Via Spiegel an interesting bit:

Ice Church Consecrated in Romania: Freezing Your Mass Off - SPIEGEL

Most churches in Europe are built for the ages. But not the new house of God erected in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. In fact, it’ll probably melt away before May.

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If there is one valuable insight that philosophers of science and sociologists have demonstrated it is that issues in science (and metascience) are frequently decided (or at least argued) in quite non-”scientific” ways (by which I mean what is generally claimed to be the scientific way — in truth a formalisation of rationality, common sense, and long-standing methods of human reasoning). In the skirmishes within science, certain “paradigms” take hold not because of their technical superiority but often because of certain very human prejudices. The idea that selfishness precedes (and even excludes) co-operation, is an example, and one that is beginning to deservedly face resistance, not just in popular science writing through which it has gained its hold, but also in more serious analysis which it had constrained in the past:

For Human Eyes Only - NYT

[…]

Why should humans be so different? And yet we are. We can’t fool anyone. The whites of our eyes are several times larger than those of other primates, which makes it much easier to see where the eyes, as opposed to the head, are pointed. Trying to explain this trait leads us into one of the deepest and most controversial topics in the modern study of human evolution: the evolution of cooperation.

[…]

In a recent experiment, our research team has shown that even infants — at around their first birthdays, before language acquisition has begun — tend to follow the direction of another person’s eyes, not their heads. Thus, when an adult looked to the ceiling with her eyes only, head remaining straight ahead, infants looked to the ceiling in turn. However, when the adult closed her eyes and pointed her head to the ceiling, infants did not very often follow.

[…]

Why might it have been advantageous for some early humans to advertise their eye direction in a way that enabled others to determine what they were looking at more easily? One possible answer, what we have called the cooperative eye hypothesis, is that especially visible eyes made it easier to coordinate close-range collaborative activities in which discerning where the other was looking and perhaps what she was planning, benefited both participants.

If we are gathering berries to share, with one of us pulling down a branch and the other harvesting the fruit, it would be useful — especially before language evolved — for us to coordinate our activities and communicate our plans, using our eyes and perhaps other visually based gestures.

Infant research, too, suggests that coordinating visual attention may have provided the foundation for the evolution of human language. Babies begin to acquire language through joint activities with others, in which both parties are focused on the same object or task. That’s the best time for an infant to learn the word for the object or activity in question.

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EPI has released a study that sheds some light on the right’s “worry” that minimum wage hikes would have an overall negative impact due to reduced hiring and so on. EPI looked at the data for the states that raised the minimum wage on their own, given the federal government’s reluctance to do so, and here is what they found (summarised here, follow link for the detailed analysis):

State minimum wages: A policy that works

Have these state actions had any effect? Are wages higher than they would have otherwise been, i.e., are these higher minimums reaching their intended beneficiaries? Is employment worse than it would have otherwise been? The evidence presented here suggests that the answers are, respectively, yes, yes, and no.

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I have heard and read about the Japanese internment during WW2, but this I had not previously known:

BBC | US Mexicans haunted by repatriation

[…]

As the depression deepened, state and local governments passed laws restricting employment to native-born or naturalised citizens.

The Federal Government required all firms supplying it with goods and services to hire only US citizens.

And private companies fell in line with the prevailing anti-Mexican feeling and sacked their workers.

Francisco Balderrama, professor at California State University and co-author of Decade of Betrayal, estimates that somewhere in the region of a million people of Mexican origin were driven out of the United States during the 1930s.

Nearly two thirds of those who left were US citizens.

[…]

Around 50,000 people were formally deported in the 1930s.

[…]

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has refused to approve Senate bills that would require schools to include the repatriation in the curriculum, and to offer victims compensation.

Time to start deporting Austrians? ;-)

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This is a good one! Utah wants additional Congressional representation due to its growing population and the GOP is trying to hasten the addition of the seat by promising representation for the people of Washington D.C who have no representation in Congress. But some no likey the idea of DC residents getting representation. Why you ask?

Utah, Using Olive Branch, Tries to Add Seat in House - New York Times

[…]

One Republican who voted no, Representative Julie Fisher, noted the state’s rapid population growth and expectations for the next census.

“We will get our seat anyway in 2010,” Ms. Fisher said, “without selling short our nation’s most revered document.”

There you have it. The idea of democracy and representation (no taxation without representation) would be, you know, selling the constitution short.

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Andy Newman, writing in the New York Times, takes a snarky little shot at Castro with this bit about “whichever Castro brother is running the ocuntry”:

If Castro Had a Talk Show, It Might Sound a Bit Like This - New York Times

Come-hither advertisements from Cuba’s state travel agency. Reportage from last weekend’s Fidel Castro birthday parade in Havana, complete with an admiring assessment of Soviet-era tanks. Excerpts from speeches by whichever Castro brother is running the country.

Perhaps he has not noticed that our very own banana republic is ruled by an equal (make that less qualified) dynasty, which includes the outgoing governor of the very Miami he writes from.

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The latest howler from our beloved government: a revised citizenship test:

BBC | US unveils new citizenship test

[…]

Mr Gonzalez says those who want to become US citizens should not be allowed to do so by simply rattling off historical facts they have memorised but should show a passion for the country of which they are becoming an integral part. The new questions will require those taking the exam to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the American political system and its history.

[…]

They are going to test this new quiz on immigrant volunteers. What I would really like is for them to test it on some “real” citizens.

Here are some of the new questions:

Why does the United States have three branches of government?
Name two rights that are only for US citizens
Name two cabinet-level positions
Name one important idea found in the Declaration of Independence
What does the Constitution do?

I know! I know!!

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Spiegel Online has a slideshow of pictures (just three) of a church in France that was Le Corbusier’s final project.

The little guy at home would probably rank his “ogo” bricks as among the top 5 of his toys — not surprisingly, it was named Toy of the Century by Fortune and the British Toy Retailers association. A BusinessWeek article “The Making of…a LEGO” traces the history and details of the company and the product. One little known factoid? LEGO is the #1 tyre manufacturer in the world! ;-)

The bricks are so meticulously made that the company claims that out of every 1 million elements made, just 18 will be declared defective and removed from the set. Impressive numbers, considering that the LEGO Group is producing 15 billion components a year—that’s 1.7 million items an hour, or 28,500 a minute. Tire production accounts for some of that number; the factory also produces 306 million tiny rubber tires a year. In fact, going by that number, LEGO is the world’s No. 1 tire manufacturer.

[ Link ]

In an earlier post I wrote:

A bunch of people in Colorado want their neighbour to take down a Christmas peace sign wreath…

Fortunately, it turns out that the “bunch” is mostly the [now ex] board members of the housing association. New York Times has more:

Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners’ association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house.

The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.

[…]

In any case, there are now more peace symbols in Pagosa Springs, a town of 1,700 people 200 miles southwest of Denver, than probably ever in its history.

On Tuesday morning, 20 people marched through the center carrying peace signs and then stomped a giant peace sign in the snow perhaps 300 feet across on a soccer field, where it could be seen from about just everywhere by just about everyone.

[…]

A former president of the Loma Linda community, where Mr. Trimarco lives, said Tuesday that he had stepped in to help form an interim homeowners’ association.

The former president, Farrell C. Trask, described himself in a telephone interview as a military veteran who would fight for anyone’s right to free speech, peace symbols included.

Town Manager Mark Garcia said Pagosa Springs was building its own peace wreath, too. Mr. Garcia said it would be finished by late Tuesday and installed on a bell tower in the center of town.

Goes to show that there is more to people than the simplifications and stereotypes offered and furthered by TV talking heads.