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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.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

4 Oct - RSS SnapShot!

american grazing landImage by patricia kranenberg via Flickr

Feed Update from Opit's LinkFest! at My Opera 

 

Blacklisted News

The Intelligence Daily

My AntiWar

Innovation Canada

  • 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 ...
  • FISHing for answers
    University of Alberta (U of A) researchers have developed a cancer-testing technology with a snappy name but a serious purpose. The “FISH on a chip” is a complex test that detects abnormalities in chromosomes which characterize particular types of cancer. To create it, researchers miniaturize a ...

Signs of the times

  • America Is a Toxic Dump
    There are some places in the world where there is no word for garbage. The idea that an object could have no purpose, or be brought into being only to be discarded, is so alien that the concept simply does not exist. America is not one of them. On the contrary, we have become such a disposable soci ...
  • Mini-Stonehenge find 'important'
    Archaeologists have discovered a mini-Stonehenge, a mile from the site of Wiltshire's famous stone circle. "Bluehenge", named after the hue of the 27 stones from Wales which once formed it, has been described by researchers as a "very important" find. All that now exists of the 5,000-year-old site ...
  • Jackson, Farrakhan at beaten Illinois teen's funer ...
    The funeral of a Chicago teen who was beaten to death on his way home from school drew civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan on Saturday, both calling for an end to youth violence. Farrakhan said he came to the funeral because he was "deeply pained" ...
  • Will California become America's first failed stat ...
    Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong? California has a special place in the American psyche ...
  • Ireland votes yes to Lisbon EU constitution
    Paper ballots are a good sign that this outcome is legitimate. Well, that's what happens when you squeeze people through the economy. "No yes vote? No bailout!" It drove Iceland into the EU's arms as well. That leaves Poland, the Czech Republic, and Britain as the only other possibilities to halt th ...

Threat Level

  • Secure Flight Comes to Southwest Airlines, Six Yea ...
    Six years ago the federal government proposed taking over the job of comparing passenger names against the terrorist watch lists. Just this week, Southwest Airlines frequent fliers are being asked to update their profiles with name, gender and date of birth information in order to let the feds try ...
  • Credit Card Skimming Survey: What’s Your Magstri ...
    Ever wonder how much the data on the back of your credit card is worth to a corrupt food service worker? The answer, it turns out, depends on which restaurants you frequent in Florida. For some reason, the Sunshine State is a hotbed of federal prosecutions for “skimming”, in which a retail or se ...
  • Wireless Network Signals Produce See-Through Walls
    Researchers at the University of Utah have found a way to see through walls to detect movement inside a building. The surveillance technique is called variance-based radio tomographic imaging and works by visualizing variations in radio waves as they travel to nodes in a wireless network. A person ...
  • Google Pulls Pirate Bay From Search Results
    The homepage of Pirate Bay disappeared from Google’s search results Friday, after Google allegedly received a DMCA takedown notice targeting the site. The move is unexpected because, while the Pirate Bay is rife with pirated material, the site’s spare landing page contains no content to speak of ...
  • Lawmakers Cave to FBI in Patriot Act Debate
    Powerful Senate leaders on Thursday bowed to FBI concerns that adding privacy protections to an expiring provision of the Patriot Act could jeopardize “ongoing” terror investigations. The Patriot Act was adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, and greatly expanded the government’s pow ...

PERRspectives : Blog

  • Obama, Iran and the Echoes of the Cuban Missile Cr ...
    To be sure, the growing tensions - and stakes - over the Iranian nuclear program are different in kind and degree from the brinksmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis 47 years ago. But events of the past week have stirred...
  • "Going Rogue" by Sarah Palin, Editor's Cut
    Buoyed by bulk advance purchases by the right-wing faithful, Sarah Palin's upcoming book Going Rogue as expected catapulted to the top of the Amazon.com bestseller list. That Palin turned to ghostwriter Lynn Vincent, whose past conservatives screeds branded Democrats "treasonous"...
  • The Return of Iran/Contra
    As the United States begins multiparty talks with Iran over its nuclear program, many of the cast of characters from Tehran fiascos past are coming out of the woodwork to weigh in once again. Jimmy Carter advised President Obama that...
  • KrongardGate II
    Among the most comically disturbing moments in the ongoing national embarrassment surrounding the mercenary firm Blackwater was the November 2007 revelation that the brother of the State Department Inspector General overseeing the company was on its board. Now, Howard "Cookie"...
  • Still Another 10 Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extrem ...
    During the 2008 presidential campaign, I documented 10, then 10 more and yet another 10 moments in the extremism of Mike Huckabee. Now, fresh off his victory in the straw poll at the so-called Values Voters Summit, the one-time Baptist...

Blackspot News Feed

Consortium News

  • Democrats Ponder Health-Care Suicide
    If Democrats enact an industry-friendly health-care bill, they may touch off a voter rebellion, writes Robert Parry. October 4, 2009
  • WPost Pushes Confrontation with Iran
    The Washington Post's neocon editorial pages are at it again, showing tough-guy swagger toward Iran, says Melvin A. Goodman. October 3, 2009
  • Why Was the Berlin Wall Built?
    With the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's collapse looming, William Blum looks at little known reasons why it was built. October 3, 2009
  • Two Writers Depart a Stranger Land
    The deaths of screenwriting greats, Larry Gelbart and Budd Schulberg, remind Michael Winship of the power of words. October 3, 2009
  • WTimes, Bushes Hail Rev. Moon
    The Bush Family joined in a Washington Times celebration of South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon, reports Robert Parry. October 2, 2009

CounterPunch

Institute for Middle East Understanding

  • Clashes as Israel shuts off al-Aqsa (Al Jazeera)
    Israeli security forces have closed off the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jersualem as more than 200 Palestinians stage a sit-in at the site. Sporadic clashes broke out on Sunday as military and police checkpo ...
  • Sinking the Goldstone Report (James Gundun, The P ...
    They had no one else to turn to. Yesterday PLO Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Ibrahim Khraishi claimed 'we have enough votes' to pass Richard Goldstone's Gaza report in the UN Human Rights Council and presen ...
  • Israeli planes strike Gaza tunnels and building ( ...
    Israeli planes carried out strikes on tunnels used for smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt border and a building east of Gaza city on Saturday, causing damage but no casualties, security forces and the Israeli mi ...
  • Bereaved Gaza Strip families demand answers (Ma'a ...
    Families of Gaza war victims voiced their disappointment with the Palestinian request to postpone discussion of the Goldstone report at the UN Human Rights Council. "This is not a political issue," they said ...
  • US 'pressured Abbas on UN report' (Al Jazeera)
    Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) not to accept the findings of a UN report into Israel's war on Gaza because of fears it might scupper attempts to restart peac ...

Planetsave

  • 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 ...
  • Double Whammy of Pollution for Mississippi River i ...
    A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee samples river water for endocrine disrupting pollutants. Study results publicized this week suggest Twin Cities water resources and the Mississippi River downstream from the Cities are suffering from pollution by road salt and endocrine disrupting chemical ...
  • 14 Deer Die in One Night at Zoo under Mysterious C ...
    According to reports , 13 cheetal and one swamp deer died Friday evening under “mysterious circumstances” at the Kanpur Zoo.  Viscera samples and stomach content have been sent to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI). Results are expected sometime within the next two weeks.  The ...
  • The Greening of Paint
    Oregon this summer became the first state to enact in law a product stewardship law for the collection of leftover consumer paint.  The pilot program, which expires in 2014, involves a consumer fee that a nonprofit organization established by paint producers uses to pay for the collection and pro ...

Water Quality - WordPress

Public Citizen in Texas

  • San Antonio Anti-Nuclear Film Series
    Thursday, October 8th the Esperanza Peace & Justice center continues the Other and Out & Beyond film series with a day on nuclear energy and the devastating effects of uranium mining, nuclear waste and contamination. This event is Free and open to the public, though donations are appreciated. All fi ...
  • CPS has dropped the ball on alternatives to nuclea ...
    CPS has dropped the ball on alternatives to nuclear By Arjun Makhijani – Special to the San Antonio Express-News CPS Energy is asking its board and the San Antonio City Council for permission to sell $400 million of bonds to follow the $276 million CPS Energy has already spent to get an option to ...
  • King Williams Parade Pics 051 [Flickr]
    Public Citizen Texas posted a photo:
  • Climate-Change Bill: Is It Really Bad for Texas?
    Public Citizen hopes for climate change legislation that will direct us in becoming more energy efficient, less dependent on foreign oil, and better stewards of out state’s environment. As we await the outcome of the Waxman/Markey and Kerry/Boxer legislation in Congress, Governor Perry irresponsib ...
  • King Williams Parade Pics 062 [Flickr]
    Public Citizen Texas posted a photo:

Press TV

Axis of Logic

They Gave Us a Republic

  • Allan Abrams, 70
    The Sunday before I left for Netroots Nation, I took a couple of hours from my busy afternoon to meet my friend Allan for coffee in Brookside. I was busy but he was doing a fine stand-in for my Jewish Mother and he wasn't having it. "You want more convenience, I'll pick you up," was the bottom line. ...
  • Don't Go To Church? No Insurance For You!
    It's no secret to those of us who have experienced the phenomenon first-hand, but the truth is that church-going in this country is primarily a social, not a religious activity. Even the freakazoid churches recognize this, evidenced by the number that have turned themselves into giant socialist utop ...
  • Poll: Americans DON'T Want Bipartisanship
    Finally!  Somebody finally asked the question correctly. Steve Benen has it: There have been several national polls of late pointing, much to my chagrin, to strong public support for "bipartisan" health care reform. A New York Times/CBS News poll released in late September, for example, found that t ...
  • No Jobs, No Recovery - Let's Have a Real Stimulus
    Zandar brings us the bad news about the recession, which is getting worse, not better. From CalcRisk: Here is a graph with an estimate of the impact of the preliminary estimate of the annual benchmark revision. (ht John) Percent Job Losses During Recessions. Click here for larger image. The dashed l ...
  • The Repug Religion Has No Place in American Politi ...
    h/t Down with Tyranny. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times brilliantly analyzes the transformation of the republican party into a fanatic religious cult and how that has nearly destroyed American politics. Unfortunately, author Neal Gabler goes complete off the the rails at the end, inexplicably s ...

Care 2

  • The week in wildlife (16 pictures)
    From baby rhinos to shark sanctuaries, this week's best images from the natural world. Submitted by Cher C. to Animals  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • Join me on Everywun!
    Here's another site that caters to animals and you can even sign petitions!! Check it out!! Submitted by Barbcat Kay to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • Jacques Chirac banishes pet dog Sumo after latest ...
    In a dog-loving nation like France, every president knows the value of man's best friend. Francois Mitterrand prized his black labrador and Nicolas Sarkozy once had a chihuahua named Big. But for ex-presidential pets, life after the Elysée can be a bitch. Submitted by Cher C. to Animals  |   Note- ...
  • A Day of Beauty
    The Stella Center recently hosted an event of beauty, benevolence, and bliss – and donated every dime to help save lives! We can’t think of a better way to celebrate inner and outer beauty or to be thankful for the generosity of Submitted by Cher C. to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • Check Out the New Nike Vick Commercial – VIDEO
    None of us really know for sure what went on behind the scenes or what was really happening with Nike and Michael Vick a few days ago when his team said there was an endorsement deal. Was Nike feeling things out? Was Vick’s team playing their hand? Submitted by Cher C. to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  | ...

GreenBiz

  • Abbott Shifts to Green Power From Coal and Oil
    Fuel switching and a shift to renewable energy allowed health care company Abbott to cut its coal and oil consumption by 15 percent last year across its global operations, relative to 2006 levels.  When normalized against sales, which have grown since 2006, the decline in the company’s coal and o ...
  • EPA Calls for Chemical Law Reform, More Responsibi ...
    The EPA has released a set of principles that reflect changes the Obama Administration would like to see made to the country's chemical management law, including support for green chemistry efforts and requiring manufacturers to provide more detailed data on chemical hazards.
  • How to Design for a Post-Consumption Economy
    It's clear our consumption-centered lifestyle has challenged our planet's ability to support us. Our economy doesn't need to be focused solely on spurring consumption. Here's a guide on how to design for a post-consumption economy.
  • Smart Grid: Where Do We Grow From Here?
    While much progress has been made toward developing a smarter grid in the U.S., further strides must still be taken. Leaders from business, utilities and government recapped work so far and mapped out next steps at the GridWeek Conference.
  • Six Keys to Running an Efficient Green Business
    A new study from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change identifies the practices that separate the most efficient companies from the rest of the pack, and finds that firms are embracing energy efficiency as a core corporate strategy.

Reuters Global

  • Bishops see more selfish Europe 20 years after Ber ...
    Europe has become increasingly selfish and materialistic In the 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the heads of the Roman Catholic bishops' conferences across Europe said.
  • Ireland puts the EU show back on the road
    The EU show is back on the road. Sixteen months after Irish voters brought the European Union's tortured process of institutional reform to a juddering halt by voting "No" to the Lisbon treaty, the same electorate has turned out in larger numbers to say "Yes" by a two-thirds majority. This is an im ...
  • Western Afghanistan, a new worry ?
    Should the world begin worrying about western Afghanistan ? A spate of violent incidents have stoked concern about a spreading Taliban insurgency.
  • Irish fly from Brussels to push through EU treaty
    If the flight from Brussels to Dublin is an indication of how Irish people will vote in a referendum on the EU's Lisbon reform treaty, then the result will be an emphatic Yes.
  • Talk of Waziristan offensive picks up in Pakistan
    There is increasing talk in Pakistan that the army might be about to launch a major offensive into South Waziristan, stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan's Dawn newspaper says the army is preparing to launch "the mother of all battles" in the coming days.

Ezra Klein

  • Tab Dump
    1) An ActBlue employee explains the benefits of broad fund-raising. This is why my favorite campaign-finance reforms are those that match the donations of small donors. 2) The sad tale of Ted Williams' cryogenically-frozen head. 3) The gender wage gap, state-by-state. 4) The health-care debate in ...
  • Why Bipartisanship Always Comes Too Late
    Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told Time's Karen Tumulty that if he were still in the Senate, he'd vote for the health-care reform bill being passed out of the Finance Committee. "As leader, I would take heat for it." he said. "That's what leadership is all about." That puts Bi ...
  • Swiss Health-Care Costs
    The Swiss health-care system has the highest out-of-pocket payments of any OECD country, including the United States. They also spend a lot less than the United States. This, David Leonhardt argues , is no accident. "Because they feel the costs of their medical spending more than we do, they’re ...
  • Your Recession in Charts
    Catherine Rampell updates this bummer of a chart : The big surprise, at least to me, was that public-sector jobs experienced a sharp fall. They'd been doing pretty well throughout the recession. The culprits here are state and local governments , which are laying off workers because they're prett ...
  • Why Employers Like to Control Your Health Insuranc ...
    Matt Miller is confused : When the post-mortems on the health-care reform debate are written, the biggest mystery will be why big business fought so hard to stay in the health-care business even as soaring health costs surpassed corporate profits and diverted executive time better devoted to actual ...

Booman Tribune

  • Giants Win
    The New York Football Giants are now 4-0 and are only the tenth team to ever complete an undefeated three-game road trip in the NFL. I was worried for a while that Eli Manning injured his achilles' tendon, but it turns out that he's fine. Next week they will take on the totally hapless Oakland Rai ...
  • Casual Observation
    I am not surprised to learn that Evan Thomas is disappointed in Taylor Branch's new book: THE CLINTON TAPES: Wrestling History With the President. It doesn't have enough stuff on Clinton's sex life.
  • Casual Observation
    If you think trying to follow and understand the debate over health care reform is daunting, wait until we get to the Climate Change Bill. I don't have the first clue about the agricultural aspects of that legislation. I don't understand who the players are. I don't know who needs what in order t ...
  • Paying for Health Care
    The Democrats could pay for much of the health care bill by taxing people who make a million dollars a year in income. Or, they could pay for much of it by taxing so-called 'Cadillac' health care plans that cost way over the national average. Never mind that Cadillac's General Motors recently went ...
  • Serious Question
    Mark Halperin has a list of 13 things Obama must do before the end of the year. How many of them involve doing what the Republicans want him to do or involve getting Republicans to approve of what he is doing?

European Tribune

Futurismic

  • The Latest from Game-land
    Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously. [ Be sure to check out the Does Not Equal Cafepress store for webcomic merchandise featuring Canadians with geometrically-shaped heads! ] Project Wonderf ...
  • Climate change, ghost states and conceptual territ ...
    Warren Ellis flagged up a Guardian article about another of my perennial obsessions, the shaky future of nation-states. What happens to a nation-state when the territory it occupies disappears? Francois Gemenne, of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris, said ...
  • My secret identity is… Enzyme Man! [*catalyst ki ...
    Like science? Like manga? Two great flavours that (almost, kinda) taste great together… as evidenced by The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology. Seriously, go look; you won’t regret it. [via Pharyngula] Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00 My secret identity is… Enzym ...
  • Ebooks cost a lot of money to make; will no one ex ...
    Andrew Wheeler wants people to stop saying that ebooks don’t cost publishers lots of money to make: Creating an individual ebook format — one of the current suite of them — costs roughly as much as creating a print-on-paper edition; the costs of the actual paper and ink are vanishingly small i ...
  • NEW FICTION: FLUIDITY by Eric Del Carlo
    Xen recovered from his trauma. He could still feel the vertigo-rush of his plunge; and that first impact - the only jolt he had actually felt - was recorded as a permanent sense-memory. But he couldn't and didn't fault the revivificationists, nor the convalescence staff. His body was restored. Pr ...

Therapy News

  • Study Examines Reactions to Reports of Terrorism: ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary In the modern media environment, in which reports of terrorist attacks are more frequent than in earlier years, the way in which such information is presented and certain aspects of the information itself are bound to play important roles in how people react. Seeking t ...
  • Study Examines Role of Age, Past Behaviors in Suic ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Suicide is a tragic even that many mental health professionals have taken as central to their careers and fields of study. Hoping to decrease the rates of suicide throughout the population and to develop and distribute effective and meaningful care for those in pain, p ...
  • Research Reveals Heavy Concentration of General Pr ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline The fact that general practice physicians often prescribe anti-depression medication to their clients is well known, but the extent of the prescriptions, which account for over 50% of all prescriptions nationally, is not as renowned. Neither is the fact that general p ...
  • Conference Focuses on Psychiatric Abuse of Childre ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Rampant on the news both specific to the mental health community and delivered to the public at large, over-prescription of psychiatric medications has been developing as a major problem for several years. With scores of reports highlighting suspicious links between hi ...
  • Study Shows Group Therapy Can Help Violent Homeles ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Of the entirety of homeless people across the United States, upwards of thirty percent are veterans. Sometimes suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder and often grappling with alcohol or substance abuse, some homeless veterans find themselves leading violent liv ...

Mountaintop Removal

  • North American Gem Inc. Not Affected by Recent Env ...
    VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwire - 10/02/09) - North American Gem Inc. (TSX-V: NAG - News ) (NAG) would like to add clarification to the recent announcement made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on September 30th, 2009. The EPA's announcement targets the practice of "mountaintop removal" which ...
  • North American Gem Inc. Not Affected by Recent Env ...
    VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwire - October 2, 2009) - North American Gem Inc. ( TSX-V : NAG ) (NAG) would like to add clarification to the recent announcement made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on September 30th, 2009. The EPA's announcement targets the practice of "mountaintop removal" whi ...
  • Corrections: Oct. 2, 2009 (The Charleston Gazette)
    An Associated Press story in Thursdays Gazette incorrectly listed the people held in contempt of court in protest actions against Massey Energy mountaintop removal mines. Those covered by the contempt order were Antrim Caskey, Jordan Freeman, Madeline Gard...
  • Advocates Fight Mountaintop Removal (CommonDreams. ...
    by Matthew Cardinale ATLANTA, Georgia - Environmental groups across the southeast United States, from Georgia to the Appalachia region, are stepping up their opposition to a controversial but widespread practice by coal companies of removing the tops of mountains with explosives. read more
  • Mountaintop mining fight expands to W.Va. courts ( ...
    MORGANTOWN (AP) — The fight over mountaintop removal mining in southern West Virginia’s coalfields has expanded to a second front — the courtroom. Virginia-based Massey Energy has filed three laws...

Memeorandum

  • 'I take exception' to McCain's remark, Jones says ...
    Martina Stewart / CNN : ‘I take exception’ to McCain's remark, Jones says   —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - A top military adviser to President Barack Obama said Sunday that politics does not play any role in the advice he gives to the president.  —  Last week, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, the former ...
  • Army chief warns of 'terrifying prospect' of failu ...
    Sean Rayment / Telegraph : Army chief warns of ‘terrifying prospect’ of failure in Afghanistan   —  The head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, has issued a wake-up call to the public by warning of the “terrifying prospect” of a defeat in Afghanistan.  —  In an unprec ...
  • Socialism and Christian-Bashing Crash at Box Offic ...
    John Nolte / Big Hollywood : Socialism and Christian-Bashing Crash at Box Office   —  Tough times for leftie Hollywood.  Nothing's gone right this week.  None of this is their fault, of course.  In order to understand that it might not be a good idea to rally around a child rapist, bash rel ...
  • What I Saw at the Afghan Election (Peter W. Galbra ...
    Peter W. Galbraith / Washington Post : What I Saw at the Afghan Election   —  Before firing me last week from my post as his deputy special representative in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed one last instruction: Do not talk to the press.  In effect, I was being told to ...
  • Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb ( ...
    New York Times : Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb   —  Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.  —  The repor ...

Energy & Environment News

5+ quakes - 7 days

  • M 5.2, western Iran
    Sunday, October 4, 2009 21:50:50 UTC Monday, October 5, 2009 01:20:50 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  • M 6.6, Moro Gulf, Mindanao, Philippines
    Sunday, October 4, 2009 10:58:01 UTC Sunday, October 4, 2009 06:58:01 PM at epicenter Depth : 630.50 km (391.77 mi)
  • M 5.2, Samoa Islands region
    Saturday, October 3, 2009 07:16:59 UTC Saturday, October 3, 2009 08:16:59 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  • M 5.3, Tonga region
    Friday, October 2, 2009 22:38:44 UTC Saturday, October 3, 2009 11:38:44 AM at epicenter Depth : 44.30 km (27.53 mi)
  • M 5.1, Tonga region
    Friday, October 2, 2009 20:03:02 UTC Saturday, October 3, 2009 09:03:02 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)

China Dialogue

  • Slideshow: Times of crisis (1)
    The collapse of Lehman Brothers shook the world from Wall Street to Beijing. Maryann Bird introduces some images of China from a Reuters multimedia project charting 365 days of upheaval. The 10 photographs in the slideshow are Copyright 2009 Thomson Reuters and published by chinadialogue with the pe ...
  • A birthday wish list
    The 60-year history of the People’s Republic saw a move from an era of revolution to one of pragmatism. The country’s low-carbon future, writes Julian L Wong, requires both approaches. This week marks the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The first 30-year phase was one of re ...
  • River of discord
    Hydropower projects in China have created tensions along the Mekong. Rivers know no borders, writes Michael Richardson, but dams do. Back in 1986, when China began building the first of a series of dams on the Mekong River, hardly anyone in the downstream countries of south-east Asia paid attention. ...
  • Water tensions in central Asia
    A regional crisis created mainly by disastrous Soviet policies will only be exacerbated by the challenges of climate change, a Kyrgyz water expert tells Isabel Hilton. At first glance, China's neighbour Kyrgyzstan, with more than 40,000 rivers and streams, appears to enjoy abundant water supplies. B ...
  • Fighting pollution on the Pearl River
    A unique agreement in south China could have provided a model for cooperation between provinces, writes Reut Barak. But institutional issues have impeded joint action. China’s rapid economic growth has brought not only a rise in living standards, but also serious environmental pollution, which has ...

AlterNet Top Stories

Threat Level

  • Secure Flight Comes to Southwest Airlines, Six Yea ...
    Six years ago the federal government proposed taking over the job of comparing passenger names against the terrorist watch lists. Just this week, Southwest Airlines frequent fliers are being asked to update their profiles with name, gender and date of birth information in order to let the feds try ...
  • Credit Card Skimming Survey: What’s Your Magstri ...
    Ever wonder how much the data on the back of your credit card is worth to a corrupt food service worker? The answer, it turns out, depends on which restaurants you frequent in Florida. For some reason, the Sunshine State is a hotbed of federal prosecutions for “skimming”, in which a retail or se ...
  • Wireless Network Signals Produce See-Through Walls
    Researchers at the University of Utah have found a way to see through walls to detect movement inside a building. The surveillance technique is called variance-based radio tomographic imaging and works by visualizing variations in radio waves as they travel to nodes in a wireless network. A person ...
  • Google Pulls Pirate Bay From Search Results
    The homepage of Pirate Bay disappeared from Google’s search results Friday, after Google allegedly received a DMCA takedown notice targeting the site. The move is unexpected because, while the Pirate Bay is rife with pirated material, the site’s spare landing page contains no content to speak of ...
  • Lawmakers Cave to FBI in Patriot Act Debate
    Powerful Senate leaders on Thursday bowed to FBI concerns that adding privacy protections to an expiring provision of the Patriot Act could jeopardize “ongoing” terror investigations. The Patriot Act was adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, and greatly expanded the government’s pow ...

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

  • "Too big to fail" must end for all: FDIC chief
    ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said on Sunday that she wanted to end the "too big to fail" doctrine and shrink the shadow banking system that operates outside the reach of regulators.
  • Shocked U.S. Olympic delegate urges heads of state ...
    COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The Olympic fiasco arising from U.S. President Barack Obama's failed promotion of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Games should be avoided by keeping heads of state away from the process, a U.S. delegate said on Sunday.
  • 'Zombieland' top destination at box office
    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Woody Harrelson scored the biggest opening of his career at the North American box office, as "Zombieland" stormed theaters with weekend ticket sales of $25 million, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
  • Eight U.S. soldiers killed in east Afghan battle
    ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Afghanistan suffered their worst losses in more than a year when fighters stormed remote outposts near the Pakistan border, cutting off contact with police, authorities said on Sunday.
  • UPDATE 4-Olympics-Rio to host 2016 Games after lan ...
    COPENHAGEN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympics after the Brazilian city won a landslide victory over Madrid in the final round of voting on Friday.

Godspace

  • Are the Turbulent Times Already Here?
    Tom & I arrived in Sydney yesterday and are still fighting to get our clocks turned around.  The weather here is warm and balmy.  Quite a contrast to Seattle where it was heading towards winter temperatures and rain when we left on Tuesday.  The fact that it is now Friday is hard to believe.  Go ...
  • Turbulent Times: Ready or Not
    We leave this afternoon for Australia – the house sitter has moved in (well more of a dog sitter actually as Bonnie told us she does not like being alone) and are furiously working to get our contributions for the MSA Seed Sampler done – as well as working on powerpoint presentations for all ou ...
  • What Does it Take To Change a Bad Habit
    “Keep it simple, make it meaningful, stick to it”  That is some of the best advice that I have ever received on how to establish a new habit.  It came to mind as I read this article from Zen Habits Our daily lives are often a series of habits played out through the day, a trammeled [...]
  • Where is Christmas?
    I am sitting at our dining room table looking out on a beautiful September morning.  It is hard to believe that in a couple of days I will be in Australia – once more heading into spring rather than into autumn.  I will miss the glory of the fall leaves around the lake but I [...]
  • Wild Camano Forest Tour
    Tom & I have just returned from Camano Island where we participated in a botanical tour on the land where we hope to create a monastic eco village.  The tour was conducted by Bob Dietal rector at St Aidan’s Episcopal church in Stanwood.  Bob used to be a botanist and was amazingly knowledgea ...

Equality Trust

IntelNews

  • News you may have missed #0128
    US government appeals judge's order in Cuban Five spy case. Indian spies want access to missed calls. New book investigates Stasi's scientific espionage.
  • News you may have missed #0127
    Is China using Nepal as a base to spy on India? Italian lawyers seek jail for CIA agents. CIA director meets Pakistani spy chief.
  • News you may have missed #0126
    New Colombian spy agency forbidden from conducting wiretaps. Cyber spying increasing in the US, says new report. Analysis: The case for a US National Declassification Center.
  • Emirates authorities expel Lebanese who refuse to ...
    A story by Agence France Presse appears to corroborate allegations, reported on by intelNews on September 4, that United Arab Emirates authorities are systematically expelling from the country Lebanese Shiites who refuse to spy on Hezbollah.
  • News you may have missed #0125
    US officials deny deal with Russia on missile shield. US DHS is hiring cyber experts. MI6 is also hiring.

PsyBlog

  • 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 ...
  • Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read
    You shouldn't believe everything you read, yet according to a classic psychology study at first we can't help it. What is the mind's default position: are we naturally critical or naturally gullible? As a species do we have a tendency to behave like Agent Mulder from the X-Files who always wanted t ...
  • Sit Up Straight! Be Confident!
    · New study finds slouchers make less confident self-evaluations. At school all the cool kids were slouchers. No one wanted to be seen sitting up straight, paying attention or, heaven forbid making an effort to learn. It was only the geeks in the front row, hoovering up all that useless knowledg ...

After Downing Street.org

  • A Theme Song for Capitalism
    By David Swanson Michael Moore's movie motivated me to bring this out. Here's a theme song for Capitalism that I wrote at the time of Paulson's Plunder. Here it is sung by Timbrewolf: read more
  • Pro-single-payer doctors seek place at Monday meet ...
    Physicians supporting ‘Improved Medicare for All’ decry exclusionary list of doctors invited to White House, seek full hearing for single-payer plan WASHINGTON – Dr. Margaret Flowers and Dr. Paul Hochfeld, leading figures in the national movement for a single-payer health program, will lead ...
  • Dori Smith and David Swanson Audio Here
    read more
  • Un-Spinning the Spin: Progressives, We Are Mainstr ...
    Greener Times Maryrose Asher is a former Chair of the Green Party of Washington State and a tireless activist of many causes. The co-founder of the After Downing Street Coalition, David Swanson, has just written a book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, whi ...
  • 2009 Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking
    2009 Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with experts on issues of justice, nonviolence, sustainability, education, community building and more!!! Featuring: Rev. CT Vivian, lifelong civil rights activist Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence Mubar ...

Grist - News

Popular Bookmarks on Del.icio.us

Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

  • Asus rumored to sell cheaper ultra-thin laptop nex ...
    Apple’s MacBook Air will soon be challenged on its super-slimness, by Windows-powered computers from Asus, Acer and MSI that may lack Apple’s aluminum-cased pizazz, but will cost a lot less. Digitimes reports that Asus, maker of the low-cost Eee PC netbook, will begin selling two ultra-slim n ...
  • Birthday cannon
    Happy birthday, here's your cannon ... @ Dailymail Mike Daugherty asked his 11-year-old son Logan what he wanted for his birthday. The boy said, "I want a cannon." Dad didn't scoff at Logan's request by saying, "How about a hippopotamus instead," as a Christmas song from another era lamented. No ...
  • I-Swarm, real micro-sized robots!
    These tiny I-Swarm (Intelligent Small-World Autonomous Robots for Micro-manipulation) robots are incredibly neat! They move by using a piezoelectric transducer to vibrate across a surface in a manner similar to a bristlebot, only controllable. Because they are vibrating at audible frequencies, ...
  • Home-haircut indicator: In the footsteps of the un ...
    Filed under: Columns , Economic data , Recession , Comic Relief So, who out there cuts their own hair? I do, mainly because it is fading fast and it is a lot easier to have my wife take the clippers and then razor to my head rather than paying to go get my hair cut professionally. Now that I ...
  • Joe Jackson says ?someone should pay? for son Mich ...
    Joe Jackson: ‘Someone should pay’ for son’s death NEW YORK ? Michael Jackson’s father says he’d never heard of the drug propofol until it was implicated in his son’s death. “I’m not angry. I’m mad,” Joe Jackson said in an interview that aired Monday on NBC’s “Today” show. ...

Time - Top Stories

Washington Independent

  • Ingraham, Pence Mock America’s Olympic Loss
    A major theme of last night’s speeches at Americans for Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream Conference” was, ironically, out-and-out gloating about Chicago’s failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics. “R-I-O!” said conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham, speaking the a ballroom ...
  • Rand Paul Hauls $1.1m for Senate Race
    The son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) handily beat Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R) in the first quarter, raising $1.1 million to Grayson’s $600,000. As I noted when Paul first got into the race, his ability to raise a lot of money from a national base is going to muddle Republicans’ str ...
  • Gun Case Could Broaden Legal Basis for Wide Range ...
    A finding that the Second Amendment protects individuals’ right to own a gun could also provide more solid ground for recognition of the right to abortion, to sexual privacy, to gay marriage, and to a wide variety of other rights that conservative justices on the court and “originalist” Consti ...
  • The Campaign Against Kevin Jennings, Backfiring?
    Media Matters staff has been all over the manufactured scandal haunting Kevin Jennings, the U.S. Department of Education’s director of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools–a.k.a the “safe schools czar.” Jennings, who is gay, has been a target for months, but the very belated discovery ...
  • Pakistan Prepares To Invade Taliban/Al-Qaeda Stron ...
    This is a very big deal. The Obama administration has been pressing Pakistan to expand its military successes against the Taliban in the Swat Valley for months. Now, it’s about to go down. And look at what The New York Times credits as a major reason why: Now there is a sense within the military e ...

CowBoss' Brain Food

  • Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs
    Pigs were the champion garbage consumers in Cairo. Goats just don't seem up to the task. CAIRO — It is unlikely anyone has ever come to this city and commented on how clean the streets are. But this litter-strewn metropolis is now wrestling Submitted by cowboss for the Cows to Society & Culture   ...
  • Beware the dog, and cat, contracting horrific rabi ...
    If you've never seen old film clips of animals with rabies, you're really missing something. All that slobbering, slathering aggression and piteous disorientation is truly disturbing stuff. It's not that I want to subject you to a serious Submitted by cowboss for the Cows to Animals  |   Note-it! ...
  • Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Indus ...
    A mutant protein linked to major diseases has invaded the world’s dairy supply, including, most likely, the jug of milk in your fridge. The protein, called A1 beta-casein, is well known in the scientific community. While most dairy companies, trade Submitted by cowboss for the Cows to Health & Wel ...
  • Death on the wing
    DURING the Middle Ages, flea-infested rats spread bubonic plague across Europe. Seven centuries later, it's fruit bats that are being blamed for a 21st-century scourge. Queensland opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle reckons they are "flying petrie Submitted by cowboss for the Cows to Health & ...
  • Irish Call For Total EU Ban on Brazilian Beef
    The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has written to the EU Commission calling for an immediate and complete halt on Brazilian beef imports. According to Meatinfo.co.uk, IFA president Padriag Walshe wrote to EU Commissioner for Health & Consumer Pro Submitted by cowboss for the Cows to Business   ...

Suzie-Q

  • Hardin Prison: Becky Shay expresses concerns for h ...
    APF spokesperson holds emotional press conference; lawyer quits project Billings Gazette TOM LUTEY Of The Gazette Staff October 2, 2009 7:40 pm A sobbing spokeswoman for the secretive company occupying the Hardin jail welcomed an investigation by Montana’s attorney general Friday and expressed c ...
  • Who Decides About War? What About the People?
    John Nichols, The Nation, Oct 2, 2009 The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan has reached its “sell-by…” date. A majority of Americans now tell pollsters the mission was a mistake. Ninety-eight members of the House – including liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans – have cosponsored M ...
  • SNL: Obama’s Failures Since Taking Office- 1 ...
    SNL Vs. Obama: Sketch Details All The President’s Failures Since Taking Office (VIDEO) Huffington Post |  Alex Leo [...]
  • Irish ‘yes’ vote in referendum welcome ...
    Sat, Oct 03 2009 | Sofia Echo | Clive Leviev-Sawyer Irish voters have approved the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, in a repeat referendum on the issue, the Voice of America reported. Election officials announced on October 3 2009 that more than 67 per cent of voters supported the treaty in the re ...
  • Irish vote sends Tony Blair racing to EU presidenc ...
    Germany and France aim to be kingmakers as revitalised European Union prepares to give former PM Blair the top job Toby Helm The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009 European leaders led by Angela Merkel of Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy of France will act swiftly to make the EU’s reform charter a reality ...

Solari

  • From Mother Earth News
    I just love Mother Earth News. Their latest edition has an article “Five DIY, Low-Cost & Multipurpose Greenhouses.” I have been contemplating building a pre-fab greenhouse and am inspired to rethink my plan. Perhaps all the lumber and old windows and doors stacked up in my barn are a green house ...
  • Butternut Squash Gone Wild
    Last year, we planted butternut squash at the lower end of the garden. It started to migrate south. Then this summer we put up a fence to keep out the deer. The squash simply ignored the fence with new long plants sprouting up beyond the borders. Then suddenly last month, they shot into the compost ...
  • Delegates of the Southern States Resolution and Ap ...
    Friday, October 2, 2009 (NOTE: This Resolution and Appeal was adopted by the 2nd. Southern National Congress on 12 September 2009 while assembled upon Cheaha Mountain, Alabama) To the Sheriffs, Police Agencies, Adjutants General, Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers of the National Guard and State ...
  • What Americans Really Want
    Digging still deeper, my research suggests that we can dial back American anger if we begin to fix two complaints: the lack of accountability and the lack of respect in our dealings with each other. The core American complaint about politics is that wrongdoing isn’t punished, other than at the nex ...
  • KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers Offices Raided
    By Rowena Mason Police have raided the offices of KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Reykjavik, seizing documents and computer data as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity at three collapsed Icelandic banks. he targets of the raids were the firms’ banking clients Kaupthin ...

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

  • 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 »
  • A US Counteroffensive In Pakistan - International ...
    A US Counteroffensive In Pakistan International Analyst Network ... news service accusing Pakistan of refusing to join the US in eliminating one of the Afghan local parties – the Afghan Taliban – whom her own government ...
  • Somalia’s Al Shabaab Releases Extensive Training ...
    The Mujahideen Youth Movement, also known as al-Shabaab, released yesterday an extensive 48-and-a-half minute training video titled, “At Your Service, Osama.” It shows extensive footage from the Commander Abu Suleim Training Camp somewhere in Somalia — likely southern Somalia where the al Sh ...

AlterNet - DrugReporter

Twilight Earth

  • Photo Sunday – The Truth of Clarity as Darkness ...
    Life offers us many realizations in darkness, that may not be available to us during the light of day. Related posts: Global Warming – Somewhere between THE truth and YOUR truth, is Denial Photo Sunday – Brandywine Falls – Cuyahoga Valley National Park Photo Sunday – Great Falls National ...
  • Climate Change – How Can We Dance When the Beds ...
    A re-mix of the hit "Beds are Burning", with over 60 artists and celebrities, to reflect the greatest humanitarian crisis today - climate change. Related posts: White House: The Primary Cause of Climate Change is Carbon Dioxide Emissions White House Follow-up on Global Climate Change Impacts New 3 ...
  • Solar Decathlon on the Mall in Washington DC
    For three weeks in October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy will host the Solar Decathlon in Washington DC. Related posts: The BeauSoleil Solar Home: Self Sufficient Solar Decathlon Entry Solar Power from Outer Space: Microwaves and Frickin’ Lasers New Jersey to Double its Solar Power Genera ...
  • Childrens Health Month Tips – Protect Children f ...
    October is Children's Health Month and the EPA is providing parents simple tips they can use to help protect children. Related posts: EPA Seeks to Protect Children Through Airborne Lead Detection Standards Lets Make a Healthier World for Our Children Coal’s Health Costs In Appalachia Outweigh ...
  • Solar Decathlon on the Mall in Washington DC
    For three weeks in October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy will host the Solar Decathlon in Washington DC. Related posts: The BeauSoleil Solar Home: Self Sufficient Solar Decathlon Entry Solar Power from Outer Space: Microwaves and Frickin’ Lasers New Jersey to Double its Solar Power Genera ...

Inhabitat

  • 7 Cheap and Easy Ways to Spruce Up Your Shoes for ...
    Do your old shoes need a serious facelift? With fall starting, you may be tempted to toss your tired treads and splurge on some brand new ones – but wait! Before you go out and spend any money, check out our 7 simple and cost-effective ways to give your outdated pair a makeover that will [...]
  • Eco Clothing Origami Sculptures by Bela Borsodi
    Bela Borsodi proves that fashion is an art form by creating faces and animals out of clothing, origami-style. In his ‘Wild Life’ spread in Italian Vogue he brought creatures including a frog and a swan to life by masterfully fashioning them out of accessories. His expert flair for folding leaves ...
  • Solar Home Tour Sweeps United States TODAY!
    Imagine 3,000 communities and 10,000 volunteers across the country in a one-day celebration of solar power. That’s why we are reminding you that the American Solar Energy Society kicks off their 14th Annual National Solar Tour TODAY in collaboration with more than 240 local groups as part of Natio ...
  • Mikal Hameed Uses Trash to Make Music, Inspire Com ...
    While transforming reclaimed office chairs and stereo equipment into fully functional sound systems – the ideas behind Mikal Hameed’s work could address the disconnect that many feel towards the current Green Movement. As he considers himself only to be “green out of necessity,” Hameed recog ...
  • Eco Clothing Origami Sculptures by Bela Borsodi
    Bela Borsodi proves that fashion is an art form by creating faces and animals out of clothing, origami-style. In his ‘Wild Life’ spread in Italian Vogue he brought creatures including a frog, and a swan to life by masterfully fashioning them out of accessories. His expert flair for folding leave ...

Pogue's Posts

Open Your Eyes News

  • Thousands to march on Rome in protest at Berluscon ...
    The Times - Thousands of protesters are expected to march through Rome today to defend press freedom and demand answers from Silvio Berlusconi about his conduct. Dario Fo, the Nobel prize-winning playwright, and Roberto Saviano, the author of the Mafia exposé Gomorrah, will lead the demonstration, ...
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past
    Daily Telegraph - A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots. A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver Read Article
  • Anger at new hierarchy for universities and degree ...
    News.Scotsman.com - FUNDING for university subjects including teacher training, architecture and computing will be slashed by millions of pounds a year in Scotland if new proposals are adopted. The Scottish Funding Council (SFC), which allocates money to universities, has unveiled a scheme to overh ...
  • Australian van death security firm wins new contra ...
    ABC - A private company has won a new five-year contract to transport prisoners in Victoria, despite being implicated in the death of a man in custody early last year. A coroner found the private security company, G4S, contributed to the death of 46-year-old Ian Ward, who died of heat stroke durin ...
  • Playing god in the heavens
    The Times of India - As the Phase-I of the special cloud research programme in the country entered its final stage, scientists of the city-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) who are leading this project have claimed that, using the data collected in the first phase, a more scien ...

Monkey Smashes Heaven

  • Settler hypocrisy in Zimbabwe
    Settler hypocrisy in Zimbabwe (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)   In 2000, Mugabe’s regime removed roughly 4,000 colonial-era white farmers from their land and resettled the land with Africans. The land reform was meant to address injustices and poverty suffered by Africans at the hands of the ...
  • China stood up sixty years ago
    China stood up sixty years ago (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)   Sixty years ago, Mao announced the founding of People’s Republic of China, “China has stood up.” One billion people, a quarter of humanity at the time, walked down a new path.  Just as today, there are two roads to walk. O ...
  • Excerpt from Malcolm Caldwell on wealth and people ...
    Excerpt from Malcolm Caldwell on wealth and people’s war  (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Malcolm Caldwell is most known for his mysterious death in 1978 while in the care of the Pol Pot regime. He was one of the few Westerners granted access to Democratic Kampuchea. Caldwell was even grante ...
  • Real versus Fake Universal Health Care for Women
      Real versus Fake Universal Health Care for Women   (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)   The debate over “universal healthcare” dominates the political landscape in the US. Obama’s administration and the Democratic Party have committed themselves to healthcare reform. This ...
  • RAIM: Harvest Season Means Forced Labor for Uzbek ...
    Harvest Season Means Forced Labor for Uzbek Children (http://raimd.wordpress.com) Every September, hundreds of thousands of Uzbek children begin two months of forced labor in the country’s cotton fields. Receiving almost nothing in wages and acting in accordance with state mandate, schools are cl ...

PakAlert

  • Video: Phase 3 (pt. 2) – Religious Symbolism
    Imran Hosein is a “scholar of rare philosophical erudition, originality and creative vigor”. In regards to the subject of the “antichrist/dajjal”, the signs of the end times, and the analysis of our modern age, Imran hosein’s writing and lectures rank amongst the most reputable and respect ...
  • Economic Recovery – A Cruel Deception
    By Devvy Exclusively for The US ~ Observer September 4, 2009 “The New Deal will bring the Communist Party within striking distance of overthrow of the American form of government. …” Arthur Henning, Chicago Tribune (1935), “… The New Deal is to America what the early phase of Nazism was to ...
  • Obama Losing To China & Russia In Afghanistan
    AS OBAMA PREPARES TO INCREASE US TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN, both Russia and China have been making strategic inroads into the war-torn country. Although the Jewish-occupied media, such as the Wall Street Journal, reported on September 21, 2009, that Obama “questions the Pentagon’s plan to add forc ...
  • Thoughts On Religion & Love
    by Henry Makow Ph.D. “Know them by their fruits,” Jesus said. I’m not interested in the dogma. I judge a “faith” by the people  who espouse it. Are they good, industrious and honest? Are they happy and generous? Do they have strong marriages and families? Do they care about others? Are ...
  • Video: Countdown to war with Iran?
    As mutual fear, mistrust and polarisation increases between Iran and Israel, an arms race between the two sworn enemies is gathering momentum. Central to this is the Russian-made S-300 missile system. Israel and Iran both are involved in arms deals with Russia, trying to win the arms race. Also ...

ecogeek

  • IBM Sponsoring 500 Mile EV Battery Project
    In the last few years, electric vehicles have gone from a dream to the next logical step for vehicles. Of course, the future of EVs is still being debated, but IBM is using its cash and influence to push for an electric vehicle battery that can carry a car 500 miles without recharging. 500 miles is ...
  • France Building EV Charging Network
    France is going after one of the key obstacles to getting electric cars on the road:  the need for a charging infrastructure.  The country is changing all that by spending $2.2 billion to build a network of charging stations. Taxpayer money will go to fund the project that will install the initia ...
  • World's Largest Wind Farm Completed in Texas
    It's official.  Texas is now home to the world's largest wind farm.  The 781.5 MW Roscoe wind complex has been completed and went live last night at 9:00 p.m. Built by E.ON Climate & Renewables , the $1 billion farm covers 100,000 acres of land across four counties in West Texas and will be able ...
  • Cleantech Now Tops Venture Investing
    A new report from the Cleantech Group has some reassuring news.  Investments in cleantech startups have gone back up and cleantech is now the largest venture capital investment category! Investments in the sector in North America, Europe, Israel, China and India totaled $1.59 billion across 134 de ...
  • EPA Will Regulate GHG Emissions
    As has been assumed for months , the EPA announced it will move forward with plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but it will keep its focus on large emitters -- those that produce 25,000 tons or more of CO2 a year, like power plants and industrial facilities.  Those large emitters account ...

Times Online - Science

  • Baby mammoth yields secrets after 40,000 years in ...
    A baby woolly mammoth that died after being sucked into a muddy river bed 40,000 years ago has revealed more prehistoric secrets of how the species survived in its icy habitat.
  • School lab health and safety rules 'could stop fut ...
    It is a scientific fact, tested and proven by generations of pupils, that experiments in school laboratories win young people to the cause of science. White coats, goggles and the chance to set fire to things foster a passion for chemistry that even years of examinations do not extinguish.
  • 'To ensure good results, you don't need to do prac ...
    Exams that require no practical work and concerns over health and safety have dampened the spirit of experimentation in the school science laboratory, teachers told The Times. “To ensure people get good results you don’t need to do practicals,” said a recently qualified teacher, 24, who works ...
  • South Pole Telescope emerges from dark winter with ...
    The South Pole Telescope emerges from a six-month winter of perpetual darkness having discovered clusters of previously unseen galaxies.
  • HIV vaccine possibility after scientists rebuild c ...
    A critical camouflage mechanism that allows HIV to hide from the body’s defences and foil immunisations has been rebuilt in the laboratory in research that could transform the prospects for an effective Aids vaccine, The Times has learnt.

Environment _ National Geographic

  • France-Size Shark Sanctuary Created -- A First
    The tiny island country of Palau has set aside a vast haven for sharks, which are plummeting due to rising demand for shark-fin soup.
  • New Species: Fanged Frog, More Found in Mekong
    New species discovered along Asia's Mekong River in 2008—including a leopard gecko and a fanged frog that eats birds—are already under serious threat because of climate change, WWF says. Video.
  • NEW SPECIES PHOTOS: Fanged Frog, Leopard Gecko, Mo ...
    A frog that eats birds and a catlike lizard are some of the 163 surprising new species discovered last year in the jungles of Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region, WWF reports.
  • Tsunami Warning Signs, Facts in Wake of Samoa Quak ...
    In light of Tuesday's Samoan islands tsunami, find out how tsunamis are caused, what the warning signs are, and how to respond.
  • VIDEO: Samoa Tsunami Flattens Villages
    Tsunami waves, sparked by a powerful underwater earthquake, swept away people and cars and flattened villages in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga in the South Pacific on Tuesday—as seen in amateur video.

    IPS - Inter Press Services

  • DEVELOPMENT: Plenty On the Plate - Part 2
    ROME, Oct 4 (IPS) - "From a current 6.5 billion population, a billion don't get enough to eat right now. Extrapolate that to 2020, and you begin to recognise why this is not just a moral problem, it is a national security problem that has much more to do with civil strife, warfare, terrorism, ...
  • ENVIRONMENT: Nations Urged to Share Low Carbon D ...
    BANGKOK, Oct 4 (IPS) - Following a strict global carbon budget is the only way to ride out climate change — and this is as much the responsibility of developing countries as it is of developed ones.
  • DEVELOPMENT: Rome, Food Capital of the World - Pa ...
    ROME, Oct 3 (IPS) - It was once true that all roads led to this ancient capital. Today it is the furrows of maize, wheat and rice fields that take you to Rome, where the biggest global food organisations are headquartered, and the World Summit on Food Security (Nov. 16-18) is being organised.
  • MEXICO: Underwater Museum to Protect Coral Reefs
    MEXICO CITY, Oct 3 (IPS/IFEJ) - Four sculptures in human forms, made of concrete, will be submerged in November in the Mexican Caribbean - the first of 400 figures that will comprise the world's largest underwater museum.
  • RIGHTS-JAPAN: Get Cracking on Gender Equality
    TOKYO, Oct 3 (IPS) - Japan's new female justice minister has promised to get serious about gender equality.

Scoop - NZ

  • 2016 Olympics: Rio ! Samba ! Rio ! Ipanema ! Rio !
    Like sweet, sultry samba music, Rio hit all the right notes. Chicago had Barack Obama. Tokyo had $4 billion in the bank. Madrid had powerful friends. But none of that mattered. Rio de Janeiro had the enchanting story - of about 400 million sports-mad people on a giant untapped and vibrant continent ...
  • Israel: harder to make friends in Europe
    The relationship between Israel and the European Union is increasingly under strain from the Gaza offensive and Israel's refusal to freeze the construction of settlements on the occupied West Bank.The European Union once again wants to play a prominent role in the Middle East peace process, Spanish ...
  • Afghanistan needs timetable for withdrawal, says U ...
    Paul Pillar knows what he is talking about. He worked for the CIA for almost 30 years and he was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia during the invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). At the time he defended both wars, but it is his support for the invasion of ...
  • Komodo dragon had Australian origins
    A team of scientists has overturned the theory that the world's largest lizard evolved on the islands of Indonesia.Weighing around 70 kilograms and growing up to three metres long, the Komodo dragon is regarded as the world's largest lizard.But the discovery of an array of fossilised bones at three ...
  • Wgtn Surfer Rides Tsunami to Survival
    A NEW Zealand man forced to ride out the Samoan tsunami on his surfboard thought he would be "smashed into the jungle" by the surging water.Hospitality student Chris Nel, from Wellington, was on holiday on the south coast of Savai'i, Western Samoa, when the 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck on Wednesd ...

Independent ( London )

  • Alive after 60 hours under the rubble
    As Samoans struggled to come to terms with the deaths of loved ones during a national prayer service for tsunami victims yesterday, rescuers in Indonesia battled torrential rain to uncover the remains of those still trapped, four days after Sumatra's disastrous earthquake.
  • Inspectors set to visit Iranian nuclear site
    The head of the UN nuclear watchdog has said there is a "shifting of gears" in Iran's confrontation with the West to more cooperation and transparency. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, also announced that inspectors would visit Tehran's uranium enrichment site ...
  • Shamed Japanese ex-minister found dead
    Japan's former finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa, who was ridiculed across the world earlier this year when he appeared drunk and incoherent at a G7 meeting, has been found dead in his Tokyo home.
  • Mary Dejevsky: Rail chaos puts the brakes on Berli ...
    It's a good thing for Berliners that the mid-autumn weather has been mostly clement. Cyclists and walkers have taken to the streets and pavements in their thousands, but not entirely for pleasure. An especially crowded route has been the half-mile or so between Tiergarten and Zoological Gardens stat ...
  • China's premier visits North Korea
    China's Premier Wen Jiabao met the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il yesterday amid signs that North Korea may be willing to restart talks over its nuclear weapons programmes.

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

  • Real Progress With Iran
    Summary: The Geneva nuclear talks were just baby steps along a long and perilous path. Still, this was a historic moment after 30 years of mutual recriminations and hyperbole. source: The daily Beast read more
  • US sees signs Iran is moving in right direction
    Summary: WASHINGTON — The U.S. is pleased by some positive signs of cooperation from Iran about its nuclear program. source: AP read more
  • ‘Language of force is not helpful on Iran issueâ ...
    Summary: As Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei is the world’s top nuclear policeman as well as its most valuable diplomatic asset in the struggle for disarmament and nonproliferation. A voice of sanity in a field otherwise dominated by irrational and ...
  • The hawks are circling
    Summary: Galloway Talk about Iran's nuclear weapons sounds eerily familiar. It's time to end the Bush-era bellicosity source: The Guardian read more
  • Iran: Talking is the only option
    Summary: No sane person should wish for the talks that started yesterday at a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva to fail. The half-hour meeting between William Burns, the US delegate, and his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, was the first official encounter the two nations have had in over 30 ...

The Daily Galaxy

  • Is Dark Energy Creating Infinite Universes?
    Dark energy is the deus ex machina of cosmology, able to save even the most inflation-prone calculations from destruction or - worse - being provably wrong. But while we've been busy watching the X-energy apparently accelerating all of creation while...
  • Rocky Planet Discovery: NASA/Harvard Teams Say "F ...
    "It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars." David Latham -Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics To date, Planet hunters have spotted more than 300 planets beyond our solar...
  • "Mastering the World's Most Difficult Language in ...
    A Daily Galaxy post last year, The Importance of Being Forgetful, featured the built-in neural process of forgetting, which discussed why the average human brain is equipped with the ability to filter through seemingly irrelevant details. While the average person...
  • Cosmic Rays from Cores of Nearby Galaxies Surge to ...
    If you're planning a Deep Space Nine voyage to the Gamma Quadrant, make sure you bring a good supply of cosmic ray screen, with say a nice #1000 block. According to sensors on NASA's ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) spacecraft, galactic...
  • Space Colonization: Future or Fanatsy?
    Humans have always been fascinated by the idea of space travel. Some even believe that colonizing new planets or moons our best hope for the future. The popular idea is that we’ll eventually need some fresh, unexploited new worlds to...

Natural News

  • Essential Oils in Common Spices Kill Sickness-Caus ...
    (NaturalNews) When people talk about getting "food poisoning", they usually mean they became ill because of bacteria that contaminated something they ate. Some who comes down with this kind of foodborne disease simply has an upset stomach. But in far too many cases serious health problems and even d ...
  • Interview with Elissa Ladd, creator of documentari ...
    (NaturalNews) Mike Adams interviews Elissa Ladd, PhD, RN, FNP, the Assistant Professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions. She was awarded grant money from a Pfizer drug marketing settlement and used it to make a documentary showing how drug companies use misleading tactics to market drugs f ...
  • Anti-Inflammatory Painkillers Actually Worsen Deme ...
    (NaturalNews) Rather than reducing the risk of dementia as some researchers have suggested, regular use of anti-inflammatory drugs actually appears to worsen a person's risk of cognitive decline, according to a study conducted by researchers from the HMO Group Health Center for Health Studies and pu ...
  • Trace mineral selenium helps prevent cancer
    (NaturalNews) The CSPI is reportedly suing Bayer over the company's claims that the selenium in its "One-A-Day" multivitamin formula helps prevent prostate cancer (http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5905I320091001). It's rare to see NaturalNews actually siding with Bayer on anything, b ...
  • Traditional Plant Medicine Could Cure H1N1 Flu Vir ...
    (NaturalNews) The government's pro-vaccine push and the mainstream media's near hysteria over the increased number of H1N1 (swine flu) cases can leave some people feeling almost helpless. After all, there are reports that anti-virus drugs like Tamiflu don't always work (and are known to have horrend ...

    TheGallopingBeaver

  • Yo! Support bro's!
    . In comments yesterday back here Fern Hill had an excellent idea. Ok, guys, here's your chance. Go! .
  • Unintended Consequences
    THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT has a report by Daphne Eviatar on a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court over the right to own firearms. What's important is the way this has been framed up, the 14th Amendment is also involved, and as a result, other rights and freedoms could also be potentia ...
  • A big, big boost for nano-tech
    ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR , David Grier, a scientist at New York University, has developed a laser technology called holographic video microscopy . Jesse Emspak's article calls it " NYU’s real-life tricorder "  Why should you care? Well, it appears Dave's little invention is the ...
  • At The Going Down Of The Sun....
    With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Private Patrick Lormand, 2nd Battalion, Royal 22e Régiment. Killed due to enemy action. Je me souviens
  • The More Things Change . . . .
    Since there is not a whole lot of current television programming that is worth the time to watch, recently I've been checking out DVDs from the local Vancouver Public Library. Yes, one of those "Socialist" organizations - Horrors! At any rate, this week I've been re-viewing Series #1 of "The Wes ...

Media Matters for America

  • Wash. Times continues to smear Jennings ...
    In an October 4 editorial, The Washington Times advanced the discredited falsehood that Department of Education official Kevin Jennings "violated Massachusetts law" over 20 years ago by "covering up" the "sexual abuse" of one of his students and also advanced the manufactured link between Jenni ...
  • Rooting against America: Beck, other conservativ ...
    Conservative media figures have celebrated the International Olympic Committee's elimination of Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics and used the event to bash President Obama, who flew to Copenhagen to lobby IOC members on behalf of Chicago's bid. For instance, Glenn Beck called the ...
  • The smear campaign continues: Fox Nation, Was ...
    The Fox Nation and The Washington Examiner linked Department of Education official Kevin Jennings to the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) based on a 1997 speech in which Jennings praised gay rights activist Harry Hay, who had spoken in support of the organization. But like many o ...
  • Hannity opens mouth, falsehoods about "czars" spi ...
    Continuing Fox News' witch hunt against Obama administration officials the news network has labeled "czars," Sean Hannity advanced a laundry list of false, baseless, or misleading claims about Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, White House science adviser John Holdren, State Depar ...
  • Fox News attack machine smears Chicago as a viole ...
    Led by Fox News, the conservative media have opened a new front from which to attack President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama's support of Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics: smearing the city as unfit to host the Olympic Games, often by citing individual instances of violen ...

Global Research.ca

TPM Cafe

  • FDR and Marcy Kaptur Star in Michael Moore's Terif ...
    I saw "Capitalism: A Love Story" today and, like all Moore films, I enjoyed it immensely. Moores views capitalism as the root of all evil. We've heard and read it all before but who, other than Moore, can turn that... Sponsored Topics: Love Story - MichaelMoore - Capitalism - Barack Obama - Mar ...
  • The Outlines Of The Mentor State
    In my last post, I told the story of taking my old BMW to Dave Marshall's garage in New London, New Hampshire; of the novel opportunities for entrepreneurial growth the new technologies have bestowed on him. I suggested the ways... Sponsored Topics: Business - Dave Marshall - New London - BMW - ...
  • In the Long Run We Are All Dead, In the Short Run ...
    Hate to say it, but it's all your fault. America is ungovernable because we are a nation of pinheads. It's not just the Loons of the Right. It's the Obamaniacs and the NutRoots too. The sad reality is that to... Sponsored Topics: White House - United States - Economic - Senate Finance Committee ...
  • The United States Forces Palestinians To Kill Gold ...
    Have all the neocons really left the building? Apparently not. This week the United States (loathe to pressure Israel on anything) used its pressure on the Palestinian Authority to get the Palestinians to request the UN to defer consideration of... Sponsored Topics: Israel - United States - Pal ...
  • Addendum: The Job Numbers for September
    This morning's job numbers are bad enough -- 263,000 more jobs lost in September, and unemployment now at 9.8 percent -- but look behind them and the news is even grimmer. The only reason the numbers don't look worse is... Sponsored Topics: Unemployment - Employment - United States - Business an ...

TruthOut

  • "So Let Us Begin Again"
    (Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t) read more
  • Martin Luther King Would Have Loved the Teabaggers ...
        A few weeks ago, I attended the teabagger protests in DC. The thing I noticed the most about the folks there was that, for the most part, they were friendly, nice, hardworking people. Sure, there were some crazies; sure, there were some racists. For the most part, though, they looked like the ty ...
  • Sakena Yacoobi’s Vision for Afghanistan
         For over a decade, Sakena Yacoobi has worked for the welfare of her nation, particularly the girls and women of Afghanistan. The West can help with infrastructure, she says. But solutions for a better future must be forged with respect to a culture that is thousands of years old.     Sakena Ya ...
  • US-Iran: Geneva Talks Seen as Potential Breakthrou ...
        Washington - While experts here are being deliberately tentative in their assessments of Thursday's meeting in Geneva between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. read more
  • Marching Round the World for Peace
        Madrid - Activists from many nations will set out from New Zealand Saturday on a march for peace and non-violence that will cover more than 90 countries on five continents, winding up on Jan. read more

The Heathlander

  • The ‘Spirit of the IDF’
    Good to see the Israeli military is taking the recommendations of the Goldstone report on board: ‘The Israel Defense Forces should adopt a “Code of Ethics for the War on Terror,” because its existing ethical code is insufficient, according to Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the head of Military Intelli ...
  • Docs to watch
    First up, American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein: There’s a good review in the Daily Star, which begins: ‘A dissenting voice is a peculiar thing. For those with a stake in a political status quo, the more contentious the issue, the more the dissident must be silenced. How this is do ...
  • Goldstone’s report on the Gaza massacre
    Reading through the Goldstone report [.pdf], one theme becomes immediately apparent: the deliberateness of the destruction in Gaza. The authors keep returning to this point throughout the text, in a direct rebuke to those liberal apologists for Israel who insist, contrary to all the evidence, that w ...
  • The “British method”
    Following a political campaign by the BNP, a Muslim man was abducted from his home in Essex and threatened at knifepoint to stop organising weekly prayer sessions at the community centre. Asked to response, local BNP councillor Pat Richardson denied the BNP was behind the attack, explaining: “Fire ...
  • ‘Israel’s Terror Inside’
    Latest mini-doc from Max Blumenthal, via lenin: As Noam Chomsky has observed, and as this video makes clear, ‘those who call themselves “supporters of Israel” are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction’. Posted in Israeli / Palestinian, Videos ...

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 drilling”–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

Grassroots

  • Honduras: 19 Days of Democracy
    der-protestas--13979.jpg The standoff in Honduras is reaching a critical point. The coup government, led by Roberto Michelleti Bain, has suspended five constitutional rights for 45 days. According to the Executive Decree, it is prohibited to a ...
  • Farmers are central to the success of any African ...
    Mamadou Goita, the Executive Director of the Institute for Research and the Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD) in Mali, was interviewed at the Salzburg Global Seminar by Susanna Thorpe, of WREN Media. IRPAD is a Grassroots International ally that works closely with our partner, the Via ...
  • Amigo, Can You Spare a BTU?
    Subheadline:  Mexican Peasants Pay the Price for U.S. Energy Consumption Outside Author Bio:  Daniel Moss is a Grassroots International consultant who spent a year living and working in Oaxaca ...
  • Calling President Obama
    DSC09338.JPG   With the dramatic return of President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras, the hemisphere is hoping for a solution to the political crisis that has lingered for 87 days. Still, President Obama has not taken a strong enough position on thi ...
  • Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission ...
      Last week, Justice Richard Goldstone of the United Nations Human Rights Council's Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and his colleagues relesaed their report  on Israel's war on Gaza during December 2008-January 2009. Justice Goldstone is a former judge of South Africa's Constitutional Cour ...

Climate

  • October 3-4, 2009
    Only 10 Days Left For Climate Deal, U.N.'S Ban Says (Reuters) UN head Ban Ki-moon warned on Saturday that negotiators had just 10 negotiating days left to secure a global climate deal and governments must not be hindered by domestic troubles. Obama Pressured to Return to Copenhagen for Climate ...
  • October 2, 2009
    Sen. Boxer: 70% of Allowances to Ease Energy Costs (Washington Post) Senate Democrats will initially devote 70% of the pollution allowances in their new climate bill to making it easier for people to pay their energy bills, Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer says in an i ...
  • October 1, 2009
    Obama Says He’s Deeply Committed to Passing Climate Bill (Reuters) President Barack Obama welcomed a Senate bill to cut carbon emissions and said he was "deeply committed" to getting it passed, even as the White House played down chances that it would happen this year. Climate Talks Opening U ...
  • September 30, 2009
    Sens. Boxer, Kerry to Unveil Climate Bill Draft Today (Tribune) The Senate's Environment Committee is set to take up an energy and climate-change bill that features a 20% cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a target stricter than the House-passed legislation. EU Targets Carbon Tradi ...
  • September 29, 2009
    Copenhagen Draft Loaded with Brackets for Negotiation (Financial Times) With the Copenhagen climate talks in December now just 69 days away (and counting), the latest version of the negotiating text being thrashed out by officials in Bangkok this week gives a vivid sense of just how far there is ...

TomDispatch

  • Tomgram: Matt Bivens, Pox Americana
    With up to 61% of Americans, according to a recent poll, convinced that things are going badly indeed in Afghanistan and an official 9.8% of Americans unemployed, Congress is set to respond. This week, it's slated to pass a $636 billion appropriations bill for the Pentagon that will include anoth ...
  • Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan's Ultimate O ...
    Back before email, a world traveler who wanted to keep in touch and couldn't just pop into the nearest Internet café, might drop you a series of postcards from one exotic locale after another. Pepe Escobar, that edgy, peripatetic globe-trotting reporter for one of my favorite on-line publication ...
  • Tomgram: John Feffer, Will NATO's 60th Anniversar ...
    If you think the Afghan War is increasingly unpopular in the United States, try Europe. A recent German Marshall Fund poll offered these figures on the question of the "share of population who want to reduce or withdraw troops" from that country: Romania, 71%; Poland, 68%; United Kingdom, 60%; G ...
  • Tomgram: Arundhati Roy, Is Democracy Melting?
    So you, as a citizen, want to run for a seat in the House of Representatives? Well, you may be too late. Back in 1990, according to OpenSecrets.org , a website of the Center for Responsive Politics, the average cost of a winning campaign for the House was $407,556. Pocket change for your averag ...
  • Tomgram: A Military That Wants Its Way
    How to Trap a President in a Losing War Petraeus, McChrystal, and the Surgettes By Tom Engelhardt Front and center in the debate over the Afghan War these days are General Stanley "Stan" McChrystal, Afghan war commander, whose "classified, pre-decisional" and devastating report -- almost eight y ...

Smirking Chimp

  • Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?
    "The facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction . . . These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." - Washington's official justification for ...
  • A Tale of Two Bankers
    Yesterday Ken Lewis announced he was stepping down as Bank of America's CEO. Let me be the first to say, "good riddance." As a San Francisco native the Bank of America has been in my life and my family's life for a century. My Italian immigrant grandparent's grub stake in the American Dream came in ...
  • Obama Will Also Lose the Afghani Olympics
    The stunning rejection of Barack Obama's play for the Chicago Olympics had better teach him a good lesson about escalating in Afghanistan. Ignoring fierce grassroots resistance in Chicago itself, the Obamas flew to Copenhagen to "persuade" the International Olympic Committee to give the games to the ...
  • Olympian partisans: Some Republicans cheer bad new ...
    To understand why Republicans keep losing elections, don't miss the post by Republican pundit Cheri Jacobus that seems almost gleeful, cheerful and ecstatic that America lost our Olympic bid . Jacobus is bidding for a prime leadership role in the "hope America fails" faction of the GOP. Her near-ecs ...
  • Who SHOULD Decide About War?
    Remarks at http://whodecidesaboutwar.org conference. Who actually does: the media, weapons companies, the permanent government, presidents (including simply by decreeing a "war on terror", through misspending, lying, simply acting, signing treaties), political parties, culture (the one Biden lives i ...

Ten Percent

  • Last Surviving Leader Of The Warsaw Ghetto Uprisin ...
    Tributes have flowed for Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw Jewish Ghetto uprising, who died on Friday aged 87. The revolt broke out in protest at the mass transportation by the Nazis of Jews from the ghetto to concentration camps. With about 60,000 people still in the ghe ...
  • Back In The Old Country
    What an icy wave of spiteful nostalgia this Cameron interview is, impeccable fundamentalist neoliberalism (Thatcherism is you wish), refusing to answer how wealthy he really is, which is really admirable, being a shifty lying creep even before you are elected shows confidence. And seriously it is no ...
  • Anne Frank Gets On YouTube
    The Anne Frank House Wednesday released the only existing film images of Frank, showing the young Jewish girl, whose famous diary detailed her family’s two torturous years spent in hiding from the Nazis, in a more carefree time as she watches a bride and groom from her apartment balcony in Amster ...
  • Friday! Just A Gigolo, Ain’t Got Nobody
    David Lee Roth… Music starts at about 1.35 but the look to camera at 1.05 is worth the price of admission alone. And Louis Prima too, why not And remember, if you have to ask how much, you can’t afford me!
  • IMF & That Whole ‘Democracy’ Sham
    Neoliberal enforcers mutter how it would be shame if there was a fire round ‘ere, course if you reform like we say, that fire, might never ‘appen eh? And er, y’know we can all be sitting pretty, just stop getting in the way of profit, gives the others silly ideas like. And we wouldn’t want [ ...

Paul Krugman

No Quarter

  • IOC Sparks SNL to Laugh at Obama
    Looks like the worm has turned thanks to the International Olympic Committee’s humiliation of the Barack and Michelle Chicago Olympic Show in Copenhagen on Friday inspired the crew at Saturday Night Live to pile on. SNL coins a new term–Barack “Jack Squat” Obama: Too bad SNL left off the m ...
  • Is Wall Street on the Up and Up?
    The core of that question resides within the regulatory oversight of our financial industry. The American public is beginning to learn a lot about this financial regulatory oversight. How so? A month ago, SEC Inspector General David Kotz released a report, Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Unc ...
  • Olympic Bid Dud
    I know, I’m a little late to the party writing about Rio winning the 2016 Olympics, but it isn’t for lack of interest. Not at all - rather, I have been amused by some stories I have seen on the IOC decision. To say it took some people by surprise (that is, the [...]
  • Girl to the Rescue
    Rukhsana Kausar, 21, was with her parents and brother in Jammu and Kashmir [India] when three gunmen, believed to be Pakistani militants, forced their way in and demanded food and beds for the night. Militants often demand food and lodging in nearby villages. When they forced their way into Miss K ...
  • Very Difficult Time In The Asia Pacific
    This week. We have a tsunami in American Samoa and Samoa, with a typhoon hitting the Philippines. Add to that an earthquake, a MAJOR earthquake, in Indonesia. Sadly, many lives have been lost as a result of these natural occurrences. Here is a good recap of what has happened during the past week ...

Environmental Graffiti

Foreign Policy in Focus

Global Elite

Al Jazeera

Green Inc. - NYT

Dot Earth News

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

  • 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 ...
  • Believe it or not, the flu will always be with us
    I am sort of amazed by the establishment view that's crystallized around this. Everyone is supposed to cut corners to whip out various runs of vaccines. It's amazing how quickly people forget that influenza has always been with us - a more holistic view is that it basically co-evolves with humans i ...
  • Video with Peter Schiff: A black hole called Feder ...
    I got a kick out of this video and the funny animations. It's all about the mysterious black hole called the Federal Reserve System. Gotta love it! Just posted yesterday: Additionally, the landscape of ruined houses in the first couple shots caught my notice. I'll explain why later...  read more »
  • Carbon Market+Sun=FAIL? Sunspot Maunder Minimum vs ...
    Another Little Ice Age? Solar activity and climate change - Ars Technica : Some scientists are suggesting that the slow return to a more active phase of the solar cycle may portend a general decline in solar activity. If sunspots shut down, does that mean that we could stop worrying about climate ...

Daily Censored

  • The Glenn Beck Week That Was: Olympic Teabagging E ...
    Read the full story at News Hounds Guest blogged by Aunty Em Froggy Beck, who makes approximately $49,315.00 per day (weekends included), got an extra, unplanned, Monday off this week, but I am sure he didn’t relax. Knowing The Beckineer like I do, he, no doubt, spent Monday ferreting out more co ...
  • Kristol Compares Obama’s Olympics Pitch To ‘Ge ...
    Read the full story at Think Progress Conservatives have been bashing President Obama for the past week over his decision to personally go to Copenhagen to boost America’s pitch for the 2016 Olympics. When the International Olympics Committee eliminated Chicago in the first round, those same conse ...
  • Obama’s National Security Adviser won’t say wh ...
    Read the full story at Think Progress This week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sent a letter to President Obama urging him to take a stand on repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy which bans gays from openly serving in the military. “As Congress considers legislative action, we ...
  • Life, health care, prisons and cutting costs
    Read the full story at San Francisco Bay View by Sundiata Acoli Sundiata Acoli Health care costs are soaring and have become unaffordable for many families. It is no different for the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), except they’re required by law to provide medical care to their wards. Althoug ...
  • Schumer: Senate Dems Will ‘Come Together on a Pu ...
    Read the full story at CommonDreams.org Headlines by Sam Stein Senator Chuck Schumer said on Sunday that Democrats in the Senate would agree on a public option for insurance coverage, though the proposal will be different from the ones currently under consideration. read more …

AlterNet's Breaking News

Institute for Policy Studies

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

  • "Too big to fail" must end for all: FDIC chief
    ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said on Sunday that she wanted to end the "too big to fail" doctrine and shrink the shadow banking system that operates outside the reach of regulators.
  • Shocked U.S. Olympic delegate urges heads of state ...
    COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The Olympic fiasco arising from U.S. President Barack Obama's failed promotion of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Games should be avoided by keeping heads of state away from the process, a U.S. delegate said on Sunday.
  • 'Zombieland' top destination at box office
    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Woody Harrelson scored the biggest opening of his career at the North American box office, as "Zombieland" stormed theaters with weekend ticket sales of $25 million, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
  • Eight U.S. soldiers killed in east Afghan battle
    ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Afghanistan suffered their worst losses in more than a year when fighters stormed remote outposts near the Pakistan border, cutting off contact with police, authorities said on Sunday.
  • UPDATE 4-Olympics-Rio to host 2016 Games after lan ...
    COPENHAGEN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympics after the Brazilian city won a landslide victory over Madrid in the final round of voting on Friday.

Pine River World News

  • MILF: Will U.S. soldiers' death lead to their dire ...
    IntelTrends - The following article is from Luwaran.com, official website of the Central Commitee on Information, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Philippines. MILF:  Will U.S. soldiers' death lead to their direct combat role in Mindanao? ©  Luwaran.com October 4, 2009 The death of two U.S. ...
  • One year since the U.S. bank bailout
    The following commentary is reprinted with permission from World Socialist Web Site. One year since the U.S. bank bailout ©   World Socialist Web Site By Barry Grey October 3, 2009 One year ago today, the United States Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, establishing ...
  • Hitler Died Peacefully in His Bed in Argentina?
    The following article is reprinted with permission from Pravda. Hitler Died Peacefully in His Bed in Argentina? ©   Pravda By Ksenia Obraztsova October 2, 2009 The death of Adolf Hitler still remains one of the biggest mysteries in history. There are numerous theories that mostly come down to spec ...
  • BURMA: Junta and Wa: Do they have their numbers ri ...
    IntelTrends - The following report is reprinted with permission from Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.), Thailand. Junta and Wa:  Do they have their numbers right? ©   S.H.A.N. October 1, 2009   11:52 Since the year 2000 the Burmese military has been conducting a series of war games codename ...
  • Ramzy Baroud: Iran's Nuclear Theatre
    The following column is reprinted with permission from Ramzy Baroud. Iran's Nuclear Theatre ©  Ramzy Baroud September 29, 2009 World events have taken an interesting turn recently, with the Goldstone report, which wreaked havoc in the beginning of the week being nearly completely overshadowed by I ...

    Res'Eau-WaterNet

  • Knowledge Transfer Workshop: Preliminary program p ...
    Join us for our inaugural two-day network event as we gather Canadian experts to discuss the scientific and technological challenges of delivering safe drinking water in small, rural and First Nations communities.
  • Too Many Canadians Without Safe Water: $5.2M to He ...
    For six million Canadians, quenching their thirst isn’t a matter of simply turning on the kitchen faucet.
  • Dr. David Wilkinson appointed Director of the Clea ...
    RES'EAU-WaterNET researcher Dr. David Wilkinson was recently appointed Director of the Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC), beginning July 1, 2009.
  • Walkerton Clean Water Centre Receives Ontario Mini ...
    The Walkerton Clean Water Centre (WCWC) – a RES’EAU-WaterNET partner – received the 2008 Emerald Award for innovation from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment at an awards ceremony held on March 3, 2009.
  • Filling the glass
    Innovation Canada : Showcasing Research Excellence in Canada

PDA AMERICA

  • Video: Greg Palast at Fighting Bob Fest–Arm ...
    Palast was the last speaker of the day at FBF 2009. Everyone stayed to hear Greg’s report on HealthCare, Afghanistan and a host of other issues crippling our nation. Here he is….
  • Congressman Grayson Has Just Begun to Fight
    Cross-posted from the Nation | by John Nichols on 10/01/2009 @ 08:15am Washington Republicans are horrified, horrified, horrified by the bluntness of Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson. The tough kid from the Bronx (and Harvard Law School) ...
  • Progressive view on health care: what does the fut ...
    By Byron DeLear | Progressive Examiner Progressivism concerns itself with “what’s next”. Because if you get it right, you’ll have prepared more thoroughly for what’s going to happen. What does the future hold? Progressives also deal in ...
  • Good Government: Of, By and For the People
    Frederick Lancaster | Calistoga, CA As I write this, the Senate Finance Committee has just rejected the “public option” amendments by Senators Rockefeller and Schumer. Democrats Baucus, Conrad and Lincoln voted against each measure. Progressives favoring ...
  • Bob Schieffer interviews Donna Smith
    Watch CBS News Videos Online Bob Schieffer interviews Donna Smith from the Nurses Association and Robert Zerkilbach of IHIP on a new report on insurance claims

Marler Blog

  • Senator Reid - It is Time - Past Time - To Move on ...
    Judging from my email and twitter traffic, people are opening up (actually they do not even need to do that) their New York Times this morning to the shocking and tragic story of my client's, Stephanie Smith's, struggle with a severe E. coli O157:H7 illness linked to Cargill hamburger.  It is a dif ...
  • A Dancer's Battle Against E. coli
    Michael Moss does a Pulitzer Prize winning job of exposing the underbelly of how our meat is produced in the United States.  E. coli O157:H7 is a deadly bacteria that nearly took Stephanie Smith's life.  Every day is a struggle for her now.  Despite the odds, she promises to dance again.  Read her s ...
  • Why Should the Food Safety and Inspection Service ...
    It seems that any serious discussion of E. coli O157:H7 always has to start with one event: the 1993 outbreak associated with the Jack in the Box restaurant chain. This, of course, is with good reason. That outbreak left over 700 persons ill and 4 children dead. The “9/11 for the food industry, ...
  • Wash your hands via "Henry the Hand"
    Great site, with some common sense ideas:
  • Salmonella Blog Discussion - Antibiotic Resistance ...
    Salmonella is a leading cause of foodborne illness worldwide, with an estimated 1.4 million cases each year in the United States alone. Salmonella infections are typically due to consumption of food products of animal origin. Several lines of evidence indicate that antibiotic-resistance among human ...

AutoblogGreen

  • Toyota Sai to be brand's second dedicated hybrid, ...
    2009 Lexus HS 250h - Click above for high-res image gallery Even though there have been plenty of reports that Toyota would apply the Prius name to other hybrids in its lineup, thereby creating a Prius sub-brand , the upcoming second dedicated hybrid from the Japanese automaker bearing the Toyota ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 10.02.09
    Greenlings: Will we ever replace the standard rear- and side-view mirror? You've got questions, we've got answers. Google algorithms tweaking electric car-smart grid communication Let's hope ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 10.01.09
    Attention 2004-2009 Prius owners: Remove your floor mats Make sure to find out if you're affected by the recall. Tokyo Preview: Near-production Honda CR-Z "Concept" unveiled An updated CRX wi ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 09.30.09
    Tesla Model S to spawn other derivatives including van, CUV, minivan It'll take a while to get used to the idea of a Tesla minivan, but we're guessing it'll look stunning. Electric car "purch ...
  • Toyota Prius gets visual makeover from Tommi Kaira
    Filed under: Hybrid , Japan , Toyota Tommi Kaira Toyota Prius - Click above for high-res image gallery Without actually, you know, tuning anything on the powertrain of the 2010 Toyota Prius, Japanese tuning company Tommi Kaira has unveiled its tarted-up version of the third-generation iconic hybr ...

Rafe's Radar

  • RR04: How to launch a product
    Should you launch your product at a trade show like Demo or CES, or should you try to drum up interest on your own? This week on the Roundtable, Revision 3 CEO Jim Louderback and Stage Two Consulting's Jeremy Toeman discuss successful and doomed strategies for introducing new products to the mark ...
  • Six Apart resurrects Pownce in new microblogging p ...
    At the Future of Web Apps conference in London this week, blog platform company Six Apart is announcing a new open-source platform called Motion , to be available for download, that enables any Web host or developer to host their own Twitter-like microblog service. The technology is derived from ...
  • Google Wave meets conference calls, with Ribbit
    Ribbit puts a conference bridge inside a Wave message. (Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET) It's becoming clear that Google Wave , which is slowly emerging from closed beta , has potential to be much more than a text-messaging platform. As the telecommunications platform company Ribbit shows ...
  • Reporters' Roundtable #3: Mint CEO Aaron Patzer
    This week, I'm joined by CNET security expert Elinor Mills in a discussion with Mint CEO Aaron Patzer, whose personal finance site is being acquired by Inuit. We grill Patzer on why he sold the company, the future of Quicken, and the security of online financial data. Listen now: Download ...
  • The most promising launches at DemoFall 2009
    Before the DemoFall start-up conference kicked off, I wrote a " What to watch " story covering what I thought would be the hot products at the show. As usual, I identified a few of the interesting companies, missed some others, and misidentified some that I thought would be hot but weren'...

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!

  • 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 ...
  • Arun Gupta asks "What Anti-War Movement?"
    It has now been eight years since 9/11. The United States is still engaged in Iraq and is escalating its wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan with no end in site. Speaking at the Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side in New York, Arun Gupta, a founding Editor of The Indypendent , takes a cr ...
  • President Zelaya and the Audacity of Action
    Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president of Honduras, is back in his country after being deposed in a military coup June 28. Zelaya appeared there unexpectedly Monday morning, announcing his presence in Tegucigalpa, the capital, from within the Brazilian Embassy, where he has taken refug ...
  • Let Us Not Become the Evil We Deplore
    On Sept. 14, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives considered House Joint Resolution 64, “To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” The wounds of 9/11 were raw, and the lust for vengeance seemed uni ...

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

  • Top 50+ Most Beautiful Nature Photography Images [ ...
    Best of Nature photography winners. Stunning photos of animals and landscapes...a wonderful reminder why to love our environment.
  • Shell Executives Accuse Oil-Covered Otter Of Playi ...
    He's fine, said Shell president Marvin Odum. Trust me, before all of the cameras and reporters showed up, our little buddy here was having no problem at all cleaning himself off. Now, all of a sudden, it's severe spastic convulsions this and complete kidney failure that.
  • Rainbows Vs Storms [PICS]
    Rainbows and powerful storms are the Yin and Yang of meteorological phenomena...Put them together and you get a battle of diametrically opposed forces - both in their own ways utterly spectacular.
  • Nitrogen Cycle Overturned By 'Tiny Ammonia Eater O ...
    Tiny organisms known as archaea play a central role in the planet's nitrogen cycle, according to new research. Experiments show that archaea appear play a key ecological role in both upper and deep ocean ecosystems. This could affect calculations made by global climate models.
  • How the tsunami alarm system works
    A beefed-up monitoring system worked quickly to sound the alarm about this week's undersea shocks in the Pacific, seismologists say.

Invisible Opportunity

  • Glenn Greenwald, Arianna Huffington discuss Iran
    The heroic Glenn Greenwald smashes warmongers Arianna Huffington and Jonathan Capehart, and speaks a profound truth virtually never heard in the American media, that the US and Israel are threats to Iran, and not vice versa. (And good for host Dylan Ratigan for inviting Glenn.) Oh, and don’t miss ...
  • Video – The Swine Flu Conspiracy

  • Study prompts provinces to rethink flu plan
    By Patrick White A “perplexing” Canadian study linking H1N1 to seasonal flu shots is throwing national influenza plans into disarray and testing public faith in the government agencies responsible for protecting the nation’s health. Distributed for peer review last week, the study confou ...
  • World Health Organisation Admits No Deadly Mutatio ...
    By: F William Engdahl – BLN Contributing Writer The World Health Organization, the UN agency (ir-) responsible for declaring a Phase 6 “PANDEMIC” global alert over what it calls H1N1 Influenza A or Swine Flu, whose chief Dr Margaret Chan has repeatedly warned that while Swine Flu to date ...
  • Swine Flu: The Ultimate Revolution in the Making
    Zahir Ebrahim, Project Humanbeingsfirst.org October 1, 2009 The article headlined “Boston launches flu shot tracking – City to pinpoint areas of low rates of vaccination” back in November 21, 2008, today one year later, appears to have been a bellwether of the incredible prescience of politica ...

    Care2 Picks

  • Culling the Herd
    29 Dec 2007 article by Sheila Samples of the Smirking Chimp This is one of those horrors you wish were untrue : and are afraid that is not the case Submitted by John Farnham to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • Climate change warning from Greenland
    Small rise in temperature thousands of years ago caused rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Submitted by Cal Mendelsohn to Environment  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • NYT Investigation Exposes Severity of Nationwide W ...
    Corporations Violated Clean Water Act Over 500,000 Times in Last Five Years chemical companies violated the Clean Water Act 500,000 times e last 5 years one in ten Americans exposed to drinking water danger Submitted by John Farnham to Health & Wellness  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • EPA limits pesticide use near salmon waters
    The Environmental Protection Agency announced new measures to protect endangered and threatened Pacific salmon on Friday, limiting three pesticides commonly used on farms. Submitted by Meg F. to Green Lifestyle  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • EPA holds up 79 permits for Appalachian surface mi ...
    The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that 79 applications for surface coal-mine permits in Kentucky , West Virginia , Ohio and Tennessee might violate the nation's Clean Water Act and require closer scrutiny. Many of the 79 applications Submitted by Daphna Yanez to Environment  |    ...

Insurgency Watch - Newswire

  • "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban," US na ...
    "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban ," US national security ... CNN International ... that the Taliban is stronger than previously thought; and neighboring Pakistan's improved efforts to change the overall dynamic of the border region. ... and more »
  • Reuters World News Highlights at 2200 GMT, Oct 04 ...
    Reuters World News Highlights at 2200 GMT, Oct 04 Forexyard WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's national security adviser said on Sunday he did not see an imminent risk Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban and ...
  • Top US adviser doesn't see Taliban returning to po ...
    MSN Philippines News Top US adviser doesn't see Taliban returning to power MSN Philippines News ... "the sanctuaries across the border" in Pakistan , where militants have regrouped after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban in 2001. ... and more »
  • Ten Americans Now Dead In Afghan Attacks - Ozarks ...
    Ten Americans Now Dead In Afghan Attacks Ozarks First Earlier, attacks along the Pakistan border by Taliban fighters claimed the lives of eight Americans. At least two Afghan troops were also killed in that ...
  • AP Top News at 5:43 pm EDT - The Associated Press
    The Associated Press AP Top News at 5:43 pm EDT The Associated Press KABUL — Hundreds of insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a pair of remote outposts near the Pakistan border, ... and more »

AlterNet - Rights and Liberties

Sideways News

  • Scaling up Billy Bass
    Big Mouth Billy Bass, the animatronic fish that belts out tunes such as "Don’t Worry, Be Happy", has had an upgrade. The singing fishbot was one of those fads that somehow took off: ending up on the walls of our bathrooms and in the novelty Christmas present pile. Billy even hit the right note wit ...
  • Super-green Ocado joins 10:10
    British online grocery retailer, Ocado , has joined the Guardian 10:10 campaign .
  • Eminent Lucasian Professors
    This week, Stephen Hawking relinquished his post as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.  He had held the post for 30 years. As well as Professor Hawking, the post has been held by various luminaries in the fields of science, mathematics and engineering.  Here, we look at a few ...
  • World Farm Animals Day
    In homage to  World Farm Animals Day  we've taken a sideways look at our favourite farm animals , preparing a gallery of some weird and wonderful breeds. We also ask what they can do for us, and what we can do for them.
  • Stephen Fry seeks out endangered animals
    Stephen Fry, well known for his intellectual musings on programmes such as QI, has embarked on an exploratory journey of the natural world for his latest show Last Chance to See .

Fabius Maximus

  • Why Chicago lost the Olympics: we are safe, but n ...
    Folly does have consequences, as described in ”Chicago’s Loss: Is Passport Control to Blame?“, Michelle Higgins, blogging at the New York Times, 2 October 2009 — Excerpt: Did Chicago lose the chance to host the 2016 Olympics because of airport security issues? Among the toughest questi ...
  • Theories about 4GW are not yet like the Laws of Th ...
    This is another weekend classic drawn from the archives of the FM website.  This was originally posted on 6 March 2008. One of the baleful influences on the 4GW analysis is the science of Psychohistory developed by Hari Seldon, capable of accurately predicting history (as described in ...
  • More about Iran, things you know that might not be ...
    Some things you might find of interest about Iran, as drift towards war. Contents I have here a statement by an obvious ally of Iran working at the highest level of the US government! Quote of the Day from Jack A Smith, “A Manufactured Crisis“, Asia Times, 30 September 2009 “Top Things you Th ...
  • American fiddles in Asia while Mexico burns on our ...
    While we squander our resources on the other side of the world, our neighbor to the South deteriorates — desperately needing aid.  In Mexico we see the decline of the State accellerating into what might soon become an advanced state of decay.  As Martin van Creveld said over a decade ago, Me ...
  • Update on our government’s deteriorating sol ...
    Summary:  Ugly August numbers from the Chief Actuary of the social security system.  This is a follow-up to Beginning of the end of the Republic’s solvency. Soon come the first steps to a reformed regime – or a new regime. (14 August 2009). Contents Monthly cash flow of the US Social Securi ...

sibeledmonds - tweets

WIRED Magazine | Science

  • Supermassive Black Holes Bringing Universe Closer ...
    For all its tumult — erupting stars, colliding galaxies, collapsing black holes — the cosmos is a surprisingly orderly place. Theoretical calculations have long shown that the entropy of the universe — a measure of its disorder — is but a tiny fraction of the maximum allowable amount. A ne ...
  • Teen’s DIY Energy Hacking Gives African Village ...
    Some people see lemons and make lemonade. William Kamkwamba saw wind and made a windmill. This might not seem like a mighty feat. But Kamkwamba, who grew up in Masitala, a tiny rural farming village off the grid in Malawi, was 14 years old in 2001 when he spotted a photo of a windmill in a [...]
  • Religious Experience Linked to Brain’s Social Re ...
    Brain scans of people who believe in God have found further evidence that religion involves neurological regions vital for social intelligence. In other words, whether or not God or Gods exist, religious belief may have been quite useful in shaping the human mind’s evolution. “The main point is ...
  • Reader Photo Gallery: More Stunning DIY Astrophoto ...
    This gorgeous image of the Jellyfish Nebula leads off our second installment of reader-contributed astrophotography. Also known as IC443, the Jellyfish in the upper right of the image is about 5,000 light years away in the constellation Gemini. It is the remnant of a supernova that exploded around ...
  • How Earth’s Hum Could Help Us Map Mars
    The once-mysterious planetary hum of the Earth is getting put to use by scientists mapping the planet’s interior. Ocean wave interactions, primarily along the Pacific coast of North America, generate a vibration with a frequency of about 10 millihertz, the background buzz of the globe. As the hum ...

The Progressive Realist

  • EU Report Unclear on Who is to Blame for Russia-Ge ...
    The EU released its report on the August war between Georgia and Russia on Wednesday, and for the last two days the press has reported that it proves "Georgia started the war with Russia." Even Joshua Keating, who offers a more even-handed round-up at Foreign Policy , says the claim that AP's claim ...
  • Ireland Passes Lisbon Treaty on Second Try
    Political scientist and Irishman Henry Farrell gives snap analysis at The Monkey Cage , underscoring the conventional wisdom-flouting dimension of the vote: that a downturn in the global economy seems not to have driven a domestic electorate inward. Ireland’s GDP is predicted to shrink by anything ...
  • Treaty of Lisbon: Endgame
    Today is a key inflection point in determining whether the EU will be looking forwards or backwards over the next few months.  Irish voters will have had their second run at approving the Lisbon Treaty by referendum.  The count begins at 0800 GMT and it’ll be worth checking the Irish Electio ...
  • Intelligence and Counterterrorism
    One leading alternative to an ambitious counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan is some kind of more modest counterterrorism approach. Spencer Ackerman notes that one of Pakistan’s stated reasons for a new land offensive into Waziristan is that they say they’re running out of useful intellige ...
  • Brazil to Host 2016 Olympics, Befitting Its Global ...
    Rio de Janeiro! The International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Brazil the honor (and burden) of hosting the 2016 Olympics. Despite strong pitches from three heavyweight cities, Madrid, Chicago, and Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro won the bid. The Olympic Games will be held in South America for the first t ...

TAPPED - The American Prospect

  • Lightning Round: Pushing the Self-Destruct Button.
    Health-care reform roundup: The Senate Finance Committee moves closer to adopting state-based public plans; it truly is a mystery why non-white voters mistrust the GOP; and is the groundwork being laid for a single-payer system? Eric Kleefeld picks up on the pattern of congressional Republicans eng ...
  • The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell You ...
    Unemployment will almost certainly be in double-digits next year -- and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' household survey, you can bet there's another either too discouraged to look for work or working part time who'd ...
  • Ask a Feminist: Compulsory Military Service Editio ...
    It's back ... In the latest installment of "Ask a Feminist," Dana and Ann discuss Israel's military service requirement: Please email questions for future episodes to isitsexist at gmail.com -- or leave them in comments! Previous editions of Ask a Feminist: Is the traditional wedding proposal ...
  • The Religious Right's Jennings End-Game.
    Make no mistake: the religious right's smear campaign against Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools director Kevin Jennings is not about Jennings' alleged past actions, or even about the fact that Jennings is gay. It's about a much larger, concerted campaign by the religious right to dismantle the se ...
  • Cronyism: That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What ...
    Michelle Malkin is perhaps the world's greatest practitioner of "I know you are, but what am I" conservatism . The Bush administration faced a great deal of corruption allegations --  from Jack Abramoff to the U.S. attorney scandal to Halliburton. So, Malkin writes a book titled Culture of Corruptio ...

Andy Worthington

  • Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo And Habeas ...
    On Friday (at half past midnight in the UK), I was delighted to prop up my wilting eyelids to talk to leading progressive radio host Jeff Farias about the latest disturbing developments in the Guantánamo story. The particular spur for the interview was the recent — and electrifying — District ...
  • Three Prisoners Released From Guantánamo: Two To ...
    Reuters, following up on an announcement by the Justice Department, has just reported that three prisoners have been released from Guantánamo. Two men, who have not been identified, have been sent to Ireland, following successful negotiations between the Irish government and Daniel Fried, the Obama ...
  • Former Guantánamo Prisoner Binyam Mohamed Speaks ...
    On August 30, at “Beyond Guantánamo,” an event organized by Cageprisoners, the British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture, and was finally released from Guantánamo in February this year, after nearly seven years in US custody, spoke for the ...
  • The Guantánamo Archive: 600 Blog Posts And Counti ...
    I never dreamed, when I began blogging full-time two years and four months ago, as an offshoot of my book The Guantánamo Files, that the Internet offered such extraordinary opportunities for independent journalists to focus on particular issues and to get their voices heard, or that I would end up ...
  • The Story of Oybek Jabbarov, An Innocent Man Freed ...
    Yesterday I reported that the US government had released three prisoners from Guantánamo, repatriating Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemeni, and sending two unidentified prisoners — presumed to be Uzbeks — to new homes in Ireland. I suspected that one of the men was Oybek Jabbarov, an Uzbek who w ...

Buzzflash

  • Is McCain plotting a McRerun?
    Body Try not to laugh, although I find this a trifle preposterous myself and I'm the one advancing the speculation -- but, don't be surprised if John McCain takes another whack at the White House. I thought I'd just get that out there, rather than creeping up on it. And why not? Republic ...
  • Government-Paid Medical Care Pulled Seniors Up Out ...
    BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG By Mark Karlin In the post World War II era, as America prospered and built a solid middle class (not being economically decimated by companies -- as we are now -- with no allegiance to the U.S. moving jobs oversea), there was a dirtly little secret: a large segment of our se ...
  • Michael Moore Stands Up for Single Payer, Tells Bl ...
    BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT by Meg White So Michael Moore produces a movie on the financial meltdown, and on the very week it is to premiere nationwide to what is projected to be record-breaking audiences, he holds a press conference on... healthcare? "All of this is interconnected," Moore said at a press ...
  • Jill Peterson & Kevin Heinz Turned Wedding Dance I ...
    WINGS OF JUSTICE Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz Weddings are a time where couples tend to focus on themselves, the ceremony that officially begins a whole new life together. Which makes the story of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz that much more spectacular. Jill and Kevin got married in St. Paul, Min ...
  • Without public financing of political campaigns, e ...
    Body Notwithstanding the postmortem, rah, rah, siss-boom-bah appearances on cable news by Senators Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer, it should be noted that yesterday, just to frame the immensely conspicuous in the gentlest terms, was not a good day for the public option. A child could ...

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    Green lobby calls for higher returns on investment in clean energy ...
    guardian.co.uk
    - Oct 04, 2009
    - 3 hours ago
    The scheme, usually called a feed-in tariff, has been successfully used to boost the roll-out of renewable energy technologies across Europe. ...
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    Vermont boosts payoff for renewable energy
    San Francisco Chronicle
    - Oct 02, 2009
    - Oct 02, 2009
    By DAVE GRAM, AP Writer Seeking to boost solar and other types of renewable energy, Vermont has joined a small but growing number of states enacting ...
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    Renewable Fuels Association Elects 2010 Officers
    Domestic Fuel
    - Oct 04, 2009
    - 5 hours ago
    The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) announced the officers and Board of Directors who will lead the association and the ethanol industry in 2010 during ...
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    guardian.co.uk
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    The tough but affable Swede is part of a burgeoning workforce promising a renewable revolution far out to sea. It will replicate the earlier North Sea oil ...
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    Human Habitat

    ecology water energy
    Ecology: avoid Lake Spokane toxic algae blooms
    Seattle Post Intelligencer
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    Threats and Ignoring Them

    Sunday, 4. October 2009, 07:27:29


    http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog


  • 'Flu' Emails

    Sunday, 4. October 2009, 06:44:31


    http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog
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    About me

    I blogged at WordPress for two years, linking news and views as I browse online. Opera is something I played with rather than used as a primary browser - although definitely used regularly.
    I started out quipping on political sites about 2004 and decided I needed an online location for interacting with acquaintances. What to blog about ?
    I started with personal anecdotes. That ran dry fast. What wasn't was a 'voyage of discovery' that ran the gamut of Google News to whatever blogs I might find.
    For that I had a background in following the wonkery of Ezra Klein and his gang - first at Pandagon - then his personal site - and he was posting articles in L.A. Times and The American Prospect : which took him on full time.
    Also Kevin Drum's 'Political Animal' at Washington Monthly revealed a circus of political aware people.
    Global Citizen was rather startled to find the gang had followed her home to 'Blue Girl Red State' where her ideas were expounded in detail. That was the start of a train of events where commenters joined up to form 'Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus' and later 'Watching Those we Chose.' BGRS' blog went to Blogger and then the strain of a do-it-all-myself blog took its toll : "They Gave Us A Republic' is a co-blogging gig. Now if I ever figured out how to work their controls !
    Booman Tribune and TPM Cafe were a couple of other stops that took up a lot of online time. Booman is a group site where bloggers can categorized geographically ! TPM Cafe...if you haven't run across Josh Marshall you haven't found among the best on the web.
    So WordPress was my first 'real' blog : two years of finding my way around and starting a report of WordPress Political Blogs. They have their own 'club' now : which I think started in ChenZhen's Chambers.
    December 2007 I found my WP account under suspension - and me with a ton of news links and op-eds. Time for a new soapbox.
    For all that WordPress had been addictive, only one list automatically alphabeticized itself : the BlogRoll in the sidebar. There was none of that at Opera : but it was easy to add categories. You win some and lose some.
    By now blogging had almost been a 'should I or shouldn't I' proposition : social networking loomed large.
    I started online in a place where 16-24 kps was normal. Did I ever learn to appreciate sources that loaded easily.
    There are many tempting toys for blogging : at WordPress I used a few.
    Here that sort of thing isn't really just a matter of simple 'point-and-click' : despite being fans of widgets and groupthink, Opera doesn't have much interest in easy adding of clutter to websites. That means easy loading for the target audience though : people who could use a few tips on what's available online.
    I do count myself in that number still.
    So how did I become such a nut ?
    Being older, one learns to be less concerned as to what other people think of you. Mostly...they don't.
    I kept reading all these comments about 'stupidity' posed as analysis of political activities. Well...it wouldn't do to underestimate the ability of people to learn the wrong lesson from experience...but it isn't necessary to think that painting that as a trend of those who also happen to have wealth and power is a good explanation. In fact : it's really an opinion begging to be blown out of the water.
    One of the last things I had done before Oldephartteintraining was 'disappeared' was to cite a source which seemed to be sensible to what we laughingly call the '101st Fighting Keyboarders' - who might well belong to Pyjamas Media. The problem ? 911 'theorists' were disloyal Americans who posted hatefulness hurtful to the bereaved.
    I choke on bullshit. Freedom does not consist of being frogmarched to the destination of another's choice. Besides, Dad 2059 was having far too much fun considering everything under the Sun...and beyond. I was familiar with 'Invisible Opportunity/Salon Esoterica'...which tickled an old Sci Fi buff's penchant for considering the source.
    My problem ? Simple. I knew Mainstream Media were owned by corporations - and had had a friend in the business urge me to skepticism. Why would I give greater credence and exposure to known paid liars than people trying to make sense of what was hidden behind a screen of ongoing bafflegab and disinformation ? Maybe not.

    My work

    I've driven heavy trucks for the past several years. Currently we've been pulling "Super B's"; but fuel costs are making profits a memory.


    I originally used Firefox with a del.icio.us tool synchronizing the browser with online backup. A computer board gone with data not retrievable ( I had been able to before ) showed the wisdom of that choice - and of backing up a system. So what to do without loading thousands of bookmarks into my browser ? Ha. Pageflakes offered a tool which loaded the file and showed links in Alphabetical order ! I don't see any reason you couldn't do the same.
    There is a Del.icio.us blog to tell you more uses for it : since bookmarks are sharable with others, it's a trove of link picks if you look at different people's files. And...finally the light came on. When you've accessed a Del.icio.us file - look over to the right where Bookmarks and a counter appear. Just below is 'Sorted' - the options list for changing bookmark sorting.

    The Links page has just 'grown' as I find interesting things - like a jackdaw with a taste for bright objects. It's easy to miss the educational/library links at the bottom of the page.

    I'll houseclean - but know things will get out of order fast as I add new items !

 

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