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Thomas Paine

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

Monday, December 14, 2009

14 Dec - RSS SnapShot!

Feeds Update From Opit's LinkFest!* at My Opera Community
*Blog/About/ Resource Index as well as live Personalized RSS Aggregator Working Demonstration

IPS - Inter Press Services

  • MALAWI: Women Fight Harmful Cultural Practices
    BLANTYRE, Dec 14 (IPS) - An experience which Belita Simpokolwe went through in December last year remains deeply etched in her memory. "Sometimes I fail to concentrate in class when these things come back to my mind," laments 13-year-old Simpokolwe, a grade six pupil at Kawale Primary School, in ...
  • POLITICS-AFRICA: Seeking a Democratic South Sudan ...
    TORIT, South Sudan, Dec 14 (IPS) - The atmosphere is heavily charged with political tensions, alliances are already in the offing, expectations are high and the pressure for the country to achieve a successful transition from an interim government to a democratically elected one is immense.
  • Q&A: "Poverty Kills Women's Awareness"
    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 (IPS) - Five years ago, Morocco amended its family law to promote the idea of equality between men and women.
  • CLIMATE CHANGE: 'Cut Fossil Fuel Subsidies but ...
    COPENHAGEN, Dec 14 (IPS/TerraViva) - Cutting governmental subsidies for fossil energy could lead to a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as compared to 1990 levels, says a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
  • CLIMATE CHANGE: Water Is the Missing Link in Cope ...
    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 (IPS/TerraViva) - When the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced the grim news that 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record, the U.N. agency also stressed last week the widespread water-related calamities caused by global warming.

Scoop - NZ

  • Planet A +
    "If you will it, it is no dream" So said climate scientist and Jim Salinger to the 2,000 people gathered in Wellington's Civic Square, ready to march to Parliament in support of climate action. Meanwhile a crowd nearly twice that size had assembled in Auckland's Albert Park for a march up Queen Stre ...
  • A few emails vs global scientific consensus: guess ...
    Like a bad smell, the theft of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) hangs around the Copenhagen conference and threatens to distract people from what really needs to be discussed. Suddenly, everyone seems to be a scientific expert ready to denounce a global conspiracy but you don't have to di ...
  • 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 ...

Independent ( London )

  • Iran 'testing nuclear bomb part'
    The prospect of fresh tension between the UK and Iran arose today after a document emerged suggesting the Middle Eastern country was working on testing a key nuclear bomb part.
  • Andrew Buncombe: Sri Lanka - war heroes and war cr ...
    Earlier this year, I wrote a story from Sri Lanka about the efforts of several senior LTTE members to surrender in the very final stages of the war and how they were shot dead - apparently while walking towards government troops while carrying a white flag.
  • AIDS 'prevention' gel fails in African trials
    A gel made by US drug firm Endo Pharmaceuticals that is designed to prevent infection with the AIDS virus has proved ineffective in trials in Africa, Britain's Medical Research Council said today.
  • Chile prepares for election run-off
    Chile's presidential election appeared to be heading for a January run-off after initial projections showed a conservative billionaire leading but short of an outright victory.
  • Knox admits to feeling 'scared'
    Eight days after Amanda Knox was sentenced to 26 years for the murder of Meredith Kercher, her British roommate, the 22-year-old American has said that she is scared at the prospect of spending her life behind bars.

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

  • Blair's crime of hubris
    Summary: Steele Tony Blair's boast that he would have sought to remove Saddam Hussein even if he knew Iraq's president no longer had weapons of mass destruction brings fresh evidence that he probably committed a crime in going along with George Bush's invasion. source: The Guardian read more
  • White House Slams Iran Offer of Nuclear Swap
    Summary: Tehran Reactor White House spokesmen angrily condemned Iran’s counter-offer for a third party uranium enrichment swap today, declaring that it was inconsistent with the “fair and balanced” plan sought by the US. source: AntiWar.com read more
  • It’s Time to Leave Afghanistan
    Summary: Ron Paul I am afraid the only solution to the Afghanistan quagmire is a rapid and complete US withdrawal from that country and the region. We cannot afford to maintain this empire and our occupation of these foreign lands is not making us any safer. It is time to leave Afghanistan. so ...
  • Iran agrees to nuclear swap in Kish Island
    Summary: Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says his country is ready to swap 400 kilograms of its low enriched uranium in the Persian Gulf Island of Kish. "We are prepared to take 400 Kg of 3.5 percent enriched uranium to the Island of Kish and exchange it with an amount equivalent to 2 ...
  • 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 ...

The Daily Galaxy

  • Will an Evolutionary "Intelligence Niche" Prove to ...
    Charley Lineweaver, a cosmologist with The Australian National University, believes the "Planet of the Apes Hypothesis" -a theory subscribed to by Carl Sagan and the astronomers involved with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), that human-like intelligence is a convergent...
  • "The Year Without Summer" - What Triggered the Mi ...
    Global warming is our current focus, but from 1810 to 1819, people worried because the planet was far colder than usual, with the planet cooling almost a full degree Fahrenheit. 1816 according to climate historians was known as "the year...
  • Extreme Microbes Hint at Possible Lifeforms in the ...
    Oxygen, one of the by-products of photosynthesis by microbes such as cyanobacteria and their descendants -including algae and higher plants, transformed the Precambrian Earth and made possible the evolution of more complex organisms. Jeffrey Touchman, assistant professor in the School...
  • Google Goggles: Seeing The World As A Web Search
    Augmented Reality (AR) is pure science-fiction, the idea of overlaying an informational world on top of the physical where you could create entirely artificial structures, central hubs of communal hardware hallucination offering everything from imaginary artworks to real world opening...
  • A Giant Virus Discovery Trumps SciFi
    Giant viruses aren't the result of nineteen-fifties Atomic Mutation (now playing in our air-conditioned theater!) but a real infectious agent so unexpected they were only discovered recently. A giant virus was like a tiny elephant - something someone would not...

Natural News

  • Tamiflu anti-viral drug revealed as complete hoax; ...
    (NaturalNews) When it comes to selling chemicals that claim to treat H1N1 swine flu, the pharmaceutical industry's options are limited to two: Vaccines and anti-virals. The most popular anti-viral, by far, is Tamiflu, a drug that's actually derived from a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb called sta ...
  • Antipsychotic drugs can cause heart disease
    (NaturalNews) Popular antipsychotic drugs are under fire for causing severe side effects such as hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and weight gain. Researchers discussed the issue in Biological Psychiatry, noting that the mentally ill who take such drugs are already at an increased risk for developing ...
  • Nutty news from scientists: pistachios reduce lung ...
    (NaturalNews) Researchers have reported over the past year that nuts offer a wide range of health benefits -- from helping fight the pre-diabetic condition known as metabolic syndrome (http://www.naturalnews.com/025098_nuts_mediterranean_diet_metabolic_syndrome.html_) to preventing age-related blind ...
  • Experience wild foods and herbal medicines of Ecua ...
    (NaturalNews) Imagine walking through the rainforests of Ecuador, surrounded by medicinal plants and wild foods. Harmonies of birds and locusts blanket the forest from lush treetops. Your group pauses for a moment to take it all in... that's when you discover you're standing right next to a sacred S ...
  • Western diet triggers genes that cause the body to ...
    (NaturalNews) New research published in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has found that the "Western" diet, typically high in sugar and fat, may be responsible for activating genes that signal the body to become fatter. According to scientists, the ...

TheGallopingBeaver

  • The Rich at play . . .
    WRECKEDEXOTICS.COM is a site devoted to pictures of expensive sleds that have come to grief. Heartburn for insurance managers and leasing companies. Schadenfreude central. Sure lowers the re-sale value, any way you look at it. Ferrari took off from a stop light and lost control after the traction co ...
  • Smoke 'Em if You've Got 'Em . . . .
    Quite the interesting contraption, would you not agree? Used extensively in Ottawa, Victoria and Washington, DC. (Click to enlarge) Gives a whole new meaning to "Let's go outside and light up a butt," eh ? ? ? ? H/T "drf" (Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver )
  • Sam Salt makes the final crossing of the bar
    Most of you will not know who Sam Salt was or what his significance was in the world. You will not know that he was a very quiet man but one who possessed a commanding sense of humour. You will probably not know that he quietly, and at times not so quietly, grieved for the loss of twenty souls who ...
  • That's a spicy meatball . . .
    THE GUARDIAN has a disturbing report by Rajeev Syal, titled, "Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor" .The sub-head is even more provoking: Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions 352 BILLION DOLLARS — YIKES! Sp ...
  • 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. ...

Media Matters for America

  • Fox & Friends off the rails on clai ...
    Trumpeting a report by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn on "wasted" stimulus funds, Fox & Friends hosts Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson Jr. repeatedly claimed that $54 million in stimulus money went to "save" a wine-tour train in Napa Valley, when in fact, the funds are for ...
  • Fox & Friends crops economic advise ...
    On Fox & Friends , guest host Peter Johnson Jr. said there is an "amazing disconnect" between White House economic advisers Christina Romer and Larry Summers over whether or not the recession is over, after he aired clips of Summers saying that "everybody agrees that the recession is over" and ...
  • Quick Fact: Wallace continues to distort stolen cl ...
    During the December 13 broadcast of Fox News Sunday , host Chris Wallace read excerpts from two of the emails that he claimed "were either leaked or hacked" from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, falsely suggesting that the emails may not have been stolen. Wallace also cl ...
  • 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 ...

Global Research.ca

TPM Cafe

  • Pete Peterson teams up with Kent Conrad to Undermi ...
      On Monday morning, wealthy hedge fund mogul Peter Peterson and his Commission on Budget Reform will hold a press conference to issue a "Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt."  Their scary promotional material declares, "The ever-growing... Social Security - Medicare - Congress - E ...
  • Please, Mr. President, Get Angry, Kick Some Ass
    Does the President know how much some of his most ardent supporters are pained by his refusal to hit back? Ever since he refused to allow the party to strip Lieberman of his committee chairmanship, we have watched as domestic... President of the United States - United States - History - Obama ...
  • A Big Miracle
    (I hadn't thought to post this again this year, but since David Brooks has tried his hand at interpreting the meaning of Chanukah, and TPM Cafe's Jim Sleeper has offered his rejoinder, I offer these thoughts from Jerusalem, which needs... Hanukkah - Jim Sleeper - Christmas - Talking Points Memo ...
  • It's Neo-conukah!
    David Brooks has taken the fun out of Hanukah, which was already a stretch, inflated by Jewish kids' loneliness at Christmas. But now, crediting the idiomatically American but tribalistically Israeli Jeffrey Goldberg, Brooks makes an ironclad case for Hanukah as... Jeffrey Goldberg - United Sta ...
  • War, Peace, and Pragmatism
    Looking at President Obama's Nobel acceptance speech, I'm afraid I disagree with Bill Hartung (certainly his 1st graf) and Matt Yglesias on the importance of affirming the aspirational goal of eliminating war. Starting with Bill, who sees a lamentable attitude... Barack Obama - President of th ...

TruthOut

  • Lieberman May Torpedo Health Care Reform
    Senate Democrats who thought they had found a workable compromise on health care reform learned otherwise from independent Sen. Joe Lieberman over the weekend. read more
  • Forbes Publishes Fiction on Climate Change Debate
    Forbes.com has an article up called "The Fiction of Climate Science" ( 12/4/09 ). Thanks no doubt to a link from Drudge , it's currently one of the website's "top rated," "most popular" and "most emailed" items. "Fiction" is a polite word for what the author, Gary Sutton, does with evidence. read m ...
  • High Noon in the White House
    President Barack Obama noted last week after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize that the United States "has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades." While this was certainly true in Germany and Japan during World War II as well as in Korea, there have been too many occasions in the ...
  • Scientists Sound Biomass Alarm; Is Copenhagen List ...
    Current climate legislation and the Kyoto Protocol are undermining the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Or so contends a cautionary article that appeared in October's peer-reviewed journal of Science. The authors, led by Timothy D. Searchinger of Princeton University, wrote in their essay, ...
  • In Dubai, Financial Crisis Looms
    Dubai, UAE - Last year, when major banks in the U.S. and Europe were teetering on the brink of collapse, Middle Eastern and Asian banks that specialize in Islamic financing were riding high. In the face of a global recession, the top-100 Islamic banks saw their combined assets grow by a gravity defy ...

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

  • Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up
    TXsharon @ Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS helps you follow the money to see why Governor Perry and others want Texans to keep breathing toxic air. BossKitty at TruthHugger is proud to give a Hat Tip to Houston – Annise Parker inherits a City of Progress. The Stonewall Democrats of Denton Cou ...
  • 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 ...

Press TV

Axis of Logic

They Gave Us a Republic

  • Disappointing, but not unexpected
    The Supreme Court today rejected without comment the appeal of four British citizens who were detained and have since been freed from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp who claim that they were beaten, threatened with dogs, tortured and denied religious rights, including forced shaving of their beards, ...
  • How to create a chemically dependent generation
    All too often in our society, those of us who aren't on the bottom rung or two of the economic ladder hold our own preconceived notions (prejudices?) about those who are, and on some level feel that there must be something wrong with them. I am just going to go ahead and call the phenomenon what it ...
  • Carthage
    Holy Joe has decided to kill healthcare reform. Yesterday on Face the Nation he told the world that the compromises he has extracted so far are enough, he has decided to oppose any reform that expands coverage by a public option or an expansion or Medicare via a buy-in for those between 55-64. If al ...
  • "Reform that works for business, investors and con ...
    "We can't afford to let the same phony arguments and bad habits of Washington kill financial reform and leave American consumers and our economy vulnerable to another meltdown." Full transcript here.
  • Conservatives Don't Even Know What Socialism Is
    This is from Webster's New World College Dictionary, Third Edition: socialism: 1 any of various theories or systems of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community rather than by private individuals, with all members of society or the community ...

Care 2

  • Dog back home after four years
    A stolen dog has been reunited with its Black Country family more than four years after going missing. Rottweiler Tara was pinched from Tammy Price's garden in West Bromwich in 2005, aged 12 weeks old, after living with the family for just Submitted by Maria Oniga to Animals  |   Note-it!  |   Add ...
  • Clean and sober parents welcome new baby, chance t ...
    His hands are enormous. When he leans in to brush something from the baby’s cheek, his fingers eclipse the tiny face. He labors to tie the smallest of shoelaces with knuckles that are swollen from years of fighting. As he talks, he gazes into his... Submitted by Kat Y. to Society & Culture   ...
  • The 12 Days of Christmas; Don’t Forget the Furry ...
    The holidays are usually a wonderful and exciting time for family and friends but for family pets it can be scary, stressful and dangerous. Lots of unusual activity, new sounds, scents, people, things around the home; all of this can be traumatic to Submitted by Cher C. to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  | ...
  • New study sheds light on Koala evolution
    Most people think of koalas as cute, cuddly, lovable iconic animals. The evolutionary biologist, on the other hand, knows them as extremely specialized, endangered animals with a poorly understood evolutionary history. Submitted by Cher C. to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  • ACTION ALERT: World Solidarity Petition to End Chi ...
    As we build momentum to end chimpanzee research in the U.S., your signature and that of millions of others across the globe will build a strong case for our Campaign. All non-U.S./non-Canadian citizens please sign today! We encourage you to email your Submitted by Simone D. to Animals  |   Note-it! ...

GreenBiz

Reuters Global

  • On the rickety, smokey track to Sarajevo
    Just after 8 a.m. on Sunday, I was one of two dozen journalists at Belgrade's central station to board the first train to Sarajevo for 18 years, since the wars in Bosnia and Croatia slashed through the fabric of what used to be my country.
  • X-factor strikes surreal note in Taliban heartland
    In a dusty lounge at Kandahar airbase, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were in the middle of a sombre news conference on how to turn around the situation in Afghanistan, where British forces face mounting casualties in their fight against Taliban insurgents.
  • Russia’s security proposals – about mu ...
    President Dmitry Medvedev's proposals for a new European security architecture are about far more than security.
  • 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?

Ezra Klein

  • Lieberman's principles, or lack thereof
    There have been two strains of criticism to my earlier post on Lieberman. The first has been a terrible discomfort with discussing health-care reform in terms of its human impact. I go into that question a bit here . The second is that I'm being unfair to Lieberman's motivations. My thesis in that p ...
  • Is Robert Rubin more important than the U.S. Congr ...
    Matt Taibbi's latest piece in Rolling Stone is attracting a lot of attention ( Digby , Drum , Yglesias , Fernholz , Salmon ), which is testament to Taibbi's talent for breathing life and urgency into topics that too many consider dull. But in this case, Taibbi chose a swift-moving narrative at the e ...
  • Think Tank: The cost of being uninsured, how to bo ...
    1) The Urban Institute estimates that 137,000 people died between 2000 and 2006 because they were uninsured. 2) A former Federal Reserve official argues that the Fed needs to be much more aggressive . 3) Atul Gawande thinks we don't need a a grand theory of cost control . 4) The Brookings Institu ...
  • The 150,000-life health-care plan
    By now, you're probably used to hearing about the $900 billion health-care bill. But what about the 150,000-life health-care bill? Oddly, that label hasn't made its way into the conversation. But it is, if anything, a conservative estimate. The Institute of Medicine developed a detailed methodol ...
  • Uncertain about uncertainty
    "If anyone tries to tell you that uncertainty about climate change is a reason for inaction, he’s either a fool or a scoundrel," writes Mark Kleiman. "Probably a bit of both." He explains : Assume some climate model predicts that, under some set of assumptions, average global temperature would ri ...

Booman Tribune

  • Clarifying the Dispute
    I'm glad that Jane Hamsher clarified her odd timeline because I couldn't figure out why she was attributing a July article about events in January to February 2009. But she doesn't quite address my point. She's been arguing for quite some time that Rahm Emanuel has been secretly pushing to kill the ...
  • Lieberman Serves a Cold Dish
    It was actually William Congreve, not William Shakespeare, who wrote, "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd." But perhaps more appropriate to Joe Lieberman is the old proverb "la vengeance se mange très-bien froide." In a move that Mario Puzo migh ...
  • Reconciliation
    If Joe Lieberman won't vote for a reasonable health care bill, it really makes more sense to just use the budget reconciliation process, even though that will mean that we can't move on to other things like jobs and climate legislation. You can only appease so much before you look ridiculous. And ...
  • Blackmail
    The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC says they will cancel all their contracts to do charitable work with the city if the City Council legalizes gay marriage as they are expected to do. The proposed D.C. law, expected to go before the council for a vote in the first week of December, would ...
  • Casual Observation
    I'm not sure what the hell to make of this.

European Tribune

Futurismic

  • Unplugged: the Web’s Best SF/F anthology now ava ...
    Almost exactly a year ago I had the pleasure of announcing that a story originally published here at Futurismic – Jason Stoddard’s “Willpower”, to be precise – had been selected by Rich Horton for reprinting in his inaugural Unplugged: The Web’s Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy anthology. And now I ...
  • The physics of space battles
    We all know that space battles as depicted in films and television tend to reuse the paradigms of more familiar planet-side combat types – the naval manoeuvres of Star Trek, for example, or the dog-fighting planes of Star Wars. But what would real combat between space-faring civilisations actually ...
  • Old
    Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously. [ Be sure to check out the Does Not Equal Cafepress store for webcomic merchandise featuring Canadians with geometrically-shaped heads! ] Project Wonderf ...
  • 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 ...

Therapy News

  • Study Suggests Casual Sex Bears no Mental Health B ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Among parents concerned about the behavior of their children in social situations as well as society at large, casual sex and relationships are often viewed as detrimental to mental health and well-being. Committed, more meaningful relationships, it is suggested, are ...
  • Study Offers Answer to Modern Teen Depression: Con ...
    A GoodTherapy.org News Summary With rates of thoughts and feeling of depression high among the youthful population, many mental health industry experts and academicians are eager to produce an explanation. From parenting methods to diet choices and everything in between, a number of reasons have bee ...
  • 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 ...

Mountaintop Removal

  • Manchin seeks clarity from Byrd remarks - Daily Ma ...
    Manchin seeks clarity from Byrd remarks Daily Mail - Charleston "The practice of mountaintop removal mining has a diminishing constituency in Washington. It is not a widespread method of mining, with its use confined to ... Blast from the past: Dave Callaghan on MTR Charleston Gazette (blog) Byrd's ...
  • Lone family populates 'ghost town' - Daily Mail - ...
    Lone family populates 'ghost town' Daily Mail - Charleston "Home to me this late in life means to me just as much as that coal does to Massey," Richmond said of Massey Energy's decision to start mountaintop removal ...
  • RFK Jr. Calls Mountaintop Removal Mining "Criminal ...
    Washington Post RFK Jr. Calls Mountaintop Removal Mining "Criminal" truthout Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed several hundred environmentalists protesting mountaintop removal mining in Charleston, West Virginia on Monday. ... Fight against mountaintop removal making headway Facing South (blog) Hundr ...
  • Mountaintop removal opponent starts hunger strike ...
    WOWK Mountaintop removal opponent starts hunger strike at Capitol Charleston Gazette An 81-year-old opponent of mountaintop-removal mining started a fast on Monday that he hopes will draw attention to and help end the controversial practice. ... 81-year-old activist begins fast to end mountaintop r ...
  • Miners and conservationists face off in West Virgi ...
    Free Speech Radio News Miners and conservationists face off in West Virginia over mountain top removal Free Speech Radio News Just weeks after blasting began on West Virginia's Coal River Mountain, the Federal EPA halted what would have been the state's largest Mountain Top Removal ...

Memeorandum

  • Joe Lieberman Not The Man He Used To Be On Medicar ...
    Evan McMorris-Santoro / TPMDC : Joe Lieberman Not The Man He Used To Be On Medicare Buy-In   —  Meet Joe Lieberman, Medicare buy-in advocate.  It's the winter of 2000, and Lieberman is pressing flesh and kissing babies in Bangor, Maine as the presidential election approaches.  After holding ...
  • W.H. to Reid: Cut deal with Lieberman (Carrie Budo ...
    Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico : W.H. to Reid: Cut deal with Lieberman   —  The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and eliminate the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an offi ...
  • The 150,000-life health-care plan (Ezra Klein)
    Ezra Klein : The 150,000-life health-care plan   —  By now, you're probably used to hearing about the $900 billion health-care bill.  But what about the 150,000-life health-care bill?  —  Oddly, that label hasn't made its way into the conversation.  But it is, if anything, a conservative ...
  • Did AmeriCorps official lie about possible First L ...
    Byron York / Washington Examiner : Did AmeriCorps official lie about possible First Lady link to IG firing?   —  Congressional investigators looking into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin have discovered that the head of AmeriCorps met with a top aide to First Lad ...
  • Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at The Journal (D ...
    David Carr / New York Times : Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at The Journal   —  Sunday was the second anniversary of the sale of The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.  At that time, a chorus of journalism church ladies (I was among them) warned that one of the crown ...

Energy & Environment News

5+ quakes - 7 days

  • M 5.0, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia
    Saturday, December 12, 2009 02:16:52 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 02:16:52 PM at epicenter Depth : 126.80 km (78.79 mi)
  • M 5.0, Ryukyu Islands, Japan
    Monday, December 7, 2009 19:48:09 UTC Tuesday, December 8, 2009 04:48:09 AM at epicenter Depth : 7.30 km (4.54 mi)
  • M 5.9, Bougainville region, Papua New Guinea
    Monday, December 14, 2009 08:54:04 UTC Monday, December 14, 2009 06:54:04 PM at epicenter Depth : 67.20 km (41.76 mi)
  • M 5.4, Timor region, Indonesia
    Monday, December 14, 2009 03:05:25 UTC Monday, December 14, 2009 11:05:25 AM at epicenter Depth : 46.20 km (28.71 mi)
  • M 5.6, Tonga
    Friday, December 11, 2009 12:33:39 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 02:33:39 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)

China Dialogue

  • Balancing the carbon budget
    As the talks heat up in Copenhagen, Pan Jiahua, Chen Ying and Li Chenxi argue that formulating emissions targets will require an overhaul of the current climate regime. United Nations climate-change talks are underway in Copenhagen , but significant differences remain between participants – and co ...
  • 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 ...

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

  • Obama upset about amount of banker compensation
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told bankers on Monday he had a problem with the high amount of bankers' pay and bonuses -- not just the structure of their compensation systems, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
  • Nike chairman stands by Tiger Woods: report
    CHICAGO (Reuters) - Nike Inc Chairman and co-founder Phil Knight said the scandal surrounding Tiger Woods is "part of the game" in signing endorsement deals with athletes and did not back away from the athletic shoe and clothing maker's relationship with the golfer.
  • Exxon Mobil to buy XTO Energy in big U.S. gas bet
    NEW YORK/HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp will buy XTO Energy Inc in an all-stock deal valued at about $30 billion, in a move that thrusts the U.S. energy giant to the forefront of North America's fast-growing natural gas industry.
  • BA crew to strike over Christmas
    LONDON (Reuters) - British Airways cabin crew called a strike on Monday, hours after the airline revealed a 3.7 billion pound ($6 billion) hole in its pension fund that will require deft handling if a proposed merger with Iberia is to stay on track.
  • UPDATE 4-Exxon Mobil to buy XTO Energy in big U.S. ...
    * Exxon expanding domestic foothold (Adds byline, investor quote, background, updates share prices, recasts first paragraph)

Pine River World News

  • Britain Blames Russia for Deaths of British Soldie ...
    The following article is from Pravda, Moscow. Britain Blames Russia for Deaths of British Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan ©   Pravda.ru By Sergey Balmasov December 14, 2009 The war in Iraq began in 2003 because of Russia, John Sawers, the former head of British intelligence service MI-6 said on D ...
  • Huge N Korea arms cache seized
    [ Blogmaster note :  I realize this story is making headlines worldwide but there are varying accounts of it - speculation that the weapons were headed for Iran, etc. Here's the local version from Thailand's Bangkok Post.] Huge N Korea arms cache seized RUSSIAN CARGO PLANE INTERCEPTED ON ASIAN WEAP ...
  • American Muslims arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan: W ...
    Five American Muslims were arrested Tuesday night in Sargodha, Pakistan. Supposedly these men were intent on linking up with al-Qaeda operatives for Jihad. Press reports abound - including how YouTube was used to facilitate their contact. What were they really up to? Well, there is some speculatio ...
  • Israeli settlers burn Quran in attack on mosque
    The following article is from Al Arabiya, Dubai. Israeli settlers burn Quran in attack on mosque ©   Al Arabiya December 12, 2009 Yasuf/ Bethlehem, WEST BANK (Al Arabiya) Hundreds of Jewish settlers angry at reduced settlement building burned pages of Islam's holy book in an attack on a West Bank ...
  • 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 ...

MSM Blogging

PDA AMERICA

  • “End-The-Wars,” A Rally at the White H ...
    Sights and scenes, in 25 photos, from the “End-the-Wars” rally of Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009. The spirited event was held in Lafayette Park, opposite the White House. See, for background: http://www.enduswars.org/
  • INVICTUS Kicks Off New Campaign For Universal Decl ...
    By Linda Milazzo | PDA Blog Contributor Los Angeles gets a bad rap. It’s assailed for being shallow and rarely acknowledged for its good heart. But Los Angeles has a huge heart – at ...
  • 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 ...

Marler Blog

  • Seattle Times - Hungry for food that's safe to swa ...
    This morning I was reading Jerry Large’s column this morning “Hungry for food that's safe to swallow,” and was struck by how often I hear the same level of frustration at the safety of our food supply and what our government is or is not doing to help. I also keep hearing from folks, like Jerr ...
  • Execution, as a food safety "kill step," does not ...
    Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times reported “2 Executed in China for Selling Tainted Milk:” China executed two milk producers on Tuesday for selling more than three million pounds of contaminated milk products in connection with a food-safety scandal that killed six infants, shocking the c ...
  • Food Safety in the United States - We have a long, ...
    More than 50% of food manufacturers don't know that they are supposed to provide the FDA with updated contact information in the case of emergencies, such as Salmonella or other forms of food contamination,  See it here in the federal report to be released yesterday by the Health and Human Services ...
  • 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 ...

AutoblogGreen

  • AutoblogGreen for 12.14.09
    Tesla employees going on 2,700-mile road trip from LA to Detroit Yes, there will be many stops along the way. Automaker Advice: How to relieve long-range anxiety and gain market share Two ...
  • 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' ...

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!

  • Morocco Refuses to Yield to Haidar; Fear Reigns in ...
    Last week Democracy Now! covered the story of thje Western Saharan human rights activist Aminatou Haidar . She has been on a hunger strike for four weeks since being deported against her will by Moroccan authorities occupying her homeland. Haidar, known as the “Sahrawi Gandhi,” is at an airpor ...
  • 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 ...

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

  • 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World. [PICS]
    There are probably hundreds of majestic and magnificent trees in the world – of these, some are particularly special.
  • 'Krak' (that's falling branch in monkey speak)
    The secret behind the origins of human language may lie in the jungle chatter of a species of monkey, a team of scientists has claimed.
  • Record December Snowfall buries Midwest
    The highest recorded snowfall for December in 50 years and subzero temperatures creates hazardous conditions. Frigid temperatures iced the Upper Midwest on Thursday as a massive storm that dumped more than a foot of snow in several states from Iowa to New England neared the end of its cross-country ...
  • 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.
  • Google.org unveils deforestation monitor
    Its new "high-performance satellite imagery-processing engine" can process terabytes of information on thousands of Google servers while giving access to the results online. The platform would allow anyone using the tool to monitor whether or not trees were being chopped down in a given forest, moni ...

Invisible Opportunity

  • The Flaming Dumpsters at the End of the Line
    By Les Visible Now we see that the White House has intruded into the health care legislation to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. We see that arrangements are being made so that insurance conglomerates can deny you coverage if you acquire an expensive to treat malady. Not only wi ...
  • The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero
    by Willis Eschenbach People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.” Let me start with the second objection first. The earth has generally been warming since the Little Ice Age, around 165 ...
  • Are we feeling warmer yet?
    (A paper collated by Richard Treadgold, of the Climate Conversation Group, from a combined research project undertaken by members of the Climate Conversation Group and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition) There have been strident claims that New Zealand is warming. The Inter-governmental Panel ...
  • Video – Armed Response to ‘Climategate ...
    Journalist Phelim McAleer (‘Mine Your Own Business’, ‘Not Evil Just Wrong’) asks Prof Stephen Schneider from Stanford University an Inconvenient Question about ‘Climategate’ emails. McAleer is interrupted twice by Prof Schneider’s assistant and UN staff and then told to stop filming by ...
  • Video – NASA manipulating data to support gl ...
    Although all scientists interpret data in different ways, Chris Horner says that NASA scientists working on climate change have been particularly active in advocating for global warming. What is the motivation for this? And what could be the consequences?

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

  • Follow Nathan From Sea to Shining Sea
    Nathan Winters rode his bike across America this summer to raise money for The Nature Conservancy and raise awareness for climate change and sustainable ag. Related posts: White House Follow-up on Global Climate Change Impacts Keep Keeping America Beautiful The Beef Stops Here at Sacred Heart Hosp ...
  • Climate Protest in Copenhagen – Video
    On December 12th, a group of 100,000 people marched through the streets of Copenhagen to speak out for climate justice. Related posts: Photo Sunday Special Edition – The Week in Copenhagen Cop15 Clip Reel Videos – Watch Them Here Before they Go to Copenhagen Cop15 – On The Streets – Day ...
  • Photo Sunday Special Edition – The Week in Copen ...
    The Cop15 Climate Talks in Copenhagen Denmark, our planets best opportunity to create lasting change to protect this world we call home from irreversible catastrophe. Related posts: Cop15 Clip Reel Videos – Watch Them Here Before they Go to Copenhagen Cop15 – On The Streets – Day One Video C ...
  • 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 ...

Inhabitat

  • GREEN GIFT GUIDE: Eco-Friendly Gifts for Mom & Dad
    As the holidays arrive, we’ve been bringing you all the best green gifts for everyone on your list – and we can’t forget about Mom & Dad! These are the people that nursed our wounds, taught us how to tie our shoelaces and cleaned our poopy diapers, so they definitely deserve some heartfelt tha ...
  • World’s Largest Solar Energy Office Building Ope ...
    A vast fan-shaped compound in China has officially taken the title of “largest solar-powered office building in the world“. Located in Dezhou in the Shangdong Province in northwest China, the 75,000 square meter structure is a multi-use building and features exhibition centers, scientific resear ...
  • NASA Launches Solar-Powered Asteroid-Detecting Tel ...
    This morning NASA launched the WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), a solar-powered infrared telescope that will scan the skies for earth-threatening asteroids and comets. We love covering all things green, but solar power plants and eco-friendly architecture mean very little if the planet ha ...
  • COP15 Update: Developing Countries Threaten to Wal ...
    Photo by Christian Charisius for Reuters This morning in Copenhagen, the climate talks stalled as African nations threatened to walk out on the conference. Upset that industrialized nations appeared to be killing the Kyoto Protocol, the African bloc cried out that industrialized nations were short-c ...
  • Dochodo Zoo Island is an Eden at Sea
    It sounds like the plot of the movie Jurassic Park (minus the dinosaurs), but JDS Architects’ have created an incredible plan for a zoo located on the South Korean island of Dochodo. The island could, according to the architecture firm, be a “case study to define a tourist region based on susta ...

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

  • Solving US/Mexico border pollution woes
    San Diego Union Tribune – Along the U.S.-Mexico border, in the aftermath of the recent massive rainstorm that hit Southern California, is the debris trail — used tires, plastic bottles, plywood, and discarded dolls. It starts in the canyons of Tijuana and ends up along U.S. beaches from Imper ...
  • People with autism ‘have problem with self-aware ...
    BBC – Scientists have produced evidence that self-awareness is a big problem for people with autism. Sophisticated scans showed the brains of people with autism are less active when engaged in self-reflective thought. The findings provide a neurological insight into why people with autism tend to ...
  • Tribal gunmen holding 47 Filipinos hostage threate ...
    Times Online – Tribal gunmen in the southern Philippines holding 57 hostages warned that there would be a massacre if police made any rescue attempt — as hundreds of security forces surrounded their mountain camp. The hostage drama, in its second day, was the latest unrest in the volatile Min ...
  • World ‘losing faith in debt-laden UK’: Bank of ...
    Daily Mail – The Bank of England today warns Britain is in danger of losing its ‘credit standing’ with international investors. Many are worried about the vast quantity of government bonds that will have to be sold over the coming years, the Bank reveals in its Quarterly Bulletin. The Bank add ...
  • Governments Turn To Cloud Seeding To Fight Drought
    AP ? On a mountaintop clearing in the Sierra Nevada stands a tall metal platform holding a crude furnace and a box of silver iodide solution that some scientists believe could help offer relief from searing droughts. This is a cloud-seeding machine designed to increase rainfall by spraying a chemica ...

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

  • The Final Showdown: Obama Declares War On Pakistan
    By Webster G. Tarpley WASHINGTON, DC — Obama’s West Point speech of December 1 represents far more than the obvious brutal escalation in Afghanistan — it is nothing less than a declaration of all-out war by the United States against Pakistan . This is a brand-new war, a much wider war now tar ...
  • Satanic Sacrifices? A Million In US To Go Missing ...
    by Richard Evans Here is a list of Satanic sacrificial days, which is accurate. Statistics on missing persons in the Unites States are difficult to find, but are appalling.  The following missing persons estimates are from the Kyle Fleischman Foundation: 2,300 American people are reported mis ...
  • Pakistan Arrests 3 US Embassy Employees
    Pakistani security forces have arrested another three US citizens working at the American Consulate for filming sensitive installations in the eastern city of Lahore. Police arrested three American nationals including a woman in the Sherpao bridge area of Lahore as they were filming sensitive govern ...
  • Nuclear Weapons Used On Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza ...
    Peter Eyre, Middle East Consultant UK, December 12, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) – We have seen the terrible consequences to human life and the environment that has been caused by weapons that contain uranium components. Genetically speaking the US and UK have destroyed the DNA of the Iraqi people as w ...
  • Pakistan Is Fully Prepared For World War III
    Project 2012 Technology to cover range of 7,000 Kms, Pakistan, to increase its defensive capabilities, has started preparing intercontinental missile with a range of 7000 kilometres. According to sources, the intercontinental missile has a range of 7000 kilometres and is capable of hitting its targ ...

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

Environment _ National Geographic

  • PHOTOS: Ten U.S. Species Feeling Global Warming's ...
    Climate change is turning up the heat on some of the U.S.'s already threatened species, including ten highlighted by a new Endangered Species Coalition report.
  • 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.

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

  • Monday Morning Peak
    Image Taken From National Geographic Forget about Wednesday being hump day this week. The peak was already hit this morning, if you are among today's sleepy heads that stayed up to watch the Gemenids meteor showers : Coming fast on the heels of its more famous cousin the Leonid meteor shower —whi ...
  • 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 ...

SPL Center

  • Earth to Lou: It Could Have Been Different
    It didn’t have to end this way for Lou Dobbs. He could have been a contender. But Dobbs, a supremely self-confident man who often mentions his Harvard education in private conversation, just wouldn’t listen. Time after time, as the “Lou Dobbs Tonight” show he has hosted on CNN since 2003 gre ...
  • Dangerous Liaisons: Congressmen to Join Nativist H ...
    At noon today, five members of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold a press conference at the House Triangle with Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR has been listed as an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2007. ...
  • In Christian vs. Atheist Documentary, a Bizarre Ad ...
    In a new documentary pitting atheism against faith, contrarian critic Christopher Hitchens debates evangelical pastor Douglas Wilson on the merits of Christianity. “Collision,” released today, has already generated buzz: Hitchens and Wilson have appeared on National Public Radio’s “All Th ...
  • A Confident Defense Rests Unexpectedly in Turner T ...
    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In a surprise move, both the defense and prosecution rested their cases early this afternoon at the trial of white supremacist Hal Turner, clearing the way for the case to go to a jury tomorrow. After presenting evidence for less than a day and a half, the prosecution announced sh ...
  • Violate the Constitution? Christian Right Group Sa ...
    The American Family Association (AFA) usually frets about homosexuals and pornography, but in the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood last week, the ultraconservative religious right group has a new concern: Muslims in the U.S. military. Ban them, urges Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issues anal ...

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

  • Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Suit Seeking Account ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 14, 2009 Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Today, the United States Supreme Court refused to review a lower court's dismissal of a case brought by four British former detainees against Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for ordering torture and religious ...
  • Planned Parenthood Applauds Congress for Prioritiz ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 14, 2009 Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) today praised Congress for the passage of the 2010 Appropriations Bill, which provides funding for important programs that provide women and families with access to preventive care worldwide.  ...
  • CEOs Who Steered Economy Off a Cliff Received $28. ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 14, 2009 Public Citizen The CEOs of 10 Wall Street firms that either failed or received taxpayer bailouts were paid an average of $28.9 million per year in the years leading up to the Wall Street meltdown, according to a Public Citizen report released today. Their aver ...
  • Inadequate Aid as Violence Escalates in South Suda ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 14, 2009 Doctors Without Borders (MSF) The people of Southern Sudan are trapped in a worsening crisis following the most violent year since the 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war with the North. However, the response to the escalating em ...
  • NARAL Pro-Choice America Marks Progress in Omnibus ...
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 14, 2009 NARAL Pro-Choice America Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, commended pro-choice leaders in the House and Senate for securing advances for women's health and privacy and sound science in the omnibus spending measure that is heading to Preside ...

Common Dreams-Views

  • As War Bleeds Central Africa, Obama Denounces Rape ...
    by Danny Schechter GOMA, KIVU, EASTERN CONGO:  After a week in Kinshasa talking about war in Congo, it was time to see it, or at least visit its epicenter in the East. This is where rape is used as a weapon of war, where rebel groups challenge government forces militarily and occupy territory. ...
  • Chevron and Cultural Genocide in Ecuador
    by Kerry Kennedy LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador - Traces of paradise are still visible. From the air, the rainforest region in northern Ecuador – known as the Oriente – appears as silvery mist and swaths of verdant green. But beneath the cloud cover and canopy, the jungle is a tangle of oil slicks, festeri ...
  • 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
  • 'Just War' Is Just Words
    by Ralph Nader President Obama, the Afghan war escalator, received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, and proceeded to deliver his acceptance speech outlining the three criteria for a "just war" which he himself is violating. The criteria are in this words: "If it is waged as a last resort or in ...
  • Protesters in Seattle Warned Us What Was Coming, b ...
    by Madeleine Bunting Ten years ago, protesters gathered in a port city; politicians arrived for intense backroom negotiations; the city's hotels were booked out by representatives of thousands of NGOs from all over the world. In 1999 Seattle , like Copenhagen this week, was a big international meeti ...

Karl Burkart

Water Privatization

  • Christmas Boom for Brazil´s Beggars (Gringoes)
    Just as Brazil´s formal workers receive a 13th monthly wage in December so the country´s beggars can also look forward to a Christmas bonus.
  • 12:30am: Battle over water still unresolved (Trave ...
    Environmental interests in Michigan said the fight to stop privatization of part of Michigan's water resources isn't done.Following a courtroom battle between Nestle Waters North America and environmental groups over a bottling plant in Mecosta County, the organizations are pressing state lawmakers ...
  • Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since ...
    The Cabinet of Ministers has given the State Department of Penalty Execution irrevocable UAH 239.48 million from the stabilization fund to pay for energy carriers, water supply and drainage services, as well as wages to commanding officers and average executives of the State Penal Execution Service.
  • Mayor talks budget savings (The Natchez Democrat)
    Mayor Jake Middleton said the City of Natchez is pinching its pennies in the face of a sluggish ...
  • Denver's recreation centers face a turning point ( ...
    Drawing more than 200 attendees even on the coldest of nights, the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center in Montbello is held up by Denver recreation officials as a model of how nonprofits can help transform an unwieldy assortment of recreation centers into a national model.

Guardian

  • Conservative lead over Labour cut to nine points
    New survey will increase pressure on Gordon Brown to call early election The Conservatives' lead over Labour has been reduced to single figures, a new Guardian/ICM poll shows today, increasing the pressure on Gordon Brown to call an early general election. While the nine-point lead for the Tories wo ...
  • Blair Peach case could be reopened
    Move comes as Met prepares to publish internal inquiry over whether police killed anti-fascist campaigner in 1979 Prosecutors are reviewing the three-decade old case into the death of Blair Peach, an anti-fascist campaigner widely believed to have been killed by a police officer. Scotland Yard has a ...
  • Tiny Nauru's cash-for-diplomacy
    Pacific atoll once famed for exporting bird droppings is to recognise Russian-backed Abkhazia and South Ossetia for £31m aid It is 8 square miles in size, home to 11,320 citizens and looks like a small dinner plate dropped into the gleaming South Pacific. But today the tiny atoll nation of Nauru ac ...
  • Child murderer Tobin 'killed 18-year-old'
    • Body of missing teenager found in defendant's garden next to body of murder victim, jury hears • Peter Tobin, serving life for rape and murder, denies second murder The convicted rapist and child murderer Peter Tobin drugged and murdered an 18-year-old school-leaver before burying her in his b ...
  • Wogan raises Tower Bridge as London freeman
    'I'm like a boy in a candy shop,' says departing Radio 2 breakfast DJ after being made City of London freeman A few heads twitched as an improbably familiar voice boomed out an order for pedestrians and vehicles to vamoose. A quick blast of The Floral Dance would have nailed it: Sir Terry Wogan had ...

Diigo | Green Community

  • Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publi ...
    Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publications OFFERED from Edison New Jersey Essex @ Adpost.com Classifieds - Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publications OFFERED from Edison New Jersey Essex for over 1000+ cities, 500+ regions worldwide & across USA - free,classified ad,cla ...
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    Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publications. services classified ads. small business ads classified ads." /> linklink
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    Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publications, YatBo Atlantic City Classifieds - Local classifieds for Atlantic City - New Jersey, Posting a Classified Ad is FREE! - you can find almost everything on Yatbo.com Comments: Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publications, YatBo Atl ...
  • 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
    Green Credit Cards Committed to Environment - Camden, New Jersey Comments: Green Credit Cards Committed to Environment - Camden, New Jersey - alexander hampp Tags: Green , Credit , Cards , Environment , sustainability , eco-friendly by: alexander hampp

Electronic Intifada

  • Bilin activist: "Words are not enough"
    I started my life in jail at 17, during the first intifada, a popular uprising amongst ordinary Palestinians. It was not the first time I participated in nonviolent resistance. I have always believe ...
  • Book review: Alastair Crooke's "Resistance: The Es ...
    Alastair Crooke's new book Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution studies the philosophy of resistance among Islamic movements as articulated by influential Islamist thinkers and re ...
  • Christian Palestinian leaders call for church boyc ...
    Today, prominent Christian Palestinian leaders are releasing a historical Kairos Palestine Document, calling on churches around the world "to say a word of truth and to take a position of truth ...
  • Winning prize for peace while advocating war
    United States President Barack Obama has just accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo. His nomination had been controversial, not least because he is continuing and escalating two ...
  • Palestinians still deprived of their fundamental r ...
    Sixty-one years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Israel continues to pursue clearly discriminatory policies and practices and the violation of Palestinians' huma ...

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

  • Despite Financial Crisis, DeMint Calls For Revivin ...
    Last week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) sent out a recruitment call for “new Republicans,” confirming that he sees “little use for a big-tent approach for his party.” As South Carolina’s The State put it, DeMint is setting himself up as a kingmaker, wading into national races to endorse far-righ ...
  • Administration Pushes Back Against Claim That Heal ...
    In an effort to quantify savings that the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of the Actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) refuse to score, the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers released a new report today which finds that the health care legislation mov ...
  • The WonkLine: December 14, 2009
    Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security, immigration and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below, and subscribe to the RSS feed. You can now follow The Wonk Room o ...
  • Will Lieberman Offer His Own Plan To Achieve The G ...
    Just days after signaling that he would not oppose a Medicare buy-in, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) announced yesterday that he would vote against the health care bill if it included the measure. Appearing on Face the Nation, Lieberman told host Bob Schieffer that he did not know “exactly what’s in ...
  • Bill McKibben At Copenhagen: I Went To Church And ...
    Our guest blogger is Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and the author of the forthcoming Eaarth: Making A Life in a Tough New World. I’ve spent the last few years working more than full time to organize the first big global grassroots climate change campaign. That’s meant shutting off my em ...

thwap's schoolyard

  • The Wit and Wisdom of Damian Brooks
    Canadian Cynic links to it here . Damian attempts to answer his own imitation of what us peaceniks and human rights fanatics are saying: "This just proves that we're not doing any good over there and should pull out immediately." Well, so much for your crocodile tears on the plight of Afghan deta ...
  • National Security, .... 'eh?
    I've long been aware that stephen harper has contempt for parliament. He showed his contempt for our entire system of government last year. He's obviously got contempt for the law. And contempt for his own cabinet and caucus. And his constituency. The only thing he doesn't positively cringe at ...
  • 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 ...

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

  • Morning Smoke: Citi Agrees to Repay $20 Billion in ...
    Citi Reaches Agreement With Government to Pay Back TARP [The Wall Street Journal] Are we being shortchanged by TARP repayments? [Los Angeles Times] Goldman Fueled AIG Gambles [The Wall Street Journal] Blackwater’s Participation in CIA Raids Raises Critical Questions [The...
  • 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...

    Digital Journal

  • McDonalds to roll out dollar breakfast menu in U.S ...
    McDonald's Corporation will roll out a variety of breakfast items for only $1 in the United States early next month. The move is expected to provide a kick-start to falling breakfast sales.
  • British Columbia Father Convicted of Botched Circu ...
    The Crown is going after a British Columbia father who did a circumcision on his four-year-old son promising the child "extra protection from God."
  • Potty trained pigs, a good move or a stinker of an ...
    Taiwan is a small island nation that loves to eat pork. With an estimated six million pigs being raised on the main island, mostly in the south, water quality issues have become an epic battle that the government has been fighting against.
  • Secret Iranian nuclear trigger exposes 'no civil a ...
    As the world debates the pros and cons of imposing stiffer sanctions on Iran over its nuclear interests, a new secret document has emerged that demonstrates Iranian interests in developing a nuclear bomb.
  • Jim Rogers: Money printing is great for commoditie ...
    Jim Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Holdings and author of "Hot Commodities," said on Wednesday at the Reuters Investment Summit that commodities is the best sector to invest in, whether or not the economy revives.

End Homelessness | Change.org

  • ‘Tis the Season to Get Dirty and Help Fight Home ...
    Almost 12 months ago Danny Brown had an idea. The idea was simple: for 12 months pick one charity each month and raise $12,000 (or more) for that charity. And thus, the 12for12k Challenge was born. I believe 12for12K Challenge is one of 2009's most brilliant ideas. But this month, instead of just gi ...
  • Olympics to Shelter, Homeless Models, and the Righ ...
    Mixed bag this time around. I promised myself that this week I'd look for good news. I'd make like a bee to the flowers of positivity on all various and sundry related to homelessness advocacy, etc. But as we know, things aren't always so rosy. There's a couple things in the news to be grateful ...
  • 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 ...

Ceasefire.ca

  • 30 years ago today…
    On 12 December 1979 the Soviet Politburo took the decision to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan. The invasion began on 27 December 1979, and the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan just over nine years later, on 15 February 1989.
  • 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 ...

Kevin Trudeau Show

  • Children’s Network Nickelodeon Run Ads Promo ...
    December 14, 2009 Natural News By Paul Louis The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) determined that “nearly 80 percent of food ads on the popular children’s network Nickelodeon are for foods of poor nutritional quality.” This modest improvement from 90 percent in 2005 was conside ...
  • More Children Getting Cosmetic Surgery
    December 14, 2009 Natural News By David Gutierrez More than 160,000 U.S. children underwent cosmetic surgery in 2008, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. In 2008, cosmetic interventions such as breast augmentation, liposuction, Botox injections, hair removal, birthmark r ...
  • Find Out The Solutions To Your Health Problems Her ...
    Natural, drug-free living is a real possibility! Ditch the bottles in your medicine cabinet, we have the answer for you! Thomas James of HempUSA.org, which is a leading hemp distribution company, will help you get off of pharmaceutical drugs and lead you to a natural, happy life. HempUSA brands ...
  • UK Wants to Raise the Daily Calorie Reccomendation
    December 14, 2009 Natural News By E. Huff The Times of London is reporting that recommended daily caloric intake levels in the UK could be increased by 16 percent. Britain’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition has concluded that its current daily limits of 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 ...
  • Study Says Poor Children Given More Antipsychotics
    December 14, 2009 UPI Poor U.S. children covered by Medicaid are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs more often than those under private healthcare, a study indicates. Federally financed drug research performed by researchers from Rutgers and Columbia universities indicated the Medicaid children ...

Pambazuka News

  • Haiti: Open Letter to Barack Obama - pre-election
    We - citizens of Haiti, political militants and unionists of the grassroots movement for democracy in our country - solemnly address ourselves to you on the eve of the election that will most likely make you the next president of the United States....
  • US: System owes Troy Davis another day in court
    It is wrong to execute an innocent man. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will now consider whether it is constitutional. Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murder, is asking the courts to hear evidence that key government witnesses have r...
  • Caribbean: Civil society demands Haiti debt cancel ...
    Organizations representing Caribbean civil society organizations and social movements have written to G8 finance ministers, the World Bank, and the IMF, to demand an immediate and unconditional cancellation of Haiti's external debt....
  • USA: Uhuru movement endorses McKinney/Clemente tic ...
    The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) has endorsed the McKinney/Clemente ticket in the U.S. presidential race. The endorsement was based on the support that Green Party V.P. candidate Rosa Clemente’s expressed for InPDUM’s “Re...
  • Haiti: Women and girls require life-saving assista ...
    More than 800,000 people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Haiti in the wake of hurricanes Fay and Gustav and tropical storm Hanna. Houses, medical facilities, main roads and bridges have been destroyed, and an estimated 100,000 people h...

War in Context

  • To beat al Qaeda, look to the east
    To beat al Qaeda, look to the east By Scott Atran, New York Times, December 13, 2009 Al Qaeda’s main focus is harming the United States and Europe, but there hasn’t been a successful attack in these places directly commanded by Osama bin Laden and company since 9/11. The American invasion of Afg ...
  • Iran’s worst enemy
    Iran’s worst enemy By Ronen Bergman, Newsweek, December 12, 2009 Even among Israel’s tough security chiefs, Meir Dagan has always been known for his raw nerve. As a military trainee he would wander around the base during his off hours flinging a knife at trees and telephone poles like a circus e ...
  • Nuclear Iran: stop the clock ticking and start tal ...
    Nuclear Iran: stop the clock ticking and start talking By Tony Karon, The National, December 12, 2009 Instead of the breakthrough he had hoped for in nuclear diplomacy with Iran, Barack Obama has allowed himself to be painted into a corner. But so, too, have his Iranian counterparts, with neither si ...
  • The strange consensus on Obama’s Nobel address
    The strange consensus on Obama’s Nobel address By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, December 11, 2009 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 explicitl ...
  • Let’s face the facts, Israel is a semi-theocracy
    Let’s face the facts, Israel is a semi-theocracy By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, December 12, 2009 The storm over remarks made by Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman is in many respects a tempest in a teapot, which has for a long time taken on holier aspects than it seems. Neeman wants Torah law, or in other ...

Watts Up With That?

  • “rotten” sea ice – not even in D ...
    There’s plenty of stories about how Arctic sea ice is now “rotten”. There’s darn few that talk about yearly comparisons or what other scientific outlets are saying about the claim. As many WUWT readers know, 2007 was the minimum year of summer extent in sea ice, a year that is routinely held ...
  • What’s going on? CRU takes down Briffa Tree ...
    Odd things are going on at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Widely available data, existing in the public view for years,  is now disappearing from public view. For example this link to Keith Briffa’s Yamal data: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/ N ...
  • Breaking: Copenhagen climate summit negotiations & ...
    From the BBC, apparently Copenhagen is falling apart: By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Copenhagen Excerpts: The African delegation is unhappy over moves by the Danish government Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdr ...
  • Lots of new cold and snow records in the USA this ...
    From the “weather is not climate” department. 815 new snowfall records, 304 low temperature, and 403 lowest max temperature records were set this week. Here’s a summary: Record Events for Sun Dec 6, 2009 through Sat Dec 12, 2009 Total Records: 2601 Rainfall: 992 Snowfall: 815 High ...
  • Henrik Svensmark collapses at Copenhagen
    This is tragic, and hard to watch. [NOTE: I've moved the video below the "read more" line, don't go there if you don't want to watch. I've put up his picture here instead. -A] Good news- I found this Danish News report. (Google Translation) He’s apparently OK for now. He wears a pacemaker and app ...

    Blacklisted News

  • US to expand drone attacks into Pakistani cities
    After confirmation that the CIA has been operating drone strikes in Pakistani territory, a new report says the US is seeking to expand the attacks into the country's cities.
  • 'US fighter jets attack Yemeni fighters'
    Yemen's Houthi fighters say the US fighter jets have launched 28 attacks on the northwestern province of Sa'ada.
  • AP INVESTIGATION: Monsanto seed biz role revealed
    Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigat ...
  • Fugitive hides from arrest warrant by working at t ...
    Tahaya Buchanan, an American fugitive who'd been on the run for more than two years, dodging a national arrest warrant for insurance fraud, has spent her years underground gainfully employed by the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Obama Declares War On Pakistan
    The ongoing civil war in Afghanistan is merely a pretext, a cover story designed to provide the United States with a springboard for a geopolitical destabilization campaign in the entire region which cannot be publicly avowed

The Intelligence Daily

My AntiWar

  • Using Controversial Law, Danish Police Preemptivel ...
    Saturday’s protest in Copenhagen was overwhelmingly peaceful, but there were isolated incidents of targeted property destruction. To the shock of many, Danish police made nearly 1,000 arrests. Hundreds of handcuffed protesters were held for hours lined up on the cold street. Under a newly passed l ...
  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu on President Obama: &#8220 ...
    Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa also traveled to Copenhagen this weekend to urge world leaders to tackle the climate crisis. The longtime anti-apartheid campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize laureate spoke on Saturday at a candlelight vigil just outside the UN climate summit.
  • Indian Environmentalist Vandana Shiva: ?It Is Time ...
    The world-renowned Indian environmental leader and thinker Vandana Shiva spoke before thousands. On Sunday, I spoke with her at Klimaforum, the People’s Climate Summit, and asked for her assessment of President Obama and what he represents in the climate change talks.
  • “The Leaders of this World Stand by and Look ...
    We speak with singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo of the African nation of Benin. Kidjo has been in Copenhagen for the past week in her role as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. We interview her moments after she spoke before thousands of demonstrators in front of the Danish Parliament.
  • “We’re Trying to Provide the Armies th ...
    On Saturday, 100,000 people marched in Copenhagen from the Danish Parliament to just outside the Bella Center, the site of the UN climate change conference. Over 3,000 solidarity events were held around the world. Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films filed this report.

    Rogue Government.com

  • Senate sends $1.1 trillion spending bill to Obama ...
    The Senate on Sunday passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill with increased budgets for vast areas of the federal government, including health, education, law enforcement and veterans' programs.
  • U.S. Will Settle Indian Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion

  • Welcome To Obamaville

  • Why Britain faces a bleak future of food shortage ...
    A "perfect storm" of food shortages and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and conflict in the next 20 years, the government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has warned.
  • Children have never worked so hard and learnt so ...
    But that promise has been broken. We seem to have devised a system of curriculum and examination which pulls off the incredible double of being very hard work but very low quality.

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

  • US: Two See Oval-Shaped Objects in the Night Sky
    Posted: December 13, 2009 Date of Sighting: December 10, 2009 Time of Sighting: 7:30 PM EST Location of Sighting: Lima, Ohio (See Map) Description: The young man and a friend were about to get into the car when they noticed four oval-shaped objects high in the sky to the west. The objects had red ...
  • Africa: Couple See Object Resembling "Stadium Ligh ...
    Posted: December 13, 2009 Date of Sighting: December 6, 2009 Time of Sighting: Noon Local Time Location of Sighting: Traveling Westbound on Highway N2 Near Knysna, South Africa (See Map) Description: On the 6th of December, at around 12:00 PM mid-day my husband and I were driving on the N2 highway ...
  • England: Bright orange lights traveling together s ...
    Posted: December 13, 2009 Location of Sighting: Reading, Berkshire Date of Sighting: 13 December 2009 Time: 5.55pm Witness Statement: I had gone to my car to collect some shopping when I noticed 3 really bright orange lights approaching from the North. No particular formation and traveling the sp ...
  • Ireland: Witness sees swirling image in sky
    Posted: December 13, 2009 Location of Sighting: Cookstown, Co. Tyrone Date of Sighting: 13/12/09 Time: 01.00 Witness Statement: Traveling down the road and turned onto dual carriageway heading towards Moneymore. Saw large ship like image swirling in sky to my left just above tree height. The main ...
  • England: Very large orange ball stays in one spot ...
    Posted: December 13, 2009 Location of Sighting: Runcorn, Cheshire Date of Sighting: December 12th 2009 Time: 10.45pm Witness Statement: My son and I were looking at Orion, when we noticed a very large, what we originally thought was a star. When we looked at it through binoculars it was a large ro ...

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

  • Alberto Gonzales: Bush DOJ Was Not Political Enoug ...
    For most people, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a national embarrassment, a pimple on the ass of American history. But to hear him tell it, the man George W. Bush called "Fredo" is a victim of partisan warfare. And...
  • The Gitmo Memo and the GOP Love Affair with Leaks
    Once upon a time (a time coincident with George W. Bush's tenure in the White House), Republicans decried the leaking of classified national security information. After the New York Times revealed his program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA,...
  • 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...

Blackspot News Feed

Consortium News

  • Can Obama Face the 'Unspeakable'?
    John F. Kennedy's battle with the "Unspeakable" is a history that President Obama needs to know, says Lisa Pease. December 14, 2009
  • Obama's Dirty War
    President Obama's escalation of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan means more Phoenix-style tactics, writes Douglas Valentine. December 13, 2009
  • ACLU Blasts Obama on Bush's Crimes
    The ACLU sees hypocrisy between President Obama's rhetoric and inaction on George W. Bush's crimes, reports Jason Leopold. December 12, 2009
  • The Land Mines Obama Won't Touch
    Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama hasn't committed to the anti-land mine treaty, observe Bill Moyers and Michael Winship. December 11, 2009
  • '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

CounterPunch

Institute for Middle East Understanding

Water - AlterNet

TruthHugger

  • Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Dec 14, ...
    TXsharon at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS helps you follow the money to see why Governor Perry and others want Texans to keep breathing toxic air. BossKitty at TruthHugger is proud to give a Hat Tip to Houston – Annise Parker inherits a City of Progress. The Stonewall Democrats of Denton Co ...
  • Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Coney Islands of the Mind: ...
    Christ Climbed Down Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Ferlinghetti, famous for running the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, wrote this poem in the 1950s and published it in his book: A Coney Island of the Mind, Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A New Directions Book, Copyright 1958 by Lawrence Fer ...
  • Hat Tip to Houston – Annise Parker inherits a Ci ...
    Houston, Texas has become an island of hope in a sea of doom and gloom.  Progress is measured with attention paid to the real issues facing any population, as opposed to a narrowly defined image of “normalcy”.  In a state where normal is defined vigorously as anything outside the envelope, ...
  • 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 [... ...

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

Unexplained Mysteries

Grassroots

  • The Story of Cap and Trade
    As the Climate Summit in Copenhagen plods onward, various so-called solutions to global warming are being tossed around: Alternative energy, Cap and Trade, adaptation and mitigation, and many more. It can be hard to make sense of them, and even more difficult to unpack the myths from the realities. ...
  • 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 ...

Climate

  • December 14, 2009
    Africa Protest Suspends Main Sessions of Climate Talks (Reuters) The main sessions of Copenhagen climate talks were temporarily suspended today amid a protest led by African nations accusing rich countries of trying to wreck the existing Kyoto Protocol. China Signals Shift on Climate Funds (Fin ...
  • December 12-13, 2009
    US Looks for Side Deals at Climate Summit (Politico) The U.S. is attempting to cut secretive deals at the international climate talks in hopes of shaping any final agreement that could come out of the United Nation-sponsored conference. AP Analysis of E-Mails: Science Not Faked, But Not Prett ...
  • 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
    Tuvalu Call for Copenhagen Protocol Splits Developing Nation Bloc (Guardian) Negotiations at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen dramatically broke down today after developing countries split between those who favour a new protocol and others who want to continue with the legally binding Kyoto ...

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

  • Protest? What Protest? American Corporate Media Do ...
    Yesterday, I mentioned a line from an old science teacher: "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist." In what passes for corporate journalism in American, this concept has taken the form of, "If we don't report on it, it didn't happen." That certainly was the case for the emergency protest organiz ...
  • WWJS (What Would Jesus Say) about the CHRIST-mas T ...
    When it comes to the "War on Christmas," you never know what to expect. Which so-called "incident" will be blown totally out of proportion? Which religious right organization will threaten the most boycotts of stores not righteously Christmasy enough? Which Fox Television News commentator will take ...
  • Tomgram: Martin Chulov Asks, Is Iraq's Next Crisis ...
    — from TomDispatch With each passing day, the transfer of power from American forces to the Iraqi government looks less like a peaceful exchange and more like a bloody descent into chaos. On December 8th, a series of bombings in Baghdad killed at least 121 people and struck two Iraqi government ins ...
  • Curbing carbon's just the tip of our great green l ...
    The epic fight over carbon emissions is barely the tip of how we survive. Mother Earth demands that fossil/nukes be transcended. This green-powered leap defines our technological, economic and ecological survival. But climate chaos and financial ruin do not stand alone. Green gadgetry aside, we do ...
  • Prosecuting Bush's Poodle
    Compare Tony Blair's latest confession to mass murder with Bush's. The BBC has just aired an interview of Blair in which he was asked whether he would have attacked Iraq even if he had known there were no "weapons of mass destruction" there. Blair replied : "I would still have thought it right to re ...

Ten Percent

  • Criminals See NHS As ‘easy target’
    The NHS has launched an investigation into thefts, amid reports criminals see the service as an “easy target”. So far the police have yet to question this man- The British Medical Association has called for continued investment in the National Health Service and has warned against the dangers o ...
  • Atlanticists Eyeing The Blogoshpere
    NATO hosts first ever briefing for bloggers organised by the Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom which is NATO’s PR arm- The Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom is an independent non-governmental organisation based in London. Its mission is to explain and promote the benefits the UK enjoys f ...
  • Miliband Once Again Claiming Torture Is The Price ...
    Efforts will be stepped up tomorrow to suppress evidence of British involvement in the unlawful treatment of a UK resident, Binyam Mohamed, who says he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan before being secretly rendered to Guantánamo Bay. The foreign secretary, David Miliband, is appe ...
  • The Secret Of How To Stay Delusional
    Make sure even your biographer Anthony Seldon is similarly in-fucking-sane. Yes clearly Tony Blair committing to Bush’s invasion of Iraq to alleviate ‘Iraqi suffering’ was really just the parable of the good Samaritan writ large. Um, just to be clear when you were alleviating this suffering wh ...
  • Tony, Tony, Tony…Andrew, Andrew, Andrew
    Is it worth responding to the shit eating grin of Britain’s premier war criminal? What he has said here is what all of us who were against the war and who knew the rationales were bullshit (please, anyone who say how could we have known either cannot read or are clinically dumb as a spoon, [...]

Paul Krugman

No Quarter

  • Spunky Summers Speaks Clarence
    Jobs Jobs Jobs. The Obama administration now understands (see above slipped lip between ships of state) that the only adversary to its sovereignty forever and ever is the jobs number, and it yearns for the day that it can claim the utopian vision of 5% jobless for its legacy. (Christinia Rome ...
  • Karmic Payback or Hillary’s Revenge? You Decide ...
    * A Great Post, Bumped Up * 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 theor ...
  • The Ethics of Re-Gifting
    Giving gifts that were bestowed upon them by others has been described as disrespectful, unappreciative, cheap, and blatantly tacky. But are these fair characterizations, especially given today’s harsh realities? Many people received nice things they do not use that others might enjoy. Such it ...
  • update on census taker murdered by glenn beck
    * Bumped Up * I missed the update on this story while I was vacationing in Prague. Do you remember Bill Sparkman? The census taker/teacher who was found *hanged* with the word FED scrawled in his chest? The one who inspired stories such as these from Daily Kos: “Census Worker Lynching – Anti-Ce ...
  • UPDATE: Mortgage Modifications Leading to Mortgage ...
    Despite overwhelming efforts on the part of Uncle Sam, the simple fact of the matter is the program to successfully and permanently modify mortgages has not gained truly meaningful traction. Public pressure on mortgage servicers specifically and the mortgage modification program at large have genera ...

Environmental Graffiti

Foreign Policy in Focus

Global Elite

Al Jazeera

Green Inc. - NYT

  • Report: Meaningful Numbers of Plug-In Hybrids Are ...
    The study by the National Research Council also found that the next generation of plug-in hybrid electric cars would require hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies to take off.
  • The Dawn of Plug-In Priuses and Smart Meters
    Toyota's announced today that the plug-in Prius will be available in 2011, and "smart grid" technologies are also feeling pressure to keep up.
  • ExxonMobil to Buy XTO Energy for $41 Billion
    Exxon Mobil said Monday that it has agreed to buy XTO Energy, a natural gas producer, for $31 billion in stock and the assumption of $10 billion in debt, in one of the biggest energy mergers of recent years.
  • Health Care to Keep Democrats From Copenhagen Conf ...
    Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, told colleagues that Democrats could not send a delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.
  • Demonstration Day in Denmark
    Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Copenhagen Saturday for an afternoon march toward the Bella Center, where climate negotiators are trying to find agreement.

Dot Earth News

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

  • UN crime chief Costa says it again: banks bailed o ...
    There was a quip about this a while ago, now it is more established. Posted in full cause it's a big deal.... via Agonist . These people are criminals! Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by f ...
  • The Great Climate Clusterf**k: Good times in Copen ...
    All you ever wanted to know about Copenhagen but didn't care to ask! The only good news so far is that the Yes Men pranked Coke for their voracious consumption of limited water around the world. Soon all of us can live in a utopia of robotic flying machines and carbon-free giant underground fac ...
  • Mike Connell's mysterious plane crash via 'jackals ...
    Damn straight - those are the chips they are gonna track you with. CHIPS CARRIED BY BIG FRICKIN ANTS. Via the too-speculative ATS thread RFID Microchips In The Swine Flu Vaccine? It's time to push out some links and see if they lead somewhere....This weekend I've been building up a sweet new InfoSp ...
  • 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 ...

Daily Censored

  • NRA-Drunk With Power?
    This rant is based primarily on two articles I read in the last two days. One comes from the the AP, written by Erik Shelzig– “Tennessee Demonstrates Trend of Looser Guns Laws.”  The other is entitled “Members,  NRA not in Accord” and it comes from the Scranton Tribune. The Tribune a ...
  • Things are heating up this week in struggles aroun ...
    Below are two events happening Tues., Dec. 15th. While both are in the Bay Area, the notice of the UC action says informational picketing will take place on all UC campuses. And it's likely that actions may be slated for other community colleges. So if you're not near the Bay Area, look for what's u ...
  • A Public-Private Partnership? What is the economic ...
    In fact, the use of the term ‘partnership’ is the real key to understanding the way EMOs have framed the issue for the public, insofar as the term implies a mutual playing ground between parties in the contract. According to Jonathan Kozol, educational writer and best selling author: One of the ...
  • On the demonization of Saddam Hussein and Manuel N ...
    An excerpt from the recently published book The Mother of All Battles: The Endless U.S.-Iraq War by Malcom Lagauche: In December 2003, we all saw the photos of a disheveled Saddam Hussein after he was pulled out of a “spider hole” in a town near Tikrit. The administration laughed and the U.S. p ...
  • Ministry of Truth Shills for Bogus Democratic Heal ...
    Eric Alterman and Paul Krugman are in lockstep singing the White House tune for Harry Reid's health reform proposals in the Senate. How low we've fallen when so called liberals shill for a bill that's almost without redeeming features.

AlterNet's Breaking News

Institute for Policy Studies

Godspace

  • Third Monday of Advent – A Journey of Longin ...
    Welcome to the third week of Advent which began yesterday with the lighting of the third Advent candle.  As we moving into this week our anticipation and longing grows and we yearn with deepening expectation for Christmas Day and the coming of the Christ child. First for those that are just joining ...
  • End of the Second Week of Advent – What Are ...
    As the second week of Advent draws to a close all of us continue to wait in anticipation and expectation for the coming of Christ.  Some of us wait with deep yearning in our hearts for a better world in which all things are made new.  Others wait with joyful hearts for the coming of [...]
  • 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 ...

Equality Trust

  • The Spirit Level - New Statesman book of the decad ...
    Wilkinson and Pickett's study gave scientific weight to a long-held claim of the left: that people are happier and healthier when they live in societies where wealth is distributed more equally. But the book's influence stretches across party lines and its findings are likely to shape political deba ...
  • 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

IntelNews

After Downing Street.org

  • Protest? What Protest? American Media Don't See Wh ...
    By Dave Lindorff A few days ago, I mentioned a line from an old science teacher: "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist." In what passes for corporate journalism in American, this concept has taken the form of, "If we don't report on it, it didn't happen." That certainly was the case for the em ...
  • Prosecuting Bush's Poodle
    By David Swanson Compare Tony Blair's latest confession to mass murder with Bush's. The BBC has just aired an interview of Blair in which he was asked whether he would have attacked Iraq even if he had known there were no "weapons of mass destruction" there. Blair replied : "I would still have th ...
  • Why ACORN Won
    Why ACORN Won By Bill Quigley | Smirking Chimp On December 11, 2009, a federal judge ruled that Congress had unconstitutionally cut off all federal funds to ACORN. The judge issued an injunction stopping federal authorities from continuing to cut off past, present and future federal funds to the co ...
  • The Daily Show's Jon Stewart with Howard Zinn
    The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Howard Zinn www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis read more
  • Eve Tetaz Releases Sentencing Statement Before Jud ...
    Eve Tetaz Releases Sentencing Statement Before Judge Lynn Liebovitz | December 12, 2009 Your Honor, I do not question the process by which a jury of my peers found me guilty of unlawful conduct. I assume responsibility for the personal costs of my actions, which I firmly believe promote just ...

Grist - News

  • U.S. offers plan to aid poor nations develop clean ...
    by Agence France-Presse COPENHAGEN -- The United States on Monday unveiled a $350 million global effort to help provide clean energy technology to developing countries and invited top officials to a green summit next year. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Photo courtesy Science News. U.S. Energy Secret ...
  • Copenhagen talks are a four-corner fight
    by Agence France-Presse COPENHAGEN -- The U.N. climate talks that will wrap on Dec. 18 now rest essentially on brokering a consensus between four key players. They have staked out rival positions on a trio of core issues -- curbs on carbon emissions; funding for poor countries badly exposed to clim ...
  • Walkout heightens fear of failure for climate mara ...
    by Agence France-Presse COPENHAGEN -- The U.N. climate summit hit major turbulence Monday when developing nations staged a five-hour walkout and China accused the West of trickery, as the specter of failure loomed heavily over Copenhagen. As campaigners warned negotiators had five days to avert cli ...
  • Canada—or practical jokers?—announces ...
    by Jonathan Hiskes If only it were true. This has all the makings of a Yes Men project, which is too bad, because it would be wonderful news if it were true: Canada Announces New Agenda For Climate and World Development COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- In a major development coming three days before the fina ...
  • China might decline climate funding from U.S., oth ...
    by Agence France-Presse Your dollars not en route to China?BEIJING -- China has said it might not take a share of any funding for emerging nations to fight climate change, the Financial Times reported Monday, in an apparent concession at fraught talks in Copenhagen. "Financial resources for the eff ...

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Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

Time - Top Stories

Washington Independent

  • Clinton on Human Rights, Development and Democracy
    For the past year, the neoconservative conception of democracy promotion and human rights — hollow elections; wars waged under the pretext of do-gooderism; speeches rather than actions — have been embraced uncritically by major media to measure President Obama and find him wanting. Today at Geor ...
  • White House Denies Pushing Deal With Lieberman
    Via USA Today, White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer has denied that the administration is pressuring Senate Democrats to forge a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on health care reform, as Politico reported earlier today. “The report is inaccurate,” he said in an email. “The White House is ...
  • Rick Scott Joins Anti-Health Care Reform Rally
    One measure of Republican and conservative confidence on their campaign to block a health care bill is the presence of Rick Scott, a once-discredited hospital executive whose $1.7 billion fraud settlement has been forgotten in the wake of his millions of dollars in anti-reform TV ads. Scott will be ...
  • Birtherism in the GOP
    Ben Smith has a great catch – the North Dakota Republican Party fronting its website with a joke about the White House party crashers demanding President Obama’s birth certificate. The news here is the steady mainstream Republican acceptance of a deeply nutty and quasi-treasonous conspiracy the ...
  • Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller Hires Mike Rig ...
    Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller magazine, which I’m told is prepping to launch in mid-January, has hired Mike Riggs, an editor at the struggling alt-weekly Washington City Paper, to be one of the new site’s Web editors. Riggs was an intern at Reason — where I’m a contributing editor — and ...

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

  • U.S.-Egypt Wall on Gaza Violates International Law
    by César Chelala, CommonDreams.org, Dec 14, 2009 The collusion between Egypt and the U.S. to build a wall separating Egypt from Gaza not only threatens Gazans’ health and quality of life, already severely deteriorated by the de facto Israeli blockade, it is a serious violation of international ...
  • Invasion of Iraq: The Crime of the Century
    The purpose of the Chilcot inquiry is to normalise an epic crime by providing enough of a theatre of guilt to satisfy the media by John Pilger, The New Statesman, Dec 13, 2009 President George W. Bush gestures as he answers a reporter’s question during a joint press availability with Prime Minis ...
  • Will Tony Blair Be Prosecuted For War Crimes?
    Tony Blair Iraq War WMD Admission Sparks Outrage, Calls For War Crimes Prosecution Huff Po–  First Posted: 12-13-09 06:38 PM   |   Updated: 12-13-09 09:46 PM Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent admission that he would have invaded Iraq even if he knew from the star ...
  • Did Organized Crime ‘Rescue’ Banks?
    Cash from organized crime ‘rescued’ banks during crisis: UN official By Raw Story Saturday, December 12th, 2009 — 8:29 pm The vast majority of an estimated $352 billion in proceeds of organized crime, mostly from the drug trade, was funneled through the global banking system during the ...
  • Evening Jukebox- Bird Dance
    Bald Bird Dance

Solari

  • Gifting to the Children We Love - Part III
    Read the full article here. As the cost of formal education grows, many families are limited by economic considerations in what they can provide for their children. This is of concern particularly as public schools, despite good principals and teachers, become subject to more invasive federal rules ...
  • Missing Mortgages
    Sorting through the wreckage of those related failures has generated more questions than answers so far. Taylor Bean was shut down by the Federal Housing Administration, citing possible mortgage fraud. According to people briefed by those winding down Taylor Bean’s operations, who requested anony ...
  • Small Business Cash Crunch Fears Getting Worse And ...
    By Joe Weisenthal and Kamelia Angelova Continue reading Small Business Cash Crunch Fears Getting Worse And Worse. . .
  • Eight Innovations that Will Change Your Future
    By Jim Ostroff No personal jet packs at the big-box store just yet, but we foresee technological breakthroughs that will make a real difference. Kiplinger clients have long come to rely on Kiplinger editors’ early insights into new technology and other exciting developments that eventually would ...
  • Obama’s Big Sellout
    By Matt Taibbi Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy [... ...

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

  • Gwyneth's cancer claims
    Oscar-winning actress, Gwyneth Paltrow, claims on her website, goop.com, that products such as shampoo cause cancer. She writes that children and babies are unable to break down the toxins and chemicals used in many products, and that diagnosis of cancer and autism was growing "exponentially". Pro ...
  • David Hockney to edit Today programme
    Artist David Hockney and crime writer P.D. James are to guest edit BBC Radio 4's Today programme this Christmas. Musician Robert Wyatt, Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams, ex-England footballer Tony Adams and Astronomer Royal Martin Rees will also feature as guest editors on the programme over t ...
  • Infra-red sees through tattoo cover-ups
    Detectives in Derby have developed a revolutionary new forensic technique that allows them to track down offenders who have tried to cover their tracks by changing or updating otherwise incriminating tattoos. Tattoos and body art have long been a useful tool for detectives in identifying suspects or ...
  • Cleaners worthier than bankers?
    Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than City bankers, according to new research by the New Economic Foundation (NEF).
  • Week in pictures: 14th December 2009
    A picture for every day, taking a snapshot view of what is happening in the world around us. Come and browse through our gallery of this week's most inspiring images.

Fabius Maximus

  • Are islamic extremists like the anarchists?
    Summary:  Today’s violence from islamic extremists has many similarities to the anarchists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Using standard police and intelligence methods, Western governmens defeated the anarchists without massive restrictions on civil liberties and military op ...
  • Update about China: a new center of the world
    Events in China will affect the world — including America — like few or no other nations.  As these articles show, we can only guess at what will happen. Powerful insights about China A note about China currency, the RMB Update: China’s ugly demographics For more information, and an Afterw ...
  • 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 ...

sibeledmonds - tweets

WIRED Magazine | Science

  • Garage Seismic Stations Provide High-Res Earthquak ...
    SAN FRANCISCO — If you have the dubious distinction of living in an earthquake zone geologists want to study, your garage could become part of a new effort to detail how tremors move through urban areas. NetQuakes, a project launched by the U.S. Geological Survey’s James Luetgert, aims to creat ...
  • Freaked-Out Tweets After Earthquakes Help Scientis ...
    SAN FRANCISCO — A team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists have developed a web service that combines seismic data about an earthquake with Tweets of surprise and angst from the popular microblogging service’s users. The goal of the project is to improve emergency response by providing a crow ...
  • New Infared Telescope’s Awesome First Images
    Thick clouds of dust usually obscure the Flame Nebula in visible light, but a brand new infrared telescope saw right through to capture this spectacular image. VISTA is the latest telescope to come online at the European Southern Obervatory outpost in the chilean desert. It is the largest sky-map ...
  • Baby-by-Number: Parents’ New Obsession With Data
    Allen Fawcett admits he and his wife are mildly addicted to keeping track of their babies’ schedules. The pair of economists have been recording every diaper, feeding and nap since they became parents. With the help of the Trixie Tracker website, they know they’ve changed exactly 7,367 diapers ...
  • Giant Panda Genome Reveals Why It Eats Shoots and ...
    What’s black and white and read all over? The giant panda genome. All 2.4 billion DNA base pairs of a 3-year-old female panda named Jingjing have been cataloged, researchers report online Dec. 13 in Nature. The information will help researchers understand panda traits such as finicky diets. A tho ...

The Progressive Realist

  • Sometimes Success Means Success
    Yglesias is more impressed than I by Pat Lang's discussion of successful and failed counter-insurgency campaigns. In particular, I think he misconstrues the objectives of many of the major counter-insurgency campaigns of the post-war colonial period: read more
  • How Israelis See Obama
    Perhaps a U.S. president's approval rating among Israeli citizens is somewhat trivial. After all, Barack Obama's re-election will be decided in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, not in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Netanya. Nevertheless, the notion persists that a U.S. president's approval rating in Israel ca ...
  • Giving Afghanistan Back to Afghans
    The Asia Society hosted a panel of Afghanistan experts on Tuesday in light of President Barack Obama's recently announced new Afghanistan strategy. The panel -- comprised of Peter Galbraith, former deputy special representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations to Afghanistan; Amin Tarz ...
  • Retrospective Justifications for Controversial War ...
    [Tony] Blair's recent statement that he believes the Iraq war would have been justified even in the absence of WMDs reminds me of the difficulty I've always had with the word "justified." I think it's undoubtebly true that Iraq - and the Middle East - is better off now than it was under Saddam and t ...
  • When Will the Obama Administration Try Actually En ...
    Western media commentary continues to depict Iran as having “rejected” the Baradei proposal for refueling the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), thereby setting the stage for the Obama Administration to pursue, at a minimum, tougher multilateral and unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic ...

TAPPED - The American Prospect

  • Get Along Without You Now.
    I've got a piece up today over at The Daily Beast on why Jenny Sanford 's decision to divorce South Carolina Gov. Mark "hiking the Appalachian trail" Sanford doesn't automatically make her a feminist hero: The heart of feminism is choice—that a woman is the agent in her own decisions, political ...
  • A Good Week For ACORN.
    Over the past week or so, there seems to have been some real progress in tamping down the hysterical narratives surrounding ACORN -- namely that they're some sinister combination of the Communist Party, the Corleone Family, and the Illuminati. Last week an independent review requested by ACORN and c ...
  • Beyond Bars.
    Adam Serwer on criminal justice reform: Eric Haines lives in his father's basement in Paterson, New Jersey, just across the street from a freshly anointed memorial to a childhood friend who was shot to death two weeks ago -- Haines' second friend to die violently in as many weeks. A white sheet han ...
  • The "Obama's Jewish Problem" Meme.
    Late last week, The New York Times published an 800-word story about a few right-wing Jews' complaints that Barack Obama 's Hannukah party was smaller than that of Bush , a purported sign of the White House's callous indifference to the Jewish people. On Friday, the CBS News Political Hotsheet blog ...
  • When Good Things Happen to Mediocre Legislation.
    Mark Schmitt on the rare pieces of legislation that get better as they grind through Congress: The very word "progressive" implies a linear view of social progress. We try to move forward, the bad guys try to take us backward. So it's not surprising that progressives have an equally straight-line a ...

Andy Worthington

  • Will The Maldives Take Three Guantánamo Prisoners ...
    From the Maldives, via a blogger named Firas, I found out that President Mohamed Nasheed (commonly known as Anni), the former Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience whose election in October 2008 finally brought to an end the 30-year dictatorship of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, has mentioned, in a ra ...
  • 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 ...

Buzzflash

  • Fraudcasting Run Wild: Talking 9/11 Trials, Hannit ...
    BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT by Jeffrey Joseph Since Jon Stewart so famously caught Sean Hannity in his propagandist lies, Hannity has taken a different tack for promoting his agenda-- putting himself before a friendly audience that can do it for him . Hannity recently hosted a Terror on Trial special with ...
  • BuzzFlash Mailbag for December 14, 2009
    BUZZFLASH MAILBAG Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here . You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net ; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html . Subject: GOP Reindeer Song THE GOP ...
  • Dave Lindorff: Protest? What Protest? American Cor ...
    Last week, I mentioned a line from an old science teacher : "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist." In what passes for corporate journalism in America, this concept has taken the form of, "If we don't report on it, it didn't happen." That certainly was the case for the emergency protest organiz ...
  • Health Care In Peril Because Of Lieberman -- Verse ...
    No senior Democrat ever should've Argued they had to heed him . Where's an unstable guy wielding a Statuette when you need him ?VERSE CASE SCENARIO read more
  • Nikolas Kozloff: Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Copenhag ...
    BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY by Nikolas Kozloff As climate change negotiations continue full force in the Danish city of Copenhagen, Latin American countries are hoping the Global North will commit to its "climate debt" by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing resources to poor nations. Cert ...

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

  • The allegedly growing domestic Muslim threat
    There is clearly a concerted effort by the Government to claim loudly that the threat posed by radicalized American Muslims is increasing.  Last week, The Los Angeles Times published a lengthy, scary story under the headline "U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat," claiming tha ...
  • Getting real tough with the bankers
    (updated below) The perception that the Obama administration has been subservient to Wall Street is probably the single greatest political vulnerability the Democrats face.  The President spent the last couple of days saying some really mean things about bankers (he said he didn't get elected ...
  • War and public opinion
    In May, 2008, Dick Cheney caused an uproar when he told ABC News ' Martha Raddatz that public opposition to the war in Iraq was, in essence, irrelevant: RADDATZ : Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting. CHENEY : So? RADDATZ :  So? You don’t care what the American people think? ...
  • 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 ...

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.

  • Sen. Jim DeMint's War on Gay Rights
    Sen. Jim DeMint, darling of the teabagger crowd, has never been a big fan of gay rights. There was his stump speech in 2004 where he suggested that the state of South Carolina should ban openly LGBT teachers from working in public schools , not to mention his tireless support for a federal constitut ...
  • Taking a Page from 1930s Feminism?
    The idea of slipping almost 80 years back in time on the feminist struggle depresses me in the way remembering we still haven't passed the Equal Rights Amendment does, but Dorothy Sue Cobble's Washington Post article almost has me reaching for the time machine. It's less about equating today's reces ...
  • Canada Responds to Awesome Yes Men Hoax At Copenha ...
    This morning, bloggers were abuzz with news of a hugely-important press release that suggested that Canada would reduce emissions by 40 per cent before 2020: a massive u-turn that suggested the conference may be a success after all if a county like Canada is willing to commit. The press release quot ...
  • Calling Out Bill Gates on Treating Schools Like Co ...
    Bill Gates' injection of funds into reforming the education system — $200 million annually — causes some to contend that his influence makes him the Real Secretary of Education . His money targets schools agreeing to pursue ambitious reform, with his goals to reform US education reflecting the O ...
  • Winograd vs. the Big Orgs: Leveling the Playing Fi ...
    I don't always agree with Nathan Winograd, well-known No Kill advocate and author of Redemption ; that is, I don't universally agree with every conclusion he comes to or with his assessments of people's motives. But I often do agree with his observations, and his arguments are as worthy of considera ...

Common Dreams -News

  • Insurance Stocks Soar on News of Lieberman’s Obs ...
    by Jon Walker The Wall Street Journal is reporting that health insurance stocks are up dramatically today after Joe Lieberman's threat to filibuster health care reform. Lieberman has a new-found strong opposition to the Medicare buy-in proposal-a massive flip-flop from his earlier support. Wells Far ...
  • Campaign Cash From Wall Street Favored Representat ...
    by Michael Beckel On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its major financial reform proposal by a 223-202 vote . Commercial banks and credit and finance companies stood among some of the fiercest opponents of the bill.  read more
  • Developing Countries End Boycott at Climate Talks
    COPENHAGEN - Poor countries ended a boycott of U.N. climate talks Monday after getting assurances that rich nations were not conspiring to soften their commitments to cutting greenhouse gases, European officials said. European Union environment spokesman Andreas Carlgren said informal talks resolved ...
  • Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo Torture Case
    by James Vicini WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it rejected an appeal by four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners arguing that they should be able to proceed with their lawsuit against top Pentagon officials for torture and religious abuse. The justices refused to review a U.S. a ...
  • Monsanto Stomps Down Budding Seed Competitors
    by Christopher Leonard ST. LOUIS - Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered cr ...

Lifehacker

  • Refresh Your Stale Bread with Aluminum Foil [Food ...
    Slightly stale bread is great for stuffing or French toast, but really stale bread is just bird food. From baguettes to dinner rolls, here's a quick look at how you can keep your bread fresh as the day you bought it. Photo by net_efekt . Bread.com, an authority on baked goodies, says there's more to ...
  • BillsAreIn Makes Short Work of Shared Living Expe ...
    Who owes what and whether or not they paid can be a significant source of stress in a shared household. BillsAreIn is an easy to use tool for automating the process of bill sharing and managing the house budget. If you frequently find yourself running into issues with roommates who say stuff like " ...
  • Understanding the Windows Pagefile and Why You Sh ...
    As a tech writer, I regularly cringe at all the bad tweaking advice out there, and disabling the system pagefile is often a source of contention among geeks. Let's examine some of the pagefile myths and debunk them once and for all. What is a Pagefile and How Do I Adjust It? Before we get into the d ...
  • TorrentFreak's Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2009 ...
    All-things BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak broke down the numbers and rounded up the 25 most popular torrent sites of 2009. The results represent several best-known sites (like The Pirate Bay), but also probably a few you're not all that familiar with. Incidentally, number 20 on the list Demonoid—a ...
  • Google Auto-Suggest Offers Quick-Glance Weather, ...
    Google's auto-suggest feature is now good for more than quick searches and occasionally hilarious search completions. Type something like buffalo weather or your flight number in, and a drop-down box will provide answers from Universal Search without even clicking. Many of Google's automatic search ...

Newshoggers - AfPak

  • Contemplation of Drone Strikes in Quetta Belies Ob ...
    By Derrick Crowe Once again, the United States is rattling a saber about killing people in Quetta, despite all the inevitable civilian death and mass outrage. Such a move would show the shallowness of the "just war" talk in President Obama's disgraceful Nobel paean to Mars. Quetta is a city of 850,0 ...
  • "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 ...

Water Wars

WordPress | Economics

McClatchey

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

  • COP15: Still squabbling over form
    The second week of this conference is opening much as the first week ended - with disagreements on some pretty fundamental issues, and lots of squabbling about things that appear to be petty details but in fact mask big underlying concerns. This morning, for example, the Danish hosts have scheduled ...
  • 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 ...

Afghanistan Sun

  • Many policemen killed in Afghan attacks
    The Ministry of Interior in Afghanistan has announced the deaths of sixteen Afghan police at official checkpoints.
  • Two attacks kill 16 policemen in Afghanistan
    Kabul, Dec 14 (DPA) At least 16 policemen were killed in two attacks by insurgents in Afghanistan Monday, officials said.
  • US to support Pak in war against Al-Qaeda and Tali ...
    Washington, Dec. 14 : US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the America has decided to support Pakistan in a "new and vigorous way" on the appeal of the people of Pakistan who are being targeted by Al-Qaeda and the TTP in mosques and marketplaces indiscriminately.
  • Some troops will arrive later in Afghanistan
    U.S. Army Pvt. Jerry Chavez shoots his M-4 rifle on burst during a firefight with Taliban insurgents October 28, 2008 in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. (John Moore, Getty Images) KABUL ...
  • US Afghan surge to begin this week
    KABUL (AFP) - The 30,000 US troop surge to Afghanistan is to begin this week amid concern about growing collusion between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with militants in Pakistan, the top US military offic...

Futurismic

  • Unplugged: the Web’s Best SF/F anthology now ava ...
    Almost exactly a year ago I had the pleasure of announcing that a story originally published here at Futurismic – Jason Stoddard’s “Willpower”, to be precise – had been selected by Rich Horton for reprinting in his inaugural Unplugged: The Web’s Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy anthology. And now I ...
  • The physics of space battles
    We all know that space battles as depicted in films and television tend to reuse the paradigms of more familiar planet-side combat types – the naval manoeuvres of Star Trek, for example, or the dog-fighting planes of Star Wars. But what would real combat between space-faring civilisations actually ...
  • Old
    Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously. [ Be sure to check out the Does Not Equal Cafepress store for webcomic merchandise featuring Canadians with geometrically-shaped heads! ] Project Wonderf ...
  • 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 ...

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

  • Sleep loss linked to increase in Alzheimer's plaqu ...
    Chronic sleep deprivation in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease makes Alzheimer's brain plaques appear earlier and more often, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report online this week in Science Express.
  • Heart of a galaxy emits gamma rays
    (PhysOrg.com) -- Quite a few distant galaxies turn out to be cosmic delivery rooms. Large numbers of massive stars are born in the hearts of these starburst galaxies, and later explode as supernovae. In the remnants they leave behind, particles are accelerated to very high energies. Astrophysicists ...
  • Physicists Demonstrate Three-Color Entanglement
    (PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, physicists have demonstrated the quantum entanglement of three light beams, all of different wavelengths. Entanglement of two light beams of different wavelengths has already been demonstrated, but the researchers explain that going beyond two beams is important ...
  • Cassini Data Help Redraw Shape of Solar System (w/ ...
    (PhysOrg.com) -- Images from the Ion and Neutral Camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest that the heliosphere, the region of the sun's influence, may not have the comet-like shape predicted by existing models. In a paper published Oct. 15 in Science Express, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Ap ...
  • New study predicts future consequences of a global ...
    A report examining the impact of a global biofuels program on greenhouse gas emissions during the 21st century has found that carbon loss stemming from the displacement of food crops and pastures for biofuels crops may be twice as much as the CO2 emissions from land dedicated to biofuels production. ...

TechDirt

  • Artists: Don't Expect To Get Paid For What Imeem & ...
    We always hear the record labels and politicians screaming bloody murder over the concept that musicians aren't being paid "what they're owed" due to piracy -- but when there's a situation where musicians might actually not be getting paid what they're owed? Silence. A few weeks back, MySpace "bou ...
  • Microsoft DRM Locks You Out Of Your Own Documents
    In case you haven't been paying attention, there's yet to be a good reason put forth for using DRM that I can remember. We've seen over and over again how DRM seems to interfere with legitimate actions, but does nothing at all to slow down "pirates." Slashdot points to a rather scary situations fo ...
  • Woman Arrested For Filming Snippets Of 'New Moon' ...
    The latest in the saga of the young woman, Samantha Tumpach, who was arrested and jailed for two nights because her attempt to film some of her sister's birthday party at the movies happened to catch a few snippets of the film New Moon , is that Tumpach is now considering suing the theater , even th ...
  • Israeli ISPs Caught Traffic Shaping Without Admitt ...
    For many years, in the US, there were claims that Comcast was doing traffic shaping on its network, slowing down or even blocking certain types of traffic. Despite increasingly sophisticated evidence, Comcast always denied it, until the Associated Press finally presented proof . Comcast still trie ...
  • Apple Launches Nuclear Patent Counterstrike On Nok ...
    We've discussed in the past how many large companies now view patent accumulation as something of a nuclear stockpiling technique. That is, if you accumulate enough patents, other large companies won't sue you for patent infringement, because you'll just sue them right back for infringing on your p ...

VacTruth

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

  • The Definition of Irony
    By Gary Howard As if getting in between us and our doctors wasn’t enough, promoters of socialized medicine have added a bit of unintended comedy to the bloated and unconstitutional health bill. Via Politico: For critics of the Democrats’ $849 billion health care bill, this may be the ul ...
  • Ron Paul on Russia Today
    By Matt Hawes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ5kBADFyWI View the original article at Washingtons Blog
  • Reid’s health care plan and medical care cos ...
    By Matt Hawes The Los Angeles Times’ “Top of the Ticket” blog reports today that if Senator Reid’s health care plan were put into place, medical costs would actually rise faster than they would if the government did nothing. This is the absolutely crucial healthcare reform plan that simply ...
  • Summers is Wrong and Must Be Replaced
    Two leading White House economic advisors – Larry Summers and Christina Romer – are giving very different views on the economy. As Fox news summarizes: “Everybody agrees that the recession is over,” said Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council. “Of course not,” counte ...
  • China, India walk out of Copenhagen talks
    Andrew Ward and Ed Crooks Financial Times Monday, December 14, 2009 Comment: China and India have also walked out of the conference, as well as African countries. Talks were suspended at the Copenhagen climate conference on Monday amid escalating tensions between rich countries and the developing wo ...

food and water watch




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