27 Jan - RSS SnapShot!

Feeds Update From Opit's LinkFest! at My Opera Community

IPS - Inter Press Services

• HONDURAS: Lobo Sworn In; Zelaya Heads into Exile
  TEGUCIGALPA, Jan 27 (IPS) - Porfirio Lobo, who was sworn in Wednesday as president of Honduras, urged the people of his country and the international community to "forget the past" and move ahead towards reconciliation.
  
• US-IRAN: Sanctions, "Regime Change" Take Centre S ...
  WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (IPS) - With the Senate set to take up major sanctions legislation against Iran by mid-February, neo-conservative and other hawks are calling on the administration of President Barack Obama to pursue a more aggressive course of "regime change" in Tehran.
  
• IRAQ: Kurdish Leader Voices Indirect Support for ...
  WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (IPS) - The president of Iraq's Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, has expressed indirect support for the removal of Salih al-Mutlak and possibly other Sunni Arab politicians from a list of candidates banned from running in the March parliamentary elections.
  
• WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Crisis Could Usher In Another ...
  PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 27 (IPS) - In the societies of the future, young people may not start to work until the age of 25, there will be lifelong education for everyone, with university graduation as the starting point rather than the end goal, while working hours could be reduced to 12 ho ...
  
• POLITICS: U.N. Faulted for Toothless Sanctions in ...
  UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 (IPS) - The United Nations estimates that at least 40 percent of civil wars during the last 60 years have been fought either over natural resources - including diamonds, gold, timber, oil, gas, and cocoa - or sustained by revenues from rich minerals and commodities.
  

Scoop - NZ

• Expert help just a click away
  Kiwis can now acess the expertise of Doctors, Computer Experts, Mechanics, Vets, Electricians and other experts from a click of their mouse. By visiting www.AskNow.co.nz questions can be asked directly to verified experts and answers received within an hour, sometimes even sooner. "Ask Now allows ...
  
• The Billionaire Running Chile
  A right-wing businessman was elected president of Chile this week, flouting the region's recent shift to the left. Antonio Castillo analyses the victory of Sebastián Piñera If you are planning a holiday in Chile this year, it's likely you'll fly with an airline owned by the newly elected Chilean p ...
  
• Rare warbler found in Afghanistan
  Scientists say they have for the first time discovered a breeding site for the world's least-known bird species. Little is known about the large-billed reed warbler, but researchers have found a thriving flock of the birds in a remote corner of Afghanistan. Robert Timmins from the US based Wildlif ...
  
• The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check No ...
  An expert warns about access to Facebook by strangers.  »  PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews
  
• A moving video from Copenhagen
  In this video below Tom Smith, a twenty-year old member of the UKYCC delegation that went to the climate summit, walks us through the final hours of the talks. He describes talking with a Bolivian delegate who came up to him at a protest outside the conference center and said while Copenhagen had no ...
  

Independent ( London )

• King Eric falls flat on his back as stage debut dr ...
  As A footballer, Eric Cantona was a great player and a great actor. You could not remove your eyes from the theatrical presence of the strutting man in the upturned collar and the number 7 shirt. As a film actor, Cantona has learned to be passable, even good, so long as he plays, broadly speaking, ...
  
• Cantona's stage debut is game of two halves - both ...
  As A footballer, Eric Cantona was a great player and a great actor. You could not remove your eyes from the theatrical presence of the strutting man in the upturned collar and the number 7 shirt. As a film actor, Cantona has learned to be passable, even good, so long as he plays, broadly speaking, ...
  
• Pope John Paul II 'whipped himself as penitence'
  Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book.
  
• 'The Times They are A-Changin': Bob Dylan at the W ...
  Bob Dylan, the legendary singer-songwriter whose angry lyrics formed a soundtrack for the 1960s protest era, will headline a White House celebration next month of music from the Civil Rights movement.
  
• North Korea exchanges fire with South
  North Korea fired artillery rounds toward its disputed sea border with South Korea today, prompting a barrage of warning shots from the South's military and raising tensions on the divided peninsula.
  

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• Iran raps Obama's embrace of Bush's policies
  Summary: Mehmanparast Iran says the Obama administration has been pursuing his predecessor's foreign policy approaches, insisting the US policies have not "changed" whatsoever. source: Press TV read more
  
• Obama Takes on the Muslim World
  Summary: Although President Obama also sought a “new beginning” with Iran, he never directed any of the policy changes that would make that possible. Crucially, the U.S. continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to bring about regime change in Iran, prompting Iran’s spiritual l ...
  
• Germany Expresses Hope for February Sanctions Agai ...
  Summary: Angela Merkel While the nations hoping to push sanctions against Iran haven’t even been able to get the discussion brought up at the UN Security Council this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed hope that February would be different. source: Antiwar.com read more
  
• Gulf Stability
  Summary: Germany is further reinforcing its relations to the dictatorships on the Arabian Peninsular and will roll back Iran's influence with their help. source: German-Foreign-Policy.com read more
  
• Merkel Warns Against Iran Sanctions, Threatens Mor ...
  Summary: Merkel Speaking today amid the latest international push, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that it would be a “tragedy for the Iranian people” to apply additional sanctions to the nation. Then, Chancellor Merkel called for more sanctions. source: Antiwar.com read more
  

The Daily Galaxy

• Will Apple's New Slate PC Repeat iPhone's Success?
  Everyone from Techcrunch to the Wall Street Journal have been busy with speculation on Apple's forthcoming event on Wednesday at which the tech-fashion firm will unveil its "latest creation," a game-changing tablet computer, which will take the App Store and...
  
• Pandora's Astrobiologist: Avatar's Dr. Grace Augus ...
  "There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much" Dr. Grace Augustine is a xenobotanist in charge of the Avatar Program, who arrived several years before the avatar...
  
• A Cure for the Common Cold? Geneticists Close to ...
  "We still can't cure the common cold", the rallying cry of anyone trying to belittle progress. You'll notice that these people don't live in caves, walk to work, die of smallpox or eat anything they caught themselves, but it makes...
  
• Can Genetics Bring an Extinct Species Back to Life ...
  An international team of researchers led by scientists from Yale believes it may be possible to resurrect a tortoise species hunted to extinction by whalers visiting the Galapagos Islands during the early 19th century, before Charles Darwin made his famous...
  
• "Creation" - Charles Darwin, The Reluctant Revolut ...
  Charles Darwin as reluctant revolutionary and loving family man is the subject of director Jon Amiel’s new film, Creation, an eclectic and occasionally confused but ultimately moving story about the genius behind The Origin of the Species. Instead of opting...
  

Natural News

• NaturalNews announces chemical-free Chia seeds at ...
  (NaturalNews) As you may already know, NaturalNews has teamed up with The Raw Food World to launch the new NaturalNews store (http://store.naturalnews.com). The combined reach of their customers and our readers is allowing us to make some "screamin' good" high-volume purchases of health-related prod ...
  
• Calcium and vitamin D supplements reduce the risk ...
  (NaturalNews) In recent years, Big Pharma has produced a variety of widely hyped bisphosphonate drugs including alendronate (Fosamax), ibandronate (Boniva), risedronate (Actonel) and zoledronic acid (Reclast) that are aimed at preserving bone mass and reducing the risk of fractures. Unfortunately, a ...
  
• A Cupful of Health Benefits
  (NaturalNews) Patients coming to the Whitaker Wellness Institute sometimes express surprise that we serve coffee. Doesn't it increase the body's acidity? Aren't health-conscious people supposed to drink tea instead? Isn't caffeine bad for you? If coffee were harmful, then every morning emergency roo ...
  
• Food industry continues to market junk food to chi ...
  (NaturalNews) A study conducted by Children Now, a California-based child advocacy group, has been released that indicts the food industry for continuing to market unhealthy food to children. Despite many food companies' expressed willingness in years prior to self-regulate themselves and shift thei ...
  
• Health Ranger is keynote speaker at Health Freedom ...
  (NaturalNews) A revolution is coming for health freedom, and Mike Adams the Health Ranger will be unleashing a new call to action as the keynote speaker at the Health Freedom Expo in Long Beach, CA this March 26 - 28. (It's being held at the Long Beach Convention Center.) This is a rare opportunity ...
  

  TheGallopingBeaver

• Holding the bully's coat in Haiti
  The Haitian government has signed a memorandum of understanding formally transferring control of the Port-au-Prince airport to the US. From the Guardian : "Flights seeking permission to land continuously circle the airport, which is small, damaged and with a single runway, rankling several governmen ...
  
• Colorado Nazis adopt a highway
  KDVR DENVER has a report by John Romero that a Colorado neo-Nazi outfit, the National Socialist Movement , has done the adopt-a-highway thing. The Anti-Defamation League decided to hold its nose and not oppose the application: "Courts around the country have allowed white supremacists to sponsor hig ...
  
• A mystery
  IO9 has a fascinating report by Ed Grabianowski, on the latest discoveries concerning a mystery device, called the Antikythera mechanism: X-rays and advanced photography have uncovered the true complexity of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a device so astonishing that its discovery is like fin ...
  
• At the going down of the sun, and in the morning.. ...
  With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Sergeant John Faught, the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Killed due to enemy action. Ric-A-Dam-Doo
  
• I got your class war right here
  Give a man a fish and he'll eat it, teach a man to fish....and he may starve to death waiting to get a bite. There has been a lot of asinine talk lately about the evils of creating dependence among the poor by...well, y'know, making sure that they don't starve to death. My previous favorite were en ...
  

Media Matters for America

• O'Keefe made numerous appearances on Fox News pro ...
  Following conservative activist James O'Keefe's arrest for allegedly participating in an attempt to interfere with the telephone system at the New Orleans offices of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Media Matters for America review found that O'Keefe previously appeared at least seven times on ...
  
• Right-wing media forward conspiracy theory that NA ...
  Investor's Business Daily and American Thinker are forwarding claims made by meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo and computer programmer Michael Smith that the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have "cherry-picked" the locations of weath ...
  
• Big Falsehoods: A guide to Andrew Breitbart's lie ...
  Andrew Breitbart's "Big" websites -- Big Hollywood, Big Government, and Big Journalism -- as well as his breitbart.tv website, have in recent months laid claim to many "exclusives," touting controversial and sensationalist storylines that have been picked up by other conservative media outlets, ...
  
• Fox & Friends priorities: Half-cour ...
  Although it repeatedly promoted the undercover ACORN videos made by conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe, on January 27, Fox & Friends devoted just one brief segment to his recent arrest. By contrast, Fox & Friends repeatedly discussed a blindfolded half-court basketball shot, including a live i ...
  
• REPORT: After obsessive coverage of O'Keefe's vid ...
  Fox News' January 26 evening programming largely ignored conservative activist James O'Keefe's arrest for his alleged role in a plot to attempt to tamper with the telephone system at Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) New Orleans office, dedicating 4 minutes and 34 seconds to the story, with Fox News' ...
  

Global Research.ca

• Obama's State of the Union Rhetoric, 2010: Economi ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Soldiers Are Being Forced to Choose Between Their ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Henry Reeve Cuban Medical Brigade in Haiti
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Russia, Turkey and the Great Game: Changing teams
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Whistleblower: Foreign Office Officials Thought Wa ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  

TPM Cafe

• Perfect Symmetry
  Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Late last year, in early October, Sidra and I visited Poland for the first time, and among our stops, inevitably, we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. Walking the pathway, smack down the middle of the camp, I decided... Holocaust - Poland - Auschwitz concentra ...
  
• The lovin' was easy, It's the livin' that's hard . ...
  "It is our hope that policy makers will appreciate the evidence we present regarding the importance of truly full employment, particularly as it applies to those in the bottom half of the income scale. Given recent abuses of corporate power,... Policy - Economic - Obama Administration - Co ...
  
• Tell Retreating Obama and Dems: No Health Reform, ...
  Last Tuesday in MA, Obama and the Democrats suffered a setback -- and ever since they have run around like chickens with their heads cut off turning it into a rout. We learn that Obama will probably downplay health... Democratic - Senate - United States - Politics - United States Senate
  
• BBC's Embarrassing Ethnocentricism
  The BBC's nightly, half-hour TV newscast here in the US ("and elsewhere around the world") still has much to commend it. Tonight's footage of Elizabeth Wilmshurst at the Chilcott Enquiry, lambasting the (il-)legal basis of the Blair government's decision to... Elizabeth Wilmshurst - Iraq ...
  
• More Obfuscation About Corporate "Speech"
  Many "progressives" (even at the ACLU) who've sympathized with the Supreme Court's rollback of almost all public regulation of corporate expenditures in elections accept the Court's declaration that it's defending "freedom of speech" against "censorship." It isn't. Nothing in campaign-finance... ...
  

TruthOut

• Bill Moyers Journal | Labor's State of the Union
  Bill Moyers Journal PBS Airtime: Friday, January 22, 2010, at 9:00 p.m. EST on PBS ( check local listings ). read more
  
• NOW | On the Ground in Haiti
  On the ground in Haiti, working to save the lives of mothers during childbirth. Next on " NOW ." read more
  
• Feelin' Alright
  Seems I've got to have a change of scene 'Cause every night I have the strangest dream Imprisoned by the way it could've been Left here on my own So it seems I've got to leave before I start to scream But someone locked the door and took the key ... - Traffic Calling the second hal ...
  
• Swine Flu Didn't Fly
  Wow, what a year 2009 was for makers of the swine flu vaccine. CSL Limited 's profits rose 63 percent above 2008 levels, while in the third quarter of 2009 - just about the time H1N1 contracts picked up steam - GlaxoSmithKine enjoyed a 30 percent jump in earnings to $2.19 billion . Roche , the maker ...
  
• Dahr Jamail | Soldiers Being Forced to Choose Betw ...
  In January, U.S. Army officials announced four separate court-martial charges against Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother who missed her deployment to Afghanistan in early November 2009 when her childcare plans for her infant son, Kamani, fell through at the last minute. Hutchinson was jai ...
  

Planetsave

• China to Ban Eating Cats and Dogs
  Eating dogs and cats–which is an age-old delicacy in China–could soon be against the law. It’s the nation’s first law against such animal abuse. Currently, dog and cat meat is viewed as promoting bodily warmth. But if the law passes, people who eat either animal could face fines of up to $730 ...
  
• Asian Carp Near Great Lakes: Are They So Bad?
  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists with a bighead carp, one of two species whose entry into the Great Lakes is sparking widespread concern. Last week’s edition of Great Lakes Asian carp news brought both a U.S. Supreme Court decision and disclosure of the species’ environmental DNA in La ...
  
• MN Solid Waste Reform Could Sharply Reduce Greenho ...
  A new Minnesota stakeholder report identifies 38 solid waste reform recommendations that could dramatically reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. A report submitted December 31 to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) outlines 38 ways the state could achieve a 20-year reduction o ...
  
• Killer Whales Are Evolving Into Two Different Spec ...
  Scientists have found that Killer Whales in the North Atlantic Ocean differ in both diet and genetic makeup. In fact, they’re in the process of splitting into two different species all together. Researchers examined the teeth of 62 whale skeletons, some that were hundreds of years old. They fou ...
  
• Japanese Whalers Strike, Sink Sea Shepherd’s $2 Mi ...
  All five crew aboard the Ady Gil, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s new intercepting vessel are safe, but the fate of the prized new boat is in doubt after a collision with a Japanese harpoon vessel left it disabled off the coast of Antarctica. Anti-whaling activists, the Sea Shepherd Con ...
  

Water Quality - WordPress

• Updates and meetings
  A couple of updates. The “Tioga County Natural Gas Task Force” has changed it’s na
  
• LID Ordinance Approved by Public Works Committee
  Permeable pavement sidewalk at L.A. Eco-Village. When LID passes we should see more of these kinds o
  
• Three Snake River cleanup projects set for summer
  Heavy metal pollution in the Snake River pollution has been under study for decades. Several cleanup
  
• Oil persists in environment more than 20 years aft ...
  The Exxon Valdez after running aground; Source: NOAA A new study by engineering professor Michel C.
  
• Novel proposal eyes cleaner Gowanus
  A Park Slope man thinks he knows how to take the stink out of the Gowanus — and he’s aiming to teach
  

Public Citizen in Texas

• Climate Change Will Increase Storm Activity, Sever ...
  There’s new information out as to how Texans will be affected by future climate change impacts, and its not looking good.  According to new studies and modeling, the number of powerful Catergory 4 and 5 hurricanes will likely increase along with global temperatures, as will the overall frequency an ...
  
• National Efforts support Clean Energy, Green Jobs ...
  Tuesday January 26th at 4:30p Main Plaza (in front of City Hall) — Rally & Press Conference Two national coalitions, the Energy Action Coalition (EAC) and the Center for Community Change (CCC) join with Southwest Workers Union and local grassroots organizations to call on Mayor Castro to take real s ...
  
• Monday Last Day to Register to Vote in Primary Ele ...
  Have you moved since the last election cycle? New to Texas? Never voted before? Then hurry, register to vote now or you won’t be able to vote in the March primary!  Many important public offices will be up for grabs this year, including the Governor, Lt. Governor, Agricultural Commissioner, and Rai ...
  
• San Antonio Opens Green Jobs Laboratory in Abandon ...
  San Antonians should be proud today, when Mayor Castro will dedicate the Mission Verde green jobs training center and demonstration lab at the former Cooper Middle School on the west side. The center will bring together sustainability education and the City’s green jobs ambitions by teaching student ...
  
• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up
  The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates the city of New Orleans for its first Super Bowl as it provides an instant replay of its blog highlights for the week. Something stinks about the recent TCEQ Barnett Shale air quality testing in Fort Worth and in Flower Mound. Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FO ...
  

Press TV

• Yemen conference fails to achieve much
  An international conference has been held in London to discuss a solution to the Yemen crisis amid ongoing tension in the country.
  
• Iran to offer solutions for global economic crisis
  Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will declare the country's initiatives for solving the global economic crisis, the foreign ministry spokesman says.
  
• Dpa confirms arrest of German embassy staffers
  Two German nationals who have been arrested in Iran in connection with the post-election unrest in the country were police officers who worked at the embassy, German news agency dpa has confirmed.
  
• Saudis claim victory over Houthis
  Saudi Arabia has claimed victory over Yemeni Shia fighters after the Houthi leader offered a truce to avoid more civilian casualties in northern Yemen.
  
• US backs Taliban reintegration: Holbrooke
  US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke says Washington will back the Taliban reintegration plan at an upcoming meeting on Afghanistan.
  

Axis of Logic

• Tout Moun Ce Moun: The Haitian Revolution as a Pe ...
  
  
• Watt A Hero?
  
  
• "Best thing I've read so far" : Haiti 2010: An Unw ...
  
  
• Beasts in Samaritan Clothing
  
  
• Turkey widens aid efforts for Haiti
  
  

They Gave Us a Republic

• Time For Timmy To Take A Hike
  One of the main reasons I've pretty much decided that the present administration can't seem to get much done that's of any benefit to the commoners involves the people that Mr. Obama appointed to office upon his election, many of whom were directly involved in many of the questionable policies and p ...
  
• "A Gentleman's Agreement"?: a lesson on how not t ...
  This is the thirty-eighth post in an ongoing series as we file Missouri Sunshine Law (RSMo 610) requests and investigate the non-renewal of the contract of University of Central Missouri President Aaron Podolefsky. Links to previous coverage are below the fold. BG and MB And you all thought we had f ...
  
• The Nightowl Newswrap
  The veil and everything it represents is abhorrent, but banning it is worse. "A French parliamentary committee has recommended a partial ban on women wearing Islamic face veils. The committee's near 200-page report has proposed a ban in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport. ...
  
• O'Keefe Arrested In Landrieu Phone Scheme
  Having already pretty much getting away with one flimflam, I guess the guy figured he'd just automatically get away with another one. 4 charged in phone scheme at La. senator's office A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal ...
  
• Always Concede on Principle
  ( Tom B. has an excellent rant on the inexcusable evil of a spending freeze. He's right, but I think there is one unlikely though possible alternative:) In one pathetic defeat to the repugs after another, President Obama has certainly blown apart the myth of the Vulcan champion of 12-dimensional che ...
  

Care 2

• Court lets Wyoming tribe intervene in murder appea ...
  CHEYENNE — An appeals court has approved a request from the Northern Arapaho Tribe to support a tribal member's federal challenge of his state court murder conviction in the beating death of his daughter. Submitted by Lone Wolf to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Water Woes Worsen On Reservation
  The worst of the storm is over the lights are turning on for more people across keloland. But for some on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation there's another problem, no water Submitted by Lone Wolf to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Your body’s 10 weirdest health clues
  Do this quick self-exam for subtle signs of future health problems Submitted by Tonya B. to Health & Wellness  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Coral in Florida Keys suffers lethal hit from cold
  Bitter cold this month may have wiped out many of the shallow water corals in the Keys. Submitted by Lone Wolf to Offbeat  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Arguments begin on how to try boy accused of killi ...
  Twelve-year-old Jordan Brown's future rests in a courtroom. The question is which one. Prosecutors say the fifth-grader used a 20-gauge shotgun to kill his father's pregnant fiancee as she slept in February in their farmhouse Submitted by Lone Wolf to Offbeat  |   Note-it ...
  

GreenBiz

• J.R. Simplot, ConAgra French Fry Plants Become Ene ...
  Two J.R. Simplot Company facilities and one operated by ConAgra Foods' Lamb Weston Inc. have become the first three french fry plants to earn recognition for "superior energy performance" under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program.
  
• Sainsbury's Targets Tinned Tomatoes in War on Pack ...
  U.K. supermarket giant Sainsbury's will replace tomato tins with cartons in an effort to cut packaging and emissions.
  
• Targeting Energy Efficiency
  To accelerate energy efficiency, we need to capture the imagination of individuals from college dorm rooms to corporate boardrooms across the country.
  
• Golden State Warriors Hook Up with The Solar Compa ...
  The Golden State Warriors and The Solar Company are cutting the ribbon today on a solar installation at the basketball team's practice facility — the first in the NBA to be powered with renewable energy.
  
• The Pendulum of Energy Efficiency and the Importan ...
  Increasing imbalance is looming between our eagerness for energy efficiency and our nonchalance for inclusion of human factors and the impact that our energy efficiency measures will have on human health.
  

Reuters Global

• Obama, Susan Rice and the U.N. — The right a ...
  When U.S. President Barack Obama came to power, he announced a "new era of engagement" at the United Nations. He appointed his longtime friend and foreign policy adviser Susan Rice to be his ambassador to the world body. He also raised her post to cabinet level, as previous Democratic presidents hav ...
  
• Haiti: The journalists behind the story
  Haiti: The journalists behind the story
  
• Does Siemens’ move send a message on Iran sa ...
  The drumbeat for further sanctions on Iran is picking up pace, at least in the United States and Europe. Fearing further restrictions, two major European companies have said in recent weeks that they will stop doing business with Tehran. But what measures can the United States and its allies take? A ...
  
• Fishing for chili and hamburgers
  Rowboat meets U.S. Coast Guard on Haitian waters and the food flies.
  
• On Taliban/AQ ties and the Afghanistan exit strate ...
  A new article suggests the relationship between Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden before 9/11 was much more fractious than generally believed.
  

Paul Krugman

• Same As He Ever Was
  There was a lot of delusion among progressives who convinced themselves, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that Obama was a strong champion of their values.
  
• The Curse Of The Supermajority
  We need to fix the Senate. Otherwise, we're headed for full banana-republic status.
  
• Bernanke Reconciliation?
  A terrible signal.
  
• A Tale Of Two SOTUs
  On defending your views. Or maybe not.
  
• Obama Liquidates Himself
  Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view, and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008.
  

No Quarter

• Live Blog the SOTU Speech
  I suppose you’re all beside yourselves with excitement over The One’s SOTU speech tonight. Well, try to contain your adoration just enough so you can share your thoughts on what he’s saying and what his plans are. Are his ideas delusional or merely hopeful? Are his programs all smoke and mirrors ...
  
• “An Open Letter To Hillary Clinton”
  Here we are, the day of President Obama’s first State of the Union address. Oh, yippee. While Obama still enjoys a fair amount of support among Democrats, this man who claimed to be the big Uniter, rammed down our throats by the DNC over OUR choice, ain’t doing so well in the polls. [...]
  
• seriously, it’s time for an intervention
  As if the image of Obama standing in an elementary school classroom, with TOTUS, wasn’t bad enough, we now have this: From The Corner: Teleprompter Shot of the Day [Rich Lowry] Here’s Obama dropping in for a chat with his middle-class task force. And people made fun of Reagan because of his noteca ...
  
• Obama’s “Accomplishments”?
  At a recent post at my blog, two of my regulars combined to send me into fits of laughter. That is to say, they are both pretty darn funny. What they wrote were potential accomplishments Obama might mention in his first State of the Union Address. I suggest you not consume any liquids (or [...]
  
• Hillary Clinton On The Tavis Smiley Show
  Hillary Clinton will be on the Tavis Smiley Show on PBS Wednesday, Jan. 27th, at 8pm (EST) prior to the State Of The Union. Here are some previews for the upcoming show (H/t to the Secretary Clinton Blog for the videos): In this one, she walks about her reliance on her husband’s experience: This ...
  

Environmental Graffiti

• Steampunk Insects Meet their Mechanical Maker
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar Retold in Pictures
• Flies Blowing Bubbles
• No title
• Environmental Graffiti Meets Artist Johannes Vogl

Foreign Policy in Focus

• Multilateralism: B-
  The Obama administration is UN-friendly. So why hasn't it made more of a push to bring the United States into compliance with international conventions?
  
• China and India Battle Over Thin Air
  The two most populous countries in the world have a great trade relationship. But, as columnist Conn Hallinan explains, they are also on the verge of war.
  
• Tomgram: Nick Turse, The Forty-Year Drone War
  The wonder weapon of our present moment is the missile-armed unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, now doing our dirty work, an endless series of targeted assassinations, in the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands.
  
• Global Push for Renewable Energy
  With 142 member nations already signed on, the new International Renewable Energy Agency is promoting a fast, global transition to clean, safe, and renewable energy.
  
• Obama's Avatar Moment
  The president needs a new blockbuster.
  

Global Elite

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

Al Jazeera

• Obama addresses 'deficit of trust'
  US president says politicians must overcome "corrosive doubts about how Washington works".
  
• Girl found in Haiti quake rubble
  Young girl rescued from rubble of school, 15 days after devastating earthquake.
  
• Sri Lanka opposition cries foul
  Electoral commissioner resigns as Mahinda Rajapaksa is re-elected president.
  
• Zelaya leaves Honduras for exile
  Ousted leader arrives in Dominican Republic after new president offers safe passage.
  
• Ethiopian plane's black boxes found
  Signals detected from flight recorders of jet that crashed off Lebanon with 90 people on board.
  

Green Inc. - NYT

• Albany Grocery Powered by a Fuel Cell
  A supermarket in Albany has become the first grocery store in the nation to install a fuel cell for power generation.
  
• Salazar and Oil Group Trade Barbs
  The Interior Department and the American oil industry are locked into an increasingly heated war of words over the administration's energy policies.
  
• For Microsoft Executive, 'Ireland Is a Beautiful P ...
  But governments and companies face trade-offs between energy efficiency and keeping data within national borders.
  
• Storing Energy as Ice?
  A Colorado company says it has designed a better rooftop air conditioning system that effectively stores electricity.
  
• Questioning the Purity of Organic Cotton
  H&M, C&A, Tchibo and other clothing retailers have been accused of labeling genetically modified cotton as being organic. They contest the charge.
  

Dot Earth News

• 'Impossible Hamster,' Big Coal, Climate Concerns
  Public cooling on climate and energy while still burning ever more coal.
  
• 'Is This the Right Room for an Argument?'
  Are there ways to foster constructive argument on blogs and avoid contradiction wars?
  
• From Inside and Out, Climate Panel Is Pushed to Ch ...
  Scientists in and out of the U.N. climate panel discuss its flaws and prospects.
  
• Explanation Offered for Error in U.N. Climate Repo ...
  Did flubbed communication result in an errant finding in a pivotal climate report?
  
• Building Safer Schools in Poor, Shaky Places
  As Haiti tries to recover and eventually rebuild, earthquake engineers offer simple, cheap and safer school designs.
  

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

• Pearl Harbor: Evidence of shady biz or just a lett ...
  Remember the Maine, while you're at it! :-D
  
• Controlling 9/11 "crippled epistemology" via fake ...
  ".... we will suggest below that if the hard core arises for certain identifiable reasons, it can be broken up or at least muted by government action." .... " We suggest a role for government efforts, and agents, in introducing such diversity.  Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat ...
  
• 'Civil support' apparatus appears, Oh noes: Obama ...
  Article I Section 10 Clause 3.... No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State , or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such immine ...
  
• TSA goon loses notebook tracing blogger leaks; hon ...
  Next time at the airport: "resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand"..... But first, Crush the Bloggers with Fake Tweets!!! "Sent Blog Message to entice M... [?] to respond" --Randomly found TSA investigator notebook re manipulating Twitt ...
  
• New TSA leak PDF; False Flag ops for Detroit Chris ...
  An interesting confluence of events as Obama suddenly grants INTERPOL diplomatic immunity of sorts, while an apparent airport false flag operation or at least 'shady biz as usual' unravels pretty quickly. Good times in the shadow state for 2010. We found some snippets on the case from two noted ...
  

Daily Censored

• Remember, You Heard It Here First!
  Remember that old song, “Looking for Love in all the wrong places?” That song kind of reminds me of what’s going on in D.C. these days.   No, I am not talking about the latest round of adultery.  I mean the latest “bi-partisan” effort to control the public debt.  Debt is not inherently bad.  It can, ...
  
• New Loan-Guarantee Bailout for New Nuclear Reactor ...
  Department of Energy Hands Over Billions of Dollars to ‘Poster Child for Cost Overruns’ Nuclear Power Industry is Perfect Illustration of Why Taxpayers Are Saying “No More Bailouts!” – Billions for Plant Vogtle Reactors Impossible to Justify in Terms of Rising Financial Risks, Reduced Demand for Pow ...
  
• Democracy Privatized!
  Forget about those lucrative investments in foreign oil! It’s Time for the Next Big Thing! Purchase influence in the newest, Made-in-USA Bubble, the Election Market! Yes, friends! Become a shot-caller and make millions! We guarantee the vote will go your way – every time! Log onto Dollars for Democr ...
  
• Uneven Exchange: The New Language of Political Dis ...
  In the harsh climate of postmodern America the old adage “Money talks” doesn’t suffice: money screams. With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Citizen’s United v. the Federal Election Commission, a corporation’s right to sway elections with its wealth has essentially been granted part of its right ...
  
• Haiti and Toxic Waste
  by Mitchel Cohen Two decades ago, the garbage barge, the Khian Sea, with no place in the U.S. willing to accept its garbage, left the territorial waters of the United States and began circling the oceans in search of a country willing to accept its cargo: 14,000 tons of toxic incinerator ash. First ...
  

AlterNet's Breaking News

• Bill Moyers Journal | Labor's State of the Union
• Could Oregon's victory be replicated nationwide?
• Bernanke whip count update: 50 Yes, 3 Lean yes, 22 ...
• WellPoint Profits and Lobbying Skyrocket as Spendi ...
• Accused of ignoring Haiti, Fox executive â&e ...

Institute for Policy Studies

• Multilateralism: B-
• China and India Battle Over Thin Air
• Obama's Avatar Moment
• Human Rights: C+
• Afghanistan: This War Won't Work

Pine River World News

• Existing U.S. home sales fall at record rate
  The following commentary is reprinted with permission from World Socialist Web Site. Existing U.S. home sales fall at record rate ©   World Socialist Web Site By Andre Damon January 26, 2010 Sales of existing U.S. homes plunged in December, exposing the fragility of the housing recovery and its d ...
  
• Another bin Laden tape? Even the mujahideen forums ...
  Pine River World News January 25, 2010 It's pretty sad when even the mujahideen forums are questioning the authenticity of the latest Osama bin Laden audio tape - that's the one where al Qaeda acknowledges the "Nigerian underwear bomber" as one of their agents. The fact that Al Jazeera was the medi ...
  
• Pak editorial: Contradictions of Gates
  The following editorial is from The Frontier Post, Peshawar, Pakistan. Contradictions of Gates ©   The Frontier Post January 24, 2010 U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has come and gone, after making the noises so pet with American officials nowadays about Pakistan. But hadn't we heard of thi ...
  
• Paul Craig Roberts: How Wall St Destroyed Private ...
  The following column is reprinted with permission from Paul Craig Roberts. How Wall St Destroyed Private Medicine ©  Paul Craig Roberts January 22, 2010 At my annual check-up, my doctor handed me a sheet explaining the reasons for office fee increases for Medicare Patients. It is worth reporting a ...
  
• The age of the killer robot is no longer a sci-fi ...
  The following commentary is from The Independent, U.K. The age of the killer robot is no longer a sci-fi fantasy ©   The Independent By Johann Hari January 22, 2010 You can't appeal to robots for mercy or empathy - or punish them afterwards In the dark, in the silence, in a blink, the age of the ...
  

PDA AMERICA

• An Underdog Who Isn’t Daunted by a New Try for the ...
  By N. R. KLEINFIELD | Cross-posted from the NYT The long shot ate breakfast with his mother. She asked for campaign buttons for her friends. He handed her a dozen. She got worried. That many? Weren’t ...
  
• Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett
  Monday morning at 7 on CONNECT THE DOTS the one year anniversary of Obama’ election tune in or use this link http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/index.php?shokey=ctd as we talk with: TIM CARPENTER Exec Dir. Of PDA, ...
  
• Yes, we still need HealthCARE reform
  By Paulette Garin | PDA Blog Contributor and Cross-posted from Paula’s Blog As part of a recent medical exam, my doctor ordered blood work to evaluate my overall medical condition as well as follow up on ...
  
• IOT: Stop Global Warming: Jan Call
  On this month’s Stop Global Warming/Environmental Issues Organizing Team call, the following topics were covered: Kathy Callan's meeting with Sen. Boxer's staff, results of the Copenhagen climate summit, updates on the Price Carbon Campaign and ...
  
• IOT: Healthcare for All/Single Payer January Call
  A stellar group of guests spoke to over 80 callers, answering questions submitted in the PDA Chat Room. Minnesota Senator John Marty, Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate for governor, spoke about single payer legislation in MN, with ...
  

Marler Blog

• Black Pepper tests positive for Salmonella, howeve ...
  Tip o” the blog to www.efoodalert.com for posting the update FAQ's from Daniele: Daniele, Inc. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Q: Why is this product being recalled? A: Samples of the black pepper used to coat some of our products have tested positive for salmonella. A sample of the recalled ...
  
• Presence and Characterization of Shiga Toxin-Produ ...
  Appl Environ Microbiol. 2010 Jan 15. Xia X, Meng J, McDermott PF, Ayers S, Blickenstaff K, Tran TT, Abbott J, Zheng J, Zhao S. Department of Nutrition and Food Science, and Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742; Center for Ve ...
  
• Illnesses up to 189 in 40 States in Salmonella Mon ...
  The CDC reports a total of 189 individuals infected with a matching strain of Salmonella Montevideo have been reported from 40 states since July 1, 2009. The number of ill persons identified in each state with this strain is as follows: AL (2), AZ (5), CA (30), CO (3), CT (4), DE (2), FL (2), GA (3) ...
  
• UPDATED - Elisabeth Hagen MD to be New Undersecret ...
  So the rumor mill that is Washington DC is saying.  AND IT WAS RIGHT. And, rumors seem to even leak all the way out to this other Washington. The position of Undersecretary of Agriculture has been vacant since Dr. Richard Raymond retired in October of 2008. It appears that Dr. Hagen will fill the ...
  
• 187 Ill in 39 States Due to Multistate Outbreak of ...
  According to the CDC, a total of 187 individuals infected with a matching strain of Salmonella Montevideo have been reported from 39 states since July 1, 2009. The number of ill persons identified in each state with this strain is as follows: AL (2), AZ (5), CA (30), CO (3), CT (4), DE (2), FL ...
  

AutoblogGreen

• AutoblogGreen for 01.27.10
  DC 2010: Wheego unveils high-speed Whip, looks a lot like the LSV It's coming this summer for $35k - before tax credits. Washington D.C. to be the third retail market for Chevrolet Volt After ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 01.26.10
  Gas tax pop quiz: how long since it's been raised? Think you're smarter than 60% of Americans? Give us your best guess. Is the Nissan Leaf battery pack under-engineered? Is the s ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 01.25.10
  Toyota won't sell upcoming EV; lease or car-sharing options available instead Tiptoeing into the rEVolution. Done deal: Tesla, DOE complete $465 million loan paperwork You're an investor? Us, ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 01.22.10
  Volvo C30 electric vehicle uses ... ethanol for heat This is the first time we've heard this particular strategy. Report: GM to invest "hundreds of millions" into pickups with fuel-saving tech ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 01.21.10
  Trexa platform lets you develop your own damn electric vehicle! Stop complaining and DIY is the message here. Bu$ vs. car? Public transit can save riders an average of $9,200 a year Chump cha ...
  

Rafe's Radar

• iPad will be to MacBook as Netbook is to PC
  There's work ahead for the iPad engineers, but make no mistake: This product is a direct attack on the Netbook category.
  
• Twitter adds local trends to Web site
  New feature shows you what's hot on Twitter near you.
  
• Hands-on with Google Voice for the iPhone
  iPhone users get somewhat better Google Voice access, still pine for a real app.
  
• Reporters Roundtable podcast: Charity 2.0
  This week: Charity in a Connected World. The January 12 earthquake and humanitarian disaster in Haiti had an important technological component: Through the text message giving program, the Red Cross raised $26 million in funds in just 9 days. That's not just a large amount of money to be raised ...
  
• Amazon adds optional DRM for Kindle publishers
  Independent publishers learn that their Kindle books were already unprotected as Amazon adds option to enable DRM on upload.
  

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 fre ...
  
• 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, w ...
  

Democracy Now!

• Amy Goodman on _Riz Khan_: "The Role of Media in t ...
  Has the mainstream media in the US replaced serious coverage with “junk news” and tabloidism? Especially in foreign affairs, are Americans less informed than ever? Who is shaping their perceptions of the rest of the world? And who is policing US foreign policy? Riz Khan speaks with Amy Goodman a ...
  
• 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 ...
  
• CHRIS HEDGES: "Empire of Illusion: The End of Lite ...
  Journalist Chris Hedges discusses his recent book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” at the New School in New York. Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. His writing appears regularly in Foreign Affairs , Harper’s , the New York Review of B ...
  

Farming Pathogens

• The Expulsion
  In 1845 a diplomat delivered a letter from Friedrich Wilhelm to Louis Philippe of France protesting the insults leveled at the Prussian king by expatriates living in Paris. King Louis had the radicals’ newspaper closed down and the group, along with one Karl Marx, deported. This was not the first ti ...
  
• Do Pathogens Time Travel?
  Evolution arises from a wealth of failure: 1) natural selection requires large and variable populations comprised largely of organisms that fail because their designs do not match their present problems and 2) chance destruction occurs at all spatiotemporal scales. So clearly strict optimization doe ...
  
• 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. ...
  

Digg Green

• Rare sighting of humpback whale breaching in Irish ...
  Remarkable footage of one of the world's largest creatures in a dramatic acrobatic display has been captured three miles off Hook Head.
  
• Planet 100: California Nukes?
  The top environmental stories of the day, January 25th 2010, in 100 seconds or less.
  
• Why hasn't our planet warmed as much as expected? ...
  Earth has warmed much less than expected during the industrial era based on current best estimates of Earth. The new analysis attributes the reasons for the discrepancy between projected and actual temperature increase to a possible mix of two major factors: Earth's climate may be less sensitive to ...
  
• 25% of US grain crops fed to cars, not people
  One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.
  
• Haiti earthquake maps [Image]
  Analysis and reports from international agencies have helped provide a picture of how badly hit other areas were.
  

Invisible Opportunity

• Yes, Virginia, there really are government conspir ...
  By Michael Rivero Virginia, your little friends are wrong.  They have been affected by the induced blindness of the mainstream media.  They do not believe except they see it on television or hear it over the radio.  They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. Ye ...
  
• Climategate: CRU Was But the Tip of the Iceberg
  By Marc Sheppard Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain’s premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation’s borders. Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government’s principal climate centers have ...
  
• 12 more glaciers that haven’t heard the news about ...
  The glaciers are melting! The glaciers are melting! The glaciers are…uhhhhh…never mind. Turns out the IPCC’s chicken little story that all the Himalayan glaciers are melting is just another exaggeration. Or fraud. Take your choice. You know, like the stats coming out of East Anglia CRU. And its clai ...
  
• Top climatologist finds 40% of British government ...
  By John O’Sullivan Internationally renowned climate scientist, Roger Pielke Jr., professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the man who broke the ‘Glaciergate’ story run by the London Times newspaper, ha ...
  
• A U.S. ClimateGate?
  Hoaxes: Climate researchers and the Weather Channel’s founder accuse NASA of the same data manipulation as Britain’s Climate Research Unit. Were weather stations cherry-picked to hide the temperature drop? We recently commented on how our space agency for two years refused Freedom of Information req ...
  

  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

• Do Employers Really Need to Give Drug Tests for Po ...
  Many former police officers, city officials, even corrections officers now favor a new drug paradigm. Surely it is time to revisit a system that protects few and harms many.
  
• South Dakota Advocates Set to Push Again for Medic ...
  Will the second time be the charm in South Dakota? Four years ago, a medical marijuana initiative there lost by four points. Now, advocates are ready to try again
  
• False Claims on Rockefeller Drug Law Reform Lead t ...
  New report takes down the claims that disaster will result from drug law reform, and that judges are incapable of making sound decisions.
  
• Sewage as a Measure of Society's Drug Use
  Testing municipal wastewater for drugs may be the next big thing in public health research. The methodology will likely confirm the universality of drug use.
  
• NJ Allows Medical Marijuana for a Fraction of the ...
  NJ restricts doctors from prescribing marijuana for anything less than a terminal illness or debilitating condition, such as cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.
  

Twilight Earth

• Churches Filling Pews by -Gasp!- Preaching Environ ...
  Older, mainline churches approach to environmental issues are attracting younger Americans. Related posts: Pope Benedicts 2010 Message to the World: Environmentalism What is Environmentalism? Pope Says – Environmental Degradation Ends by Living Ethically
  
• NEWS FLASH: Republicans Believe in Climate Legisla ...
  American people are eager for Congress to act on climate legislation. Related posts: Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Writing Ant-Environmental Legislation? You Betcha! White House Follow-up on Global Climate Change Impacts Health Care Practices and Climate Change – Dr Bertollini Explains the Connection ...
  
• GreeningOfOil.Com – Big Oils Ultimate Greenwash?
  There is a new online magazine in town called Greening Of Oil and it's no Algae Bio-fuel, that's for sure! Related posts: Oil – The Cold Black Facts – A Special Report Solar Power from Outer Space: Microwaves and Frickin’ Lasers The Proof versus Belief Conundrum in Reference to Climate Chan ...
  
• Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Writing Ant-Environmental Le ...
  Today, the Senate will consider an outrageous proposal, written with fossil fuel lobbyists, that undermines the Clean Air Act’s ability to limit harmful carbon pollution. Related posts: Fuel Efficiency for Cars and Light Trucks to be Raised 40 Percent Fossil Free Automotive Oil Uses Animal ...
  
• Web Organization Teaches Kids How to Grow Algae
  In response to the growing interest in algae cultures on the part of teachers, educators and students, a website set up to promote algae has released an educational kit Related posts: Cultivate Some Green Life with a Homemade Algae Photobioreactor Algae to Oil – Cop15 Interview with Solazyme C ...
  

Inhabitat

• Fashion4Home Unveils Bamboo Furniture Line, Lets C ...
  What if manufacturers could poll their consumers before making a product to see if people would want to buy it? It would cut down on surplus supply and the energy and materials needed to produce and ship it. That’s what one company, Fashion4Home.com, thinks, and they’ve implemented just such a votin ...
  
• The Best of The Toronto International Design Festi ...
  There have been many design events circling around the big Interior Design Show in Toronto for years, but this is the first time they have all been rolled together into one big festival. The normally snowy January was springlike, without a flake to be seen. This TreeHugger was going to cover it from ...
  
• Win an Exclusive Collection of Mama K’s Aromatic P ...
  Don’t forget to enter this week’s Inhabitots giveaway to win an exclusive gift pack of yummy smelling Mama K’s Aromatic Play Clay for your tot! Worth $105, this awesome clay kit is kid-safe, 100% natural, gluten free, and biodegradable. Plus it’s the perfect, low-tech way to keep your kid occupied i ...
  
• IS IT GREEN?: The Apple iPad
  Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past few weeks, you probably know about Apple’s new iPad, which was just unveiled moments ago. We’re excited for the iPad’s release, but we still have to ask: how green is it?The tablet will, of course, save some trees from being chopped down — that’s the bene ...
  
• Philippe Starck Unveils Two Revolutionair Wind Tur ...
  This just in - world-renowned super designer Philippe Starck has just revealed two highly-anticipated wind turbine designs for home use! Dubbed “Revolutionair,” the sleek turbines were officially debuted after a lengthy 2 years of research and work. We brought you news of the quadrangular turbine wh ...
  

Pogue's Posts

• The Apple iPad: First Impressions
  Some wild speculations of a guy who's never even tried the iPad. Believe me, I'll review it when I get one. But I like what I'm seeing.
  
• Google Voice Is Back on the iPhone, Mostly
  Have an iPhone? Tired of waiting for a Google Voice app? There's a workaround from the folks in Mountainview.
  
• The Apple Guessing Game
  What might Apple be announcing this week? It seems to be a tablet, but the mystery is in the details.
  
• Introducing Pogue (In)Direct
  How to subscribe to and follow all of David Pogue's activities online.
  
• Bogus Tech Measurements
  Day in and day out, the electronics industry manipulates us. They publish "speeds and feeds" in big bold type - measurements that turn out to mean almost nothing.
  

Open Your Eyes News

• Radical Journal’s Fate at Risk
  The Scientist – A panel has recommended that life science publishing giant Elsevier tame its most radical journal by making it choose papers via peer review — not editor’s choice — and limiting the topics it covers. Medical Hypotheses is currently Elsevier’s only non-peer-reviewed journal. Its manda ...
  
• Germany to send 850 extra troops to Afghanistan
  China News – Germany decided to send 850 extra soldiers to Afghanistan, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Tuesday, two days before a key NATO-led conference on Afghanistan to be held in London. Merkel said in Berlin that 500 of those troops would be sent to join the 4,500-strong German troops, most ...
  
• Britain’s chief scientist calls for engagement wit ...
  The Australian – THE impact of global warming has been exaggerated by some scientists and there is an urgent need for more honest disclosure of the uncertainty of predictions about the rate of climate change, according to the British Government’s chief scientific adviser. John Beddington was speakin ...
  
• Congress Comissioned Report: US Scientists Conside ...
  NRC – American scientists propose firing nuclear weapons at large asteroids, in a report commissioned by Congress that was published last week. “Our planet inhabits a hazardous environment. Earth is continually bombarded by cosmic objects.” Cue some ominous music, and these words could have been ...
  
• Aims of the London conference on Afghanistan
  BBC – They say it is not about withdrawal – the word is said to sound weak and to frighten the Afghan and Pakistani governments. But it looks as if the London conference on Afghanistan is partly about just that, wrapped up in policies about “transferring primacy” to Afghan forces and “talking to the ...
  

Monkey Smashes Heaven

• Irish Republican Socialist Flouts Science
  Irish Republican Socialist Flouts Science (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Recently (1) the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) posted an article attempting to refute a Maoist-Third Worldist perspective on Ireland. The IRSP “criticism” contains no substantial analysis, rather IRSP simply repe ...
  
• Amerika “disappears” migrants into secret detentio ...
  Amerika “disappears” migrants into secret detention facilities (raimd.wordpress.com) Recently, journalist Jacqueline Stevens uncovered a list of 186 previously-secret Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sub-field offices. The list reveals the locations into which an unknown number of migrant w ...
  
• Round 2: Fist Worldist Hoxhaists versus Maoist-Thi ...
  Round 2: Fist Worldist Hoxhaists versus Maoist-Third Worldists on  Counter Revolution (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Recently, a debate took place between First Worldist Hoxhaists and Maoist-Third Worldists. This debate touched on many areas. One of the main issues was the process of counter-r ...
  
• Round 1:First Worldist Hoxhaism versus Maoism-Thir ...
  Round 1: First Worldist Hoxhaism versus Maoism-Third Worldism on Three Worlds Theory (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) There was a recent debate between First Worldist Hoxhaists and Maoist-Third Worldists. This debate covered many topics. One of the main topics was Mao’s Theory of Three Worlds fro ...
  
• Haiti, Beware Amerikkkans Bearing Gifts: “Ai ...
  Haiti, Beware Amerikkkans Bearing Gifts: “Aid” Becomes Pretext for U$ Colonial Occupation (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) (monkeysmashesheAmidst all the self-congratulatory noise about Amerikan “aid” to Haiti, the U$ has subjected the country to military occupation, with thousands of U$ soldier ...
  

PakAlert

• Video: How Mass Media Control You!
  This is how they control the masses of this world through media – Yes we all are brainwashed.. doesn’t matters if we are in USA, India, Pakistan or any other part of the world.. we are being fed on deceptions, lies and personal agendas just to rule us. The below amazing interview was don ...
  
• Alert: U.S. Moves Missiles And Troops To Russian B ...
  Nuclear and Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled by Rick Rozoff 2010 is proceeding in a manner more befitting the third month of the year, named after the Roman god of war, than the first whose name is derived from a pacific deity. On January 13 the Associated Press reported that the White House ...
  
• Death Of US Dollar: Secret Images of New Proposed ...
  The US Dollar is soon going to die and a new currency already planned by Federal Reserve. So if you are investing or saving in US dollars then you should be very concerned about what is coming next! AMERICA-CANADA-MEXICO will become NORTH AMERICAN UNION THE NEW “PROPOSED” BILL FOR NORTH AMERICAN ...
  
• Video: US Army Takes Haiti – US Blocks Some Aid Fl ...
  Haiti Earthquake Aid, or Army Occupation – Al Jazeera TV Reports Every country that richer than Haiti is trying to help, but only American government is sending armed occupation forces to build more bases, and never pull out. Karachi-based charity worker, Abdul Sattar Edhi, pledged cash as former ...
  
• Israel Makes Waves by Simulating an Earthquake
  by Avraham Zuroff (IsraelNN.com) The Seismologic Division of the Ministry of National Infrastructure’s Geophysical Institute will attempt to simulate an earthquake in the southern Negev on Thursday. The experiment, financed by the U.S. Defense Department, is a joint project with the University of H ...
  

ecogeek

• Florida Getting First High-Speed Rail Funds
  Last year, the government promised $10.5 billion in funds for high-speed rail development and the first state to receive some of that money is Florida.  Tomorrow, President Obama will be awarding $2.5 billion to the state to jump-start the first phase of their train system that will run from Orland ...
  
• 10 GW of Wind Power Installed in U.S. Last Year
  With all of the conflict over Cape Wind and the constant reduction in scope of T. Boone Pickens' wind projects , it's easy to feel discouraged, but here's something to lift your spirits.  Great news came from the American Wind Energy Association today.  During 2009, 10 GW of new wind power capacity ...
  
• Study Says Algae Biofuel Has Dirty Life Cycle
  Algae has seemed like a great biofuel candidate because it's extremely efficent at creating energy from sunlight and it could potentially form closed loops for power plants - absorbing exhaust while creating new fuel - but a recent study has knocked algae off its pedestal. University of Virginia r ...
  
• GM Will Design Their Own Electric Motors
  General Motors announced today that they will be expanding their capabilities for designing and manufacturing electric traction motors, the motors used to propel electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. GM plans to have the first GM-designed and -built electric motors installed in some 2013 vehicle ...
  
• Checking Up on 2009's Green Cars
  Last year, Hank attended the NAIAS auto show in Detroit, and gave us a rundown on the various green cars he saw there. I thought it would be good to take a look at last year's list and see how things have lined up for these companies. This was already a year when the majority of manufacturers at ...
  

Times Online - Science

• Neuron breakthrough offers hope on Alzheimer&#8217 ...
  Neurons have been created directly from skin cells for the first time, in a remarkable study that suggests that our biological makeup is far more versatile than previously thought.
  
• Weather may force robins out of Top Ten in RSPB Bi ...
  The prolonged cold weather could hit the number of small birds such as the robin recorded this weekend as part of the RSPB’s annual garden survey.
  
• Steven Spielberg got it wrong – he should ha ...
  Red, blue or a muddy green? The likely colour of dinosaurs has puzzled many a film-maker. Now scientists have the answer for at least one species: it was a warm shade of ginger.
  
• Evidence of Stone Age amputation forces rethink ov ...
  The surgeon was dressed in a goat or sheep skin and used a sharpened stone to amputate the arm of his patient.
  
• Oops, that was a bad call, Earth
  “CALLING all aliens, this is Earth. Are you receiving me?” Rather than simply listening for signals of extra-terrestrial life, some scientists are preparing to take a much more active approach to finding alien intelligence on other planets.
  

Environment _ National Geographic

• Haiti Earthquake & Voodoo: Myths, Ritual, and Robe ...
  A voodoo scholar explains how Haiti's many believers may view the earthquake, why he thinks Pat Robertson's post-quake remarks were "cruel, ignorant, unforgivable"—and more.
  
• Green Energy "Oasis" to Bloom in the Desert?
  A research center slated to be built in 2010 as part of the Sahara Forest Project is meant to serve as a proving ground for new technologies designed to bring green living to the desert, project managers say.
  
• Strongest Hurricanes May Triple in Frequency, Stud ...
  The U.S. Southeast, Mexico, and the Caribbean will be pounded by more very intense hurricanes in the coming decades due to global warming, a new computer model suggests.
  
• BPA Linked to Heart Disease, Study Confirms
  Bisphenol-A—used in many sunglasses, reusable bottles, food packaging, and baby bottles—is linked to heart disease, a new study confirms. In a separate development, the FDA changes course and announces concern over BPA.
  
• Chemical BPA Linked to Heart Disease, Study Confir ...
  Bisphenol-A—used in many sunglasses, reusable bottles, food packaging, and baby bottles—is linked to heart disease, a new study confirms.
  

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

• When it comes to Joe Lieberman...
  If Joe Lieberman... Originally uploaded by msgeek93 Nothing to add.
  
• Rep. Anthony Weiner Teaches Lieberman To Spell
  In his own special way : Sharp-eyed Ben was reading my story when he noticed something I had missed: Lieberman managed to misspell the name of Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who, I swear, has uttered the phrase "As long as you spell my name right" in my presence. Wrote Lieberman: "I fear the people who ...
  
• After waiting 6 months for Franken to join the Sen ...
  Months and months of obstruction that the Democratic party had to sit through waiting for Norm Coleman to give up what he had lost in the elections, a reality of election law that the Dem party had to deal with in Minnesota and in the Senate waiting for a 60th vote. And Scotty Brown is out there mak ...
  
• Some things are worth crowing about:
  Via Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors : Our own Cassie is now a published author! Read Cassie’s article in Mother Jones, and be sure to leave a comment for her there . Go Cassie! And the article is worth the read... The Parent Trap — Flickr/kapungo (Creative Commons) We love seeing bad parents ...
  
• Just a short note to Harold Ford:
  A short note to Harold Ford, who is brutally trying to flip-flop his way into New York's Senate race: "Fugghedaboudit" That is all...
  

SPL Center

• Opening Arguments Held in Bill White Trial
  ROANOKE, VA. — Did white supremacist Bill White threaten people with whom he disagreed? Or were his outrageous comments protected speech under the First Amendment? The jury appeared to listen closely as lawyers for both sides presented opening arguments this morning in White’s trial, which began yes ...
  
• Pennsylvania Police Officers Indicted in Cover-Up ...
  Indictments were unsealed today against three police officers in Shenandoah, Pa., including the chief, on obstruction of justice and other charges in connection with the beating death of an undocumented Mexican immigrant there in July 2008. A fourth officer was indicted on unrelated corruption charg ...
  
• Monochromatic Basketball: A League of Their Own
  To many fans, the National Basketball Association (NBA) features exciting games played by gifted athletes. But most of the players are just so darned, well, black. Now an Atlanta sports entrepreneur named Don “Moose” Lewis has a potential antidote: an all-white professional basketball league. Lewis ...
  
• Conspiracy Central: Beck, Birchers to Converge at ...
  The John Birch Society, whose conspiracy theories eventually became so fantastic that it faded into irrelevance, has edged back toward the mainstream – or at least the mainstream of conservative thought. It’s listed as one of 87 co-sponsors of next month’s annual Conservative Political Action Confer ...
  
• Movement to Boot Pacifica Forum Off Oregon Campus ...
  For years, students at the University of Oregon generally avoided Pacifica Forum, the formerly left-wing discussion group that has increasingly embraced right-wing extremism. Many students weren’t even aware that the group meets on campus. That all changed last Friday, when students packed the Walnu ...
  

change: org.

• Oreo's Law, Round Two
  When Oreo's Law was first proposed, I had a number of concerns about it. Despite accusations that I was advocating for killing animals, my article laid out several suggestions for improving the law to ensure it would protect the animals it was intending to help, and I'm pleased to report that New Yo ...
  
• Why Poor Countries Need Disaster Insurance
  In the wake of the quake in Haiti, observers have scrambled from all corners to reach out with much-needed relief and loans. But what if in future times of crisis, disaster-stricken countries like Haiti didn't need emergency loans at all? It sounds like a purely whimsical question. But fresh on the ...
  
• Casinos: Good for the State, Bad for its Residents
  Strapped for cash, several American states are turning to gambling, which would literally raise money by giving residents -- often the ones who can least afford it -- a way to throw it away. But in Ohio, researchers refuse to let casinos go up without informing people how much harm they will cause. ...
  
• A Dairy's Dirty Secrets
  There's nothing worse than being a cheese lover and seeing videos like this one that appeared last night on ABC's Nightline . The footage came from undercover work done by Mercy for Animals and reveals horrific abuse in one of New York state's largest dairies, a 5,000 cow operation called Willet Dai ...
  
• Negotiating With the Taliban and Suspected War Cri ...
  From afar, it appears rather obvious that a democratic government of unity and reconciliation would rise in Afghanistan without the inclusion of enemies of its core values, namely irreconcilable opponents of democracy, women, or ethnic rivals. Indeed, the NATO-backed Karzai Administration has faced ...
  

Common Dreams -News

• Howard Zinn, Historian who Challenged Status Quo, ...
  by Mark Feeney Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87. ...
  
• Oregon Voters Pass Tax Increasing Measures by Big ...
  by Harry Esteve Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services. The tax measures passed easily, with late returns showing a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio. ...
  
• EPA Requests Feedback on Plan Analyzing Impact of ...
  WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requesting public input on a precedent-setting effort to evaluate environmental justice concerns raised by a Bush-era loophole that stripped federal oversight of companies that handle 1.5 million tons of hazardous waste each year. The waste i ...
  
• Obama Scoffed at McCain's Spending Freeze Proposal ...
  by Sam Stein It didn't take long for the critics to come out in force -- and on YouTube -- against the Obama administration's just-leaked plan to propose a three-year freeze in discretionary, "non-security" spending as part of the upcoming budget. Some Democrats scoffed at the idea, calling it the ...
  
• Chief of Staff Draws Fire From Left as Obama Falte ...
  by Peter Wallsten WASHINGTON-President Barack Obama's liberal backers have a long list of grievances. The Guantanamo Bay prison is still open. Health care hasn't been transformed. And Wall Street banks are still paying huge bonuses. But they are directing their anger less at Mr. Obama than at the ma ...
  

Lifehacker

• Remains of the Day: PlayStation 3 Joins the Jailbr ...
  The PlayStation 3 gets opened up to DIY developers, the Zune can kind of play XviD-type videos, and Apple releases some kind of tablet-type something-or-other today. Your remainder links, broken into iPad and non-iPad lists for your convenience. Non-iPad news Here's your silver platter One of th ...
  
• Focus on Spending More Time, Not Money, on Things ...
  As we prioritize the things that are important to us, you'd think the things we spend the most money on would get the bulk of our attention. That's often not the case, and recognizing this is a step toward serious savings. Photo by gerlos . Trent, the personal finance blogger over at The Simple Dol ...
  
• Add Bit.ly URL Shortening to Quicksilver [How To]
  Mac only: You've got no shortage of ways to quickly shorten URLs, like bookmarklets or text replacement apps, but most require mouse usage somewhere—and, as most Quicksilver addicts know, nothing is faster than just hitting a few keys. In hunting for a Quicksilver-shortening method, I stumbled onto ...
  
• Squeeze an Extra Hour Out of Your Busy Day [Produc ...
  We all wish for more hours in the day, but unless someone alters the spacetime continuum, we're stuck with only 24. Luckily, productivity blogger Brett Kelly has some tips for making it feel more like we have 25 hours. Photo by laffy4k . Kelly says the best way to eke more minutes out of your day i ...
  
• Traineo Graphs and Projects Your Fitness Goals [Go ...
  Traineo is a web-based fitness tracker that not only covers the basics like letting your log your weight and activity, but graphs the results and projects future outcomes. We initially reviewed Traineo back in 2006 , since then the site—which we gave a positive review way back then—has been overhaul ...
  

Newshoggers - AfPak

• Keeping the Spotlight on Afghanistan Tonight: Reth ...
  By Derrick Crowe The State of the Union talking points distributed by the White House this morning seem to indicate that the president will only briefly discuss Afghanistan tonight, but we are working hard to keep the spotlight on the Afghanistan war. Tonight, join us for a State of the Union watch ...
  
• Operation "60% Short" In Afghanistan - NATO For Th ...
  By Steve Hynd The Washington Post's Craig Whitlock writes today that NATO is coming up far short of the hoped for 10,000 extra troops to back Obama and McChrystal's surge of 30,000 Americans in Afghanistan. France has refused to send any more of its soldiers and Germany has pledged 500 instead of th ...
  
• Hey Babe, Your Warlord's Back!
  By Steve Hynd The AP (sorry) has the news that mass murdering fuckhead General Dostum is back in Karzai's government despite protestations from Western leaders. Karzai this month restored Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum as chief of staff to the commander in chief of the Afghan army - a job he lost in 2008 ...
  
• Rethink the State of the Union
  By Derrick Crowe President Obama will give his first State of the Union address on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern. Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan campaign wants to make sure this isn't just a time to sit and watch, but a time to get together with our friends and push back against the ...
  
• Security in Baghdad
  By Dave Anderson: At least fifty individuals have died in four carbombings in Baghdad this week. The target set was a specialized police unit and international hotels that host the hordes of connections of the outside world to the Maliki government. For an insurgency that is seeking to rebuild its c ...
  

Water Wars

• Water Wars (New Haven Advocate)
  For years, Waterbury was piping water from the Shepaug River into the city's reservoir and selling the excess water to other towns. In the summer months, Waterbury took so much water that the river was too shallow and too hot for aquatic life. Towns downstream, like Roxbury and Washington, worried.. ...
  
• Finding peace in the drilling fields (Cnylink)
  Nothing in recent years has rallied environmental activists in Central New York more than the efforts of gas drilling companies to tap into natural gas trapped for millions of
  
• Things to do: Book signing Tuesday (The Naperville ...
  Robert Crais, author of "The First Rule," will sign books at 7 p.m. at Anderson's Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville.
  
• Kenyan Sci-Fi Short 'Pumzi' Hits Sundance With Dys ...
  A future world ravaged by water wars serves as the backdrop for director Wanuri Kahiu's visually striking new film. Coming fast on the heels of South African sci-fi smash District 9 , the ecologically themed short promises to further raise the profile of African filmmakers.
  
• Tri-state water wars focus of upcoming lecture ser ...
  Georgia's water wars will be the subject of an upcoming lecture series at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
  

WordPress | Economics

• Why Banks are Not Lending
  With economy sinking further into the tollet you might be wondering where is all this easy zero perc
  
• A pathetic decision on Space Exploration
  Tonight, the president will announce a cutback in funding to NASA and our space programs as a part o
  
• Property Values Projected To Fall 12 Percent In 20 ...
  NewObservations.net projects residential real estate prices will fall 12 percent nationwide in 2010.
  
• IT'S THE FUNDING STUPID!
  It’s always the funding be it politicians, corporations, governments, or individuals , funding
  
• Scientific Credibility in the Post-Climategate Era
  There has been more intrigue on the topic of Global Warming during the past few months than in the d
  

Electronic Intifada

• Arab parliamentarian in Israel visits Auschwitz
  An Arab member of the Israeli parliament has sparked controversy among Jews and Arabs in Israel over his decision to join an official Israeli delegation commemorating Inter ...
  
• How surrendering Palestinian rights became the lan ...
  The 1993 Oslo agreement did not only usher in a new era of Palestinian-Israeli relations but has had a much more lasting effect in transforming the very language through wh ...
  
• "I was supposed to be born in a villa by the sea"
  Atef Abu Saif took his grandmother's stories of Jaffa to heart. These memories and these stories are the only treasure and wealth of the refugee. They are the sole inherita ...
  
• Book review: Avi Shlaim's "Israel and Palestine"
  When prolific writers compile a decade or more of their writing in a single collection, changes in style, political outlook, or interpretive tendencies are readily apparent ...
  
• My family's ongoing Nakba story
  One of the most traumatic effects wrought upon Palestinian society by the 1948 Nakba, or the dispossession of historic Palestine, is the physical separation it forced upon ...
  

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

• Colin Powell: ‘Nuclear Weapons Are Useless&# ...
  General Colin Powell in an introduction to a new film called the Nuclear Tipping Point didn’t mince words. In a forceful and direct presentation, the former Cold Warrior talked about his experience in dealing with nuclear weapons throughout his military career. Powell discussed the nuclear planning ...
  
• Ohio Sheriff Charged With Violating The Constituti ...
  Yesterday, Ohio Sheriff Richard K. Jones appeared in federal court facing charges that he violated the constitutional rights of an undocumented immigrant. The plaintiff, Luis Rodriguez, claims that Jones infringed on his 4th and 14th amendment rights. Cincinnati’s Local 12 channel reports: [Offic ...
  
• In 3-2 Vote, SEC Requires Companies To Disclose Cl ...
  In a 3-to-2 vote, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission determined today that companies “must consider the effects of global warming and efforts to curb climate change when disclosing business risks to investors.” Guidelines approved today require companies to weigh the impact of climate-chang ...
  
• The GOP’s Economic ‘Roadmap’ Is ...
  Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking members on the Budget Committee, is re-releasing his ‘Roadmap For America’s Future‘, a Republican guide to “tackle our nation’s most pressing domestic challenges — updated to reflect the dramatic decline in our economic and fiscal condition.” The document cl ...
  
• Why Is Taxpayer Owned Citigroup Paying $1.45 In Co ...
  For a while it looked as if compensation on Wall Street for 2009 would eclipse the record level of 2007, but in the end, the banks scooted in just under the bar, thanks to some last minute reductions by some of the Street’s biggest players. But that certainly does not mean that all is well [...]
  

thwap's schoolyard

• Canadian Newsmedia Rediscovers Haiti
  I gotta say that it puts a bad taste in my mouth to see all these fucking newspaper headlines about the earthquake in Haiti and how "Canada is doing this" and "Canadians are doing that" for Haiti. I've mentioned several times on this blog how curious it is that Canadian news media say Jack Shit abo ...
  
• harpercon bleat: "B-B-B-ut Prorogation is 'Constit ...
  That's one of the things that I've been reading on the "Blogging Tories" response to the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament movement. Duh. The proposed Liberal-NDP coalition was constitutional too. But they called it a "coup." Anyway, CAPP isn't against proroguing parliament so much as we'r ...
  
• Childish Pranks
  PMO spokesperson Dimitri Soudas on the "Yes Men" stunt : "Time would be better used by supporting Canada's efforts to reach an agreement instead of sending out hoax press releases," Soudas wrote in an email to CBC News. "More time should be dedicated to playing a constructive role instead of childis ...
  
• The Wit and Wisdom of Damian Brooks
  Canadian Cynic links to it here . Damian attempts to answer his own imitation of what us peaceniks and human rights fanatics are saying: "This just proves that we're not doing any good over there and should pull out immediately." Well, so much for your crocodile tears on the plight of Afghan deta ...
  
• National Security, .... 'eh?
  I've long been aware that stephen harper has contempt for parliament. He showed his contempt for our entire system of government last year. He's obviously got contempt for the law. And contempt for his own cabinet and caucus. And his constituency. The only thing he doesn't positively cringe at ...
  

Financial Sense Editorials

• Why I Hope Gold Falls to $1,000
  by Jeff Clark. "As a self-professed gold bug, why would I possibly want my favorite investment to fall in value? Have the long hours finally caught up with me? Au contraire; my near-constant devotion to all things gold has only served to crystallize one of the things I really want out of this. Here’ ...
  
• Bank Earnings and Economic Data Not So Hot
  by Paul Nolte. "We may have gotten our answer posed last week with the thud heard on Wall Street this week; earnings at the banks are not that great and neither is the economic data, giving the equity markets a bad case of the flu!"
  
• Th*nk*ng (Fictions)
  by Fred Cederholm. "I’ve been thinking about fiction(s). Actually I’ve been thinking about corporations, the Supreme Court, the 2010 elections, barometers/ pendulums, and the US economy. I love to read - books, magazines, newspapers, graffiti --- you name it. "
  
• Wyoming Natural Gas Production Has Started to Coll ...
  by Bill Powers. "After receiving many emails after I published my December 1, 2009 issue that discussed the coming natural gas supply crisis of mid-2011, it became very clear to me that there is a great deal of debate regarding the future of natural gas supply. "
  
• Market Observation: Yesterday Once More
  by Brian Pretti. "As you know, the mainstream financial media has been literally falling all over themselves quoting equity market performance since the March lows of last year. And of course the numbers are virtually magical. Once in a lifetime. Every investors dream, right? Of course this occurred ...
  

on Government Oversight

• Five Areas of Government In Need of Reform
  Before you sit down to watch the State of the Union address tonight, make sure to take a look at our latest recommendations to President Obama. While the administration has implemented many important reforms in their first year, there's still...
  
• The Sting Part II: Foreign Bribery Investigation C ...
  This is an update to last week’s post about the massive FBI sting operation that led to the arrest of 22 defense contractor employees on charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). We noted that the investigation was...
  
• Morning Smoke: Committee to Scrutinize Federal Res ...
  Hearing: "The Federal Bailout of AIG" [House Oversight and Government Reform Committee] Is Bernanke Hiding A Smoking Gun? by Ryan Grim [The Huffington Post] AIG's new new luxury policy by Michelle Leder [Footnoted] Timothy Geithner to deny role in AIG...
  
• Morning Smoke: Special IG Launches New Investigati ...
  TARP IG opens new probes of AIG by Jake Sherman [Politico] The Best Congress Lobbying Can Buy by Marian Wang [Mother Jones] Ethics Groups Want Changes to Obama Lobbying Ban by Carrie Levine [The Blog of the Legal Times] US...
  
• Agencies Unload New Sets of Data onto Data.gov
  Marking the first in a series of deadlines outlined in the Open Government Directive (OGD), Friday saw the eleventh-hour (well, 6:50 PM to be precise) release of over 100 data sets from executive branch agencies on data.gov. Among the data...
  

Science Express

• 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.
  
• Bcl6 gene sculpts helper T cell to boost antibody ...
  Expression of a single gene programs an immune system helper T cell that fuels rapid growth and diversification of antibodies in a cellular structure implicated in autoimmune diseases and development of B cell lymphoma, scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported toda ...
  
• Scientists discover gene mutation responsible for ...
  University of Utah researchers and their colleagues have identified the gene that is mutated in a hereditary form of a rare neuroendocrine tumor called paraganglioma (PGL). The gene, called hSDH5, is required for activation of an enzyme complex that plays a critical role in the chemical reactions th ...
  
• Researchers identify itch-specific neurons in mice ...
  Historically, many scientists have regarded itching as just a less intense version of pain. They have spent decades searching for itch-specific nerve cells to explain how the brain perceives itch differently from pain, but none have been found.
  
• Sustained quantum information processing demonstra ...
  Raising prospects for building a practical quantum computer, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated sustained, reliable information processing operations on electrically charged atoms (ions). The new work, described in the August 6 issue of Science Express ...
  

TechDirt

• Propose A Webinar On Building A Business Case For ...
  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. Sun and Intel are interested in holding a webinar around the topic of building a b ...
  
• Wait, Who Wants A Proprietary, Locked Down Device ...
  I honestly didn't have very much to say about Apple's introduction of the iPad, which seems like something of a non-event, really. However, it's fascinating to see some, such as Nick Carr, react to the device by suggesting that it's the beginning of the end of the "PC era" in favor of specialized p ...
  
• Jammie Thomas Rejects Offer From RIAA To Settle Fo ...
  After the judge in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case decided to reduce the amount awarded to the record labels by the jury, we had hoped that both sides would figure out a way to just end this lawsuit. However, it looks like that's not happening. As we noted, the RIAA was extremely reluctant to accept ...
  
• Should Copyright Holders Pay For Bogus DMCA Takedo ...
  A few years ago, you may recall that Universal Music issued a takedown for a 29-second video involving a little kid dancing to a Prince song playing on the radio in the background. While the woman issued a counternotice and had the video put back online, the EFF sued Universal Music , claiming that ...
  
• Be Careful Writing About Tintin; The Lawyer For Th ...
  I've never quite understood how various brands decide to go about attacking their biggest fans, but sometimes common sense isn't so common. Robert Ring sends in a story from a few weeks ago, about how the lawyer who represents the estate of the guy who created the cartoon character Tintin has been ...
  

VacTruth

• Are mothers natural protectors or baby killers? Sh ...
  . . . Christina England American Chronicle 1/25/2010 For many years around the world, doctors, scientists and professors of medicine have been debating as to whether ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ or SBS as it is known, actually exists. For a diagnoses of SBS a baby will need to display a serious acquired ...
  
• Video: Symptoms of Vaccine Injury mislabeled as AD ...
  
  
• Doctors Vaccinate for Profit
  . . . Christina England vactruth.com 1/25/2010 (vactruth.com) Years ago children were sent up chimneys or sold as servants to earn their parents extra money. Now they are being vaccinated by doctors, to boost their takings. Doctors, Governments and Pharma see our children as their property and a ...
  
• “INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY:” A CASE STUDY IN AL ...
  Shaken Baby Syndrome and Lethal Minor Falls: Analysis of Causes of Death of Amanda M. Sadowshy Harold E. Buttram and Alan Yurko Medical Veritas
  
• Patient Administered Vaccination Without Doctor Ap ...
  . . . S. Humphries, MD Medical Voices January 22, 2010 H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccines are now being given to sick hospital patients with or without their doctor’s consent.  This is being done despite there being no data on the safety of doing so. I am a licensed, board-certified nephrologist, ...
  

BroadSnark

• Women, Are You Up for a Gathering?
  You may have heard about a conference coming up in San Francisco called Libertopia. Its purpose is to create a worldwide movement of individuals who choose their own form of governance – a voluntary society based on mutual respect for each individual’s dignity and ownership of his/her own body and ...
  
• Are Cynic and Optimist Mutually Exclusive?
  People often complain that I’m cynical and pessimistic.  I’m always looking for the catch, the ulterior motive, the dark side.  Every new plan, from health care to tax reform, I am immediately poking holes in.  Many of my friends are liberal, nonprofit types who are very attached to these plans. ...
  
• Things You Might Have Missed
  I know there are some people who really believe that enforcing anti-prostitution laws will help women, but it is really hard to have patience for those people when I read things like this. On a more inspiring note, these women in South Korea are bad asses. Howard Zinn recently spoke about the myths ...
  
• Preparing for Peace
  Many people believe that some injustices are so heinous that violence is not only necessary, it is obligatory.  But they rarely take the next step.  They rarely imagine what would happen after the violence stops, assuming it can be stopped.  Who among them is going to create a better, more just worl ...
  
• Haiti Donations and How Nonprofits Work
  There has been a lot of internet chatter on what organizations to donate to in order to best help the Haitian people.  Naturally, you want the maximum amount of your dollars to go to the people who need it.  So you read articles like this one about Yele or you go to charity navigator and [...]
  

Executive Intelligence Review

• Shut Down `Londonistan's' Terrorist Operations Now ...
  By Michele Steinberg Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• Next Comes Hyperinflation
  By John Hoefle Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• Russia Seeks To Develop Far East; Invites U.S. Rol ...
  By Rachel Douglas Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• The Case for Impeachment of President Barack Obama
  By Nancy Spannaus Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• The Case of Obama: Tantamount to Treason
  By Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  

Armies of Liberation

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

Dark Politricks

• The Alex Jones Show – ARCHIVE – January 27th With ...
  Alex welcomes back to the show British journalist and novelist James Delingpole. Mr. Delingpole is the author of How to be Right: The Essential Guide to Making Lefty Liberals History, and Welcome to Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn’t Work. He writes for The Times, Dai ...
  
• Top Ten signs Man Made Global Warming is a hoax
  Taken from www.heraldsun.com.au Here are just the top 10 new signs that catastrophic man-made warming may be just another beat-up, like swine flu, SARS, and the Y2K bug. 1. Climategate THE rot for Kevin Rudd (Australian Prime minister) started last November with the leaking of emails from t ...
  
• Apple iPad spanked with Defective by Design protes ...
  Not everyone is drooling about Apple's soon-to-be-launched tablet. Members of the anti-DRM group Defective by Design were protesting Wednesday morning outside Apple's tighty controlled launch event, handing out cards mocking Apple's invitation, with Apple's tagline "Come see our latest creation" rep ...
  
• Geithner Told To Quit After E Mails Reveal Involve ...
  John Mica slams Treasury Secretary’s “lame excuses” during fiery hearing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s denial that he played any role in the AIG cover-up is contradicted by emails which confirm that both Geithner and the New York Federal Reserve were both intimately involved in keeping deta ...
  
• Ron Paul: The Government Wants Inflation, Devalued ...
  Congressman Ron Paul appeared on Neil Cavuto’s Fox Business show last night to discuss the news that Obama intends to enact a spending freeze, a policy the president previously admitted would amount to a “hatchet job”. Paul made a number of salient points, including the fact that a spending freez ...
  

food and water watch

• Target Hits the Mark with a Phase-out on Farmed Sa ...
  With an overload of sketchy news stories about corporations trying to control our food and water resources, pieces of good news on food safety can seem few and far between.  But today, there is great news – the ever-popular Target has eliminated farmed salmon from its more than 1,700 stores across t ...
  
• Big Ag Squeezes Value While Farmers and Consumers ...
  The government is finally wising up to Monsanto's industry bullying. The Justice Department's current investigation of the stranglehold agribusinesses have on the food system reveals the confidential commercial licensing agreements at the heart of Monsanto's market monopolization.
  
• In Search of the Truth About Ocean Fish Farming: A ...
  On December 3, Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, published a disappointingly inaccurate and shortsighted piece on the development of offshore aquaculture.
  
• 53 Groups Join Food & Water Watch in Asking Rep. C ...
  Food & Water Watch, along with 53 other consumer, fishing and environmental groups and businesses, today submitted a letter to Representative Lois Capps (D-CA 23rd) requesting that she reconsider her plan to introduce legislation that would allow ocean fish farming in U.S. federal waters.
  
• Kona Blue: Planning Tropical Adventure to Get Away ...
  Kona Blue Water Farms, producer of farmed yellowtail known as “Kona kampachi,” has announced that it is opening a second offshore fish farming operation—this time, in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. The company, which operates its current facility in where humpback whales have been observed, has faced oppo ...
  

treehugger

• Scientists Create 'Venus Flytrap' that Snares Radi ...
  Photo via Science Daily Nuclear waste is probably the most dreaded substances in existence, in part because it's proved so difficult to effectively clean up and store. But a stunning new breakthrough has just surfaced that may make cleaning up radioactive waste e... Read the full story on T ...
  
• Pedal-Power in Detroit: Green Gym for the Homeless
  Green Gym in Detroit. Photo courtesy of Cass Community Social Services Between 1950 and 1980, Detroit lost 500,000 trees to Dutch elm disease, urban expansion and attrition, according to Paul Bairley, director of Urban Forestry for The Greening of Detroit. Among the city's various environment ...
  
• A Bridge Grows in Queens?
  Image credit: Good For years, residents of Astoria, a neighborhood in Queens, New York City, dealt with a scummy flow of water. Caused by a leaky pipe, the scum river flooded the sidewalk and iced over in winter. It was a problem, until two creative artists found a DIY solution .... Read the fu ...
  
• Africanized Bees Not Yet Killing U.S. Honey Produc ...
  Image credit: _PaulS_ /Flickr These days, bees and beekeepers are facing lots of problems . Dealing with takeovers from Africanized bees, however, doesn't appear to be one of them. A recent survey found that, since their introduction in 1990, Africanized, or "killer," bees have not had a sig ...
  
• Green Features We Love in Apple's New iPad
  Image via Gizmodo There's little doubt you've heard the buzz about the iPad today. Apple made the announcement of the next big thing in consumer electronics, and detailed the specs for the iPad. While you can grab all the info you need about it over at Apple , there are several great green feat ...
  

Biosingularity

• Needling Molecules
  Many experiments in biology rely on manipulating cells: adding a gene, protein, or other molecule, for instance, to study its effects on the cell. But getting a molecule into a cell is much like breaking into a fortress; it often relies on biological tricks such as infecting a cell with a virus or a ...
  
• ‘Longevity’ Gene May Cut Dementia Risk
  The so-called “longevity gene” may do more than add years to your life. It may also help stave off age-related cognitive decline, and this discovery is paving the way for new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, a study shows. The longevity gene is a variant of the cholesteryl ester transfer protein ...
  
• Pomegranates May Stall Breast Cancer
  Eating pomegranates or drinking pomegranate juice may help prevent and slow the growth of some types of breast cancer. A new study shows a group of phytochemicals called ellagitannins found in abundance in pomegranates inhibited the growth of estrogen-responsive breast cancer in laboratory tests. vi ...
  
• 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 ...
  
• The Year in Biomedicine
  Advances in antiaging drugs, acoustic brain surgery, flu vaccines–and the secret to IQ. via Technology Review: The Year in Biomedicine.
  

CFACT

• Don't Get Mad About the Weather - Get Even
  There̢۪s no room to deny the record breaking cold winter right now.
  
• 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

Ria Novosti Online News

• Haitian girl survives 15 days under quake rubble
  A 17-year-old girl has been rescued from rubble after spending 15 days under a building destroyed by a deadly earthquake that struck Haiti in mid-January, the Sky News television said on Thursday.
  
• Hamas to take Israel to court over alleged organ t ...
  Radical Palestinian group Hamas has started gathering evidence that Israel harvested body parts from killed Palestinians to support its future legal claims against Tel Aviv in international courts.
  
• Toppled Honduran leader leaves for exile
  Ousted former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has left the country for exile in the Dominican Republic amid hopes that his departure would end seven months of political turmoil, the BBC said.
  
• Two police officers injured in Ingushetia die in h ...
  Two of the four police officers who were wounded on Wednesday in an attack in North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia later died in a hospital, an Interior Ministry source said.
  
• Georgia says no more military action against S. Os ...
  The Georgian government has adopted a new strategy toward S. Ossetia and Abkhazia which excludes any use of military force against its former breakaway regions.
  

Ria Novosti - Science & Technology

• India test-launches air-to-air missile
  India on Monday successfully test fired a new solid-propellant air-to-air missile, the IANS news agency reported.
  
• Russia earmarks $17 mln to research nuclear-propel ...
  The Russian government will allocate 500 million rubles ($16.7 million) in 2010 on a project to build a spaceship with a nuclear engine.
  
• Russia toys with exotic nuclear space projects
  Russia is pondering new applications for yet-to-be-built nuclear-powered spacecraft, including military satellites, nuclear power plants, and space tugs, Energia space corporation said Wednesday.
  
• Russia to finalize design of manned spacecraft boo ...
  Russia will finalize in August 2010 the design of a new booster rocket for a manned spacecraft it is planning to launch in 2017, a design bureau chief said on Tuesday.
  
• Russia set to launch manned spacecraft in 2017
  Russia intends to keep up with the U.S. in the space race and launch a new manned spacecraft by 2017, a senior Russian space official said on Tuesday.
  

Pruning Shears

• This Week In Tyranny
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post I keep waiting for some official word on Scott Horton’s blockbuster exposé on detainee deaths in Guantánamo. In the mean time here are two observations on media coverage of this bombshell story. First, Yves Smith :Anyone familiar ...
  
• Is a Tea Party Dynamic Growing on the Left?
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post Most of the blame in Martha Coakley’s defeat Tuesday is on her. She had a series of blunders, some of which were such a ridiculous caricature of liberal elitism it makes me wonder if she was a GOP double agent. So: That point, fir ...
  
• This Week In Tyranny
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post Among the problems with torturing detainees is that your choices afterwards are 1) imprison them until they die 2) kill them 3) release them. If you can’t do #1 and you won’t do #2, #3 implies that all the horrific details will be a ...
  
• Deficit Chickenhawks
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post Here is a one paragraph summary of our fiscal policy since 1980: A Republican president cheerfully dismisses probity when lobbying for increased defense spending and tax cuts, with the memorably irresponsible quip “I believe the def ...
  
• This Week In Tyranny
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post I listen to a technology podcast from CNET called Buzz Out Loud, and on Friday’s show they reported that one Bob Burbach won the Consumer Electronics Association’s “Innovation Movement’s Apps for Innovation ” with a site called GovPu ...
  

Natural Health News

• Environmental Exposure to Hairspray, Lipstick and ...
  The links between autoimmune diseases, infections and the environment are complex and mysterious. But "Spondylo-arthropathies," a group of common inflammatory rheumatic disorders, appear to be triggered by environmental factors. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease affl ...
  
• Big Salami Recall Related to Salmonella Outbreak
  The U.S. government has announced a recall of 1.2 million pounds of salami and other “ready-to-eat sausages,” related to a large, ongoing salmonella outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported 184 potentially outbreak-associated cases in 38 states, including eight from Or ...
  
• Dying Bats Spell Trouble for Farmers and the Envir ...
  White nose syndrome threatens to wipe out five of Pennsylvania's six bat species. Wildlife biologists estimate that the disorder has killed 750,000 bats in the Northeast since it was first discovered in 2006 in New York. A devastated bat population will cost farmers and impact water quality. Bats s ...
  
• Sharing Your Bed May be Bad for Your Health
  Couples should consider sleeping apart for the good of their health and relationship, say experts. One study found that, on average, couples suffered 50 percent more sleep disturbances if they shared a bed. The modern tradition of the marital bed only began with the industrial revolution, when pe ...
  
• 6 Principles You Should Know BEFORE Making an Info ...
  by Barabara Loe Fisher There are three basic facts you should remember when you are exercising your right to make an informed, voluntary vaccination choice for yourself or your child in America:   INFORMED CONSENT IS A HUMAN RIGHT :  The right to voluntary, informed consent to a medical ...
  

Antemedius

• The MA Story: Did Progressives Decide They'd Had ...
  Remember that polls were out there before the voting began, both nationally and in Massachusetts, such as the Boston Globe poll indicating displeasure that Obama had not lived up to campaign promises. For all too long the Democratic hierarchy has concluded that progressives will vote predictably on ...
  
• Want to Run for Office? Get a Corporate Sponsor!
  The 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Company established by head note the proposition that a corporation is a person with Fourteenth Amendment rights. The above proposition has propounded much shock and confusion for law students tackling the subject ...
  
• Lessons that should be learned from Coakley's defe ...
  Jon Walker over at Fire Dog Lake makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in yesterday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster. Not only will Democrats lose badly if they adopt this strategy, but they will be laughed at. Republic ...
  
• Torture Accountability Letter 4 - Chair Conyers, C ...
  Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s letter writing campaign for accountability under the law for the apparent torture program of the Bush administration. The point of this effort is to keep the issue of accountability alive. We all know there are other critical issues, and the President and many i ...
  
• Obama Fanning Middle East War Flames
  As President Obama steps up the war that is inflaming ever wider sectors of the Middle East, USA continues its rapid slide toward Third World status. The two developments are not unrelated. Spending on war does not boost an economy as does domestic spending---and the Pentagon has been spending trill ...
  

Son of Alex Constantine's Blacklist

• UnderpantsGate: Big Oil, the CIA and the Attempted ...
  Also see: American Sponsorship of Global Terrorism By Alex Constantine (Supplementary revisions, 12-30-09, 1:29 pm) It’s All, Once Again, About Big Oil and a Pipeline … Abdulmutallab’s exploding unmentionables “Why Was Umar AbdulMutallab in Houston in August 2008? Whom Did He Visit There? What Did H ...
  
• Celebrities Lead Charge against Scientology
  Hollywood figures quit ‘rip-off’ church as Australian prime minister threatens parliamentary inquiry into its activities Peter Beaumont in London, Toni O’Loughlin in Sydney, and Paul Harris in New York The Observer | 22 November 2009 The security at the red-brick and glass-walled horseshoe of the Jo ...
  
• Baltimore: Cultist Withdraws Guilty Plea in Baby&# ...
  BALTIMORE — A former member of a defunct religious cult has backed out of a plea deal and will face trial on charges he and others starved a toddler to death. Marcus Cobbs had agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of accessory after the fact. But his attorney abruptly withdrew the plea Friday mo ...
  
• What’s Wrong with this RFID Chip?
  RFID chip brought to you by the Carlyle Group and Matrics, Inc.
  
• Will Donor Scandals Doom Crist’s Senate bid?
  ” … Three of Crist’s top fund-raisers have been hamstrung by federal investigations in the past nine months, and a fourth, Jupiter sports agent and real estate investor Marc Roberts, is facing a federal lawsuit alleging he defrauded a business partner out of $100 million to support his own ‘lavish p ...
  

Climategate

• The 2009 Dr. John Christy versus Dr. William Schle ...
  Dr. John Christy debates President of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Dr. William Schlesinger on the potential danger associated with global warming. The debate was during a forum in sponsored by the John Locke Foundation and the Reese Institute for Conservation of Natural Resources at Leno ...
  
• British government suffers biggest setback since C ...
  Today we can update you with the news that the credibility of the IPCC and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has taken another major blow as Britain’s highest ranked government scientist, Professor John Beddington CMG FRS admits the science for global warming is “uncertain.” Related posts: Royal S ...
  
• Save yourself! Andrew Weaver looks for a way out
  Andrew Weaver openly admitted that climate reports have been cooked in order to push an agenda. The article below quotes that, "The IPCC author who planted that false Himalayan meltdown said the other day 'we' did it because 'we thought ... it will impact policy makers and politicians and encourage ...
  
• Mardi Tindal: Proving the insanity of global warmi ...
  (Apologies to the National Post. We promise to never again excerpt so much of an article. But this is one of the funniest damn stories we’ve ever read.) We’ve always known man-made global warming believers are nuts. And have we got a story here that will prove it to you. Mardi Tindal is the newly el ...
  
• Like all bubble’s, carbon market goes bust
  Tulips, tech stocks, housing market and now the carbon market. Bubbles go bust, baby. Related posts:Woman Who Invented Credit Default Swaps is One of the Key Architects of Carbon Derivatives, Which Would Be at the Very CENTER of Cap and Trade Organized Crime in Charge of EU Carbon Trade, Police Sa ...
  

Opinio Juris

• On Cold Calling and Cosmopolitan Constitutionalism
  by JanKlabbers by JanKlabbers This morning I had the distinct displeasure of being woken up by a phone call coming in on my Finnish cell phone, around 6 a.m. The caller turned out to be a Helsinki-based energy company, which started to promise me all sorts of cheap energy until I pointed out that ...
  
• Copenhagen and Compliance
  by Kal Raustiala by Kal Raustiala     There are few international lawyers in the world who know more about climate change than Dan Bodansky. More generally, Dan is also an expert on international environmental law (IEL), and in this book he has distilled years of study and observation into a ver ...
  
• Welcome to Guest Blogger Jan Klabbers
  by Duncan Hollis by Duncan Hollis We here at Opinio Juris are thrilled to welcome Jan Klabbers as our latest guest blogger.  Professor Klabbers is professor of international organizations law at the University of Helsinki, and Director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Global G ...
  
• Haas Commentary to the “Art and Craft of Internati ...
  by Peter Haas I want to thank Dan for writing such a comprehensive book about the conceptual and applied elements in international environmental law (IEL). To a non-lawyer, it reads like a state of the art report on IEL. International environmental law is particularly striking to me, especially w ...
  
• The Art and Craft of International Environmental L ...
  by Dan Bodansky by Dan Bodansky   How and why do international environmental norms arise? In what ways do they affect behavior? Do they change what states and individuals actually do, and, if so, why? How effective are they in solving international environmental problems? These are some of the q ...
  

Investigate - Breaking News

• Climate socialists move to Plan B
  Faced with the collapse of the IPCC, UK Prime Minister and Socialist International delegate Gordon Brown has wasted no time going for plan B, a global tax on financial transactions and/or banks. I talked about the Tobin Tax here previously,...
  
• IPCC lead author on Pachauri's conflicts of intere ...
  Australia's ABC network 'buried the lead' in their schizophrenic coverage of an interview with IPCC lead author Andy Pitman. Pitman was trying to defend the IPCC, but interviewer Eleanor Hall forced him to concede that revelations of financial grants to...
  
• Australia's ABC gets schizophrenic over Glaciergat ...
  That hotbed of global warmism the ABC conducted a fairly hard-hitting interview with Aussie IPPC apologist Andy Pitman. It began tough: ELEANOR HALL: Scientists at the United Nation's climate change body, the International Panel on Climate Change, have now accepted...
  
• BREAKING: Glaciergate worsens, IPCC used fake clai ...
  A top IPCC official has blown the UN's climate science organisation out of the water, admitting this afternoon that the IPCC deliberately included false information about the Himalayan glaciers, to put pressure on the public and politicians. The story has...
  
• BREAKING: New major errors found in IPCC report, c ...
  The Times of London is reporting major fresh errors in the IPCC's Nobel-prizewinning Fourth Assessment Report, again based on unreliable and non peer-reviewed sources. The latest controversy centres on claims that global warming is causing more hurricanes, cyclones and floods....
  

Public News Service

• Tax Cuts Wrong Strategy to Boost Jobs?
  Tax Cuts Wrong Strategy to Boost Jobs? Phoenix, AZ – The Arizona House is expected to vote soon on a tax cut bill aimed at boosting job creation in the state. But a coalition of 50 social service and union groups say the tax cuts will only increase projected state deficits. Comments from Dana Naimar ...
  
• AZ Utility Urged to Go Green to Save Green
  AZ Utility Urged to Go Green to Save Green Phoenix, AZ – Salt River Project is taking public comment this week on a proposal to hike electric rates by nearly 5-percent. Consumer groups like the Arizona Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) say the increase could be lower if SRP relied less on coal-f ...
  
• Peanut Poisoning Victims Still Waiting to be Serve ...
  Peanut Poisoning Victims Still Waiting to be Served Food Safety Assurances Phoenix, AZ – One year ago this week, Americans were scouring their pantries to clear out peanut products after salmonella-tainted peanut butter was linked to nine deaths and more than 700 illnesses - at least 13 in Arizona. ...
  
• Rural AZ Could Benefit from Health Care Reform
  Rural AZ Could Benefit from Health Care Reform Phoenix, AZ - While members of Congress debate the "public option," other parts of the House and Senate health care reform bills aren't so controversial. They address the lack of doctors and nurses in rural communities, and the shortage of teachers in t ...
  
• Endangered Arizona Jaguars Will Get Federal Recove ...
  Endangered Arizona Jaguars Will Get Federal Recovery Plan Tucson, AZ – Endangered jaguars will get both a recovery plan and protection for critical habitat as the result of a policy change by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Jaguars were first given federal protection back in 1997. Comments from ...
  

My Care2 Picks

• Haiti and the perennial challenge of information l ...
  “Decision-makers on the ground still do not have access to accurate, real-time data. That may be because of firewalls, lack of bandwidth, people are unaware these resources exist, the command structure of an org does not allow people to use open sources, Submitted by John Farnham to Society & Cultur ...
  
• For Lower Blood Pressure, Low-Carb Diet May Be Bes ...
  MONDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) -- A low-carbohydrate diet helps people shed as many pounds as a low-fat diet plus the weight-loss drug orlistat does, and the low-carb plan may be better at helping lower blood pressure, researchers report. Submitted by Haydee S. to Health & Wellness  |   Note-it! ...
  
• Teachers should add life to history lessons
  I watched my daughter study history for four months and I found that although her teacher was physically young, he was mentally old. He just had his students write down the dates of important battles and the names of those involved. Submitted by John Farnham to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  | ...
  
• ACORN's Real Crime: Empowering the Poor
  ACORN helps the poor become political and economic players. That's why the money powers unleashed right-wing politics to go after ACORN with a blood lust. Submitted by Roseann D. to US Politics & Gov't  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• 30 Japanese Hornets Massacre 30,000 Bees
  “All it takes is one. One enterprising scout to find the honey bee colony. Mark it with a pheromone. Return with a band of natural born killers. And make all hell break lose. Submitted by John Farnham to Animals  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  

Angry Indian News

• Children of Gaza donate towards Haiti disaster
  Anarkismo: However, one of the most touching outpourings of sympathy and aid has come from the most unexpected source. Gaza. In a region so desperately troubled itself, the people of Gaza have... [[Continue reading Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo...]]
  
• Giant sculptured Mayan head found
  Giant sculptured Mayan head found: "(PhysOrg.com) -- A decorated Mayan head measuring three meters (10 feet) at the base and sculptured out of stucco has been unearthed in northern Guatemala, near... [[Continue reading Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo...]]
  
• Don Belton: How homophobia turned love into death
  peoplesworld: "The mutilated body of Don Belton, an African American English professor at Indiana University, was found in his Bloomington apartment three days after Christmas. Belton had been... [[Continue reading Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo...]]
  
• The Open Source Embargo
  appfrica.net/: SourceForge is quick to explain they do not support this decision but they were essentially forced to as a company based out of the United States:Since 2003, the SourceForge.net Terms... [[Continue reading Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo...]]
  
• Televangelist Kenneth Copeland accused of fraud ov ...
  freethinker.co.uk/: "WHILE aid agencies struggle to bring relief to Haitians in the wake of the recent devastating earthquake, a war of words has broken out between two US evangelists over money... [[Continue reading Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo...]]
  

  Rogue Government.com

• Warner Brothers To Release Next Harry Potter Film ...
  Warner Bros. will release the next two "Harry Potter" films in 3D, a move underscoring the post-"Avatar" rush for extra-dimensional boxoffice .
  
• India Plans Manned Space Mission In 2016
  India will launch its first manned space mission in 2016 in a bid to match space pioneers such as Russia and the United States, a top official said Wednesday.
  
• Obama Aims To Axe Moon Mission
  NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.
  
• Paulson: 25% unemployment rate without AIG bailou ...
  Facing criticism on Capitol Hill, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday defended his decision to complete a $182 billion bailout of American International Group Inc., arguing that the unemployment rate would have risen easily to 25% without the bailout.
  
• Has Apple really changed the world again?
  It's called the iPad. It looks like a large iPhone, with just a single button on the front. It has a 9.7in screen and weighs in at 1.5lb pounds. And it will cost you around £350 for the cheapest model.
  

Innovation Canada

• Rethinking the pine beetle
  When he talks about the fight against the mountain pine beetle, Joerg Bohlmann likes to use a medical analogy. “Imagine we’re trying to combat malaria,” says the genome biologist based at the University of British Columbia, “but we don’t know the makeup of the disease-causing parasite, so we leave i ...
  
• A Partnership of peoples
  (Courtesy of Frontier magazine, University of British Columbia) Forget what you may have heard about anthropology: it is not solely a science of lost cultures, dusty relics and ancient peoples. This widely misunderstood discipline provides a critical link to contemporary history, and its contributio ...
  
• Decade in review
  The first decade of the 21st century will be remembered as a decade of breakthroughs in science and technology. “It’s well known that discoveries in science are often drivers for important technological developments; for example, fuel cells,” says Thomas Ellis, director of research at the Canadian L ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Signs of the times

• Gaza fishermen risk lives for survival
  While the rest of the Gaza Strip is deep in slumber, Fathi Sayadi, 30, and his brother, Hatem, 26, steal away under the cover of darkness and into neighbouring Egyptian waters. Using small, dinghy-style boats purchased especially for their covert missions, the Sayadis slip across the border with Eg ...
  
• BEST OF WEB: Obama continuing US descent into barb ...
  The Washington Post's Dana Priest today reports that "U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people." That's no surprise, of course, as Yemen is now another predominantly Muslim ...
  
• The State of the Nation: I am afraid
  "As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid."--Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America Ominous developments in America have been a long time coming, in part precipitated by "we the people"--a citizenry that has been asleep at the wheel for to ...
  
• Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security C ...
  Following is a list of United Nations Security Council resolutions directly critical of Israel for violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, international terrorism, or other violations of international law. Res. 57 (Sep. 18, 1948) - Expresses deep ...
  
• Fears that child traffickers are targeting Haitian ...
  Haitian children orphaned or separated from their families by the earthquake face a growing threat from child traffickers, aid agencies warned today. There are mounting fears that defenceless children wandering the streets of Haiti are being swept up by child smugglers and spirited over the country ...
  

Threat Level

• 250,000 White House Staffers, Visitors Affected by ...
  A data breach at the National Archives and Records Administration is more serious than previously believed and involved sensitive personal information of 250,000 Clinton administration staff members, job applicants and White House visitors, and included the Social Security number of at least one dau ...
  
• Settlement Rejected in ‘Shocking’ RIAA File Sharin ...
  The recording industry is demanding Jammie Thomas-Rasset pay $25,000 to settle out of court the nation’s first file sharing case against an individual to have gone to trial –- a settlement offer the Minnesota mother of four is rejecting, lawyers in the case said Wednesday. The development came day ...
  
• Med Student Turns to Test-Prep Piracy
  Going to medical school can be expensive. So Kenneth Chou, a 30-year-old student at SUNY Upstate Medical University in New York, decided to copy Kaplan lecture DVDs from his school’s library and re-sell them online to help pay for his tuition. Chou admitted to raking in more than $100,000 for the pi ...
  
• Music Labels Lose Baidu Piracy Case
  LONDON (Reuters) - China’s most popular search engine Baidu has been cleared of piracy in a dispute with the music industry, the IFPI trade body for the music sector said Tuesday. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said it was disappointed with the ruling after a court in Chin ...
  
• Guilty Plea in ‘Anonymous’ DDoS Scientology Attack
  A Nebraska man is pleading guilty in federal court to a computer disruption charge for his role in the 2008 distributed denial-of-service attack that temporarily shuttered Church of Scientology websites, the authorities said Tuesday. Los Angeles federal prosecutors said Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20 ...
  

PERRspectives : Blog

• Oregon Voters Send Progressive Message on Tax Meas ...
  Just one week after the media chattering classes announced that Republican Scott Brown's upset win in Massachusetts represented a political sea change, voters in Oregon sent an unmistakable message of their own. And to be sure, they signaled an important...
  
• Cheney's Advice, Krugman's Law and Obama's First Y ...
  If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Barack Obama has been in the fast lane when it comes to bipartisanship. Now one year into his presidency, his near-pathological obsession with consensus has only served to resurrect...
  
• For GOP and Media, Obstructionism is the New Norma ...
  As Massachusetts residents vote in large numbers for a new Senator, 538.com, Pollster.com and other analysts are predicting an upset victory for Republican Scott Brown. If so, the GOP's victory will be double. The Republicans will not only have succeeded...
  
• MA Voters Balk at Funding Red State Health Care
  One day before voters head to the polls, several factors seem to be fueling Republican Scott Brown's surprising lead over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. Voter anger over the economy, Coakley's weak candidacy and Brown's strength among independents...
  
• Tim Tebow Turns Super Anti-Abortion Crusader
  Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow hasn't played a down in the National Football League, but he will nonetheless be a star during the Super Bowl on February 7. That's because the University of Florida quarterback will join his mother in...
  

Blackspot News Feed

• Ridge Defends Napolitano From Right-Wing Attacks: ...
  Tom Ridge, who served under President Bush, defended Napolitano, explaining that blame for the incident does not rest solely on her shoulders.
  
• Deported for a Tablet of Xanax? Immigrants Face Re ...
  Is being charged twice with possession enough to warrant deportation? Many U.S. courts think so.
  
• Bechyovinka
  There is a secret town in Kamchatka. One can get here only by sea or a helicopter… Yet another amazing photo-essay at English Russia, this time depicting the abandoned "submariners’ town" of Bechyovinka: Pure post-civilisation artporn.
  
• Obama Pushes Excise Tax, House Dems Fight It
  President Obama remains steadfastly committed to forcing the Senate's Chevy tax on health plans over the House's millionaire's surtax.
  
• Links for 2010-01-07
  Plastic Logic aims QUE e-reader at business crowd"Plastic Logic on Thursday unveiled a long-anticipated QUE electronic reader aimed at giving business travelers a "paperless briefcase.""(tags:computing ) French panel: Tax Google to fund the arts"How to help prop up the ailing music industry? Tax Goo ...
  

Consortium News

• The Supreme Court's Partisanship
  By opening the floodgates on corporate campaign money, the Supreme Court has advanced the GOP cause, says Robert Parry. January 27, 2010
  
• Bush Silences a Dangerous Witness
  From the Archive: Iraq's hanging of "Chemical Ali" -- like Saddam Hussein in 2006 -- means one less witness on Bush Family crimes. By Robert Parry
  
• Shiite Power Play Threatens Iraq Quiet
  Old neocon favorite Ahmed Chalabi is behind a purge of some political candidates from a key Iraqi election, notes Ivan Eland. January 26, 2010
  
• First, Fire All the Financial Failures
  If President Obama wants to show he's on the people's side, he should fire officials tied to the bank failures, writes Mark Ames. January 24, 2010
  
• US Democracy's End of the Road
  A Supreme Court ruling on corporate campaign cash and the Left's errors have put U.S. democracy in danger, says Robert Parry. January 23, 2010
  

CounterPunch

• Daniel Kovalik : Obama's War for Oil in Colombia
• Paul Craig Roberts : Rule by the Rich
• Dean Baker : We Won't Get Tarped Again!
• Uri Avnery : The Two-Headed Monster
• Vijay Prashad : Plan of Death in Haiti

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• UN impatient as blockade stalls Gaza building (Ti ...
  There is a place of strange quiet in the cramped and crowded Gaza Strip. It looks, from the roof of a nearby United Nations school, like a film set, or perhaps an army's urban warfare tr ...
  
• Lift the siege on Gaza's people (Hedy Epstein, IM ...
  When the clock struck midnight this New Year's Eve, I was not in the Gaza Strip. For months I had planned to be there because I know what it is like to be awakened at night by a knock on ...
  
• Rabbis for Human Rights in Sheikh Jarrah (Rabbis ...
• It's only human to rage at Israeli crimes (The Da ...
  The upcoming trip by an Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset to Auschwitz is the latest chapter in the saga of seeing accusations of anti-Semitism used to smear the Arab and Muslim world. M ...
  
• Israel 'to shun UN call for Gaza probe' (Agence F ...
  Israel has told UN chief Ban Ki-moon it will reject a UN demand to carry out a probe into allegations it committed war crimes during the Gaza war, a minister said on Tuesday. "Israel has ...
  

Water - AlterNet

• What Should Be in Obama's State of the Union
  Obama has the next 10 months to demonstrate some progress or face a shellacking in the midterm elections this November. Here's what his speech should outline.
  
• Glacier National Park May Need a Name Change Soon
  Glacial retreat in the the U.S: One of Montana's most majestic places will be gone in a little over two decades, and 99% of Alaska's glaciers are shrinking.
  
• What to Make of the Latest Article Warning of Scar ...
  As scary as tap can be in certain places, there even more reason to be concerned with bottled water.
  
• Is New York's Budget Deficit Leading it to Adopt N ...
  The state's environmental regulations are supposed to ensure that drilling in the Marcellus Shale proceeds smoothly; they don't even come close.
  
• Is Schwarzenegger's Big Drought Over?
  Don't be surprised if Schwarzenegger will now use the threat of catastrophic flooding of Biblical proportions to promote the $11.1 water bond on the November ballot.
  

TruthHugger

• American Theocracy divorces the US Constitution, p ...
  America wants to be ruled by TV Evangelist Bankers who are always holier than everyone else until they're caught! This is where Religion has buddied up with weapons manufacturers to promote killing in the name of Jesus.
  
• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Jan 4, ...
  The Texas Progressive Alliance is still somewhat amazed to be living in the year we make contact, and we hope we’re all still going strong when Odyssey Three rolls around. Texas has most drilling, worst regulation. Texas made national news this week in the ProPublica investigative report and they us ...
  
• Weary Soldiers At Risk, They Know This
  A poignant editorial on Al Jazeera seems to have more in depth observations than America’s Corporate media.  Mainstream media must follow the money, toe the line for sponsors and political perks that promise ’scoops’. ‘The US military is exhausted” By Sarah Lazare The call for over 30,000 more tro ...
  
• 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 ...
  

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

• The NYT: Home of Disgraced Editors, Shady Reporter ...
  by Sibel Edmonds Featured Writer Dandelion Salad originally published by Boiling Frogs Post 27 Janua
  
• Postcards From The Empire: Cindy Sheehan's New Col ...
  by Cindy Sheehan Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbo
  
• Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security C ...
  by Jeremy R. Hammond Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Foreign Policy Journal 27 January, 2010 Followi
  
• Chris Hedges: No Tyranny in History has Crushed th ...
  with Chris Hedges Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Jan. 26, 2010 TheWritersFestival January 26, 2010
  
• Fixing A Bad Supreme Court Decision by Joel S. Hir ...
  by Joel S. Hirschhorn Featured Writer Dandelion Salad www.foavc.org Jan. 26, 2010 Sensible, intellig
  

Unexplained Mysteries

• What would real extraterrestrials look like ?
  Aliens have been portrayed in both science fiction and popular culture for years, but what would a real alien look like ? The answer lies in the habit...
  
• Hidden Antarctic mountains take shape
  Researchers continue to piece together a view of Antarctica's hidden "Ghost Peaks" buried deep underneath the ice. An extensive period of study using ...
  
• Man smuggles 44 lizards in his underpants
  A man from Germany has been jailed after attempting to smuggle a number of reptiles out of New Zealand in his underwear. The German reptile collector ...
  
• Feathered dinosaurs leapt from trees
  New evidence suggests that early feathered dinosaurs would have taken to flight from trees rather than from the ground. The study in to a species of e...
  
• Satellite TV "gagging" Earth signals
  Dr Frank Drake has said that the digital age is effectively cutting us off from making interstellar communications. The popular ET hunter emphasised t...
  

Grassroots

• From Honduran ally organization: "Solidarity with ...
  Trinidad-Central_America_site_visit_143.JPG The letter below comes from one of Grassroots International's allies in Honduras -- Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH)-- and expresses solidarity with their ne ...
  
• Palestinians in Gaza Donate to Haiti
    An article I came across recently in the midst of much depressing news around Haiti, and a lot else, was: "Palestinians in Gaza donate to Haiti." It spoke of how Gazans were collecting something -- anything -- to donate to earthquake victims in Haiti. Dr. read more
  
• From Gaza to Haiti and Back Again
  IMG_4910.JPG   GAZA CITY—I dreamt of Haiti last night. Something about the scene felt eerily familiar. The visions of people trapped under folded sheets of concrete, children crying out to family members they would never see again, and incapac ...
  
• Honduras: Unsolved matters
  DSC09727.JPG   read more
  
• Haiti: Roots of Liberty -- Roots of Disaster
  Grassroots International ally Food First's executive director Eric Holt-Jimenez wrote recently -- on HuffPost -- on the long roots of the disaster in Haiti. His point about the "historic bleeding of Haiti's economy and the systematic undermining of its political institutions" being at the root of th ...
  

Climate

• January 27, 2010
  Japan Sticks to 25 Percent Carbon Cut Target (Reuters) Japan has stuck to its offer to cut GHG emissions by 25% by 2020 for the UN "Copenhagen Accord" on condition major emitters agree on an ambitious climate deal, a statement from the foreign ministry showed. U.S. Advocates of Climate ...
  
• January 26, 2010
  Kan. Utility, Federal Agencies Settle Lawsuit (AP) Kansas' largest electric company has agreed to spend at least $200 million to upgrade pollution controls at its biggest coal plant under a settlement announced by the utility and federal officials. Government officials say closer to $500 mil ...
  
• January 25, 2010
  China to Rich Nations: Hand Out Climate Money Now (AP) Brazil, China, India and South Africa have called on rich countries to begin handing over the $10 billion pledged in Copenhagen to poor countries to help them deal with the effects of climate change. Bill Gates Worries Climate Money ...
  
• January 23-24, 2010
  China, India, Brazil to Meet Jan. 31 Deadline in Climate Accord (Bloomberg) China, Brazil, South Africa and India will meet a deadline set during international talks for disclosing the voluntary steps they plan to take to mitigate climate change. France Wants 'G28' to Guide Climate Change Talks ...
  
• January 23-24, 2010
  France Wants "G28" to Guide Climate Change Talks (Reuters ) French President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed setting up a "balanced, representative" group of 28 countries to guide climate negotiations and avoid a repetition of the chaotic Copenhagen talks. BASIC Nations Meet in India Over C ...
  

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

• Cable TV vs. America: The problem with paid-for pu ...
  It's now clear that Adolf Hitler might easily have won World War II if cable TV had existed in America at the beginning of the New Deal. I am dead serious about this. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, the United States economy was in a state of near-collapse, with the nation's ...
  
• The Sorry State of the Union
  — from Truthdig The state of the union is just miserable, no matter how President Obama sugarcoats it. He will claim that progress has been made in stabilizing the markets, increasing national security and advancing toward meaningful health care reform, but he will be wrong on all three counts. What ...
  
• Down the Haiti Memory Hole: News Coverage Turns Su ...
  Ah, "1984." As the cartoonist Matt Bors says, it's "the dystopian novel that keeps on giving." Orwell's main character worked for a government ministry that controlled the future by changing the past. Its most effective tool: the Memory Hole. Pieces of history went in—poof!—never to be heard from ag ...
  
• The Supreme Court's Right-Wing Clique has Given Us ...
  Flash! The Supreme Court's latest 5-4 decision overturning the over 60-year-old ban on corporations giving money to political campaigns is not the end of democracy as we know it, or the onset of fascism in America, as some of hyperventilating progressives have been claiming. Sure it's an outrage to ...
  
• Our Wars Are Killing Us
  — from TomDispatch Back in 2007, when General David Petraeus was the surge commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, he had a penchant for clock imagery .  In an interview in April of that year, he typically said :  “I'm conscious of a couple of things. One is that the Washington clock is moving more rapidl ...
  

Ten Percent

• Art or Extinction
  Look! It’s evil me, channelling Dr. Mabuse & Professor X through the Happy Famous Artist’s Lichtenstein Device, there are some terrifying & reassuring Rules For A New Decade too. And in glorious big vision me, her, him.
  
• Oldies But Goldies
  An almost evergreen hold on popularity that Cliff Richard would envy and as with many corporate pop stars the whys and wherefores of who actually performs the vocals and who wrote it really don’t matter, nor should we ponder too hard whether a fanbase is the the same thing as an effective military o ...
  
• So, Murder Then
  Evidence relating to the death of Government weapons inspector David Kelly is to be kept secret for 70 years, it has been reported. A highly unusual ruling by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death, means medical records including the post-mortem report will remain classified un ...
  
• In Iran, Labour Activists Face Repression
  (ht2 Naj) Interview by Bill Balderston, Oakland Education Association and U.S. Labor Against the War- Iran has seen incredible tumult in the last few months, with massive street protests challenging the government, even as the U.S. and allied nations continue to threaten the Iranian government under ...
  
• Friday! Four Lions
  Well done to Chris Morris for overcoming the obstacles and achieving the film. Warp Films Four Lions site.
  

Booman Tribune

• State of the Union
  Here's is some advance copy of the president's State of the Union speech. EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY January 27, 2010 Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery The State of the Union Wednesday, January 27, 2009 Washington, DC Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, ...
  
• RIP, Howard Zinn
  Take a moment to remember and mourn Doctor Zinn. His passing reminds me that the New York public schools used to be among the best in the country. Dr. Zinn taught the other side of history. Most people don't even know that there is another side.
  
• How to Relax Your Wingnut Kin
  One way to get along with your Palinite relatives during family get-togethers is to talk about Democrats that everyone can agree to hate. Like these folks: John and Elizabeth Edwards, whose marriage received outsized attention during the last two Democratic presidential campaigns, have legally s ...
  
• Greatest Health Care in the World?
  Most people love their health care plan, right up until they really need it and find they're particular problem (1) isn't covered (or causes them to lose their coverage), (2) is a pre-existing condition, (3) is subject to lifetime limits on what insurance will pay, (4) their doctors diagnosis and pr ...
  
• Serious Thought
  Do you remember how comedy died after the 9/11 attacks? It just wasn't in good taste to be telling jokes for a while. Well, some comedy never came back. Seinfeld, for example, was never quite as funny afterwards. It was a frivolous show for a very frivolous time: a show about nothing. Even befo ...
  

European Tribune

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 28 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1936 – Birth of...
  
• Wednesday Open Thread
  It is today....
  
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 27 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1832 – Birth of...
  
• Tuesday Open Thread
  It's Tuesday...
  
• The stimulus saved the US wind industry in 2009
  The good news just came this morning: the US wind industry shattered all records in...
  

Futurismic

• Garage ribofunk redux – DIY biohacking gaining pop ...
  While we’re on the subject of garage industries, here’s a piece at pop-transhumanist organ H+ Magazine on the expanding field of garage biotech [via GlobalGuerrillas; image by mknowles]. We’ve covered DIY biohackers and ribofunkers here before, but the H+ writer has a cautious optimism about the sce ...
  
• Chris Anderson on the “new industrial revolution” ...
  Wired ed-in-chief Chris Anderson emerges from the back rooms once again with a lengthy piece lauding what he calls “the next industrial revolution” – which is, in essence, the imminent explosion of small companies using modern fabrication equipment and outsourcing techniques whose agility and low ov ...
  
• ZOMFG MosesTablet!
  Jamais Cascio pretty much nails my feelings on the imminent sermon from Mount Cupertino: Yes, I’m sure it will be wonderful, whatever it turns out to be. I’m also sure it’ll be overpriced, packed with glossy proprietary software and matched by more affordable (and more open) hardware within six mon ...
  
• Aliens might be just like us… greedy, violent and ...
  If you’re waiting patiently for saintly extraterrestrials to come and rescue us from our civilisational follies, you might want to reassess your hopes. Simon ­Conway Morris, professor of evolutionary ­paleobiology at Cambridge University, suggests that aliens (should they ever arrive on Planet Ear ...
  
• Sexbots sashaying across the Uncanny Valley
  2010 is shaping up to be a busy year in robotics, if the number of robo-related posts flowing through my RSS pipes are anything to go by. Here are just a handful of ‘em for you… First of all, nascent sexbot company TrueCompanion debuted Roxxxy [see image] at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at Vegas ...
  

Therapy News

• Irish Government Criticised for Slow Action in The ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline In 2006, Irish professionals working within the therapy and mental health fields were encouraged by an action plan entitled “A Vision for Change,” a policy document which proposed shifting mental health treatments from institutions and other traditional settings to mo ...
  
• Toddler Taming
  By Sarah Chana Radcliffe, M.Ed., C. Psych. Assoc., Parenting Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Little kids get into a surprising amount of mischief. They throw toys down the toilet, pull things out of the garbage, have major tantrums in publi ...
  
• From the Front Lines: when Social Support isn’t Fo ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary For those who are diagnosed with a mental health concern and who grapple with its symptoms, the presence of an understanding and caring social support group can make a significant difference in the quality and speed of recovery. Whether it’s a sympathetic family member ...
  
• Humanist Chaplains Supporting Mental Health
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline The concept of a humanist chaplain not associated with any particular religion but instead focused on considering the basic positive nature of people may seem strange, but practitioners are becoming increasingly popular in the US and around the world, according to a r ...
  
• Ambidextrous Kids Associated with Learning, Mental ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Insight into how and why some children prefer to use both hands rather than to choose a dominant one has largely been lacking in child development and related fields, but a recent study at Imperial College London shows that ambidextrous children are about twice as lik ...
  

Mountaintop Removal

• Manchin 'doing what we can' for Massey tree-sitter ...
  Charleston Gazette (blog) Manchin 'doing what we can' for Massey tree-sitters Charleston Gazette (blog) Amber Nitchman, 19, of Lancaster, Pa., is one of the tree-sitters at a Massey Energy mountaintop removal operation. ... Man Arrested in Attempt to Help Tree Sit, Massey Abuses Continue Bay Area I ...
  
• Big news (maybe): EPA looking at 'fill material' d ...
  Charleston Gazette (blog) Big news (maybe): EPA looking at 'fill material' definition Charleston Gazette (blog) But folks who have followed mountaintop removal for a while know how potentially explosive this is for the issue. Remember that Section 404 of the Clean ...
  
• EPAcrackdown on mountaintop coal mining criticized ...
  EPAcrackdown on mountaintop coal mining criticized as contradictory Washington Post Mountaintop mining, also called " mountaintop removal ," is an exclusively Appalachian practice, dating to the 1970s but having gained momentum in the last 20 ... The Historic Cost of the State of the Union: Mr. Pre ...
  
• W.Va. Gov Asks Lawmakers to Support Coal - Clean S ...
  WVNS-TV W.Va. Gov Asks Lawmakers to Support Coal Clean Skies News A day after meeting with environmentalists to address concerns about mountaintop removal mining, Manchin asked lawmakers to approve a symbolic resolution ... War on coal continues MU The Parthenon Coal Talks: Take Two West Virginia M ...
  
• War on coal continues - MU The Parthenon
  WVNS-TV War on coal continues MU The Parthenon By far, the most controversial issue in modern-day Appalachian coal mining is mountaintop removal . Protests of this form of surface mining have lead to ... Manchin promises review of coal critics' complaints Charleston Gazette Coal Talks: Take Two Wes ...
  

Memeorandum

• The death knell for comprehensive cap-and-trade (G ...
  Grist : The death knell for comprehensive cap-and-trade   —  I've resisted writing the obligatory “what Scott Brown's victory means for the climate bill” post, mainly because the real answer is Nobody Knows and Everyone's Full of Sh*t.  What pundit wants to say that?
  
• Obama to call for repealing 'don't ask, don't tell ...
  CNN : Obama to call for repealing 'don't ask, don't tell'   —  Washington (CNN) — President Obama will ask Congress Wednesday night to repeal the military's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy that bars gays and lesbians from openly serving in, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod told CNN.
  
• Pelosi cool to Obama's freeze plan (John F. Harris ...
  John F. Harris / The Politico : Pelosi cool to Obama's freeze plan   —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that defense spending shouldn't be exempt from President Barack Obama's proposal for a three-year freeze on federal spending.  —  In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, Oba ...
  
• For immediate release - Information received since ...
  Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System : For immediate release   —  Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December suggests that economic activity has continued to strengthen and that the deterioration in the labor market is abating.  Household spending is ex ...
  
• Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, ...
  Mark Feeney / Boston Globe : Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87   —  Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack ...
  

Energy & Environment News

• Companies Must Disclose Climate Risk
  For the first time, the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that companies should warn investors of global-warming risks.
  
• On New Environmental Scoreboard, U.S. and China Pl ...
  A new ranking by environmental performance puts some of the globe’s largest economies far down the list, with the United States sinking to 61st and China to 121st.
  
• Courts Emerging as Battlefield in Climate Fights
  Lawsuits against energy companies over greenhouse gas emissions, like the one brought by the island village of Kivalina, Alaska, are picking up steam.
  
• Davos 2010: Pollution-Fighting Businesses Set Thei ...
  Lacking international leadership, environmental technology firms may focus on local and national markets.
  
• Wind Power Grows 39% for the Year
  The growth was spurred by a federal stimulus package, but the advance could slow this year as the effects of the 2009 recession kick in.
  

5+ quakes - 7 days

• M 5.1, Samoa Islands region
  Friday, January 22, 2010 09:54:54 UTC Friday, January 22, 2010 10:54:54 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  
• M 5.0, off the west coast of northern Sumatra
  Friday, January 22, 2010 06:46:15 UTC Friday, January 22, 2010 12:46:15 PM at epicenter Depth : 20.90 km (12.99 mi)
  
• M 5.1, Kepulauan Barat Daya, Indonesia
  Wednesday, January 27, 2010 19:00:33 UTC Thursday, January 28, 2010 04:00:33 AM at epicenter Depth : 528.70 km (328.52 mi)
  
• M 6.1, Philippine Islands region
  Wednesday, January 27, 2010 18:49:33 UTC Thursday, January 28, 2010 02:49:33 AM at epicenter Depth : 24.70 km (15.35 mi)
  
• M 5.8, southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge
  Wednesday, January 27, 2010 17:42:45 UTC Wednesday, January 27, 2010 04:42:45 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  

China Dialogue

• Facing America’s demons (1)
  The treatment of indigenous peoples in the United States has left a stain on the past that China should not ignore, argues Judith Shapiro. In its current phase of rapid development, China often looks to the experience of western countries for inspiration. The development and nature-conquest of the w ...
  
• Restoring the grasslands?
  China has introduced a number of policies to protect the environment of the grasslands. But studies suggest the ecological and social benefits of such measures have been overstated, writes Emily Yeh. In 2003, China introduced a new programme, known as “retire livestock and restore grassland” ( tuimu ...
  
• Policies for an eco-plateau
  Climate change poses new threats to life on the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau. Beth Walker introduces a week-long series about government responses to the challenge, their environmental and social effects. Tibetan grasslands constitute one of the most important grazing ecosystems in the world. S ...
  
• Confronting the cost of dams (2)
  In the second half of a two-part article on reservoir-induced disasters, Masano Atsuko looks at a catalogue of government failures and asks what it will take to stir Japan’s politicians. In Japan, the government has only recently reached the point where it is finally willing to recognise the causal ...
  
• Confronting the cost of dams (1)
  Reservoir-induced disasters in Japan are draining the public purse and ruining the countryside. It is time for wiser planning, argues Masano Atsuko. Three months after the Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake struck the northern part of Honshu, Japan’s main island, on June 14, 2008, triggering a huge lan ...
  

AlterNet Top Stories

• Radical Inequality Is Literally Killing Us
  New scientific research shows that Wall Street's war on the middle class is sabotaging our longevity.
  
• Obama's Latest Moves Will Punish the Middle Class ...
  His three-year freeze on a large portion of discretionary spending will make it impossible for him to do much of anything for the middle class that's important.
  
• Why the ACLU Supported the Supreme Court's Shockin ...
  The Supreme Court's atrocious Citizen's United green light for unlimited corporate campaign spending had a willing accomplice -- the American Civil Liberties Union.
  
• Would You Trade a Bigger House for More Happiness? ...
  A 14 year-old girl convinced her affluent family to trade in its mansion for a house half its size and donate half the proceeds to charity. Here's what they found.
  
• Undercover Footage Reveals Shocking Conditions at ...
  Undercover video shot at New York State's largest dairy depicts extensive abuse and horrific conditions for dairy cows.
  

Threat Level

• 250,000 White House Staffers, Visitors Affected by ...
  A data breach at the National Archives and Records Administration is more serious than previously believed and involved sensitive personal information of 250,000 Clinton administration staff members, job applicants and White House visitors, and included the Social Security number of at least one dau ...
  
• Settlement Rejected in ‘Shocking’ RIAA File Sharin ...
  The recording industry is demanding Jammie Thomas-Rasset pay $25,000 to settle out of court the nation’s first file sharing case against an individual to have gone to trial –- a settlement offer the Minnesota mother of four is rejecting, lawyers in the case said Wednesday. The development came day ...
  
• Med Student Turns to Test-Prep Piracy
  Going to medical school can be expensive. So Kenneth Chou, a 30-year-old student at SUNY Upstate Medical University in New York, decided to copy Kaplan lecture DVDs from his school’s library and re-sell them online to help pay for his tuition. Chou admitted to raking in more than $100,000 for the pi ...
  
• Music Labels Lose Baidu Piracy Case
  LONDON (Reuters) - China’s most popular search engine Baidu has been cleared of piracy in a dispute with the music industry, the IFPI trade body for the music sector said Tuesday. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said it was disappointed with the ruling after a court in Chin ...
  
• Guilty Plea in ‘Anonymous’ DDoS Scientology Attack
  A Nebraska man is pleading guilty in federal court to a computer disruption charge for his role in the 2008 distributed denial-of-service attack that temporarily shuttered Church of Scientology websites, the authorities said Tuesday. Los Angeles federal prosecutors said Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20 ...
  

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• Politician John Edwards and wife separate
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, have separated following reports that he fathered a child with a woman who was a former campaign aide.
  
• DAVOS-Soros says Obama bank levy premature, backs ...
  DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros said on Wednesday U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to impose a tax on large banks was premature and his wider proposals to rein in banks' activities may not go far enough.
  
• Italian mobsters buck downturn, may target bourse
  *Mafia digs in as Italy's biggest 'company' *Mob thrives on credit crunch, unemployment *May target bourse to launder profits By Stephen Brown and Paolo Biondi
  
• WRAPUP 2-U.S. lawmakers turn up heat on Geithner o ...
  * Lawmakers challenge Geithner's claims on AIG payments
  
• Timeline: Apple product introductions and mileston ...
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc unveiled its wildly anticipated "iPad" on Wednesday in the biggest product launch since the iPhone three years ago.
  

Equality Trust

• Unequal Britain
  Richest 10% now 100 times better off than the poorest. Read the Guardian report See the data behind the story Read other news coverage
  
• How economic democracy would have prevented the Ca ...
  A letter in today's Guardian points out that employee ownership would have prevented the Cadbury sell-off. Had the Cadbury family followed the examples of the families behind John Lewis, Ove Arup, Tullis Russell, Scott Bader, the Baxi Group and others in selling their shareholdings into employee ...
  
• Harriet Harman puts class at the heart of election ...
  Labour deputy leader to make inequality a key dividing line with Conservatives. Harriet Harman will reopen the politically explosive debate over class tomorrowby insisting that it remains the single biggest factor in determining individual achievement. In a speech designed to put the fight against ...
  
• Memo to the mainstream: where's the vision, where' ...
  Bill Kerry's guest blog at Left Foot Forward
  
• Economics is the real divide
  Daily Mail comment piece
  

IntelNews

• News you may have missed #0270
  S. Korean court orders damages in alleged spy case. Belarus reshuffles KGB leadership.
  
• Comment: Are Clinton’s Cyberattack Protests Hypocr ...
  The Chinese have accused the US government of hypocrisy in criticizing Beijing for its alleged role in organized hacking attacks, which recently drove Google to abandon its operations in China. Speaking last Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued that “[c]ountries or individuals that ...
  
• News you may have missed #0269
  LeT planning paraglide attacks in India? Trial of double agent begins in Spain.
  
• Uproar as UK government classifies details of weap ...
  Public speculation over the alleged suicide of UK biological weapons expert Dr. David Kelly is bound to increase, after a senior state official secretly ordered that details of his death be kept secret for 70 years.
  
• Canada’s ambassador in Iran was ‘CIA asset’ in 197 ...
  Canada’s former ambassador to Iran has admitted that he and the embassy’s head of security secretly worked for the CIA in the late 1970s.
  

After Downing Street.org

• Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared fo ...
  The State of the Union Wednesday, January 27, 2009 Washington, DC Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. Fo ...
  
• Howard Zinn Dead at 87
  We've lost one of the best . This is a hard one to handle. But we have his words to keep us company. Watch THIS VIDEO . read more
  
• Gone a Week and You Trash the Country
  By David Swanson Wow, I was gone less than a week to the Conch Republic , and now return to a nation in which I would heartily recommend to any city, county, or state that it follow the example of the Florida Keys and secede from the so-called union. read more
  
• Radio and Liveblog Tonight
  I'll be on the radio tonight with Nicole Sandler at 7:30 pm ET at http://radioornot.blogspot.com And then liveblogging with several other bloggers during the State of the Union at 9:00 pm ET at: http://ipaccuracy.wordpress.com read more
  
• Rep. Donna Edwards intros Constl. Amendment to und ...
    JOIN THIS CAMPAIGN! read more
  

Grist - News

• THINK plans to charge into U.S. electric-car marke ...
  by Agence France-Presse The THINK City.WASHINGTON -- With a jump-start from a new quick charging system, Norwegian electric carmaker THINK is taking aim at the U.S. market with a new assembly facility set to begin operations later this year. The maker of quirky plug-in electric minicars, which ...
  
• US slips in Environmental Performance Index
  by Jonathan Hiskes Researchers at Columbia and Yale released a new Environmental Performance Index ranking 163 countries on a broad variety of indicators—basically, how well they protect their people’s air, water, natural resources, and ecosystems. Surprise, surprise, Scandinavian and Northern ...
  
• The death knell for comprehensive cap-and-trade
  by David Roberts I've resisted writing the obligatory "what Scott Brown's victory means for the climate bill" post, mainly because the real answer is Nobody Knows and Everyone's Full of Sh*t. What pundit wants to say that? Certainly everyone in the DC Village agrees that the Mass. special ele ...
  
• Messaging that can save the clean energy bill
  by David Roberts Frank LuntzI finally got around to reading through the latest polling and focus group results from messaging whiz Frank Luntz . Luntz, for those of you who don't already know, is infamous in green circles as the author of a 1995 memo coaching Republicans on how to win the en ...
  
• Will Google’s fight with China stymie climat ...
  by Lisa Hymas If any progress is to be made in the global fight against climate change -- whether via diplomatic negotiations or cleantech partnerships -- it will only happen through cooperation between the U.S. and China.  But the potential for collaboration of any kind took a big blow this pa ...
  

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Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

• Android 2.0 Update for HTC Hero Delayed?
  Leaked information shows that HTC Hero Android 2.0 update has been delayed till March.
  
• Apple's iPad Slays Netbooks and Kindles With One S ...
  The iPad fuels the Apple juggernaut with low prices and low cost 3G data.
  
• Apple's iPad Tablet Includes Cool New Apps and Fea ...
  Alongside their new mobile device, the iPad, Apple announced a couple of new applications and services specific for their new gadget.
  
• The San Antonio Spurs Are Struggling, But Things A ...
  Perceptions of the Spurs as championship contenders are changing, but should they be?
  
• Team Selection Is Tomorrow For India's Cricket Ser ...
  Team selection is tomorrow for India's cricket series with South Africa.
  

Time - Top Stories

• AIG Bailout: Geithner Defends Payments at House He ...
  In bailing out AIG, the U.S. paid AIG's counterparties more than their securities were worth. New documents reveal that the counterparties might have accepted less
  
• Haiti's Mass Graveyard of Old and New Nightmares
  A visit to Titanyen, where corpses from the Jan. 12 earthquake mingle with the victims of the the island nation's brutal past dictatorship
  
• Fiscal Responsibility and Democracy: Oil and Water
  The problem with the deficit is really quite simple to solve, but your elected leaders are too busy trying to get elected by giving you stuff to bother
  
• Book: Pope John Paul II Whipped Himself, Weighed R ...
  New revelations show that John Paul II opened the way to a living pontiff relinquishing his duties -- an option that the current pope helped develop
  
• Rewriting the History of the Late-Night War
  This week, with Jay Leno preparing for an image-rehab visit to Oprah tomorrow, the race to be "the only one out there sticking up for Jay Leno" is starting to get crowded.
  

Washington Independent

• Full Text of Republican Response to State of the U ...
  After the jump, the full text of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s GOP response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. Republican Address to the Nation For Public Release Governor Bob McDonnell Richmond January 27, 2010 Good evening.  I’m Bob McDonnell. Eleven days ago I was honored to be s ...
  
• Steve King on O’Keefe Arrest: ‘It Seem ...
  At a press availability earlier today, I asked Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) about the arrest of anti-ACORN muckraker James O’Keefe and what it meant for Republicans, like him, who’d partially based a case against the community group on O’Keefe’s reporting. Lee Fang of ThinkProgress asked further questio ...
  
• Bachmann, King, House Conservatives Launch ‘ ...
  At a mid-day press conference on Capitol Hill, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) launched a “Declaration of Health Care Independence” — a statement of principles that they hoped Democrats and voters would sign onto, but not one that would be backed by legislation or one th ...
  
• Bloomberg vs. the KSM Trial
  The New York Times: For the first time, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has spoken out against plans to stage the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, joining a growing chorus of people who believe the epic trial will be to ...
  
• Swiss Bank Is Only AIG Counterparty to Volunteer C ...
  To what extent were Wall Street’s largest firms willing to sacrifice their own skin to fix the economy they helped topple? Well, not much of one. During today’s House hearing on AIG’s bailout, a central focus was on why AIG’s counterparties — including giants like Goldman Sachs — were paid in full r ...
  

CowBoss' Brain Food

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

Suzie-Q

• Obama State Of The Union: LIVE VIDEO – 1/27/ ...
  Watch Obama Live: Streaming Video, Twitter Reaction The Huffington Post First Posted: 10-31-08 12:49 PM   |   Updated: 12-15-09 12:17 PM Whenever President Obama is speaking publicly, you’ll find live streaming video on this page, along with latest Twitter commentary from reporters and pundit ...
  
• Progressives vs. Obama
  This isn’t the first column in which I’ve addressed this dynamic and it won’t be the last. So consider the following an overview or a recap of what I feel is the disconnect between President Obama and some vocal factions within the progressive movement. Clearly there are progressives, most visibly i ...
  
• State Of The Union: Obama Will Focus On Economy &# ...
  Obama State Of The Union Speech Will Focus On Economy BEN FELLER | 01/27/10 09:49 AM | WASHINGTON — Facing a divided Congress and a dissatisfied nation, President Barack Obama will unveil a jobs-heavy agenda in his State of the Union address Wednesday, retooling his message more than ...
  
• Afternoon Jukebox- When The Stars Go Blue
  The Corrs & Bono – When the Stars Go Blue (Live
  
• Former CIA Op: Claimed Waterboarding Worked Admits ...
  CIA Man Who Claimed Waterboarding Worked Admits He Was Wrong TPM Muckraker Rachel Slajda | January 27, 2010, 9:33AM In his new book, the former CIA operative who made the bombshell — and thoroughly debunked — claim that a terrorism suspect was made to talk after one waterboarding session has admi ...
  

Solari

• How The AIG Bailout Really Worked
  By Joe Weisenthal and Kamelia Angelova Continue reading Chart of The Day: How The AIG Bailout Really Worked
  
• Catherine’s Investment Rules of Thumb
  1. You and those you love are your assets - invest in you, your health, your homebase and your own business first; 2. Bank and do business with people you respect and trust; 3. Stick with the primary trends; 4. Keep it simple; 5. Have a plan for the worst case; otherwise don’t worry about it; 6. Hav ...
  
• Watching the Testimony
  I am watching the Congressional testimony about AIG. It’s a parade of people lying to themselves and to you. My expectation is that you will get a much more accurate explanation of the government’s gift to Goldman Sachs through AIG from any trucker you ask than you will from the people who have now ...
  
• The Federal Bailout of AIG
  Today the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held hearings on: “The Federal Bailout of AIG” to examine the Federal response to the collapse of AIG. The hearing will focus on the decision to compensate AIG’s credit default swap counterparties (Goldman Sachs, et al) at 100 cents on th ...
  
• Suspending Money Market Redemptions Is Now Legal
  By Tyler Durden Zero Hedge discussed a month ago the disastrous prospects of what would happen if the new proposal contemplated by the SEC, which would allow the suspension of redemptions from Money Market Funds, were to pass. Well, in a nearly unanimous vote, Money Market Funds now have the ability ...
  

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

• People's Historian and Progressive Hero Howard Zin ...
  National treasure, and acclaimed author of "People's History of the United States" passed away at age 87.
  
• Why the ACLU Supported the Supreme Court's Shockin ...
  The Supreme Court's atrocious Citizen's United green light for unlimited corporate campaign spending had a willing accomplice -- the American Civil Liberties Union.
  
• What Should Be in Obama's State of the Union
  Obama has the next 10 months to demonstrate some progress or face a shellacking in the midterm elections this November. Here's what his speech should outline.
  
• NYC Police Accused of 'Anal Assault' Over Marijua ...
  New York City police have arrested over 300,000 people for low-level marijuana possession since 1997, sometimes employing outrageous methods to humiliate citizens.
  
• Former Gitmo Prisoner Moazzem Begg: Guantanamo Was ...
  From a cover-up over prisoners' deaths to the torture of Shaker Aamer, the real story of Guantánamo is beginning to emerge.
  

Sideways News

• Avatar reflects shift to eco-faith?
  James Cameron's smash hit movie Avatar has been chastised by the Catholic Church's Vatican Radio for depicting nature as "a divinity to worship". However, the film could be reflecting a real-world shift to nature-based religions, as Adriana Barton for the Globe and Mail reports.
  
• Brain study asks: does size matter?
  New findings have challenged the notion that primate brains have grown steadily over the course of evolution. Scientists studying the primate family tree found that many species have actually seen brain mass decrease over time, bucking conventional thought that brain size across all primates - inclu ...
  
• Apple tablet to be more eco-friendly?
  Apple is set to unveil a new product today (27th January): there are rumours that it will be a keyboard-less tablet device.
  
• Strange Worlds made from household items
  Artist Matthew Albanese uses rather unusual materials to create his emotive landscape sculptures, including tile grouting, cinnamon and steel wool. He then spends hours putting models of snow-topped mountains or live volcanoes together before bringing them to life with some clever photography tricks ...
  
• Wildlife documentary filmed by chimps
  Not so long ago, television producer John Capener watched a show so bad it left him wondering if monkeys could do better. He decided to find out, and the result is a new BBC wildlife documentary - filmed by chimps at Edinburgh Zoo .
  

Fabius Maximus

• FM newswire for 28 January, articles for your morn ...
  Today’s links to interesting news and analysis.  If you find this useful, pass it to a friend or colleague. Forgetting our history means forgetting who we are:  “Ulysses Grant: Our Greatest President?“, Nathan Newman (bio), at his blog, 4 July 2006 Important material from our man in Kabul, s ...
  
• Does the Tea Party movement remind you of the movi ...
  Today’s topic for discussion:  what is the Tea Party movement?  Unlike the usual post on the FM website, we have too little data to do anything but speculate. Contents My guess Historical background Origin of the Tea Party Movement Articles about the Tea Parties For more information from the FM ...
  
• FM newswire for 27 January, articles for your morn ...
  Today’s links to interesting news and analysis.  If you find this useful, pass it to a friend or colleague.  Esp note #2 and #3, investigative reporting done by “an army of Davids” (Glen Reynold’s description of the Internet). Big implications from this, all bad:  “Majority of Union Members N ...
  
• The march of technology brings “The Forty-Ye ...
  In Technology of War Martin van Creveld, the greatest historian of our time, describes how new technology affects both the nature of war — and the societies that use them.  Today we have taken a large step into the future by deploying unmaned aerial vehicals as flying assasines.  We can make only ...
  
• FM newswire for 25 January, articles for your morn ...
  Today’s links to interesting news and analysis.  If you find this useful, pass it to a friend or colleague. “How to Spot a Deficit Peacock – 4 Ways to Tell When Someone Isn’t Serious About the Deficit“, Michael Linden, Center for American Progress, 20 January 2010 Piecing together the liberated ...
  

sibeledmonds - tweets

• sibeledmonds: New York Times: Home of Disgraced Ed ...
  sibeledmonds: New York Times: Home of Disgraced Editors, Shady Reporters & Agenda-Driven Foreign Correspondents? http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Richard Armitage- From Golden Triang ...
  sibeledmonds: Richard Armitage- From Golden Triangle to Iran Contra, then to PNAC, Pakistan-ISI, and 9/11. At Boiling Frogs: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Richard Armitage Part 3- ‘A Ne ...
  sibeledmonds: Richard Armitage Part 3- ‘A Neocon for All Seasons?’ by Mizgin Yilmaz at Boiling Frogs Post: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Jamiol Presents: Surveillance Indust ...
  sibeledmonds: Jamiol Presents: Surveillance Industrial Complex. Boiling Frogs Post http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/25/jamiol-presents-12
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Show Presents Andy Wor ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Show Presents Andy Worthington on Guantanamo Detention Center http://boilingfrogspost.com
  

WIRED Magazine | Science

• Evolution Shrank Some Primates’ Brains
  Primate brains have not always gotten bigger as they evolved, according to new research. The findings challenge the controversial argument that Homo floresiensis, also known as the hobbit, had a tiny, chimp-sized brain because of disease. “It was assumed that brain sizes generally get bigger throug ...
  
• New Animations Take You Flying Over Mars
  A space-loving animator has created stunning flyovers of Mars from data captured by NASA’s HiRISE imager, which is mounted on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite. HiRISE creates detailed digital-elevation models. Crunch that data, add perspective and some cinematic effects, and you have the m ...
  
• NASA Sends Airborne Radar to Map Haiti Faults in 3 ...
  NASA is sending a radar-equipped jet to Haiti to make 3-D maps of the deformation caused by the magnitude 7 earthquake on Jan. 21 and multiple aftershocks that continue to occur. The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, or UAVSAR, was already scheduled to head to South America aboar ...
  
• Penguins, Peaks and Penny-Farthings: Nat Geo Cover ...
  > See also: Jan. 27, 1888: National Geographic Society Gets Going National Geographic magazine is known for its high-quality journalism, preservation of historical moments and access to some of the most [...]
  
• Best Display of Mars From Earth in 6 Years on Wedn ...
  On Jan. 27, Mars will be closer to Earth than any other time between 2008 and 2014. A mere 60 million miles away, the red planet will be a great target for backyard telescopes, and will appear bright to the naked eye as well. Every 26 months, the two planets’ orbits bring them closer together, some ...
  

The Progressive Realist

• Iran: Making the Regime-Change Calculation
  Having used Robert Kagan as a stand-in for skeptics of engagement more than once, let me give a more measured response to the argument he made today for supporting Iranian regime-change ( Pat Barry will give you a snarkier take if you need it). I'll start with the core points of agreement and disagr ...
  
• The Obama Administration's First Year in Internati ...
  One year in, what has President Obama accomplished in US foreign assistance? So far, we’ve seen a lot of delays and a handful of promises. They’re good promises, but it’s going to take at least another year before we see how well those promises are kept. The Delays The year led off with a delay ...
  
• U.S. Foreign Policy Is Not A Craps Game
  Before getting to Robert Kagan’s call for President Obama to just go ahead already and roll the dice on Iranian regime change , a little background. One of the most interesting articles written during the 2008 presidential campaign was Michael Scherer’s and Michael Weisskopf’s July 2008 analysis of ...
  
• Off-the-Radar News Roundup
  - The bad news is that the People's Daily has accused Google of being a tool for U.S. hegemony. The good news is that they didn't accuse the U.S. of being a tool for Google's hegemony. - What's most striking about China's vow to continue supporting Afghanistan's reconstruction is just how meager tha ...
  
• Obama Needs to Channel Nixon
  One of the reasons that the New America Foundation and I worked to get America and the World: Conversations on the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius published is that it was supposed to be a primer for the Obama team to look at the plethora o ...
  

TAPPED - The American Prospect

• SOTU Excerpts: Big Vision, Small Action?
  The White House just released some excerpts from the State of the Union address. It looks like, well, Obama being Obama. Before I duck into the Chamber for the address, my impression is that it is combination of big vision -- those health care excerpts look tantalizing but we have to wait for the wh ...
  
• Lightning Round: The Union is in a State of Fail.
  On the eve of the State of the Union address the public is pissed off, no doubt, but now we have some polling data that clarifies that anger. In short, Americans hate Congress, hate both parties, think the federal government is broken, that we're on the "wrong track" as a country, and don't think B ...
  
• The Little Picture: Holocaust Remembrance Day.
  An installation by Menasle Kadishman at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany. Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Flickr/ Clav )
  
• If Only Sally Quinn Ran the Country.
  Washington Society! Deepak Chopra , Sally Quinn , Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen Reading Eric Wemple's post on Sally Quinn's new column in the Washington Post , I thought he must be engaging in some kind of complicated joke. But no, Quinn really does think that the key to a successful pres ...
  
• Spinning the War on Terror.
  Adam Serwer on the need to develop a strong counter-narrative on terror: In a 2003 memo, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was clear that the fight against terrorist organizations could not be won solely by killing or capturing every terrorist. "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winnin ...
  

Andy Worthington

• The Guantánamo Files: An Archive of Articles &#821 ...
  Please support my work! For four years, I have been providing detailed information about the prisoners in Guantánamo, first through my book The Guantánamo Files, which tells the story of the prison and around 450 of the prisoners held, and then through 12 online chapters, which provide inform ...
  
• Bagram: The Annotated Prisoner List (A Cooperative ...
  Please support my work! On Friday January 15, 2010, the Pentagon responded to a FOIA request submitted by the ACLU last April, and released (PDF) the first ever list of 645 prisoners held, as of September 22, 2009, in the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan (the Bagram Theater Internme ...
  
• Two Algerian Torture Victims Are Freed from Guantá ...
  On Friday, perhaps as a sop to critics — myself included — who have been complaining about President Obama’s failure to close Guantánamo by his self-imposed deadline of January 22, 2010, the Justice Department announced in a press release that two Algerian prisoners had been released. Releasing p ...
  
• Control Orders Take Another Blow: Libyan Cartoonis ...
  The news that Ziyad Ali Hashem, a control order detainee in the UK (previously identified only as DD) has had his control order lifted elicits two particular responses from those who have been aware of his case since he was first deprived of his liberty in November 2005: firstly, relief that his ord ...
  
• “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” – ...
  On Tuesday February 16, 2010, Amnesty International UK is screening the new Guantánamo documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” at the Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA (map and directions here). This is a free event, but those who want to attend ne ...
  

Buzzflash

• Andrew Breitbart Goes on First Fact-Seeking Rampag ...
  BUZZFLASH MEDIA PUTZ OF THE WEEK Andrew Breitbart For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America. The biggest story in media criticism this week was most definitely the arrest of the ACORN-at ...
  
• Where’s The Movement, Special to BuzzFlash by the ...
  BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY by George Lakoff Introduction In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn’t worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is look at what is required, and ...
  
• Michele Bachmann Reveals Her Healthcare Vision and ...
  BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White Before it was even officially released, there was a great deal of giggling about the Declaration of Health Care Independence from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). From " geese farts " to a mocking of her propensity to OVERCAPITALIZE WORDS , Bachmann's attempt to ste ...
  
• Arrested While Exposing Himself: James O’Keefe, AC ...
  BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT by Jeffrey Joseph Glenn Beck tries to convey to his viewers a sense of legitimacy and a knowledge that the mainstream media ignores to keep his ratings high, but one of his favorite sources for news just made news in a whole new way. Filmmaker James O'Keefe, known most prominent ...
  
• California Field Tea Party Poll Woefully Inadequat ...
  BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY By Bill Berkowitz California’s Field Poll finds that three in ten registered voters ‘identified’ with the Tea Party movement and three in ten don’t believe Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen.   If you are an ultra-conservative candidate and you’re running a Senatorial campaig ...
  

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

• Presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens
  The Washington Post 's Dana Priest today reports that "U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people."  That's no surprise, of course, as Yemen is now another predominantly Musl ...
  
• The sanctity of military spending
  (updated below - Update II) Administration officials announced last night that the President, in tomorrow's State of the Union address, will propose a multi-year freeze on certain domestic discretionary spending programs.  This is an "initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cu ...
  
• Salon Radio: ACLU Executive Director Anthony Rome ...
  In October, 2008, the ACLU issued a report outlining the policies needed to restore civil liberties and America's constitutional framework in the wake of the Bush assault, entitled "Actions for Restoring America."  On the one-year anniversary of Obama's inauguration as President, the ACLU has issu ...
  
• Transcript: ACLU's Anthony Romero
  To listen to this discussion, click PLAY on the recorder at the bottom of this post : Glenn Greenwald : My guest today on Salon Radio is the executive director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, and we are here to discuss a new report, issued by the ACLU, analyzing Obama's civil liberties record after ...
  
• The price of our Middle East policy
  In a newly released audio message, the-still-not-dead Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempted bombing and said this about why Al Qaeda continues to target the U.S.: Bin Laden also warns the US there will be more attacks if it continues to support Israel. . . . ...
  

The BiPartisan Report

• Nihilism 1 American People Nil
• 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 ...

Sciencebase

• Research Blogging
  If you blog about peer-reviewed research, then you’ve probably heard about ResearchBlogging.org by now. It’s an aggregator that pulls together posts from around the world that have added a snippet of code to identify themselves as blogging about peer-reviewed research. The keen-eyed regulars among ...
  
• Melamine’s on sale again
  The Associated Press and others are reporting that milk products tainted with the toxic chemical melamine are on sale again in China. Melamine-tainted milk products have been pulled from convenience store shelves in southern China more than a year after hundreds of thousands of children were sicken ...
  
• Indian urban wetland heavy metal
  A study of heavy metal contaminants in the urban lakes of India, particularly around Bangalore have revealed that attempts at mitigation meant to remove these pollutants have not so far worked and may not be a long-term remedy for the problem. I’ve provided more detail on the analysis in the Atomic ...
  
• Alcoholic drug discovery truths
  As with much of medical science, the appearance of a fascinating research paper and an accompanying press release do not usually mean that a new pharmaceutical intervention, a medicine, is ready to be prescribed to patients on the very day that the paper appears. The drug discovery, research, and t ...
  
• Chemophobia and risk
  As a chemist by training, I’ve always been loath to give credence to unfounded criticism of synthetic chemicals that might stoke up chemophobia. Indeed, on several occasions I have written about how our bodies have evolved to cope with all kinds of chemicals regardless of whether they are synthetic ...
  

Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

• Communities of Color Listen Intently to State of t ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2010 NAACP With the employment, economic and health care crisis disproportionately impacting communities of color, African Americans will be listening intently tonight as President Obama delivers his first State of the Union Address.  NAACP President and CEO Benjami ...
  
• Response to Senator Graham’s Call for More ‘Busine ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2010 Friends of The Earth Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement earlier today that he is working on new climate change legislation because he thinks existing bills are "onerous on business" and he'd like to write more "business-friendly" legislation. ...
  
• State of the Union: Government Spending Needs Effe ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2010 Project On Government Oversight (POGO) The first year of the Obama administration has resulted in significant strides to improve ethics and openness in the federal government, but the President will only leave a legacy of real change in Washington if he makes t ...
  
• Sri Lanka: President’s New Term Time for Accountab ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2010 Human Rights Watch (HRW) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and key international actors should take steps to bring accountability for Sri Lanka's grave human rights violations so that the thousands of victims will not continue to be denied justice du ...
  
• EPA Requests Feedback on Plan Analyzing Impact of ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2010 Earthjustice The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requesting public input on a precedent-setting effort to evaluate environmental justice concerns raised by a Bush-era loophole that stripped federal oversight of companies that handle 1.5 million tons of ...
  

Common Dreams-Views

• Goodbye Howard Zinn
  by Peter Rothberg Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and the author of the seminal A People's History of the United States , died today at the age of 87 of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California. He was in a ...
  
• Obama's Test: Will He Be a Manager or a Leader?
  by John Nichols A new president gets a full year to prepare his initial State of the Union address. That is a blessing and a curse. An immediate address, given a week or two after the inaugural, would offer an opportunity to subtly blame everything on an inept, evil or crooked predecessor. An ...
  
• The State of OUR Union
  by Tammy Johnson Brothers, sisters and all of those in transition, I come to you today not as your elected leader, but simply as a Black woman striving for justice, a single voice delivering a few words of caution and hope about the state of our union. read more
  
• How Will SCOTUS Decision Affect Corporate Media?
  by Karl Frisch In 2004, the United Church of Christ produced a television commercial promoting its inclusive approach to organized faith. The ad showed two nightclub-style bouncers guarding the rope line of a church as they denied entry to a gay male couple, several people of color, and a man i ...
  
• ACORN Is Back in the News, but the News Still Gets ...
  by John Atlas & Peter Dreier NEW ORLEANS - This week, the FBI arrested 25-year old O'Keefe and three other men, charging them with plotting to tamper with phones in the New Orleans office of Senator Mary Landrieu , Democrat of Louisiana. The four men appeared in federal court Tuesday afternoon befo ...
  

Karl Burkart

• Power to the People: more energy-saving apps
  People Power unveils Unplug app for Earth Day and Power Tutor coaches you on energy-efficient smart phone etiquette.
  
• Organic 'from A to Z' video library
  Planet Green's web video series features 26 tasty organic treats... in alphabetical order.
  
• Apple gadgets going solar?
  3 new patents just filed by Apple indicate the company is getting into the clean energy business.
  
• Subterranean spectacle: the crystal cave
  BBC takes you on a video tour of the breathtakingly beautiful (and deadly) Naica Crystal Cave in Mexico.
  
• Top 7 disappearing glaciers
  Here for 10,000 years. Gone in 10. Seven glaciers that are melting before our eyes.
  

Water Privatization

• Bare El Niño domestic water contingency plan, grou ...
  Multisectoral group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) called on Malacañang Wednesday to bare its contingency plans for domestic water use amid the lingering drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon.
  
• Goldman Sachs' China Problem (Forbes)
  What it says about the changing climate for foreign investment there.
  
• Patrick budget seeks 3 percent boost in spending ( ...
  Gov. Deval Patrick's $28.2 billion fiscal 2011 budget includes close to $800 million in spending reductions, imposes new taxes on non-alcoholic drinks and candy, and preserves state aid to cities and towns.
  
• The Future of the Upper Mississippi River Port Dis ...
  Legislation created to help, not hinder, economic development efforts in Carroll County has been under constant criticism, primarily from two Carroll County Board members, since its beginning.
  
• Some looming oil and water battles in focus at Sal ...
  Water and oil — our bodies can’t live without one, and our economies, it seems, can’t live without the other.
  

Guardian

• 40 days that made illegal attack into legal war on ...
  • First law chief said second UN vote needed • Then Bush lawyers changed his opinion • Eve of battle revision to give troops clear yes Lord Goldsmith, attorney general at the time of the Iraq war, acknowledged today that he changed his advice on the legality of the invasion twice in the five weeks ...
  
• UEA broke rules in hacked email row
  • Too late to take action, says deputy commissioner • University of East Anglia 'will act as appropriate' The University of East Anglia flouted Freedom of Information regulations in its handling of requests for data from climate sceptics, according to the government body that administers the act. In ...
  
• Brown outlines final Ulster deadline
  Prime minister returns from Belfast after Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin fail to agree over devolution of policing powers Gordon Brown flew back from Belfast today after failing to broker an agreement between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists over the devolution of policing powers, followin ...
  
• Talk to Taliban for peace, says envoy
  • Nato representative says Karzai must widen scope • 'Unsavoury characters' need to be involved Nato's new top civilian representative in Afghanistan has warned that a lasting peace will require talking to some "pretty unsavoury characters" with appalling human rights records, and bringing them with ...
  
• Woman held after bodies found in car
  Bodies of a boy and a girl, both under five, were discovered after the woman, believed to be the mother, contacted police A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the bodies of two young children were found locked in a car in East Sussex. The woman, said by sources to be the mother, wa ...
  

McClatchey

• Man faces $120,000 fine for letting others park on ...
  ARLINGTON, Texas — A man faces more than $120,000 in fines for repeatedly violating city rules that require private property owners charging fans to park for Cowboys Stadium events to have a special permit, city officials said Wednesday.
  
• Florida man found guilty of murdering mother, gran ...
  BRADENTON - Clifford Davis this afternoon was found guilty of murder in the December 2005 slayings of his mother and grandfather. The jury will now consider whether he should be executed for his crimes.
  
• Racial taunts mar California high school basketbal ...
  It wasn't a championship game and there was no bitter rivalry between the teams. But heated words were exchanged between some members of the Esparto girls basketball team and parents of Biggs High School players at a game Thursday night.
  
• Farmworkers hit hard by cold snap ask for federal ...
  Standing atop a ruined tomato patch in Homestead, Fla., advocates for farmworkers on Wednesday called for federal relief to help thousands of farmworkers, who are out of work, money and food in the aftermath of this month's cold snap.
  
• California consumers could get more back on gift c ...
  Consumers could get more cash back from unused gift cards under a bill unveiled Tuesday at the state Capitol.
  

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

• Reflections on a hugely changed climate
  It's hard to overstate how much the events of the last two months have altered the global picture of climate politics. Picture the scene you'd have found on any day towards the end of last year: more prime ministers and presidents talking publicly about climate change than ever before; the vast maj ...
  
• The attack of the killer everything
  About two decades ago, the world's frog experts realised they were characters in the opening chapter of a detective novel. It wasn't so much a whodunnit as a wotisdoinit - killing, that is, frogs and salamanders in different parts of the world at a rate that merited the description "dramatic" . Th ...
  
• Back to school on biodiversity
  I'm spending part of this week at biodiversity school. Not any ordinary school, mind, but Britain's Royal Society . This week it hosts a conference with the somewhat arcane title Integrating Ecosystem Services into Biodiversity Management - which doubles as the triennial conference of the InterAca ...
  
• Conservation contemplates the pre-emptive strike
  Among those who work on and care about the preservation of nature's plants and animals, the word "endangered" is an absolute touchstone. Endangered species will in general have more conservation resources devoted to them. There may be political or community or scientific action aimed at saving them ...
  
• Arctic roots of 'upside-down' weather
  It's cold in Kirkcaldy , freezing in Frankfurt and brass monkeys in Bryn Mawr... a winter spell with weather that's unusually - well - wintry. But not everywhere; in fact, other places in the Northern Hemisphere are seeing weather that's unseasonably warm. In Goose Bay in Newfoundland, it's barely ...
  

Afghanistan Sun

• Ahead of Afghan conference, India shares 'con ...
  London, Jan 27 (IANS) Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna 'shared concerns' with his British counterpart and Europe's foreign policy chief Wednesday ahead of a major international conference aimed at resolving the crisis in Afghanistan.
  
• Removal of former top Taliban from sanctions list ...
  Call to avoid 'bloodthirsty dictators' LONDON – US special envoy Richard Holbrooke welcomed a UN committee’s removal of five former senior Taliban officials from a sanctions list yesterday...
  
• Karzai bows to anti-corruption strategy
  Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, will today bow to international pressure and announce a five-point plan to stamp out corruption. There was disappointment last week when he appeared to dil...
  
• More talks more war
  Hamid Karzai , the man on whom too much of Washington's strategy rests, is, in Karl Eikenberry's words, an inadequate strategic partner who continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden. T...
  
• Afghan tribe signs pact to keep Taliban out
  Shinwari tribal leaders listen to a speaker during a meeting at the Afghan border police compound in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, on Wednesday.
  

Futurismic

• Garage ribofunk redux – DIY biohacking gaining pop ...
  While we’re on the subject of garage industries, here’s a piece at pop-transhumanist organ H+ Magazine on the expanding field of garage biotech [via GlobalGuerrillas; image by mknowles]. We’ve covered DIY biohackers and ribofunkers here before, but the H+ writer has a cautious optimism about the sce ...
  
• Chris Anderson on the “new industrial revolution” ...
  Wired ed-in-chief Chris Anderson emerges from the back rooms once again with a lengthy piece lauding what he calls “the next industrial revolution” – which is, in essence, the imminent explosion of small companies using modern fabrication equipment and outsourcing techniques whose agility and low ov ...
  
• ZOMFG MosesTablet!
  Jamais Cascio pretty much nails my feelings on the imminent sermon from Mount Cupertino: Yes, I’m sure it will be wonderful, whatever it turns out to be. I’m also sure it’ll be overpriced, packed with glossy proprietary software and matched by more affordable (and more open) hardware within six mon ...
  
• Aliens might be just like us… greedy, violent and ...
  If you’re waiting patiently for saintly extraterrestrials to come and rescue us from our civilisational follies, you might want to reassess your hopes. Simon ­Conway Morris, professor of evolutionary ­paleobiology at Cambridge University, suggests that aliens (should they ever arrive on Planet Ear ...
  
• Sexbots sashaying across the Uncanny Valley
  2010 is shaping up to be a busy year in robotics, if the number of robo-related posts flowing through my RSS pipes are anything to go by. Here are just a handful of ‘em for you… First of all, nascent sexbot company TrueCompanion debuted Roxxxy [see image] at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at Vegas ...
  

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

• On February 10, OSHA will listen
  The federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has announced that it will conduct an "OSHA listens" meeting on Wednesday, February 10, 2010, at the Department of Labor headquarters auditorium in Washington, DC.  To speak at the "OSHA listens" meeting, participants must register by ...
  
• Attorneys Issue Response to Inspector General Repo ...
  Key FBI Whistleblower Urges Strong Corrective Action Washington, D.C.  January 20, 2010. Today at 10 a.m. the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released a report that confirms the allegations regarding an illegal FBI domestic surveillance program, which were reported on ...
  
• FBI Whistleblower Instrumental in Exposing Constit ...
  In a front-page article today, the Washington Post reported that between 2002 and 2006 the FBI illegally collected “more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, accordin ...
  
• Cooper Brown joins Department of Labor's ARB
  Today was the first day on a new job for E. Cooper Brown as he begins his service as Vice-Chair of the Department of Labor's Administrative Review Board (ARB). Brown had served on the ARB in the 1990's, until the Bush Administration swept out the old Board members in 2001.  I particularly appreciate ...
  
• Ohio Governor and public servant disagree on the " ...
  The governor of Ohio and an attorney working for Ohio's Bureau of Workers Compensation are disagreeing about what is a "typical whistleblower situation." According to the Columbus Dispatch , attorney Joseph Sommer sent an email to the Governor last May. He asked for an official state investigation o ...
  

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

• Gilbert Arenas Suspended for Remainder of NBA Seas ...
  David Stern has handed down a season long suspension to Gilbert Arenas, for bringing fire arms into the locker room of the Washington Wizards.
  
• Harsh Sentence Given to Teen in Death of Former Te ...
  A Portland, Oregon teen was recently given a five-year prison sentence for a hit-and-run auto accident that killed his teacher. He was driving while texting on his phone, something which has now been outlawed in Oregon.
  
• Clottey Shares His Thoughts on Pacquiao's Winning ...
  Some boxing writers and fans have criticized Pacquiao heavily when he made his opponents come down in weight. Joshua Clottey thinks that this is the reason why Pacquiao is winning his fights.
  
• Poll: Large majority of Germans disapprove of Afgh ...
  A new poll released on Wednesday suggests that 80 per cent of Germans disapprove of their goverment sending more troops to Afghanistan.
  
• Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa wins re-ele ...
  Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won his re-election bid on Wednesday by winning nearly 58 per cent of the vote and crushing his main political rival: former General Sareth Fonseka.
  

End Homelessness | Change.org

• Pajamas Have Nothing To Do With Homelessness
  Talk about out of touch. Tomorrow is the fifth annual PJ Day in Denver, when Mayor John Hickenlooper will be sporting fuzzy slippers and pajamas in an attempt to raise awareness about the city's homeless problem. Only this time, instead of parading around his office in silk jammies, he's also deckin ...
  
• Jessica's Law Blamed for Steep Rise in Homeless Se ...
  In just three years, the number of homeless sex offenders in California has increased a whopping 2400 percent. Who or what is to blame for this skyrocketing figure? Believe it or not, it's Jessica's Law, passed by voters in November 2006 and designed to protect children from paroled sex offenders. W ...
  
• An Open Letter to a Mayor Reluctant to Decriminali ...
  Last week, criminalization of the homeless in Boulder, Colorado got the attention of End Homelessness readers as grassroots activists fought to put an end to a camping ordinance that unfairly targets the homeless. Thanks to Change.org readers and a protest organized by the homeless and their support ...
  
• Waiting on an ID
  Jim is experiencing homelessness as he waits on an identification card so he can find work before the cold hits in St. Paul, Minnesota. His tax returns from the previous years or (non-working) credit cards won't suffice, so he has to find another way. He isn't looking to get rich or amass a fortune; ...
  
• Homeless Vet, Forgotten in Life, Remembered in Dea ...
  One day, Ray Vivier was a 61-year-old homeless veteran winning the war against alcoholism who had recently moved from a shanty under a bridge to a boarding house in Cleveland. The next, after an arsonist set fire to the boarding house and Vivier saved five people before dying from burn wounds, he wa ...
  

Ceasefire.ca

• Support treaty banning nuclear weapons: Experts
  Prime Minister Harper should actively support new calls for a global treaty to ban all nuclear weapons, experts said today. “The Canadian government needs to step up its efforts to stop the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons” said former Senator Douglas Roche following a two-day conference in Otta ...
  
• NATO to seek negotiated end to Afghan war?
  The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan “is considering a plan to end the war by entering power-sharing negotiations with Taliban leaders and former fighters,” the Globe and Mail reports (Doug Saunders, NATO weighs Taliban truce in plans for Afghan peace, 25 January 2010). The paper says that “the sc ...
  
• Canadian Auto Workers support Ceasefire.ca
  The Canadian Auto Workers’ Social Justice Fund has made a $15,000 donation to the Rideau Institute’s Ceasefire program. The CAW and the Rideau Institute “have worked together on important issues and expect to do so in the future,” said Annie Labaj, the Director of the CAW’s International Department ...
  
• Anti-prorogation group should not be ignored: stud ...
  A study released today by the Rideau Institute finds that Facebook has been adopted by older, politically engaged voters to express frustration over the government’s decision to prorogue Parliament. A survey conducted by online public engagement strategist Pierre Killeen suggests that a majori ...
  
• Army shelves Close Combat Vehicle purchase
  The Ottawa Citizen reports (David Pugliese, Combat vehicles for army on hold, document shows, Ottawa Citizen, 21 January 2010) that the purchase of a new fleet of Close Combat Vehicles (CCVs) for the army has been postponed by the Harper government. Although the CCV purchase had been promised as a t ...
  

Kevin Trudeau Show

• The Kevin Trudeau Show: 1-27-10
  Today, Kevin explains how the government is using the mind as its biggest weapon and how the CIA is embedded within every aspect of your life! Glacier Scientists Knew Data Wasn’t Verified That New-Car Smell May Be Toxic Zero Deaths Caused By Vitamins & Herbs Alex Jones & KT Join Forces To Expose Cor ...
  
• Eddie Freeman – eXfuze
  Click the picture or link below to hear Kevin’s interview with Eddie Freeman of eXfuze and click here to start getting rich today! Eddie Freeman 01/27/10
  
• The Benefits of Coffee
  January 27, 2010 Natural News By Dr. Julian Whitaker Patients coming to the Whitaker Wellness Institute sometimes express surprise that we serve coffee. Doesn’t it increase the body’s acidity? Aren’t health-conscious people supposed to drink tea instead? Isn’t caffeine bad for you? If coffee were ha ...
  
• Vitamin D Reduces Risk of Bone Fractures
  January 27, 2010 Natural News By S. L. Baker In recent years, Big Pharma has produced a variety of widely hyped bisphosphonate drugs including alendronate (Fosamax), ibandronate (Boniva), risedronate (Actonel) and zoledronic acid (Reclast) that are aimed at preserving bone mass and reducing the risk ...
  
• Japanese Company Nipro Recalls 2 Million Medical N ...
  January 27, 2010 AFP The Food and Drug Administration has recalled more than two million needles made by a Japanese firm over fears they can introduce silicone fragments in patients’ bodies. The FDA said in a statement Tuesday that Nipro Medical Corp. had taken back products made between January 200 ...
  

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

• Did The American Conservative just get hacked by Z ...
  Did The American Conservative just get hacked by Zionists? By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 27, 2010 Philip Weiss drew my attention to an article that caught Andrew Sullivan’s eye: Jihadism, anti-Jihadism and Palestine by Daniel Larison. It appears at Pat Buchanan’s The American Conservat ...
  
• Jihadism, anti-Jihadism and Palestine
  Jihadism, anti-Jihadism and Palestine By Daniel Larison, The American Conservative, January 25, 2010 A lot of ink has been spilled since 9/11 trying to argue that bin Laden doesn’t really care about Palestine. But that’s always been silly — nobody knows what he “really” cares about, and it doesn’t ...
  
• The sanctity of military spending
  The sanctity of military spending By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, January 26, 2010 In sum, as we cite our debtor status to freeze funding for things such as “air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks” — all programs included in Obama’s spending freeze — our military a ...
  
• U.S. mulls legality of killing American al Qaeda “ ...
  U.S. mulls legality of killing American al Qaeda “turncoat” By Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito and Brian Ross, ABC News, January 25, 2010 White House lawyers are mulling the legality of proposed attempts to kill an American citizen, Anwar al Awlaki, who is believed to be part of the leadership of t ...
  
• The meaning of the Eikenberry cables
  The meaning of the Eikenberry cables By David Bromwich, Huffington Post, January 26, 2010 It was apparent as early as the summer of 2009 that Obama had no political choice but to throw in his lot with Petraeus and McChrystal and the “full-up” commitment of troops. Only a more far-sighted regard fo ...
  

Watts Up With That?

• Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated
  There’s been a lot of buzz about the Menne et al 2010 paper “On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record” which is NCDC’s response to the surfacestations.org project. One paid blogger even erroneously trumpeted the “death of UHI” which is humorous, because the project was a study about ...
  
• Another survey shows public opinion on global warm ...
  From a press release by George Mason University: American Opinion Cools on Global Warming FAIRFAX, Va., January 27, 2010—Public concern about global warming has dropped sharply since the fall of 2008, according to the results of a national survey released today by researchers at Yale and George Ma ...
  
• Heading for the exits
  Climate agency going up in flames Exit of Canada’s expert a sure sign IPCC in trouble Terence Corcoran, National Post A catastrophic heat wave appears to be closing in on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. How hot is it getting in the scientific kitchen where they’ve [...]
  
• CRU inquiry prompts, sought after, changes in UK l ...
  Breaking news from the UK: Inquiries by Jonathan Leake at The Sunday Times have revealed new developments in the Climategate affair. I previously reported about the current predicament: Loophole in UK FOIA law will apparently allow CRU to avoid prosecution Now, news from ICO shows that they will se ...
  
• New Compendium Paper on Surface Temperature Record ...
  I have a new paper out with Joe D’Aleo. First I want to say that without E.M. Smith, aka “Chiefio” and his astounding work with GISS process analysis, this paper would be far less interesting and insightful. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I ask WUWT readers to visit his blog “Musings from the ...
  

Dandelion Salad

• Chris Hedges: Economics Trumps Politics
  with Chris Hedges Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Jan. 27, 2010 VPR News All Things Considered Interview: Journalist Chris Hedges, Author of “Empire of Illusion” Journalist Chris Hedges says we live in two separate Americas. [...] via VPR News: Interview: Journalist Chris Hedges, Author of “Empi ...
  
• The NYT: Home of Disgraced Editors, Shady Reporter ...
  by Sibel Edmonds Featured Writer Dandelion Salad originally published by Boiling Frogs Post 27 January 2010 From Judith Miller to Dean Baquet to Ethan Bronner I am certain all of you know of the infamous New York Times reporter Judith Miller. You know, the dark lady who worked with the Bush admin ...
  
• Postcards From The Empire: Cindy Sheehan’s N ...
  by Cindy Sheehan Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox January 27, 2010 Somos americanos I was born in the U.S. in 1957. I was born a subject of the world’s most lethal Empire. When did the U.S. become an Empire? Ask our indigenous people that questio ...
  
• Stop sleepwalking into the future By Gunther Oster ...
  By Gunther Ostermann Dandelion Salad Kelowna, BC. Canada previously published as a letter/op-ed 1.29.09 Slightly revised edition: January 27, 2010 Recently, the prominent scientist Stephen Hawking warned humanity that “We’re acting with reckless indifference to our future on planet earth. It wil ...
  
• The Destabilization of Haiti: Anatomy of a Militar ...
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, January 25, 2010 “Washington seeks to reinstate Haiti as a full-fledged US colony, with all the appearances of a functioning democracy. The objective is to impose a puppet regime in Port-au-Prince and establish a permanen ...
  

Your New Reality

• No title
  Paywalls Will Dry Out The News Junkies By Darryl Mason Here are 16 stories I've now got open in various windows and tabs. I intend to read them all, but there doesn't seem to be enough time to soak it all up, so much fresh news and information flooding in, constantly, sometimes feel stressed when ...
  
• No title
  Contact : .
  
• No title
  Barack Obama's face moments before he went to take the oath of office. This is a detail from a larger image , which reveals Obama is actually looking at himself, in a mirror. As I've said here before, regardless of the intent, the official White House photography of the Obama administration ha ...
  
• No title
  So Many Holocausts.... George Monbiot has a read of David Stannard's American Holocaust : (the book) ­documents the greatest acts of genocide the world has ever experienced . In 1492, some 100 million native people lived in the Americas. By the end of the 19th century almost all of them had been e ...
  
• No title
  Tony Blair looks to be going down for his involvement in the war of lies that preceded the War On Iraq, but it will take a few years. His public shaming begins soon, and hopefully will be followed by a stiff sentence fit for a war criminal. In the meantime, a long procession of former Blairians tak ...
  

Wired - Science

• Evolution Shrank Some Primates’ Brains
  Primate brains have not always gotten bigger as they evolved, according to new research. The findings challenge the controversial argument that Homo floresiensis, also known as the hobbit, had a tiny, chimp-sized brain because of disease. “It was assumed that brain sizes generally get bigger throug ...
  
• New Animations Take You Flying Over Mars
  A space-loving animator has created stunning flyovers of Mars from data captured by NASA’s HiRISE imager, which is mounted on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite. HiRISE creates detailed digital-elevation models. Crunch that data, add perspective and some cinematic effects, and you have the m ...
  
• NASA Sends Airborne Radar to Map Haiti Faults in 3 ...
  NASA is sending a radar-equipped jet to Haiti to make 3-D maps of the deformation caused by the magnitude 7 earthquake on Jan. 21 and multiple aftershocks that continue to occur. The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, or UAVSAR, was already scheduled to head to South America aboar ...
  
• Penguins, Peaks and Penny-Farthings: Nat Geo Cover ...
  > See also: Jan. 27, 1888: National Geographic Society Gets Going National Geographic magazine is known for its high-quality journalism, preservation of historical moments and access to some of the most [...]
  
• Best Display of Mars From Earth in 6 Years on Wedn ...
  On Jan. 27, Mars will be closer to Earth than any other time between 2008 and 2014. A mere 60 million miles away, the red planet will be a great target for backyard telescopes, and will appear bright to the naked eye as well. Every 26 months, the two planets’ orbits bring them closer together, some ...
  

Israeli Occupation Archive

• Howard Zinn, Historian and Activist, Dies at 87
  IOA Editor: Howard Zinn, our friend, teacher, IOA Advisory Board member, and a life-long activist so many of us followed with great interest and admiration, passed away today. Words cannot express... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, ...
  
• Arab MK slams Holocaust denial, wins praise from J ...
  "I, Ahmed Tibi, a tall, proud Arab, is happy to be on the same side as prominent Arab intellectuals who came out forcefully against Holocaust denial in the Middle East and other places around the... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, n ...
  
• Israel plans to repatriate ‘lost Jewish tribe’ in ...
  Yesh Din: “Past experience” fed suspicions that the Bnei Menashe would be encouraged to settle deep in the West Bank... Shavei Israel lobbies for other groups of Jews to be brought to Israel,... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now i ...
  
• 2010 Video Selections – updated 26 Jan 2010
  A selection of video clips: 2010 – news, history, 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...
  
• Chris Hedges: Democracy in America Is a Useful Fic ...
  The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance,... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands ...
  

Ria Novosti - Military

• Russia, U.S. to resume START talks February 1 - St ...
  Russia and the United States will continue discussions on a new strategic arms cuts treaty on February 1, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.
  
• Russian warship starts patrol of Somali waters
  A Russian frigate, the Neustrashimy, has started a patrol mission in the pirate-infested area off the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden, a Russian Navy spokesman said.
  
• Putin prioritizes weapons procurement for Russian ...
  The Russian defense industry should focus its efforts on the production of modern weaponry, including tanks and armored vehicles, for the Russian Armed Forces, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.
  
• Russia's MIG company confirms delivery of naval fi ...
  Russia's MiG aircraft maker said on Tuesday it has delivered the first four MiG-29 Fulcrum-D carrier-based fighter jets to India.
  
• Ukraine strikes $2.4-bln arms deal with Iraq - med ...
  
  

NewsWise

• alli Proven to Reduce Visceral Fat, a Dangerous Fa ...
  New studies show that overweight and obese people using alli(r) (orlistat 60 mg) with a reduced calorie, lower-fat diet can significantly reduce weight, visceral fat, and waist circumference and therefore may reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke. The studies w ...
  
• National Health Care Leaders Launch Campaign to Re ...
  National home care and health care leaders kicked off an 18-month national home-health quality-improvement campaign this month at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) headquarters. Registration to participate opened to all home health agencies on January 21.
  
• Even Mild Kidney Disease Harms a Child's Quality o ...
  Challenging prevailing wisdom that only children with end-stage kidney disease suffer physical, social, emotional and educational setbacks from their disease, research led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center shows that even mild to moderate kidney disease may seriously diminish a child's quality of l ...
  
• Human Growth Hormone: Not a Life Extender After Al ...
  People profoundly deficient in human growth hormone (HGH) due to a genetic mutation appear to live just as long as people who make normal amounts of the hormone, a new study shows. The findings suggest that HGH may not be the "fountain of youth" that some researchers have suggested.
  
• Researchers Find Leukemia Cells Metabolize Fat to ...
  Leukemia cells, like most cancers, are addicted to glucose to generate their energy, but new research shows for the first time that these cells also rely on fatty acid metabolism to grow and to evade cell death.
  

Intel Trends

• BURMA: Mongla top leader assassinated
  The following article is reprinted with permission from Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.), Chiang Mai, Thailand. Breaking News:  Mongla top leader assassinated ©   S.H.A.N. January 27, 2010  15:21 The general secretary of Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State ...
  
• IntelTrends 27-JAN-2010
  SRI LANKA: Security forces surround Fonseka's hotel TamilNet, 27 Jan Sri Lankan forces have surrounded Cinnamon Lake hotel in Colombo, where opposition presidential candidate and former Sri Lanka Army General (retd) Sarath Fonseka was residing with opposition members. U.S. runs 'secret' militar ...
  
• Khaled Fattah: The Al-Qaeda storm in Yemen
  The following analysis is reprinted with permission from Yemen Times, Sana'a. The Al-Qaeda storm in Yemen ©   Yemen Times By Khaled Fattah January 26, 2010 Yemen is a deeply unstable Middle Eastern political entity, with a magnificent landscape and generous people, but with socio-economic in ...
  
• Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) reminds Exxon ...
  The following comment is from the MILF Central Committee on Information. Exxon Mobil explores oil in Moro ancestral homeland Source:   Luwaran.net  (Official MILF website) January 26, 2010 The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has reminded the Exxon Mobil, which is presently engaged in oi ...
  
• IntelTrends 26-JAN-2010
  PHILIPPINES: Exxon Mobil explores oil in Moro ancestral homeland MILF, 26 Jan The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has reminded Exxon Mobil, which is presently engaged in oil exploration in Sulu, not to forget that it is operating within the Moro ancestral homeland and that the rightful shar ...
  

Organic Consumers.org

• Even Medical Students Want Conventional Medicine t ...
  Are up-and-coming young doctors going to practice the same kind of mainstream medicine as their predecessors? Will the next generation of docs turn up their noses at alternative therapies such as acupuncture, yoga, herbs and vitamins -- just like the majority of the current crop of docs? Click here ...
  
• EWG Study Finds Hundreds of Pollutants in Nation's ...
  The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released yet another report indicting the nation's drinking water supplies are being highly contaminated with pollutants. Click here to read this article
  
• 70 Percent of Antibiotics Used on Animals Slaughte ...
  Widespread antibiotic use in animal agriculture is drawing increasing fire as a primary cause of the growing prevalence of drug-resistant and ever more lethal superbugs. Click here to read this article
  
• Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Sea ...
  The environmental impact of shrimp can be horrific. But most Americans don't know where their shrimp comes from or what's in it. Click here to read this article
  
• Fight Back Against the GMO Assault on Our Immune S ...
  With Michael Taylor ensconced in the White House as the Food Safety Czar, we have the proverbial fox guarding the hen house. Monsanto Mike was a lead attorney, VP, and chief lobbyist for Monsanto. In the 1990s, he manipulated the FDA and the legal system to make sure genetically modified bovine grow ...
  

fotoFrontera

• Fotografías e imágenes del terremoto en Haiti
  [ PRIMERA PARTE ] [SEGUNDA PARTE] Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. A sólo 48 horas del seísmo en Haití , le ofrecemos las fotografías más recientes sobre esta enorme y lamentable tragedia que ha cobrado la vida hasta el momento de más de 50,000 personas ...
  
• Postales para el día 14 de febrero
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. Aprovechando que seguimos muy amorosos y en espera del próximo día 14 de febrero , traemos para ustedes la segunda parte de imágenes de amor . En esta ocasión, te ofrecemos de manera gratuita, 18 postales para celebrar e ...
  
• 50 fotografías de animales muy divertidos
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías.
  
• Fotografías coloreadas y lindas sorpresas
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías.
  
• Dibujos e inventos de Leonardo da Vinci
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías.
  

Executive Intelligence Review

• Shut Down `Londonistan's' Terrorist Operations Now ...
  By Michele Steinberg Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• Next Comes Hyperinflation
  By John Hoefle Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• Russia Seeks To Develop Far East; Invites U.S. Rol ...
  By Rachel Douglas Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• The Case for Impeachment of President Barack Obama
  By Nancy Spannaus Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  
• The Case of Obama: Tantamount to Treason
  By Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. Reprinted from Executive Intelligence Review, January 15, 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2
  

Center for a Livable Future

• Baltimore Food Makers potluck
  On the recommendation of a friend, I had to good fortune to attended the Baltimore Food Makers monthly potluck this Saturday to share home-grown, home-preserved and home-made food with a group of ~30 “food makers.”  Before eating we all gathered around the spread of food and each maker discussed w ...
  
• Antibiotics in Farming: Has Tyson Foods Shot Itsel ...
  -From the Animal Welfare Approved web site Tyson Foods’ recent agreement to settle a lawsuit for falsely advertising its “raised without antibiotics” chicken brand has received limited media coverage – no doubt to the relief of the company’s boardroom. And with an annual turnover of nearly $27 bill ...
  
• Vegetarian and low-carbon diets emerging in China?
  Yesterday I spotted a segment on the China Central Television (CCTV) web site describing the vegetarian restaurant scene in China and the emergence of a low-carbon diet trend. Meat consumption has risen dramatically in China in the last few decades; research by Barry Popkin at the University of Nort ...
  
• Study Finds Menu Labels Including Daily Caloric Re ...
  Last week I discussed why obesity experts, such as Drs. Kelly Brownell and David Kessler, believe highly processed foods are leading to excessive overeating. Until healthier unprocessed foods are more readily available and affordable, today I want to focus on one way we can thwart the cravings belie ...
  
• Fish and Health: More to the Story
  I’d like to expand a little on my recent interview for a CNN piece by Elizabeth Landau entitled “Farmed or wild fish: Which is healthier?” At face value, this question can partialy be answered by comparing the nutritional content in farmed and wild fish and weighing the health benefits of fish cons ...
  

Norwegianity

• And the truth will get you 10 years
  The Strib lets Amy Klobuchar and John Kline expound on what the President should say in his State of the Union speech tonight. Klobuchar goes with ninth-grade science fairs, 2000-man drumming routines, lofty goals and generic fixes. Kline wants the American people to come first and believes that the ...
  
• Ratt Fuckkers in the 21st Century!!!
  Turns out the fourth plumber telephone repairman was a native of Mankato. While O’Keefe is well-known, Flanagan, Basel and Dai are not. Flanagan worked last year as a paid intern for Rep. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.). Dai, who is from Alexandria, is a Chinese immigrant and was president of the Conservat ...
  
• FBI busts Acorn sting schmuck
  James O’Keefe, the absurdly pimped out liar who used selectively edited video to pile abuse on ACORN last year has just been arrested by the FBI for trying to bug a U.S. Senator’s home office. TPM Muckraker is still breaking this story, but I cannot wait to hear how Fox News covers this one (or if [ ...
  
• Obama to put economy into reverse
  Obama has decided to freeze all non-military/old people spending, and Rahm Emanuel is saying that liberal strategies are “fucking retarded.” I think I jumped off the Obama bandwagon just in time, but I had no idea it would shift into reverse and try to back over me. And, just for the record, there h ...
  
• Clusterfuck to Vikings, your Monday links
  Capitalism only works when it operates in the service of productive activity. Trading mere paper certificates (or digital simulacra of them) in ever more “innovative” (i.e. abstract and  incomprehensible) ways is not a substitute for making goods. These practices reached such a grotesque level ...
  

The Seferm Post

• Biography: Steve Jobs
  Steven Paul Jobs Entrepreneur, born on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption.
  
• Links for 2010-01-24 [del.icio.us]
  Female Genital Mutilation Banned By Muslim Leaders In Africa It is estimated two million female a year are subjected to genital mutilation. Pope Benedict XVI Commandment To Priests: Go Forth And Blog "The spread of multimedia communications and its rich 'menu of options' might make us think i ...
  
• John Edwards And His Wife Elizabeth Edwards Separa ...
  Unsurprising, in the wake of John Edwards's long drawn-out admission that he is indeed the father of a child with Rielle Hunter, who worked on his 2008 presidential nomination campaign.
  
• US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Slams Nigeri ...
  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that a "failure" by Nigeria's government to address young people's needs was breeding the radicalism seen in the Christmas Day bombing plot.
  
• Pregnant Man Scott Moore To Give Birth To Baby Boy
  Scott Moore plans to have a natural birth at their local hospital. Their doctor and obstetrician have told the medics at the local hospital.
  

The World We Live In

• War Begets War, Don’t Call it Terrorism
  Slate | By William Saletan | 11 January 2010 Traitor, Bomber, Soldier, Spy Stop crying “terrorism” every time we’re attacked. Afghan police officers inspect the site of a blast in Khost province Photo: REUTERS Two weeks ago, a Jordanian suicide bomber blew up seven CIA employees at a U.S. m ...
  
• Indian army doesn’t posses ability to fight in nig ...
  NEW DELHI: While the Indians celebrate 62nd Army Day, country’s Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, just after a couple of weeks of announcing a new war doctrine of Indian army to eliminate Pakistan and China in matter of hours even if it has to fight on simultaneous fronts, outrageously admitted I ...
  
• Freedom of Speech for a Fiction
  By CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM I often correspond with a long-time Washington DC operator named Leigh Ratiner, who spent 40 years in government, serving under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Reagan, with cabinet-level posts in the Defense Department, under the Secretary of the Interior, in the ...
  
• War Begets War, Don’t Call it Terrorism
  Slate | By William Saletan | 11 January 2010 Traitor, Bomber, Soldier, Spy Stop crying “terrorism” every time we’re attacked. Afghan police officers inspect the site of a blast in Khost province Photo: REUTERS Two weeks ago, a Jordanian suicide bomber blew up seven CIA employees at a U.S. m ...
  
• Indian army doesn’t posses ability to fight in nig ...
  NEW DELHI: While the Indians celebrate 62nd Army Day, country’s Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, just after a couple of weeks of announcing a new war doctrine of Indian army to eliminate Pakistan and China in matter of hours even if it has to fight on simultaneous fronts, outrageously admitted I ...
  

Center for Food Safety

• Farmers and Conservation Groups Seek to Halt Plant ...
  Earlier Court Decision Found Federal Approval of GE Sugar Beets to Be Unlawful Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety announced today that they filed court papers seeking a ban on genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets and sugar beet seeds. The motion was filed in Federal Court on behalf of a coal ...
  
• Supreme Court to Hear First Genetically Engineered ...
  Monsanto Takes Center for Food Safety Legal Victory to Highest Court Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear a first-time case about the risks of genetically engineered crops. Named Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the case before the high court will be yet another step in an ongoi ...
  
• Tell USDA That You Care About GE Contamination of ...
  In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environm ...
  
• USDA AGAIN AIMS TO ALLOW UNLIMITED PLANTING OF GEN ...
  Center for Food Safety to lead coalition to protect public, farmers and environment from GE crop hazards The Center for Food Safety today announced that it will lead a coalition of concerned farmers, consumers and environmentalists to hold USDA accountable in its responsibility to protect all farme ...
  
• Center for Food Safety and Institute for Agricultu ...
  Groups Urge Government Ban of Common Additives Used in Feed for Chicken, Turkeys and Hogs Today, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calling for the immediate withdrawal of approvals ...
  

Angry Indian Op-Eds

• Haiti looting horror: Girl shot dead by police for ...
  guardian.co.uk : "The horrifying aftermath of Haiti's earthquake has claimed another victim in the form of a 15-year-old girl, an apparent looter, shot dead by police. Fabienne Cherisma was killed with a bullet to the head after taking paintings from a wrecked shop in downtown Port-au-Prince on Tues ...
  
• Immortal Technique: (Reflections on the Haitian Re ...
  By Immortal Technique Courtesy of : everydropchi.com and FTP Movement Since the recent tragedy that has befallen the proud and persevering nation of Haiti , there has been an outpouring of support followed by a few disturbing falsities being spread about the history of the island and its people. ...
  
• Kathleen Cleaver: The Fugitive: Why has the FBI pl ...
  assatashakur.org Twenty-eight years ago, in a highly disputed trial, an all-White jury convicted former Black Panther Assata Shakur of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. In 1979, while serving a life sentence, she escaped from prison and eventually resurfaced in Cuba, where she was grant ...
  
• Anishinaabekwe: Poem: Indigenous Is
  Anishinaabekwe : Indigenous Is 11-09-09 Indigenous is not a skin color, Indigenous is not my nose, Indigenous is not my eye color, Indigenous is not my lips, Indigenous is not romanticizing ancient teachings, To appropriate, To disseminate, To cut to pieces, And abbreviate in a research document, ...
  
• Marwa El-Sherbini Killed In Germany For Being A Mu ...
  Marwa el-Sherbini decided to take her two-year old son, Mustafa, to a children's playground in the city of Dresden, Germany, one afternoon in August 2008. Mrs Sherbini (31), an Egyptian born pharmacist who worked for Dresden University, was dressed in blue jeans, a white blouse, and a small headsca ...
  
  
  
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  To Do

  renewable recycling conservation

  Public supports ambitious scheme for micro-scale renewable energy: poll

  The Guardian

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 10 hours ago

  Wind turbines sit atop a development of new houses that utilise 20% renewable energy in Croydon. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images The public ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Spanish company plans New Mexico solar plant

  Washington Post

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 6 hours ago

  Power produced by the plant will qualify for state tax breaks for renewable energy. Madrid-based Gestamp is a multinational company producing automotive and ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  US Wind Industry Breaks Installation Record in '09

  Domestic Fuel

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 3 hours ago

  We need to set hard targets, in the form of a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), in order to provide the necessary stability for manufacturers ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  NJ environmental groups urge Gov. Christie to expand use of renewable energy

  NJ.com

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 2 hours ago

  Chris Christie to expand the use of renewable energy, like solar and wind. TRENTON -- Several environmental groups urged Gov. Chris Christie today to expand ...

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

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  Human Habitat

  ecology water energy

  Operator error caused sewage spill at West Point plant

  Seattle Times

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 1 hour ago

  The state Department of Ecology announced Wednesday it has fined King County $24000 for the error. The county operates the plant under a permit from the ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Ecology tells Chelan County commissioners they must adopt stormwater rules

  The Wenatchee World Online

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 10 hours ago

  The commissioners met Tuesday with Terry Wittmeier, a municipal stormwater specialist for the state Department of Ecology, to lay out the county's concerns ...

  Related Articles »

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Wash. to cut stormwater pollution from highways

  BusinessWeek

  - Jan 26, 2010

  - Jan 26, 2010

  The state Ecology Department said stormwater runoff is one of the main sources of the 52 million pounds of toxic chemicals, such as oil, PCBs and heavy ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Marshall Sworn In For Third Term

  Western Queens Gazette

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 7 hours ago

  ... about the unique ecology of our borough; the Molecular Ecology Center at Queens College, will study Jamaica Bay, Flushing Meadows and our local ecology, ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010

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  Water Power

  water floods pollution
  Fairfax, Falls Church to halt payment in water rate dispute

  Washington Post

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 4 hours ago

  By Derek Kravitz Fairfax County and Falls Church have agreed to suspend a $2.2 million payment related to a dispute over water rates until all appeals are ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010
  Connecticut Water Service, Inc. Declares Dividends

  CNNMoney.com (press release)

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 5 hours ago

  Connecticut Water has paid quarterly dividends on common stock since its founding in 1956 without interruption or reduction and has increased dividend ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010
  H2O-No: Crews Deal With Three Separate Water Main Breaks

  NBC Los Angeles

  - Jan 27, 2010

  - 2 hours ago

  It seems there have been water main breaks just about every week. On Wednesday, there were three separate water main breaks, and that kept DWP crews busy ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010
  Blige & Bocelli to sing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' at Grammys
  USA Today
  - Jan 27, 2010
  - 1 hour ago
  Grammy executive producer Ken Ehrlich suggested Bridge Over Troubled Water after noticing that 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of its Grammy sweep. ...
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