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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

20 Oct - RSS SnapShot!

Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)Image via Wikipedia

 Updates from Opits LinkFest! on My Opera

 

 

IPS - Inter Press Services

  • CLIMATE CHANGE: Carbon Capture Effort Collects Cr ...
    BERLIN, Oct 20 (Tierramérica) - The capture and underground storage of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, is a dubious method of effectively reducing the pollution that causes global warming, experts warn.

  • EAST TIMOR: Seasonal Changes Cause for Alarm
    DILI, Oct 20 (IPS) - If you order a beer, sit back and relax at one of the expat bars dotted along the coastal Pantai Kelapa road in this capital, you cannot help but notice the view: the stony beach, the swimming children and the grounded fishing boats. But that view is morphing — a visible s ...

  • Q&A: ‘Cambodia’s Penal Code Aims to S ...
    BANGKOK, Oct 20 (IPS) - To be an outspoken critic of the government brings a heavy price in Cambodia, the South-east Asian country struggling to put behind decades of war and brutality, including the Khmer Rouge genocide.

  • PAKISTAN: Beyond the Storm, Eco-Friendly Dream H ...
    KARACHI, Oct 20 ( IPS/IFEJ) - "I don’t think I will ever miss the old home; it never protected us from floods and storms!" said Dadi Ibrahim, a widow. Her only association, she said, with her dilapidated hut is the "fond memories" of living there with her late husband.

  • LATIN AMERICA: Poor Response to Global Call Again ...
    RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 19 (IPS) - The creative approach of using football matches, student gatherings, shows or events indirectly related to the issue of poverty enabled Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) activists to reach a wide variety of audiences in Latin America with their message.

Scoop - NZ

  • American Prospect: The Housing Hangover
    The Making Home Affordable program, announced last February and begun in earnest in April, consists of two primary components: The first involves helping borrowers in danger of losing their home modify their loans. The second allows homeowners who owe more than the value of their home to refinance a ...

  • Recycled circuit boards made into Winter Olympic m ...
    So thats what you do with old circuit boards. Make yourself a particualrly attractive gold medal !!  »  PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews

  • Builders flushed with bathroom renovations
    A building website says optimism in the trades remains flat. Builderscrack.co.nz Trade Job Size Index was down two points from August to 75 points in September, but 17 percent above lows reached in June, indicating that consumers are slowly growing in confidence to take on larger renovation and con ...

  • Palast on health 'insurance' & Dr. K's accountant
    What's killing you, Barack, is what's killing us all: an evil germ called "Medical Loss Ratio.""Medical Loss Ratio" [MLR] is the fancy term used by health insurance companies for their slice, their take-out, their pound of flesh, their gross - very gross - profit.The "MLR" is the difference between ...

  • E-Mail Shows Concerns Over Merrill Deal
    It was Jan. 15, and the government was about to hand Bank of America its second taxpayer lifeline as the bank was drowning in losses from its recent marriage to Merrill Lynch.Kenneth D. Lewis, the chairman of Bank of America, and other top executives convened a late-afternoon conference call to expl ...

Independent ( London )

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

  • Iran's nuclear talks also hit
    Summary: It is testimony to the complexity of United States-Iran relations that on Monday news from Vienna suggested solid progress in talks on Iran's nuclear program, even while Iranian officials pointed fingers at the "Great Satan" and its junior partner, Great Britain, as being ultimately res ...

  • Iran demands UN council condemn bomb attack
    Summary: UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Iran on Monday demanded that the U.N. Security Council strongly condemn a bomb attack last weekend that killed dozens of people, six of them commanders in the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guards. source: Reuters read more

  • ElBaradei: Iran’s Nuclear ‘Threat’ Exaggerat ...
    Summary: In an interview with the German-language Die Presse, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei cautioned that the threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon was dramatically over-stated. source: Antiwar.com read more

  • Now Pakistan - Sequential Destruction of Muslim Na ...
    Summary: A conspiratorial view of the world is frequently inaccurate, exposing more the paranoia of the view rather than the reality of the world. The sequential destruction of Muslim nations -- Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, (and Iran is on the list) --- may or may not be a conspiracy ...

  • Jundullah claims responsibility for terror attack ...
    Summary: 2007 Zahedan bus bomb Jundullah has accepted responsibility for the deadly attack that rocked a security gathering in southeast Iran, killing 29 people and wounding another 28. source: Press TV read more

The Daily Galaxy

  • Hypernovas Confirmed: The "Birth Cry" of a Black H ...
    Most astronomers today believe that one of the most plausible reasons we have yet to detect intelligent life in the universe is due to the deadly effects of local supernova explosions that wipe out all life in a given region...

  • Cool Tech! "Mobile" Network for the Solar System
    Sunspots have been blamed for everything from hard drive crashes to poor phone reception, but once we start settling the solar system we'll have to worry about more than spots - we'll be blocked by the whole thing. The Sun...

  • Cosmic Rays to Light Up Paris!
    The night sky of Paris, always a romantic view, is being lit up with lasers this week in memory of a man who helped illuminate all humankind. A century ago a German scientist scaled the Eiffel tower to investigate atmospheric...

  • Image of the Day: The Blinding Beauty of Star Birt ...
    The vast nebula NGC 604 above in the Triangulum galaxy is a Hubble Space Telescope image. Though such nebulae are common in galaxies, this one is nearly 1,500 light-years across -so vast it is easily seen in ground-based telescopes. At...

  • TGIF! You Create the Caption


Natural News

  • High-Fructose Corn Syrup Produces Toxic Chemical " ...
    (NaturalNews) If you know anything about the food supply, you know that honey bees are a crucial part of the food production chain. In the United States, they pollinate roughly one-third of all the crops we eat, and without them, we'd be facing a disastrous collapse in viable food production. That's ...

  • Omega-3s beat depression
    (NaturalNews) You're probably already aware of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids on cardiovascular health, but did you know that omega-3s are also extremely beneficial for moods and cognitive function? In fact, there's a tremendous amount of good evidence demonstrating that omega-3 fatty acids can ...

  • Use Traditional Chinese Medicine to Prevent or Rec ...
    (NaturalNews) There is a lot of fear of Swine flu (H1N1) this season, but Traditional Chinese Medicine has effective techniques both to boost immunity and recover from flu, which are thousands of years old. In Chinese Medicine, flu and colds are considered an invasion of the body of external pathoge ...

  • Esteemed virologist Dr Albert Osterhaus accused of ...
    (NaturalNews) In the world of virology, few people have the track record of achievements attributed to Dr. Albert Osterhaus. He's the Head of Department of Virology at the Erasmus MC, University of Rotterdam. Among his many achievements, he was the first to prove the infection mechanism of SARS in 2 ...

  • Ecuador president Correa to override drug patents ...
    (NaturalNews) The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, announced Sunday that he planned to override a number of pharmaceutical patents in order to provide more affordable medicines to the People of Ecuador. In a statement, Correa explained that access to medicine is a "human right" and that he inten ...

TheGallopingBeaver

  • On a lighter note
    LEIF PENG IS AN ILLUSTRATOR in Hamilton, Ontario, who has a wonderful site devoted to those artists he admires, called Today's Inspiration .  Here, he celebrates the art and career of Pete Hawley. So, who's Pete Hawley? Looking over the many phases of Pete Hawley's career... from his high school co ...

  • Mexican Gravestones


  • And the hits just keep on comin' . . .
    THE LA TIMES has a marvellous report by Jeffrey Fleishman and Amro Hassan on something that maddens the mullahs. Titled, " Gadget to help women feign virginity angers many in Egypt ", it gives an account of an enterprising Chinese company's Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit . Islamic cultures are the ...

  • You think you have problems . . .
    THE DAILY RECKONING is a fine source of level-headed thinking about things financial. At least, that's my opinion, as a Canadian Securities Course graduate. Anyway, they've got an article by Rocky Vega, titled " Financial Armageddon Could be Coming to a County Near You ". It's about the state of th ...

  • Our own little Nixon
    Lots of fuss in the blogosphere about Steverino's big singing debut . Pale makes some nice points with a pop-up version of the video here . Last year, big gala's were "elitist" and Steverino was hot and heavy to chop all the arts funding he could get away with. Now, he's appearing on stage with Yo Y ...

Media Matters for America

  • Would a real news organization help GOP PACs rais ...
    Fox News contributor Dick Morris -- who previously asked Fox News viewers to contribute to an ad campaign by the League of American Voters (LAV), which asserts it is "Leading the Fight to Stop Obama Care" -- stated on Hannity that his website has "raised now $2.5 million" to run the LAV ads aga ...

  • Beck, Special Report cropped Dunn quote t ...
    Continuing Fox News' witch hunt against members of the Obama administration, both Glenn Beck and Special Report misleadingly cropped White House communications director Anita Dunn's remarks at a high school graduation ceremony to falsely claim that she was, in Beck's words, "proclaiming Mao [Zed ...

  • The Glenn Beck chart
    Glenn Beck's affinity for chalkboard diagrams charting out the frequently illusory "connections" in the growing liberal conspiracy to undermine America is well-documented. In that spirit, Media Matters for America has explored Beck's links to the extremist, unhinged, and sometimes paranoid peop ...

  • Beck's stated goal: Get administration officials ...
    In recent days, Glenn Beck has said that something he is "working on" will "take the administration down" and that White House interim communications director Anita Dunn "will have to go away" after "what we show you tonight." Beck and his fellow Fox News personalities have repeatedly called fo ...

  • Drudge, WND, Fox Nation falsely accuse Dunn of ad ...
    WorldNetDaily, followed by the Drudge Report and Fox Nation, falsely claimed that during a January 12 speech, White House communications director Anita Dunn boasted about the White House's "control" over the media. In fact, Dunn was discussing the Obama campaign's strategy for controlling the c ...

Global Research.ca

TPM Cafe

  • Jeffrey Goldberg's Absurdly Cheap Shot
    I am just about to board a plane for the US, so I am unable to answer this remarkably ill-informed (and, under the circumstances, vicious) shot from Jefferey Goldberg: the idea that he cannot go to the J Street conference... Sponsored Topics: Jeffrey Goldberg - Religion and Spirituality - Judais ...

  • Grab a Mop
    In August, at the height of the Tea Party Movement, I counseled that the temporary gains of Republican's would turn out to be ephemeral. The new Washington Post/ABC News Poll proves my point. Less than one in five voters (19... Sponsored Topics: Washington - Republican - Politics - United State ...

  • Yet Another Israeli Spy Case
    Another Israeli spy scandal is making news. This is from the Wall Street Journal. It looks huge. "A top U.S. space researcher was arrested in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting Monday and charged with attempting to spy for Israel.... Sponsored Topics: Federal Bureau of Investigation - Israe ...

  • Does Citigroup Need China?
    Most of the economists and pundits who could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble are telling us that the United States desperately needs for the Chinese government to keep buying its debt. This crew of failed analysts argues that... Sponsored Topics: United States - Citigroup - China - U.S. go ...

  • Taliban Finances
    The piece this morning on the Taliban's financial network reminds me of Napoleon's famous quote, "an army marches on its stomach". Without the up to $400 million from the opium trade, that is used to pay the fighters, the Taliban... Sponsored Topics: Afghanistan - Taliban - Opium - Asia - Socie ...

TruthOut

  • Discriminatory Housing Lockouts Amid Post-Katrina ...
        Rebuilding efforts in St. Bernard Parish, a small community just outside New Orleans, have recently gotten a major boost. One nonprofit focused on rebuilding in the area has received the endorsement of CNN, Alice Walker, the touring production of the play The Color Purple, and even Pres ...

  • Women Are Diamonds: A Brilliant Future for Cambodi ...
    (Photo Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t ; Adapted From: Adam Jones, Ph.D./ flickr ) read more

  • Republicans Are Irrelevant to Health Care Reform
    (Photo Illustration: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t ; Adapted From: John Spooner / flickr and Waldo Jaquith / flick read more

  • Insurers Argue for Public Option
        The insurance industry trade association put out a study last week that emphasized the need for a strong Medicare-type public plan if insurance is to be affordable. The study predicted that the plans being debated by Congress would lead insurers to raise their prices by an additional 18 ...

  • Tensions, Violence Rise in Afghanistan, Pakistan, ...
        A series of bombings in Iran over the weekend has rekindled long-standing resentments between that nation and the West. With a nuclear deal hanging in the balance, the Obama administration may hold off on sending more troops to Afghanistan until that nation's disputed election is settle ...

Planetsave

  • The Missing Link in Climate Change: Product Polic ...
    Although images of giant coal-fired smokestacks and automobile tailpipes characterize greenhouse gas scenarios, a new report from the Product Policy Institute (PPI) proposes a new way of thinking about it – product policy.  Products and packaging contribute 44% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions a ...

  • Is Great Lakes Shoreline Public or Private?
    Legal skirmishes in Ohio and Michigan are reviving debates over whether those who own Great Lakes shoreline properties exclusively control their waterfront land or whether the public can access and travel along the coast.  The same legal doctrine at issue in these battles is a central focus in cu ...

  • Algae blooms in Lake Erie bring back bad memories
    Lyngbya wollei, south shore Maumee Bay in Ohio, September 23, 2009. Lake Erie, declared dead by the news media in the 1960s because of widespread, repulsive algae blooms, is once again marred, this time by both old and new causes. Some scientists and lake advocates worry that the unsightly algae i ...

  • Dog Death Caps Summer of Blue-Green Algae in MN
    Blue-green algae blooms on Minnesota lakes are linked to a dog death and illnesses, and apparently caused by runoff pollution. The death of a dog after it frolicked in a Minnesota lake plagued with blue-green algae was a sad coda for a late summer in the state. Although no necropsy was done, a spo ...

  • Yellowstone Grizzlies Back on Endangered Species L ...
    In 2007 federal protections were dropped for the protection of Yellowstone grizzlies. Ever since then, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition have been fighting to give protection back to the bears. They argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to address the loss of essential food s ...

Water Quality - WordPress

Public Citizen in Texas

  • King Williams Parade Pics 047 [Flickr]
    Public Citizen Texas posted a photo:

  • David Garza to play Public Citizen Benefit Show!
    Did you doubt my magic?  Think that we wouldn’t get any music for our 25th anniversary celebration and that you’d have to listen to Citizen Sarah muddle through Oh My Darlin’ on the baby squeezebox? Lucky for y’all my lovelies, my nightly practice sessions have been for naught (not sure i ...

  • Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up
    The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates the start of early voting for the 2009 elections with its always on time weekly blog roundup. Human tragedies are mounting in the Barnett Shale as study after study shows high levels of toxins in the air. The only ones who can’t seem to find anything wrong ...

  • King Williams Parade Pics 051 [Flickr]
    Public Citizen Texas posted a photo:

  • Banking on Coal?
    Take a quick look at this article/video. After the showing of a comedic political documentary, a speech is made about mountain-top removal mining and its ill effects. The crowd of enthusiastic movie-goers then canvasses the sidewalks of a nearby JP Morgan Chase bank with coal graffiti. It brings ...

Press TV

  • 'Gap House' wins 2009 Manser Medal
    An architect-owned private family house in west London has won the 2009 Manser Medal in association with the Rooflight Company.

  • Washington to exhibit Iranian Falnamas
    The Smithsonians Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is to exhibit illustrated manuscripts from in 16th- and 17th-centuries Iran and Turkey.

  • Poverty in America revised to 1 of 6
    One of six American live in poverty, a new report finds, leading to the implication that the US poverty level is even worse than first believed.

  • Yemen government offers conditional talks
    Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi says the government is open to conditional talks with Shia fighters in the north, amid ongoing clashes that have displaced thousands.

  • Iran, US hold talks on Tehran reactor
    Technical committees from Iran and the United States are holding talks in Vienna on renewing facilities in Tehran's nuclear research reactor, Press TV has learned.

Axis of Logic

They Gave Us a Republic

  • The Real Health Care Nazis? If The Jackboots Fit . ...
    What if a health insurance provider told you that before it would insure you, you would have to be sterilized? That's what a Colorado woman told U.S. senators during a committee hearing last week. McClatchy Newspapers reported that Peggy Robertson read a letter from her insurance company. Here's an ...

  • Poll: Majority Want Public Option More Than They ...
    Yeah, everybody in the reality-based community outside the Beltway has known this all along, but now we have Official Villager Numbers. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Americans dramatically prefer a Democratic-votes-only bill with a public option compared to bipartisan bill without o ...

  • The Nightowl Newswrap
    Hyperbolic headline of the day: Medicare Premiums to Rise 15Percent as Costs Jump - except that isn't the case at all. Let's look at what the story actually says about the previously scheduled premium increase: Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, urged the Senate to appro ...

  • Bad Public Option Will Kill Obama and the Democrat ...
    While Max Baucus, Blue Dog-Giant Health Insurers, plays semantic games with the phrase "public option," , Congressional dems are still failing to grasp the enormous, unavoidable, lethal price of passing a weak public option that pisses people off. Digby explains: From Bill Sher's Progressive Breakf ...

  • Fair and Balanced?
    We report, you decide. C&L has a piece on this particularly "fair and balanced" poll that FOX news just ran.  Notice anything missing?  Of course you do... what's missing is the correct answer to the question.   However, as Logan Murphy points out, FOX did accidentally provide the correct answer by ...

Care 2

  • Man Abandons Cat at PETA; Is Charged and Convicted
    PETA's headquarters in Hampton Roads, Virginia, is well known to local residents, many of whom volunteer to help animals in their spare time. Thousands in the area have taken advantage of our low-cost animal clinics and the Bea Arthur Dog Park, which is Submitted by Cher C. to Animals  |   Note-it! ...

  • We Add Up's Climate Action Giveaway and Call to Ac ...
    We Add Up, the global marketing campaign to raise awareness about climate change, has teamed up with non profits like 350.org and 1Sky to put together the 'World's Biggest Green Sweepstakes.' Submitted by Daphna Yanez to Green Lifestyle  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment

  • AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio/ACLU battle over Inmate-abor ...
    He does...all the way up to the US Supreme Court! In its legal motions, the ACLU contends that "abortion transport is the only type of transport for which (the Sheriff's Office) demand(s) payment." Submitted by Wicked Vampirella to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment

  • Three Runners Collapse to Their Death in Detroit H ...
    A man in his 60s fell and hit his head, Roach said. The cause of the fall was unknown. The man was transported to Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Two other men, ages 36 and 26, also collapsed during the race and were pronounced.. Submitted by Wicked Vampirella to Society & ...

  • CLEAN ENERGY JOBS & AMERICAN POWER ACT Take Action ...
    The Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act makes America more energy independent by creating 1.7 million good-paying new jobs by investing in secure, clean energy sources that are made in America and work for America. Tell your Senator to fight back again Submitted by Tierney G. to Environment  |  ...

GreenBiz

  • P&G Sells $13B in Green Goods, Cuts Waste by 30 Pe ...
    Between fiscal years 2007 and 2009, P&G reduced its waste disposal by 30 percent, energy use by 11 percent, greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent, and water consumption by 13 percent, according to its latest sustainability report titled, "Designed to Matter."

  • Chinese Anti-Pollution Laws Still Being Ignored, R ...
    A Greenpeace China investigation has found that 18 Chinese and multinational firms are failing to comply with new Chinese environmental laws.

  • Why a Coal Guy is Going Green
    Of all the companies in the world, Duke Energy is the 12th biggest emitter of CO2. Yet Jim Rogers, Duke’s longtime president, CEO and chairman, is pushing as hard as anyone in corporate America to get a climate change bill passed by Congress.

  • U.S. Stimulus Creates, Saves More Than 30,000 jobs ...
    At least 30,383 jobs have been created directly or saved by contractors receiving money from the U.S. government's stimulus program, according to new reports.

  • InterfaceFLOR's Thailand Facility Certified to Sus ...
    InterfaceFLOR's Thailand facility is the first manufacturing plant outside of North America to be certified to the sustainable carpet standard developed by NSF International.

Reuters Global

  • Pomegranates, dust, rose gardens and war
    Our new blog on Afghanistan launches with this post by visiting Reuters political editor Sean Maguire (pictured on Kabul's Swimming Pool hill). It's a taster of the blog's mix of insight, colour, analysis and personal observation from the many Reuters journalists working the Afghan story.

  • Attack in Iran: What are the links to Pakistan?
    One week after an assault on the Pakistan Army headquarters by suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents, a suicide bomber attacks Iran's most powerful military institution, the Revolutionary Guards. Are there links?

  • A Big Mona with fries?
    Escoffier, Brillat-Savarin and, yes, Julia Child would turn over in their graves at the state of French food, writes Mort Rosenblum in GlobalPost.

  • Asylum seeker influx stirs Australians
    Australian media is getting worked up again over an influx of boatpeople, even though the numbers may be small compared with other countries, especially Europe

  • Insurgency in Pakistan: what next?
    The latest wave of attacks in Pakistan represent a step-shift in the violence there. The country is now facing an insurgency in its heartland and few are willing to predict what will happen next.

Ezra Klein

  • The individual mandate is popular
    From the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll : Would you support or oppose a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance, either getting it from work, buying it on their own, or through eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid? Support / Oppose / No opinion 10/18/09: 56 ...

  • Industry honcho: Insurers "strongly support reform ...
    Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, took to The Post's op-ed page this morning with a defensive op-ed affirming her organization's support for health-care reform and attempting to rehabilitate the roundly mocked report they released last week. Ignagni doesn't actu ...

  • Ron Wyden vs. the Democrats
    Yesterday, the Democratic Senate leadership sent out its daily talking points to its members' offices. Among them was the relatively anodyne argument that, "Under our [health-care reform] plan, if you like what you have you can keep it, but if you don’t there will be affordable choices for you tha ...

  • Why legislation is so long
    After the Senate Finance bill had been worked over in committee and amended six ways from Sunday, it was released onto the wilds of the Internet for all citizens to read. That was not a symbolic gesture: The bill (pdf) was 262 pages long and written entirely in plain English. A bit of a slog, but ma ...

  • Is the Obama administration lying about the cost o ...
    Among the moment's big right-wing talking points is that the CBO numbers for Obama's health-care reform are some sort of scam, and the bill will actually cost a lot more than is being projected. It's a nice story, but it's not accurate. What they're talking about is something entirely different fr ...

Booman Tribune

  • Serious Question
    Traditional Americans are white. That's Pat Buchanan's term. Sarah Palin preferred to use 'Real Americans.' That's probably because until 1920 it was traditional in this country to deny women the right to vote. Whatever, we get it. There are a lot of white people in this country who don't like ...

  • Whatever, Mary.
    I saw this on Friday and — as is typical in my life — didn't get around to writing something about it until today. Since then, of course, bigger bloggers than me — with bigger media megaphones — have covered it. But when a Democrat says something as ignorant as Mary Landrieu did on health care r ...

  • Appraising the Midterms
    There are a few freshman Democratic congresspeople who were narrowly elected in 2008 on the backs of either unusually high black turnout or student turnout, or both. Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio State University) and Tom Perriello (University of Virginia) clearly snuck into office with the help of students ...

  • It's Not Just Global Warming
    Burning fossil fuels is bad for your health and bad for the economy, too, to the tune of, at a minimum, $120 BILLION per year. Specifically, burning oil and coal has number of hidden costs that may surprise all the fans of drill, baby, drill (or in the case of coal "Tear down Old Rocky Top") who ...

  • Anatomy of a Game Lost By the Manager
    Joe Girardi did about the worst job I've even seen of managing a playoff baseball game tonight, and I'm angry. His first error came in the bottom of the sixth inning. The Angels had two outs with a runner on first and their clean-up batter, Vladimir Guerrero, at the plate. The Yankees were leadin ...

European Tribune

Futurismic

  • Disassociative fugue in D minor
    I felt the urge to pass this story on to you lot, not because it’s necessarily science fictional or futuristic (though it could be, in the hands of a good writer), but because I think it’s genuinely fascinating. The New York Times has an article about a young lady named Hannah Upp who went missi ...

  • Ashok Banker wants to disassemble science fiction ...
    The last year or so has been punctuated by debates on the inherent racism and sexism of genre fiction publishing, but if you thought there had been some strong opinions stated boldly before now, you should really go check out the exclusive interview with Ashok Banker at the World SF News blog. Banke ...

  • Space: awesome and inspiring, or an impossible dre ...
    Are science fiction authors are wasting their time writing about interplanetary travel, space colonisation and the spread of mankind across the universe, given everything science has taught us about the realities, possibilities and costs of doing so? That question is the topic for a discussion panel ...

  • EmoBracelet to remind traders not to be dicks
    Boy, those stock market trader guys sure can get the rest of us into a mess with their crazy high-jinks. But it’s not entirely their fault, you know – they just get a bit carried away in the heat of the moment. C’mon, we’ve all been there – emotions run high, you have to make [...] Project ...

  • Rudy Rucker’s biosynthetic future
    Rudy Rucker has been ruminating on synthetic biology in the wake of a September essay in The New Yorker entitled “A Life Of Its Own”, which is well worth the half hour or so it’ll take to read. [image by ynse] In response, Rucker has reposted a piece he wrote for Newsweek on the same subject [ ...

Therapy News

  • Researcher Develops New Mental Health Diagnostic T ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline There are many methods that psychotherapists and other mental health professionals might use to gain insight on the condition of a client’s mental health, but not many are quite as straightforward as a new tool developed by a researcher at Monash University. The dia ...

  • German Study Puts Statistics on Crying Differences ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline It has been noted in plenty of observations about humans that women tend to cry more often than men, but researchers at the German Society of Opthalmology have recently divulged a set of statistics on the crying gap between men and women. The researchers released repo ...

  • Research Team Recommends Social Network Monitoring ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline The prevalence of online interactions and communications means that many young people are experiencing a greater portion of their social lives over the internet, a trend which researchers from the University of Victoria posit may be of use to suicide and violence prev ...

  • When Being Laughed at Doesn’t Seem Funny
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Though the common adage suggesting that it’s good to be able to laugh at oneself may hold a fair amount of truth in terms of maintaining a healthy self-image and overall well-being, sometimes it can be more difficult to accept or tolerate the laughter of others when ...

  • Study Examines Relationship Between Depression, In ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Many studies investigating the different aspects of both depression and inflammation have identified possible links between these two health concerns, but greater research into the precise relationship has been needed for some time. While these seemingly disparate issu ...

Mountaintop Removal

Memeorandum

  • Obama: Afghan runoff 'important step' (Mark Silva/ ...
    Mark Silva / The Swamp : Obama: Afghan runoff ‘important step’   —  For weeks now, the White House has added a caveat to nearly every public discussion of deliberations underway about the way forward in Afghanistan:  —  The United States must have an effective “partner” in the gover ...

  • Morning Fix: A premature celebration for the GOP ( ...
    Chris Cillizza / The Fix : Morning Fix: A premature celebration for the GOP   —  Republicans in Washington can barely contain their glee at the turn of President Obama's political fortunes in the first nine months of the year but a new Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests the GOP still faces ...

  • Karzai accepts Afghanistan election runoff (CNN)
    CNN : Karzai accepts Afghanistan election runoff   —  KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) — Afghanistan is to hold a run off presidential election on November 7, it was announced Tuesday, as incumbent Hamid Karzai bowed to international pressure over claims of widespread vote fraud.

  • Obama's dumb war with Fox News (Ruth Marcus/PostPa ...
    Ruth Marcus / PostPartisan : Obama's dumb war with Fox News   —  There's only one thing dumber than picking a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel — picking a fight with people who don't even have to buy ink.  The Obama administration's war on Fox News is dumb on multiple levels.

  • Reid offers doctors a deal (Alexander Bolton/The H ...
    Alexander Bolton / The Hill : Reid offers doctors a deal   —  The White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal: They'll freeze cuts in Medicare payments to doctors in exchange for doctors' support of healthcare reform.  —  At a meeting on Capitol Hill last week with nearly ...

Energy & Environment News

5+ quakes - 7 days

  • M 5.9, Samoa Islands region
    Monday, October 19, 2009 22:49:37 UTC Monday, October 19, 2009 11:49:37 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)

  • M 5.2, Banda Sea
    Monday, October 19, 2009 22:18:17 UTC Tuesday, October 20, 2009 06:18:17 AM at epicenter Depth : 607.90 km (377.73 mi)

  • M 5.2, Tonga
    Sunday, October 18, 2009 12:02:33 UTC Monday, October 19, 2009 01:02:33 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)

  • M 5.1, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
    Saturday, October 17, 2009 00:06:52 UTC Friday, October 16, 2009 08:06:52 PM at epicenter Depth : 46.60 km (28.96 mi)

  • M 5.0, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
    Friday, October 16, 2009 23:31:06 UTC Friday, October 16, 2009 07:31:06 PM at epicenter Depth : 49.20 km (30.57 mi)

China Dialogue

  • Herding big cats
    Tiger farming advocates say that legally selling body parts of the big cat could thwart the poachers. But a new report puts these claims to the test – and finds dangerous flaws in the economic arguments. Jan McGirk reports. Farming tigers in order to save them may turn out to be the equivalent of ...

  • Forests at the frontline
    Nepal supports a global agreement to help protect the climate by leaving the country’s forests intact. Bhimsen Thapaliya investigates the politics of such a deal. Nepal has lobbied in favour of a global pact that will convert its community-managed forests into cash, without cutting down a single t ...

  • A chance for Sino-US partnership
    Joint projects on low-carbon cities can help the United States and China face the climate crisis and the economic downturn, write Du Tingting and CS Kiang.  [Produced in association with Rutgers Climate and Social Policy Initiative] As humanity confronts the climate crisis and the financial cri ...

  • Greening Infosys
    Two years ago, the Indian IT giant Infosys decided to clean up its act. Rohan Parikh, head of sustainable development at the company, explained to Isabel Hilton how they went about it. Isabel Hilton (IH): Why did Infosys [ Infosys Technologies Limited ] adopt its green initiative? Rohan Parikh ( ...

  • Poisoned children test China
    Central planners have resolved to clean up the country’s heavy industries, but they don’t always get what they want, writes Patti Waldmeir. In the provinces, local officials often have another agenda. Xiao Wang is a toddler, trapped in the body of an octogenarian. His lungs fight for breath, his ...

AlterNet Top Stories

Threat Level

  • Despite Fraud, ‘Hope’ Remains for Obama Artist ...
    Street artist Shepard Fairey committed an egregious legal and ethical blunder by lying to a federal judge in his copyright battle with the Associated Press. But legal experts say his fundamental “fair use” case remains sound. The nearly year old legal dispute centers on Fairey’s iconic Obama H ...

  • Medical Records: Stored in the Cloud, Sold on the ...
    When patients visit a physician or hospital, they know that anyone involved in providing their health care can lawfully access their medical records. But unknown to patients, an increasing number of outside vendors that manage electronic health records also have access to that data, and are reselli ...

  • ‘Known Software Bug’ Causes Drama During Brain ...
    The maker of a life-saving radiation therapy device has patched a software bug that could cause the system’s emergency stop button to fail to stop, following an incident at a Cleveland hospital in which medical staff had to physically pull a patient from the maw of the machine. The bug affected t ...

  • Virtual Sit-Ins Doom Online Animal Rights Activist ...
    Setting aside claims of vagueness, a divided federal appeals court is upholding the constitutionality of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a statute that makes it a crime to encourage “physical disruption” or “economic damage” against animal research centers. Thursday’s decision (.pdf ...

  • Payroll Site Hacked, Employment Numbers Swell
    A payroll processing firm that was breached by hackers last month is warning customers about a new breach, after some clients noticed phantom employees popping up on their payrolls. New Jersey-based PayChoice sent a message to customers Thursday indicating that thieves appeared to have stolen custo ...

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

  • Fake security software in millions of computers - ...
    WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Tens of millions of U.S. computers are loaded with scam security software that their owners may have paid for but which only makes the machines more vulnerable, according to a new Symantec report on cybercrime.

  • Wall Street on edge as SEC top cop gets aggressive
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the office of Wall Street's top cop hang a courtroom sketch and a framed newspaper article from his biggest case, when he sent the villain away for life.

  • Pope makes it easier for Anglicans to convert
    VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Tuesday took a major step to make it easier for disaffected Anglicans who feel their Church has become too liberal to convert to Roman Catholicism.

  • MOVES-UPDATE 1-Citigroup, BankAtlantic, Bank of Ge ...
    Oct 20 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Tuesday. To inform us of other job changes, e-mail moves@thomsonreuters.com.

  • Politics grows as key emerging markets driver
    LONDON (Reuters) - As global markets come to the end of the broad recovery from last year's crash, political risk is developing as key to which emerging markets underperform -- with Romania, Thailand, Turkey and Latvia first to feel the pinch.

Godspace

  • A Manifesto for Slow Communication
    This morning at our Tabor College class here in Adelaide we are talking about the pressures that distract our lives.  I began with a devotional juxtaposing the version of Psalm 23 (antithesis) which I know I have quoted before and the real Psalm 23.  We are more and more concerned about how the in ...

  • Meeting the Twelve Apostles
    Tom & I have now arrived in Adelaide, after a long (1000 km) but spectacular 2 day trip along the coast between Melbourne and Adelaide.  I last made this trip with my family when I was 12 years old so as you can imagine there was a great deal of nostalgia and remembering for me. Things [...]

  • Love Has No Limits
    You know that I am starting to recover from my cough and feeling more relaxed when I put up 2 blog posts in one day.  However I could not resist this heartwarming clip A Lion Called Christian. It brought tears to my eyes (maybe partly because I am missing our dog Bonnie who will give [...]

  • How Do We View God?
    I am busily getting ready for my last day here at WorldView and reflecting on how we all view God.  I think that there is no better way to see how others view God than to look at the art with which we depict God.  I know that I have done something like this before [...]

  • How Traffic Jams Help the Environment
    Here is an article from the Washington Post that I thought you might find interesting. By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit—both worthy goals. Yet congestion pricing h ...

Equality Trust

IntelNews

  • News you may have missed #0148
    Secret special service held to commemorate 100 years of MI5 and MI6. Canadian court ends spy services' free rein in deporting foreigners.

  • Senior Afghan official says Pakistan aided Kabul s ...
    A senior advisor to the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistani intelligence services of aiding suicide bombers strike targets in Afghan capital Kabul and other areas in Afghanistan.

  • MI5 chief defends use of intelligence extracted th ...
    In an unprecedented public speech, the director of MI5, Britain’s national counterintelligence agency, said the intelligence extracted by torturing suspects after 9/11 had stopped “many attacks” on Western and other targets.

  • News you may have missed #0147
    Gambian president dismisses 27 intelligence officers. US Congress bars release of more torture photos. Russia jails alleged Georgian spy.

  • News you may have missed #0146
    RAND wants the US to abstain from cyberattacks. Turkey says it foiled al-Qaida plot against Israeli, US targets. South Korea arrests alleged Swedish-handled spy.

PDA AMERICA

  • Clearing up some misconceptions
    By Laura Bonham, PDA Deputy Director and Communications Director As the frenzied healthcare debate inches forward under a cloud of misinformation, we want to reiterate that PDA is firmly committed to Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare. Our ...

  • No Surprises: Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout Adva ...
    Whew. Saddle up, America. And say it three times, really fast: Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout, Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout, Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout. Get ready for the next act in the intricate drama that has been unfolding under the ...

  • Chomsky On Vietnam
    A couple of weeks ago Noam Chomsky, whose works need no introduction from me, addressed a conference co-sponsored by the Pacific Green Party in Portland. He spoke about a variety of topics, and ranged ...

  • Labor chief takes on White House
    By BEN SMITH | Politico The president of one of America’s largest labor unions, Gerry McEntee, has emerged as a major obstacle to the White House’s efforts to maintain a unified front in the health care ...

  • IOT: End the Occupation, Redirect Funding Call Oc ...
    On this UFPJ updated us on current legislation, Joe Comerford from the National Priorities Prpject also joined us and we rolled out our new "brown bag vigil" project.

Marler Blog

  • Marler Clark Foodborne Illness Victims Meet With W ...
    Visit comes after victims and their families press Senate to pass legislation to protect the public from foodborne illness Sixteen Americans who have been directly affected by foodborne illness gathered at the White House recently to share their personal stories and meet Sam Kass, assistant White Ho ...

  • Yet, another good reason it is a bad idea to poiso ...
    The Toronto Star is reporting that Ruby Chinese will close its doors for good following the public health crisis.  The three owners are reportedly set to file for bankruptcy.  The normally packed eatery on Sandhurst Circle was shuttered on October 7 after 37 people became ill after eating there. S ...

  • Senate "HELP" Committee Hearing - Keeping America' ...
    Thursday, October 22, 2009 – 10:00 a.m. 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building Panel I Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, White Oak, MD Panel II Caroline Smith DeWaal, Director of Food Policy, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, DC Michael Robers ...

  • Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma is being read by 5,000 ...
    In what some in the Ag community seem to feel is a conspiracy to indoctrinate young minds to a different way to look at how our food is produced in the United States, Washington State University is moving forward with a Michael Pollan lecture scheduled for mid-January 2010.  Below is a letter I just ...

  • Like Obama I generally can not stand FOX, especial ...
    The New York Times story on my client, Stephanie Smith, has been an old and new media sensation.  More blogs and twitters have reprinted her struggle with E. coli O157:H7 than any recent story.  All that said, when FOX covers the story with the same level of concern, I think the meat industry and FS ...

AutoblogGreen

  • AutoblogGreen for 10.20.09
    REPORT: Nissan Land Glider could come to the States as an Infiniti Didn't see this one coming. eBay Find of the day: battery powered Porsche 356 Speedster replica Wonderful choice for a conve ...

  • AutoblogGreen for 10.19.09
    Is this the World's Most Miserly VW Bus? Might be the cutest, too. Reader spots Chevy Volt prototype parked in a driveway Parked by a Dodge minivan, no less. ...

  • Ethanol from almost anything? Coskata opens Lighth ...
    Filed under: GM , Alternative Fuel Coskata Lighthouse Cellulosic Ethanol Plant - Click above for high-res image gallery Coskata's newly-opened semi-commercial flex ethanol facility in Madison, Pennsylvania is as small as it can possibly be. Co-located at a Westinghouse facility that also in some f ...

  • AutoblogGreen for 10.16.09
    VIDEO: Brammo rides Detroit to Washington, 40 miles at a time 520 miles is a long way to go when you need to recharge every 40 miles. Ford hybrid sales up 73 percent compared to 2008, when Fusion/Milan we ...

  • AutoblogGreen for 10.16.09
    Volkswagen MK VI Golf BlueMotion now on sale, 99 g/km of CO 2 61.9 mpg, and it's not available in the U.S. Figures. Unexpected Greenery: TVR Artemis concept from Niels van Roij The idea of a ...

Rafe's Radar

  • Wolfram Alpha iPhone app is cool but overpriced
    The iPhone app for Wolfram Alpha ( iTunes store link ) got approved by Apple surprisingly quickly, I was told in a breathless e-mail from Wolfram PR on Sunday. But the real surprise was the price: The app is $49.99. The rationale is twisted. "It's less than half the price ...

  • KaChing takes on mutual fund industry
    When I wrote about KaChing last December, the site was a fantasy stock market where you could track the pretend portfolios of other investors. But the game of make-believe is coming to an end at the company, and KaChing is now letting users attach real money to their accounts. In ...

  • Reporters' Roundtable: What Windows 7 means
    Is Windows 7 just Vista done right, or is it a real departure for Microsoft? This week on the Roundtable, we discuss what Windows 7 means for the industry as well as its impact on vendors like Apple and Google--with special guests Farhad Manjoo of Slate and Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet. Listen now: ...

  • Wolfram Alpha opens API to developers
    Developers can now put Wolfram Alpha results in their own applications. The company today opened up its API to open access, allowing coders to query the Wolfram system and incorporate its data, calculations, and rich media results. The company put out a blog post about the new API without show ...

  • Is Quicken at the end of the road?
    Conventional wisdom is that Intuit's acquisition of the personal finance Web service Mint will mean the end of the line for the company's standalone software app, Quicken . Upstart Mint , which is being acquired by Intuit for $170 million, has a personal finance product more in line with the times ...

Camera Obscura

  • Pathos and pathology: the cinema of Todd Haynes.
    http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935025/pathos-and-pathology-cinema.html September 1, 2004... Because infinity--for the eye--begins just a few meters away from the retina.... --Roger Caillois, "The Image" There are at least two shots in Todd Haynes's work that recur so frequ ...

  • The incredible shrinking star: Todd Haynes and the ...
    http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935026/incredible-shrinking-star-todd.html September 1, 2004... Critics have consistently characterized the films of Todd Haynes within the terms of what B. Ruby Rich described in 1992 as the "new queer cinema"--films whose style displayed traces of ...

  • Written on the screen: mediation and immersion in ...
    http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935031/written-screen-mediation-and.html September 1, 2004... Recently, while engaging in one of my favorite forms of procrastination--using my computer to search for mid-century modern bargains on eBay rather than using it to engage in more rigorous ...

  • Traumatic postmodern histories: Velvet Goldmine's ...
    http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935030/traumatic-postmodern-histories-velvet.html September 1, 2004... If modernity was characterized by and imagined itself in terms of a particular awareness of time and history--the unfolding of social, political, and technological projects of pro ...

  • Dangerous spaces: Safe.
    http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935029/dangerous-spaces-safe.html September 1, 2004... For me, the problem is always in content; we want to define the perspective of a film solely through its content, and not through its form. --Todd Haynes No matter how much we desire, wit ...

Democracy Now!

  • Lt. Choi Won’t Lie for His Country
    Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate of West Point, declared last March 19 on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “I am gay.” Under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulations, those three words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military ...

  • Watch What You Tweet
    A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at home—all for using Twitter. Elliot Madison faces charges of hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possessio ...

  • Nomi Prins on "It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bail ...
    Nomi Prins is a former investment banker turned journalist. She worked at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns. She is the author of several books; her latest, just out, is called It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street . She spoke on the them ...

  • Scanning the Horizon of Books and Libraries
    A battle is raging over the future of books in the digital age and the role that libraries will play. One case now before a U.S. federal court may, some say, grant a practical monopoly on recorded human knowledge to global Internet search giant Google. The complex case has attracted opposition from ...

  • Police Crackdown on G20 Protests: Democracy Now! R ...
    World leaders are gathering in Pittsburgh for the G20 summit under the shadow of a police crackdown on protesters in the streets. Heavily-armed riot police are out in force all over the city, using tear gas, stun grenades, smoke canisters, and sound cannons, which direct extremely loud shrill sound ...

Farming Pathogens

  • I Do Like Green Eggs and Ham
    Much of what we’ve addressed on this blog has focused on the epidemiological failures of industrial farming. But what of the alternatives? Can we farm in another way? Is another world possible?    It’s only since I’ve moved to the Midwest that I’ve learned that not only is that world p ...

  • Heart of Modeling
    Greed is often mistaken for humanity’s heart of darkness. Look instead to the rationalization that transforms the most rapacious pillaging into an act of benevolence. A one-ton bomb dropped on a peasant wedding party is dissembled into regret without responsibility or, baser yet, a tough love offe ...

  • Bird Flu’s Industrial Revolution
    Public talks can be private affairs. In sharing our work we bare the triumphs and limits of a thinking born in long hours alone or with a few fellow conspirators sworn to secrecy. But in breaking our oaths we are able to take the next step.   In talking bird flu twice this past month I learned [... ...

  • The Agro-Industrial Roots of Swine Flu H1N1
    Mexico appears ground zero for an outbreak of deadly human-specific H1N1.   Of the over 1400 people that have been reportedly infected there so far, 86 have died. Short chains of transmission of the virus have also been reported in California, Texas, Kansas, Ohio, New York City, Canada and New Zeal ...

  • The NAFTA Flu
    Cases of swine flu H1N1 are now reported in Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Thailand, Israel, etc. Can’t keep up at this point.    H1N1 is making its way across the world by hierarchical diffusion. By the world’s transportation network it is bouncing down a hierarchy of citi ...

Digg Green

  • West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Not Be Losing Ice As ...
    New ground measurements suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated. For the first time, researchers have directly measured the vertical motion of the bedrock at sites across West Antarctica using GPS. The results will lead to more accurate estimates ...

  • Four Most Important Environment Stories You've Nev ...
    Every year, Project Censored compiles the 25 most important but under-reported stories of the year. This year, some urgent environmental issues are included. From fast-tracking oil development in the Amazon to privatizing water around the world, these stories have been either overlooked or ignored i ...

  • Norwegian Wood For The Ages: 'Mummified' Pine Tree ...
    Norwegian scientists have found “mummified” pine trees, dead for nearly 500 years yet without decomposition.

  • Arctic to be 'ice-free in summer'
    The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice free and open to shipping in the summer in as little as ten years' time, according to one of Britain's top polar specialists.

  • Stunning Kingfisher Dives Underwater to Catch Fish ...
    This stunning shot of the colorful kingfisher shows that the bird's aim is so unerring that, even though a protective translucent membrane veils its eyes underwater, it can confidently catch fish to depths of two feet. Click to enlarge...

Invisible Opportunity

  • The Rise of the Stupids and the Fall of Rome
    By Les Visible It is interesting… or it will be interesting to future archaeologists to explore the myriad similarities of the time. No doubt they will come across scientific papers that detailed the isolation of the Agent Stupid gene. Maybe it will turn out that it was a laboratory product that w ...

  • Woman Takes Seasonal Flu Shot – Disabled for ...
    By Nicholas Graham Desiree Jennings can whisper softly, but not talk loudly.   She can run a 3K, but can’t walk 5 feet normally.   She can move sideways and backwards, but not forward.   Desiree can still hope and dream, but realizes that her life the way it was may never come back.   Desi ...

  • Swine Flu Vaccine Mandate for NY Health Care Worke ...
    By Mike Adams Amid growing discontent among New York health care workers who are being forced to receive swine flu vaccine injections, the Public Employees Federation sued in state court to halt the mandate. Friday, a state Supreme Court judge issued a restraining order granting a temporary halt to ...

  • Top insurer tells 1,000 GPs not to give swine flu ...
    By Eilish O’Regan, Health Correspondent Wednesday October 14 2009 An insurance company has warned 1,000 GPs not to administer the swine flu vaccine. The HSE plans to enlist family doctors to give the swine flu vaccine to patients with pre-existing medical conditions. But an insurance company whi ...

  • Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From Moldova ...
    By Alison Weir In August Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing grisly evidence suggesting that Israel had been taking Palestinian internal organs. The article, by veteran photojournalist Donald Bostrom, called for an international investigation to discover the facts.1 Is ...

Care2 Picks

  • The ABCs (and Ks) of Vitamin Deficiency
    In the sixth grade, we spent a large portion of health class talking about nutrition. We learned about the food pyramid, cholesterol, and the mechanics of the digestive system. We also spent an inordinate amount of time discussing nutrition-related diseas Submitted by Daphna Yanez to Health & Wellne ...

  • 16 Oct -News & Atricles
    Many current articles focus on Afghanistan - where peace lovers need to understand what lies beneath the stories pushed onto people about the causes and progress of mass murder. Thanks to Brigitte T. for 'The Wrong House' Submitted by John Farnham to US Politics & Gov't  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Com ...

  • "Civil" Nuclear Agreements - India goes Nuclear Sh ...
    When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Delhi in July this year, India said thank you for lifting sanctions by assuring usa a deal to set up two nuclear power plants... India wants to expand its nuclear power by 15 times... Submitted by Tinkie K. to World  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment ...

  • Vaccination Justification Is Collapsing
    A study reported in the British Medical Journal reports that simple and low cost measures are highly effective for preventing the spread of viruses. And antivirals are best only for those least in need of them, healthy adults. Submitted by Judy Cross to Health & Wellness  |   Note-it!  |   Add a C ...

  • Factsheet on 1970s Coming 'Ice Age' Claims
    'Fears of a coming ice age, showed up in peer-reviewed literature, at scientific conferences, by prominent scientists and throughout the media' Newsweek Magazine even used the climate “tipping point” argument in 1975.The media have warned about impending Submitted by Judy Cross to Environment  |  ...

Insurgency Watch - Newswire

  • Twin blasts hit Islamic University Islamabad; seve ...
    Pakistani Newspaper Twin blasts hit Islamic University Islamabad; seven dead, 22 injured Pakistani Newspaper ISLAMABAD : At least seven students were killed and 22 others were injured when two blasts ripped through the Islamic University Islamabad on Tuesday, ... and more »

  • The war to end Pakistan's woes? - guardian.co.uk
    The war to end Pakistan's woes? guardian.co.uk The Pakistan Taliban movement was born here in 2007, although even before then jihadi groups throughout the tribal areas and North West Frontier Province ... and more »

  • Afghanistan's Karzai Faces Runoff Vote Nov. 7 - cb ...
    Afghanistan's Karzai Faces Runoff Vote Nov. 7 cbs4denver.com The second round vote will also run the risk of Taliban attacks on voters similar to those carried out during the first ballot. ... and more »

  • Suicide attackers kill 4 at Pakistani university - ...
    Suicide attackers kill 4 at Pakistani university WEAR ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The president of a Pakistani university attacked by two suicide bombers today says militants and their sympathizers are "trying ... and more »

  • Pak double game: Army strikes deal with anti-US Ta ...
    Pak double game: Army strikes deal with anti-US Taliban militants in Waziristan India Business Blog (blog) Pak offensive in South Waziristan not going to help US in Afghanistan Washington, Oct 19 (ANI): The Pakistan Army's offensive against the Taliban in South ... and more »

AlterNet - Rights and Liberties

Sideways News

  • Charity to support 'free schools'
    A new charity has been established to help push through proposals for a Swedish-inspired system of independent state schools .

  • Britain enjoys National Baking Week
    People across the UK are set to go cake and bun mad over the next few days as National Baking Week is celebrated. Taking place until 25th October, the initiative is being backed by TV celebrity chef and Ladette to Lady star Rosemary Shrager, with the theme of "bake and share" taking centre-stage.

  • Nasa moon crash did create lunar plume
    The Centaur rocket that crashed into the moon last week as part of the LCROSS mission did cause a lunar plume of debris to be kicked up, according to new images released by Nasa .

  • Hollywood to crack down on Twitter
    Many Hollywood actors could soon have a clause in their contract that prevents them from "tweeting" on social media sites such as Twitter , Facebook and YouTube. According to a blog post on The Hollywood Reporter, a growing number of studios in Tinseltown are cracking down on the use of such sites t ...

  • Kids 'clued up on animal matters'
    Efforts to promote the importance of wildlife conservation to children appear to be making a breakthrough, according to new research by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

Fabius Maximus

  • More hidden history, more unsettling truths: the L ...
    We know so little about our world and its history.  Sometimes events rip aside the veil and show us aspects of the governmental machinery that ours our nation.  It’s not pretty to look at, but important for us to know.  Today we look at one such event. Sidenote:  The wealth of informat ...

  • More attempts to control the climate science debat ...
    The public climate science debate (not the debate among scientists) has seen some of the most blatant info ops in modern American history.  True believers mark the boundaries of acceptable thought by pissing on those who transgress them.  These are powerful demonstrations of John Robb’s “o ...

  • A winner in the category “are the NYT editor ...
    A moment of sympathy please for the scribblers charged with the vital role of keeping the sheep unaware of the pen.  We never thank them for shielding us from the unpleasant realities of America’s political regime.  On the other hand, we make it so easy for them.  As in this week’s exam ...

  • A DC insider speaks to us about “Voices of P ...
    This is someone we should listen to, with a message that must hear.  At the end are links to more information about this topic. Voices of Power: transcript of an  interview by Lois Romano with Elizabeth Warren, Washington Post, 8 october 2009 — Excerpt: ROMANO: Do you agree with Michael Moor ...

  • TomGram: “The Imperial Presidency 2.0&#8243 ...
    The power of the Presidency grows inexorably for many reason.  One is the political ratchet:  each Administration increases some aspects of the Executive’s powers, amidst praise from its partisans and impotent criticism from the loyal opposition.  Eventually they trade places, but seldom ...

sibeledmonds - tweets

WIRED Magazine | Science

  • Why Pygmies Are Small
    The Grim Reaper can cut life short and, under the right circumstances, whittle those still standing down to the size of pygmies. That’s the controversial conclusion of a new study, published in the October Current Anthropology, that found that stature declined as death rates rose in three small-b ...

  • Exoplanets Galore! 32 Alien Planets Discovered, In ...
    Thirty-two new alien orbs have just been added to the growing list of exoplanets, including several that qualify as “super-Earths,” meaning they have a mass only a few times that of our planet and could potentially harbor Earth-like environments. In the past five years, the High Accuracy Radial ...

  • Self-Steered Tractors and UAVs: Future Farming Is ...
    It was 1903 when Robert Blair’s great-grandfather began farming the dry ridge overlooking the Clearwater River near Lewiston, Idaho. In 2001, when Blair took the reins, the farm’s books were still kept by hand. Now, he has deployed a set of Darpa-like technologies, including unmanned aerial veh ...

  • Cockroaches Use Earth’s Magnetic Field to Steer
    Just as birds guide their migratory journeys by sensing Earth’s magnetic field, so do cockroaches use geomagnetic detection as they scurry across your kitchen floor. To reveal the mechanisms of cockroach navigation, Czech researchers first placed roaches inside an artificial magnetic field. As th ...

  • Missed Kicks Make Brain See Smaller Goal Post
    Flubbing a field goal kick doesn’t just bruise your ego — new research shows it may actually change how your brain sees the goal posts. In a study of 23 non-football athletes who each kicked 10 field goals, researchers found that players’ performance directly affected their perception of t ...

The Progressive Realist

  • The Afghan Runoff: Least Bad Option?
    Over the weekend, Rahm Emanuel emphasized that the ultimate strategic decision on Afghanistan would be contingent on whether or not the U.S. had a "credible Afghan partner." Yesterday, Hamid Karzai agreed to a second round of elections against opponent Abdullah Abdullah, despite rumors of a potentia ...

  • Afghanistan Election: Now What?
    A United Nations panel has ordered a run-off in Afghanistan's presidential election, ruling that Hamid Karzai got less than fifty percent of the legitimate ballots cast and that nearly a third of the votes previously counted were fraudulent. It remains to be seen how Karzai and the West will resp ...

  • Plan B: Restraint vs. Weakness
    It seems to me that Stephen Walt's "Plan B" for President Barack Obama's foreign policy basically amounts to shrugging off the inability to achieve desired outcomes and lowering expectations moving forward. I'm not saying Walt's necessarily wrong on the merits, but it doesn't strike me as a winning ...

  • The Lingering Fog of the Vietnam War
    I find the idea that senior military and civilian policymakers are debating what to do in Afghanistan primarily by reading different books about Vietnam depressingly plausible. But there’s really something quite perverse about the American tendency to want to turn every conversation about every mi ...

  • Russia's "New" Global Strike Doctrine
    Last week, there was a flurry of coverage on Russia's declaration that it would consider the option of pre-emptive nuclear strikes in its military doctrine . I am not sure that this is new doctrine in as much as it is a new review of existing policy, with the resulting decision being "yeah, this is ...

TAPPED - The American Prospect

  • Uigurs Will Get Their Day In Court.
    The Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case of several Chinese Uighurs still being held at Guantanamo Bay prison despite the fact that they were determined not to be enemy combatants. The Uighurs, members of an embattled Chinese Muslim ethnic minority, have not been released to China because of ...

  • Their Own Worst Enemy.
    Paul Waldman on the insurance industry's self-defeating campaign against the public option: For months, the insurance industry was remarkably quiet. Despite fears that it would publicly fight reform with a scorched-earth campaign of television ads like it did in 1993, until now it's been subdued. I ...

  • A Pro-Family Policy For DC.
    Amanda Hess looks at the marriage numbers for Washington DC: According to a recent Pew Research study, the District of Columbia has the lowest marriage rate in the country. Only 23 percent of women and 28 percent of men and in D.C. are married, compared to 48 and 52 percent nationwide. Coincident ...

  • Chuck Grassley Has Done Enough.
    After spending the last year as the Lucy to Max Baucus' Charlie Brown, Senator Chuck Grassley is now expressing his opinions on Financial Regulation. They don't make a ton of sense, and, unsurprisingly, Grassley thinks the process will take much longer than people believe. Thank goodness Grassley i ...

  • Lightning Round: The Wages of Cynicism.
    It might not be as amusing as a practical joke, but according to Politico , the Obama administration is planning to deal with the Chamber of Commerce with the time-honored tactic of cutting out the middleman. This shows a White House that is very flexible with how it neutralizes opposition. The CoC ...

Andy Worthington

  • UK Judges Order Release Of Details About The Tortu ...
    In August 2008, while British resident Binyam Mohamed still languished in a prison cell in Guantánamo, two British High Court judges attempted to inform the public about what, in May 2002, the CIA had told their British counterparts about how they had treated him while he was being held in Pakistan ...

  • “Respect My Anonymity,” Says Guantánamo Priso ...
    On October 9, as I reported here, two prisoners were released from Guantánamo, several months after they had successfully challenged the basis of their detention through habeas corpus petitions in the US courts. One, Khalid al-Mutairi, was repatriated to Kuwait, while the other, who was not identif ...

  • Andy Worthington Is In Technorati’s Top 100 Worl ...
    I was delighted to hear, via my colleague Jason Leopold (Truthout, The Public Record), that Technorati, one of the leading analysts of the blogosphere, has recently revamped its appraisals of the blogging community, introducing Top 100 lists, and that this site, Andy Worthington, now features in the ...

  • Resisting Injustice In Guantánamo: The Story Of F ...
    At Guantánamo, as was recently revealed in the ruling of a District Court judge in the habeas corpus petition of one of the remaining 222 prisoners, the authorities’ view about the prisoners, back in 2003 or 2004, was that “there is no innocent person here.” The man who spoke these words was ...

  • A full house for the launch of “Outside the Law: ...
    The 300 free tickets for the UK launch of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” have all been booked a week before the event. The launch is taking place on Wednesday October 21 at the Cochrane Theatre, Southampton Row, London WC1, and while this is great news for all involved in the film, ...

Buzzflash

  • New Poll Reveals 56% of Republicans Support a Form ...
    BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White If anything demonstrates the mainstream media's capability to ignore pertinent information and instead regurgitate conventional political wisdom, it's the reporting on opinion polls. A Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday was widely reported as eviden ...

  • BuzzFlash Mailbag for October 20, 2009
    BUZZFLASH MAILBAG Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here . You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net ; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html . Subject: Please stop denigrating ot ...

  • Barbara's Daily BuzzFlash Minute for October 20, 2 ...
    BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE Having been a healthcare worker for years, this is the reason the Founding Fathers believed in a separation of church and state. "Reporting from Washington -- The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new 'right of conscience' rule permitting m ...

  • Media-Hungry Colorado Family May Have Had Help Wit ...
    Bush's top crooks (Cheney, Rove) Won't be in jail anytime soon, boy, But (thank God!) we'll get all of The conspirators with Balloon Boy. VERSE CASE SCENARIO Tony Peyser provides daily poems and weekly cartoons for BuzzFlash and also writes the BuzzFlash column, " Blue State Jukebox ." He was a dail ...

  • Richard A. Stitt: George H.W. Bush Loves Vicious D ...
    BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY by Richard A. Stitt   In an interview after President Barack Obama's visit to Texas A&M University campus, George H.W. Bush decried the incivility that he hears from both sides of the political spectrum. "I don't like it. The cables (TV) have a lot to do with it."   "The w ...

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

  • A Rumsfeld-era reminder about what causes Terroris ...
    (updated below - Update II - Update III) The debate over Afghanistan -- or, more accurately, the multi-pronged effort to pressure Obama into escalating -- is looking increasingly familiar, i.e. , like the "debate" over Iraq.  The New York Times is publishing articles filled with quotes from ...

  • David Rohde on the "why do they hate us?" question
    Yesterday I wrote about the first installment of the account by The New York Times ' David Rohde of his seven months as a hostage held by the Taliban, and specifically how -- as he put it -- some of "Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban."  His second installment is no ...

  • Obama's commendable change in federal drug enforce ...
    This is one of those rare instances of unadulterated good news from Washington: The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday. Two Justice Departme ...

  • David Rohde's insights into what motivates the Tal ...
    (updated below) The New York Times ' David Rohde writes about the seven months he was held hostage by a group of extremist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conveys this observation about what motivates them: My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how s ...

  • British High Court rejects U.S./British cover-up o ...
    (updated below) There is a vital development -- a new ruling from the British High Court -- in a story about which I've written many times before :  the extraordinary joint British/U.S. effort to cover up the brutal torture which Binyam Mohamed suffered at the hands of the CIA while in Pakist ...

The BiPartisan Report

  • Time to boycott Rush Limbaugh sponsors
    The boycott of Glenn Beck’s sponsors seems to be effective. Last I heard the man was running out of advertising options. CNN, after getting rid of Beck, is now looking to dump Lou Dobbs for... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Bipartisanship: The Eulogy
    A pretty ironic title for a post on a site called Bipartisan Report, isn’t it? Back in January I joined this site with a strong belief that it is possible to have a conversation around issues... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • #WeLovetheNHS
    The astroturf organization, Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), started a backlash across the Pond yesterday. As reported by the Daily Times the Brits didn't take too kindly to have their... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Conservatives and “The Big Lie”
    It was GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss who pushed me over the edge. Not that I should be surprised that Chambliss would make up a lie out of whole cloth about health care. The only way that he got elected... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Why the GOP can’t afford to have Obama succeed o ...
    I’m no big fan of Newt Gingrich, but I also know that he has a lot of political smarts (not that he always uses them appropriately). In the early part of the year, he made a very interesting... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Sciencebase

  • Climate Change Action
    It’s Blog Action Day 2009 and the subject this year is Climate Change. So, here are a few resources for readers seeking out climate information: IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – The IPCC assesses the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the unders ...

  • Metal Bottle Tops and Landfill Mining
    Reduce, re-use, and recycle. Just one of the countless mantras of the twenty-first century that we are told will save the planet. Of course, my grandmother used to put it far more succinctly and in a much more accessible form: waste not, want not. Now, we have carbon footprints, emissions targe ...

  • Moon, Earthquakes, Chemical Weapons
    The media was today almost drenched with the idea that water and other wonders would be been found on the Moon, but unfortunately LXPRESS was the least moist of damp squibs ever and no 50 km plume was seen, not even a little splash. NASA scientists are trying to figure out why. Meanwhile, in th ...

  • Gen-F Scientists Ignoring Social Networking
    A quick analysis of online social networks, such as LinkedIn and Xing would suggest that a mere 1 in 7 research scientists use such tools as part of their work. This contrasts starkly with the business world where uptake is up to 88%. In other words almost 9 out of every ten employees in the [. ...

  • Organic, Nano, Pharma
    Challenging natural products succumb to radical synthetic prowess, the Alchemist hears this week, while US researchers find a way to construct macroscopic crystals from tiny DNA triangles. The growing problem of obesity drug abuse in the UK is highlighted in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacol ...

change: org.

  • Making LGBT Students Feel Safe and Supported
    Almost 90 percent of LGBT students experience some form of abuse or bullying in schools, whether it's physical or emotional. To top that off, almost 2/3 of all LGBT students feel unsafe in school. Those numbers are crazy high, and one reason why students, teachers and activists of every stripe are ...

  • Fighting to Save Juvenile Life Without Parole
    The Heritage Foundation is worried that the playing field isn’t level in our criminal justice system. Juveniles sentenced to life without parole have the upper hand, the group says in a new paper, and the “activists” who oppose juvenile LWOP are threatening to take away this uniquely American ...

  • 97 Year Old Homeless Woman Receives Housing
    The 97 year old homeless woman from LA is no longer sleeping on the streets. Her story, published Friday in the LA Times, garnered national disbelief and prompted service providers to act quickly to move her into housing. Bessie Mae Berger was 97 years old and living in a beat up 1973 Chevy Suburba ...

  • Locavorism Isn't Inherently Elitist, But Many Are ...
    Locavores are frequently accused of harboring an elitist mentality about food, with local food most recently accused of being "anything but liberatory for those traditionally marginalized." And that's not the worst of it as James McWilliams explains in a guest-post on the Freakonomics blog. He cont ...

  • Teach For America is Vulnerable to Union Protests ...
    Getting college kids to teach in high-need classrooms has long been criticized for a way to replacing costly and experienced teacher with younger, cheaper, under-prepared teachers. The Boston Teachers Union recently filed a complaint that their contract deal has few of the benefits that Teach For A ...

Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

  • New Report Shows States Can Save Hundreds of Milli ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2009 Death Penalty Information Center A report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center concludes that states are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty, draining state budgets during the economic crisis and diverting funds from m ...

  • Constitution Project Welcomes Supreme Court's Deci ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2009 Constitution Project The Constitution Project welcomes the United States Supreme Court's decision today that it will hear the case involving the Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, being unlawfully detained at Guantanamo. The U.S. military and the courts have lo ...

  • In New Report, Amnesty International Calls on Sout ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2009 Amnesty International - USA Many migrant workers in South Korea are beaten, trafficked for sexual exploitation, and denied wages for long periods of time, despite the introduction of rules to protect their rights, said Amnesty International in a report issued t ...

  • Off Target - Major Retailer Accused of Organic Imp ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2009 Cornucopia Institute A public interest group that focuses on food and agriculture, The Cornucopia Institute, announced this week that it had filed formal complaints with the USDA's organic program, and Wisconsin and Minnesota officials, alleging that Target Cor ...

  • Global Food Reserves: A Key Step Towards Ending Hu ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2009 Save The World's Resources (STWR) The issue of food reserves has received renewed attention from policymakers following the major increase in world food prices that pushed an additional 115 million people into hunger in 2007 and 2008. With the threat of world f ...

Common Dreams-Views

  • A Rumsfeld-Era Reminder About What Causes Terroris ...
    by Glenn Greenwald The debate over Afghanistan -- or, more accurately, the multi-pronged effort to pressure Obama into escalating -- is looking increasingly familiar, i.e. , like the "debate" over Iraq.  The New York Times is publishing articles filled with quotes from anonymous war advocates.  Pe ...

  • Media Ignores Women's Health Disparities in Shrive ...
    by Wendy Norris The "battle of the sexes is over" claims the much-heralded Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything on American work and family life. Go ahead, take a victory lap. Unless, of course, you're among the millions of women who still earn 23 percent less on average in wages, ...

  • Don’t Bail on Wall Street Outrage
    by Derrick Z. Jackson PRESIDENT OBAMA is far too absent of outrage over Wall Street's continued abuses. As a candidate, he railed against its "greed and irresponsibility.'' He had more to say in his first month in the White House, after finding out that Wall Street firms were still paying $18.4 bill ...

  • Americans, Their Smiley-Face Facade, and Reality
    by Robyn Blumner Whenever I think of the smiley-face icon, I think of Wal-Mart because of its once-ubiquitous ad campaign. And when I think of Wal-Mart, I think of crappy wages and insecure employees who probably live paycheck to paycheck. That metaphor -- the happy face fronting a world of worry -- ...

  • Weekly Audit: A Tale of Two Economies
    by Zach Carter The U.S. economy is has diverged: Wall Street is living high on the hog, while everyone else is struggling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eclipsed 10,000 for the first time since last October this week, even as unemployment continues to spiral out of control. And while President Ba ...

Karl Burkart

Water Privatization

The Intelligence Daily

My AntiWar

  • PR Executive James Hoggan on “Climate Cover- ...
    The Yes Men aren’t the only group accused of pulling off a hoax in the debate over climate change legislation. In August, the American Petroleum Institute—the oil industry’s top lobbying group—was found to have asked member oil companies to help recruit employees, retirees and contractors fo ...

  • The Yes Men Pull Off Prank Claiming US Chamber of ...
    The business community got a shock on Monday when its leading advocacy group appeared to make a startling announcement. A statement purporting to come from the Chamber of Commerce said the group had dropped its opposition to congressional climate change legislation and would now even support taxing ...

  • In His Mother’s Footsteps: California Man Ja ...
    On Thursday, Sam Pullen was arrested at the Los Angeles offices of the insurance giant Blue Cross. He refused to give his information to police and vowed to remain in prison until Blue Cross agreed to hear demands that it stop denying doctor-recommended medical treatment to seriously ill patients. D ...

  • Congress Considers Revoking Health Insurance Indus ...
    Democrats say the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 has granted the insurance industry a captive market with no curbs on price fixing and other anti-competitive practices. Last week the Justice Department’s top antitrust regulator, Christine Varney, voiced support for a repeal. Senate Majority Leader ...

  • Headlines for October 20, 2009
    Under US Pressure, Karzai to Accept Runoff Election, Obama Unveils New Strategy Toward Sudan, Hidden Cost of Burning Fossil Fuels: $120 Billion, Shell Given OK to Drill Oil Exploration Wells Near Arctic, Poll: 57% of Americans Support Public Option, Eric Holder: Medical Marijuana Prosecutions Not a ...

Rogue Government.com

Innovation Canada

  • i2eye with Bif Naked
    The last few years have been a roller-coaster ride for Bif Naked. After two years of touring, TV work and datelessness following her 2005 album Superbeautifulmonster, the Vancouver-based alt-rock singer-songwriter — whose real name is Beth Walker — met and married her husband, sportswriter Ian W ...

  • Cultural evolution
    When Jane Goodall reported her observations of tools use by chimps to famed anthropologist Louis Leakey, he responded by saying, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine man or accept chimpanzees as humans.” Leakey would have likely had a similar reaction to the current work of University of Calgary ...

  • Faces of aggression
    Even if you can’t distinguish NHL enforcers Todd Bertuzzi and Chris Neil from a referee, you’d probably know at first sight not to mess with them. And not just because of their physical size. The men employed to intimidate the opposition tend to have wide faces, and that, Brock University’s Ch ...

  • i2eye with Bruce McNaughton
    One of the world’s foremost neuroscientists, Bruce McNaughton is renowned for his groundbreaking research into how the human brain stores, processes and transmits information. One year ago, the Ottawa-born McNaughton was lured back to Canada after spending more than a quarter century in the United ...

  • Little boxes
    With more than half the Canadian population now living in the suburbs, Jill Grant says it’s an obvious time to study this increasingly popular living option, one that remains a bane to urban planners and downtown boosters. Are people drawn to the concept of perfectly matching houses throughout a n ...

Signs of the times

  • Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty
    Washington - The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed. A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure. The disparity ...

  • Infant Formula Companies Claim They Can Make Babie ...
    If you believed a certain baby formula would make your child smarter, would you buy it? Infant formula manufacturers are banking that you would. That's why, since 2002, several companies have fortified their products with synthetic versions of DHA and ARA, long-chain fatty acids that occur naturall ...

  • Bank of America Was Told U.S. Aid May Help Shares, ...
    Bank of America Corp. signed off on its government-assisted purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. after U.S. regulators assured the deal should boost the shares, e- mails from two bank finance executives showed. Instead, the shares collapsed. "The chairman of the Federal Reserve indicated it would be str ...

  • UK government borrowing hits record £77bn six-mon ...
    Government borrowing widened to a record high of £77.3bn in the first six months of the fiscal year - double the deficit for the same period last year, official data showed today. The Office for National Statistics also said public sector net borrowing came in at £14.8bn for September, the wors ...

  • Pakistan cuts deal with anti-American militants
    Amid an assault on Pakistan's pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda strongholds, the country's military has apparently reached a deal with two powerful anti-US tribal chiefs to stay out of the battle. Under the agreement, the pro-Taliban chiefs, Mowlavi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur will stay neutral in parts of ...

Threat Level

  • Despite Fraud, ‘Hope’ Remains for Obama Artist ...
    Street artist Shepard Fairey committed an egregious legal and ethical blunder by lying to a federal judge in his copyright battle with the Associated Press. But legal experts say his fundamental “fair use” case remains sound. The nearly year old legal dispute centers on Fairey’s iconic Obama H ...

  • Medical Records: Stored in the Cloud, Sold on the ...
    When patients visit a physician or hospital, they know that anyone involved in providing their health care can lawfully access their medical records. But unknown to patients, an increasing number of outside vendors that manage electronic health records also have access to that data, and are reselli ...

  • ‘Known Software Bug’ Causes Drama During Brain ...
    The maker of a life-saving radiation therapy device has patched a software bug that could cause the system’s emergency stop button to fail to stop, following an incident at a Cleveland hospital in which medical staff had to physically pull a patient from the maw of the machine. The bug affected t ...

  • Virtual Sit-Ins Doom Online Animal Rights Activist ...
    Setting aside claims of vagueness, a divided federal appeals court is upholding the constitutionality of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a statute that makes it a crime to encourage “physical disruption” or “economic damage” against animal research centers. Thursday’s decision (.pdf ...

  • Payroll Site Hacked, Employment Numbers Swell
    A payroll processing firm that was breached by hackers last month is warning customers about a new breach, after some clients noticed phantom employees popping up on their payrolls. New Jersey-based PayChoice sent a message to customers Thursday indicating that thieves appeared to have stolen custo ...

PERRspectives : Blog

  • McChrystal's Intel Leak Doubtless Warms GOP Hearts
    Seemingly with each passing day, General Stanley McChrystal grows in the esteem of President Obama's conservative foes. After having savaged General Eric Shinseki for his pre-Iraq war testimony that the occupation would require "several hundreds of thousands" of American troops,...

  • Senate GOP: Delay, Define and Derail Health Care R ...
    For months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has led the Republican campaign of fear-mongering "reform that that denies, delays, or rations health care." Now unable to filibuster Democratic legislation on their own, Roll Call reports that McConnell's minions are unveiling...

  • Washington Post Aids GOP in Medicare Role Reversal ...
    That the elderly of all groups of Americans most strongly oppose President Obama on health care reform shows the success of Republican fear-mongering over supposed Medicare cuts and "death panels". And on Monday, the Washington Post did the GOP a...

  • The 2009 Nobel Prizes for Conservatives
    In much the same way that the sun sets in the west, each fall brings the predictable spectacle of apoplectic conservatives foaming at the mouth over the Nobel prizes. Following the awards to Al Gore and Paul Krugman over the...

  • Will Red States Opt Out of Blue State Generosity?
    Just in time for the debate over the merits of a state-by-state "opt out" of a national public health insurance option, the Commonwealth Fund has released its 2009 state health care scorecard. As in 2007, the data reveals the critical...

Blackspot News Feed

Consortium News

  • Pakistan's Double Game
    After a 2 1/2-year study, foreign policy expert Bruce P. Cameron warns against a U.S. military escalation in Afghanistan. October 18, 2009

  • Riding Obama's Peace Prize on a Rail
    The U.S. political commentariat has ridden President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize out of town on a rail, notes Michael Winship. October 17, 2009

  • Old Testament Brutalitiesi
    Today's violence in the Mideast and elsewhere echoes from ancient writings of religious extremists, Rev. Howard Bess notes. October 16, 2009

  • Obama's Battle with US Power Centers
    UN General Assembly president Miguel d'Escoto says President Obama faces strong internal resistance, reports TheRealNews. October 16, 2009

  • The Politics of the Public Option
    Enacting a health-reform bill without the public option could have dire political consequences for Democrats, says Robert Parry. October 16, 2009

CounterPunch

Institute for Middle East Understanding

Water - AlterNet

TruthHugger

  • Sabotage Experts: US Coast Guard Exercise on 9/11, ...
    Coast Guard to review exercise after Potomac security scare Security incident on Potomac River prompted by “training exercise,” two police sources say Coast Guard told them. With the nation already on edge and somewhat paranoid on September 11 each year, what is the LAST thing you want to do? ...

  • Texas Progressive Alliance August 31, 2009
    It’s the week before Labor Day, and the Texas Progressive Alliance is hard at work bringing you the best of the Texas blogosphere. Here are this week’s highlights. The Texas Cloverleaf wonders why only one person showed up to a budget meeting where taxes are being increased in Denton County. No ...

  • Who Will Carry The Kennedy Torch? Op Ed
    The passing of Ted Kennedy may have dealt a blow to progressive humanitarian warriors.  The Senate is missing the most effective voice for the disenfranchised.  From his perch atop the mountain of comfort built by his family, Ted Kennedy used his position to battle legislative discrepancies that ...

  • Texas Progressive Alliance – August 24, 2009
    School is starting, and the Texas Progressive Alliance is prepared as always to ace the test. Here is this week’s roundup of blog highlights. From TXsharon: Woo Hoo! EPA testing has now confirmed wells are contaminated “with various substances connected with gas drillingâ€�–proof that h ...

  • Bi-Polar America – Who is Worthy of a Healthy Li ...
    The rationing of health care is already a fact of life. The new reform will remove some of that rationing and make health care a right instead of a privilege. Bi-Polar America - I am worthy, You are not. Jesus was a socialist.

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

Unexplained Mysteries

  • Modern man a wimp says anthropologist
    Anthropologist Peter McAllister has claimed that modern man is far inferior to most prehistoric males who would have possessed superior strength a...

  • Conversation bugged cyborg beetles
    New research funded by the US military has succeeded in creating a cyborg beetle, using implants and controlled by laptop the team can make the in...

  • Lost Greek city may have inspired Atlantis
    The remains of an ancient Greek city submerged beneath the waves and dating back over 5000 years may have been the basis for Atlantis and is provi...

  • Chinese scientists build black hole
    Earlier this year researchers theorized how to build a table-top black hole, now two scientists in China have succeeded in building one using the ...

  • 1000ft UFOs not 'Chinese lanterns'
    A man in Lancashire who reported seeing 1,000ft UFOs being followed by planes and helicopters in the skies above Preston has played down claims th...

Grassroots

  • Grassroots International Partner receives prize
    Via-prize-small.jpg At a gathering of food and trade activists from arounnd the world, Grassroots International's partner, the Via Campesina, receieved the 2009 Food Sovereignty Prize for its relentless struggle for people of the world and aga ...

  • Towards Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming Autonomous Fo ...
    TowardsFoodSovereignty-smallcover.jpg The International Institute for Environment and Development ( IIED ), an independent international research and development organization, recently published a book that should be of interest to Grassroots ...

  • Land + Water + Food = Resource Rights = Human Righ ...
    October 17th is marked as by the United Nations as the  International Day for the Eradication of Poverty . At Grassroots International, we have been working with our partners for over 25 years towards achieving that goal. Clearly, a lot needs to be done to get us there. read more

  • Family farmers feed Brazil
    brazil200907-078.jpg The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) recently published a report on the country’s agricultural sector. The last report had been published in 1996. The new document supports several points raised by ...

  • Today is World Food Day!
    1._Sign_-_Food_sovereignty_yes.jpg Today is World Food Day! World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16 – the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. World Food Day raises awaren ...

Climate

  • October 20, 2009
    Nations Leave 91% of Green Stimulus Funds Unspent (Bloomberg) The United States, China and other major economies have yet to spend 91% of the $177 billion in stimulus money promised for clean-energy development because projects haven’t been evaluated, a report shows. Concession Raises Hopes ...

  • October 19, 2009
    India Environment Minister Suggests Major Shift on Climate (Times of India) India’s environment minister, in a letter to the prime minister, suggested that India junk the Kyoto Protocol, delink itself from G77 and take on greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments under a new deal without a ...

  • October 17-18, 2009
    Republican Senator Says Open to U.S. Climate Bill (Reuters) A senior Republican in the Senate, conservative Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said she would consider voting for the climate bill that Democrats are pushing if it contains a vigorous expansion of nuclear energy and domestic oil drilling. Bigg ...

  • October 17-18, 2009
    Republican Senator Says Open to U.S. Climate Bill (Reuters) A senior Republican in the Senate, conservative Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said she would consider voting for the climate bill Democrats are pushing if it contains a vigorous expansion of nuclear energy and domestic oil drilling. Biggest E ...

  • October 16, 2009
    EU: Developing Countries Softening Tech Transfer Demands (Financial Times) Developing countries have dropped some of their demands for access to rich countries’ technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions, removing a big obstacle to an international deal on climate change, EU officials say. ...

TomDispatch

  • Tomgram: Jo Comerford, Three Cheers for the War D ...
    [ Note to TomDispatch Readers: I'll be on the road for the next week with limited email access. I may not be answering letters and requests. Be patient. For those of you living in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area, this Wednesday night (October 21st) at 7 pm at the Lensic Performing Arts Center I' ...

  • Tomgram: Will Today's U.S.-Armed Ally Be Tomorrow ...
    [ Note for TomDispatch Readers: In the past weeks, you could catch original pieces by Barbara Ehrenreich , Arundhati Roy , Pepe Escobar , Michael Klare , Ann Jones , and Rebecca Solnit , among others, at this website. It's the sort of line-up you might otherwise find at a top-notch magazine. Every ...

  • Tomgram: David Swanson, The Imperial Presidency 2 ...
    October 7th marked the eighth anniversary of the Bush administration's invasion of Afghanistan and so of the... well, can we really call it a war?... that won't end, that American commanders there now predict could last for another decade or more. And yet, here's the weird thing: because Congress ...

  • Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, Do Women Have the Bl ...
    Hardly less startling than finding herself with breast cancer was Barbara Ehrenreich's discovery of the "pink ribbon culture," of, that is, the enforced cheerfulness and positive thinking that accompanied it (and the teddy bears and "cornucopia of pink-ribbon-themed breast cancer products" which w ...

  • Tomgram: William Astore, Apocalypse Then, Afghani ...
    Here's the thing: This may be our next "Vietnam moment," but Afghanistan is no Vietnam: there are no major enemy powers like the Soviet Union and China lurking in the background; no organized enemy state with a powerful army like North Vietnam supporting the insurgents; no well organized, unifie ...

Smirking Chimp

  • Torture Accountability At Last (For Peru)
    The Guardian reports that a British mining corporation is facing a multimillion-pound claim for damages after protesters were detained and allegedly tortured at a plant the firm is seeking to develop in northern Peru. This story is interesting for two reasons. First, it's a disturbing example of "c ...

  • The Halfwits Won And Everyone's Going Down With Th ...
    As millions of Americans lose their jobs and homes, the banks are making money faster than they can steal it. How can this be? Didn’t they collapse only last year, and Obama and Congress handed them $2.2 trillion to get them on their feet? It turns out the $2.2 trillion, that Obama and Congress ga ...

  • Palaces, palaces, palaces: St Petersburg's bloody ...
    If you are at all into gold, gaudiness, greed, glitter and glitz, then you are just going to LOVE St. Petersburg. This place is the absolute hometown of gaudy. The word "Bling!" was obviously invented here. Talk about your ostentatious spending. Girl, shade your eyes! My first stop in Russia's forme ...

  • U.S. foreign policy fails due to lack of understan ...
    Ryan C. Crocker  Ryan Crocker has been weaving in and out of  foreign territories for the last two decades. Before becoming U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 2007, he served as the International Affairs Advisor at the National War College, where he joined the faculty in 2003. Prior to that, he was ...

  • Taking Stock of the Republicans
    The Republicans have become deficit hawks. It's more phoniness from a party of phonies. They've decided to stake their political future on opposition to Obama's agenda. It doesn't matter what it is; they're against it. Stimulus is bad because extends unemployment benefits and keeps the states on lif ...

Ten Percent

  • Early Pilot For BBC’s Treatment Of The BNP
    Under Mark Thompson (now there’s a mental image to run screaming from), BBC history repeats itself, first as satire then as policy. Hmmmmm. Meanwhile, oh no, more leaks than a sieve and while this is a bit underhand… I mean really if you are ashamed of being a hateful nazi then…d’you thi ...

  • Monterrico Metals Majaz Torture Case Comes To Brit ...
    I do trust they will be hauling ‘Ambassador’ Richard Ralph up before the court too (ht2 Otto)- Hundreds of people had converged on the mine from communities scattered across the region. Some had walked for several days to reach the site. Once there, they say, they were attacked by the mine’s s ...

  • Prevent=Stasi
    The government and police have repeatedly denied that the £140m programme is a cover for spying on Muslims in Britain. But sources directly involved in running Prevent schemes say it involves gathering intelligence about the thoughts and beliefs of Muslims who are not involved in criminal activity. ...

  • Royal Mail Is Lying
    London Review of Books, Diary by Roy Mayall:- The truth is that the figures aren’t down at all. We have proof of this. The Royal Mail have been fiddling the figures. This is how it is being done. Mail is delivered to the offices in grey boxes. These are a standard size, big enough to carry [...]

  • Rubbish Excuses Part 743
    (Reuters) - A Rwandan doctor working at a hospital in northern France is suspected of being a wanted war criminal, in a case that has puzzled French authorities. Eugene Rwamucyo was suspended from his post at a hospital in the northern town of Maubeuge after a nurse did an Internet search for his n ...

Paul Krugman

No Quarter

  • “Here’s To The Heroes”
    Veterans Day is coming up November 11th. In anticipation of that day, the singing group, O.A.R. has teamed up with IAVA, Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America, to sign a pledge of support for this new generation of veterans. Here are two members of O.A.R. to discuss the pledge: O.A.R. Open Up Your ...

  • Did the FBI or Obama Send A Message to Israel?
    Last night’s arrest of a U.S. citizen who thought he was spying for Israel is going to unleash a fascinating dynamic. The Washington Post reported this morning: Stewart D. Nozette, 52, was arrested on a charge of attempted espionage and is being held pending an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. ...

  • Attorney Richard Greenfield Brands Mary Schapiro a ...
    Is Mary Schapiro a liar? Are other FINRA executives also liars? Fully appreciating that merely asking these questions is aggressive by its very nature, I do not ask them in a derisive fashion. The fact is, the answer to those questions in the eyes of Richard Greenfield is an unequivocal, “Yes!” ...

  • A 9/11 Mother Gets No Response From Obama
    It is profoundly sad and incredibly infuriating that Obama’s White House does not have the decency to reply to this 72-year-old mother whose son died on September 11, 2001: Melissa Long’s description of the White House meeting is truly depressing. I don’t know what else to say.

  • It’s 15 Minutes Until “Sins”
    Listen to the archived show on October 19th. Please join Sins of Omission Monday, October 19 at 9:00 p.m. ET as host Paulie Abeles talks to critically acclaimed author (and UPenn historian) Thomas Childers. Our topic will be his new book “Soldier from the War Returning: The Greatest Generation ...

Environmental Graffiti

Foreign Policy in Focus

Global Elite

Al Jazeera

Green Inc. - NYT

  • Two States, Two Paths to Clean Energy
    Where California requires lengthy environmental assessments for clean-energy projects, Texas rushes ahead with wind farms.

  • Astronaut, Targeting Drinking Water in Rwanda, Eye ...
    A Houston start-up company, founded by a NASA astronaut, is hoping that its business providing water purification systems in Africa will become self-sustaining by selling carbon credits.

  • On Our Radar...
    Pranksters punk Chamber of Commerce on climate change, and other energy and environment news from around the Web.

  • Debate Over Dams on Africa's Zambezi River
    In a study released Monday, two environmental organizations argue that plans to build a new hydroelectric dam on the Zambezi river could result in South Africa having to choose between light or water.

  • Energy Star Report Shows C.F.L. Concerns
    A report from the inspector-general at the Department of Energy lays out a number of flaws in the Energy Star program, including the fact that nearly all compact fluorescent bulbs can acquire the Energy Star label.

Dot Earth News

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

  • A quick hit from the G20: Democracy 101 by Indymed ...
    I was proud to help contribute some footage to this video - soon enough there will be more video out from what happened at the G20. For now please just check this out. It's certainly a "rough cut" and needs some help in the narrative & so forth, but it's a great intro to the widespread police abuse ...

  • Afghanistan UN elections approval unit breaks up u ...
    Gold busted up and out of the old confines as good ol' snarly British antiwar journalist Robert Fisk broke the big news: the Petrodollar cycling system is finally going off the rails as the world's central bankers start digging for a new solution. [This Petrodollar system was the big achievement of ...

  • Sibel Edmonds case: spelled out with the names & d ...
    For those of you just tuning in... Sibel Edmonds worked at the FBI after 9/11, bumped into a big criminal conspiracy, tried to blow the whistle in 2002, got the "States Secret Privilege" gag, which she defied a couple months ago for a deposition in an Ohio case. In a new interview with Phil Giraldi, ...

  • Yr humble correspondent reports back on G20 with A ...
    Alright so I've been out in Pittsburgh helping cover the G20 conference -- things got pretty hairy out here. We've hunkered down at the Pittsburgh Indymedia Center ( http://indypgh.org ) and the crew has turned out a ton of videos of police brutality that have gone viral over Internets! I just did a ...

  • Supercoca Boliviana Negra cocaine win: Glyphosate/ ...
    Boliviana negra - Wikipedia, Also known as supercoca or la millionaria , Boliviana Negra is a relatively new form of coca that is resistant to herbicide Roundup , or the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate . The coca plant is the precursor to the addictive stimulant cocaine , one of the most widely c ...

Daily Censored

  • Health Insurance Companies Declare War
    Health Insurance Companies Declare War-1.052009-10-20 10:23:55HenryWLast week PriceWaterhouseCoopers released a “study” commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).  This study has been widely de-bunked by a variety of sources, including the White House, Arthur Anderson (of Enro ...

  • A Censored Headline and why it Matters
    A Censored Headline and why it Matters-1.052009-10-19 18:30:25Michael CollinsA Censored Headline and why it Matters: German High Court Outlaws Electronic Voting Justices of the German Federal Constitutional Court.  Image Michael Collins The justices above are clearly the most rational group of ...

  • OK, Let’s fix this thing!
    Only when we put people back in their homes; share the cost savings of globalization with the consumer; reinvest in our infrastructure and education; give people jobs and hope will we turn this economy around.

  • Feds bust Twitter Tweeter, Seize Curious George an ...
    Feds bust Twitter Tweeter, Seize Curious George and Buffy in Terror Probe-1.052009-10-15 13:37:50Mike NimanFeds bust Twitter Tweeter, Seize Curious George and Buffy in Terror Probe By Michael I. Niman ArtVoice (etc.) 10/15/09 http://mediastudy.com/articles/av9-15-09.html I love headlines like thisâ ...

  • We just don’t seem to understand…
    We just don't seem to understand...-1.052009-10-18 19:47:19Ken_SayersI really, really, really don’t understand how we can endlessly dance around a subject and never quite understand it.  We spend thousands and thousands of dollars to figure out that someone who is texting while driving cannot pay ...

AlterNet's Breaking News

Institute for Policy Studies

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

  • Fake security software in millions of computers - ...
    WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Tens of millions of U.S. computers are loaded with scam security software that their owners may have paid for but which only makes the machines more vulnerable, according to a new Symantec report on cybercrime.

  • Wall Street on edge as SEC top cop gets aggressive
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the office of Wall Street's top cop hang a courtroom sketch and a framed newspaper article from his biggest case, when he sent the villain away for life.

  • Pope makes it easier for Anglicans to convert
    VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Tuesday took a major step to make it easier for disaffected Anglicans who feel their Church has become too liberal to convert to Roman Catholicism.

  • MOVES-UPDATE 1-Citigroup, BankAtlantic, Bank of Ge ...
    Oct 20 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Tuesday. To inform us of other job changes, e-mail moves@thomsonreuters.com.

  • Politics grows as key emerging markets driver
    LONDON (Reuters) - As global markets come to the end of the broad recovery from last year's crash, political risk is developing as key to which emerging markets underperform -- with Romania, Thailand, Turkey and Latvia first to feel the pinch.

Pine River World News

  • Examination. The Pakistani army is under the threa ...
    IntelTrends - The following article is reprinted with permission from Kavkaz Center, Caucasus mujahideen media. Examination.  The Pakistani army is under the threat of defeat in Waziristan ©   Kavkaz Center October 18, 2009 The Islamabad based correspondent of American "The Christian Science Moni ...

  • The American Self Emulation, Truly a Sight to See
    The following column is reprinted with permission from Stanislav Mishin. The American Self Emulation, Truly a Sight to See ©  Stanislav Mishin Source:   Mat Rodina October 17, 2009 As my readers know, I am a fan of economics and of history, as well as politics, a combination that forms some very ...

  • Joe Biden: the worrying rise of Barack Obama's Mr ...
    The following opinion is from the Daily Telegraph, London. Joe Biden:  the worrying rise of Barack Obama's Mr Wrong ©   Telegraph By Toby Harnden October 17, 2009 Want to know how to deal with a momentous issue of war or grand strategy? You could do a lot worse than check out what Vice-President J ...

  • Haaretz analysis: U.S. using Goldstone report to p ...
    The following analysis is from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. U.S. using Goldstone report to punish Netanyahu ©   Haaretz By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent October 17, 2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was perceived in Israel as a shining victory. Rocket fire from Gaza was brought to a halt alm ...

  • CAIR responds to 'spying' claims by anti-Islam act ...
    The following article is from Today's Zaman, Istanbul. CAIR responds to 'spying' claims by anti-Islam activists ©   Today's Zaman By Ali H. Aslan October 17, 2009 WASHINGTON - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has ...

PsyBlog

  • How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation
    Surely one of the best ways to generate motivation in ourselves and others is by dangling rewards? Yet psychologists have long known that rewards are overrated. The carrot, of carrot-and-stick fame, is not as effective as we've been led to believe. Rewards work under some circumstances but sometime ...

  • How to Make People Believe in Telepathy
    Have you ever been thinking about someone and then moments later they've called you? Is that random coincidence or something more? People love to believe in supernatural powers like telepathy. At least one-third of Americans report a belief in extra-sensory perception (ESP), with a further 40% refu ...

  • Are You a Liar?
    Do people really lie 3 times within 10 minutes of meeting someone new? It's a statistic often quoted to show how callous and heartless people are. It's the kind of number the misanthrope TV doc Gregory House (played by Brit Hugh Laurie) should have tattooed across his forehead. But what kinds of li ...

  • PsyBlog Now on Twitter
    PsyBlog is now on Twitter, right here. So many people have kindly been sharing articles from PsyBlog with others on Twitter that the tweet count for recent articles is now fairly hefty. Thanks very much to all the Twitterers who've been spreading the word! PsyBlog's Twitter feed is another way to ...

  • How Long to Form a Habit?
    Research reveals a curved relationship between practice and automaticity. Say you want to create a new habit, whether it's taking more exercise, eating more healthily or writing a blog post every day, how often does it need to be performed before it no longer requires Herculean self-control? Clear ...

After Downing Street.org

  • Yes Men, Activist Group, Teamed Up On Chamber Hoax
    Yes Men, Activist Group, Teamed Up On Chamber Hoax Zachary Roth | TPM Muckraker Well, it looks like we were right . The Chamber of Commerce hoax was perpetrated by the Yes Men, in tandem with a group of activists known as the Avaaz Action Factory. Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum showed up at the 11am press ...

  • What the Anthrax Cover-Up Is Covering Up
    By Barry J.C. Kissin I. INTRODUCTION – THE SMOKING GUN On September 16 and 17, 2008, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees respectively, conducted “Amerithrax oversight” hearings consisting of questioning FBI Director Robert Mueller. Despite widespread concern about the integrity of Amerit ...

  • Report: Iran Incapable Of Producing Nuke Within Si ...
    Report: Iran incapable of producing nuke within six to eight years By Stephen C. Webster | Raw Story A Washington Post report published Sunday is drawing a wave of cheers across the Internet for revealing what is being hailed as "the truth" about Iran's nuclear program. Specifically, the report st ...

  • Cindy McCain Bankrolled Conference That Called for ...
    Cindy McCain Bankrolled Conference That Called for Ban on Mercenaries The ‘McCain Conference on Ethics and Military Leadership’ appears to be ahead of the senator when it comes to the US use of mercenary forces. By Jeremy Scahill | Rebel Reports A little-publicized US Naval Academy conference ...

  • The Wall Street Economic Death Squad
    $140 billion! Record Payday for Wall Street Goldman Sachs 2009 Bonuses Could Buy Insurance for 1.7 Million Families 50 Million Americans Live in Poverty By David DeGraw | Amped Status The facts are that $30,000 per person is unaccounted for - that’s $30,000 for every man, woman and child in ...

Grist - News

  • Chamber plays the fool in Yes Men hoax
    by Grist Another brilliant stunt from the Yes Men : the New York pranksters sent out a fake press release this morning, pretending to be from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . The Chamber is reversing its opposition to the clean energy bill in Congress. It’s had a change of heart. It’s now taking ...

  • Maldives leader turns stuntman to fight climate ch ...
    by Agence France-Presse Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Ibrahim Didi at the underwater cabinet meeting.Photo courtesy Presidency Maldives via Flickr MALE -- Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, who staged the world's first underwater cabinet meeting this weekend, is emerging as the global stu ...

  • Maldives cabinet rehearses underwater meeting
    by Agence France-Presse Photo courtesy iujaz via Flickr COLOMBO -- Ministers in the Maldives dived in their final rehearsals Friday ahead of an underwater cabinet meeting this weekend aimed at drawing attention to the dangers of global warming for the island nation. Ministers in full scuba gear und ...

  • Is the Congressional Budget Office trying to kill ...
    by Brad Johnson Cross-posted from Wonk Room .Yesterday, Doug Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), testified before the Senate energy committee about the "comparatively modest" cost of a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon pollution. The Washington Post and Wall Street ...

  • Berlin brothel goes green to beat the crisis
    by Agence France-Presse BERLIN -- Stung by the economic crisis, a brothel in Berlin has leapt on the "green" bandwagon and is offering discounts to clients who can prove they arrived by public transport or bicycle -- with some success. "Everyone's a winner," explained Regina Goetz, a former prostit ...

Popular Bookmarks on Del.icio.us

Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

  • What Is the EPA Hiding?
    Last week, I got word that the EPA and the Obama administration appears to be suppressing dissent within the career professional ranks at EPA. Here’s a portion of Joe Barton’s press release on the subject: EPA has not yet released the final, suppressed report that was written by career ...

  • With Liberty and Justice for Baby Names
    Filed under: Pregnancy & birth , Holidays If your due date falls around Independence Day, the idea has probably crossed your mind: "Born on the 4th of July." Should you mark the occasion with a name, at least a middle name? A generation ago, a founding father name like Madison or Jefferson might ...

  • Diehl me out
    Jackson Diehl’s End the Spat with Israel , is a very important op-ed. It’s also interesting that both Diehl and David Ignatius are showing skepticism of the administration’s tactics regarding Israel. That’s not to say Diehl’s column is perfect - it isn’t, but he makes some very import ...

  • Britney Spears Has Double the Happiness
    Britney Spears had two of her favorite things - Jason Trawick and Starbucks - while out in LA on Friday. The happy couple was also together earlier in the day and during their afternoon outing Brit flashed a big smile and drew some attention to the sparkling new ring on her left hand. She showed o ...

  • Parenting, Analogies, And Insults With @phdinparen ...
    A few years ago I was a co-moderator on a brand new forum that had opened. I helped moderate the breastfeeding section of the parenting board, and it was nasty. Maybe because it was a brand new forum, maybe because the site it was linked with tended to draw younger people, or maybe because the site ...

Time - Top Stories

Washington Independent

  • Lunchtime Links
    Nate Silver pegs the GOP’s chances of taking back the House in 2010 at 20 to 25 percent. Senate staffers have translated the Baucus bill from English into legalese. Support for a public option is strong and growing. Conservatives won’t back down in New York’s special congressional election. Th ...

  • Clinton on the Afghan Elections
    Just released, from the Secretary of State: Afghanistan has been through a rough and contentious election. The bravery, patience, and resilience of the Afghan people has been on display since election day, when so many of them went to the polls in the face of threats and intimidation. And after man ...

  • I Must Have Missed That Time Tom Donnelly Said It ...
    In the course of a puffy Politico profile of Nate Fick, the CEO of the Obama’d-up Center for a New American Security, comes the snipe from the American Enterprise Institute: “Think tanks develop into a more mature institution when they are willing to say unpleasant things about their friends. ...

  • Patient, Senior Advocates Pushing for Medicare Doc ...
    Senate Democrats this week are hoping to pass legislation to repeal, once and for all, the flawed formula that dictates physician payments under Medicare. And today they’re getting some help from patient advocates and the senior lobby. This morning, bill sponsor Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) appe ...

  • Standish, Mich., City Council: Send Us Your Gitmo ...
    The Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood reports: The Standish City Council unanimously approved a resolution targeting President Barack Obama and federal authorities with one message: Send us your prisoners. The city is staring down the short end of a deadline imposed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who ...

CowBoss' Brain Food

  • Ban On Arsenicals Is Common Sense
    Today’s announcement by U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) introducing legislation to ban the use of the arsenical compound roxarsone once again shines the spotlight on the all-too common practice of the unnecessary use of antimicrobial drugs in industrial ani Submitted by cowboss at wscc to US Politics ...

  • How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect
    In addition to assorted bad breaks and pleasant surprises, opportunities and insults, life serves up the occasional pink unicorn. The three-dollar bill; the nun with a beard; the sentence, to borrow from the Lewis Carroll poem, that gyres and gimbles in t Submitted by cowboss at wscc to Society & Cu ...

  • Mercury danger in dolphin meat
    SAPPORO — The annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, as documented in the film "The Cove" has sparked an emotional international debate, with animal rights activists decrying the capture and slaughter as unnecessary and cruel, and those in Jap Submitted by cowboss at wscc to Health & We ...

  • Most English and Welsh rivers too dirty for new Eu ...
    Only five of the 6,114 rivers in England and Wales are in pristine condition, and more than three-quarters are expected to fail new European quality standards, says the government's fullest-ever ecological assessment of water quality. Submitted by cowboss at wscc to Environment  |   Note-it!  |   A ...

  • Divining the Secret of Deformed Roadkill
    Hard as it is to be a voice in the wilderness, Judy Hoy has been sounding an alarm in southwestern Montana for more than 13 years. For years she's been documenting, through autopsies, photos, articles and scientific papers, changes — mutations, really Submitted by cowboss at wscc to Environment   ...

Suzie-Q

  • GOP: Whack-A-Doodles Brand Of Crazy
    Apparently The Smoking Gun Won’t Be In the Form Of An Intern Daily Kos- by BarbinMD Share this on Twitter – Apparently The Smoking Gun Won’t Be In the Form Of An Intern Mon Oct 19, 2009 at 05:50:05 PM PDT First, the good news: Four Republican lawmakers have not submitted a request to the Hous ...

  • Evening Jukebox- You Never Can Tell
    Chuck Berry- You Never Can Tell (Pulp Fiction)

  • Photos of Military Deaths in Afghanistan Banned
    By Daryl Lang/Photo District News, Editor & Publisher, Oct 15, 2009 NEW YORK The U.S. military in eastern Afghanistan recently changed its media embed rules to ban pictures of troops killed in the war. “Media will not be allowed to photograph or record video of U.S. personnel killed in action,†...

  • Terrorising the laws of physics
    By Dr Sahib Mustaqim Bleher, Sep 8, 2009 What do 9/11 and the liquid bomb plot have in common? They both replace reality with make-belief by seriously violating the laws of physics. And they represent a propaganda effort by today’s war governments Joseph Goebbels would be proud of, thereby demo ...

  • Balloon Boy confesses to media connections
    Confessions Of A Patriot I’m on my way to Washington DC to speak out on my opinions on world issues. My apologies for the old flying saucer balloon trick, but It did get me in the spotlight, and like it or not, I am currently more famous than Joe the Plumber, Newt Gingrinch, Sarah Palin, and [... ...

Solari

  • Vaclav Klaus: Too Late to Stop Lisbon Treaty
    The only EU leader who has not yet signed the Lisbon reform treaty has conceded he will not be able to derail it. Czech President Vaclav Klaus’s admission has paved the way for the document to become law. The treaty has already been signed by the leaders of the other 26 EU states but had been put ...

  • Goldman Sachs Bonus Pot Breaks Record
    By Andrew Clark Put the bottles of Krug on ice. Golden days are here again for elite investment banks. Goldman Sachs is gearing up to pay its biggest ever bonuses to its 31,700 employees after raking in profits at a rate of $35m (£21.5m) a day, in the clearest signal yet that the Square Mile and [. ...

  • Latin America Plans US Dollar Replacement
    Latin American leaders have agreed on using a new intra- regional trading currency, dubbed as Sucre, instead of the US dollar. Bolivian President Evo Morales, who hosted leaders of the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), said that the “document is approved.” Durin ...

  • Quote du Jour
    “We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security” ~ Dwight David Eisenhower

  • Linda Minor at Minor, Minor, Minor,
    I am often asked what sources of information that I most trust. Hands down, one of my most valuable sources over the last two decades has been Linda Minor, an attorney in Texas who has produced extraordinary research on the networks controlling and managing investment in America since the Revolutio ...

Global Insights

  • Less Than a Week Away
    We encourage you to register for Awake and Aware. George Green will be a featured speaker. September 19th & 20th • Burbank, CA Click here for Tickets & Reservations  

  • The Georgia Guidestones
    On one of the highest hilltops in Elbert County, Georgia stands a huge granite monument. Engraved in eight different languages on the four giant stones that support the common capstone are 10 Guides, or commandments. That monument is alternately referred to as The Georgia Guidestones, or the Ame ...

  • The Creation
    THE CREATION (A recent message given to George Green from the "guys upstairs") We are pleased to bring understanding and clarification on what is the Creation. This is a challenge because your language of communication has not the words for describing this conception of Creation. So as not to put an ...

  • The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catas ...
    In his previous books, James Kunstler focused on the shortsighted vision of suburban planning; now he expands that view to the country's urban growth challenges and the need to drastically change our current course of auto and oil dependency. The Long Emergency is filled with history plus eye-openin ...

  • About George Green
    Dear Friends, Thank you for your interest in our catalog of unusual and informative materials. The knowledge gained will give you choices in the days ahead and lessons of discernment as the chaos increases. It is necessary for those of you who are now in the "know" so to speak, to begin to focus ...

Insurgency Watch - Posts

  • Kerry-Lugar’s First Victim
    If true, this is total bullshit: After strong criticism on the Kerry-Lugar bill in Pakistan, the government has decided to replace Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani and the announcement in this respect is expected within the next two days. There’s nothing in the bill reasonable Pa ...

  • Pakistan’s Civil War Heating Up
    In the aftermath of this weekend’s assault on the Pakistani General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the Taliban hit again in Alpuri, in the Shangla district east of Mingora in Swat. According to military sources who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press, a 1 ...

  • At Home with a Swat Lashkar
    I just finished up a few days in Swat and while I’m working on a story about it, I thought you might like to see a few pictures I took while there. Enjoy. Share/Save

  • FACTBOX: Uzbek militant leader killed in Pakistan ...
    Washington PostFACTBOX: Uzbek militant leader killed in PakistanReutersBy this time he is thought to have fled the region for the safe haven of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. * Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader ...Pakistan to Target Taliba...

  • Editorial: Indo-Pak dialogue: some basic questions ...
    Editorial: Indo-Pak dialogue: some basic questions Daily Times Neither of these conditions obtains in the case of India and Pakistan . * We all know that the Taliban and Al Qaeda get their “terror money” from diverse ... and more »

AlterNet - DrugReporter

Twilight Earth

  • 23 Million Starve in Kenya as Deforestation Leads ...
    Deforestation of the Mau Forest and its resulting Climate Change leads to drought as 23 million Kenyans to go hungry. Related posts: Strategic Threat to the Earths Water System – Deforestation Oil Executive Epiphany Leads to $125 Billion Climate Change Funding Human Rights Violated by Climate Ch ...

  • Middlebury College to Burn Willow for Biomass Heat
    Middlebury College to us quick growing Willow shrub as a fossil fuel alternative to heat. Related posts: UK Grocery Chain to Divert 92,000 Pounds of Waste per Week for Biomass Power UFOs, Heat from Dead Bodies, Veggies on Drugs, and Bush’s Trail of Devastation College Students and Ethnic Minori ...

  • Giveaway: A Global Warning? History Channel DVD
    We’ve got a copy of the History Channel’s A Global Warning? DVD to giveaway for one lucky reader, courtesy of Attention USA. Details on how to enter are at the end of the post. Is it hot in here? Understand the most pressing global issue of our age with this definitive two-hour The History Chann ...

  • Technology Transfer and Climate Change (Video)
    “”Tech Transfer” is a phrase everyone who’s serious about climate change should have at the top of their “to advocate for” list. What KINDS of technologies to develop is one conversation to have. Another one is whether or not to share them with developing countries who would otherwise bu ...

  • Blog Action Day: It’s Up to Us
    Whether you call it global warming or climate change, the issue of human impact on the earth’s systems is a very real one. For climate change skeptics, it’s a big jump to imagine that we are affecting the world around us, and it’s easy to point the finger at other people’s actions and say t ...

Inhabitat

  • The New Bouwkunde Architecture Proposal Swoops Lik ...
    Back in 2008, a devastating fire tore through the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology, resulting in a loss of more than just a structure, but also valuable design collections and a sense of home for many students and faculty. To put the tragedy in the past, the university s ...

  • Top 5 Pimped-Out Eco Rides
    We love seeing eco-upgrades that increase the efficiency of existing vehicles, but a select few are taking their customization to a whole other level. These cars and trucks may have slick paint jobs or fancy rims, but they are also have some experimental features that are a far cry from your typical ...

  • Rathaus Terraces: Mixed-Use Development for Mediev ...
    Weilburg, a medieval city not too far from Frankfurt, has announced plans to demolish a parking structure on the edge of its dense core and replace it with a mixed-use development with retail, residential and park space. Recently they revealed this beautiful proposal from ACME, which won the all-imp ...

  • Join our Chat With Boston Bike Czar Nicole Freedma ...
    Our Green Talks series of interviews with green thought-leaders has been a smash success so far – garnering hundreds of registrants and viewers from all over the globe, and we’re super excited about the next one, which is happening THIS THURSDAY at 3:30pm est! with Boston’s Bike “Czar” Nic ...

  • ECOUTERRE LAUNCH PARTY: October 29th at KAIGHT!
    CALLING ALL ECO-FASHION MAVENS IN NYC! We’re gearing up to ring in the launch of our fabulous eco-fashion site Ecouterre with our first official party and we want YOU to be there! Join us, the Ecouterre editors, as we munch on vegan cookies and snacks, sip organic cocktails, peruse green goods at ...

Pogue's Posts

Open Your Eyes News

  • NASA scientist: No Doomsday in 2012
    Physorg.com - According to NASA scientist David Morrison, the widespread Internet rumor that the world will end in 2012 due to some astronomical event is a hoax. Dr. Morrison attributes the hype to ‘cosmophobia’ fueled by fake science websites and people trying to cash in on public lack of knowl ...

  • U.S. military create live remote-controlled beetle ...
    Daily Mail - Spies may soon be bugging conversations using actual insects, thanks to research funded by the US military. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent years developing a whole host of cyborg critters, in the hopes of creating the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’.  ...

  • New York Times - Give Carbon Credits to Couples Th ...
    CNS News - Andrew Revkin, who reports on environmental issues for The New York Times, floated an idea last week for combating global warming: Give carbon credits to couples that limit themselves to having one child. Revkin later told CNSNews.com that he was not endorsing the idea, just t ...

  • US commander in Iraq warns of threat to pull out t ...
    Daily Telegraph - General Ray Odierno, the US commander in Iraq, has warned that a delay to the country’s elections in January could derail President Barack Obama’s withdrawal timetable for troops. Read Article

  • Soaring Australian oil leak (financial) cost
    ABC - The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) says the cost of the clean-up of the oil spill off WA’s north coast has reached more than $5 million. Oil has been flowing from the West Atlas rig into the Timor Sea from more than eight weeks. Read Article

Monkey Smashes Heaven

  • Ganapathi on Jihadists, revisionists in Nepal, Ame ...
    Ganapathi on Jihadists, revisionists in Nepal, Amerikkkans* (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) In a recent interview, Ganapathi, General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) elaborates his positions on key issues. Ganapathi correctly describes the revolutionary position on Islamic anti-imperialist movem ...

  • Trial to defend comrade Stalin
    Trial to defend comrade Stalin (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Stalin has lost in court in a much publicized libel case. Stalin’s grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, charged the paper Novaya Gazeta with libel. Last April, author Anatoly Yablokov accused Stalin of being a “bloodthirsty cannibalâ ...

  • Ganapathi on Jihadists, revisionists in Nepal
    Ganapathi on Jihadists, revisionists in Nepal (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) In a recent interview, Ganapathi, General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) elaborates his positions on key issues. Ganapathi correctly describes the revolutionary position on Islamic anti-imperialist movements. It is im ...

  • 150 years ago today, John Brown’s raid at Ha ...
    “October 16 is the 150th anniversary of the raid of Harpers Ferry in 1859. Led by abolitionist, nation traitor, and revolutionary John Brown, this failed raid was intended to arm Black slaves in a rebellion against white Amerika and for freedom for the Black Nation…” Read more at: RAIM: John ...

  • Polish translation of the Sunrise Statement
    Polish translation of the Sunrise Statement (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com,  Polish translation by KPN(M)) Plagą pierwszego świata są organizację rozwijające trockistowską permanentną rewolucję pod sztandarem Mao. Plagą Pierwszego Świata są organizację podtrzymujące biały nacjona ...

PakAlert

  • Video: Phase 3 (pt. 4) – Globalization & Capital ...
    Its time use our spiritual/intuitive intelligence to understand the reality around us. We remind our viewers that patience is a virtue. Kindly remain patient as we upload the rest of the series. This is still the introduction chapter, things will start picking up very soon. Another groundbreaking a ...

  • The History of the Future: Trends 2012
    Gerald Celente The Trends Journal October 19, 2009 Autumn 2012, the “Greatest Depression” has spread worldwide. Billions are unemployed, homeless and desperate. Countries bankrupt, trade pacts broken, tariffs rise, borders close. Protectionist, nationalist and anti-globalization movements have ...

  • Dancing To Our Israeli Masters
    By Jeff Gates 10-18-9 IN the early 1960s, Sen. William J. Fulbright fought to force the American Zionist Council to register as agents of a foreign government. The council eluded registration by reorganizing as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has since become what Fulbright most ...

  • Fox News Inspired Protesters Locked in Voodoo Tran ...
    Kurt Nimmo Infowars October 18, 2009 It’s another pitiful example revealing that the Tea Party movement is being played. Drew Zahn, reporting for WorldNetDaily, covers protesters around the country this past weekend “challenging the mainstream media to drop a perceived news bias and give fair c ...

  • U.S. Attacks Iran Via CIA-Funded Jundullah Terror ...
    Bankrolling and arming Al-Qaeda offshoot part of 2007 White House directive to destabilize Iranian government Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Monday, October 19, 2009 The U.S. government effectively attacked Iran yesterday after its proxy terror group Jundullah launched a suicide bomb attack ...

ecogeek

  • Germany Wins Solar Decathlon
    For the past week, 20 teams took over the National Mall with their best attempts at a net-zero, solar-powered home, all with hopes to win this year's Solar Decathlon .  Today, after competing in ten different contests, the winners were crowned, and for the second time, Germany took first place. Th ...

  • NREL Helps Green Building Designers with Updated S ...
    One of the most important changes we can make in the fight against climate change is to make buildings more energy efficient both through retrofitting existing buildings and making new construction ultra-efficient.  Luckily, that task is becoming easier for building designers.  The National Renew ...

  • New Mexico "SuperStation" Could Link Maj ...
    A new idea for a large substation based in Clovis, New Mexico has the potential to solve one of the biggest hurdles to clean energy growth:  transmission.  The SuperStation, as its being called, would link the three largest grids - the east, west and Texas - allowing renewable energy producers to ...

  • Solar Powered E-Reader Makes E-Books Eco-Friendlie ...
    A recent study by the Cleantech Group revealed the much lower envrionmental impact of e-readers - specifically the Kindle - compared to traditional publishing, but the devices still require charging from the grid.  LG's new e-reader takes care of that:  it's outfitted with its own integrated sola ...

  • George Soros Investing $1 Billion in Clean Energy
    Hedge-fund manager George Soros is the latest billionaire to throw his money behind clean technology.  Soros announced yesterday that he will be investing $1 billion in clean energy technology and will also be spending $100 million to create a climate policy advisory organization. He made it clear ...

Times Online - Science

Environment _ National Geographic

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

  • Flushing Out the Ongoing Bank Fraud and Financial ...
    The number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the 3rd quarter: "Despite signs of broader economic recovery, number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the third quarter - a sign the plague is still spreading." And banks are keeping losses off the books as they ignore the people t ...

  • Shorter Erick Erickson: "It's because he's black!"
    And he is Jimmy Carter too! "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period." Per usual, Red State's Trike Force always keepin' it classy ... A ...

  • The only thing between us and the terrorists?
    Is the neoconservative echo-chamber between Joe Lieberman's ears : "I don't think anybody who has any fairness or is in their right mind would think the president or the secretary of homeland security would raise an alert level and scare people for political reasons... That's outrageous." - Joe Lieb ...

  • Bethel First Selectman Arrested
    ctblogger had the story up early at HatCityBLOG and MLN , and the Newstimes got around to covering it as well, on Bethel's First Selectman, Bob Burke, being arrested for making harassing phone calls. Ellis said Burke and the alleged victim had a personal relationship that was private between them an ...

  • The Lion Sleeps Tonight
    RIP Edward Kennedy   Via WCVB Boston: Kennedy, who waged a public fight against a malignant brain tumor in the last year of his life, was surrounded by family members who had come in recent days to say a last goodbye to him. His death marks the end to a life where like the phoenix. Kennedy rose abov ...

SPL Center

  • Paranoia: Now It’s a Game
    Conspiracy theorists and aspiring domestic terrorists now have their very own online game. It’s called “Obama’s Coup Fails,” and it is the centerpiece of a new online site called United States of Earth. The year is 2011. President Obama has outlawed private gun ownership, dissolved the Cons ...

  • Aha! Extremist Crowd Uncovers Another Sinister Gov ...
    Holy cow! Another sinister plot by our government to enslave citizens has been unearthed by fans of radio talk show conspiracist Alex Jones. This one entails livestock. The Austin, Texas-based Jones posted a short news item on his Infowars.com website on Sunday about plans by officials in Oklahoma a ...

  • Leaked Neo-Nazi E-mails Show Contacts With Militar ...
    Hatewatch recently posted a report about private E-mails of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) showing up on the Internet. While that post focused on the infighting that has dogged America’s largest neo-Nazi group, some of the E-mails also shed light on a more serious matter: racial extremists ...

  • New SPLC Report on Latino Immigrants in Suffolk Co ...
    Last Nov. 8, Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant living in Suffolk County on New York’s Long Island, was murdered in the town of Patchogue. Lucero was attacked by a gang of teenagers calling themselves the Caucasian Crew, who targeted Latino residents as part of a sport they called “beane ...

  • Neo-Nazi Group’s Dirty Linen Aired in Leaked ...
    Like most hate groups, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) conducts virtually all its business in secret. So leaders of America’s largest neo-Nazi group couldn’t have been happy last week when hundreds of its private E-mails appeared on the Internet. The messages — more than 600 of them date ...

Gringo Times - Rio

  • Congolese Seeks Refuge in Rio
    By Juliana Tafur, Contributing Reporter Kasongo is only 23 years old, but seems wise beyond his years. Nearly two meters tall, well-built and strong, he also looks like a 35-year-old. As he shares his life’s story, it becomes clear why he was forced to grow up quickly. Kasongo barely escaped ...

  • Brazil New Contributor to IMF
    By Jaylan Boyle, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - For the first time, Brazil has become a creditor rather than a debtor to the IMF (International Monetary Fund), pledging US$10 Billion to be spent on IMF bonds. “This is an historic moment for us,” said Guido Mantega, Brazilian Minister of ...

  • Brazil’s 2008… Pre-Crisis
    By Lindsay Spratt, Sub Editor RIO DE JANEIRO - 2008 National Census figures were released last month by the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD, National Research by Sample of Residences), carried out by the Insituto Brasileiro de Geográfia e Estatística, (IBGE, Brazilian Institute ...

  • Neurocosmetics Line to Launch in Brazil
    By Sarah Coursey, Editor RIO DE JANEIRO - The telenovela sensation of 2009, Caminho das Ã�ndias (Road to India), contained an unforgettable scene in which the character Melissa Cadore explains the secret of beautiful, youthful skin to her domestic maid. She offers the advice,” We must talk to o ...

  • Rio 2016: Economic Impact
    By Bruno De Nicola, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - The election of Rio de Janeiro as host city for the 2016 Olympic Games is expected to cause a sharp increase in foreign investment in the country. An Olympic Games Committee survey carried out by Credit Suisse estimates a R$30 Billion financ ...

change: org.

  • Making LGBT Students Feel Safe and Supported
    Almost 90 percent of LGBT students experience some form of abuse or bullying in schools, whether it's physical or emotional. To top that off, almost 2/3 of all LGBT students feel unsafe in school. Those numbers are crazy high, and one reason why students, teachers and activists of every stripe are ...

  • Fighting to Save Juvenile Life Without Parole
    The Heritage Foundation is worried that the playing field isn’t level in our criminal justice system. Juveniles sentenced to life without parole have the upper hand, the group says in a new paper, and the “activists” who oppose juvenile LWOP are threatening to take away this uniquely American ...

  • 97 Year Old Homeless Woman Receives Housing
    The 97 year old homeless woman from LA is no longer sleeping on the streets. Her story, published Friday in the LA Times, garnered national disbelief and prompted service providers to act quickly to move her into housing. Bessie Mae Berger was 97 years old and living in a beat up 1973 Chevy Suburba ...

  • Locavorism Isn't Inherently Elitist, But Many Are ...
    Locavores are frequently accused of harboring an elitist mentality about food, with local food most recently accused of being "anything but liberatory for those traditionally marginalized." And that's not the worst of it as James McWilliams explains in a guest-post on the Freakonomics blog. He cont ...

  • Teach For America is Vulnerable to Union Protests ...
    Getting college kids to teach in high-need classrooms has long been criticized for a way to replacing costly and experienced teacher with younger, cheaper, under-prepared teachers. The Boston Teachers Union recently filed a complaint that their contract deal has few of the benefits that Teach For A ...

Common Dreams -News

  • Report Urges Broad Actions to Preserve Journalism
    by Andrew Vanacore Journalism is at risk and American society must act to preserve it, according to a report co-authored by The Washington Post's former executive editor. In a paper commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, the ex-Post editor, Len Downie, and Michael Schudson, a Col ...

  • High Court to Consider Uighurs' Plea for Freedom
    by Mark Sherman WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will hear a new case about the rights of Guantanamo detainees, this time involving prisoners who remain in custody even after the Pentagon determines they're not a threat to the United States. The high court said it will take a challenge ...

  • US Commander in Iraq Warns of Threat to Pull Out.. ...
    by Oliver August President Obama's pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq and end combat operations there by September 2010 is under threat because of increased levels of violence and bickering within the Iraqi parliament, the top US general in the country has told The Times. General Ray Odierno sai ...

  • US-Sudan: Activist Groups Cautiously Praise New Po ...
    by Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - Activist groups that have long urged a tougher U.S. policy toward Khartoum praised the new "comprehensive approach" toward Sudan announced here Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, even as they expressed concern that it will not be fully implemented. read more

  • Refugee Flood Reveals Human Cost of South Wazirist ...
    by Declan Walsh in Dera Ismail Khan The war in South Waziristan started early for Ghufran. As Pakistani warplanes pounded the Taliban stronghold of Ladha last week, in preparation for the ground offensive now under way, the 11-year-old boy and his family scrambled to safety across a range of jagged ...

Lifehacker

  • Manage WordPress Comments from Windows Live Write ...
    Windows Live Writer stands out among Microsoft's Live Essentials pack for being a convenient multi-platform blogging tool. The Live Writer team made it even handier for WordPress users by adding comment moderation powers to their desktop app with a plug-in. Windows Live Writer already offered blogge ...

  • Firefox Headed to Android Phones [Firefox Mobile] ...
    Yesterday we heard that an unknown something from Mozilla is headed to iPhones , but Firefox's maker is being a bit more specific about Android: A mobile browser is in the works for the open-source phone. Om Malik details a bit more of an onstage talk held last weekend with Mozilla CEO John Lilly an ...

  • Restore Ctrl-Alt-Backspace Behavior in Ubuntu 9.1 ...
    Ubuntu 9.04 disabled the semi-crucial keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, that used to force the X graphical server to restart, and made it wonky to re-enable. Luckily, Ubuntu 9.10, due out in nine days, has a single setting to restore it. The I am a Ubuntu blog pins down a little check box, unde ...

  • Multi Image Downloader Grabs Pics in Bulk from Go ...
    Windows: Google Image Search is great at showing thumbnail results, but not so hot at making full-size originals easy to download. Free and portable app Multi Image Downloader is a two-step bulk downloader that's really simple to use. Multi Image Downloader can't do its own searching, but instead as ...

  • Wolfrom Alpha iPhone App Looks Great if You've Go ...
    Wolfram Alpha, the computational knowledge search engine , launched its iPhone application today. It's a nice looking app that does a lot more than simply embed the search engine in an iPhone app (it's an impressive graphing calculator and stock analysis tool, as weblog Mashable points out ), but th ...

Newshoggers - AfPak

  • Collective Punishment In South Waziristan?
    By Steve Hynd Anyone who cared to look already knew that the Pakistani military doesn't practise anything akin to "population centric counterinsurgency". But their assault on TTP strongholds in South Waziristan seems to be taking matters to a whole new level. A level in which the phrases "collective ...

  • A Rushed Runoff In Hunt For Legitimacy
    By Steve Hynd So, Hamid Karzai and his pet electoral commission have accepted the results of fraud investigations which dumped 1.5 million votes from the Afghan election counts and the need for a runoff election - but only after Western governments told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't th ...

  • Afghaistan/Vietnam
    Commentary by Ron Beasley About a month ago I wrote: So just like Vietnam simply throwing more troops into a country with no legitimate government cannot be a successful strategy. This can only bring us back to the conversations going on in the Oval Office in 1965. It's going to be difficult/or us t ...

  • Unpresident Karzai
    By Steve Hynd 1.3 million Afghan ballots have been tossed as obviously fraudulent by the UN's watchdog, reducing Karzai's share of the vote to only 48.3 percent. His main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, actually increased his own share thereby, to 31.5 %. Now, everyone is waiting to see whether Karza ...

  • Anand Gopal Interview: "The Taliban Don't Need Al ...
    By Steve Hynd One of the big debates generated by the Obama administration's deliberations over whether or not to send extra troops to Afghanistan has been the exact nature of the relationship between the various Taliban factions and Al Qaeda's leadership. Escalation advocates have argued that the r ...

Water Wars


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