Reminder: Leherensuge is dead, two new blogs took its place

I see that still some people keep not just following Leherensuge but even joining it. Naturally I appreciate such attention but you are in the wrong place because Leherensuge came to an end a year ago (Oct 1st 2010) and was replaced by these two more specialized blogs:

For what they were... we are 

(prehistory, history, genetics, anthropology...)

For what we are... they will be

(current affairs, politics, class war...)

Please, join them (if so you wish) because no more interesting posts will appear in Leherensuge, which is only kept as archive. 

Thanks.

Archive pages

Better late than never. Now you can more easily browse through all that matters on Genetics and Prehistory (and similar) that was posted in Leherensuge in its three years of existence: I created two archive pages that are accessible from the top of the blog (tab bar). 

These two archives were originally posted at the new blog For what they were... we are but their location had become hard to find even for myself. I believe this is a much better location. 

Also, on occasion of the formal year change, I wrote a yearly review of 2010 anthropology and prehistory stuff that mostly revisits Leherensuge posts.

Remember please (some seem not to have noticed yet) that Leherensuge was discontinued on October 1st 2010 and replaced by two more sectorial blogs:

• For what they were... we are (anthropology, genetics, prehistory...)
• For what we are... they will be (the real thing: politics and such)

Hope that this change has been for the best.

We apologize for the incovenience - new blogs reminder

My blogs as well as my whole Google account was disabled on a weirdo error (spam?) this morning. I finally managed to get them back but for hours this blog and the others have been impossible to access. 

So I apologize for the inconvenience (even if it was not my fault).


Reminder of the new blogs

I take this occasion to remind all followers of Leherensuge, that the blog was discontinued on  October 1st and replaced by two new blogs with more specific contents:

• For what they were... we are
• For what we are... they will be

You may want to check them out.


Update (Dec 27): I forgot to put the links, corrected. 

THE END IS A NEW BEGINNING: Leherensuge discontinued but continued in two new blogs

Finally the day has come. The three-years story of Leherensuge ends here.

It is since now replaced by two more "sectorial" blogs:

For what they were... we are

and 

For what we are... they will be

The names taken from Pio Baroja's famous sentence, reflecting long-term continuity through our ephemeral lives, imply a more past and present-future orientation of each blog. They also reflect a more purely scientific-historical approach in For what they were... and a more socio-political one in For what we are...

Hopefully they will serve me and you as well or better than Leherensuge did.

Choose your favorite one or choose both, up to you. Join as follower and/or update your feeds and/or bookmarks. All what I blog from now on will be there.

See you around.

Note: Leherensuge will remain as archive. Also comments in Leherensuge remain open, at least for the time being.
 

On strike

General Strike tomorrow

Labor unions have called a General Strike of 24 hrs. in the state of Spain tomorrow, September 29th. While I have my reservations, I will join it and therefore Leherensuge will be idle tomorrow. I won't reply to comments either. 

The most representative unions in the Basque Country, ELA and LAB, which organized a separate national strike in June, declared weeks ago that they will not back the strike, because it has been unprepared and the Spanish unions have not counted with them. Another reason is that they argued that tomorrow there would be a Europe-wide strike and there is nothing like that (they lied). Other state-wide unions have joined the strike also critically.

However I am of the opinion that not one day but many of general strike are needed in order to put the State, Big Capital and EU against the ropes. So I am not renouncing to the opportunity to adhere to this strike, even if I am strongly critical of the subsidized Spanish union duopoly and I strongly suspect that the main motivation they have is to demobilize workers, rather than actually present battle against Big Capital and their administrators in Madrid and Brussels. 

________

On a separate note:

Leherensuge will be discontinued in October 1st. Two new blogs: will take its place that day:

• For what they were... we are
• For what we are... they will be

This follows the plan I have already outlined in the past, with a slight delay. The strike is another reason to delay it a few days more (avoiding confusion), even if the new blogs are ready, I believe. 

A final post will formalize the change. Leherensuge will remain online as archive and, at least for some time comments will be allowed.

Please make preparations for the replacement: bookmark, follow and/or update your feeds. Thanks. 

Advance notice: Leherensuge to be replaced very soon by two new blogs

Not yet, but as I promised some months ago, Leherensuge will be branched out into two new more specialized new blogs. And it will be soon.

The reason I have delayed so much is because I could not find good names. However, finally the light came to me after posting on the Congress of Historians of Navarre a few days ago. This post closed with a sentence from celebrated Basque author Pio Baroja:

For what they were we are, for what we are they will be. 

This sentence of deep historical meaning, both looking to the past and to the future, really reflects well what I have been trying to address in Leherensuge so far and the two halves in which I mean to split my future blogging.

And that's how the two new blogs are named:

For what they were... we are, will deal with the past: Prehistory, Anthropology, Genetics, some History too maybe. One of the pillars of this blog. 

For what we are... they will be instead will deal with news from here and there, the Class War in all its aspects, as well as whatever other issue of current affairs I can think of. 

Admittedly, some times I may have doubts where to post something. In such cases, I may double post it. 

So, I insist, this won't be yet but will be very soon (days or weeks). The most difficult task was to figure out the names, now only the preliminary work remains to be done (design details, maybe a page or post with thematically organized links to most important posts in Leherensuge for the past-looking blog). 

One of these days, when I feel satisfied with those last details, I will write my last Leherensuge post, which will be the closure notice, with due links and all that.

Feel free to visit either or both blogs in their preliminary state and comment on the design (here preferably for now). I welcome criticisms and ideas (though I will follow my own preferences ultimately, of course). 

I hope you will all like and enjoy these two new sites, which are nothing but this blog's continuity, the same or even more as you did here.

I made a decission on blog-splitting

The poll results are pretty clear but it's way too easy to alter such polls (I have voted five times myself, all but once for the "undecided" option, and all times because the cookie was lost accidentally or I just used a different browser). So a single person determined to slant the vote can easily make an disproportionate impact. I don't say it happened, just that it can easily happen.

In fact all the comments I have got, which are more important to me, are in the line of "I really don't care much" or "I like the way it is". I am in fact surprised of the many people that like the current format in any case.

However, I am myself each day more convinced that, for the best interest of both sections, a blog split is necessary. One of the reasons is that normally the socio-political section has much greater number of interesting topics to deal with and really allows for several posts per day. Meanwhile the prehistory-anthropology section usually has a slower path of information flow.

The other reason is that, as considered before, different people will have different prioritary interests. There's nothing impeding readers from following two blogs instead of one, so there's hardly any downside to the split.

The two fields have become in any case like oil and water and mix only forcibly. Though now and then there are topics like Iruña-Veleia that certainly cross the conceptual barrier.

So I am definitively splitting the blog in the near future. My self-set deadline is for September 21 but I think it is likely that the split happens earlier. You'll be announced in advance and the beginning of both new blogs will be simultaneous in any case. One day (not yet set) Leherensuge will have its last post redirecting any accidental or forgetful reader to the new spaces.

One of the first issues I have to solve is nice informative and catchy names for each of the blogs. I'll appreciate feedback on this.

So far I have been able to come with the following ideas:

For the news/politics/social affairs blog, I'm pondering the following: Class War Diaries / The Class War Observer, The Atlantic/Western Denizen. So far I'm more inclined for the "denizen" type of title because I often feel that way, as "democracy" is nowadays a mere pretext for authoritarianism of the worst kind. This is part of the Atlantist coup process that was initiated by the 9/11 self-attack, as I realized that very week of 2001 following the logic of qui bono.

For the prehistory-anthropology-genetics section I have even less ideas. So far the best I could come up with was Unraveling the Past. Still thinking ( something about "roots", "the urban primitivist", "Cromagnon in Babylon"... ideas that come right now as I write but that will possibly discard later).

As said, feedback is welcome.

Excellent coverage of oil disaster at Washington's Blog

The Louisiana oil catastrophe, with its many aspects (toxic dispersants, ecological and economic impact, BP owners, hidden data and even possible doomsday scenarios), is something I have covered only sparingly. This is partly because it is a main page news issue and partly because I'm truly overwhelmed by the many ramifications of the catastrophe.

However I imagine that many among Leherensuge's readers would appreciate more quality and intensive information about it. I know of two written sources (I don't watch so many visual media, sorry):

One is Global Research and the other and most important one is Washington's Blog. I say most important because many of the materials found at Global Research and elsewhere actually come from this blog and that's how I found it myself. The blog is a general "news and analysis" blog but as of late it has become almost monolithically focused on the Louisiana hecatomb.

I've been trying to add this blog to the blogroll and follow it via Google but it seems to have some strange problems with the feedback link: it works perfectly in Google Reader however. In any case I hope these links are of use to you... because the mainstream media after all is the monopoly of a few oligarchs who simply are not going to put any effort in keeping you properly informed if they can help it.

Greek blogger shot down in Athens

Sokratis Giolias, 37, was shot down before his home in Athens after men possibly dressed in police uniforms rang his bell and said his car had been robbed. They shot 16 bullets of the 19 mm caliber at him.

Giolias run the most popular blog and one of the most visited websites of Greece, Troktiko, which mixed frivolity with wide spectrum journalism, including, it seems, investigative journalism. He may have stepped on the wrong toe of someone with very bad temper and enough power. Who exactly? That I don't know yet.

While the police accuses the mysterious leftist armed group "The Revolutionary Sect" (variously called in the media "Sect of Revolutionaries" or "Rebel Sect"), which possibly means Revolutionary Struggle, which sent a parcel-bomb to the Greek Minister of Interior recently, killing one of his aides. I find this association strange to say the least, as the modus operandi is clearly different, there are reports that the men were dressed in police uniforms and, after hours of reading an automatically translated version of the blog, I get the conclusion the main targets of his reports seem to be the establishment, including the police, wealthy tax evaders, fire arsonists and EU dictator Joao Barroso, as well as fascist Turkish groups like the Grey Wolves.

[Update: a frequent poster at the blog, Anagnostis, says that while "the Sect" had threatened certain journalists, Giolias' name was not in their list. He/she adds other reasons not to believe in the official version].

I suspect that the Greek police is trying to cover up the institutional murder of a free reporter who had become a problem for them. But we'll see because it's not like we can be deceived forever, right?

Most intriguing is this announcement repeatedly placed in the blog yesterday which reads (according to Google translator):

Do not miss tomorrow troktiko

Tomorrow we will see how the state of the relationship between security forces and entrepreneur! With photos and documents

From what I could gather from the media, he was about to publish an investigative report on corruption, possibly those links between the police forces and the capitalists that we can understand from the babbling translation provided by Google.

Mainstream media references: Al Jazeera, BBC, Reuters, New Europe.


________________________

Update (Jul 23): Antimperialista blog[es] reports that all documents and personal objects of Sokratis Giolias have been confiscated by police on the pretext of doing a throughout investigation. That way the investigation on police corruption he was about to publish will never see the light.

It also clarifies that the mysterious "Revolutionary Sect" is believed to be different from other armed groups and a cover up for police and fascist murderous activities.

The blog also links to Il Manifesto newspaper[it], which wonders if Greece is falling again into the Lead Years, name by which are known the period of the 1970s and 1980s that, specially in Italy but also in other areas of Europe, characterized by state terrorism against revolutionaries and complex manipulations leading to farce-trials.

73,000 blogs wiped off overnight

The sheer number is scary. The WordPress powered blog-hosting site Blogetery was closed down on July 14 on initially unknown reasons. The closure brought down some 73,000 blogs.

As I say, it was unclear why the site was closed down because, whatever the possible crimes committed by individual bloggers, it made little sense to close all them. However in the end it seems it was not the FBI nor the judicial authorities which ordered the closure but the hosting server BurstNet on its own (pretty much abusive and unjustified) decision.

Apparently the case is after all not about copyright issues nor child pornography as was speculated early but about one blogger seemingly linked to Al Qaeda who posted a bomb making manual. While the FBI did use the powers granted by the Patriot Act to demand access to hosted data, the closure was decided, admittedly, by the host company.

Sources: various but specially CNET. See also the discussion at this forum between a BurstNet employee and the owner of Blogetery, who was obviously confused and upset. Notice how many people in the thread take the side of the blurry authority figures regardless that it's a clear case of freedom of speech and contractual responsibility and that the victims were not offered any explanation at all. It's quite worrisome that people tend to think that way because that is the gate that lead us to fascism.

Update: seems the issue has snowballed to some dimension. BBC reports on the matter today reflecting the anger of users who blame BurstNet of not caring about their customers. Certainly a bad publicity move, I'd say: would you hire their services?

Another site, iBPFree, hosting forums, has also been closed without apparent reason.

Happy Cancer Solstice 2010

It's Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere (sure, Winter Solstice for readers from the South but Cancer Solstice for all equally). I estimate that maybe ten minutes before this post goes live.

So happy Solstice to all readers. Even if this year seems quite troubled, I think there's also big hope in it.

As with all solstices it's time to review the last year or half year. Because it was a June 22 when I began using that little but helpful utility called ClustrMaps (it's at the bottom of the blog) that tracks visitors by amount and location, giving a nice overview of the interest that my little blog causes around the World.


The map above (click to expand) shows visits between June 22 2009 and June 1 2010. Almost other 3000 visits have happened since the last date, totaling 28,577 unique visits in the year.

The increase of the last months has been very sharp because I was counting 9000 visits between June 22 and December 22 2009, and that was also the figure for the whole previous year. So 20,000 or so have been since Christmas alone. So Leherensuge is growing exponentially and I'm getting some feeling of vertigo.

As usual, the greatest number of visitors per state is from the USA (9900 visits), followed by the UK (2100), Spain (1900), Canada (1500), France (1200) and Netherlands (760). All figures are rounded.

Out of Europe and North America, the highest figures are from India (590), Taiwan (560), Australia (480), Turkey (350), Brazil (250) and New Zealand (250). The greatest number of African visitors comes from Morocco: 190.


Should I split the blog?

This is a question I have been pondering a lot as of late. It seems clear that nearly all of what I write can be placed under two quite different categories: (1) anthropology, genetics, prehistory and science in general and (2) current affairs and politics, including the Basque situation. And it's not like category two is anecdotal nor I would want it to be that way at all.

While overall the readers of Leherensuge are clearly a growing bunch (so I must be doing something right), I am convinced that some people who may have arrived here because of anthropology and such has eventually left bored of politics and the like. The opposite may have happened too but it's surely less likely.

So I am considering seriously to create two separate blogs for these two categories in order to cater to two at least partially distinct audiences. I am still in doubt and certainly there are some cons to doing that: laziness, inertia, conceiving new names for the new blogs, search issues, difficulty on deciding what goes into each category, etc.

So by the moment I'll be creating a consultative poll to get readers to cast their opinion on the matter easily and, hopefully, help me to make up my mind. You can of course, also post a comment here with more extensive opinions. Thanks in advance.

1001 posts

Yes, this is post number 1001. Just noticed.

Blog shut and author sentenced for exposing Zionists

Italian blogger Paolo Munzi saw his blog shut down by the authorities and brought to trial, where he was sentenced to 6 months of prison for "defamation" but acquitted from having violated privacy laws and inciting racial hatred, for publishing a list of 160 Italian professors deemed to belong to the Zionist Lobby.

One wonders if it was proven in court that those people did not belong to the Lobby or if he was just sentenced without performing such crucial proof.

I suspect the latter: that he was presumed guilty because he attacked the Zionists. Therefore I must declare my solidarity with the censored blogger and decry again the attempts of censorship on denouncing such a Nazi network as is the Zionist mafia.

Sources: EAAZI, The Truth will set you Free, JTA.

How to Do Fieldwork on Proto-Indo-European

I'm sorry I'm not writing so often these days. Guess I'm too busy replying emails since I posted my address at the side column... ahem. A lot of people telling me what I should think and all that.

Remember that there's an open comment section here at Leherensuge and that you can share your thoughts not just with me but with "the Universe" at them. Who knows?, maybe the little green men are also addict to this blog...

Anyhow, one of those emails reminded me of that genial linguistic magazine: the Speculative Grammarian, which I had not read in years. It's still as good as ever (for an intellectual good laugh). For example, I stumbled right away with this article:

How to Do Fieldwork on Proto-Indo-European

Tim Pulju
Dartmouth College

Step one: find a native speaker.

That's it. No need to synthesize. Now, you damn lazy linguist, go find one of those!

Four Stone Hearth at Ad Hominin

The fortnightly anthropology carnival is back, gathering some of the best anthropology blogging of the last weeks at Ad Hominin. Take a look.

Happy solstice, by the way

Almost forgot that yesterday was the winter's solstice, the beginning of the new year, the longest night and shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. I recalled because astronomer Mike Brown posted very beautifully on it at his blog.

So I want to wish a happy new year (natural year) to all my readers and, in general, the World. Even in troubled times like these there can be better or worse outcomes and, naturally, I hope for the first ones.

It must be nice weather now in New Zealand, right? What about tropical Venezuela or India? In Europe and North America has been Ice Age freezing or almost, with communications cut in many cases and many death, particularly in Poland and Ukraine. But you probably know that yourself from experience or, if you live somewhere else, from the news, always so Atlanto-centric.

At least in my area we have avoided the worst. And temperatures have been improving gradually but, well, it was damn freezing just a couple of days ago.


Leherensuge growing

Solstices are relevant dates for this blog anyhow. It was in the Summer solstice of 2008 when I adopted the ClustrMap feature that allows me to get an idea of who reads Leherensuge. So it's a good time to make balance on such matters.

To my surprise, the number of readers (actually singular reading episodes - I think each session counts as one visit) in the last 6 months has been as large as it was the previous year in total. From June 22 to December 23 this site got more than 9,000 visits, that was also the figure I got in June for the whole previous year. This some 50 visits per day (and I swear I never visit myself more than 10 times any day!), which is, I believe pretty nice for a "personal" blog like this one. The number of openly following readers has also increased recently (today they were 14, while a few months ago there were only 7).

Naturally I feel happy and proud of this little success and want to thank all readers for being there. I also want to bid a warm welcome to those that arrived recently and encourage everybody to comment when they feel they have something to add or criticise. I know I have a hot temper and am somewhat opinionated at times but, don't worry, you're safe at your home, surely many many kilometers away from where I am.

More than a third of all readers (reading sessions) are from the USA, with Canada making up for almost 50% from North America (yah, it includes Mexico, etc. but these countries don't have so many hits); probably another third is from Europe (UK, Spain and France with more than 500 visits each). Out of the North Atlantic area, India, Australia and New Zealand have over 100 visits each, Morocco, Brazil and Turkey are above 75, and then there is a huge diversity. Oddly enough, Kepler, Venezuela only shows 14 hits.

Well, whatever the case, enjoy the new year.

Genes, brains and fractals (various brief notes)

I'm feeling intellectually saturated right now and don't feel like writing or even reading too much at the moment. However there are some interesting news I think I should mention. Therefore I'll just make a quick reference here... by the moment.


Genes:

Some of these news come from the new PLoS ONE issue:

D. López Herráez et al. have found several evolutionary markers that seem to define short height in Pygmies (as an adaptative response to low iodine diet) and cartilaginous tissue that may correlate with "racial" differences as shown in facial traits (facial features are largely defined by cartilages).

G. Resink et al. explore the parallels and differences between genetic structure in Sahul and language families. This report is also discussed at Dienekes' blog.

Also I have been reading Subramanian's paper on Penguin DNA and molecular clock (thanks to German again) but, sadly, it is not as clarifying as the press release would suggest. I need to re-read it in order to make up my mind.


Brains:

At Science Daily we are informed of the fact that larger brains are not necessarily correlated with greater cognitive power, that bees and dogs can essentially understand the same things about their surroundings.

Also at SD, it is mentioned that IBM has managed to recreate with supercomputers the wiring complexity of a cat-like brain.


Chaos:

For those interested in Chaos theory and fractal geometries (I love it but also beats me), New Scientist deals with the three dimensionalization of the classical Mandelbrot Set, gallery included.
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Visitor map reset and year recount

Just got notification that the ClustrMaps geographic visitor counter is going to be reset. Seems it's been counting visitors for a whole year now, so the counter starts over.

So guess it's a good reason to post the current yearly stats for Leherensuge:

(click to expand)

9156 unique visits have stopped by (between the 08-09 Summer solstices) from the following administrative divisions:

• More than 3000: USA.
• More than 500: Spain, France and UK.
• More than 100: Canada, Netherlands, India, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Belgium and Italy.
• More than 50: Finland, Portugal, Turkey, China, Sweden, Brazil, Israel (sic) and Mexico.
• More than 25: Poland, Morocco, Norway, Greece, Japan, Czechia, Switzerland, Russia, Rumania, Hungary, South Africa and Singapore.
• More than 10: UAE, Croatia, Ireland, Serbia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Austria, South Korea, Bangladesh, Jordan, Denmark, Bulgaria, Latvia, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, Argentina, European Union (eu domain probably), Pakistan, Slovakia and Egypt.
• More than 5: Slovenia, Colombia, Chile, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Peru, Palestine Territory, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Tunisia, Lebanon, Taiwan and Algeria.
• And many many other places with 5 hits or less.

For the ongoing counter, just scroll all the way down any page at Leherensuge.

Enjoy.
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My computer broke down

This Saturday. It would not even start at all. After much going around, trying this and that, I decided it was the BIOS. Guess it was just old enough for a computer: 6 years and a half. What happened with those machines that lasted for a whole lifetime?

I was quite worried because a typical new PC, even if prices have gone down somewhat is rather expensive for my surivalist economy. But luckily today I found one for only 189 euros, 220 after taxes. A brand new Athlon e-Machine with two years guarantee. And with Ubuntu installed and all. Just that it came without screen - but no big deal, really.

It's quite small and makes almost no noise. What an improvement in relation with the previous one!

This post is absolutely the first activity since I regained Internet access, just few minutes ago. My apologies for all the comments unanswered here or elsewhere. I will get to that later. Tomorrow probably.

Enjoy.