1 January - 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


Ambassador Richard Holbrook, who is the US tsar for the region, was asked ‘Do you have troops in Pakistan?’ and he said ‘The US has intelligence personnel in Pakistan but not troops’. And I would ask – “What about the contractors, Mr Ambassador?” asked Tarpley.
Webster Tarpley disclosed information published in The Nation and Vanity Fair magazines about Blackwater Select and Total Intelligence Solutions having massive snatch and grab and even assassination operations run out of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, under the command of the US Joint Special Operations Command and CIA.
The Taliban refused to take responsibility for some explosions in public places in Pakistan and blamed the CIA for destabilizing the situation in the country through terror.
“I guess from some points of view the golden age of Blackwater was perhaps not under Bush/ Cheney but it is now under Obama,” Tarpley said, “and they are running wild in ways they trample the sovereignty of Pakistan as a country.” -- Russia Today

http://www.inteldaily.com/news/164/ARTICLE/13249/2009-12-30.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inteldaily%2Ffeeds+%28Inteldaily.com%29
 ( Ad on the side column of TomDispatch

The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation
America Victorious has been our country's postulate since its birth. Tom Engelhardt, with a burning clarity, recounts the end of this fantasy, from the split atom to Vietnam. It begins at our dawn's early light and ends with the twilight's last gleaming. It is as powerful as a Joe Louis jab to the solar plexus.
--Studs Terkel )

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Image by daviza via Flickr

IPS - Inter Press Services

• Q&A: From Simple Anti-War Agenda to Expansive P ...
  TOKYO, Jan 1 (IPS) - Of approximately 170 peace museums that exist around the world, a third are found in Japan.
  
  (Sardonic thought : Peace had to be put in a Museum so you'd know where to find it. )
  
• DEVELOPMENT: Have a Hungry New Year (No Don't)
  ROME, Jan 1 (IPS) - The world's hungry have good reason to look to the new year with trepidation given the experience of the 12 months that preceded it.
  
• ENVIRONMENT: Invasion of the Little Green Molecu ...
  PORTLAND, Oregon, Dec 31 (IPS/IFEJ) - While the world's climate negotiators were getting ready for Copenhagen earlier this month, a meeting was taking place in Mumbai to discuss progress in green chemistry, a field that – like the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions – has the potential to grea ...
  
• Q&A: "The Government Took My Sister Hostage"
  BERKELEY, California, Dec 31 (IPS) - The Iranian government has intensified its pressure on political and human rights activists since the harsh crackdown on protesters on the holy day of Ashura, arresting major political figures and even their family members, including Noushin Ebadi, the sister ...
  
• ECONOMY-BRAZIL: Going Up in the World
  RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 31 (IPS) - Brazil's economic achievements are being enthusiastically recognised abroad as never before. "Brazil takes off" was the Nov. 12 cover title of the British weekly The Economist.
  

Scoop - NZ

• Climate Change's first refugees : a pointer to the ...
  On an island in Papua New Guinea the 3000 residents are seeking to be relocated to Bougainville....in what will become the story of the Pacific for the next decade as islands in the Pacific succumb to severe storms and inundation from climate change . They don't cause the problem...they just get the ...
  
• Copenhagen - Historic failure that will live in in ...
  The most progressive US president in a generation comes to the most important international meeting since the Second World War and delivers a speech so devoid of substance that he might as well have made it on speaker-phone from a beach in Hawaii. His aides argue in private that he had no choice, su ...
  
• Artists and politicians gather to save Canterburya ...
  Canterbury's water management needs a serious overhaul, according to artists and activists who gathered for an art exhibition at Christchurch's COCA on Saturday.  »  PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews
  
• 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 ...
  

Independent ( London )

• Russia raises price bar on vodka in effort to redu ...
  Russia set a minimum price for vodka today more than doubling the cost of the cheapest drinks in an effort to fight rampant alcoholism.
  
• Finnish police say gunman shot victims systematica ...
  A Kosovan-born gunman who killed four people and his ex-girlfriend in a New Year's Eve rampage, shot his victims systematically and did not fire at random, police said on Friday.
  
• More than 70 dead in Pakistan volleyball blast
  A suicide bomber in a vehicle blew himself up at a volleyball game in northwest Pakistan on Friday and a television station said more than 70 people were killed.
  
• Suicide bomb at volleyball site in Pakistan
  A suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden vehicle on a field during a volleyball tournament today in northwest Pakistan, killing over 50 people, police said.
  
• Suicide bomber attacks volleyball game in Pakistan
  A suicide bomber attacked a site where a volleyball game was being played in northwest Pakistan today and casualties were feared, a police official said.
  

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• Obama’s New Year’s Resolutions
  Summary: Philip Giraldi American presidents, rarely introspective by nature and driven by hubris and a sense of national exceptionalism, are not particularly motivated to make serious New Year’s resolutions. Past presidents sometimes declared themselves prepared to make lifestyle changes, to ex ...
  
• Iran warming to Turkish role in nuke dispute
  Summary: Özügergin also reiterated that Turkey firmly favors holding dialogue to resolve this issue, as he strongly indicated Turkey’s unwillingness to use military means or to impose sanctions on the neighboring country. Less than a week ago, Mottaki said Iran is open to exchanging uranium on T ...
  
• Kazakhstan, Iran deny uranium deal
  Summary: Kazakhstan Kazakhstan "categorically repudiates certain news media reports alleging Kazakhstan's connection to a possible deal to supply uranium to the Islamic Republic of Iran," the country's foreign ministry said. The government "considers them groundless insinuations damaging the rep ...
  
• Iran agrees to phased uranium exchange: official
  Summary: "We gave the West a chance to make them believe us. If they do not lose this chance, we can discuss the details of the exchange," Mehmanparast added. He said Japan, Turkey and Brazil were offered as exchange locations, but a decision has not yet been made. The West asked Iran to transfe ...
  
• Accusations against Iran's nuclear program "irresp ...
  Summary: Russia has no proof of Tehran's alleged intention to create nuclear weapons, says a Russian diplomat. "We have no reason to believe that Iran plans to move in this direction (developing nuclear weapons)," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Russia Today on Tuesday, adding that " ...
  

The Daily Galaxy

• Become a Fan & Share With Your Friends @The New Da ...
  Link & Share The Daily Galaxy Facebook Page
  
• New Year's 1925: Hubble's Discovery Reveals the Im ...
  The greatest breakthrough in our understanding of the scale of the universe since Copernicus and Galileo came in October of 1923 when a young astronomer (and athele and Rhodes Scholar) from the University of Chicago discovered a Cephid variable in...
  
• Was Inorganic Life Observed in Interstellar Dust C ...
  This summer, an international research team announced a breakthrough in self-replicating plasma crystals which could be an early form of inorganic life. New studies of dust that form lifelike structures suggest that extraterrestrial life may not be carbon-based at all....
  
• Did a Deep Biosphere Precede Life on Earth's Surfa ...
  "No scientific subject holds more surprises for us than biology." Freeman Dyson -Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton Cornell University Professor Emeritus Thomas Gold, who for 20 years directed the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, proposes the striking and...
  
• Clues Sought to Unknown Human-Microbe Life Colonie ...
  Few of us like to dwell on the fact our human cells are vastly outnumbered (10X) by microbes in our bodies’ cellular cities. If we went by cellular per capita, rather than size of cell, we’d be more microbe than...
  

Natural News

• 2009 in review: A year of FDA censorship, Big Phar ...
  (NaturalNews) 2009 has been a crazy year for health and medicine. It was the year that Congress rammed through a mandatory health "reform" bill that violates the U.S. Constitution in forcing all Americans to buy government-mandated products and services from greedy corporations. Although it hasn't b ...
  
• NaturalNews announces the "Dumb and Dumber and Dum ...
  (NaturalNews) Some of the health-related events that took place in 2009 were so stupid they deserve an award. So as a service to our comedy-minded readers, we've put together the "Dumb and Dumber and Dumberer" awards covering the dumbest things we've seen in the health industry throughout 2009. Let' ...
  
• New study: amino acids could heal brain damage
  (NaturalNews) A head-on car collision, a stumble that slams your head to the ground, a wound from a military battle in Afghanistan, a violent criminal assault -- these and other causes of sudden blows to the head can result in traumatic brain injury (TBI). According to the National Institutes of Hea ...
  
• NaturalNews launches the 2010 New Year's Health Pr ...
  (NaturalNews) Responding to popular demand from readers, we've just published the NaturalNews 2010 New Year's Health Products Discount Guide . This free guide lists over 50 natural health products from dozens of companies who are offering exclusive discounts for NaturalNews readers. Access the full ...
  
• Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care Products Found in N ...
  (NaturalNews) The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has issued support for a proposed law that would require the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City to test the city's drinking water supply for personal care product and pharmaceutical residue. Citing numerous studies that have fo ...
  

TheGallopingBeaver

• Santa Visits Stevie . . .
• At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning.. ...
  With condolences and respect to the families and friends of Private Garrett William Chidley , 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry; Corporal Zachery McCormack , The Loyal Edmonton Regiment; Sergeant George Miok , 41 Combat Engineer Regiment; Sergeant Kirk Taylor , 84 Indepe ...
  
• Merry Christmas to all!
• At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning.. ...
  With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Lieutenant Andrew Richard Nuttall, 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. Killed due to enemy action. Ric-A-Dam-Doo
  
• Dear Opposition,
  I have to ask: Do any of you actually still think you'll form a government as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister? Because we've been dancing the line between a Harper majority or minority outcome (if an election were called) for enough time to suggest there is little likelihood of anything bu ...
  

Media Matters for America

• Quick Fact: On CNN, Matalin falsely claims "Bush ...
  On the December 27 edition of CNN's State of the Union, Mary Matalin falsely claimed that President George W. Bush "inherited a recession from President Clinton, and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history." In fact the 9-11 attacks occurred eight months int ...
  
• Conservative media revive "death panels" yet agai ...
  The conservative media are now labeling the Independent Medicare Advisory Board created by the Senate health care reform bill a "death panel," even though the board is explicitly prohibited from "modify[ing] eligibility," "restrict[ing] benefits," or "ration[ing] health care" and its recommenda ...
  
• Beck's Dec. '09 Fusion magazine: A rehash ...
  Glenn Beck's Fusion magazine claims to provide its subscribers with "the latest perspective on what is happening in our world, coupled with [Beck's] personal thoughts as 'work in progress' as well as cutting edge comedy and satire." But the December 2009 issue of Fusion simply rehashed many of the ...
  
• O Tannen-Mao? The right-wing's White House Christ ...
  Taking a cue from Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, several conservative media outlets have reported on three ornaments on the White House Christmas tree depicting President Obama's face superimposed on Mount Rushmore, Mao Zedong, and Hedda Lettuce. Despite the suggestion that those three C ...
  
• Morris falsely asserted Medicare Advisory Board i ...
  On Fox & Friends , Dick Morris falsely claimed that the "Medicare Advisory Board" in the revised Senate health care bill will "be saying no, you can't give this person a hip replacement, they are too old, and no, you can't treat this person with colon cancer with the best drug available." In fac ...
  

Global Research.ca

• A Message of Peace from Global Research
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Afghanistan Far Deadlier Than Iraq for U.S. Troops ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• 2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• U.S. Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was For ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Egypt Lets 100 Protesters Go to Gaza
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  

TPM Cafe

• Sheikh Jarrah: It's Happening
  For a protest to turn into a serious happening, you need two things. First, an injustice so obvious, and so emblematic, that to redress it is to play a kind of historical jujitsu: the force of the grievance pushes more... East Jerusalem - Middle East - Israel - Sheikh Jarrah - Warfare and Confl ...
  
• Obama's Art of the Possible
  Like many progressives, I've been critical of Obama on Afghanistan, the health care debate and financial reform. But I've also been critical of the institution that is federal politics, with its arcane Senate rules that allow for essential minority "negative"... Barack Obama - Health care - Po ...
  
• It's Obama's Fault! GOP Ready To Pounce On Obama ...
  There is one downside to having a Democratic President. If any act of terrorism occurs during his term, the President will be blamed. It does not work that way when a Republican is in the White House. If the country... Barack Obama - United States - President of the United States - Republican - ...
  
• Brad Burston in Ha'aretz: Israel's 10 Worst Blunde ...
  Brad Burston of Ha'aretz has it exactly right. Meanwhile TIME's Tony Karon writes in "The National" that Israel is planning another Gaza war for 2010. Apparently, despite the horrific damage inflicted, Israelis view the war as a draw. And that... Israel - Middle East - Maps and Views - Warfare ...
  
• What Did You Learn In School Today?: Israel's Cent ...
  Dan Ben David, a Tel Aviv University economist, and executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, has led the writing of a report on Israel's failing educational system. He summarizes its findings today in Haaretz. For secular... Israel - Tel Aviv University - Middle East - E ...
  

TruthOut

• Letting Go
  Boston - There is something fitting about writing my last column on the first day of a new year. January, after all, is named for the Roman god of beginnings and endings. He looked backward and forward at the same time. So, this morning, do I. I wish I could find the right language to describe this ...
  
• Fighting Over the Squandered Decade
  Washington - Certain decades shape the country's political life for generations by leaving behind an era to embrace or, at least as often, to scorn. The 1960s were definitely such a decade. The 1930s qualify, and so do the 1980s. But as important as all these periods have been, their significance ma ...
  
• Americans in Search of a Model
  It was supposed to be the year of change. That did not happen. One year after Barack Obama's election, Americans are realizing that one man, even this improbable messiah (or even Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger in California) is not sufficient to the task. It's the system that is at issue. The pr ...
  
• Strange Days Indeed
  Most peculiar, mama. Hoo. - John Lennon I know, I know, the decade doesn't really end until next year, but whatever to that. The calendar police can come and arrest me, because I'm calling this damnable decade over and done with first thing Friday morning. To hell with it, and anything that looks l ...
  
• Is Jim DeMint Undermining Airport Security to Bust ...
  In the wake of the failed attempt on Christmas Day to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and other Republicans are seeking to revive their voter-rejected charges that Democrats are weak on security - while somehow blaming unions for airport security failings. read mo ...
  

Planetsave

• Michigan Offshore Wind Proposal Stirs Waves
  A map prepared for Michigan’s Great  Lakes Offshore Wind Council shows areas of high wind power production potential in the state’s offshore waters. One of the first proposals for a major offshore wind project in America’s freshwater has surprised Michigan regulators and begun to stir oppositi ...
  
• Friendship between LION, TIGER and BEAR
  This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post . . If we could all just get along like these three unusual friends, we would live in a much different world. In human society, people often do not like others simply because they are different. Humans kill over this matter. In ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Water Quality - WordPress

• Unsafe Drinking Water Found at Thousands of School ...
  According to investigation released by the Associated Press in September 2009, the drinking water at
  
• 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
  
• old friends and wise words...
  I spoke with my good friend Robert yesterday evening – you know when you meet someone who you
  
• Public Supports Rules for Drillers
  By DAVID THOMPSON – dthompson@sungazette.com POSTED: December 17, 2009 More than 100 people tu
  

Public Citizen in Texas

• Recap: Roll Beyond Coal Tour
  The November/December edition of Public Citizen News, a bi-monthly newsletter distributed to Public Citizen members, featured this article on our statewide “Roll Beyond Coal” Tour.  Since not all of you out there get the newsletter, I thought I’d share: ‘Roll Beyond Coal’ Tours Texas By Geena W ...
  
• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up
  The Texas Progressive Alliance would like to thank everyone for reading all of the weekly blog roundups this year. This is the last roundup of 2009, and we are all looking forward to 2010. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants everyone to be afraid of drug cartels buying our politicians. We’ve al ...
  
• $18.2 Billion! Amores Nucleares: San Antonio Nucle ...
  The San Antonio Nuclear Expansion Soap Opera plot thickens.  Today’s update brings the shocking news that South Texas Project Reactors 3 & 4 could actually cost, not $13 Billion, not even $17 Billion… but $18.2 Billion! With all the trouble CPS has gotten into recently regarding transparency (a gen ...
  
• Green-up Your Life! Make change happen
  By Kirsten Bokenkamp During his campaign, President Obama said “change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” As individuals, we need to internalize this, and act on it. This is the last blog in ...
  
• 60 Seconds to Save the Earth
  Sixty seconds doesn’t seem like a lot of time; however, there are lots of things that can be done in sixty seconds or less.  For instance, an average adult can type 38 to 40 words and blink between ten and 30 times every sixty seconds (sometimes simultaneously).  Furthermore, an elite distance runne ...
  

Press TV

• Iran cleric urges 'strong action against rioters'
  Senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati on Friday called on the judiciary to deal much more strongly with rioters.
  
• Iraq 'regrets' US court ruling on Blackwater
  The Iraqi government on Friday expressed "regret" about a US court decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater guards who killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.
  
• Pakistan volleyball blast toll rises
  A bomb attack on Friday targeted the venue of a volleyball game in the strife-torn northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens of others.
  
• London witnesses anti-Egypt protest
  At least 200 protestors gathered Friday outside the Egyptian Embassy in London after news spread that Gaza peace activists had been beaten by Egyptian police in Cairo.
  
• Palestinians mark anniversary of war on Gaza
  Hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis and peace activists have staged a rally across the Gaza Strip to mark the first anniversary of Israel's offensive in Gaza.
  

Axis of Logic

• The Australian Ombudsman
  
  
• Pakistan: Did Benazir Die For Democracy?
  
  
• A Manifesto for Today
  
  
• COP15 Copenhagen: A Road to Ecocide
  
  
• Kenneth Mosley now scheduled for execution on Janu ...
  
  

They Gave Us a Republic

• Just a Little Thing
  Because government employees really do find ways to not just save taxpayer dollars, but to do it in ways that makes the system work better and improves people's lives. Congratulations, Nancy Fichtner on becoming the first-ever winner of the President's SAVE Award - a contest for Federal employees to ...
  
• Best Music of 2009
  A CD's worth of the year's best songs, generally from off the beaten path. Introduction If you dig these songs please consider buying them.  Most can be had for less than a buck.  They will also be hosted at Pruning Shears until Thursday, so you can try before you buy over there. Here are my favor ...
  
• The Nightowl Newswrap
  We sometimes forget that by the time the ball drops in Times Square, about 3/4 of the world has already welcomed the New Year. "New Year arrived first in the South Pacific. At midnight local time (1100 GMT) fireworks were set off over Auckland's Sky Tower in New Zealand. But in the Philippines, hund ...
  
• If Gotti Was Still Alive
  From what has rapidly become one of my favorite sites: If John Gotti Was Still Alive The "Dapper Don" would see all the rackets run by big time corporate bag men, and be amazed that he wasted his life criminally grabbing millions, when he could have dealt with billions legally doing credit default ...
  
• Decade of American Unreason
  Hello, my name is Ted Frier and I hope you enjoy my debut posting on They Gave Us a Republic.  I have been posting comments for several years, mostly on Political Animal, the Washington Post's comment sections, Salon, New Republic and Kevin Drum's blog at Mother Jones.  I was both surprised and deli ...
  

Care 2

• Celebration of Animal Welfare Fortnight 2010 in In ...
  Please join this animal welfare fortnight with the International Organisation for Animal Protection - OIPA in India and People for Animals (PFA) Haryana. Let us shake hands to serve animals and protect them from un-necessary pain and sufferings in India. Submitted by Kadyan Naresh to Animals  |   N ...
  
• Dogs Have Basic Rights to Bark! - Naresh Kadyan
  Dogs should have right for expression, how they can, only they can bark, rolling on grounds and moving their tales, nothing more?. This animal bark for a reason not to disturb others, so please try to understand animal to resolve the issue raised by them. Submitted by Kadyan Naresh to Animals  |    ...
  
• Criticizing the President on Health Care is “Nader ...
  There’s a very slick PR letter posted online that’s being furiously retweeted by DC political operatives. I wasn’t going to address it, but the editor of the Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel started pushing it. It becomes widely disseminated based on her ro Submitted by Jill P. to US Politics & Gov't ...
  
• TANZANIA: Community Still Worried By Mine Contamin ...
  Susanna Solomon is still tending her shamba, but she won't eat the harvest from her farm when it's ready. Submitted by Cal Mendelsohn to Environment  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Play Music Trivia, Provide Clean Water ! TAKE ACTI ...
  You can keep answering questions for as long as you like - the quiz is never-ending! Come back once a week to play or play every day! Test your music trivia skills now and support the basic right to clean water. Submitted by Cher C. to Environment  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  

GreenBiz

• What Are You Excited Most About in 2010?
  As the sun began to set on 2009, we asked some of our readers and partners to share their innovations, commitments, and passions for the coming year.
  
• What Are You Excited Most About in 2010?
  As the sun began to set on 2009, we asked some of our readers and partners to share their innovations, commitments, and passions for the coming year.
  
• The Advent of a New 'Oil War' after Copenhagen
  Critics of George Bush say he has led us into a quagmire in Iraq during the last decade from which we will never emerge. They say his way of doing business led to all the disagreements visible in the Copenhagen climate talks. They're wrong.
  
• 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.
  
• Coca-Coca, Carbon Reduction, Copenhagen -- and Pol ...
  That's Muhtar Kent, the CEO of Coca-Cola, on the right. On the left is a polar bear. I caught up with Muhtar Kent at COP15, where he was one of a few Fortune 500 CEOs to show up in an effort to influence the climate talks.
  

Reuters Global

• Interview with North Korea border crosser Robert P ...
  North Korea said on Tuesday it had detained a U.S. citizen who entered its territory, apparently confirming a report that an American activist crossed into the tate to raise awareness about Pyongyang's human rights abuses. Robert Park, 28, walked over the frozen Tumen river from China and into the ...
  
• Allah, Antarctica and Ancient Inca-The best reads ...
  A great read should tell readers something they don't already know, enlighten them about the world and its people, inform them about the human condition. Readers should be moved to laughter, tears, anger, action through superb writing and extraordinary reporting.
  
• Failed airline attack raises fresh questions about ...
  The failed Christmas Day attack on a flight to Detroit has renewed a debate on how best to tackle al Qaeda and its Islamist allies.
  
• Was Nigerian bomber a one-off?
  Although Nigeria is the world's sixth biggest Muslim country by population, there are reasons why it is not likely to produce a rash of bombers like the London-educated Nigerian who tried to blow up a plane.
  
• Lessons for coup makers?
  African coup makers may be better off holding quick elections than leaving confusion about what their plans are, but should the international community support any of them?
  

Paul Krugman

• 2010
  A special greeting.
  
• Macroeconomic effects of Chinese mercantilism
  Maybe 1.4 million U.S. jobs.
  
• You can call him Al
  Golf as a synm
  
• Stop, you're killing me
  You'd think the estate tax fraud would have been fixed. But no.
  
• Energy gaps
  There's a lot of evidence for cheap conservation, at least in the early stages.
  

No Quarter

• This Is The System “Working”?
  Editor’s Note: Reverend Amy is technically on vacation but continues to write daily. Here’s a post she wrote a couple days ago that is still timely. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: You have got to be kidding me that Janet Napolitano thinks th ...
  
• Happy 2010 Animal Break – Open Thread
  Wishing Everyone a new year and a new decade filled with the – INFECTIOUS JOY - of a dancing dog —- and – COMFORTING PEACE – of a sleeping cat (Okay – surprised kitty was cuter!) ___ HAPPY 2010!! —-
  
• 12-25 Commission
  Editor’s Note: This is a must-watch video. Nostalgia.   It feels as if we are back in 9-11 World, with imams and jihadist websites and statements by Euros that there is “no evidence” of this or that character connecting to an extreme act. The political landscape has tipped against the Oba ...
  
• Our Future Under Obamacare: “Mayo Clinic in Arizon ...
  This is just the beginning. More and more clinics, large and small, and private practice doctors will drop more Medicare patients. Most small clinics already refuse Medicare and Medicaid patients, as I wrote about in “The Shortage of Physicians Who’ll Accept Patients with Government Plans [Updat ...
  
• Shelby Steele on race and Obama as President
  I’ve been wondering what Shelby Steele, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, would say next about President Obama. A conservative, Steele has written several good books about race in America. As a man of mixed race in the same way as Obama, Steele has a unique vantage point from which ...
  

Environmental Graffiti

• Enjoy the Sparkler Art: Happy New Year from Enviro ...
• Hunting with Nature’s Most Extreme Camouflage Arti ...
• Moon Rising
• 5 Most Incredible Early Flying Attempts
• The Airplane Graveyard of St Augustine

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

• Deaths in Pakistan suicide attack
  At least nine people killed in attack on a stadium in northwestern tribal area.
  
• Iraq 'to appeal Blackwater verdict'
  Official regrets dismissal of case against security guards for murder of 14 Iraqis.
  
• DRC refugees too scared to go home
  People displaced by fighting still fear government and opposition attacks.
  
• Hong Kong holds democracy protest
  Thousands of people take to the streets calling for full democracy in the territory.
  
• Spain takes reins of revamped EU
  Implementing Lisbon Treaty and tackling bloc's economic woes to be focus of presidency.
  

Green Inc. - NYT

• Canadian Natural Gas Pipeline Gets Federal Backing
  A federal review panel issued a detailed report endorsing the 800-mile MacKenzie Gas Project.
  
• California Climate Law Faces Opposition
  California's ambitious global-warming law is facing a campaign to keep it from taking effect.
  
• Chinese Shipping Company Mulls a Nuclear-Powered F ...
  Making the idea acceptable to the general public could be the biggest hurdle, says Cosco's chief executive.
  
• Report Predicts Offshore Wind Boom
  A consulting firm predicts a spike in offshore wind projects over the next decade.
  
• The Smoldering Wood Pellet Business
  The North American wood pellet industry is thinking optimistically about environmentally-minded uses for waste timber.
  

Dot Earth News

• Passing Time
  The human awareness of time's passage is amplified as we mark the end of a year and decade.
  
• Polar Pressure, Snowstorms and Sea Ice
  Unusual pressure patterns around the North Pole are shaping wintry weather and possibly summer sea ice.
  
• China's Take on How It Saved Climate Talks
  China's official account of the Copenhagen climate talks describes its leader's acumen and President Obama's awkwardness.
  
• From the Files: Christmas in Deadhorse and Beyond
  A holiday thank-you note to Dot Earth visitors and comment contributors.
  
• Views on China's Role in the Greenhouse
  China's dominance in climate talks reverberates.
  

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

• Corrupt Transportation Security Administration goo ...
  The Transportation Security Administration is a headless corrupt golem that threatens the safety of all Americans. No one is even in charge of this messed up agency, however like many of the federal security-oriented bureaucracies, its security divisions have become bloated and aggressive. Becaus ...
  
• ORBIES DOWN UNDER: Mysterious orbs or dust on the ...
  I got a message from YouTube user Stanley0306173 of Perth Australia , who has posted a ton of videos of what he claims are "orbies" or spirits or aliens or something, whizzing around his apartment. He has posted lots of these videos, and invited people to come check it out. Unlike other ghost hunt ...
  
• The Monckton climate battle rap; I want to specula ...
  What could possibly go wrong?! Analysis: Climate summit showcases new world order - thestar.com Tripod operations block coal train - tripods are super funny: Copenhagen failure sparks coal terminal blockade | Rising Tide Australia . Earlier: Indymedia Danmark - If you're in, you're in, if you're ...
  
• Gotta get Guinea goodies: Aluminum pursuit sparks ...
  A strange NBC series called E-Ring, which produced 22 episodes that aired in 2005, exalted narratives of American military adventurism and featured Dennis Hopper. I only saw episode #5, "Weekend Pass," in which as Wikipedia says, "Two US Marines are accused of raping a young local woman in Suriname ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Daily Censored

• Joe Klein’s Fatuous Fantasy
  Michael Collins Time Magazine’s Joe Klein is having an allergic reaction to free speech and public debate. The title of his latest column says it all:   The Left’s Idiocy on Health Reform. It’s an ex cathedra pronouncement from a made man at one of the nation’s oldest media properties. What’s go ...
  
• American Mantra: Free Market Capitalism and Obama
  American Mantra: Free Market Capitalism and Obama By Peter Phillips Free Market Capitalism remains the the dominant American ideological truth. The decline of communism opened the door for unrepentant free marketers to boldly espouse market competition as the final solution for global harmony. Accor ...
  
• 74% of 29,000 respondents in 27 countries critical ...
  Global Survey surprisingly unknown in Latin America: 74% of 29,000 respondents in 27 countries critical of neoliberal capitalism, 91% of Chileans want to redistribute wealth and 84% want more state control By Ernesto Carmona * (special for Argenpress) Nine out of ten Chileans are demanding governmen ...
  
• Need to Reestablish Seperation of Power in DC
  No other nation has been more concerned about the segmentation of governmental power than the United States. The Founding Fathers fractured it in innumerable ways. They asserted that all power derives from the consent of the governed, the federal and state constitutions act as distribution grids —ap ...
  
• Hope Fades for End of the American Empire under Ob ...
  John Pilger writes a strong informational piece on the lies of Obama. As we start to see more of this from the current global dominance administration, hope fades for peace and the end of the American Empire Welcome to Orwell’s World 2010 By John Pilger December 30, 2009 – “Information Clearin ...
  

AlterNet's Breaking News

• The End Of A Decade: We Are All Harry Whittington
• CNN's Sanchez Grills Ensign On His Affair (VIDEO)
• Ten Things That Totally Sucked About The Media In ...
• John Yoo: Obama Is A Continuation Of Bush On Exec ...
• Ten Things That Did Not Suck About The Media In 2 ...

Institute for Policy Studies

• Don't Negotiate with the Taliban
• Can Beijing and Moscow Help with Tehran?
• Geneva Conventions Still Hold Up
• The Foreign Policy of Optimism
• Lessons from Sweden for the Immigration Debate

Pine River World News

• Alex Lantier: Thirty years since the Soviet invasi ...
  The following commentary is reprinted with permission from World Socialist Web Site. Thirty years since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ©   World Socialist Web Site By Alex Lantier December 30, 2009 In the press coverage of President Barack Obama's recent decision to deploy more US troops to Af ...
  
• Muttallab: What happened?
  The following opinion is reprinted with permission from The African Executive, Nairobi. Muttallab:  What happened? ©  Patrick Nwadike Source:   The African Executive December 30, 2009 After all the hue and cry, it is important to look at the events of the past few days, from 25th December to 27th ...
  
• U.S. military bases in Colombia will increase drug ...
  The following article is from Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN), Caracas. Military bases in Colombia will increase drug production ©   ABN December 29, 2009 CARACAS - Setting up seven new U.S. military bases in Colombian territory will lead to a significant increase on the levels of drug produ ...
  
• Paul Craig Roberts: Israel Rules
  The following column is reprinted with permission from Paul Craig Roberts. Israel Rules ©  Paul Craig Roberts December 29, 2009 On Christmas Eve, when Christians were celebrating the Prince of Peace, The New York Times delivered forth a call for war. "There's only one way to stop Iran," declared A ...
  
• U.S. security agents "flood" northern Nigeria - lo ...
  Pine River World News / IntelTrends December 27, 2009 Nigeria media is delving into alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab's background since his arrest by U.S. authorities over a botched plane-bombing incident on Friday. According to the Nigerian Tribune, "... sources disclose ...
  

  PDA AMERICA

• Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett
  From Dec 28th 2009, Brad Parker hosts this Connect the Dots. Our guests are David Swanson, Marcy Winograd and Wayne Williams. We will be discussing Progressive Peace Plans, Progressive Candidate Messaging and the Fair ...
  
• The Israel/Gaza Face-Off In Los Angeles
  By Linda Milazzo | PDA Blog Contributor onday night, in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead that killed 1,400 Gazans, and in solidarity with the 1,400 international peace pilgrims converging in Egypt ...
  
• 2009—The PDA Year in Review
  2009—The PDA Year in Review This year was only weeks old when PDA members came together in Washington for a grassroots leadership meeting. The eyes of the world were focused on Washington in anticipation of the ...
  
• Gaza Freedom March
  Slideshow pictures from the Gaza Freedom March from Fickr
  
• More ways the health-care bill will help create jo ...
  On Christmas, I wrote an article called “Health-care bill will stimulate economy and create tens of thousands of jobs“. Within hours it had gone semi-viral with over 3000 hits on the web. Progressive Democrats of America posted ...
  

Marler Blog

• Dubai International Food Safety Conference - 21st ...
  The 5th Dubai International Food Safety Conference is just around the corner.  I need to finish up my speech.
  
• Time for 2010 Food Safety Resolutions
  Over at Food Safety News we have made lists of who has been naughty and nice in food safety for 2009.  We listed the top stories in food safety for 2009 and we guessed on what the top food safety issues for 2010 just might be.  Now, we are on to making 2010 food safety resolutions for others.  Here ...
  
• Will consumers continue to buy Beef Products Inc.' ...
  AP’s Christopher Leonard and Mae Anderson in their story, “Restaurants, food makers defend products after report that treated beef may still harbor germs,” asked the obvious question that the New York Times did not ask – “Would customers of Beef Product Inc.’ ammonia treated meat product, continue t ...
  
• Food Safety Issues for the First Year of the Secon ...
  Laws The U.S. Congress and Legislatures in most of the 50 states will all be back in session as 2010 begins. In Washington D.C., work should resume on food safety reform. To get through to the President's desk, the Senate must adopt S. 510, conference with the House, and then see the compromise bill ...
  
• Does your favorite store sell; restaurant serve, o ...
  Michael Moss does it again in tomorrow’s New York Times, “Company’s Record on Beef Treatment Questioned.” He once again starkly shows what the beef industry will do to make a buck and how, not only does our government turn a blind eye, but actively hides information from us. This story is so dist ...
  

AutoblogGreen

• AutoblogGreen for 12.31.09
  Study: Plug-in cars are cleaner than gas, hydrogen cars could be worse But some hydrogen cars are as clean as EVs, say the study authors. Gas To Electric, Santa Monica make up in PHEV conversion fight ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.30.09
  The decade's top five green transportation predictions - and how they fared Nostradamus had it easy. Enterprising DIYer adds boat tail to Pontiac Firefly to boost mileage It loo ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.29.09
  AutoblogGreen's Top Ten most popular stories of 2009 It starts with the World's Most Miserly VW Bus. VIDEO: Kia remains committed to fuel cells, check out Borrego FCEV The updates keep on com ...
  
• REPORT: 76% of "electric propulsion vehicle" paten ...
  Toyota is the undisputed world leader in hybrid vehicle sales, so it's no surprise the company dominates the charts when it comes to patents for "electric propulsion vehicles." A recent study conducted by the Japan Patent Office on global trends in the EV industry found that 76 percent of the 16 ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.28.09
  10 signs your new car won't be electric, and 5 signs that it will Which list makes more sense to you? Fool's Outlook: Tesla IPO's bumpy road Money maker or bad idea? ...
  

Rafe's Radar

• Valley VC learns to embrace government
  Famous venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson avoided politics--as long as he could. Now dealing with the feds is a job skill.
  
• 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 ...
  

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!

• The Poetic Justice of Dennis Brutus
  Dennis Brutus broke rocks next to Nelson Mandela when they were imprisoned together on notorious Robben Island. His crime, like Mandela’s, was fighting the injustice of racism, challenging South Africa’s apartheid regime. Brutus’ weapons were his words: soaring, searing, poetic. He was banned, he w ...
  
• Dennis Brutus (1924-2009): South African Poet and ...
  World-renowned South African poet and activist Dennis Brutus died in his sleep on December 26th in Cape Town. He was 85 years old. Read more
  
• NOAM CHOMSKY: "Gaza: One Year Later"
  On December 27, 2008, Israel began one of the bloodiest attacks on Gaza Since 1948. The three week assault killed some 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. One year later, little to no rebuilding has taken place and the siege in Gaza continues. Speaking in Watertown, Massachusetts on December 6, 2 ...
  
• Climate Discord: From Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen
  Barack Obama said, minutes before racing out of the U.N. climate summit, “We will not be legally bound by anything that took place here today.” These were among his remarks made to his own small White House press corps, excluding the 3,500 credentialed journalists covering the talks. It was late on ...
  
• NOAM CHOMSKY: "The Unipolar Moment and the Culture ...
  Noam Chomsky delivers the 5th Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture: The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism at Columbia University School for International Affairs.
  

Farming Pathogens

• We Are All Astronauts Now
  Five years ago I gave copies of this essay to a few friends and family as a year-end holiday gift. As a first stab I think it’s aged well, despite its ignorance of the work of Berger, Harvey, Reichenbach, among others. I offer it now to everyone else in a similar spirit–all in good fun, [...]
  
• 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’ ...
  

Digg Green

• San Francisco Turns Discarded Christmas Trees in t ...
  Discarded Christmas trees in San Francisco are picked up curbside, sent through a chipper and then used as fuel at a waste-to-energy facility.
  
• Your Holiday Trash [Infographic]
  Ever wonder what comes of your holiday trash?
  
• Leftover soil from London roadworks creates bird i ...
  Thousands of tons of earth dug from under the streets of London are being used to create a new island haven for rare birds off the coast of Kent.
  
• Relentless Focus on Manure Help Dairies Curb Emiss ...
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy have agreed to work jointly in support of the dairy industry’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent over the next decade
  
• Scientists map climate-change speed for different ...
  From beetles to barnacles, pikas to pine warblers, many species are already on the move in response to shifting climate regimes. But how fast will they -- and their habitats -- have to move to keep pace with global climate change over the next century?
  

Invisible Opportunity

• Once in a Blue Moon over Gaza
  By Les Visible The New Year approaches and that seems like something that would go into the Petri Dish, literally. Remember where you are this evening because by this time next year the world will have changed more than most of us can presently imagine. This is the turning point; the tipping point o ...
  
• The Blue Moon Gaza Prayer
  Here is the prayer in support of the Gazan people and others.  People around the world will be reciting this prayer at midnight (Gaza time) tonight.  That is at 5 PM Eastern time in the US.  Please join in this effort to bring true peace to Gaza and the entire world… The Blue Moon Gaza Prayer Out ...
  
• Blue Moon-The Marcels-1961
  In honor of today’s “blue moon.”
  
• Cowboy Junkies – Blue Moon Revisited
  Cowboy Junkies Blue Moon Revisited I only want to say That if there is a way I want my baby back with me ’cause he’s my true love my only one don’t you see? And on that fateful day Perhaps in the new sun of May My baby walks back into my arms I’ll keep him beside me forever from harm You see I was ...
  
• Time to Revisit Falsified Science of CO2
  By Dr. Tim Ball Climate science is a productive pursuit with Nobel Prizes, an Oscar, billions in research funding, massive tax grabs and wealth for exploiters. Continuation of these activities partly validated the claim the disclosed files from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of E ...
  

  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

• The Year In Pot: Top 10 Events That Will Change th ...
  There has been a tidal shift in politics and on Marijuana laws in America, from Obama lightening up on pot prosecutions to the recognition of cancer prevention properties.
  
• AlterNet's Most Popular Sex and Drugs Stories of 2 ...
  From "Big Booty Beauty and the New Sexual Aesthetic" to "5 Things the Corporate Media Don't Want You to Know About Cannabis."
  
• The Search for an Endangered Mushroom That Could C ...
  Unlocking the secrets of this fungi may be one of the most important discoveries to the future of human health. But time is running short for the endangered mushroom.
  
• 10 Reasons the U.S. Military Should (Officially) U ...
  Medical marijuana may have a host of advantages over other treatments for traumatized vets, but the VA won't even study its efficacy.
  
• Mexican Drug War Dispatch: The Life and Death of K ...
  In Mexico, if you call someone "Don," it means you respect him to the extreme, and even fear him. Some people still don't believe he's dead.
  

Twilight Earth

• Food Inc. – Full Documentary
  In this full online Food Inc. documentary, filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry. You'll never eat the same. Related posts: Putting the Gross in Groceries – Food Inc. the Documentary The World According to Monsanto – Full Documentary Good News Monday – Bloggers Dona ...
  
• Make a Video – Win $2,500.00: Reduce-ReUse-Recycle ...
  The U.S. EPA is sponsoring a video contest that challenges people to produce short, creative videos that highlight the “Three Rs” of individual consumption. Related posts: Do You Want to Do More Than Recycle? How to Precycle. Reuse-day Tuesday, 3 Ring Binders, Plastic-ware and Coffee Grounds ...
  
• Pope Benedicts 2010 Message to the World: Environm ...
  Pope Benedict's 2010 Environmental message: If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. Related posts: Pope Says – Environmental Degradation Ends by Living Ethically What is Environmentalism? Full Copenhagen Speech Transcripts of 5 World Leaders
  
• Global Youth Video to World Leaders: Youre Not Don ...
  Check out this awesome video message to world leaders from the global youth climate movement: "You're Not Done Yet & Neither Are We." Related posts: Twilight Earth Exclusive Cop15 Video – China Youth in Copenhagen Full Copenhagen Speech Transcripts of 5 World Leaders One Question for the World ( ...
  
• New Years Message from Pope Benedict XVI – Protect ...
  Pope Benedict XVI has chosen an Environmental Message this year, to share will the people of the world. Related posts: Pope Says – Environmental Degradation Ends by Living Ethically Have People of Religion Forgotten the Lessons of “Creation?” TreeHugger Celebrates 5 Years. Congratulations!
  

Inhabitat

• INHABITAT NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR 2010!
  Happy New Year’s Everyone! The ball has dropped, the countdown has ended, and a brand new year now unfolds before us! This past week we reflected upon the best of 2009, and now team Inhabitat is looking towards the future with our New Year’s resolutions! 2010 is shaping up to be a great year already ...
  
• ROCK ET ROLL: Eco Champagne Bottle Rocket for New ...
  Looking for a way to give your New Year’s Eve bottle-poppin’ festivities a bit of fun eco flair? Check out Zo Loft’s awesome little Rock-et-Roll champagne bottle rockets! These spaceworthy eco-crafts are composed of bioresin and recycled foam rubber, and are 100% recycled and recyclable – talk about ...
  
• INHABITAT EDITORS’ FAVORITE STORIES OF 2009!
  Happy New Years everyone! As we count down to stroke of 2010 we’ve showcased our top transportation, architecture, and energy stories, and now we’re thrilled to bring you our editor’s favorites! Each year we see an incredible array of green developments, and there are always several that stick in ou ...
  
• LEDs Light up New Years Eve 2010 in Times Square N ...
  As the decade comes to a close, a whole new kind of light is being spread around the Times Square New Year’s ball-drop – the super-efficient kind! The famous glittering ball, the gargantuan “2010″ sign and the seven screens around New York City that will broadcast the event tonight will all be made ...
  
• INHABITAT’S NEW YEARS RESOLUTION!
  As the new year rapidly approaches we’re all thinking about what lies ahead, and and this is the time that many of us start to think about New Year’s resolutions. I’ve shared my personal New Year’s resolutions here, and we’ll be bringing you all the Inhabeditor’s resolutions soon. But it is not ju ...
  

Pogue's Posts

• Check-in Done Right
  How one hotel uses already-collected information to help streamline your arrival.
  
• Verizon's New Motto: Why Not Be Evil?
  Verizon Wireless continues in its efforts to be the least-liked mobile carrier in America.
  
• Verizon Responds to Consumer Complaints
  The wireless carrier addresses two issues raised by consumers and this blog.
  
• 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.
  

Open Your Eyes News

• Protein Link May Be Key to New Treatment for Aggre ...
  ScienceDaily — Biomedical researchers at the University of Central Florida have found a protein that could hold the key to treating one of the most common and aggressive brain tumors in adults. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the type of malignant brain tumor that killed the late U.S. Sen. Edward Ke ...
  
• Obama considering military strikes after Christmas ...
  Times Online – The Pentagon is drawing up urgent plans for increased military co-operation with Yemen, including possible retaliatory strikes against al-Qaeda targets, according to US officials engaged in a high-stakes bid to neutralise Islamist militants without enraging the Arab world. The Obama A ...
  
• Welcome to the out-of-control decade – We have see ...
  The Register – Back in the turbulent 1960s, the anti-establishment rabble was often derided as being “out of control.” Fast-forward 50 years to the 2010s, when that same phrase will soon be back in vogue. But with a very different meaning. The coming decade is shaping up to be one in which we, as co ...
  
• Biased reporting on Climategate
  Washington Times – With trillions of dollars at stake in the battle over global warming, now would be the time for the press to closely scrutinize the claims of those who would reorganize the world’s economy from farm to factory and laboratory to living room. And the Climategate scandal – where leak ...
  
• Patients say Medical Marijuana has Given them Back ...
  The Grand Rapids Press – Richard Julien says medical marijuana gave him his life back. Now he wants to be legal. Julien, 41, of Rockford, who said he has hepatitis C and other illnesses, said smoking marijuana daily has allowed him to give up four high-powered prescription painkillers. Read Articl ...
  

Monkey Smashes Heaven

• Amerikkkans reactionary as hell on the Iran issue
  Amerikkkans reactionary as hell on the Iran issue (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) A new poll confirms that Amerikans are still thirsty for Iranian blood.  A surprising 84 percent of the US population says that it has been following news reports about Iran’s nuclear program. Nearly half, 48 perc ...
  
• More Fuck the Troops
  from Politics Are Over Posted in ..Politics Are Over, Amerikkka, anti-fascism, Communism, Idiot Amerikkkans, Maoism, Maoism Third Worldism, Maoisme, Maoismo, North America
  
• Stalin, Mao, and Lin Biao born in December
  Stalin, Mao, and Lin Biao born in December (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Three great revolutionaries were born in December. Stalin was born on December 21st, 1887. Stalin is remembered for his great accomplishment of leading the Soviet Union through socialist construction. He is also remember ...
  
• “Merry Christmas”, Published in New Ma ...
  “Merry Christmas”, Published in New Masses (Dec. 1930) by Langston Hughes From the gun-boats in the river, Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts, And peace on earth forever. Merry Christmas, India, To Gandhi in his cell, From righteous Christian England, Ring out, bright Christmas bell! Ring Merry Ch ...
  
• RAIM-Seattle on the recent WTO 10 year anniversary
  RAIM-Seattle on the recent WTO 10 year anniversary (raims.wordpress.com) The imperialist media hype around the recent slayings of police (the enforcers of empire) in the Seattle and Lakewood, and the predictable show of support for the kkkops by the general cracker population, overlaps the ten year ...
  

PakAlert

• The Avatar Movie, Maitreya and our “New Age” Dajja ...
  Paul A Drockton M.A. The Avatar movie is just the latest installment from Hollywood to move us closer to accepting the Global Elite’s psychopathic religious beliefs. Plato, the Greek philosopher, taught that there are 5 elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air and Aether (Ether). The last element, A ...
  
• A Suggested Survival List
  by Chuck Baldwin One does not have to be a prophet to know that we are on the precipice of some potentially catastrophic–or at the very least, challenging–days. In fact, most of us are already in challenging days, and some are already enduring catastrophic events. That is, if one would call being ...
  
• Alert: Indian Army Ready For War Against China And ...
  India is preparing for a possible `two-front war’ with China and Pakistan, Indian newspaper saying Wednesday. The newspaper said the Indian Army is now revising its five-year-old doctrine to effectively meet the challenges of war with China and Pakistan, deal with asymmetric and fourth-generation wa ...
  
• Full Disclosure: Gog & Magog, 2012 and the Signifi ...
  The following analysis lead us to the conclusion that a very big war is coming to Pakistan and this war is so deadly that first there will be an imposed civil war on Pakistan, munity in pak armed forces  and  US/NATO from the West and India preparing to attack simultaneously from the East, Pakistan ...
  
• Americans Are Now Restricted To Land Only In Islam ...
  In view of the irregular and suspicious activities of US citizens who have been allowed into the country on visas issued by Mr. Husain Haqqani for the vague purpose of ‘official business’ of the US government, Islamabad moves to restrict the activities of US intelligence and other departments which ...
  

ecogeek

• All Londoners Will be Within a Mile of a Charging ...
  London mayor Boris Johnson launched a new plan called the Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan for London that will allow all Londoners to be within one mile of an electric vehicle charging station in five years. The plan calls for the installation of 25,000 charging points at public, residential and com ...
  
• Will Dolphins Need Noise-Canceling Headphones? Ri ...
  Researchers at the University of Hawaii have discovered a strange and potentially damaging result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere:  louder oceans.  More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more acidic seas and more acidic seas produce fewer sound-absorbing chemical reactions meaning noise will travel ...
  
• 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009
  2010 is quickly approaching and we can only hope that it holds even more innovations that will benefit the world we live in.  As we move forward, here's a look back at the stories you clicked on most during the past year.  From gadgets to urine fuel, these are the top ten. 10.  Power-Generating Sho ...
  
• Map of Countries' Emissions, Pledges
  The AP Climate Pool kept us well informed over the course of the COP15 negotiations.  Part of that great coverage is contained in this interactive map of the participating nations' current emissions and the reductions they've pledged to make. You can find plenty of articles analyzing what was accom ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Times Online - Science

• Rail commuters get lower fares but station car par ...
  Commuters returning to work next week will find the cost of a season ticket on most trains has fallen, but the seasonal cheer may yet be tempered by higher car parking fees at many stations and above-inflation fare increases on off-peak travel.
  
• New Year partygoers told to keep a cool head as te ...
  Partygoers are being advised to celebrate with a little less than wild abandon tonight as sub-zero temperatures are expected across Britain.
  
• Late deals: December 30
  British Isles
  
• Brits search out holiday deals to the sun
  Maybe it was the non-appearance of the promised barbecue summer. Perhaps the Arctic weather sweeping across Britain has been a factor. Then again, it could be the barrage of discounts and promotions on offer.
  
• Three killed as snow and ice descends on Britain
  Three men died in a motorway crash in snow-covered Yorkshire last night as ice and frozen conditions descended on Britain.
  

Environment _ National Geographic

• Melting Glaciers Nourishing Oceans With Ancient Ca ...
  Alaska's marine animals have an unexpected nutrient in their diets: ancient carbon from glacier melt, a new study says.
  
• Giant Salamanders Helped to Spawn
  A new program in Japan is helping giant salamanders get past dams built to control flooding so the rare amphibians can lay their eggs upstream. Video.
  
• PHOTOS: Dolphin "Drive Hunts" Continue in Japan, E ...
  Dolphin "drive" hunts, a bloody tradition denounced in the recent documentary The Cove, continue in Japan and Denmark's Faroe Islands.
  
• Sharks Killed for Oil Used in Swine Flu Vaccine
  Millions of doses of the H1N1/09 vaccine contain a substance called squalene, which is extracted from the livers of rare deep-sea sharks caught in the wild, conservationists say.
  
• VOLCANO PICTURES: Philippines' Mayon About to Blow ...
  Flowing lava and increasing gas levels, quakes, and ash explosions are among signs that a major eruption of Mayon Volcano could occur at any time, experts say.
  

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

• Do they know it's Christmas time?
  We grabbed a card off of one of those Christmas "Wish Trees" for a local homeless shelter when I took the boys out to get their hair cuts the other day. It was from a 10 year old girl living in the shelter. What was she asking for? "Home Essentials" Ya know: Tooth brush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo ...
  
• 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 ...
  

SPL Center

• String of Racially-Motivated Attacks Hits Denver, ...
  All but one of 35 suspects has been arrested by Denver police in connection with a string of racially motivated beatings and robberies in the Mile-High City. Those arrested are all black males, including some juveniles. Their alleged victims were white or Latino males. Most of the suspects told pol ...
  
• ‘Tea Parties Against Amnesty’ Planned in 50 Cities ...
  In 1773, American colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation under British rule. If they were around today, the colonists might be surprised by the array of perceived ills around which their modern-day counterparts have been rallying at symbolic “tea parties” ...
  
• Child Rapist and Anti-Catholic Cult Boss Gets 175 ...
  Cult evangelist Tony Alamo was ordered today to spend his remaining years in a place that nobody will confuse with heaven. A federal judge in Texarkana, Ark., sentenced him to 175 years in prison for transporting young girls he called his “brides” across state lines for sex. Before being sentenced, ...
  
• Suspect in Two Canadian Hate Bombings Arrested
  After a two-hour standoff at a home in Winnipeg, police arrested a notorious Canadian neo-Nazi who’d been on the lam for weeks after two bombing attempts in Calgary. Kyle Robert Mckee, 24, was taken into custody early yesterday and faces two counts of attempted murder, along with weapons charges. Po ...
  
• The Last Word: Hatewatch’s 3rd Annual Smackdown Aw ...
  It’s that time of the year again, and Hatewatch’s intrepid staff is just now climbing out of the protective moonsuits needed to trawl through the year’s worst from the filth-spewing hate-mongers and fellow travelers who populate the radical right in America. Once more, we’ve done our best to go beyo ...
  

change: org.

• Ringing in the New Year with an "I Do"
  There's little question that 2009 was the year of gay marriage. Iowa and Vermont became states that recognized marriage equality. The District of Columbia's mayor signed a marriage equality bill that should take effect in the coming weeks, and who can forget the international scene, where Mexico Cit ...
  
• Violence Against Women: TV's New Formula for Succe ...
  On Christmas morning, actor Charlie Sheen was arrested after putting a knife to his wife’s throat. This translated into a boost to his comedy series, “Two and a Half Men": the show drew in a record  11.1 million viewers on Monday -- making it the most watched show of the night. The lesson? Violence ...
  
• 10 Ways to Go Sustainable in '10
  It's New Year's resolution time. What's yours? Lose ten pounds? Be nicer to your in-laws? Stop driving in the lane that's about to close to get ahead of a bunch of suckers before you're forced to merge? (You know who you are. Jerk.) Well, anyway, I've got an idea! How about resolving to get more sus ...
  
• Top Medical Breakthroughs to Start 2010
  Well at least some areas of US healthcare made meaningful progress last year. While Washington, D.C., was doing what it does best – going around in lucrative circles, claiming progress – researchers were busy making breakthroughs that could potentially improve people’s health. It’s a concept. Here ...
  
• In Defense Of A Decade: Why The 2000s Matter
  The poor 00s. The ink is barely dry on the January 1, 2010 early editions and here we are rushing to wash our hands of the grimy, greedy failures of the last ten years. CNN called it an "ugly decade." The New Yorker put it somewhat more poetically, labeling it an "orphan decade," that "no one wants ...
  

Common Dreams -News

• Construction in West Bank Settlements Booming Desp ...
  by Akiva Eldar Despite the construction freeze, dozens of settlements in the West Bank are experiencing a building boom, even on the eve of another visit to the region by U.S. envoy George Mitchell to try to restart talks for a final settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians. Construction is ...
  
• Solar Could Generate 15% of Power by 2020, If US E ...
  by Stacy Feldman Solar power technologies could generate 15 percent of America's power in 10 years, but only if Washington levels the playing field on subsidies, a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says. That means either rolling back fossil fuel subsidies, as President Obam ...
  
• The Cash Committee: How Wall Street Wins On The Hi ...
  by Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney The question was simple: Should the lending practices of auto dealers be regulated? It was already October and the 42 Democrats and 29 Republicans on the House Committee on Financial Services had spent the better part of the year hashing out the details of a new fede ...
  
• Majority Of Tea Party Group's Spending Went To GOP ...
  by Zachary Roth The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republica ...
  
• Safety Fears for Hmong after Thai Expulsion
  by Rachel O'Brien BANGKOK - Human rights activists and diplomats voiced fears Tuesday for the fate of thousands of ethnic Hmong asylum seekers, including children, expelled by Thailand to its communist neighbour Laos. The Thai army said it completed the deportation of more than more than 4,000 Hmong ...
  

Lifehacker

• The Great Best of 2009 Recap [Best Of 2009]
  2009 was a big year for Lifehacker, and we spent December looking back at the most popular posts of the year covering all our favorite topics. Here's a quick look back at the best of 2009 in case you missed anything. Most Popular DIY Projects of 2009 We love DIY projects here at Lifehacker. Whether ...
  
• What Are Your New Year's Resolutions? [Ask The Re ...
  We do our best to encourage positive change and goal-setting all year around Lifehacker HQ, but that doesn't change the fact that a new year—hell, a new decade —isn't a great time for a fresh start. Photo by SashaW . The first of the year is generally a great time for resolutions, motivation-wise: M ...
  
• Best Goal-Tracking Tool? [Hive Five Call For Cont ...
  It's that resolution-time-of-year again. We want to hear about your favorite tool for tracking and measuring your goals. Tracking progress towards a goal is a powerful motivator. This week we want to hear all about your favorite tool for tracking your goals and keeping yourself focused on them. What ...
  
• Wallpaper Roundup: Ringing in the New Year [Wallp ...
  New Year's Eve is upon us, ring it in with some New Year's-themed wallpaper. Judging by the wallpapers we found, 2010 is going to be all the neon and sparkles the futurists of yesteryear promised us. Note: The "Full Size" link directly under the picture only shows you the sample image we uploaded fo ...
  
• DIY Magnetized Coffee Sleeve Doubles as Third Han ...
  The next time you need a third hand to hold your coffee cup while you dig around in your bag for something, just stick it to a streetlight with this ingenious hack. A fabulously creative New York City blogger who goes by the name "AP" is all about devising clever ways to eat outdoors with flair. She ...
  

Newshoggers - AfPak

• Sustainability and Afghanistan
  By Dave Anderson: The basic US strategy in Afghanistan is to use a surge of forces to create temporarily more favorable facts on the ground against the Taliban, Pashtun tribal militias and other armed groups that are not favorably disposed to the current Kabul government while the Kabul goverment gr ...
  
• Revisiting Defensive Legalization
  By Dave Anderson: In August 2008, I argued that drug prohibition is counter-productive and stupid as well as expensive, especially as it applies to marijuana because it creates and sustains a massive black market. The black market has norm enforcement through violence instead of lawyers, and the fun ...
  
• Revisiting Defensive Legalization
  By Dave Anderson: In August 2008, I argued that drug prohibition is counter-productive and stupid as well as expensive, especially as it applies to marijuana because it creates and sustains a massive black market. The black market has norm enforcement through violence instead of lawyers, and the fun ...
  
• Yet Another Picture of the Week Plus A Rant
  Commentary By Ron Beasley Blue Monday - Click on Picture for larger image. My partner here at Hoggers, John Ballard, sent me this link to a piece by Robert Parry: Why Obama Is Failing. Faced with a dire financial crisis and two foreign wars – not to mention a host of long-festering problems like hea ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Water Wars

• Water Wars: Governors of Three States Meet (First ...
  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Charlie Crist has returned from the water summit. Tuesday afternoon, Crist met with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue in Montgomery to discuss the 18-year water wars among the states.
  
• Top 9 Local Stories (The Austin Chronicle)
  1) WET OR DRY? For it or agin' it, the 25-years-in-the-planning Water Treatment Plant No. 4 dominated city politics for several months, with City Council finally voting narrowly to move forward with the massive multiphase project.
  
• Water wars: public-monitoring chance opens this mo ...
  Foothills counties where water flows start have a stake in federal and state proceedings, say officials from the Regional Council of Rural Counties.
  
• Officer shootings top story of the year (Chattanoo ...
  1: Officer-involved shootings From March through August, five area law enforcement agencies had officers involved in fatal shootings of suspects. Two occurred in Chattanooga; one in Meigs County, Tenn.; one in East Ridge; and one in Fort Oglethorpe. On July 18, six Chattanooga police officers shot A ...
  
• Stephanomics (BBC News)
  The most intriguing economic questions for 2010
  

WordPress | Economics

• Mexican Lion Saves the Day!
  Mexican Lion Prevents Break-Ins According to multiple sources on the internet, a New Mexico garage o
  
• An Economic Evaluation of the War on Cancer
  There is an interesting new NBER paper that evaluates the economic cost of the War on Cancer. The au
  
• Indonesia sees mining investment go up by 39%.
  JAKARTA, Dec 31 (Reuters) – Indonesian mining investment is expected to hit $2.5 billion next
  
• Priceless: How the Federal Reserve Bought the Econ ...
  This article in the Huffington Post describes how the Fed has been buying economists and their think
  
• The first post of the new year!
  A few quick hits before I go to bed. – Bill Simmons talks about “Invictus” and
  

Electronic Intifada

• Gaza Freedom March activists target Egypt's compli ...
  While it was deeply disappointing for the nearly 1,400 delegates with the Gaza Freedom March who came from 43 countries that they could not physically be in Gaza today, this was a momentous and ...
  
• New year in Gaza reopens wounds of old
  GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - For many survivors of the last Israeli war on Gaza, time has not healed their wounds, physical or emotional. Halil Amal Samouni, 10, still suffers vision problem ...
  
• Blogging beneath the bombs: An interview with Shar ...
  Activist Sharyn Lock sailed to Gaza on the first "Break the Siege" boat with the Free Gaza Movement in 2008. During Israel's winter attacks last year, Lock documented the invasion on her blog " ...
  
• Photostory: Egypt further encaging Gaza
  With and the Egyptian government's new underground wall and the closure of the Rafah crossing -- Gaza's sole exit to the outside world -- Egypt's complicity shines more than ever. The following are ex ...
  
• A voice of frustration and hope in Nahr al-Bared
  NAHR AL-BARED (North Lebanon) (IPS) - The hip-hop beats ringing through the muddy, unlit streets of this burnt-out Palestinian refugee camp seem incongruous. But the rhymes are camp-grown -- and coura ...
  

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

• Fed And Treasury Put ‘Intense Pressure&#8217 ...
  ith 2009 coming to a close and the stock market having rebounded from its March low, “Wall Street is ready to pat itself on the back for its huge gains with big bonuses.” Despite the brouhaha caused by bonuses in the last year — and the role that perverse pay incentives played in bringing about [... ...
  
• Climate Activists Jailed For Saying ‘Coal&#8 ...
  Four climate activists are being held in a West Virginia jail for protesting how coal mining is killing the people and land of their state. On Tuesday, December 29, four activists with Climate Ground Zero — a grassroots campaign of non-violent civil disobedience in southern West Virginia to address ...
  
• The Right Advocates Offering Lifeline To Iranian R ...
  In response to the Iranian regime’s violence, the Green Movement protests have grown bolder. The regime now seems stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle, in which almost every action it takes in response to the protests seems to only further erode its standing among Iranians and strengthen the opposit ...
  
• NYC Court Official Slams Lenders For Failing To Mo ...
  Recently, the Obama administration has increased its verbal assault on banks and mortgage lenders that are failing to get troubled borrowers into sustainable modified mortgages. The banks have been firing back that borrowers themselves are to blame for the lack of progress, with the favorite claim b ...
  
• Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister: The West Bank Isn ...
  Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon takes to the Wall Street Journal op-ed page to argue that the West Bank, where numerous aspects of Palestinian life continue to be proscribed by Israeli military law, as they have been for over forty years, is not really occupied. Ayalon complains that “ ...
  

thwap's schoolyard

• Dear General Natynczyk, ... You've confused me.
  Hunh. No sooner do I post the results of a morning's work and I find out that it's old news . 11:50 a,m. And here we go! The CDS is up -- and, as predicted by Colleague Fitz-Mo, he begins by citing his May 2007 statement on that whole prisoner-who-wasn't-a-prisoner transfer-that-wasn't-a-transfer ...
  
• harper Prorogues Parliament (Again)
  Well, he did it . Together with our shit-for-brains Governor General, harper has prorogued parliament again. His insulting rationalization is that he can concentrate on the economy (which, you'll remember, harper has been insisting has been recovering nicely thanks to his steady hand on the tiller ...
  
• If harper Prorogues
  Others in the blogosphere point to the even stronger rumours that harper is planning to cowardly prorogue parliament until after the fascist spectacle of the Olympics in order to avoid public accountability for his possible complicity in war crimes in Afghanistan. This is unacceptable. If harper d ...
  
• Child Slaves in Haiti
  Say! Why don't we check in on " Haiti ... the core [of] our engagement in the Americas, as our largest program in the region ," Canada's second-biggest foreign initiative after the mega-success [please note: that's sarcasm] of Afghanistan? How are Canada and Haiti doing? After all, Canada (at the ...
  
• Democracy vs. Climate Change
  I'm not sure why anyone is so afraid of the economics of responding to the threat of global warming. 1. Create (in Canada) tens of thousands of jobs retro-fitting older homes with better windows, doors, insulation, alternative power sources. Build constantly improved public transit infrastructure ...
  

Financial Sense Editorials

• Agri-Food Thoughts
  by Ned Schmidt. "Living in Florida, as this author does, often comes with minor problems. As one of the biggest batches of cold, snowy winter storms ravages North America, records of all kinds are being broken. Dallas, as an example, had a white Christmas for the first time in 80 years. But, the UK ...
  
• Gold & Silver: Market Wrap Week Ending December 25 ...
  by Doug Gnazzo. "The CCI index at the bottom of the chart has gone from overbought (+200) to 89. When an asset moves from being this overbought to back below 100, it often signals a consolidation/correction is likely."
  
• Leading the American Middle Class Through a Lost D ...
  by Chuck DiFalco. "As people prepare to pop champagne corks at midnight on New Year’s Eve, I see media hype about the years 2000-2009 being the "lost decade" in America. Those years overall were bad ones for Wall Street, but not for Main Street."
  
• Elvis Has Left The Building
  by Captain Hook. "In his most recent work, Martin Armstrong postulates that because of accelerating inflation, possibly leading to hyperinflation, a falling dollar ($), cycles associated with his Economic Confidence Model (ECM), and a move away from immovable assets by the investing public..."
  
• Holiday Gold, Oil and Index Trading
  by Chris Vermeulen. "Last week the market fell into its regular holiday tradition of light volume, as institutions and big traders enjoyed the holidays thus allowing prices to drift higher. We still have one more week of light trading volume before this year and holiday season is officially over." ...
  

on Government Oversight

• LANL Researchers Blow Up Building with Civil War-l ...
  Nope, that's not a headline from The Onion. POGO has just learned that researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally blew a building apart a few weeks ago with a massive gun that acts like a Civil War cannon....
  
• A Video Message from Danielle
  As Danielle says, it's been one heck of a year over here at POGO. We covered a lot of ground and are proud of our accomplishments, but we wouldn't have been able to make it without you. Thank you for...
  
• Morning Smoke: Obama Signs Defense Appropriations ...
  Spending Bill Becomes Law [Air Force Magazine] Classified Bomber Under Consideration [Aviation Week] Oshkosh FMTV Bid 'Unbelievable [DoD Buzz] New Executive Order Awaits Presidential Decision [Secrecy News] Washington to Reduce Funding for U.S. Contractors in Pakistan [ProPublica] Doctors' Spat Expo ...
  
• Morning Smoke: More Tales of Moneyed Military Ment ...
  Military mentors hired, fired in discreet fashion [Federal Times] Defense Bill Earmarks Total $4 Billion [The Wall Street Journal] Inadequate Oversight Cited in Weatherization Program [The New York Times] White House seeks input on federal research info sharing program [Federal...
  
• California Courts to Whistleblower: 'You're Out of ...
  Accountable California, a project of SEIU Local 721's Center for Public Accountability, has posted a story about Michael Paul, an employee of the California Administrative Office of the Courts. Paul thought he saw misconduct occurring on multimillion dollar contracts and...
  

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

• Creativity, Innovation And Happiness
  Last year, for our final post of the year, I wrote a message On Staying Happy . It seems, at time, that people think that I am filled with anger or rage , because of all the annoying or "bad" stories that show up here all the time. Of course, for folks who know me, this is pretty funny. I'm prett ...
  
• Tomorrow Is National Book Burning Day; Thank Your ...
  January 1st of each year should be National Public Domain Day, when many different creative works enter the public domain, where they can be made useful. In years past, it was a regular occurrence as tons of creative works went into the public domain each year. Often this was by choice on the part ...
  
• The Problem Isn't Middlemen, It's Monopolies
  I love middlemen. Yes I do! Most indie filmmakers I talk to complain about distributors and "middlemen," but they're missing the real problem. Middlemen -- publishers, distributors, resellers -- can do excellent work. The problem is not middlemen; it's monopolies. So many middlemen insist on mon ...
  
• FCC Boss Spams Facebook Friends With Make Money No ...
  Hey, sooner or later everyone falls for some sort of phishing/scamware type of thing, right? It's just especially embarrassing if you're the head of the FCC. The NY Times is reporting that FCC Chair Julius Genachowski had his Facebook account spam all his friends with a message saying "Adam got me ...
  
• Who Says Data Centers Aren't Cool?
  This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com . Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author. Ah data centers. They may seem like a rather boring concept, but Data Center Knowl ...
  

VacTruth

• WHO chief says worst of swine flu pandemic is over ...
  . . . By Eliane Engeler Associated Press GENEVA — Many more people could become sick with swine flu this winter even though it has peaked in North America and some European countries, the head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday. The worst of the swine flu outbreak is over in the United S ...
  
• Demand down for swine flu shots
  . . . By Josh Goldstein Philly.com Karen Williams had tried to get her twins, Liam and Declan, immunized against the swine flu virus as soon as they were old enough, but a Burlington County clinic in November was postponed for lack of the vaccine. So yesterday, Williams arrived with her 8-month-old ...
  
• Germany Aims to Cancel 50% of Swine Flu Shots, Min ...
  . . . By Rainer Buergin Bloomberg Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) — Germany aims to accept only half the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine doses it ordered from GlaxoSmithKline Plc because the disease has proven less severe than expected, the Health Ministry in the state of Thuringia said today. The order of 50 mill ...
  
• Child Protection stole Christmas from families aro ...
  . . . Christina England American Chronicle December 30th, 2009 Christmas time is a time for families and a time for children but sadly many families this year faced a Christmas without their children because child protection agencies and paediatricians misdiagnosed very real conditions, opting inst ...
  
• Thimerosal: A vaccine ingredient’s toxic legacy
  . . . Written by Roman Bystrianyk Health Sentinel Wednesday, 30 December 2009 02:28 April, 1948 an article is published in the journal Pediatrics: “Inspection of the records of the Children’s Hospital for the past ten years has disclosed 15 instances in which children developed acute cerebral sympt ...
  

BroadSnark

• What You Liked, 2009 Edition
  Breaking news isn’t really my thing, but it does bring the traffic.  The article I wrote after attending CATO/Glenn Greenwald’s release of the Portugal decriminalization study was the most popular post this year.  And the snowball war post came in at number three. White America’s Existential Crisi ...
  
• Poor Man Can’t Eat, Rich Man Can’t Sle ...
  I used to shoplift as a kid.  When I was about fourteen, I was busted with a purse full of makeup and banned from Rite Aid for life. My father was unusually rational about the whole incident.  Clearly, all the crap I had in my room could not have been purchased with my babysitting money.  And [...]
  
• Times Are Tough
  
  
• Some Things You Might Have Missed
  Everyone wants to think that they are a good person.  But the truth is that all of us are capable of doing horrible things.  As a Nadder! points out in Milgram, Rape & Silence, “It is much safer to acknowledge your violent potential since then you’re better placed to watch out for signs things a ...
  
• Snowball War Update
  The agro cop that pulled out his gun at the snowball fight might actually be in a tiny bit of trouble here. Yesterday, when I wrote about this, there were only a few articles around.  Now there are so many that I can’t even begin to give you all the links.  It’s being covered everywhere from [...]
  

Executive Intelligence Review

• Why Do We Call Susan Rice a Racist?
  By Lawrence K. Freeman Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 25, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 50
  
• The Failed System Has Become Unmanageable
  By John Hoefle Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 25, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 50
  
• The Copenhagen Summit: Lies Have Short Legs, or, t ...
  By Helga Zepp-LaRouche Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 25, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 50
  
• Bernanke Exits Now!: National Banking
  By Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, December 25, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 50
  
• Intensify Obama Security Screen, Says LaRouche
  EIR News Service press release.
  

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 ...
  
• Image by 350.org via Flickr
  
  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

• Gordon Brown: full body scanners likely to be intr ...
  Rosa Prince, London Telegraph Friday, Jan 1st, 2010 Passengers travelling through British airports could be made to submit to full body scans following the failed Christmas Day terror attack, Gordon Brown has said. The attempt by Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an aeropl ...
  
• Rasmussen: 58% want underwear bomber waterboarded
  Muriel Kane Raw Story Friday, Jan 1st, 2010 The latest Rasmussen poll indicates that a majority of Americans support hard-line attitudes towards the would-be terrorist who attempted to blow up an airliner on Christmas day. Of those polled, 71% would like to see the crime investigated by military rat ...
  
• School Founder: Abdulmutallab Was Friendly
  Youtube Friday, Jan 1st, 2010 The founder of the Arabic school that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attended in Yemen says the suspect in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner was a “friendly guy.”
  
• ‘Underwear Bomber’s’ Alarming Last Phone Call
  DANA HUGHES and KIRIT RADIA ABC News Friday, Jan 1st, 2010 The accused “underwear bomber” made a dramatic final call to his father that he found so alarming, the father approached Nigerian officials who took him directly to the CIA’s station chief in the Nigerian capital, sources told ABC News. Curr ...
  
• Hal Turner is a “National Security Intelligence” A ...
  Kurt Nimmo Prisonplanet.com Jan 1, 2010 In an effort to save former blogger and radio talk show host Hal Turner from years in prison, the Family of Hal Turner blog has posted pages from a heavily redacted trial transcript.               “According to Assistant Special Agent in Charge ...
  

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

• Banksy's Graffiti Wars on the Canal
  Images from the Times Last week Banksy, the successful graffiti artist turned millionaire and darling of art collectors, popped up with 4 new murals on the Regent's Canal in London. One was a hard hitting graphic protest against global warming . But he also had three other pieces along the same ...
  
• The Week in Pictures: Wind Turbine Christmas Star, ...
  From the world's largest Christmas star that now hovers above the A9 Autobahn near Munich's northern gateway--after a year of engineering, modeling, and trials--to the renaming of the world's tallest waterfall--deep within the Venezuelan jungle--a lot happened this week in green. New research reve ...
  
• Girls, Gators, Giant Fish and Environmental Awaren ...
  Credit: A Nile perch caught in Uganda. By smudger888 , via Flickr. Field & Stream is famous for its photo galleries featuring the biggest fish, bucks and other creatures caught and shot in the outdoors. The magazine has rounded up 25 of its best galleries to end the year, including:... Read the ful ...
  
• Study Finds Cross-Border Cooperation Reduces Conse ...
  Image credit: joiseyshowaa /Flickr Most conservation studies focus on biodiversity, but to be successful in a real-world application, they must also consider the cost of research and protection programs. A new study that looked at conservation programs in the Mediterranean region has found that cr ...
  
• Investors Expect 2010 To Be A Big Year for Clean T ...
  Image via Seven Null7 A new survey shows that clean tech investing will do just fine in 2010, despite the unfortunate outcome of the Copenhagen talks . The Jeffreys survey shows that globally, investments will remain healthy but particularly strong in Europe. In fact, rather than slowing, analyst ...
  

Biosingularity

• Research team develops technique to determine ethn ...
  An international team of scientists led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute has developed a straightforward technique to determine the ethnic origin of stem cells. The Scripps Research scientists initiated the study—published in the January 2010 edition of the prestigious journal Nature ...
  
• Researchers Decipher Parts of the Neuronal Code
  The human brain works at a far higher level of complexity than previously thought. What has been given little attention up to now in the information processing of neuronal circuits has been the time factor. “Liquid computing” — a new theory about how these complex networks of nerve cells actually wo ...
  
• Gene Therapy May Stall Inherited Emphysema
  A new type of gene therapy may help stop the progression of emphysema in young people who have an inherited form of the deadly disease. Researchers say previous attempts to correct the gene mutation that predisposes young people to emphysema have failed to achieve lasting results. But a new study sh ...
  
• Nervy Repair Job
  In a lab at the University of Pennsylvania, a plastic dish holds two rows of tiny black dots, pairs of them connected by dozens of thin, hairlike filaments. Each dot is a cluster of thousands of neurons, explains Douglas Smith, who is a professor of neurosurgery and the director of Penns Center for ...
  
• Technology Review: Making Drugs Survive Longer in ...
  Taking a hint from natural antibiotics, a startup spun out of Stanford University is developing a way to chemically alter existing drugs to dramatically improve their half-life By sequestering the drugs within cells, the researchers hope to protect them from the bodys efforts to destroy them. So far ...
  

CFACT

• D.C. drinking water controversy sinks lead scare
• Suburbs ain’t no place for a Street Fightin& ...
• Something fishy about mercury hype
• No end to end of oil fears
• Dr. Roy Spencer on Day After Tomorrow

Ria Novosti Online News

• Suicide bomber kills 27 at volleyball match in Pak ...
  
  
• New Year festivities in Red Square
  About 150,000 Muscovites and guests of the Russian capital took part in New Year's celebration on Moscow's Red Square and surrounding areas
  
• Belarus makes advance payment for 1.126 mln tons o ...
  Belarus has made an advance payment for 1.126 metric tons of Russian oil for January, a spokesman for Belarusian petrochemical company Belneftekhim said on Friday
  
• India, Pakistan swap lists of nuclear sites
  India and Pakistan have officially exchanged the lists of their nuclear objects under a bilateral nuclear security deal, Pakistani and Indian media said on Friday.
  
• Some 350 cars set on fire in Paris on New Year nig ...
  At least 350 cars were set ablaze overnight in Paris and its outskirts, the Europe 1 radio station said on Friday citing an interior ministry source.
  

Ria Novosti - Science & Technology

• Roscosmos to consider Earth rescue project from de ...
  
  
• Roscosmos to consider project to save Earth from a ...
  Roscosmos will soon consider a project to prevent a large asteroid from colliding with Earth after 2030, the head of Russia's space agency said on Wednesday.
  
• Russian Proton rocket delivers U.S. telecoms satel ...
  A Russian Proton-M carrier rocket has delivered into orbit the U.S. telecommunications satellite DirecTV-12, the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos said.
  
• RIA Novosti's choice: ten key events in environmen ...
  Below are top ten environmental and scientific events which RIA Novosti correspondents have chosen for producing the greatest impact in Russia.
  
• Russia launches Proton rocket with U.S. telecoms s ...
  Russia has made this year's last launch from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan, launching a Proton-M carrier rocket with the U.S. telecommunications satellite DirecTV-12, the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos said
  

Pruning Shears

• Best Music of 2009
  Introduction If you dig these songs please consider buying them. Most can be had for less than a buck. All these were downloaded freely and legally this year so I’m posting them in good faith. Links will be live for a week. If you hold the copyright on one and would like it removed, please let me ...
  
• A Bold Prediction
  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the Wall Street Journal will not have an article on December 30th, 2010 detailing the ways in which various stakeholders attempt to coordinate end-of-life decisions in order to take advantage of the nearly expired estate tax holiday.
  
• Through the Looking Glass With the DOJ
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post The case of Guatánamo detainee Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi took a bizarre turn last week. He is represented by habeas lawyer H. Candace Gorman and is, as Andy Worthington pointed out , overwhelmingly likely to be innocent. He has neve ...
  
• This Week In Tyranny
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post David Obey Bluster Watch. On Afghanistan :“There ain’t going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan,” House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “If they ask for an incre ...
  
• America's Metastasizing Intelligence Apparatus
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post Barack Obama’s reversal on the Patriot Act was in the news again this week courtesy of Elizabeth Gorman’s reporting ( via ). It is not cynical or misanthropic to say the reversal is not surprising. He ended up supporting the FISA A ...
  

Natural Health News

• Winter Workouts Can Boost Your Mood
  Winter can put a chill on even the most enthusiastic exerciser's plans. But sticking to your exercise program throughout the colder months is beneficial for multiple reasons, experts say. Not only can physical activity lift your spirits during days of limited sunlight, it can help make sure you're i ...
  
• Study Debunks Notion of 'Healthy Obese' Man
  No man who is fat is truly healthy over the long term, a new study finds. That assessment is based on research that has followed almost 1,800 men, starting at age 50, for 30 years, recording those who died or had a cardiovascular problem such as a heart attack or stroke. Previous studies found no in ...
  
• Lifestyle Changes That Will Keep You Alive
  Have more sex Sex has many apparent health benefits. Studies suggest sex can boost your immune system and reduce stress.   Keep your teeth clean Diabetes, low birth weight babies and heart disease have all been linked to gum and bone disease in the mouth. Even heart attacks have been linked to bad ...
  
• How to Erase Your Phone Remotely if You Lose It
  A handset may be valuable, but it's easily replaced. The data on it, however, is often much more important. Banking passwords, corporate documents and VPN access are better off kept secure. All of the major smartphone platforms have some kind of remote erase capability. Here's a rundown of what's o ...
  
• New Strains of Old Diseases Prove Antibiotic Proof
  Doctors and scientists around the world are seeing a disturbing new trend. Not only are old diseases making a comeback, but the antibiotics that used to work now do little against them.
  

  Blacklisted News

• Obama positioning for immigration reform (Instant ...
  With the health-care battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive — a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system.
  
• European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandem ...
  The parliament motion was introduced by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, former SPD Member of the German Bundestag and now Chairman of the European Parliament Health Committee.
  
• TSA agents raid blogger’s home, confiscate laptop, ...
• Hal Turner is a “National Security Intelligence” A ...
  In an effort to save former blogger and radio talk show host Hal Turner from years in prison, the Family of Hal Turner blog has posted pages from a heavily redacted trial transcript.
  
• Danger Room’s Top 10 Stories From a World Gone Nut ...

The Intelligence Daily

• Firm employs large number of Pentagon mentors
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Obama has announced the partition of Pakistan
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Image via Wikipedia
  
  Russia warns US about missile shield
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• New Spyplane Lands in Afghanistan, Ready to Snoop
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• S.Leone police investigate child trafficking alleg ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  

My AntiWar

• Obama?s New Year?s Resolutions
  Summary: [img_assist|nid=3074|title=Philip Giraldi|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=75|American presidents, rarely introspective by nature and driven by hubris and a sense of national exceptionalism, are not particularly motivated to make serious New Year?s resolutions. Past presidents sometimes de ...
  
• Obama?s New Year?s Resolutions
  Summary: [img_assist|nid=3074|title=Philip Giraldi|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=75|American presidents, rarely introspective by nature and driven by hubris and a sense of national exceptionalism, are not particularly motivated to make serious New Year?s resolutions. Past presidents sometimes de ...
  
• Flight 253 Passenger Kurt Haskell: ‘I Was Vi ...
• Yemen Links Accused Jet Bomber, Cleric
• US-Born Cleric Key Player in Bomb Plot?

  Rogue Government.com

• 150 More Full Body Scanners To Go In U.S. Airport ...
  One hundred and fifty new full-body scanning machines are set to be placed in airports across the United States as federal authorities work to close security loopholes exposed by the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner.
  
• US plots retaliatory strikes against al-Qaida in ...
  The US is planning retaliatory strikes in Yemen against al-Qaida over its attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight on Christmas Day.
  
• PetroChina Wins Approval for $1.8 Billion Canadia ...
  PetroChina Co. won the approval of the Canadian government for its C$1.9 billion ($1.8 billion) bid to buy a stake in two Alberta oil-sands projects, its biggest North American acquisition.
  
• NASA Narrows Robotic Missions to 3 Contenders
  
  
• Uranium Is So Last Century - Enter Thorium, The G ...
  
  

Innovation Canada

• i2eye with James Hesser
  Two years ago, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2009 the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, people around the globe have been marking the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei. Laypeople, especially children ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Signs of the times

• New Study: Amino Acids Could Heal Brain Damage
  A head-on car collision, a stumble that slams your head to the ground, a wound from a military battle in Afghanistan, a violent criminal assault -- these and other causes of sudden blows to the head can result in traumatic brain injury (TBI). According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), TBI ...
  
• Nine Killed in Bus Crash in Southeast Iran
  Nine people were killed in southeastern Iran when a bus on the Bam-Kerman road overturned. Massoud Ghaffarian, the commander of the Kerman Province Traffic Police, said that the bus was travelling from Zahedan in southeastern Iran to Yazd in central Iran. The accident, which occurred late on Thurs ...
  
• Why Repair of Brain's Wiring Fails
  Scientists have uncovered new evidence suggesting that damage to nerve cells in people with multiple sclerosis accumulates because the body's natural mechanism for repair of the nerve coating called "myelin" stalls out. The study, published July 1, 2009, in the print edition of Genes & Development, ...
  
• Baby Blues: A Search Beyond Neurons
  Surprising insight into postpartum depression The miracle of birth is one of life's greatest joys, but paradoxically many women suffer serious depression after delivering their new baby. Surprisingly, one in seven women will be stricken with postpartum depression, making it the most common medical ...
  
• Glia: The Other Brain
  Glia - brain function beyond neurons With eager hands of a ten-year-old boy, I sliced the heart in two with a butcher knife. All was revealed-four chambers separated by moist gristly valves that suck blood into auricles and squeeze it out the aorta and pulmonary artery. Fascinated, I asked Mom, "Ne ...
  

Threat Level

• TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers
  In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used. Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served wit ...
  
• Feds Warn Small Businesses to Use Dedicated PC for ...
  In the wake of a rash of hacks on computers owned by small businesses, the FBI and the American Banking Association have issued an alert advising businesses to use only a dedicated PC for online banking, according to USA Today. The alert was issued after numerous small businesses, universities and l ...
  
• Holy Lawsuit! Communion-Wafer Flap Lands in Court
  A holy war of sorts has broken out in the communion-wafer–dispensing space. A Minnesota marketer of communion-wafer dispensers is accusing its former president of patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. (.pdf) The allegations in a Dec. 30 federal lawsuit come amid a fledgling mar ...
  
• The Decade’s 10 Most Dastardly Cybercrimes
  It was the decade of the mega-heist, when stolen credit card magstripe tracks became the pork bellies of a new underground marketplace, Eastern European hackers turned malware writing into an art, and a nasty new crop of purpose-driven computer worms struck dread in the heart of America. Now that th ...
  
• Underground Services Let Virus Writers Check Their ...
  I have often recommended file-scanning services like VirusTotal and Jotti, which allow visitors to upload a suspicious file and scan it against dozens of commercial anti-virus tools. If a scan generates any virus alerts or red flags, the report produced by the scan is shared with all of the particip ...
  

PERRspectives : Blog

• The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name
  Conservatives this morning are apoplectic about some of the vile, hate-filled comments generated online in response to the hospitalization of Rush Limbaugh. And rightly so, as a quick glance at Twitter reveals. But before the right-wing faithful rush to condemn...
  
• Lumps of Coal for Time and the New York Times
  Judging by two articles which appeared in their publications this holiday week, Time and the New York Times won't be getting a visit from Santa. Time's Amy Sullivan predictably stirred up right-wing rage with her just-in-time for the holidays, "No...
  
• Will John Kerry Take Reagan's Cake and Bible to Ir ...
  Word that Senator John Kerry has suggested to the White House that he undertake a mission to Iran predictably has the conservative commentariat apoplectic. But while many worry that such a high-level U.S. visit could undermine the opposition at a...
  
• Remembering Kennedy - and the Republican Goal - on ...
  Senate passage of the health care bill this morning naturally brought fond remembrances of reform's long time champion, Ted Kennedy. While his successor Paul Kirk announced, "He's having a merry Christmas in heaven," Kennedy's long-time Massachusetts colleague John Kerry concurred,...
  
• IRS Audits Finally Reversing GOP Bias for Wealthy
  Score one for working Americans. After enduring both the worst economic downtown and steepest income inequality since the Great Depression, new data from the Internal Revenue Service revealed that lower and middle class taxpayers are being audited at lower rates...
  

Blackspot News Feed

• Thanks to Dems' Pussyfooting, Health Industry Stoc ...
  The bump does not appear to be indicative of broader economic improvement.
  
• How to Trap a President in a Losing War: Petraeus, ...
  Excuse the gloom in the holiday season, but I feel like we’re all locked inside a malign version of the movie Groundhog Day.  You remember, the one in which the characters are forced to relive the same 24 hours endlessly.  Put more personally, TomDispatch started in November 2001 as an email to frie ...
  
• Reid Schedules Final Vote on Health Care Bill for ...
  The Hill reported this afternoon that a final vote on the Senate health care bill will take place at 8 am Christmas Eve, about 11 hours earlier than originally expected. read more
  
• House Blue Dog Switches Party, Stiffing Democrats ...
  Rep. Parker Griffith enjoyed campaign support of $1 million from the Democratic Party. But that was a year ago, and this is now.
  
• Touchdowns and Lockdowns: Transcending Racial Poli ...
  I spent a decade organizing sports leagues amongst those who failed in their struggle against violence and oppression: in prison.
  

Consortium News

• Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA/
  A document from Harry Truman's library sheds light on tensions between the White House and CIA, writes Ray McGovern. December 29, 2009
  
• Obama's Unheralded Nuke Progress
  With little fanfare, President Obama is closing in on a new reduction in the U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals, notes Ivan Eland. December 29, 2009
  
• What the New Year Demands
  The political battle lines for 2010 already are clear -- and they suggest a comeback for the Right, writes Robert Parry. December 28, 2009
  
• The Jesus Genealogy Myths
  The New Testament's conflicting genealogies for Jesus reflect contrasting interests of the gospel writers, says Howard Bess. December 28, 2009
  
• 'Avatar': A Metaphor for the 'Long War'
  "Avatar" evokes U.S. cheers even as a thinly disguised metaphor critical of U.S. wars in Iraq and elsewhere, says David Swanson. December 28, 2009
  

CounterPunch

• Winslow T. Wheeler : Eliminate the Senate
• Patrick Cockburn : Touch Yemen, Get Burned
• Mike Whitney : Lining Up for the Wall Street Gravy ...
• Greg Moses : The Fear Stimulus
• Ramzy Baroud : Egypt's Steel Wall

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• Gaza in crisis (Sonja Karkar, The Palestine Chron ...
  They came one cold December day. Not fearless warriors but fearsome hoardes hell-bent on destruction of the genocidal kind that leaves no room for regeneration. That was one year ago in Gaza. The attack shoc ...
  
• Gaza's war of words - 28 December 2009 - part 1 ( ...
• The Egyptian plans to thwart the Gaza Freedom Marc ...
  It is safe to assume that at about the time the Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina announced its plans to enter Gaza, Egypt also made plans, in consultation with their Israeli, American and occasionally J ...
  
• Protests held against Gaza siege (Al Jazeera)
  Activists, both from Gaza and abroad, have held demonstrations on either side of an Israeli border crossing to the Palestinian territory, protesting against its continued siege by Israel. Hundreds of protest ...
  
• Despite freeze, hundreds of housing units under co ...
  Despite the construction freeze, dozens of settlements in the West Bank are experiencing a building boom, even on the eve of another visit to the region by U.S. envoy George Mitchell to try to restart talks ...
  

Water - AlterNet

• New York City Calls for Drilling Ban in Watershed, ...
  New York City officials have called for a ban on natural gas drilling within the city’s 2,000-square-mile upstate watershed.
  
• Ric O'Barry: The Man Behind the Crusade to Save Do ...
  Ric O'Barry would love to be at home watering his bamboo and playing with his five-year-old daughter. Instead, he spends most of his time with people who hate him.
  
• The Toilet That Can Help Solve Our Water and Energ ...
  There is a 'toilet revolution' taking shape -- and it may be coming just in time.
  
• Cheap Great Lakes Water Offered In Exchange For Jo ...
  Although superficially, this may seem quite sensible, there is a high risk of unintended and unwanted consequences if a cheap water incentive were offered to all comers.
  
• 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.
  

TruthHugger

• Darth Vader Strikes Again
  The botched terrorist attack on Christmas Day is NOT Obama's fault.
  
• Try To Remember America
  Well, few public schools, and few private schools, will fill in the gaps between America the fantasy and America the reality.  The name of America has been invoked with reverence when describing its history of righteous endeavors.  What is seldom included in these filtered history lessons, is some o ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

• Q&A with Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghayes, Andy Wo ...
  by Andy Worthington Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.andyworthington.co.uk 1 January 2010 On Octo
  
• President Obama and the Democratic Leadership Coun ...
  by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH Featured Writer Dandelion Salad crossposted on Buzzflash.com Jan. 1, 2010 T
  
• 2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World by Ric ...
  by Rick Rozoff Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Stop NATO http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com 31 December
  
• Why Obama Must Continue Releasing Yemenis From Gua ...
  by Andy Worthington Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.andyworthington.co.uk 31 December 2009 The w
  
• Chicago! Not the Musical, but the Action-Suspense ...
  by Sibel Edmonds Featured Writer Dandelion Salad originally published by Boiling Frogs Post 30 Decem
  

Unexplained Mysteries

• Designer babies of the future
  In the not too distant future parents will have the chance to customise their unborn baby any way they see fit, everything from immunity to certai...
  
• The mechanics of a coin toss
  Researchers in Vancouver have found that it is possible to influence the outcome of a coin toss and that contrary to popular belief the chance of ...
  
• NASA plans backup escape system
  NASA is planning on implementing a new backup emergancy escape system for astronauts aboard their new space shuttle replacement vehicle in an effo...
  
  Image via Wikipedia
  
  
  
• Russia set to deflect killer asteroid
  Russia is planning to send a spacecraft to deflect a 270m asteroid that is thought to be on a possible collision course with Earth. Other world sp...
  
• Hypnotist to put whole nation in a trance
  Hypnotist Chris Hughes has said he is going to place the whole nation in a trance using Twitter and Facebook as part of what is being billed to be...
  

Grassroots

• Gaza Freedom March -- No Token Delegation
  Nitin Sawhney, a friend of Grassroots International and long time activist for Palestinian rights, was one of the 100 delegates, from the over 1300 international delegate-members of the Gaza Freedom March, chosen to go into Gaza through a last minute intervention by Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian ...
  
• Gaza Freedom Marchers await entry, keep vigil
  Hedy-sign.jpg   Starting on New Year’s Eve, the Gaza Freedom March (sponsored by Grassroots International and scores of other organizations) was set up to be an amazing international show of solidarity for the Palestinian people trapped in thi ...
  
• Remembering Dennis Brutus
  dennisbrutus.jpg South African poet, anti-apartheid and human rights activist, climate change warrior, and Grassroots International founder, Dennis Brutus passed away in Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday, December 26, 2009. He was 85. Accord ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Climate

• January 1, 2010
  US Agencies May Have to Consider Climate Before They Act (Los Angeles Times) The White House is poised to order all federal agencies to evaluate any major actions they take, such as building highways or logging national forests, to determine how they would contribute to and be affected by clima ...
  
• December 31, 2009
  Global Warming Blamed for Rise in Malaria on Mount Kenya (London Times) Global warming has caused a seven-fold increase in malaria cases on the slopes of Mount Kenya, researchers found. A 2C increase in average temperatures there in the past 20 years allowed disease carriers to reach higher alt ...
  
• December 30, 2009
  Court Rejects France’s National Carbon Tax (New York Times) France’s constitutional court rejected the planned tax on carbon emissions on the grounds that it contained too many exemptions for polluters, broke with past practices and threatened to make tax collection unfair. Quebec Adopts Cali ...
  
• Image via Wikipedia
  
  December 29, 2009
  Brazil Keeps Emissions Target Despite Summit Failure (Reuters) Brazil will make its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets, roughly 20 percent below 2005 levels, legally binding even though global climate talks failed this month, the country's environment minister says. Katrina Who? Louisiana ...
  
• December 28, 2009
  Mercury Emissions Rise in Illinois, Michigan, Texas (Chicago Tribune) New federal data shows the amount of mercury blown into the air by Illinois coal plants jumped 7% last year, while emissions declined in 27 other states, including several reliant on coal. Some Democrats Urging White House ...
  

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

• What a Hell of a Year! Good Riddance to It!
  You know, the year 2009 started out kind of nicely. We watched Barack Obama take the oath of office, serenaded by the awesome Aretha Franklin (wearing her awesome hat), after first hearing Pete Seeger sing the real Woody Guthrie verses to "This Land Is Your Land" on the steps of the Lincoln Monument ...
  
• The Fear Decade: Since 9/11, We've Embraced Our In ...
  NEW YORK--Home of the free and the brave. Live free or die. Shoot first; ask questions later. Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out. These were the mottos of a brash, impetuous, audacious-to-a-fault nation. That nation is dead. Once we Americas did brave things: We sat on boats, crossing the English Ch ...
  
• 2010 Peace and Justice Resolutions
  I resolve to do everything in my ability, while preserving my power to continue in future years, to reverse the destruction of the environment, the proliferation of weapons and wars, and the concentration of wealth. I resolve neither to panic nor to behave as if we have a moment to lose. I resolve n ...
  
• Get Ready For The Shit To Fly January 4th
  Radio and Fox News talk show hosts may be on vacation from their microphones, but have no doubt, they and their Republican managers are in full war room mode, preparing to go shock and awe all over Obama and the Democrats on what they'll say is the utter failure to protect your family from terrorism ...
  
• A Horror-Movie Decade (With a Horror-Twist Ending)
  A stolen election. Great skyscrapers falling. Meaningless wars in distant countries. Floodwaters destroying a great city. Acts of torture in American-made prisons. We had seen the sights and sounds of this decade before. But only in the movies. The decade won't technically end for another year, ...
  

Ten Percent

• 2010, The Year We Make Contact
  What the!?!?! Yes it’s almost a New Decade but Xmas, my birthday and a failed phone line have all made this the first post in a couple of days, worst of all I missed my birthday/blog’s birthday which was yesterday (though the splendid Happy Famous Artists blog did manage to commemorate this most imp ...
  
• Global Peace Index
  And the figures are in for ‘09! Possibly only as meaningful as the top 40 but, notice the bottom four are nations with US support/involvement/intervention while the US is at 83 sandwiched between the Ukraine and Kazakhstan, hey Mr ONobel give peace a chance eh?
  
• Gaza, Not A Difference A Year Makes
  A year ago- Israel Defense Forces will try to “send Gaza decades into the past” in terms of weapon capabilities while achieving “the maximum number of enemy casualties and keeping Israel Defense Forces casualties at a minimum,” GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant said. “What happened in the Dahiya quar ...
  
• Friday! Sergei Prokofiev- Troika from Lt. Kije
  And there’s always The Waitresses
  
• Happy Holydays
  
  

Booman Tribune

• Froggy Bottom Cafe
  
  
• Decade-Ending Question
  So, what's the best thing that happened in this decade other than the one Giants' Super Bowl victory and the two Yankees' World Series championships? I know those three things top your list but there must be something that's close behind, right?
  
• Category: So What?
  Rasmussen, whose non-election polls are about as reliable as reading entrails, tells us that 58% of the people want the underpants-plane bomber waterboarded. That's interesting, but it doesn't make it right. How about we have a poll about tying him a tree, covering him with honey, and letting a co ...
  
• Quote of the Day
  From Dan Pfeiffer: [F]or seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq -- a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion -- Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, whe ...
  
• Marmotty Bottom Cafe
  
  

European Tribune

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 1 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1927 – Maurice Béjart,...
  
• St Sylvestre Open Thread
  May wind be the energy of choice of the double digit years......
  
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 31 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1514 – Birth of...
  
• Wednesday Open Thread
  It is....
  
• Re the EU Public Consultation on gas
  The EU had an public consultation last year concerning measures to safeguard security of natural...
  

Futurismic

• BOOK REVIEW: Booklife, by Jeff VanderMeer
  Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer Tachyon Publications, November 2009; 330pp; US$14.95 RRP – ISBN13: 9781892391902 There are dozens – possibly even hundreds – of books out there that purport to tell you how to be a writer. I should know, as I think I’ve read most of them, from the general guides to cr ...
  
• Happy new year!
  By the time this post goes live, I (and doubtless most other Brits) will be preparing to celebrate the turning of another year… so I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank you all for following Futurismic in 2009, and to wish you all a great 2010. The new year promises – by pretty much [...] Pr ...
  
• This monkey’s gone to heaven
  I had to agree with Jay Lake when he Tweeted that ‘Any article with the line “Any monkeys sent into space will be supervised by robots.” is totally FTW’. [image by kiewic] And here is that article… which is actually just a short post on the Freakonomics blog pointing to a longer piece at the Telegra ...
  
• What will reading look like in 2010?
  Well, it’s been a lively year for changes in the publishing industry, hasn’t it? This time last year, I wrote a post titled 2009 – the year the physical bookstore lays down and dies? – and over here in the UK, Borders has just gone into receivership, a few days before Amazon claimed to have [...] ...
  
• Climate change might not starve us after all
  In the hugely polarised sphere of debate around climate change, there are a few thinkers who float outside the two core camps of belief and skepticism. One of those would be Brian Wang, who seems pretty convinced that AGW is a genuine phenomenon, but who also thinks it’s not going to be an unmitigat ...
  

Therapy News

• Study Asks: How Much Exercise is Needed to Realize ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Exercise has long been associated with receiving a positive mental health benefit. From adopting a regular running or aerobics regimen to joining in on a group sports activity, those who lead active lives are less likely to suffer from symptoms of depression and other ...
  
• Support Program for Loved Ones of Alcohol Abusers ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Though mental health difficulties are able to affect a wide number of people of many different types of lifestyles, a significant number of people facing mental health challenges are also confronted by issues of alcoholism, and their friends and family members may be ...
  
• Social Psychology Tools Singled out for Measuring ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary The choices that people make, whether they’re major decisions with the potential to have a considerable impact on daily life or are less heavily weighted, play major roles in the psychological environment, and can greatly influence mood and well-being. Efforts to under ...
  
• Recommended for Post-Partum Depression: Omega 3s a ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Though the experience of giving birth and becoming a mother is a joyous one for many, some mothers may experience prolonged or chronic periods of emotional and mental difficulty following their deliveries, and a state of post-partum depression may make life less enjoy ...
  
• Psychotherapy, Medical, and Social Program at Stan ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Mental health has been cited time and again as one of the most pressing concerns among veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many veterans struggle to afford the costs of psychotherapy and related care, or find themselves faced with substantial ...
  

Mountaintop Removal

• Eat, drink, and watch a film on mountaintop remova ...
  Eat, drink, and watch a film on mountaintop removal C-Ville Weekly You know how I feel about mountaintop removal already—namely, angry and sad. I'm looking forward to learning more. Anyone else planning to go?
  
• Decade in Review: 2009 - Charleston Gazette
  Decade in Review: 2009 Charleston Gazette Also this year, two anti- mountaintop removal activists spent a week protesting blasting by a Massey Energy mining operation by taking up residence in a pair ...
  
• A look back at 2009's impact on southern W.Va. - B ...
  A look back at 2009's impact on southern W.Va. Beckley Register-Herald Two environmental activists protesting mountaintop removal at a Massey Energy coal mine on Coal River Road were arrested and charged with trespassing. ... and more »
  
• Best of 2009: And God Said: Go Forth and Blow the ...
  Best of 2009: And God Said: Go Forth and Blow the Tops Off of Mountains The Washington Independent Bouncing around the InterWeb, one might get curious about what exactly mountaintop removal involves. And so one might do a Google on “mountaintop mining. ...
  
• Film looks at effect of mining industry on US land ...
  Examiner.com Film looks at effect of mining industry on US landscape Charlottesville Daily Progress The SELC has a lawsuit pending against a Bush-era rule that removes stream protections in and near mountaintop removal sites. While President Barack Obama's ... Democratic Party Lauds Clean Coal Fund ...
  

Memeorandum

• The God That Fails - During the middle third of th ...
  David Brooks / New York Times : The God That Fails   —  During the middle third of the 20th century, Americans had impressive faith in their own institutions.  It was not because these institutions always worked well.  The Congress and the Federal Reserve exacerbated the Great Depression.
  
• DIVERSE REACTIONS TO LIMBAUGH (Patrick Gavin/The P ...
  Patrick Gavin / The Politico : DIVERSE REACTIONS TO LIMBAUGH   —  As news broke Wednesday night of radio show host Rush Limbaugh's hospital visit due to chest pains, many of his political counterparts on the left put down their ideological swords and wished him well on Twitter.  —  “All best wishe ...
  
• The Obama Disconnect: What Happens When Myth Meets ...
  Micah L. Sifry / techPresident : The Obama Disconnect: What Happens When Myth Meets Reality   —  “Collectively all of you, most of you whom are, I'm not sure, of drinking age, you've created the best political organization in America, and probably the best political organization that we've seen in ...
  
• 'Underwear Bomber's' Alarming Last Phone Call (ABC ...
  ABCNEWS : 'Underwear Bomber's' Alarming Last Phone Call   —  Abdulmutallab Called His Father to Say It Would Be Their Last Contact  —  The accused “underwear bomber” made a dramatic final call to his father that he found so alarming, the father approached Nigerian officials who took him directly … ...
  
• Rocket Launcher Found In Apartment (Click2Houston. ...
  Click2Houston.com : Rocket Launcher Found In Apartment   —  No Charges Filed  —  HOUSTON — Police went to a southwest Houston apartment to break up a disturbance but ended up finding something else, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.  —  A woman called police on Monday and said a man was forcing his ...
  

Energy & Environment News

• No Change in Oil Goal, but Cartel Is Watchful
  OPEC held its output quotas unchanged and called for greater compliance from some members whose overproduction could undercut efforts to support prices.
  
• Report Cites Crippling Infighting at Nuclear Site
  Infighting among the federal officials in charge of the cleanup of the Savannah River nuclear site in South Carolina is so severe that it threatens to undermine public confidence in their work, a federal watchdog warned.
  
• Panel Rejects French Carbon Tax
  The Constitutional Council said the carbon-tax bill, supported by President Nicolas Sarkozy, contained too many exemptions for polluters and and threatened to make tax collection unfair.
  
• China, Willing to Spend, Wins a Trove of Afghan Co ...
  A Chinese company is undertaking the largest foreign investment project in war-torn Afghanistan, extracting copper from one of the richest untapped deposits on earth.
  
• Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power
  Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling planned solar plants and wind farms.
  

5+ quakes - 7 days

• M 5.0, Azores Islands region
  Friday, January 1, 2010 09:37:11 UTC Friday, January 1, 2010 07:37:11 AM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  
• M 5.0, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska
  Tuesday, December 29, 2009 23:12:19 UTC Tuesday, December 29, 2009 01:12:19 PM at epicenter Depth : 63.80 km (39.64 mi)
  
• M 5.6, Papua, Indonesia
  Sunday, December 27, 2009 13:19:08 UTC Sunday, December 27, 2009 10:19:08 PM at epicenter Depth : 18.10 km (11.25 mi)
  
• M 5.2, Kodiak Island region, Alaska
  Sunday, December 27, 2009 03:12:42 UTC Saturday, December 26, 2009 06:12:42 PM at epicenter Depth : 3.80 km (2.36 mi)
  
• M 5.1, Philippine Islands region
  Tuesday, December 29, 2009 22:14:35 UTC Wednesday, December 30, 2009 06:14:35 AM at epicenter Depth : 75.00 km (46.60 mi)
  

China Dialogue

• Dubai: a modern parable
  With its debt, excess and exploitation, the glitzy emirate is not alone in a world living on credit. But, writes Jonathan Freedland, its riches could have been spent so much better. When future generations sit their children down to tell the story of the great crash of the early 21st century, they w ...
  
• Slideshow: eye on Mozambique (2)
  In the second segment of a two-part slideshow, Daniel Ribeiro looks at the problem of handling solid waste in the country’s capital, Maputo. .
  
• Madagascar feels the heat
  Deforestation, drought and political instability have ravaged a nation rich in wildlife but poor in infrastructure. And, reports David Smith, climate change is blamed for playing havoc with harvests and the seasons. Remanonjona Feroce founded the village of Anjamahavelo – meaning At the Lucky Baobab ...
  
• Briefing: the Copenhagen Accord
  What happened at the COP15 climate talks? Tan Copsey explains the new agreement. After two chaotic weeks, 188 countries reached a limited agreement in Copenhagen to continue global efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in order to address climate change.  The talks were quite unlike the ...
  
• Slideshow: eye on Mozambique (1)
  In the first section of a two-part slideshow about environmental concerns in the southeast African nation, Daniel Ribeiro introduces deforestation, water and energy issues. NEXT: Sorting the rubbish in Mozambique
  

AlterNet Top Stories

• Reducing Your Impact: A Guide to New Year's Resolu ...
  Now's the time to set those New Year's resolutions. And hopefully we will all strive to be smarter and greener in our daily decisions.
  
• Political Predictions for 2010
  What do you think?
  
• The Year In Pot: Top 10 Events That Will Change th ...
  There has been a tidal shift in politics and on Marijuana laws in America, from Obama lightening up on pot prosecutions to the recognition of cancer prevention properties.
  
• Argentina Hosts Latin America's First Gay Marriage
  And there is more good news coming from Latin America, too.
  
• Shameless Puppy Blogging: New Year's Bacon Edition
  Whatever you have planned, I hope it's a blast.
  

Threat Level

• TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers
  In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used. Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served wit ...
  
• Feds Warn Small Businesses to Use Dedicated PC for ...
  In the wake of a rash of hacks on computers owned by small businesses, the FBI and the American Banking Association have issued an alert advising businesses to use only a dedicated PC for online banking, according to USA Today. The alert was issued after numerous small businesses, universities and l ...
  
• Holy Lawsuit! Communion-Wafer Flap Lands in Court
  A holy war of sorts has broken out in the communion-wafer–dispensing space. A Minnesota marketer of communion-wafer dispensers is accusing its former president of patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. (.pdf) The allegations in a Dec. 30 federal lawsuit come amid a fledgling mar ...
  
• The Decade’s 10 Most Dastardly Cybercrimes
  It was the decade of the mega-heist, when stolen credit card magstripe tracks became the pork bellies of a new underground marketplace, Eastern European hackers turned malware writing into an art, and a nasty new crop of purpose-driven computer worms struck dread in the heart of America. Now that th ...
  
• Underground Services Let Virus Writers Check Their ...
  I have often recommended file-scanning services like VirusTotal and Jotti, which allow visitors to upload a suspicious file and scan it against dozens of commercial anti-virus tools. If a scan generates any virus alerts or red flags, the report produced by the scan is shared with all of the particip ...
  

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• UPDATE 1-Time Warner Cable, Fox at impasse; blacko ...
  * Time Warner Cable, Fox deadlocked on retransmission fees
  
• China says 5,394 arrested in Internet porn crackdo ...
  BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police arrested thousands in a drive against Internet pornography throughout 2009, officials said, vowing a deepening crackdown that critics say is being used to tighten overall censorship.
  
• Fox, Time Warner Cable ink temp deal to avoid blac ...
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable and News Corp's Fox Networks agreed to a brief extension of their current carriage contract on Thursday to avoid a blackout that would have prevented 13 million U.S. homes from seeing TV shows like "The Simpsons" and college and NFL football games.
  
• Times Square, Nasdaq reopened after scare
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's Times Square was closed briefly and three buildings including the Nasdaq headquarters were evacuated in a security scare on Wednesday, a day before the traditional New Year's Eve festivities in the famed intersection.
  
• UPDATE 1-Fox, Time Warner Cable ink temp deal to a ...
  NEW YORK, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable and News Corp's Fox Networks agreed to a brief extension of their current carriage contract on Thursday to avoid a blackout that would have prevented 13 million U.S. homes from seeing TV shows like "The Simpsons" and college and NFL football games.
  

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 #0237
  Christmas Day bomb plot exposes fissures in US spy community. Mysterious life of Soviet spy couple unveiled.
  
• For second time in history, CIA suffers 8 deaths i ...
  Since it emerged last night that eight CIA agents were killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan, intelNews has received several emails asking whether the deaths marked a horrific record for the US spy agency. The CIA is not known for forwarding details on its agents who perish while on miss ...
  
• Controversy over head of Obama’s terrorism watch-l ...
  A veteran CIA official appointed to review the US government’s defective terrorism watch-list system, was actually involved in designing it, and later helped sustain it through a lucrative private-sector contract.
  
• White House memo sides with CIA in inter-agency tu ...
  For several months now, I have been keeping tabs on a bitter inter-agency turf war between the CIA and the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Now a Los Angeles Times article by Greg Miller confirms what intelNews reported on November 18, namely that the White House has come do ...
  
• News you may have missed #0236
  Airline bomb plotter's father warned CIA about his son. New book details Stasi spying on Günter Grass. Former Albanian spymaster claiming benefits in Britain.
  

After Downing Street.org

• Swanson "Daybreak" Book Tour in West Palm Beach, F ...
  West Palm Beach, FL January 25, 2010 David Swanson will discuss and sign copies of "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" 7:30 p.m. at Crowne Plaza Hotel 1601 Belvedere Road West Palm Beach, FL 33406 Sponsored by: The Palm Beach Florida Democratic Club FREE ...
  
• Swanson "Daybreak" Book Tour in CA and AZ
  Jan. 13 Santa Rosa, CA http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-13 Jan. 14, 15 San Diego, CA http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-15 Jan. 16 Van Nuys and Ventura, CA http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-16 Jan. 17 Phoenix, AZ http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-17 read more
  
• Swanson "Daybreak" Book Tour in WA and OR with Dav ...
  Jan. 5 Seattle, WA http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-5 Jan. 6 Portland, OR http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-6 Jan. 7 Newport, OR http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-7 Jan. 8 Corvallis, OR http://davidswanson.org/daybreak-1-8 read more
  
• Lying Your Way Into War? Apparently Not a Scandal
  Lying Your Way Into War? Apparently Not a Scandal By Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America | Alternet The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wants to know what people think is "the best (or worst) Republican political scandal of the decade?" Ambinder offers four choices: Not mentioned? The Bush admini ...
  
• Afghan Panel Says U.S. Strike Killed 8 Schoolboys
  Afghan Panel Says U.S. Strike Killed 8 Schoolboys By Laura King | Common Dreams An Afghan presidential delegation looking into reports that up to 10 civilians were accidentally killed by U.S. troops earlier this week said today that it had so far confirmed at least eight deaths -- all schoolboys ag ...
  

Grist - News

• Britain embraces the new faux gras
  by Agence France-Presse LONDON -- From foie gras produced without making birds suffer to "sustainable" fish, British retailers and restaurants are fast embracing politically correct food, helped by celebrity-fueled pressure. Faux (false) gras is the ethical answer to the foodstuff which has been th ...
  
• Sarkozy scrambles to salvage carbon tax
  by Agence France-Presse PARIS -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy faced an embarrassing setback Wednesday after the high court struck down a planned carbon tax to fight global warming, just days before it was to kick in. The constitutional court ruled that too many exemptions to the tax on carbon d ...
  
• Brazil’s Lula signs law cutting CO2 emission ...
  by Agence France-Presse BRAZIL -- President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a law Tuesday requiring that Brazil cut greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent by 2020, meeting a commitment made at the Copenhagen climate talks. Brazil announced at the summit a "voluntary commitment" to reduce CO2 emiss ...
  
• On the move: Species face race against climate cha ...
  by Agence France-Presse PARIS -- Land ecosystems will have to move hundreds of meters each year in order to cope with global warming, according to a letter published on Thursday in Nature, the British-based science journal. On average, ecosystems will need to shift 420 meters (about a quarter of a ...
  
• Global warming hike may be steeper
  by Agence France-Presse 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 U.S. and Chinese scientists released Sunday. The researchers used a long-term model for assessing climate ...
  

Popular Bookmarks on Del.icio.us

• PHP/SWF Charts > Introduction
• Cursive writing may be fading skill, but so what? ...
• Rapping Flight Attendant - CollegeHumor Video
• kpreid: Brain-dump for the beginning JavaScript pr ...
• HostMonk - Compare Linux dedicated server hosting ...

Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

• Businesses Finally Using Social Media to be Social
  Brands are finally learning how to respond to negative online criticism
  
• Interview: Mobile Messaging Marketing CEO Rich Beg ...
  Rich Begert, CEO of Singlepoint, delivers convergence for broadcasters and advertisers
  
• Google Voice to Embraces Full VoIP
  2010 roll-out of VoIP and other features makes Google Voice attractive, despite invite-only user roll-out
  
• Top 5 E-learning Tools of 2009
  All the tools you'll need to create e-learning from start to finish
  
• Rosie O'Donnell Goes Public with New Gal Pal
  Rosie O'Donnell not single and sad any longer.
  

Time - Top Stories

• TIME's Top 10 News Stories of 2009
  TIME's Top 10 News Stories of 2009
  
• How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions: Advice fr ...
  Want to stick to your resolution, once and for all? Experts suggest taking a few hints from drug and alcohol abusers
  
• Somalis in Yemen: Dangerously Intertwined Basket C ...
  On the brink of becoming a failed state, Yemen has to deal with a huge flood of refugees from Somalia, the most dangerous country in the world
  
• Remembrance of Things Future
  The start of a new year is a chance to plan ahead before history changes everything
  
• TIME's Top 10 Awkward Moments of 2009
  TIME's Top 10 Awkward Moments of 2009
  

Washington Independent

• 7. Allen West
  In 2008, one of the worst years to run as a Republican candidate for Congress, Lt. Col. Allen West (Ret.) ran against freshman Rep. Ronald Klein (D-Fla.) in the wealthy, evenly divided Gold Coast. Outspent five to one, West lost by only 10 points, running close to even with the McCain-Palin ticket. ...
  
• 6. Sarah Palin
  Her fans would say she mattered in 2009, and though she certainly generated headlines, too much of the year’s Palin coverage focused on the opinions and lower body of her estranged son-in-law. In 2010, Palin will have completed her transition from struggling governor of an obscure state to full-time ...
  
• 1. Marco Rubio
  The former speaker of the Florida State House jumped into the 2010 race for U.S. Senate days before Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.), and more than a year before voters would actually go to the polls. For part of 2009, Crist’s camp successfully planted rumors that Rubio was bound to bow out of the race, ...
  
• The Resurgent Right: Top 10 in ‘10
  Yesterday, TWI showcased the top ten conservatives of 2009. Now, we present ten conservatives who will shape America's political landscape in 2010.
  
• 9. Erick Erickson
  In 2009, Erickson’s RedState blog became a key resource for conservative Republicans. Some of them, such as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), gave the site exclusive news. Others penned red-meat blog posts. And some traveled to a national conference held in Erickson’s home state of Georgia, where he introdu ...
  

CowBoss' Brain Food

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

Suzie-Q

• Happy New Year 2010!!!
  
  
• Welcome to Orwell’s World 2010
  By John Pilger, Information Clearing House, Dec 30, 2009 In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described a superstate called Oceania, whose language of war inverted lies that “passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’, ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls th ...
  
• Vanunu once again under house arrest
  Mordechai Vanunu breaches terms of 2004 jail release by meeting ‘a number of foreigners’, says Israeli police Simon Tisdall, The Guardian/UK, Dec 29, 2009 Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu arrives at a Jerusalem court. Photograph: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images Mordechai Van ...
  
• Republican Hypocrisy on Terrorism
  Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s public relations apparatus was firing on all cylinders Wednesday morning, with the release of a predictable statement about the failed Underpants Bomber fracas. And by “public relations apparatus” I mean “cable news and Politico.” Needless to say, Cheney is well-q ...
  
• One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists
  Chris Hedges | Truthdig | Dec 28, 2009 Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or [... ...
  

Solari

• RUSAL Plans Up To $2.6 Billion IPO
  By Michael Flaherty Russia’s UC RUSAL moved closer to its planned $2.6 billion Hong Kong initial public offering by unveiling key details as it aims to raise cash to repay $14.9 billion in debt. And for the first time, in its 1,100-page listing prospectus, the world’s largest aluminium maker detail ...
  
• GATA Sues The Fed
  The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. today brought suit against the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, seeking a court order for disclosure of the central bank’s records of its surreptitious market intervention to suppress the monetary metal’s price. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the ...
  
• Leveraging Global Warming
  by Jon Rappoport I’m offering an experimental hypothesis here, based on how markets work. I’m talking about trading markets—stocks, commodities. As you know, the (false) science of climate change is a lever for a new type of market; trading “permits” or “offsets” in carbon. First a permitted ceili ...
  
• Wishing You A Generous New Year
  Continue reading Sting - Soul Cake 06.11.2009
  
• How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
  Continue reading The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
  

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

• Stepping up - University at Buffalo The Spectrum
  Stepping up University at Buffalo The Spectrum The president of Pakistan , Asif Ali Zardari, recognized the direness of the situation and began to mobilize military forces to combat the Taliban . ... and more »
  
• 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 . ...
  

AlterNet - Rights and Liberties

• Judge Gives Blackwater Huge New Year's Gift, Dismi ...
  Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007.
  
• The Global War on Stealth Underwear
  There is no "war" against terrorism. What George W. Bush launched and Barack Obama insists on perpetuating does not qualify.
  
• Why Obama Must Keep Releasing Yemenis From Guant&A ...
  The failed bomb plot on Christmas Day has prompted lawmakers to declare that no more Yemenis should be released from Guantánamo. They're wrong.
  
• One Day We'll All Be Terrorists
  Our descent is the familiar disease of decaying empires. Dissent is starting to become defined as an act of terrorism.
  
• 10 Reasons the U.S. Military Should (Officially) U ...
  Medical marijuana may have a host of advantages over other treatments for traumatized vets, but the VA won't even study its efficacy.
  

Sideways News

• 10 endangered species in 2010
  As we enter 2010, Sideways News looks at the 10 most endangered species we need to save according to the World Wildlife Fund annual list of animals to watch.
  
• Local heroes dominate New Year Honours
  Iconic actor Patrick Stewart, rugby legend Ian McGeechan and National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner are among the high-profile names recognised for knighthoods in the 2010 New Year Honours List , but this year has seen some noticeable changes in the roll-call of the great and the good, reflecting ...
  
• 10 green resolutions to save you money
  By taking green steps at home, you can save money and make life easier. Being smart about waste, consumption and resources won't only win you the thanks of forthcoming generations: you'll feel the financial benefit immediately. 1. Make money from old electronics As your electronic goods become obsol ...
  
• 'Mumpreneurs' set to rise in 2010
  Work flexibility and the lure of being your own boss has boosted the entrepreneural spirit of a growing number of mothers, with many planning to set up their own business next year, a study has shown. Telecoms giant BT questioned 1,200 women and found 15% had founded their own companies since starti ...
  
• Google gears up for Nexus One release
  Google is thought to be ready to unveil its new mobile phone, the Nexus One, amid feverish speculation about an imminent release.
  

Fabius Maximus

• My nominee for America’s most important New ...
  America’s political system offers two stark choices at each election.  Vote for Turd Sandwich.  Turd Sandwich brings us hope for change. A vote for Turd Sandwich is a Vote for Tomorrow! Vote for Giant Douche.   The benefits to America are too obvious to state. In 2010 let’s break free of th ...
  
• What is this “justice” that war-loving ...
  Much of America’s self-image as a “city on a hill” comes from our love of justice.  We see this clearly in the righteousness we bring to foreign affairs.  “The Audacity of Rope — Crush all the Pirates — Now“, Ralph Peters, New York Post, 14 April 2009 — Excerpt: Attack their harbors wit ...
  
• The SecDef gives the definitive analysis of the si ...
  A must-read except from a press conference by our Secretary of Defense: I don’t want to comment in detail on the situation in Afghanistan because it is a complex one. I think the Ambassador said there were 43 wars there. It’s a very complicated situation involving political, economic, and military ...
  
• A look at our government’s debt – risi ...
  One of the great similarities of our economic downcycle and Japan’s two decade long journey to oblivion:  both are periods of economic stress caused by private sector deleveraging – in which the government mitigates the resulting pain by borrowing and spending.  Japan’s government has run up ...
  
• A look at the gradual decay of our armed forces
  These reports are disturbing, but more so are the disturbing comments of the war’s advocates to the posts about these things.  Beyond denial, they attack those concerned about our troops.  They love the war, but not our troops.  Much like Senator McCain, who votes in favor of any war — but agains ...
  

sibeledmonds - tweets

• sibeledmonds: The Star Power of Chicago: A Preside ...
  sibeledmonds: The Star Power of Chicago: A President, a Chief of Staff, a Governor, a Mayor, a Criminal Convict…Read here: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post: Chicago! Not the ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post: Chicago! Not the Musical, but the Action-Suspense Docudrama! New Era Politics ala Chicago… http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post on The Erosion & ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post on The Erosion & Rotting of a Nation’s Foundation: Political System Termites (PST) & Hastert: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Dennis Hastert: A Portrait of a Poli ...
  sibeledmonds: Dennis Hastert: A Portrait of a Political System Termite. Read the article @ Boiling Frogs Post: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Happy Holidays From The Boiling Frog ...
  sibeledmonds: Happy Holidays From The Boiling Frogs Post Team:-) http://boilingfrogspost.com
  

WIRED Magazine | Science

• Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2009
  > With so many incredible scientific advances and discoveries this year, Wired Science had a tough time choosing which 10 were the biggest. So, we went with the ones that stood out for us. From the amazing collective power of jellyfish, to a new human ancestor, to a canc ...
  
• 2009’s Sleepy Sun Finally Woke Up in December
  2009 will go down as the sun’s third quietest year on record, outpaced only by 1913 and last year. 260 of the year’s 365 days (72 percent) were sunspotless. 2008 saw 266 sunspotless days, while the sun had no spots on 311 of the days in 1913. It was only a very active December that kept [...]
  
• NASA Narrows Robotic Missions to Three Contenders
  NASA on Tuesday selected three candidates to be the agency’s next cheap, robotic exploration mission. Depending on which wins, a probe will head for Venus, the moon, or a near-earth object no later than 2018. The latter two missions would include the return of samples, while the Venusian lander wo ...
  
• Sharks, Zombies, Weird Clouds: The Most Popular St ...
  > This has been Wired Science’s most successful year, by far. We like to think this is the result of a combination of your excellent taste and our efforts to learn what you like to read. We have often joked that the perfect Wired Science story is about robot sharks with ...
  
• How Algal Biofuels Lost a Decade in the Race to Re ...
  For nearly 20 years, a government laboratory built a living, respiring library of carefully collected organisms in search of something that could grow quickly while producing something precious: oil. But now that collection has largely been lost. National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists foun ...
  

The Progressive Realist

• The Green Revolution is Not Like the Collapse of t ...
  It is hard to do serious political analysis of a contested political environment when one is, in effect, “rooting” for one of the contestants. In 1979, much of the public commentary in the United States about the Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah was characterized by disbelief that a stalw ...
  
• Very Rare Terrorists Are Very Hard to Find
  Spencer Ackerman tries to problematize the conclusion that the underpants bomber incident really represents a grievous intelligence failure. You should read his whole analysis. But in brief, while by definition letting a bomber on an airplane is a failure, based on what was actually known about Abdu ...
  
• Speak Softly, and Don’t Buy Anyone A Stick
  After reading this piece from Michael Ledeen and this one from Bruce McQuain , I was meaning to write this Matt Duss post , which Matt has so generously done himself saving me the effort: In response to the Iranian regime’s violence , the Green Movement protests have grown bolder . The regime now se ...
  
• Iranians Planned Kidnapping and Held British Capti ...
  On December 30, 2009 British computer technician Peter Moore was released from captivity by the Iranian backed League of the Righteous in return for the freeing of their leader, Qais Khazali. Moore and four British bodyguards, Alan McMenemy, Alec MacLachlan, Jason Swindlehurst, and Jason Creswell, w ...
  
• Why COIN Will Fail in Afghanistan
  Nir Rosen has written a fantastic article on the current challenges faced by the US coalition in Afghanistan in this Boston Review forum , where he invited other respected journalists and analysts to discuss the issue. It's a lengthy piece and difficult to summarize, but let's just say that he paint ...
  

TAPPED - The American Prospect

• The Decade in Liberalism: The People.
  Everyone knows that policies are nothing without a strong public champion. Here are the figures we've watched shape the political landscape of the aughts: Nancy Pelosi : The San Francisco liberal who took control of the House. Al Gore : His post-Clinton reinvention. Markos Moulitsas : The founder ...
  
• The Decade in Liberalism: What Makes Us Liberals ( ...
  Sometimes the hardest part of politics is articulating exactly why you've picked the position you have. Here are our attempts to pin down what makes us liberals, and them, conservatives: We've toyed with the idea that liberals should walk away from an interest-group approach to politics . And dis ...
  
• The Decade in Liberalism: Defining the Agenda.
  The Prospect began 20 years ago with a mission to rethink ideas about public policy and thereby restore plausibility and persuasiveness to American Liberalism. Then it was a quarterly out of Princeton, New Jersey, now, it's a monthly with a lively Web site. Over the past decade, we've made a point ...
  
• The Year In: Economy.
  As the "Great Recession" dragged on, the unemployment rate climbed. Here are the top five articles explaining how we got into this situation and how we can get out of it: Through the debate over the bailouts, it seemed that every financial institution was "too big to fail." But when it comes to b ...
  
• The Year In: Afghanistan.
  During the 2008 presidential campaign, we argued that Barack Obama offered, "the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential contender in decades." This first year was his chance to show how it would affect the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are ...
  

Andy Worthington

• Why Obama Must Continue Releasing Yemenis From Gua ...
  The weekend before Christmas, 12 prisoners were released from Guantánamo. In two previous articles, I told the stories of six of these men — two Somalis and four Afghans — and in this final article I look at the stories of the six Yemenis who were also released. These releases were enormously impor ...
  
• Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo with Brad Fr ...
  On Tuesday, I was delighted to talk once more with Brad Friedman, muckraking citizen journalist and host of The Brad Blog, standing in for Mike Malloy on the progressive talk show out of Dallas, Texas. This was a 2 am start for me, but it’s always a pleasure to talk to Brad, and I’m happy that [...]
  
• Video: Q&A with Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghayes, Andy ...
  On October 21, at the launch of the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington) at the Cochrane Theatre in London, Spectacle, the production company, filmed the Q&A session following the screening, in which Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghaye ...
  
• An Interview With Andy Worthington About Guantánam ...
  Recently, Amelia King, an independent journalist and community activist based in Brighton, asked me for an interview by phone. Amelia recently created her own website and is beginning to publish online as a way of exploring her interest in human rights issues and sharing ideas through interviews and ...
  
• At Christmas, Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Is Reunited W ...
  On December 21, the following article, written by Kevin Cullen, was published by the Boston Globe. It brings up to date the story of Oybek Jabbarov, an innocent man from Uzbekistan, held in Guantánamo for nearly eight years, who was finally freed in September and given a new home in Ireland. As I re ...
  

Buzzflash

• Chris Matthews: Ritz-Carlton populist!
  by Steven C. Day Ever so rarely, like manna from heaven, the Gods of irony give us a gift, bringing a little light into our dreary lives. Such an occasion was there for all to behold on the Chris Matthews show Tuesday night. Chris had invited his wife , Kathleen Matthews — a surprisingly appealing p ...
  
• Hoping Real Change Will Show Up
  Body   As 2009 draws to a close many of the nation’s problems remain unresolved and real change has not been effected. Whatever the president’s intentions, a combination of the right’s concerted effort to stand in the way of whatever he proposed, the disastrous consequences of a deep rec ...
  
• Aggressively outing the owners of "fear and divisi ...
  Body Well, here we go again with Republicans' Olympic contemptibility, kicking off their predatory election year of 2010. For the last 10 months they've howled about federal intrusiveness; for the next 10 months they'll decry its absence. Pick a card, any hysteria card, and Republicans c ...
  
• Louise Slaughter Uses Powerful Position to Fight f ...
  WINGS OF JUSTICE Louise Slaughter Finding someone who says "Start over on the health care bill" is pretty easy to find. But the stance is a little braver when one of those people is the Chair of the House Rules Committee. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has stood up, asked for the current health care r ...
  
• Jacqueline Marcus: $360 Billion More For Military ...
  BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY by Jacqueline Marcus On December 27, Lesley Stahl on CBS' "60 Minutes" reported on California's severe drought crisis and how money for new water distribution planning is an absolute necessity for agriculture and cities. "Water is in short supply. You don't have to go to A ...
  

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

• They hate us for our freedoms
  National Review 's Cliff May, yesterday : A Bipartisan Proposal Step (1): Return all Gitmo detainees to Yemen. Step (2): Use Predator missiles to strike the baggage-claim area 20 minutes after they arrive. Just an idea. Virtually all of the 90 Yemeni detainees currently at Guantanamo have bee ...
  
• Fulfilling Al Qaeda's "warrior" wish
  It's so striking how often the agenda of America's Right and the desires of Al Qaeda Terrorists perfectly coincide.  The greatest gift one could give Terrorists is to fulfill their supreme wish:  to treat them ( i.e. , venerate them) as warriors -- enemy combatants -- rather than as what they are:  ...
  
• Craving terrorist melodrama
  As dumb as our political discourse typically is, it gets dumber by many magnitudes whenever there's a terrorism-related scare (of the Islamic variety).  From The Washington Pos t's editorial writer Jo-Ann Armao : Why is Obama still in Hawaii? President Obama wants us all to know he’s tak ...
  
• Making "Islam" synonymous with "terrorism"
  No matter how many times you see it, the capacity for people to believe what they want to believe, rather than what is actually true, is astounding -- and those who want to depict Islam as the ultimate evil seem to grant themselves special license to live that way: From Jeffrey Weiss, Politics Dail ...
  
• Karl Rove's belief in "traditional marriage" laws
  (updated below) Karl Rove is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, citing "5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage" as his justification.  He also famously engineered multiple referenda to incorporate a ban on same-sex marriage into various states' constitutions in 2004 ...
  

The BiPartisan Report

• Sheldon Whitehouse brings truth to the Senate floo ...
• 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

Sciencebase

• Intute hot topics in physical science
  Over on the Intute site in the physical sciences section you will find the December science news round up from yours truly: What’s the buzz at the LHC? – After a frustrating false start, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) finally got it up and running in its underground home at CERN on the Swiss-Frenc ...
  
• Five-step plan for green design
  I recently saw a research paper discussing the lack of tools for designers hoping to make their products greener, more environmentally benign, sustainable even. The paper focused more on the likes of coming up with a green espresso machine and offered a five-step scheme for getting the green creden ...
  
• Happy Solstice Event
  Wishing all readers, commenters, contacts, fellow tweeps and scientwists, Facebook fans, and friends everywhere a happy mid-seasonal, solstice feast event from sciencebase.com… …I couldn’t just say Happy Christmas could I? It’s not as if it’s scientifically possible to reconcile a belief in any arc ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

• Freedom to Marry Celebrates a Remarkable Year
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 31, 2009 Freedom to Marry 2009 was the winningest year yet in the movement to achieve the freedom to marry for gay couples, a year which once again showed that momentum is on the side of equality.  More legislatures than ever discussed the need to end the exclusion of ...
  
• Waging Class Warfare - The Rich Win Again
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 31, 2009 United for a Fair Economy On New Year's Day, the estate tax, which has been part of the US tax system for nearly 100 years, will disappear due to the failure of the Senate to pass an extension in December. Now, Congressional leaders are pledging to act in earl ...
  
• United States: End Detention of Refugees for Failu ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 29, 2009 Human Rights Watch US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arbitrarily detains refugees and holds them indefinitely for failing to meet paperwork requirements, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. People who have already been accepted as refugees ...
  
• CSPI Urges FDA Crackdown on False & Misleading Foo ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 29, 2009 CSPI Can orange juice really help prevent or treat arthritis? That's the implication on the label of a Minute Maid orange juice fortified with glucosamine hydrochloride "designed to help protect healthy joints." And it's exactly the kind of misleading health c ...
  
• Federal Study: Manatee Death Rate Is Seven Times S ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 29, 2009 Center for Biological Diversity The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized new stock assessments for manatees that puts the population of Florida manatees at about 3,800 and a Puerto Rico population at 72. The stock-assessment reports resulted from settl ...
  

Common Dreams-Views

• The Real Top Ten Stories of the Past Decade
  by Robert Freeman The media are awash with talking heads bloviating about the top stories of the last decade.  The wired-in society.  The growth of organic food.  The new frugality.  This is the ritual that reveals their true function in the culture:  pacification.  It's their way of signaling t ...
  
• Nuclear Hero’s 'Crime' Was Making Us Safer
  by Daniel Ellsberg Mordechai Vanunu — my friend, my hero, my brother — has again been arrested in Israel on "suspicion" of the "crime" of "meeting with foreigners." I myself have been complicit in this offense, traveling twice to Israel for the express purpose of meeting with him, openly, and expre ...
  
• Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?
  by Ray McGovern In the past I have alluded to Panetta and the Seven Dwarfs .  The reference is to CIA Director Leon Panetta and seven of his moral-dwarf predecessors-the ones who sent President Barack Obama a letter on Sept. 18 asking him to "reverse Attorney General Holder's August 24 decision to r ...
  
• Nine Ways Our World Changed During the ‘00s
  by Sarah van Gelder What was the decade of the '00s about? What trends showed up in the last 10 years that will set the stage for the '10s? The following nine trends are a snapshot of some of the driving forces we're dealing with now at the turn of the decade. In my next column, I write about the 12 ...
  
• A New Year's Dream for the Health Reform Effort
  by Donna Smith With all this talk of healthcare reform, we all might be forgiven for imagining that our experiences as patients might be looking up as 2010 dawns. Our reality is that we'll still be in the most weakened position of any of the parties involved in the U.S. healthcare system. We are f ...
  

Karl Burkart

• Glowing wallpaper could replace the bulb
  What incandescents did for the oil lamp, OLED wallpaper may do for the light bulb.
  
• 2010 may be Finland's breakthrough year in cleante ...
  Technology pundit Shawn Lesser identifies 11 breakthrough companies in Finland's expanding cleantech sector.
  
• EcoSnoop on polluters via iPhone
  EcoSnoop starts a new class of vigilante green apps for the iPhone.
  
• Shop for good karma
  New iPhone app lets you check into nearby stores, and check out with a stash of 'karma points.'
  
• Highlights from Copenhagen
  Video clips from the great Copenhagen march for the climate.
  

Water Privatization

• Top stories of 2009: Killings, 901 Sherman, sewage ...
  January The Novato City Council began consideration of the Marin Energy Authority, a joint powers authority created by county supervisors in November 2008. The council must decide whether to join MEA as part of the Marin Clean Energy initiative.
  
• 2009 provided no shortage of highs and lows in Ric ...
  Looking back on 2009, it is no surprise that the state of the economy dictated most of the year's headlines. Issues such as mass layoffs, budget problems, stimulus projects and even crimes can all be traced back to the faltering economy. Despite the tough financial times, many annual events went off ...
  
• Censored (San Antonio Current)
  For 31 yearsProjectCensoredhas beencompiling a list of the major stories that the nation’s news media have ignored, misreported, or poorly covered.
  
• Top stories of 2009: Killings, 901 Sherman, sewage ...
  January The Novato City Council began consideration of the Marin Energy Authority, a joint powers authority created by county supervisors in November 2008. The council must decide whether to join MEA as part of the Marin Clean Energy initiative.
  
• 2009 provided no shortage of highs and lows in Ric ...
  Looking back on 2009, it is no surprise that the state of the economy dictated most of the year's headlines. Issues such as mass layoffs, budget problems, stimulus projects and even crimes can all be traced back to the faltering economy. Despite the tough financial times, many annual events went off ...
  

Guardian

• Moore was 'certainly' held in Iran, says Petraeus
  Military commander confirms US intelligence claiming British hostage, released in Iraq this week, was detained in Iran General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, today confirmed a US intelligence assessment which said the freed British hostage Peter Moore was "certainly" held in Iran fo ...
  
• Suicide bomb kills 70 in Pakistan
  Explosion near north-western town of Lakki Marwat may be retaliation for citizens trying to push out militants A suicide bomber has killed at least 70 people at a volleyball tournament near the north-west Pakistan town of Lakki Marwat as militants hit back at a government offensive against the Pakis ...
  
• PM orders review of airport security
  Full-body scanners to be considered after 'wake-up call' of failed Christmas Day airline bombing Gordon Brown has said the UK will "move quickly" to improve airport security, including looking at the use of full-body scanners, after the "wake-up call" of the failed Christmas Day airline bombing .The ...
  
• British soldier killed in Afghanistan
  The number of British soldiers killed in the conflict since 2001 now stands at 245, including 108 in 2009 A British soldier has been killed after an explosion in Afghanistan's Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence said today .The soldier, who has not yet been named, was from 33 Engineer Regiment ...
  
• Pictures of the decade
  Guardian and Observer photographer Tom Jenkins looks back at his best pictures of the last ten years Tom Jenkins
  

McClatchey

• Undocumented children pin hopes on revival of DREA ...
  MIAMI -- Jes�s and Guillermo Reyes were 11 and 15 when their family arrived from Venezuela in 2000. Walter Lara was 3 years old when his parents left Argentina in 1989. Gaby Pacheco was 7 when she came from Ecuador with her parents in 1993. And Juan and Alex G�mez were just toddlers when their famil ...
  
• Commentary: Mortgage holders deserve a lifeline
  Entering the new year, California continues to be the blue lagoon for the mortgage mess. It is one of five states leading the nation in "underwater" mortgages, where the value of a home is less than what the homeowner owes on the mortgage. That situation extends the housing meltdown to homeowners wi ...
  
• Hmong leaders seek help from Obama
  National Hmong leaders in Fresno are asking President Barack Obama to intervene on behalf of 4,500 Hmong who were forcibly repatriated from Thailand to Laos this week.
  
• Commentary: Alaska must look beyond oil
  What's ahead in the next decade? As a practical matter, we assume tomorrow will look pretty much like today. Until tomorrow shocks us into a new kind of thinking. In a recent speech to the Resource Development Council, Dr. Scott Goldsmith explored the economic changes coming to Alaska, and those tha ...
  
• University of Kansas Medical Center cited for viol ...
  The University of Kansas Medical Center has been cited for about 160 violations of federal animal protection laws during experiments at university laboratories.
  

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

• 2010: Intruders on a biodiverse year?
  In a somewhat dank and dreary London back garden, I've just been watching grey squirrels carrying off and eating bits of stale Christmas cake that we'd left out for them and the birds. If we'd been quick enough with the camera, it would have made a fantastic picture, with the bushy-tailed squirrel ...
  
• Best wishes from a white land
  Just a quick note, today, to say "best wishes" to everyone about to celebrate Christmas or some other winter festival. Here in London, it's been refreshing (in more ways than one!) to see snow on the ground and kids out playing in it - a reminder of childhood days. For me, it's time to put the lap ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Afghanistan Sun

• Service member dies; More civilian deaths claimed ...
  (IDM) KABUL (AP) — NATO says a U.S. service member has died in eastern Afghanistan but the injuries were not combat-related.NATO also says it's investigating another claim of civilian deaths after...
  
• UK bomb disposal expert killed in Afghanistan
  END: Module - M24 Article Headline with landscape image (d) --> BEGIN: Module - Main Article --> An Army bomb disposal expert has died from injuries he received in an explosion while...
  
• British soldier killed in Afghanistan
  the Ministry of Defence said today .The soldier, who has not yet been named, was from 33 Engineer Regiment and part of a taskforce working to counter improvised explosive devices (IED). He died yester...
  
• Tributes pour in for Taliban blast victims
  Four soldiers and a journalist were killed in an IED blast on Wednesday. The soldiers have been identified. From top left; Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28, based in Yarmouth, N.S., Sgt. George Miok, 28, based in...
  
• Tributes pour in for Taliban blast victims
  Four soldiers and a journalist were killed in an IED blast on Wednesday. The soldiers have been identified. From top left; Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28, based in Yarmouth, N.S., Sgt. George Miok, 28, based in...
  

Futurismic

• BOOK REVIEW: Booklife, by Jeff VanderMeer
  Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer Tachyon Publications, November 2009; 330pp; US$14.95 RRP – ISBN13: 9781892391902 There are dozens – possibly even hundreds – of books out there that purport to tell you how to be a writer. I should know, as I think I’ve read most of them, from the general guides to cr ...
  
• Happy new year!
  By the time this post goes live, I (and doubtless most other Brits) will be preparing to celebrate the turning of another year… so I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank you all for following Futurismic in 2009, and to wish you all a great 2010. The new year promises – by pretty much [...] Pr ...
  
• This monkey’s gone to heaven
  I had to agree with Jay Lake when he Tweeted that ‘Any article with the line “Any monkeys sent into space will be supervised by robots.” is totally FTW’. [image by kiewic] And here is that article… which is actually just a short post on the Freakonomics blog pointing to a longer piece at the Telegra ...
  
• What will reading look like in 2010?
  Well, it’s been a lively year for changes in the publishing industry, hasn’t it? This time last year, I wrote a post titled 2009 – the year the physical bookstore lays down and dies? – and over here in the UK, Borders has just gone into receivership, a few days before Amazon claimed to have [...] ...
  
• Climate change might not starve us after all
  In the hugely polarised sphere of debate around climate change, there are a few thinkers who float outside the two core camps of belief and skepticism. One of those would be Brian Wang, who seems pretty convinced that AGW is a genuine phenomenon, but who also thinks it’s not going to be an unmitigat ...
  

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

• Recovery.gov whistleblower poster misses key detai ...
  The federal government has released a new poster that employers have to post to their employees if they are receiving stimulus money. The new poster, however, is missing a few key details whistleblowers should know. For example, if a whistleblower wants to know where to file a complaint, the governm ...
  
• Passing the buck and covering the butt in middle m ...
  Washington attorney, former prosecutor and former SEC enforcer Dan Hurson has written an article of advice for middle managers who become targets of internal corporate investigations.  It is called, Memo to Middle Management: How to Avoid Becoming Road Kill In a Corporate Internal Investigation . H ...
  
• A beautiful quote on employer pretexts
  My friend Paul Taylor of the Truckers Justice Center shares this beautiful quote that I will be using in briefs for my clients: "Today’s employers, even those with only a scintilla of sophistication, will neither admit discriminatory or retaliatory intent, nor leave a well-developed trail demonstra ...
  
• DC court says confidentiality agreement goes too f ...
  Judge Joan Zeldon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has denied a preliminary injunction sought by the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). In doing so, she found that the agreement, and the employer's attempt to enforce it, went too far. Mary Moran sued the football ...
  
• FAA suppressed whistleblower on near misses at New ...
  Air traffic controller Ray Adams put aviation safety ahead of his own career when he blew the whistle on near misses on the runways of Newark Airport in New Jersey. NJ.com reports that when Adams raised concerns about how runway intersections at Newark posed a risk of collision, he was removed from ...
  

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

• NHL Standouts Pack Swedish, Finnish Rosters for 20 ...
  The rosters for Sweden’s and Finland’s men’s Olympic ice hockey teams, the gold and silver medalists at the 2006 Turin Olympics, read like a who’s-who of National Hockey League stars.
  
• Canadian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Identified
  The Department of National Defense (DND) in Canada today identified the four soldiers who were killed in an IED incident on Wednesday, December 29th, 2009, which also claimed the life of Calgary-based reporter Michelle Lang.
  
• 2009 Canadian Law Blog Awards Announced
  The 2009 CLawBie Awards, presented to Canada's leading Law Blogs (or blawgs, if you prefer), were announced today at www.clawbies.ca.
  
• Pacquiao Will Echo Powell's Olympic Blood Testing ...
  Pacquiao's claim that blood testing will weaken him days before the fight is not without precedence. The great Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell was visibly upset with the Olympic drug testing procedure before competing in the men's 100-metre final.
  
• Canadian Firm May Keep the Name Groovle
  Google versus Groovle. The National Arbitration Forum of Canada has ruled that the two names have too little in common to represent a conflict
  

End Homelessness | Change.org

• The 5 Most Shocking Homelessness Stories of 2009
  The end of the year is nigh, but there's still time for one more reflection. These stories grabbed our attention, tugged at our heartstrings, and made us pay attention to the plight of those living without a home in 2009. Yes, these stories will disturb you. But hopefully, they'll make us resolve to ...
  
• The 10 Most Notable Homelessness Stories of 2009
  The economic recession made homelessness a hot topic in 2009. It seemed every day there was a story about shelter bed shortages, record numbers of school children, or a new tent city popping up. But which stories stood out the most? Change.org has scoured the headlines and trends to compile the 10 m ...
  
• Top 5 Ridiculous Homelessness Stories in 2009
  When it comes to homelessness, there are plenty of stories to make you sad, get you angry, or make you think. But this list is all about the ridiculous. The year 2009 was chock full of ridiculous homelessness moments. Whether it was thwarted attempts to "raise awareness", couture homelessness fashio ...
  
• Knitting Group Knocks Down Stereotypes
  A recent story in the Boston Globe intended to be a saccharine human interest gloss on homelessness might actually, and quite indirectly, do something more than warm hearts. Reporter Milton Valencia covered the experiences of the homeless members of a  knitting group at a medical respite shelter in ...
  
• Waiting for Section 8
  Karen is waiting for a Section 8 inspection to move into a new residence. Unfortunately, in the mean time, she's staying on the streets. And it's been three weeks so far. She's feeling the pain and frustration of living amongst drug-users and drug-dealers as she tries to enter into a new phase of he ...
  

Ceasefire.ca

• PM prorogues Parliament
  Prime Minister Stephen Harper went ahead with his much-anticipated plan to prorogue Parliament on Wednesday, shutting down the operations of the House of Commons and Senate until March 3rd. The prorogation will have the effect of preventing parliamentary discussion of the detainee torture scandal fo ...
  
• We want to hear from you! Take our survey
  Survey results (so far)
  
• Moens warns of “existentialist” threat
  Simon Fraser University professor Alexander Moens warns in a new paper published by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute that Canada and its NATO allies face an “existentialist threat”. But, no, the problem apparently is not that Jean-Paul Sartre or one of the other existentialists has ...
  
• Military spending “cuts” underway?
  David Pugliese reports that “the Canadian military is looking for savings of more than $190 million by March to help pay for the Harper government’s defence strategy.” The Army is reportedly looking at an $80-million cutback, while the Navy is facing a $52-million cut and the Air Force is facing a $ ...
  
• Treatment of prisoners not Roman problem: Pilate
  Perhaps inspired by the Christmas season, Prime Minister Harper has reached back into biblical history for a new answer to the torture allegations dogging his government. Channelling the infamous Roman governor of Judea, the Prime Minister argued earlier this week that if Canadians hand detainees ov ...
  

Kevin Trudeau Show

• The Kevin Trudeau Show: 12-30-09
  Today, Kevin explains why Barack Obama decided to declare a state of emergency and what it means to you. Plus, get the secrets they don’t want you to know about… Cure Illness & Disease Boost Your Immune System Get Free Coral Calcium Celebrity Endorsement Scam Plus, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and ...
  
• The Kevin Trudeau Show: 12-29-09
  Today, Kevin gives you his recession survival tips and ways to avoid the toxins that are giving you cancer. Suzanne Somers stops by to expose the truth behind improving your health to avoid and cure cancer without the use of chemotherapy! Plus, The Amazing Kreskin reveals the secret to being the wor ...
  
• Second Man Detained For Detroit Flight Bombing
  December 30, 2009 M.live.com By Sheena Harrison A person was detained by customs at Detroit Metro Airport on Friday following Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s alleged attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, according to a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It is unknown why the person was ...
  
• GMAC To Get $3.5 Billion More In Government Aid
  December 30, 2009 Reuters The announcement is expected within days, the source said, speaking anonymously because the talks have been private. GMAC has already received $12.5 billion in aid from the U.S. government since December 2008. News of the potential capital infusion lowered the cost of prote ...
  
• Secret Mobile Phone Code Cracked
  December 30, 2009 Financial Times By Maija Palmer Computer hackers this week said they had cracked and published the secret code that protects 80 per cent of the world’s mobile phones. The move will leave more than 3bn people vulnerable to having their calls intercepted, and could force mobile phone ...
  

Pambazuka News

• US: System owes Troy Davis another day in court
  It is wrong to execute an innocent man. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will now consider whether it is constitutional. Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murder, is asking the courts to hear evidence that key government witnesses have r...
  
• Caribbean: Civil society demands Haiti debt cancel ...
  Organizations representing Caribbean civil society organizations and social movements have written to G8 finance ministers, the World Bank, and the IMF, to demand an immediate and unconditional cancellation of Haiti's external debt....
  
• USA: Uhuru movement endorses McKinney/Clemente tic ...
  The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) has endorsed the McKinney/Clemente ticket in the U.S. presidential race. The endorsement was based on the support that Green Party V.P. candidate Rosa Clemente’s expressed for InPDUM’s “Re...
  
• Haiti: Women and girls require life-saving assista ...
  More than 800,000 people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Haiti in the wake of hurricanes Fay and Gustav and tropical storm Hanna. Houses, medical facilities, main roads and bridges have been destroyed, and an estimated 100,000 people h...
  
• Haiti: Lula visit prompts protests in Brazil, Mex ...
  Demonstrators in many Brazilian cities and San Francisco denounced Brazil's brutal 4-year military occupation of Haiti -- on the occasion of the May 28th visit to Haiti by Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, marking the 4th anniversary of the arr...
  

War in Context

• YEAR IN REVIEW: When will it be our time?
  YEAR IN REVIEW: When will it be our time? By Mustafa Barghouti, New York Times, December 16, 2009 I have lived my entire adult life under occupation, with Israelis holding ultimate control over my movement and daily life. When young Israeli police officers force me to sit on the cold ground and sold ...
  
• YEAR IN REVIEW: To beat al Qaeda, look to the east
  YEAR IN REVIEW: To beat al Qaeda, look to the east By Scott Atran, New York Times, December 13, 2009 Al Qaeda’s main focus is harming the United States and Europe, but there hasn’t been a successful attack in these places directly commanded by Osama bin Laden and company since 9/11. The American inv ...
  
• YEAR IN REVIEW: Obama’s bloody re-election calculu ...
  YEAR IN REVIEW: Obama’s bloody re-election calculus By Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, Foreign Policy, December 10, 2009 Obama’s new “strategy” is no strategy at all. It is a cynical and politically motivated rehash of Iraq policy: Toss in a few more troops, throw together something resemblin ...
  
• YEAR IN REVIEW: The European minaret-missile threa ...
  YEAR IN REVIEW: The European minaret-missile threat By Paul Woodward, War in Context, November 29, 2009 Bigotry is on the rise in “the westerly excrescence of the continent of Asia.” That unpoetic but topographically-precise description of Europe comes from the Oxford archeologist, Barry Cunliffe. W ...
  
• GAZA UPDATE
  A taboo question for Israelis By Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, December 30, 2009 There’s a question we Israelis won’t ask ourselves about the Palestinians, especially not about Gaza. The question is taboo. Not only won’t anyone ask it out loud, but very, very few people will dare ask it in the priv ...
  

Watts Up With That?

• A new month, new year, new decade, and a new recor ...
  Not much to say, except “thanks”. The graph tells the story. Happy New Year to all!
  
• Climate, Caution, and Precaution
  Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach One of the arguments frequently applied to the climate debate is that the “Precautionary Principle” requires that we take action to reduce CO2. However, this is a misunderstanding of the Precautionary Principle, which means something very different from the kind of ca ...
  
• G. P. Bear goes to Washington: part 7
  By Bill Steigerwald “Abraham, Martin & Grandpa” WASHINGTON, D.C. Grandpa was afraid their special glasses weren’t working properly and the police officers could tell they were polar bears, so he yelled from the sidewalk. “Hello, officer. We’re visiting from out of town. Do you know if there’s a Wal ...
  
• NASA -vs- NASA: which temperature anomaly map to b ...
  Readers may recall yesterday where I posted this stunning image of cold for Europe and Russia for mid December 2009 from the NASA NEO MODIS satellite imager. Deadly Cold Across Europe and Russia Click image above to enlarge or download large image (3 MB, JPEG) acquired December 11 – 18, 2009 In ...
  
• Ultimate irony: Snowstorm squelches “screami ...
  And yet…it was claimed to be a “success”. Note to organizers: the media is laughing at you. Snowstorm squelches climate change protest By Judy Fahys, The Salt Lake Tribune Updated: 12/30/2009 06:36:58 PM MST A downtown [Salt Lake City] protest of the climate change talks in Copenhagen became a vict ...
  

Dandelion Salad

• Q&A with Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghayes, Andy Worthin ...
  by Andy Worthington Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.andyworthington.co.uk 1 January 2010 On October 21, at the launch of the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington) at the Cochrane Theatre in London, Spectacle, the product ...
  
• Breaking With Obama? by Ralph Nader
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ by Ralph Nader The Nader Page Dec. 31, 2009 Those long-hoping, long-enduring members of the liberal intelligentsia are starting to break away from the least-worst mindset that muted their criticisms of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. They still ...
  
• Free Palestine – End the Seige Protests in C ...
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ Shoeless in Cairo by Mary Hughes-Thompson, part of the GFM convoy that has been trying to get into Gaza. Freegaza 01 January 2010 In about an hour the Gaza Freedom Marchers in Cairo will be meeting in Tahrir Square to celebrate the beginning of 2010. January 1s ...
  
• President Obama and the Democratic Leadership Coun ...
  by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH Featured Writer Dandelion Salad crossposted on Buzzflash.com Jan. 1, 2010 This Commentary is based in part on one of the same name by me that appeared on TPJmagazine on December 20, 2009. Many of us on the Left, whether the Democratic Party Left or the Real Left, are becom ...
  
• Egypt Approves Gaza Freedom March Passage, Viva Pa ...
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ h/t and thanks to William Bowles at Creative-i By Haitham Sabbah http://palestinethinktank.com Dec 29th, 2009 In a press conference conducted earlier this evening, the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit announced some threats, warnings, surprises as w ...
  

Your New Reality

• No title
  2010, According To The BBC A summary of the stories BBC World correspondents believe will be the big headline grabbers of 2010 : * World Cup, South Africa. * Iran, and the fall of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. * Israel's reluctance to make peace with Palestinians, Syria, and what they will do ab ...
  
• No title
  It's funny because it's true :
  
• No title
  Film critic Roger Ebert has a fantastic collection of the Best Movie Posters Of The Decade . I can't go past this one from 2002 : The Rest Are Here
  
• No title
  Execution Of 'Morality Criminals' Now Up For Debate At The BBC But Why? By Darryl Mason Call me paranoid, but this most curious online commentbait by the BBC would be a great way for data-mining police and intelligence agencies, 'hacking' BBC online, to get hold of the ISPs of those who do thi ...
  
• No title
  Nature Reclaims Abandoned Disney River Country Park This is how Disney World's River Country looked up until it closed at the end of 2001, and how it looks now . Abandone River Country photos by TCD. More Here There is something so haunting about abandoned amusement parks. Why ar ...
  

Wired - Science

• Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2009
  > With so many incredible scientific advances and discoveries this year, Wired Science had a tough time choosing which 10 were the biggest. So, we went with the ones that stood out for us. From the amazing collective power of jellyfish, to a new human ancestor, to a canc ...
  
• 2009’s Sleepy Sun Finally Woke Up in December
  2009 will go down as the sun’s third quietest year on record, outpaced only by 1913 and last year. 260 of the year’s 365 days (72 percent) were sunspotless. 2008 saw 266 sunspotless days, while the sun had no spots on 311 of the days in 1913. It was only a very active December that kept [...]
  
• NASA Narrows Robotic Missions to Three Contenders
  NASA on Tuesday selected three candidates to be the agency’s next cheap, robotic exploration mission. Depending on which wins, a probe will head for Venus, the moon, or a near-earth object no later than 2018. The latter two missions would include the return of samples, while the Venusian lander wo ...
  
• Sharks, Zombies, Weird Clouds: The Most Popular St ...
  > This has been Wired Science’s most successful year, by far. We like to think this is the result of a combination of your excellent taste and our efforts to learn what you like to read. We have often joked that the perfect Wired Science story is about robot sharks with ...
  
• How Algal Biofuels Lost a Decade in the Race to Re ...
  For nearly 20 years, a government laboratory built a living, respiring library of carefully collected organisms in search of something that could grow quickly while producing something precious: oil. But now that collection has largely been lost. National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists foun ...
  

Israeli Occupation Archive

• Gaza’s writing on the wall
  [W]hen it comes to the Israeli occupied and blockaded Gaza Strip, local government not only tolerates graffiti, but actually provides workshops on how artists can improve their technique. The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now in its fif ...
  
• Tom Segev: The Makings of History / Names befittin ...
  Like many of the names that Israel assigned to the new streets in the eastern part of [Jerusalem], the militaristic names that the rapid-transit stops are supposed to bear reflect the situation... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now i ...
  
• Protests held against Gaza siege
  Activists, both from Gaza and abroad, have held demonstrations on either side of an Israeli border crossing to the Palestinian territory, protesting against its continued siege by Israel. The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now in its fif ...
  
• Current Video Selection – updated 31 Dec 2009
  A selection of video clips: news, history, the arts, and more. The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now in its fifth decade. Go to the IOA website for much more...
  
• Josh Stump: Gaza Freedom March Madness – Day Three
  Cairo is currently experiencing civil disobedience, Western style... The fight is now with the Egyptian government and, according to Code Pink, their own embassies’ intransigence. The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now in its fifth decad ...
  

Ria Novosti - Military

• CIA chief confirms deaths of 7 agents in Afghanist ...
  CIA chief Leon Panetta has confirmed in an official statement that seven CIA operatives were killed and six others wounded in a recent terrorist attack in eastern Afghanistan.
  
• N. Korea urges dialogue on nuclear-free Korean Pen ...
  North Korea stressed dialogue in improving relations with the United States as a key step toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula in a New Year's message on Friday
  
• Russia's Nerpa sub passes final trials
  Russia's Nerpa nuclear attack submarine, damaged in a fatal accident during tests in November last year, has successfully passed final trials.
  
• Russia eyes new arms markets in Asia-Pacific regio ...
  Russia is planning to strengthen its positions as a key supplier of weaponry in the Asia-Pacific region by seeking new customers at a major arms show in Malaysia, state arms exporter Rosoboronexport has said.
  
• Iran's nuclear program
  
  

NewsWise

• Top Ten Evolution/Creationism Stories of the Year
  Darwin celebrated; evolution still under attack. The Year in Review.
  
• Nominations Wanted for Jacobson Award for Physicia ...
  The Vascular Disease Foundation is seeking nominations for the 2010 Julius H. Jacobson II Award for Physician Excellence.
  
• For Depressed Workers, Stress on Job Lowers Produc ...
  Psychological stress at the office -- or wherever people earn their paychecks -- can make it more difficult for depressed workers to perform their jobs and be productive.
  
• Ginkgo Biloba Does Not Appear to Slow Rate of Cogn ...
  Older adults who used the herbal supplement Ginkgo biloba for several years did not have a slower rate of cognitive decline compared to adults who received placebo, according to a study in the December 23/30 issue of JAMA
  
• Findings Suggest Cardiovascular Devices Often Appr ...
  Pre-market approval by the FDA of cardiovascular devices is often based on studies that lack adequate strength or may have been prone to bias, according to a study in the December 23/30 issue of JAMA. The researchers found that of nearly 80 high-risk devices, the majority received approval based on ...
  

Intel Trends

• IntelTrends 01-JAN-2010
  PRC: Assassination attempt thwarted Ma'an, 01 Jan Gaza: An unidentified man carried bags of explosives to the office of the Popular Resistance Committees Secretary General Abu Al-Qasem Dughmush, but the bag failed to detonate, a statement from the party said Friday. No military solution to Afghan c ...
  
• Statement by the Gorran Movement about their conce ...
  [ Blogmaster note :  The following statement is from the Gorran Movement (Movement for Change) - a political party active in Iraqi Kurdistan. The statement warns of a "possibility of an outbreak of civil war within the Sulaymani area".] A statement by The Gorran Movement about their concerns of Ter ...
  
• CIA Agents assassinated in Afghanistan worked for ...
  [ Blogmaster note :  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).] CIA Agents assassi ...
  
• Official CIA Statement on Casualties in Afghanista ...
  The following statement was released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) this date. Statement on CIA Casualties in Afghanistan Source:  Central Intelligence Agency December 31, 2009 CIA Director Leon E. Panetta informed the Agency workforce today that seven of their colleagues were killed ...
  
• IntelTrends 31-DEC-2009
  U.S. Embassy Notice to Americans / Warden Message: Bali Warning U.S. Embassy, 31 Dec U.S. Embassy Jakarta publishes warning of possible terrorist attack this date. Chinese admiral floats idea of overseas bases Reuters, 31 Dec A Chinese rear admiral has urged the nation to set up navy supply bases o ...
  

Organic Consumers.org

• Obama EPA Wants Farmers to Spread Toxic Coal Waste ...
  The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time. Click here to read this article
  
• Corporate Agribusiness Helps Scuttle Climate Justi ...
  Not up for debate in Copenhagen was the fact that industrial agriculture is one of the leading culprits behind the climate crisis. Agriculture accounts for an estimated 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Genetically engineered corn and soybeans now dominate the Midwest landscape, requirin ...
  
• Sick of Corporate Control Over Your Food?
  When a market is competitive, everyone wins. Businesses that can innovate or grow more efficient rise to the top while consumers get the best products for the best price. However, when one (or a few) corporations gain too much power over the m
  
  • arket, those benefits go away. Think about it – if there ...
    
  • Farming Friendly Methods Take Care of Human Waste ...
    Two recent articles from Interpress Service on the innovative ways human waste is being dealt with in Zambia and Uruguay without the use of western "sewage treatment." Click here to read this article
    
  • The Slow Food, "Slow Money" Movement May Revolutio ...
    In an economy structured around industrial agriculture, sustaining small farms can be a challenge. 'Slow money' economics could be the answer. Click here to read this article
    
    
    
    SideBar Search
    
    
    

    To Do

    renewable recycling conservation

    Construction Complete on Iberdrola Renewables' North Dakota Wind Project

    EnergyOnline

    - Dec 31, 2009

    - 19 hours ago

    LCG, December 30, 2009--Iberdrola Renewables yesterday announced that construction of the Rugby Wind Power Project is complete. The $300 million project has ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Displacement is the new Climate Change Policy

    Examiner.com

    - Dec 31, 2009

    - 18 hours ago

    They plan on radically increasing the amount of energy that they will produce from renewable resources (wind, solar, and even nuclear) but will not agree to ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    BLM Fast-Tracks Renewable Energy Projects

    Renew Grid

    - Dec 31, 2009

    - Dec 31, 2009

    The 31 renewable energy projects are advanced enough in the permitting process that they could potentially be cleared for approval by December 2010, ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Biofuel plants idled by loss of tax credit

    Houston Chronicle

    - Jan 01, 2010

    - 6 hours ago

    By BRETT CLANTON Late Thursday night, as most prepared to ring in the new year, Renewable Biofuels was joylessly preparing to halt production at its giant ...

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    powered by

    

    Human Habitat

    ecology water energy

    State proposes lifting moratorium on Kittitas wells

    Seattle Times

    - Dec 30, 2009

    - Dec 30, 2009

    The state Department of Ecology is proposing to allow new groundwater withdrawals in central Washington's upper Kittitas County, a move that would enable ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Dust: Tiny particles with a big impact

    Kansas City Star

    - Dec 30, 2009

    - Dec 30, 2009

    ... who co-wrote a paper, "The Ecology of Dust," that was published in the latest edition of the journal Frontiers of Ecology and Environment. ...

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Mackenzie panel report draws praise, criticism

    CBC.ca

    - Jan 01, 2010

    - 2 hours ago

    That pleases environmental groups, including Ecology North. "Without a national framework for greenhouse gas emission reductions, there's no guarantee that ...

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Ecology comes first in Russian Caspian oil search

    RT

    - Jan 01, 2010

    - 2 hours ago

    Russia's first Caspian Sea oil rig has started operations in a major project for Lukoil, where environmental issues are in focus. Oil revenues is one of the ...

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    powered by

    

    Water Power

    water floods pollution

    Shore is a hotbed of cold-water plunging

    Philadelphia Inquirer

    - Jan 01, 2010

    - 2 hours ago

    Other Shore towns have scheduled their cold-water fund-raisers for later in the winter. Throughout the region, charities such as the Alzheimer's Association ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Storms haven't broken drought

    Modesto Bee

    - Jan 01, 2010

    - 7 hours ago

    It was at 86 percent of average in the central part of the range Thursday, up from 84 percent Tuesday, the California Department of Water Resources reported ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    EPA questions New York state plan to drill for shale gas

    Reuters

    - Dec 31, 2009

    - 22 hours ago

    "EPA has serious reservations about whether gas drilling in the New York City watershed is consistent with the vision of high-quality unfiltered water ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010

    Yearly Monterey Peninsula water storage effort begins

    Monterey County Herald

    - Jan 01, 2010

    - 8 hours ago

    By DANIEL LOPEZ The annual winter effort to store water from the Carmel River for use during dry periods on the Peninsula is under way. ...

    Related Articles »

    clipped from Google - 1/2010