Thesis of a Marxist

A Marxist sociologist has argued that racism stems from the class struggle that is unique to the capitalist system-that racial prejudice is generated by capitalists as a means of controlling workers. His thesis works relatively well when applied to discrimination against Blacks in the United States, but his definition of racial prejudice as “racially-based negative prejudgments against a group generally accepted as a race in any given region of ethnic competition,” can be interpreted as also including hostility toward such ethnic groups as the Chinese in California and the Jews in medieval Europe. However, since prejudice against these latter peoples was not inspired by capitalists, he has to reason that such antagonisms were not really based on race. He disposes thusly (albeit unconvincingly) of both the intolerance faced by Jews before the rise of capitalism and the early twentieth-century discrimination against Oriental people in California, which, inconveniently, was instigated by workers.

Biodiesel- coming up next!

Biodiesel is the fastest growing alternative fuel in many European Union countries and in the United States.
Biodiesel is not a new fuel technologically because when a diesel engine was first designed, it was made to run on peanut oil. It is a safe, non-toxic, biodegradable, and renewable fuel that can be easily used in unmodified diesel engines. Fuel markets that can benefit from biodiesel include bus and truck fleets, heavy equipment, diesel cars and boats, and electric generators. Engines that use biodiesel last longer due to its inherent lubrication quality. Biodiesel is produced by chemically re-acting an alcohol (usually methanol, occasionally ethanol) with vegetable based oils, animal fats, or waste cooking oils, using either sodium methoxide, sodium hydroxide, or potassium hydroxide as a catalyst. The most common process for producing biodiesel from virgin seed oils is the trans-esterification of fatty acid glycerol esters into methyl esters with one of the above mentioned base catalysts. There are several methods for carrying out this trans-esterification reaction including the common batch process, supercritical processes, ultrasonic methods, and even microwave methods.

Seven pounds

Cast: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper, Woody Harrelson
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Genre: Drama
People know will smith as a action hero, giving his viewers an adrenalin high with movies like Men in Black, I am Legend, Independence day and Hancock but now he also proved them that he can do the intense movies like Pursuit of happiness, Seven Pounds.
Mysterious IRS agent Ben Thomas mysteriously decides to help seven strangers for mysterious reasons. But his plans get complicated when he falls in love with one of those people, Emily Posa, a young woman with a life threatening illness.“Seven Pounds” have kept the film’s story, and the true purpose of Ben’s benevolence, pretty well under wraps.The story comes together in fragments, with considerable screen time devoted to oblique conversations and mysterious actions, but that vagueness keeps things interesting. And as the intricate plotting slowly gives way to the deeply felt, expertly played romance between Ben and Emily the movie finds its heart. There will be many viewers, I'm sure, who will walk out of this film thinking it was cheesy or intentionally trying to get them to dab their eyes. But I think it works and earns its moments of sadness and heartfelt sentiment. For me, the film reaffirmed how some people are simply and inherently good-natured and kind. These are the kind of people Ben Thomas seeks out. These are the kind of people we should all be seeking out.

Anthropology

Some modern anthropologists hold that biological evolution has shaped not only human morphology but also human behavior. The role those anthropologists ascribe to evolution is not of dictating the details of human behavior but one of imposing constrains-ways of feeling, thinking, and acting that “come naturally” in archetypal situations in any culture. Our “frailties” –emotions and motives such as rage, fear, greed, gluttony, joy, lust, love-may be a very mixed assortment, but they share at least one immediate quality: we are, as we say, “in the grip” of them. And thus they give us our sense of constraints.
Unhappily, some of those frailties-our need for ever-increasing security among them-are presently maladaptive. Yet beneath the overlay of cultural detail, they, too, are said to be biological in direction, and therefore as natural to us as are our appendixes. We would need to comprehend thoroughly their adaptive origins in order to understand how badly they guide us now. And we might then begin to resist their pressure.

The war of Independence

By the time the American colonists took up arms against Great Britain in order to secure their independence, the institution of Black slavery was deeply entrenched. But the contradiction inherent in this situation was, for many, a source of constant embarrassment. “It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me,” Abigail Adams wrote her husband in 1774, “to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”
Many Americans besides Abigail Adams were struck by the inconsistency of their stand during the war of Independence, and they were not averse to making moves to emancipate the slaves. Quakers and other religious groups organized antislavery societies, while numerous individuals manumitted their slaves. In fact, within several years of the end of the war of Independence, most of the Eastern states had made provisions for the gradual emancipation of slaves.

The Bankjob-review

Director: Roger Donaldson
Cast: Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Campbell Moore, Daniel Mays, James Faulkner, Alki David, Michael Jibson, Richard Lintern, Don Gallagher
I just saw this awesome movie, I actually thought this would be like transporter. I was disappointed to know that it is not but still the movie surprised me with its plot and making the movie based on a true story poses many unresolved questions and the ugly side of the humans.. Jason Statham stars as Terry, an auto dealer with unsavory creditors and a past that skirts the demimonde. An old friend from the neighborhood, Martine, an ex-model played by Saffron Burrows, tries to interest him in a scheme to rob a bank vault while withholding vital information about the particulars. Itching for a big score, Terry rounds up his closest mates, Kevin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Dave (Daniel Mays), and a couple of ringers, the “Major” (James Faulkner) and Bambas (Alki David). The group of essentially amateur crooks then plots to knock over a Lloyds Bank branch on Baker Street by tunneling in from a nearby store. As a movie, it is certainly worth a watch. The director, Roger Donaldson does a great job of building up the band of robbers giving a brief account of their day-to-day lives and the reason for their loyalty to one another.

Vaporization

The transfer of heat and water vapor from the ocean to the air above it depends on disequilibrium at the interface of the water and the air. Within about a millimeter of the water, air temperature is close to that of the surface water, and the air is nearly saturated with water vapor. But the differences, however small, are crucial, and the disequilibrium is maintained by air near the surface mixing with air higher up, which is typically appreciably cooler and lower in water-vapor content. The air is mixed by means of turbulence that depends on the wind for its energy. As wind speed increases, so does turbulence, and thus the rate of heat and moisture transfer. Detailed understanding of this phenomenon awaits further study. An interacting-and complicating-phenomenon is wind-to-water transfer of momentum that occurs when waves are formed. When the wind makes waves, it transfers important amounts of energy-energy that is therefore not available to provide turbulence.

Baffling Concept

A mysterious phenomenon is the ability of over-water migrants to travel on course. Birds, bees, and other species can keep track of time without any sensory cues from the outside world, and such “biological clocks” clearly contribute to their “compass sense”. For example they can use the position of the sun or stars, along with the time of day, to find north. But compass sense alone cannot explain how birds navigate the ocean: after a flock traveling east is blown far south by storm, it will assume the proper northeasterly course to compensate. Perhaps, some scientists thought, migrants determine their geographic position on earth by celestial navigation, almost as human navigators use stars and planets, but this would demand of the animals a fantastic map sense. Researchers now know that some species have a magnetic sense, which might allow migrants to determine their geographic location by detecting variations in the strength of the earth’s magnetic field.