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Saturday, December 12, 2009

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ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 08:...Image by Getty Images via Daylife
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IPS - Inter Press Services

  • CLIMATE CHANGE: Bringing the Rainforest to Copenh ...
    COPENHAGEN, Dec 12 (IPS/TerraViva) - As delegates deliberate over the extent carbon emissions will be curbed in the closing days of the U.N. summit here, the environmental ramifications of that agreement are likely to be felt in places far removed from the negotiating table, particularly among i ...
  • CLIMATE CHANGE: Small Farmers Can Cool the World
    COPENHAGEN, Dec 12 (IPS/TerraViva) - Industrial agriculture may emit nearly half of climate-heating greenhouse gases, but that reality has gone unrecognised by negotiators at the climate treaty talks here, say farmers with La Via Campesina, an international movement of hundreds of millions of sm ...
  • ASIA: China’s PR Problem Rears Head at Mek ...
    CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 12 (IPS/TerraViva) - Powerful neighbour. A rising power. Old friend. Big, secretive investor. Big boy of the region. These were some of the terms participants at the just-finished Mekong Media Forum here used, when asked to share the images of China they get from th ...
  • CLIMATE CHANGE: Asian Delegates Want ‘Poli ...
    COPENHAGEN, Dec 12 (IPS/TerraViva) - Asian delegations to the ongoing global negotiations on climate change are insisting that a political agreement must be reached to pave the way for a legally binding treaty in the near future.
  • MEDIA-ASIA: Forget ‘Gender’
    CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 12 (IPS/TerraViva) - ‘Gender’ may not exist in all of Asia’s lexicons, but the concept is not necessarily alien to the region.

Scoop - NZ

  • Wellington Builder going to France
    Wellington builder Adrian has fought off stiff competition from tradesmen from all over New Zealand to be selected to restore a french villa. The job, posted on Builderscrack.co.nz by expat kiwi Pauline who lives in France generated huge interest, with over 100 applications in several days. Pauline ...
  • Dubai's financial crisis: Q&A
    Q. Where did Dubai go wrong? I thought it was in the "oil-rich Gulf"?A. Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, seven city-states which have separate ruling families, separate budgets, but security, immigration and foreign policies in common. Abu Dhabi has nearly all the UAE's oil. To keep up, Du ...
  • Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Runn ...
    What are we getting in return for the bailout? So far, predatory credit card rates, exorbitant bank fees and obscene Wall Street bonuses. But we're being robbed in other, sneakier ways, too. It seems that taxpayers in the poorest, most vulnerable parts of the county are getting plundered by the same ...
  • A bit of inspiration as we head into Copenhagen
    We are the last generation that has a chance to make a difference on climate change and the task can seem daunting. But, as one of the original Greenpeace activists Bob Hunter once said,Big change looks impossible when you start and inevitable when you finish.50 years ago this week, the world agreed ...
  • A note to self from the year 2020
    Today almost 100,000 people around New Zealand received an email from a future self in 2020 ...  »  PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews

Independent ( London )

  • Iranian hardliners lash out at opposition after pr ...
    Hardliners today accused Iran's reformist opposition of seeking the removal of key pillars of the Islamic Republic, including the office of the supreme leader, and of insulting the memory of its late founder.
  • Pakistan PM says South Waziristan offensive is ove ...
    The Pakistani army has finished its offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, but may soon pursue militants in another part of the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border, the prime minister said today.
  • Iran needs up to 15 nuclear plants, says foreign m ...
    Iran needs up to 15 nuclear plants to generate electricity, its foreign minister said today, underlining Tehran's determination to press ahead with a programme the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
  • China indicts prominent dissident
    Chinese prosecutors have indicted one of the nation's best-known dissidents, Liu Xiaobo, on subversion charges, his lawyer said today, laying the way for a trial likely to draw an international outcry.
  • Libya still jailing dissenters, says Human Rights ...
    Libya is still imprisoning people for their political views, years after committing itself to reform, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

  • U.S. Freezes $2 Billion in Iran Case
    Summary: WASHINGTON -- More than $2 billion allegedly held on behalf of Iran in Citigroup Inc. accounts were secretly ordered frozen last year by a federal court in Manhattan, in what appears to be the biggest seizure of Iranian assets abroad since the 1979 Islamic revolution. source: Wall Str ...
  • US Optimistic About ‘Significant’ New Sanction ...
    Summary: Robert Gates Obama Administration officials are expressing confidence tonight that they will be able to push forward with a new flurry of economic sanctions against Iran in January to punish them for refusing to abandon their civilian nuclear program. source: AntiWar.com read more
  • U.S. says has no evidence Iran backs Yemen rebels
    Summary: MANAMA, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A U.S. official said on Friday he had no proof that Iran is supporting Shi'ite rebels who have seized some Saudi territory, a position at odds with a Yemeni claim that the rebellion has Iranian backing. source: Reuters read more
  • The Lobby versus Science
    Summary: Today, in order to wage another war against Iranians and to ensure that Iran shares Iraq's fate, the argument presented by the Lobby and trumpeted by the neoconservative-dominated media is why does Iran not need to enrich uranium. Before one responds that it is Iran's right under the ...
  • Réalité-EU: Front group for the Washington-based ...
    Summary: Spinwatch has uncovered evidence that an apparently London based organisation offering expertise on Iran to journalists and politicians is a covert propaganda operation run by a pro-Israel organisation in the United States. source: Spin Watch read more

The Daily Galaxy

  • NASA's "Alien Eyes" - Unlocking Secrets of the Uni ...
    "Our personal window on the Universe is terribly small within a stunnng range of wavelengths. With our eyes we see wavelengths between 0.00004 and 0.00008 of a centimeter (where, not so oddly, the Sun and stars emit most of their...
  • Brain-Powered Computers - the NexGen Tech?
    Patients in Jacksonville's Mayo Clinic campus have become the world's first cyborg spellers, conjuring computerized letters using nothing but the power of the mind using the power of the electrodes surgically implanted through their skull onto the very surface of...
  • Supernova Shockwaves -The Most Awesome Force in th ...
    Scientists are scanning the skies to find the source of cosmic rays, and not all of them are Doctor Doom. Cosmic rays are hugely energetic particles slamming into our utter atmosphere, unleashing showers of radiations and particle products in the...
  • The Daily Flash -Eco, Space, Tech (12/11)
    WISE Launch Now Set for Saturday Launch of the WISE mission has again been delayed, but this time only for 24 hours, with the first attempt now scheduled for 1409 UTC (0909 EST) on December 12. Launch will take place...
  • "The 1st Human to Live to 1,000 is Alive Today" -A ...
    Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey has famously stated, “The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today …whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger...

Natural News

  • Jane Goodall Institute partners with Pangea Organi ...
    (NaturalNews) In perfect congruency with Dr. Jane Goodall's philosophies about environmental responsibility, the Jane Goodall Institute (www.JaneGoodall.com) has partnered with Pangea Organics (www.PangeaOrganics.com), a company that NaturalNews has for many years lauded as among the top environment ...
  • Dr. Jane Goodall speaks with NaturalNews about sus ...
    (NaturalNews) It's been almost 50 years since Dr. Jane Goodall first arrived at Gombe Stream National Park to study primates, and since then, much has changed in the world. "We have made rather a mess," Dr. Goodall told NaturalNews in an exclusive interview, speaking about the impact of humans on ou ...
  • Sugary cola drinks found to be a huge risk for ges ...
    (NaturalNews) According to the American Diabetes Association, approximately 4% of all pregnant women (about 135,000 expectant moms) in the U.S. develop gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) each year. These are women who have never had diabetes before but suddenly have high blood sugar (glucose) level ...
  • Cancer profiteering? New chemo drug costs $30,000 ...
    (NaturalNews) Big Pharma's pill pushers and natural remedy skeptics are always trying to drill one idea into your brain: "Natural remedies are a ripoff!" they say. "And they aren't even proven to work!" In response to those skeptics, allow me to introduce a new cancer treatment drug called Folotyn , ...
  • After conventional breast cancer treatments, half ...
    (NaturalNews) A Danish study published in the November 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that women who have undergone conventional breast cancer treatment experience pain long after completing treatments. Mastectomies, breast-conserving surgeries, radiation treatment ...

    TheGallopingBeaver

  • Tossing out a government by force if necessary - 1 ...
    Jesus H Christ. I didn't fight for this . Ever. Norman Spector tries to equate a non-smoking rule with a carried motion in Parliament over the humane treatment of surrendered prisoners. Nice try, fuckwad. Typical of your ilk. Let's get a few things straight. I don't like the way Harper governs. ...
  • Walmart Peso
    ACCORDING TO THE URBAN DICTIONARY , that's the US dollar. As the US dollar continues to lose value, it becomes synonymous with the cheap crap from Walmart. Used mainly by Canadians. "Sorry, we don't take Walmart pesos.", server telling American tourist in a Toronto bar. Neat site, with other definit ...
  • Call of Duty?
    Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks
  • From Ford... in Europe
    74.5 miles per gallon or 3.8 litres/100 km . (62 mpg US). Available in January 2010. Not available in North America... ever. Why? Because the Europeans got tough with their auto makers. Read more . I should add , (because you're not mad enough yet), that this vehicle is NOT new technology. It i ...
  • Nova Scotia Jurisprudence
    ACCORDING TO THR, Esq. , which proclaims itself to be a blog which focuses on how the entertainment and media industries are impacted and influenced by the law, in Nova Scotia, you can't play like Adam Sandler .  Apparently, the Honourable Justice Arthur J. LeBlanc of the Supreme Court of Nova Sco ...

Media Matters for America

  • Quick Fact: The Hill advanced false cla ...
    The Hill advanced the false claim that Department of Education official Kevin Jennings "gave sexual advice to minors," referencing a December 9 Washington Times editorial about a controversial session at a 2000 event sponsored by the group Jennings founded, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educat ...
  • Quick Fact: Beck repeats PolitiFact "Lie of the Ye ...
    Glenn Beck repeated his false claim that White House science and technology adviser John Holdren -- whom Beck called "our science czar" -- supported forced abortions and putting sterilants in drinking water. PolitiFact previously declared his claim "pants on fire" false and nominated it for "L ...
  • Quick Fact: WSJ's Strassel calls stolen ...
    In a Wall Street Journal column about the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) endangerment finding on greenhouse gas emissions, Kim Strassel wrote that "[i]ndustry groups are gearing up for a legal onslaught; and don't underestimate their prospects. The leaked emails from the Climatic Resea ...
  • Quick Fact: Hoft falsely claims Jennings' "Teen Co ...
    In his latest smear of Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft wrote that Jennings' "Teen Conference Literature Pushed Anal S*x in Parks With Strangers," citing a booklet that he claims "children who attended Kevin Jennnings' GLSEN 2005 Conference also left with." ...
  • Bolton falsely suggested Obama said "treaties and ...
    Fox News contributor and former United Nations ambassador John Bolton falsely characterized President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, claiming Obama suggested "it's the treaties and declarations that were the centerpiece" of post-World War II global security "and the United States made ...

Global Research.ca

TPM Cafe

  • The Ones That Got Away
    TPMCafe is proud to announce (once again) the return of "The Ones That Got Away": a weekly roundup of the stories and posts from Cafe and wide world of TPM that slip through the cracks.... Talking Points Memo - Capitol Hill - Arts - TPMCafe - United States
  • The Year in Tiny Ideas
    I hate to beat up on the beleaguered NYT, which is buying-out and laying-off staffers to beat the band. If it's still the best newspaper in the world--and it probably is--this is in no small part because the race to... New York Times - Arts - Literature - School Time - Kids and Teens
  • Presented By:
  • Krauthammer: The Shrink Loses His Mind
    I have thought Charles Krauthammer is nuts ever since (have I mentioned this before?) he attacked the rabbi on Yom Kippur for suggesting that God prefers peace to war. Chuck was bellowing from his pew, calling the rabbi names, and...
  • The Greedy Old Party
    The only down side to working at Media Matters is that there have to be 200 televisions in that place. And that means watching and listening to Republicans attacking the good old USA. Because for Republicans these days, bashing America... Media Matters for America - Republican - United States - ...

TruthOut

  • Blistering Indictment Leveled Against Obama Over H ...
    During his 36-minute speech upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway Thursday, President Barack Obama explained to an audience of 1,000 how the United States has a “moral and strategic interest” in abiding by a code of conduct when waging war—even one that pits the US against a “ ...
  • Extent of Blackwater and CIA Collaboration Uncover ...
    New details of Blackwater participation in clandestine CIA raids detail the extent to which private security contractors were involved in covert government antiterror operations. read more
  • The Land Mines Obama Won't Touch
    Many people are troubled that Barack Obama flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize so soon after escalating the war in Afghanistan. He is now more than doubling the number of troops there when George W. Bush left office. The irony was not lost on the president and he tried to address it in ...
  • Talking With the Enemy
    Obama has finally opted for troop reinforcement. But by evoking the beginning of a scheduled withdrawal 18 months from now, he has also incited the Karzai government to keep the channels of discussion with the Taliban open. read more
  • The America Where They Do Prosecute Torture
    Last week, 15 men entered a courthouse facing, amongst other crimes, 181 counts of torture. Their story, tragically, is familiar: in a fight against terrorism, the men allegedly kidnapped and held detainees in unknown black sites. They subjected the prisoners to brutal forms of interrogation, such a ...

Planetsave

  • Gender-Bending Chemicals in Minnesota Waters
    The discovery of malformed frogs in the Minnesota River watershed in the 1990s touched off field and lab research on endocrine disrupters that is continuing to yield findings. Minnesota, the state that made national headlines with the discovery of malformed frogs in the 1990s, has found endocrine ...
  • Big Fish in the Great Lakes
    The ancient lake sturgeon, a threatened species, is making a modest comeback in the Great Lakes after more than a century of overharvest and habitat destruction. Even as news spreads of the possible imminent invasion of giant Asian carp in the Great Lakes, there’s also good news — the mammoth ...
  • Reducing Greenhouse Pollutants will Save Millions ...
    New research out of the UK shows definitively that reducing greenhouse gases can save millions of lives around the world. The research makes use of case studies to demonstrate the co-benefits of tackling climate change in four sectors: electricity generation, household energy use, transportation, ...
  • Rare Butterfly Rediscovered in Maine
    The Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly species was identified in September by Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department biologists. 1934 was the last Maine sighting of the butterfly.  The recent finding was in the hardwood swamps of Berwick and Wells. Read more of this story »
  • Caveman Thanksgiving: Prehistoric Man Roasted Bird ...
    New findings, published in the October issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, indicate early Europeans enjoyed a much broader diet than first suspected. We have known for a long while that early man hunted big game such as mastodons, now prehistoric bone findings show that early man also ...

Water Quality - WordPress

Public Citizen in Texas

  • Copen-update
    Its already getting tough to keep tabs on everything happening in Copenhagen, so for now I’ll just share what I’ve been reading.  Here’s today’s Copen-digest: Grist, as always, is an invaluable resource (and amusing to boot). Keep an eye on there often-updated series, Grist in Copenhagen ...
  • TCEQ Gives Green Light to Another Texas Coal Plant
    The dramatic irony of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) decision this morning to grant the NRG Limestone Coal Plant an air permit (and therefore permission to begin construction on a third smokestack) is painful.  At the very moment that leaders from around the world are meeting ...
  • Obama going to Copenhagen with 17% reduction goal. ...
    As of today, all four of the largest greenhouse gas polluters (China, the US, the EU, and India — no, not Texas) have announced the greenhouse gas reduction goals they want to pursue at the Copenhagen climate talks (COP-15) this week in Denmark. Here’s the rundown: EU: 20% cut in emissions rela ...
  • Join Public Citizen at the Second Annual Austin Gr ...
    Join Public Citizen Texas December 15th at Barr Mansion (we just can’t get enough) for the Second Annual Austin Green Holiday Social! This event will be co-hosted by seven of Austin’s best and brightest green groups. Join us again at the beautiful Barr Mansion, the first certified organic events ...
  • Copenhagen Negotiations begin today!
    The international climate negotiations in Copenhagen begin today, and will continue until December 18th. No time for a full reckoning now of what this means in the big picture, what’s at stake, and what to expect — but since others have done a great job already, at the moment there’s no need t ...

Press TV

  • Israeli shell kills Palestinian farmer
    Medical workers in the Gaza Strip said Saturday that Israeli forces killed a Palestinian farmer in the center of the impoverished, under-siege coastal sliver.
  • Desecration of Imam Khomeini portrait sparks prote ...
    Iranians from all walks of life have protested against the desecration of a portrait of the late founder of the Islamic Revelation Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini during the Student Day protests in Tehran.
  • US House passes major Wall Street reform
    The US House of Representatives has passed the most significant changes in financial regulation since the Great Depression, despite strong opposition from the Republicans.
  • Iraq explosion kills 3 policemen
    Three Iraqi policemen have been killed in a blast on Saturday in the city of Kirkuk in the latest string of terrorist attacks which has rocked the oil-rich country since the 2003 US-led invasion.
  • Copenhagen braces for fresh climate rallies
    Thousands of police have been deployed in Copenhagen as tens of thousands of world climate activists gathered to protest against the worsening climate change on Saturday.

Axis of Logic

They Gave Us a Republic

  • The Legacy of Fred Hampton
    I wonder what a young black activist murdered in Chicago by J. Edgar Hoover's stormtroopers would say to the first black president about shielding federal employees from having to answer for war crimes. Jeffrey Haas in The Nation: December 4 marks the fortieth anniversary of the raid on a Black Pant ...
  • Thomas Hoenig For Fed Chairman
    With the renomination of the current Federal Reserve chairman meeting some opposition, now is the time to start thinking about who might be a good replacement. For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears . No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post At Federa ...
  • Bill Allows Health Care Rationing By Insurance Com ...
    Senate Bill Provision Creates Private Industry Rationing: Reform Advocate Anybody surprised by this? A major health care reform group is criticizing a provision in the Senate health care reform bill that would cap the cost of medical care that consumers could have on a yearly basis .In a conversatio ...
  • The Nightowl Newswrap
    King of the Lunatics Rep. Steve King of Iowa, one of the fiercest enemies of the community group ACORN, is beside himself over being served a cookie in the shape of an acorn when he attended a Christmas soiree at the White House. Where is Freud when you need him to tell this jerkoff that sometimes a ...
  • Happy Hanukkah
    See you tomorrow. We are eating and spinning dreidles and eating and singing and laughing and eating and having a great time. And did I mention eating? The Hanukkah story is below the fold: The story of Hanukkah begins during the time of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered much of the middle ...

Care 2

  • Rain 'not enough' to end hunger in Kenya
    London, England (CNN) -- Recent rainfall has brought new vegetation to parts of Kenya that haven't seen rain for years, but aid workers say it's too little, too late to undo the damage caused by years of drought. Submitted by Kristi K. to World  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • Dingo policy fails on Fraser
    We are either talking about 2 different Fraser Islands, where on one the dingo population is starving and on the other the dogs are happily living on human handouts, or the information provided to the media is baseless and just more Labor spin. Submitted by Simone D. to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   A ...
  • ACTION ALERT: Speak Out Against Factory Farms!!!
    The Our Lady of Calvary Abbey, a Trappist monastery, located in Rogersville, New Brunswick has recently been urged by several animal rights groups to shut down its farming operation due to grossly inhumane treatment of animals. The monastery is operating Submitted by Simone D. to Green Lifestyle  | ...
  • President Barack Obama; Why Conceal? --- Why Not R ...
    The "Obama Euphoria Ends" public debate rages on and now one of the main reasons for President Barack Obama to possibly fail has been brought to light. Obama has sealed his records, transcripts and other documentation, which makes him appear to be guilty. Submitted by SirRobert THE FIFTH KNIGHT to U ...
  • End your social networking life with Seppukoo
    If Facebook is taking over your life, a new website is offering you a way out.The site, Seppukoo.com, offers ritual suicide for Facebook users’ virtual profiles by deactivating your account. And it doesn’t stop there. Submitted by Kristi K. to Science & Tech  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment

GreenBiz

Reuters Global

  • How did the tsunami affect you?
    It’s been almost five years since the tsunami tore across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries and sparking an unprecedented outpouring of global giving. Share your story here.
  • Can China help stabilise Pakistan?
    President Barack Obama has said Washington would like to work with China to help stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan. But can the U.S. find its way through the minefield of India-Pakistan-China relations?
  • Nobel notebook: Dancing queens and rule breakers
    The sight of Nobel laureates and the great and good of Sweden dancing to big-band renditions of “The Theme from Rocky” or the music of Earth, Wind and Fire, is among the more surreal experiences I’ve had in Stockholm. Decked out in evening wear, with their medals and sashes, they twirled, shim ...
  • Thoughts on Obama’s Nobel Theology Prize spe ...
    If there were a Nobel Prize for Theology, large parts of President Barack Obama's Oslo speech could be cut and pasted into an acceptance speech for it.
  • Obama’s linguistic high wire act
    Obama's take on war and peace

Ezra Klein

  • Tab dump
    1) How restaurants use menus to trick you . 2) What happens when Wall Street gets its hands on cap and trade? 3) I liked David Brooks's take on Chanukkah. 4) Henry Ford as Sarah Palin. 5) Megan McArdle's gift guide for foodies is fantastic . One addendum: If the Ken Onion knife is too pricey, c ...
  • Second-guessing the Fed
    Paul Krugman goes directly at Ben Bernanke today: Mr. Bernanke has received a great deal of credit, and rightly so, for his use of unorthodox strategies to contain the damage after Lehman Brothers failed. But both the Fed’s actions, as measured by its expansion of credit, and Mr. Bernanke’s w ...
  • Natalie Portman ... and zombies
    Good news : Natalie Portman's production company, handsomecharlie, is planning to adapt "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" for the big screen. Portman will play Elizabeth Bennet, which does somehow make sense. Less clear is the justification for the film -- Annette Savitch, Portman's co-producer, to ...
  • Did Clinton have it easy?
    Noam Scheiber compares the task facing deficit hawks in 2009 to the task facing deficit hawks in 1993: The decision about whether to rein in the bulging deficit or spend money on the rickety economy divided the incoming Clinton team. But, in retrospect, the challenge was much easier than the one ...
  • A tale of two Mitches
    Steve Pearlstein's column today compares Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, "a principled but practical conservative who respects the intelligence of voters and would rather get something done than score political points," with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, "the charmless and shameless hy ...

Booman Tribune

  • ACORN Laws Set Aside
    Oh, snap!! December 11, 2009. New York, NY - Today, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon granted a preliminary injunction against the United States for unconstitutionally withholding funds from ACORN. In its decision, the court found that there is a likelihood the plaintiffs will be able to show tha ...
  • Friday Night Tunes
    If you like Booman Tribune, please consider making a contribution. And, now some more excellent tunes.
  • DOJ Punts on Jack Johnson Pardon
    When considering whether to offer a recommendation for a posthumous pardon to legendary heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, how much investigation is required? On October 18, 1912, Johnson was arrested on the grounds that his relationship with Lucille Cameron violated the Mann Act against "transp ...
  • It's Not a Radical Agenda
    Stu Rothenberg: Some have argued that only something as dramatic as a public option will truly deal with the nation's health care "crisis," but that's hard to swallow considering the sizable Democratic opposition to the idea in the House and the newly crafted Senate package. Think about that r ...
  • Open Thread
    I spent the day putting the nursery together for the soon-to-be-arriving BooBoy. I'm exhausted. Now I need recipes for stuff I can make and throw in the freezer. Oh, and curtains... What else should a first-time father be expecting?

European Tribune

Futurismic

  • Babbage’s Difference Engine, in action
    A nice and accurate replica of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine was built in California last year and is now on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Not newsworthy, but if you’ve never seen this machine in action, the short video is well worth a look. It’s fun to lis ...
  • Cutting steel with electromagnetic fields
    The bodies of vehicles need to be strong, but manufacturers also need to cut holes in them, for cable routing. Working together with a number of partners including Volkswagen, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Chemnitz have come up with another w ...
  • Editing memories
    Yet again, the line between science fiction and real life gets thinner, and another of our stories gains a slightly prophetic edge.  Richard Kadrey’s Twitter stream alerted me to an article at The Guardian about a therapeutic process whereby traumatic memories can be rewritten or edited in orde ...
  • The Future is the Past: Assassin’s Creed II
    ### Sometimes, there is joy to be had in simplicity… in particular, simplified history.  I know full well that the realities of the past are complex and labyrinthine.  I understand that there’s as much truth to be had in examining the way in which pre-literary societies passed down kno ...
  • Edward Willett teaches (sf-nal) typing
    Just a quickie – Canadian readers may be interested to know that occasional Futurismic blogger and freelance writer Edward Willett will be teaching an evening course in genre fiction writing at the University of Regina in March and April of next year. I’m not sure of the exact exchange rate, but ...

Therapy News

  • UK Doctors Call for an End to Child Immigrant Dete ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary As with many countries around the world, the United Kingdom sometimes battles with conflicts between its desire to welcome asylum seekers and its need to control the national population. As a result, not all of those who enter the country are granted continual access, ...
  • Study on Anti-Depressants Finds Major Personality ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Most modern anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications are criticized by many in the mental health community due to their abundant use and low probability of definitively providing a meaningful solution to mental health concerns. A study at Northwestern University h ...
  • A Report from the Front Lines of the Mental Health ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary The issue of involuntary mental health treatment, sometimes referred to as “sectioning,” is highly contentious within the mental health community, with some professionals strongly advocating for the detention of those who are deemed to pose a threat to themselves o ...
  • Doctor Takes a Jab at Post-Partum Depression Among ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline After even the most joyous of pregnancies, many women experience mental health difficulties know as post-partum depression –thoughts and feelings of a often deeply negative nature that can have a serious impact on overall mood and outlook. But sometimes, post-partum ...
  • Mind the Gap: Living in the Space Between Loss and ...
    By Beth S. Patterson, MA, LPC, Grief & Loss Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Beth and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile One of the most difficult phases in any life transition is the space of the unknown between a loss or change, and healing or new beginning. All life changes, even po ...

Mountaintop Removal

  • COP15 Friday- Youth voices, US leadership, exhaust ...
    It's Getting Hot In Here (blog) COP15 Friday- Youth voices, US leadership, exhaustion and excitement It's Getting Hot In Here (blog) ... Robert Byrd from West Virginia, posted a piece denouncing mountain top removal and honestly acknowledging the need to phase out coal. ... and more »
  • Mountaintop removal flies under US radar - Washing ...
    Mountaintop removal flies under US radar Washington Observer Reporter Mountaintop removal is a relatively new type of coal mining that began in Appalachia in the 1970s as an extension of conventional strip mining techniques. ... and more »
  • Byrd: Coal Industry Must Engage in Mountaintop Rem ...
    Examiner.com Byrd: Coal Industry Must Engage in Mountaintop Removal Mining Debate WTRF West Virginia's senior senator said the industry must take part in the debate about mountaintop removal mining. West Virginia's coal industry risks ... Coal industry responds to Sen. Byrd diplomatically The Assoc ...
  • An Updraft sampler - Frederick News Post (subscrip ...
    Frederick News Post (subscription) An Updraft sampler Frederick News Post (subscription) Via dance, costumes and original musical scores comes social commentary: a trapeze duet examines mountaintop removal , another piece uses interviews to ... and more »
  • Eat, drink, and watch a film on mountaintop remova ...
    Eat, drink, and watch a film on mountaintop removal C-Ville Weekly You know how I feel about mountaintop removal already—namely, angry and sad. I'm looking forward to learning more. Anyone else planning to go?

Memeorandum

  • Ungovernable America - The smarter elements in Was ...
    Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias : Ungovernable America   —  The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it's not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it's the fact that the country has become ungovernable.  For exam ...
  • Historic Win for Constitutional Rights! ... (Aliso ...
    Alison Roh Park / Center for Constitutional Rights : Historic Win for Constitutional Rights!  Injunction Granted in CCR Lawsuit on Behalf of ACORN   —  December 11, 2009.  New York, NY - Today, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon granted a preliminary injunction against the United States for unc ...
  • BREAKING: New Cost Estimate on Senate Bill (Jonath ...
    Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic : BREAKING: New Cost Estimate on Senate Bill   —  The Office of the Actuary for Medicare has issued its long-awaited cost estimate for the Senate's health care reform bill.  I've only had a few hours to digest it and talk with outside experts.  * But these see ...
  • Exclusive** Leaked Justice Department Memo: Terror ...
    Publius / Big Government : Exclusive** Leaked Justice Department Memo: Terrorists To Be Moved to Camp Gitmo Illinois   —  The Land of Lincoln may still be licking its wounds-and certain real estate transactions-over Chicago's losing the Olympics to Rio, but the Obama Administration has delivere ...
  • Tiger Woods taking hiatus from golf (Tiger Woods)
    Tiger Woods : Tiger Woods taking hiatus from golf   —  I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children.  I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness.

Energy & Environment News

5+ quakes - 7 days

  • M 5.0, Pakistan
    Saturday, December 12, 2009 16:22:11 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 09:22:11 PM at epicenter Depth : 41.50 km (25.79 mi)
  • M 5.0, Ryukyu Islands, Japan
    Saturday, December 12, 2009 13:50:31 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 10:50:31 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  • M 5.3, Mindanao, Philippines
    Thursday, December 10, 2009 15:06:44 UTC Thursday, December 10, 2009 11:06:44 PM at epicenter Depth : 60.80 km (37.78 mi)
  • M 6.3, Sea of Okhotsk
    Thursday, December 10, 2009 02:30:52 UTC Thursday, December 10, 2009 01:30:52 PM at epicenter Depth : 650.70 km (404.33 mi)
  • M 5.1, Maharashtra, India
    Saturday, December 12, 2009 11:51:26 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 05:21:26 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)

China Dialogue

  • Sowing seeds in the sand
    A staggeringly ambitious plan to mitigate the effects of climate change would see the Sahara and Australia’s outback planted with forest – and cost US$2 trillion. David Adam looks at a US researchers’ scheme. Some talk of hoisting mirrors into space to reflect sunlight, while others want to cl ...
  • How to cooperate on climate
    A deal between the American state of California and China's Jiangsu province provides a promising model of international partnership. Linden Ellis reports. On the perilous road to the conference in Copenhagen, which opened this week, the United States and China too often seemed to be playing a game ...
  • Young China’s long green march
    The work of the country’s largest youth environmental movement is only beginning, writes Huo Weiya. Students’ sense of not doing enough provides an impetus to keep going. “Back when I was in junior high school, the grass in my village would reach up to my chest,” recalls Liu Shitie, a studen ...
  • Under a cloud
    Carbon-trading schemes now function from Europe to California, but abundant deficiencies are evident. Any global market will look rather different, write Fiona Harvey and Ed Crooks. Rows of traders sit staring at their banks of computers, hand on mouse, eyes restlessly scanning the numbers that stut ...
  • Why Copenhagen matters
    Confused by countries’ climate commitments? Perplexed by paltry promises? Tan Copsey presents a beginner’s guide to the conference. After two years of protracted and complex negotiations, from sunny Bali in Indonesia through to frosty Poznan in Poland, the Copenhagen climate-change conference op ...

AlterNet Top Stories

Threat Level

  • U.S. Industry Fights to Keep Blind People in the D ...
    A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software makers to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to oppose a new international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind. On Monday, dozens of nations will meet in Geneva to consider adopting the WIPO Tr ...
  • Court Rejects Request to Consolidate TJX Hacker Ca ...
    A federal judge in Massachusetts has rejected a request from U.S. attorneys to consolidate a New Jersey case against Albert Gonzalez, who has admitted hacking more than 120 million credit card numbers from Heartland Payment Systems, with two other cases against him in Massachusetts. Gonzalez, a for ...
  • Lawmakers Want to Bar Sites From Posting Sensitive ...
    Three Republican lawmakers have asked the Department of Homeland Security what can be done to bar or criminally penalize whistleblower sites that reposted a sensitive airport-screening manual that was published on the internet by a government worker. They also asked about enacting regulations that w ...
  • 5 TSA Workers Put on Leave Following Screening Man ...
    The Department of Homeland Security has placed five transportation security employees on leave following the inadvertent leak of a sensitive manual detailing security procedures for screening passengers at airports. The workers, all employees of the Transportation Security Administration, were put o ...
  • FBI: 19,000 Matches to Terrorist Screening List in ...
    United States law enforcement agents and partners reported “encounters” with suspected terrorists 55,000 times in the last year; a check against the terrorist watchlist found a match 19,000 times, according to testimony presented to the Senate on Wednesday. The statistics appeared in testimony b ...

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

  • Iraq oil deal auction a "success," sees huge outpu ...
    BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq, emerging from the shadow of war, expects to boost its oil output to rival the level of top producer Saudi Arabia after awarding some of its most attractive oilfields to global oil companies this week.
  • Woods's break to fuel high-stakes guessing game
    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tiger Woods's decision to take an indefinite break from golf amid embarrassing revelations about his personal life has set off a high-stakes guessing game as to when the game's most popular and bankable player will return.
  • Obama complains about "fat-cat bankers"
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama complained about "fat-cat bankers" and sharply criticized Wall Street banks for paying out big bonuses to executives in a television interview to air on Sunday.
  • Questions surround Tiger Woods' future as marketin ...
    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tiger Woods' decision to withdraw from professional golf due to a sex scandal raised questions on Friday about his future as a magnet for corporate sponsors, with AT&T saying it was evaluating its ties.
  • US debt limit to rise by $1.8 to 1.9 trillion -Hoy ...
    WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives will vote to raise the national debt limit by $1.8 trillion to $1.9 trillion as part of a must-pass defense spending bill next week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said.

Pine River World News

  • Top U.S. military officials to arrive in Pakistan ...
    IntelTrends - The following article is from The Frontier Post, Peshawar, Pakistan. Top U.S. military officials to arrive next week ©   The Frontier Post By Anwer Abbas December 11, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Top U.S. military officials are likely to visit Pakistan by next week to redress the Pakistani conc ...
  • An invitation to subscribe to 'IntelTrends' via RS ...
    Pine River World News publishes a secondary blog titled "IntelTrends". You've probably seen the IntelTrends column on the right side of Pine River's newsblog - but IntelTrends is now much more than the headline links that are updated and displayed each day. Check it out at: pineriver.posterous.co ...
  • Crisis of the European Monetary System: Showdown i ...
    The following commentary is reprinted with permission from Global Research. Crisis of the European Monetary System:  Showdown in Athens The EU Debt Overhang ©   Global Research By Mike Whitney December 10, 2009 Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou has the European Central Bank over a bar ...
  • [Full text] Barack Obama's speech upon accepting t ...
    [ Blogmaster note :  I haven't been this proud of our president since he announced the creation of 30,000 new U.S. jobs in Afghanistan!] Barack Obama's speech December 10, 2009 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and c ...
  • Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: Cobra's Anger Will ...
    [ Pine River World News republishes selected resistance statements so that readers can access different perspectives on current affairs, political and military issues. Additional items may be posted on IntelTrends , which is linked in the right column.] The following article is reprinted with permi ...

PDA AMERICA

  • Tim Carpenter on the Nick & Paul Show
    Tim Carpenter was recently interviewed on the Nick and Paul Show, from December 10th 2004.
  • Healthcare Not Warfare Field Leadership Call Dec
    Call Date: Date — 12/10/09 Our healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, Donna Smith, updated us on the very leatest news on healthcare reform in the Senate. Chuck Pennacchio updated us on the PA single payer hearings ...
  • IOT: End the Occupation Decmeber Call
    December’s End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding conference call had guests Gael Murphy and Rusti Eisenberg of United for Peace and Justice updating the group on the legislation to require President Obama to set an ...
  • The Imperious Ms Bean Censors Financial Reform Adv ...
    By Bill Bianchi | Illinois Co-Chair & Chicago Chair of Progressive Democrats of America With Democrats like Bean, who needs Republicans? Melissa Bean, (IL-08), bluest of Illinois’ blue dog Democrats, recently served as the temporary chair ...
  • Tea Party Purge: A Cause Without a Rebel
    By L.K. Samuels | News Junkie Post he Tea Party movement has reconnected the cooperation between conservatives and libertarians that harks back to their mutual opposition to FDR’s big government days. But a host of these ...

Marler Blog

  • Parent's Food Safety Guide for E. coli and Salmone ...
    We have had the E. coli guide for awhile and are in the process of finalizing the Salmonella guide.  Any suggestions?  Click on picture to download:
  • Raw Milk E. coli and Campylobacter Illnesses - A B ...
    I know my friends over at Weston Price Association and the Complete Patient think I spend all my time beating up on raw milk (hmm, did they notice what I did to Cargill last week?).  What really gets to me about the "raw milkies," is their religious passion for their personal freedom trumping the f ...
  • E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak Linked to Raw Milk in Cal ...
    On September 18, 2006, the California Department of Health Services (CDHS) opened an investigation of a possible outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections after receiving reports of two patients who had been hospitalized with HUS.  One was culture confirmed as infected with E. coli O157:H7. Interviews ...
  • Stewart Parnell, et al - Have You No Shame? Like ...
    Coming up on about a year ago the CDC announced that Peanut Corporation of America was responsible for sickening over 700 and killing at least nine.  In hearings before the United States House of Representatives, peanut butter with Salmonella positive test results where shown to be knowingly shipped ...
  • Have a Very Marler Christmas
    Only in a law firm that represents victims of food poisoning would there be a Christmas Tree with stuffed Salmonella and E. coli as ornaments. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy holiday season.

AutoblogGreen

  • AutoblogGreen for 12.11.09
    Greenlings: PHEV? DSG? VMT? A guide to common green vehicle acronyms A chance to sort it all out. Spy Shots: Aptera prototype spotted wearing peculiar modifications What's all this then? ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 12.10.09
    COP15: Brazil says ethanol is "the only real alternative" to fossil fuels Should the rest of the world follow Brazil's lead? REPORT: Tesla goes from competitor to demonstrator in Automotive X Prize ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 12.09.09
    GM dealers tired of hearing about 2011 Chevrolet Volt? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? LA 2009: Ford Focus BEV update These might be the most in-demand Fords around. ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 12.08.09
    GM invests $336 million into Detroit plant to build Volt Step #5,453 of #7,503 to bring the car to market. EPA says green house gases endanger people, environment - and it's all our fault It' ...
  • AutoblogGreen for 12.07.09
    LA 2009: CMT-380 packs microturbine, li-ion battery into a matte black package It's one way to make a $20,000 kit car into a $375,000 project. Don't you dare: French parents criticize Renault for naming n ...

Rafe's Radar

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!

  • Take Me to Your Climate Leader
    COPENHAGEN—“Politicians talk, leaders act” read the sign outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen on the opening day of the United Nations climate summit. Inside the convention center, the official delegations from 192 countries, hundreds of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)—an estimated 1 ...
  • TARIQ ALI: “Obama’s Afghan-Pak Syndrom ...
    Tariq Ali is author of more than 20 books, including history, politics, and fiction. His most recent books are Protocols of the Elders of Sodom (2009) and The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (2008). He is a regular contributor to The Guardian, New Left Review, and the London Rev ...
  • The Globe and Mail: Amy Goodman's border woes has ...
    The Globe and Mail: Canada Border Services Agency won’t comment on why the host of the widely syndicated radio and TV program Democracy Now had her speech checked at border Read more
  • Vancouver Observer: Amy Goodman Gets Brilliant Sto ...
    Read the Vancouver Observer article about Amy Goodman’s detention at the Canadian border: “Well, it’s official. Suspicion of criticizing the 2010 Olympics gets you on a watch list at the Canadian border. Want to come to Canada and discuss the environmental shame that is the tar sands? Go ah ...
  • Tavis Smiley interviews Amy Goodman
    Check out Tavis Smiley’s interview with Amy Goodman Watch / Listen / Read transcript

Farming Pathogens

  • Pigs Do Fly! Implications for Influenza
    The influenza genome is segmented. Eight pieces of single-stranded RNA encode for 11 proteins: PB2, PB1, PB1-F2, PA, HA, NP, NA, M1, M2, NS1, and NS2. The segmentation allows influenza of different subtypes infecting the same host to trade segments like card players on a Friday night. Most of the re ...
  • Breeding Influenza: The Political Virology of Offs ...
    What better way to medicate against a holiday’s genocidal origins and the hunger now swelling worldwide in the wake of a related banker-brought recession than with a bellyful of turkey, stuffing, yams, and pumpkin pie? Despite its rotten ambiguities Thanksgiving remains my favorite American holida ...
  • A Visitation of the Influenza
    In seeping through the world’s every nook and cranny, pandemics have a way of forcing themselves into our lives as a lurking presence. Even the most insular of functionaries, who typically makes his living solving problems by ignoring them, straightens up and takes notice.    As an epidemic ...
  • 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 ...

Digg Green

Invisible Opportunity

  • The Event Horizon in your Windshield Drive-By Moni ...
    By Les Visible Here goes; a significant number of people are going to stop paying their taxes come 2010. This is going to cause serious concern in the leech industry. Money is going to dry up for public services and crime is going to get bad. It’s going to get worse than it might have been [...]
  • Video – Global Warming US Cities Getting War ...
    A comparison of GISS data for the last 111 years show US cities getting warmer but rural sites are not increasing in temperature at all. Urban Heat Islands may be the only areas warming.
  • Copenhagen: the AGW druids at Copenhagen know they ...
    by Gerald Warner Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen – or is it? For AGW fanatics this was supposed to be the climactic moment, the Machtergreifung that would initiate global government and penal taxes through which the hard-earned money of Western citizens would become a burnt holocaust to the religi ...
  • Giant iceberg heading toward Australia
    A massive iceberg — more than twice the size of New York’s Manhattan island — is drifting slowly toward Australia, scientists said Wednesday. The iceberg, measuring 140 square km (54 square miles), cleaved off an ice shelf nearly 10 years ago and had been floating near Antarctica before commen ...
  • Video – The Carbon Tax Deception
    This is the real truth to why the globalists and NWO puppet Al Gore want to impose a carbon tax on you.

    Insurgency Watch - Posts

  • InsurgencyWatch moving to True/Slant
    In the coming days, InsurgencyWatch will be moving to True/Slant, “an original content news network tailored to both the ‘Entrepreneurial Journalist’ and marketers who want a more effective way to engage with digital audiences.” (That’s what the official about page says.) It’s not a deci ...
  • Kerry-Lugar’s First Victim
    If true, this is total bullshit: After strong criticism on the Kerry-Lugar bill in Pakistan, the government has decided to replace Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani and the announcement in this respect is expected within the next two days. There’s nothing in the bill reasonable Pa ...
  • Pakistan’s Civil War Heating Up
    In the aftermath of this weekend’s assault on the Pakistani General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the Taliban hit again in Alpuri, in the Shangla district east of Mingora in Swat. According to military sources who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press, a 1 ...
  • At Home with a Swat Lashkar
    I just finished up a few days in Swat and while I’m working on a story about it, I thought you might like to see a few pictures I took while there. Enjoy. Share/Save
  • FACTBOX: Uzbek militant leader killed in Pakistan ...
    Washington PostFACTBOX: Uzbek militant leader killed in PakistanReutersBy this time he is thought to have fled the region for the safe haven of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. * Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader ...Pakistan to Target Taliba...

AlterNet - DrugReporter

Twilight Earth

  • Fair Trade Chocolate at Keeps a Diplomat Happy – ...
    There's a general sense in the Media Centre at Cop15 that we’re waiting around. But at least there’s an endless supply of fair-trade chocolate. Related posts: Cop15 Climate Express Dispatch – You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet Twilight Earth Exclusive Cop15 Video – China Youth in ...
  • A Great Big List of Other People’s Best Green Gi ...
    Twilight Earth brings you the Best of the Best Green Gift Guides, by Jennifer Kaplan, author of Greening Your Small Business. Related posts: Planet Green Announces New Green Materials Guide 5 Great Articles on How to Green Your 4th of July One Million Acts of Green: The Power of People Coming Tog ...
  • Climate Action Plan B: – An Ark on the National ...
    As the Copenhagen climate talks unfold, people will gather on the National Mall for Climate Plan B: The Ark. Related posts: International Day of Climate Action – October 24th Actions Solar Decathlon on the Mall in Washington DC Live Dispatch from the Climate Express : The IPCC is not the Univers ...
  • Cop15 – On The Streets – Day One Video
    Our friends Brandon and Steve, with America.Gov, are in Copenhagen at the COP15 Climate Talks. Check out their first On The Streets video. Related posts: Cop15 Clip Real Video – Greening the Empire State Building Cop15 Clip Reel Videos – Watch Them Here Before they Go to Copenhagen Twiligh ...
  • Twilight Earth Exclusive Cop15 Video – China You ...
    Cop15 China Youth came to Copenhagen with Chinese entrepreneur Wang Shi to show the world that they are the next generation of green-entrepreneurs. Related posts: Twilight Earth Exclusive: The Bigger Picture – Documenting Cop15 Cop15 Climate Express Dispatch – You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ ...

Inhabitat

  • Precious Lithium Squeezed Out of Geothermal Waste ...
    We need electric vehicles to curb our thirst for oil, but there’s a problem: EV’s generally use lots of lithium in their batteries, and that’s another limited resource. Now Simbol Mining thinks it has a partial solution in a new technique that extracts battery lithium from the wastewater of ge ...
  • GREEN GIFT GUIDE: Eco-Friendly Stocking Stuffers!
    Looking for little green treasures that everyone on your list will be delighted to find tucked in their stockings? Well you’ve come to the right place because our Green Stocking Stuffer Guide has a bountiful array of adorable and affordable gift ideas that your recipients will actually use (unlike ...
  • Discarded Electronics Are Poisoning African Childr ...
    If you’ve ever wondered where that computer, refrigerator or TV you threw away ended up, you may not like the answer. A recent expose on ABC.com reveals the dirty secret behind electronic wastes: many products discarded by developed nations like Germany, the U.S. and England wind up in Africa, and ...
  • NYC Allows Bicycle Parking in Buildings While Cutt ...
    Since the beginning of December, riding your bike to work in New York City got a little easier, but riding through Brooklyn just got a little harder. On Monday, the NYC Department of Transportation and Department of Building announced that together, they would work to implement the Bicycle Access to ...
  • Live from COP15: Optimism, Hard Work and Bridging ...
    COPENHAGEN, A report from Earth2Tech — Four days deep into the Copenhagen climate negotiations a few things are clear: the glowing optimism of the opening ceremonies on Monday has faded, and now the reality of the hard work that is needed to bridge the gaping divide between developing and develope ...

Pogue's Posts

  • Free Speech (Recognition)
    This week, I tried out Dragon Dictation, a new, free, very real app for the iPhone from Nuance.
  • What I Bought This Year
    People seem to be interested in what the consumer-tech columnist would buy for himself and his own family, so it seemed like a slam-dunk.
  • Who Pays When an iPhone Is Stolen?
    Why AT&T is - surprisingly - not in the wrong when it comes to iPhone-replacement fees.
  • Flight Track: My Personal Travel Assistant
    The travel app Flight Track is simple, useful and smarter than the airlines it keeps track of.
  • A $25 Cellphone? That's Crazy Talk.
    This week, Palm released a follow up to the Pre, a cheaper, thinner, lesser phone called the Pixi. The official price is $100 with a two-year Sprint contract, but Amazon is selling the thing for - are you sitting down? - $25.

Open Your Eyes News

  • FDA Recruits Prominent Critics
    Nature – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has embraced yet another of its outspoken critics by appointing Peter Lurie as an advisor to the assistant commissioner for policy David Horowitz. Lurie most recently served as of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. At Public Citizen, where ...
  • India is third country to get reprocessing rights ...
    Indian Express – India will be the third country to get reprocessing rights from the US as talks on ‘arrangements and procedures’ of the bilateral nuclear deal are expected to be completed within a week or two, the US-India Business Council (USIBC) said on Thursday. Under the agreement, ...
  • Australian Senator warns of US ‘Armageddon’
    Sydney Morning Herald – THE OPPOSITION finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, believes the United States government could default on its debt, triggering an ”economic Armageddon” which will make the recent global financial crisis pale into insignificance. Senator Joyce said yesterday he did not mea ...
  • Turkey bans main Kurdish party over alleged terror ...
    The Guardian – Turkey was propelled into fresh political uncertainty yesterday after the country’s highest court closed the main Kurdish party over alleged terrorist links. Disturbances broke out in the mainly Kurdish south-east, jeopardising moves by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to resol ...
  • Novel Drug Combo Improves Breast Cancer Survival
    AP — Some women with very advanced breast cancer may have a new treatment option. A combination of two drugs that more precisely target tumors significantly extended the lives of women who had stopped responding to other medicines, doctors reported Friday. It was the first big test of combining H ...

Monkey Smashes Heaven

  • Blacks, Latinos, Other Opressed Nations Are Born S ...
    Blacks, Latinos, Other Oppressed Nations are Born Stupid Say Imperialists by End Imperialism (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) It is widely accepted amongst scientists that “race” as a biological or genetic concept simply has no meaning; it does not exist in nature. (1) There is no single gen ...
  • 25th Anniversary of Union Carbide murders in Bhopa ...
    25th Anniversary of Union Carbide murders in Bhopal,India (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Hundreds marched through the city of Bhopal, India to mark the 25th anniversary of the worst industrial accident on record. The marchers demand clean-up of their poisoned environment. In the face of the pu ...
  • Gringos should pay their eco-debt
    Gringos should pay their eco-debt (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Recently, Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva or “Lula” commented on the First World and the current environmental crisis. Lula said that “gringos” should pay Amazonian countries to prevent defor ...
  • Polish reactionaries attack communist symbols
    Polish reactionaries attack communist symbols (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Legislation to imprison and fine those who possess or buy communist symbols has been approved by Poland’s reactionary president Lech Kaczynski. Those who posses, purchase, or spread items or recordings containing co ...
  • Polish reactionaries attack communist symbols
    Polish reactionaries attack communist symbols (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Legislation to imprison and fine those who possess or buy communist symbols has been approved by Poland’s reactionary president Lech Kaczynski. Those who posses, purchase, or spread items or recordings containing co ...

PakAlert

  • US Security Firm Bribes Pakistani Officials, Top I ...
    · Over US $ 250,000 paid as bribes to people inside the Interior Ministry to license illegal weapons · PS to State Minister of Interior arrested · Bribes were paid after US Ambassador personally lobbied for the licenses · Capt. Zaidi, Jamil Abbasi, Mr. Qadir and Dr. Dara are under arrest · Fea ...
  • How Talk Show Hosts PsyOp Listeners Into Submissio ...
    Publisher’s note: Pakistan, take lessons and try to understand how you are being played by Zionist media employed mainstream talk-show hosts and journalists who are just serving their vested agenda that has nothing to do with the well being of common masses! Are Americans Too Broken For The Truth ...
  • Ahmadinejad has proof US trying to stop Hidden Ima ...
    Tabnak | Dec. 4, 2009 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that he has documented evidence that the United States was trying to prevent the coming of the Hidden Imam [Mahdi] (messiah). According to a Khabar Online report, Ahmadinejad expounded on the plots hatched by the East and West for the ...
  • Is Obama Really Preparing For Civil War?
    Chuck Baldwin December 11, 2009 According to an obscure report in the European Union Times (EUTimes.net), “Russian Military Analysts are reporting to Prime Minister Putin that US President Barack Obama has issued an order to his Northern Command’s (USNORTHCOM) top leader, US Air Force General G ...
  • Blue Whale ‘Song of Death’ Says Warns World Of ...
    A most interesting FSB report from the Russian Far Eastern Chukchi Peninsula circulating in the Kremlin today states that the tribal shamanic elders of the Siberian Yupik peoples have convened in their most holy of conclaves for the first time since the June, 30 1908 Tunguska explosion, which at ove ...

ecogeek

  • Nanotech Breakthrough: Self-Cleaning Solar Panels
    Solar panels may have just become more low maintenance.  While conducting research on a cure forl Alzheimer's, scientists at Tel Aviv University ended up with a nanotech breakthrough that could mean no more worrying about keeping solar panels clean - they can clean themselves! The researchers were ...
  • Control the Climate at Your Desk, Save Energy
    Ever wish you could micromanage the heating and cooling of your workplace down to the area around your desk?  Turns out, not only would it make you more comfortable, but it would also save energy. If you've ever worked in a large office building, you know that the AC can pump so much that you're f ...
  • Going Greener by Going Bigger: Does it Work?
    Busses are greener than cars, and apartment buildings are greener than houses. But is a 747 greener than a Cessna? Is an interstate greener than Route 66? Is a 55 inch flat screen greener than a 20 inch tube television? Is a cruise ship greener than a pontoon boat? There's been some focus on goin ...
  • If You Could Ask the World Leaders Attending COP15 ...
    I'm putting a call out for your most pressing climate change questions.  CNN is broadcasting another YouTube debate, this time on climate change, live from the climate conference in Copenhagen.  CNN has asked all major environment blogs to submit a question to be asked of the leaders and activist ...
  • Oregon Wave Project Under Way
    A project to build the country's first wave power station off the coast of Oregon is finally moving forward.  Wave power company Ocean Power Technologies just signed a contract with Oregon Iron Works to start building 10 buoys, with the first one to be deployed a year from now off the coast of Ree ...

Times Online - Science

  • Go now
    Give yourselves a blast of Caribbean sun before Christmas. Fly to the Dominican Republic from Manchester next Wednesday for a week at the five-star Gran Bahia Principe Bavaro Hotel. The all-inclusive break, with flights, starts at £709pp from lastminute.com Get away to Ghent for Boxing Day and ...
  • Book now
    Chief’s Camp is a luxury temporary village being set up in the veld near Johannesburg for the World Cup finals (June 11 to July 11). Three nights’ full board plus a game drive costs from £1,975pp with Mango (020-8971 9777, www.mango.gb.com).
  • Correspondents: a sleepless night on an Indian sle ...
    The funny thing about travelling on a shoestring is that it induces a shoestring mentality.
  • Google puts on its Goggles
    The days of standing in front of a landmark, wondering what it is and when it was built, or wanting to know more about a painting in a gallery than merely the artist’s name and when he or she died, are numbered.
  • How to get a flight upgrade
    From the December issue of The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Environment _ National Geographic

  • PHOTOS: "Alien" Jellyfish Found in Arctic Deep
    A naked snail, a brightly colored jellyfish, and a ten-foot-long string of bell-like animals are among the odd discoveriessome only recently described by sciencemade during a 2005 expedition of the frigid and little-known polar waters.
  • Most High-Tech Ocean Observatory Opens
    Nearly 500 miles of data-transmitting cable will make Neptune Canada's new Pacific Ocean observatory the largest of its kind. Underwater cameras will also capture seafloor wildlife. Video
  • PHOTOS: Ten Environmental Wins of 2009
    From the discovery of new ghostsharks to a potential new technique for mass production of solar panels, 2009 wasn't all bad news for the environment. See what experts list as major wins for the year.
  • 2000-2010: A Decade of (Climate) Change
    Climate change dominated the environmental discourse this decade. What will explode on the scene from 2010 on? Water and food issues, and Chinas continued economic growth, according to experts.
  • Presented By:

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

  • Jon Stewart on Healthcare
    The Daily Show's Jon Stewart takes a look at the healthcare successes of the Democrats: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Democratic Super Majority www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview (h/t GottaLaff :)
  • Score One For The Working Families Party in NYC
    Score two, actually... Via The Gotham Gazette, The Working Families Party , a political party that has made significant contributions to Connecticut's political landscape, has taken over New York city : Both Liu and de Blasio had the endorsement of the Working Families Party , yesterday and in th ...
  • That's Alright Obama
    A little northern humour on the bailouts in the key of "eh?" The banks may not all be solvent but the comment threads are. Deposit your thoughts below.
  • A Politician That Might Just Do What He Promises?
    A Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, politician telling you he has done nothing for the last 6 years: "Nobody does nothing better than Steve Young" H/T the Smirking Chimp and I have to wonder if this is even real? [update] Holy crap! It might just be for real and he is a Democratic candidate, a ...
  • Goin' Down The Memory Hole
    It's Tengrain Presents... So you know you should get over there and read it all!

SPL Center

  • Man Killed in FBI Shootout Said to Lead Terror Cel ...
    A Detroit man fatally shot last week by FBI agents was a high-ranking leader of a nationwide separatist group that advocated violence and denigrated Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims, according to an FBI complaint. Luqman Ameen Abdullah (also known as Christopher Thomas), 53, was killed during ...
  • Rise Up and Fight the Swine Flu Conspiracy, Says & ...
    Of all the fantastic musings and mutterings about the H1N1 flu and vaccine, few are more outrageous than the pronouncements of retired Army Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine III and his psychiatrist wife, Rima Laibow. They run a nonprofit organization called Natural Solutions Foundation, which warns of t ...
  • Potential Jurors Being Interviewed for the Bill Wh ...
    ROANOKE, VA. — After sitting through his own threat trial in Brooklyn, hate blogger Hal Turner may find himself back in a federal courtroom sooner than expected — this time as a witness in a similar case. Turner was on the list of dozens of potential witnesses that a government prosecutor read d ...
  • Uganda’s Harsh Anti-Gay Legislation Has Amer ...
    While activists around the world criticize pending legislation in Uganda they call the “kill the gays” bill, some Americans are being outed for their connections to those involved in the proposed statute. The latest is Richard Cohen, who claims he has successfully counseled thousands of gays to ...
  • Columnist Describes Barrage of Threats from Nazi L ...
    ROANOKE, VA. — Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts told the jury this afternoon that his “blood ran cold” when he received an E-mail from white supremacist Bill White with his home address, telephone number and a reference to his wife. When he clicked a link in the E-mail and saw th ...

Rio Times

  • Flamengo Champs for Dramatic 6th Title
    By Doug Gray, Senior Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO – On a day of high tension in Rio the city’s three teams completed their individual searches for glory on Sunday afternoon, sending thousands of football fans into the streets to commemorate a truly historic season finale. Champions Flamengo lifted th ...
  • RJ-SP Rail Line Bidding Planned
    By Jaylan Boyle, Senior Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - The Brazilian government has announced that the bidding process for the construction and operation of a high-speed rail line that will link Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Campinas is to begin. Several public seminars will be held in January, giving ci ...
  • Moving to Brazil… Easy
    By Renato Vieira, London-Brazil Advertorial RIO DE JANEIRO - Moving to another country because of work is a daunting task. The thought of leaving behind all that is familiar for a life in a country that you are not used to and where the locals may have strange customs, or worse still not speak your ...
  • Blue and Yellow, Unidos Da Tijuca
    By Bruno De Nicola, Senior Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - “It’s a secret”, and if you want to learn what the secret it, go to Santo Cristo neighborhood to shake with samba school Unidos da Tijuca, the blue and yellow ‘gremio’ with a very special Rainha da Bateria (Drum Session Queen), Adr ...
  • Waxy’s, a New Irish Pub in Ipanema
    By Felicity Clarke, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - There’s good news for those who find thimbles full of weak lager an unfulfilling way to drink beer. A new pump of hair-on-your-chest Guinness is arriving in town at the latest Ipanema addition, Waxy’s Irish bar. Across the road from last ...

Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

  • Nominations Open for Second Annual 'Izzy Award' fo ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2009 Park Center for Independent Media Nominations for the 2009 Izzy Award are officially open. The annual award for special achievement in independent media - named after legendary muckraker I. F. "Izzy" Stone - is a project of the Park Center for Independent Medi ...
  • Fishermen Challenge Federal Agency
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2009 Earthjustice Recreational and commercial fishermen have filed separate actions against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) seeking to close loopholes in the way it monitors the industrial Atlantic herring midwater trawl fleet and bring accountability ...
  • FAMM Hails Historic NJ Vote to Roll Back Mandatory ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2009 Families Against Mandatory Minimums Sentencing reform advocates Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) hails the historic vote by the New Jersey Senate to roll back mandatory minimum sentences and provide courts discretion when applying the New Jersey drug ...
  • POGO’s Concerns About Insurance Companies Confir ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2009 Project On Government Oversight (POGO) A new audit released today by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) confirms concerns raised by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) about insurance companies gaining access t ...
  • GAO: Early Termination Fees Harming Consumers
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2009 Free Press High early termination fees are a major barrier to consumer choice in the mobile phone marketplace and are preventing millions of consumers who want a new carrier from making the switch, according to a new report released on Thursday by the Governme ...

Common Dreams-Views

  • US-Iran Talks: The Road to Diplomatic Failure
    by Gareth Porter The talks between the G5 plus 1 and Iran are careening toward a premature breakdown. If they do fall apart, it will be due in large part to a serious diplomatic miscalculation by the Obama administration. Along with its European allies, the Obama administration seized on a plan that ...
  • Cap & Dividend: A Clear Winner
    by Sarah van Gelder Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced a bill today that is a much better approach to reducing climate change than the cap and trade bill circulating in the Senate. Her bill, which she co-sponsored with Senator  Susan Collins (R-ME), uses cap and dividend to reduce climate emi ...
  • It's Going to Be Beautiful
    by Bill McKibben I know many of you are busy preparing for this weekend's vigils , and I know you're all hearing a lot about the climate talks in Copenhagen . But since we're all working on the same team, I wanted to give you an inside/outside sense of all that's happening in one of the more importa ...
  • America's Race to the Bottom
    by David Michael Green I sure hope that there is a full and speedy recovery to the massive recession we are all now suffering under. But, I'll be honest. I doubt that there will be. Most of the upticks following our latest national downturns have been dismal enough that economists have had to inve ...
  • The Land Mines Obama Won't Touch
    by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship Many people are troubled that Barack Obama flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize so soon after escalating the war in Afghanistan. He is now more than doubling the number of troops there when George W. Bush left office. read more

Karl Burkart

Water Privatization

Guardian

  • Banking tax to fund climate aid
    An EU summit in Brussels sought to boost the chances of a deal further by also pledging €2.4bn a year from January An international campaign to force the financial sector to pay for saving the planet from global warming was boosted yesterday when France joined Britain in championing a new global r ...
  • Ministers doubt Brown poll strategy
    • Heartlands plan seen as risking losing swing voters • Balls seen as winner in pre-budget report Fears are growing in parts of the cabinet that Gordon Brown is drifting towards a core vote strategy in a bid to be a player in a hung parliament. Some members think Labour will be forced back into ...
  • Iranians dream of a new revolution
    'Stolen' election fuels dissent amid fears of new flashpoint at Shia festival Tehran University students have been filing into their classes past giant posters of Ayatollah Khomeini and the stern slogans of the Islamic revolution for the last 30 years. But the angry scenes on the university's sprawl ...
  • Archbishop: Labour treats faith as a 'problem'
    Archbishop of Canterbury urges political leaders to admit their own beliefs The archbishop of Canterbury has accused the government of treating religious faith as a "problem" whose followers are "oddities". Dr Rowan Williams said ministers were wrong to think that religion was no longer relevant in ...
  • Philippines president lifts martial law
    State of emergency remains in restive southern province The president of the Philippines is lifting martial law in a southern province where 57 people were massacred in the country's worst political violence. The move comes eight days after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed the controversial ...

Diigo | Green Community

  • Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publi ...
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  • Free classified Ads - beatyourprice.com
    Free classified Ads. buy and sell pets, computers, real estate, cars, business at beatyourprice.com Comments: Free classified Ads. buy and sell pets, computers, real estate, cars, business at beatyourprice.com - alexander hampp Tags: Best , Articles , green , environment , sustainability , organic , ...
  • Green Credit Cards Committed to Environment
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Electronic Intifada

CS Monitor - News

  • podcast091204
    Fewer US jobs lost in November and impact on economy.
  • October 16, 2009
    The UN Human Rights Council votes to adopt the Goldstone Report on Israel's military incursion into Gaza.
  • October 19, 2009
    Saudi Arabia is wary of terrorists, especially from neighboring states.
  • October 20, 2009
    How some TV insiders view parents and children on reality television.
  • October 21, 2009
    How African Anglicans might respond to the Vatican's offer.

The Wonk Room

  • Copenhagen Can Jumpstart Twenty Million Low-Carbon ...
    International pursuit of low-carbon policies has the potential to create twenty million jobs between now and 2020 in low-carbon energy in eight of the world’s leading economies — including the United States, China, India, and the United Kingdom. The report—”Low-Carbon Jobs in an Interc ...
  • Which Democrats Sided With The Banks By Voting Aga ...
    oday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, by a vote of 223-202. The bill overhauls the nation’s financial regulatory system by creating a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), providing a dissolution mechanism for di ...
  • Does The Senate Bill Really Allow Insurers To Set ...
    Progressives are criticizing Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for including language in the merged Senate bill that would allow insurers “to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not “‘unreasonable’.” While it’s unclear how or why the langu ...
  • Bill O’Reilly Slams Law & Order Drama Series ...
    Last night, Bill O’Reilly characterized the producer of NBC’s Law & Order crime drama, Dick Wolf, as a “far left guy” for approving a piece of dialogue that described O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh as a “cancer spreading ignorant and hate” that has convinced people that immigr ...
  • Copenhagen, Day Five: Negotiations Move Slowly For ...
    The Wonk Room is reporting and tweeting on the scene from Copenhagen during the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Blame Canada The mayor of Toronto, Canada, David Miller, accepted the top two Fossil of the Day awards from the International Climate Action Network on behalf of Canada. The cli ...

thwap's schoolyard

  • Canuck Konstitutional Kryzezz and Tiger Woods
    I've been absorbing the day's events. But I gotta hand it to the CBC. When I checked in to get the latest news and analysis of this dramatic forcing of the question of the competing powers of our various, ancient branches of government, ... what do my eyes behold as the lead story on the CBC news ...
  • I Always Thought Christie Blatchford Was an Idiot
    (I changed the title, so that it says "Idiot" instead of my first choice "Moron" because that's what I call Blatchford's sister in stupidity, Rosie DiManno .) I haven't read you for years and years and years Christie. You used to appear in the Toronto Sun, writing brain-dead criticisms of left-win ...
  • Richard Colvin Made it All Up ...
    "Because he hates stephen harper/Canada!!!" (The two are interchangeable to a Blithering Idiot, ... I mean Blogging Tory.) And the request from CF for new boots to help them wade through the blood and fecal matter on the floors of Afghan penal institutions? "Um, that would be a totally irrelevant ...
  • Please Read
    I first posted this excerpt from this recent post . But I think it got lost in the shuffle of the reporting on General Natynczyk's about face on whether we'd actually detained and transferred that one suspect over to his Afghan abusers. The thing is, this account of CF actions in the field [dating ...
  • Online Petition For Public Inquiry Into Torture
    Pursuant to the goal of bringing accountability and the rule of law to Canada, and starting the process of getting the harpercons into the prison cells they're inevitably going to be thrown into, Alison at Creekside has a link to an online petition for a public inquiry into torture . Please sign it ...

Financial Sense Editorials

  • Market Observation: On Allocation
    by Brian Pretti. "A while back on our subscriber site, we penned a discussion trying to put the whole “mountain of money” thesis into perspective. The bottom line is that there is less than meets the eye, especially as that applies to households and corporations. Simply put, the private sector d ...
  • Energy and Financials Weakest Sectors
    by Carl Swenlin. "On Wednesday two of the sector indexes we track slipped from buy signals to neutral status. All other equity indexes and sectors tracked in our Decision Point Alert Daily Report remain on buy signals, with recent price patterns being similar to that of the S&P 500."
  • Gold is money in extreme times, have they arrived? ...
    by Julian Phillips. "It was Alan Greenspan who said that, “gold is money in extremis”. By this all understood that when times got tough, gold became money that people could trust. But what constitutes “in extremis”?"
  • A Hot Future for Geothermal
    by Katusa & Bustin. "Capturing energy from the earth’s heat is pretty easy pickin’s for geologically-active areas of the world like Iceland, Indonesia, and Chile. In some locations, hot fluids are so near the earth’s surface that heat from naturally-occurring hot fluids can be directly circula ...
  • Playing With Fire
    by J. R. Nyquist. "Born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the Emperor Nero was the fifth and last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He was born 15 December AD 37 and died 9 June AD 68, but he was ahead of his time."

on Government Oversight

  • Friday Bailout Roundup
    It’s been a busy week for the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Here are some of the stories we’ve been tracking: Geithner Extends TARP Through October 2010 On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent a letter to Congress...
  • Experts from 17 Countries Agree on Best Practices ...
    Earlier this year, over 30 delegates from 17 countries (including POGO's own Danielle Brian) gathered in Prague to develop a list best practices for whistleblower legislation. The results have just been made available by Transparency International (TI), the corruption-fighting group...
  • Morning Smoke: Did Blackwater Security Guards Part ...
    Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A. [New York Times] F136 Tests Lag Four Months [DoD Buzz] Financial Reform Moves Forward, With Many Loopholes [Huffington Post Investigative Fund] Geithner: TARP Extension Needed for Successful Exit [The Wall Street...
  • SIGTARP Audit Finds Insurance Companies Received T ...
    A new audit released today by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) shows that insurance companies received bailout funds intended for "healthy banks" needing an "extra layer of capital for stability or lending." The insurance...
  • Mega Laser Shoots Itself in the Foot
    How much the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) actually costs has always been a bit of a mystery. (We do know that its costs estimate was $700 million when the Department of Energy (DOE)...

    Digital Journal

  • RCMP come under fire as reports take aim at taseri ...
    Outspoken Chairman of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), Paul E. Kennedy, has issued two reports in the past week that rip the RCMP for their tasering practices.
  • 'The Lord saved them' says B.C. dad after hockey t ...
    A chartered bus carrying members of a Midget hockey team from the Fraser Valley slid and flipped injuring several kids on board. Brandon Daase, one of the team forwards, told his dad he and others crawled out through the smashed windshield.
  • Sepsis, something to be aware of, it can kill
    If you've never heard of sepsis, pay attention. It causes more than 25 deaths a day in Canada (outside Quebec) and has a mortality rate higher than for heart attacks.
  • Young adults in Nova Scotia bitten by gambling bug
    They may be too young to get into casinos but that has not stopped youth in Nova Scotia from becoming addicted to gambling.
  • Facebook founder 'meant' to show private pictures
    Speculation was rife this morning that Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, had fallen victim to the much criticised privacy changes on his popular social networking site.

End Homelessness | Change.org

  • From One System (Prison) to Another (Shelters)
    You'd assume that the end of a prison sentence would bring relief to a former inmate. But many inmates leave prison reluctantly, since they have nowhere to go but the streets upon their release. Our failure to overhaul prisoner re-entry policies have all but guaranteed that former inmates will simpl ...
  • The Emerging Face of Homelessness
    As Detroit is wrecked by recession and economic difficulty, a new face of homelessness is emerging. You likely wouldn't identify Tami as being homeless should you pass her on the street, but her story says otherwise. Luckily, her experience in a homeless shelter has been an unlikely one as well. She ...
  • Shelter Bed Shortage in NYC
    With a soaring homeless population and freezing temperatures, shelter beds are becoming a hot commodity in New York City. In fact, shelters have become so over-crowded over the past three months that homeless men and women are having to sleep on floors, benches and kitchen tables. So what is the cit ...
  • Cold Weather Crisis: How You Can Help
    This week, winter storms are ripping across the United States. It shouldn't come as a shock: cold weather is deadly when your home is outdoors. Several cities have already reported street deaths while others are scrambling to find additional shelter space. You help is desperately needed to combat th ...
  • And You Thought Dorm Living Was Bad?
    It's the home stretch... finals season! For many students -- myself included -- this means all-nighters, bottomless cups of coffee, and mounds of stress. But think you have it tough? Try pulling an all-nighter in a crowded homeless shelter. Or sleeping with your book bag under your pillow so your te ...

Ceasefire.ca

  • Churches call for peace mission in Afghanistan
    The Canadian Council of Churches is calling on the Canadian government to mount a new peace mission in Afghanistan focusing on two priorities: 1) supporting Afghans in implementing participatory reconciliation programs and responsive governance at district and local levels; and 2) convincing the int ...
  • Failed Russian missile test lights up Norway
    A failed Russian missile test lit up the sky over northern Norway early Wednesday morning. The third stage of a Bulava missile, Russia’s latest generation of submarine-launched ballistic missile, malfunctioned during the test flight, causing the missile to spin out of control and creating a huge, ...
  • Pentagon’s strategy in Afghanistan explained
    NBC News has the scoop on what the new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is intended to accomplish (see diagram above). Any resemblance to the work of the late Mark Lombardi is presumably purely coincidental.
  • Federal environment spending dwarfed by rising def ...
    A new report shows that Canada’s rising National Defence spending is $21.185 billion in 2009-2010, making Canada’s rank 13th highest in the world, and 6th highest among NATO’s 28 members, dollar for dollar. Defence analyst and author Bill Robinson says the rise in defence spending is an indica ...
  • Natynczyk reversal adds to pressure for torture in ...
    Chief of Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk dropped a bombshell in Ottawa on Wednesday, admitting that a prisoner taken by Canadian soldiers in 2006 had in fact been in Canadian custody prior to his transfer to and subsequent severe beating by Afghan authorities.  Earlier this week, Natynczyk ...

Kevin Trudeau Show

  • Authorities Calling for Safety Changes at Citgo Re ...
    December 11, 2009 ABC News By John McFarland Federal officials issued urgent new safety recommendations Wednesday for a Texas oil refinery where 21 tons of deadly acid were released this summer and said they are investigating the use of the chemical at refineries nationwide. The head of the U.S. Che ...
  • Pistachios Cut Cancer Risk
    December 11, 2009 U.S. News Eating pistachios every day might reduce your risk for lung cancer and other malignancies, according to a new study. Pistachios are a good source of a type of vitamin E called gamma-tocopherol. “It is known that vitamin E provides a degree of protection against certain ...
  • New Human Sensory System Found Under Skin
    December 11, 2009 Examiner By Meg Marquardt Researchers have found an entirely new system related to touch hidden beneath our skin. The study, published in the journal Pain, suggests that this network may play a pivotal role in diseases that cause chronic pain, such as intense migraines and fibromya ...
  • Corruption Scandal at World Health Organization
    December 11, 2009 Rense By F. William Engdahl The man with the nickname “Dr Flu”, Professor Albert Osterhaus, of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam Holland has been named by Dutch media researchers as the person at the center of the worldwide Swine Flu H1N1 Influenza A 2009 pandemic hysteria. N ...
  • Holiday Snacks Contain Alarming Levels of Salt
    December 11, 2009 Guardian By Rebecca Smithers Popular Christmas-themed food sold by supermarkets, coffee shops and fast food outlets can contain “shocking” amounts of salt which can pose serious health risks, a health group has warned. A survey of of 87 products including turkey sandwiches, bur ...

Pambazuka News

  • USA: Black coalition to protest expanding U.S. war ...
    A newly-formed Black coalition has announced a rally and march on the White House to take place November 7, 2009 beginning in Washington, D.C.’s historic Malcolm X Park. The rally and march are to protest the expanding U.S. wars and other policy ini...
  • Brazil: Bloggers on why there is still racism in t ...
    Two weeks ago, Global Voices Online reported the story of Januário Alves de Santana, a black man who had been beaten and punched by security guards of one of the largest international retailers in Brazil. He was waiting for his family in the car park...
  • Global: It takes a Villager
    Owino Odhiambo left his tiny Kenyan village less than a decade ago to immerse himself completely in American culture. Equipped with American citizenship, two degrees, and five years experience working as a dedicated graphic designer in New York City,...
  • Honduras: Implications of coup for Afro-descendant ...
    Currently, the country of Honduras in Central America is experiencing its worst political crisis in decades. In the aftermath of the military coup that forcibly removed President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, there have been various developments that have r...
  • Haiti: Petition for safe return of Lovinsky Pierre ...
    Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine has been missing since the night of the 12th August 2007. It is believed that his kidnapping was politically motivated and someone in the Haitian government and or the UN forces in Haiti led by Brazil must know what happened...

War in Context

  • Obama’s bloody re-election calculus
    Obama’s bloody re-election calculus By Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, Foreign Policy, December 10, 2009 Obama’s new “strategy” is no strategy at all. It is a cynical and politically motivated rehash of Iraq policy: Toss in a few more troops, throw together something resembling local ...
  • Israel expresses anger at new Palestine food label ...
    Israel expresses anger at new Palestine food labels By Valerie Elliott, The Times, December 12, 2009 Labels will soon show whether food from the West Bank, such as strawberries, dates and olives, comes from Palestinian farms or Israeli settlements, to give buyers a clearer choice. Supermarkets and o ...
  • Blackwater guards tied to secret CIA raids
    Blackwater guards tied to secret CIA raids By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, December 11, 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 bei ...
  • Beleaguered Iraqi leader puts off Gates meeting
    Beleaguered Iraqi leader puts off Gates meeting By Elisabeth Bumiller and Marc Santori, New York Times, December 11, 2009 Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived here on Thursday for talks with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, but the prime minister said he was too busy to see Mr. Gates becaus ...
  • In Iran, protests gaining a radical tinge
    In Iran, protests gaining a radical tinge By Robert F Worth, New York Times, December 11, 2009 In the video, one of hundreds filmed during Iran’s nationwide demonstrations on Monday, an enraged woman’s voice can be heard as a paramilitary truck runs a motorbike off the road amid a crowd of fleei ...

Watts Up With That?

  • Would You Like Your Temperature Data Homogenized, ...
    A Smoldering Gun From Nashville, TN Guest post by Basil Copeland The hits just keep on coming. About the same time that Willis Eschenbach revealed “The Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero,” The UK’s Met Office released a “subset” of the HadCRUT3 data set used to monitor global temperatu ...
  • GISS “raw” station data – before ...
    I’ve been following this issue a few days and looking at a number of stations and had planned to make a detailed post about my findings, but WUWT commenter Steven Douglas posted in comments about this curious change in GISS data recently, and it got picked up by Kate at SDA, which necessitated me ...
  • …”perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary ...
    We recently had a story about the UK Met Office putting out a petition amongst scientists (even non-climatologists) to prop up the image of the CRU. Some scientists said they felt “pressured” to sign. This story explains how they might feel that way. WUWT reader Norris Hall commented on this th ...
  • Counting CRU “tricks”
    Steve McIntyre has blogged an excellent technical explanation about IPCC and the “Trick” on the newly provisioned climateaudit.org now on WordPress.com, so I thought this would be a good time to have a look at the word “trick” and how it was used in the leaked CRU emails. A few day ...
  • McIntyre to be on CNN’s American Morning Fri ...
    American Morning is aired live every weekday morning from 6 to 9 am EST on CNN. At 7:30 AM EST Friday 12/11 Steve McIntyre will appear at the invitation of John Roberts. Be sure to watch.

Mathaba - Environment

The Intelligence Daily

My AntiWar

Innovation Canada

  • i2eye with Andrew Weaver
    As a child growing up in Victoria, if Andrew Weaver had to choose between watching a hockey game or a Jacques Cousteau program, the ocean explorer won out every time. Now a professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, Weaver has joined a crew o ...
  • Extreme exposure
    It’s about 5°C in the chamber, and Geoff Hartley, wearing a burlap tunic and sandals, is trying with numb fingers to put small pegs in small holes. It’s just another day of chillin’ out at the Brock University lab of Stephen Cheung, a world-renowned scientist who studies the impacts of extrem ...
  • Green Growers
    Deborah Henderson likes to think about the Cuban capital of Havana when she goes in to work. Not the music or the beaches, per se, but the vegetables and the gardens. “Over 75 percent or more of the vegetables consumed in Havana are produced within the city,” claims Henderson. As the director of ...
  • Building better bridges
    (Reprinted with permission from ResearchLife, Summer 2009 issue, University of Manitoba, umanitoba.ca/research) It was 1952 when Aftab Mufti, a 12-year-old boy living in Karachi, Pakistan, began building bridges. His mother planted a vegetable garden that summer and to help her water it Aftab and hi ...
  • Viral control
    Depending on whom you ask, the H1N1 flu virus that is making its way around the globe could be anything from a particularly virulent form of influenza to the next worldwide pandemic. As virologists scramble to understand the virus and develop vaccines against it, a Halifax facility is already on the ...

Signs of the times

  • Arrests ahead of Copenhagen protest
    Dozens of demonstrators have been arrested a day before a planned protest expected to draw thousands of people in Copenhagen, where the UN climate talks are taking place. Police arrested 75 sympathisers of the "Our Climate - Not Your Business" movement, which held demonstrations under the banner "D ...
  • UK Terror police to monitor nurseries for Islamic ...
    Nursery-age children should be monitored for signs of brainwashing by Islamist extremists, according to a leaked police memo obtained by The Times. In an e-mail to community groups, an officer in the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit wrote: "I do hope that you will tell me about persons, of what ...
  • UN Security Stops Journalist's Questions About Cli ...
    A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him "inconvenient questions" during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Professor Stephen Schneider's assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim ...
  • Nebraska: Walking From Parking Lot Not Commuting
    Union Pacific Employee Can Seek Compensation For Knee Injury The Nebraska Supreme Court has decided that walking into work from the parking lot shouldn't be considered commuting, so a Union Pacific conductor will be able to seek compensation for his knee injury. The ruling released Friday reinstat ...
  • Dark Side of a Saturnian Moon: Iapetus is Coated w ...
    Iapetus is often called Saturn's most bizarre moon, due to its starkly contrasting hemispheres -- one black as coal, the other white as snow. Images taken by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, orbiting Saturn since 2004, offer the most compelling evidence to date of why and how the moon got its yin-ya ...

Threat Level

  • U.S. Industry Fights to Keep Blind People in the D ...
    A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software makers to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to oppose a new international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind. On Monday, dozens of nations will meet in Geneva to consider adopting the WIPO Tr ...
  • Court Rejects Request to Consolidate TJX Hacker Ca ...
    A federal judge in Massachusetts has rejected a request from U.S. attorneys to consolidate a New Jersey case against Albert Gonzalez, who has admitted hacking more than 120 million credit card numbers from Heartland Payment Systems, with two other cases against him in Massachusetts. Gonzalez, a for ...
  • Lawmakers Want to Bar Sites From Posting Sensitive ...
    Three Republican lawmakers have asked the Department of Homeland Security what can be done to bar or criminally penalize whistleblower sites that reposted a sensitive airport-screening manual that was published on the internet by a government worker. They also asked about enacting regulations that w ...
  • 5 TSA Workers Put on Leave Following Screening Man ...
    The Department of Homeland Security has placed five transportation security employees on leave following the inadvertent leak of a sensitive manual detailing security procedures for screening passengers at airports. The workers, all employees of the Transportation Security Administration, were put o ...
  • FBI: 19,000 Matches to Terrorist Screening List in ...
    United States law enforcement agents and partners reported “encounters” with suspected terrorists 55,000 times in the last year; a check against the terrorist watchlist found a match 19,000 times, according to testimony presented to the Senate on Wednesday. The statistics appeared in testimony b ...

PERRspectives : Blog

  • McChrystal vs. Bush on Bin Laden
    Ever since the leaking of his confidential Afghanistan report in August, conservatives have used General Stanley McChrystal as a bludgeon against President Obama. Conveniently ignoring President Bush's repeated refusals to "listen to the commanders on the ground," GOP leaders in...
  • Obama Hopes to Fulfill Bush's Broken Promise on CO ...
    As the world's nations meet at the international climate summit in Copenhagen, it is worth remembering the President's promise to curb greenhouse gas emissions including carbon dioxide: "As we promote electricity and renewable energy, we will work to make our...
  • In Which Sarah Palin Learns About War Taxes
    Among the qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn't know what she doesn't know. But as her confusion about the First Amendment or Alaska's energy production showed, Palin's ignorance of a subject is no barrier to her...
  • Orrin Hatch: New GOP Majority the Solution to Repu ...
    From 2001 through 2008, what Thomas Frank deemed the Republican "wrecking crew" essentially demolished U.S. prosperity and the American dream. For the eight years George W. Bush presided in the White House and the six that the GOP controlled Congress,...
  • Republicans Warn of Health Care Gulags and Ghettoe ...
    For the Republican Party, the only thing worse than lower income Americans not having access to health insurance is having it. That's the conclusion of Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn, who on Sunday deemed the popular Medicaid program that serves...

Blackspot News Feed

  • Updated: US Senators: More Coal, Oil and Nukes Are ...
    The once-demonized nuclear industry got its biggest boost in years Thursday. A bipartisan coalition of US senators put forward a "framework" for climate legislation that aims to  dramatically increase   off-shore oil drilling, ensure a "future for coal" and, above all, ramp up subsidies for the fina ...
  • Exclusive: Will Pontius Pilate get next years Peac ...
    photo by Dandelion Saladby Rocket KirchnerFeatured WriterDandelion SaladRocket Kirchner (blog)Rocket Kirchner (youtube channel)December 12, 2009Blood speaks, but who is listening? For every child that is blinded and loosing limbs because of the aggression of the American Empire, every lash rips open ...
  • There's More to Sex Than a Cum Shot to the Face: W ...
    No, porn does not turn men into crazed sex fiends. But it's clear that pornography has affected the way we view -- and have -- sex. Here's how to counter porn's effects.
  • The Religious Right's Potty Paranoia
    Public restrooms: The final frontier of the right's war on queer folk?
  • Afghanistan: How the War Hawks Caged Obama
    How a desire for bipartisanship and peace within his own party led Obama to appoint a hawkish cabal that pushed him to a renewed war in Afghanistan.

Consortium News

  • 'Whatever Mistakes We Have Made'
    In Oslo, President Obama whitewashed the modern history of U.S. warfare behind five words, as Nicolas J S Davies notes. December 11, 2009
  • Jesus and Prometheus
    The social message behind the Jesus-birth myth echoes the great Greek myth of Prometheus, writes Rev. Howard Bess. December 11, 2009
  • The Propaganda Success of the Surge
    Washington's conventional wisdom about the "successful surge" in Iraq is more propaganda than reality, writes William Blum. December 10, 2009
  • Being Jay Bybee
    U.S. Appeals Court Judge Jay Bybee got his job by pleasing President Bush with rulings expanding his power, writes David Swanson. December 9, 2009
  • Why Journalist Gary Webb Died
    On the fifth anniversary of journalist Gary Webb's suicide, his death sheds light on how the U.S. media failed, says Robert Parry. December 9, 2009

CounterPunch

Institute for Middle East Understanding

Water - AlterNet

TruthHugger

  • Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Dec 7, ...
    Once again it’s time for the Texas Progressive Alliance to bring you the highlights from the blogs. Power to the People! Head over to Texas Vox to learn more about the Fair Elections Now Act. Xanthippas at Three Wise Men airs out some thoughts on the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and some ...
  • I’m Sick Of War
    As I listen to Obama’s speech to increase troops in Afghanistan, all I can think of is, the US has been in some kind of war my entire life. Just so you know, I was born between the Korean War and the Vietnam War.  Afghanistan and Iraq are similar; expensive, causing unnecessary loss of life [... ...
  • furlough programs, commutations and pardons BACKLA ...
    Maurice Clemmons was a mentally unstable felon. Where was his follow up? Where was his parole officer? Where was the mental health infrastructure that could have defused this violent explosion?
  • Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Nov 30, ...
    The Texas Progressive Alliance welcomes everyone back from the Thanksgiving Holiday with these highlights from the blogs. TXsharon has arranged by area 60 TCEQ fugitive emission videos obtained via the Texas Public Information Act. The videos were taken throughout the Barnett Shale area using a GasF ...
  • How Serious is Road Rage Anyway?
    The psychological meltdown in America is becoming epidemic. Man Gets 120 Days for Shooting Cyclist in the Head   related articles: 6 Ways to Reduce Your Chances of Getting Doored CORONA, Calif.—Police say road rage may have led to a fatal shooting near a freeway in Corona.

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

Unexplained Mysteries

  • "Bigfoot" captured on trail camera
    A man in Minnesota has claimed he has caught an image of Bigfoot using a motion-activated trail camera. A local research team analysed the picture...
  • T.rex 'little cousin' discovered
    A new species of dinosaur has been discovered that is believed to be an early relative of Tyrannosaurus Rex. The 2-meter long Tawa hallae would ha...
  • New NASA telescope to see invisible stars
    NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer space telescope will be able to see neighbouring stars that have been up until now invisible to astrono...
  • UK to have dedicated space agency
    The UK is to set up a dedicated space agency to help direct policies pertaining to space flight, research and technology. It is believed the agenc...
  • Humans have hidden sensory system
    A new study conducted on patients with a congenital insensitivity to pain has found that the human body is equiped with a sensory system seperate ...

Grassroots

  • Why We Left Our Farms to Come to Copenhagen
    Henry_Saragih-un-org.jpg As dignitaries and politicians meet in Copenhagen to discuss ways to curtail climate change, some of the people most affected by the crisis are also present, including the Via Campesina. One of Grassroots International ...
  • The Casualties of Development
    MarianoAbarcaChicomuselo.jpg As one of the articles today in the German newspaper In Spiegel points out, the conference in Copenhagen around climate change is largely defined by wish-washy intentions and the introduction (or redefinition) new ...
  • Changes in farm policies needed to reduce climate ...
    how_many_species.gif I have had the privilege of being the point person for Grassroots International on our U.S-based advocacy work on food and farm policy issues. A large part of this work is done in conjunction with our allies in the US Work ...
  • A militarized regime in Honduras continues, Via Ca ...
    amp-soldados-hondurenos-atacan-manifestacion-2009-06-28-13976.jpg Paraphrasing Lisa Sullivan, School of the Americas Watch Latin America coordinator, the Honduran election last Sunday is another case of political ‘whitewash’ in the America ...
  • Insights - Fall 2009
    Cooling the Earth with Food Sovereignty Agriculture ... will likely be a pivotal issue when the world’s leaders meet in Copenhagen this December to finish negotiating a global climate treaty. Grassroots International and our partners and allies are working hard to show that sustainable agriculture ...

Climate

  • December 11, 2009
    Key Copenhagen Group Releases Draft Climate Plan (Washington Post) The ad-hoc group charged with charting a new path forward released a draft text this morning outlining the critical questions that need to be resolved before the talks end Dec. 18. Small Island nations released their own plan a ...
  • December 10, 2009
    US: No Climate ‘Reparations’ (Reuters) President Barack Obama's top aides firmly stated the United States does not owe the world "reparations" for centuries of carbon pollution. Chief negotiator Todd Stern also made clear that China would not be getting any money from Washington. Cracks A ...
  • December 9, 2009
    4 Nations to Propose Green Fund to Break Talks' Deadlock (Reuters) Britain, Australia, Mexico and Norway plan to propose a "green fund" today to try to break deadlock on ways to raise and manage billions of dollars for developing countries' adaptation and mitigation to climate change, delegates ...
  • December 8, 2009
    EU Raises Stakes on Emissions Reductions (Financial Times) The European Union withdrew an offer to increase its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target on Monday because it said similar offers made by many nations in the past month were inadequate to prevent significant climate change. UN: 20 ...
  • December 7, 2009
    Climate Conference Opens in Copenhagen (AP) The largest and most important U.N. climate change conference in history opened today, with organizers warning diplomats from 192 nations that this could be the best, last chance for a deal to protect the world from calamitous global warming. India ...

TomDispatch

  • Tomgram: 'This Administration Ended, Rather Than ...
    [ Note for TomDispatch Readers: On Friday evening, TomDispatch will be switching to an updated version of this site. It's possible that you might not be able to reach TD for some hours. If so, we expect to be back up on Saturday morning. Tom ] The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give (But Won't) ...
  • Tomgram: Pratap Chatterjee, Afghanistan as a Patr ...
    It's now a commonplace of the Afghan War. Western leaders in London , Berlin, Amsterdam , and Washington , as well as on flying visits to Kabul or even Kandahar , excoriate Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the "corruption" of his government. In return for their ongoing support, they repeatedly ...
  • Tomgram: Max Blumenthal, How Palin Became a Rogue
    It can't get better than this, can it? A first printing of 1.5 million copies sent out into an otherwise dead book market. Possibly as much as $7 million dollars going to the author, who already has interviews lined up with Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. A bus tour of the "real America" tha ...
  • Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Surveillance State, U.S.A.
    Wars come home in strange, unnerving ways -- as Americans have just discovered at Fort Hood. Even before Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on his killing spree, that base, a major military embarkation point for our war zones, was already experiencing the after-effects of eight years of war and repeate ...
  • Tomgram: Droning On
    [ Note for TomDispatch Readers : A number of you have recently written in for clarification on contributing to this site through your purchases at Amazon.com. Here's my best shot at a useful explanation: If you click on any book image at this site -- like the book-cover image of The End of Vict ...

Smirking Chimp

  • Sarah Palin could win as a third party. And Howard ...
    Hypothetically, if the economy does not improve dramatically for the vast majority of Americans in the coming year, what happens politically? Obviously, the tidal wave of anti-Washington and anti-incumbent sentiment becomes wider and deeper. While this hurts Democrats more than Republicans, because ...
  • No Pagan Trees For Christmas Warriors
    Even though Tiger Woods’ indiscretions, the ins and outs of health care reform, the climate change confab in Copenhagen, and Uganda’s anti-homosexual death panels are all topics for discussion these days, nothing tops the War on Christmas for some conservative Christian evangelical groups. Hereâ ...
  • The School-to-Prison Pipeline
    I hope the Dignity in Schools Campaign overflows its banks, spilling awareness into every corner of the country. "Millions of children and youth are denied educational opportunities in the United States," begins the National Resolution for Ending School Pushout, which some 200 organizations in 43 st ...
  • Has Obama Sold Out?
    2009's biggest story was not the economy, health care, or the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, but rather the resurrection of America's largest banks. Twelve months ago they were teetering at the edge of the abyss; since, they have roared back to life, bigger and badder than ever. There's wid ...
  • Obama's Nobel Speech: Wyatt Earp Does Mother Teres ...
    Some first thoughts on Obama's acceptance speech. For instance, this passage: "Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to ...

Ten Percent

  • Friday! We Got That B Roll
    From a Popper/Serafinowicz tweet. This features the comedy team calling themselves Cream. Anyways, enjoy!
  • 30 Killed In Airstrikes Is A Con
    Excerpts from RawStory- …unnamed military affairs blogger has published a list of recent air strikes against militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an amazing pattern has emerged: It seems that just about every time an air strike is reported in the news, the Taliban casualty figure cited is 30 ...
  • Well Duh
    NHS walk-in centres near railway stations are not popular with commuters and are a waste of money, say University of Sheffield researchers. …a study has found they are seeing as few as 30 patients a day and cost twice as much as other GP surgeries. While they are paid for by the NHS, they are actu ...
  • Oh Consumerism!
    Yes I have a cheap microfibre cloth to wipe down me mac so perhaps I am just being Scroogy decrying it comes in the form of a stuffed toy animal, but… Oh for chuff’s sake, enough crap already!
  • Jean Charles de Menezes Gets Permanent Memorial
    I see Harpy also posts this, some good news- Today, on International Human Rights Day, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes can announce that permission has been granted for the official installation of a permanent memorial to Jean outside Stockwell tube station. After hundreds of signatures were c ...

Paul Krugman

No Quarter

  • Palin Goes Star Trek
    This is ultimate cool. Conan OBrien has been sucking ass up to this point. Tonight (last night?) he jumped the shark and did something brilliant. Check it out: Sarah and Shattner are class. This exchange is great on so many levels. Well done Conan. Who ever suggested this bit needs a raise.
  • Saddest White House Doggie Christmas Picture Ever ...
    At first glance I thought this has got to be about the saddest White House doggie Christmas picture ever. Poor Bo. He’s all decked out in his Christmas finery and no one is around to admire his fetching bow tie. This should be a picture of young Bo romping around with Sasha [...]
  • Karmic Payback or Hillary’s Revenge? You Decide ...
    Colleen O’Connor, San Diego News Network, penned a fun article: King Obama v. Queen Clinton — Check or Checkmate? Her thesis is that the patient “Queen” is slowly but surely vanquishing the foes who betrayed her for Obama last year. I have another theory. Political operatives who ...
  • Happy Hanukkah!!!

  • Al Qaeda, Jihadists and Afghanistan
    BUMPED UP Lots going on and lots to report. Let’s start with the news that fewer than 100 Al Qaeda operatives remain in the Pakistan/Afghanistan area. ABC News reports tonight: As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama’s ...

Environmental Graffiti

Foreign Policy in Focus

Global Elite

Al Jazeera

Green Inc. - NYT

Dot Earth News

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

  • Inline doc help via wiki? Usability & design unity ...
    I had a half inspired idear for something phrased in all seriousness as "wikified micro-documentation" . Credits due mainly to thinking about the nice work people in Drupal usability group & #D7UX. (If I could somehow turn this into a flame war about the function of UNIX Man pages=a win). Also the ...
  • Titanium nanoparticle pollution cancer link; Morge ...
    It was just another day in Switzerland during Late Capitalism. The beloved World Trade Organization, having already helped bring about a huge collapse in global trade, decided they should have a meeting somewhere widely thought of as really rich and white. It's been ten years since wily bad kids an ...
  • New for HongPong.com: Drupal 6 a win?
    It's been a long time in coming, but now we've got Drupal 6 running on hongpong.com . The database patching and everything else went perfectly. I've installed the 'Fusion' theme and have just started tweaking it up (please be patient for more tweaks... ) I whipped up a silly new banner featuring And ...
  • Drupal 6 a win?
    Andrew Jackson vs teh octopus is ok Still a mess At least it's not Wordpress Still Confusing :-P FTW!! Voting is implied consent - boo
  • PETA sucks, but Lady Gaga and Rihanna are pawns fo ...
    PETA is a deeply bad organization which attempts to vanguard around some edgy cultural iconography and save some animals, which all basically translates to trashy soft-core porn style imagery. Because what we all need is a certain "Girls Gone Wild" edge to social progress. This is a very good analys ...

Daily Censored

  • Award Winning Flashpoints Radio Show Under Threat ...
    Award Winning Flashpoints Radio Show Under Threat by KPFA Management By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff The Flashpoints radio program is being directly threatened with closure by station management. Budget cuts implemented by KPFA management; reduce staff time for Flashpoints by some 75 hours per w ...
  • Cops arrest Berkeley Protesters for the Second Tim ...
    This will no doubt not be the last protest by students, either at Berkeley or elsewhere. As students see their futures and educational prospects decimated by neo-liberal government policies that shift the cost of privatization, along with draconian cuts in public services, on to working people's ba ...
  • Carbonphobia, the real environmental threat
    Aletho News - December 11, 2009 “Wood is very quickly becoming a very important part of the energy mix and in a few years will be a global commodity much like oil” Heinrich Unland, CEO at Novus Energy GmbH. (photo – Bloomberg) The proposed construction of a new generation of nuclear plants is ...
  • Patriot Act Remains Unchallenged (So Far)
    The FBI admitted, almost six years ago now, that they messed up when they came after Brandon Mayfield. They even apologized for insisting he had something to do with the terrorist bombing in Madrid that killed 191 and injured thousands. Boy, were they barking up the wrong tree. Brandon Mayfield ...
  • “War or Peace President?”
    In President Obama’s acceptance of his Nobel Peace Prize, he defended the use of military force on humanitarian grounds, to preserve peace. He spoke of a “just war.” I remember a “just war.”  It was to stop Hitler and his genocidal takeover of Europe.  This is nothing li ...

AlterNet's Breaking News

Institute for Policy Studies

Godspace

  • Waiting for the Homecoming of God
    This evening Tom and I will hold hold our annual Advent party focused not on the birth of Christ two thousand years ago but on that wonderful future coming when Christ will return and we will all come home to the new world that God is creating. Tom has put together a short video with images [...]
  • Wait for the Lord – Music From Taize
    Here is a beautiful evening prayer and song from the Taize community in France to listen to and meditate on as we wait for the Lord this second Friday of Advent.  It seemed very appropriate as we consider What Are We Waiting for this Advent Season?
  • Second Friday of Advent – Waiting Without A ...
    I am writing this from our favourite doggie friendly motel the Islands Inn at Anacortes Washington.  Unlike many doggie friendly motels these days it does not charge an arm and a leg for our Bonnie girl.  We have just had a great Dutch breakfast (fresh baked bread, boiled egg real English marmalad ...
  • Second Thursday of Advent – Finding The Chri ...
    Tom and I are heading out to Anacortes this morning for our annual Advent retreat time when we reflect and refocus our lives.  I hope to get another post up later in the day but that may not be possible. This morning’s post comes from James Prescott from Epsom, south west of central London. Jam ...
  • Second Wednesday of Advent – Advent Waiting ...
    This second reflection for today comes from Andrew Wade who lives in Hood river Oregon.  It was originally written for St Nicholas Day but makes a beautiful contribution to our What Are We Waiting for This Advent series Advent eyes straining to see dim light, dark glass, confusion God’s future ...

Equality Trust

  • Levelling the bankers' bonuses
    Read a letter by Malcolm Clark, Director of the One Society Campaign in today's Guardian, about the positives for bankers of losing their bonuses. Peter Preston (The rewards of banking, 7 December) has a point: bankers are human too. Most of them want exactly the same as us: a decent quality of life ...
  • Dr Lynne Friedli on the impact of inequality on me ...
    Dr Lynne Friedli talks about the impact of inequality on mental health, in a discussion with John Humphrys on the Today Programme - scroll down to 07.33 Listen to the discussion
  • Plans to force banks to reveal millionaire staff
    Banks will be forced to reveal how many of their staff earn more than one million pounds a year, under recommended reforms of the financial sector to be released today. Read more
  • To tackle child poverty we must also address inequ ...
    Kate Green, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group , writes for the TUC's Touchstone blog that "if we are to take seriously the issues of child poverty and child wellbeing then we need to tackle the high levels of inequality in this country." Read the rest of Kate's article
  • We need tax reform, not tax and spend
    Over the last year we have watched as a bank-induced credit crunch morphed into debate on public services cuts. While the public have bailed out the bankers, whose flawed system led us into this mess, it is those least able to afford it who are facing the reality of having their pay and benefits fro ...

IntelNews

  • Canadian police spying on anti-Olympics groups spa ...
    Intense debate has been sparked in Canada by the revelation that local police departments are actively spying on peaceful citizen groups opposing the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, due to be held in Vancouver in February.
  • News you may have missed #0216
    China launches new spy satellite. Man accused of spying on Israeli military chief may go free.
  • US use of stealth spy drones in Afghanistan raises ...
    On December 6, we posted a link to a photo of what appeared to be a classified US drone aircraft, which was published on a blog belonging to French newspaper Libération. Then, unexpectedly, on December 8, the US Air Force admitted that the mystery aircraft, dubbed ‘the Beast of Kandahar’ by avi ...
  • News you may have missed #0215
    Ex-MI5 officer cannot publish memoirs, court decides. Turkey denies Israel use of its airspace to spy on Iran.
  • Silence over sudden death of Jordan’s ex-spy chi ...
    There is widespread silence in Jordan about the sudden death of the country’s former intelligence chief, at his luxury Vienna hotel room, on Wednesday. The country’s tightly controlled press barely mentioned the news of the death of Field Marshal Said Bashir Saad Kheir, 56, whose body was report ...

After Downing Street.org

  • Cindy Sheehan in Oslo

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - 10 Dec ...
    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 10 December 2009, Observed Iftikhar Chaudri, President of Journalists for International Peace, wrote: Journalists for International Peace observed the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2009. In this context, a meet ...
  • From Hiroshima to Gaza
    From Hiroshima to Gaza By Hisae Ogawa The first time I met and had a chance to talk to Palestinian women was back in 1975, the United Nations International Women’s Year. I was then working for the Women’s International Democrat Federation ...
  • Rep. Kucinich Rebukes Obama: "Once We Believe In T ...
    Following a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement: “Yesterday, our president mused about the inevitability of war, war’s instrumentality in the pursuit of peace and just wars. It is important for us to ref ...
  • Afghans' Anger At Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Win - ...

Grist - News

  • Employees* rage against the Coke machine in Copenh ...
    by Jonathan Hiskes COPENHAGEN -- Two Cola-Cola* employees urged people in Copenhagen to never drink the soft drink again, denouncing their company’s environmental and human rights record in a highly unusual press conference* in the Hopenhagen LIVE area in City Hall Square. The public relations ...
  • Battle lines emerge in draft blueprint of climate ...
    by Agence France-Presse COPENHAGEN -- A three-way battle over a historic pact on climate change loomed in Copenhagen on Friday with the emergence of an official, seven-page draft blueprint likely to spark fierce week-long haggling. The text, seen by AFP, sees targets of limiting global warming to 1 ...
  • Danish police arrest 68 climate protesters; major ...
    by Agence France-Presse Photo and caption courtesy of thousand.wor(l)ds via FlickrCOPENHAGEN -- Danish police on Friday arrested 68 anti-capitalist climate protesters on suspicion they could commit illegal acts, a police spokesperson said. "Of the 68 people arrested as a preventive measure, some ar ...
  • E.U. pledges $10 billion to help poor nations with ...
    by Agence France-Presse COPENHAGEN -- The European Union on Friday pledged 7.2 billion euros ($10.6 billion) to help poor nations battle global warming, upping the stakes at the U.N. climate summit. The money, to be spent over three years, ramps up pressure on rich countries to do more at the summi ...
  • Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman release framework for ...
    by David Roberts Sens. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman held a press conference today to discuss the framework they're developing for a clean energy bill that can get to 60 votes in the Senate early next year. (Audio here .) Obviously the event was timed to have an impact in Copenhagen. Both Kerry and ...

Popular Bookmarks on Del.icio.us

Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

Time - Top Stories

Washington Independent

  • The War on Kevin Jennings
    I haven’t written much about the campaign against “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings because Media Matters researchers have done such a good job debunking it. Needless to say, Jennings’ foes have consistently grabbed the most controversial sex-positive pamphlets and presentations from GLSEN, ...
  • The Wall Street Money Ties That Lead to Loopholes
    Advocates for financial regulatory reform must be shaking their heads today after watching Rep. Melissa Bean’s (D-Ill.) efforts to weaken a comprehensive financial regulatory reform bill — which have been, all told, pretty effective. As we noted earlier, House lawmakers struck a deal late Thursd ...
  • Religious Anti-Torture Group Urges Holder to Produ ...
    At the beginning of this month, I noted that Attorney General Eric Holder, despite an explicit promise to Congress to produce by the end of last month the much-awaited ethics report from the Office of Professional Responsibility on the work of Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted the so-calle ...
  • Pro-Israel Lobby Group’s Iran Petition Featu ...
    Earlier today, the Israel Project — a pro-Israel organization that endorses tough measures against Iran’s nuclear program — sent out a release announcing substantial support for placing sanctions on Iran. A petition issued by the Israel Project to be sent to “every ambassador to the U.S., al ...
  • ‘How the Left Swiftboated America’
    Before there was Glenn Beck, there was John Gibson, a dyspeptic Fox News host who anchored the network’s 5 p.m. block and steadily upped his outrage against liberals and Democrats. His shining moment at the network was probably the “war on Christmas” coverage of the late Bush era, culminating ...

CowBoss' Brain Food

  • Snail pie is tastier, more nutritious than beef
    Malnutrition and iron deficiency among schoolchildren in developing countries could be reduced by serving up generous portions of delicious, bargain-priced snail pie and other handy beef alternatives. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • CO2, Methane Ousted as Worst Global Climate Change ...
    Move over CO2—you’ve been ousted, along with methane, as the biggest offenders of global climate change. The majority of “greenhouse gases” are created by humans. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • Skeptics claim global warming is fake after top sc ...
    Hackers recently broke into thousands of emails and internal documents from a leading climate research center and dumped them onto an anonymous Russian server. The hacked emails (160 MB worth, unzipped) came from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic R Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Environ ...
  • Will Whole Foods’ new mobile slaughterhouses sque ...
    Massachusetts poultry farmer Jennifer Hashley has a problem. From the moment she started raising pastured chickens outside Concord, Mass. in 2002, there was, as she put it “nowhere to go to get them processed.” While she had the option of slaughtering her Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Societ ...
  • Cow beaten to death with plank
    A farmer has condemned an attack in which a cow died after being repeatedly beaten around the head with a 4ft plank of wood. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment

Suzie-Q

  • Iraq invasion was right, says Blair
    VirginMedia 11 December 2009 11:55pm Tony Blair said he believes it still would have been right to have invaded Iraq even if it was known then that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. The former Prime Minister – who is due to give evidence in the New Year to the Chilcot inquir ...
  • Tiger Woods Has Announced He Is Taking A Break Fro ...
    Tiger Woods STATEMENT: Admits Affairs, Taking ‘Indefinite Break From Professional Golf’ First Posted: 12-11-09 06:56 PM   |   Updated: 12-11-09 08:17 PM Tiger Woods has announced on his web site that he is taking an “indefinite break from professional golf.” He also direct ...
  • USA Cutting Gaza Lifeline
    Making an American ‘Impenetrable Underground Wall’ the Laughing Stock of the World—Leave It to the People of Gaza By Ann Wright, Information Clearing House, Dec 10, 2009 No doubt at the instigation of the Israeli government, the Obama administration has authorized the United States Army Corps ...
  • NY Times: Blackwater Became An Extension Of The CI ...
    Blackwater ‘became an extension’ of the CIA: report By Raw Story Thursday, December 10th, 2009 — 10:42 pm The role of Blackwater employees in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was so central to the US’s efforts that the lines between the controversial security contractor, the CIA and t ...
  • McCain Is One Of The Leading Critics Of President ...
    John McCain, critic-in-chief? POLITICO By JONATHAN MARTIN & MANU RAJU | 12/11/09 12:17 AM EST Barack Obama began his presidency with an open hand toward the man he had just defeated in a race that was at times bitter. “There are few Americans who understand [...]

Solari

  • Joel Salatin in Santa Barbara
    Joel Salatin Pathways to Relocalization, Carbon Economy Educational Series, December 9th Santa Barbara Central Library The Flyer: Joel Salatin, fulltime family farmer of the highly successful Polyface Farms, and recipient of the Heinz Award for Environmental Leadership, is one of the world’s lead ...
  • Gifting to the Children We Love - Part II
    Read the full article here. Good health is the foundation of a successful life. It is challenging to find or pursue your calling if you are struggling with poor health. Maintaining optimum health requires considerably more significant investment than in prior generations. This is because of vastly ...
  • Goldman Bonuses a Go; Gang of 30 Stock-Only
    By Stephen Bernard Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s top executives will not receive cash bonuses this year, as the Wall Street giant bows to sharp criticism over its pay practices. The 30 high-ranking executives will instead receive stock that cannot be sold for at least five years, the New York-based ...
  • Gifting to the Children We Love - Part I
    There is no better way to build real wealth than to find ways of raising up the children in our lives. Whether it’s the young people in our families—children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins—or those in our personal networks, such as godchildren, or children in our faith—an ...
  • Money & Markets ~ Charts 12.10.09
    View this week’s chart comparisons of gold against fiat currencies, oil and the Dow. Stay tuned for our next Money & Markets segment of The Solari Report tonight, Thursday, December 10, 2009. Click here to view all charts as a pdf file. Previous Money & Markets Charts blog posts: Dec 2009 (1) / N ...

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 - Newswire

  • Obama, us leaders should contemplate future of Afg ...
    BBC News Obama, us leaders should contemplate future of Afghan women Chicago Tribune Would nuclear-armed Pakistan become even more vulnerable to its own Taliban insurgency ? Will a defeat embolden America's enemies? That line of thinking must ... Vietnam syndrome has begun in Afghanistan Sri Lanka ...
  • Officials: Campus blasts perplexing - United Press ...
    Officials: Campus blasts perplexing United Press International ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Oct. 21 (UPI) -- The International Islamic University, where bomb blasts killed at least six people, is a unique Pakistani institution ... and more »
  • Schools closed in Pakistan after bombing - GMA new ...
    Schools closed in Pakistan after bombing GMA news.tv An Associated Press reporter met three Taliban fighters Tuesday traveling in a car with darkened windows at Shaktoi, a town close to the border between ... and more »
  • An Evolving Afghan Policy - American Chronicle
    An Evolving Afghan Policy American Chronicle ... triumph for the forces of Islamic extremism, al-Qaeda would once again gain a foothold, and the return of the Taliban would likely destabilize Pakistan . ...
  • Schools close in Pakistan following university bom ...
    Schools close in Pakistan following university bombings Emirates Business 24/7 ... in Pakistan after suspected militants bombed a university close to the capital, sowing fear across the country as the army presses a major anti- Taliban ... and more »

AlterNet - Rights and Liberties

Sideways News

  • British space agency is go
    More than 40 years after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, the UK is to establish an agency which will direct its space policy.
  • Winner of the Week: Portishead
    Musical pioneers Portishead have released their new stand-alone track, Chase the Tear , in aid of Amnesty International .
  • Patent Office to fast-track green ideas
    The US Patent and Trademark Office is launching a pilot programme which will see proposals for green technologies being accelerated. It aims to knock a year off the approval process, which currently takes up to 40 months.
  • Copenhagen protestors disrupt business
    Environmental protestors will be taking to the streets of Copenhagen today (11th December) to spread the message " our climate – not your business ".
  • Half of parents 'want bilingual babies'
    Research has revealed a growing trend among UK parents to follow in the footsteps of famous celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow by bringing their children up speaking a second language. A survey of more than 2,000 adults revealed that 92% felt is was important to teach children new languages. Almost ...

Fabius Maximus

  • Stratfor looks at Mexico: The War with the Cartels ...
    There are few if any foreign policy issues more serious for America than our relations to Mexico, and few foreign threats over which we have so little influence. “Mexico:  The War with the Cartels in 2009“, Scott Stewart and Alex Posey, Stratfor, 9 December 2009 — Reposted with permission.à ...
  • FM newswire for 11 December, hot articles for your ...
    This is what I found interesting, so it’s today’s broadsheet from the FM website pressroom, with several sections of hot news.  Lot’s happening in the world today, mostly either overlooked or misinterpreted by the mainstream media.   Links to interesting news and analysis Factoid for the ...
  • The key insight to understanding America’s w ...
    President Obama’s speech make this clear to anyone paying attention.  As does his pop in the polls following the decision to expand our wars. The war’s are not those of our ruling elites. Our war’s are not our those of our  military. Americans like our wars. Their appeal cro ...
  • FM newswire for 10 December, hot articles for your ...
    This is what I found interesting, so it’s today’s broadsheet from the FM website pressroom, with several sections of hot news.  Lot’s happening in the world today, mostly either overlooked or misinterpreted by the mainstream media.  Links to interesting news and analysis Upd ...
  • Can we defeat our almost imaginary enemies?
    George Friedman describes the jihadist threat, omitting any reference to their strength or numbers, their military or financial resources.  Nor does he cite any evidence for his speculation. Next week:  an analysis of the dragon and orc threats. (While Jihadists obviously exist, unlike dragons ...

sibeledmonds - tweets

WIRED Magazine | Science

  • Spacewalking Astronauts Seen With a Backyard Teles ...
    With a big enough telescope and some good fortune, an amateur astronomer can look into the sky and see humans at the space station. Here’s the proof. On March 21, 2009, astronaut Joe Acaba stepped into space for some extravehicular activity. Down on Earth, Ralf Vandebergh was in his backyard, poi ...
  • Earth’s Atmosphere May Have Alien Origin
      Isotopic analyses of the gases krypton and xenon suggest that much of Earth’s atmosphere came from outer space, not inner space. Krypton and xenon appear in Earth’s atmosphere — and in the universe as a whole — only in trace amounts. Detailed analyses of the gases provide clues about wher ...
  • T. Rex Skeleton Can Finally Be Ogled by the Public
    The 40-foot long Tyrannosaurus rex that failed to sell at a Las Vegas auction in October has finally found a home in an Oregon museum. Though the skeleton, one of the most complete ever found, was purchased by a private buyer, it will be on display at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Po ...
  • Data Nerds Hack NASA (In a Good Way)
    A bunch of data nerds from inside and outside NASA will gather at a house in Cupertino, California called the Rainbow Mansion this Saturday to hack through the agency’s data jungles. The event isn’t NASA-sponsored. None of the bureaucracy is involved at all. Instead, the event is being coordina ...
  • New NASA Sky Mapper to Hunt Stars, Galaxies, Near- ...
    Veteran astronomer Ned Wright is already considered pretty smart. But soon he’ll be getting wise. That’s WISE as in Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the NASA spacecraft set for launch on December 11 that will provide the most comprehensive examination of the sky ever recorded in infrared ra ...

The Progressive Realist

  • Of Mercs and Spooks
    The New York Times provides further corroboration of Jeremy Scahill’s piece on the use of mercenaries in connection with high level and sensitive military/intelligence operations in Afghanistan/Pakistan.  Iraq too: Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some ...
  • Leading Indicators: Off the Radar News Roundup
    - Taiwan and China will sign four new trade and tax agreements on Dec. 22. - The White House has refused a request by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama for a side meeting with President Barack Obama at the Copenhagen summit, further reducing the likelihood of a face-saving agreement for Hatoyam ...
  • Obama’s Succinct Description Of Neoconservatism: ...
    Two responses from prominent neoconservatives on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech reveal something very positive about Obama’s reframing of U.S. national security. Comparing passages from the Oslo speech and George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address, Bill Kristol seems to thin ...
  • Things Left Unsaid: Obama's Oslo Speech and Climat ...
    Dan Drezner encourages us to analyze what he said for references to policy prescriptions from IR theories . Steve Walt tells us let's focus not on what he said but on what he does . I'm with those who would focus on what he didn't say as an indicator of what he might or might not do. (Not to be cont ...
  • More Splits in the Iranian Elite: Intelligence Min ...
    For the first time, Iran’s Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi has accused former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, of representing the views of the opposition. Moslehi, a close alley of President Mahmoud Ahminejad, said that Rafsanjani has claimed th ...

TAPPED - The American Prospect

  • Lightning Round: We're All Institutionalists Now.
    By all means, if the Democrats want to lose control of Congress, let them make superficial gestures towards deficit reduction a top priority for 2010. Voters only care about the deficit insofar as it is a symbol of their frustration with the fact that there is high unemployment. long-term deficit r ...
  • So Long ...
    Good evening! Many many thanks for reading my thoughts and musings this past week. It’s been a privilege to have the chance to share them with you. Particular thanks to Phoebe for giving me this opportunity and to Alexandra , without whose editing skills and brilliant insights I would not have s ...
  • In War, How Much Death is too Much?
    For all the flak the blogosphere catches for being an insular narcissistic echo chamber, sometimes its collaborative problem-solving potential is pretty impressive. Here’s an example : One astute blogger noted that every time news outlets reported skirmishes with ISAF forces, they seemed to be ki ...
  • The Little Picture: Going Green in Copenhagen.
    A protester in Copenhagen removes his "climate alien" make-up. Barack Obama will head to Denmark next week to take part in the United Nations climate talks . (Flickr/ Matthew McDermott )
  • Prisontown, USA.
    Coinciding with a recent burst of organizing around immigration reform, Tom Barry pens a fascinating, if grueling, piece in the latest Boston Review . Barry dissects the newest species of American incarceration: the public-private immigration prison and the corresponding “prison towns” that have ...

Andy Worthington

  • Innocent Guantánamo Torture Victim Fouad al-Rabia ...
    The long ordeal of Fouad al-Rabiah, an innocent man and a 50-year old father of four, who had been in US custody for almost exactly eight years, finally came to an end on Wednesday, when he was flown back to his homeland of Kuwait from Guantánamo, where he had spent the majority of those lost [...]
  • Chaos and Confusion: The Return of the Military Co ...
    For anyone who has studied Guantánamo’s Military Commissions closely over the last eight years, it was obvious that their revival last week, in a supposedly new and improved form, was bound to be a disaster. First dragged out of obscurity in November 2001 by Dick Cheney and his close advisors, sp ...
  • Juan Cole On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize: Five Thi ...
    I don’t have time to dissect how cleverly Obama’s speechwriters tried to spin a wartime President into a bearer of peace, or to explore how a promise to close Guantánamo and to ban torture doesn’t equate with holding prisoners without rights in Bagram. So here, instead, are five excellent pro ...
  • Calling Time On The Use Of Secret Evidence In The ...
    On December 1, two High Court judges, Lord Justice Laws and Mr. Justice Owen, dealt what looked like the final blows to the British government’s policies of imprisoning terror suspects without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence — or otherwise depriving them of their liberty under ...
  • Please Support My Guantánamo Work: A Fundraising ...
    Please support my work! It’s that time of the year again — three months since my last quarterly fundraising appeal. For some readers, this may be a terrible time of year to put out a request for financial assistance, but if you can help out at all it would be much appreciated. US reade ...

Buzzflash

  • Enough with the "successful surge" folderol
    Body "President Obama strongly opposed ... [the] surge in Iraq during his presidential campaign, and even now he has never publicly acknowledged that it was largely successful." That, from last week, was David Sanger's opening line in the journalistic perpetuation of the mad misconceptio ...
  • Gretchen Carlson Doesn't Understand Conflict of In ...
    BUZZFLASH MEDIA PUTZ OF THE WEEK Gretchen Carlson For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America. As Jon Stewart has noted , Gretchen Carlson seems to have trouble with the definitions of ter ...
  • As Copenhagen Conference Begins, America Finally T ...
    GREEN IS GOOD by Margaret Smith With the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference well under way, it seems that the U.S. government has put environmental issues at the forefront of the national debate. Their newest project is an in-depth look at the nation's water system, with yesterday's hearing in the ...
  • Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: The Land Mines Ob ...
    BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship Many people are troubled that Barack Obama flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize so soon after escalating the war in Afghanistan. He is now more than doubling the number of troops there when George W. Bush left office. The irony w ...
  • Teabaggers Play Dead While Trying to Conceal Secre ...
    BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White It seems that the tea party organizers finally learned what a "grassroots"  group looks like and how to pretend that that's what they are. The key is to combine clumsy theatrics with a manufactured chance meeting. A slew of liberals and progressives and people wi ...

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

  • Major victory for ACORN and the Constitution
    In September, I  interviewed Rep. Alan Grayson about the unconstitutionality of Congress' attempt to de-fund ACORN, and a couple of weeks later, examined Supreme Court precedent -- principally the 1946 case of U.S. v. Lovett -- that left little doubt that the Congressional war on ACORN violated the ...
  • The strange consensus on Obama's Nobel address
    (updated below - Update II) Reactions to Obama's Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree:   (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting ...
  • Supporting the ACLU
    As The New York Times reported yesterday , the ACLU this year, largely without warning, lost its single largest source of funding as a result of the financial crisis.  The loss of that individual donor, who had been contributing $20 million per year, was a major blow to the organization, "punching ...
  • Rachel Maddow's well-deserved demolition of her gu ...
    Rachel Maddow today is receiving well-deserved praise for a devastating interview she conducted last night with Richard Cohen, an "ex-homosexual" therapist who is head of the "International Healing Foundation," which purportedly helps gay people become straight.  Cohen's rancid slander against gay ...
  • Tony Blair's taxi-derived "45-minute" WMD claim
    The British are conducting an actual public investigation into the litany of false claims made by their government to justify the attack on Iraq.  Even for those who have long known it, the disclosures are underscoring just how truly criminal this deceit was : An Iraqi taxi driver may have been ...

The BiPartisan Report

Sciencebase

  • Thinking about electric vehicles
    Electric vehicles reduce noise and local air pollution, such as nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ground-level ozone, but do they simply relocate the carbon tire-tracks to fossil-fired power stations or are there benefits on the global scale? Fundamentally, an electric engine can achieve 85 t ...
  • SEVI and HIV
    Kicking off my SpectroscopyNOW ezine updates this week with an item on how NMR may have unravelled why some people are more susceptible to catching HIV than others. Then there is the MRI work that shows that for obese people BMI (body mass index) is a very poor indicator of heart disease risk based ...
  • Party tricks for scientists
    Any one of these tricks from Richard Wiseman is sure to get you dozens of swooning fans at a solstice-event party, as long as you don’t burn down the house while doing the tricks with lit matches. Classic tricks including balancing forks on a matchstick, relighting a candle without touching it, ...
  • Sciencebase blogging schedule
    This is the Sciencebase blogging schedule for the remainder of 2009: Sciencebase.com Dec 8 – Science news round-up with a spectral twist Sciencebase.com Dec 9 Electric vehicles better than hybrids? ImagingStorm.co.uk – Dec 10 Science of sepia-toned photography Sciencetext.com Dec 15 Cathartic ...
  • Swine Flu Watch
    Somehow got my family enlisted on the UK’s FluWatch program. The scheme, which has members of the public monitoring their colds, sore throats, and flu symptoms is being run by University College London with various eminent medical organisations as partners. Having been invited to join by our fami ...

change: org.

  • Organic Food's Class Problem
    Caitlin Donohue's got a point when she writes in the San Francisco Bay Guardian that the organic food movement "has yet to really confront its class issues." The problem is not just a matter of low-income people being unable to afford heirloom tomatoes. It's also a question of not allowing for the r ...
  • Climate Negotiations Run on Cold, Hard Cash
    When it comes down to it, the Copenhagen climate summit is all about the green stuff. And by that I don't mean virgin rainforests. I mean money. Cold, hard cash. The environmental editor of the UK's Guardian newspaper, John Vidal, expresses this truth succinctly: "Ecology and morals count in the pub ...
  • Happy Holidays From First Round Capital (And Les M ...
    One of the most notable phenomena of 2009 was the pervasive Susan Boyle videos from Britain's version of American Idol, "Britain's Got Talent." Her heart wrenching rendition of the Les Miserables hit "I Dreamed A Dream" launched her to stardom overnight. Apparently, the gang at venture firm First Ro ...
  • Can Domestication Protect Endangered Species?
    "No animal that has ever entered [humans'] inner circle has become extinct," says Mike Archer, a professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) who is advocating for the domestication of Australian to keep it from disappearing. He's not alone in his support of this oxymoronic campaign. The ...
  • Would You Rather Give Birth in Shackles or Alone i ...
    As Rachel Roth more eloquently points out in an article in The Nation , prisons suck at dealing with pregnant women . Many of these practices are borderline cruel and unusual punishment. Oh wait -- scratch borderline. In October, shackling incarcerated women during labor was ruled unconstitutional. ...

Common Dreams -News

  • Major Victory for ACORN and the Constitution
    by Glenn Greenwald In September, I  interviewed Rep. Alan Grayson about the unconstitutionality of Congress' attempt to de-fund ACORN, and a couple of weeks later, examined Supreme Court precedent -- principally the 1946 case of U.S. v. read more
  • New New Deal? House Passes Sweeping Financial Regu ...
    by Kevin G. Hall WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives passed legislation Friday designed to bring the most sweeping rewrite of financial regulation since the New Deal era following the Great Depression. read more
  • Global Protests Demand Action on Climate Change
    COPENHAGEN - Thousands of activists demonstrated in central Copenhagen Saturday to turn up the heat on global warming, amid people power protests across the world to press for action instead of words. The heart of the Danish capital was a sea of blue as environmentalists and anti-capitalist demonst ...
  • US Negotiator Rejects Climate Reparation
    COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The top U.S. envoy to climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, has rejected arguments that the United States owes reparations for contributing to global warming. The negotiator, Todd Stern, had rejected the notion before but this time his words centered on the difference between t ...
  • UK Issues New Guidance on Labelling of Food from I ...
    by Ian Black, Middle East editor, and Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem The British government has for the first time called on all supermarkets to inform customers clearly when they are buying food produced by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The new guidance on food labelling significantly ...

Lifehacker

  • Exif Untrasher Rescues Deleted Photos from Your D ...
    Mac only: You know that sinking feeling you get when you accidentally delete your photos or reformat your camera's memory card without first removing the pictures on it? Reach for Exif Untrasher instead of antacids and rescue those pics from annihilation. Use Exif Untrasher to mount the memory card ...
  • Chrome Extension Unites Remember the Milk and Gma ...
    Google Chrome: Web-based task manager Remember the Milk has evened its browser compatibility by releasing a Chrome Extension that can turn starred, labeled, or selected Gmail messages into tasks, and let you manage your to-do list from a right-hand panel. Remember the Milk (RTM) has long maintained ...
  • Replace Notepad As Your Default Text Editor [Wind ...
    If you spend a lot of time in text editors, you almost certainly use something other than Windows' default Notepad. Weblog Online Tech Tips details how to set an alternative editor as your default to complete your Notepad replacement. If you aren't already using a better alternative to Notepad, a ga ...
  • Voyage Turns Your Firefox History into a Visual M ...
    Firefox: Want to navigate your browsing history in a visual way? Voyage turns your history into a web of nodes, linked together by their connections to each other and sized based on the number of visits Once you've installed Voyage you can access it via the history menu or by typing about:voyage in ...
  • Our Favorite Gizmodo Posts of the Week [Gizmodo G ...
    This week over at Gizmodo, they take a look at the best camcorders, laptops, and netbooks you can buy for your budget, explain why the time is right to get a home theater PC, and help us clean our filthy gadgets. The Best Camcorders You Can Buy on Every Budget The Best Windows Laptops, From $400 to ...

Newshoggers - AfPak

  • "Flooding The Zone" - How McChrystal Bulldozed Oba ...
    By Steve Hynd The best piece you're likley to read on how the Obama administration came to the decision to surge 40,000 extra US and allied troops in Afghanistan is by Mark Perry, writing for the Asia Times (h/t Russ Wellen). Unlike the stenographed versions in the Washington Post or New York Times, ...
  • Great Losers
    By Dave Anderson: The Security Crank points out claims that a significant portion of the entire Chechan population is supposedly in Warizistan: At some point, this kind of thing moves beyond parody. According to the reports Haji Akbar Ali Mehsud, a 55-year-old resident of Zinda village in District S ...
  • Holbrooke Blames The Allies For Afghan Mess
    By Steve Hynd In an interview with the German press (Google translation here) which isn't going to help the Obama administration win friends and influence people at NATO, Richard Holbrooke is blaming the allies to push the "we're starting from scratch, not in the ninth year" BS the White House seems ...
  • C.A.P.'s Larry Korb Goes All Out On "Wal-Mart &War ...
    By Steve Hynd Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is scathing about the lack of investment America is apparently willing to make for its foreign adventures. Korb notes the awful cost to U.S. servicemen: 5,000 dead, 50,000 wounded, 400,000 with mental problems and a wide ...
  • Narrative vs. reality in Afghanistan
    By Gregg Carlstrom I started writing a post this morning about the incoherent military operations in Afghanistan that have followed Obama's surge announcement. I left it unfinished because I had to run to Capitol Hill for an interview about Lebanon; I came back to this tweet from Matt Yglesias, whic ...

Water Wars

WordPress | Economics

McClatchey

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

  • COP15 Copenhagen climate summit: Day 5
    OK, they're a long way short of constituting a final deal... but two draft texts , drawn up by conference chairmen and released to delegates today, demonstrate where compromises may have to be made if this fortnight is to result in the deal that so many governments say they want. The chairmen of th ...
  • COP15 Copenhagen climate summit: Day 4
    1427 CET: The rift that emerged yesterday within the developing countries bloc here grows more intriguing. A document has fallen into the BBC's hands that comes from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group , which brings together 49 countries with per-capita national incomes below $750 per year. ...
  • COP15 Copenhagen climate summit: Day 3
    1439 CET: So as I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to try and give you a quick look at how theUN climate conferences work - or how they don't. I'll have to do it in bite-sized chunks, otherwise I risk your sanity as well as mine. The official negotiations proceed along two "parallel tracks" that - in ...
  • COP15 Copenhagen climate summit: Day 2
    1516 CET: As the seriously obscure parts of the UN climate conference got down to business this morning, attention turned to some of the science being presented - notably, the analyses from the World Meteorological Organization and the UK Met Office that pegged the "Noughties" - the decade since 200 ...
  • COP15 Copenhagen climate summit: Day 1
    1517 CET : Despite some seductive mood music this morning, sombre notes were also sounded in the opening bars of this two-week conference. Host cities always try to give delegates a sense of their history and culture. Mercifully (I say this having sat through many), Denmark's choice was a short ...

Afghanistan Sun

  • Taliban's indoctrination 'jannat' f ...
    Peshawar, Dec. 12 : Pakistan security personnel have discovered a Taliban four-room 'jannat' (heaven), which was used by the insurgents to brainwash young suicide bombers.
  • Indian origin scientist's team's new &# ...
    Washington, Dec.11 : Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed and successfully tested a new computer software and computational technique to analyse the patterns of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan or other locations, and predict the locations ...
  • Top U.N. Official in Afghanistan to Leave
    (KABUL) — The top U.N. official in Afghanistan said Friday he will not renew his contract when it expires in March after a two-year tenure marred by controversy over his handling of the country's...
  • Drone aircraft in a stepped-up war in Afghanistan ...
    It will be months before the 30,000 new troops will have gone to war in Afghanistan. But President Obama already has increased attacks by pilotless Predator drone aircraft against Taliban and Al Qaeda...
  • A Long War With an Uncertain Outcome
    Jeremy Gleason (L), Sgt. Joseph Delair (C) and 2nd Lt. Josh Taylor watch movement around a distant mosque while on a joint patrol with the Afghan National Police (ANP) on December 4, 2009 in Sar Hawza...

Futurismic

  • Babbage’s Difference Engine, in action
    A nice and accurate replica of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine was built in California last year and is now on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Not newsworthy, but if you’ve never seen this machine in action, the short video is well worth a look. It’s fun to lis ...
  • Cutting steel with electromagnetic fields
    The bodies of vehicles need to be strong, but manufacturers also need to cut holes in them, for cable routing. Working together with a number of partners including Volkswagen, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Chemnitz have come up with another w ...
  • Editing memories
    Yet again, the line between science fiction and real life gets thinner, and another of our stories gains a slightly prophetic edge.  Richard Kadrey’s Twitter stream alerted me to an article at The Guardian about a therapeutic process whereby traumatic memories can be rewritten or edited in orde ...
  • The Future is the Past: Assassin’s Creed II
    ### Sometimes, there is joy to be had in simplicity… in particular, simplified history.  I know full well that the realities of the past are complex and labyrinthine.  I understand that there’s as much truth to be had in examining the way in which pre-literary societies passed down kno ...
  • Edward Willett teaches (sf-nal) typing
    Just a quickie – Canadian readers may be interested to know that occasional Futurismic blogger and freelance writer Edward Willett will be teaching an evening course in genre fiction writing at the University of Regina in March and April of next year. I’m not sure of the exact exchange rate, but ...

geopolitics | geoeconomics

Whistleblowers Protection Blog

  • National Security Teleconference Underway
    The National Whistleblowers Legal Defense & Education Fund's teleconference on National Security Whistleblowers is underway.  Shown here are Sibel Edmonds of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition , Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblowers Center , David Colapinto, ...
  • Whistleblowing: A Get-Rich-Quick Scheme?
    I have received calls and emails asking why the NWC supports UBS whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld.  This article published on Forbes.com helps answer that question.  Mr. Birkenfeld, like countless other employees, blew the whistle because he believed it was the right thing to do.  When Mr. Birkenfel ...
  • Upcoming Training Seminar to Focus on National Sec ...
    The National Whistleblowers Legal Defense & Education Fund will host a conference call training seminar covering a number of innovative and alternative ways to successfully represent national security employees. The three presenters, Mark S. Zaid , Stephen M. Kohn , and David K. Colapinto , all seas ...
  • Indonesian activists suffer police investigation
    My counterpart in Indonesia, Emerson Yuntho, has been swept up in a flurry of police activity associated with the Third Conference of State Parties (CoSP) of the United Nation Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).  I just met Emerson last month when he visited our offices at the National Whistlebl ...
  • International Whistleblower News (November 23, 200 ...
    [Canada] MacCharles, Tonda, Richard Colvin: Portrait of a whistleblower, theStar.com , November 21, 2009. Talk to people who know Richard Colvin and a few key traits emerge. Driven, committed to Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Knows his stuff. Takes copious notes. Sociable, yet discreet. Above all, ...

Defense and the National Interest

  • On War #323: Milestone
    William S. Lind 23 November 2009 One of the ongoing themes of this column has been gangs and the role they play in a Fourth Generation world. Here in the United States they already serve as an alternative primary loyalty (alternative to the state) for many urban young men. Gangs will likely be a m ...
  • DNI to close — update
    23 November 2009 Many thanks to everyone who wrote in.  My wife and I are deeply touched. We’ll try to find someone to at least take over the site as it is and keep the links intact.  Several people have contacted me with ideas.  In the meantime, I’ll leave everything up unless we start ...
  • DNI to close
    Probably on Monday, November 23, depending on how my travels work out. Please go ahead and download any thing you’d like to keep — I’d particularly recommend Boyd’s briefings and the 4GW manuals. I have great faith in the growing number of bloggers and commentators who cover many of the s ...
  • On War #322: What Is “Political Correctness?”
    William S. Lind 18 November 2009 In response to the killing of 13 American soldiers at Ft. Hood by an Islamic U. S. Army major, a number of senior officials have expressed their fear, not of Islam, but of a possible threat to “diversity.” “Diversity” is one of the many false gods of “Poli ...
  • What should we do with terrorists?
    Security guru Bruce Schneier has the right idea: We should treat terrorists like common criminals and give them all the benefits of true and open justice — not merely because it demonstrates our indomitability, but because it makes us all safer. Once a society starts circumventing its own laws, th ...

Science Express

  • UCSB physicists move one step closer to quantum co ...
    Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing. The work is published online today on the Science Express Web site.
  • Research sheds light on workings of anti-cancer dr ...
    (PhysOrg.com) -- The copper sequestering drug tetrathiomolybdate (TM) has been shown in studies to be effective in the treatment of Wilson disease, a disease caused by an overload of copper, and certain metastatic cancers. That much is known. Very little, however, is known about how the drug works a ...
  • Researchers develop cheap, easy 'kitchen chemistry ...
    A team at The Scripps Research Institute has made major strides in solving a problem that has been plaguing chemists for many years: how best to break carbon-hydrogen bonds and then to create new bonds to join molecules together. This problem is of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry, whic ...
  • Rice physicists find reappearing quantum trios
    Using atoms at temperatures colder than deep space, Rice University physicists have delivered overwhelming proof for a once-scoffed-at theory that's become a hotbed for research some 40 years after it first appeared. In a paper available online in Science Express, Rice's team offers experimental evi ...
  • Geneticists publish largest-ever study on African ...
    African, American, and European researchers working in collaboration over a 10-year period have released the largest-ever study of African genetic data--more than four million genotypes--providing a library of new information on the continent which is thought to be the source of the oldest settleme ...

TechDirt

  • Understanding The Decline And Fall Of The Major Re ...
    There's a fascinating, and well sourced, editorial over at Hypebot by Kyle Bylin, suggesting why the major record labels have had so much trouble adapting to these changing times . Bylin argues, convincingly, that a big part of the problem was that as the record labels got bigger and bigger, they f ...
  • So A Lawyer, A Comedian And An Economist Walk Into ...
    A couple of times in the past we've looked at the question of copyright on jokes , noting that there generally isn't "copyright" on jokes, but that copying jokes can potentially hurt someone's reputation if called on it . In other words, even without making use of protectionist laws, creative types ...
  • That Random Coin Toss? Not So Random Afterall...
    One of my all-time favorite scenes in a play and movie, is the scene in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead where every coin toss comes up heads , leading to a bit of a philosophical discussion on probability. Of course, the randomness of the coin toss is the quintessential example o ...
  • Russian Publishers Taking A More Progressive View ...
    Martin sent over an article from a Swedish publication about how some Russian book publishers are dealing with "piracy" (translated via Google from the original ). While some do seem upset about the issue, others are actually figuring out ways to deal with it, including offering their own vastly ch ...
  • Tiger Woods Gags UK Media; Alerts World To Nude Ph ...
    It really was just a couple months ago that a ton of press coverage came from the ridiculous attempt by British oil company Trafigura to gag the UK press . All that did was turn what had been a minor story not many people were paying attention to into a huge story that everyone knew about. But wha ...

VacTruth

  • Billions in the trash: Swine flu drug scandal in U ...
    Governments worldwide may have wasted billions of dollars stockpiling an ineffective flu drug. A study published in the British Medical Journal has found no evidence that Tamiflu lowers the risk of flu complications.
  • Dr Tenpenny Speaks on the Swine Flu Vaccine

  • Parents Continue to Support Doctor Andrew Wakefiel ...
    posted on AutismTodayOnline.com Tension mounts in the UK, as Dr Andrew Wakefield’s case, has continued behind the closed doors of the the General Medical Council, or as it is sometimes referred to,  the ‘lions den‘ for over three years.  Parents have raged, protesting openly outside the gat ...
  • What if Dr. Andrew Moulden is Right?
    . . Source: Grandinite.com All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer Some recent research on MS might prove a Canadian “quack” doctor right about one thing: That many diseases ...
  • UK Doctors Demand More Cash To Inject Under Fives ...
    . . Swine flu vaccine programme in disarray By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Telegraph Published: 7:30AM GMT 09 Dec 2009 Children aged between six months and five years were supposed to be offered the vaccine from the middle of December. However, that is now in doubt after negotiations between ...

BroadSnark

  • Humbug!
    It’s time for my annual holiday season bitching post.  Feel free to skip this if you are not in the mood for a rant. I get it.  Like 76% of people in the United States consider themselves Christian and you all think Christmas is a big f’ing deal.  I’ve written before about the violenc ...
  • Things You Might Have Missed
    Every once in a while somebody breaks out of the cycle of malevolence, retribution and spite that characterize our usual response to crime.  It seems a New York store owner’s compassion to his would be robber was warranted. Others are a bit more hard headed.  Police respond to their own hara ...
  • Speaking out on Israel
    Renee at Womanist Musings recently posted a blog about a repugnant incident of antisemitism at a Florida middle school.  In her post, she said: to deny the right of a Jewish home state, is certainly a desire to reduce the possibility of any form of power and or security I took issue with that stat ...
  • Liberals and Conservatives Fuel Conflict
    An incident happened at my friend’s job the other day that perfectly demonstrates why liberals and conservatives are ultimately doomed to fail in their efforts to resolve conflicts. One of the employees is a very young woman.  She’s not particularly mature.  It’s her first job.  She w ...
  • Some Things You Might Have Missed
    Db0 has a new post up on how he ended up calling himself an Anarchist.  He’s also started a meme.  I’m really looking forward to reading other stories.  Noor posted a link to her story in the comments.  You should definitely read them both. Thanks to @solidadrocks for tweeting this a ...

Executive Intelligence Review

Armies of Liberation

  • US Sanctions Iran Based al Qaeda, Zawahiri Promise ...
    The US Treasury Department placed financial sanctions on Saad bin Laden, thought to be in Pakistan, and three alleged al Qaeda operatives in Iran including a Yemeni. The terrorist designation Friday froze their assets within US jurisdictions and prohibits Americans from financial dealings with the ...
  • Arabian Peninsula al Qaeda groups merge
    In the face of Saudi Arabia’s success against the al Qaeda organization, many Saudi operatives have fled to the more hospitable climate in Yemen, joining others who recently arrived from Iraq, Somalia, and Pakistan. Al Qaeda in Yemen announced its merger with Saudi Arabia’s al Qaeda organization ...
  • Yemen strikes multi-faceted deals with al Qaeda
    Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh recently struck a deal with Ayman Zawahiri, and Yemen is in the process of emptying its jails of known jihadists. The Yemeni government is recruiting these established jihadists to attack its domestic enemies as it refrains from serious counter-terror measures aga ...
  • Yemen’s Multi Faceted Deals with Al Qaeda (A ...
    اليمن تعقد صفقات متعددة الوجوه مع القاعدة كتبت: جين نوفاك – فبراير/ 2009 عبدالله عبدالوهاب ...
  • Yemen’s three terror fronts
    By Jane Novak March 28, 2009 3:18 PM Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took credit in an internet statement Friday for a pair of suicide attacks that targeted South Koreans in Yemen. A teen-aged suicide bomber killed four South Korean tourists in Shibam, Hadramout on March 15. A second terror att ...

Dark Politricks

  • Obama Creates Bipartisan Consensus on Behalf of Wa ...
    By Anthony Gregory Don’t miss Glenn Greenwald’s newest piece on Obama’s Nobel Prize speech, praised by conservatives and liberals alike, and what this means for the American debate on war: Much of the liberal praise for Obama’s speech yesterday focused on how eloquent, sophisticated ...
  • Financial Regulatory Bill Passes Congress – ...
    By Matt Hawes It looks like the House will be voting on Barney Frank’s H.R. 4173 today anywhere between 1:45 and 2:15 eastern.  The vote could be extremely close. Get contact information for your representative here, and urge him to vote against granting the Federal Reserve and Congress even more ...
  • Pat Buchanan: Ron Paul’s Hour of Power
    By David Fischer In an article today, well-known conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan salutes Ron Paul’s heroic effort to audit the Fed. Buchanan’s article makes a concise and well-reasoned call to “bring on the auditors!” and properly points out that the G ...
  • Medical Students for Liberty
    By ddkrutsinger The Johnson County, Iowa Campaign for Liberty group has branched out, into the Medical School.  A month ago I started the newest student group in the college, Medical Students for Liberty.   During the first meeting a presentation was given covering an overview of the core principles ...
  • Time to give the Fed some competition
    By dpy102 On December 9, 2009 Congressman Ron Paul introduced the H.R. 4248 Free Competition in Currency Act. This bill would do thee things: 1.  Eliminate the legal tender laws. 2.  Eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. 3.  Eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on ...

Mathaba - Highlights

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