18 Aug - RSS SnapShot

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Blacklisted News

• Check Out Lee Rogers Live Free Or Die Radio Show. ...

  Click The Link Above To Listen Live

• District 9 - A Science Fiction Film With Sophistic ...
• CIA's Black Helicopters End Up In Court

  More than seven years ago a group of Americans traveled to Siberia to buy a pair of Russian Mi-17 helicopters for the CIA’s post-9/11 clandestine operations in Afghanistan. As with many “black” programs, the contract had elements of craziness: Contracting officials paid the multimillion-dollar ...

• IBM uses DNA to make next-gen microchips

  International Business Machines Corp is looking to the building blocks of our bodies -- DNA -- to be the structure of next-generation microchips.

• Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don't want ...

  It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country.

Project Censored

• WALTER CRONKITE: THE END OF AN ERA – JULY 17, 20 ...

  WALTER CRONKITE: THE END OF AN ERA – JULY 17, 2009 The end of an era is a term too often over-used. But it is a term that is properly used when discussing the passing of Walter Cronkite. It is truly the end of an era in journalism. No other journalist could do what Walter did. He could cal ...

• You Can Now Find Our Investigative Research at the ...

  You can now find all of the investigative research that we have done over the years at our new and exciting Media Freedom International Website Please check the website often for news and updates.

• Analysis of Project Censored: Are We a Left-Leanin ...

  By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” –Frederick Douglass ...

• Infotainment Society: Junk Food News and New ...

  By Mickey Huff and Frances A. Capell We can do the innuendo We can dance and sing When it’s said and done We haven’t told you a thing We all know that crap is king Give us dirty laundry! Don Henley, Dirty Laundry, 1982 The late New York University media scholar Neil Postma ...

• A Black President Doesn’t Mean Racism is gone in ...

  By Peter Phillips Racial inequality remains in the US. People of color continue to experience high rates of poverty, significant unemployment, police profiling and repressive incarceration. School segregation is a continuing concern among race scholars as well. According to a new Civil Rights re ...

Scoop - NZ

• Mogul Sued For Duping Desperate Homeowners

  Loan modifications and mortgage refinancing are the hot subject of the moment in the financial world. This is no surprise when there are around 5 million homeowners facing foreclosure with or without the government's aid and 9 million without it. This "need" has opened a practically brand new market ...

• Housing Won't Recover Until Employment Does

  Splinters of good news spurring optimism and a broad market rally over the past few months are also surrounded by various weak indications that the U.S. economy is not quite on a path of sustainable recovery-despite what is perceived by the capital markets. For example, as news across the pond poin ...

• The damage done by finance companies

  Depression, illness caused by stress, and even suicide has been brought on many people by failed finance companies. » PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews

• DebtWatch Video: Keen's Whitlam Institute Lecture

  Last month I spoke at a seminar on the financial crisis organised by The Whitlam Institute, in reply to a speech by Professor John Quiggin. Guy Debelle, the Assistant Governor (for Financial Markets) of the Reserve Bank of Australia, was the other discussant.The Institute has put together a very pro ...

• SPLC Report: Return of the Militias

  The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment "Patriot" movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called "sovereign citizens." Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Te ...

Independent ( London )

• Bomb attack kills three in Kabul

  A suicide car bomb exploded today on the outskirts of Kabul, killing at least three civilians and setting several vehicles on fire, including one belonging to the UN, officials said. A UN spokesman said three UN staff were wounded.

• Russia arrests 8 suspects in Arctic Sea hijacking

  Russia's navy arrested eight men accused of hijacking the Arctic Sea freighter near Sweden and forcing the crew to sail to West Africa, the defence minister said today.

• Andrew Buncombe: India's damning statistics

  This week a new report confirmed what anyone who has spent any time in India already knows - that it's roads are deadly, chaotic places and that many of India's drivers have little or no concern for anyone other than themselves.

• Russian hydro plant accident kills 12

  Rescue workers searched Russia's largest hydroelectric plant today for 64 missing workers after an accident during repairs killed at least 12 others at the massive plant in southern Siberia.

• Hacker 'stole 130m credit card numbers'

  A former US government informant was charged over the country's largest case of credit and debit card data theft.

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• War? Israeli ambassador to US: Obama’s end-of-th ...

  Summary: Michael Oren 1) Israeli ambassador to US: Obama’s end-of-the-year deadline to Iran has been moved up to September (16 August 2009) 2) Israeli ambassador to US: Iranian nuke could wipe off Israel in seconds (4 July 2009) 3) Israeli army to train overseas for Iran strike operation (5 ...

• Wag The Dog, Again

  Summary: It is curious that in spite of the fact that there is a consensus that Iran is not yet seeking a nuclear weapon and has no capability to accumulate sufficient weapons grade uranium to do so for some time to come, US politicians and media accept without question the Israeli argument that ...

• IRAN: Under Pressure from Hawks, Obama Tacks to th ...

  Summary: But the administration is facing a great deal of pressure to move quickly to sanctions from congressional hawks - backed by hardline organisations within the so-called "Israel lobby" - who have been pushing for a tougher line against Tehran since well before the Jun. 12 elections that t ...

• Iran: Whose War?

  Summary: Huber The logical goal of Iran’s nuclear program is not possession of nuclear bombs but a thriving nuclear energy industry. Having nukes would merely make Iran a target—both Israel and the U.S. would have justification for a massive preemptive strike. We’d know they have them beca ...

• The Ever Present Military Option

  Summary: Last week, retired Air Force Gen. Chuck Wald published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal declaring "There Is a Military Option on Iran." It’s probably not a coincidence that Wald’s piece was hot on the heels of John Bolton’s "While Diplomats Dither, Iran Builds Nukes." source: ...

The Daily Galaxy

• "Ornage Dwarfs & Junk DNA": Why Haven't Signs of I ...

  "The idea that we are the only intelligent creatures in a cosmos of a hundred billion galaxies is so preposterous that there are very few astronomers today who would take it seriously. It is safest to assume therefore, that they...

• NASA Discovers Life's Building Blocks 1st Delivere ...

  The giant molecular clouds that form the stars that fill the night sky are full of organic molecules, including carbon and other organic elements that living things are made of. It's not at all surprising, then, that NASA scientists have...

• Code Red: Military Shuts Out Scientists from Infra ...

  The military has decided to deny scientists data on incoming meteors in order to protect military secrets. Anyone who can't see any problems with this arrangement, well done on never having seen a movie -ever. Oh, and get Michael Bay...

• Is a Dark-Energy Fueled Spaceship Possible?

  The internet was amazed by images of the world's first warpship recently, and if you're wondering how science got past the fiction so quickly, remember how Leonardo is credited with inventing the helicopter? Despite not knowing any of the relevant...

• Do Plants Live and Die According A Precise Scale? ...

  In a striking revelation, scientists have discovered that all plants live and die by a precise and simple rule. Scientists have found for the first time that plants can self-regulate their populations to maintain stability and optimize their lives, and...

Natural News

• Swine Flu Vaccine Linked to Paralysis, Leaked Memo ...

  (NaturalNews) A warning letter about the swine flu vaccine was leaked to the DailyMail over the weekend. Written by Professor Elizabeth Miller, head of the Health Protection Agency's Immunization Department, it warns neurologists that the influenza vaccine of 1976 was linked to a devastating neurolo ...

• One in Seven Scientists Say Colleagues Fake "Scien ...

  (NaturalNews) One in seven scientists report that they have known colleagues to falsify or slant the findings of their research, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and published in the journal PLoS One .A number of scientific data falsification ...

• Not an Intestinal Candida Infection: Call it Gut F ...

  (NaturalNews) Across the Internet and in many books and magazines there are claims that people with symptoms of fatigue, chemical sensitivities, brain fog and other vague symptoms have an 'Intestinal Candida Infection' or an 'Intestinal Yeast Infection' . Despite these claims, most doctors patently ...

• Why Are Smart People So Ignorant When it Comes to ...

  (NaturalNews) This is the third and final part of a three-part article series. Part one is available at http://www.naturalnews.com/026843_health_food_nutrition.html and you can read part two here: http://www.naturalnews.com/026851_nutrition_health_cancer.html Solutions Ultimately, what's more import ...

• Swine Flu Could Combine With Hospital Superbugs to ...

  (NaturalNews) The combination of H1N1 swine flu and antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria could lead to a deadly form of pneumonia that kills half the people it infects within three days, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases .Researchers analyzed two patients who had experi ...

• TheGallopingBeaver

• Is Tampa the new Ft. Sumter?

  I guess Glenn Beck did his "oh please don't commit any of the violence I've been urging you to commit for the last year" ass-covering episode just in time . What was intended to be a town hall discussion on President Barack Obama's health care reform proposal dissolved into a shouting match with ...

• Harry Patch

  Harry Patch , aged 111, the last surving British veteran of the First World War, was buried today in Somerset. Very soon there will be none left alive. In some ways now it seems that with the passing of the ancient veterans, the age of modern war, where mechanised death has come into its own, entr ...

• The "Three C's" . . . .

  Once again, the group over at The Progressive Economics Forum has a great post. This one references the historical profiteering from US-inspired coups overseas. Why are we not overly surprised? A tidbit: It turns out that the stock of several companies rose sharply after secret meetings in whic ...

• Birthers beware

  Nothing is what it seems. (H/T Impolitical )

• The Guns of August

  First this dingbat , now the floodgates are open .One can only assume that since we are told Obama gets dozens of death threats daily, that this latest effort on the part of the wingnuts to intimidate their political opponenets by bringing assault rifles to demonstrations at appearances by the pre ...

Media Matters for America

• New conspiracy theory: Conservative media baseles ...

  Conservative media have baselessly suggested that people who reportedly claim to have received unsolicited email from White House adviser David Axelrod may have been added to a White House "enemies list" after emails they sent that were critical of the Obama administration were purportedly forw ...

• Limbaugh falsely claimed he has "not used the wor ...

  Radio host Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed during the August 17 edition of his program that he has "not used the word 'death panels,' except in quoting Sarah Palin." In fact, during the August 13 edition of his program, Limbaugh -- in his own voice -- referred to end-of-life counseling sessions ...

• ABC's Stossel will reportedly moderate Americans ...

  ABC's John Stossel will reportedly moderate three "town hall-style" "health care meetings" organized by the Wisconsin chapter of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity and intended to increase "pressure" on the state's Democratic members of Congress on health care reform. Stossel has ...

• Wash. Times defends "fact-based" editori ...

  Responding to an August 14 New York Times article, The Washington Times editorial board defended its comparisons of President Obama's policies to Nazi euthanasia programs, claiming "it was fair game to anticipate how his team might seek to implement those proposals." Also, The Washington Times ...

• Conservatives push Reagan's 1961 attacks on "soc ...

  On August 14, the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, and O'Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham featured a recording of Ronald Reagan speaking in 1961 against "socialized medicine" for the American Medical Association's Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Medicare. Neither Drudge, Limbaugh, nor ...

Global Research.ca

• Award Winning Movie: "SUPERPOWER":

  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

• German health expert's swine flu warning. Does vi ...

  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

• Dubai, New Destination on Trafficking Map

  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

• H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Obama Revives Bush-Era Mi ...

  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

• Ward Churchill, Robert Prechter, Jane Burgermeiste ...

  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

TPM Cafe

• The Conrad-Grassley Coop Boondoggle

  Senators Kent Conrad and Chuck Grassley want to set up a national system of health care cooperatives to compete with the likes of Aetna, United Health and other big campaign contributors. Does anyone want to bet that the federal money... Sponsored Topics: Chuck Grassley - Health care - Kent Conra ...

• The Ones That Got Away

  We're only halfway through August, but health care reform opponents are already in full primal scream mode. TPM readers did their best to make sense of the noise. San Fernando Curt, looking at recent town hall protests in the context... Sponsored Topics: Health care - City and town halls - ...

• Mr Big Wells and the new faster SEC

  I just received and filled out a customer satisfaction survey from the Securities Exchange Commission. Its prompted me to take some time off from the mega-Fannie-and-Freddie series. I wasn’t satisfied – and the questions did not allow me to spell... Sponsored Topics: US Securities a ...

• Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – part ...

  In Parts I to IV of this sequence I explained where the losses already realised at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came from – and where future losses might come from. I showed that the companies have almost reached reserve... Sponsored Topics: Freddie Mac - Fannie Mae - Business - US gove ...

• The Neocons' White Hope: Cheney in 2012

  Dick Cheney is running for President. Why else is he refusing to go away, giving interviews, writing a book, and serving as leader of the disloyal opposition. Why else would he be positing the idea that if another terror attack... Sponsored Topics: President - George W. Bush - Dick Cheney - Unite ...

TruthOut

• Howard Dean Calls Public Option Indispensable

  Howard Dean urged the administration to stand by statements made early on in the debate in which it steadfastly insisted that a public option was indispensable to genuine change. (Photo: Reuters Pictures) read more

• Obama Lashes Defense Establishment, Congress

  Phoenix – President Barack Obama took on both the defense establishment and freespending lawmakers on Monday, saying they were draining the defense budget with "exotic projects." "If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded a bunch of pork, I will veto it," he declared in a speech to the V ...

• Afghanistan's President Faces a Tough Reelection

  Hamid Karzai, once a beacon of hope for Afghans, needs more than 50% of the vote to win outright Thursday. But many who voted for him in 2004 think he has failed as a leader. Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - The dilapidated soccer stadium, a onetime Taliban execution ground, rang today ...

• New Hearing Ordered in High-Profile US Death Row C ...

  Washington – The US Supreme Court on Monday ordered that Troy Davis, a high-profile death row inmate, should receive a new hearing to determine whether evidence not available at his trial could prove him innocent. "The district court should receive testimony and make findings of fact as t ...

• Obama Disses Marriage Law as Justice Defends It

  Washington – President Barack Obama insisted Monday he still wants to scrap what he calls a discriminatory federal marriage law, even as his administration angered gay rights activists by defending it in court. The president said his administration's stance in a California court case is n ...

The Heathlander

• A culture of fear

  Pankaj Mishra dissects the ‘culture of fear’ being manufactured by a recent spate of books and articles warning of an impending ‘Eurabia’: ‘Ordinary Muslims in Europe, who suffer from the demoralisation caused by living as perennial objects of suspicion and contempt, are far from thinking ...

• Fighting the fash

  Anti-fascist activists successfully confronted the BNP’s ‘Red, White and Blue’ hatefest [.pdf] (see also this Channel 4 report) in Codnor yesterday: One of the favourite chants of the day was reportedly: “We are black, white, Asian and we’re Jew / And they’re many, many more of us than ...

• Silencing civil society

  Former Israeli military commander Efran Efrati recently testified to the BBC that Palestinian children are ‘routinely ill-treated’ by Israeli soldiers: “You take the kid, you blindfold him, you handcuff him, he’s really shaking… Sometimes you cuff his legs too. Sometimes it cuts off the ci ...

• Gaza Freedom March

  For those who don’t know, Norman Finkelstein and others are organising a mass non-violent global march on Gaza to break the siege. Some updates: - Gaza Freedom March website: http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/ - YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/GazaFreedomMarch - A list of peop ...

• The latest anti-Hamas meme: “child brides”

  Last week, Hamas sponsored a mass wedding celebration in Gaza, perhaps in an attempt to reverse its flagging poll ratings: ‘Nearly a thousand Palestinians celebrated marriage on Thursday night in a ceremony organised by Hamas in the north of the Gaza Strip. Hamas dignitaries including Mahmud Zahar ...

Water - AlterNet

• The Fiji Phenomenon: It's a Human Rights and Envir ...

  How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?

• Mining's Destructive Legacy on Waterways

  Scientists are now beginning to see that mining's most lasting damage may be the massive amounts of debris dumped into valley streams.

• The CA Legislature Unveiled 5 New Water Bills -- A ...

  I would urge that California's water warriors hold their opinions until they actually read and digest these bills.

• Vitaminwater's Empty Calories Are at the Heart of ...

  Vitaminwater tells its customers to "hydrate responsibly." That means not drinking 125-calorie sugar rushes like ... Vitaminwater.

• Why Corporations, Emerging Powers and Petro-States ...

  In the past six months, big players in the global economy have grabbed 50 million acres of arable land, from Africa to Southeast Asia.

TruthHugger

• Texas Progressive Alliance – August 17, 2009

  It’s time for preseason football games, but the Texas Progressive Alliance is always in midseason form. Here are this week’s blog highlights. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why we put up with temper tantrums and intimidation from the far right? Everyone should have their say in our d ...

• Without Health Options – Where Is Your Voice? Op ...

  Who needs health care

• Republicans Have Government Insurance, Why Can’t ...

  For weeks I have been listening to all the BS Republicans have spewed about health care reform. Republicans shouted it was socialized medicine and when that didn’t work they came up with other untruths. The fact of the matter is all members of Congress use the public option plan. Republicans are w ...

• Retire Early In Self Defense Could Be A Mistake †...

  /h3> Collect Now, or Later? Timing Your Social Security Benefits With the current state of US and world economy, the alternative to jumping out a window, committing a heinous crime or planting your pup tent under an overpass, is retire early and collect your meager social security check at gene ...

• Texas Progressive Alliance – July 13, 2009

  It’s Monday and it’s time for another version of the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly highlight reel. Off the Kuff suggests that a pro-science PAC could do a lot of good, nationally and in Texas. WCNews at Eye On Williamson reminds us that despite the brouhaha over transportation during the rec ...

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

• So easily you will lose your social status By Rola ...

  By Roland Michel Tremblay Featured Writer Dandelion Salad The Marginal 13 August, 2009 I work in

• Bagram Isn’t The New Guantánamo, It’s The Old ...

  by Andy Worthington Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.andyworthington.co.uk 17 Aug. 2009 Back in

• Ahmadinejad: Some neighbouring countries are at th ...

  compiled by Cem Ertür Featured Writer Dandelion Salad 17 August 2009 1) Iran Lambasts Policies of C

• The Secret of China's Miracle Economy: The Governm ...

  by Dr. Ellen Brown Featured Writer Dandelion Salad webofdebt.com August 17, 2009 “The banks

• Exclusive: Rage from within against the American E ...

  by Rocket Kirchner Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Rocket Kirchner (blog) Rocket Kirchner (youtub

Unexplained Mysteries

• Minister warned over Rendlesham incident

  Newly released files have described how the UK defence secretary was briefed by the head of the armed forces about the famous Rendlesham forest UFO in...

• How to survive a zombie attack

  Mathematicians in Canada have come up with a formula to survive a zombie attack with the key strategy to be to "hit hard and hit often". The team also...

• Life's building blocks found in comet

  NASA have discovered some of life's building blocks in the form of glycine in samples of a comet returned by their Stardust spacecraft. The find suppo...

• Is Aurora behind UK UFO sightings ?

  New files released on Monday have revealed that secret US spy plane Aurora could account for many UFO sightings in the UK. The MoD's UFO desk head Sir...

• NASA completed Ares I-X rocket

  NASA is readying its new Ares I-X rocket for a test launch this fall after its three-year assembly was completed, it is the first time in over 25 year...

Grassroots

• Building a Movement, Haitian Style

  pigs.jpg I spent the better part of last week crisscrossing Haiti’s arid Northwest with Grassroots International’s partner the National Congress of the Peasant’s Movement of Papay (MPNKP). MPNKP is best known to our allies and friends fo ...

• Resilient Hondurans Lead The Way To Protect Democr ...

  IMG00292.jpg Today, thousands of people will fill the streets of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. They are students, housekeepers, children and farmers from different parts of country—many of whom walked 10-12 miles a day to get to the ...

• Yes, We Can - But Will We Join Our Neighbors to Re ...

  More than a month after the military coup in the Central American country of Honduras (for which the term “banana republic” was originally coined due to the overwhelming influence of U.S. fruit corporations in that country), the junta is still in power and shows little real sign of budging. re ...

• They Are Afraid of Us, Because We are Not Afraid o ...

  Tom Loudon from our ally the Alliance for Responsible Trade, which is a member of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (a Grassroots International grantee) is currently in Honduras as part of an international human rights monitoring delegation. Today, August 11th, the Global Day of Action for Honduras, h ...

• On the Global Day of Action for Honduras, Donate y ...

  Want to do something simple to help support Honduran democracy and keep the crisis in the public eye? Donate your status! It’s free, easy, and can make a huge impact. Right now, the corporate news media is mostly silent about what’s happening on the ground in Honduras and the role of US polic ...

Climate

• August 18, 2009

  Young Activists from 110 Countries Want Climate Action (AFP) More than 800 young environmental activists from 110 countries on Monday began a UN-organized meeting described as the biggest-ever youth gathering on climate change. U.S. Wind Capacity Targets to be Missed Amid Slowdown (Financial ...

• August 17, 2009

  China Study Urges Greenhouse Gas Peak in 2030 (Reuters) China should set firm targets to limit CO2 emissions so they peak around 2030, a new study by some of the nation's top climate policy advisers has proposed ahead of key UN talks. Canadian Government to Drop Intensity Targets, Follow US Le ...

• August 17, 2009

  China Study Urges Greenhouse Gas Peak in 2030 (Reuters) China should set firm targets to limit CO2 emissions so they peak around 2030, a new study by some of the nation's top climate policy advisers has proposed ahead of key UN talks. Canadian Government to Drop Intensity Targets, Follow US Le ...

• August 15-16, 2009

  China Sets Date for CO2 Cut (Financial Times) China's carbon emissions will start falling by 2050, its top climate change policymaker said, the first time the world's largest emitter has given such a time-frame. Gloomy Negotiators End Bonn Climate Talks (Greenwire) The latest round of talks ...

• August 14, 2009

  China Says Rich Up Pressure on Poor over Climate (Reuters) China has accused rich nations at UN climate talks of increasing pressure on the poor to do more to combat global warming while shirking their own responsibility to lead. India Blames Kyoto Failure for Climate Standoff (AFP) India ...

TomDispatch

• Tomgram: Withdrawing by Bike from Iraq

  [ Note for TomDispatch Readers: So it's sayonara for a couple of weeks. I'm taking my usual August break. TomDispatch will return sometime the week of August 24th, but will be on a limited posting schedule through Labor Day. Let me take this opportunity once again to thank those of you who hav ...

• Tomgram: Mark Engler, Protesting at Climate Groun ...

  We're so past the Roman Empire by now that it's probably time to update the phrase "fiddling while Rome burns." What about, for instance, "writing fake letters ostensibly from real non-profit groups to weaken a climate-change bill while the planet burns"? It's true. According to the New York Ti ...

• Tomgram: Jamail and Lazare, Lost in Military Limb ...

  [ Note for TomDispatch Readers: In Chalmers Johnson's recent piece, "Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire," the mission of the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) was mischaracterized. It has now been corrected at the piece. ] It's not exactly a secret that the U.S. Army and the U.S. M ...

• Tomgram: John Feffer, Their Martyrs and Our Heroe ...

  The way you imagine someone engaged in a suicide attack depends, not surprisingly, on which end of the attack you happen to be on -- in cultural, if not literal terms. In American films and pop culture, there were few acts more inexplicable or malevolent in the years of my childhood than those of ...

• Tomgram: Frida Berrigan, 64 Years Too Late and No ...

  As another August 6th approaches, let me tell you a little story about Hiroshima and me: As a young man, I was probably not completely atypical in having the Bomb (the 1950s was a great time for capitalizing what was important) on my brain, and not just while I was ducking under my school desk ...

Smirking Chimp

• Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal

  Dear President Obama, I understand you're thinking of dumping your "public option" because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact. Instead, let's make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare. It ...

• Winners and Losers in the American Warfare State

  "On my last day in Iraq," veteran McClatchy News correspondent Leila Fadel wrote August 9th, "as on my first day in Iraq, I couldn't see what the United States and its allies had accomplished. ...I couldn't understand what thousands of American soldiers had died for and why hundreds of thousands of ...

• In Move to Appease Critics, Obama Promises to Exte ...

  Facing opposition to his health care reform proposals, President Barack Obama has decided to reach out to a key demographic: morons. Starting this week, Mr. Obama will host a series of town halls to roll out new features of his health care plan which will extend health care coverage to "all idiotic ...

• Marxist on the Mic: Hip Hop Soul-cialism

  Since the early part of the 20th century the best way to diss a politician was to call him a "Socialist." Even the mere suggestion of a dude being red was sure to guarantee a 20% drop in the polls. This is what the Conservatives are counting on as they continuously sling "Commie" accusations at Pre ...

• Washington Times' Hypocritical Obama-Nazi Slur

  One of the ugly ironies in the Right’s depiction of President Barack Obama as Hitler and health reform as a plan for Nazi-style euthanasia is that the owner of the Washington Times, which has pushed this line of attack, has had longstanding ties with World War II-era Nazis, neo-Nazis and righti ...

Ten Percent

• Malalai Joya- Raising My Voice (Review Part 2)

  ‘the same donkey, only with a new saddle.’ Malalai and her family returned to Afghanistan in 1992, she was just fourteen and remembers Farah as a terrifying place as the civil war raged. Young girls would be abducted off the street, raped and killed by roaming gangs, Mujahideen troops would ...

• Malalai Joya- Raising My Voice (Review Part 1)

  ‘The truth is like the sun: when it comes up nobody can block it out or hide it’ Malalai Joya is an Afghan woman, the youngest MP in the Loya Jirga and barred from it since 2007 because a woman telling the truth is still forbidden in Afghanistan. In her book Raising My Voice she attempts [.. ...

• Ezra Nawi’s Sentencing Now Scheduled For 21st Se ...

  Dear friends and supporters, Ezra’s sentencing process started this morning (Aug 16′ 2009). Ezra and the “Committee for Ezra Nawi” wish to thank and express our appreciation to all those who testified on his behalf, came to court, wrote letters or signed petitions. As part of today’s hea ...

• Help Ezra Nawi

  Ezra Nawi will be sentenced this Sunday. Over 19,000 people have already asked Israel not to jail him. We will bring their signatures to the courtroom–but we need more. His crime? Watch the video and see for yourself. Ezra tried to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinia ...

• Claustrophobia

Paul Krugman

• Nick Beaudrot explains it all

  Going with the flow (chart).

• Black cats

  Choking on one's own snark.

• The other Bush bubble

  All about Jeb.

• The public option as a signal

  The public option has become not so much a symbol as a signal, a test of whether Obama is really the progressive activists thought they were backing.

• Socialist hellhole watch

  Some people insist that universal health care will turn America into Russia.

No Quarter

• “Swimmers Should Wear ‘Burkinis’”

  Let me say right up front that I have absolutely nothing against Islam or Muslims in general. I certainly do not agree with the more conservative Muslim views on women, though. Not only does this article focus on conservative Muslims, Swimmers Are Told To Wear Burkinis, but the impact they have on ...

• Reforming for Profits *updated*

  (Updated at end of post with excellent video of Dylan Ratigan’s Morning Meeting talking about the administrations “un-American” deals.) We must have misunderstood. We actually thought the whole point of reforming health care was to help the american people have better, more affordable health ...

• “Women Should Lose Themselves In Men”

  I know, not the kind of headline one might expect from me, to put it mildly. This is a quote from the following article, What women’s lib? 70 Percent Of Americans Think Women Should Take Spouse’s Name After Marriage. Say whaaa?? The results of this article came out the other day, though one [ ...

• health care insurance reform

  Health care reform for the 46 million uninsured Americans. In America we have Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for lower income Americans, SCHIP for children, and COBRA for the temporarily unemployed. The main argument we hear for reform is that 46 million Americans do not have insurance. Who are ...

• Don’t Miss Cokie Roberts LIVE on No Quarter Radi ...

  At 9:00 p.m. ET tonight, join host Paulie Abeles for her Monday night show, “Sins of Omission,” on No Quarter Radio. Much has been written about the first generation of American men who shaped our political and cultural history, but where  the women? Paulie Abeles will address this and other ...

Environmental Graffiti

• Graffiti Is Watching You…
• The Real-Life Legend of the White Leviathan
• The Land of Cuckoo Clocks & Environmental Beauty
• Tarantulas Aggressively Baring Their Fangs
• Ant Invaders Enslave their Kind and Subject them t ...

Foreign Policy in Focus

• Kosovo, East Timor, R2P, and Ian Williams

  Noam Chomsky refutes Ian Williams' claim that NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999 did not precipitate atrocities in Kosovo.

• Lack of North American Leadership

  The three amigos met in Guadalajara and failed to usher in a new paradigm of North American cooperation.

• Learning from the British in Iraq

  History suggests that the United States won't be leaving Iraq any time soon.

• The Pursuit of True Security

  For all of the money we spend on defense, are we really all that safer?

• The Bully in Baghdad

  Politics has trumped democracy as Iraq just postponed a key vote on the status of U.S. forces in their country.

Therapy News

• Orthorexia Nervosa: When the Diet-Conscious are To ...

  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline A large number of mental health professionals are likely familiar with the symptoms and consequences of various eating disorder types such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. A fixation on the volume of food consumption is a serious concern for which many seek therapy, b ...

• Study Looks at the Brain’s Reaction to Verbalizi ...

  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline There is a distinctly relieving aspect to coming clean about one’s emotions, whether it’s within the safety and confidentiality of a therapist’s office or simply in the presence of a friend. Seeking to understand why verbally identifying emotions has such a stro ...

• Take a Hike: Research Supports Time Outdoors as an ...

  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary The benefits of being outdoors have often been documented in terms of the healthy effects of sunlight. Despite concerns over too much sun exposure, a reasonable amount of regular sunshine can help boost Vitamin D levels and support a greater mental well-being, leading ...

• Temp Jobs Harm Mental Health - Study Suggests

  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline In the modern economic environment, many people are struggling with job loss or with the fear of losing their sources of income, and some are turning to temp jobs in an effort to stay afloat. While this may be a wise choice financially, a study conducted at McGill Uni ...

• Multi-National Study Links Many Mental Health Conc ...

  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline In the consideration of suicide, it’s a commonly held idea that those with symptoms of depression are most prone to thinking about suicide and exhibiting relevant behaviors. This may not be the case, however, as described by a recent study based on over one hundred ...

Mountaintop Removal

• Federal Court Blocks Interior Department Attempt t ...

  Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today rejected an attempt by the Department of Interior to reverse the Bush Administration’s devastating last-minute weakening of the stream buffer zone rule, a key protection for waterways near mountaintop removal coal mines ...

• EPA 'working to resolve interstate issues' (Observ ...

  This article has been read 0 times.

• Obama EPA approves another mountaintop removal min ...

  Read more in Coal Tattoo CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Obama administration late last week quietly approved one of six major mountaintop removal permits that were said to be undergoing clos...

• Cleaner coal means more mining in Meade County (Lo ...

  By James Bruggers

• Gatewood Galbraith Running for Governor (WYMT Moun ...

  Gatewood Galbraith is at it again...going for his fifth run for the governor of Kentucky.

Memeorandum

• Wal-Mart, CVS, Best Buy ditch Glenn Beck (plus 5 m ...

  James Rucker / The Huffington Post : Wal-Mart, CVS, Best Buy ditch Glenn Beck (plus 5 more companies) — Cross-posted at Jack and Jill Politics, Firedoglake, and Daily Kos. — Big news today. We've confirmed that eight more major advertisers have pulled their support from Glenn Beck's ...

• The public option as a signal (Paul Krugman)

  Paul Krugman : The public option as a signal — Look, it is possible to have universal care without a public option; Switzerland does. But there are some good reasons for the prominence of the public option in our debate. — One is substantive: to have a workable system without the pub ...

• Twelve Carry Guns - Including Assault Rifle - Outs ...

  Rachel Slajda / Talking Points Memo : Twelve Carry Guns — Including Assault Rifle — Outside Obama Event — About 12 people were carrying guns, including at least one semi-automatic assault rifle, outside a building where President Obama was speaking today. — No one was arrested out ...

• Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan (L ...

  Los Angeles Times : Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan — When cryptic posters portraying President Obama as the Joker from “Batman” began popping up around Los Angeles and other cities, the question many asked was, Who is behind the image? — Was it an ultra-conservati ...

• Health concession fuels blowback (Mike Allen/The P ...

  Mike Allen / The Politico : Health concession fuels blowback — House Democratic officials say a public option will remain in their version of a health reform bill, even now that the White House has acknowledged it may be dropped later. — “This is just for the Senate,” a House lead ...

Energy & Environment News

• National Briefing | South: Tennessee: Changes for ...

  The Tennessee Valley Authority is preparing to convert all of its coal waste and gypsum operations to dry storage in the wake of a huge ash spill from a retention pond last year in Tennessee.

• Brazil Seeks More Control Over Oil Beneath Its Sea ...

  Brazil is seeking to reduce close cooperation with foreign oil companies and more directly control extraction.

• G.M. Puts Electric Car’s City Mileage in Tr ...

  General Motors said its Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle, scheduled for release in 2011, would have a fuel rating of 230 miles a gallon in city driving.

• Migingo Island Journal: Ripples of Dispute Surroun ...

  An island that lies along the border between Kenya and Uganda is creating a huge fuss because of the abundance there — and lack elsewhere — of fish.

• River Basin Fight Pits Atlanta Against Neighbors

  A court defeat over water supply has left Atlanta howling that other states are trying to choke off its prosperity.

5+ quakes - 7 days

• M 5.1, Kepulauan Mentawai region, Indonesia

  Tuesday, August 18, 2009 09:28:58 UTC Tuesday, August 18, 2009 04:28:58 PM at epicenter Depth : 35.00 km (21.75 mi)

• M 5.3, Guerrero, Mexico

  Saturday, August 15, 2009 13:22:47 UTC Saturday, August 15, 2009 08:22:47 AM at epicenter Depth : 81.80 km (50.83 mi)

• M 5.3, Minahasa, Sulawesi, Indonesia

  Saturday, August 15, 2009 12:30:12 UTC Saturday, August 15, 2009 08:30:12 PM at epicenter Depth : 166.20 km (103.27 mi)

• M 5.2, Philippine Islands region

  Friday, August 14, 2009 20:56:28 UTC Saturday, August 15, 2009 04:56:28 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.80 km (6.71 mi)

• M 5.3, Andaman Islands, India region

  Friday, August 14, 2009 19:39:50 UTC Saturday, August 15, 2009 01:39:50 AM at epicenter Depth : 26.40 km (16.40 mi)

China Dialogue

• Geoengineering: plastic forests

  Could synthetic trees help to cool the planet? chinadialogue continues its series that examines geoengineering proposals from scientists around the world. What’s the big idea? Forests of synthetic “trees”, designed to capture and store carbon dioxide, could be used to effectively offset cl ...

• Removing chemicals from our food

  Recent studies show that food safety in China still needs improvement. Organic production is the answer, argues Jiang Gaoming. Here he explains how to make the shift. Environmental group Greenpeace recently tested vegetables purchased in supermarkets and markets in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou at ...

• Beginning of the end for oil?

  Greenpeace and others see the industry approaching a tipping point, thanks to price declines, technological advances and climate policies. Controversial investments in Canadian tar sands may be doomed. David Teather reports. A long-term decline in the demand for oil could undermine the huge investme ...

• Solar futures at the foot of Everest

  Passive solar homes could help to improve people’s daily lives and protect the environment on the Tibetan plateau, finds Cai Rupeng. The summer had only just started, but village elder Yuzhen was already looking forward to winter. Standing in front of her home in Tingri , Tibet, one looks up and s ...

• Leading the swine-flu battle

  WHO director Margaret Chan announced in June that a new virus had reached pandemic proportions. She tells Aida Edemariam how H1N1 is being fought and of the personal price she pays. Although she would no doubt point out that swine flu should properly be called H1N1, there is something pleasing in th ...

Daily Censored

• Get With the Program: Landmark vs. Lifespring

  Read the full story at MoJo Articles …

• From Erhard to Harvard: A Landmark Timeline

  Read the full story at MoJo Articles 1971 Werner Erhard has breakthrough while driving across Golden Gate Bridge; founds est (Erhard Seminars Training). 1973 Erhard drives a black Mercedes with the vanity plate "SO WUT." 1975 Est claims to have trained 65,000 people; Erhard dreams of training 40 mi ...

• Beck: "They’re Trying to Make Deathers Sound Lik ...

  Read the full story at News Hounds Guest blogged by Hula Last week (Friday, August 14th) Glenn Beck once again made the case that President Obama will implement euthanasia. As absurd as this sounds, Beck is following up on his segment from earlier in the week in which he used his own daughter’s m ...

• Beck: "They’re Trying to Make Deathers Sound Lik ...

  Read the full story at News Hounds Guest blogged by Hula Last week (Friday, August 14th) Glenn Beck once again made the case that President Obama will implement euthanasia. As absurd as this sounds, Beck is following up on his segment from earlier in the week in which he used his own daughter’s m ...

• Luntz admits he tries to convince focus group atte ...

  Read the full story at Think Progress In May, pollster Frank Luntz presented a memo to congressional Republicans, laying out a strategy for opposing health care reform. Since then, the GOP has closely followed his script. Appearing on Fox News today, Luntz claimed that his recent focus groups have s ...

AlterNet's Breaking News

• Pakistan captures top Taliban spokesman
• Merritt, Wariner ease through in 400m heats
• GM signs binding agreement on Saab sale
• Lockerbie bomber allowed to drop appeal: court
• Medvedev, Peres meet on Mideast tensions

Institute for Policy Studies

• Their Martyrs and Our Heroes

  Powerful, developed countries have suicide bombers too.

• Taxing Wealth for the Common Good

  Business leaders and wealthy individuals call for a repeal of the Bush-era taxes on high incomes.

• The Destruction of the Black Middle Class

  Left out of the commentary on race and class over the Gates affair has been talk of the increasing impoverishment — or, we should say, re-impoverishment — of African Americans as a group.

• Asia's Axis of Evil?

  Burma and North Korea are the pariahs of Asia. Are these birds of a feather flocking together?

• Obama: Renegotiate NAFTA as You Promised

  Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. leaders should scrap their failed "Security and Prosperity Partnership" and begin overhauling the North American Free Trade agreement at an upcoming Guadalajara meeting.

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• South Korea rocket launch bound to rile the North

  SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is counting down to its first space launch on Wednesday that will likely open the door to its nascent rocket program and rile neighbor North Korea, hit by U.N. sanctions after its own rocket launch in April.

• Expansive China faces grass-roots resentment

  ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian shopkeeper Abdelkrim Salouda has witnessed China's global economic expansion first-hand and he does not like it, especially since he was in a mass brawl this month with Chinese migrant workers.

• Former South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung dies

  SEOUL (Reuters) - Former President Kim Dae-jung, a giant in South Korea's shift to democracy who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to forge a reconciliation with the prickly communist North, died on Tuesday at the age of 85.

• European Factors -- Shares set for bounce; ZEW eye ...

  (Adds futures, more company items, updates snapshot table)

• Building block of life found on comet

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The amino acid glycine, a fundamental building block of proteins, has been found in a comet for the first time, bolstering the theory that raw ingredients of life arrived on Earth from outer space, scientists said on Monday.

Godspace

• Intergenerational Friendships as Spiritual Practic ...

  I am back from the MSA Celtic retreat on Camano Island (more on that later) and realizing that my expectations of what I could accomplish were a little unrealistic. And then our internet was down all morning and I was just about pulling my hair out trying to get caught up. What ever happened to ...

• Unemployment as a Spiritual Practice

  I am now back from Australia and as you can imagine the posts for my series on What is a Spiritual Practice have been mounting up while I have had limited internet access and less time to focus on such things. Â Thanks for your patience and for your prayers during this challenging season. Today’ ...

• Editing your Life: The Spiritual Discipline of Edi ...

  I am sitting in Sydney on a beautiful but crisp winter’s morning watching the rainbow lorikeets out in the trees. Â My Dad’s funeral is over and I will head back to Seattle in 2 days time. Â I have been very aware of prayer and the grace of God in the midst of this. Â Thanks to [...]

• Living in Transition as Spiritual Practice

  I am now in Sydney Australia after what has been one of the easiest long international trips I have made for a long time. Â I even slept for several hours on the flight which makes me very aware of the fact that people have been praying for me. Today’s article comes from Guy Chmieleski who is [. ...

• Recent Additions to the Spiritual Practices series

  Here’s the round-up of the most recent Spiritual Practices posts: The Spiritual Practice of Apologizing by T Freeman Love-making as a Spiritual Practice by Mark Scandrette Smoking the Glory of God by Jason Clark The Spiritual Practice of Getting Honest With Myself by Jonathan Brink Spiritual Disci ...

Equality Trust

• Shattering the myth of equality

  An article by Boris Frankel in Melbourne's newspaper 'The Age'.

• Polly Toynbee: This bold equality push is just wha ...

  Polly Toynbee writing about the new Equality Bill today's Guardian. "Harriet Harman's bill is a frank recognition of the role of class in Britain. A decade earlier, it might have had a real impact..."

• Seumas Milne: This naked display of class egotism ...

  "It's more than a week since Alistair Darling's budget, but the howls of protest haven't stopped for a day ever since. That's not been the public sector employees facing a harsh squeeze on jobs and pay who've been squealing, or the million workers expected to join the dole queues in the next year, ...

• Bob Holman on social breakdown

  Bob Holman writes in the Glasgow Herald about the evidence in The Spirit Level.

• Inequality is the root of our unhappiness

  Former director of the Institute of Education Peter Mortimore, writing in today's Education Guardian.

IntelNews

• News you may have missed #0070

  Sudan president replaces intelligence chief. Pakistan's former spy chief blames US for Afghan drugs. Lebanese minister denies link with Israeli ISP.

• Document reveals US spies saw Iran behind Lockerbi ...

  A US intelligence report available to the lawyers of a Libyan former intelligence agent convicted for his role in the Lockerbie air disaster blames Iran, not Libya, for the attack.

• Brazil conspired with US to overthrow Allende, mem ...

  Four official documents from 1971, recently declassified by the US Department of State, show high-level collaboration between the US and Brazil in plans to overthrow the lawfully elected government of Chile.

• News you may have missed #0069

  Book claims Mossad considered murdering Swedish journalist. Romania denies allegations it hosted secret CIA prisons. Iran releases on bail French woman accused of spying.

• News you may have missed #0068

  US overt aid to Pakistan revealed. Intolerance of Arabs, Muslims led to torture, says US interrogator. China drops Rio Tinto espionage charges.

Res'Eau-WaterNet

• Too Many Canadians Without Safe Water: $5.2M to He ...

  For six million Canadians, quenching their thirst isn’t a matter of simply turning on the kitchen faucet.

• Dr. David Wilkinson appointed Director of the Clea ...

  RES'EAU-WaterNET researcher Dr. David Wilkinson was recently appointed Director of the Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC), beginning July 1, 2009.

• Walkerton Clean Water Centre Receives Ontario Mini ...

  The Walkerton Clean Water Centre (WCWC) – a RES’EAU-WaterNET partner – received the 2008 Emerald Award for innovation from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment at an awards ceremony held on March 3, 2009.

• Filling the glass

  Innovation Canada : Showcasing Research Excellence in Canada

PDA AMERICA

• A Progressive Response to Mitch Stewart & OFA

  Dear Mitch Stewart & OFA, I am glad you are still Organizing for America — we need the activated grassroots energy that swept Mr. Obama into office to keep things moving forward. But I have ...

• Progressive Democrats take a stand on health care

  From the RNN: The Real News Network Some members of Congress are going to fight for a robust public option and a single-payer amendment VIDEO CAN BE VIEWED BY CLICKING HERE An amendment introduced by representative Anthony ...

• Who Decides About War?

  WhoDecidesAboutWar.org National Conference on War Powers, Law, and Democracy October 2-3, 2009 Washington D.C. Who decides about war and peace? Congress? The President? The Courts? The People? What kind of national defense should the U.S. have? What ...

• Another Scandal Near New Orleans

  By Jayne Lyn Stahl There have been no shortage of news stories about how detainees have been treated at Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib before it. Likewise, there has been a lot of talk about so-called ...

• CDPP Report for August 2009

  CDPP report, August 2009, Mervis Reissig and Anna Givens Two of us have volunteered to continue working with the Congressional District Point Person program for PDA. As CD Point People ourselves and longtime volunteers for ...

Marler Blog

• The Reality is Non-O157:H7 Shiga-toxin E. coli Cau ...

  June Dunning, E. coli O146:H21, 2006, Death Right up until the time of her death, Ms. Dunning remained an active, self-aware and outgoing woman. Her health had always been good too. For the last seven years of her life, June lived in Hagerstown, Maryland with her daughter, and her son-in-law. On ...

• Milan McDonald's Inspection Reports from 2008 - 20 ...

  I must admit having the video of a former employee saying that she worked at McDonald's while infectious with Hepatitis A , and that she told her manager that she had Hepatitis A after the employee was released from the hospital, is priceless. However, having the inspection reports from the Rock Is ...

• Seattle Voices - Interview with Bill Marler

  Click on below to get to link:

• Why the CDC has it right - It was Nestle Toll Hous ...

  In early June 2009, public health investigators noticed an increase in isolates submitted by multiple state public health laboratories to PulseNet with a two-enzyme pattern combination of EXHX01.0224 and EXHA26.0536. This is a relatively common pattern combination, appearing at least 364 times in t ...

• OK, I made a mistake - FSIS did publish Retail Rec ...

  I blew it. I look at the FSIS site daily and I missed that they had posted the below list of retail outlets that received the Salmonella Newport Beef: I am sorry. The Sterling Pacific Meat products subject to recall include: Fatburger Brand: * 20-pound packages of "8 oz. PUCK (80/20) GROUND BEEF P ...

• IPS - Inter Press Services

• EGYPT: Union Eyes the Silver Bullet

  CAIRO, Aug 18 (IPS) - Property tax collectors from across Egypt gathered last week in Cairo to protest fresh attempts by the official state trade union to undermine their independent syndicate.

• EUROPE: Small Farmers Lost in Transition

  BUCHAREST, Aug 18 (IPS) - "Our country would have gone through the economic crisis much smoother had we invested more in agriculture over the past 20 years, and had we not wasted so many resources on consumption," Romanian President Traian Basescu declared Aug. 7. That remark has drawn attent ...

• BALKANS: Back to Arms, if not War

  BELGRADE, Aug 18 (IPS) - The arms industry in Serbia is seeing record growth amidst the economic slum that has hit other industries.

• POLITICS-THAILAND: Army Drives Muslim Rebels to t ...

  YALA, Thailand, Aug 18 (IPS) - The Blackhawk helicopter flies fast and relatively high above an endless expanse of hills, some gentle and rolling, some with sharp peaks, in this southernmost tip of Thailand, where an insurgency has been raging for over five years.

• RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Displaced Women Finally Speak Ou ...

  KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 18 (IPS) - "Burqa, burqa was all we heard [from the Taliban militants] in Swat, but when we ran, we were hardly covered and the whole world looked at us," said a woman from this conflict area, who now lives in a camp for the internally displaced people (IDPs).

The Intelligence Daily

• U.S. postal service could run out of money next mo ...

• Chicago shuts down for a day to save money

• Brazil Seeks More Control of Oil Beneath Its Seas

• Former Secret Service worker charged with stealing ...

• Mosul teeters on brink of conflict

My AntiWar

• Clinton Puts Spotlight on Women’s Issues
• US Moves to Counter Violence in Northern Iraq
• Truck Bomb Signals Trouble on Russia’s South ...
• US Senator Says Suu Kyi May Ease Sanctions Stance
• Afghan Candidate Pushes Anti-Corruption Platform

• Rogue Government.com

• Declassified: Released documents reveal the Unite ...

  Two years before the coup that toppled the leftist leader of Chile, President Richard Nixon and Brazilian President Emilio Medici discussed coordinated intervention in that nation and Cuba, according to a newly declassified document.

• Freedom of Speech Under Fire: FCC's 'Chief Divers ...

• UK UFO sightings spiked when blockbusters release ...

  But another intriguing finding to emerge from the 1981-1996 archives was a surge in reports at the time of UFO-related blockbusters such as 1996's "Independence Day," not to mention the British television run of "The X-Files."

• Mermaid Sightings Claimed In Israel

• Russian subs move toward Canadian East Coast

  Canadian aircraft that hunted Soviet submarines during the Cold War are now monitoring two Russian attack subs that have migrated north after being spotted last week off the US coast, an official said Wednesday.

Innovation Canada

• Ocean view

  The winch at the rear of the ship slowly lowers a 13-tonne steel capsule about the size of three minivans into still water in early July. The shell, painted a garish yellow, is a trawl-resistant frame designed to deflect fishing nets. More important, once settled on the ocean floor, the capsule will ...

• Space reader

  (Article courtesy of the University of Windsor) Bill McConkey probably won’t be around to see the day when humans are finally able to travel tremendous stretches through outer space to distant planets such as Jupiter. When they do make that journey, however, they’ll owe a significant debt of gra ...

• Filling the glass

  Walkerton, Ont., North Battleford, Sask., and the Kashechewan First Nation Reserve, in Northern Ontario, have all become high-profile — and tragic — examples of what can go wrong when a community’s drinking water becomes contaminated. Surprisingly, they are not alone. At any given time, 1,700 ...

• i2eye with Bartha Maria Knoppers

  “Don’t plan your career — be curious.” That’s the credo that Bartha Maria Knoppers, the new director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre, espouses — and one she lives by. Knoppers turned her love of books into a master’s in c ...

• Environmental legacy

  (Article courtesy of University of Regina) University of Regina biologist Chris Somers is fascinated by how humans and wildlife interact and how animals respond to human-modified environments. “My research often combines animal ecology in the field, environmental chemistry and genetics,” explain ...

Signs of the times

• Field of Dreams: The SSRi Scandal

  I was exchanging emails late last night and early this morning with a prominent figure in the world of SSRi's. I'm not or never have been an academic. I have no qualifications. I only go on my research and personal experience with Seroxat/Paxil. During this exchange of emails I became aware that t ...

• Journalists Show Bias on Global Warming Issues

  Read these quotes: "As scientific evidence has accumulated that the planet is warming and that humans are behind it, many previous skeptics have been won over. There remains a vocal cadre of critics, however, at least some of whose arguments have shifted over the last several years from outright ...

• Water Quality Improves After Lawn Fertilizer Ban, ...

  In an effort to keep lakes and streams clean, municipalities around the country are banning or restricting the use of phosphorus-containing lawn fertilizers, which can kill fish and cause smelly algae blooms and other problems when the phosphorus washes out of the soil and into waterways. But do th ...

• Rachel Maddow Storms Meet The Press over Health Ca ...

  Daschle - limp. Coburn - oh my, what a loon. Armey - evasive, truculent, dismissive, cowardly. Gregory - he didn't obscure the show as badly as I had predicted he would. Rangle - wtf... And Rachel - like a laser. Edited to include a lot of non-Maddow content, particularly Dick Armey. There is no wa ...

• Black hole parasites explain cosmic flashes

  Some of the brightest flashes in the universe may be the result of black holes burrowing into stars and devouring them from inside. The flashes are known as gamma-ray bursts because most of their energy is in the form of high-energy radiation, including gamma rays and X-rays. The longer flashes, la ...

Threat Level

• Outspoken Privacy Advocate Joins FTC

  Christopher Soghoian, an outspoken privacy advocate who drew the ire of a congressman two years ago when he published information about a serious breach in airline security, has been hired by the Federal Trade Commission to work in the division of privacy and identity protection in its Bureau of Co ...

• TJX Hacker Charged with Heartland, Hannaford Breac ...

  The constellation of hacks connected to the TJX hacker is growing. Albert “Segvec” Gonzalez, a former Secret Service informant who is already awaiting trial over his involvement in the TJX hack, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey, along with two unnamed Russia-based conspira ...

• Patent Lawsuit Threatens to Clip Twitter’s Wings

  TechRadium, a little known Texas-based player in the emergency mass-notification field, didn’t just wake up this month and decide to sue Twitter for patent infringement. The company says it didn’t care about Twitter when the Twitterati was watching the tweets of NBA superstars, musicians, polit ...

• Luckless Predator Only Attracted to Undercover Cop ...

  It’s official. There’s nobody in the chat rooms but pedophiles and undercover police. On Thursday, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of an Indiana man whose online efforts to proposition underage girls led him to not one, not two, but three undercover cops, none of whom apparently kn ...

• Hotel Error Advertises Room Rate in Italy for 1 Ce ...

  Word apparently spread quickly across the internet on Sunday night that a luxury hotel in Venice, Italy, was offering a special 1-cent-a night rate. Visitors to the online registration page of the luxury Crowne Plaza Venice East-Quarto d’Altino hotel discovered it wasn’t just a rumor and that in ...

PERRspectives : Blog

• Obama Falling Victim to Krugman's Law. Again.

  Following President Obama's lead, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Sunday announced that a public option is "not the essential element" of the administration's health insurance reform push. Sadly, that development seems to signal that, as with the...

• Right-Wing Rage: Recurring Symptom of a Preexistin ...

  There's nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to the frothing at the mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to the 24/7 media's transformation of politics into just another form of entertainment, delusional Birthers, deceitful...

• Health Scare: When Politics is Entertainment

  "When politics is just another form of entertainment," I lamented in a presentation on the 2008 campaign last year, "the first thing that suffers is the truth." And so it is with the incendiary health care debate and so much...

• Smoking Grassley on Health Care Reform

  After his predictable experience with unified Republican obstructionism on the stimulus bill, President Obama must be high if he thinks there's a glimmer of hope for bipartisan cooperation on health care reform. Not because Sarah Palin is doubling-down on her...

• Smoking Grassley on Health Care Reform

  After his predictable experience with unified Republican obstructionism on the stimulus bill, President Obama must be high if he thinks there's a glimmer of hope for bipartisan cooperation on health care reform. Not because Sarah Palin is doubling-down on her...

Blackspot News Feed

• A letter to the church By Shawn Grandstaff

  by Shawn S. GrandstaffFeatured WriterDandelion SaladShawns blog postAugust 18, 2009order hereWith all the political rhetoric that we hear today and the high-jacking of pure Christianity, which is saturated with the Love of God, not judgment, I may come off a little strong at times with some righteou ...

• DO ANYTHING: 012

  On Pop Art, Jack Kirby and the formative days of Alan Moore : That wheezing, groaning noise? It’s the sound of a set of keys being dragged across the strings of a broken piano and processed by the mad science of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. This sound, the sound of the TARDIS, accompanies the ma ...

• Obamas Health Insurance Plan ChannelsThe Heritage ...

  By Stephanie MencimerMother JonesThu August 13, 2009 1:41 PM PSTDuring his New Hampshire town hall meeting on health care reform in mid-August, Obama explained that under his plan, people who lack health insurance would be able to purchase it in a new exchange that offered a similar menu of options ...

• Rachel Maddow: No We Cant! with Matt Taibbi

  MoxNewsDotComAugust 17, 2009http://MOXNews.com/August 17, 2009 MSNBC Rachel Maddow more about “No We Can’t! Rachel Maddow & Matt Tai…“, posted with vodpodsee also:Matt Taibbi – Taibblog Obamas Pre-emptive Health Care Surrender – True/SlantseeA Healthcare Proposal That Solves Obamas Probl ...

• Bagram Isnt The New Guantnamo, Its The Old Guantna ...

  by Andy WorthingtonFeatured WriterDandelion Saladwww.andyworthington.co.uk17 Aug. 2009Back in September 2005, when I first began researching Guantnamo for my book The Guantnamo Files, the prison was still shrouded in mystery, even though attorneys had been visiting prisoners for nearly a year, follo ...

Consortium News

• Fromme-Peltier: Inequality of Mercy

  Does Indian leader Leonard Peltier deserve mercy like "Squeaky" Fromme, ask Dennis Bernstein and Miguel Gavalan Molina. August 18, 2009

• PanAm103 Verdict: Justice or Politics?

  From the Archive: The Obama administration won't question the weak evidence in the PanAm 103 bombing conviction. By William Blum.

• Israel Evicts Palestinians from Homes

  Israeli police ousted two Palestinian families from homes in East Jerusalem, drawing rare U.S. criticism, reports TheRealNews. August 17, 2009

• Iraq War's Winners and Losers

  The Iraq War's losers now include a battered U.S. economy, but military contractors were big winners, says Sherwood Ross. August 17, 2009

• WTimes' Hypocritical Obama-Nazi Slur

  The right-wing Washington Times linked Barack Obama to Hitler, but the Times' founder has the real Nazi ties, says Robert Parry. August 17, 2009

CounterPunch

• Michael Hudson : The Specter of Debt Revolt Is Hau ...
• Mary Lynn Cramer : Obama-Fraud: Don't Confuse Medi ...
• Jonathan Cook : U.S. Turns Blind Eye to Israel's N ...
• Uri Avnery : Whose Acre?
• Ralph Nader : Block Obama's Abject Surrender to In ...

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• Children have a way with miracles (Mohammed Omer, ...

  Call it that choice between looking at the half-full or half-empty part of the results. And it is almost half; 55 percent of schoolchildren passed their exams in Gaza this year. The results in the humanities ...

• Bil'in Habibti ()
• Israel agrees to freeze settlement construction as ...

  In a subtle overture to the US, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a de facto moratorium on new building in the settlements. The freeze will be in effect until the beginning of 2010. The objective i ...

• Israel pays lip-service to the two-state solution, ...

  On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved int ...

• Abbas: Negotiations are the only route to a Palest ...

  President Mahmoud Abbas told his cabinet on Monday that negotiations are the only way to establish an independent Palestinian state. "We are peace seekers," he was quoted as telling the Ramallah meeting. "Th ...

Planetsave

• Freshwater Dreams and Schemes

  The North American Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of freshwater, about one-fifth of the world’s available freshwater supply. For more than 25 years, residents of the Great Lakes region have feared large-scale public works projects to take freshwater from the Lakes to thirsty, faster- ...

• Coal Strip Mine Would Destroy Salmon Streams in Co ...

  PacRim Coal’s plan to strip mine coal right through 11 miles of salmon-bearing streams in Alaska would destroy critical wetlands and headwater streams beyond the point of restoration, according to three new studies by scientists. The salmon fisheries along the Chuit River would be severely damaged ...

• Tourist Mosquitoes Threaten the Galapagos

  If you could declare a home town of evolution it would be the Galapagos Islands. Back in 1835 a sea sick young naturalist, Charles Darwin, landed on the Galapagos to conduct a little research. That research was the genesis of Darwin’s seminal work “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural ...

• Growing Acid in our Oceans: A Looming Threat to Se ...

  This picture is a picture of the beautiful Monterey, California coastline. This is where I grew up. It is famous for it’s beautiful sea life. Sea otters, jelly fish, sea lions, kelp forests all populate the Monterey coast. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world. Yet, with all th ...

• Great Lakes Offshore Wind Aesthetics

  [social buttons] While public opinion remains divided about the risks and benefits of installing wind farms in the Great Lakes, several of the eight states with Great Lakes water are racing to be first to approve projects capturing energy from frequently strong offshore winds. It remains to be seen ...

Water Quality - WordPress

• Parkinson's Disease: Rural Well Water Linked to Pa ...

  Rural Well Water Linked to Parkinson’s Disease wordpress:

• National Resource Defense Council Reports on Water ...

  Beach name Rating details 100 yrds ENE of Little Bridge, Causeway, Nags Head 100 yrds. o

• Great Water Quality at Outer Banks Beaches

  Recently, environmental experts reported that the Outer Banks has some of the nation’s cleanes

• Water awareness: global survey of public perceptio ...

  Molson Coors Brewing Company [has] announced a strategic collaboration with Circle of Blue in suppor

• 2008/2009 Water Quality Committee Annual Report

  The Glen Lake Association Water Quality Committee has focused on the following activities during the

Public Citizen in Texas

• Grassroots vs Astroturf- the difference in citizen ...

  Most people have a good general conception of what a real grassroots movement looks like: citizens get outraged over some injustice or inequity and get organized and get active. These campaigns are built from the bottom up. And what happens when you don’t have a grassroots movement but want to ...

• Boerne Makes Move on Local Renewable Power

  I came across this article recently in the Express-News’ Northwest Daily and had to share. Boerne, population c. 9,400, located about 30 miles northwest of San Antonio, will soon establish a framework for the development of distributed generation. Under the terms of an ordinance that passed a fir ...

• Texans care about climate change too

  Being an environmentalist in Texas, sometimes it feels like the whole world is against you. Â There’s a common assumption that folks around here just don’t care as much about the environment as elsewhere, and that people don’t see climate change as all that much of a threat. Â When I tell ...

• San Antonio Mayor’s Nuclear Town Hall Tonight

  Tonight, August 10, is Mayor Castro’s Town Hall Meeting, where he wants to allow the community to tell city council and himself what they think about going the nuclear route. This is so important to attend. It will be at the City Council Chambers downtown where Flores and Commerce meet (map belo ...

• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up

  The Congress may be in recess, but the Texas Progressive Alliance is always in session. Here’s the weekly roundup of blog highlights. Off the Kuff takes a closer look at the crimefighting plan of Houston Mayoral candidate Annise Parker. WCNews at Eye On Williamson encourages everyone to get involv ...

Press TV

• Militant spokesman 'nabbed' in Pakistan

  Pakistani security forces say they have arrested a top spokesman for the so-called Pakistani Taliban militants in a tribal area in the country's northwest.

• Five killed in Kabul in car explosion

  Five people have been killed and more than 30 wounded when a car exploded on a busy road in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

• Iran, Malaysian islands are 'twinned'

  The Iranian Island of Kish and Malaysian Island of Langkawi are declared 'twins' in a bid to promote the two countries' tourism industry.

• Iraq's Maliki in Syria over security, economy

  Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki arrives has arrived in Syria for security and economic talks with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the other top officials.

• Mubarak: Striking Iran unifies Iranians

  Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warns Israel against a military attack on Iran's nuclear sites saying the move would unite the Iranian nation around their leadership.

Axis of Logic

• U.S.: Troy Davis must "prove his innocence" after ...

• Money is God, Greed is King and Corruption Runs th ...

• Latin America: Social Movements in Times of Econom ...

• The 'Anti-Starbucks' Starbucks

• Exclusive: Kill Them All and Cover Them with Bulls ...

They Gave Us a Republic

• The Guns of August

  Count me among those horrified that the Secret Service did not round up and detain the dozen people carrying firearms, including automatic rifles, outside President Obama's town hall event in Phoenix yesterday. As Josh Marshall explains to a concerned reader, there are good reasons for not arresting ...

• Playing Calvin Ball* With Health Care Reform

  The Rude Pundit attends a health care reform Town Hall, and leaves with this insight: This is a bullshit movement. Oh, sure, there's real emotions and real people, but it's a limp cock being strenuously fluffed by a media on its knees for the right wing of this country. It's a bullshit movement beca ...

• Wonder What Else They Have That's Only .22 Caliber ...

  Since the seventh grade appears to be about the level at which the intellectual development of most of these gunslinging Repunks was arrested, I offer the following opinion: If anything should happen to this president... or anyone else for that matter... as a result of these numskulls being whipped ...

• House Progressives Won't Compromise on Public Opti ...

  Fuck the Senate. The Progressive/Liberal Democrats in the House (who significantly outnumber the Blue Dogs) were abused, ignored, bullied and beaten down by Gingrich/DeLay repugs for 14 years and they're not going to take it any more. The public option (if they can't have single-payer) puts them on ...

• Penrose On Politics: Back to School

Care 2

• China’s Iconic Panda May Face Extinction in Two t ...

  As China marches forward with aggressive infrastructure construction plans, years of panda conservation face major setbacks. Submitted by Cher C. to Animals | Note-it! | Add a Comment

• Tourist Mosquitoes Threaten the Galapagos

  If you could declare a home town of evolution it would be the Galapagos Islands. Back in 1835 a sea sick young naturalist, Charles Darwin, landed on the Galapagos to conduct a little research. That research was the genesis of Darwin’s seminal work Submitted by Cher C. to Animals | Note-it! | ...

• Saving the Day on the San Francisco Bay

  This knowledge was recently put to quick use by some PETA Foundation staff members. They were walking by the San Francisco Bay when they noticed a seagull struggling to say afloat. The bird had become covered in grease while foraging for food at a nearby Submitted by Cher C. to Animals | Note-it ...

• The Most Popular Squirrel

  In the meantime, check out this cutie, who's been making the Internet rounds lately since crashing a Minnesota couple's Canadian vacation photo (the fun backstory is here): Submitted by Cher C. to Animals | Note-it! | Add a Comment

• Kenya losing 100 lions every year: conservation gr ...

  Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades. Submitted by Cher C. to Animals | Note-it! | Add a Comment

GreenBiz

• Cash for Killing Your Lawn: Cities Get Creative on ...

  In Las Vegas, the biggest desert city in the U.S., and still one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation, the local water utility is offering cash incentives to replace water-sucking lawns with drought-resistant landscapes.

• PepsiCo Opens Green Beverage Plant in China

  The company expects the plant, located in western China in the city of Chongqing, will use 22 percent less water and 23 percent less energy than other PepsiCo plants in the country.

• IBM Sets Its Big Green Sights on S.F. Bay Water Qu ...

  Big Blue is teaming up with San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission to monitor and reduce pollution in the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.

• IBM Sharpens Focus on Business and Battery Efficie ...

  The company announced today the creation of the Green Sigma Coalition to integrate IBM’s Green Sigma consulting service with the products and services of several big-name partners. A second project will take aim at the development of tomorrow’s lithium-ion batteries.

• Starbucks Coffee: Green or Greenwashed?

  Starbucks is given credit by many for revolutionizing the American coffee drinking experience. The company, however, is both praised and criticized by environmentalists. Is Starbucks a leader of sustainability or a greenwasher?

Reuters Global

• It’s all the fault of those people who work ...

  PHOTO CREDITS: Tango REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci Bubbles REUTERS/Claro Cortes Grasshoppers REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci Ants REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate

• North Korea’s “Dear Leader” open ...

  A North Korean traffic officers directs cars on the streets of Pyongyang under a new umbrella. Photo provided by North Korea's official KCNA news agency on August 13, 2009.

• Pakistan’s Enemy No.1

  An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis consider the United States to be the greatest threat to the nation, far more than traditional rival India, and the Taliban, according to a new poll.

• Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t ...

  It is the open secret no one wants to talk about. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country. International donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.

• Targeted killings inside Pakistan;are they working ...

  The U.S. strategy of targeted killings inside Pakistan would seem to be working if the death of Baitullah Mehsud the leader of the Pakistani Taliban turns out to be true, as seems increasingly likely. But the jury is out over whether such strikes are effective over the longer term.

Ezra Klein

• Tab Dump

  • Now Republicans oppose the co-op, too? • "Kind of Blue" really is great. • Where does Marc Ambinder find the time? • A good profile of Rahm Emanuel's role. • David Leonhardt considers a "fat tax."

• How Is Conrad Counting the Votes?

  This is a useful reminder from Ryan Grim: "The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option, there never have been, so to continue to chase that rabbit is just a wasted effort," Conrad said on Fox News Sunday. Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota ...

• Co-Ops as an Alternative to the Public Plan

  I've been on MSNBC twice today to explain the difference between a public option and a co-op. I think I'm getting sort of good at it. So I may as well do it here, too. There's an idea out there called "the public option" grounded in a particular critique of the insurance industry. In particular, th ...

• It's Not About the Insurers. At Least Not Totally.

  Over the past few weeks, health-care reform has morphed into "health-insurance reform." That's what the president calls it. That's what his aides call it. That, by and large, is what the actual bills contain. And that is what the public option is about. There's a reason that health-care reform is ...

• A Health Care Cheat Sheet

  Next time someone tells you that health-care reform is complicated and impossible to explain, give them this .

Booman Tribune

• Froggy Bottom Cafe

• Scalia and Thomas are Nuts

  Let's say that you are put on trial for a murder that you didn't commit. And then let's say that you are convicted of that murder. And let's say that you appeal your conviction but the conviction is upheld because the judge, lawyers, and jury in your case all acted appropriately. The facts and te ...

• Obama & Protestors with Guns

  It seems that "freedom loving" Americans can't get enough of carrying their firearms with them when they protest an appearance by President Obama. It happened in Vermont New Hampshire last week and again today in Arizona where at least a dozen men appeared carrying either semi-automatic pistols or ...

• A Look Ahead

  Jane Hamsher is right. And she deserves a ton of credit for her organizing and indefatigable energy. She has obtained the pledges of enough House Democrats to assure that the House cannot pass a health care reform bill that doesn't contain a public option. I am pretty confident that those pledges ...

• Tommy To Cut the Rug

  In my fantasy, Dancing With the Stars will have an all-Republican season, with two teams: the indicted and the convicted: Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, will be a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" when the popular ABC show premieres Sept. 21 ...

European Tribune

• Monday Open Thread

  Time to chat!...

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 17 ...

  A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1686 – Nicola Porpora,...

• Sunday Open Thread

  Sunday lounge...

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 16 ...

  A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1876 – Birth of...

• Lazy Saturday Open Thread

  another picture of the Cervin...

Futurismic

• The future is biological

  Wired does an excellent job of focusing on a day-to-day aspect of an imminently transformative technology. Much is spoken of the coming biotech revolution, but industrial designers like Tuur Van Balen focus on the how biotechnology will present itself at the most basic level: The 1s and 0s of softwa ...

• Smallest ever free-flying device

  The world’s smallest free-flying device has successfully flown. The DARPA-commissioned nano-air-vehicle flew TK without external support: Aeronvironment has released a video that shows its “nano air vehicle” (NAV), which is the size of a small bird or large insect, hovering indoors without suc ...

• The future is biological

  Wired does an excellent job of focusing on a day-to-day aspect of an imminently transformative technology. Much is spoken of the coming biotech revolution, but industrial designers like Tuur Van Balen focus on the how biotechnology will present itself at the most basic level: The 1s and 0s of softwa ...

• Smallest ever free-flying device

  The world’s smallest free-flying device has successfully flown. The DARPA-commissioned nano-air-vehicle flew TK without external support: Aeronvironment has released a video that shows its “nano air vehicle” (NAV), which is the size of a small bird or large insect, hovering indoors without suc ...

• Sparse posting apology

  Hi folks; Just a quick note to apologise for the paucity of posts here over the last few days, and to let you know it may continue for a few days more. Unfortunately I have a dead cable modem at home, and until the bureaucratic incompetents at the media company see their way to replacing it [...] Pr ...

Yahoo! Canada News

• YahooCanadaNews: Obama's team shares winning strat ...

  YahooCanadaNews: Obama's team shares winning strategies with NDP http://tr.im/wsSV

• YahooCanadaNews: Ryan M. for Y! CA News. Volkswage ...

  YahooCanadaNews: Ryan M. for Y! CA News. Volkswagen threat 'tantamount to blackmail': Opel union leader http://tr.im/wsuW

• YahooCanadaNews: NDP name change may prove awfully ...

  YahooCanadaNews: NDP name change may prove awfully embarrassing in Quebec http://tr.im/wqGT

• YahooCanadaNews: Ryan M. for Y! CA News. Federal N ...

  YahooCanadaNews: Ryan M. for Y! CA News. Federal NDP to mull name change at N.S. convention http://tr.im/wmRD

• YahooCanadaNews: MK for Y! CA News. Small Canadian ...

  YahooCanadaNews: MK for Y! CA News. Small Canadian firm wins battle against Microsoft. http://bit.ly/FV0lE

Global Elite

• President European Commission Advocated World Gove ...

  Jurriaan Maessen. Infowars. July 24th, 2009 On September 7, 1992, two term President of the European Commission Jacques Delors gave a speech to the Royal Institute of International Affa ...

• Billions of People Expected to Die Under Current C ...

  Barbara Minton, Natural News, July 21st, 2009 Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the d ...

• Bioweapons, Dangerous Vaccines, and Threats of a G ...

  Stephen Lendman, Global Research, July 7th, 2009 Although international law prohibits the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, America has had an active biological warfare progr ...

• Today we’re all prisoners in the USA

  Papers, Please! June 2, 2009 As of today, June 1, 2009, even U.S. citizens are officially prisoners in the USA, or exiles barred from entering our own country without the government’s ...

• Biopiracy, GM Seeds and Rural India "Over 100,000 ...

  Priya Kumar, Global Research, June 2, 2009 The reality for the average Indian remains the same: agricultural cultivation and the ability to farm is the bedrock of rural living. With its historical practices, values, and communal sentiments of ...

Al Jazeera

• Kabul hit ahead of Afghan poll

  At least four killed in latest suicide attack two days ahead of presidential elections.

• Former S Korean president Kim dies

  Kim Dae-jung who brokered landmark summit with North Korea dies of heart failure aged 85.

• Russia arrests ship 'hijackers'

  Eight people suspected of hijacking cargo vessel are detained after navy tracks it down.

• US proposes northern Iraq patrols

  US commander suggests joining with Iraqi and Kurdish forces to halt violence in north.

• Afghan presidential palace attacked

  Mortar causes damage to compound two days ahead of presidential elections.

Green Inc. - NYT

• Your Responses: Nominating National Parks

  Green Inc. readers share their thoughts on what parks and natural places near them ought to be granted National Park status.

• The Carbon Case for Downloading Music

  A new study finds that downloading albums is substantially better from an emissions perspective than buying compact discs.

• A Hydrogen Power Plant in Italy

  An Italian utility is using hydrogen that otherwise would go to waste to produce clean electricity for the citizens of Venice.

• Ghana Girds for Vagaries of Oil Production

  With drilling set to begin next year, Ghana is looking to avoid the pitfalls experienced by other oil-producing African nations -- from piracy to internal corruption.

• Climate, Growth and Floods in Mumbai

  Mumbai, India's commercial capital, has grown quickly in recent decades - at the expense of its estuaries, environmentalist advocates say. And some analysts warn that climate change has made the situation all the more precarious.

Dot Earth News

• Coming of Age as a Person and Species

  Does a film on sex and insecurity offers lessons on humanity's global growth spurt?

• Energy Frontiers: Space Solar, Hot Lots

  A closer look at potentially transformational energy ideas.

• Data Gap on Atlantic Storms and Warming

  More questions raised about recent hurricane trends.

• A Billion Teenagers, for Better or Worse

  Some of the world's poorest and most turbulent regions are witnessing explosive population growth, meaning enormous numbers of teenagers and children.

• Landslide Losses Not Inevitable

  With planning, the risks from landslides like those in Taiwan can be reduced.

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

• Introducing Feidt Design LLC - yr handy electronic ...

  You better believe it! I filed for Feidt Design LLC with the Secretary of State a week ago, and got the certificate on Friday! Here's the intro message. (And there was much rejoicing!!) It's a lot of fun to set up a new biz :-) Thanks for visiting Feidt Design! Hey all, Thanks for stopping by the ...

• Thanks to Rose for finding my phone! Plus: I'm sta ...

  I nearly had a horrible day today, leaving my trusty old Helio phone on a bench at the University of Minnesota mall. A good samaritan named Rose picked it up and called the Boiler Room coffee shop back after I tried the phone. I got it back! Thanks a ton, Rose, you saved yet another messy situation ...

• Hat tip for Joaquin Phoenix conspiracy

  Not a bad idea! Which makes this potentially one of the greatest performances any modern actor has ever given -- or at least one of the most baldly courageous. The closest comparison would have to be Andy Kaufman's utter commitment to his obnoxious Tony Clifton persona, but Phoenix is going Kaufman ...

• Tough times south of the border

  Duly noted: Mexican TV reporter ducking stray bullets: Hat tip to the thoughtful Texas farmer Don , who knows what you ought to know about the War On Drugs. This video was recently the #1 most discussed from Mexico on YooToob... Plus, don't miss the five stages of complete social collapse! http://c ...

• Pirate Bay Trial and Kopimi: The Kopimi Manifesto

  I can't say I get it. But I like it. In these apocalyptic and bitchy times, it is high time to get some sarcastic Swedish hacker philsophy out there. Now is the time. The spectrial is apparently the place. How could we forget the Pirate Bay Spectrial?! They released a Pirate Bay Manifesto - POwr, Br ...

• AlterNet Top Stories

• Why the U.S. May Be Going from Dependence on Midea ...

  Rare earth metals, found mainly in China are the key to making high-tech gadgets, from hybrid car batteries to precision-guided missiles.

• How Viagra Promised a Sexual Revolution But Delive ...

  The little blue pill was supposed to transform our attitudes towards aging and sexuality. It merely reinforced bad cultural stereotypes about older men.

• Halting Town Hall Intimidation Is AlterNet's Top T ...

  Effigies, Nazi rhetoric, guns and threatening phone calls. How are you going to help counter this despicable intimidation campaign?

• It's Now or Never for a Public Option: Why We Need ...

  We are at a crucial moment in the health care debate -- Obama needs pressure from all of us to keep the public option as part of his agenda.

• The Fiji Phenomenon: It's a Human Rights and Envir ...

  How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?

Threat Level

• Outspoken Privacy Advocate Joins FTC

  Christopher Soghoian, an outspoken privacy advocate who drew the ire of a congressman two years ago when he published information about a serious breach in airline security, has been hired by the Federal Trade Commission to work in the division of privacy and identity protection in its Bureau of Co ...

• TJX Hacker Charged with Heartland, Hannaford Breac ...

  The constellation of hacks connected to the TJX hacker is growing. Albert “Segvec” Gonzalez, a former Secret Service informant who is already awaiting trial over his involvement in the TJX hack, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey, along with two unnamed Russia-based conspira ...

• Patent Lawsuit Threatens to Clip Twitter’s Wings

  TechRadium, a little known Texas-based player in the emergency mass-notification field, didn’t just wake up this month and decide to sue Twitter for patent infringement. The company says it didn’t care about Twitter when the Twitterati was watching the tweets of NBA superstars, musicians, polit ...

• Luckless Predator Only Attracted to Undercover Cop ...

  It’s official. There’s nobody in the chat rooms but pedophiles and undercover police. On Thursday, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of an Indiana man whose online efforts to proposition underage girls led him to not one, not two, but three undercover cops, none of whom apparently kn ...

• Hotel Error Advertises Room Rate in Italy for 1 Ce ...

  Word apparently spread quickly across the internet on Sunday night that a luxury hotel in Venice, Italy, was offering a special 1-cent-a night rate. Visitors to the online registration page of the luxury Crowne Plaza Venice East-Quarto d’Altino hotel discovered it wasn’t just a rumor and that in ...

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• South Korea rocket launch bound to rile the North

  SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is counting down to its first space launch on Wednesday that will likely open the door to its nascent rocket program and rile neighbor North Korea, hit by U.N. sanctions after its own rocket launch in April.

• Expansive China faces grass-roots resentment

  ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian shopkeeper Abdelkrim Salouda has witnessed China's global economic expansion first-hand and he does not like it, especially since he was in a mass brawl this month with Chinese migrant workers.

• Former South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung dies

  SEOUL (Reuters) - Former President Kim Dae-jung, a giant in South Korea's shift to democracy who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to forge a reconciliation with the prickly communist North, died on Tuesday at the age of 85.

• European Factors -- Shares set for bounce; ZEW eye ...

  (Adds futures, more company items, updates snapshot table)

• Building block of life found on comet

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The amino acid glycine, a fundamental building block of proteins, has been found in a comet for the first time, bolstering the theory that raw ingredients of life arrived on Earth from outer space, scientists said on Monday.

Godspace

• Intergenerational Friendships as Spiritual Practic ...

  I am back from the MSA Celtic retreat on Camano Island (more on that later) and realizing that my expectations of what I could accomplish were a little unrealistic. And then our internet was down all morning and I was just about pulling my hair out trying to get caught up. What ever happened to ...

• Unemployment as a Spiritual Practice

  I am now back from Australia and as you can imagine the posts for my series on What is a Spiritual Practice have been mounting up while I have had limited internet access and less time to focus on such things. Â Thanks for your patience and for your prayers during this challenging season. Today’ ...

• Editing your Life: The Spiritual Discipline of Edi ...

  I am sitting in Sydney on a beautiful but crisp winter’s morning watching the rainbow lorikeets out in the trees. Â My Dad’s funeral is over and I will head back to Seattle in 2 days time. Â I have been very aware of prayer and the grace of God in the midst of this. Â Thanks to [...]

• Living in Transition as Spiritual Practice

  I am now in Sydney Australia after what has been one of the easiest long international trips I have made for a long time. Â I even slept for several hours on the flight which makes me very aware of the fact that people have been praying for me. Today’s article comes from Guy Chmieleski who is [. ...

• Recent Additions to the Spiritual Practices series

  Here’s the round-up of the most recent Spiritual Practices posts: The Spiritual Practice of Apologizing by T Freeman Love-making as a Spiritual Practice by Mark Scandrette Smoking the Glory of God by Jason Clark The Spiritual Practice of Getting Honest With Myself by Jonathan Brink Spiritual Disci ...

Pine River World News

• Afghanistan election sham

  The following commentary is from the Tehran Times. Afghanistan election sham © Tehran Times By Salman Ansari Javid August 17, 2009 Some 40 candidates are contesting in Afghanistan's second presidential election in its history on Thursday. Afghans are expected to go to the polls with enthusiasm a ...

• Iraqi MP demands to establish headquarters of Yeme ...

  IntelTrends - The following article is from al-Sahwa. Iraqi MP demands to establish headquarters of al-Houthi rebels in Baghdad © al-Sahwa August 16, 2009 (Sahwa Net) - Head of Iraq parliament's Foreign Committee Sheikh Hamam Hamaudi has called for establishing a headquarters for al-Houthi rebe ...

• Tribalism main obstacle to democracy in Afghanista ...

  The following article is from Today's Zaman, Istanbul. Tribalism main obstacle to democracy in Afghanistan, say Afghan intellectuals © Today's Zaman By Emine Kart August 16, 2009 ANKARA - Days ahead of Thursday's presidential election in Afghanistan, which will be the second since the Taliban re ...

• JIHAD IN NIGERIA: Boko Haram sect threatens Nigeri ...

  Pine River World News / IntelTrends August 15, 2009 If you thought that Boko Haram, the Islamic sect at the center of recent clashes in northern Nigeria, would simply go away after their leader was executed by police you may well be mistaken. Mohammed Yusuf's death certainly dealt a blow to the mov ...

• Islamic Emirate of Baytul-Maqdes declared in Gaza: ...

  IntelTrends - [ Blogmaster note : The Islamic Emirate of Baytul-Maqdes has been declared in Gaza under the leadership of Sheikh Abunnur al-Maqdesy. The Unjust Media (mujahideen and Islamic news) is carrying a declaration this date.] August 15, 2009 JUND ANSAR ALLAH: A Declaration of the ISLAMI ...

• PsyBlog

• Brainstorming Reloaded

  · Why brainstorming is ineffective and how to fix it. Brainstorming was once thought a fantastic way for groups to generate new ideas. Although not as fashionable as it once was, brainstorming is still frequently used in business and, often inadvertently, for all sorts of personal decisions; peop ...

• Consumer Psychology

  · How and why we consume and how our beliefs, ideas and senses influence consumption. Peter Drucker, the management consultant, famously argued that about 80% of all products and services fail or fall well short of targets within six months of launching. Clearly markets have little understanding ...

• Why Left to Right Punches Are More Aggressive, Pow ...

  Reading and writing from left to right is a skill so well-practised, so ingrained in language, that it's easy to ignore. Yet, according to some research, the direction in which language flows could have implications that spread into many other areas of our experience. Consider that people are often ...

• Persuasion: The Right-Ear Advantage

  If you want someone to comply with a random request for a cigarette, you should speak into their right ear, according to a new study by researchers in Italy. Marzoli & Tommasi (2009) had a female confederate visit a disco and approach 176 random people asking for a smoke. Clubbers were about twice ...

• 10 Rules That Govern Groups

  Much of our lives are spent in groups with other people: we form groups to socialise, earn money, play sport, make music, even to change the world. But although groups are diverse, many of the psychological processes involved are remarkably similar. Here are 10 insightful studies that give a flavou ...

After Downing Street.org

• Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform

  90.3 WCPN ideastream®: Click to listen: Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he doubts the health care bill taking shape in Congress will succeed. He spoke with WVIZ's Dick Feagler. Ideastream's Bill Rice reports . Much of the controversy ...

• Weiner: Senate Healthcare Deal Could Cost 100 Hou ...

  Weiner: Senate healthcare deal could cost 100 House votes By Michael O'Brien | The Hill A healthcare reform deal abandoning a public (or "government-run") option for consumers could cost as many as 100 Democratic votes in the House, one House Democratic lawmaker warned Monday. Rep. Anth ...

• War on Terror - Pathways to Peace

  read more

• Holbrooke's Projects Long Occupation of Afghanista ...

  By Tom Hayden The conference on Afghanistan with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, sponsored by the Center for American Progress on August 12 turned into a disappointing press conference promoting the virtual nation-building plan being integrated into the US military operations in that country. It was a ...

• Rove and Miers to Testify Publicly Before Congress ...

  By Jason Leopold, The Public Record Back in March, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers announced that he and his staff had reached an agreement to have Karl Rove and ex-White House Counsel Harriet Miers testify privately about their roles in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys he sa ...

Grist - News

• Let’s (re)do school lunch

  It’s time to get active in the campaign to improve school lunches, says Kurt Michael Friese.

• Ruminations on the Obama era, with a side of spicy ...

• Cheap-chicken ad from KFC hides true cost of food; ...

• For a quick fix to school-lunch woes, pack an appe ...

• Stalking the wild leeks of spring

  What could improve a forest walk in early spring? Spotting a bunch of that delicious wild relative of the leek known as the ramp.

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Water Power

water floods pollution

Package of water bills seek to balance thirst of water users and ...

San Jose Mercury News

- Aug 18, 2009

- 2 hours ago

Santa Clara County receives roughly half of its water supply from the delta, and the other half from local groundwater sources. ...

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Milford officials scramble to keep bottled water on tap

Boston Herald

- Aug 18, 2009

- 11 minutes ago

By Laura Crimaldi Free bottled water distribution for Milford residents, who have been under state boil-water order since August 8, will end today at 8 pm ...

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Snake Valley ranchers riled by 'sellout' water deal

Salt Lake Tribune

- Aug 17, 2009

- 8 hours ago

Delta » West desert ranchers gave Utah and Nevada water officials a verbal lashing Monday night over a proposed deal that they fear sells out their little ...

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Perdue, congressmen divvy up water tasks

Bizjournals.com

- Aug 17, 2009

- 16 hours ago

US District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled last month that water systems serving about 3.5 million metro Atlantans have been withdrawing from Lake Lanier ...

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To Do

renewable recycling conservation

LAX to begin using Rentech's locally produced renewable diesel

Bizjournals.com

- Aug 18, 2009

- 2 hours ago

This is the first-of-its-kind deal to supply renewable synthetic fuels to multiple domestic airlines. Rentech said that the renewable diesel fuel will have ...

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ATC backing study of renewable energy transmission

Bizjournals.com

- Aug 18, 2009

- 3 hours ago

Officials said bolstering such a network in the region is key to connecting renewable energy generation in states such as North and South Dakota and ...

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Helix may buy Abundant Renewable Energy

Bizjournals.com

- Aug 18, 2009

- 1 hour ago

Helix (OTCBB: HLXW) on Tuesday said it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Abundant Renewable Energy LLC, the Newburg company that makes ...

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California Wants to Lead With Solar Initiatives

Reuters

- Aug 18, 2009

- 8 hours ago

Washington, with its longtime investment in hydropower, produced nearly 58 percent more renewable energy from electricity than California, according to 2007 ...

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Human Habitat

ecology water energy

New Orleans may be home to Arcology: Architecutural Ecology (Video ...

Examiner.com

- Aug 18, 2009

- 6 hours ago

Some architectural firms have banded together to design a 1200 foot high arcology structure for New Orleans. The architects are referring to the plan as ...

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New 'Princeton Guide to Ecology' explores topics from climate ...

Princeton University

- Aug 17, 2009

- Aug 17, 2009

by Jennifer Greenstein Altmann In his new book, "The Princeton Guide to Ecology," Princeton professor Simon Levin has tapped more than 130 experts to ...

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Holtsville Ecology Center

Examiner.com

- Aug 18, 2009

- 8 hours ago

The Holtsville Ecology Center is a fantastic find for parents who want to have a great day with their kids, but only spend money on gas to get there! ...

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Yelm drops water rights proposal

The Olympian

- Aug 18, 2009

- 15 hours ago

Yelm officials have temporarily withdrawn a plan with the state Department of Ecology for how the city would secure additional water rights to meet growing ...

clipped from Google - 8/2009