Friday, November 25, 2005

Of Mice and Ice



Ok science fans here is another bit of 'awe' some news (as in the universe around us strikes me with awe) about singing.

Earlier this month it was about singing male mice today its about singing ice bergs.

In Hinduism Shiva creates the universe from a single note, the universal AUM. Perhaps they were onto something. Oh yeah and Hinduism is nother form of monism.

Nataraj: Shiva as Lord of the Dance

Ultimately, in Hinduism, there is only one reality, often identified as Brahman. Brahman encompasses all there is in the universe, and everything that isn't, as well. Beyond form or formlesness, it cannot be spoken of with words nor does it possess any characteristics. Because Brahman, the One without second, without form and yet not formless, is difficult to understand, Hindus sometimes just say "Neti-neti", meaning that for anything we can name, Brahman is "Not that, not this." Representations of divinity are like signposts, (to use Joseph Campbell's phrase); they point the devotee toward the mystery of Brahman; they are not it.

Scientists discover singing iceberg in Antarctica

BERLIN (Reuters) - Scientists monitoring earth movements in Antarctica believe they have found a singing iceberg.

Sound waves from the iceberg had a frequency of around 0.5 hertz, too low to be heard by humans, but by playing them at higher speed the iceberg sounded like a swarm of bees or an orchestra warming up, the scientists said.

The German Alfred Wegener institute for polar and marine research publish the results of its study, done in 2002, in Science magazine on Friday.

Between July and November 2002 researchers picked up acoustic signals of unprecedented clarity when recording seismic signals to measure earthquakes and tectonic movements on the Ekstroem ice shelf on Antarctica's South Atlantic coast.

Tracking the signal, the scientists found a 50 by 20 kilometer iceberg that had collided with an underwater peninsula and was slowly scraping around it.

"Once the iceberg stuck fast on the seabed it was like a rock in a river," said scientist Vera Schlindwein. "The water pushes through its crevasses and tunnels at high pressure and the iceberg starts singing."

"The tune even goes up and down, just like a real song."


Picking out the faint notes of Die Fleder-Mouse
Researchers hear the silent serenades that male rodents use to woo mates

Mice can sing.

Humans can't hear it, but researchers say the ultrasonic songs of male mice trying to woo females are comparable to the musical trills produced by songbirds.

That mice make noise is nothing new to those who have had them in their houses, and scientists have known for decades that male mice will make sounds when they are near females, or exposed to female pheromones. Now they say that those utterances are love songs.

Researchers add mice to list of creatures that sing in the presence of mates

This finding, to be published Nov. 1 online by the journal Public Library of Science Biology, adds mice to the roster of creatures that croon in the presence of the opposite sex, including songbirds, whales and some insects.

"In the literature, there's a hierarchy of different definitions for what qualifies as a song, but there are usually two main properties," says lead author Timothy E. Holy, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy. "One is that there should be some syllabic diversity—recognizably distinct categories of sound, instead of just one sound repeated over and over. And there should be some temporal regularity—motifs and themes that recur from time to time, like the melodic hook in a catchy tune."

The new study shows that mouse song has both qualities, although Holy notes that the ability of lab mice to craft motifs and themes isn't quite on a par with that of master songsmiths like birds.

Cosmic Conundrum

The universe is like a Zen Koan or perhaps a Taoist joke. It goes like this; what is the 'space' the universe fills as it expands?

What is the nothingness that the universe comes from, orginates in and fills? Einstein a hundred years ago fudged his figures to prove the universe was constant in its expansion.
Scientists in Toronto have found that dark matter/ energy which is the doppelganger of the universe is that constant.

Hmm dark matter, fudge, the universe is Willy Wonka's Choclate factory. Once again the monist idea of the universe, dialectics by any other name, is proven by science. That there is A and Not A means they are the same. Or as Lao Tzu would say it is all part of the great Tao the way, that is not the way. The yin and yang are one not two.

Was Einstein's 'biggest blunder' a stellar success?

New study links physicist’s cosmological constant to mysterious dark energy

Nov 22/05
by Nicolle Wahl

The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a “cosmological constant” to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research.

The enigmatic dark energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the universe behaves just like Einstein's famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), an international team of researchers in France and Canada that collaborated with large telescope observers at Oxford, Caltech and Berkeley. Their observations reveal that the dark energy behaves like Einstein’s cosmological constant to a precision of 10 per cent.

“The significance is huge,” said Professor Ray Carlberg of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at U of T. “Our observation is at odds with a number of theoretical ideas about the nature of dark energy that predict that it should change as the universe expands, and as far as we can see, it doesn’t.” The results will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Dark Matter And Dark Energy May Be Different Aspects Of A Single Unknown Force


The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

Overcoming our limitations

Book Briefs, by Drollene Brown

Most of us are limited by certain conventions of thought. Some of these limitations are as simple as the oft-used phrase: "I can't help it. It's the way I was raised."

Another such phrase said only half in jest: "It's against my religion."

Religion has the capacity to raise us to the heights, but it can also constrain us to keep us on the ground. It can help us be the best we can be, and it can cause us to take beliefs to such an extreme that we commit unspeakable crimes.

A Christian who abhors abortion and kills people who work at abortion clinics is an example of religion gone wrong.

A Muslim who believes the world should be run according to the tenets of Islam and so plants a bomb to rid his corner of the world of infidels is not merely constricted by his religion, he is twisted by it.

Wait! Don't stop reading. You have no idea what is coming next. The book review this week is not for a Muslim book; it is not for a Christian book. It is for all religions and no religion. It is a roadmap for taking one's own religion, whatever it may be, and going beyond the ordinary perceptions of what it teaches.

Expanding the Boundaries of Self: Beyond the limit of traditional thought, discovering the magic within ((c) 2005, Global, 201 pages), by Oliver H. Jobson, will show you what your limitations are. Then it will guide you to overcome them.

Such a book would expose many, for the first time, to the concepts he uses to describe-in his words-a synergy of being that fuses mankind, nature, and the entire universe into a unifying power of One, called monism.

Why this site is best viewed with Firefox

IE SUCKS

Well besides the fact that Microsoft IE screws up the page layout forcing you to scroll down and down and down to see the text....here is the real reason everyone should use the free secure Firefox....see link in the left hand column....

Microsoft investigates IE flaw 12:58PM Microsoft is investigating reports that a flaw thought to pose little threat is actually extremely dangerous and that there is already publicly available exploit code.

Researchers Publish Code for Critical IE Bug
Security experts are warning Internet users to be careful where they click owing to a nasty unpatched bug in the way Microsoft's IE browser handles the JavaScript computer language. The bug is of particular concern because security researchers in the UK have published "proof of concept" code showing how hackers could exploit the problem and possibly take over a MS Windows PC

Alberta Home of Hate Crimes

The right wing loves to wave the red flag of Law and Order whenever they find themselves challenged on social issues. The Federal Conservatives, the majority from Alberta, and their provincial counterparts, along with the right wing media pundits like Dave Rutherford, love to talk the talk about getting tough on crime. Especially violent crime.


According to a new StatsCan study the motivation behind much violent crime is sexism, racism, and homophobia. Funny that...its the right wing that opposes immigration and aboriginal rights thus feeding racism, they oppose womens rights and of course gay marriage and gay rights. The social intolerace of the right is the source of the social acceptance of violence against women, gays and people of colour.


It is no surprize that in macho born again Alberta these crimes are the highest. After all we have a Premier who attacks the poor, homeless and disabled, who opposed gay marriage, and opposes pubic daycare. His government fails to fully fund womens shelters leaving victims of domestic violence with no place to call home.

The next time some right wing whiner starts beaking off about getting tough on crime not so gently remind them that their ideology of intolerance is criminal. After all they should accept their 'responsibility' for promoting violence against the people they denounce.

Simply put all right wing blather is hate speech looking for victims. Just ask Hitler.

StatsCan Report on Crime in Canada
More often, hate was cited as the motive for violent crimes compared with other offences.
Statscan said about 8 per cent of violent crimes were linked to hate. By comparison, about 2 per cent of household offences were thought to be hate crimes. “The most common motive was the individual's race or ethnicity, which represented two-thirds of hate-motivated incidents,” Statscan said. “About one-quarter of those incidents were believed to be motivated by the victim's sex, followed by religion and sexual orientation. These results were similar to those in 1999.” By region, residents of the Western provinces generally reported higher rates of victimization, with the exception of Nova Scotia. That province's rate of 157 incidents for every 1,000 residents was among the highest for violent crime, ranking near Alberta's rate of 160 incidents for every 1,000 people. Quebec residents reported the fewest incidents of violent crime. The risk of falling victim to a violent crime was higher among people aged 15 to 24, among city dwellers and among those out after dark. The report also suggested that incidents of hate-motivated crimes remained stable, accounting for about 4 per cent of all self-reported occurrences. The agency said that, among the 1 per cent of those identifying themselves as gay or lesbian, the rate of violent victimization was 2.5 times that reported by straight people.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

When the Union is the Boss

Fired union whistleblower wins job challenge in Supreme Court
Private sector Business Unions in the building trades are notorious for being bad employers especially for their female support staff. Women workers have faced abuse and harassment in the workplace, due to the sexist attitudes of craft/trades men. You know the attitude I work and the little woman stays home. In Alberta OPEIU which represents women office workers in private sector unions filed charges against several building trades unions over this.

A woman who was fired from her job after blowing the whistle on alleged misspending by her superiors has won her case in the country's top court and now wants to go back to work. In a 6-1 judgment released Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Linda Merk, who was ousted as bookkeeper and office manager for a Saskatchewan local of the Iron Workers Union.

The Iron Workers Union like other private sector business unions like the Labourers International, Carpenters, Hotel Employee and Restaurant Employees (HERE), Teamsters, etc. have alleged connections with organized crime. And their officers often act as if they were Padrones.

In the last decade in Alberta the HERE Local was involved in a scandal over Executive board members, a Father and Son, who embezzled pension funds.
As business unions these organizations view the workers as their source of cash and capital, much like the boss does.

And with big pension and benefit funds the temptation for these business agents, International Reps and local executives (who are often appointed by the International or if elected are part of the good old boys network) to dip into the cash drawer can be a bit overwhelming.

After all they are only doing on the local level what the big wigs in Washington with their shady connections have been caught doing.

And being good ol' boys they figure that the little woman should know her place, in this case she did, she exposed the rats that stole from the rank and file. The rats in the union executive did what all rats do, they covered up their crime and canned a worker who was doing what was in the best interests of the members (remember them they are the reason the union exists).

Merk's drawn out legal battle began more than four years ago when she complained about salary and expense payments to two union officers According to the set of facts the high court used in its ruling, Merk first took her complaint to her supervisor and was rebuked.So Merk's father, a former union employee, and three other members wrote a letter to the general president in Washington to complain. After the matter was investigated internally, the local executive authorized Merk's firing. Merk said her family has a long history with the union and she wants to go back to work. "I love my job," she said. "I liked being with the members and the members liked me."

Good for her, time to clean house and as the Wobblies say "dump the bosses off your back," including the union bosses who view our unions as their personal fiefdoms and cash cows.

New Home For Red Between The Lines

Modblog the home of my blog Red Between the Lines is still offline after seven days and counting. Update (11/22/05 @ 7:11PM CT): The ModBlog file server has returned online. And though they say the server is back up, well thats nice but our blogs aren't. So rather than continuing bitching about Modblog, and its sever failures which have occured with unpleasant regularity this past year, I am moving Red Between The Lines here to Blogger. And I have given it an appropriate red background. So I will be posting my short pithy news comments on RBTL instead of here on Le Revue Gauche in a couple of days once I have changed links and notified blog associates about removing the old modblog link for the new site.

Christian Killers and Rapists

Recent reports on the sexual assualt, by students at a Catholic School in Toronto along with the recent murder at a funeral at a Seventh Day Adventist Church seemed to miss the neccasary headline monicker that would be added if these events had happened at a Jewish or Muslim or other minority religious insitution.
So here they are:
Christian Students Arrested for Sexual Assault
Christian Kills Christian at Funeral
.

Canadian Blog Awards 2005


The first round of voting is now open in the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards. Of course I have my humble blogs posted under Progressive, Business (for Red between the Lines) and my series Gothic Capitalism under Series. Vote often.

And speaking of Blog Awards here is an interesting story about the latest MSM blog award:
Fictional housewife takes top blog prize

Organizers received more than 2,500 submissions, in nine different languages, for the second-annual competition, which is run by the internet arm of Germany's Deutsche Welle news service. Co-sponsors include CBC.ca, Reporters Without Borders, France's Le Monde and China's Phoenix TV.The jury, with members from around the world, chose eight finalists in each category. Then the internet community was encouraged to vote. According to Guido Baumhauer, editor in chief of DW-World.DE, more than 100,000 ballots were cast through online voting worldwide.

Gee and how did I miss this? Must be the most underpublicized Blogs Award ever. Oh right its a mainstream blog award.

Leveling the playing field for tax cheats

Income trusts are poised to rise Thursday after Ottawa decided not to hit the sector with a new tax regime, but instead level the playing field by cutting taxes on corporate dividends.
Thats the way to deal with those nasty income trusts that were set up as a tax haven for corporations. Don't tax them nah, just give the other corporations another tax cut. The logic in that is what? Well the government failed to collect millions in taxes from income trusts, mainly because as the Auditor General pointed out, see s All the Newz that didn't Fit, Revenue Canada FAILED to collect what was owed us. Now this tax give away might have served a purpose if it had strings attached, like making sure that dividends were invested back into production. As it is now this is not happening. Instead the money is invested in the stock market by corporate managers to make more money. And thats the real reason that the Income Trusts lost money over the last six months, because so did the stock market.

King Klein's Grande Tour

So while the Alberta legislature sits, King Klein leaves the province on his Grande Tour like the aristocracy of old. No need for the Tyrant to be at home, after all what can the legislature do anyways? The opposition can ask questions, and ask some more, and they get no anwsers from the papercutouts in the government backbenches. It is a comfort that the Alberta Government can merely sit for the shortist sessions of any legislature in Canada since all the decisions are made behind closed doors by cabinet, or between legislature sittings, or on the whim of King Klein. Such as his latest announcement of the Klein Legacy Fund, a direct steal from Jean Chretien.

Alberta Centennial Scholarships giving students across Canada reason to celebrate
$2005 awards to be spread among students from all provinces and territories


Hey wasn't he supposed to get this passed in the house? Nah, he knows it will pass. Yep thats royalty for ya. And you thought the aristocractic ruling class was a thing of the past. Not in Alberta, we have the Oil Royalty and their Party of Calgary.

And not everyone is happy with King Kleins Centenniel Award. After all Alberta students pay some of the highest tuition in Canada.

Student leaders say money should be used to fix Alberta's needs