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'It was quasi-religious': the great self-esteem con. In 2014, a heartwarming letter sent to year 6 pupils at Barrowford primary school in Lancashire went viral.

'It was quasi-religious': the great self-esteem con

Handed out with their Key Stage 2 exam results, it reassured them: “These tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each of you special and unique… They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day. They do not know that you write poetry or songs, play sports, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your little brother or sister.” At Barrowford, people learned, teachers were discouraged from issuing punishments, defining a child as “naughty” and raising their voices. The school’s guiding philosophy, said headteacher Rachel Tomlinson, was that kids were to be treated with “unconditional positive regard”. A little more than a year later, Barrowford found itself in the news again.

The Kagans Are Back; Wars to Follow – Consortiumnews. Exclusive: The neocon royalty Kagans are counting on Democrats and liberals to be the foot soldiers in the new neocon campaign to push Republicans and President Trump into more “regime change” wars, reports Robert Parry.

The Kagans Are Back; Wars to Follow – Consortiumnews

By Robert Parry The Kagan family, America’s neoconservative aristocracy, has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over not gaining its expected influence from the election of Hillary Clinton and from its loss of official power at the start of the Trump presidency. Back pontificating on prominent op-ed pages, the Family Kagan now is pushing for an expanded U.S. military invasion of Syria and baiting Republicans for not joining more enthusiastically in the anti-Russian witch hunt over Moscow’s alleged help in electing Donald Trump. Still, a year ago, their prospects looked much brighter. A Family Business But things didn’t quite turn out as the Kagans had drawn them up. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Baiting Republicans A Different Reality More Loose Talk U.S. On epigenetics: we need both Darwin’s and Lamarck’s theories. The unifying theme for much of modern biology is based on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, the process of natural selection by which nature selects the fittest, best-adapted organisms to reproduce, multiply and survive.

On epigenetics: we need both Darwin’s and Lamarck’s theories

The process is also called adaptation, and traits most likely to help an individual survive are considered adaptive. As organisms change and new variants thrive, species emerge and evolve. In the 1850s, when Darwin described this engine of natural selection, the underlying molecular mechanisms were unknown. But over the past century, advances in genetics and molecular biology have outlined a modern, neo-Darwinian theory of how evolution works: DNA sequences randomly mutate, and organisms with the specific sequences best adapted to the environment multiply and prevail.

Those are the species that dominate a niche, until the environment changes and the engine of evolution fires up again. The MFAP Hypothesis for the origins of Homo sapiens. I know you’re thinking we’ve had more than enough discussion of one simplistic umbrella hypothesis for the origin of unique human traits — the aquatic ape hypothesis — and it’s cruel of me to introduce another, but who knows, maybe the proponents of each will collide and mutually annihilate each other, and then we’ll all be happy.

The MFAP Hypothesis for the origins of Homo sapiens

Besides, this new idea is hilarious. I’m calling it the MFAP hypothesis of human origins, which the original author probably wouldn’t care for (for reasons that will become clear in a moment), but I think it’s very accurate. FACIAL FEATURESLightly pigmented eyes commonProtruding, cartilaginous mucous nose Narrow eye openingShort, thick upper lipPhiltrum/cleft lip Glabrous mucous membrane bordering lipsEyebrowsHeavy eyelashesEarlobes RARE OR ABSENT IN NONHUMAN PRIMATES:Heart attackAtherosclerosisCancer (melanoma) Many characteristics that clearly distinguish humans from chimps have been noted by various authorities over the years. Tarot cards: a tool of cold tricksters or wise therapists? There are clues that this is no ordinary suburban living room.

Tarot cards: a tool of cold tricksters or wise therapists?

Sinerose.tumblr. The Archdruid Report: How Should We Then Live? Psmag. Seasteading in Paradise. For nearly a decade, the Seasteading Institute has been working to create autonomous floating communities on the ocean, where settlers can make their own rules de novo, unbound by the principalities and powers based on land.

Seasteading in Paradise

Founded by Google software engineer Patri Friedman—grandson of the libertarian economist Milton Friedman and son of the anarchist legal theorist and economist David Friedman—it has weathered its share of thin years, previously dwindling to a two-staffer, no-office operation. But on January 13 in San Francisco's Infinity Club Lounge, institute chief Randolph Hencken signed a memorandum of understanding with a new partner, one Jean-Christophe Bouissou**, and put the construction of an actual seastead onto the cusp of reality.

Living With Demons on your Shoulder – Kate Paulk. For one reason and another, depression and suicide has been a lively topic among my internet friends of late.

Living With Demons on your Shoulder – Kate Paulk

Opinions, as they do, vary from those who rage at the suicide for taking the coward’s way out through various reactions including my personal one: there but for the grace of Something go I. You see, I’ve fought depression much of my life. Consciously… probably since I was around 15, which is when the delights of narcolepsy entered my life. I didn’t get diagnosed for another 20 years, which meant I spent 20 years chronically incapable of fully waking up while being chronically sleep-deprived – one of the interesting quirks of narcolepsy is that the most restful kind of sleep simply doesn’t happen. Unsurprisingly, sleep-deprivation-induced depression followed not long after. The Simon Necronomicon and Mesopoatmia - www.GatewaysToBabylon.com. John Wisdom Gonce, III Magic, n.

The Simon Necronomicon and Mesopoatmia - www.GatewaysToBabylon.com

Abraham- the Son of a Sumerian Oracle Priest. Abraham- the Son of a Sumerian Oracle Priest Robert D.

Abraham- the Son of a Sumerian Oracle Priest