While Congress has provided close to $100 million to foster Internet freedom in closed societies, its efforts have been thwarted by the State Department.
Sam Brownback, Michael Horowitz, Mark Palmer
Military action and “containment” through economic sanctions may not be the only options available to confront the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions. In our view, there is a third option – one with the potential to rapidly, peacefully and fundamentally undermine that regime and one that we believe the Israeli government can bring into play. This option would place the power of the Internet at the service of the Iranian people.
Events in Iran demonstrate that its regime views a free and unmonitored Internet as a profound threat to its short-term survival. Only on Thursday, it was reported that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has appointed a high-level commission to “safeguard the national and cultural values” of Iran from the dangers of the Internet. This move follows upon past actions by the regime to impose country-wide blackouts in advance of elections and anniversaries of significant dissident demonstrations. Credible reports indicate that the regime plans to unveil an “Iranian Internet” designed to give it total control over the flow of information inside the country. Simply put, Iran’s Islamist leadership understands that a citizenry given the power of a free Internet could rapidly undo the very foundations of its power.
The regime’s fears are based on experience, for the digital sophistication of Iran’s young people fueled the 2009 Green Revolution and is critical to the growth of dissent within its borders. Then, as now, hundreds of thousands of Iranians tapped into Internet “firewall circumvention” programs to organize countrywide protests and share their stories with the rest of the world. These programs allow users to connect to a network of foreign servers whose IP addresses are changed thousands of times per hour, and whose encrypted contents are made indistinguishable from e-commerce traffic. On given days, traffic to some circumvention systems reached as many as 200,000 Iranian users who registered more than 100 million hits as they bypassed the regime’s Internet content filters and pervasive monitoring systems.
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HowStuffWorks: How to Scan for and Remove Spyware “Do you know how to scan for and remove spyware? Take a look at our tips to remove spyware and prevent hacking or identity theft.” Related site: How Spyware Works.
Thirty percent of all Dalmatians are deaf in one or both ears. Because bulldogs have extremely short muzzles, many spend their lives fighting suffocation. Because Chihuahuas have such small skulls, the flow of spinal fluid can be restricted, causing hydrocephalus, a swelling of the brain. – Provided by RandomHistory.com
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Yes, Mother
“Yes, mother, I’ve had a hard day. Jennifer has been most difficult. I know I ought to be more firm, but it is hard. Well, you know how she is. Yes, I remember you warned me. I remember you told me that she was a vile creature who would make my life miserable and you begged me not to marry her. You were perfectly right. You want to speak with her? All right.”
He looks up from the telephone and calls to his wife in the next room, “Jennifer, your mother wants to talk to you!”
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FEMEN Protest Turkey Violence Against Women.
Soon, anti-anxiety drug ‘could make alcoholics forget their booze craving’
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Fruits and Veggies Give Skin Attractive Glow
If just being healthier is not enough to motivate you to eat the recommended five fruits and vegetables a day, perhaps being more attractive is. According to new research, increased consumption of fruits and vegetables could contribute to a deepening of natural red and yellow skin coloration, which is thought to increase one’s perceived attractiveness. The researchers believe that even small dietary changes could produce perceptible results. While experts have noted certain failures in the study’s design, they agree that the findings could be beneficial anyway, since they encourage people to increase their fruit and vegetable intake. More …
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With the backing of Gates and Google, Khan Academy and its free online educational videos are moving into the classroom and across the world. Their goal: to revolutionize how we teach and learn. Sanjay Gupta reports.
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Creativity can seem like magic. We look at people like Steve Jobs and Bob Dylan, and we conclude that they must possess supernatural powers denied to mere mortals like us, gifts that allow them to imagine what has never existed before. They’re “creative types.” We’re not.
The myth of the “creative type” is just that–a myth, argues Jonah Lehrer. In an interview with WSJ’s Gary Rosen he explains the evidence suggesting everyone has the potential to be the next Milton Glaser or Yo-Yo Ma.
But creativity is not magic, and there’s no such thing as a creative type. Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It’s a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it. New research is shedding light on what allows people to develop world-changing products and to solve the toughest problems. A surprisingly concrete set of lessons has emerged about what creativity is and how to spark it in ourselves and our work.
The science of creativity is relatively new. Until the Enlightenment, acts of imagination were always equated with higher powers. Being creative meant channeling the muses, giving voice to the gods. (“Inspiration” literally means “breathed upon.”) Even in modern times, scientists have paid little attention to the sources of creativity.
But over the past decade, that has begun to change. Imagination was once thought to be a single thing, separate from other kinds of cognition. The latest research suggests that this assumption is false. It turns out that we use “creativity” as a catchall term for a variety of cognitive tools, each of which applies to particular sorts of problems and is coaxed to action in a particular way.
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Tribuna of the Uffizi by Johan Zoffany
Thomas Beckford, the celebrated English art collector and novelist, wrote of the Tribuna of the Uffizi:
”…I fell into a delightful delirium which none but souls like us experience, and unable to check my rapture flew madly from bust to bust and cabinet to cabinet like a butterfly bewildered in a universe of flowers…’’
For anybody who has just clicked on this page you need to look at the previous blog first as this is a follow-on blog and will not really make sense if you had not read the previous one.
In this blog I am going to reveal the names of the paintings which formed part of the main work by Johan Zoffany entitled The Tribuna of the Uffizi but first, I will introduce you to some of the characters Zoffany included in his work. It was the inclusion of some of these people, which upset his patrons, King George III and his wife Queen Charlotte.
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Plants ‘talk’ through the roots
Israeli scientists have uncovered messages transmitted underground – not by enemy agents, but by garden pea plants.The Ben-Gurion University team discovered that plants can transmit distress signals to each other through their roots. An injured plant “communicates” to a healthy one, which in turn relays the signal to neighboring plants, possibly enhancing the other plants’ ability to deal with stress in the future, according to the study, recently published in the periodical PLoS Public Library of Science One .Israeli scientists have uncovered messages transmitted underground – not by enemy agents, but by garden pea plants.
The Ben-Gurion University team discovered that plants can transmit distress signals to each other through their roots. An injured plant “communicates” to a healthy one, which in turn relays the signal to neighboring plants, possibly enhancing the other plants’ ability to deal with stress in the future, according to the study, recently published in the periodical PLoS (Public Library of Science One ).
plant
The researchers, headed by plant biologist Ariel Novoplansky of the Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, exposed five garden pea plants to drought conditions. They found that the stressed plant closes its leaves to prevent water loss. Meanwhile its roots release signals that caused neighboring plants, which were not exposed to drought conditions, to react as if they had been. The study, “Rumor Has It …: Relay Communication of Stress Cues in Plants,” shows the unstressed plants transmitted the information on to other healthy plants.
.Photo by: Eyal TouegThe researchers, headed by plant biologist Ariel Novoplansky of the Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, exposed five garden pea plants to drought conditions. They found that the stressed plant closes its leaves to prevent water loss. Meanwhile its roots release signals that caused neighboring plants, which were not exposed to drought conditions, to react as if they had been. The study, “Rumor Has It …: Relay Communication of Stress Cues in Plants,” shows the unstressed plants transmitted the information on to other healthy plants.
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Escape your search engine Filter Bubble!
US military unveils non-lethal heat ray weapon
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A slave burial ground in St Helena has been unearthed and discovered by archeologists from the University of Bristol.
The burial ground was discovered in the South Atlantic Island as construction for a new airport and roads continues. Archeologists now look to the burial ground to tell the story of the Middle Passage during the Atlantic slave trade.
St Helena is located 1,000 miles off the eastern shore of Africa. The island became famous for being a landing place for many freed slaves during the suppression of slave trade between 1840-1872. Britain’s Royal Navy captured an estimated 26,000 freed slaves and brought them to the island. Since conditions on slave ships were dire at best, many slaves were left at the island’s hospital and refugee camp at Rupert’s Valley. It is here where the burial grounds have been discovered.
As construction continues to renovate the island, cemeteries and burial grounds are discovered and unearthed. What’s appalling about these sites is the apparent haste with which these cemeteries were built and then quickly filled. One such cemetery was discovered in 2006 as construction for a road that would later lead to the new airport was underway. There were 325 bodies found in multiple and mass graves; only 4 individuals were buried in coffins.
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Would you pay someone to make all your decisions?
Dear friends, family and colleagues, I have a confession to make. When I say I’m late because of public transport, at least 90% of the time it’s actually because I can’t decide what to wear. Or what to have for breakfast. Or what book to take. Or which nail varnish will best help me achieve the goals of the day. In short, I’m rubbish at making minor decisions. And, judging by the number of companies now offering to make choices for us, I don’t think I’m the only one.
A curated subscription is a service that, for a monthly fee, selects products for you and delivers them to you. It’s a bit like having your very own 1940s wife. Over the last year, services have cropped up to cover more and more aspects of modern life. For a monthly fee I can have Kopi or Has Bean choose my bespoke coffee blend, Stack select my independently published magazine and Weekly Indie choose my fave new unsigned band. Tea Horse will select my brew. Carmine can pick out my beauty products. Threadless can choose what T-shirt I should wear. Love Your Larder can fill my cupboards with mysterious foodie delights and Sponge can bake me a monthly surprise cake. For £8,000 Net-a-porter will even send me a monthly pair of shoes for a year. And there are countless cheese clubs and bread clubs out there that really should get together and get some sort of cheese sandwich thing going.
It’s like someone took the vegetable box scheme idea and genetically modified it to cover all aspects of our lives.
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You can’t hide from the camera van
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Originally posted 2012-03-12 11:40:05. Republished by Blog Post Promoter