Robert Lindsay

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Permission to Quote
2008-05-12 10:45:00
We journalists are supposed to operate under something called ethics. They actually have courses on this stuff. It was with great dismay that I heard that a British paper had quoted a Clinton staffer as making some unflattering remarks about someone or other a while back. I forget the details, but it was pretty inflammatory and the woman got fired.The staffer protested that she had not given permission to publish those remarks. The wicked reporter countered that she had never said not to publish them either.Actually she had made the remarks, and then afterwards said, hey, wait a minute, don't quote me on this, that and whatnot. Quote me on all the rest. But etc etc etc is off the record. The scumbag journalist said, "Too bad, you needed to say off the record before you made the remarks, not afterwards."As a journalist, I get emails from folks in the news. I do phone interviews with folks in the news. If I had my act together a bit more, I'd be doing face to face interviews with n...
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Cow Farts Cause More Global Warming Than Humans?
2008-05-12 04:54:00
The latest rightwing crap.I was on a rightwing blog a couple of years ago and decided to ask how many believed in global warming. The vast majority did not. A few said it was happening, but it was natural. One or two said it was happening, but no one knew what was causing it, and we needed to study it more.This blog has unfortunately become infested lately with some young White male 20-something reactionary-to-libertarian trolls who are lurking in the comments section.It's quite simple to be a libertarian when you are young, dumb and full of cum. I voted Libertarian at age 22. I'd never do it again, but that's how you learn. People that age just haven't been fucked hard enough and enough times by life yet. By the time we are 40, most of us have had about a million horrible things happen to us, and narcissism is on sharp decline. That's why age and wisdom are traditionally synonymous.They're causing a lot of dissension, but echo chambers are boring. Comments rules forbid me f...
More About: Global Warming , Global , Humans , Farts

Ecosystem Collapse Mysteries
2008-05-11 11:40:00
To bend your mind around a few things, try these baffling examples of what looks like instances of total ecosystem collapse in the US:White-nose syndrome in bats. Also here.Bee colony collapse disorder.Try to figure out why these two environmental syndromes are occurring. For the life of me, I cannot. But I am thinking maybe global warming?Plus, some think that they are related.My mind is spinning. What's next, anyway? Scary stuff.
More About: Collapse , Ecosystem

Wolverines Extinct in Sequoia - Kings Canyon?
2008-05-10 12:37:00
Updated May 11:A new study using baited trap stations, done during winter, failed to find any California wolverines in either Sequoia or Kings Canyon National Parks in the southern Sierra Nevada. However, in 1980, definite wolverine tracks were seen at two locales in Kings Canyon National Park by trained wildlife biologists. However, tracks always count as "unverified". But not to me.I say that at least 28 years ago, wolverines were present in Kings Canyon National Park. Wolverine sightings in California do tend to be concentrated in Kings Canyon and Sequoia Parks. This area was long held to be the last stronghold of the wolverine in California. Many detailed sightings were made from 1900-1930 in Sequoia National Park. In one, a wolverine chased two adult bears away from a horse carcass.A map of historical wolverine sightings in Kings Canyon - Sequoia Parks. As you can see, sightings were much more common from 1920-1955 or so and have dropped off quite a bit ever since. Click to vi...
More About: Extinct

An Examination of the Frog Extinction Epidemic
2008-05-10 11:00:00
Although many factors are involved in this epidemic, one of the worst is the Chytrid fungus epidemic. It is being spread by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which causes chytridiomycosis. This fungal disease is devastating frog populations all over the world, but particularly in Australia, and North, Central and South America.The devastation in Central America has been particularly acute, with many species simply vanishing from the face of the Earth. Bd is just now spreading here in the US, with serious devastation of Sierra Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog populations in the Sierra Nevada. However, some populations are apparently surviving the epidemic with some some survivors intact and thereupon rebuilding their populations.A paper in Nature (Pounds 2006) made the case that the chytrid epidemic was being driven by global warming. They suggested that Bd had always been there but had only become pathogenic in the face of global warming.A new paper (Lips 2008) in the journal PLoS Bio...
More About: Extinction , Examination , Epidemic

The Death of Detroit
2008-05-10 06:45:00
Updated May 10:Racists and White nationalists (in practice, mostly identical) like to blame Detroit 's problems on the fact that it is full of Black folks. This is what happens when you have a Black majority city, in the US, Hell, anywhere, they say. I was wondering about it myself for a long time.How about another look at things? From a Detroit Free Press article, now a dead link, so I am going to violate copyright here, and the article is 10 years old anyway: A Historian Dissects Detroit's TroubleThomas Sugrue, native Detroiter, historian and author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis , has spent 20 years in major cities in the United States and in London. He came to the Free Press in the summer of 1998 to talk about the conditions that created present-day Detroit, and the implications for journalists. These are excerpts from his talk.Anyone who has spent time in cities like Detroit in America's former industrial heartland can't help but be struck by the eerily apocalyptic land...
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Lead and Crime Rates
2008-05-10 06:42:00
Interesting stuff.What do you know?You learn something new every day.
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Juan Cole Grovels to Zionism
2008-05-09 12:21:00
Disgusting display of sucking on Jewish Zionist toes here.I guess when they wage nonstop propaganda war on you for years complete with death threats, intimations of poor scholarship and teaching ability (a threat to get you fired),k and when they despicably kill your quest to ascend to an Ivy League professorship that would be have been well-deserved, in one of the worst attacks on academic freedom this country has seen in decades (Yes, Zionist Jews and their Zionist Gentile allies are the leading wave of whatever passes for quasi-fascism in the US these days), Hell, if you can't beat em, you may as well join em, eh, Juan ?Nice long sentence/question!I'm acquainted with Juan, and it's despicable that this guy is called an anti-Semite. He's as far from that as anyone is. He's paranoid of the whole issue. He has even offhand implied to me in private emails that I am venturing into anti-Semitism, where he dares not go, I assure you.So Juan pens a groveling post to his "Israeli rea...
More About: Cole , Zionism

Bear Spotted in Oakhurst, California in May
2008-05-09 10:36:00
My brother saw a Black bear in Oakhurst, California , on Highway 41 on Deadwood Mountain at 8 AM on Wednesday, May 7.Photo of Deadwood Mountain in the wintertime. Snow is not that common in Oakhurst, but it snows every winter. It usually melts pretty quickly. At 2000-3000 feet in this part of California, there is just not that much snow period.I really have no idea what a bear is doing in Oakhurst at that time of year. It doesn't make any sense. It's below their normal elevation range and it's the wrong time of year for them anyway.I don't live in this Sierra Nevada foothills town anymore, but I did a year ago, and I lived there for 15 years.Photo of the Oakhurst Basin, apparently taken from Deadwood Mountain. The snow-covered mountains in the background are the Sierra Nevada Range. Oakhurst is located in the foothills of the Sierras, mostly below 3,000 feet. Snow falls mostly above 3,000 feet here, and most Californians hate snow, so that's why folks tend to live below the snow...
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Pure Zionism, Unadulterated
2008-05-09 00:54:00
The Samson Blinded blog. In this (linked) case, a category called The Arab Problem, but there is way more here. I can't quite remember exactly what this fellow is advocating, but it's far to the Right. It's also often hard to argue with! He compares Israel do other states around the world and points out how Israel could act even worse than it already does and plausibly get away with it.I believe he even advocated legal discrimination against Arabs. And Arabs would be allowed to discriminate against Jews too. He advocates threatening surrounding nations, cutting off ties with them, and in some cases even attacking them. The reason all of this is so hard to argue with is that it is all precisely within the theoretical workings of Zionism ! That is, if one is to be a proper Zionist, this sort of mindset would logically follow.And it would even seem reasonable and proper. Israel does have lots of enemies, and has poor relations with Arab states. Why why not attack some of them and cu...
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Juan Cole Calls BS on Iran-Mahdi Army Connection
2008-05-09 00:10:00
Here. I've been wondering about this for some time now. Of course, 100% of the major US news media is reporting that it is indeed Iran that is tearing Iraq apart due to their support for Shia terrorists.Cole helpfully points out that in fact SCIRI is Iran's main support arm in Iraq. In fact, SCIRI's armed wing, the Badr Brigades, at one point was part of the Iranian military. Iranian money helped the SCIRI to buy its way into power in Iraq in 2005. So Iran should be pretty happy to SCIRI and Badr in power in IraqFor some time now, the Mahdi Army has been battling for control over southern Iraqi Shia cities with the Badr Brigades and SCIRI. They have been assassinating Badr fighters and SCIRI leaders in the South. These are the very same SCIRI leaders that are Iran's guys in Iraq.So why would Iran support the Mahdi Army to go around killing the very same guys that the Iranians put in power in the first place? None of this crap makes any sense at all.Sure, the Mahdi Army gets supp...
More About: Connection , Calls , Juan

Another Page on Endangered Languages of Eurasia
2008-05-08 23:48:00
Focus on Europe and Russian Asia. This one includes the Caucasus and many languages in Europe that were not dealt with on the other pages. Depressing reading, but I doubt if the situation is really quite as bad as Tapani Salinem thinks it is. Still, this page implies that for a lot of languages, things are not looking so good.The main problem is that many are not being learned by kids, or kids learn them and then quit using them at some point in favor of a larger area language later on.It's too bad that more of these languages are not used in schools. It would be quite simple to have classes in the minority tongue (possibly with majority tongue textbooks) and make the kids take the majority tongue as a subject every year. They did it for a long time in Russia - kids had classes in the local tongue but were required to take Russian as a course for all 12 years of school. Worked great.Italy and France are quite hostile to many minority languages, and even Germany is closing down Sorb...
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Additions to the Wolverine's Range in Idaho
2008-05-08 11:10:00
Updated May 9:The wolverine in Idaho is generally considered inhabit three main areas: The first in the Sawtooth National Forest (northern part), Challis National Forest, Payette National Forest and Sawtooth National Recreation Area in central Idaho.Yet another population is in the Lochsa River Drainage in the Clearwater and Bitterroot Mountains in Clearwater National Forest.A third population is to the north in the Selkirks along the Canadian border.The three populations are considered to be separated from each other, although at least the first population is thought to be healthy.Nevertheless, we continue to get reports of wolverines in other parts of Idaho. A previous post noted a wolverine on a telephone pole along the Snake River Valley in King Hill, Idaho, earlier this year.A radio-collared wolverine recently traveled from the Grand Tetons in Wyoming across the Blackfoot and Caribou Mountains in the Targhee and Caribou National Forests in Southeastern Idaho, across private lan...
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When White Nationalists Complain About Jews
2008-05-08 10:03:00
Problem is, there is almost no way to do this without sounding like this guy.German nationalism probably only dates to the 1880's, and Italian, Russian and Pan-Slavic nationalism barely to the turn of the century.Otherwise, nationalism in the modern sense really only arose in Europe with the French Revolution (though it was present first in England in the 1600's with the defeat of the Spanish Armada), but it took the other nations mostly until the end of the century to adopt nationalism. Modern European nationalism is a relatively new phenomenon.These modern nationalists pretty quickly took an interest in race, along with the usual volkisch blood and soil bullshit. And most European nationalists agreed on one thing: the Jew was no good.More recently, in the very early 20th Century, Nordicism began to evolve in Germany and in the US and the UK. I once had a copy of a proto-Nazi book by a German race scientist delineating all of the races in Europe and the surrounding area detailed ...
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Facts and Nonsense About the Brain
2008-05-07 11:00:00
Like most things, there is much nonsense spoken about our brains. Our brains are very interesting to us, even to stupid people, because we use them to think. Yes, even dumb people do use their brains to think. We don't really understand how our brains work, so some of us try to sound smart by pontificating about our mysterious brains.Here are some widespread myths about our brains:We only use [choose one: 10%, 20%] of our brains. This silly statement makes us feel good, because it suggests that if we really try hard, we can use 30 or 40% of our brains and make more money or get laid more or dazzle folks with our wit, or this or that. Problem is that no neurologist will agree with this statement, and no one quite knows even where it came from.It's one of those feel-good statements that is complete nonsense. We use all of our brains. Even total idiots are using all of their brains most of the time, strange as it may seem.There are parts of the brain that are emotional and parts of t...
More About: Facts , Nonsense , Brain , The Brain

About the Mahdi Army Crackdown
2008-05-07 06:56:00
Although I am not a conspiracy buff by any means, I was quite puzzled when, a while back, the Iraqi government announced a crackdown on the Moqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army on the basis that it was an armed gang of criminals that had taken over entire parts of cities such as Baghdad of entire cities in the Shia South.Whenever a government starts referring to entire guerrilla armies as "criminals", you know the bullshit is getting awful thick. This is a propaganda game that almost all governments engage in whenever they fight any kind of guerrilla force.It is a testament to either human stupidity or the power of human psychological defense mechanisms that such a steaming load of crap is so easily digested by entire nations of raving patriots out to defeat the evil guerrillas.At the same time, we should also note similar state propaganda lines that no guerrilla army ever has the slightest support, that any support they have is coerced at gunpoint, that all guerrillas are terrorists, that...
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7.5 Point Reduction in B-W IQ Gap in the 1900's
2008-05-07 06:26:00
None other than hereditarian Charles Murray himself, shows that Blacks reduced the Black-White IQ gap by 7.5 points (or .5 standard deviation) for the cohorts born in the 1920's (my father's generation) to the cohorts born in the 1960's (my three siblings' generation). Since then, Murray claims that the B-W gap has actually increased slightly.The test used was Woodcock, and the ages were from 6-65. The .5 standard deviation reduction occurred on IQ and the two measures of g, fluid g and crystallized g. Fluid g is roughly a measure of raw brain processing power, and peaks early, possibly in the early 20's, though it seems hard to believe if you spend a lot of time around college kids.Crystallized g is the sort of thing that 50-year old's like me excel in, and it may be called knowledge, or wisdom, or cumulative life experience. There is a reason why primitive tribes always chose an older person or persons to make all of the important decisions for them, and why they paid so muc...
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Capitalism Kills 10 Million Kids a Year
2008-05-07 04:49:00
Updated May 8:I've had it up to here with this "100 million killed by Communism", "Stalin and Mao, the biggest murderers of all time". No Communist except Pol Pot ever held a candle to what capitalist serial killers and mass murderers do year in and out without fail.As you can see, 200 million kids around the world don't have access to any kind of basic health care (I would argue that that figure is way too low), which kills 10 million of them (5%) a year due to completely preventable diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea.And if you are going to start bitching about overpopulation?Number 1, why are you are capitalist? Capitalism mandates and demands an endlessly expanding population. Capitalism says a declining or even steady population is going to be a catastrophe for the capitalist economy.Number 2, if the world is overpopulated and 10 million dead kids is great news, maybe it's time to shut up about "Commie mass murderers". Can't have it both ways.I would like to point out tha...
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Endangered Languages of Northeast Asia
2008-05-06 12:58:00
Updated May 7, 2008:Cool site. Very pessimistic, possibly overly so, but the situation is not one to be optimistic about. In contrast to the sister site about endangered languages in Europe, it seems that the languages of NE Asia are so much worse off! I am wondering why that is.The Soviets did a great job at first of trying to preserve national languages, but then after Stalin's lunatic purges in the 1930's, everything pretty much reverted back to Russification, and I guess that just continued on even after Stalin died. Under Putin, Russia is actually overtly hostile to all non-Russian tongues spoken on its territory, as fascists always are.Most of these languages have been completely taken out by Russian. Russian is nuking languages over there the same way English is nuking languages over here. It's the great destroyer. I really do not think that Ainu is in as terrible a shape as this website says it is, though. One is really stricken by how many of these languages are no longe...
More About: Languages , Endangered , Northeast

Mountain Yellow-Legged Frogs in the Sierra Nevada
2008-05-06 11:21:00
I don't write much about amphibians on here, but I am amphibian nut, in addition to being a mammal, reptile and bird nut. I would be a plant and insect nut too if I could only figure out how to identify them. I'm interested in fish, but they are a little harder to observe in the wild unless they are at the end of your hook.Anyway, I have long taken an interest in amphibians here in California and to a much lesser extent, throughout the entire West. I am particularly interested in threatened and endangered amphibians here in the state.The mountain yellow-legged frog has declined disastrously here in the state, starting with heavy fish stocking in the Sierra s by pack mules, and then declining wildly with arial stocking of high country lakes via airplane that began after World War 2. This arial stocking has since proven to be one of the stupidest things that the California Department of Fish and Game has ever done.Every year, countless fingerlings were dropped into lakes all up and d...
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Wolverines in New Mexico
2008-05-06 07:19:00
This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Re-discovered After 85 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the state of New Mexico .Wolverines may yet exist in New Mexico . Interviews with hunters in northern New Mexico conducted in 1864 indicated that the wolverine occurred in New Mexico at that time. An Acoma Indian interviewed in 1931 said that wolverines formerly occurred in all of the mountains of northern New Mexico.In 1985, there was a published report of a wolverine sighting in tundra habitat on Latir Peak in the Sangre De Cristos in New Mexico.Latir Peak in the Latir Peak Wilderness Area in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos, New Mexico. A wolverine was sighted in tundra here in 1985.There have been several other probable wolverine sightings recently in the New Mexico Sangre De Cristos.Lake Fork Peak in the spectacular Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. The red line indicates the...

Wolverine Spotted in Snake River Valley in Idaho
2008-05-06 07:18:00
Updated May 8:This is actually a pretty interesting sighting. We have always known that there are wolverines in the national forests of mountainous central and northern Idaho and there are some sightings in the Hell's Canyon area of the Snake River along the Oregon/Idaho border, but I was not aware of any recent sightings in the Colombian Plateau of Idaho until I read this article.The terrain in King Hill, Idaho. Not exactly prime wolverine habitat, but wolverines have been road-killed and trapped in similar locales recently in Wyoming, Oregon and Utah.However, recent sightings and roadkilled wolverines in similar habitat in the West in Utah, Oregon and Wyoming indicate that wolverines do use such habitats, possibly especially when dispersing.This wolverine was actually sitting on a telephone pole in the middle of the day near a small town!A wolverine got stranded on a telephone pole in King Hill, Idaho on March 25 of this year. That photo actually looks kind of ridiculous. Tell ...
More About: Valley , Wolverine

Just Passed 400,000 Readers
2008-05-06 04:36:00
Ticker now reads 400,729, and it just turned over today, as we are at 1,027 readers already today, but then Mondays are usually one of the best days. They are coming it at about 70/hour now, which is awful high for 7-8 PM. Lots of hits for the Katrina Death Toll today, and I do not have the faintest idea why. Is it the cyclone in Burma? Already over 4,000 dead in one nasty storm.Not only that, but I am still averaging around 1,000 readers/day (988/day to be precise). I really have a hard time believing that. But hey, I'm the biggest blogger in Madera, California. I'm also the biggest blogger in Oakhurst and Coarsegold, California, where you can frequently find me. Hell, I'm probably the biggest blogger in all Madera Country. Whoohoo! OTOH, I seem to have about zero regular local readers, but oh well.As a side note, does anyone know anything about pricing for website ads? At 1000 readers/day, I want $2-3/day minimum for ads on here. I just got an offer for 85 cents/day from a lon...
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Uncle Semite
2008-05-05 10:46:00
Subtitle, "Not Your Father's Anti-Semitism ".Ok, this site is pretty funny. I don't think it's really anti-Semitic at all, but I'm not sure. The whole thing is pretty much tongue in cheek, and after a while I thought it was another one of those fake anti-Semitic sites those hilarious Jewish comedians are always putting up.According to recent studies by the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, Russia, and the United States. In Arab media, diatribes against Jews are increasingly overt and commonplace, "the elevator music for the Arab world." Much of this anti-Semitic expression is characterised by shrill rhetoric and old prejudices, leaving little room for fresh dialogue on the subject.Uncle Semite seeks to elevate the conversation, moving the rhetorical, knee-jerk anti-Semitism of the past towards a progressive, "green" anti-Semitism, relevant in our time.We hope you enjoy your stay with us at uncle-semite.com.* If this site displays improperly, pleas...
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Starfucks Image
2008-05-05 08:49:00
Distribute widely.
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Interesting Links on Oil Refinery Profits
2008-05-05 08:22:00
Via commenter Uncle Milton, a fine writer in his own right, we get a few links about oil refinery profits. They were doing great a year ago, but this year, things may not be looking so good. The much-blathered about talking point about no new refineries in the US in 30 years is true, but it's because the oil companies refuse to add new refineries, as the more refineries out there, the more prices go down.So the supply of refineries is automatically being limited by a collusion of capitalists in order to keep prices artificially high. Some free market! Free markets only work in theory. This is something that freemarketeer liars - assholes never seem to figure out.Capitalists will always collude, price fix, seek government bailout for their losses, seek to have the public pay for the costs of their enterprises, use the state make laws to screw the public, and plot to become monopolies, meanwhile screaming about monopolies once their competitors become one.That's in addition to the l...
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Tiki-Tiki Has 250 Words?
2008-05-05 06:32:00
Forget it.Via Marilyn Vos Savant in today's Parade Magazine, we are told that Tiki -Tiki, otherwise known as Sranan Togo, a creole with 100,000 native speakers and many more second languages speakers on Suriname, has the smallest vocabulary of any known language - with only 250 words. This claim is credulously repeated elsewhere on the Net.It is true that Internet dictionaries of Tiki-Tiki do show few words, possibly as few as several hundred. The SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics ) page says that Sranan Togo has maybe 3,000-4,000 words, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of words for major world languages (Vos Savant notes that English has the largest vocabulary at 250,000).Many of those English words are neologisms, that is, new words that are being created on the fly, especially on places like the Internet. I actually think that English has more than 250,000 words, but I can't prove it. As slang and whatnot proliferates in a widely spoken language, it gets pretty darn hard ...
More About: Hawaii , Words , Blogosphere

Evil Jews Bleed Gentile to Death for Matzos
2008-05-05 03:58:00
Take a look at this sordid spectacle here. A pack of vicious, feral, Asiatic Zionist Jews surround a poor Gentile, Lance Thruster, (actually a stand-in for Jesus) in the woods somewhere in the Pale of Russia, torture him to death by crucifixion, and are in the process of draining all of the blood out of his body with thousands of pricks with tiny knives.The blood is being collected as I write this, and Lance is still alive and typing somehow despite being nailed to the holy cross like our Savior. The blood will be collected and used to prepare matzo balls. The Blood Libel is no libel - it's actual truth, and you can see it right here on the Internets.Seriously folks, I happen to know Lance, and I don't really think he is an anti-Semite at all. I think he's a college student at USC, my alma mater. He just hates Israel, that's all. These Zionist Jews are torturing him and roasting him over their fire, calling him racist, fascist, anti-Semite, Nazi, KKK, Jew-hater, bigot, skinhead...
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Great Site on Endangered Languages of Europe
2008-05-04 10:27:00
Great site on endangered languages of Europe . Tapani Salinem, a Finnish linguist, has done a bang-up job on this stuff. This report was prepared for UNESCO.The last good report I read on this subject was a great book published in 1976 called something like The Endangered Languages of Europe. Great little book if you can ever find it, and it covers pretty much most of the larger ones anyway.Salinem is decidedly pessimistic, but I am not so much so. Furthermore, he often pessimistically notes that this or that language is heavily contaminated by some larger nearby language that the speaker usually also speaks. I don't think that this is all that relevant. Most modern languages nowadays are full of borrowings, often from English, for all sorts of modern words.What matters is that you are speaking. Borrowing is a natural phenomenon, whether for lexis, syntax, phonology, morphology or whatever. It's been happening for 1000's of years. He often notes that not many children are learning...
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Worthless Federal Gas Tax Cut Proposed
2008-05-03 13:03:00
As we have pointed out previously on this blog, the price of gas at the moment has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with supply and demand fundamentals in the oil or gasoline markets. According to those fundamentals, a barrel of oil is worth $60. A gallon of gas is worth $2. The price has been driven up by speculators in two world markets where all world oil is sold, one bourse in London and another in New York.Speculators are bidding up prices based on anxieties about possible shortages in the future.My previous piece was completely misinterpreted by freemarketeers, who are almost as lame as religious fundamentalists, which is really what they are when you get down to it. At no point did I say that oil companies were manipulating the price to make oil double what it is really worth.Truth is, no one is manipulating the price of oil or gas. The price is being driven up by speculative frenzy, and it's not part of a plot anymore than any speculative price rise is.People just can't...