An amazing study just came out in the journal Nature where people studied violent conflicts statistically and found that such conflicts all follow very similar patterns. And those patterns are very similar to how financial markets (also based on human behavior) function. Here is the abstract of the article:

Many collective human activities, including violence, have been shown to exhibit universal patterns. The size distributions of casualties both in whole wars from 1816 to 1980 and terrorist attacks have separately been shown to follow approximate power-law distributions. However, the possibility of universal patterns ranging across wars in the size distribution or timing of within-conflict events has barely been explored. Here we show that the sizes and timing of violent events within different insurgent conflicts exhibit remarkable similarities. We propose a unified model of human insurgency that reproduces these commonalities, and explains conflict-specific variations quantitatively in terms of underlying rules of engagement. Our model treats each insurgent population as an ecology of dynamically evolving, self-organized groups following common decision-making processes. Our model is consistent with several recent hypotheses about modern insurgency18, 19, 20, is robust to many generalizations, and establishes a quantitative connection between human insurgency, global terrorism and ecology. Its similarity to financial market models provides a surprising link between violent and non-violent forms of human behaviour
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As if it wasnt enough to have unhappy memories triggered by my 911.wikileaks.org post, my unhappiness started yesterday after I read Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre : Republic of Lakotah - Mitakuye Oyasin:

William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not “a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children.” In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” It was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.” Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is the “Thanksgiving dinner” was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.

Am infuriated. One of the first teaching jobs I got was as a history teacher in the NYC public school system. How in the facking hell does this country get away with not teaching their children about this massacre? No wonder when it comes to public education I am on the side of conservative homeschoolers and radical unschoolers than with the Bloomberg loving UFT?

How can I look into the eyes of a child and say "Happy Thanksgiving" after reading about the horrible beginnings of "Thanks Giving"?
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My heart got broken when I read yesterday that people like Martin Scorcese and Pedro Almodóvar were advocating for the release of Roman Polanski. More than 100 movers and shakers of the film industry signed a petition objecting to the fugitive rapist's arrest. wh

So I went looking for the petition put together by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques and this is what I found in their wording: Cette arrestation fait suite à un mandat d’arrêt américain prononcé contre le cinéaste en 1978, dans une affaire de moeurs.

"Un affaires de moeurs" or a "case of morals". Really? Let me repeat myself:

Roman Polanski raped a 13 year-old girl more than 30 years ago. Roman Polanski, who was 43 years old at the time of the crime, has never denied he gave Quaaludes and alcohol to a minor so he could force her into sexual acts with him. On the contrary, he entered a plea bargain for the lesser crime of statutory rape or unlawful sexual acts with a minor. It was after the case was tried, the plea bargain negotiated and before he was to be sentenced that he fled the country.

This is not a case about Polanski sad past as a Holocaust survivor or a great director who had a moral lapse. This is about a fugitive child-rapist who skipped sentencing.

Here's the growing list of rape apologists in Hollywood:
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Today TMZ has the documents that describe the "blow by blow" of Chris Brown's assult on Rihanna. The report has background on their abusive relationship, describing 2 previous incidents before the February attack. And all this comes to light after Brown was sentenced to 5 years probation AND not to have any communication with Rihanna for the next five years, which includes phone and email contact.

And yes, the judge even goes as far as saying that she knows of the rumors swirling about their trying to get together by staying at the same hotels or visiting with the same people, even if it gets Chris Brown thrown in prison.
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I recently covered the attack on Leo Igwe, the Culture Kitchen blogger who was attacked by a mob of religious fanatics in Nigeria. Leo is still carrying on the fight on behalf of abused children in Nigeria, despite the attacks. He has sent me his most recent post:

The attack in Calabar and the threat of religious extremism in Nigeria

By Leo Igwe

Around 11.30 am on Wednesday July 29 2009, a mob of about 200 persons from the Liberty Gospel Church invaded the Cultural Center in Calabar Cross River State The Cultural Center was the venue of a public symposium on witchcraft and child rights organised by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and Stepping Stones Nigeria.

Most of them arrived the venue in buses wearing orange Tshirt while others donned plain clothes to hide their identity. As we were about to start, some of them stormed the conference hall stamping their feet on the ground and chanting slogans critical of the event and the organisers.
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