Corporate sponsored bad science

Michael Moore is well acquainted the the track record of corporations who want to spread misinformation in order to crank up profits: [W]hen "Sicko" was being released in 2007, the health insurance industry's PR firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed their Plan B: "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff." But after looking into it, it turns out it's nothing personal! APCO wants to push everyone off a cliff.

APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter -- best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake "grassroots" organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of a sudden, "normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans" were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged -- outraged! -- by exactly the things APCO's clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular, they were "furious" that regular people had the right to sue big corporations...you know, like Philip Morris. (For details, see the 2000 report "The CALA Files" (PDF) by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal and Joanne Doroshow.)

Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every year due to smoking. That's a big cliff.

With this success under their belts, APCO created "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign's own leaked documents, was that the public could see the "vested interest" that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO's job was to help conceal those oil company interests.

And boy, have they ever succeeded.

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Beauty as a Darwinian concept

Philosopher of Art Dennis Dutton gives a succinct description of art as a Darwinian concept. He begins his well illustrated talk by noting that many disparate things are seen to be "beautiful," most of those cross-culturally. What is it about all beautiful things? For instance, we all prefer landscapes with trees, water, animal and plant life and paths extending into the distance. This preference is universal, and this type of landscape has been termed the "ideal landscape." It also offers protection, water and food. Dutton argues that beauty is an adaptive effect that we extend and intensify in the enjoyment of works of art and entertainment. Natural selection explains many of out attractions and repulsions in art. But Darwin's theory of sexual selection is equally applicable; it functions as fitness signals. This function goes all the way back to pre-lingual hand-axes, many of which have been intricately carved and never used to actually cut anything. They did serve, however, as a display of competence, and that is yet another universal aspect of beauty: Beauty is the appreciation of something well done. Lovers of beauty especially love virtuoso performances.

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USB banned???

It's been reported, (and I'm not sure of the authenticity, but it's all over the geeks sites as well as The Guardian), that apparently an evangelical cult in Brazil has banned the use of USB for its members because the symbol

resembles a satanic trident. Next they'll not want President Obama to visit because he might be the anti-Christ.

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What ultra-rich Americans want

In an article filled with statistics, Bernie Sanders explains that ultra-rich Americans will never be satisfied. They want "more, more, more." And they are on the verge of taking control of Congress in order to get it. Here's what about to happen: Republicans "want to add $700 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years by extending Bush's tax breaks for the top 2 percent." Here's where we are headed in the long run, unless the Democrats draw a line in the sand:

The billionaires and their supporters in Congress are hell-bent on taking us back to the 1920s, and eliminating all traces of social legislation designed to protect working families, the elderly, children and the disabled. No "social contract" for them. They want it all. They want to privatize or dismantle Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and let the elderly, the sick and the poor fend for themselves. They want to expand our disastrous trade policies so that corporations can continue throwing American workers out on the street as they outsource jobs to China and other low-wage countries. Some also want to eliminate the minimum wage so that American workers can have the "freedom" to work for $3.00 an hour.

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Looking for Jesus at Christmas

Because Christmas is quickly approaching, I decided to start looking for Jesus in the easiest places to find large numbers of people: big box stores. More specifically, I'm looking for large images of Jesus, not thumb-sized Jesus Babies tucked away in a little mangers. I started my hunt at Lowe's two days ago. I found huge Santas, reindeer, snowmen, elves, penguins wearing hats and fashion-model angels, but no Jesus. How odd, that when a celebration is supposedly only about Jesus, you won't find any prominent images of Jesus. You'd expect to see huge inflatable images of Jesus on the roofs of the stores and on their parking lots. You'd expect to find life-sized Jesus images on people lawns. You'd expect to see large statues of bloodied Jesuses on crosses, his alleged moment of glory. But, except for those little Jesus babies you might find in an occasional manger kit, that doesn't really feature him, you won't find Jesus, even though he is the purported reason for all the fuss. Nor will you find stores promoting his alleged teachings. Such strange compartmentalization. Why is it that we don't see a life sized Jesus statue trying to get us to buy that new iPod? Or a Jesus image urging us to buy a life-sized Santa? Apparently, the image of Jesus doesn't sell plastic goods and gadgets. Is that because Jesus is never alleged to have said anything about going into debt by buying lots of consumer goods. Is it because it would be tasteless to buy all of this crap with the image of the alleged creator of the universe, the man who allowed himself to be tortured to save your eternal life, staring at you? Or is it because we don't really believe the things we say about Jesus, and that we actually don't believe in Jesus, but we only believe in belief?

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