor, conservative religious leaders have long shouted down
the realities of global warming. They are, however, being challenged by
a conscious and increasingly active movement among American evangelical
leadership that seeks to confront the vast environmental and human
costs of climate change. This new partnership was a few years in the making: the 2006 Evangelical Climate Initiative, which called for increased federal regulation of US carbon emissions and acknowledged that "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors," garnered the support eighty-six evangelical leaders, including popular mega-church pastor Rick Warren. In the buildup to the ECI debut, however, a faction of religious leaders within the National Association of Evangelicals pressured then-President Rev. Ted Haggard to decline any official stance or statement on "the cause, severity, and solutions" to global climate change. Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Traditional Values Coalition moved to silence the NAE, and Haggard ultimately backed down.
Climate researchers from
Harvard Medical School and the Smithsonian Institution spoke at
Tuesday's hearing, highlighting known causes and the catastrophic
consequences of global warming to the world's ecosystems. Marine
scientist Nancy Knowlton, for instance, illustrated how carbon
emissions have affected sea levels, ocean acidity, and fresh water
supply for coastal, human populations. She insisted that, while short-
and long-term climate change forecasts are generally bleak, now is our
chance "to get past the obituary writing and do something." Kidney Stones, Malaria Among Global-Warming Risks, Harvard Researchers Discover Harvard Finds Kidney Stones, Malaria Among Global-Warming
Risks Bloomberg News, November 20, 2009 - By Jim Efstathiou Jr. Scientists, Evangelicals Speak Out On Climate Change Air America, November 18, 2009 - By Justin Charity In briefings on health and climate in Washington D.C., Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment predicts increased kidney stones due to low urine volume linked to heat exposure, among other woes. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aNxW1iyn095E http://airamerica.com/green/11-18-2009/scientists-evangelicals-speak-out-climate-change/
Harvard Says Kidney Stones, Malaria Are Climate Risks (Update1)
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Kidney stones, malaria, Lyme disease, depression and respiratory illness all may increase with global warming, researchers at Harvard Medical School said. Climate change from the burning of fossil fuels will add to risks to public health, said Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment in Boston. The center and groups led by the American Medical Association presented data at a briefing today in Washington as a call for action to curb emissions. Power-plant emissions and deforestation have contributed to a 1.4-degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperatures, an increase that could reach 8.1 degrees by the end of the century, the United Nations said in a 2007 report. Warming causes flooding, heat waves and wildfires that worsen health, especially for children and the elderly, according to the Harvard researchers. “We expect an increase in hospital admissions for things like pneumonia, chronic lung disease, asthma and other respiratory diseases,” Cecil Wilson, president-elect of the American Medical Association, said yesterday in an interview. “Increased heat also increases the risk to people who have other diseases.” The Chicago-based AMA, the largest U.S. doctor’s group, sent a letter to President Barack Obama this week citing the “significant public health impacts” of climate change, Wilson said. The Nov. 17 letter said children, the elderly, people suffering from chronic diseases and the poor will be most affected. “The health effects from these events should be a concern to the medical community,” Wilson said today at the briefing. “We should be incorporating the health effects into the spectrum of education.” Senate Action Obama has backed climate-change legislation in Congress. The House passed a measure in June that aims to cut greenhouse- gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. The Senate isn’t going to attempt action on a climate bill until “sometime in the spring,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said this week. Obama and other leaders at an Asia-Pacific conference this week agreed that a binding global-warming accord is out of reach at next month’s climate summit in Copenhagen. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, predicted yesterday at the UN that a treaty will be completed by June. With today’s briefing preceding the Copenhagen conference, “we are hopeful that meeting will embody some of the concerns about health,” Wilson said. Original Research The Harvard center’s findings incorporate original research as well as previously published studies from other sources, Epstein said in an interview. He contributed to the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Climate change is making Indiana warmer, raising the risk of kidney stones because of low urine volume linked to heat exposure, according to a study cited by the Harvard center. By 2050 southern Indiana will fall into the high-risk zone for kidney stones and by 2100, the entire state will. The portion of the U.S. population in high-risk zones for kidney stones will grow from 40 percent in 2000 to 56 percent by 2050, and to 70 percent by 2095, researchers at the University of Texas said in a 2008 study. Costs associated with the increase would be $900 million to $1.3 billion a year, 25 percent more than current expenditures. Pine Beetles Warmer temperatures in New Mexico are contributing to the proliferation of mountain pine beetles, a pest that has killed 6.5 million acres of trees in the U.S., setting the stage for wildfires, according to the Harvard findings. Fires release air pollutants and cancer-causing chemicals, raising the risk of respiratory illness and lung disease. Climate change also increases air pollutants such as ozone and sulfur dioxide, raising the risk of asthma, especially in children, said Jerome Paulson, medical director at the Washington-based Child Health Advocacy Institute. “Kids who are involved in outdoor activities in areas with more air pollution are more likely to develop asthma,” Paulson said in an interview. Paulson and Wilson were joined at the briefing today by Nancy Hughes, director of the Silver Spring, Maryland-based Center for Occupational and Environmental Health of the American Nurses Association and Kim Knowlton, head of the climate change and health committee of the Washington-based American Public Health Association. ‘A Big Deal’ “This is a big deal getting these organizations to come out on climate change,” Epstein said. “This lays the groundwork for further action.” The Harvard center also found climate change will increase deaths from heat waves, raise the incidence of waterborne diseases and spread afflictions such as Lyme disease and malaria. Dislocation and job losses spurred by changing climate may contribute to depression and anxiety disorders, the researchers said. To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: November 20, 2009 11:39 EST |
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