5 Aug - an Evening's BlogNews

S Asia hunger 'at 40-year high'

food and fuel price rises and the global economic downturn: climate change and urbanisation also need tackling three quarters of the population in South Asia - almost 1.2 billion people - live on less than $2 (£1.2) a day. And more than 400m people in the region are now chronically hungry.
important for the two biggest countries in South Asia, India and Pakistan, to reduce their defence budgets to allow for increased social spending

Canadian winters no big deal for U.S ambassador nominee

On Afghanistan, Jacobson said Prime Minister Stephen Harper extended the mission at some political cost.
( Yes,well. We all have our concerns. I thought the end of the previous article had an interesting observation applicable here too. )

The myth of the American middle class

"No one wants to identify as working class.”

Nor does anyone want to identify as upper class.

July 30, 2009 at 1:16 am

It’s so different in the UK. We cling onto our working class roots like a badge of honour. It’s not so much about money here but culture.

I’ve been a teacher for 12 years now but would never declare myself as middle class-my cockney accent just wouldn’t allow it.

In the media the middle class and upper class have adopted ‘mockney’ accents to get on here-think Jamie Oliver and Guy Ritchie

The Destruction of the Black Middle Class

For African Americans - and to a large extent, Latinos - the recession is over. It occurred between 2000 and 2007, as black employment decreased by 2.4 percent and incomes declined by 2.9 percent. During the seven-year long black recession, one third of black children lived in poverty and black unemployment-even among college graduates-- consistently ran at about twice the level of white unemployment. That was the black recession. What's happening now is a depression.

Overfishing May Be Declining, But It Hasn't Gone Away-

Alterdestiny

Two years after a study warned that overfishing could cause a collapse in the world's seafood stocks by 2048, an update says the tide is turning, at least in some areas.

[...]Of 10 areas of the world that were studied, significant overfishing continues in three, but steps have been taken to curb excesses in five others, Hilborn and Worm report. The other two were not a problem in either study.

This is indeed some fairly good news in an area (fishing and the oceans) that has seen some of the worst news regarding environmental change in recent years.

Health-care reform may not be good for politicians' health Medicare reform can be a sinkhole - on both sides of the border

Japan has 50 per cent more seniors than Canada, yet spends a quarter less on health care – with better outcomes.
The Canadian Medical Association, the lobby group for the country's 80,000 doctors, has even made it the theme of its annual meeting this month. It's right there on the program cover: “Health Care Transformation: We can all do better.”

For the doctors, it's not clear that “all” includes them. The CMA will unveil the results of a fact-finding mission to Europe to investigate reform there, from Denmark's downloading of chronic care onto municipalities to Britain's funding of hospitals based on the number of patients they treat.

No government wants to take on the doctors lobby, not when Canadians trust their physicians so much more than their politicians. ( :)

Psychology is to blame for humans not acting on climate change, psychologists sayIt may seem a tad ridiculous to have to even say that human behavior is responsible for the failure of humans to act, let alone take 225 pages to say it. I mean, what else would likely be responsible than people's minds and brains -- their big toes?

But the report gets into useful specifics. It draws on past studies on people's behavior in disaster situations. It examines what science knows about how you can get people to alter their behavior and what doesn't seem to work at all, no matter how fine and dandy an idea may sound.

Science for Policy Project: the Final Report

The report focuses on the need to draw clean distinctions between science issues and policy issues:

"The fundamental theme of the report is that the Administration needs to put in place procedures to try to distinguish science questions from policy questions," said Boehlert. "Often, policy disputes are cast as fights over science. This damages the credibility of science and obscures the real issues that ought to be debated. For example, how much risk a substance poses to human health or the environment is a science question; how much risk is acceptable is a policy question."

( Sounds a bit like trying to promote conditions for peace without dealing with the problem of violence : the 'confusion' being political 'cover'. Kool Aid Alert )

Women Lead in Iran

Strong support among women for reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi also has been key. Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, played an especially visible role in her husband's campaign and continues to speak out, calling for protesters to chant from the rooftops in a show of solidarity. She is respected by many as Iran's first high-ranking female university professor and for her work as an artist.

Iran’s leading human rights leader, Nobel Laureate, and women’s rights attorney Shirin Ebadi has called for the Iranian government to void the presidential election results. Ebadi argues that the government should release individuals who were arrested for objecting to the election results, cease police violence towards protesters, pay compensation to those injured or killed, and order new elections. Several Iranian human rights leaders have reportedly been arrested after denouncing the election results and the ensuing violence.

How stories about the Secretary of State end up as “Sad Hillary” anecdrama

( or : 'Reporting' as Trivial Pursuit .... = trivial distractions )

Government 'panicked' by report of MoD wasting billions

The government has been accused of trying to suppress a report that found the Ministry of Defence is wasting billions of pounds every year as a result of ordering projects it cannot afford.
( Panic? That's an unlikely state of affairs. The MoD has been ordering work it can't afford for Generations. )

Baghdad blast walls to come down

Panetta: “CIA pays a price for enduring disputes over policies that no longer exist.”

British Lawmaker David Davis Challenges US Threats to Suppress Evidence of CIA Torture

A British court heard evidence last week that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to prevent the disclosure of details regarding the CIA’s role in the alleged torture of former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed. We hear from conservative British parliamentarian David Davis about the Obama administration’s attempts to suppress evidence in this case.

Twitter Iran delay 'not forced'

Commandos tackle S Korea strikers

South Korean police commandos have dropped from helicopters to try to end a factory sit-in by sacked workers demanding to keep their jobs.

More than 500 workers have occupied the main car plant of Ssangyong Motors for more than 10 weeks.

A Chinese teenager sent to an internet addiction rehabilitation camp has allegedly been beaten to death by its counsellors

Gangs are stealing taxpayers' passwords and submitting claims for tax refunds to be paid to them, HM Revenue and Customs has warned.

William Jefferson,A former US Congressman who was caught by FBI agents with $90,000 (£53,000) in his freezer has been found guilty of bribery and money laundering.

Russia keeps close watch on neighbours
They're much more interested in having a kind of zone of influence...Russia has had an especially close eye on Nato enlargement. The war with Georgia last August was the result of tension which had been building for years - and even if the conflict was ostensibly about the status of a separatist region, Georgia's desire for Nato membership was a major factor. Russia sees Nato's eastward expansion as a deliberate threat to its security.
Russia's approach to its disputes with its neighbours seems designed not only to secure advantage, but also as a demonstration of power.

( Funny how it's more authoritative for a Beebs stringer to say that than a blogger. Maybe I'm green over the exposure. The last laugh is to note both Britain { Europe ?} and the U.S. behave in exactly the same fashion. )
Pepe Escobar revisits the New Great Game-Part 1Part 2

The Bush administration has tried everything to drive a wedge between Iran and Russia - to no avail. The Obama administration now has to deal with some pretty established facts on the ground. In the first part of this report, Pepe Escobar analyzes the implications of the complex relationship between close allies Iran and Russia, articulated in three fronts: nuclear, energy security and weapons.

( None of my regular readers will fail to realize I believe U.S. policy towards the 'Axis of Evil' a total propaganda ploy : nonsense from beginning to end. Israel has 200 nukes. Iran 0. The UN Security Council have caused 2052 nuclear explosions : N. Korea 2.
Russia, on the other hand, should have an excellent supply of MIRVed ICBMs to complement their 'boomers' : honkin' big subs.
Nuclear scientists didn't trust an imbalance of power in the 50's and made sure the U.S.S.R. had the knowlege to fabricate a countervailing threat. I never thought I'd miss those days.

Bush and Cheney come from Big Oil. Think REAL is out to lunch about the real Powers That Be ? I sure don't. Love this analysis : notice it complements PNAC.
I'll have to get around to this one day. )

Google Reader Speeds Up Sharing With PubSubHubbub
Just for Shared Items right now, you can imagine that Google Reader will add further support as well in time. It really needs to in order to keep up with the speed at which information is traveling around the web on sites like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed.
( Feedly is neat, too. Slows loading, though. )

Revamped Delicious Turns to Twitter for Real-Time Search

Delicious has debuted a redesigned home page with a new ranking system that uses Twitter, along with Delicious’ own data, to show a list of the most popular links on the web. These results show up in a new “What’s Fresh” tab, which makes up the default view on the site’s home page. In addition, Delicious’ search tools have been revamped and the site’s users can now e-mail and tweet bookmarks directly from Delicious.

( Good Grief. With Technorati doing popular sites andDel.icio.us and Twitter morphing in realtime, I'll never get current. I have, however, been monitoring Del.icio.us links in PageFlakes...well, when I get around to it. Checking out new tags in realtime is insane : too much data. I don't even dare try a comprehensive search in StumbleUpon ! Clipmarks isn't too bad ; they're set up for it. )

Facebook Is Now the Fourth Largest Site In The World

An Unholy Alliance - Tali Shapiro
Amnesty International supporting Leonard Cohen’s breach of the boycott of Israel.

Irish composer and novelist Raymond Deane:

What could any reasonable person have against “programs for peace”?… By assisting Cohen in his ruse to bypass this boycott, Amnesty International is in fact taking a political stance, in violation of the premise of political neutrality with which it so regularly justifies its failure to side unambiguously with the oppressed. Amnesty is telling us: resistance is futile, the voice of the oppressed is irrelevant, international humanitarian law is a luxury.

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If asking for unconditional human rights is extreme, then I am a proud extremists. Many on the self-proclaimed Left are easy to spot, their key phrase is:

They deserve human rights/freedom/their own country, but…

This “but” is a fearful one, rooted in a deeply ingrained and denied racism. The people who say this are well aware of Israel’s crimes- past and present, and yet still afraid of what may happen, once we let the “two legged beasts” out of their cage, whether they call Palestinians that, or not. In my journey of discovering the truth behind Israel, I’ve realized some things are not negotiable.
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( So naturally the first commenter protects the firmly projected propaganda of the establishment. Well, what's the harm of a little fun ? I indulged. )