Shocking affairs of zebra finches revealed!
We never get tired of finding out who’s cheating on who, if the headlines are any indication. Finding out how much cheating is going on in the animal kingdom was revolutionized with the introduction of DNA fingerprinting, and led to major rethinking of sexual behaviour, particularly among birds.
At 20mph, it is estimated only one in 40 pedestrians is killed in a crash. This compares with a one in five chance for someone hit at 30mph.
Why It Augurs a Sinister Banksters' End Game
By MIKE WHITNEY
There's no fixed number of greenbacks in a vault at the Treasury that limit how much the federal government can spend. Since the US pays its debts in its own currency--it can print as many dollars as it pleases. Of course, if boosting the money supply triggers inflation, the Fed has to withdraw liquidity and raise interest rates. But that's not the problem at present. The problem is how to zap the economy back to life. The problem is how to get 16 million people out of unemployment lines and back to work. That's the real challenge. The problem is political not economic. Obama is surrounded by industry reps who are trying to scare him about the size of the deficits. But deficits aren't the problem; unemployment is. Once people get back to work and build their savings, their creditworthiness will improve, and the next economic expansion will begin. When more people are paying into the system, the deficits will come down. But the deficits won't come down if tens of millions of people are still on the sidelines and forced to cut their spending. Judging by last Thursday's speech at the "Jobs Summit", Obama still doesn't grasp this:
( If this 'doesn't understand' theme sounds familiar...it is. George Bush's Pentagon media scriptwriters represented by new management would sound no different. )
The U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday a $3 billion settlement with Indian tribes. This marks the end of a 13-year lawsuit brought against the government by Indian tribes over billions of dollars in valuable land and oil royalties.
( Remember that election a year ago plus ? Remember "Change You Can Believe In ?"
Do you see any ?
I think it's time to dust off fractured martial airs : "Bullshit...makes the grass grow green...Bullshit...makes the grass grow green....." repeat indefinitely ; whistled accompaniment would be nice.. )
Petsche testified on behalf of the government, which began presenting evidence today in White s trial. White, who created and led the neo-Nazi American National Socialist Workers Party until his arrest, is charged with threatening various people with whom he disagreed. White s defense maintains that his communications were protected speech under the First Amendment.
Copenhagen, Denmark
Clean energy technology is on track to become the third largest industrial sector globally with a rapidly increasing share taken up by China, predicted a WWF report released at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen today.
Clean Economy, Living Planet - Building Strong Clean Energy Technology Industries is a first ever worldwide country ranking by clean energy sales, finding that relative to GDP it is wind energy and insulation pioneer Denmark and bio-ethanol giant Brazil that are leading the way. Germany, trading on a substantial manufacturing base and public support for wind and solar energy, is in third place.
( bio-ethanol giant Brazil leading...gaah! Not what The Ergosphere-Nov 2006 : implied with Example of program style for Energy Sustainability )
The Obama administration provided an opening-day boost with the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement that it was issuing an endangerment finding on global warming. But it may have been enough only to counteract some of the damage being caused by climategate, the stolen-email controversy that has emboldened* critics like Saudi Arabia not exactly a fan of ending the world s dependence on fossil fuels to demand an investigation before the U.S. takes further action on greenhouse gases.
( * Is there supposed to be some kind of Pavlovian response to this standard drivel ? Danger ! Will Robinson! )
( Now this is fun : a thoughtful and insightful critique of Copenhagen...putatively by Sarah Palin. There seems to have been a major change in ghostwriter focus here. )
July 9, 2009
Simon Linnett, Executive Vice-Chairman of Rothschild, has called for a new international body, the World Environment Agency, to regulate carbon trading. In a recently published paper, Trading Emissions, for the Social Market Foundation, Mr Linnett argues that the International problem of climate change demands an international solution. Unless governments cede some of their sovereignty to a new world body, he says, a global carbon trading scheme cannot be enforced and regulated. "An urgent global response." This was how Nicolas Stern described the problem of carbon dioxide emissions, in his recent review of the economics of climate change. The sense of an impending crisis infuses our all debates on this issue.
( That explains the 'War' meme )
"Africa demands up to five percent of the GDP of industrialised nations every year, because of their historical debt and the continuation of causing the harmm," Sudanese G77-chair Di-Aping Lumumba revealed to IPS. "We are talking roughly about two trillion US dollars annually till 2050 for adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer. "We do not believe this is a big amount of money as the U.S. spent 22 trillion on saving Wall Street ."
The Africa Group's position on global warming signaled a demand for steep cuts.
"We want temperatures to not go up beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius," Lumumba told IPS, a departure that foreshadowed the position outlined by the island state of Tuvalu in its controversial proposal after the summit started.
More than 20 percent of the nation s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.
Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards. Studies indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.
( The problem won't be fixed..but will become worse. Water - Wealth & Power has far too many reasons why : but How the Nation's Breadbasket is poisoning its own Water Supply is a fair example )
( But infrastructure isn't important : secrecy is. I have vile language available for such idiocy. It's enough to make one emulate
the rude pundit
One of the attacks on liberalism is that it's too eggheaded, too concerned with seeing all sides of an issue, with all that fucking nuance. And no doubt, even as the Rude Pundit types this, others are leaping at the speech as "dull" or lacking emotion. They're missing the point. The President articulated a vision of the future, tempered by acknowledgment of our reality. Essentially, Obama went to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to accept the accolade, and, instead, he asked the world to help him earn it.
( Wow. I was nowhere near so nice. )
12/03/2009
Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.' s most sensitive activities clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.
The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called snatch and grab operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.
Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.
I'm involved in several listserves. Some of them are intensely political, focusing on either foreign affairs or domestic political strategy. But one that I engage in from time to time is a listserve of former brokers and asset managers. We normally debate things like finance, Bernanke, Greenspan and the like and politics stays out of it, for the most part, except when it comes to money and high (or rather, low) finance, such as it is.
Until last night. One of the brokers, a converted evangelical Catholic--much like a married Opus Dei clone--brought up abortion. I shot off a quippy one liner, as I am wont to do here at The Agonist and in other places and the listserve quickly mutated into a wicked shouting match.
The last reply I got was so nasty and so much ranting and raving about how private morality is the end all be all I nearly puked. But, I was patient, and thought about my reply most of the day, as I scurried from job interview to job interview. And then it hit me and I replied:
"The real issue is that Americans no longer accept the law as the highest authority in the land. They believe private morality is. We were once a nation of laws, not men and certainly not private morality. That has changed. And while private morality is all well and good and an excellent way of living one's life, it is not a good way of organizing a society, as the last forty years have shown.I think that about sums our current predicament up rather nicely.
Sean Paul Kelley December 10, 2009 - 10:04pm
A total of 44 companies will bid for 10 fields in the second live auction to take place this year. Eight contracts to run oil and gas fields were up for tender in June, although only one was agreed - with BP and China's CNPC.
The auction comes three days after a series of car bombings killed more than 100 people in Baghdad.
The UN no longer has any reason to wait to consider new sanctions on Iran if it does not respond to concerns over its nuclear programme, France says.
If Iran continued to ignore demands, "we must draw all of the necessary conclusions" and move to sanctions, French Ambassador Gerard Araud said. Iran is already subject to UN sanctions over its nuclear programme, which the West suspects is for military purposes.
( So much for being responsible and agreeing to inspections. No good deed shall go unpunished. I can see India signing up for this abuse in a heartbeat. )
The White House Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release December 10, 2009
President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 12/10/09
WASHINGTON Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individual to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission : William C. Ostendorff, Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Bill Ostendorff is currently the Director of the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy and Director of the Board on Global Science and Technology at the National Academies. He came to the National Academies after serving as Principal Deputy Administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration from April 2007 until April 2009. From 2003-2007, he was a member of the staff of the House Armed Services Committee where he served as counsel and staff director for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee with oversight responsibilities for the Department of Energy s Atomic Energy Defense Activities as well as the Department of Defense s space, missile defense and intelligence programs.
Mr. Ostendorff was an officer in the United States Navy from 1976 until he retired in 2002 in the grade of Captain. During his naval career, he commanded an attack submarine, an attack submarine squadron and served as Director of the Division of Mathematics and Science at the United States Naval Academy. Mr. Ostendorff's education includes a degree in systems engineering from the United States Naval Academy and law degrees from the University of Texas and Georgetown University. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas.
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