via Youtube User, pZEROm:

This is mainly an experimentation with soft bodies using toxi’s verlet springs.The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. The visual emphasis is on their decline.

More on that project at Information Visualization et al.

NEWSWEEK rewinds the first 10 years of the new century, reminding you of the best, worst, and unforgettable moments.

Thanks to Mario Piperni for bringing this clip to my attention.

Check out his site: mariopiperni.com ~ Political Issues & Not

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The following is from NewYorkTimes.com, posted 16 August 2009, by Alexi Barrionuevo.  The recently declassified documents are linked within a post from the historian responsible for analyzing them, Peter Kornbluh, located at GWU’s National Security Archive.

Some thoughts below the fold.

Barrionuevo wrote:

The formerly secret memos, published Sunday by the National Security Archive in Washington, show that Brazil and the United States discussed plans to overthrow or destabilize not only Mr. Allende but Fidel Castro of Cuba and others.

Mr. Nixon, at a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 9, 1971, said he was willing to offer Brazil the assistance, monetary or otherwise, it might need to rid South America of leftist governments, the White House memorandum of the meeting shows…

“The full history of intervention in South America in the 1970s cannot be told without Brazil coming clean about a dark past that is not previously acknowledged,” Mr. Kornbluh said.

This reminded me of a post I wrote for Care2.com following the 2009 Summit of the Americas.  There, Barack Obama was approached by Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, and they exchanged a greeting.  The post, “Gingrich Ignores History, Calls Obama – Chavez Encounter a Sign of Weakness,” is my take on the nonsense which erupted from conservative pundits & wannabe (but never will be) Presidents:

Conservatives have really got their shorts in a bunch over the Barack Obama – Hugo Chavez exchange over the weekend at the Summit of the Americas.  Their discomfort is yet another example of Obama’s detractors, digging in their heels, opposing every aspect of the three-month-old presidency; further, this conservative meme is no more rational than any of the others.  Their outrage over a simple greeting between Obama and Chavez is illustrative of a deeper problem within the American ideological divide.

The best example of irrational criticism came from a potential Obama opponent in 2012:  Newt Gingrich.  Satyam Khanna  summed up Gingrich’s position in a April 20, Think Progress post:

The right wing has responded with outrage to Obama’s meeting with Chavez, claiming face-to-face talks with a dictator show that Obama is projecting weakness. On NBC this morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama “bows to the Saudi King and is friends with Venezuela” and claimed the President showed “shallowness” in talking with Chavez. Gingrich then claimed that U.S. presidents do not “smile and greet” with Russian leaders…

Khanna goes on to explain why Gingrich, a former history professor, needs to brush up on his history.  The author provides a series of photographs of past US leaders smiling and greeting Russian leaders during the height of the Cold War.  But, Gingrich’s factual error is emblematic of the larger issue:  Americans tend to forget their nation’s history.

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Not only do we forget our history, many among us are inclined to guild memories of the past, providing them with a veneer of propriety that isn’t always deserved.  The past behavior in question — the contentious relationship between the US and Latin America — is a prime example of our historical ignorance.

Now, before you start with the “anti-American” or “Blame America Firster” accusations, hear me out.  American treatment of its neighbors to the South has been neither all good, nor has it been all bad.  Indeed, much of the most egregious offenses were undertaken with the best of intentions:  the prohibition of Soviet influence in Latin America.  While Americans are justifiably proud of their nation’s efforts in quashing their communist foes during the Cold War, too often we fail to empathize with Latin American populations who were adversely affected by US actions.

Consider that, historically, the US has, sometimes covertly, intervened in Latin American affairs over 50 times.  Regardless of the legitimacy of the interventions, a common result of such actions was American support of repressive right wing dictators for the sake of preventing leftist regimes from coming to power.

Hugo Chavez, whose handshake with Obama has garnered so much conservative ire,  was able to come to power in Venezuela because of that history.  Additionally, American support of a coup attempt to oust the Chavez regime in 2002 has served to strengthen his position in Venezuela.

In a March 2006 post at CommonDreams.org, Medea Benjamin described the consequences of the Bush Administration’s subversive actions in Venezuela, encouraging her readers to imagine if the shoe were on the other foot:

To this day, Bush Administration officials routinely deny their involvement in the coup, in spite of official US documents that prove otherwise. But the truth is widely known in Venezuela, and forms the basis for the antagonism that plagues the US-Venezuela relationship. To be fair, Chávez engages in regular verbal tirades against Bush and Rice which overreach presidential diplomacy. But imagine how the US government would treat a foreign government that had financed domestic groups that participated in a coup against the US government…

Well, what do you think?  How would you react to a foreign coup attempt?  I look forward to your comments, but consider this final question:  If it was a sign of weakness for Obama to interact with the Venezuelan President at a diplomatic summit, what action or actions could Obama have used in order to display strength?  Of course, Gingrich did not offer a suggestion.

Instead he railed against his own President, and did so without any consideration for how the Obama – Chavez encounter may have impacted the perceptions of the Venezuelan people.  Gingrich conveniently forgot that the eight years of Bush’s diplomatic neglect, combined with a long history of intervention in the region, contributed to the Venezuelans being predisposed to relish in Chavez’s anti-American rants.  His neglecting to include such considerations reflects his tacit acknowledgment that, Americans who are predisposed to accept such cynicism are ignorant of their own history. As a former history professor, Newt Gingrich should be ashamed of himself.

The remarkable events taking place in Iran are truly awe inspiring.  This clip from CNN , 20 June 2009, imparts samples of the numerous fronts on which the fraudulent election and subsequent unrest have been making news.  Perhaps the most remarkable aspect is the role of internet social networking sites, Twitter in particular, which have allowed this news to escape the borders of Iran.

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See Also:

Here are a couple of links to live blogs of the events taking place in Iran:

Nico Pitney @ TheHuffingtonPost.com – Pitney has been on it since day one.

For a European perspective, see Iran Protests: Live @ Guardian.co.uk .

India’s space program lands probe on Earth’s proper satellite

Finally, someone else went up there.  Best of all, India made the trip for around $80 million:  a relative bargain.  This news, in my opinion, marks the beginning of a new space-race.

It is now quite official that the US & Russia have been surpassed in lunar exploration.  Since the Moon is the most logical place to launch missions further into our solar system, and eventually into deep space, it is imperative that the Moon be elevated among NASA’s present priorities.

For now, however, congratulations to India on their extra planetary accomplishment.

From Yahoo.com, 11 November 2008 post by, Naseeb Chand:

…An Indian probe landed on the moon on Friday, the Indian Space Research Organization announced, in a milestone for the country’s 45-year-old space program…[snip]

…Scientists monitoring the probe cheered as ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair announced the success of the country’s first lunar mission, which began on October 22 when a rocket transported Chandrayaan-1 into space.

The probe, carrying three instruments and with the Indian flag painted on its outer panes, settled in a crater in the moon’s south pole…

read more | digg story

The economic events of the last couple of weeks has led many to darkly reminisce about Depression Era history.

Jon Hilsenrath, Serena Ng and Damian Paletta, authored an excellent piece regarding the present financial fiasco. In it, the authors describe the US financial system as undergoing treatment for a cancer that has already metastasized.

From the September 18, 2008, WSJ.com post - Worst Crisis Since ’30s, With No End Yet in Sight:

The body is trying to fight off a disease that is spreading, and as it does so, the body convulses, settles for a time and then convulses again. The illness seems to be overwhelming the self-healing tendencies of markets. The doctors in charge are resorting to ever-more invasive treatment, and are now experimenting with remedies that have never before been applied. Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, walking into a hastily arranged meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday night to brief them on the government’s unprecedented rescue of AIG, looked like exhausted surgeons delivering grim news to the family.

[snip]

Debt-driven financial traumas have a long history, from the Great Depression to the S&L crisis to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Neither economists nor policymakers have easy solutions. Cutting interest rates and writing stimulus checks to families can help — and may have prevented or delayed a deep recession. But, at least in this instance, they don’t suffice.

read more | digg story

The above article also touches on how the US & others have dealt with such financial crises.  Follow the above ‘read more’ link for the entire post.

For anyone interested in reading a quality history of the Great Depression, this is a must read:  The Great Depression – America, 1929-1941, by Robert S. McElvaine.  Three Rivers Press, New York, 1984, 1993.  Also check out Professor McElvaine’s blog at huffingtonpost.com.

From the NYT’s International Herald Tribune, August 17, 2008 post by Bill Keller:

Writing in The Financial Times last week, Chrystia Freeland recalled Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay “The End of History?” – which trumpeted the definitive triumph of liberal democracy.The great nightmare tyrannies of last century – the Evil Empire, Red China – had been left behind by those inseparable twins, freedom and prosperity. Civilization had chosen, and it chose us.

So much for that thesis. Surveying the Russian military rout of neighboring Georgia and the spectacle of China’s Olympics, Freeland, editor of The Financial Times’s American edition and a journalist who started her career covering Russia and Ukraine, proclaimed that a new “Age of Authoritarianism” was upon us.

If it is not yet an age, it is at least a season: Springtime for autocrats, and not just the minor-league monsters of Zimbabwe and the like but the giant regimes that seemed so surely bound for the ash heap in 1989.

The Chinese have made their Olympics an exultant display of athletic prowess and global prestige without having to temper their impulse to suppress and control. From the dazzling locksteps of that opening ceremony, to the kowtowing international VIPs, to the carefully policed absence of protest, this was an Olympics largely free of democratic mess.

Individualism has been confined between lane markers. The pre-Olympics promises that attention would be paid to international norms of behavior went unredeemed. Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times followed one citizen who decided to take up the government’s Olympic offer of designated protest zones for aggrieved parties who had filed the proper paperwork. Zhang Wei applied for the requisite license and was promptly arrested for “disturbing social order.” Take that, International Olympic Committee…

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