Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
You can now buy for your cat a scratch post in the image of Russian president Vladimir Putin. A range of satirical products have been launched by HMA to raise awareness of leaders and regimes around the world that deny their citizens basic freedom of the internet, robbing them of news, ideas, opinion and knowledge – not to mention countless cat pictures and videos that we spend so much time amusing ourselves with in the free digital world… Picture: HideMyass.com
Nope ; the question is, was the internet designed for and intended for increasing individual productivity? I rather think not. It was intended to improve communications between computer scientists ; Joe Soap and online exchange of cat pictures were not in the original design plans, nor indeed any form of widespread access. If there had been ANY inkling of the number of people who would be using the system, then the “gentlemen’s agreement” aspects of Internet Protocol traffic (e.g. neutrality ; transport of traffic for hosts on other autonomous segments) simply wouldn’t have been done in the way they were done.
Cat videos are an unintended emergent phenomenon. You won’t see much in the way of cat videos on the lumps of network that (for an example) Netflix own and manage unless they’ve been brought and paid for by a customer.
That reminds me of the most awesome post by Moscow Times about the new Russian blogging rules. The story and picture is funny but the Tweet is even better. I replied to it, “Moscow Times: never change” & I have it as my BlackBerry Messenger picture 🙂
What is with all my typos? I’m not even on a phone or tablet. Get it together brain & fingers!
A friend read a book about Harper. Her review included this sentence, “Dollops of backroom stories and anecdotes at least give some insights into the cold fish that is our prime minister.”
I think “cold fish” is accurate. Maybe that’s what’s inside. 🙂
Ah, yes. Sometimes I enjoy knowing that male celebrities (and politicians are celebrities) have to deal with a bit of the primping women always do.
(BTW, I was just rudely riffing on your typo, probably something I’m the only one to have noticed, since we miss most of these things by reading for context. I usually miss them too, esp. my own typos.)
It’s all his head. Here is a picture that freaks me out because he has a creepy smile and that kitten looks nervous.
We are ever so respectful of Our Fearless Leader, as The Globe’s John Doyle calls him…
Heh, I tweeted him this summer, asking him why he couldn’t be like Putin (and I tagged the Kremlin in the tweet) who was giving awards to Russian scientist while Harper was firing them. I was a little scared after. 🙂
Yeah – OFL’s not real big on science…
Reminds me of a motie. Gripping hand on the left, double arms on the right.
The stupidity of US citizens to fall for the typical propaganda that got it into the war in Iraq, the Vietnam war the mess in Libya, the support for Bahrein extinguishing the protest in Bahrain through its proxy Saudi Arabia, the backlash form the US supported Taliban and now the portayal of Putin as the ultimate bad guy is simply amazing – without even considering the legitimacy of a Russian attempt to stop Nato encroachment on its borders.
The arrogance of Americans to presume they have the unilateral right to determine whose border to violate or encroach upon and denying based on their exceptionalist philosophy (seems unilaterally supported here on a supposedly skeptical site, although I see very little evidence of such when it comes to US foreign politics)the right of others to similar consideration is simply amazing.
One would have thought that propaganda once exposed and demonstrated would prevent such Pavlovian reflexes – but no, portray the Russians as the enemy and the US citizens start salivating the idea of a newfound enemy.
Enough evidence that as well during and before the Orange “revolution” as well as during and before the Maidan troubles the US and Nato was heavily involved stirring the pot..calling the kettle black.
But hey – you need your enemy, you got it, have fun until the next war starts – with less of a certain outcome that the US will “win” another one….
…trying no to get into the Russia discussion again…trying…trying.
Ok, I’ll talk about the US thing. I think Russia and the US continuously talk past each other. I honestly think that the two countries have traumatized one another and they are still fearful of one another. I don’t like to paint all Americans as dumb asses who can’t see through propaganda but I honestly think there are historical trust issues and I sometimes chuckle at how the two countries can behave. Honestly, I think most world leaders, perhaps with the exception of Merkel, Hollande and Obama when he is having a good day, should be spanked and put to bed early. I don’t know how Merkel stands it sometimes.
I guess that has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation….
and who the fuck is traumatized? Who was fucking invaded twice within a century by foreign forces, i.e. Germany? And you talk about the US somehow traumatized? Who has fucking invaded the US in the last century, he asked somewhat irritated?
Who was encircled during the cold war? I guess the US with its seaboards totally squeezed by the Russian Navy, so their ships could not get out of port?
I think honestly that Americans as a commons are political idiots. The posts by Mr. Coyne to that regard prove that even so called intellectuals from the US are not immune from that disease – fall for their own propaganda that led them to win:
The war in Korea
The war in Vietnam
The war in Iraq
The war in Afghanistan
The war in Libya
The war in Syria
The war in Georgia
The war with Russia?
they actually won a few or had success in subduing so called terrorists : Grenada,death squads in Nicaragua, support for Chile`s Pinochet and his military goons, Panama….
re kraut’s very rude but useful comment on banned Polish fruit: Poland seems to have discovered which side its bread is apple-buttered on and now judges Putin’s humanitarian move in Ukraine to be honorable. It will be interesting to see CNN (and US neo-colonial corporate news in general) eat crow.
Poor Obama. Maybe the Democrats will find and nominate an authentic liberal states-person next time around.
NZ is making out like a bandit! They are exporting cheese and pork to Russia to fill in what the banned countries are not supplying. Canada I think can’t sell its pork….I forget what else.
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, etc. will profit from Russia’s sanctions on meat, fruit and wine imports of NATO nations. This will strengthen BRICS and their project to setting up a financial system alternative to the US dollar. As Diana notes, New Zealand seems to see the farse and may also be abandoning ship. Britain is procrastinating in telling us whether MH17 was shot down with a surface-to-air missile or a ‘sidewinder’ from a Ukrainian Mig29. Things are once again becoming interesting.
“Who was encircled during the cold war? I guess the US with its seaboards totally squeezed by the Russian Navy, so their ships could not get out of port?” – you are complaining about GEOGRAPHY???!
Re-read my post, rude reactionary one. I acknowledged Russia was traumatized. I know a lot about Russian history. However, the Cold War was no party for anyone and it is clear that Russia and the West (usually led by the US) fear each other and don’t trust one another. The break up of the Soviet Union was nice for the countries who gained independence but do you think those countries aren’t afraid of Russia? Do you think Russia isn’t upset at the break up? Do you think NATO members aren’t still worried?
It seems to me that you just don’t like the US. Fine, but you look uniformed and bigoted when you behave rudely and condescendingly.
“The arrogance of Americans…based on their exceptionalist philosophy (seems unilaterally supported here on a supposedly skeptical site, although I see very little evidence of such when it comes to US foreign politics)…”
Oh I really really need to buy this Putin thing!
They say it’s sold by hidemyass.com, but it’s a vpn website, there’s nothing to sell there, anyone knows where i could buy it ?
The US is not as great as it thinks it is, but at least they have freedom of speech guaranteed by their constitution. Russian media is controlled, it has political prisoners and, in this day and age, it’s still introducing new anti-gay laws. Last I heard they were still saying MH17 was shot down by the Ukrainian military too.
There is a lot of invalid anti-Russian rhetoric, but if I had to choose between Russia or the USA, the US would be my choice every time.
Sub
Except I’d like to own this cat.
You know that’s not the direction those relationships go.
what? no scratching bush-cheney rope posts?
Isn’t that the theme of the new line of litter trays due out for Xmas?
Aren’t the Russians a leading exporter of cat videos?
If Putin moves to block these exports the internet would surely collapse.
Fixed that for you.
You would advocate drastically cutting back on the felid-related content of the Internet? On this site? Believe in living dangerously, don’t you? 😉
Nope ; the question is, was the internet designed for and intended for increasing individual productivity? I rather think not. It was intended to improve communications between computer scientists ; Joe Soap and online exchange of cat pictures were not in the original design plans, nor indeed any form of widespread access. If there had been ANY inkling of the number of people who would be using the system, then the “gentlemen’s agreement” aspects of Internet Protocol traffic (e.g. neutrality ; transport of traffic for hosts on other autonomous segments) simply wouldn’t have been done in the way they were done.
Cat videos are an unintended emergent phenomenon. You won’t see much in the way of cat videos on the lumps of network that (for an example) Netflix own and manage unless they’ve been brought and paid for by a customer.
That reminds me of the most awesome post by Moscow Times about the new Russian blogging rules. The story and picture is funny but the Tweet is even better. I replied to it, “Moscow Times: never change” & I have it as my BlackBerry Messenger picture 🙂
Rasp-Putin, feared by both left and right, utterly amoral.
Looks more like a Bigfoot than a monkey!
The monkey print unnerves me somehow…maybe it’s uneven, maybe it just looks like it would irritate the cat…I don’t know, it just irritates me.
The Putin cat scratching post looks more like my own PM Stephen Harper. I think the hair is wrong – looks like Harper hair not Putin hair.
Not quite puffy and 80s dry-look enough fro Harper hair, imho.
That isn’t hair with Harper, that’s his odd head. Seriously, I’m not truly to be mean. I’ve looked at it and contemplated it often 🙂
Poor Stephen;-( It’s what’s inside his head that concerns me…
What is with all my typos? I’m not even on a phone or tablet. Get it together brain & fingers!
A friend read a book about Harper. Her review included this sentence, “Dollops of backroom stories and anecdotes at least give some insights into the cold fish that is our prime minister.”
I think “cold fish” is accurate. Maybe that’s what’s inside. 🙂
“Not quite puffy and 80s dry-look enough fro Harper hair, imho.”
He has a fro?
http://vintagelounge.tumblr.com/image/26766625351
No, far from a fro. More like the male version of the Farrah Fawcett look…
Ah, yes. Sometimes I enjoy knowing that male celebrities (and politicians are celebrities) have to deal with a bit of the primping women always do.
(BTW, I was just rudely riffing on your typo, probably something I’m the only one to have noticed, since we miss most of these things by reading for context. I usually miss them too, esp. my own typos.)
It’s all his head. Here is a picture that freaks me out because he has a creepy smile and that kitten looks nervous.
Oops
here
If ever a photo screamed “PR pose”…
Watch out, Kitteh!!
We are ever so respectful of Our Fearless Leader, as The Globe’s John Doyle calls him…
Heh, I tweeted him this summer, asking him why he couldn’t be like Putin (and I tagged the Kremlin in the tweet) who was giving awards to Russian scientist while Harper was firing them. I was a little scared after. 🙂
Yeah – OFL’s not real big on science…
Reminds me of a motie. Gripping hand on the left, double arms on the right.
The stupidity of US citizens to fall for the typical propaganda that got it into the war in Iraq, the Vietnam war the mess in Libya, the support for Bahrein extinguishing the protest in Bahrain through its proxy Saudi Arabia, the backlash form the US supported Taliban and now the portayal of Putin as the ultimate bad guy is simply amazing – without even considering the legitimacy of a Russian attempt to stop Nato encroachment on its borders.
The arrogance of Americans to presume they have the unilateral right to determine whose border to violate or encroach upon and denying based on their exceptionalist philosophy (seems unilaterally supported here on a supposedly skeptical site, although I see very little evidence of such when it comes to US foreign politics)the right of others to similar consideration is simply amazing.
One would have thought that propaganda once exposed and demonstrated would prevent such Pavlovian reflexes – but no, portray the Russians as the enemy and the US citizens start salivating the idea of a newfound enemy.
Enough evidence that as well during and before the Orange “revolution” as well as during and before the Maidan troubles the US and Nato was heavily involved stirring the pot..calling the kettle black.
But hey – you need your enemy, you got it, have fun until the next war starts – with less of a certain outcome that the US will “win” another one….
…trying no to get into the Russia discussion again…trying…trying.
Ok, I’ll talk about the US thing. I think Russia and the US continuously talk past each other. I honestly think that the two countries have traumatized one another and they are still fearful of one another. I don’t like to paint all Americans as dumb asses who can’t see through propaganda but I honestly think there are historical trust issues and I sometimes chuckle at how the two countries can behave. Honestly, I think most world leaders, perhaps with the exception of Merkel, Hollande and Obama when he is having a good day, should be spanked and put to bed early. I don’t know how Merkel stands it sometimes.
Of course, this is from a perspective of a Canadian, whose PM she grew up under was such close friends with Yakovlev that he named one of his sons after him; he also visited the Soviet Union in 1952 and he de-escalated the situation of the Korean Airliner downing by the Soviets in the 80s.
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/08/05/bfp-exclusive-stench-of-corruption-a-ukraine-oligarch-shale-gas-civil-war-baby-biden/
I guess that has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation….
and who the fuck is traumatized? Who was fucking invaded twice within a century by foreign forces, i.e. Germany? And you talk about the US somehow traumatized? Who has fucking invaded the US in the last century, he asked somewhat irritated?
Who was encircled during the cold war? I guess the US with its seaboards totally squeezed by the Russian Navy, so their ships could not get out of port?
I think honestly that Americans as a commons are political idiots. The posts by Mr. Coyne to that regard prove that even so called intellectuals from the US are not immune from that disease – fall for their own propaganda that led them to win:
The war in Korea
The war in Vietnam
The war in Iraq
The war in Afghanistan
The war in Libya
The war in Syria
The war in Georgia
The war with Russia?
they actually won a few or had success in subduing so called terrorists : Grenada,death squads in Nicaragua, support for Chile`s Pinochet and his military goons, Panama….
PS – this one is for Mr. Coyne specifically:
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/2014/08/polish-ambassadors-freedomapples-appeal.html
re kraut’s very rude but useful comment on banned Polish fruit: Poland seems to have discovered which side its bread is apple-buttered on and now judges Putin’s humanitarian move in Ukraine to be honorable. It will be interesting to see CNN (and US neo-colonial corporate news in general) eat crow.
https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2014/08/12/polen-rudert-zurueck-und-lobt-russland-gefahr-einer-invasion-ist-kleiner-geworden/&edit-text=
Poor Obama. Maybe the Democrats will find and nominate an authentic liberal states-person next time around.
NZ is making out like a bandit! They are exporting cheese and pork to Russia to fill in what the banned countries are not supplying. Canada I think can’t sell its pork….I forget what else.
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, etc. will profit from Russia’s sanctions on meat, fruit and wine imports of NATO nations. This will strengthen BRICS and their project to setting up a financial system alternative to the US dollar. As Diana notes, New Zealand seems to see the farse and may also be abandoning ship. Britain is procrastinating in telling us whether MH17 was shot down with a surface-to-air missile or a ‘sidewinder’ from a Ukrainian Mig29. Things are once again becoming interesting.
“Who was encircled during the cold war? I guess the US with its seaboards totally squeezed by the Russian Navy, so their ships could not get out of port?” – you are complaining about GEOGRAPHY???!
Who was “invaded twice within a century by foreign forces, i.e. Germany” – well, France & Belgium!
Who allied themselves with the Nazis in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, carving up eastern Europe between them?
Re-read my post, rude reactionary one. I acknowledged Russia was traumatized. I know a lot about Russian history. However, the Cold War was no party for anyone and it is clear that Russia and the West (usually led by the US) fear each other and don’t trust one another. The break up of the Soviet Union was nice for the countries who gained independence but do you think those countries aren’t afraid of Russia? Do you think Russia isn’t upset at the break up? Do you think NATO members aren’t still worried?
It seems to me that you just don’t like the US. Fine, but you look uniformed and bigoted when you behave rudely and condescendingly.
uninformed (but uniformed works well too)
kraut is rude but posts some links worthy of airing. Thanks for not deleting his comments.
Some of us are appalled with unfamiliarity concerning well-documented outrages of Poroshenko’s Ukraine. Here’s a link to an old report on Kiev censor and denial of press freedom (http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/05/three-things-know-ukrainee-media-freedom-crisis/)
W.
“The arrogance of Americans…based on their exceptionalist philosophy (seems unilaterally supported here on a supposedly skeptical site, although I see very little evidence of such when it comes to US foreign politics)…”
Have you been here long?
For some time. Fortunately the political idiocies perpetrated here are vastly outweighed by the scientific or feline content.
Let me guess–you’re anti-Israel?
Well, then, I STRONGLY urge you to go elsewhere where people are not idiots.
Does anyone else see a black monkey pitching a banana or throwing a boomerang?!
Yup!
Typo ergo sum Merilee
>
Oh I really really need to buy this Putin thing!
They say it’s sold by hidemyass.com, but it’s a vpn website, there’s nothing to sell there, anyone knows where i could buy it ?
The US is not as great as it thinks it is, but at least they have freedom of speech guaranteed by their constitution. Russian media is controlled, it has political prisoners and, in this day and age, it’s still introducing new anti-gay laws. Last I heard they were still saying MH17 was shot down by the Ukrainian military too.
There is a lot of invalid anti-Russian rhetoric, but if I had to choose between Russia or the USA, the US would be my choice every time.