20 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

• VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA: Paramilitaries Rule Border Ar ...
  SAN ANTONIO DEL TÁCHIRA, Venezuela, Dec 20 (IPS) - "We’re second-class citizens, victims of a war that hasn’t broken out," said José Duque from behind the wheel of a car carrying passengers from San Cristóbal, in southwestern Venezuela, to the border with the northeastern region of Colombia, ...
  
• JAPAN: Careers On Hold For Most Women
  TOKYO, Dec 20 (IPS) - Tomoko Ando and her husband divorced because she refused to quit her job as a lawyer and start a family. The shortage of daycare centres has created a dilemma for women like Ando who want to continue working, but also start a family.
  
• RIGHTS-FRANCE: Homeless Prefer Streets to Gov't ...
  PARIS, Dec 20 (IPS) - They huddle in the doorways of buildings with their few belongings, trying to keep warm. Or they sleep in covered shopping centres, accompanied by their pets - usually dogs. Some, reluctantly, make their way to government-run shelters.
  
• CLIMATE CHANGE: "We're Not Finished Yet," Civil S ...
  COPENHAGEN, Dec 19 (IPS) - The climate change summit proved to be a "spectacular failure even according to its own terms," but civil society had "some successes," such as the inclusion of certain issues on the climate agenda, and making the voice of the South heard loud and clear.
  
• POLITICS: The Week the IAEA Applied a Nuclear Dou ...
  WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (IPS) - In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that a member state had violated its Safeguards Agreement by carrying out covert uranium conversion and enrichment activities and plutonium experiments for more than two decades. The nature of certain of t ...
  

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 )

• Gerry Adams says father was a child abuser
  Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams revealed his late father subjected family members to emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
  
• Blizzard-like storm slams US East Coast
  A blizzard-like storm rocked the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern US states on yesterday, crippling travel across the region and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.
  
• Iran's top dissident cleric Montazeri dies
  Iran's senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has died, official media reported on today. He was 87.
  
• China stands accused of wrecking global deal
  China "systematically wrecked" the Copenhagen climate summit because it feared being presented with a legally binding target to cut the country's soaring carbon emissions, a senior official from an EU country, present during the negotiations, told The Independent on Sunday yesterday.
  
• So, what does this accord add up to? Key issues ex ...
  Is it true that the world has a new agreement to fight climate change?
  

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• IAEA Applying a Nuclear Double-Standard
  Summary: The stark contrast between the treatment of the Iranian and South Korean cases by the IAEA Secretariat and its Board of Governors is the most dramatic evidence of a politically motivated nuclear double standard practiced by the agency and its Governing Board, dominated by the United Sta ...
  
• In Iran, nuclear issue is also a medical one
  Summary: Seyed al Shuhada Hospital Solook, 78, an Iranian Jew who emigrated decades ago, never expected to find both in his native country. But there he was this month, recovering in an isolated room in Tehran's oldest hospital with a new kidney donated by a friend. "They have saved my life here ...
  
• Deep South calls in Iran to cure its health blues
  Summary: The last place on earth she would look for help is Iran, a country widely regarded in America as the enemy. The US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations for 30 years and the two governments trade daily insults over Iran’s nuclear programme. Last week Tehran charged three American h ...
  
• Iran ready to examine nuclear fuel swap offers: FM
  Summary: Mottaki Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Saturday Tehran was ready to examine the West's proposals for a nuclear fuel swap, the official IRNA news agency reported. "We are ready to examine proposals by the other side about the fuel swap," Mottaki told IRNA. Mottaki's ...
  
• In Iran Sanctions Plea, Obama Warns of Possible Is ...
  Summary: The United States cannot indefinitely prevent Israel from launching strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities if China maintains its opposition to new punitive measures aimed at curbing the Middle Eastern state's disputed nuclear activities, U.S. President Barack Obama warned Chinese Preside ...
  

The Daily Galaxy

• Octopus Join Dolphins on Planet's List of Smartest ...
  One of the planet's smartest creatures just got smarter in the human playbook. Veined octopuses observed off the coast of Indonesia carried coconut shell halves under their bodies, and assembled them as necessary into shelters — a totally new discovery...
  
• Discovery of the Day: The "Dark Matter Halo"
  The Hubble Space Telescope image above indicates that a huge ring of dark matter surrounding the center of galaxy cluster CL0024+17 located in Pisces. The many spectacular galaxies are part of CL0024+17 itself, typically appearing tan in color along with...
  
• The "Copenhagen Wheel" (VIDEO)
  Massachusetts Institute of Technology lab has created the perfect Boomer-bike: A motorized rear wheel. Called the Copenhagen Wheel, it has a small motor in its hub, will fit into any existing bike frame, giving riders extra horsepower for hills and...
  
• The Daily Flash -Eco, Space, Tech
  Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Radioactive Longer Than Expected Reinhabiting the large dead zone around the accident site may have to wait longer than expected. Radioactive cesium isn’t disappearing from the environment as quickly as predicted, according to new research presented here...
  
• Do Dark Galaxies Exist in the Outer Edges of the M ...
  The outer edges of the Milky Way's may be stalked by innumerable invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own. Back in 2005 astronomers discovered the first evidence of mysterious dark galaxies with no starlight -VIRGOHI...
  

Natural News

• Aerosol pollution interferes with thunderstorm act ...
  (NaturalNews) Scientists are finally making inroads into understanding the effect that aerosol particulate matter is having on the way storm clouds form. Recent research has revealed that the tiny pollutants can either inhibit thunderstorms or make them stronger depending on wind shear conditions. W ...
  
• Destination Ecuador: Hosteria Izhcayluma offers na ...
  (NaturalNews) If you're coming to visit Vilcabamba, Ecuador -- the Valley of Longevity -- you'll need a comfortable place to stay. One of the best is called Hoster�a Izhcayluma . (The locals pronounce it "ish-ka-loo-ma.") Located less than 5 kilometers South of town, Hoster�a Izhcayluma is noted as ...
  
• Emu Oil is a Miracle from Down Under
  (NaturalNews) The emu, a native of Australia, is a large, ostrich looking bird that doesn't fly. The Australian Aborigines first discovered the benefits of emu oil and have been using it for thousands of years for bone, muscle and joint pain, as an anti-inflammatory and for many skin conditions. The ...
  
• 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 ...
  

TheGallopingBeaver

• Hollow Victory, Mr. President . . . .
  Check out Matt Taibbi and Robert Kuttner on Bill Moyers Journal Friday night. They explain the clusterf_ck in Washington for what it is: a sell-out to Corporate America. What a surprise, eh? It's about 30 minutes, but well worth it. The dems and the "o-team" need to pay attention. S'pecially t ...
  
• Bullsh_t . . . .
  For lack of a better term, the post title says it all. ( Speaking of gas, Dave .) The Toronto Star reports from Copenhagen: U.S. cuts deal with dairy farmers to lower methane gas emission December 16, 2009 COPENHAGEN – The United States is counting on cows to help save the planet. U.S. Sec ...
  
• Advice to aquarists...
  Farting turtles can ruin a night's sleep. Staff at the Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre in Norfolk give turtles a seasonal treat of brussel sprouts at Christmas which provide a healthy dose of vitamins, minerals and fibre. However, the turtles, like humans, are prone to heavy bouts of flatule ...
  
• Christmas at The Woodshed
  Looking for a way to get into the spirit of the season? Move on over to The Woodshed where, starting 4:00 pm PST (Midnight GMT) on the 23rd of December, our very own Rev. Paperboy kicks off a 3 holiday special on Radio Woodshed . Remember, in the past, The Rev has been willing to take himself host ...
  
• A Harper Break
  AN OLDER, TIRED-LOOKING DOG wandered into my yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of.   He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head; he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the hall, curled up in the corne ...
  

Media Matters for America

• Politico's claim that Special Report< ...
  A December 18 Politico article stated that Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier "offers a straight-ahead reading of the day's headlines every night." But Special Report's history of misleading or incomplete information undermines Politico's characterization of a "straight-ahead reading of th ...
  
• Quick Fact: Wallace allows McCain to falsely claim ...
  Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace allowed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to falsely claim that "it is only after four years that the benefits [of the Senate health care bill] kick in."  In fact, Senate Democrats have summarized numerous benefits of health care reform that will "be available in the first ...
  
• O'Reilly promotes misinformation to attack Franke ...
  Bill O'Reilly attacked Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) as a "punk" for denying Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) request for additional speaking time on the Senate floor, aired Sen. John McCain's criticism of Franken's actions as unprecedented, and allowed Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to claim that Franken was "[a] ...
  
• Hannity report on Russian climate "bombshell" miss ...
  On his Fox News show, host Sean Hannity falsely claimed that a "major Russian climate change organization dropped a bombshell" report claiming that "much of its climate data was tampered with by a leading British research center" and that "any of their data that could help disprove global warming w ...
  
• Cato's Michaels falsely claims emails show CRU ...
  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Cato Institute fellow and author Patrick Michaels claimed that recently stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) reveal "a silencing of climate scientists" and "dramatically weakened the case for emissions reductions." Michaels cited emails that show s ...
  

Global Research.ca

• US Military Aggression Against Venezuela Escalatin ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Colombia to Build New Military Base on Venezuelan ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Antillean Islands Used for Spying: Chavez
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Saudi Warplanes Rain '1,011 Missiles' on Yemen
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Saudi Air Raids Kill 54 Civilians in Northern Yeme ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  

TPM Cafe

• Why Wait?
  The other participants in our dialog have already made a series of mainly overlapping cases for passing either the current senate bill or the senate bill plus some minor improvements in conference that look likely to be the only... Health - Post Office - United States - Health Policy - Health c ...
  
• Frank Rich: Tiger Woods Symbolizes America's Downf ...
  This is definitely worth a read. Frank Rich thinks that Tiger Woods, more than anyone, is the real person of the year. Why? Because he's a fraud, although a benign one (unless you are his wife). But for Rich he... Tiger Woods - United States - Frank Rich - New York Times - Wall Street
  
• Defend and Demand: The Progressive Way Forward
  The 2009 health reform end game -- yes, the end of the beginning is in sight -- has been excruciating for progressives. Reforming health care in the real world in which we live means paying to include millions more Americans... United States - Health care - Senate - Health - Health Policy
  
• Obama on the Court in Copenhagen
  President Obama demonstrated his work-the-situation prowess in Copenhagen in which he molded a meeting planned with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who may have been trying to duck Obama, into a five way chat between the leaders of China, Brazil, India,... China - Wen Jiabao - Premier of the State ...
  
• NYT: Woo-hoo! They Have 60! Bill Passes By Chris ...
  It's a done deal. So says TPM and the New York Times. Of course, one never knows what the wingers will cook up. Or Revoltin' Joe may come back with a demand that first the President commit to bomb Iran.... New York Times - United States - New York - Middle East - Metro Areas
  

TruthOut

• Huge Winter Storm Blasts Up the Coast
  A treacherous northeaster that dumped record-level snowfalls throughout much of the East Coast swept into Massachusetts overnight, grounding hundreds of flights at Logan International Airport, launching fleets of snowplows, and canceling numerous holiday parties with Christmas less than a week awa ...
  
• Obama Dramatically Interrupts Meeting, Negotiators ...
  Also See: Steve Clemons | Obama on the Court in Copenhagen, The Washington Note read more
  
• More Taxes = More Democracy
  For conservatives who go around repeating that more taxes are always equivalent to less individual freedom, two researchers recall Montesquieu's opposite teaching. And demonstrate, with the support of the numbers, that the French philosopher's observation still holds true two and a half centurie ...
  
• Why has Congress Set a Christmas Deadline for Heal ...
  Washington - Until 8:30 a.m. on a snowy Saturday, few outside Senate majority leader Harry Reid's conference rooms knew exactly how he amended the $849 billion Senate healthcare bill in order to satisfy the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the 60 senators needed to stop a potential Republ ...
  
• Bringing the World Out of Denial
  "Santiago never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of." -Paulo Coelho  "The Alchemist" Although most people are aware of the devastating consequences of critical global issues such as oil depletion, climate change, nuclear proliferation, and po ...
  

Planetsave

• Coalition Says MN Climate Solution Includes Nukes
  The Prairie Island nuclear plant at Red Wing, Minnesota, on the Mississippi River.  Nuclear power advocates want to repeal the state’s 15-year-old ban on new nuclear plants. The state that enacted one of the nation’s most farsighted clean energy laws in 2007 may be a battleground over nuclear p ...
  
• 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, ...
  

Water Quality - WordPress

• Do guns kill people or do people kill sea life by ...
  Drinking water is good, but not out of plastic bottles By Michael Hughes December 20, 2009 Two years
  
• 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
  

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

• Iran says no decision made to limit UK ties
  Months after Iran announced that it would review ties with the United Kingdom, the Iranian Foreign Ministry says no decision has been made to limit relations with Britain.
  
• NYC to hold landmark Picasso exhibition
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art will hold an exhibition of Picasso works from the museum's extensive collection of the artist's work.
  
• Nineteen perish as Europe braces for more snow
  Aside from disrupting train and air transport, snowstorms and freezing temperatures have killed at least 19 people across Europe.
  
• Contact lenses to detect blood sugar changes
  In a medical breakthrough, scientists have developed a new technology for measuring blood sugar levels without drawing blood daily.
  
• Iran top nuclear negotiator in Japan
  Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili has arrived in Japan, where he is expected to discuss various issues, including Tehran's nuclear program, with top Japanese officials.
  

Axis of Logic

• My Christmas and New Year Present
  
  
• US Military Aggression against Venezuela escalatin ...
  
  
• Update from Pakistan: NRO Bubble Busts.
  
  
• Pentagon's Private Militias. Notorious and influen ...
  
  
• Oh Little Town of Bethlehem! "I remain in silent p ...
  
  

They Gave Us a Republic

• Stop Celebrating
  Be careful what you wish for, little dems.  You wanted any old piece of shit bill you could try to sell to the rubes as "health care reform," and boy did you get it. Digby is in favor of passing the senate bill, if only to get it into conference, but here she explains why it's nothing to celebrate , ...
  
• Statement by Senator Claire McCaskill on HCR reach ...
  "Anyone who is concerned with deficit spending should be pleased with this improved bill. Cost containment, reigning in insurance companies' abusive practices, stabilizing Missouri families' health care costs, and deficit reduction are all accomplished in this bill. It won't happen overnight, but it ...
  
• Competing Superstitions Over the Magic Buggy Whip ...
  Seems the freakazoids are claiming their invisible sky wizards for both sides of the mountaintop removal debate , which should be all the proof you need that nothing poisons a debate like superstition. "Mountaintop-removal mining blasts away our souls, blasts away our communities, the souls of the w ...
  
• The Nightowl Newswrap
  Good start or total failure?  Where have we heard that before? "UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed a US-backed climate deal in Copenhagen as an "essential beginning". But he said the accord, reached with key nations including China and Brazil, must be made legally binding next year. After ...
  
• Stupak schemes and plots to kill healthcare reform
  Who the hell does that fuckhead Bart Stupak think he is, anyway?  A Senator? Please. He's a frickin' Congressman, and that club ain't nearly so exclusive, nor do the members have the power to exercise their rights as "an individual congressman" to derail the whole she-bang. That is what he says he i ...
  

Care 2

• HELENA AND THE AMAZING RED LEAF CRICKET
  The rainy season has now started in Kasungu and with it has come an amazing, and sometimes annoying, array of insects and flowers. While observing Titan’s Troop last week one of our volunteers noticed a dried-up red leaf hopping along the undergrowth, Submitted by Simone D. to Animals  |   Note-it! ...
  
• Remembering Tom Chimpanzee
  The Fauna Foundation sanctuary in Canada lost a dear friend last week. J.B. and I knew Tom well from our time at Fauna and our hearts go out to everyone at the sanctuary. We know how big of a loss this is for the humans and the other chimpanzees. Submitted by Simone D. to Animals  |   Note-it!  |  ...
  
• Bacteria used to power simple machines
  U.S. Department of Energy scientists say they've used common bacteria to power simple machines, providing insight for creating bio-inspired energy production. Submitted by Ingrid Peeters to Science & Tech  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Colobine monkeys 'could be wiped out by global war ...
  Species of primates including colobine monkeys are in danger of being wiped out by global warming, scientists have warned Submitted by Cher C. to Animals  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• The cat with purr-fect vision! Almost-blind moggie ...
  Most contact lens wearers have had trouble putting them in their eyes at some point - so the idea of putting them on a cat might seem ridiculous. But that is exactly what the owners of Ernest - a 15-year-old black and white cat - have found themselves Submitted by Beatrice B. to Offbeat  |   Not ...
  

GreenBiz

• Ford To Roll Out Plug-Ins, Battery Electric Vehicl ...
  From now until 2012, Ford will introduce a range of electric vehicles, from continuing its work with hybrids to releasing plug-in and battery electric vehicles.  
  
• 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.
  

Reuters Global

• Parallel worlds at U.N. climate talks
  Parallel universe at UN climate talks
  
• Sudan: Preparing for a peaceful southern secession
  Four years ago, the Sudanese people were promised a brighter future. A peace deal had finally ended the two-decades-long civil war between north and south, which killed more than two million people and devastated the south. But today, that bright future is looking decidedly tarnished, and Sudan is s ...
  
• 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.
  

Ezra Klein

• Still time to think small
  This is a good bill. Not a great bill, but a good bill. Imagine telling a Democrat in the days after the 2004 election that the 2006 election would end Republican control of Congress, the 2008 election would return a Democrat to the White House, and by the 2010 election, Democrats would have passed ...
  
• Sentences I am happy about in the Senate bill: Par ...
  Page 48: The Exchange shall require health plans seeking certification as qualified health plans to submit to the Exchange, the Secretary, the State insurance commissioner, and make available to the public, accurate and timely disclosure of the following information: (i) Claims payment policies an ...
  
• Change to the Senate bill
  Here's the summary document Reid's office is sending around on the changes in the manager's amendments. I've bolded the bits I think important. Tougher Accountability Policies for Health Insurance Companies • Stronger medical loss ratios. Health insurers will be required to spend more of th ...
  
• Sentences I am happy about in the Senate bill: Par ...
  Page 12: Each hospital operating within the United States shall for each year establish (and update) and make public (in accordance with guidelines developed by the Secretary) a list of the hospital’s standard charges for items and services provided by the hospital, including for diagnosis-related ...
  
• The abortion compromise
  The basic compromise is that states can impose the Stupak rules on their own exchanges, but the rules will not be imposed by the federal legislation. I've been assured that at least one plan in each state will cover abortion, but I'm still trying to get clarification on how that works (my hazy under ...
  

Booman Tribune

• Serious Question
  I wonder what psychedelics led Dana Milbank to feel the need to pen this love letter to Joe Lieberman. I mean, I don't really dispute that Lieberman has always been a pain in the ass. But, so what? Why defend him?
  
• Quotes of the Day
  Al Franken: In 1917, progressives in America began a quest to create a system to provide health insurance to all Americans. Today, almost a century later, we are poised to take a giant step toward realizing that goal. Viewed through the lens of history, this is truly an amazing accomplishment. ...
  
• Pick Your Poison
  Megan McArdle is typical of a Republican argument that is making the rounds. The GOP is arguing that the Democrats are committing an act of political suicide (political self-injury is how I put it) by passing a major overhaul of the health care insurance and delivery system. I think McArdle is smo ...
  
• Casual Observation
  I don't think that Tom Coburn understands that you can't throw unborn babies under a bus without throwing their mothers there as well. And if he had made that point, I'd probably be more inclined to agree with him. But, as has been true for some time, nothing a Republican has to say about this hea ...
  
• I Support the Bill
  As Al points out, Teddy Kennedy would have voted for this health care bill. I just watched Bernie Sanders and Ben Cardin explain how they secured money to forgive medical school tuition for doctors who go into primary care, which they believe will give primary care access to 20 million Americans wh ...
  

European Tribune

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 21 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1892 – Birth of...
  
• Sunday Open Thread
  OK, say something...
  
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 20 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1861 – Birth of...
  
• Saturday Open Thread
  Greetings, ETers...
  
• Saving the world, one windfarm at a time
  As Copenhaguen ends, unsurprisingly, in confusion, I have the opportunity to give you a more...
  

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

• Report on Adolescent Perceptions of Substance Abus ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary The National Survey on Drug Use and Health has been available to the public for a few weeks, but industry experts are just beginning to make their double-takes on the reported information concerning adolescent perceptions of substance abuse. At first, the released data ...
  
• Become a Creative Genius Now
  By Rachel Fleischmann, LCSW Click here to contact Rachel and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Read on to learn how to up your creative genius, improve your immune system, and ramp up the Bliss in your life. So many of us marvel at other people’s artistic achievements and ingenuity. But most of us ...
  
• Military Partners with LA County for Veterans’ Men ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline The need for a greater attention to the mental health of those in the armed services has been highlighted lately, and while national offices have both suggested new initiatives and made a few blunders in an attempt to prepare for scores of returning soldiers from the ...
  
• Expose in Illinois Illustrates Issues of Mental He ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Nursing homes are typically through of as being caring and comprehensive communities for the elderly and those who are considerably ill but who do not wish to stay in a hospital. Yet throughout the United States, many nursing homes may be serving a different purpose: t ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Mountaintop Removal

• Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate in Ap ...
  Austin American-Statesman Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate in Appalachia coal country Louisville Courier-Journal “ Mountaintop-removal mining blasts away our souls, blasts away our communities, the souls of the workers who are doing the work and our cultural and natural ... Fear of viol ...
  
• Mountaintop removal opponent starts hunger strike ...
  Mountaintop removal opponent starts hunger strike at Capitol Charleston Gazette An 81-year-old opponent of mountaintop-removal mining started a fast on Monday that he hopes will draw attention to and help end the controversial practice. ... 81-year-old activist begins fast to end mountaintop remova ...
  
• Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate - Lou ...
  Chippewa Herald Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate Louisville Courier-Journal “ Mountaintop-removal mining blasts away our souls, blasts away our communities, the souls of the workers who are doing the work and our cultural and natural ... Fear of violence grows in mountaintop mining figh ...
  
• Wyo. senators don't like coal mine permit review b ...
  Wyo. senators don't like coal mine permit review by feds Gillette News Record Barrasso said a push for more federal oversight of mountain top removal coal mines in the Eastern US could result in costly regulations for coal mines in ...
  
• Fear of violence grows in mountaintop mining fight ...
  Centre Daily Times Fear of violence grows in mountaintop mining fight The Associated Press And Bonds — like many in a place where labor disputes have a violent history — fears more blows will follow as the fight escalates over mountaintop removal , ... Big coal worried about 'Appalachian Restoratio ...
  

Memeorandum

• Correction Regarding the Longer-Term Effects of th ...
  Douglas Elmendorf / Director's Blog : Correction Regarding the Longer-Term Effects of the Manager's Amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  —  CBO has discovered an error in the cost estimate released yesterday related to the longer-term budgetary effects of the manager's amend ...
  
• CBO issues correction: Health bill nixes deficit l ...
  Michael O'Brien / The Hill : CBO issues correction: Health bill nixes deficit less than thought   —  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) corrected its estimate of the Senate health bill's costs on Sunday, saying it would reduce deficits slightly less than they'd predicted.  —  In a letter to Sena ...
  
• Why I Still Believe in This Bill (Jacob S. Hacker/ ...
  Jacob S. Hacker / The New Republic : Why I Still Believe in This Bill   —  Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University.  An expert on the politics of U.S. health and social policy, he is author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books and articles, both s ...
  
• Can Stupak Kill Obamacare in the House? (John McCo ...
  John McCormack / Weekly Standard : Can Stupak Kill Obamacare in the House?   —  Are there enough votes in the House to pass a health care bill very close to the one the Senate is preparing to pass?  Bart Stupak says the Senate bill's abortion language is “unacceptable” and has pledged to lead a gro ...
  
• The Republican Health Care Blunder (Jonathan Chait ...
  Jonathan Chait / The New Republic : The Republican Health Care Blunder   —  The United States is on the doorstep of comprehensive health care reform.  It's a staggering achievement, about which I'll have more to say later. but the under-appreciated thing that strikes me at the moment is that it nev ...
  

Energy & Environment News

• Nuclear Power Expansion in China Stirs Concerns
  China’s aggressive program of building new nuclear plants could cut carbon emissions, but experts worry that the pace may lead to safety shortcuts.
  
• An Air of Frustration for Europe at Climate Talks
  Caught off guard by the Copenhagen accord, European leaders felt pressure to back it even though they they thought did not go far enough and had a process in which they had little influence.
  
• Green Inc. Column: Copenhagen’s One Real Ac ...
  The accord in Copenhagen was “a big step forward” after previous talks offered no financial support mechanisms, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, said.
  
• Reporter’s Notebook: Left Out in the Cold a ...
  Outside the United Nations conference in Copenhagen, thousands of participants faced long waits in freezing weather to pick up their credentials.
  
• A Grudging Accord in Climate Talks
  After delays, theatrics and dealmaking, climate talks ended with an agreement to “take note” of a pact shaped by five nations.
  

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, Molucca Sea
  Sunday, December 20, 2009 13:25:50 UTC Sunday, December 20, 2009 10:25:50 PM at epicenter Depth : 79.30 km (49.27 mi)
  
• M 5.2, Tonga
  Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:47:53 UTC Monday, December 21, 2009 02:47:53 AM at epicenter Depth : 35.00 km (21.75 mi)
  

China Dialogue

• Down to the wire
  chinadialogue follows the climate talks as they reach their conclusion. Read the full text of the Chinese premier’s speech, breaking news, blogs and analysis. chinadialogue is blogging the climate talks from Copenhagen on "the daily planet". Click here to read the full text of the Chinese premier’s ...
  
• 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 ...
  

AlterNet Top Stories

• It Ain't Perfect, but I'd Support the Senate Healt ...
  Here's why.
  
• Is Techno Chicken Gay (Not That There's Anything W ...
  I mean, the techno, the gaudy feathers ...
  
• Health Care Reform Is Not Reform If It Denies Wome ...
  Sen. Harry Reid and the Senate Dems aren't winning any friends among the broad base of voters who support reproductive rights.
  
• Howard Dean Is a Genuine Hero: Taking on Corporate ...
  Dean's attacks on the Lieberman-gutted health insurance "reform" bill are creating the political space for the final version to be better and more progressive.
  
• GOP's New Prayer Guru Says Gays Possessed By Demon ...
  Lou Engle has led GOP Senators in nationally broadcast prayer and anointed Huckabee and Gingrich
  

Threat Level

• TJX Hacker ‘Will Never Commit Any Crime Again’
  Confessed hacker Albert Gonzalez’s turn as a Secret Service informant led him down a dark path of obsession, culminating in the largest identity-theft spree in history. Frances Gonzalez Lago, Gonzalez’s sister wrote his sentencing judge that her brother’s work as an informant between 2003 and and 2 ...
  
• FBI Linguist Guilty of Leaking Classified Document ...
  An Israeli-American lawyer who worked as an FBI linguist pleaded guilty Thursday to providing an unidentified blogger with classified documents derived from U.S. communications intelligence. Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, 39, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded to one felony count of disclosing to an unaut ...
  
• Internal Twitter Credentials Used in DNS Hack, Red ...
  Twitter’s website went offline for about an hour Thursday, with many tweeters redirected to a defacement page boasting “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.” Twitter acknowledged the 10 p.m. takeover, one in a series of security lapses to hit the popular microblogging service. Twitter s ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• Actress Brittany Murphy dies aged 32
  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Brittany Murphy, who starred in such films as "Just Married" and "Uptown Girls" but saw her fortunes fade in recent years, died on Sunday, officials said. She was 32.
  
• "Avatar" leads box office, despite blizzard
  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Titanic" director James Cameron's "Avatar," a 3-D extravaganza hyped as a giant leap in cinematic prowess, ruled the worldwide box office during its first weekend even as North American sales were hit by an enormous snow storm, its distributor said on Sunday.
  
• East Coast hammered by severe winter storm
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A weekend nor'easter buried much of the U.S. East Coast on Saturday and Sunday, disrupting public transport and air travel and hampering holiday shoppers on the last weekend before Christmas.
  
• Top Iran dissident cleric Montazeri dies at 87
  TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a fierce critic of the hardline leadership who denounced June's disputed election as fraudulent, has died at the age of 87.
  
• Democrats gain 60th vote on health bill
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats reached a compromise on Saturday with the last holdout senator that secured the 60 votes they need to pass a broad healthcare overhaul sought by President Barack Obama.
  

Pine River World News

• Eva Golinger: U.S. Military Aggression against Ven ...
  [The following article is reprinted with permission from Eva Golinger. She is the author of "The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela" (2006 Olive Branch Press) and "Bush vs. Chávez: Washington's War on Venezuela" (2007, Monthly Review Press).] U.S. Military Aggression against Venezuela ...
  
• A note to readers and subscribers...
  Please note that articles that would have previously appeared on this blog under the tag "IntelTrends" are now being posted almost exclusively on my IntelTrends site. This includes mujahideen statements and other specialized news that may not be of interest to the general readership. There is a sep ...
  
• 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 ...
  

  PDA AMERICA

• Payoffs for states get Reid to 60
  From the Politico.com Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” as the GOP is calling it, got all the attention Saturday, but other senators lined up for deals as Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled the last few votes for ...
  
• PDA South & East Regional Call
  PDA members, long term and new, shared news about actions and campaigns in their states. Strategies for actions around Healthcare NOT Warfare—especially the upcoming Brown Bag Lunch Vigils—dominated the discussion, as well as possibilities for ...
  
• IOT: Healthcare NOT Warfare Dec 15th Call
  The California Nurses Association's Donna Smith, PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, brought up-to-the-minute news about the Sanders Amendment in the Senate, answering questions about the process and backroom deals that go into passing legislation. PDA ...
  
• IOT: Stop Global Warming December Call
  On this month’s Stop Global Warming/Environmental Issues Organizing Team call, the following topics were covered: our action alerts about the Kerry-Boxer bill in the Senate and the Klimaforum Declaration at Copenhagen, updates on the price ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Marler Blog

• It Could Only Happen at a Marler Clark Holiday Par ...
  It is pretty rare that we are able to get the whole Marler Clark and Food Safety News staff together in one city, much less one room.  Today, in Seattle we were able to pull most people together at one Seattle high-class restaurant - some 26 people coming in from as far away from Washington DC and D ...
  
• Simple Good and Tasty - Bill Marler: Taking on E. ...
  I had a great time chatting with Shari for her post today - "Simple Good and Tasty - Bill Marler: Taking on E. coli, Big Ag, Raw Milk, Conspiracy Theorists, and the USDA - Continued."  I wish we all had more opportunity to talk about the issues of food safety and sustainability.  I encourage you to ...
  
• 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 ...
  

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

• Reporters' Roundtable Podcast: Biggest tech storie ...
  This week on the Roundtable: The biggest tech stories of 2009! With my boss, CNET Editor in Chief Scott Ard , and Buzz Out Loud host (and my co-conspirator on Real Deal ) Tom Merritt . Listen now: Download today's podcast Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subsc ...
  
• 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.
  

Camera Obscura

• Pathos and pathology: the cinema of Todd Haynes.
  http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935025/pathos-and-pathology-cinema.html September 1, 2004... Because infinity--for the eye--begins just a few meters away from the retina.... --Roger Caillois, "The Image" There are at least two shots in Todd Haynes's work that recur so frequ ...
  
• The incredible shrinking star: Todd Haynes and the ...
  http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935026/incredible-shrinking-star-todd.html September 1, 2004... Critics have consistently characterized the films of Todd Haynes within the terms of what B. Ruby Rich described in 1992 as the "new queer cinema"--films whose style displayed traces of ...
  
• Written on the screen: mediation and immersion in ...
  http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935031/written-screen-mediation-and.html September 1, 2004... Recently, while engaging in one of my favorite forms of procrastination--using my computer to search for mid-century modern bargains on eBay rather than using it to engage in more rigorous ...
  
• Traumatic postmodern histories: Velvet Goldmine's ...
  http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935030/traumatic-postmodern-histories-velvet.html September 1, 2004... If modernity was characterized by and imagined itself in terms of a particular awareness of time and history--the unfolding of social, political, and technological projects of pro ...
  
• Dangerous spaces: Safe.
  http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126935029/dangerous-spaces-safe.html September 1, 2004... For me, the problem is always in content; we want to define the perspective of a film solely through its content, and not through its form. --Todd Haynes No matter how much we desire, wit ...
  

Democracy Now!

• Take Me to Your Climate Leader
  COPENHAGEN—“Politicians talk, leaders act” read the sign outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen on the opening day of the United Nations climate summit. Inside the convention center, the official delegations from 192 countries, hundreds of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)—an estimated 15,000 pe ...
  
• TARIQ ALI: “Obama’s Afghan-Pak Syndrom ...
  Tariq Ali is author of more than 20 books, including history, politics, and fiction. His most recent books are Protocols of the Elders of Sodom (2009) and The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (2008). He is a regular contributor to The Guardian, New Left Review, and the London Rev ...
  
• The Globe and Mail: Amy Goodman's border woes has ...
  The Globe and Mail: Canada Border Services Agency won’t comment on why the host of the widely syndicated radio and TV program Democracy Now had her speech checked at border Read more
  
• Vancouver Observer: Amy Goodman Gets Brilliant Sto ...
  Read the Vancouver Observer article about Amy Goodman’s detention at the Canadian border: “Well, it’s official. Suspicion of criticizing the 2010 Olympics gets you on a watch list at the Canadian border. Want to come to Canada and discuss the environmental shame that is the tar sands? Go ahead. W ...
  
• Tavis Smiley interviews Amy Goodman
  Check out Tavis Smiley’s interview with Amy Goodman Watch / Listen / Read transcript
  

Farming Pathogens

• Pigs Do Fly! Implications for Influenza
  The influenza genome is segmented. Eight pieces of single-stranded RNA encode for 11 proteins: PB2, PB1, PB1-F2, PA, HA, NP, NA, M1, M2, NS1, and NS2. The segmentation allows influenza of different subtypes infecting the same host to trade segments like card players on a Friday night. Most of the re ...
  
• Breeding Influenza: The Political Virology of Offs ...
  What better way to medicate against a holiday’s genocidal origins and the hunger now swelling worldwide in the wake of a related banker-brought recession than with a bellyful of turkey, stuffing, yams, and pumpkin pie? Despite its rotten ambiguities Thanksgiving remains my favorite American 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

• Lightning Vs Landmarks (PICS)
  Who’s going to win in a battle between the landmarks we humans have built over recent centuries and the electrical power of lightning, one of nature’s most powerful forces?
  
• LED Traffic Lights Can't Melt Snow, Cause Accident ...
  New-fangled LED traffic lights last longer, pierce the darkness more effectively and consume 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. That's also their drawback. They're not hot enough to melt snow that sticks to their lenses, causing dozens of accidents.
  
• How Social Networks Can save the World
  You can pretty much do everything else via social media outlets, so why not try saving the world. Websites like Facebook and YouTube provide a great opportunity for people to share green innovation ideas that can change the world, here's how...
  
• The 5 Cleanest (and Dirtiest) U.S. Tap Waters
  Even though water comes out of the faucet looking clean and clear, there is a good chance it has some pretty nasty stuff in it. A new study has cataloged all the pollutants and chemicals that appear in our tap water, and they include things like arsenic and fuel additives. This is a look at the five ...
  
• Video: Scientific Drones Take Flight at Earth’s Ic ...
  Space is not the only place where special craft can boldly go where no man has gone before. The earth’s polar regions are incredibly difficult places for human beings to do science, so researchers are increasingly turning to unmanned aerial vehicles to make the observations they need to understand i ...
  

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

• Photo Sunday: Winter Wonderland – East Coast Blizz ...
  In what will be forever known as the "East Coast Blizzard of 09", the northern east coast got over 20 inches of snow in 24 hours. Related posts: Photo Sunday – Haystack Rock, Oregon Coast Photo Sunday – Sunday Morning Coming Down. A Tribute to Everytown USA Photo Sunday-The Appalachian Trails 100 ...
  
• What to Read and Watch on the Last Day of Cop15
  What to read and watch on the last day of Cop15, as the press encamps for a long wait. Related posts: Cop15 Clip Reel Videos – Watch Them Here Before they Go to Copenhagen Fair Trade Chocolate at Keeps a Diplomat Happy – Report from Cop15 Twilight Earth Exclusive Cop15 Video – China Youth in Cop ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Inhabitat

• The Dial is an Illuminated Cell Phone Bracelet
  Imagine getting a call and whipping one of these super high-tech cellular bracelets right off your wrist to pick it up? Dubbed “the Dial” by its inventor Jung Dae Hoon, this wearable technology is not exactly the greenest gadget, but we think the fact that it serves double duty as an accessory and h ...
  
• 7 Eco-Chic Vegan Gifts With a Conscience
  This holiday, it’s easier than ever to give green gifts that your family and friends will love without weighing down your conscience! From smart faux leather bags to recycled silver animal-themed pendants to boldly printed wallets, no animals were harmed in the making of any of the snazzy suggestion ...
  
• Jellio Debuts Their Xylophone Coffee Table
  The designers at Jellio have added a music table to their kid-friendly interior design collection. This working rainbow hued xylophone coffee table will provide eye candy for just about any room, and we’re sure that both kids and adults alike won’t be able to resist tinkering away its colorful n ...
  
• INTERVIEW: A COP15 Arts Wrap-up with Patricia Watt ...
  For some closing thoughts on the cultural flurry in Copenhagen, Inhabitat turned to artist Patricia Watts. As one of the founders of ecoartspace, she has been curating, organizing, discussing, analyzing and writing about eco-art since before it was cool thing to do.  With so many conflicting views o ...
  
• Modern Gingerbread House is a Sweet LA Pad
  Is it just us, or are gingerbread houses taking a decidedly modern tack this year? Architect and LEED AP Kristina Hahn Atelier’s sugary Cake Study House 09 is certainly no exception. It combines two things we love at Inhabitat – the clean lines of new-school architecture and sweets! Oh, and did we m ...
  

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

• Grateful Georgia sends troops to Afghanistan
  ABC – Georgia is dispatching nearly 1,000 troops to Afghanistan as a sign of gratitude towards the West, President Mikheil Saakashvili wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Saturday. Mr Saakashvili, who is keen for Georgia to join NATO, stressed that Tbilisi was “firmly allied to the valu ...
  
• CHINA: ‘The world does not have Money to buy more ...
  Shanghai Daily – IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US’s shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday. The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, referre ...
  
• 7 More Bank Closures In US. Rises to 140 for 2009
  CBS – Regulators on Friday shut down two big California banks, as well as banks in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, bringing to 140 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the weak economy and mounting loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over all seve ...
  
• Commonsense: Muslims Mull Mosque Debate after Swis ...
  The Local – The Swiss vote to forbid the construction of mosques with minarets has sparked calls for a similar ban in Germany. Robert Rigney samples the mood of the country’s Muslim community. Most people wouldn’t consider Switzerland a very trendy place, but Meho Travljanin worries the small, a ...
  
• Prison for pregnant troops in Iraq
  ABC – Becoming pregnant has become a punishable offence for female American soldiers in Iraq and for those who make them pregnant as well. General Anthony Cucolo, who commands US forces in northern Iraq, says offenders including married couples could attract punishments such as a court martial, or t ...
  

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

• 2010 Food Crisis for Dummies – Are We Ready?
  There is no precedence for the panic and chaos will occur next year. The global food supply/demand picture has NEVER been so out of balance. The 2010 food crisis will rearrange economic, financial, and political order of the world, and those who aren’t prepared will suffer terrible losses… by Eric d ...
  
• Stunning Statistics About the War Every American S ...
  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 A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics ...
  
• Russia, NATO, Afghanistan – High Stakes Great Game
  What did Medvedev have up his sleeve when he welcomed Obama’s new surge in Afghanistan, wonders Eric Walberg By Eric Walberg US President Barack Obama’s now expanding war against the Taliban is garnering support from liberals and neocons alike, from leaders around the world, even from Russia. “We ...
  
• Video: Gog and Magog in the Modern Age – by Imran ...
  An Islamic View of Gog and Magog in the Modern Age By Imran N. Hosein I began my study of Gog and Magog more than fifteen years ago in the early 90’s while resident in New York. My subsequent public lectures on the subject never failed to provoke keen interest from my Muslim audiences in se ...
  
• Michael Jackson’s Lawyer Becomes Muslim
  An American millionaire, Mark Shaffer declared his Islam in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, 17th October 2009. Mark was at that time on a holiday in Saudi Arabia to visit some famous cities like Riyadh, Abha and Jeddah for 10 days. Mark is a well-known millionaire and also a practiced lawyer in Los Angele ...
  

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

• Confessions of a Tourist: Under the spell of the p ...
  IT WAS the pink snake, I think, that was to blame. Without the fascination of watching this unearthly creature, I wouldn’t have remained sitting alone all night in the bar at Honolulu international airport. It was about 6ft long, undulating in a glass tank to the side of the barman’s head. A pi ...
  
• Travel Clinic
  Q. My husband and I have been to the Caribbean, but not to Bermuda. Does it have a similar feel, and what can we do on a non-beach day?
  
• Three-day strike at BA looming after union vows to ...
  British Airways faces the prospect of a three-day strike in the new year after the union representing cabin crew told the company that it was to reopen a ballot of its members.
  
• Latest travel deals: December 19
  Head off on Wednesday to the Isle of Arran for Christmas. There will be guided walks, a whisky distillery tour and evening entertainment. The £619pp cost includes full board at Altachorvie Country House and a bottle of ten-year-old malt whisky. 0845 4707558, hfholidays.co.uk
  
• Last minute UK breaks for Christmas
  Have your holiday plans been scuppered by snow, the BA strike confusion or the Flyglobespan collapse? Are you in need of last-minute inspiration? If so, read on: there are still loads of excellent UK deals on offer.
  

Environment _ National Geographic

• Winter Solstice Monday: Facts on First Day of Wint ...
  Monday, the 2009 winter solstice, is the first day of winter. Find out why it's also the year's darkest day—and yet has been celebrated for centuries.
  
• Amazon Losing "Flying Rivers," Ability to Curb War ...
  The Amazon's 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.
  
• Spectacular Sea Eruption Filmed -- Deepest Ever
  See the recent "underwater Fourth of July" scientists believe is the deepest volcanic eruption ever seen—with three-foot-wide lava bubbles and flows creeping over the seafloor. Video
  
• 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.
  

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

• Who the heck is Barry Cafero?
  Via ctblogger : I know it's early to be making this call but I'm almost certain no one topping this comment today: It's ok that Larry Cafero doesn't know my name. Over the course of the next year, he'll quickly realize that Connecticut voters don't know his, either. -Connecticut Democratic Party C ...
  
• 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.
  

SPL Center

• Uganda’s Harsh Anti-Gay Legislation Has Amer ...
  While activists around the world criticize pending legislation in Uganda they call the “kill the gays” bill, some Americans are being outed for their connections to those involved in the proposed statute. The latest is Richard Cohen, who claims he has successfully counseled thousands of gays to beco ...
  
• Columnist Describes Barrage of Threats from Nazi L ...
  ROANOKE, VA. — Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts told the jury this afternoon that his “blood ran cold” when he received an E-mail from white supremacist Bill White with his home address, telephone number and a reference to his wife. When he clicked a link in the E-mail and saw that Whi ...
  
• Revealed! David Irving Can Be a Jerk
  So secretive is Holocaust denier David Irving that he often doesn’t reveal the locations of his lectures until hours before they’re scheduled to begin — and even then, he only tells vetted guests. It must have been a blow, therefore, when his private E-mails appeared on the Internet, courtesy of sel ...
  
• Indictments Detail Alleged Police Cover-up in Beat ...
  At about 11:30 on the night of July 12, 2008, six teenagers brutally assaulted a Latino man in a Shenandoah, Pa., park while yelling “Fucking spic, “Go back to Mexico” and “Tell your fucking Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah.” As they gathered at one of their homes after the attack, ...
  
• Racist Skinhead’s Wife Behind European &#821 ...
  The online news site European Union Times (EUT) — which recently “broke” a story about President Obama preparing for an imminent civil war — is being cited as a credible source by several libertarian bloggers who are hyping the story. It turns out the EUT was created in October by the wife of a ra ...
  

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

• ACLU Report Hails Michigan As Model For Reducing P ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2009 ACLU Michigan's successful efforts to reduce its statewide prison population by more than eight percent during the past two years while at the same time improving public safety provides a model for other states seeking smarter, more affordable criminal justice ...
  
• WWF Statement On Climate Summit Speech By Presiden ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2009 World Wildlife Fund World Wildlife Fund today issued the following statement today from WWF President and CEO Carter Roberts in response to President Obama's speech before the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen: "In coming to Copenhagen at the critical fin ...
  
• Greenpeace Reaction to Obama Copenhagen Speech
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2009 Greenpeace Commenting on President Obama’s speech to the Copenhagen climate summit, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, Phil Radford, said: “The world was waiting for the spirit of yes we can, but all we got was my way or the highway. “Presi ...
  
• Obama's Copenhagen Speech: Saving Face, Not Planet
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2009 Friends of The Earth Friends of the Earth U.S. President Erich Pica had the following response to President Obama's speech: "President Obama’s rhetoric is empty. The U.S. has failed to significantly improve upon the weak position it brought to these talks. "Th ...
  
• International Migrants Day: A Day to Stand in Soli ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2009 Latin American and Caribbean Community Center (LACCC) December 18th is International Migrants Day as observed by the United Nations. In United States, while many organizations observe this day, much work is needed to address many of the issues, struggles and a ...
  

Common Dreams-Views

• Climate Change Movement Builds at Copenhagen
  by Grace Lee Boggs Climate-change activists at Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents the unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colossal proportions. read more
  
• Catholic Charities Meet the D.C. Council
  by Christopher Brauchli He who is near the Church is often far from God. — Les Proverbes Communs (c.1500)   read more
  
• Copenhagen Negotiators Bicker and Filibuster While ...
  by George Monbiot First they put the planet in square brackets, now they have deleted it from the text. At the end it was no longer about saving the biosphere: it was just a matter of saving face. As the talks melted down, everything that might have made a new treaty worthwhile was scratched out. An ...
  
• Stephen King Meets the Estate Tax
  by Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins Imagine a story about tax policy created by horror writer Stephen King. A fictional Congress, divided between anti-tax ideology and fiscal responsibility, amends the inheritance tax on the very wealthy so that it disappears entirely one year and then returns at st ...
  
• The Truths Copenhagen Ignored
  by Johann Hari So that's it. The world's worst polluters – the people who are drastically altering the climate – gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific warnings. They didn't seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for ...
  

Karl Burkart

• The bright side of 'Flopenhagen'
  My 13th and final report on the Copenhagen climate talks. What happened. What's next.
  
• Obamahagen (Day 12): ALBA lambasts 'friendly natio ...
  ALBA, the Bolivian Alliance for the Americas led an impromptu press release denouncing the closed meeting of 18 'friendly nations' led by Obama.
  
• Copenhagen Day 11: Hillary thwacks ball into China ...
  The U.S. secretary of state makes the ACES climate bill targets official and pledges to build a $100 billion fund.
  
• Al Gore's post-Copenhagen plan
  Al Gore is pushing for a climate deal in Mexico this summer.
  
• Copenhagen Day 10: NGO fury
  NGO's furious over new draft agreement and a radical reduction of badges at the Bella Center.
  

Water Privatization

• Manila Water to invest $1 billion in next 10 years ...
  Manila Water Company Inc. has allocated P10 billion next year for capital expenditures and $1 billion in investments over a ten-year period as it expands water connection services and waste water treatment facilities on its eastern concession area in new concession areas in the country. Manila Water ...
  
• Red flags raised and ignored for years on ex-Sewer ...
  The most curious aspect of the federal case against ex-Sewerage & Water Board member Ben Edwards isn't that it was so long in coming. It's hard to put together a criminal case, even when questionable activity dates back many years.
  
• 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.
  
• Stunning Statistics About the War Every American S ...
  Truthout by: Jeremy Scahill | Rebel Reports Posted By: Bulatlat.com A hearing in US Senator 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 ...
  
• Group aims to help city keep authorities, jobs (Re ...
  As a state-hired team begins work on a financial recovery plan for Reading, a separate labor-backed group is hoping to keep that plan from recommending that the city sell off its parking and water systems - losing public jobs with them.
  

Guardian

• Conservative tax allies 'subsidised' by the taxpay ...
  Taxpayers' Alliance accused of using charitable arm to claim gift aid on donations from wealthy backers A campaign group which claims to represent the interests of ordinary taxpayers is using a charitable arm which gives it access to tax relief on donations from wealthy backers, the Guardian has lea ...
  
• Actor Brittany Murphy dies, aged 32
  Actor best known for roles in Clueless and 8 Mile went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived, according to reports The Hollywood actress Brittany Murphy has died in Los Angeles, according to reports. Officials at the Los Angeles county coroner's office confirmed that the Cedars-Sinai medical ...
  
• China blamed for weak climate deal
  Climate secretary accuses China, Sudan, Bolivia and other leftwing Latin American countries of trying to hijack Copenhagen The climate secretary, Ed Miliband, today accuses China, Sudan, Bolivia and other leftwing Latin American countries of trying to hijack the UN climate summit and "hold the world ...
  
• Gerry Adams reveals family sex abuse
  • Sinn Féin leader goes public in radio interview • His brother is wanted by police for alleged abuse The Sinn Féin president and Belfast West MP, Gerry Adams, today revealed that his late father had "emotionally, physically and sexually" abused members of their large family. The disclosure, made in ...
  
• Killing in the Name wins chart battle
  After a Facebook campaign against Simon Cowell's chart domination, music fans celebrate their victory In recent years, it had become as predictable as elections in North Korea – singer wins X Factor, singer's debut single goes to No 1. So when Joe McElderry won the TV talent contest, he was no doubt ...
  

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

• "It is time for us to put an end to this occupatio ...
  Situated just west of Ramallah, the Palestinian village of Nilin has lost huge swathes of land to Israel's settlements and its wall in the occupied West Bank. In a year and a half of resisting ...
  
• Net around Israeli war crimes suspects tightens
  Efforts by human rights organizations, lawyers and activists in Palestine and Europe to hold Israeli war crimes suspects to account have gained momentum over the past few years. Last week, form ...
  
• The price of peace: Interview with detained activi ...
  Twenty-three-year-old Sami from al-Essawaya village near Nablus has always believed in peaceful coexistence with Israelis. However, he and his family have paid a dear price for his convictions. Kieron ...
  
• 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 ...
  

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

• Howard Dean No Longer Urging Dems To ‘Kill&# ...
  This morning, Howard Dean walked back from earlier statements encouraging Democrats to “kill” the Senate health care bill. On Thursday, Dean wrote that “this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” but during his appearance on Meet The Press, Dean argued that yesterday’s man ...
  
• Sen. Kent Conrad: ‘The Final Bill Is Going T ...
  This morning, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) stressed that the final health care bill will have to reflect the language in the existing merged Senate legislation, suggesting that moderate Sens.
  
• New Senate Bill Achieves Greater Deficit Reduction ...
  The Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the merged Senate health care bill, incorporating the manager’s amendment, concludes that the legislation would cost $871 billion over 10 years, reduce the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years and by $1.3 trillion over 20 years. The bill would extend in ...
  
• The Copenhagen Accord Is Significant Progress, But ...
  Our guest blogger is Andrew Light, a specialist in international climate policy and a Senior Fellow with Center for American Progress. Shortly before leaving Copenhagen yesterday, President Obama announced that he had succeeded in finalizing the text of an interim political agreement, the Copenhage ...
  
• Nelson To Provide 60th Vote For Senate Health Bill
  This morning, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) held a press conference to announce that he would provide the 60th vote for cloture on the Senate bill with the manager’s amendment.” Nelson praised the Obama administration and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for addressing his concerns but warned his colleagu ...
  

thwap's schoolyard

• Rick Hillier and Second-Hand Information ...
  Private Mann:"General Hillier, 'Amnesty International' has a scathing report about Afghan prison conditions." Hillier: "Those detestable peacenicks and bleeding-hearts! Why should I care about such second-hand information!!" Private Mann: "The PMO just called. Prime Minister Harper wants us conf ...
  
• Canadian Self-Satisfaction
  Generations of Canadians have sewn little Canadian flags onto their backpacks when travelling abroad, in order to avoid being taken for US-Americans. At its most vapid, this tradition is probably inspired by nothing more than a vague, self-satisfied notion that Canadians are great and US-Americans a ...
  
• Building On What Pogge Said:
  Here : I'm sure the Conservatives would love to see this whole issue of torture turn into a partisan free-for-all that the general public will then tune out as being simply more of the same nonsense that they've come to expect from the overgrown children in Ottawa. You're now helping them and making ...
  
• Is stephen harper a Snivelling Coward?
  Where was he while the intellectually unequipped Peter MacKay was casting apsersions at Richard Colvin's "third-hand information" from people MacKay knows are bad because he's read " third-hand information " about them? There he was. Taking a cheap photo-op with the National Men's Lacrosse Team. ...
  
• Peter MacKay: Imperialist Stooge for a Rapist Gove ...
  Here's the ever-moronic Peter MacKay: Under fire from all parties, MacKay dismissed testimony from Richard Colvin as second- and third-hand information from enemy sources. “What we’re talking about here is not only hearsay, we’re talking about basing much of his evidence on what the Taliban have b ...
  

Financial Sense Editorials

• Market Observation: A Brief Market Update
  by Tim W. Wood. "The Dow theory bullish trend confirmation that occurred earlier this year remains intact. Cyclically, the higher degree low that began at the March low also still remains intact. Longer term, I maintain, based on my data, that this is nonetheless a bear market rally. Once this rally ...
  
• The Eye of the Storm
  by Louis James. "At a recent Casey Research editors’ meeting, the team took on the question of whether the somewhat steady recovery since last February’s washout bottom in the broader markets had any of us thinking that the recession might be over."
  
• Individual Investors Have Jumped into another Fire ...
  by Robert Prechter. "First they bought into the “stocks for the long run” case and got killed. Then they jumped on the commodity bandwagon and got killed. Many investors are buying back into these very same markets, but others are running to what they perceive as safe “yields” in the municipal bond ...
  
• Is the Rally in the U.S. Dollar Real?
  by Sy Harding. "In this column in September, I wrote of how the U.S. dollar has been in a long bear market since 2001, while investors and traders were acting as if the dollar’s decline had just begun this year. Betting against the dollar had become the talk of the financial media, with “Sell the do ...
  
• Profit Opportunities & Wealth Destroyers in 2010
  by Deepcaster. "Reality Check: 2010 is shaping up to be more like 2008, and much less like 2009, so far as the economy and markets are concerned. To identify Profit Opportunities it is essential first to identify the Main Prospective Wealth Destroyers for 2010."
  

on Government Oversight

• White House Seeks Public Input on Open Government ...
  Hot off the heels of the announcement of the Open Government Directive, a memo released last week to move the executive branch towards a culture of openness, the White House is now seeking public input on open government metrics and...
  
• Morning Smoke: Senate Passes Defense Spending Bill ...
  Defense spending bill passes Senate, 63-33 [Navy Times] Skies darken for Ben Bernanke nomination [Politico] McCaskill calls for increased oversight of contract work in Afghanistan [The Washington Post] Discord Behind TARP Exits [The Wall Street Journal] Not Just Drones: Militants...
  
• 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...
  

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

• David Pogue Weighs In On Ebook DRM: Non-DRM'd Eboo ...
  Mark Rosedale (an employee of O'Reilly) was the first of a few to send in David Pogue's recent column in which he discusses the question of ebook DRM . Remember, just recently a Sony exec claimed that you couldn't make money on ebooks without DRM . Yet, Pogue relates his own experience in running ...
  
• Losers Of Garage Door DMCA Case Try To Use Legalez ...
  It's been over five years since garage door opener company Chamberlain lost its bizarre DMCA case, which tried to argue that anyone making competing replacement garage door openers was violating the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA. If you believed Chamberlain, then it would mean that the DMCA ...
  
• Russian ISP Blocking Political Opposition Websites
  I am still not convinced that we need special laws mandating net neutrality, but I find the arguments from telcos that no one would ever block sites or services to be highly unbelievable. There have been cases of it happening in the past, and there are cases of it happening now. Shocklee points us ...
  
• BPI Survey Suggests Spotify Hasn't Magically Decre ...
  There was some buzz earlier this year concerning reports that new streaming apps, like Spotify, somehow decreased unauthorized access to music. And yet, a new study from BPI suggests unauthorized access to music continues to grow , despite the rise of authorized services like Spotify. Now, there a ...
  
• Now France Fines Google For Scanning French Books
  With France gearing up to dump another billion dollars at its own anti-Google book scanning project, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that a French court has ruled that Google's book scanning project violates copyright law . It's also fining Google 10,000 euros per day until it removes the b ...
  

VacTruth

• URGENT: Health Care Bill Creates Peek-A-Boo Squads ...
  The latest health care bill creates Peek-A-Boo squads for in-home vaccinations. The task force created by the bill has no congressional oversight!
  
• The Desperation of Pharma: Get a Flu Shot, Get a P ...
  Would you like some extra pepperoni with that H1N1?
  
• New York Times Article Shows H1N1 Influenza Vaccin ...
  Some things just never change.
  
• 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 ...
  

BroadSnark

• Bad Cops, Lying Media, and Anarchist Scapegoats
  I’m having a really hard time deciding who are worse – police or media. As you may have already heard.  There was a giant snowball fight at the corner of U and 14th in Washington, DC.  I was there from about 2:30 to 3:00 and it was fun as hell.  Maybe 100 or 150 people were [...]
  
• Anarchy as Responsibility
  Conservatives like to talk about personal responsibility.  By that they mean taking responsibility for your own well being and perhaps that of your family and community.  But if you are not within the circle, what that comes down to is “fend for yourself.” Liberals talk about taking responsibility ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Executive Intelligence Review

• The LaRouche Show, December 19, 2009
  The `Malthusian Solution' Is On the Agenda: LaRouche's Four Powers Agreement Is the Only Other Option
  
• 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
  

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

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-20
  Good news that #Everton drew away at #Chelsea 3-3! check out all latest #football #news from round the world at http://bit.ly/8GrVpe #soccer # Ron and Rand Paul joint interview, talking about the #fed monetary policy and fundraising http://bit.ly/4PQiyW #ronpaul #endthefed #bailout # Nice t ...
  
• Government Health Care: The Next Step On the Road ...
  Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com December 19, 2009 Democrats deceptively argue that health care is legal under the commerce clause of the Constitution. The commerce clause relates to business, not individuals, but the Democrats have skewed the original purpose and intent of the Constitution. When asked ...
  
• Dem Holdout Signs On to Healthcare Bill, Senate Ex ...
  Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery Washington Post December 20, 2009               Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, announced to his colleagues Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Ch ...
  
• Deal on health bill is reached
  Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery Washington Post Sunday, Dec 20th, 2009 Senate Democrats said Saturday that they had closed ranks in support of legislation to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, ending months of internal division and clearing a path for quick Senate passage of President Ob ...
  
• Health reform support crosses crucial 60-vote thre ...
  Raw Story Sunday, Dec 20th, 2009 President Barack Obama’s top domestic goal, remaking US health care, is on track to pass by his Christmas deadline. Senate Democrats cheered on Saturday Democratic Senator Ben Nelson’s announcement that he would vote for the bill; an announcement that ensured the 60 ...
  

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

• Biogas Systems Arrive to Haitian Slums
  A pilot program is being tested in one of the poorest slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital city of the poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti . In a place where the availability of basic resources is limited and sanitary conditions are appalling, the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio is widening access to wha ...
  
• Stump your waiter, waitress or butcher with the iP ...
  Courtesy: Monterey Bay Aquarium . The Monterey Bay Aquarium has been putting out little sustainable seafood pocket guides for a decade. You slip them in your wallet or purse, and they help you make good choices when selecting fish at the supermarket or on the restaurant menu. A newly updated, free ...
  
• Stop "Downer" Animals From Entering The Food Suppl ...
  photo: Farm Sanctuary We're in an age where nearly 70 percent of antibiotics produced annually are given to some form of livestock and mass production of livestock has led to widespread animal mistreatment and serious environmental repercussions . So it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to d ...
  
• Alien Frogs Found In Alaska's Imported Christmas T ...
  Photo: Cute but a threat to Alaska? ( Maxi Millipede on Flickr) Residents in the Anchorage area may be receiving some unwanted Christmas gifts this year in the form of non-native Pacific chorus frogs hitchhiking in Christmas trees imported from Washington state. Though the little critters are not da ...
  
• Excess Packaging Department: Another Stupid Shipme ...
  Image credit: Sami Grover From Apple shipping code in a box to the insanely big box used to ship a power cord , I'm never really sure whether to be amused or depressed by stories of woeful over packaging. It's such a sore topic here at TreeHugger, that Jaymi even put together a post on our 7 over ...
  

Biosingularity

• Artificial Platelets Catalyze Clotting
  Platelets can quickly stanch the bleeding from a cut in your finger, but the hemorrhaging caused by a car crash or a battlefield injury might overwhelm the blood-clotting abilities of these cell fragments. Now, researchers report that they have designed a potential helper for such situations, a synt ...
  
• Epigenetics research takes aim at cancer, Alzheime ...
  Two mice. One weighs 20 grams and has brown fur. The other is a hefty 60 grams with yellow fur and is prone to diabetes and cancer. They’re identical twins, with identical DNA So what accounts for the differences? It turns out that their varying traits are controlled by a mediator between nature and ...
  
• Scientists crack ‘entire genetic code’ ...
  Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust ...
  
• How Can a Genetic Mutation Cause Muscle to Turn in ...
  What would happen if some soft tissue cells in your body randomly got the message to transform into stiff bone cells? Patients born with a disease called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) are locked into this fate, often becoming severely disabled before adulthood. The disease first manife ...
  
• Alcohol Ups Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence
  If youve been diagnosed with breast cancer, you may want to cut down on alcoholic beverages.Thats the suggestion of researchers who found that cancer is 34% more likely to come back in breast cancer survivors who drink more than three drinks a week, compared with those who abstain or drink less.Drin ...
  

  Blacklisted News

• Colombia Beefs Up Forces on Border With Venezuela
  The Colombian government has announced it is building a new military base on its border with Venezuela and has activated six new airborne battalions, BBC reported.
  
• US Drones Kill 12 in North Waziristan: Third Stri ...
• Big Pharma paid $500,000 to Chicago psychiatrists ...
  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.
  
• Letting the Beast Out of the (Corporatist) Bottle: ...
  The Obama administration's recent declaration on bioweapons would simply be another run-of-the-mill example of our "change" president's duplicity were it not such an unmitigated disaster.
  
• Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Fr ...
  "Institutional framework" paves the way for unelected international bureaucracy
  

The Intelligence Daily

• Homeowners often rejected under Obama's loan plan
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Recovery: Civil Liberties Group Loses $20 Million ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• The Panic Over the Soaring Monetary Base Was a Ber ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Justice? Free after 35 years; DNA testing exonerat ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• US tells UK to backdown: UK apologizes to Israel f ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  

My AntiWar

• US Implodes Through Hypocrisy
  America’s top military officer has voiced concern about an incursion by Iran into Iraq that ended with Iranian soldiers seizing an Iraqi oil well. “All of us are concerned about the influence of Iran,” Adm Mullen told a news conference in Baghdad. “I worry a great deal about Iran’s view of destabili ...
  
• Thousands of Taiwanese Protest China Envoy’s ...
• Yemenis Protest Killing of Civilians
• Plight of Contractor Raped in Iraq Spurs Push in C ...
• Israeli Ex-Atom Chief Says Vanunu Not Security Ris ...

Rogue Government.com

• Avatar moons may become a science fact
  Habitable alien moons like the one depicted in the blockbuster movie Avatar may become science fact within the next few years, according to a leading astronomer.
  
• Banks Squeezing Money from Unemployed
  While posting breathtaking profits in the last two quarters – Wells Fargo’s $3.2 billion, Citigroup’s $3 billion and Chase’s $2.7 billion – U.S. banks have figured out a way to squeeze some extra dollars from those who can least afford it, the unemployed.
  
• Obama's Current Science Advisor Warned in the 197 ...
  In 1971, long before Dr. Holdren came President Obama’s science adviser, in an essay [titled] “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide,” Dr. Holdren and his co-author, the ecologist Paul Ehrlich, warned of a coming ice age .
  
• Colombia Beefs Up Forces on Border With Venezuela ...
  The Colombian government has announced it is building a new military base on its border with Venezuela and has activated six new airborne battalions.
  
• CIA working with Palestinian security agents
  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.
  

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

• Fuming over the threat of arrest, Israeli war crim ...
  The Israeli government has ordered its ministers not to visit Britain until a new law is introduced allowing them to enter the country without fear of arrest. The boycott will intensify the diplomatic row that has broken out following the issuing of a warrant by a London court for the arrest of Tzip ...
  
• Traits Of People With Rare Accelerated Aging Syndr ...
  UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have provided the most extensive account to date of the unique observable characteristics seen in patients with an extremely rare premature aging syndrome. The findings, reported online and in the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and ...
  
• Omega-3 Deficiencies Linked to Mental Disorders
  Deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids may place individuals at an increased risk of developing mental disorders, a new study finds. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fatty acids that cannot be produced by the body and are supplied from food intake. Oily fish like salmon, walnuts and ground flax seeds ...
  
• Mental Illness Common in Male and Female Killers
  A study of killers in Victoria has identified startling links between mental illness and homicide, with four out of every five women who kill found to have suffered a mental disorder before offending. Among men who kill, one in three was diagnosed with a mental disorder. Mental health problems acr ...
  
• FLASHBACK: How Did America Fall So Fast?
  In 2000, America was described as the sole remaining superpower - or even the world's "hyperpower". Now we're in real trouble (at the very least, you have to admit that we're losing power and wealth in comparison with China). How did it happen so fast? As everyone knows, the war in Iraq - which wi ...
  

Threat Level

• TJX Hacker ‘Will Never Commit Any Crime Again’
  Confessed hacker Albert Gonzalez’s turn as a Secret Service informant led him down a dark path of obsession, culminating in the largest identity-theft spree in history. Frances Gonzalez Lago, Gonzalez’s sister wrote his sentencing judge that her brother’s work as an informant between 2003 and and 2 ...
  
• FBI Linguist Guilty of Leaking Classified Document ...
  An Israeli-American lawyer who worked as an FBI linguist pleaded guilty Thursday to providing an unidentified blogger with classified documents derived from U.S. communications intelligence. Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, 39, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded to one felony count of disclosing to an unaut ...
  
• Internal Twitter Credentials Used in DNS Hack, Red ...
  Twitter’s website went offline for about an hour Thursday, with many tweeters redirected to a defacement page boasting “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.” Twitter acknowledged the 10 p.m. takeover, one in a series of security lapses to hit the popular microblogging service. Twitter s ...
  
• 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 ...
  

PERRspectives : Blog

• Six Degrees of John McCain
  Last week, Politico ran yet another fawning profile of John McCain, declaring him "critic-in-chief." But whether the ersatz Maverick's motivation runs the gamut from "unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about...
  
• Cokie Roberts Silent on Palin's "Exotic" Hawaiian ...
  Back in August 2008, ABC analyst Cokie Roberts echoed the McCain campaign's talking points which painted Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and a foreign sounding one at that. As the Obamas vacationed in his home state of Hawaii, Roberts...
  
• GOP Gives Wealthy One Year Estate Tax Windfall
  For a handful of the very richest Americans, 2010 will be an excellent year to die. Thanks to Republican obstructionism on their behalf, the estate tax, which in 2009 will impact only 1 in 500 estates while generating tens of...
  
• 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...
  

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

• Elliott Abrams and 'Neocon-ing' Obama
  Elliott Abrams, an architect of President Bush's Mideast policies, is pushing Barack Obama to the neocon side, says Robert Parry. December 18, 2009
  
• 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
  

CounterPunch

• Alexander Cockburn : Turning Tricks, Cashing In on ...
• Stewart J. Lawrence : Pakistan's Refugee Disaster: ...
• Saul Landau : Almost Year One: an Assessment
• Rannie Amiri : Year 1431: Off to a Rocky Start in ...
• Liaquat Ali Khan : The Sovereignty of Muslim Natio ...

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• Steps to create an Israel-Palestine ()
  In recent years the idea of a one-state solution has been anathema to Israelis and their supporters worldwide. This has been fueled by the fear of the "demographic threat" posed by the high Palestinian birth ...
  
• Settlers, Palestinians clash in West Bank (Ali Wa ...
  Palestinian sources reported that settlers from the illegal West Bank outpost of Mitzpe Asael clashed with Palestinians from a nearby village Saturday, as well as left-wing activists who were with them. The ...
  
• The two-wheel guide to a troubled land (Lauren Bo ...
  Fifteen minutes' ride into the hills above the West Bank city of Nablus, our convoy of European and Palestinian cyclists takes an unplanned breather beside an Israeli army roadblock. Nearby, a Palestinian fa ...
  
• Gaza must be rebuilt now (Jimmy Carter, The Guard ...
  US objections have impeded Egyptian efforts to resolve differences between Hamas and Fatah that could lead to 2010 elections. With this stalemate, PLO leaders have decided that President Mahmoud Abbas will c ...
  
• Israel floods settlements with subsidies (Al Jaze ...

Water - AlterNet

• NASA Report Highlights Need to Retire Drainage Imp ...
  The retirement of drainage impaired land on the San Joaquin's west side should be a priority if we want to preserve California's limited water supply and fisheries.
  
• Stealing Water from the Future: California's Massi ...
  California is heading for a catastrophe of huge proportions if the overdraft of groundwater continues at the same rate as the last few years.
  
• 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?
  

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

• President Obama and the DLC – A Retrospective By S ...
  by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH Featured Writer Dandelion Salad crossposted on TPJmagazine Dec. 20, 2009 Ma
  
• Shaker Aamer: UK Government Drops Opposition To Re ...
  by Andy Worthington Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.andyworthington.co.uk 20 December 2009 Last
  
• Bread and Circuses, an Old Idea in a New Era By Ti ...
  By Timothy V. Gatto Featured Writer Dandelion Salad liberalpro.blogspot.com December 19, 2009 The wa
  
• An unholy alliance: The Media, the State and Big B ...
  By William Bowles Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Creative-i Crossposted at Strategic Culture Founda
  
• The Guardian: Iran test-fires missile that could h ...
  Propaganda Alert compiled by Cem Ertür Featured Writer Dandelion Salad 19 December 2009 ____________
  

Unexplained Mysteries

• New book details Scotland abduction case
  A new book by author Malcolm Robinson has shed new light on Scotland's most enduring UFO mystery, the abduction of Garry Wood and Colin Wright fro...
  
• Police to study hypnosis techniques
  Hypnosis techniques are being proposed as a new branch of training for police officers in the UK to help encourage witnesses and suspects to tell ...
  
• How widepsread is precognition ?
  A study conducted over 10 years ago found that over 35% of those surveyed in Charlottesville, Virginia reported having had a preconitive experienc...
  
• Pyramid-shaped UFO filmed over Kremlin
  Video footage showing a giant pyramid-shaped object which floated above the Kremlin in Russia for several hours has dominated the country's ne...
  
• Avatar's "Pandora" could be a reality
  With James Cameron's science fiction epic Avatar hitting cinemas some astronomers have pointed out that a world similar to that of "Pandora" portr...
  

Grassroots

• Money’s Coming to Cool the Planet
  Subheadline:  What’s the Winning Spending Plan? Outside Author:  Daniel Moss Previous publication:  Foreign Policy in Focus ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Climate

• December 19-20, 2009
  Obama, Denied Full Victory, Takes Validation (New York Times) From Copenhagen to Capitol Hill, the president determined the outer limits of what he could accomplish on climate change and health care and decided that was enough, at least for now. Climate Reality: Voluntary Efforts Not Enough t ...
  
• 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 ...
  

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

• Why Obama Is Failing
  A year ago, as Barack Obama was assembling his administration, he was at a crossroads with two paths going off in very different directions: one would have led to a populist challenge to the Washington/New York political-economic establishments; the other called for collaboration and cajoling. F ...
  
• Foreclose on the Banks: How to Give America Its Be ...
  NEW YORK-- Citibank is suspending foreclosures and evictions for 30 days, until after the holidays. Mighty white of them. Who knew bankers could be so amusing? In an interview, Citi mortgage czar Sanjiv Das acknowledged that "moratoriums are not permanent solutions" and said his company was looking ...
  
• U.S. turbulence buffets Pakistan: Corruption and a ...
  On my office wall hang photos of yours truly with Pakistan's last four leaders. Two -- Zia ul Haq and Benazir Bhutto -- were murdered. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted in a military coup led by photo number four, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was deposed by Pakistan's military in a slow-mo ...
  
• Now I'm Really Getting Pissed Off
  Hey did you hear about the iconic African-American guy who plays golf, and whose relationship with the public is in a free-fall lately? No, as a matter of fact - I'm not talking about Tiger Woods. You know, I've really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don't ...
  
• The Health Bill, The Price of Everything, and What ...
  The CBO finally scored the redrafted Senate health care bill, saying it will cost $871 billion over the next ten years. Not that anybody waited for the numbers before cutting a deal. This was never really about the numbers. It was about coming in below an arbitrary figure and passing the bill by an ...
  

Ten Percent

• Military & Families Against The War
  Military families and former soldiers will travel from across the country on Monday to demand that Gordon Brown brings the troops home from Afghanistan. They will deliver a petition signed by tens of thousands who believe that the war in Afghanistan is futile to the Prime Minister at Downing Street ...
  
• Bad Biology & Its Adherents
  Worth a read, how neoliberals’ ignorance of science allows them to wilfully misinterpret it to support their selfish pathologies, how social Darwinists are a fraud and chimps like to hug, (the author is rather too rosy in his views of some historic leaders but those are tangental items anyway to hi ...
  
• Earth Is Saved!
  The human infestation will soon be over!
  
• For Shelter & The Free Gig
  I have my doubts about the reasoning for the RATM for Xmas thing being as I love the song but this seems to trivialise it while simultaneously validating the Xmas Number One…but…. as they are giving their windfall income from the song selling to Shelter and promise a free gig if it makes it to [...]
  
• Friday! Dark Star…
  Dark Star the band with the indie dance-tastic Graceadelica, bass is in the place! And RIP Dan O’Bannon Dan O’Bannon as Pinback in Dark Star, (yes a beach ball with feet became this)
  

Paul Krugman

• The WYSIWYG president
  What you're getting is what you should have seen.
  
• Heroes of health reform
  Giving thanks to the Club for Growth.
  
• Shovel-ready
  But not very stimulating.
  
• The insincere center
  Let's not fail to take note of those who had a chance to join in this historic moment, and punted.
  
• A whiter shade of pale
  Taxing tanning.
  

No Quarter

• In 15 Minutes, Join No Quarter Radio’s Sense on Ce ...
  Our markets and media are filled with analysts and pundits who are overly qualified in reviewing events after the fact. Where are those who have the insights, intellect, and courage to pursue the story before it breaks? Erin Arvedlund is one of the few who possess those admirable traits. Sense on Ce ...
  
• Breaking News: CBO Corrects Its Debt Assessment
  We cannot — cannot — trust a word that Harry Reid or the MSM initially tell us, and here’s some more proof of that immutable fact, now about what the CBO report REALLY says. (You know, yesterday, when I saw the first reports on the CBO report that gave high marks to the Senate bill, [...]
  
• An Eloquent Voice Raised
  A friend sent this copy of a letter she wrote to her Senator. I think it eloquently lays out a key argument against this atrocious health “care” bill. Dear Senator _____, Thank you for voting against the Nelson-Hatch Amendment. I appreciate hearing from you. More needs to be done. In regard to fe ...
  
• Do You Smell Something In The Air? Hugo Chavez Do ...
  Oh, what a turn of events, and so quickly, too. Remember when Hugo Chavez called Bush “the devil” at another UN meeting? Many of us thought that was hilarious. Here’s the clip as a reminder: Yes, yes, that was mighty funny. Finally, someone was saying what so many of us lefties thought. Then, ...
  
• Real Progressives Condemn Obamacare
  This disturbing analysis comes from the sharp liberal and civil libertarian blogger, Glenn Greenwald, in his Common Dreams essay, cynically titled “White House as Helpless Victim on Health Care“: What remains [after cuts to the Obamacare bill] is a politically distastrous and highly coercive "mand ...
  

Environmental Graffiti

• Lightning Vs Landmarks
• Scenes of Heated Conflict from the COP15 Climate C ...
• Al Hajjara: The City That Hangs Over A Precipice
• Giant Mushrooms!!!
• How To D*Face A Skate Pool With A Thousand Skulls

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

• Iran opposition calls for mourning
  Opposition supporters urged to head to Qom for funeral of senior dissident cleric.
  
• Israel vows action against settlers
  Leaked document says military will be used to enforce partial 10-month halt on building.
  
• Nepal police battle Maoist strike
  Former Maoist rebels and their supporters arrested in Nepal during general strike.
  
• Colombia 'facing foreign threat'
  Minister says Bogota is preparing for 'foreign aggression' as ties with Caracas worsen.
  
• US transfers Guantanamo detainees
  Twelve inmates sent to Yemen, Afghanistan and Somaliland from the US military prison.
  

Green Inc. - NYT

• Time to Scrap the White Pages?
  A campaign is underway to limit the automatic distribution of white pages, which some people see as wasteful in the Internet age, but phone-directory publishers are pushing back.
  
• Headway in Copenhagen on Agriculture
  Though still in draft form, an agreement in Copenhagen on agriculture may turn out to be one of the more significant achievements of the climate-change summit.
  
• Solar Module Maker Plans a Public Offering
  The move by Solyndra, founded by Silicon Valley veterans, would be the biggest solar-related offering in years.
  
• A Climate Agreement ... for Some
  President Obama announced a "meaningful agreement" in Copenhagen on Friday evening, but other countries say it may still be a work in progress. Here is the document circulating.
  
• Two Carbon Companies to Merge
  Two companies that focus on carbon dioxide emissions, both traded on a London exchange, have agreed to merge.
  

Dot Earth News

• Climate Talks Make Way for a Design Show
  In the wake of talks over a new climate treaty, an empty hall and enduring questions.
  
• Scenes from a Climate Floor Fight
  Minutes describe the tumultuous eruption of protests over a proposed climate accord.
  
• A 'First Step' Climate Deal
  The Obama administration says a flawed climate agreement -- "an important first step" -- has been reached.
  
• Following the Drafts
  Searching for significance in drafts of a climate agreement.
  
• Drafts Flow. Will CO2 Slow?
  A cartoonist warns climate negotiators not to "drop the ball."
  

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

• Americans’ Belief in Global Warming Declining
  Americans’ Belief in Global Warming Declining By Joey Parigi The number of people in the U.S. who believe in global warming is declining. The republican party has had the most drastic decrease in members who believe that climate change is actually happening, going from 76 to 54 percent in the last 3 ...
  
• Who do they think they are?
  Imagine that a neighbor of yours (good guy) decides one day that another neighbor (bad guy) might assault him and damage his home. Then imagine that good guy hires professional hitmen to attack and kill bad guy. Just to be thorough, good guy hires a helicopter with sniper to hover over bad [...]
  
• Morgan Stanley Just Walks Away from Huge Mortgages
  “The last thing the financial industry and our worthy government leaders want is for American consumers to act as irresponsibly and amorally as our corporations do. If most Americans acted like that, not one major US financial firm would be left standing.”
  
• University of Phoenix Settles Fraud Complaint for ...
  You’ve seen their commercials all over the web and on television.  The ConsumerAffairs.com website has page after page of complaints from  students detailing their history of abuse and exploitation at the hands of University of Phoenix and its parent company–The Apollo Group.  It also has, on the ...
  
• OBAMA: ALMOST ONE YEAR ASSESSMENT
  “He gave billions to Wall Street, cracked down on illegal immigrants getting health care, and he’s sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan….He may go down in history as our greatest Republican president.” — Jay Leno, summing up Obama’s first eleven months in office. After eleven months i ...
  

AlterNet's Breaking News

• Harrison breaks Jim Brown's record
• Astronauts blast off on Christmas space voyage
• 3-D effects-fest 'Avatar' earns half of weekend ti ...
• US actress Brittany Murphy dies at 32: TMZ
• For Detroit, 2009 a tough grind back into gear

Institute for Policy Studies

• The Struggle of Electrical Workers in Mexico Goes ...
• A Lesson on Nonviolence for the President
• Swiss Minarets: Only the Tip of the Iceberg
• Exceptional or Exceptionalism?
• The Cairo Detour

Godspace

• On the threshold of Christmas
  Christmas is definitely in the air.  Last night we attended a performance of the Messiah – part of our yearly pre-Christmas tradition and this morning I have been baking furiously getting ready for our Open House this evening at which event I will ignore Advent tradition and light all the Christmas ...
  
• Habbakkuk Revisited – An Advent Reflection b ...
  The end of the third week of Advent and am still waiting in anticipation, savouring the Advent reflections and readings that are coming.  I am delighted that I still have enough to see us through to the end of Advent next week.  From the comments and emails it looks as though many of you are [...]
  
• Amazing Grace Christmas Lights
  As I said earlier today – this is the time when most of us are thinking more about Christmas than we are about Advent.  And I must admit that as we race towards the shortest day of the year (at least in the northern hemisphere) I am definitely craving the coming of the light.  Anyhow [...]
  
• The Least Likely – And Advent Reflection by ...
  Christmas is coming fast and many of us have shifted our focus away from the waiting of Advent to the fulfillment of the birth of Christ (or if we are honest to the frenzy of present buying and partying).  But we are still in the season of waiting, hoping and expecting. Today’s reflection comes fr ...
  
• 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  ...
  

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

• News you may have missed #0227
  British politicians sue CIA over rendition flights. US DHS broke domestic spying rules. Expert says UK ex-spy chief misled Iraq War probe.
  
• News you may have missed #0226
  CIA denies employing David Headley. Taiwan wants to swap jailed spies with China. CIA tries to increase numbers of women leaders.
  
• Comment: US-Pakistani Spy Relations Just Short of ...
  Officially, the United States and Pakistan are allies in the so-called “war on terrorism”. But diplomats and intelligence agents on the ground tell a very different story.
  
• News you may have missed #0225
  US relying more on Special Forces in Afghanistan. Pacific nation recognizes breakaway Georgian republics. Sweden charges man for spying on Chinese exiles.
  
• 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 ...
  

After Downing Street.org

• `A Visit from St. Obama'
  By Dave Lindorff (with apologies to Clement Clark Moore) ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land Not a creature was stirring in Afghanistan. The bedrooms were bunkered with piles of hard stones To protect from attacks by the Predator drones. The children were huddled, afraid, i ...
  
• The Long-Term Value of Insisting The Health Bill I ...
  The Long-Term Value of Insisting The Health Bill Is Not Enough By David Sirota | Huffington Post ...It's not entirely logical to argue that we have one chance to enact health care reform because Congress will supposedly never revisit the issue in the future, and then simultaneously argue that Congr ...
  
• One Cheer for Howard Dean
  One cheer for Howard Dean By Rich Lowry, The National Review | Salt Lake Tribune Howard Dean's constant refrain now is that the bill isn't reform. He's right. It is an incoherent grab bag that doesn't improve on the current system -- it just adds to it. As Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Poli ...
  
• Amazing Speech By An Iraq War Veteran, Mike Prysne ...
  read more
  
• It's All About Joe!
  read more
  

Grist - News

• Copenhagen outcome: a real climate catastrophe
  by David Roberts President Barack Obama negotiating with, from left, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller, and Israeli President Shimon Peres, at the Copenhagen climate conference.Photo: White House/Pete Souza This piece appeared first in The Daily Beast .Sa ...
  
• Climate scientists underwhelmed by Copenhagen Acco ...
  by Agence France-Presse COPENHAGEN -- Top climate scientists said Saturday that the 11th-hour political deal hammered out at U.N. talks in Copenhagen falls perilously short of what is needed to stave off catastrophic global warming. What many had hoped would be a planet-saving treaty locking major ...
  
• Copenhagen deal pushed through amid condemnation, ...
  by Agence France-Presse Delegates listen to Barack Obama deliver his speech at the Copenhagen climate talks on Friday.Photo: whitehouse.govCOPENHAGEN -- A U.N. conference on Saturday rammed through a battle plan against climate change forged by U.S. President Barack Obama and other top leaders, sid ...
  
• Flawed climate accord may help Obama at home
  by Agence France-Presse Barack Obama speaks in Copenhagen. Photo: whitehouse.gov COPENHAGEN - It will not cool the globe, but the new world climate accord may temper Washington's political heat for Barack Obama, and, crucially, it has given him a deal he can defend at home. The U.S. president engin ...
  
• Rachel Maddow on Obama’s “diplomatic a ...
  by Grist Rachel Maddow and Andrea Mitchell explain the strange circumstances that led to Obama’s climate deal in Copenhagen: Spread the news on what the føck is going on in Copenhagen with friends via email, Facebook , Twitter , or smoke signals. Related Links: Copenhagen outco ...
  

Popular Bookmarks on Del.icio.us

• Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Things to Look Forward t ...
• PiratePad
• [CSS]スタイルシートの実用的なテクニック集：エレメント・CSS3・Tips編 | コリス
• Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbour ...
• 11 interesting PHP Template Engines

Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

• Remembering Brittany Murphy
  Hollywood actress Brittany Murphy dies suddenly at age 32.
  
• Brittany Murphy Dead at Age 32
  Actress Brittany Murphy reportedly died of cardiac arrest this morning in Los Angeles.
  
• Yelp! Thinking Inside the Box
  Google follows path of leaks to Yelp.
  
• Nancy O'Dell Says Farewell to Access Hollywood
  Nancy O'Dell ends her 13-year run on "Access Hollywood" to pursue new opportunities
  
• Creating Compelling Subject Lines
  Whether it’s a blog, microblog, or email – creating a compelling subject line comes down to a basic formula.
  

Time - Top Stories

• Iran's Opposition Loses a Mentor But Gains a Marty ...
  Grand Ayatullah Montazeri, who died Sunday, was one of the regime's most powerful critics precisely because of he was one of the country's most senior mullahs
  
• Why Health Reform is a Little Short on Reform
  If CBO can't keep up with what is getting slipped into this bill, what hope is there for the rest of us?
  
• Snow Job for the Avatar Opening?
  Box Office Weekend: It may have dwarfed the competition, but James Cameron's sci-fi opus still performed below expectations
  
• Defending Obama from Frank Rich
  Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is irresponsible crap -- the sort of false equivalency that Rich has rightly criticized in the past.
  
• The Conquerors of the Tigers Now Battle for the Sp ...
  The triumvirate credited with winning the island nation's civil war has shattered. How will ambition and personal animosity play out in the polls?
  

Washington Independent

• Passing Health Care Reform at All Costs
  In exchange for their support to overcome a GOP filibuster, moderate Democrats extract big concessions on the public option and abortion coverage for women.
  
• CHIP Remains in Jeopardy, Despite Rockefeller Plan
  About 10 million people receive health coverage under CHIP.
  
• Obama Announces Climate Accord
  Following news that world leaders had reached a climate deal, President Obama just held a press conference in Copenhagen, calling the agreement “an important milestone” and laying out the framework that will guide the steps toward a binding climate treaty. The deal centered on “transparency, mitigat ...
  
• Leaders in Copenhagen Reach Deal
  World leaders in Copenhagen have reached a climate deal, albeit one that leaves many questions unresolved, The New York Times reports. The breakthrough occurred after a dramatic incident in which President Obama “burst into a meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders” over their objection ...
  
• Deal or No Deal? In Copenhagen, No One’s Sur ...
  If there’s any consistent message to be drawn from Copenhagen, it’s that no one has any idea what’s going on. Some recent tweets from the climate conference:
  

CowBoss' Brain Food

• Tax those carbon gluttons
  LEMME TELL YOU about a carbon tax you’re gonna love. Two such taxes, actually. I tell you, kid, Stephane Dion had the right idea, but the wrong sales pitch. The fun starts with the government giving you maybe $2,000 as a carbon dividend. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |  ...
  
• Why do we hate? Academics seek answer in new field
  Hate is everywhere, but the fundamental question of why one person can hate another has never been adequately studied, contends Jim Mohr of Gonzaga University, who is developing a new academic field of hate studies. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comm ...
  
• 'Fat for cosmetics' murder suspects arrested in Pe ...
  Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe. Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• 6 Ways Agriculture Impacts Global Warming
  Sure, agriculture provides us with the food we all eat every day. But do you know how those agricultural practices impact global warming? Turns out there's some pretty big impacts, on both the sustainable and industrial sides of the equation; employing su Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society ...
  
• We love Butchers
  Former chef Josh Applestone and his wife, Jessica Applestone, are typical of the new butcher breed. He was a vegan, she was a one-time vegetarian when they founded Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats in Kingston, N.Y., in 2004 Submitted by cowboss Left CareII to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!   ...
  

Suzie-Q

• Seasons Greetings!
  Dear Justice Bloggers, I would like to take this moment to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I will be spending this special time with those whom I cherish most, my family and friends.   Please don’t forget our troops and our neighbors who are homeless, hun ...
  
• Democrats Clinch Deal for Deciding Vote on Health ...
  By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and CARL HULSE | New York Times | December 20, 2009 WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said Saturday that they had clinched an agreement on a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system and forged ahead with efforts to approve the legislation by Christmas over Republi ...
  
• ‘Iranian Cyber Army’ Briefly Shut Down ...
  ‘Iranian Cyber Army’ briefly takes Twitter offline world-wide Raw Story– By Agence France-Presse Saturday, December 19th, 2009 — 10:43 am Popular microblogging site Twitter was briefly shut down overnight, its home page replaced with an image claiming the site had been hacked by the “Iranian Cy ...
  
• Stunning Statistics About the War Every American S ...
  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, RebelReports, Dec 18, 2009 A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highligh ...
  
• U.N. Climate Talks ‘Take Note’ of Accord Backed by ...
  ANDREW C. REVKIN and JOHN M. BRODER | NYT | December 20, 2009 COPENHAGEN — With the swift bang of a gavel on Saturday morning, a prolonged fight between nations small and large over an international pact to limit climate risks that was forged the night before by the United States and four partners c ...
  

Solari

• Gifting to the Children We Love - Part VII
  Read the full article here. It is critical to instill a sense of responsibility in children by helping them understand how they can contribute to the betterment of the world around them by being good stewards of their resources, which includes the practice of gifting or tithing. We should never all ...
  
• White Deer
  Click the image to view the PBS video.
  
• Gifting to the Children We Love - Part V
  The subject of investing encompasses a host of disciplines, skills, and experiences that no one individual can hope to master in a short course. The key to developing future mastery over a period of two or three decades is to afford a young person assistance in identifying areas of personal interes ...
  
• Money & Markets ~ Charts 12.17.09
  View this week’s chart comparisons of gold against fiat currencies, oil and the Dow. Stay tuned for our next Money & Markets segment of The Solari Report on Thursday, January 7, 2010. Click here to view all charts as a pdf file. Previous Money & Markets Charts blog posts: Dec 2009 (1) (2) / Nov 200 ...
  
• The Story of Cap & Trade
  Continue reading The Story of Cap & Trade
  

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

• "We Can Make Him Disappear": Immigration ...
  In addition to publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is holding prisoners in 186 unlisted, unmarked locations, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces.
  
• Pockets of White America Are in the Throes of an E ...
  As the Census "time bomb" ticks, fear mounts over a perceived loss of whites' raw power - demographic, social, economic, and political.
  
• Immigration Police Are Keeping Secret Jails on U.S ...
  Immigration agents are holding US residents in unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, turning our legal system upside down.
  
• Immigration and the Salvation Army's War on Christ ...
  Did you hear about how the Salvation Army is denying toys to children if their parents are not “legal�
  
• 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.'
  

Sideways News

• Warm red cabbage salad with toasted walnuts and bl ...
  Taken from the Riverford Farm Cook Book Serves 8 This salad mixes sweet apples, crisp vegetables and delicately-flavoured dressing with the robust flavours and textures of walnuts and blue cheese - an ideal accompaniment to cooked ham and gammon dishes, or fish.     Ingredients
  
• Week in pictures: 14th December 2009
  A picture for every day, taking a snapshot view of what is happening in the world around us. Come and browse through our gallery of this week's most inspiring images.
  
• Winter salad with spiced pecans and pears
  Taken from the Riverford Farm Cook Book Serves 4-6 This is a spicy, fruity salad with plenty of crunch and full flavours. Pecans are a fairly luxurious ingredient, delicately-flavoured but suitable to enjoy with warmer, spicy ingredients, mild pears and light blue cheese.   Ingredients
  
• Have yourself a merry eco-Christmas
  Festive Brits waste millions of pounds using unnecessary energy each Christmas Day. Now npower has teamed up with top eco-chef Arthur Potts Dawson to encourage you to go green this Christmas.
  
• Wok-fried Brussels sprouts with ginger
  Taken from the Riverford Farm Cook Book Serves 4 This is a great way to convert even the most hardened sprouts-haters to ardent fans of the vegetable. This makes a great side dish for leftover meat, or can form the main part of a light lunch.     Ingredients
  

Fabius Maximus

• Re-envisioning the FM website, becoming soldiers i ...
  Summary:  The FM website has changed in recent months.  This is an annoucement of that change.  This is what they call in serial fiction (e.g., TV,  comic books) a retroactive continuity (retcon). This site was born as one providing analysis.  It’s readers were not satisfied, demanding solution ...
  
• About Wikipedia’s handling of controversial ...
  Summary:  This is a hat trick.  About effective propaganda.  And climate science.  And more evidence that Wikipedia cannot be relied upon as an information source regarding controversial matters — or any work of importance.  (It’s always useful as a first place to look and source of links.) C ...
  
• Campaign finance reform = incumbent protection
  As our ruling elites become more confident in our docility, they become bolder.  They know the bit is secure in our mouth, so they can pulling on the reins.  For today’s example see “Grayson wants to send critic to jail for 5 years”, Orlando Sentinel, 18 December 2009 — Excerpt (red emphasis a ...
  
• FM newswire for 19 December, hot articles for your ...
  This is what I found interesting, so it’s today’s broadsheet from the FM website pressroom, with several sections of hot news.  Lot’s happening in the world today, mostly either overlooked or misinterpreted by the mainstream media.   Links to interesting news and analysis Quote of the da ...
  
• 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 ...
  

sibeledmonds - tweets

• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post Round Up- Obama: ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post Round Up- Obama: Armed & Dangerous with States Secrets Privilege: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Weekly Round Up- Drone ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Weekly Round Up- Drones: Obama’s Preferred Killing Machines & More http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Russ Baker @ Boiling Frogs:The real ...
  sibeledmonds: Russ Baker @ Boiling Frogs:The real players in American Politics & Shadow Government, Forensic Journalism& more http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Presents Author & Jour ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Presents Author & Journalist Russ Baker: Shadow Government, Bush Family Secrets, MSM… & more http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• 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
  

WIRED Magazine | Science

• Dark Liquor Makes For Worse Hangovers
  A new study may help drinkers pick their poison. In a head-to-head comparison, bourbon gave drinkers a more severe hangover than vodka, report Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University and colleagues in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. But vodka drinkers aren’t off th ...
  
• Video: The Asteroid That Will Almost Hit Earth
  SAN FRANCISCO — Any number of undiscovered near-Earth objects could one day careen into the Earth, and there is a lot of talk here at the American Geophysical Union meeting about tracking them. So far, though, only one discovered object has seemed even mildly likely to hit our planet. That aster ...
  
• Increase in Shining Clouds Highlights Climate ‘Wei ...
  SAN FRANCISCO — Shining clouds at the edge of space are growing in number and brightness. For years, scientists have puzzled over the observed increase in these noctilucent clouds. Now two groups modeling the behavior of the atmosphere have found new support for the idea that human-induced climate ...
  
• 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. “ ...
  

The Progressive Realist

• The Copenhagen Accord: Some Things Are Difficult
  I probably should have said something about this yesterday, but in addition to health care we’ve had big news this week on the climate change front out of Copenhagen. The deal agreed to there is a big step forward relative to the status quo, but as Dave Roberts notes it appears to be well short of ...
  
• The Fog of Warmongering
  Daniel Larison delivers heaps of wisdom while dispelling a fog of pro-war propaganda in response to some of the recent, if familiar, war drum  beating from neoconservative circles with respect to Iran.  In particular, Larison  is reacting to Danielle Pletka’s claim that a nuclear armed Iran co ...
  
• Copenhagen Deal: "Not Fair, Not Ambitious, Not Bin ...
  The UN climate summit in Copenhagen closed with a face-saving deal, but everyone is going home disappointed. Last night, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that five major nations had reached a deal. The final document includes non-binding emission reduction targets and climate aid for the poo ...
  
• No US Companies Will Get Iraqi Oil Contracts
  Vivienne Walt’s report for Time magazine on the handing-out of Iraqi oil contracts strikes me as unduly snarky: Those who claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to get control of the country’s giant oil reserves will be left scratching their heads by the results of last weekend’s auction of Iraqi ...
  
• Obama on the Court in Copenhagen
  President Obama demonstrated his work-the-situation prowess in Copenhagen in which he molded a meeting planned with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who may have been trying to duck Obama, into a five way chat between the leaders of China, Brazil, India, South Africa and the United States. When Obama is ...
  

TAPPED - The American Prospect

• Lightning Round: American Exceptionalism Stops at ...
  John Judis examines the danger U.S. presidents court when they refer to foreign threats as "evil" and determines that using it as a justification for war unnecessarily raises the stakes in a given conflict. Insofar as the point of referencing evil is to rally people to your crusade, I'm hard-presse ...
  
• It's Been Fun!
  I've had a great time guest blogging this week at TAPPED . Thank you to Alexandra and to the other editors here for giving me the opportunity and for being such thoughtful, considerate hosts. I usually investigate front groups and do my best to reveal the labyrinth of conservative opposition to ref ...
  
• Does Punting Now Make Future Reform Stronger?
  Although current legislation does not have a public option or other provisions progressives had hoped for, we are now at the verge of passing a truly meaningful and sweeping health reform . There is, however, a chorus from the left making the curious argument that scrapping the Senate bill and start ...
  
• Perez Blasts The Bush-Era Civil Rights Division.
  The new Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Thomas Perez , blasted the Bush administration's stewardship of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department today at an American Constitution Society event, reprising the "buffet line" quip he used yesterday but far more directly. In his s ...
  
• Hispanic Higher-Ed Policy Misses the Mark.
  In higher-ed policy circles, it is well established that Hispanics trail other minority groups in getting post-secondary degrees: But a new report from Excelencia in Education notes that too often policies aimed at closing the gap have relied on a false picture of the Hispanic population, one whi ...
  

Andy Worthington

• Shaker Aamer: UK Government Drops Opposition To Re ...
  Last week, as I explained in a recent article, Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who was seized in Afghanistan in 2001 after traveling to Afghanistan with his friend Moazzam Begg (and their families) to establish a girls’ school in Kabul, won a significant victory in the British ...
  
• Stranded In Chad: Mohammed El-Gharani, Once Guantá ...
  Dismal news from Chad, where Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent dozens of Guantánamo prisoners, reports that the Chadian government is failing to provide any support whatsoever to Mohammed El-Gharani, who was released from the prison in June this year. Once Guantánamo’s young ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Buzzflash

• John Cornyn Wins BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the ...
  Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) BuzzFlash is pleased to announce that we figured out the Republicans' game plan for 2010. When the public finally wakes up and realizes that Republicans have been saying "no" to every single idea floated by a Democrat since Barack Obama became president, there's no doubt that ...
  
• Top 5 Reasons to Spread Turn Off Fox
  BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT by Jeffrey Joseph Any seasoned BuzzFlash reader, or even a BuzzFlash neophyte, knows that Fox news stands as an enemy to journalistic integrity and reason. The claims made on their shows border on slanderous and often openly hateful . They flagrantly manipulate data on their pro ...
  
• When Only a Hissy Fit Will Do
  By Steven C. Day To be honest, I still don’t know where I stand on the current Senate version of the health care “reform” bill. As the quotation marks around the word reform imply, I share many of the concerns raised by Governor Dean and other opponents to the current Senate bill. But I also agree w ...
  
• Fernando Suarez del Solar: Nobel Prize for Peace?
  BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY Dear Mr. President: I know you may never read these words and even if you did they would not change your decision to send more young Americans to the war in Afghanistan. But, as the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jesús Alberto Suárez del Solar who died on March 27, 2003 durin ...
  
• Joe Lieberman's Former Roommate Talks to BuzzFlash ...
  BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW by Meg White There are a lot of wild theories about what is driving Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to oppose healthcare reform. Why would a man who has recently expressed support for health insurance reform, universal healthcare, expanding Medicare and SCHIP turn around and oppose tho ...
  

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.

• China's Newest Gay Bar: Patron Tested, Government ...
  Gay bars are a dime a dozen across the world, so it takes a pretty huge feat in order to make international headlines. Yet one gay bar in the city of Dali, China is doing just that. Why? Because it's the first gay bar to have the backing of the Chinese government , hopefully creating a safe space fo ...
  
• Human Trafficking is Al-Qaeda's New Business Model
  Terrorism is an expensive business, what with the cost of bomb-making supplies, training videos, and the constant recruitment of new suicide bombers. And Islamist terror-funders have the same recession issues as the rest of us. So to fill some financial gaps, Al-Qaeda has embraced a new business mod ...
  
• Will Twitter Transform Homeless Services in 2010?
  New media has transformed the way people communicate and stay in touch. In 2009, Twitter was dubbed one of the fastest-growing new media technologies. Is it possible that this social networking and micro-blogging platform will revolutionize the way service providers meet the emergency needs of homel ...
  
• Sudan Calls Obama's Climate Change Deal "Genocide"
  Comparing one's situation to the Holocaust seems to be the political tool du jour. Sometimes, it can be accurate , though more often than not it's just plain annoying , and then sometimes it can be quite ironic. A Sudanese representative at the Copenhagen climate change summit commented that Preside ...
  
• Oklahoma! Where the Law Sweeps Women's Privacy Awa ...
  On Friday, a judge in Oklahoma City decided to prolong a restraining order blocking the implementation of a law that would require doctors to post private information about women who have abortions online. Never fear -- names won't be included. In fact, that's pretty much the only shred of personal ...
  

Common Dreams -News

• Global Warming Hike May Be Steeper: Research
  PARIS - Global temperatures could rise substantially more because of increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study by US and Chinese scientists released Sunday. The researchers used a long-term model for assessing climate change, confirming a similar ...
  
• Copenhagen Heading for Meltdown as Stalemate Conti ...
  by Suzanne Goldenberg, John Vidal and Jonathan Watts in Copenhagen The UN's climate summit was heading for meltdown this afternoon with countries unable to agree on emission cuts and blaming each other for the descent towards a humiliating fiasco. Last-ditch efforts by the UN to get the 120 world le ...
  
• Poll: Voters Reject Health Care Mandate Without Pu ...
  by Rachel Weiner A new poll suggests that voters are not pleased by the idea of health insurance mandates without a public option or a Medicare expansion. read more
  
• Iranian Forces Take Over Iraq Oil Well
  NASIRIYAH, Iraq - Iranian forces took control of a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border on Friday, US and Iraqi officials told AFP. "There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Ira ...
  
• Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Radioactive Longer Than E ...
  by Alexis Madrigal Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accident in history, created an inadvertent laboratory to study the impacts of radiation and more than twenty years later, the site still holds surprises. Reinhabiting the large dead zone around the accident site may have to wait longer than expected. ...
  

Lifehacker

• Add Flair to Your Holiday Fires with Colorful Pin ...
  While a roaring fire in the fireplace is a sight to behold all by itself, you can add some magical flair to the whole affair with these colorful, simple to make pine cones. The secret to changing a pine cone tossed into your fire from a basic yellow flame into more dazzling colors like blue, purple, ...
  
• Focus on the Action to Avoid Headaches During 3D ...
  Quite a few people will be taking in 3D movies this holiday season, and quite a few of them will leave the theater with headaches. Avoid getting a 3D-movie-induced headache with this simple trick. Movie-centric site Shadow Locked put together a simple guide to avoid getting a headache when you go se ...
  
• Use a Crock Pot to Make Homemade Candles [DIY]
  If you're looking for an easy way to make candles or a great homemade gift to give this holidays, this tutorial will show you how to use a crock pot to make candle-creation a snap. If you've ever made candles before, you know what a pain dealing with the wax can be. The double-boiling, the pouring, ...
  
• This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]
  T3Desk Brings 3D Eye-Candy to Your Windows Desktop (Windows) If you want a little extra eye-candy in your Windows management, T3Desk is an alt-tab alternative that gives you 3D windows arrangement and more. Memory Fox Manages Firefox's Memory Use, Aims to Keep It Low (Firefox w/ Windows) While trave ...
  
• Hide Your Electronic Clutter in a Clever Vase-Tur ...
  Gadgets are great but nobody wants a hallway table littered with charging gadgets and cables. This novel hack turns an opaque vase into a secret charging station. Instructables user Michael Pap was sick of the clutter that surrounded his gadgets, especially when they were all tethered and charging. ...
  

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

• Water: We must row hard to fix this problem (Atlan ...
  Water: We must row hard to fix this problem
  
• 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 ...
  

WordPress | Economics

• Justin Fox on Market Myths
  While I do not agree with all of Mr. Fox’s analysis, he gives us some good, and difficult, top
  
• Call for AIG Open Source Investigation (and Goldma ...
  December 20, 2009 Spitzer, Partnoy, Black Call for AIG Open Source Investigation (and Goldman Implic
  
• New stuff
  A couple of new things from me. First, UCL Urban Lab and Figaropravda have just published ‘The
  
• Credo and Credibility: The Fed’s Tylenol Problem
  “Johnson & Johnson [J&J] has succeeded in portraying itself to the public as a company willi
  
• Superfreakonomics: Car Seats
  As it turns out, I already tackled this issue before without knowing it was part of the book. I shou
  

McClatchey

• Charitable organization not needed for this outrea ...
  MIAMI — The pickup truck pulled onto a sidewalk under downtown Miami's web of highways. It was 7 p.m., and already the jolt of the workday had flat-lined into a desolate world of silence and silhouettes.
  
• Charitable organization not needed for this outrea ...
  MIAMI — The pickup truck pulled onto a sidewalk under downtown Miami's web of highways. It was 7 p.m., and already the jolt of the workday had flat-lined into a desolate world of silence and silhouettes.
  
• ExxonMobile returns to U.S. in deal for natural ga ...
  FORT WORTH — Exxon Mobil Corp.�s $31 billion stock deal to buy XTO Energy boosts natural gas as the country debates how to reduce reliance on foreign energy sources and minimize the impact on the environment, experts say.
  
• After 19 years, closure of a sort in death of K.C. ...
  PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — Lloyd Folsom and Everett "Skeet" Bishop got to be friends years ago after meeting each other in a mule-riding club.
  
• Missouri officials contemplate what it'll take to ...
  LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. — The county health official could barely believe her eyes when she spotted the do-it-yourself septic tank.
  

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

• COP15: (No) Hopenhagen?
  Everywhere you go in Copenhagen, you're met with two kinds of advertising poster. One sells lingerie, the morning walk to the railway station bringing a sequence of scarcely clad models smiling unfeasibly in the freezing morning air. The other sells hope. "Hopenhagen" has been the city's alterna ...
  
• COP15: Deal or no deal?
  0043 CET Saturday: Now, we are totally - totally - into uncharted territory. A US president has reached an climate change agreement with leaders of just four countries - although a few more clearly had a inkling of what was going on. The White House announced the deal - this is supposed to be a UN ...
  
• A tale of two superpowers
  1926 CET: It's supposed to be about two degrees. It appears to have come down to two men. As I write, US President Barack Obama and China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are locked in a room somewhere around this conference centre - a meeting that could answer the question of whether ther's a deal here ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Afghanistan Sun

• Pak prevents Indian trucks from moving to Afghanis ...
  Islamabad, Dec. 20 : While Pakistan and Afghanistan have reached an accord to allow trucks to move freely in other's territory, Pakistani officials have denied allowing Indian goods movement through its territory into Afghanistan.
  
• How NATO hopes to undercut the Afghan Taliban
  Kabul, Afghanistan With its decision to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the United States is looking to put the Taliban in a more conciliatory mood. If it can claim more successes on the b...
  
• Soldier killed in Afghanistan named
  Tributes have been paid to the latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan. Corporal Simon Hornby, 29, from the 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, was killed in an explosion while on ...
  
• Hamid Karzai defends new Cabinet amid claims nothi ...
  END: Module - M24 Article Headline with no image --> BEGIN: Module - Main Article --> President Karzai defended his new Cabinet nominations yesterday and said that he and his Governmen...
  
• Karzai faces test over compromise Afghan cabinet
  KABUL // The strained relationship between the Afghan president, the disillusioned public and an international community running out of patience is undergoing one final test at the end of a bad year f...
  

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

• Comment on Metro safety, the STAA and the Washingt ...
  On October 14, the Washington Post ran a story on Metro drivers going " Strictly by the Book " (p. B-1). The story highlights safety issues that reach beyond Metro. That the Post's writer would be concerned about the disruption reveals a prevalent but dangerous attitude that speed is more impor ...
  
• Jury awards Colin Browne $282,000
  Mr. Colin Browne worked as a program advisor for the UDC Career Counseling and Development Center. Throughout his term, he discovered many flaws within the system. For example, Kevin Naiker, the former Director of UDC’s “Team 100” retention program, and others were purposely spinning the retenti ...
  
• Press Freedom Index 2009
    On October 20, 2009, Reporters Without Borders (RWB), a Paris-based international non-governmental journalism organization that advocates freedom of the press, published Press Freedom Index 2009, its eighth annual world press freedom catalogue. According to the report, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, ...
  
• Indonesian Anti-Corruption advocate visits NWC
  Emerson Yuntho is Deputy Coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) . Today he visited the offices of the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) to share ideas about fighting corruption and protecting witnesses from retaliation.  Pictured here are Lindsey Williams (NWC Advocacy Director), Ab ...
  
• The Next Big Thing In False Claims Act Litigation
  “Securities fraud,” said the state official and with that about 20 attorneys, all experts in False Claims Act litigation, fell off their chairs. We were in a small room, down the hall in the last break out session of the annual meeting of False Claims Act attorneys sponsored by Taxpayers Agai ...
  

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 ...
  

Digital Journal

• Actress Brittany Murphy dies in Los Angeles
  The entertainment world was today left reeling after the announcement of the death of thirty-two-year-old actress Brittany Murphy.
  
• Professor: NATO may cease to exist within next two ...
  Gerhard Mangott, a political science professor, told Russia Today on Thursday that it is quite important to Russia to maintain a relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as it may cease to exist within the next two decades.
  
• Ignatieff shrugs off 2010 election, Harper down in ...
  Canadian Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff said in an interview on Saturday that he was not too keen on the idea of triggering an election next year. While a new poll shows that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is down in the polls.
  
• Saturday night is time for Toronto's Santarchy
  If you're in Toronto you still have a bit of time before this year's Santarchy begins Saturday. At 5 p.m. Santa and his helpers are meeting at Dundas Square to begin a night of merriment.
  
• GM begins to repay bailout loans
  Washington -- General Motors Co. pays back $1 billion and $192 million respectively to U.S. and Canada. The automaker owes $52 billion, $6.7 billion of that figure is from TARP and $1.4 billion to Canada.
  

End Homelessness | Change.org

• Will Twitter Transform Homeless Services in 2010?
  New media has transformed the way people communicate and stay in touch. In 2009, Twitter was dubbed one of the fastest-growing new media technologies. Is it possible that this social networking and micro-blogging platform will revolutionize the way service providers meet the emergency needs of homel ...
  
• A Homeless Fire Victim's Last Day Alive
  This weekend, a nor'easter is slamming the east coast and painting it white. For most people, a foot of snow and ice means shoveling out a car or stocking up on bread and milk. But for others, it's a matter of life or death. I came across this video today in the Vancouver Sun . It's a brief document ...
  
• Honoring the Homeless Who Died in 2009, Resolving ...
  December 21st is the longest day of the year and the coldest day of the year. So it is an appropriate day to honor and mourn those who died in the past year without a home.  But as communities gather to remember and honor those who have died, let us resolve to do whatever it takes to ensure that suc ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Ceasefire.ca

• Decal offer from Bill and Rhyl Stollery
  Dear Ceasefire.ca supporters, You might be interested in this offer from Bill and Rhyl Stollery in Edmonton. Magnetic decals 3 1/2 ” x 8″ to display on rear of vehicles $2.00 each or 10 for $15.00, plus mailing To order and receive details to promote campaign: e-mail rstoller@shaw.ca or hready@shaw. ...
  
• World leaders agree on climate change
  World leaders and their representatives attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen failed to achieve a binding agreement to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the close of the conference on Friday, in effect agreeing instead to continue their collective experiment i ...
  
• McChrystal in Ottawa
  The commander of U.S. and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, visited Ottawa Wednesday to discuss Afghanistan strategy with Canadian Chief of Defence Staff General Walt Natynczyk and other officials. He also made a speech at an event sponsored by the Conference of Defence As ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Kevin Trudeau Show

• “Most Important Paper In The World” is ...
  December 18, 2009 Telegraph By Gerald Warner 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 self-interest of t ...
  
• Global Transaction Tax to be Included in Final Cop ...
  December 18, 2009 Info Wars By Paul Joseph Watson The final Copenhagen draft agreement which was hammered out in the early hours of Friday morning includes provisions for a global tax on financial transactions that will be paid directly to the World Bank, as President Obama prepares to bypass Congre ...
  
• Climate Plan to Tax $3,000 a Year
  December 18, 2009 The Chronicle Herald By Kevin Gaudet Would you be upset if you knew your government was about to get duped in a con that would cost your family at least $3,000 a year in new taxes? That is exactly what is happening in Copenhagen right now. The developing world has teamed up with gl ...
  
• Climate Skeptics Give Greenpeace a Dose of Their O ...
  December 18, 2009 Info Wars By Patrick Henningsen On Wednesday, Global warming skeptics from CFACT pulled off an international climate caper by using GPS triangulation from Greenpeace’s own on-board camera photos to locate and sail up long-side its famous vessel, Rainbow Warrior. Then in Greenpeace- ...
  
• Kevin Arrives in Seattle!
  December 18, 2009  CHICAGO, IL - The Kevin Trudeau show is proud to announce that starting January 2nd, 2010, it will be airing on KKNW 1150-AM in Seattle, Washington! The show will be on KKNW every Saturday from 9:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M. Listeners have compared Kevin Trudeau’s radio show to the best ...
  

Pambazuka News

• Katrina victims face eviction
  Following reports of federal government plans to repossess temporary housing from Katrina victims, the US Human Rights Network - http://www.ushrnetwork.org has called for the Obama administration to reverse this decision and provide those affected with substantive directive support.
  
• Extradition threat for Black Liberation activist
  As the US opens up political channels with Cuba, Black Liberation Army - http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/freedomfighters.html activist Assata Shakur faces extradition from the country where she has lived under political asylum since 1984, writes Paul Scott. While the mainstream media portrays Shakur h ...
  
• Stop senate renege on black farmer compensation
  ColorOfChange.org - http://www.colorofchange.org/farmers/?id=1842-429864 is campaigning to ensure that a US senate bill to compensate black farmers in the South for discrimination gives them the money they deserve, rather than capping the total amount available at $100 million, which would only cove ...
  
• Ekiti must hold free, fair elections
  The North America-based Ekiti Focus Group has strongly condemned election violence and intimidation in Nigeria’s Ekiti State, describing reported cases of ‘arson, maiming, ballot stuffing, ballot hijacking, and shooting’ as ‘barbaric acts’. In a statement the group called for ‘the release of true an ...
  
• Global: Why Haiti can't forget its past
  Thank you for the attention you have brought to the country of Haiti. In response to your New York Times op ed piece I wanted to widen your perspective a bit. I don't pretend to represent anyone. I've been living in Haiti since 1985. I grew up in New...
  

War in Context

• Death of Iran’s top dissident cleric prompts prote ...
  Death of Iran’s top dissident cleric prompts protests By Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2009 Iran’s top dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, 87 years old, died in his sleep on Saturday night, his family said, drawing supporters to the holy city of Qom on Sunday ...
  
• Iran claims an oil field it seized
  Iran claims an oil field it seized By Timothy Williams and Sa’ad al-Izzi, New York Times, December 20, 2009 The Iranian government said Saturday that an oil field that its troops occupied a day earlier was on its side of the border with Iraq, despite Iraqi claims to the contrary. A group of about 11 ...
  
• U.S. companies shut out as Iraq auctions its oil f ...
  U.S. companies shut out as Iraq auctions its oil fields By Vivienne Walt, Time, December 19, 2009 Those who claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to get control of the country’s giant oil reserves will be left scratching their heads by the results of last weekend’s auction of Iraqi oil contracts: ...
  
• Viva Palestina convoy arriving in Turkey
  Viva Palestina convoy arriving in Turkey December 19, 2009 The Gaza I know By Nancy Murray, The Nation, December 18, 2009 For most Americans, the Gaza Strip is, at best, unknown territory. At worst, it is a hostile land whose “terrorist infrastructure” must be dismantled, no matter what the cost to ...
  
• In Iran, nuclear issue is also a medical one
  In Iran, nuclear issue is also a medical one By Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, December 20, 2009 Ruhollah Solook, a retired electrician living in Santa Monica, Calif., was in a desperate bind. He urgently needed a kidney transplant, as well as a series of radiation therapy di ...
  

Watts Up With That?

• A telling omission by Real Climate
  We’ve all pretty much had it up to our keesters with the brusque and dismissive treatment that commenters who don’t agree with the RC world view get over there. This is why many of us have simply given up trying, there’s no point in attempting to have a relevant and open discussion there anymore. I ...
  
• Steve McIntyre on Fox news special tonight about C ...
  Steve McIntyre writes on Climate Audit: Fox News is running a one-hour special on climate tonight at 9 p.m. [6PM PST] (which is being re-aired on Wednesday, I think.) I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was interviewed in Toronto by Fox News when they were in Toronto for the Munk Debates (Dec ...
  
• Record snowfalls in Valdez Alaska sinks boat and W ...
  Above: Photo taken at eye level of a sign already elevated because of seasonal snow issues. See below for photo of sunken boats in Valdez harbor due to snow loading. The Valdez Alaska Dispatch writes: All the experts say the effects of climate change will be felt most in Alaska, home of the ex-g ...
  
• More on Wikipedia and Connolley – he’s ...
  WUWT reader Dennis Kuzara wrote to Wikipedia in response to our earlier article on Wikibullies prompted by Lawrence Solomon of the National Post. He has received an eye-opening reply. Emphasis mine – Anthony ================= Wikipedia replies notable excerpt: > > 4. Has William Connolley been remo ...
  
• Wikibullies at work. The National Post exposes bro ...
  Lawrence Solomon at the National Post writes about a topic that WUWT readers have known about for a long time: How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles. We’ve known for some time that Wikipedia can’t be trusted to provide unbiased climate information. Solomon starts off by talk ...
  

Dandelion Salad

• Copenhagen Eve of Destruction Climate Conference + ...
  Dandelion Salad StartLoving2 December 10, 2009 more about “Copenhagen Eve of Destruction Climate…“, posted with vodpod *** Links Between Climate Change And Biodiversity MoxNewsDotCom PBS, December 18, 2009 more about “Links Between Climate Change And Biod…“, posted with vodpod see Naomi Klein o ...
  
• Bill Moyers Journal: Matt Taibbi and Robert Kuttne ...
  Dandelion Salad Bill Moyers Journal December 18, 2009 Amidst fading hopes for real reform on issues ranging from high finance to health care, economist Robert Kuttner and journalist Matt Taibbi join Bill Moyers to discuss Wall Street’s power over the federal government. via Bill Moyers Journal . ...
  
• President Obama and the DLC – A Retrospective By S ...
  by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH Featured Writer Dandelion Salad crossposted on TPJmagazine Dec. 20, 2009 Many of us on the Left, whether that’s the Democratic Party Left or the Real Left, are becoming increasingly disturbed, upset, concerned, what-have-you, with the behavior of President in office.  We ...
  
• Russ Baker: The shadow government
  with Peter B. Collins and Sibel Edmonds Featured Writer Dandelion Salad originally published by Boiling Frogs Post 18 December 2009 Russ Baker discusses his book, Family of Secrets, the first complete historic portrait of the Bush dynasty, and provides us with an overview of how this dynasty shap ...
  
• Afghanistan: World’s Lengthiest War Has Just Begun ...
  by Rick Rozoff Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Stop NATO http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com 18 December, 2009 The higher number of Defense Department contractors, 160,000, added to over 100,000 troops – with the likely prospect of both numbers climbing yet more – will result in over a quarter of a m ...
  

Your New Reality

• No title
  All the details below are taken from official White House media-distributed photography. DeNiro, Springsteen, Obama : No-one can accuse Obama of blowing money on new phones for the White House. Look at this ancient beast of a thing sitting on his West Wing desk. Obama flag pin worn on la ...
  
• No title
  Get It Off Your Chest And Onto A Sign An excellent collection of The Best 50 Protest Signs From 2009 : Unfortunately, because the list was only for protest signs from 2009, one of the best protest signs of all time could not be included. But here it is anyway : .
  
• No title
  Something totally fucking bizarre spent two minutes in the night skies above Poland. According to this story , neither astronomers or meteorologists can explain this phenomenon : My first thought, after looking at the other photos and video here , is that it looks like some kind of laser projecti ...
  
• No title
  Carbon Tax Like A Bloodbank For Financial Vampires By Darryl Mason From @RWDB : Introducing 2013 US Secretary of State Michelle Malkin and President Sarah Palin. Stranger things have happened. In mid-2007, Hilary Clinton and here crew werel laughing it up at the idea of Barack Obama reaching the ...
  
• No title
  Robert Fisk : Obama "Worse Than Bush For The Middle East. At Least With Bush You Knew Where You Stood" He speaks the truth : Unless Obama's War On Terror really is a White House/Pentagon insider war against the CIA and its Al Qaeda agents and religious terrorist networks across the Midddle East. ...
  

Wired - Science

• Dark Liquor Makes For Worse Hangovers
  A new study may help drinkers pick their poison. In a head-to-head comparison, bourbon gave drinkers a more severe hangover than vodka, report Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University and colleagues in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. But vodka drinkers aren’t off th ...
  
• Video: The Asteroid That Will Almost Hit Earth
  SAN FRANCISCO — Any number of undiscovered near-Earth objects could one day careen into the Earth, and there is a lot of talk here at the American Geophysical Union meeting about tracking them. So far, though, only one discovered object has seemed even mildly likely to hit our planet. That aster ...
  
• Increase in Shining Clouds Highlights Climate ‘Wei ...
  SAN FRANCISCO — Shining clouds at the edge of space are growing in number and brightness. For years, scientists have puzzled over the observed increase in these noctilucent clouds. Now two groups modeling the behavior of the atmosphere have found new support for the idea that human-induced climate ...
  
• 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. “ ...
  
  
  
  
  
  SideBar Search
  
  
  
  

  To Do

  renewable recycling conservation

  Final leg of SCE renewable energy project gets OK

  Los Angeles Times

  - Dec 17, 2009

  - Dec 17, 2009

  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

  Rs one lakh crore for renewable energy projects: Chavan

  Times of India

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 1 hour ago

  PUNE: The Centre has allocated a fund of Rs one lakh crore to invest in research, development and innovation programmes in renewable energy sector over the ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Investors Getting Serious in London — $1 Billion Renewable Energy Fund

  CleanTechnica

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 6 hours ago

  A London-based green investment firm, Earth Capital Partners (ECP), aiming to create a €750 million ($1 billion) renewable energy fund, announced this last ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Global Renewable Energy Policy Handbook - New Report Published

  OfficialWire (press release)

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 5 hours ago

  by Press Office This report presents an in-depth analysis of the renewable energy policies across 30 major countries across the globe. ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  powered by

  

  Human Habitat

  ecology water energy

  EU opens Ecology chapter in negotiations with Turkey

  Focus News

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 4 hours ago

  Turkish newspaper defines the opening of the Ecology chapter as a new small step towards the accession to the EU. Thus the total number of opened chapters ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Recent Puget Sound sewage spill not as bad as it could have been

  Seattle Times

  - Dec 19, 2009

  - Dec 19, 2009

  "When you look across Puget Sound you have death by a thousand cuts," said Josh Baldi, policy adviser with the state Department of Ecology. ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Pope Benedict's environmentalism concerned with the 'ecology of man,' Vatican ...

  Catholic News Agency

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 15 hours ago

  While some forms of environmentalism place nature first in relation to mankind, he explains that the Pope has as his priority the “ecology of Man” in ...

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Nine faculty members named fellows

  Online Athens

  - Dec 19, 2009

  - 20 hours ago

  ... of the Savannah River Ecology Lab Environmental Outreach Program; ecology professor Catherine M. Pringle; and horticulture professor Peggy Ozias-Akins.

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  powered by

  

  Water Power

  water floods pollution

  Airport Worker Falls 40 Feet To His Death

  AHN

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 3 hours ago

  The Denver Post reports that the man was found by Denver Fire Department divers in 20 feet of water that was about 38 degrees. The water is used for the ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Water companies issue boil water advisories

  phillyBurbs.com

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 1 hour ago

  AP The weekend's power outages have prompted several water utilities to tell customers to boil water. West Virginia American Water issued a boil water ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Legionnaire's inquiry targets water at Epic Hotel

  MiamiHerald.com

  - Dec 18, 2009

  - Dec 18, 2009

  Water is the focus of the investigation into the three cases of Legionnaires' disease contracted by tourists. BY FRED TASKER When federal officials alerted ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  Albay evacuees assured of safe drinking water

  GMA news.tv

  - Dec 20, 2009

  - 9 hours ago

  The United Nation International Children for Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has donated 20 trailers of water jags to ensure safe drinking water for all residents ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 12/2009

  powered by

• 
  

• 
  

•