"natural theology > notes > 2017

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Andrew, Christopher , and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev, Hodder & Stoughton 1990 Amazon book description: 'This history of the world's largest and most powerful intelligence service, the KGB, from its origin after the Russian revolution to the present day, analyzes its operations against subjects as diverse as the EEC, Margaret Thatcher, Solidarity and Libya. This study also provides an insight into Gorbachev's relations with the KGB and examines the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. Christopher Andrew has also written "Secret Service". Gordievsky was a KGB colonel who worked for British intelligence as a penetration agent in the KGB from 1974. He escaped to the West in 1985.'
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Hawken, Paul, and Amory B. Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins,, Natural Capitalism : Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Back Bay Books 2000 Traditional capitalism, the authors argue, has always neglected to assign monetary value to its largest stock of capital - namely the natural resources and ecosystem services that make possible all economic activity, and all life. Natural capitalism, in contrast, takes a proper accounting of these costs.'
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Pour-El, Marian B, and Jonathan I Richards, Computability in Analysis and Physics, Springer-Verlag 1989 Author's Preface: 'This book is concerned with the computability or noncomputability of standard processes in analysis and physics. ... The book is written for a mixed audience. Although it is intended primarily for logicians and analysts, it should be of interest to physicists and computer scientists ... The work is self-contained. ... The reasoning used is classical - i.e. in the tradition of classical mathematics. Thus it is not intuitionist or constructivist in the sense of Brouwer or Bishop.'
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Beverly Gage, How the Women of the Mormon Church Came to Embrace Polygamy, 'Her main interest is in what plural marriage meant for Mormon women in the 19th century, forced to adapt on the fly to a situation they could never have anticipated. This is in some ways a personal question for Ulrich, herself a mother of five and a practicing Mormon as well as a Harvard history professor. All eight of her great-grandparents settled in Utah before the Civil War, members of the faith’s pioneer generation.' back

Caitlin Gibson , What we talk about when we talk about Donald Trump 'gaslighting', 'This is a very specific accusation. To “gaslight” someone isn’t just to lie to them or to manipulate their emotions. It is a deliberate attempt to deceive someone into questioning their own perception of reality. (“Suddenly, I’m beginning not to trust my memory at all,” says Bergman’s character, Paula, as her faith in her senses begins to fray.) ' back

Chelsea E. Manning, Compromise does not work with our political opponents. When will we learn?, 'The one simple lesson to draw from President Obama’s legacy: do not start off with a compromise. They won’t meet you in the middle. Instead, what we need is an unapologetic progressive leader. We need someone who is unafraid to be criticized, since you will inevitably be criticized. We need someone willing to face all of the vitriol, hatred and dogged determination of those opposed to us. Our opponents will not support us nor will they stop thwarting the march toward a just system that gives people a fighting chance to live. Our lives are at risk – especially for immigrants, Muslim people and black people.' back

Chris Buckley, Historian's Latest Book on Mao Turs Acclaim in China to Censure, '“I wrote this book to expose lies and restore the truth,” Mr. Yang writes in the book, which has been quietly published in Hong Kong, beyond the direct reach of Chinese censors. “This is an area that is extremely complicated and risky, but as soon as I entered it, I was filled with passion.” Since Mr. Xi took power in 2012, the Communist Party authorities have denounced historians who question the party’s lionization of its past and exhume grim events like the Cultural Revolution, which Mao started in 1966, opening a decade of purges and bloodshed.' back

Clitoris - Wikipedia, Clitoris - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The clitoris . . . is a female sex organ present in mammals, ostriches and a limited number of other animals. In humans, the visible button-like portion is near the front junction of the labia minora (inner lips), above the opening of the urethra.' back

David Brooks, The Politics of Cowardice, 'If Reagan’s dominant emotional note was optimism, Trump’s is fear. If Reagan’s optimism was expansive, Trump’s fear propels him to close in: Pull in from Asian entanglements through rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Pull in from European entanglements by disparaging NATO. It’s not a cowering, timid fear; it’s more a dark, resentful porcupine fear.' back

Emma Young, Iceland knows how to stop teen substance abuse - but the rest of the world isn't listening, 'Today, Iceland tops the European table for the cleanest-living teens. The percentage of 15- and 16-year-olds who had been drunk in the previous month plummeted from 42 per cent in 1998 to 5 per cent in 2016. The percentage who have ever used cannabis is down from 17 per cent to 7 per cent. Those smoking cigarettes every day fell from 23 per cent to just 3 per cent.' back

JoAnna Klein, A Pioneering Woman of Science Re-Emerges After 300 Years, 'Maria Sibylla Merian, like many European women of the 17th century, stayed busy managing a household and rearing children. But on top of that, Merian, a German-born woman who lived in the Netherlands, also managed a successful career as an artist, botanist, naturalist and entomologist. “She was a scientist on the level with a lot of people we spend a lot of time talking about,” said Kay Etheridge, a biologist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania who has been studying the scientific history of Merian’s work. “She didn’t do as much to change biology as Darwin, but she was significant.” ' back

Johanna Moorhead, The Catholic church's old guard faces a mortal threat. It is called Pope Francis, ' "Pope in condom row”, say the headlines. In fact, this row has nothing much to do with condoms. . . . The real issue in the row that resulted in the sacking of the British head of the Knights of Malta is the most important question of all in the Catholic church: what is the right way to represent Christ’s teaching in the world of today? back

John Gehrig, Betsy DeVos's Faith in Free Markets, 'Betsy DeVos, the billionaire whom President-elect Donald Trump has picked to lead the U.S. Department of Education, spent a decade serving as a board member of a free-market think tank led by a Catholic priest. Her family has long been a major player in conservative religious circles. While some Catholic leaders will find affinity with her signature support of school vouchers, the DeVoses are well known in Michigan for funding a slew of anti-tax and anti-union initiatives at odds with the church’s teachings on labor and economic justice.' back

May Bulman, US solar power employs more people than opil, coal and gas combined, report shows, 'Solar energy in the US employs more people than traditional coal, gas and oil combined, a report has found, in a revelation that could undermine Donald Trump’s argument that green energy isn’t good for the economy. The latest report from the US Department of Energy (DOE) reveals solar energy accounts for the largest proportion of employers in the Electric Power Generation sector, with wind energy the third largest, while the coal industries have declined in the past 10 years.' back

Michelle Goldberg, Donald Trump, The Religious Right's Trojan Horse, 'In November, exit polls showed that Mr. Trump won 81 percent of white evangelicals, more than the born-again George W. Bush garnered in either of his races. Mr. Brown, the radio host, remained worried about Mr. Trump’s temperament, but saw the hand of God in his victory. “I believe Trump has been elected president by divine intervention,” he wrote on Nov. 9. . . . As [Trump] said in a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in June: “We will respect and defend Christian Americans. Christian Americans.” ' back

Peter Walker, Church of England bishops reject lifting opposition to same-sex marriage, 'Church of England bishops have rejected the idea of changing its opposition to same-sex marriage. The House of Bishops said there is “little support for changing the Church of England’s teaching on marriage” that it is between one man and one woman. A new report, following two years of internal discussion, does however say the church needs to adopt a “fresh tone and culture of welcome and support”.' back

Reuters in Vatican City, Vatican condom row: pope prevails as Knights of Malta chief resigns, 'The church does not allow the use of condoms as a means of birth control and says abstinence and monogamy in heterosexual marriage is the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.' back

Robert Verkaik, If you want to know how Isis was really created, Donald Trump, then start with the US torture programmes, ' In 2003, a British man, Binyam Mohamed, was next to find himself on the new torture programme when he was sent to a black site in Morocco. . . . “They had fed me enough through their questions for me to make up what they wanted to hear,” he later recalled. “I confessed to it all. There was the plot to build a dirty nuclear bomb and another to blow up apartments in New York with their gas pipes.” Both turned out to be impossible. back

Telomere - Wikipedia, Telomere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighboring chromosomes. Its name is derived from the Greek nouns telos (τέλος) "end" and merοs (μέρος, root: μερ-) "part".' back

Zaid Jilani, Trump's Muslim Immigration Executive Order: If We Bombed You, We Ban you, 'It’s like a twisted version of the you-break-it-you-buy-it Pottery Barn rule: If we bomb a country or help destabilize its society, we will then ban its citizens from being able to seek refuge in the United States.' back

vol VII: Notes

2017

Notes

Sunday 22 January 2017

Monday 23 January 2017

Tuesday 24 January 2017

Wednesday 25 January 2017

Thursday 26 January

Friday 27 January 2017

Saturday 29 January 2017

Further reading

Books

Links