Counterculture “Pirates” Who Fought Hitler?:
This came to me from Randy Tinkerman, who is currently hanging out in Germany:

Campaigning for Cologne’s Maligned Resistance

They wore their hair long, sang songs by banned Jewish composers and fought the Nazi regime. But history has so far remembered Cologne’s Edelweiss Pirates as criminals rather than resistance fighters…until now.

On …
——-
the portrayal of the other… it carries through generations, not just at the point of initiation, not just as a matter of policy but as a matter of culture. this is one of the problems that i have with the way the media portrays the people we wage war against. these stereotypes will carry. this is obvious from the portrayal of the cologne resistance, these people may have been social problems for the regime, but it is not their actions that linger, but the portrayal of them as anti-regime pirates.

Moral Values I’d Like to Revive:

Clean Air and Water

Home Cooked Meals

Reading Out Loud

Minding Your Own Business

Humility

Spending Time Together With The Ones You Love

Growing Your Own

Taffy Pulls

Original Music

Family Doctors

Public Schooling

Rapid Transit

Poetry

Tree Climbing

Natural Breasts

Sex Without Advertising

Orgasms Without Explanations

Life Without Pharmaceuticals

Growing Old Gracefully

Modest Amounts

Giving Your Word

Lights at the End of Tunnels

What’s your list?…

——

i would add anti-oppression, liberty, democracy, equality, shared social costs, care of the self, reading, writing, critical thought, patriotism over fascism/nationalism, the pursuit of knowledge, curiosity, experimentation, social justice, and likely some others that i can’t think of without coffee, which i’m going to get now.

oh and here is another…..

TOLERANCE

World Bank: Studies in E-Governemnt:
This website provides a large number of resources selected for those interested in promoting e-government in developing nations.

http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/egovstudies.htm——

lots of interesting things here

A Report Card for President Bush’s Science Policies:
Earlier this week Democrats on the House Science Committee issued a “report card” on President Bush’s and the Republican-controlled Congress’ science policies. Not surprisingly, the Democrats give the President a “D.” A passing grade, but not by much. Here is…———

i’d fail them personally…. because they fail to let science provide independent results and ignore results that don’t agree with their ideological position. there is no way this can pass.

T-Shirt Hell
:: Wrap
:: IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS:
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=259
————
they also have more infamous papers.

Police Tasered truant girl, 12:
http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Nov_04/131104_tasers.html

Nelson said he fired ”for my safety along with [the girl's] safety.” He could not be reached for comment.

——-

to me… this is exemplary of the profound lack of critical judgment in american society.

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/p48.html

Scientific research, like other cooperative endeavors, requires trust to flourish. The distinguished philosopher Annette Baier explains that trust is confident reliance.1 Both elements, confidence and reliance, are vital.

—-

In this article, I address only ethical questions about upholding values that contribute to defining good science. But a second category of ethical questions also exists: questions about the consequences of scientific work. When a funding agency asks that grant proposals address the ethical and societal ramifications of the scientific work being proposed, the agency is raising matters of this second type.

—-

The number of graduate students per faculty research supervisor has grown dramatically in some fields, which raises serious questions about the quality of research supervision and mentoring for those students. The lack of faculty supervision is further complicated by the presence of postdocs in some fields: Sometimes postdocs are the primary recipients of faculty supervision, which leaves graduate students to depend on supervision by relatively inexperienced postdocs.

—-

If the pleasure in doing research erodes, only the scarce external rewards will remain as incentives. Competition will become ever more cutthroat as the fear of detection becomes the only check on cutting corners in pursuit of those external rewards.

———–

very interesting article…. it is from physics today… i don’t really agree with the analysis of the socio-historic situation… it seems to be pure nostalgia to me, because i think the discipline in the 50’s that you find at ford, ibm, big labs and universities and the like arose out of the disciplining of men and women in the wars, not in the trust in small communities…..

More by Mark Osborne:
http://www.gethappy.com/watchmore.html