AMERICA: Let’s Play With Our Guns

India has its holy cows. America has its holy guns. The 300+ Mill.guns in private households are holier than any foreigner will ever be able to understand, as a good strong percentage of those weapons are even owned by very religious people.  “Thou shalt not kill” takes on a special meaning in the United States. The number of mass shootings performed by deranged white Americans is staggering. San Bernardino has just gotten its 2. mass shooting within 18 months. American owned guns have been used in school shootings, church shootings, theater shootings, club shootings, shopping centre shootings and a whole lot of domestic violence. Regardless where these vile acts of violence have occurred, the American public doesn’t seem to care about it. Oh, please don’t misunderstand me here…..I know that every shooting is causing the appropriate amount of media circus and public outrage, but when it comes to really deal with the problem, not a thing is ever been done. Apparently, the days of the Wild West have a very special place in American hearts, as the country has never managed nor ever will, distance itself from the much too easy access to deadly weapons and their use. The old American saying “Bad guys have guns so the good guys also need guns”, should be the first sentence in American bibles. Conspiracy theories have convinced many Americans that guns are a must-have. And when the alt-right invented the fairytale that Obama (later Hillary) was going to take their guns away, gun sales soared through the roof, once more. Business as usual for the NRA.  While Trump has been spewing hate theories about Muslims being a threat to the country’s safety, people conveniently forgot that most mass shootings have been committed by regular deranged Americans.

Monkeying Around

Have you ever been called on “monkeying around? The term is containing more truth than you might realize. While humans sometimes imitate monkeys when we “clown around”, our genetic relatives can exhibit amazing humane behaviour. A scientific test has revealed that Monkeys May Recognize False Beliefs—Knocking Over Yet Another Pillar of Human Cognition Apes may be aware of the minds of others—yet another remarkable finding about the cognitive abilities of non-human animals Are orangutans aware that others have different minds than their own? (Barbara Vallance / Alamy Stock Photo) By Ben Panko SMITHSONIAN.COM APRIL 7, 2017 For most of scientific history, humans have considered themselves unique in their cognitive abilities. But in recent years, research on some remarkable animal minds has threatened to topple these human-centric notions: Dolphins, for example, can recognize themselves in the mirror. Birds appear to form deep, emotional pair relationships akin to those of humans. And chimpanzees, amazingly, seem to learn from each other the rituals of mourning death. Now, a new study in our closest ancestors suggests that we may also not be alone in our awareness that others may have different thoughts, experiences and views of the world than we do. The study, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, aimed to prove this question of consciousness by looking at whether great apes recognize “theory of mind”—that is, the understanding that others have their own (presumably different) minds. "For many years, a huge body of evidence showed that great apes were able to understand others' goals, desires and even intentions," says David Buttelmann, a psychologist at Erfurt University and lead author on the new paper. "But studies have repeatedly failed to show an understanding of false beliefs in the apes." Psychologists are hampered in these kinds of studies by the frustrating fact that it's not possible to step into the mind of another person—or creature—to study how it perceives the world. For adult humans, fortunately, language allows psychologists to simply ask a person how they feel or what they know. But for subjects who can't speak articulately—or at all—researchers have to get more creative. In the 1980s, psychologists devised a strategy to see whether young children were aware of the thoughts and perceptions of others, known as testing “false beliefs.” There are variations, but the test usually takes the form a simple scenario: The child is shown an object being put in a location by another person, who then leaves the room. While the first person is gone, a second person will move the object to different location. The child will then be asked to indicate where the first person will look for the object. The child knows where the object really is now. But to answer the question correctly, he or she must assume that the first person still has a "false belief" about where the object is because they didn't see it getting moved. To psychologists, this proves that the child knows that other people can think differently than they do, and thus have a grasp of "theory of mind." While the original studies involved children old enough to speak, more recent studies of "false beliefs" have looked at toddlers and even infants. In 2009, Buttelmann published research with a test showing that infants as young as 16 months old could recognize false beliefs in others. Testing this research in children too young to speak made Buttelmann wonder whether the same test could be used for other animals—namely, our close ape ancestors. For the study, Buttelmann and his coauthors trained chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans to help a person unlock two boxes, one of which had an object placed in them. (Initially Buttelmann worried that his subjects might tire of the task, but, he recalls, “they had fun—I've never experienced such motivated [subjects] before." The researchers then introduced the actual test. First, a research assistant placed an object in one of the two boxes, with a second person then moving the object to the other box. In one experiment, the first person would remain in the room while this switch happened, and then go to open to the box they originally put the object in (the "true belief" experiment). In the second, the first person would be out of the room while the switch happened, and then go for the original box (the "false belief" experiment). This illustration shows the experimenter trying to open a box, which may or may not have an object in it. The ape can choose to help the experimenter based on whether it thinks the person knows which box holds the object. (Buttelmann et al / EurekAlert) They found that the first person was more likely to receive help—in the form of the ape unlocking the correct box for them—when it appeared that the person had a "false belief" about which box their object was in. By contrasting a "true belief" person with a "false belief" person, Buttelmann says his team was able to show that "it is their understanding of the experimenter" that leads the apes to choose which box they do. They're less likely to help a person who knows where the object is because they know that person isn't confused—or so the logic goes. The thing is, these sorts of tests are always open to interpretation, says Robert Lurz, a philosopher at Brooklyn College who has done extensive research on false beliefs and animal cognition. Pointing a similar study last year on apes by some of Buttelmann's coauthors in this study, Lurz says that how to interpret the behavior of these apes is not a settled question yet. "Even though these two studies converge, it is not clear that they converge on the hypothesis that great apes have an understanding of others’ false beliefs or on the hypothesis that great ape have an understanding of others’ perceptions and goals," says Lurz, who was not involved in the study. In other words, the apes' actions don't necessarily prove that they're actually recognizing false beliefs in the experimenters. "They might just infer that the experimenter wants the object because she returns to the box where she last saw the object placed," he says. "That’s a pretty good reason to think that she wants the object." At the same time, Lurz said he was impressed by how the researchers designed this kind of experiment. "It is very difficult to design valid theory-of-mind test for animals," he says. "And so I applaud [the study's] use of an innovative procedure for testing false-belief attribution in apes." What would be the evolutionary purpose of recognizing false beliefs? Buttlemann has some ideas. One example, he says, is that a male could perceive that the group's dominant male doesn't know that his favorite female is not where he thinks she is. The first male could then take advantage of the dominant male's false belief to mate with the female—thus increasing the likelihood of passing on his genes. But that’s just a hypothetical scenario. For future research, Buttelmann plans to redesign his test to look at other members of the animal kingdom and get a better sense of how and why theory of mind evolved. "I would love to find out what factor might be the factor that drove the evolution of theory of mind," he says.

The White Supremacist And Neo Nazi Has been Removed From the NSC

BREAKING: Steve Bannon Has Just Been Removed From The National Security Council By Caleb R. Newton - April 5, 2017 Top Trump adviser Steve Bannon has just been removed from his role on the National Security Council, according to Bloomberg News. Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs is reporting: ‘President Donald Trump reorganized his National Security Council on Wednesday, removing his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, and downgrading the role of his Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert, according to a person familiar with the decision and a regulatory filing.’ Trump pretty much made up a role for Bannon in his presidential administration when he first took office, and Bannon has since turned that role as Trump’s “Chief Strategist” into a feat of power grabbing. He has reportedly been behind controversies ranging from Trump’s virulent inaugural address to Trump’s repeated Muslim targeting travel bans. Bannon’s job before serving in Trump’s White House was as a chief strategist on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, helping guide it towards the radical political stances that define Bannon’s other old employer, Breitbart. Bannon’s role in Trump’s inner circle has long been a source of controversy, seeing as his political positions are that of a white nationalist. Bannon has been documented to believe that some sort of apocalyptic age of chaos is about to dawn on the United States; and not only that, he believes that that “age of chaos” is to be helped along, not shunned. And yet, the President granted him access to the inner circle of deliberations about matters of national security. That access, thankfully, has now been revoked. “Stop President Bannon” was a popular protest slogan at one point, while questions had also been raised over whether or not there needed to be some kind of outside review of Trump’s appointment of Bannon to the NSC. Ironically, the blame for Bannon ever getting appointed to the NSC in the first place might not even rest with Trump, since reports circulated at one point that the “useful idiot” president was surprised that an executive order that he’d signed included a provision for Bannon’s appointment.

For Many: No Travel To The U.S.

People don’t want to come to Trump’s America: The ‘Trump Slump’ in travel is costing America billions KALI HOLLOWAY, ALTERNET 01 APR 2017 AT 11:16 ET Well, that didn’t take long. People around the world have taken a look at Donald Trump and decided his America is not a place they want to visit. The result has been labeled the “Trump Slump,” a drop in international tourism that’s predicted to cost the United States more than $7 billion. Experts across the travel industry have sounded the alarm that the Trump presidency, already destructive on so many fronts, may also do serious financial damage to the country’s $250 billion tourism sector. Frommer’s, a prominent travel guide, notes that “the prestigious Travel Weekly magazine (as close to an ‘official’ travel publication as they come) has set the decline in foreign tourism at 6.8 percent” for this year. ForwardKeys, which crunches travel numbers, points to a 6.5 percent downturn in international travel to the U.S. in the week after Trump attempted to issue the Muslim travel ban in January. During the same period, the company found reservations for U.S.-bound flights from Western Europe fell 14 percent and plunged 38 percent from across the Middle East. And a survey released this month by the Global Business Travel Association concluded “45 percent of European business travel professionals say they are less likely to schedule meetings or events in the U.S.,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The numbers offer evidence that Trump has turned off potential visitors from around the world. The resounding message of Trump’s “America First” stance, his obsession with the Mexico border wall, his anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies, his Muslim ban, and his rudeness to longstanding allies is that America is inhospitable to foreigners. Predictably, international travelers are opting to stay away—and that includes the European ones that Trump and his supporters are totally cool with. “Even white, Anglo-Saxon people, who are most of our customers, they are afraid of crossing the border,” Al Qanun, who runs a Toronto travel agency, told the Times. “They don’t want to end up in some prison.” Among the innumerable costs of Trump’s and his follower’s nationalism are a few you can actually put a price tag on. Tourism Economics, which uses data to forecast travel trends, expects the international tourism drop-off to result in a revenue loss of $7.4 billion, according to Bloomberg News. That figure doesn’t include contributions from those who come to the U.S. for medical treatments or educational reasons, and who tend to spend even more money, enriching American coffers, while they’re here. The loss of all those visitors could mean future problems for a sector on which more than 15 million people rely for employment. Oxford Economics suggests the toll may ultimately ripple beyond the travel industry, even reducing the U.S. gross domestic product by a few percentage points, per Market Watch. “I’ll tell you quite honestly, when I saw these reports my reaction was, Oh, my god,” Douglas Quinby, of travel-market firm PhocusWright, told the Boston Globe. “To see a decline in search and booking volume in the 6- to 8-percent range is a profound shift.” Travel industry insiders aren’t just freaking out, they’re trying to stop the trend in its tracks. Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, penned an open letter to Trump, as if he could be reasoned with. “Mr. President, please tell the world that while we’re closed to terror, we’re open for business,” the brief letter nearly pleads. “Imbalanced communication is especially susceptible to being ‘lost in translation’—so let’s work together to inform our friends and neighbors, who could benefit from reassurance, not just who is no longer welcome here, but who remains invited.” The coastal cities where Trump fared the worst in the election are likely to be hardest hit by travel downswings triggered by his administration. Bloomberg cites New York, Los Angeles and Miami as cities that could suffer heavy economic losses. One estimate suggests Miami could lose as much as $736 million over the next three years. Thirty percent of all foreign tourists arriving in the U.S. have New York City as their destination, and if just 300,00 fewer of them visited the city in a year, its economy would be shorted roughly $900 million. To stave off those kinds of losses, NYC & Co., the city’s official tourism agency, has adopted “All Are Welcome” as its new slogan and made it clear it opposes the Trump travel ban. The rise of Trump and his xenophobic messaging has motivated a number of countries to warn their citizens against non-essential trips to the U.S. The Nigerian government, citing “a few cases of Nigerians with valid multiple-entry U.S. visas being denied entry and sent back,” suggested its residents skip the jaunt to America if they have a choice. In January, the Toronto Star published an editorial suggesting Canadian citizens boycott the U.S. in response to the Trump Muslim ban. Other negative reactions to America’s longstanding social issues and rising right-wing policies began to take hold even before Trump office. Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bahamas, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand all issued 2016 U.S. travel warnings to citizens due to the U.S.’ issues with mass shootings, general gun violence, police murders of black citizens, anti-LGBT bathroom laws, and ongoing social upheaval. With Trump and his white nationalist brigade in charge, the tourism lag could dip to levels not seen since after the World Trade Center attacks. “The U.S. is in danger of taking the same path it took after September 11, which led to a decade of economic stagnation in the travel and tourism sector,” David Scowsill, CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council, told the Globe. “Strict visa policies and inward-looking sentiment led to a $600 billion loss in tourism revenues in the decade post-9/11.” Trump and his followers will definitely find a way to blame President Obama if the tourism decline persists, but in reality, under the previous administration foreign visits went way up. Bloomberg cites data from U.S. Travel indicating that from 2006 to 2015, “America saw international visitors rise, with arrivals increasing from 51 million in 2006 to nearly 78 million in 2015.” Perhaps under Trump, Russia can fill the growing gap and make up the difference. Flight app Hopper found Russia is an exception to the rule, with U.S. flight search queries recently increasing 88 percent, per the Guardian.