TheSoulOfA-Flea
"And itsall over now baby blue"
TheSoulOfA-Flea
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TheSoulOfA-Flea
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Copyright© Charles Mingus 2008
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The observance of "time" is a soporific that creates the illusion that everything that is
happening is not happening all at once & everywhere (at the same instant) simultaneously.
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=The+observance+of+%22time%22+is+a+soporific+that+creates+the+illusion+that+
everything+that+is+happening+is+not+happening+all+at+once+everywhere+at+the+same+instant+simultaneously.&btnG=Search+Images
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The soul of a flea
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Fuel from thin air...and algae
Though details are slim, the technology Sapphire Energy unveiled this week is supposed to
create pump gasoline from salt water, carbon dioxide, sunlight and algae microorganisms.
With the help of several universities and government labs, the company hopes this
photosynthetic process will replace a significant portion of our fuel supply. Continue...
http://abrd-media.com/portal/wts/ccmc7ia-88aqjTDLsFuAbf4Efuh
The observance of "time" is a soporific that creates the illusion that every thing that is
happening is not happening all at once everywhere simultaneously at the same instant.
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William Blake, The Ghost of a Flea
http://thecultureclub.wordpress.com/2006/11/18/william-blake-the-ghost-of-a-flea/
William Blake, The Ghost of a Flea
November 18, 2006 · 1 Comment
I was fascinated (and entertained) by this discussion of a picture of William Blake’s in Chesterton’s short biography of Blake. It’s not only a highly entertaining read, and a valuable insight into the picture under discussion, but I think it reveals a lot about the artist William Blake, both as painter and poet. As it’s also a picture on a supernatural theme, and the supernatural is the overall theme of this month’s Culture Club, I’ve reproduced the commentary below.
The first thing that any ordinary person will notice about it is that it is called ‘The Ghost of a Flea’; and the ordinary person will be very justifiably amused. This is the first fact about William Blake - that he is a joke; and it is a fact by no means to be despised. Simply considered as a puzzle or parlour game, Blake is extraordinarily entertaining… It is as if we had a highly eccentric neighbour in the next garden. Long before we like him we like gossiping about him. And the mere title, ‘The Ghost of a Flea’, represents all that makes Blake a centre of literary gossip.
And now, having enjoyed the oddity of the title, let us look at the picture. Let us attempt to describe, so far as it can be done in words instead of lines, what Blake thought that the ghost of a flea would be like. The scence suggests a high and cheerless corridor, as in some silent castle of giants. Through this a figure, naked and gigantic, is walking with a high-shouldered and somewhat stealthy stride. In one hand the creature has a peculiar curved knife of a cruel shape; in the other he has a sort of stone basin. The most striking line in the composition is the hard long curve of the spine, which goes up without a single flicker to the back of the brutal head, as if the whole back view were built like a tower of stone. The face is in no sense human. It has something that is acquiline and also something that is swinish; its eyes are alive with a moony glitter that is entirely akin to madness. The thing seems to be passing a curtain and entering a room.
With this we may mark the second fact about Blake - that if his only object is to make our flesh creep, he does it well. His bogeys are good reliable bogeys. There is really something that appeals to the imagination about this notion of the ghost of a flea being a tall vampire stalking through tall corridors at night…
The third thing to note about this picture is that for Blake the ghost of a flea means the idea or principle of a flea. The principle of a flea (so far as we can see it) is bloodthirstiness, the feeding on the life of another, the fury of the parasite… This is the next point to be remarked in his makeup as a mystic; he is interested in the ideas for which such things stand. For him the tiger means an awful elegance; for him the tree means a silent strength.
If it be granted that Blake was interested, not in the flea, but in the idea of the flea, we can proceed to the next step, which is a particularly important one. Every great mystic goes about with a magnifying glass. He sees every flea as a giant - perhaps rather as an ogre. I have spoken of the tall castle in which these giants dwell; but indeed, that tall tower is a microscope. It will not be denied that Blake shows the best part of a mystic’s attitude in seeing that the soul of a flea is ten thousand times larger than a flea. But the really interesting point is much more striking. It is the essential point upon which all primary understanding of the art of Blake really turns. The point is this: that the ghost of a flea is actually more solid than a flea. The flea himself is hazy and fantastic compared to the hard and massive actuality of his ghost. When we have understood this, we have understood the second of the great ideas in Blake - the idea of ideas.
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William Blake, The Ghost of a Flea
http://images.google.com/imagesum=1&hl=en&q=++William+Blake"%2C+The+Ghost+of+a+Flea&btnG=Search+Images
Trail Into The Soul
http://allsoulsnight.deviantart.com/
http://thecultureclub.wordpress.com/2006/11/18/william-blake-the-ghost-of-a-flea/
The ghost of a flea
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/02/16/eyes_part_two_fleas_fish_and_the_careful_art_of_deconstruction.php 
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/02/16/eyes_part_two_fleas_fish_and_the_careful_art_of_deconstruction.php
Case in point: fleas.
Scientists know very little about the vision of fleas. As insects, fleas have inherited the standard insect eye, which consists of slender
columns tightly packed together. But this standard insect eye has undergone drastic changes in fleas. Some fleas have what look like
simple eyespots. Others seem to lack any eye at all. To learn about this transformation, a team of biologists from Brigham Young
University have compared fleas to their relatives, which still have eyes.
This wouldn't have been possible even a few years ago, because scientists have only recently worked out the
"flea tree." Fleas evolved
from a group of insects with particularLY sharp vision. Their cousins include scorpionflies, which rely on their image-forming eyes to
help them scavenge dead insects. Their closest relatives are "snow fleas" (Boreidae). These wingless insects live in mountains, where
they feed on moss. They have small eyes, but can see well enough to jump away if you try to catch them. So it appears that fleas are
the product of a long-term evolution towards simpler eyes.
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
The scientists used this tree to track the evolution of some of the molecules that are essential for vision. Known as opsins, they respond
to light by triggering a chemical reaction that sends a signal from the eye to the brain. Opsins can be sensitive to different colors, depending
on their shape, which depends in turn on the DNA sequence in their genes. The scientists isolated the gene for green opsins from 11
species of scorpionflies, snow fleas, and true fleas.
The scientists then compared the DNA sequences for signs of change. A mutation to an opsin gene may have no effect on the opsin
molecule itself, or it may alter its structure dramatically. The difference depends on where in the DNA sequence that mutation strikes.
The scientists found that most changes that occurred during the evolution of fleas had no effect on the actual opsins. They confirmed
this by using the DNA sequence of the opsin genes to create computer models of the opsin molecules themselves. Even in fleas, the
green opsin molecule has basically the same structure as in scorpionflies--despite their radically different eyes.
Just because a gene hasn't changed for millions of years doesn't mean that it hasn't been experiencing natural selection. The scientists
found evidence that the opsin gene has been experience a special kind of natural selection in fleas and their relatives, known as purifying
selection. Purifying selection occurs if even the slightest change to the structure of a molecule puts a serious dent in the reproductive
success of an animal. The fact that fleas have experience purifying selection on their opsin gene means that it remains essential to their
survival. (The details of their work appear in a paper in press at the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.)
So what on Earth are the fleas doing with their opsins? The scientists doubt that the fleas are using them in their eyes. They point out
that flea eyes are covered over in a tough layer of chitin, and they lack the lenses and other structures that would let them see. But in
many animals, ranging from pigeons to salmon to butterflies, opsins have also been found outside the eye. In some animals, they grow
inside the brain, while in others they grow on the abdomen or other parts of the body. Recent studies suggest that these opsins set the
pace for biological clocks by registering the change of light from day to night.
This brings us back around to the very origin of eyes, which I described in my first post. Long before full-fledged eyes evolved,
light-sensitive molecules may have existed in microbes, allowing them to change their movements during night and day. These molecules
may have been incorporated into early eyes, making it possible for animals to see. But this transition didn't mean that photoreceptors
could no longer serve their original function. Early insects may have used opsins both within their eyes to see and outside of their eyes
as biological clocks. Later, some lineages of insects lost their eyes. Some may have lost them in dark caves. Fleas, on the other hand,
lost their eyes as they became parasites. Instead of navigating through a complex landscape in search of a particular prey, they just
hopped from one host to the next. But they still relied on opsins to run their biological clocks. The authors point out that scientists have
also found opsins in other animals that have lost their eyes. The animals? None other than Astyanax.
What's particularly remarkable about the new study is how strongly the flea opsin resisted any evolutionary change--even after it was
no longer being used in the flea eye. The molecule need the same functional structure for both jobs. As I mentioned at the beginning
of my previous post, Charles Darwin recognized that the complexity of the eye might appear to pose a major challenge to his theory.
To some people, it still does; they argue that the components of the eye cannot function on their own, and so they could never have
existed on their own. By this reasoning, it would be impossible for one of these components--an opsin, for example--to do anything
useful if it wasn't inside an eye.The flea apparently sees things differently.Comments (9) + TrackBacks (0) Category: Evolution
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
MyRealKarma.com - Online Karma Test Click Here! DaisyDeadhead, Your Karmic
Alignment is: Optimistic! http://myrealkarma.com/index.php?aff=fbzangy
Score: 6 In general, you tend to create positive actions. You have a caring personality
which gives you positive Karma. Every now and then you slip up and harvest negative
Karma. But, all in all, you follow lines similar to the Monks on their way to enlightenment.
---------------- Listening to: R.E.M. - These Days via FoxyTunes
Posted by Daisy at 11:15 PM
Labels: Blogdonia, Buddhism, Dead Air Church, Hinduism, karma, quizzes
Yeah, if you wanted to understand the basic point of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, you could acquire a copy and read it,
like poor Spencer Ackerman is doing. Or you could look at the Venn diagram below.
As you can see from this diagram, which is a very serious,thoughtful diagram that has never been made in such detail
or with such care, liberalism is a form of fascism, but conservatism isn't.I hope that clears everything up.
Posted by Johnny Pez
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http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=2007
About The American Prospect Our Mission http://www.prospect.org/cs/about_tap/our_mission
======================================================================
http://images.google.com/images?q=+Jonah+Goldberg%27s++Liberal+Fascism&btnG=Search+Images&um=1&hl=en&sa=2
  
Paris Auto Preußisch Blau JonbenetRamsey-Age-Progression
5. Oktober 2006, 03:38
Gespeichert unter: Nachgedacht Sind sie nicht süß? Blond und blauäugig wirken die 13jährigen Zwillinge Lamb und Lynx Geade etwas wie ein Verschnitt der erfolgreichen Olsen- Twins. Musikalisch mehr oder weniger begabt, streben sie in Amerika als “Prussian Blue“ zum Popolymp auf und versuchen jetzt, ihre schon vierte
Platte “For The Fatherland“ mit eingängigen Sounds auch in Europa auf den Markt zu bringen.Bestimmt hat der ein oder andere schon früher von
den Zwei gehört, mir sind sie heute zum ersten Mal im Netz über den Weg gelaufen. Warum ich darüber berichte? Unter anderem wegen dem Rest des Bildes mit den “Happy-Hitler“-Shirts: … ja, wären da nicht die Inhalte, die mit den Liedern vermittelt werden sollen.
“Aryan man awake,How much more will you take,Turn that fear to hate,Aryan man awake.”http://alanna.wordpress.com/2006/10/05/preusisch-blau/
 
Quellen: offizielle Homepage von Prussian Blue, Internetseiten von verschiedenen Zeitungen
(unter anderen FAZ, Stern, SZ und DNN), Wikipedia und diverse Blogs Kommentar von Sir Alanna 6. Oktober 2006 @ 16:09 There are three artists named Prussian Blue: 1) Prussian Blue is a UK blues-rock band who released their first album in 1994 and are still going strong 2) Prussian Blue is two twin sisters, Lynx Gaede and Lamb Gaede, born in 1992 who sing about their White Nationalist beliefs. 3) Prussian Blue is a Korean soft rock band that debuted on Indie Power 2002. They released their first full album in December 2006.
Pageant Drama Continues
  
Miss France 2008, Valerie Begue, has been allowed to keep her crown despite racy photos of her appearing in Entrevue, a French magazine (reported HERE Christmas Day). The photos (above) feature Valerie wearing a bikini in a crucifixion pose while floating in a swimming pool; another has her seductively lapping up evaporated milk from a trough. the story is HERE.
Was Tyra Banks involved in this photo shoot?
http://www.aberdeenbookstore.com/whatsnew.htm
NAZI GERMANY & FASCIST ITALY PROPAGANDA POSTCARDS
James A. Lees, C,O, http://www.aberdeenbookstore.com/whatsnew.htm
More than 400 color images, 10-page glossary, 12-page bibliography and price guide for each card. This first volume of a
planned 3-volume set (Volumes II & III available in 2008) is the only modern English-language guide to fascist cards of
Italy. A detailed description of all cards is provided, including the historical scenario from a contemporary point of view.
Also includes propaganda art history, history of Propaganda Postcards (1845-1899) and Propaganda Postcards of World War I.
275 pp.$80.00
 50. HITLER'S TABLE TALK, Adolf Hitler, C,
this is a terrific study, perhaps one of the best looks into Hitler himself. During the war years, Hitler on many occasions held talks late into the evening with friends, staff or others. The topics discussed varied widely, from the situation in Europe, animal rights, the US, and many other philosophical topics or light
hearted topics. All of these discussions were recorded at the time. This was Hilter ate at night, probably more relaxed and more open and honest than at any
other time. At the end of the war these recordings were found and published in the early 50's, but quickly sold out, and second hand copies have been
pretty scarce and hard to find. But now a new quality hardcover edition has been published . This book is one fascinating read, you can almost picture yourself there and witnessing a Hitler very different from his public imageor in official duty. I can assure readers that this isn't a fake or some type
of post war fabrication, all of the book is genuine and one of the best source book on Hitler published, 800 pp.$32.00
  76. HITLER'S BERGHOF,1928-1945 C,O,
This title and #77 below are absolutely fantastic! This stunning title from Germany with English language caption insert, includes 134 and b/w photos, color photos that take you out of your easy chair and into Hitler's luxurious mountain retreat in the Alps. These photographs are crystal clear, large format, and appear as if they were taken yesterday! They illustrate in fantastic detail the exterior and interior of this opulent multi-purpose facility. Himmler, Bormann, Goebbels, Goring, Donitz, they are all here and in full color. 160 pp. $45.00*
77. FUHRERHAUPTQUARTIER WOLFSCHANZE, 1940- 1945 (FUEHRER HEADQUARTER WOLF'S LAIR 1941-1945) C,O,
A companion volume to the book above, "Wolfschanze" was Adolf Hitler's Military Headquarters in East Prussia where he orchestrated his military campaigns. It was here that an attempt was made on Hitler's life in July 1944. Hundreds of astounding color photographs bring this important historical location back to life with every turn of the page! The photos in this book and the one above were taken by one of Hitler's photographers, all in full color. Up to now the only person with access to them has been David Irving, otherwise you won't find these anywhere else, and simply put this is an amazing collection of photos of the Wolf's Lair, and the leading personalities, from full color portraits of Leon Degrelle, to Peiper. 160 pp.$45.00*
78. NAZI MILLIONAIRES:
THE COLD WAR WINNERS
Kenneth Alford, C,
Author digs into the dirty little secrets of post-war Europe and American to uncover evidence of collusion at worst and the turning of a blind eye at best, which enabled many leading Nazi's to escape apprehension and to hold onto their ill-gotten gains. Alford also shows how the Reich Main Security Office squirreled away vast fortunes. Towards the end of the war, blackmail, unrestrained looting, theft and the bartering of human lives became sources of great profit for these men. These RSHA managers, all of whom are named in this book, preyed on the misfortunes of others. Alford also shows how they walked away free men after the war.
224 p.
$30.00
Hitler Bush
 +  + = 
The individual who clings tenaciously to unverified beliefs confuses his beliefs with fact, and often inflicts this confusion on others in his struggle to resolve it in his favor. When many people are persuaded to subscribe to the same pretense, of course, it can gain the aura of objectivity; as British psychoanalyst Ron Britton has observed, "we can substitute concurrence for reality testing, and so shared phantasy can gain the same or even greater status than knowledge." The belief doesn't become a fact, but the fact of shared belief lends it the valuable appearance of credibility. The belief is codified, takes hold, and rises above the level where it might be questioned.
Bush on the Couch, Justin A. Frank, M.D., page 61.
FINE ART
VERSES
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-propaganda.html
Propaganda and Debating Techniques
by A. Orange
"I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian-Social movement, especially in Lüger's time, achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its successes."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 6, "War Propaganda"
"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise"
-- Adolf Hitler
"Propaganda," Goebbels once wrote, "has absolutely nothing to do with truth."
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
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http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-propaganda.html
Anti Nazis
http://www.last.fm/group/Anti+Nazis
anti-nazi
Alerta Antifascista
Destroy Racism!
ASuburbanPrincess
http://asuburbanprincess.blogspot.com/
http://images.google.com/images?q=+Jonah+Goldberg%27s++Liberal+Fascism&btnG=Search+Images&um=1&hl=en&sa=2
REPUBLICANS AND RACE
....Bob Herbert looks at the recent antics of the Republican Party and decides it's time for a history lesson:
The G.O.P. has spent the last 40 years insulting, disenfranchising and otherwise stomping on the interests of black Americans....This is the party of the Southern strategy — the party that ran, like panting dogs, after the votes of segregationist whites who were repelled by the very idea of giving equal treatment to blacks.
....In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger,' " said Atwater. "By 1968, you can't say 'nigger' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."
Lovely man, Lee Atwater.
In related news, today is the 50th anniversary of school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas, an event memorialized for all time in the photo on the right, taken by Arkansas Democrat photographer Will Counts. Vanity Fair has a terrific piece up on their website framed around that photograph and the two high school students it captured: Elizabeth Eckford, one
of the original Little Rock Nine, and Hazel Bryan, the white student screaming at her in the background. It's worth a read.
—Kevin Drum 2:16 AM Permalink Trackbacks Comments (151)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/monthly/2007_09.php
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The Oread Daily provides progressive news and analysis from around the US and the world. The Oread Daily has since summer 2007 posted a series of articles meant to be of interest to everyday Americans and not just a bunch of lefties. The series is henceforth to be known as "The Lawson Files" in memory of an old hard working neighbor from years back when I lived in Lawrence, Kansas. The OD has been available as a Yahoo Group since 2001 at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily/
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
CONFRONT NAZI MARCH IN DC ON APRIL 19TH
It will be 15 years since Waco and 13 years since Oklahoma City and the nazis are coming to DC on April 19th. Their piggish march will be targeting non-white immigration and immigrants. They believe now is the time to cash in on all the anti-immigrant crap going down in this nation of ours. As they put it on their web site:
"In 2008 the Immigration issue will be at the forefront. Anyone with eyes and ears can bear witness to the changing face of our Nation. This will be the opportunity of a lifetime for Pro-White and Pro-American activists to make themselves heard."These jackboots will be countered. Make no mistake about that. (See post below)
Truth is it makes perfect sense for them push forward with an anti-immigrant march. They've been part of that movement all along.This would be a good time for "us" to expose that connection while shutting down hate speech.
Please don't sent in comments about "free speech." Nazis want me dead. I'm not interested in their right to spew forth their filth as part of their on going campaign to kill me and all us other other "non-aryans."
The following Call to Action comes from Washington DC Indy Media.
Confront the Nazis in Washington DC – April 19, 2008 – 11:30 AM
Youtube video:
www.youtube.com/watch
Assemble at 11:30 AM on the Southwest corner of Constitution Ave NW and 14th St NW
Neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement Plans to Rally on National Mall near Washington Monument
On, April 19, 2008, at 12 PM (noon) the neo-Nazi, white-supremacist organization known as the “National Socialist Movement” is planning to march and rally “against illegal immigration” on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on the North Side of the Washington Monument. The monument is located to the South of Constitution Avenue NW, between 15th St NW and 17th St NW.
Coming on the heels of the racist immigration ordinance passed in Prince William County, Virginia (and similar laws passed elsewhere in the US), and coupled with the alarming rise in the number of known hate groups in the United States, we feel that the march of these racist bigots must be confronted vigorously, and with strength.
Despite claims that those opposed to immigration are concerned about “the rule of law”, terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement have always attempted to blame immigrants, African-Americans, Jews, non-heterosexual people, and all people of color for what they perceive to be “societal problems”. It is clear that their hatred is based on racial prejudice, and the law is merely an excuse to spread their white supremacist beliefs. We believe that it is not any coincidence that xenophobes and white supremacists share views on immigration, and immigrants.
The National Socialist Movement, according to their website, are “America's Nazi Party”, and are “…inspired by our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.” The group is currently, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States, largely due to the implosion of several other neo-Nazi groups.
They are the same organization that, in order to stir up hatred, marched in Toledo, Ohio (in 2005) in a neighborhood largely made up of people of color. They did indeed, get a reaction, as riots ensued, and the Nazis, and the police protecting them, were run out of the area for a time.
We invite all those opposed to fascism and racism to come and confront this very real, and dangerous neo-Nazi group. Gather at 11:30 AM on the Southwest corner of Constitution Ave NW and 14th St NW (the Mall side), to assemble before confronting the fascists.
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Liberal+Fascism
http://aich.org/http://aich.org/pub_bul.html#aichbulletinExcerpt from Anthony Hunter letter, the interim executive director
of the American Indian Community House NY, NY
I am reminded of a parable which read:
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life.
"A fight is going on inside me", he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it between two wolves".
"One is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity,
guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self
doubt and ego."
The other is joy, peace, love hope, serenity, humility, kindness,
benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."
"The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other
person too."The grandson thought about it for a minute and then
asked his grandfather.
"Which wolf will win?"
The old chief simply replied,
"The one you feed."
http://aich.org/pub_bul.html#aichbulletin
1.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=2007
Brown University announced that it will give a $10 million endowment to local public schools to atone for its involvement in the
slave trade. But, Dana writes, reparations alone will not address the ongoing segregation of the American education system.
Like so many painful issues of race and class, the argument over slavery reparations hovers just beneath the surface of our everyday political consciousness, always ready to burst forth. Support for reparations wasn't always seen as radical. Back in the 19th century, reparations were understood as reasonable public policy. After all, how could former slaves, who had been denied basic rights and education, integrate into the free economy and society without some help? Large-scale reparations were never granted, but the idea has never really disappeared from American culture.
Today the issue has become a sort of litmus test for black politicians, a way of determining if they are too radical for the white electorate. Last July during the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate, Barack Obama was asked if African Americans would ever receive slavery reparations. Clearly prepared to answer this exact question, Obama responded, "I think the reparations we need right here in South Carolina is investment, for example, in our schools." The crowd applauded.
Given that Obama needed to appeal to the nearly two-thirds of African Americans who support reparations, as well as the 96 percent of white Americans who oppose them, it was a skillful pivot. But Obama isn't the only one to conceive of support for struggling public schools as a form of slavery reparations.
Read the rest (and comment) here.
--The Editors
The soul of a flea
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Posted by Grant McCracken at 10:43 PM Permalink Comments (5) TrackBack (0)
May 06, 2008
Intersection of Anthropology and Economics
http://www.cultureby.com/
May 14, 2008
What happens to the old economy in the new media? (aka the eclipse of interest)
If there is a concept crucial to our understanding of what and who we are, it is "interest." This is the sinew in the movable hand. It is emergence's secret motive. Interest replaces elite control and expert wisdom. In our world, we turn our affairs over to interest, and usually we live with the outcome. (No monarchs or mullahs for us.)
In our world, unlike traditional and hierarchical ones, culture comes from interest, not the other way round. The miracle of social cooperation comes not from shared values or mutual regard. It comes from interest. As Adam Smith put it,
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages (Wealth of Nations [1776] 1976:26–7, as quoted in Swedberg, reference below)
For anthropologists, interest is miraculous. It makes things we didn't think possible, possible. Once a social world gives itself over to interest, one person no longer needs to to like or understand a neighbor. As long as a relative small set of social conventions is satisfied, one person doesn't have to know or care about the interior life of another.
Indeed, we no longer need even to have what the students of autism call a "theory of mind." As long as those conventions are satisfied, I don't need to have any insight into you, nor you into me. We will meet in the marketplace but in this case we are merely mirrors to one another. I am selling something you think you need. You are selling something I think I need.
And now a hundred poppies grow. Now that we are protected from scrutiny, presumption and control of our neighbors, we may engage in any and every act of social invention. We are free to become preps or punks, geeks or goths. We are free to invent Burning Man, Country and Western music, the Antique Roadshow, or Steampunk. In the bracing air of our mutual indifference, we are free to find our own way. Culture is free to wander where it will. And now the anthropologist really has his work cut out for him or her.
Do we understand interest? Or is it a matter of, "what's to understand?" We may simply assume actors are able and willing to identify their interest, and let it go at that. But everywhere we look, we see the economics paradigm under challenge. People are saying that the new media ushers in a new market, and this is shot through with notions of community, moral value, shared objective, and a good deal of sharing and caring. More and more, capitalism would have us reverse the terms of Smith's dichotomy and address not "self-love" but our mutual humanity. (And indeed yesterday in the New York Times, David Brooks seemed to be saying that this was the inclination of Britain's new conservative party.)
This is all very interesting for the anthropologist. And a little exhausting. It turns out our social world is a little like the weather in Ireland. If you don't like it, that's ok. Give it a couple of minutes and it will change. But this difference, this eclipse of interest, I mean, would make for lots and lots of differences. If interest is to be displaced, we will be a more humane place, but we may be a dramatically less inventive one. And let's face it, if there is a truth more certain that the need to transcend the interest model of the economy, it's that by the looks of things, we are going to need all the inventiveness we can muster.
Sturdy little interest. The little engine that could. It helped build great sprawling social worlds. Western societies in their present form are unimaginable without its constant inventive, relentless press. What happens when it is eclipsed by new economic models?
References
Brooks, David. 2008. Editorial. New York Times. May 13, 2008. [Sorry, no link. My WiFi connection is down.]
Swedberg, Richard. 2003. Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7525.pdf
Posted by Grant McCracken at 10:19 AM Permalink Comments (2) TrackBack (0)
May 13, 2008
4.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=2007
COULD HILLARY HURT DEMS DOWN THE TICKET?
 That's what the New York Times suggests this morning in a piece the Clinton campaign is already rebutting:
"The story quotes not a single Democrat – not even on background. Republicans are the only people quoted!"
That's not exactly true -- the Times does quote Rep. Nancy Boyda, the first term Kansas Democrat who
Republicans say is ripe for picking off if the Democratic presidential nominee is unpopular among conservatives.
Boyda narrowly won her seat by four points last year in a district that supported President Bush by 60 percent in 2004. But
Boyda doesn't criticize Clinton, she simply says the presidential race is "something I have no control over, quite honestly. They
will demonize any Democrat who becomes the nominee. I just put my head down and work.”
Nevertheless, there's no doubt that tying congressional Democrats to Hillary Clinton is already a favored GOP tactic. Yesterday
the National Republican Senatorial Committee released this ad calling Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Clinton "two peas in
a pod" when it comes to immigration "flip flops." It works especially well since both politicians are blond ladies. The ad morphs
Clinton's face into Landrieu's.
Our own Tom Schaller took to the pages of The New Republic last week to rebut the claim that Hillary would act as a congressional
spoiler. Schaller does quote some Democrats concerned about this possibility; of course, some of them are affiliated with rival campaigns.
But he concludes that no presidential candidate has that much of an affect on down ticket races, and that Clinton might be able to turn her
support among women into an asset that could help Democrats nationwide. I wonder if that's the NRSC is really trying to rebut that appeal
in the above ad, with the two women's faces seen as one. It's sort of a dog whistle to male voter: Hey, if you hate that liberal feminist
castrating pantsuit wearing Hillary, you better hate your lady Senator, too! She's just as bad! Really!
--Dana Goldstein
Posted at 10:03 AM Comments (0) http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=20075.
http://www.filmsite.org/sci-fifilms2.html
http://www.ctraces.com/Circuit_
Traces/CT1_3/flesh.html
"Future nightmares and future majesty waver like steel mirages on the frontier of our civilization"
Edward St. Boniface
lurks somewhere in England, seeking refuge from the post-industrial gothic apocalypse.
His mind may or may not be as unstable as his e-mail address, but if you wish to help
him overcome his paramechanoid delusions, you may send your condolences care of this
publication.”
Circuit Traces would love to hear what you think about this or any other story.
Please send your comments to the editor .
mailto:editor@ctraces.com
"Future nightmares and future majesty waver like steel mirages on the frontier of our civilization"
R@wman Says!
Don't be stupid... We will make it possible enabling the dire predictions you made
which are absurd and an fantastic prejudice "we" create the worst specters as ghosts of
our actual deeds I.E.: "slavery" and then endow "machines with "Life". (to be ? Slaves!!)
Then you run & quiver in the "dark' of our own making when we see the possibility coming
true that the intelligent machines might be greedy evil murderers like us ..
We are the monsters we only pretend to be other than monsters we reflect as pseudo god
phantasms, devils, automatons & piss elegant mawkish fantasies of our "potential" victim
hood dreaming of out doing women by birthing or fabricating artificial intelligence toys
then project our self same past of divide and conquer and mass murder on them.
What sappy stupidity so-called Science is today no more than an extension of the cash
register with lip scervice to humanity tossed on as if a sprinkle of some politically
correct buzzwords will increase the validity of our senseless greedy waistfull pathetic plunder
of all that is truly holy & truly real, for what?.
There is no intelligence but the many kinds of intelligence and there is no life but life
we are the quintessential of artificial Saipan-Saipan denying humanity snuffing it out where
ever it wont or can't create a profit calling it names "Useless Feeders" Mud peoples such
names display for all to see the bestial & ruthless indifference with which you should be
dealt with.
=========================================
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"All the undertones and sounds of metal -- shrieking, ringing, rapping, hissing and
blistering -- take on shape and substance, erupting from the skin and scales of these
frightful zombies. All the glamor, the pumping power of bronze and brass and platinum
melts into semi-living tissues and hideous cybernetic cretins - pallid demons and super
human hulks leering against landscapes of biomechanical madness. As I look ahead into
the centuries, my tortured mind envisions a disrupted world of howling grandeur and pale
genetic ghouls." Edward St. Boniface
============================================
r@wmam
You reap what you sow, garbage garbage out, slavery in slavery out, hatred & fear in
hatred & fear out, while watching sci-fi Red-scary films of the 50's like "War of the Worlds think on this..
Fuck sci-fi & Future Shock it's the Pesticides Petrochemical food additives & over abundance
of lethal toxins PCB and lead & mercury and all killing that crap mixed up together that is killing
Pen head Anti Union Anti Black Southerners & Middle America specifically and causing lowest
birthrates & higher mortality from cancer in themselvs!
It's cause is as old as man him self. (You did it to yours selves Bubba Bedsheet.)
http://web.archive.org/web/19981202001721/
http://www.future.net/~thetruth/okc.html
=======================================================
The new & Futurenigger ...
===================================
"New orders of being, conciousness, and semihuman species wait to erupt hungrily, painfully into existence.
The transposition and redesigning of the fundamental molecules of life systems can have only one end.
Nature is jealous of her secrets and harsh in her lessons. Such abilities and processes cannot be controlled.
The effects wil be volcanic and colossal. Evolution, like an intangible guide in the forest, will minister to the
chaotic clamor, brutally selecting her champions. The fusion of man and machine at the atomic level will
spawn incredible mutations and devastators, creatures urgently alive with the world-shattering
force of competitive ferocity that watchful Evolution has implanted to carry forth its cruelly enlightened program.
These new predators and the mechanical wilderness they prowl will be grim and macabre, but they will
be illustrating anew, and with uniquely profound effects, the hard laws that have governed this planet since
the dawn of time." Edward St. Boniface
===================================
While they complain about the "Foreigners" and theChink Spick & Nigger taking there jobs & reverse
discrimination, abortion (while it's their sperm counts mysteriously "drop like drawers on prom night)
they ignore the real enemy the same one who used their for-barer's as canon fodder in every war and
allowed them to kill for a little bit of home stead Indian land which was snatched by the so-called Robber
Barons backed up by bankers Swiss & German & English & now Chinese while this sell out takes place
by there cronies and lackeys & con men in Washington who are the direct spawn of Prescott Bush the
personal banker of Adolph Hitler and the father of & grand father of GWB 1 & 2 who you suckle on as
they dismantle what's left of your soul with the perpetual war scam.
The water is toxic just like the water of the ancient Roman elite who died out from lead
poison and greed. PCB intentionally dumped in your water & to ad insult to injury the
fishes and water foul are toxic too! While you babble about Civilization.
You wouldn't know civilization if it bit you in the ass.
Dare to consider the fact that 8 out of 10 of your fellow humans are living in abject
poverty while you whine about being over run as you crush and lay waste and rune the whole
Planet & the Seas for a fictive distress and false victim hood about which you presume to
teach to others.
Happy Spring break asshole...R@wman
http://www.ctraces.com/Circuit_Traces/CT1_3/flesh.html
Future Shock
Flesh Metal
St. Boniface
Edward St. Boniface, mutant biomechanoid and cyber-philosopher ponders steel mills,
evolution, genetic engineering, and biochemistry, and finds he can no longer sleep at night.
In my deepest, darkest, weirdest reveries I think of the future, of evolution -- and of metal. Of its texture, its tensile strength.
The cold luster of fine metal haunts me, growing menacingly around my fears. Liquid and molten and sensual and dangerous, it trickles into my dream-images and and molds them into ghastly portraitures of pewter skies and and twilight labyrinths swarming with fiendish leper-creatures -- the reengineered, rampant changelings of tomorrow. All the undertones and sounds of metal -- shrieking, ringing, rapping, hissing and blistering -- take on shape and substance, erupting from the skin and scales of these frightful zombies. All the glamor, the pumping power of bronze and brass and platinum melts into semiliving tissues and hideous cybernetic cretins - pallid demons and superhuman hulks leering against landscapes of biomechanical madness. As I look ahead into the centuries, my tortured mind envisions a disrupted world of howling grandeur and pale genetic ghouls.
What horrors will the fossils of the centuries to come reveal to the archaeologists of the distant future, to the descendents of the terrifying archetypes and morphologies now waiting to emerge from the frightening achievements in human modification that loom over our fragile world? What somber thoughts and dreams will torment them as they gaze into the abyss of distortion and technological fury in which those awe-inspiring remains were born? Will they know that ravening monsters of organic steel and living alloy and foaming liquid metal still lurk like an iron-tinted specter within the twisted patterns of their own infected genes?
New orders of being, conciousness, and semihuman species wait to erupt hungrily, painfully into existence. The transposition and redesigning of the fundamental molecules of life systems can have only one end. Nature is jealous of her secrets and harsh in her lessons. Such abilities and processes cannot be controlled. The effects wil be volcanic and colossal. Evolution, like an intangible guide in the forest, will minister to the chaotic clamor, brutally selecting her champions. The fusion of man and machine at the atomic level will spawn incredible mutations and devastators, creatures urgently alive with the world-shattering force of competitive ferocity that watchful Evolution has implanted to carry forth its cruelly enlightened program. These new predators and the mechanical wilderness they prowl will be grim and macabre, but they will be illustrating anew, and with uniquely profound effects, the hard laws that have governed this planet since the dawn of time.
How will it be to have skin, muscles, reflexes and senses that have been amplified by synthetic biochemistry to unprecedented levels of strength and sensitivity? To have a body full of silicates, composites, organometric complexes and circuits, and unnatural plasticity? A mind and nervous system overloaded with receptors across the entire range of light and radiation? We will be awash in microsounds, babbling electronic transmissions, plagues of static-disturbance and the delicate universe of fragrance that drifts through the atmosphere. Our biometallic brains will respond to these and to the remorseless commands from a ruling intelligence and entities that will be stronger than we can imagine. Our heritage, psychological orientation, and instinctive perception of destiny have become alarmingly elastic, and so our nightmares more vivid. Our arrogant religions and rational philosophies cannot gainsay a sophisticated DNA paleontology which has clearly drawn the biological arrows which relate us to the other animals. We have lately indulged in technologically-assisted warfare to a psychotic extent. The malignant aftershocks of the Slaughters have twisted our world out of any recognizable human shape -- all in a mere hundred years.
We have adopted such a hysterical pace of invention and change that our civilization grows sick and dizzy. A schizoid glow plays luridly over the gotham of mindless activity,searing the souls of the weak who are no longer capable of enduring the intolerable demands placed on them.
This is the black, secret pit of psychic crucifixion where lunacy grows. From here come the mad catalogs of gun catastrophies, wan apocalyptic art, and my own diabolically grinning fantasies. Everywhere there seethes and smoulders an anguish at what we have lost, and the voracious might of what we have created. So crassly violated is the human soul by the callousness of modern events, so harshly contracted by paranoid fears, that hoards of cackling phobias play their splintered symphonies on our lives and culture still. Our common fears heat a vast furnace that uneasily smelts the mind-maddening and sanity-corroding poisons that flow through our world, writing random horror-signatures as they sear us; coiling threads that weave the malevolent metallic synchromesh which I dread and cannot escape.
An emblem has affixed itself to us and our future paths, re-directing them. We are like an embryo, a chrysalis awaiting some obscure narcotic pheronome or catalyst to ignite a fantastic metamorphosis in which we shall be transfigured and finally comprehend the meaning of what we are. But to get there, we must first plunge to grotesque depths and survive the long, savage night before which the million-year terror of our simian forebears will be as nothing.
And we cannot turn back; we can only accelerate. The mind and body of the human race are no longer fixed, solid things. They have become quicksilver; a churning cauldron of fleshmetal oozing and squirming and lusting in its hyperactive orgies, alive with instincts and perverted programming that will fetalize all the gargoyles and juggernauts that ever leered out of a cathedral crypt or flickered in the gory polychromes of a cinematic extravaganza. However lewd or startling the children of these gross eugenic acts, it will be ourselves who look back at us from those calculating eyes and colorless faces, gloating in polarized silicon and chrome.
Future nightmares and future majesty waver like steel mirages on the frontier of our civilization. Appalled and fascinated by the paintings, the photography and the literature from which we distill our apprehensions to silhouette the way ahead, we confront the hive, or colony organism, the destiny we so fear and desire in our ancient loneliness. From the gunmetal oceans of engineered evolution will at last emerge calm, transfigured beings fit to dwell in the celestial firmaments above. And they will be shining avatars that drown all this darkness with their godlike roars.
St.Boniface
lurks somewhere in England, seeking refuge from the post-industrial gothic apocalypse.
His mind may or may not be as unstable as his e-mail address, but if you wish to help
him overcome his paramechanoid delusions, you may send your condolences care of this publication.
Circuit Traces would love to hear what you think about this or any other story.
Please send your comments to the editor .
mailto:editor@ctraces.com
Copyright Circuit Traces Communications 1995
Edward St. Boniface, mutant biomechanoid and cyber-philosopher ponders steel mills, evolution, genetic engineering, and biochemistry, and finds he can no longer sleep at night.
In my deepest, darkest, weirdest reveries I think of the future, of evolution -- and of metal. Of its texture, its tensile strength.
The cold luster of fine metal haunts me, growing menacingly around my fears. Liquid and molten and sensual and dangerous, it trickles into my dream-images and and molds them into ghastly portraitures of pewter skies and and twilight labyrinths swarming with fiendish leper-creatures -- the reengineered, rampant changelings of tomorrow. All the undertones and sounds of metal -- shrieking, ringing, rapping, hissing and blistering -- take on shape and substance, erupting from the skin and scales of these frightful zombies. All the glamor, the pumping power of bronze and brass and platinum melts into semiliving tissues and hideous cybernetic cretins - pallid demons and superhuman hulks leering against landscapes of biomechanical madness. As I look ahead into the centuries, my tortured mind envisions a disrupted world of howling grandeur and pale genetic ghouls.
What horrors will the fossils of the centuries to come reveal to the archaeologists of the distant future, to the descendents of the terrifying archetypes and morphologies now waiting to emerge from the frightening achievements in human modification that loom over our fragile world? What somber thoughts and dreams will torment them as they gaze into the abyss of distortion and technological fury in which those awe-inspiring remains were born? Will they know that ravening monsters of organic steel and living alloy and foaming liquid metal still lurk like an iron-tinted specter within the twisted patterns of their own infected genes?
New orders of being, conciousness, and semihuman species wait to erupt hungrily, painfully into existence. The transposition and redesigning of the fundamental molecules of life systems can have only one end. Nature is jealous of her secrets and harsh in her lessons. Such abilities and processes cannot be controlled. The effects wil be volcanic and colossal. Evolution, like an intangible guide in the forest, will minister to the chaotic clamor, brutally selecting her champions. The fusion of man and machine at the atomic level will spawn incredible mutations and devastators, creatures urgently alive with the world-shattering force of competitive ferocity that watchful Evolution has implanted to carry forth its cruelly enlightened program. These new predators and the mechanical wilderness they prowl will be grim and macabre, but they will be illustrating anew, and with uniquely profound effects, the hard laws that have governed this planet since the dawn of time.
How will it be to have skin, muscles, reflexes and senses that have been amplified by synthetic biochemistry to unprecedented levels of strength and sensitivity? To have a body full of silicates, composites, organometric complexes and circuits, and unnatural plasticity? A mind and nervous system overloaded with receptors across the entire range of light and radiation? We will be awash in microsounds, babbling electronic transmissions, plagues of static-disturbance and the delicate universe of fragrance that drifts through the atmosphere. Our biometallic brains will respond to these and to the remorseless commands from a ruling intelligence and entities that will be stronger than we can imagine. Our heritage, psychological orientation, and instinctive perception of destiny have become alarmingly elastic, and so our nightmares more vivid. Our arrogant religions and rational philosophies cannot gainsay a sophisticated DNA paleontology which has clearly drawn the biological arrows which relate us to the other animals. We have lately indulged in technologically-assisted warfare to a psychotic extent. The malignant aftershocks of the Slaughters have twisted our world out of any recognizable human shape -- all in a mere hundred years.
We have adopted such a hysterical pace of invention and change that our civilization grows sick and dizzy. A schizoid glow plays luridly over the gotham of mindless activity,searing the souls of the weak who are no longer capable of enduring the intolerable demands placed on them.
This is the black, secret pit of psychic crucifixion where lunacy grows. From here come the mad catalogs of gun catastrophies, wan apocalyptic art, and my own diabolically grinning fantasies. Everywhere there seethes and smoulders an anguish at what we have lost, and the voracious might of what we have created. So crassly violated is the human soul by the callousness of modern events, so harshly contracted by paranoid fears, that hoards of cackling phobias play their splintered symphonies on our lives and culture still. Our common fears heat a vast furnace that uneasily smelts the mind-maddening and sanity-corroding poisons that flow through our world, writing random horror-signatures as they sear us; coiling threads that weave the malevolent metallic synchromesh which I dread and cannot escape.
An emblem has affixed itself to us and our future paths, re-directing them. We are like an embryo, a chrysalis awaiting some obscure narcotic pheronome or catalyst to ignite a fantastic metamorphosis in which we shall be transfigured and finally comprehend the meaning of what we are. But to get there, we must first plunge to grotesque depths and survive the long, savage night before which the million-year terror of our simian forebears will be as nothing.
And we cannot turn back; we can only accelerate. The mind and body of the human race are no longer fixed, solid things. They have become quicksilver; a churning cauldron of fleshmetal oozing and squirming and lusting in its hyperactive orgies, alive with instincts and perverted programming that will fetalize all the gargoyles and juggernauts that ever leered out of a cathedral crypt or flickered in the gory polychromes of a cinematic extravaganza. However lewd or startling the children of these gross eugenic acts, it will be ourselves who look back at us from those calculating eyes and colorless faces, gloating in polarized silicon and chrome.
Future nightmares and future majesty waver like steel mirages on the frontier of our civilization. Appalled and fascinated by the paintings, the photography and the literature from which we distill our apprehensions to silhouette the way ahead, we confront the hive, or colony organism, the destiny we so fear and desire in our ancient loneliness. From the gunmetal oceans of engineered evolution will at last emerge calm, transfigured beings fit to dwell in the celestial firmaments above. And they will be shining avatars that drown all this darkness with their godlike roars.
St.Boniface
lurks somewhere in England, seeking refuge from the post-industrial gothic apocalypse.
His mind may or may not be as unstable as his e-mail address, but if you wish to help
him overcome his paramechanoid delusions, you may send your condolences care of this publication.
Circuit Traces would love to hear what you think about this or any other story.
Please send your comments to the editor .
mailto:editor@ctraces.com
Copyright Circuit Traces Communications 1995
http://images.google.com/images?q=The%20former%20German%20Minister%20of%20Technology&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
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TheSoulOfA-Flea
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