18 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

• CLIMATE CHANGE : Norway Is Trying*
  COPENHAGEN, Dec 18 (IPS) - Norway is the world’s third largest donor in terms of development aid as a percentage of GDP. Norwegian Minister of Environment and International Development Erik Solheim spoke to TerraViva about the initiatives promoted by his country on environmental protection and ...
  
• CLIMATE CHANGE: Copenhagen Talks Create Hardly a ...
  PENANG, Malaysia, Dec 18 (IPS) - Even if Prime Minister Najib Razak is in Copenhagen for the high-level segment of the U.N. conference on climate change, there has been precious little meaningful debate on the subject here in Malaysia.
  
• SIERRA LEONE: Police Plan to Use Youth Against Cr ...
  FREETOWN, Dec 18 (IPS) - A new police force plan to recruit youths in each community, to help fight the country-wide spate of armed robbery, has provoked controversy and sparked a nationwide debate.
  
• EUROPE: Cosy With Israel, Despite the Headlines
  BRUSSELS, Dec 18 (IPS) - Israel's relations with the European Union were tense for most of 2009 - if newspaper headlines are to be believed. In the past week, a British court drew fierce criticism from Israeli politicians after it issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli f ...
  
• HEALTH-EUROPE: 'Czech Attitudes to HIV/AIDS Risky ...
  PRAGUE, Dec 18 (IPS) - Complacency and ignorance over the risks posed by HIV and AIDS are threatening to send infection rates soaring in the Czech Republic, health authorities.
  

Scoop - NZ

• The smoking gun at Copenhagen
  This is big news. A confidential UN analysis obtained by the Guardian reveals that the emissions cuts offered so far at the Copenhagen climate change summit will lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C.  »  PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews
  
• 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 ...
  

Independent ( London )

• Texas polygamist gets 33 years for child sex abuse
  The Texas attorney general's office says a 57-year-old member of a polygamist group has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for the sexual assault of a child.
  
• Rooibos tea farmers on the front line of climate c ...
  When Mma Precious Ramotswe, the heroine of the best selling “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” has a particularly troublesome case to consider she sits down and pours herself a soothing cup of bush tea.
  
• Iraqi insurgents hack US drones
  Insurgents in Iraq have hacked into live video feeds from Predator drones, a major weapon in a Pentagon spy system that serves as the military's eyes in the sky for surveillance and intelligence collection.
  
• Santa Claus 'buried in Ireland'
  The saint who the legend of Santa Claus is based on is believed to be buried in Kilkenny, according to local historians.
  
• Remembering invisible victims on 'International Mi ...
  Few of the Central American migrants looking to escape to the United States are prepared for the horrors they will endure along the way. Entering Mexico through one of its border states (most often Chiapas or Tabasco), they face a constant threat of persecution, and, at present, lack even the most ...
  

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• Discretion and Peace Needed to Solve Iran’s Nuclea ...
  Summary: Natanz plant At present, the nuclear case of Iran has hit a new deadline and those who thought that Obama’s new approach and his emphasis on negotiations combined with Iran’s acceptance of the proposal to swap its low enriched uranium with 20-percent enriched uranium would work to solve ...
  
• Iran: No Sanctions!
  Summary: Dreyfuss Back in the spring, and several times since then, President Obama suggested that if progress hasn't been made in the talks with Iran, he'd move toward harsher measures, including what Secretary of State Clinton has called "crippling sanctions." That time is drawing near, and a ...
  
• Anti-Iran Sanctions Punish Civilians, Are an Act o ...
  Summary: Ron Paul I find it shocking that legislation this serious and consequential is brought up in such a cavalier manner. Suspending the normal rules of the House to pass legislation is a process generally reserved for “non-controversial” business such as the naming of post offices. Are we t ...
  
• U.S. backs Iranian Web use
  Summary: Obama The Obama administration has waived some Iran sanctions so that ordinary Iranians can download U.S.-made software used in social media and networking Web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, that help disseminate information bypassing government censorship. The administration's un ...
  
• UAE-US Nuclear Pact Comes to Fruition
  Summary: UAE This marks the final phase of operationalising the agreement signed on January 15 last in Washington by the then US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, and the UAE Foreign Minister, Abdullah bin Zayed. The UAE will now get adequate access to technology from the US in its plans to m ...
  

The Daily Galaxy

• Could "Avatar's" Inhabited Moon Pandora Exist? Har ...
  Imagine being roused by an attendant floating in zero gravity from a yearslong sleep just before landing on a distant inhabited moon, Pandora. What you would soon discover is an exotic DNA carbon-based world on a twin Earth. In the...
  
• Titan's "Earthscape" - A New Look at Saturn's Moon
  Saturn's Titan has been considered a “unique world in the solar system” since 1908 when, the Spanish astronomer, José Comas y Solá, discovered that it had an atmosphere, something non-existent on other moons. It seems perfectly appropriate that one of...
  
• The Invisible Universe - Google on Dark Matter (VI ...
  CalTech's Sean Carroll at Google shows that the kind of matter with which we are familiar -- atoms and molecules, and indeed every particle we have ever created in a laboratory -- only makes up about 5% of the universe....
  
• The LHC In Space?
  Study of the stars has always driven mankind forward. From the earliest urge to look above ourselves, when Orion's Belt truly belonged to an immense being above us, through navigation of the seas in exploration of our own planet, to...
  
• Does Time Slow Down, or Speed Up in a Crisis?
  Scientists are asking if we can turbocharge our time perception. In The Matrix, hero Neo wins his battles when time slows in the simulated world. In our real world, accident victims often report a similar slowing of time as they...
  

Natural News

• H1N1 vaccine liquidation sale now on: Hurry while ...
  (NaturalNews) All of a sudden, H1N1 vaccines are available all across America. Walgreens and other pharmacies are pushing the vaccines as if there were an "everything must go" liquidation sale under way. Hurry, get your swine flu vaccine today before everybody figures out they're useless! The market ...
  
• Big Pharma paid $500,000 to Chicago psychiatrists ...
  (NaturalNews) A federal lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for its role in paying Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein nearly $500,000 over the course of a decade to conduct research and to promote its anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel. Reinstein is being accused of wr ...
  
• New Research Proves Western Medicine Remains Cluel ...
  (NaturalNews) Research is emerging that casts serious doubt on the major hypothesis as to the cause of Alzheimer's disease, raising questions as to whether scientists really understand the disease at all. The most effective drug currently in use for the treatment of Alzheimer's is not any of the com ...
  
• Founders of Boku Superfood and Gnosis Chocolate fe ...
  (NaturalNews) The NaturalNews Talk Hour presents a very special holiday evening with TWO of the most health-conscious, nutritionally-sound companies on the market today. Reno Rolle, Co-Founder of Boku International, Dr. BJ Adrezin, Master Formulator of Boku products and Vanessa Barg, Founder of Gno ...
  
• Aspartame alert: Diet soda destroys kidney functio ...
  (NaturalNews) Scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston have revealed results from a study outlining some of the effects of artificial sweeteners on the body. Conducted on a group of 3,000 women, the results indicated that those who drank two or more artificially-sweetened beverages a d ...
  

TheGallopingBeaver

• Payback's . . . .
  a bitch, ain't it, joe ? ? ? ? (Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)
  
• Contempt of Parliament
  Did you expect anything else from the Harperites? The supremacy of Parliament is absolute in this country and Harper is giving the only democratically elected federal institution in this country the finger. He said when he was done we wouldn't recognize this country. He was right . Looks more like ...
  
• Rats and bugs and minefields
  INHABITAT IS A CHEERFUL SITE , devoted to green solutions to the problems we have around us.  Sarah Parsons has an article, titled " HeroRATS Trained to Sniff Out Landmines ", which is worthy of your attention.  Most people view rats as nothing more than pests, but one organization regards the critt ...
  
• At last
  THE CALGARY HERALD has a simple position on the RCMP: RCMP needs overhaul The RCMP can blame their damaged reputation on nothing more than the actions of some of their own members, aided by a long culture of coverup. More denials won't restore credibility to Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police, ...
  
• A present from the NFB
  THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD site is playing "The Sweater", in celebration of its 30th anniversary. Y'all watch, now.
  

Media Matters for America

• Beck selectively quoted interview to falsely sugg ...
  By selectively quoting an interview during which Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Director Cass Sunstein discussed his support for Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposed "second Bill of Rights," Glenn Beck falsely suggested that Sunstein supported amending the U.S. Constitution to include ...
  
• Hannity falsely suggests Clinton "promis[ed]" U.S ...
  Sean Hannity suggested on his radio show that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had "promis[ed]" that the United States would pay $100 billion "every year" to address climate change in developing countries. But Hannity's claim was immediately contradicted by an audio clip of Clinton's speech t ...
  
• Ignoring Dean, Matthews claims that "netroots" cr ...
  On his MSNBC show, Chris Matthews attacked what New York magazine writer John Heilemann called "the Democratic left" who have "trash[ed] the health care bill and attack[ed] the president; Matthews stated: "I don't consider them Democrats. I consider them netroots," and added, "I think a lot of ...
  
• Fox & Friends deceptively cropped Dea ...
  In purporting to air Howard Dean's comments opposing the Senate health care bill, Fox & Friends omitted his statement that the "problem" with the bill is that with the removal of the public option, "we are now committed to a solution using the private insurance companies." At no point in the segmen ...
  
• Goldfarb struggles to preserve his disintegrating ...
  In a December 16 post, Weekly Standard blogger Michael Goldfarb defended the accuracy of his report that the White House is "threatening to close" Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base "to extort" Sen. Ben Nelson's vote on health care reform -- denied by both the White House and Nelson's office -- by ...
  

Global Research.ca

• Bolivian President Forecasts U.S. Failure on "Aggr ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• US Jets Continue Raids in North Yemen
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Iraq's Oil Auction Hits the Jackpot
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• ALBA Alliance Forgoes US Dollar
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Any Climate Treaty Which Does Not Dramatically Red ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  

TPM Cafe

• Joe Lieberman: Senator from Aetna
  Everyone's trying to figure out: What's with Joe Lieberman? To secure Lieberman's support, in order to get 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week replaced the public option in the health reform bill with... Joe Lieberman - United States - Senate - Governmen ...
  
• Slouching Toward Health Care Reform
  "Don't make the perfect the enemy of the better," says the President and congressional insiders when confronted with the sorry spectacle of a health-care bill whose scope and ambition continue to shrink, and whose long-term costs to typical Americans continue... United States - Health care - Pr ...
  
• What Is In The Health Care Bill?
  The health-care reform legislation pending in Congress would be the largest program on behalf of low- to moderate-income people in the United States since the 1960s. Besides subsidizing coverage, it would create a new mechanism for purchasing insurance that would... United States - Insurance - ...
  
• Getting to the Bottom of the Health Care Debate?
  Like a lot of people I don't have a firm grasp of the details of health care policy. So I've found it difficult to untangle for myself just what to think about the different iterations of the health care reform... Health care - Health - Health Policy - Senate - United States
  
• All Reader Posts Front Page Temporarily Unavailabl ...
  We're working to reinstate it. (Status Blog) UPDATE 11:12 AM: It appears to be working now. Please flag any further problems you have here.... Flags - United States - Canada - India - Holidays
  

TruthOut

• Report Reveals Scope of Government Contracting
  According to a new government report, more than 50 percent of the Department of Defense workforces are military contractors and the Obama administration's troop surge in Afghanistan is set to only increase these numbers. read more
  
• Obama Administration Launches Open Government Init ...
  As part of the Obama administration's plan to change the culture of secrecy in Washington, the White House last week issued the Open Government Directive, requiring federal agencies to take immediate, specific steps to open their work up to the public. read more
  
• The World's First Meaningful Billboard Tax Passes ...
  Corporate creep, the profit-minded takeover of public space, is not unlike a roach infestation: stomach-churning, not pretty, and always a losing battle. Yet the battle rages on. The issues underlying many current debates re-exert the right of the public over public space, whether real or virtual: S ...
  
• Appropriations Bill Marks Victory for Sexual Healt ...
  After a decade of denial and ideological assault on science-based public health, the passage of the omnibus appropriations bill this past weekend represents a major win for youth advocates who support rights-based, evidence-based sexual and reproductive health programs. Not only did the legislation ...
  
• Robert Reich | Slouching Toward Health Care Reform ...
  "Don't make the perfect the enemy of the better," says the President and congressional insiders when confronted with the sorry spectacle of a health-care bill whose scope and ambition continue to shrink, and whose long-term costs to typical Americans continue to grow. They're right, of course. But b ...
  

Planetsave

• Curbside Vs. Deposit and GHG Reduction
  The beverage container industry continues to fight state and national container legislation despite evidence that such laws could contribute significantly to greenhouse gas reduction while providing energy, recycling and litter control benefits. The industry says community recycling programs, which ...
  
• 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, na ...
  
• 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 »
  

Water Quality - WordPress

• National Drinking Water Database
  Environmental Working Group http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/home To search this database, look for the
  
• What is Great Water?
  What is great water? The standard answer for what water should be is water free of pollutants and ha
  
• Panorama
  I love the beach.  Just to kick off my shoes or Birkenstocks and walk on the sand or to submerge my
  
• Public Supports Rules for Drillers
  By DAVID THOMPSON – dthompson@sungazette.com POSTED: December 17, 2009 More than 100 people tu
  
• H.R. 2847 : 2010 Jobs for Main Street Bill
  US House of  Representatives http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/2010_Jobs_For_Main_Street_Bill_Text
  

Public Citizen in Texas

• Green-up Your Life! Holiday Edition
  By Kirsten Bokenkamp Happy Holidays! Just saying those words is enough to evoke joyful images of families gathered in the kitchen preparing a succulent holiday meal to be enjoyed together, or excited and wide-eyed children opening gifts next to a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. When I close ...
  
• Another Texas Wind Project Up and Running
  Congratulations to San Angelo, Texas, where a new 150 MW wind farm is up, spinning, and on with commercial operations.  According to North American Wind Power, The project’s 100 General Electric 1.5 MW turbine generators are expected to generate more than 525,000 MWh of wind energy per year, which ...
  
• Jim Boston: Living in the West with Tenaska
  I’m very impressed with this op-ed from Jim Boston, which refers to the Tenaska coal plant proposed near Sweetwater, Texas.  It was originally published Monday, December 13th in the Abilene Reporter News. Why live in West Texas when it is somewhat a hostile environment? Faced with frequent droughts ...
  
• 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 Count ...
  
• 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: How føc ...
  

Press TV

• Arrest warrant for Pakistan interior minister
  A court in Pakistan has issued an arrest warrant for Interior Minister Rehman Malik amid growing political turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.
  
• Mumbai suspect retracts confession
  A Pakistani national alleged to be the sole surviving gunman in last year's attacks on the Indian port city of Mumbai has retracted his earlier confession.
  
• Bomb blast kills 12 in northwest Pakistan
  A "huge" bomb blast inside a mosque at a police compound in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others.
  
• Hamas: Gaza siege due to anti-US stance
  A senior member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud al-Zahar, says that the long-standing siege on the impoverished Gaza Strip is because the resistance movement doesn't follow Washington's lead.
  
• Russian Iranologist awarded Int'l Farabi Award
  The Islamic Republic of Iran has awarded the Third International Farabi Award to Iranologist professor Yuri Rubinchik from Russia.
  

Axis of Logic

• Update from Pakistan: NRO Bubble Busts.
  
  
• Pentagon's Private Militias. Notorious and influen ...
  
  
• Oh Little Town of Bethlehem! "I remain in silent p ...
  
  
• Latin America's New Cold War?
  
  
• CIA Agent Captured in Cuba
  
  

They Gave Us a Republic

• Meanwhile, Monsanto is Destroying the Global Food ...
  Growing food is not always easy, but it's based on a simple principle: put aside part of the harvest as seeds to produce the next year's harvest. Failing to do so is called "eating your seed corn" and is the fastest way to create famine. Which is precisely what giant chemical corporation Monsanto is ...
  
• The Nightowl Newswrap
  Franken is fast becoming our favorite Senator Today, as he oversaw the proceedings of the Senate, he exercised his power as an individual Senator and objected to Lieberman's request for unanimous consent to keep droning on about amendments. When he said "I object" he effectively told Lieberman to sh ...
  
• Chart of the day
  The people getting their noses out of joint and engaging in hand wringing, wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth over the budget deficit need to take five and remember where the hell the deficits came from. Virtually every damned dollar of the ten-year budget deficit projection can be attr ...
  
• A Great Argument Against Obama's Bill - From Obama
  David Dayen at Firedoglake finds great ammunition against Senate health care DEform: Progressives who have turned against the individual mandate in health care reform may want to highlight their one-time ally in that fight: President Barack Obama. Throughout the 2008 primary campaign, the mandate wa ...
  
• What Tiger Woods Can Teach Us About Health Care
  
  

Care 2

• THESE ARE FIGHTING WORDS--Keith Olbermann on perve ...
  I suggest everyone, who lives in the United States, watch this video or read the words. If you do not live in the USA please pass it to a friend who does. We may be forced to buy a product that many may not be able to afford. Submitted by Dandelion G. to US Politics & Gov't  |   Note-it!  |   Add a ...
  
• Monsanto named worst corporate climate lobbyist
  US company wants its GM crops to be given carbon credits and to be at the forefront of tackling climate change despite link to deforestation Submitted by Cal Mendelsohn to Business  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Obama vs. the Liberals: Pass the Tea to the Left
  Liberals are turning against President Obama with an energy usually reserved for Fox News viewers wearing the tri-corner hats, and waving those yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags. This is fast becoming an ugly situation! Submitted by SirRobert THE FIFTH KNIGHT to US Politics & Gov't  |   Note-it!  |  ...
  
• Netherlands to slaughter more animals in Q fever e ...
  The Netherlands stepped up measures Wednesday against the world's biggest Q fever epidemic that has killed 10 humans, by ordering the slaughter of over 30,000 animals, a press release said. Submitted by Claudia Peters to Environment  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Rose Parade float will pay tribute to Mexico
  The creation, which will be decorated by Mexican immigrants and their families, will begin a year of celebration marking the country's 200th birthday. Submitted by Kristi K. to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  

GreenBiz

• GE Lands $1.4B Contract for Turbines to Create 845 ...
  Independent power producer Caithness Energy has awarded GE a $1.4 billion contract for 338 of the company’s most advanced wind turbines to build a 845-megawatt wind farm in Oregon -- a size that outstrips all others currently operating worldwide. 
  
• As Panels Get Better and Cheaper, PVs are Poised f ...
  In both Europe and North America, the discussion about solar power is very quickly going from “Is this possible?” to “What's coming next?”
  
• Scotland Quaker Oats Plant Sends Zero Waste to Lan ...
  A Quaker Oats production facility in Scotland has stopped sending waste to landfill, instead diverting all waste either to be recycled or become animal feed.
  
• Dow, Serious Materials, Shaw Among 32 Firms in New ...
  Thirty-two firms -- including big names in building materials, equipment and automation, IT, telecom, forest products and chemistry -- have pledged to cut their industrial energy intensity by 25 percent over the next decade as part of a new U.S. Department of Energy program.
  
• Harnessing the Power of IT to Drive Sustainability
  There's wide hope that world leaders can significantly advance a global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimize changes to our climate. With such a commitment and the right technology tools, a clean and prosperous future can be well within our reach.
  

Reuters Global

• Sarkozy’s tough message on climate – d ...
  Sarkozy puts on an inspirational display at UN climate talks
  
• Comparing Pakistan’s Islamists to India&#821 ...
  Comparing Pakistan's Islamist militants and India's Maoists is tricky: the differencies between the two are obvious. But the similarities also highlight the potential risks from insurgencies going into an age of climate change and falling resources.
  
• Clashes and queues raise temperature in Copenhagen
  With the clock ticking for world leaders to clinch a climate deal in Copenhagen, the last place you want to be is stuck at the back of a long queue, but that's where thousands of delegates have spent endless hours this week.
  
• Reporter’s Notebook — Memories of the ...
  When you report on traumatic events, some images stay with you for ever. Like this Indonesian child, badly hurt in the earthquake that triggered a massive tsunami off Indonesia's Aceh province five years ago.
  
• 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.
  

Ezra Klein

• A long time ago, we used to be friends
  Al Franken is onto something here. I think the left would calm quite a bit if they could be assured that Sen. Joe Lieberman would never be extended another extra minute, or any other sort of senatorial courtesy, again. After Franken denies Lieberman his extra time, John McCain gets up to bluster ...
  
• Health-care reform in practice
  A reader sends his take on the health-care reform battle to Josh Marshall: If I feel abandoned, it's not by Obama and the Democratic party, it's by those on the left advocating to kill the bill. I am unemployed and have a pre-existing condition that requires daily medicines, quarterly doctors visi ...
  
• Deficit hawkery
  Andrew Samwick thinks through what it means to be a deficit hawk. There are, he says, two basic insights underpinning the approach: The federal deficit serves as a mechanism to facilitate the use of future taxpayers' income to buy votes for elected officials today. To be a deficit hawk is to be vig ...
  
• Tab dump
  1) And the Rand played on. 2) I've been enjoying Jonathan Bernstein's blog . Lots of political science goodness. 3) Is the health-care debate a replay of the Iraq War debate? 4) Felix Salmon considers Ben Bernanke . Recipe of the day : Make your own Chex Mix.
  
• Can insurers use monopoly pricing under health-car ...
  "If insurance companies know people will be forced to buy policies, why would they lower premium prices?" Asks eegeterman over Twitter . "Why wouldn't they RAISE prices?" I've been hearing this a bit today, so let's talk it through. In a world of one private insurance company and an individual mand ...
  

Booman Tribune

• Froggy Bottom Cafe
  
  
• Late Night Republican Obstruction
  It's almost 1:30 in the morning and the Senate is still in session. They just voted to invoke cloture on the Defense Appropriations Bill that funds the troops in the field. The prior appropriations bill expires later today, so the fact that they had to invoke cloture (versus just voting on the dam ...
  
• Serious Question
  Do you dress for success, or are you DFH?
  
• Serious Question
  Why doesn't Ben Nelson just come out and say that he hates Democrats and cannot remember why he is one?
  
• Quote of the Day
  From Boner: House Minority Leader John Boehner told reporters today his party is pumped for campaign season. As the calendar ticks down on 2009, Boehner says he likes his party's chances at making significant gains against what he sees as a fractured Democratic majority. "The Democrats seems t ...
  

European Tribune

• "Copenhagen X"
  Developments don't look too good in the final hours of the Copenhagen Climate summit. Obama...
  
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 18 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1879 – Birth of...
  
• Thursday Open Thread
  Thread. Open....
  
• Drones are not the only brainless things at the Pe ...
  Colman points the following story from the Wall Street Journal: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones$26 Software...
  
• The Anglo Disease diagnosis, again
  by Martin Wolf, once again: The UK is poorer than it thought it was. This...
  

Futurismic

• The legislation of fabrication – should 3D printin ...
  Here’s another sf-nal thought experiment to keep your brain occupied. We frequently mention 3D printing and fabbing here at Futurismic, but usually in the context of its positive disruptive potential – a potential sea-change in capitalist economic systems, for example. But here’s a negative response ...
  
• Potential outcomes of pervasive surveillance
  Sometimes it really feels like science-fictional thinking is becoming a much more mainstream thing to do. Following on from yesterday’s mention of CCTV control software that can learn to recognise suspicious behaviour (as defined by operator feedback, natch), out-bound BoingBoing guest blogger Paul ...
  
• Mercurial cartography
  With the cold weather really digging in for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, you may well be thinking of taking a holiday somewhere hot. Courtesy the US Geological Survey, you can now scout out the lay of the land on the hottest destination in the entire solar system, as their near-global map ...
  
• What Are The Animals Becoming?
  Since I went for things made of metal skins and electrical guts last month when I wrote about weird robots, I decided to opt for warm-blooded carbon-based life forms this time around – so welcome to the December column on smart animals! Now, we’re a dog family, and we have a golden retriever [. ...
  
• The real history of science fiction
  Just in case you missed it, this little gem from webcomic Hark, a Vagrant was doing the rounds on Twitter the other day. Click through for the whole thing, then feel free to argue about the need for hard scientific veracity in speculative fiction in the comments. Project Wonderful - Your ad here ...
  

Therapy News

• Years Later, SARS Victims Show Signs of Mental Hea ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline There have been a few distinct outbreak health scares in the United States and around the world in recent years, and earlier this decade, concerns about SARS became especially prominent as thousands of people contracted the illness and several hundred died. While the ...
  
• You Can Go Home Again
  By Lynne Silva-Breen, MDiv, MA, LMFT, Family Therapy Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Lynne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile For better or worse, we first learn about making and keeping relationships in our families. During our formative years, our parents establish patterns with ...
  
• Assessment: Ft. Hood Mental Health Services Deemed ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline With many concerns rising over the state of mental health care within the armed services, officials have taken a closer look at the treatment and prevention options available at Fort Hood, the site of a recent disaster that claimed many lives and which many believe ma ...
  
• Afghanistan Struggles to Modernize Mental Health T ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary When countries well-known for the quality of their mental health treatments are called to mind, Afghanistan is not likely to be among them. Indeed, the country so often depicted as being plagued by insurgency and hotly contested political and social issues is still eme ...
  
• Bullying Witnesses may Suffer More than Victims
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline The mental health effects of bullying have been significantly documented, but most data has been collected in terms of bullying’s impact on those who are victims of violence and other related acts. Studies focused on the potential of bullying to cause harm to witnesse ...
  

Mountaintop Removal

• Byrd's coal comments rock W.Va. - Politico
  Byrd's coal comments rock W.Va. Politico Pro-coal supporters protest against Robert Kennedy Jr.'s call for an end to mountaintop removal mining on Coal ...
  
• Senators criticize feds' permit review - Billings ...
  Senators criticize feds' permit review Billings Gazette Industry officials say they suspect that the Office of Surface Mining's move was spurred by the ongoing controversy over mountaintop removal mining in ... and more »
  
• Obama Interior Department surrenders to the coal i ...
  Obama Interior Department surrenders to the coal interests Grist Magazine Because the rule was unequivocal, coal operators and the Bush Department of Interior realized that it had to be changed to legalize mountaintop removal in ... and more »
  
• Readers' voice: Dec. 17, 2009 - Charleston Gazette
  Readers' voice: Dec. 17, 2009 Charleston Gazette I was so pleased to see some mountaintop removal mines are being closed down and saving some of our mountains. No one is against the use of coal, ...
  
• WV may soon see honeybees on former MTR sites - We ...
  West Virginia Public Broadcasting WV may soon see honeybees on former MTR sites West Virginia Public Broadcasting December 17, 2009 · Former mountaintop removal sites represent a golden opportunity for a Kentucky beekeeper working to reclaim strip mine ...
  

Memeorandum

• Obama: 'Time for talk is over' - COPENHAGEN - A vi ...
  Glenn Thrush / The Politico : Obama: ‘Time for talk is over’   —  COPENHAGEN — A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come to “not to talk but to act” on climate change.  —  Emerging from a multinational meeting ...
  
• Obama Presses China for Accountability on Climate ...
  New York Times : Obama Presses China for Accountability on Climate   —  COPENHAGEN — President Obama called on world leaders to move swiftly to address climate change, and, in a direct challenge to China, pressed for a global climate change accord to include a way to monitor whether countries are ...
  
• Pass the Bill - A message to progressives: By all ...
  Paul Krugman / New York Times : Pass the Bill   —  A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy.  Declare that you're disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama.  Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstruc ...
  
• GOP senators to block defense bill in bid to delay ...
  Washington Post : GOP senators to block defense bill in bid to delay health-care vote   —  Senate Republicans said Thursday that they would try to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move that several acknowledged was an effort to delay Preside ...
  
• Hillary Clinton Pledges $100B for Developing Count ...
  New York Times : Hillary Clinton Pledges $100B for Developing Countries   —  COPENHAGEN — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised the United States will help raise $100 billion annually by 2020 to assist poor countries in coping with climate change as long as America's demands for a ...
  

Energy & Environment News

• Findings: Trusting Nature as the Climate Referee
  An economist suggests imposing a tax linked to the earth’s future warming.
  
• Obama Arrives at Climate Talks, Seeking to Wrest a ...
  The world is looking to the president to wrest some credible success from climate negotiations, and there were some signs that a meaningful political deal might be at hand.
  
• A Break at the Gas Pump
  Retailers might be emboldened by the recent trend in gas prices, but the numbers are much higher than a year ago and experts disagree about where prices are heading.
  
• Canada to Sell Reactor Unit of Energy Firm
  The unit of Atomic Energy of Canada has been a longstanding financial drain on the government.
  
• Reuters BreakingViews: Exxon Learns From Rival&#x2 ...
  The oil company is acquiring XTO Energy for a price that is more than 30 percent below its June 2008 high.
  

5+ quakes - 7 days

• M 5.3, Colombia
  Friday, December 18, 2009 14:30:02 UTC Friday, December 18, 2009 09:30:02 AM at epicenter Depth : 151.80 km (94.32 mi)
  
• M 5.3, off the east coast of Honshu, Japan
  Friday, December 18, 2009 11:48:30 UTC Friday, December 18, 2009 08:48:30 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  
• M 5.0, Tonga
  Wednesday, December 16, 2009 20:28:02 UTC Thursday, December 17, 2009 10:28:02 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  
• M 5.0, Ryukyu Islands, Japan
  Saturday, December 12, 2009 13:50:31 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 10:50:31 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  
• M 5.1, Maharashtra, India
  Saturday, December 12, 2009 11:51:26 UTC Saturday, December 12, 2009 05:21:26 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  

China Dialogue

• To seal a deal, we need justice
  An agreement seems beyond reach at Copenhagen. Ma Jun blames an inability to balance the need for efficiency with the principle of equity. Climate change is one of the most complex challenges that faces the world today. The fact that international society has come together to negotiate a plan to red ...
  
• A political ill wind blows
  Governments meeting in Copenhagen have taken the wrong approach to climate change, says Tim Harford. They should be working to increase the price that polluters pay for emissions. My sunny disposition wavered as the Copenhagen summit on climate change approached. I believe that the governments of th ...
  
• Is China ready for cap-and-trade?
  Can countries without national curbs on greenhouse gases adopt emissions trading schemes? It’s a debate that splits China’s environmental entrepreneurs. Cao Haili reports. China’s policymakers are beginning to accept the use of market mechanisms to achieve goals on addressing climate change and redu ...
  
• 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 cont ...
  
• 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 cloud th ...
  

AlterNet Top Stories

• 8 Things We Love That Climate Change Will Force Us ...
  We face losing everything from 50,000 species a year to the world's best wines. How to put it all in perspective?
  
• And They'll Call This Health-Care Reform: How Thre ...
  Harry Reid will do anything to get sixty votes -- which means Lieberman, Nelson, and Snowe can use extortion on behalf of Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the AMA, and abortion foes.
  
• Always Controversial Cornel West Disses Obama, Sur ...
  Cornel West dishes on his new memoirs and Obama's clique of 'recycled neo-liberals and recycled neo-Clintonites.'
  
• Atheism Was one of the Year's Hottest Topics, and ...
  Have you been missing out on one of AlterNet's most popular authors? Here are 10 of Christina's best works from the year.
  
• Clinton Urges Passage of Health Care Bill... Maybe ...
  Any chance the Big Dog has any sway with Nelson?
  

Threat Level

• Google Talks Transparency, But Hides Surveillance ...
  Google likes to trumpet transparency and free expression, especially when it concerns the internet, part of its commitment to the corporate motto, “Don’t Be Evil.” But despite the company’s recent online public policy posts espousing unfettered online expression, we aren’t buying it. The Mountain Vi ...
  
• Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, La ...
  An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation ...
  
• Google Talks Out Both Sides of Its Web Portal
  Google, the “don’t-be-evil” company, likes to side with righteousness and with “free expression,” especially when it concerns the internet. But despite the company’s recent online ramblings espousing unfettered online expression, we aren’t buying it. The Mountain View, California-based search and ad ...
  
• Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, La ...
  An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation ...
  
• House Delays Patriot Act Spy Vote
  The House of Representatives tabled on Wednesday legislation to reform U.S. surveillance law. The two-month delay puts off a collision with a competing Senate version. The move automatically extends provisions of the Patriot Act that would otherwise expire at year’s end. The Senate is likewise expe ...
  

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• Midnight in the food-stamp economy
  SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - At 11 p.m. on the last day of the month, shoppers flock to the nearest Walmart. They load their carts with food and household items and wait for the midnight hour. That's when food stamp credits are loaded on their electronic benefits transfer cards.
  
• Happy Christmas honey - here's a divorce voucher
  LONDON (Reuters) - Stuck for Christmas gift ideas? Is your marriage or a friend's going through a rocky patch? How about a divorce voucher?
  
• No deal on CO2 cuts as climate talks enter final d ...
  COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama joined other world leaders in a last push for a new global climate deal on Friday, but with no agreement on the core issue of greenhouse gas emissions they faced an enormous task.
  
• UPDATE 2-Ryanair pulls out of talks for 200 Boeing ...
  * No plans to reopen talks with Boeing, other manufacturers
  
• UK Stocks -- Factors to watch on Dec 18
  LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening 3 to 6 points higher on Friday, steadying after the previous session's sharp falls, with energy stocks and miners likely to lend support as commodity prices rise.
  

Pine River World News

• USA Loses Its Face. Its White Face
  The following article is reprinted with permission from Pravda, Moscow. USA Loses Its Face. Its White Face ©   Pravda.ru By Sergey Balmasov December 18, 2009 The United States of America will lose its white face by the middle of the 21st century. The population of the USA will grow from 308 to 399 ...
  
• The vaccine against influenza A H1N1 contains toxi ...
  The following article is from Ennahar Online, Algiers. The vaccine against influenza A H1N1 contains toxic chemicals ©   Ennahar December 16, 2009 · Canadian laboratory GSK, manufacturer of the vaccine does not have marketing approval in Canada · The results of analysis of the vaccine have reporte ...
  
• Ramzy Baroud: The Lobby Within
  The following column is reprinted with permission from Ramzy Baroud. The Lobby Within ©  Ramzy Baroud December 15, 2009 A just and peaceful solution to the protracted Palestinian-Israeli conflict is only possible when the U.S. ceases to block every attempt made towards it. This assertion might r ...
  
• Pak editorial: A treachery going uncontested
  The following editorial is from The Frontier Post, Peshawar, Pakistan. A treachery going uncontested ©   The Frontier Post December 15, 2009 As he is flapping his wings to descend on Islamabad, U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus is chirping the song now on every powerful or influent ...
  
• U.S. House passes pro-Wall Street banking bill
  The following commentary is reprinted with permission from World Socialist Web Site. U.S. House passes pro-Wall Street banking bill ©   World Socialist Web Site By Barry Grey December 14, 2009 The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill, backed by the Obama administration, to revise ...
  

  PDA AMERICA

• Keep the agitation alive!
  It has been my good fortune over the years to work with a lot of wonderful grassroots groups to agitate for progressive policies. Let me tell you about one of the best: Progressive Democrats of ...
  
• Expanding the Debt for War and Wall Street
  Following a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement: “The Greatest Generation sacrificed during their lifetimes so future generations could have it better. ...
  
• The Courage of our Convictions
  By Sen. John Marty If 21st Century Progressives led the 19th Century Abolition Movement, we’d still have slavery, but we’d have limited it to 40 hour work ...
  
• America: It Is Time For A Reality Check!
  By Ed Dickau | PDA Blog Contributor All right boys and girls; it¹s time to come clean. I don¹t care if you disagree with me and send nasty comments; I¹m used to that, but I expect ...
  
• “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/
  

Marler Blog

• Tiger Woods, Golf and Food Poisoning
  Seems like everyone is dumping on Tiger - for good reason I might add.  I, however, am not a golfer and frankly do not care much about golfers.  So, trying to get into the act myself, I have been attempting to make Tiger relevant (somewhat) to what I do daily or is that Daly?  So, as I puttered arou ...
  
• A Conversation with Bill Marler: Taking on E. coli ...
  I had a great time chatting with Shari Danielson of the blog, Simple Good and Tasty, for what is going to be a two-part expose into the inner workings of the mind of trial lawyer/wannabe politician/food safety advocate/blogger – “A Conversation with Bill Marler: Taking on E. coli, Big Ag, Raw Milk, ...
  
• 2008 Raw Goat Milk E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak linked ...
  On May 12, 2008 the Lawrence County Health Department (LCHD) was notified of a case of HUS in a child with a history of bloody diarrhea. The health care provider reported that the child had consumed unpasteurized goat’s milk obtained from a local store, the Herb Depot, in Barry County, Missouri. The ...
  
• 2009 Top 10 Food Stories
  Well, it is that time of the year.  Here is one perspective: I suppose I need to do a recap of 2009 and a look forward into 2010.  I will focus on the food safety side of the equation.  Any ideas?
  
• Whole Foods and Town Farm Dairy Raw Milk E. coli O ...
  On July 16, 2008, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CDPH) was investigating two cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome HUS as part of its routine surveillance. Interviews conducted in these investigations revealed that both children had consumed raw milk in the week before the onset of thei ...
  

AutoblogGreen

• AutoblogGreen for 12.18.09
  Video: Watch the Volt battery go shake-shake-shake Rumble, rumble. Ford sends 10 Focus fuel cell vehicles to Iceland for continued testing These cars are getting a work out. ...
  
• Detroit 2010 Preview: Volvo C30 EV evolves for roa ...
  Filed under: Detroit Auto Show , Coupe , Volvo , Electric Volvo C30 BEV prototype - Click above for high-res image gallery Volvo has built versions of its C30 hatchback with efficient diesel engines , plug-in hybrid powerplants , flex-fuel ICEs , and pure electric drivetrains . It's the all-elec ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.17.09
  A little piece of history: Toyota's first hybrid [w/VIDEO] It's got a gas turbine, of all things. Audi to U.S. politicians: Diesels > hybrids and EVs We're not surprised. ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.16.09
  What does the Prius PHEV mileage really mean on the JC08 cycle? Here's why you won't get 76.7 mpg in one of these. From Hummer to the Volt, one engineer's tale How the Volt saved one man's jo ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.15.09
  It's worse than we thought: GM commissions Chevy Volt dance to go with song O.M.G. Toyota officially launches plug-in Prius program, retail sales in 2011 600 units coming in the next six mont ...
  

Rafe's Radar

• Dear newspapers: I will pay for your content, once
  Asking subscribers to pay for the same content twice will not work.
  
• Blippy launches the Twitter of personal finance
  There's more to this service that sharing spending data with friends, thank goodness.
  
• Reporters' Roundtable Podcast: Google Chrome OS
  What's behind the Google Chrome OS, technologically and from a business perspective? This week on the Roundtable, I discuss the pending operating system with CNET writers Stephen Shankland ( Deep Tech ) and Gordon Haff ( Pervasive Data Center ). Listen now: Download today's podcast Subs ...
  
• How to fix Facebook's baffling new privacy setting ...
  The social network's new privacy system is flexible and powerful, but the initial settings page appears written to hide that goodness. Here's how to fix it.
  
• Milo.com and Google Products search store shelves
  New tools for just-in-time shoppers find the things you need when you don't have time to wait for delivery.
  

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!

• Books, Not Bombs
  California campuses have been rocked by protests this past week, provoked by massive student fee increases voted on by the University of California Board of Regents. After a year of sequential budget cuts, faculty and staff dismissals and furloughs, and the elimination of entire academic department ...
  
• Mail Tribune of Southern Oregon news story on Amy ...
  The Mail Tribune newspaper of Southern Oregon published a story on Amy Goodman’s tour stop in Ashland, Oregon. Reporter Paris Achen wrote, "Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! , told a crowd of about 300 people at Ashland’s Southern Oregon University Sunday night that print and TV media have ...
  
• Hungering for a True Thanksgiving
  “In the next 60 seconds, 10 children will die of hunger,” says a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) online video. It continues, “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry.” The WFP launched the Billion for a Billion campaign this week, urging the 1 billion ...
  
• Lou Dobbs Resigns From CNN
  The controversial TV anchor has resigned from CNN amid a campaign to force him off the air due to his reporting on Latinos and immigrants. Past Democracy Now! Coverage of Lou Dobbs: Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez’s 2007 interview with Lou Dobbs Amy Goodman’s column ‘The Dubious Mr. Dobbs ...
  
• The Man Who Put the Rainbow in 'The Wizard of Oz'
  Thanksgiving is around the corner, and families will be gathering to share a meal and, perhaps, enjoy another annual telecast of “The Wizard of Oz.” The 70-year-old film classic bears close watching this year, perhaps more than in any other, for the message woven into the lyrics, written during the ...
  

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 holiday. ...
  
• 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 wave a ...
  
• 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 possible, it’ ...
  
• 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 offere ...
  

Digg Green

• Scientists watch deep-sea volcano for first time ( ...
  Scientists have witnessed the eruption of the deepest submarine volcano ever discovered, capturing for the first time video of fiery bubbles of molten lava as they exploded 4,000 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean in what researchers are calling a major geological discovery.
  
• Leaked UN Memo Proves Copenhagen Is "an Elaborate ...
  This leak proves the UN was never serious about getting carbon down to 350 parts per million. The cuts they offer will only get us to 550ppm.
  
• 260 Are Arrested Outside Copenhagen Climate Talks
  Police officers confronted demonstrators Wednesday outside the climate talks in Copenhagen. The police reported 260 arrests.
  
• Great White Shark Shows Who is King of the Ocean ( ...
  This majestic photo was taken during a Great White Shark expedition in South Australia, off Neptune Island. Click to enlarge... (Photo: Christopher Stratton)
  
• Copenhagen: Inside the circus
  In Copenhagen these days you can meet princes, presidents and Amazonian panther women. One moment you can listen to New York's Republican mayor extolling the virtues of wind farms and bike paths, the next with a Japanese girl dressed as polar bear, or be urged to save Australian's much-loved marsupi ...
  

Invisible Opportunity

• The Norway Spiral and the Ticks on the Run
  By Les Visible I don’t know when they are going to do this but it is going to change everything. The world changed dramatically after they pulled off 9/11. It will change even more dramatically after this. There are pressing reasons to attack Iran, sooner rather than later. Zippy (the Pinhead) Livni ...
  
• The Real Reason Behind The Copenhagen Walk-Out
  By Paul Joseph Watson Developing countries have walked out on the Copenhagen climate talks, but one of the primary reasons as to why nations like China and India have boycotted the summit is being hidden by the corporate media – namely the fact that the negotiations were doomed once poorer countries ...
  
• Torquemada in East Anglia
  By Mona Charen Though professional hysterics may seek to “hide the decline,” there has been a noticeable drop in the number of Americans who believe that global warming is a man-made phenomenon. Pause on that for a moment. Though Americans have been harangued about global warming for more than a dec ...
  
• Past Temperatures Debunk Global Warming Hysteria
  This is what the Global Warmists don’t want you to see, if people only knew the climate temperatures 12,000 years ago they would be glad to live on a planet that is livable and not in an Ice Age. If you look at the charts in this video it will show you how lucky we [...]
  
• An interview with Cliff High
  Listen to all 7 parts.
  

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 decision I’ve ma ...
  
• 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 Pakist ...
  
• 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 13- or ...
  
• 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

• Congress Gets Its Act Together: Repeals Ban on Syr ...
  Washington, D.C. finally seems to be getting the message that the war on drugs has failed.
  
• Former Police Chief Norm Stamper: 'Let's Not Stop ...
  A new poll shows that most Americans are ready to legalize marijuana, but not drugs like cocaine or heroin. A 34-year police vet says it's time to legalize them all.
  
• Medical Marijuana Apartheid: Different Rules Apply ...
  A California hipster can hit the vaporizer without fear of harassment, but a lower-class person smoking a blunt may not be so lucky.
  
• L.A. City Council Votes to Reduce Pot Dispensaries ...
  The vote to cap dispensaries is the latest in a twisted four-year effort to regulate the city's booming medical marijuana retail industry.
  
• DEA Forced to Scrub Misleading Info on the America ...
  Activists get the DEA to remove obsolete information from its website claiming that the American Medical Association (AMA) still opposes medical marijuana
  

Twilight Earth

• One Question for the World (Video)
  On the streets of Copenhagen, we asked 20 people from around the world one simple question and got very different answers... Related posts: Climate Protest in Copenhagen – Video Spains Exhibit in Copenhagen Invites Citizens to Record Messages About Climate Change Cop15 – On The Streets – Day One ...
  
• Will China Teach the Developed Countries a Well De ...
  Today’s post is Twexpert sourced, from some excellent and insightful Tweeps living in China. Related posts: Cop15 Climate Express Dispatch – You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet Twilight Earth Exclusive Cop15 Video – China Youth in Copenhagen Fair Trade Chocolate at Keeps a Diplomat Happy – Report fr ...
  
• Health Care Practices and Climate Change – Dr Bert ...
  The World Health Organisation’s environment expert, Dr Roberto Bertollini, has called for a revolution in health care practice in order to deal with climate change. Related posts: Spains Exhibit in Copenhagen Invites Citizens to Record Messages About Climate Change 2009 Global Climate Change Imp ...
  
• NGOs Banned from Cop15 Bella Center – Video Report ...
  Avaaz and Friends of the Earth were banned from the Copenhagen Climate Talks Bella Center on Wednesday. Related posts: Twilight Earth Exclusive Cop15 Video – China Youth in Copenhagen Twilight Earth Exclusive: The Bigger Picture – Documenting Cop15 Algae to Oil – Cop15 Interview with Solazyme CTO ...
  
• Spains Exhibit in Copenhagen Invites Citizens to R ...
  The Re-Acciona exhibit in Copenhagen invites citizens to record their message about climate change, and then projects that message for the world to see. Related posts: Climate Protest in Copenhagen – Video Social Media + Copenhagen = Hopenhagen Photo Sunday Special Edition – The Week in Copenhage ...
  

Inhabitat

• Arctic Mobile Unit Keeps North Pole Visitors Warm
  Living in a land filled with perpetual snow, we can only imagine that Santa Claus has some special magic to keep him and all his elves warm all year. For the rest of us, a stay in the North Pole requires proper equipment — like this arctic mobile unit designed by 2-B-2 Architecture’s Andrey Bondaren ...
  
• INTERVIEW: Ian Garrett Reports on COP15 and the Ar ...
  To get the word on the cultural scene at COP15, Inhabitat asked some juicy questions of Ian Garrett, co-founder of the Center for Sustainable Practice of the Art (CSPA). Garrett also teaches Sustainable Theater and Management Technology courses at the California Institute of the Arts, which makes hi ...
  
• GE Gives Santa a High-Tech Green Sleigh
  Santa’s sleigh has used the same old design for too long. After all, we have so many new green innovations that could streamline its flight and make Santa and the reindeer more comfortable. Enter Santa’s high-tech sleigh of the future, designed by GE.Some of the highlights of Santa’s GE-designed sle ...
  
• GREEN GIFT GUIDE: Cozy Green Knit Gifts for Everyo ...
  If you’re still wondering what to get for the last few hard-to-shop-for peeps on your holiday list, you can’t go wrong with the gift of warmth! If you need some motivation, our selection of cozy green knit gifts offers tons of inspiration. From snuggly sweaters to toasty neck warmers to luxurious re ...
  
• GREEN GIFT GUIDE: 16 Eco-Friendly Gifts She’ll Lov ...
  There are only a few more days left to get the awesome green gift that your girlfriend, mom, daughter, aunt, granny or best friend has been dreaming of! We’ve got you covered with an eco-fabulous array of green gift ideas that’ll make her day. From shimmery recycled jewelry to add sparkle to her hol ...
  

Pogue's Posts

• Should e-Books Be Copy Protected?
  The issues involved with copy protection haven't changed. They're the same on e-books as they are with everything else.
  
• 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.
  

Open Your Eyes News

• Russia may Ban US Pork due to High Antibiotic Cont ...
  Meat International – To date, the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control Service (Rosselkhoznadzor) has already banned supplies from 15 US enterprises; however these restrictions might be extended to include all US companies. According to head of Rosselkhoznadzor, Sergei D ...
  
• Republican says don’t bet on Guantanamo transfers
  Reuters – Congress will probably be able to stop the Obama administration from bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. soil, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives said on Thursday.Representative John Boehner said at least at least two pieces of legislation would have to go through ...
  
• That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy
  NY Times – The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal. Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within ...
  
• Pacific swimmer to highlight oceanic plastic pollu ...
  Sydney Morning Herald – AS IF swimming 9000 kilometres from Japan to the US is not enough of a challenge, Richard Pain is also planning to plough through the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating mass of plastic junk almost the size of the Northern Territory. “I realise it’s complete ...
  
• US officials Review Progress since Swine flu was F ...
  NY Times — “And, of course,” added Kathleen Sebelius, after summing up the accomplishments of eight months of battling swine flu, “we’ve taught everyone how to sneeze.” With that, Ms. Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, bent her elbow across her face and sent a delicate imitation of ...
  

Monkey Smashes Heaven

• Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Africans denounce US and ...
  Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Africans denounce US and other First World countries at Copenhagen (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) World leaders are meeting at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen to discuss the problem of climate change. The conference has caused widespread demonstrations in th ...
  
• West puts more pressure on Iran and allies as Amer ...
  West puts more pressure on Iran and allies as Amerikans, First Worldist “left,” and lackeys cheer (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Recently, the US and its allies are turing up the pressure on Iran. Imperialists, Zionists, Iranian comprador forces, First Worldist and social-imperialist “leftists ...
  
• PAO: Self-Defense, it makes sense
  from Politics Are Over Posted in ..Politics Are Over, Black Nation, Communism, Maoism, Maoism Third Worldism, Maoisme, Maoismo, North America, Occupied Mexico aka Aztlán
  
• 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 gene un ...
  
• 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 ...
  

PakAlert

• Anti-Semitism Up, Islamophobia Down – New Academic ...
  One-quarter of Europeans believe that “Jews have too much influence” 31% agree that “Jews in general do not care about anything or anyone but their own kind.” 45.7% of the Europeans somewhat or strongly agree that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.” About 37.4% ag ...
  
• Tiger Woods – A Lesson for all Men
  by Henry Makow Ph.D. (This revises my March 2008 article on Eliot Spitzer, to apply to Tiger Woods.) Tiger Wood’s downfall contains an almost Biblical  lesson for all men: Don’t be controlled by your dick. It will ruin your life. Tiger Woods had everything: a beautiful wife and family, athletic ac ...
  
• “A-Ok” Hand sign: Sign of the Occult Music Industr ...
  By Vigilant The “a-ok” hand sign commonly signifies approbation or appreciation. Like many other signs, it has a deeper, darker meaning in occult circles. Widely unnoticed, the hand sign is flashed  by many major artists of the music industry. What does it really signify? We’ll look at the occult m ...
  
• Did 2009 mark the beginning of the end of Israel?
  Canadian Arab News One particular event cast a sickening pall over the entire year, and in doing so reminded us that our world became ever more violent and perverse in 2009. Although this event itself ended in January, its fallout continued and will be felt for years to come. I am referring, of cou ...
  
• Be Prepared For The Worst: Breaking Point 2010 – T ...
  By Gerald Celente 12-16-9 KINGSTON, NY – The first decade of the 21st century is going out the way it came in with a bust and a bang. The Great Recession is not over. There is no recovery. It’s a cover up. Expect another wave of terrorism. Possibly of 9/11 magnitude. As well as challenges, also ex ...
  

ecogeek

• NASA Unveils Amazing GHG Models
  NASA's Aqua spacecraft has been taking daily CO2 measurements with its Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument (AIRS) for the past seven years and now all that information gathering has led to beautiful and frightening maps and models of the concentration and movement of greenhouse gases in ou ...
  
• OK Residents Can Buy an Electric Car for Less than ...
  If you live in Oklahoma, you have until December 31, 2009 to buy an electric car for about $900.  Through a combination of federal and state tax credits, the Kandi Coco drops from its retail price of $10,600 to a cool $865.  The federal tax credit amounts to $4,435 while the state is offering a 50 ...
  
• EcoGeek Q&A: Graciela Chichilnisky
  Graciela Chichilnisky was extensively involved in the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, designing the global carbon market that became international law in 2005.  She has been a lead author of the IPCC and is a professor of economics and mathematical statistics at Columbia University. She's written a ...
  
• 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 fr ...
  

Times Online - Science

• Travel advice: what to do if your flight is disrup ...
  What if my flight is cancelled?
  
• Hundreds of flights cancelled across the south-eas ...
  Airlines are warning of flight delays and cancellations at airports across the south-east today due to heavy snowfall overnight.
  
• Live updates: travel chaos as snow blankets Britai ...
  10.30am The A47 at B1108 Watton Road, westbound is blocked with traffic queues because of a jack-knifed lorry in Norwich.
  
• Eurostar services 'to operate normally' this weeke ...
  Eurostar says its cross-Channel services will operate normally today (Friday 18 December) and tomorrow, despite industrial action by drivers.
  
• Commuters face delays and fare rises over Tube fun ...
  London Underground passengers face further delays after the future of crucial upgrades was plunged into doubt yesterday following the emergence of a £1.35 billion funding crisis.
  

Environment _ National Geographic

• Amazon's Ability to Curb Global Warming Fading Alo ...
  The Amazons flying rivers"—humid air currents that deliver water to the vast rainforest—may be ebbing, and in turn drying out the region's trees and ability to curb globalwarming, according to experts.
  
• Elusive Tree Kangaroos Fitted With Video Cameras
  These hard-to-reach "plush toys" on Papua New Guineau have been outfitted with "Crittercams" for the first time. The breathtaking treetop footage is already solving tree kangaroo mysteries, researchers say. Video.
  
• Under Yellowstone, Magma Pocket 20% Larger Than Th ...
  The massive column of molten rock that feeds the park's volcano dives deeper and fills a magma chamber bigger than previous estimates, according to the most detailed model yet of the region's plumbing.
  
• PHOTOS: Ten Environmental Losses of 2009
  The environmentand the environmental movementsuffered significant setbacks in 2009, experts say. Among the lowlights: Lemurs became food, a lot of ice became water, and in the Caribbean some sharks became nonexistent.
  
• PICTURES: Ten Climate Change "Icons" Announced
  What do quiver trees, clownfish, and koalas have in common? They're among ten "flagship" species likely to suffer huge loses due to a diverse array of global warming impacts, according to a new report.
  

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 —which ...
  
• 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

• Pennsylvania Police Officers Indicted in Cover-Up ...
  Indictments were unsealed today against three police officers in Shenandoah, Pa., including the chief, on obstruction of justice and other charges in connection with the beating death of an undocumented Mexican immigrant there in July 2008. A fourth officer was indicted on unrelated corruption charg ...
  
• ALIPAC Dumps Dobbs
  Lou Dobbs and Americans for Legal Immigration – ALIPAC – are divorcing, and the parting isn’t amicable. ALIPAC President William Gheen has notified supporters that his organization has withdrawn its support of Dobbs and suspended two websites promoting the former CNN showman for president. In a leng ...
  
• String of Racially-Motivated Attacks Hits Denver, ...
  All but one of 35 suspects has been arrested by Denver police in connection with a string of racially motivated beatings and robberies in the Mile-High City. Those arrested are all black males, including some juveniles. Their alleged victims were white or Latino males. Most of the suspects told pol ...
  
• ‘Tea Parties Against Amnesty’ Planned in 50 Cities ...
  In 1773, American colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation under British rule. If they were around today, the colonists might be surprised by the array of perceived ills around which their modern-day counterparts have been rallying at symbolic “tea parties” ...
  
• Child Rapist and Anti-Catholic Cult Boss Gets 175 ...
  Cult evangelist Tony Alamo was ordered today to spend his remaining years in a place that nobody will confuse with heaven. A federal judge in Texarkana, Ark., sentenced him to 175 years in prison for transporting young girls he called his “brides” across state lines for sex. Before being sentenced, ...
  

Rio Times

• An Early Holiday Party with AmSoc
  By Marília Sarkis, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - Santa Claus, Christmas tree, bells, balls, Christmas Carols, and a bit of that Holiday cheer, ’tis the season. At The American Society’s Holiday party, you could find almost all the charm and spirit of this special time of year, the most n ...
  
• Beauty is Bonito
  By Davi Baldussi, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - There’s a place located in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, close to Paraguay, named Bonito (beautiful) that is know for the unbelievably blue colors of its water. Almost 900 miles from Rio, this small city of 17,000 residents is surrounded by ...
  
• Brazilian Growth Overestimated
  By Jaylan Boyle, Senior Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - After months of bullish forecasts from analysts in Brazil and around the world, the economic recovery has proven to have progressed at a significantly slower rate than has been anticipated over the last financial quarter. This is expected to leave th ...
  
• International School of Macaé
  By Doug Gray, Senior Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - Macaé, some 180km north up the coast from Rio de Janeiro, is Brazil’s fastest growing city, largely as a result of the region’s oil discoveries. Naturally, with the advancing petroleum industry has appeared a large expat community in Macaé.  At its hea ...
  
• The Musical Streets of Salvador
  By Joshua Rapp Learn, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO - “Taxi?” The man stood nearly two meters tall in a plaid shirt, knee high cowboy boots and bleached blond hair tied back into a ponytail. We were exasperated with an entire line of taxi drivers goading us from the windows of their cars out ...
  

Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

• Obama Has Said Nothing to Save the Copenhagen Conf ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2009 ActionAid ActionAid's climate change expert in Asia, Raman Mehta. "Obama has said nothing to save the Copenhagen conference from failure," said Raman Mehta, ActionAid's climate change expert in Asia. "The US is the one major player yet to move. Developin ...
  
• House Introduces Crucial Prison Litigation Reform ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2009 ACLU Congressman Robert Scott (D-VA) introduced landmark legislation today that is aimed at reforming how prisoners can bring lawsuits defending their rights. Congressman Scott's bill would reform the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) which was originally pa ...
  
• Take Back Control of Your Food System
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2009 Food First There are two million farmers and 300 million eaters in the United States. Standing between them are a handful of corporations who control how food gets from one side to the other. Let’s change the equation. read more
  
• Iran: Stop Execution of Alleged Juvenile Offender, ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2009 Amnesty International The Iranian authorities must halt the imminent execution of alleged juvenile offender, Amnesty International said today. According to unconfirmed reports, Mosleh Zamani is due to be executed tomorrow morning in Dizel Abad Prison, in Kerm ...
  
• Suit Filed to Stop Hawaii Longline Fishery From Tr ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2009 Conservation Groups Today conservation groups Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity, and KAHEA, all represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Honolulu challenging the National Marine Fisheries Se ...
  

Common Dreams-Views

• The Underlying Divisions in the Health Care Debate
  by Glenn Greenwald Ed Kilgore has a very perceptive analysis in The New Republic about the underlying (and largely unexamined) ideological and strategic differences among progressives that are at least partially driving the rift over the health care bill.  He argues -- correctly -- that the current ...
  
• Judge Orders Release From Guantánamo of Unwilling ...
  by Andy Worthington On Monday, as I explained in a previous article , Judge Thomas Hogan refused the habeas corpus petition of Musa’ab al-Madhwani, a Yemeni who had been tortured in the CIA’s “Dark Prison” near Kabul, and who was described by the judge as a “model prisoner” who was not dangerous. re ...
  
• A Lesson on Nonviolence for the President
  by Eric Stoner In Oslo last week, President Barack Obama ironically used his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize to deliver a lengthy defense of the "just war" theory and dismiss the idea that nonviolence is capable of addressing the world's most pressing problems. After quoting Martin Luthe ...
  
• The Courage to Say No
  by Naomi Klein Copenhagen On the ninth day of the Copenhagen climate summit, Africa was sacrificed. The position of the G-77 negotiating bloc, including African states, had been clear: a 2 degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures translates into a 3-3.5 degree increase in Africa. read ...
  
• It's the Protesters Who Offer the Best Hope for Ou ...
  by Johann Hari At first glance, the Copenhagen climate summit seems like a Salvador Dali dreamscape. I just saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu being followed by a swarm of Japanese students who were dressed as aliens and carrying signs saying "Take Me To Your Leader" and "Is Your Species Crazy?". Before th ...
  

Karl Burkart

• Copenhagen Day 10: NGO fury
  NGO's furious over new draft agreement and a radical reduction of badges at the Bella Center.
  
• Al Gore's call to action
  Video from Al Gore's speech yesterday at the Copenhagen climate talks.
  
• Copenhagen Day 9: official draft released, drama e ...
  Ethiopia shocks African nations by supporting the new draft agreement at Copenhagen. Drama sure to ensure tomorrow.
  
• Betting on Copenhagen
  A 'prediction market' is betting on the outcome of Copenhagen. Here are 4 experts making their own predictions for COP15.
  
• Copenhagen Day 8: G77 walks out, Canada Punk'd
  Canada does an about-face on its climate target (if only) and the G77 suspends talks.
  

Water Privatization

• Bottled water sales dry up, industry asks ‘why?’ ( ...
  For the first time in decades, the $11.1 billion bottled water industry is stuttering. Experts say one culprit in the decline is an environmental backlash taking hold across the U.S.
  
• City To Provide Some Public Works In-House (Tyler ...
  After contracting with a private company to provide public works services for more than 10 years, Gladewater city officials are moving to implement a different approach to public works.
  
• Apple Valley, Rosemount levies mean lower taxes fo ...
  Roughly 92 percent of Apple Valley homeowners will see their city property taxes go down in 2010, but one council member said more could be done to reduce collections.
  
• U.S. doctor accused of fraud held in Italy (USA To ...
  An American doctor on the run for five years was arrested while camping on a snowy mountain in northern Italy, police said Thursday.
  
• Conroy is the Kevin Andrews of the Labor Party (Cr ...
  Conroy's filter, banana bender politics and Dick Adam's haircut -- these are the subjects that have Crikey readers talking today.
  

Guardian

• Copenhagen text reveals deal still out of reach
  Three-page draft text obtained by the Guardian suggests the level of agreement reached so far at Copenhagen is extremely weak See the Copenhagen draft text obtained by the Guardian here Read John Vidal's analysis of the Copenhagen draft text here A draft text, obtained by the Guardian, reveals the ...
  
• UK public borrowing hits new high
  Government borrowing swelled to £20.3bn last month, taking Britain's net debt to 60.2% of GDP, official figures show Britain's budget deficit ballooned to a record £20bn for the month of November alone, taking the country's net debt to 60.2% of GDP, the highest figure in the post-war period. Last we ...
  
• Infamous sign stolen from Auschwitz
  Sign that spanned entrance to former Nazi death camp in Poland removed overnight The iron sign bearing the Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" that spanned the main entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp was stolen before dawn today, Polish police said. The sign with the German words for "Work Sets ...
  
• 'Mad cow disease' fears rise
  Unusual case of 30-year-old man prompts scientists to reassess prevalence of vCJD More people may be incubating variant CJD, the human version of so-called "mad cow disease", than was previously thought, according to scientists who today report an unusual case of the disease. All those tested worldw ...
  
• Iranian hackers 'hijack' Twitter
  Popular online messaging service Twitter was left reeling overnight, after Iranian hackers appeared to break into the site and deface it. The strike left the site completely unavailable for several hours in the early hours of Friday morning, with the site's estimated 30m users unable to access the s ...
  

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 ...
  
• Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publi ...
  Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publications. services classified ads. small business ads classified ads." /> linklink
  
• Best Green Articles from Leading Authors and Publi ...
  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

• EI reader appeal: Your support makes our work on P ...
  What was the most inspiring, informative, motivating article you read on The Electronic Intifada in 2009? Take a look at some of our highlights. Thousands of people read EI every day in almost every c ...
  
• Australian activists give Olmert an unwelcome rece ...
  Given Ehud Olmert's role as Prime Minister during the attacks on Gaza, he is seen by many as guilty of war crimes; it is perhaps no surprise that the Australian media seemed keen to bury the fact tha ...
  
• Israeli feminists decry militarization of Israeli ...
  New Profile, the feminist movement to civilize Israeli society, wrote Minister of Education Gideon Saar strongly condemning his recent instructions to prohibit its members' participation in hig ...
  
• Steel walls cannot contain the struggle for freedo ...
  As if the siege of Gaza were not already bad enough, Israel and Egypt are working even harder to tighten the prison which holds Gaza's 1.5 million people. Egypt is building a steel wall along its 10-k ...
  
• US trade unionists: boycott, divest from apartheid ...
  In the following open letter from Labor for Palestine to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, trade unions call for the immediate and complete divestment from State of Israel Bonds, the support of ...
  

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

• Text Of President Obama’s Address To Copenha ...
  The Wonk Room is blogging and tweeting live from Copenhagen. President Barack Obama has addressed the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. “While the reality of climate change is not in doubt,” he cautioned, “our ability to take collective action hangs in the balance.” O ...
  
• Bernanke Acknowledges He Could Do More To Boost Em ...
  Yesterday, I wrote that if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke really wants to earn Person of the Year honors, he needs to do more to fight unemployment. Contrary to Alan Greenspan’s assertions, the Fed does have some more unemployment fighting tools in its arsenal (and a legal mandate to maximize ...
  
• The Case For The Individual Mandate
  Since the disintegration of the public option/Medicare buy-in compromise, some progressives have joined ranks with conservative critics to argue against requiring Americans to purchase health insurance coverage. The turn-around is as extraordinary as it is reactionary. In their anger at Joe Lieberma ...
  
• How Serious Are Conservatives About Iran Sanctions ...
  At the Weekly Standard, Jamie Fly, policy director at the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative, looks at the Obama administration’s attempts to put the brakes on the Senate version of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), and asks “How serious is the administration about Iran sancti ...
  
• Shelby: Safety And Soundness Of Banks ‘Shoul ...
  Today, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) and ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL) said that, while they still have “a number of issues to resolve,” negotiations regarding financial regulatory reform are “going great.” “My hope is when we get back in January, that we’ll — depending ...
  

thwap's schoolyard

• A Coalition Could Get Us a Public Inquiry on Tortu ...
  There are countries that pretty blatantly torture people and there are countries that at least make the effort to say that they do not torture people. And then, of course, there are countries that don't torture people period. Canada, thanks to the harpercons, is now in the first of those categories. ...
  
• Eric Margolis on Afghanistan's Torturers
  Eric Margolis isn't my cup of tea. There's a reason why he's carried by fecal-brained Toronto Sun. He was a strident anti-communist and was quick to condemn the Soviet Union or People's Republic of China for their violations of human rights, but also seemed to give the United States the benefit of t ...
  
• Cheryl Gallant: A Profile in Wingnuttery
  Check out this bit of crunchy badnesss: That smiling Stepford Wife is Cheryl Gallant of the "Convicted of Complicity in Torture and Going to Prison Party of Canada." Ms. Gallant is obviously trying to be Canada's version of the USA's own female wingnut member of a dying "conservative" movement (t ...
  
• Seeing Malalai Joya
  I went into Toronto a few nights ago for Malalai Joya's stop on her book tour for A Woman Among the Warlords . Because of the crowd I had to sit in the upper-level of the beautiful Trinity-St. Paul's Anglican Church. Unfortunately, the acoustics upstairs aren't as good as they are downstairs appar ...
  
• The harpercon Response to the Torture Scandal Thus ...
  harpercon Government: "There's nothing in Richard Colvin's memos that indicates anything wrong. The fact that Colvin says otherwise shows he doesn't remember what he, himself wrote." Committee on Afghanistan: "Can we see the memos?" harpercon Government: "No." Three generals, including the imbe ...
  

Financial Sense Editorials

• Market Observation: Clear the Mechanism
  by Chris Puplava. "There was a scene in the movie, "For Love Of The Game," where Billy Chapel (played by Kevin Costner) plays his last game as a professional baseball pitcher. As he steps to the mound he is bombarded by his environment (the fans, the players, the field, the smells, the lights, etc.) ...
  
• What Does Global Warming Have to Do with Energy St ...
  by Dr. Marc Bustin. "Over the last couple of years, consideration of the effect of climate change has become increasingly important in analyzing a company or market trend — particularly in the energy sector."
  
• Political Decision-making Process Guarantees Much ...
  by Lorimer Wilson. "Why is it that precious metals analysts are frequently so resistant to recognizing or accepting reality? Many technical chartists seem welded to the lines and shapes in front of them. How useful is a gold chart using data which spans a period of less than forty years"
  
• As Good As Gold
  by John Browne. "As the price of gold has pulled back from its recent run up to $1,200, many investors are left to ponder what exactly drives the movement of such an important and financially sensitive commodity."
  
• Has Your Confidence Been Damaged By Your Indicator ...
  by Hawkeye Traders. "Several times during the last week, I have spoken with traders that were ready to give up on trading. These were traders who had trading plans, stuck to the rules, and, yet, felt they were on a roller coaster of highs and lows. "
  

on Government Oversight

• SEC Slow to Implement IG Recommendations Despite A ...
  POGO has discovered that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has failed to implement over 200 — or roughly 60 percent — of the Office of Inspector General's (OIG) audit and investigative recommendations over the last two years. This finding...
  
• New Podcast Posted: Urging the Pentagon to Reduce ...
  Late last week, POGO's Mandy Smithberger and Keith Rutter sat down to discuss our latest efforts to reduce conflicts of interest in Pentagon programs. The discussion clocks in at a cool 5:13 and you may listen here. -- Bryan Rahija
  
• Morning Smoke: IG Finds Kickbacks, Sweetheart Deal ...
  VA plagued by contracts-related crimes, IG official says [Federal Times] SEC Just Now Seeking Key Information On Meltdown [ProPublica] House passes Defense spending bill, riders [Government Executive] House Passes Bill to Improve Grants.gov [The Fine Print] Senate Defense Authorizers Remain...
  
• GAO: Pentagon Ignored Warnings About the F-22 and ...
  Today the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a status report on their recommendations to the Department of Defense (DoD) from FY2001-2008. The report is a pure numbers game and doesn't note any trends for which recommendations DoD accepts, but looking...
  
• Morning Smoke: Senator Places Hold on Nominations ...
  Fight over tanker pact puts two nominations in limbo [Government Executive] Ben Bernanke named Time Person of the Year [Politico] How many contractors does DHS actually have? [FedLine] DOD: Obama's Afghan Surge Will Rely Heavily On Private Contractors [TPMMuckraker] U.S....
  

  Digital Journal

• VANOC Says New Lululemon Clothing Unfairly Profits ...
  VANOC, the organisation responsible for running the 2010 Winter Olympics, is criticising the yoga apparel manufacturer Lululemon for releasing a clothing line this week that VANOC says unfairly profits from the 2010 games.
  
• UFC Octagon is bringing the stage to Vancouver
  Canadian MMA fans will be excited that the UFC will be coming to Vancouver in June 2010. After city officials debated over issues of violence, safety and civic liability, the fastest growing spectator sport will showcase in Canada again.
  
• Pentagon sets war games for potential long-range I ...
  The United States military establishment will begin preparations for the threat of long-range missiles from Iran, a move that may confirm the future existence of a nuclear-armed Iran.
  
• Holy literature, university given $100,000 comic b ...
  Holy literature Batman, the University of Western Ontario is now Bat 'U'. They've acquired most of the Eddy Smet comic book collection!
  
• Brodeur reaches another milestone, shutout record ...
  New Jersey -- Devil's goaltender, Martin Brodeur, ties legendary Montreal Canadiens gatekeeper Patrick Roy for regular season games played at 1,029. Brodeur is also tied for all-time shutouts at 103.
  

End Homelessness | Change.org

• Lady Gaga Urges You to Support Youth Homelessness
  Lady Gaga has teamed up with Virgin Mobile to combat youth homelessness. For the past several years, Virgin Mobile has been a champion for this issue, creating several innovative promotions to encourage young people to help the homeless. This past summer, they distributed free concert tickets to tho ...
  
• Vancouver Olympic Homeless Displacements Spark Inn ...
  In just a few short weeks, the Olympics will descend upon Vancouver, British Columbia. The city has come under a lot of scrutiny for its struggles to address both its homelessness problem and its shortage of housing in preparation for the games. But amid all of the negative news about Vancouver's ha ...
  
• A Homeless Veteran Fights a Different Battle
  Leon is a Vietnam veteran who has been homeless for six years. After serving "the greatest country in the world," he is lost somewhere in the pile of Veteran's Administration disability claims. While he waits for assistance from the VA, he is not receiving veterans benefits or assistance. He is on h ...
  
• "Welcome to Obama-ville" Sign at Colorado Tent Cit ...
  Last week, a mysterious sign appeared outside a Colorado tent city. It read, "Welcome to Obama-ville: Colorado's Fastest Growing Community." This simple sign prompted investigative news reports and a flurry of response from Colorado residents, wondering who created and paid for the sign. Funny how a ...
  
• ‘Tis the Season to Get Dirty and Help Fight Homele ...
  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 ...
  

Ceasefire.ca

• Torture file: Colvin shoots back; government ducks
  The Canadian diplomat whose mid-November testimony to the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan ignited a firestorm of controversy over Canadian transfers of Afghan detainees to probable torture by the Afghan authorities has fired back at his critics. In a 16-page letter sent to t ...
  
• ICNND urges nuclear disarmament progress
  The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament released its report “Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers” today. Declaring that “maintaining the status quo is not an option,” the commissioners argue that the opportunity exists “to hal ...
  
• 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, pi ...
  

Kevin Trudeau Show

• Global Government To Be Imposed
  December 16, 2009 Prison Planet By Paul Joseph Watson United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has again publicly admitted that the agenda behind the Copenhagen summit and the climate change fraud is the imposition of a global government and the end of national sovereignty. Speaking about the ag ...
  
• Forced Vaccinations in U.S.
  December 17, 2009 National Health Federation By Dr. Russel Blaylock Those who are observant have noticed a dangerous trend in the United States, as well as worldwide, and that is the resorting of various governments at different levels to mandating forced vaccination upon the public at large. My Sta ...
  
• Genetically Modified Corn Harmful to Our Bodies
  December 17, 2009 International Journal of Biological Sciences By Joël Spiroux de Vendômois, François Roullier, Dominique Cellier, Gilles-Eric Séralini We present for the first time a comparative analysis of blood and organ system data from trials with rats fed three main commercialized genetically ...
  
• Children Becoming Pshychiatric Gold Mine
  December 17, 2009 TruthOut By Evelyn Pringle Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another study in the same issue of Health Affa ...
  
• Toxic Mercury Released Into the Air by Cement Fact ...
  December 17, 2009 Natural News By David Gutierrez The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is targeting cement plants in California as a major source of mercury and other toxic emissions. The agency has issued new proposed regulations for Portland cement kilns that it says would reduce the cement i ...
  

Pambazuka News

• 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...
  
• Haiti: Lula visit prompts protests in Brazil, Mex ...
  Demonstrators in many Brazilian cities and San Francisco denounced Brazil's brutal 4-year military occupation of Haiti -- on the occasion of the May 28th visit to Haiti by Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, marking the 4th anniversary of the arr...
  

War in Context

• Pakistan angered by American arrogance
  Pakistan angered by American arrogance By Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, December 17, 2009 Parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are mounting what American officials here describe as a campaign to harass American diplomats, fraying relations at a critical moment wh ...
  
• Afghans fleeing Taliban are flooding Tajikistan
  Afghans fleeing Taliban are flooding Tajikistan By Isabel Gorst, Washington Post, December 17, 2009 The night his 11-year-old son escaped from kidnappers, Abdul Aziz bundled a few belongings into a car and drove his family 18 miles north across the Afghan border into Tajikistan. “It is too frighteni ...
  
• Israeli women’s group tells Livni to turn herself ...
  Israeli women’s group tells Livni to turn herself in Ma’an, December 16, 2009 The Women’s Coalition for Peace sent a letter on Wednesday to Israel’s former Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, calling on her to cooperate with international investigations into her role in the assault on Gaza last winter, ...
  
• Insurgents in Iraq hack U.S. drones
  Insurgents in Iraq hack U.S. drones By Siobhan Gorman, Yochi J Dreazen and August Cole, Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2009 Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evad ...
  
• U.S. imprisoned Iranian engineer secretly for two ...
  U.S. imprisoned Iranian engineer secretly for two years before sentencing By Justin Elliot, TPM, December 15, 2009 In a case drawing criticism from outside lawyers, an Iranian engineer sentenced to prison Monday for violating arms control laws was lured to the nation of Georgia by American authoriti ...
  

Watts Up With That?

• Analysis of Met Office data back to mid 1800&#8217 ...
  John Graham-Cumming has posted an interesting analysis, he could benefit from some reader input at his blog. See here and below: http://www.jgc.org/blog/ Adjusting for coverage bias and smoothing the Met Office data As I’ve worked through Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed tempera ...
  
• Obama takes on skeptics in speech, tries to rally ...
  President Barack Obama spoke on the last day of climate talks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The President called on all major economies to put forward decisive national actions that will reduce their emissions and turn the corner on climate change. Excerpt ...
  
• Obama trying to save Copenhagen Summit – wha ...
  And here’s the stagecraft coming. Here’s how the rest of it might go down. By William M. Briggs Source: courtesy of Pajamas Media First, some good news. A lefty organization sent me an indignant press release stating that the Danish police have “aggressed on protesters outside the Bella Center.â ...
  
• BREAKING NEWS: Sydney Morning Herald reports 11th ...
  Just in time for Obama to announce it, and it only cost the USA 100 billion dollars. Thanks Hillary. Climate draft deal agreed December 18, 2009 – 1:30PM Leaders and ministers from 28 countries including Australia have outlined a draft accord to fight global warming. The details of the draft are ...
  
• Lord Monckton barred from Copenhagen conference &# ...
  This was the scene yesterday in Copenhagen. As you can see the scene is rather agitated with lots of police action, including use of billy clubs. As of this writing, no pictures or video is available of Lord Monckton’s account below. Hopefully somebody in the crowd will post some. I wish him well. I ...
  

Dandelion Salad

• Eva Golinger: US Government led by Obama Is Prepar ...
  Dandelion Salad By Mike Whitney December 18, 2009 “Information Clearing House‘ 1 Mike Whitney—-The US media is very critical of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He’s frequently denounced as “anti-American”, a “leftist strongman”, and a dictator. Can you briefly summarize some of the positive soci ...
  
• Dennis Kucinich: Expanding the Debt for War and Wa ...
  Digg it Dandelion Salad Dennis Kucinich “Today Congress Will Give The Pentagon ANOTHER 550 BILLION DOLLARS! MoxNewsDotCom December 16, 2009 more about “Dennis Kucinich “Today Congress Will …“, posted with vodpod *** Expanding the Debt for War and Wall Street by Congressman Dennis Kucinich Washing ...
  
• GSP+ Latest Statement by EU + Radio Netherlands W ...
  by Suren Surendiran Featured Writer Dandelion Salad http://www.tamilsforum.com 16 December 2009 Radio Netherlands Worldwide ran a headline story regarding the allegations of war crimes reignited by General Sarath Fonseka’s interview to a Sri Lankan broadsheet news paper at the weekend. RNW inter ...
  
• Exclusive: Christmas and the Gospel according to J ...
  photo by Dandelion Salad by Rocket Kirchner Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Rocket Kirchner (blog) Rocket Kirchner (youtube channel) December 15, 2009 If there ever was a time of the year when the concept of giving to the least fortunate should be celebrated and practiced, it is Christmas. Ji ...
  
• Kucinich Announces Credit Cards That Don’t Cost Yo ...
  Dandelion Salad by Congressman Dennis Kucinich Washington, Dec 17, 2009 Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) released the following statement: “This holiday shopping season, consumers have the choice of using credit cards that don’t take away their legal rights. Until now, all major banks have requ ...
  

Your New Reality

• No title
  "We Were Food For The Gun" You probably know British metallers Motorhead for rampaging songs like Ace Of Spades. But here's a surprisingly beautiful and deeply moving ballad written by Lemmy about the teenage soldiers of World War I : The footage used in this clip is from Peter Weir's Gallipoli. ...
  
• No title
  The Bomb Will Only Activate When You Swat That Funny Looking Insect Let's not be ignorant here. These robot insects will be used for saving lives and for surveillance, but they will also eventually be fitted with weapons and used to kill :
  
• No title
  Eight years ago :
  
• No title
  Online Protests Begin To Rage Against RuddNet Censorship By Darryl Mason The Australian federal government has released its report into internet filtering and (you may be shocked to read this) has reached the conclusion that it's a fine and practical idea. Welcome to the RuddNet : The Federal Gov ...
  
• No title
  Execution Of 'Morality Criminals' Now Up For Debate At The BBC But Why? By Darryl Mason Call me paranoid, but this most curious online commentbait by the BBC would be a great way for data-mining police and intelligence agencies, 'hacking' BBC online, to get hold of the ISPs of those who do thi ...
  

Wired - Science

• Why Geologists Love Beer
  SAN FRANCISCO — Fact: Geologists love beer. There is abundant proof of this here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, the largest collection of earth scientists in the world. The talks, workshops and poster sessions go from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but at 3:30 p.m. every day, for five days ...
  
• Photo: Shining Lake Confirms Presence of Liquid on ...
  SAN FRANCISCO — A glint of light from a large lake confirms the presence of surface liquid in Titan’s northern hemisphere. This image, released Thursday here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, was captured on July 8, using the Cassini spacecraft’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. “ ...
  
• First Ever Video of Deep-Sea Volcanic Eruption
  SAN FRANCISCO — Molten lava has been observed flowing on the seafloor for the very first time, by a robotic rover exploring the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered. In high-definition video released Thursday here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, lava bubbles explode as the eruption ...
  
• Mysterious Disappearance of Reindeer Herd Blamed o ...
  SAN FRANCISCO — On a remote island in the Bering Strait during World War II, a tiny band of Americans ran a radar station. Twenty-nine reindeer were placed on St. Matthew Island with them, to be eaten in case of emergency. The emergency never came, and population biologist Dave Klein counted 6,000 ...
  
• Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scien ...
  The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image. New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds ma ...
  

  Blacklisted News

• Reid plans Christmas Eve passage of health bill
  Senate Democratic leaders have laid out an ambitious timetable for passing the health care bill on Christmas Eve. But if they're successful with their strategy, the vote that matters most and sets the stage for final passage would happen on Monday.
  
• 70 plus air strikes conducted by Saudi warplanes o ...
• Robotic Insects Could Pollinate Flowers and Find D ...
• Poor nations push for ‘New World Order’ in Copenha ...
  An attempt by developing and emerging countries to create "a new world order" in which Western industrialised nations are no longer dominant is threatening to scupper an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen, warned EU delegates. EurActiv reports from the Danish capital.
  
• NASA: Quiet Sun Means Dramatic Cooling of Earth’s ...
  New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere that correlates with the declining phase of the current solar cycle.
  

The Intelligence Daily

• The Political Ecology of Collapse: Weishaupt’s Fal ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• How Long Casteism?
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Look Who Just Funded the Escalation
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• From "Yes we can" to "No we won't"
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Obama seeks Guantánamo-style prison on US soil
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  

My AntiWar

• Discretion and Peace Needed to Solve Iran?s Nuclea ...
  Summary: Natanz plantAt present, the nuclear case of Iran has hit a new deadline and those who thought that Obama?s new approach and his emphasis on negotiations combined with Iran?s acceptance of the proposal to swap its low enriched uranium with 20-percent enriched uranium would work to solve the ...
  
• Iran: No Sanctions!
  Summary: DreyfussBack in the spring, and several times since then, President Obama suggested that if progress hasn’t been made in the talks with Iran, he’d move toward harsher measures, including what Secretary of State Clinton has called “crippling sanctions.” That time is drawing near, and assor ...
  
• Anti-Iran Sanctions Punish Civilians, Are an Act o ...
  Summary: Ron PaulI find it shocking that legislation this serious and consequential is brought up in such a cavalier manner. Suspending the normal rules of the House to pass legislation is a process generally reserved for ?non-controversial? business such as the naming of post offices. Are we to be ...
  
• U.S. backs Iranian Web use
  Summary: ObamaThe Obama administration has waived some Iran sanctions so that ordinary Iranians can download U.S.-made software used in social media and networking Web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, that help disseminate information bypassing government censorship. The administration’s unusua ...
  
• UAE-US Nuclear Pact Comes to Fruition
  Summary: UAEThis marks the final phase of operationalising the agreement signed on January 15 last in Washington by the then US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, and the UAE Foreign Minister, Abdullah bin Zayed. The UAE will now get adequate access to technology from the US in its plans to make ...
  

  Rogue Government.com

• Indian Intelligence: Mumbai terror mastermind is ...
  An American man charged with plotting the attacks on Mumbai was a double agent for both the United States and al-Qaeda terror group Lashkar e Taiba, Indian officials have claimed.
  
• Super Big Brother cameras with thermal imaging re ...
  CCTV cameras that have the potential to talk to passersby have gone live across Hounslow – but Big Brother will not be speaking just yet.
  
• Obama Moves Ahead With US African Command
  The escalation of AFRICOM (United States African Command) activities underlines a troubling commitment to an approach based on might and dominance, one entirely at the expense of promoting sustainable economic development and democracy.
  
• North Korean arms plane 'has links to New Zealand ...
  The mystery surrounding the missile-laden plane seized in Bangkok en route from North Korea deepened today as it emerged that the aircraft had links to a company based in New Zealand.
  
• House oversight committee Launches Probe Of Alleg ...
  Private security contractors in Afghanistan are being accused of paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban along convoy routes, prompting an investigation by a House oversight committee.
  

Innovation Canada

• Model scientists
  When hurricane season officially blew to a close in the Atlantic basin at the end of November, two Quebec researchers did not exhale in relief. That’s because René Laprise and Louis-philippe Caron were still looking for hurricane data from the past to help create a tool to predict future storm patte ...
  
• 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 extreme tempe ...
  
• 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 the ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Signs of the times

• Obama's Afghan escalation and the decay of democra ...
  With President Barack Obama approaching his first anniversary in office, his escalation of the Afghanistan war is writing a new chapter in the history of Washington's shredding of democratic forms of rule in order to further militarist aggression abroad. This has become increasingly clear since the ...
  
• US House passes $636 billion military spending bil ...
  With overwhelming bipartisan support, the United States House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a massive $636 billion military appropriations bill for 2010. The bill includes some $128 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does not fully fund the Obama administration's escalati ...
  
• European biometrics market booming, says analyst
  London - Biometrics in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) earned 216.1 million euro in 2008 (about $300 million) and is anticipated to reach 1,058.0 million euro by 2015 (about $1.5 billion), according to market research firm Frost & Sullivan. Such growth represents a compound annual ...
  
• UK: Italian student tells of arrest while filming ...
  An Italian student has described how she was stopped by police under anti-terrorist legislation while filming buildings, and later arrested, held in a police cell for five hours and given a fixed penalty notice. Simona Bonomo, 32, an art student at London Metropolitan University at London Metropoli ...
  
• Britain's wasteful mania for CCTV
  Video surveillance drains crime-fighting budgets. A new report shows how widely - and haphazardly - it has been implemented Today, Big Brother Watch has released a report about the nation's CCTV network. It shows that the number of CCTV cameras around the country controlled by local authorities ...
  

Threat Level

• Google Talks Transparency, But Hides Surveillance ...
  Google likes to trumpet transparency and free expression, especially when it concerns the internet, part of its commitment to the corporate motto, “Don’t Be Evil.” But despite the company’s recent online public policy posts espousing unfettered online expression, we aren’t buying it. The Mountain Vi ...
  
• Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, La ...
  An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation ...
  
• Google Talks Out Both Sides of Its Web Portal
  Google, the “don’t-be-evil” company, likes to side with righteousness and with “free expression,” especially when it concerns the internet. But despite the company’s recent online ramblings espousing unfettered online expression, we aren’t buying it. The Mountain View, California-based search and ad ...
  
• Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, La ...
  An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation ...
  
• House Delays Patriot Act Spy Vote
  The House of Representatives tabled on Wednesday legislation to reform U.S. surveillance law. The two-month delay puts off a collision with a competing Senate version. The move automatically extends provisions of the Patriot Act that would otherwise expire at year’s end. The Senate is likewise expe ...
  

PERRspectives : Blog

• Alan Greenspan, Born-Again Deficit Hawk
  In October 2008, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously admitted during testimony before Congress that he was wrong about regulation of the U.S. financial system. Asked by Henry Waxman (D-CA) if "your ideology was not right, it was not...
  
• Notorious Hothead McCain Now "Madder Than I've Eve ...
  Facing a surprisingly strong primary challenge from Tea Party darling J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Senator John McCain is now appealing to frothing-at-the-mouth Tea Baggers in the only language they understand: anger. But when McCain told Don Imus Friday that "I'm madder...
  
• Birther Palin Now Declares Her Family Fair Game
  During the 2008 campaign, then Senator Barack Obama rushed to Sarah Palin's defense in reaction to the media frenzy over her 17 year old daughter's pregnancy. "Let me be as clear as possible," Obama said, adding: "I think people's families...
  
• McCain's Wartime Reign of Error
  When it comes to matters of war and peace, over the past decade no American political figure outside of Dick Cheney has been as egregiously and frequently wrong as John McCain. Yet despite his almost uninterrupted record of error on...
  
• Perino Forgets Bush Called His War Rhetoric a Mist ...
  As she makes clear with alarming frequency, former Bush press secretary Dana Perino knows very little and seems to remember even less. In 2007, Perino admitted her ignorance of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then three weeks ago, she swept the...
  

Blackspot News Feed

• American fascism: by political definition the US i ...
  Dandelion SaladBy Carl HermanICH – December 15, 2009Examiner – December 14, 2009Look in any textbook or encyclopedia and compare US policy (not rhetoric) to the definitions of fascism and constitutional republic. Ill explain it here, but check my work. If at the end of your consideration, you agree ...
  
• Will Copenhagen Lead to Radical Climate Experiment ...
  If the summit fails, controversial geo-engineering projects may get a boost.
  
• Howard Zinn and Bill Moyers on Right-Wing Demagogu ...
  Zinn: "Democracy doesn't come from the top. It comes from the bottom. Democracy is not what governments do. It's what people do."
  
• 12 Hilarious Corporate Attempts to Look Green
  Don't be fooled. Hummers and McDonald's aren't "green." Neither are fossil fuels or Fox News, for that matter.
  
• Too Fat to Serve: How Our Unhealthy Food System Is ...
  Americans have become so overweight that a large percentage of young people no longer qualify for military service. How did we get here?
  

Consortium News

• Time to End the Neocon Con Game
  Despite a record of bloody miscalculations, neoconservatives remain influential in Washington, writes Bruce P. Cameron. December 17, 2009
  
• 'Invictus': Mandela's Message of Hope
  The movie "Invictus" demonstrates how Nelson Mandela kept South Africa together while moving it forward, writes Lisa Pease. December 16, 2009
  
• Risky Supply Line to Afghanistan
  Like the neocons, President Obama is ignoring hard realities of war such as Afghanistan's supply lines, says Melvin A. Goodman. December 16, 2009
  
• How Banks Fleece the Unemployed
  As states pay unemployment benefits with bank debit cards, the jobless are finding the fees adding up, says Barbara Koeppel. December 16, 2009
  
• Opportunity Lost: Obama in Oslo
  President Obama's misused "just war theory" to justify his own resort to excessive violence, writes ethicist Daniel C. Maguire. December 16, 2009
  

CounterPunch

• Ellen Cantarow : Resistance in Bethlehem's Village ...
• Chris Floyd : Blair, Obama and the Narcissist's De ...
• Anthony DiMaggio : Larry Summers and the Jobless R ...
• Dean Baker : Financial Transaction Tax: Easy and F ...
• Steven Higgs : Heavy Metal Kids

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• Palestinian Christians urge boycott (Khaled Amayr ...
  Palestinian Christian leaders, representing churches and church-related organisations, have launched a "landmark campaign" aimed at enlisting Christians worldwide in proactive efforts to end the Israeli occu ...
  
• Christmas in the Holy Land - 2009 (neverbeforecam ...
• Lieberman: Settlement activity to restart full for ...
  Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that Israel's announced 10-month partial moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements was only a tactical move and a temporary one. "It is clear to eve ...
  
• Palestinian village caught amid Israel settlements ...
  In this West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements, a Palestinian farmer says he has documents proving he owns his land. On a nearby hill, Jewish settler Batya Medad says she too has proof of owners ...
  
• Stand-off over Palestinian demo in Jerusalem (Age ...
  Israeli police surrounded the French cultural centre in mostly Arab east Jerusalem on Thursday, apparently to detain the organiser of a Palestinian cultural event, a French diplomat said. Around 50 people, i ...
  

Water - AlterNet

• Underused Drilling Practices Could Avoid Pollution
  The energy industry has developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation's natural gas reserves without polluting air and drinking water.
  
• Canadian Cities Leading the Charge Against Bottled ...
  Seventy-two municipalities from 8 provinces and 2 territories have implemented restrictions on bottled water.
  
• The Latest in the Bottled Water Mania: Water From ...
  Now you can down a beverage originating in one of the most guarded and protected areas on earth. So, what?
  
• Al Gore: A Billion People's Water at Risk From Mel ...
  At UN climate talks Monday, he warned that record melting of Polar and Himalayan ice could deprive deprive more than a billion people of access to clean water.
  
• Damning New Evidence Raises Concerns About Threats ...
  New York may be the next state to become embroiled in a mess of litigation and public outcry over a controversial drilling technique.
  

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 Coun ...
  
• 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 City ...
  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, as long ...
  
• 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 pa ...
  
• 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

• A New World War for a New World Order: The Origins ...
  by Andrew Gavin Marshall Featured Writer Dandelion Salad December 17, 2009 This is Part 3 of the Ser
  
• Obama Speaks of Evil By Ed Ciaccio
  by Ed Ciaccio Dandelion Salad Featured Writer December 17, 2009 In Oslo, Obama speaks of evil… While
  
• US Media & the Coverage of the Israel-Palestin ...
  by Sibel Edmonds Featured Writer Dandelion Salad originally published by Boiling Frogs Post 17 Decem
  
• Delay this Health Care Bill By Timothy V. Gatto
  By Timothy V. Gatto Featured Writer Dandelion Salad liberalpro.blogspot.com December 17, 2009 The cu
  
• UK Court Orders Release Of Torture Evidence In The ...
  by Andy Worthington Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.andyworthington.co.uk 17 December 2009 Repri
  

Unexplained Mysteries

• Group release images of "Atlantis" ruins
  An unidentified group have released a series of grainy photographs showing undersea ruins of an ancient city that is being claimed to be the fable...
  
• World's oldest known DNA discovered
  The oldest intact DNA ever found has been discovered inside salt deposits and belongs to a type of salt-loving bacteria that existed 419 million y...
  
• Cow jumps six feet on to roof
  In a bizarre story this week home owners who thought they were being burgled when they heard a commotion on the roof of their house discovered tha...
  
• "Waterworld" discovered 40 light years away
  The most likely extrasolar planet to support life yet found has been discovered 40 light years away. The planet is thought to be mostly composed o...
  
• "Jesus-era" burial shroud found
  A burial shroud from the time of Jesus has been found in a tomb in Jerusalem. The man wrapped in the shroud is believed to have been either a high...
  

Grassroots

• Cooling the Earth with Food Sovereignty
  Outside Author:  Loie Hayes Previous publication:  Insights, Vol. 23 #2 (Fall 2009) brazil200907-332.jpg   read mor ...
  
• We can’t change the climate, but we can change the ...
  logoforblog.png   read more
  
• 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 ...
  

Climate

• December 18, 2009
  World Leaders Try to Rescue Climate Deal (Reuters) President Barack Obama met other world leaders in a last push for a new global climate deal on Friday, after negotiators failed to reach a deal on carbon cuts in all-night talks. Chinese Premier: We Will Honor Climate Commitments (AP) Chinese ...
  
• December 17, 2009
  China: We’re Not Giving Up on Climate Deal Yet (Reuters) China's climate ambassador said today that China had not given up hope of reaching a strong climate agreement at Copenhagen talks. He rejected comments from other delegations that it had. Clinton: $100B Possible, but Transparency a Deal ...
  
• December 16, 2009
  Key Decisions Still Unresolved at Climate Talks (Washington Post) It's unclear how to fund a deal that could involve the transfer of billions of dollars from industrialized countries to the developing world; delegates remain at loggerheads over which mechanisms should be employed to reduce emis ...
  
• December 15, 2009
  Canada Weighs Weaker Emissions Targets for Oil, Gas industries (CBC) The new proposals raises questions about how the Tories could cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 — a target they insist they can reach — while weakening the targets in the oil and gas sector. Copenhag ...
  
• 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 ...
  

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

• Barack Obama, Inc.
  The man who said he was going to challenge the system, fight corporate lobbyists and change the system now appears to be fighting for the status quo and corporate America at every turn. I call the Republican Party a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, but now Barack Obama is not far behind ...
  
• Trial by Twitter
  Who would have thought that such a simple and historic process such as jury deliberations could be affected by the modern wave of social media? Currently, Sheila Dixon is Baltimore's mayor-for-now, but "now" may last a good long while, since her attorneys have a veritable candy store of arguments fr ...
  
• Getting Real: Ten Myths Behind Progressive Support ...
  We're hearing a lot of raised voices on the left side of the aisle as progressives square off into two camps. Some want to accept the Senate's health bill as is, while others want it scrapped. Both views deserve a hearing, but there are some assumptions behind the pro-Senate position that seem so i ...
  
• Healthcare: First They Came for the Banksters
  With apologies to Pastor Niemoeller: First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in. Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands ...
  
• Wall Street Follies: The cry for reform sounds hol ...
  In his radio address last Saturday, President Obama said, "As we dig our way out of this deep hole, it's important that we address the irresponsibility and recklessness that got us into this mess in the first place." He was talking about Wall Street, of course, a parallel universe of recklessness wi ...
  

Ten Percent

• Stop Our War Criminals Changing The Law To Protect ...
  Via SU- Please act now! Contact your MP! Following the news that Tipi Livni, who served as Foreign Minister in the Israeli government that planned and executed Israel’s brutal bombing and massacre in Gaza, faced arrest if she entered Britain, tell the government there must be no impunity for Israeli ...
  
• …and again
  Sir John Sawers said that poor conditions and possible violent mistreatment of inmates by the US troops running the prison were known within months of the invasion in March 2003. It was not until the Spring of 2004 that cases of physical, psychological and sexual abuse were exposed publicly. So abse ...
  
• Aw, Bless
  That he thinks this isn’t the point… Dr Jones also launched a stinging attack on the Government’s failure to make key reforms to the intelligence services in the wake of the Butler review, carried out in 2004 to examine the failures on Iraq. Its refusal to do so, he said, meant that the breakdown th ...
  
• Bullshit!
  So City of London Police say they are right to stop photography because they caught some terrorists who were doing it, except…none were ever charged or convicted of terrorism- The police said the CPS had decided there was sufficient evidence to bring terrorism charges, but it was not in the public i ...
  
• Hollywood Blacklist
  No, not that one. This one- ‘Hollywood’s most liked unproduced screenplays published on the second Friday of December each year‘ Now apart from showing short synopses are not a fair way to judge a script (yet nevertheless, oh Jeebus no, corporate Hollywood why do you hate cinema so?) I noticed this ...
  

Paul Krugman

• Spain versus Florida
  No need to create the stucco.
  
• The curse of Montagu Norman
  Inflation targeting is the new gold standard.
  
• Dining room tables and minimum wages
  Simple microeconomic logic doesn't help here at all.
  
• Massachusetts health care polling
  Once you have even a rough approximation to universal coverage, people don't want to go back.
  
• Pain in Spain
  If Spain still had a peseta, I'd say devalue it; since it doesn't, wages have to give.
  

No Quarter

• John McCain Objects to Rude Al Franken Railroading ...
  All is not lost in the fight against the health care bill. Ben Nelson, reports The Hill, is a “no,” to date. Sen. Jim DeMint is promising to use every conceivable tactic to delay the vote, and to force a vote on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, the very junior senator from Minnesota [...]
  
• One-World Unsaved
  * Bumped up * No Verification. Speaking Wednesday 15 [on my syndicated radio show] with John Bolton, AEI; Coral Davenport, CQ; and Bob Zimmerman, re the UN Climate Change summit that has already plunged over the cliff into Babel and blame. Bolton’s remarks describe a UN World that believes on ...
  
• Some Positive News For A Change
  This past week brought some major news out of Houston, Houston Is Largest City to Elect Openly Gay Mayor. Way to go Lone Star State! The win is impressive, as is the new mayor, Annise Parker. Ms. Parker graduated from a high school in Charleston, SC. Her mom still lives here, [...]
  
• Listen and Weep (or Laugh, Smirk, Sigh and Groan)
  I’ve jotted down some highlights from this expansive, important discussion via Morning Joe that gives you an over-arching feel for what Obama’s real problems are, particularly Peggy Noonan’s brilliant differentiation between the spirit of 2008 and the hard realities of 2009, which you’ll hear toward ...
  
• Regrets, Anybody? Oh, Just a Few …
  Ani e-mailed this Politico story to our NoQuarter writers’ mailing list: “Poll: Clinton approval soars [while Obama's sink].” Eastan McNeal wrote back, suggesting that we post this poll: We have TWO more polls for you to take below. And I’ve posted a segue on the SEXISM that is alive and well in th ...
  

Environmental Graffiti

• Giant Mushrooms!!!
• How To D*Face A Skate Pool With A Thousand Skulls
• How Kids Could Have Prevented the California Wildf ...
• Iran’s Human Termite Colony
• Bioluminescent Jellyfish 1.5 Miles Beneath the Sea

Foreign Policy in Focus

• Obama's Surge and Pakistan
  U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan is built on two coups, one in Kabul and the other in Islamabad.
  
• Honduran Elections a Parody of Democracy
  The recent elections are the latest act in the Honduran theater of the absurd, reports columnist Laura Carlsen.
  
• Crapshoot in Copenhagen
  FPIF's weekly update.
  
• The AfPak Train Wreck
  The president's goals in escalating the war in Afghanistan are deeply flawed. Just ask the Russians.
  
• Africa and the Economic Crisis
  While the world focuses on Afghanistan, Africa is addressing the global economic crisis in new ways.
  

Global Elite

• Fear, Intimidation & Media Disinformation: U.K Gov ...
  Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 20, 2009 An official UK government report –quoted extensively in Britain’s tabloid media– is warning the British public that there will be c ...
  
• President European Commission Advocated World Gove ...
  Jurriaan Maessen. Infowars. July 24th, 2009 On September 7, 1992, two term President of the European Commission Jacques Delors gave a speech to the Royal Institute of International Affa ...
  
• Billions of People Expected to Die Under Current C ...
  Barbara Minton, Natural News, July 21st, 2009 Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the d ...
  
• Bioweapons, Dangerous Vaccines, and Threats of a G ...
  Stephen Lendman, Global Research, July 7th, 2009 Although international law prohibits the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, America has had an active biological warfare progr ...
  
• Today we’re all prisoners in the USA
  Papers, Please! June 2, 2009 As of today, June 1, 2009, even U.S. citizens are officially prisoners in the USA, or exiles barred from entering our own country without the government’s p ...
  

Al Jazeera

• Obama urges action at Copenhagen
  US president says leaders must choose "action over inaction" at summit finale.
  
• Pakistan minister faces arrest bid
  Rehman Malik faces warrant for alleged corruption after court revokes amnesty deal.
  
• Kurds to stay in Turkish parliament
  Leader of banned party says members will now stay in parliament reversing earlier decision.
  
• 'Mumbai gunman' retracts confession
  Mohammed Ajmal Kasab tells court in India that he was tortured while in custody.
  
• 'Iranian cyber army' hacks Twitter
  Microblogging site taken down by hackers apparently criticising US interference.
  

Green Inc. - NYT

• Acronyms Hide a Forest of Concerns
  As developed countries unveil their plans for forestry at the Copenhagen talks, advocates have spied what they call a lot of "creative accounting."
  
• A Draft 'Political Agreement' on Climate?
  An early draft of a potential "political agreement" among parties negotiating in Copenhagen is beginning to circulate through the complex.
  
• Up the Road in Copenhagen, a Proliferation of Peop ...
  A motley collection of climate activists, human rights groups, representatives of indigenous communities, and freelance climate visionaries have been holding their own summit meeting.
  
• President Obama's Climate Speech
  "The question before us is no longer the nature of the challenge - the question is our capacity to meet it," Mr. Obama said.
  
• Big Solar Moves East
  The Long Island Power Authority agreed to buy nearly 50 megawatts of solar power in what it said was the largest such project in New York State.
  

Dot Earth News

• Climate Combatants
  Varied voices on climate action and aid.
  
• Obama Pushes China in Copenhagen Speech
  President Obama challenges countries to share information on actions to curb greenhouse gases.
  
• Heat Over a Leaked U.N. Warming Analysis
  A leaked analysis of the latest goals on greenhouse emissions shows hot times ahead.
  
• Signs of Movement on Money and Trust
  Signs of movement in the final hours of climate talks.
  
• A Bouncer at the Gate
  The Friends of the Earth discover that their admissions badges no longer work.
  

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

• The Future of College Education
  Not only are the for-profit predatory colleges a disservice to the public, they are like private pike in a public lake, threatening to cipher off more and more of the public economic coffers so they can place themselves as the “primary provider” of education while the government entities that provid ...
  
• The Money Party Wins Again
  Michael Collins Health care reform is dead on arrival There will be even less room at the inn for those in true need who lack the right insurance or enough cash to pay the bill. Why should anyone be surprised? Health care costs are rising by 10% to 15% already. We’re committed [...]
  
• US Labor Against the War supports call for March S ...
  It is heartening to see that many educational and campus service unions (including USLAW affiliates) have joined in unity, and that support is growing into a nationwide call for coordinated actions. Cuts to funding for education and other health and human services are evident throughout the country, ...
  
• Why is Democracy Now shielding “war for oil” again ...
  By M. Idrees – 12/15/09 In its headlines for December 14, Democracy Now followed the report on Blair’s confession about his committment to regime change in Iraq regardless of the absence of WMDs, with this: Iraq Signs Oil Deals with 10 Foreign Companies Blair’s comments come just as Iraq has si ...
  
• Teacher’s Unions and Charter Schools: Taking Race ...
  Since charters control their own employee pay and hiring decisions, opposition from teachers unions or pre-existing collective bargaining agreements are less likely to be an issue for them. A considerable amount of money could be at stake. The state plans to apply for $300 million, which would be sp ...
  

AlterNet's Breaking News

• Blackwater guards’ lawyers want ...
• Twitter hacked by ‘Iranian Cybe ...
• French court rules against Google in copyright cas ...
• Dollar dips against euro
• Vonn crushes rivals in super-combined first leg

Institute for Policy Studies

• A Lesson on Nonviolence for the President
• Swiss Minarets: Only the Tip of the Iceberg
• Exceptional or Exceptionalism?
• The Cairo Detour
• Poets for Peace

Godspace

• We Don’t Invite Jesus Into Our Lives, He Inv ...
  This evenings Advent reflection is written by Jason Clark. Jason planted an emerging church on the SW edge of London 12 years ago, whilst he was an investment broker in the City of London.  He is now a full time pastor/minister of the church, with a Doctor of Ministry and now the middle of a PhD he  ...
  
• Patience in a Time of Distraction – Advent R ...
  This morning’s Advent reflection comes from Thomas Turner the Senior Editor, Literary Arts of GENERATE Magazine . Thomas blogs at  EverydayLiturgy.com. He is also on the ministry team at The Plant, a community cultivating love, truth, and compassion in Mahwah, New Jersey. This is the time of ye ...
  
• A Cynic’s Hope – Advent Reflection fro ...
  This afternoon’s reflection comes from Ryan Marsh pastor of Church of the Beloved, a missional community in Edmonds, WA.  They are hosting some great holiday events and as Ryan comments: You should come, it’s not that bad. Hope. It wins elections.  It fuels change. Everybody wants hope.  Right? ...
  
• Waiting Without Busyness by Greg Rickel Bishop of ...
  This morning’s post comes from Bishop Greg Rickel Episcopal Bishop of Olympia.  Bishop Rickel comes from Austin Texas where he served as rector of St James Episcopal church. Jesus is coming, look busy!   We have all heard that little bit of Christian humor.   In Matthew we hear that the one to ...
  
• Advent: We Don’t Know What We Are Waiting Fo ...
  This morning’s reflection comes from Ed Cyzewski the author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life. He blogs on theology at www.inamirrordimly.com and on writing at www.edcyz.com. During December Ed’s book Coffeehouse Theology will be available from NavPress.com at 35% off ( ...
  

Equality Trust

• Call for fundamental rethink of the value of work
  Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than city bankers, according to a new method of calculating the value of different jobs published today. The new economics foundation (nef) called for a "fundamental rethink" of how the value of work was recognised and rewarded. The think tank said its s ...
  
• 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
  

IntelNews

• Comment: Saudi Spies Take Over Yemen Border War
  Perceptive Middle East observers have been following the escalating conflict along the Yemeni-Saudi border, in which Saudi and Yemeni government forces, once bitter enemies, have joined forces in combating al-Qaeda-linked Yemeni rebels. It now appears that Saudi Arabia’s preeminent intelligence agen ...
  
• News you may have missed #0224
  Parts 6 and 7 of CIA defector’s writings now available. Congressional vote on US PATRIOT Act delayed.
  
• A veteran British envoy on diplomacy, sex and espi ...
  British newspaper The Daily Mail has published a well-written and entertaining essay by a longtime UK government envoy, explaining the close links between diplomacy, sex and espionage. Sir Christopher Meyer, a career diplomat with the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, argues in his article that ...
  
• News you may have missed #0223 (Iran special)
  US tells China it can't stop Israel from striking Iran indefinitely. Iranian memo puzzles Western spy agencies. Iran claims capture of Western spy in Qom.
  
• Lithuania’s spy chief resigns over secret CIA pris ...
  The director of Lithuania’s intelligence service unexpectedly resigned on Monday, reportedly in connection with a parliamentary investigation into a reputed CIA secret prison site in the country.
  

After Downing Street.org

• Finally Someone Filibusters a War Bill and Feingol ...
  Here's the American Prospect applauding Feingold for refusing yet again, as always, to take serious efforts to block war bills, because those now doing it are Republicans, whom TAP suggests are traitors or hypocrits or both, while avoiding any straight answer to the question of whether it is moral o ...
  
• Waging Peace: Mass Arrests at White House Antiwar ...
  Waging Peace: Mass Arrests at White House Antiwar Rally by William Hughes Washington, D.C. - On Monday, Oct. 5, 2009, just after noon and under a warm sun, 61 activists were arrested at the White House for failing to obey a police order to move off the sidewalk. The nonviolent “Civil Resistance” pr ...
  
• News & Background: Leaking Of Dubious Document Spu ...
  News & Background: Leaking of dubious document spurs new wave of anti-Iran propaganda | United for Peace of Pierce County On Monday the Times of London said "confidential intelligence documents" from Iran, one of which it published in toto, "show that Iran is working on testing a key final component ...
  
• Stunning Statistics About the War Every American S ...
  Stunning Statistics About the War Every American Should Know Contrary to popular belief, the US actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground in Afghanistan right now—and that number is quickly rising. By Jeremy Scahill | Rebel Reports A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcom ...
  
• Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman's Invictus Film Rele ...
  Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman's Invictus Film Release Kicks Off New Campaign For Universal Declaration of Human Rights By Linda Milazzo | AlterNet The launch of Invictus will hopefully set of a wave of renewed interest in a proposal to recognize and protect the rights of humanity. Los Angeles get ...
  

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

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  A duvet is versatile, functional and it can be beautiful tool for redecorating a bedroom.
  
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Time - Top Stories

• As Time Runs Out, Obama Tries to Save a Climate De ...
  On the final day of the Copenhagen summit, the U.S. President and otherworld leaders make an urgent appeal for negotiators to come to some kind ofconsensus on climate finance and emissions reductions -- before it's toolate
  
• Study: TV May Perpetuate Race Bias
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• Does Detroit's Last White City Council Member Have ...
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• And the Person of the Decade Is ...
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Washington Independent

• Repatriation of Yemeni Detainees a Significant Ste ...
  The news today that the Obama administration has arranged for the repatriation of six Yemeni detainees from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay suggests a breakthrough in what’s long been a major obstacle to closing the notorious U.S. prison. The Washington Post reports that the transfer m ...
  
• Black Voters and the ‘Left-Wing Revolt&#8217 ...
  It’s a bit off my beat, but Ronald Brownstein nails something important in this piece about the reservoir of support for health care reform — any kind of health care reform — from minority voters. Minorities don’t seem to have much doubt about their investment in this debate. In November’s Kaiser Fa ...
  
• Petraeus: UAE Air Force Could Take Out Iran’ ...
  Josh Rogin finds this video of Gen. David Petraeus, at a security conference last week in Bahrain, publicly speculating about an airpower confrontation between the United Arab Emirates and Iran. I am not exactly sure why he’s doing this, nor do I know what the context is, so I’ll just pass along the ...
  
• Obama Urges Delegates to Reach Climate Accord in C ...
  In an address to delegates at the United Nations’ climate change conference in Copenhagen today, President Obama promised that America would “meet [its] responsibility” in the fight against global warming and urged other countries to put forward “decisive national actions.” He acknowledged the diffi ...
  
• What Johnny Isakson Promised the Tea Party Movemen ...
  Adele Stan’s write-up of Tuesday’s “Code Red” protests on Capitol Hill includes a journey into the office of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), a surprise guest at the anti-health care reform rally who invited Tea Party leaders to come and talk with him. Here’s what they discussed. The activists displaye ...
  

CowBoss' Brain Food

• Change, They Say, Is Good. But Is It?
  It's said that Alexander the Great wept when he realised there were no more lands left for him to conquer. In other words, there was nothing new to challenge him; there was no raison d'être. It's a laughable thought today, isn't it? Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-i ...
  
• Teacher breaks 4th grader’s arm for ‘forgetting Iq ...
  LAHORE: A female teacher of a private school thrashed Muhammad Jahanzeb, a fourth grade student when he was unable to explain a poem by Allama Iqbal, causing multiple fractures in his arm. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• We're expanding, while economy shrinks
  Americans now have another excuse for hitting the fast food establishments and getting farther out of shape by adding unwanted weight, and it's allegedly not their fault. The latest health discovery is called "recession pounds," and some researchers Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Cul ...
  
• Reports call for radical rethink on food policy to ...
  The food and farming sector is not pulling its weight when it comes to tacking climate change and food shortages could be the consequence if we fail to make fundamental changes to the way we farm, process, distribute and eat our food over the next 20 year Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society ...
  
• TV host curious about attacks on animal ag (audio)
  “Anybody from a city, in my opinion, who spends a day, a week, maybe even just a few hours on a working farm is going to be quickly disabused of a lot of what they believe,” Rowe told AgriTalk radio host Mike Adams last week. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |  ...
  

Suzie-Q

• Ron Paul: Another significant step toward a US war ...
  Statement of Congressman Ron Paul United States House of Representatives – Statement Opposing the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act Information Clearing House, December 15, 2009 I  rise in strongest opposition to this new round of sanctions on Iran, which is another significant step toward a U ...
  
• Howard Dean: Won’t “Vigorously” ...
  Dean: I won’t “vigorously” support Obama’s re-election Raw Story- By Sahil Kapur Thursday, December 17th, 2009 — 9:20 am WASHINGTON — Escalating his opposition to what remains of the health care legislation, former Gov. Howard Dean has taken more swipes at President Obama, after a contentio ...
  
• Afternoon Jukebox- Santa Claus Is Comin’ To ...
  Bruce Springsteen – Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
  
• The international league of war criminals
  Chris Marsden, wsws.org, Dec 17, 2009 The issuing of a British arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister and current leader of the opposition Tzipi Livni is only the latest event confirming an international body of legal opinion that Israel should be tried for war crimes over its treatment ...
  
• Health Care Reform: Why I Am Pissed Off
  I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off at health care reform. I’m pissed off at this endless process of emotional highs and lows and exhilaration and dejection and history and infamy. I’m pissed off that President Obama “thanked” the independent senator from Connecticut even though the senator nearly killed ...
  

Solari

• Crosby Mint Farm - Update
  Jim and Linette Crosby are fighting to win the Crosby Mint Farm from the bank that has foreclosed. The Farm was auctioned last week, with bids totaling $365,000, which is significantly less than what Jim and Linette had offered and the bank had rejected.  The bank rejected the bids, so there is sti ...
  
• Gifting to the Children We Love - Part V
  Read the full article here. The opportunities to encourage a child’s artistic and music skills are endless. Given the increased cutbacks in these so-called noncore subjects in school budgets, there is ample room for private gifts to have a major impact. The creative skills developed through active ...
  
• Roth IRA Rules Changes
  By Melanie Pelayo With the end of the year fast approaching, I want to bring your attention a change taking place next year re-garding Roth IRA rules. Surveys have shown that not a lot of people are aware of the coming changes, which some clients may want to consider in order to diversify their reti ...
  
• JAK Bank in Sweden
  By David Liechty JAK Medlemsbank is a member-owned bank in Skovde, Sweden that has operated an interest-free savings and loan system since 1970. Members accumulate points monthly based on their savings deposits, and after six months as members, they may borrow money interest-free against these poin ...
  
• Did Rubin Commit Fraudulent Misrepresentation?
  By Dakin Campbell and Andrew MacAskill Citigroup Inc. said the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is seeking to end an agreement to buy the bank’s stock for more than 8 times its current price, or to receive more than $4 billion in damages if the deal is upheld. Abu Dhabi Investment, one of the world’s ...
  

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

• Always Controversial Cornel West Disses Obama, Sur ...
  Cornel West dishes on his new memoirs and Obama's clique of 'recycled neo-liberals and recycled neo-Clintonites.'
  
• Politicians Are Portraying 'Gitmo North' as a Terr ...
  Politicians' claim that moving detainees to Illinois will create 3,000 jobs is a distraction from an ugly reality; Gitmo is not being closed, it is being moved onto U.S. soil.
  
• Game On for Immigration Reform
  A new comprehensive immigration reform bill hit the House this week.
  
• The Brutal Dark Side of Obama's "Softer" ...
  'Sanctions pretend to punish employers but in reality, they punish workers.'
  
• Meet the FBI Operative Who Threatened My Life, and ...
  Did NJ Republican Chris Christie grant legal protection to neo-nazi radio host Hal Turner for his undercover role in a federal program to "flush out" violent far-right plots?
  

Sideways News

• Beat the winter blues
  When the clocks go back and days shorten, many people feel down, lethargic and often depressed. Known as Seasonal Affective Disoarder , or SAD, it is believed around 7% of the UK population suffer, especially during December, January and February. With a further 17% experiencing a milder version: th ...
  
• Peter Gleick on the world water crisis
  Dr Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, speaks with CNN's Isha Sesay about the world's water problems. He discusses the need for infrastructure, efficiency and the perils a lack of water will bring.
  
• Mike Hanauer on population explosion
  Population growth is already straining the Earth's environment and energy resources. If current trends continue, the world population could triple to 14 billion. Watch this video followed by an interview with Mike Hanauer, population activist and director at Zero Population Growth, who suggests wha ...
  
• Images make climate change 'a reality'
  A flooded Piccadilly Circus , a tornado-hit Trafalgar Square and a frozen River Thames are just some of the dramatic images soon to be unveiled at the Museum of London, depicting the capital transformed by the devastating effects of climate change
  
• Back to school for Doctor Who star
  Doctor Who star Noel Clarke has paid an impromptu visit to his former primary school in London to help the latest batch of budding thespians hone their craft before the Christmas nativity play. Clarke, whose own star rose following his acting and directing debut in Kidulthood and a starring role as ...
  

Fabius Maximus

• More about President Obama, a decoration to the Wh ...
  Summary:   With Carter America returned to our 19th century tradition of electing cardboard cutouts as President.  “Tippecanoe and Tyler too”!  Obama stands tall as a proud addition to this roster.  While his fidelity to his master might mean electoral defeat in 2012, they’ll easily find anothe ...
  
• Thoughts about President Obama
  Summary:  the official FM website’s view of President Obama.  Just opinion, with little supporting evidence.  You too can opine in the comments.  Let the vituperation (on both parties) flow! One pleasure of living in modern America is watching the media construct fictious images of our politica ...
  
• Today’s source of blindingly great insights ...
  Posting will be erratic for the next 3 weeks, but the FM website team will endeavor to bring you rare and valuable new perspectives.  Today we present the following selection, wells of insight. Also — you can now subscribe, receiving posts by email — see the box on the upper right.   (1)  The South ...
  
• Today’s source of blindingly great insights ...
  Posting will be erratic for the next 3 weeks, but the FM website team will endeavor to bring you rare and valuable new perspectives.  Today we present the following selection, wells of insight. Also — you can now subscribe, receiving posts by email — see the box on the upper right.   (1)  The South ...
  
• Endemic terrorism – but few wars and epidemi ...
  Summary:  The changes of the past two centuries have made the world a far better place.  This post discuss a grim but beneficial trade-off:  fewer wars and plagues, more terrorism. The world changes, and so do its dangers.  Throughout human history humanity suffered the scourges of war and disease.  ...
  

sibeledmonds - tweets

• sibeledmonds: At Boiling Frogs Post- Peace, Propag ...
  sibeledmonds: At Boiling Frogs Post- Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: US Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post: US Media & the C ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post: US Media & the Coverage of the Israel-Palestine Conflict- Biased, Tainted, Filtered? Video http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Borjesson on Bin Laden’s Exist ...
  sibeledmonds: Borjesson on Bin Laden’s Existence: Give us the proof of life or verification of bin Laden’s existence or death! http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Kristina Borjesson at Boiling Frogs ...
  sibeledmonds: Kristina Borjesson at Boiling Frogs Post: Osama Bin Laden & Journalism 101: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Jamiol Presents @ Boiling Frogs Post ...
  sibeledmonds: Jamiol Presents @ Boiling Frogs Post: Statue of Lost Liberties http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/15/jamiol-presents-9/
  

WIRED Magazine | Science

• Why Geologists Love Beer
  SAN FRANCISCO — Fact: Geologists love beer. There is abundant proof of this here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, the largest collection of earth scientists in the world. The talks, workshops and poster sessions go from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but at 3:30 p.m. every day, for five days ...
  
• Photo: Shining Lake Confirms Presence of Liquid on ...
  SAN FRANCISCO — A glint of light from a large lake confirms the presence of surface liquid in Titan’s northern hemisphere. This image, released Thursday here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, was captured on July 8, using the Cassini spacecraft’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. “ ...
  
• First Ever Video of Deep-Sea Volcanic Eruption
  SAN FRANCISCO — Molten lava has been observed flowing on the seafloor for the very first time, by a robotic rover exploring the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered. In high-definition video released Thursday here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, lava bubbles explode as the eruption ...
  
• Mysterious Disappearance of Reindeer Herd Blamed o ...
  SAN FRANCISCO — On a remote island in the Bering Strait during World War II, a tiny band of Americans ran a radar station. Twenty-nine reindeer were placed on St. Matthew Island with them, to be eaten in case of emergency. The emergency never came, and population biologist Dave Klein counted 6,000 ...
  
• Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scien ...
  The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image. New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds ma ...
  

The Progressive Realist

• Pakistan's Year of Decision
  Even in its waning days, 2009 continues to be a ‘Year of Decision' in Pakistan, as its fractured polity struggles to right the ship of state while tackling the rising insurgencies inside its borders. This was the year that Pakistan took the battle to the insurgency, first in Swat and Malakand and t ...
  
• Clinton Offers Developing Countries Financing to D ...
  The U.S. has pledged today to secure $100 billion in annual financing to help developing countries cope with climate change if a comprehensive deal at Copenhagen can be reached, further contradicting my earlier guess that no offer along those lines would ever come to pass. Downside: egg on my face. ...
  
• Afghanistan as Strategic Scaffolding
  The conventional way to look at the Afghanistan war is as a multilateral coalition forming a security scaffolding around and upon which a stable Afghan nation can form. But if you consider the strategic network that is emerging from the war, it might be more accurate to say that Afghanistan is the s ...
  
• Friedman’s Civil War
  I think I lack the words to adequately express how morally outrageous Tom Friedman’s call for a Muslim civil war is. But we can at least focus a bit on how factually inaccurate it is. A couple of days ago, a suicide bombing in Pakistan killed 27 . In July, militants hit a Pakistani hotel killing ele ...
  
• NY Times, Netanyahu and the Soft Bigotry of Low Ex ...
  Analyzing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of a highly circumscribed Palestinian state and his decision, after months of stonewalling, to temporarily honor some of Israel’s past commitments on settlements, the New York Times’ Ethan Bronner presents Bibi as a newly transformed p ...
  

TAPPED - The American Prospect

• Loca-aurism.
  One bright spot in the decade it's taken for the House to finally pass a very good bill on community radio licensing might be that all this haggling is defining a place for LPFM (short for "low-power FM") in the regulated media landscape. To make sense of LPFM, it's helpful, I think, to think ...
  
• Republicans Filibuster Funding for Iraq and Afghan ...
  As part of their comprehensive efforts to kill health-care reform, Senate Republicans attempted to filibuster legislation that funds the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, the Republicans efforts to stop health care don't just involve blocking votes to do with that legislation; they're lite ...
  
• Lightning Round: Not Since Tocqueville has French ...
  Ed Kilgore has written a thoughtful meditation on the schism between the activists and the pragmatists in the progressive debate over health-care reform and concludes that neither side seems able or willing to understand the other's "ideological and strategic underpinnings." Meanwhile, Nate Silver ...
  
• Health Reform: Race And Representation.
  My colleague Sonia Sekhar at the Center for American Progress writes on the Wonk Room about an extremely under-discussed tragedy in American health care: As Congress argues about health care reform, within sight of the Capitol, African American babies are dying at three times the rate of white babi ...
  
• Fenty Will Hold Signing Ceremony For Marriage Equa ...
  The Washington Post confirms some news first reported by Mike DeBonis , that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is planning to host a public signing ceremony tomorrow to commemorate the signing of D.C.'s marriage equality bill, which was passed by the City Council on Tuesday. The local angle, DeBonis explain ...
  

Andy Worthington

• Judge Orders Release From Guantánamo Of Unwilling ...
  On Monday, as I explained in a previous article, Judge Thomas Hogan refused the habeas corpus petition of Musa’ab al-Madhwani, a Yemeni who had been tortured in the CIA’s “Dark Prison” near Kabul, and who was described by the judge as a “model prisoner” who was not dangerous. Judge Hogan made his ru ...
  
• UK Court Orders Release Of Torture Evidence In The ...
  Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent dozens of prisoners still held at Guantánamo, won a court victory last Tuesday, in the case of the British resident Shaker Aamer, which appears to draw on the organization’s success in securing a judicial review in the case of another of the ...
  
• “Model Prisoner” at Guantánamo, Tortured in the “D ...
  On Monday, District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan handed the government its ninth victory (against 31 losses to date) in the habeas corpus petitions of the prisoners held at Guantánamo, ruling that the government had established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Musa’ab al-Madhwani, a 28-year ...
  
• What Does It Take To Get Out Of Obama’s Guantánamo ...
  On August 21, District Court Judge Gladys Kessler granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohammed al-Adahi, a Yemeni prisoner in Guantánamo who was 39 years old when he was seized on a bus in Pakistan. I described the broad outline of al-Adahi’s story in my book The Guantánamo Files as follows: Marri ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Buzzflash

• The Tea-Partying Left
  Body The irreconcilable left seems to be enjoying its theatrical indulgences, even if at the expense of national progress. They see themselves, I can only gather, as some sort of Platonic philosopher-kings, albeit heavy on the philosophy and diaphanously thin on the practical management ...
  
• 22 Million Missing Bush White House E-mails Found ...
  Allegedly mislabeled, I would bet That one essential criteria Was trying to make them look like Spam that came from Nigeria .VERSE CASE SCENARIO read more
  
• In Desperation for Funds, "The Nation" Slanders Bu ...
  BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG by Mark Karlin It's a disastrous byproduct of corporate consolidation and control of the mainstream media by wealthy corporations (Murdoch, GE [soon Comcast], Viacom, Clear Channel, etc.) that progressive publications, radio, and television programming (what there is of it) s ...
  
• The troubled belly of the populist beast
  Body If you've been hoping and waiting for President Obama to surrender his cool demeanor and instead pick up the brute cudgel of populist fury, your waiting, I suspect, is about over. Less than one year in and his patience is wearing thin. But more to the point, his political antennae a ...
  
• Free Clinic Volunteers Help Those Abandoned by Pol ...
  WINGS OF JUSTICE Volunteers at Free Clinics There has been a lot of attention paid to free clinics, thanks to the initiative of Rich Stockwell and the rest at "Countdown" on MSNBC . But the real heroes of these events haven't had their fair share of the spotlight. You can talk about free clinics on ...
  

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

• The underlying divisions in the health care debate
  Ed Kilgore has a very perceptive analysis in The New Republic about the underlying (and largely unexamined) ideological and strategic differences among progressives that are at least partially driving the rift over the health care bill.  He argues -- correctly -- that the current debate "displays a ...
  
• Tom Friedman, museum exhibit
  This might be one of the most self-contradictory episodes in the annals of American punditry: Tom Friedman, The New York Times , yesterday : A corrosive mind-set has taken hold since 9/11. It says that Arabs and Muslims are only objects, never responsible for anything in their world, and we are ...
  
• White House as helpless victim on health care
  Of all the posts I wrote this year, the one that produced the most vociferious email backlash -- easily -- was this one from August , which examined substantial evidence showing that, contrary to Obama's occasional public statements in support of a public option, the White House clearly intended fr ...
  
• Welcome to GITMO North
  The Obama administration announced today that it will create a new "supermax" facility in Thompson, Illinois, and will transfer many of the detainees currently held at Guantanamo.  Critically, none of those moved to Thompson will receive a trial in a real American court, and some will not be charge ...
  
• Salon Radio: Critical state secrets hearing today
  The case of Mohamed v. Jeppesen -- brought by five victims of Bush's torture/rendition program against the Boeing subsidiary that shipped them to be tortured -- was the Obama DOJ's first test of its commitment to restore basic accountability and the rule of law.  Back in February, it res ...
  

The BiPartisan Report

• Pesky facts spoil GOP’s mammogram arguments
• Those holier than thou Conservatives
• Dennis Kucinich: Enemy of the good, pursuer of the ...
• Betsy’s Bullshit, Round 2
• The difference between politics and governing

Sciencebase

• Religious science and other science books
  Having posted about atheism recently on the SciScoop science forum, it seems quite apt to have received for review a couple of books with a religious theme at this time of year. The first is The Faith Instinct by Nicholas Wade. Wade is a well-known New York Times writer who presents the case for an ...
  
• Myrrh, bones, and medical waste
  Hepatic epiphany for myrrh – A statistical analysis of experimental data on laboratory animals shows that the resin of the middle-eastern tree Commiphora, better known as “myrrh” can act as a protective antioxidant against liver damage caused by organic lead compounds. Myrrh is a rust-coloured resi ...
  
• 25 Scientific musos or 25 musical scientists
  Science is fun, but there are times when even the most dedicated begoggled labcoat wearing bench monkey has to relax and lots of science types seem particularly drawn to playing music. Now, I’m not saying any of these people are bench monkeys, but they do all play music, as far as I know: harp ...
  
• 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 ...
  

change: org.

• Signs: Real Jobs Needed NOW!
  Imagine being a human billboard, standing for hours along the edge of a busy street, in weather that echos the US Postal creed of "rain, sleet, snow..." expanding to include heat, dust, and bad health. For your efforts you get sore feet, a sense of shame and, if you're lucky, a minimum wage paychec ...
  
• The BBC's Misguided Attempt at Apologizing for Pol ...
  Earlier this week, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ran a poll as part of coverage for its World Services "Africa Have Your Say" forum, during which they polled their readership on the question of "Should Homosexuals Face Execution?" After the world muttered a collective, "WTF, BBC!" edito ...
  
• Update: What is An "Illegal Student?"
  While we are sadly no closer to the answer than yesterday, we have gained the support of more people , who are just as confused as yours truly about the label of "illegal student." Late last night, I was referred to a webcast by the clueless reporter of the offending article, who swore that she was ...
  
• Lady Gaga Urges You to Support Youth Homelessness
  Lady Gaga has teamed up with Virgin Mobile to combat youth homelessness. For the past several years, Virgin Mobile has been a champion for this issue, creating several innovative promotions to encourage young people to help the homeless. This past summer, they distributed free concert tickets to tho ...
  
• Greyhound Racing Runs Its Last Lap in Wisconsin
  Kenosha's Dairyland Greyhound Park, the last of Wisconsin's dog racing tracks , is going out of business on December 31st. Although none will be operating, dog tracks are still legal in Wisconsin, one of only fourteen states without any statutes against the so-called sport. As of next year, only eig ...
  

Common Dreams -News

• Online Posting of Women's Abortion Information Cha ...
  by Wayne Drash OKLAHOMA - A judge could determine Friday whether to allow an Oklahoma law to go forward that will post information online about women who get abortions in the state -- an act critics say would be harassment and an invasion of privacy. "We don't feel that the government should be able ...
  
• Stunning Statistics About the War Every American S ...
  by Jeremy Scahill A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill's Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with ...
  
• Homeowners Often Rejected Under Obama's Loan Plan
  by Kevin G. Hall WASHINGTON - Ten months after the Obama administration began pressing lenders to do more to prevent foreclosures, many struggling homeowners are holding up their end of the bargain but still find themselves rejected, and some are even having their homes sold out from under them with ...
  
• Barack Obama's Speech Disappoints and Fuels Frustr ...
  by Suzanne Goldenberg and Allegra Stratton in Copenhagen COPENHAGEN - Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act "boldly and decisively" on climate change. But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embr ...
  
• CIA Working with Palestinian Security Agents
  by Ian Cobain in Ramallah Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned. Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that pr ...
  

Lifehacker

• Dragon Search Offers Hands-Free Web and iTunes Se ...
  iPhone: Nuance, makers of the Dragon Dictation app that surprised us with its accuracy, have released another free-for-now voice-to-text app, this one offering to search the web, Wikipedia, Twitter, iTunes, or other locations based on what you say. It works similar to Dragon Dictation—hit the red bu ...
  
• Get More Precise Font Smoothing in Snow Leopard [ ...
  Among the many changes in OS X 10.6 was a simplification of the font smoothing options to a yes or no toggle. If your monitor text isn't quite right, Macworld offers up a quick terminal tip to get nitty-gritty control. You should only undertake this fix if you believe Snow Leopard has made your font ...
  
• Cutting Your TV Watching in Half Burns Calories E ...
  The New York Times reports on a study examining how watching less TV affects average (five hours/day) TV-viewers. The results: Cutting television in half resulted in the equivalent of walking roughly eight miles/week in calories burned. Photo by (A3R) angelrravelor (A3R) . The results reported in Th ...
  
• What's Your Screen Resolution? [Reader Poll]
  Google released a tool today—called Browser Size —designed to show web developers what parts of a site users can see without scrolling. It's not exclusively tied to screen resolution (you don't have to maximize your browser), but it got us wondering. (Click the image above for a closer look.) We wan ...
  
• The Heart of Dartness Determines Your Dartboard S ...
  Every so often, your uncoordinated hands get wrangled into a game of barroom darts. If you'd like a better chance at victory instead of apologies, a few Stanford students' webapp can analyze your game and provide your personal best-chance target. As Wired's write-up explains, darts is a game where t ...
  

Newshoggers - AfPak

• Clinton II
  Commentary By Ron Beasley With apologies to Pastor Niemöller: First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in. Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our childre ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Water Wars

• South Africa : The Poverty of Ideas (AllAfrica.com ...
  'Now, it is a fact that an intellectual is someone who fails to mind his own business.' Jean-Paul Sartre[1]
  
• Two Cents Worth: Clean water legislation biggest f ...
  NOTE: The Nevada System of Higher Education is working to transfer the 10 water right options acquired under the Walker River Basin Project to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
  
• Two Cents Worth: Clean water legislation biggest f ...
  NOTE: The Nevada System of Higher Education is working to transfer the 10 water right options acquired under the Walker River Basin Project to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
  
• Underfoot and Under-Appreciated (Manhasset Press)
  Water, Slipping Though Our Fingers Underground on Long Island there are vast aquifers filled with water, some closer to the surface and more susceptible to polluting influences, others deep with pristine waters thousands of years old. Water knows no boundaries. The water in the aquifers flows in var ...
  
• What Are The Top Stories of 2009? (WXIA-TV Atlanta ...
  With the end of 2009 approaching, eyes are being turned to the year in review, and the big question: what were the top stories of 2009 in Georgia?
  

WordPress | Economics

• Civil War: Democrat meltdown
  It sure is starting to look a lot like Chernobyl at the DNC. From obamacare to gun control “pr
  
• Massive Layoffs in Irish Politics
  The Definitive Indefinite Article is grieved to note the massive layoffs that have occurred in Irish
  
• Housing Starts Up 8.9% in November, 2009; Projecte ...
  Housing Starts were up +8,9% in November, 2009 from the prior month according to a report released D
  
• Christmas 2009: Santa Still Laid Off
  For 107 years, Santa Claus had a steady seasonal job on the sidewalks of New York City, ringing a be
  
• The 'oughts': a decade embracing the 'cloud', the ...
  With the end of a decade comes the flood of lists – best movies, best CDs, biggest changes of
  

McClatchey

• Battle against human trafficking gets boost from n ...
  America's war on human trafficking got its biggest-ever one-year boost in federal funding following President Barack Obama's signing of an appropriations bill, one of several significant anti-trafficking developments this week.
  
• Death sentences are down but Texas still leads in ...
  Texas juries are following a nationwide trend of sending fewer convicted criminals to death, but the state still leads the country in executions by a wide margin, according to a new study released today.
  
• Napa Valley Wine Train supporters say criticisms f ...
  Townsfolk in Napa say Sen. John McCain of Arizona has uncorked sour information about their wine town in a new report on alleged waste of federal stimulus dollars.
  
• Alaska Sen. Begich surprises colleagues while pres ...
  WASHINGTON — Normally when senators preside over the Senate, they do little but direct traffic, showing little partiality or emotion as they allow their colleagues to yammer on at length.
  
• Aide for ex-N.C. Gov. Easley takes the Fifth befor ...
  A top aide to former Gov. Mike Easley who helped gather campaign donations from politically connected businessmen declined Thursday to testify before the State Board of Elections, citing his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself.
  

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

• COP15: Saving the planet or saving face?
  1641 CET: We're into a strange dark limbo-land here. The draft political agreement that leaders are supposed to sign today has gone through more changes than Eva Longoria at an awards ceremony. The latest version, we're told, sheds many of the frills. It's a jeans and t-shirt job compared with the ...
  
• COP15: 'Nothing new' in Obama's speech
  1335 CET A year ago, I sat in a news conference at the UN climate conference in Poznan and listened to Senator John Kerry pledge that an Obama administration would lead the world on combating climate change. Today, Mr Obama himself appeared at the Copenhagen summit and told the world why "we have r ...
  
• COP15: First draft of Copenhagen's political decla ...
  I'll be updating this post throughout the day so please do check back. 1117 CET Here is a copy of the first draft of the political declaration put before governments last night [4.24Mb PDF] . 1142 CET A few more details on the draft document rejected by governments last night. One key issue for c ...
  
• COP15: Tumbling towards a deal
  It's amazing how fast things can move when the big guns are rolled out. The most powerful gun of all here today appeared to be Hillary Clinton. I use the word "appeared" deliberately. The substance of her proposal on financial aid to developing countries isn't very different from what we've heard ...
  
• COP15: Breaking a deal
  So we're entering the final throes of this two-week conference - the end (supposedly) of a two-year process aimed at securing a new global agreement on combating climate change. But as we've been reporting regularly over the last few days , things are pretty chaotic here. In procedural terms, a num ...
  

Afghanistan Sun

• Karzai to keep half his Cabinet
  KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants to retain a half-dozen key Cabinet officials who have been embraced by the international community as he begins his second term and will replace two mi...
  
• Tributes to Edinburgh soldiers killed in Afghanist ...
  MOVING tributes were paid today to two Edinburgh-based soldiers who were killed as they tried to prevent suicide bombers causing carnage in an Afghan market.
  
• Half of Karzai's Cabinet to stay
  Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants to retain a half-dozen key Cabinet officials who have been embraced by the international community as he begins his second term and will replace two ministry heads ...
  
• Battalion feels brunt of Afghan war
  12/18/2009 FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — The 21 names inscribed on the white concrete memorial in front of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment headquarters tell a grim s...
  
• Half of Karzai's Cabinet to stay
  By AMIR SHAHAssociated Press Writer KABUL (AP) - Two officials in the Afghan government say President Hamid Karzai will keep half of his current Cabinet in place as he begins his second five-year ter...
  

Futurismic

• The legislation of fabrication – should 3D printin ...
  Here’s another sf-nal thought experiment to keep your brain occupied. We frequently mention 3D printing and fabbing here at Futurismic, but usually in the context of its positive disruptive potential – a potential sea-change in capitalist economic systems, for example. But here’s a negative response ...
  
• Potential outcomes of pervasive surveillance
  Sometimes it really feels like science-fictional thinking is becoming a much more mainstream thing to do. Following on from yesterday’s mention of CCTV control software that can learn to recognise suspicious behaviour (as defined by operator feedback, natch), out-bound BoingBoing guest blogger Paul ...
  
• Mercurial cartography
  With the cold weather really digging in for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, you may well be thinking of taking a holiday somewhere hot. Courtesy the US Geological Survey, you can now scout out the lay of the land on the hottest destination in the entire solar system, as their near-global map ...
  
• What Are The Animals Becoming?
  Since I went for things made of metal skins and electrical guts last month when I wrote about weird robots, I decided to opt for warm-blooded carbon-based life forms this time around – so welcome to the December column on smart animals! Now, we’re a dog family, and we have a golden retriever [. ...
  
• The real history of science fiction
  Just in case you missed it, this little gem from webcomic Hark, a Vagrant was doing the rounds on Twitter the other day. Click through for the whole thing, then feel free to argue about the need for hard scientific veracity in speculative fiction in the comments. Project Wonderful - Your ad here ...
  

geopolitics | geoeconomics

• Geithner's Dirty Little Secret
• Swine Flu
• Putin and the Geopolitics of the New Cold War: Or ...
• The Fake Oil Crisis of 1973
• Fossiles Erdöl
  
  

Whistleblowers Protection Blog

• DC Council improves whistleblower protection law
  On Monday, the District of Columbia Council approved the Whistleblower Protection Amendment Act of 2009 , which strengthens the DC Whistleblower Protection Act (DC Code § 1-615.51 et seq.) and The Employees of District Contractors and Instrumentality Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 (DC Code § 2 ...
  
• IRS rule to clarify taxation of personal injury co ...
  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is now considering a proposed regulation that would expand the types of personal injury compensations that are exempt from income tax.  The proposed rule would eliminate the requirement that compensation be paid as part of a tort remedy.  However, the proposed rule ...
  
• USDOT IG honors Metro bridge safety whistleblower
  U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel III issued a letter of commendation to Steve T. Mackey, a former bridge manager for Metro's Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport.  According to a story in today's Washington Post , Dulles Transit Partners overruled Mackey's concern ...
  
• 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. Birkenfeld’s ...
  

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 having mo ...
  
• 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 same subjec ...
  
• 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 “Political Corr ...
  
• 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, the ...
  

Science Express

• Chronic infection now clearly tied to immune-syste ...
  A new study finds the cross-talk between 'killer T-cells' and 'helper T-cells' can only happen in the presence of interleukin-21, a powerful immune-system protein. UAB researchers say if interleukin-21 is missing, the immune system's anti-viral efforts fail. The study mice were treated for lymphocyt ...
  
• German 'science train': next stop Shanghai 2010?
  How will we feed nine billion people in the future? Can we ever have a disease-free world? Can robots play football?
  
• New mechanisms of action found for drugs used to t ...
  (PhysOrg.com) -- In the course of his or her life, every seventh German will develop an anxiety disorder that will require treatment. Standard anti-anxiety medications (anxiolytics) are based on the benzodiazepine class of drugs. These calm the patient and quickly diminish feelings of anxiety.
  
• Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators ...
  Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way's particle accelerators. They show in a paper published today on Science Express that cosmic rays from ou ...
  
• Physical reality of string theory demonstrated
  String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been made that have not been lived up to. Leiden (The Netherlands) theoretical physicists have now for the first time used string theory to describe a physical phenomenon. Their discovery has been reported in Science Express.
  

TechDirt

• Netflix Sued For Revealing Private Info In $1 Mill ...
  As we've noted in the past, there really is no such thing as an anonymized dataset. There are almost always ways to reconnect at least some of the data to individuals. Now, when it comes to movie rental data, that's especially problematic, due to the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), 18 USC 271 ...
  
• As AT&T Complains, People Notice That It Has Decre ...
  Don't mess with a fake CEO. That's the lesson of the week. At the beginning of the week, "Fake Steve Jobs" (aka Dan Lyons) got a lot of attention for his rather funny fake phone call with AT&T boss Randall Stephenson where he tells him to fix his wireless network that has been receiving so many co ...
  
• Canada Also Getting Pushed By EU On Ridiculous Cop ...
  If you thought secrecy over ACTA was bad enough, apparently Canada and the EU are involved in equally secret negotiations on a separate treaty that has additional copyright implications that are just as bad, if not worse than what ACTA would require. As with ACTA, the details have just leaked, and ...
  
• $500 YouTube Video Gets Director $30 Million To Pl ...
  cram writes in to let us know of a filmmaker/post production guy in Uruguay who spent a grand total of $500 to make a 5 minute "robots attack the world" movie that he put on YouTube, and, in response, has now been given tens of millions of dollars by a Hollywood production company to do something mo ...
  
• DRM To The Disaster Again... May Prevent 3D Showin ...
  There's obvious been a lot of talk about James Cameron's new epic movie Avatar . One of the interesting things about the movie is that, yet again, it's showing why Hollywood probably isn't in as much trouble due to "piracy" as studio bosses keep insisting. Avatar is designed to be the type of movi ...
  

VacTruth

• Child Assaulted by His Teacher for Giving Out Vacc ...
  . . . Christina England vactruth.com 12/18/09 (vactruth.com) Robert, a young student from Breckenridge, says that he was physically assaulted by his Principle when he tried to give other students vaccine information fliers at school. He says that all he tried to do was give out information to stud ...
  
• Student Suspended And Assaulted For Handing Out AN ...
  The fliers consisted of simple medical studies that disprove vaccine safety claims by the cdc. On December 16th Breckenridge High School was holding a free vaccination clinic for all willing students, I signed up on the 14th and intended to enter the science room to hand out educational fliers. Whe ...
  
• Sanofi-Pasteur Removes Thimerosal Free Vaccine fro ...
  . . . Brandon Turbeville Infowars.com December 17, 2009 On December 15, 2009 the CDC released a statement announcing the recall of 800,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine from the market. This was a story that should have received widespread coverage in the national media but, instead, largely died out at th ...
  
• Detection of IL-17 and IL-23 in Plasma Samples of ...
  . . . Abstract: Interleukin-23 (IL-23) is a survival factor for a newly described population of T lymphocytes, namely Th-17 cells, that secrete IL-17, tumor necrosis factor- alpha (TNF) and IL-6. It has been shown that Th-17 cells are a pathogenic T cell subset involved in autoimmune and chronic in ...
  
• Day schools adopt vaccination rules stricter than ...
  . . . by Toby Tabachnick The Jewish Chronicle 12.16.09 – 10:06 am At the urging of 28 area physicians, Pittsburgh’s three Jewish day schools have all enacted vaccination policies stricter than those mandated by the state. Community Day School, Hillel Academy and Yeshiva Schools now do not recog ...
  

BroadSnark

• Things You May Have Missed
  I can’t remember how I came to this post about Gandhi’s letters to Hitler, but it’s fascinating. Every once in a blue moon I think about going to grad school for about half a second.  Then some wise person comes along to remind me why academia is not for me.  This post is written by just [...]
  
• White America’s Existential Crisis
  People have, apparently, lost their minds.  There seems to be a panic that we have lost the fabric of our society and I’m having trouble getting a handle on what has happened that is so drastic that people would think its tyranny or fascism or hitleresque or stalinesque (Jon Stewart) That quote is ...
  
• 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 violence and discri ...
  
• 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 harassment ...
  
• 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 state ...
  

Executive Intelligence Review

• LaRouche Youth Candidates To `Educate' Mass Strike
  By Harley Schlanger Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 18, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 49
  
• The Only Real Reform Measure Is the LaRouche Plan
  By John Hoefle Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 18, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 49
  
• The Greens Are a Sinister Movement
  Interview with Martin Durkin Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 18, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 49
  
• Climate Swindle: Do You Really Want World Dictator ...
  By Helga Zepp-LaRouche Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 18, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 49
  
• Copenhagen: They Tried Nazis at Nuremberg, Didn't ...
  By Nancy Spannaus Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 18, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 49
  

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 to ...
  
• 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 ناجي- ترجمة خاصة بالمستقلة عقد الرئيس اليمني علي عبدا لله صالح مؤخرا صفقة مع ...
  
• 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

• Copenhagen climate summit: ‘most important paper i ...
  Gerald Warner London Telegraph Friday, Dec 18th, 2009 When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and s ...
  
• Copehagen circus ending with a lame act
  Andrew Bolt Herald Sun Friday, Dec 18th, 2009 A last-minute deal at Copenhagen is proposed that seems no deal at all: Leaders and ministers from 28 countries including Australia have outlined a draft accord to fight global warming. The three-hour session ended early today, leaving top advisers to ...
  
• Stat Model Predicts Flat Temperatures Through 2050
  Doug L. Hoffman The Resilient Earth Friday, Dec 18th, 2009 While climate skeptics have gleefully pointed to the past decade’s lack of temperature rise as proof that global warming is not happening as predicted, climate change activists have claimed that this is just “cherry picking” the data. Th ...
  
• Is the European police state going global?
  Viscount Monckton of Brenchley SPPI Blog Friday, Dec 18th, 2009 Today the gloves came off and the true purpose of the “global warming” scare became nakedly visible. Ugo Chavez, the Socialist president of Venezuela, blamed “global warming” on capitalism – and received a standing ovation from very ne ...
  
• Big Pharma paid $500,000 to Chicago psychiatrists ...
  E. Huff Natural News Friday, Dec 18th, 2009 A federal lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for its role in paying Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein nearly $500,000 over the course of a decade to conduct research and to promote its anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel. Re ...
  

food and water watch

• Day 1 in Rome
  Hello from Roma, viva Roma. I am Dave Andrews, Senior Representative for Food & Water Watch. I am in Rome for the World Food Summit which is taking up the issue of one billion hungry people in the world, most of them farmers and most of them women. The solution of the US is high [...]
  
• Day 4 in Rome
  The official FAO meeting began on the 16th of November with the Pope followed by Libya’s Gaddafi, an interesting pairing! The Kings and Presidents (but not Obama) had the roads of Rome closed off for them, getting near the FAO was a big challenge so I waited until things calmed down later in the day ...
  
• Pangasius Pandemonium
  Last week, the state of Alabama instituted a stop sale order on imported catfish and pangasius, a catfish-like fish (pangasius is frequently mislabeled as catfish) after discovering that high numbers of the samples that had been inspected were contaminated with illegal antibiotics called flouroquino ...
  
• Day 3 in Rome
  Today, a group of us from Agribusiness Action Initiative and other NGOs went to the Civil Society Forum early in the morning and visited the farmers market that was set up there. We visited other NGO representatives from Via Campesina, International Federation of Agriculture Producers, Greenpeace, P ...
  
• Day 2 in Rome
  Today, we began the official Civil Society Forum on the Peoples’ Food Sovereignty. The morning started with an opening by the Mayor of Rome and by Jacques Diouf, the Secretary General of FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization).  He encouraged us to insist on our rights and told of how he has wo ...
  

treehugger

• Readers, Send Us Your Green Holiday Photos!
  Credit: Jan Tik , CC. Are you dreaming of a green holiday this year? Giving only green gifts sans wrapping paper--if you haven't already check out our Gift Guide --to family and friends? Planning to partake in outdoor fun like sledding, skiing, or hiking? Prove it! From green traditions and gree ...
  
• LED Lamp Sticks to Windows for Solar Charging
  Images Via Ecofriend The Lucet lamp is an interesting concept design by industrial designer Rui Palma. It's not the first idea for a window-sticking-solar-style light we've seen, but it's a bit more realistic. The unique shape and easy movability means a user can make bright, beautiful designs on ...
  
• Copenhagen Roundup: Top 10 Reports Of The Week Fro ...
  It's a bumper version of TH Blog Love this week as we come down to the wire at Copenhagen. Tck Tck Tck! As predicted we're all waiting for Obama to wave a magic wand to bring about an agreement at the very last minute. Is he, to quote a friend's recent Tweet, 'looking in the mirror and thinking "* ...
  
• As Weak Draft Text Emerges, Obama Offers Nothing N ...
  President Obama offered the Copenhagen summit a curt, no-nonsense summary of the challenges still facing the conference, and emphasized he's here to act, but offered no new commitments. Following an impromptu meeting between Obama and 20 heads of state (Canada was inexplicably absent) and a testy, ...
  
• We Shall Overcome: Pete Seeger Celebrates His 90th ...
  Image from starpulse.com Here's the gift for the hip old-timers on your list...you really like them but don't have a clue what to get them. It's Pete Seeger, singing along with all his friends. In his case, friends means Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Paxton, B ...
  

Biosingularity

• Technology Review: Making Drugs Survive Longer in ...
  Taking a hint from natural antibiotics, a startup spun out of Stanford University is developing a way to chemically alter existing drugs to dramatically improve their half-life By sequestering the drugs within cells, the researchers hope to protect them from the bodys efforts to destroy them. So far ...
  
• Artificial Red Blood Cells for Drug Delivery
  Since the 1950s, researchers have been trying to mimic the abilities of red blood cells. These flexible discs carry oxygen throughout the body, squeezing through the smallest capillaries to do so. But the physical characteristics of red blood cells, including their doubly concave shape, have made th ...
  
• Coffee, Tea May Stall Diabetes
  Every cup of coffee a person drinks per day may lower the risk of diabetes by 7%. A new review of research on the link between lifestyle factors, like coffee and tea consumption, and diabetes risk suggests that drinking regular or decaffeinated coffee and tea all lower the risk of type 2 diabetes. v ...
  
• New evidence links sirtuins and life extension
  Ever since he first discovered the lifespan-extending effects of proteins called sirtuins 15 years ago, MIT Professor Leonard Guarente has been accumulating evidence to demonstrate a link between sirtuins and the effects of calorie restriction on lifespan. For decades, it has been known that cutting ...
  
• A Stimulating Treatment for Sleep Apnea
  Unlike most researchers, the engineers at ImThera Medical just might consider it a compliment if someone called their product a “snooze.” The experimental device is designed to treat sleep apnea, a breathing disorder that can disrupt sleep and trigger serious complications, including an increased ri ...
  
  
  
  
  
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  To Do

  renewable recycling conservation

  Final leg of SCE renewable energy project gets OK

  Los Angeles Times

  - Dec 17, 2009

  - 12 hours ago

  The decision helps move the state closer to its goal of using renewable resources for 33% of its energy use by 2020, an objective reinforced by an executive ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  David Kidney insists UK is “world leader” in renewables

  New Energy Focus

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 1 hour ago

  Mr Kidney claimed the suggestion that other countries were doing more in renewables was "absolute rot" and went on to outline how the UK had "the most ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Renewable energy supplier prepares submission for onshore section of wind farm

  energyhelpline.com

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 4 hours ago

  A company based in the Midlands is to submit the planning proposal for the onshore part of a cheap energy offshore wind farm it plans to develop off the ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  US renewable power provider Tioga raises $20m in venture financing

  AltAssets

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 1 hour ago

  Tioga Energy, a supplier of renewable energy services to commercial, government and non-profit organisations, has completed a $20m round of Series B ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  powered by

  

  Human Habitat

  ecology water energy

  Breaking news: Ecology issues burn ban for Kittitas County

  Daily Record

  - Dec 17, 2009

  - 17 hours ago

  OLYMPIA — The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) has issued a burn ban in Kittitas County because of worsening air quality. Ecology's Stage 1 burn ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Profits slide at Ecology & Environment

  Buffalo News

  - Dec 16, 2009

  - Dec 16, 2009

  By David Robinson Ecology & Environment's first-quarter profits slid by 5 percent as a more than $800000 gain from the sale of land near its Lancaster ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Tryon Creek internships teach students more than ecology

  OregonLive.com

  - Dec 17, 2009

  - 14 hours ago

  Participants will learn about park ecology and develop and implement restoration projects. Six students from Oregon City Service Learning Academy, ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  UGA study: Headwater stream nutrient enrichment disrupts food web

  ScienceBlog.com (blog)

  - Dec 17, 2009

  - 19 hours ago

  The researchers -- a team from the UGA Odum School of Ecology and department of entomology in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences?found ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  powered by

  

  Water Power

  water floods pollution

  Water conservation order lifted as crews work to repair main break

  Baltimore Sun

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 8 hours ago

  By Liz F. Kay | liz.kay@baltsun.com A water conservation order was lifted at 6 am Friday while crews continue to repair a major water main that broke ...

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  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  EPA Says WV Air and Water Pollution Emissions Declined

  WHSV

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 3 minutes ago

  The Environmental Protection Agency reports that air and water pollution emissions declined in 2008 in West Virginia. According to the EPA, air emissions ...

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  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Row For Water: Katie Spotz, Row, Row Our Boat

  Huffington Post (blog)

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 2 hours ago

  A million Katies, and the global crisis of clean, fresh drinking water can be solved. Katie's solo journey is also a bleak warning that seven years after ...

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  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Hotel not ruled out in guest's death from disease

  MiamiHerald.com

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - 3 hours ago

  But Dr. Laurie Hicks with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that further testing of water samples are needed. ...

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