5 Jan - RSS SnapShot!

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

IPS - Inter Press Services

• ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Creeping Deserts and Crouching ...
  ANANTAPUR, Andhra Pradesh, India, Jan 5 (IPS) - It is just the beginning of the year, but M. Manju Laxmi already feels anxious. In four months or so, she will be back to her old routine: stuffing the wide chinks under her weathered closed doors and windows with her old saris.
  
• POLITICS-NEPAL: Parties at Odds, Peace at Risk
  KATHMANDU, Jan 5 (IPS) - Nepal’s walk to peace from a decade-long, Maoist-led bloody insurgency that ended four years ago could take longer than expected.
  
• BIODIVERSITY: Invasive Species Multiply in U.S. W ...
  WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (IPS) - As 2010, the U.N.'s International Year of Biodiversity, gets underway, a fight against some of the most damaging invasive species in U.S. waterways is heating up.
  
• URUGUAY: From Open Sewer to Green Parkway
  MONTEVIDEO, Jan 4 (IPS) - For decades, the Miguelete, the main waterway running through the Uruguayan capital, was a virtual open sewer that the capital had turned its back on, along with its past as the site of the traditional Sunday promenade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  
• KENYA: Mapping An African Slum
  NAIROBI, Jan 4 (IPS) - In early November, a group of explorers set out to map a blank space in Africa’s map. Twelve youths armed with global positioning system (GPS) devices made the rounds of the Nairobi slum of Kibera.
  

Scoop - NZ

• Economic 'experts' who stopped making sense
  After a night at the orgy, the ancient Romans would cure their hangovers by stuffing themselves with deep-fried canaries. The Greeks favoured frying up sheep's lungs. For decades, we Britons have relied on bacon sandwiches to soak away the headache and nausea after a night out. But it was not until ...
  
• Kunstler: Forecast 2010
  Introduction There are always disagreements in a society, differences of opinion, and contested ideas, but I don't remember any period in my own longish life, even the Vietnam uproar, when the collective sense of purpose, intent, and self-confidence was so muddled in this country, so detached f ...
  
• Eurozone Credit Contraction Accelerates
  The European Central Bank said that loans to companies fell by a record 1.9pc from a year earlier. The broad M3 money supply - watched closely as a leading indicator for the economy a year ahead - fell by 0.2pc and has now been shrinking for several months.Julian Callow from Barclays Capital said th ...
  
• Where we're heading in 2010 ..
  Let's score the 2009 edition first: * The economy will NOT recover in 2009: I'll take this one, although some would argue I only deserve half (I said 8% unemployment U3, we actually got 10%.) * Deflation, not inflation, will become evident well beyond housing. Miss. Valid if you look at en ...
  
• Conflicts of Interest at Environment Canterbury
  The Auditor-General has ruled that four Canterbury Regional Councillors violated conflict of interest rules to vote down a motion which affected them financially.  »  PLIGG_Visual_RSS_OriginalNews
  

Independent ( London )

• Parents' tribute to 'brave' teenage soldier
  The parents of the first British soldier killed in Afghanistan this year appealed today for their "brave" son's memory to be honoured.
  
• Bomber who killed CIA agents was recruited as a sp ...
  The suicide bomber who gained access to a heavily-guarded CIA outpost in Afghanistan last week and blew himself up, killing seven high-ranking US agents in the process, was a Jordanian spy who had supposedly been recruited to infiltrate al-Qa'ida, it was claimed last night.
  
• 9/11 terrorist loses his appeal
  Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a US court on criminal charges related to the 9/11 attacks in 2001, lost a bid yesterday to overturn his guilty plea and a life sentence.
  
• Spain's EU website hijacked by Mr Bean
  A hacker hijacked Spain's official website for its presidency of the European Union, inserting a large smiling picture of the comic character Mr Bean.
  
• A third 'guest' got into state dinner
  The US Secret Service says a third uninvited guest was allowed into the White House state dinner for India's Prime Minister in November.
  

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• Clinton says US still open to talks with Iran
  Summary: Hillary Clinton Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration is not closing the door on possible negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme, despite intransigence from Tehran. Speaking to reporters at the State Department today, Clinton said it is clear ...
  
• Chinese firms evade U.S. Iran sanctions: report
  Summary: One Chinese firm, a unit of state-owned China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp., has made nearly 300 illegal shipments to U.S. firms since a ban was imposed on CPMIEC and its affiliates in mid-2006, the newspaper said, citing an analysis of shipping records by the Wisconsin Projec ...
  
• New Iran sanctions within a month: Israeli ministe ...
  Summary: "There is agreement in Washington, Moscow and Beijing that a nuclear Iran would destroy the current world order," he said. Ayalon's comments came as the New York Times reported that the President Barack Obama administration believes domestic unrest and signs of unexpected trouble in Ir ...
  
• Moscow says no need for new Iran sanctions
  Summary: Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. Andrei Nesterenko said the issue of new international sanctions against Tehran "has not been considered in the framework of the Group of Six [Iran Six]." "It is our position that... sanctions alone cannot solve the problem, and there is a need ...
  
• Iran gives West ultimatum to accept uranium swap
  Summary: Mottaki TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's foreign minister gave the West a one-month "ultimatum" on Saturday to accept a uranium swap, warning that it will produce its own nuclear fuel for a Tehran reactor if there is no deal. source: AFP read more
  

The Daily Galaxy

• Stephen Hawking: "The Human Species Has Entered a ...
  Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points...
  
• Mars Climate Supported Warm Lakes 3 Billion Years ...
  "Most of the research on Mars has focused on its early history and the recent past. Scientists had largely overlooked the Hesperian Epoch as it was thought that Mars was then a frozen wasteland. Excitingly, our study now shows that...
  
• Search for Earth's Twin Turbo Charged: Kepler Spa ...
  "The Kepler observations will tell us whether there are many stars with planets that could harbor life, or whether we might be alone in our galaxy." William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find...
  
• Discovery of 33 Pairs of Black Holes Show Supermas ...
  Astronomers announced yesterday that they have discovered 33 pairs of waltzing black holes in distant galaxies located at distances 4 to 7 billion light-years away from Earth (corresponding to look-back times of 4 to 7 billion years; when the Universe...
  
• Image of the Day: A White Dwarf Swallowed by a Su ...
  "We think these unusual signatures can be explained by a white dwarf that strayed too close to a black hole and was torn apart by the extreme tidal forces." Joel Bregman of the University of Michigan. New results from NASA's...
  

Natural News

• As an American, I refuse to buy mandatory health i ...
  (NaturalNews) Even if Obama's health care reform bill becomes law, mandating that all Americans buy health insurance policies for a failed system of "sick care", I will refuse to comply. I've read the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and nowhere in that document do I find that the federal g ...
  
• Scientists discover how Cordyceps mushrooms fight ...
  (NaturalNews) For thousands of years, the mushroom known as Cordyceps has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat problems ranging from coughs and fatigue to impotence and cancer. And once Western scientists started considering that anecdotal reports of the mushroom's curative powers migh ...
  
• Obesity Will Cost U.S. $344 Billion a Year in Heal ...
  (NaturalNews) An analysis of projected health care costs has revealed that by the year 2018, obesity-related medical expenses will top $344 billion. Current estimates suggest that in just ten years 43 percent of Americans will be obese if obesity continues to rise at the current rate. According to R ...
  
• Vote on the "Best of the Year" awards for superfoo ...
  (NaturalNews) With 2009 now over, it's time to vote on the "Best of the Year" awards! If you'd like to cast your vote, simply go to the voting page at http://naturalnews.com/index-polls.html You can cast one vote for each category. The categories include Best Food Bar, Best Herbal Product Line, Best ...
  
• Losing weight cures sleep apnea, scientists discov ...
  (NaturalNews) A recent study conducted by scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have found that simple weight loss is an effective treatment for sleep apnea in obese men. Published in the British Medical Journal, the study revealed a 50-percent reduction in sleep apnea cases following a rigo ...
  

  TheGallopingBeaver

• Frost warning in hell...
  Some evidence of Harper's plan backfiring among the chorus . (h/t fern hill and james bow @ dawgs )
  
• Once more unto the breach...
  Last posting from me for some time. For some reason I have an urge to spend some time crashing through northern ocean gales in Winter. OK. I have no such urge. But it feels better if I think it's my own idea. So, anything I was going to do to update the blog and perhaps perform some general main ...
  
• Resistance
  Within a few days, perhaps hours, we'll have good sense of what the Opposition will do about Harper's negation of their role. The Governor General is another matter. If they are as absolutely gutless as precendent suggests, we have decisions to make. 1. Do we meekly let ourselves become subservien ...
  
• Go . . . .
  Check out pale . A picture really is worth a thousand words . . . .
  
• For reasons of national security...
  The prime minister and his yapping dogs refuse to disclose whether Canada is still a democracy. In a telephone briefing for Parliament Hill media, Soudas confirmed that a new throne speech—launching a fresh parliamentary session—will be delivered March 3, and a budget the following day. That means ...
  

Media Matters for America

• Beck's Misinformer of the Year defense rests on f ...
  Glenn Beck devoted the full hour of his Fox News show to responding to "some liberal blogs" that had named him Misinformer of the Year, asserting that the blogs "didn't back it up with any facts." Beck's 60-minute rebuttal ignored numerous facts set forth by Media Matters for America underminin ...
  
• Fox suggests U.S. embassy closure in Yemen "a si ...
  On the January 3 edition of Fox News Sunday , Bill Kristol called the closing of the U.S. embassy in Yemen "a sign of weakness" and "a victory for Al Qaeda"; Fox News' website, the Fox Nation, echoed Kristol's point the next day using the headline: "Is Closing U.S. Embassy in Yemen a Sign of Wea ...
  
• Conservatives defend, endorse Hume's suggestion th ...
  On the January 3 edition of Fox News Sunday , Brit Hume commented that his "message" to Tiger Woods -- who Hume mentioned is "said to be a Buddhist" -- would be to "turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world." Since then, several conservative ...
  
• Fox's "kind of misleading and, arguably, dangerou ...
  In the wake of the Christmas Day attempt to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight, numerous Fox News hosts, contributors, and guests have called for profiling of Muslims by airport security personnel. But several national security experts have termed such policies ineffective, with Bus ...
  
• Ignoring his past remarks, Bozell says "if" Limbau ...
  In a December 31 Newsmax article, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell is quoted as saying that if Rush Limbaugh said liberals "want to kill people," then "[i]t would be the end of his career." But Limbaugh has made numerous remarks of the sort, including declaring that "It's the American L ...
  

Global Research.ca

• The Yemen Hidden Agenda: Behind the Al-Qaeda Scena ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• 'The US Military is Exhausted'
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• VIDEO: Afghanistan is Not the Right War
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• Northwest Airlines Christmas Day Flight: "Al Qaeda ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  
• The Grand Placebo: Airport security and The Terror ...
  For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
  

TPM Cafe

• What's Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010
  Just about everything you'll hear coming out of Washington starting now is really about November's mid-term election. The gravitational pull of the midterms was already apparent last year, as Republicans marched in perfect lockstep to vote against whatever the President... Republican - United ...
  
• Peterson-Pew Commission Uses Jingoism to Advance B ...
  We need to cut the budget deficit because the foreigners are taking over. That is the word according to a new report, "Red Ink Rising," from a commission financed by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Pew Foundation. The... Peter G. Peterson Foundation - United States - Economic - Deficit ...
  
• The Gaza Story (Animated) From Israel
  This Israeli-made animation tells it all.... Israel - Middle East - Warfare and Conflict - Israel-Palestine - Human rights
  
• The Gaza Story (Animated) From Israel
  This Israeli-made animation tells it all.... Israel - Middle East - Warfare and Conflict - Israel-Palestine - Human rights
  
• Austerity Advocate, Peter G. Peterson, Buys "Media ...
  On Thursday, December 31, the last day of 2009, The Washington Post published an article, presented as a news story, which could be a signal of the death of the Post as an independent and objective news source.  The piece,... Washington Post - Senator Conrad - Social Security - United States - ...
  

TruthOut

• 2010: A Peace Odyssey?
  Another year brings another war, so it would seem. Already in the works beforehand, but now hastened by the Christmas "underwear bomber," we are swiftly moving down a road that could lead straight to another front in the generational war without end. The al-Qaeda bogeyman rears its head, and we resp ...
  
• NOW | Fighting the Afghanistan War ... in Pakistan
  A dangerous, inside look at the conflict's true front line. Next on NOW. read more
  
• The Best Chance Yet for Legalizing Marijuana
  Tax Cannabis 2010 faces hurdles as it prepares for its test on the California ballot next November. It's Dec. 14 and news that the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 has qualified for the California ballot next year has just exploded in time for the evening news cycle. I am sitting on a ...
  
• 9/11 and Christmas 2009: Two Examples of a Failure ...
  One week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the press corps, "This isn't Pearl Harbor." No, it was worse. In 1941, the United States didn't have a director of central intelligence, 14 intelligence agencies and an overall inte ...
  
• Mark Weisbrot | Public Spending Still Key to Econo ...
  There are right-wing voices claiming that the government is an obstacle to economic recovery in the United States, irresponsibly piling up debt, burdening future generations, and ruining the investment climate. For them, we only need to rely on the private sector to get us out of our worst slump sin ...
  

Planetsave

• Barn Owl’s Wisconsin Appearance A Rare Event
  The Common Barn Owl is not so common in Midwestern states where it’s considered vulnerable. A recent surprise appearance in Wisconsin highlighted the species’ fragile status in the region. A raptor listed as an endangered or threatened species in seven Midwestern states made a rare appearance in W ...
  
• Michigan Offshore Wind Proposal Stirs Waves
  A map prepared for Michigan’s Great  Lakes Offshore Wind Council shows areas of high wind power production potential in the state’s offshore waters. One of the first proposals for a major offshore wind project in America’s freshwater has surprised Michigan regulators and begun to stir oppositi ...
  
• Friendship between LION, TIGER and BEAR
  This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post . . If we could all just get along like these three unusual friends, we would live in a much different world. In human society, people often do not like others simply because they are different. Humans kill over this matter. In ...
  
• Coalition Says MN Climate Solution Includes Nukes
  The Prairie Island nuclear plant at Red Wing, Minnesota, on the Mississippi River.  Nuclear power advocates want to repeal the state’s 15-year-old ban on new nuclear plants. The state that enacted one of the nation’s most farsighted clean energy laws in 2007 may be a battleground over nuclear p ...
  
• Curbside Vs. Deposit and GHG Reduction
  The beverage container industry continues to fight state and national container legislation despite evidence that such laws could contribute significantly to greenhouse gas reduction while providing energy, recycling and litter control benefits. The industry says community recycling programs, which ...
  

Water Quality - WordPress

• Three Fronts-Working Toward Being Green
  Working toward being Green By Michael Hughes    December 22, 2009 The First Push: Conservation Start
  
• Greenlines - Climate Diplomacy is Dead, Go Rent a ...
  Greetings, this post-blizzard, pre-holiday Monday! It almost feels like a Sunday since so many offic
  
• A caption worth a thousand words?
  Okay, just take a look at this Irfan Khan photograph that ran with Charles Duhigg’s New York T
  
• What We Dont Know
  http://www.propublica.org/feature/natural-gas-drilling-what-we-dont-know-1231 End of the year story
  
• Nigeria: Dutch court to try Shell for oil spills
  A Dutch court has said it has jurisdiction over a case of alleged oil spills brought against Royal D
  

Public Citizen in Texas

• Year in Review: Top Texas Vox Stories of 2009
  Now that the ball’s dropped, toasts made, fireworks popped and black eyed peas consumed, we’re feeling reflective today.  Faced with that eternally annual question, “Should Auld Aquaintance Be Forgot?“, I’m moved to such mental poetry as “Heck no, this year was too much fun!” We’ve had a hell of a ...
  
• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up
  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 ...
  
• Recap: Roll Beyond Coal Tour
  The November/December edition of Public Citizen News, a bi-monthly newsletter distributed to Public Citizen members, featured this article on our statewide “Roll Beyond Coal” Tour.  Since not all of you out there get the newsletter, I thought I’d share: ‘Roll Beyond Coal’ Tours Texas By Geena W ...
  
• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up
  The Texas Progressive Alliance would like to thank everyone for reading all of the weekly blog roundups this year. This is the last roundup of 2009, and we are all looking forward to 2010. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants everyone to be afraid of drug cartels buying our politicians. We’ve al ...
  
• $18.2 Billion! Amores Nucleares: San Antonio Nucle ...
  The San Antonio Nuclear Expansion Soap Opera plot thickens.  Today’s update brings the shocking news that South Texas Project Reactors 3 & 4 could actually cost, not $13 Billion, not even $17 Billion… but $18.2 Billion! With all the trouble CPS has gotten into recently regarding transparency (a gen ...
  

Press TV

• Soul-destroying snow brings China to standstill
  Heavy snowfall has wrought havoc on the Chinese transport system, clogging highways and stranding thousands for 48 hours and 1,400 rail passengers in Inner Mongolia, state media said Tuesday.
  
• Iranian cartoonists top Indian Caricature Contest
  Iranian cartoonists have won the top awards of the 2009 edition of the International Manmohan Singh Caricature Contest in India.
  
• Quitting smoking ups diabetes risk: Study
  Individuals who quit smoking are placed at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first six years, a new study finds.
  
• Third aftershock rocks Solomon Islands
  The Solomon Islands experienced a series of powerful aftershocks Tuesday, a day after a 7.2-magnitude quake rattled the islands.
  
• Arrest warrants keep Israeli team away from UK
  Israel canceled a delegation of senior military officers to Britain last week after the UK failed to guarantee that they would not be arrested over alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
  

Axis of Logic

• How Western anti-Muslim bigotry became respectable ...
  
  
• U.S. Venezuelan Relations: Imperialism and Revolu ...
  
  
• Another DC Area Stand Down - As Radioactive Ground ...
  
  
• Whose Winter Ledger?
  
  
• Star Spangled Massacre
  
  

They Gave Us a Republic

• Now That's What I Call a Public Servant
  Via Crooks and Liars and Intoxination , a little story about the new mayor of Newark, New Jersey: As the snow piled up on New Year's Eve, Jersey resident Ravie Rave didn't call a snow plow service to take care of her 65-year-old father's walk - she tweeted at Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Booker, who ha ...
  
• Something Wicked This Way Comes
  Allen Quist, a republican vying for the chance to run against Democratic incumbent Tim Walz in the Minnesota First delivered quite a Christmas message to the attendees of the Wabasha County Republican's Christmas Party in mid-December. The message? That the United States is in grave peril and faces ...
  
• Giant Atheist Party in D.C. in 2013 - Sign Up Now!
  I'm in. An annoying but intrinsic property of atheists is that we are all horribly fractured - this is a disparate group with no central leadership, and that's the way we like it - but it also means our presence is fragmented and easier to ignore. We have all these different godless organizations wi ...
  
• The Nightowl Newswrap
  This just suddenly happened? Or we're just now hearing about it? "Instability in Yemen is a global as well as regional threat, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. She said the Yemeni government had to take measures to restore stability or risk losing Western support. The US embassy, clos ...
  
• It Is Still, As It Has Always Been, the Economy, S ...
  Once President Obama signs health care reform - in January, with any luck - there is one priority and one only for the next six months: a giant, humongous jobs bill that will prevent another economic crisis that would hand Congress back to the repugs. And that would bring this administration and any ...
  

Care 2

• In wake of airline incident: Drumbeat for US war i ...
  Yet ANOTHER war?...Such concerns appear to carry little weight in Washington or the US media, as the Obama administration continues to build up for a third US war in the oil-rich regions stretching from the Middle East to Central Asia. NO MORE WAR! Submitted by David Buchan to US Politics & Gov't   ...
  
• New Year’s Eve program provides more than 400 ride ...
  JOHNSTOWN - With more than 400 people transported by Fulton County's Safe Ride Program this year, STOP-DWI Program Coordinator David Wiltey said the program's 20th year was a success once again. Submitted by Dee C. to Society & Culture  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Search on for deaf dog that escaped animal hospita ...
  LATHAM, N.Y. -- A dog is on the lam after it managed to escape from Shaker Veterinary Hospital over the weekend. Submitted by Dee C. to Animals  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• Controversial Wolf Hunt Underway in Sweden: Wolves ...
  For the first time in decades, a controversial wolf hunt is underway in Sweden. The Swedish Environment Protection Agency approved the limited cull of 27 wolves, or about 10 percent of the Swedish wolf population. Submitted by Katie Miller to World  |   Note-it!  |   Add a Comment
  
• 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Burj Khalifa, ...
  A tower in Dubai that opens today has earned the title of world’s tallest building with a height of 2,717 feet (828 meters). That’s more than half a mile high. Actually, it grabbed that title during construction back in July 2007 when it passed Taipei 101 Submitted by Katie Miller to World  |   Not ...
  

GreenBiz

• What Are You Excited Most About in 2010?
  As the sun began to set on 2009, we asked some of our readers and partners to share their innovations, commitments, and passions for the coming year.
  
• What Are You Excited Most About in 2010?
  As the sun began to set on 2009, we asked some of our readers and partners to share their innovations, commitments, and passions for the coming year.
  
• The Advent of a New 'Oil War' after Copenhagen
  Critics of George Bush say he has led us into a quagmire in Iraq during the last decade from which we will never emerge. They say his way of doing business led to all the disagreements visible in the Copenhagen climate talks. They're wrong.
  
• Ford To Roll Out Plug-Ins, Battery Electric Vehicl ...
  From now until 2012, Ford will introduce a range of electric vehicles, from continuing its work with hybrids to releasing plug-in and battery electric vehicles.
  
• Coca-Coca, Carbon Reduction, Copenhagen -- and Pol ...
  That's Muhtar Kent, the CEO of Coca-Cola, on the right. On the left is a polar bear. I caught up with Muhtar Kent at COP15, where he was one of a few Fortune 500 CEOs to show up in an effort to influence the climate talks.
  

Reuters Global

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

Paul Krugman

• Bernanke in Atlanta
  Where regulation really needs to focus is on making the financial system less fragile.
  
• Atlanta is ours, and cheaply won
  Stingy economists, unite.
  
• Not my actual lecture text
  But more or less what I'm planning to say.
  
• Warnings not heeded, self-referential edition
  Why haven't I been spending the last year touting my prescience? Because I forgot about the whole thing.
  
• 2010
  A special greeting.
  

No Quarter

• Musings on the State of the CIA
  * Bumped Up * The CIA once again finds itself a football in a Washington political blood match. This is a bit like the movie, Groundhog Day, in which actor Bill Murray portrays a weatherman sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the weather rat: On awaking the ‘following’ day he discovers that ...
  
• Cartoon Savages
  Separated at Birth? Kurt Westergaard’s 2005 genius of the exploding Muhammed turban was inspired by an illustration from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; however it is strikingly close to the snapshot of the late Mullah Omar stooge, Haji Omar Khan, who was targeted and killed by a P ...
  
• Goat Offering
  Tune in to my syndicated radio show, heard nightly 9:00 p.m. to midnight ET via iTunes (click Radio; click News/Talk; and scroll down to and click WABC-AM). ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::   Smoking like a Barbecue.   Surly, prepped, obtus ...
  
• Larry Johnson on CNN Today re TSA Rulings
  The very beginning of the interview is missing from the video, which our amazing videographer C.S. caught on the fly! Here are anchor Kyra Phillips’ questions at the top of the interview: Joining us now with his take, former State Department counterterrorism official Larry Johnson. And you know, La ...
  
• The Shoe and Missed Chances
  Behold this particular shoe. A simple little thing—basically a low back-walled sole with a “nude” plastic strap so it can’t fall off your feet. So, why does it symbolize an easily preventable and major failure of the Obama presidency? I personally didn’t expect much from an Obama presidenc ...
  

Environmental Graffiti

• The Turquoise Waters of the Middle East’s Largest ...
• Snorting Yopo with the Yanomamo Indians
• Enjoy the Sparkler Art: Happy New Year from Enviro ...
• Hunting with Nature’s Most Extreme Camouflage Arti ...
• Moon Rising

Foreign Policy in Focus

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

Global Elite

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

Al Jazeera

• CIA base bomber 'was double agent'
  Reports say man behind blast at US Afghanistan base was Jordanian intelligence recruit.
  
• US warns of global Yemen threat
  Washington says Sanaa must meet "expectations" for continued Western support.
  
• Israel presses ahead on settlements
  Palestinian leader calls for halt as building works in East Jerusalem gain momentum.
  
• Battle for India's small car market
  Car makers unveil new compact models in bid to win share of growing car sales.
  
• China river oil spill 'serious'
  Polluted Yellow River tributaries further contaminate drinking water resources.
  

Green Inc. - NYT

• On Our Radar...
  Fast-tracking solar development on federal lands, fake fireplace logs and other energy and environment news from around the Web.
  
• Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home
  The prospect of worsening climate conditions suggests that millions more people in the developing world could be on the move because of disasters.
  
• Biomass Briquette Plant Opens in Cambodia
  The country's first factory producing fuel briquettes from biomass opened last month.
  
• The Year in Energy and Climate Policy
  Clean Skies News does a video wrap-up of the year in energy and environmental policy in the United States.
  
• Canadian Natural Gas Pipeline Gets Federal Backing
  A federal review panel issued a detailed report endorsing the 800-mile MacKenzie Gas Project.
  

Dot Earth News

• Cold Arctic Pressure Pattern Nearly Off Chart
  Forecasters say cold and snow are largely the result of a rare pressure pattern in and around the Arctic.
  
• Pioneering Greenhouse Analyst Appraised
  A fresh view of a pioneer in studies of the climate impact of human-generated greenhouse gases.
  
• The Greatest Story Rarely Told
  Despite "Climategate" and Copenhagen, global warming remains a blip on the media landscape.
  
• Passing Time
  The human awareness of time's passage is amplified as we mark the end of a year and decade.
  
• Polar Pressure, Snowstorms and Sea Ice
  Unusual pressure patterns around the North Pole are shaping wintry weather and possibly summer sea ice.
  

Doug Feith : Hong Pong

• 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 jo ...
  
• First protest of 2010: Palestinian popular committ ...
  With a new year comes renewed awareness of the various interlocking scams and awful scenes continuing to unfold around the world. The activities in Gaza are also prompting more action in the West Bank - today's demonstration vs Israeli settler colonial operations near Bethlehem is the first protest ...
  
• Corrupt Transportation Security Administration goo ...
  The Transportation Security Administration is a headless corrupt golem that threatens the safety of all Americans. No one is even in charge of this messed up agency, however like many of the federal security-oriented bureaucracies, its security divisions have become bloated and aggressive. Becaus ...
  
• ORBIES DOWN UNDER: Mysterious orbs or dust on the ...
  I got a message from YouTube user Stanley0306173 of Perth Australia , who has posted a ton of videos of what he claims are "orbies" or spirits or aliens or something, whizzing around his apartment. He has posted lots of these videos, and invited people to come check it out. Unlike other ghost hunt ...
  
• The Monckton climate battle rap; I want to specula ...
  What could possibly go wrong?! Analysis: Climate summit showcases new world order - thestar.com Tripod operations block coal train - tripods are super funny: Copenhagen failure sparks coal terminal blockade | Rising Tide Australia . Earlier: Indymedia Danmark - If you're in, you're in, if you're ...
  

Daily Censored

• Organ Damage and the GMO Link
  In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize. Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn, Mon 810, Mon 863 and NK 603, were approve ...
  
• Do Charter Schools Encourage Innovation and Best P ...
  And as the Hoover Institute so laconically and candidly stated, the real, rarely spoken of goal is the replacement of all traditional public schools, at least in urban areas, with retail charter chains run for profit, or in the case of non-profits, run by Boards of Directors – stocked with privatize ...
  
• Top Global Media Figures of 2009
  PU L S E has just released their list of the top Global Media Figures of 2009. Include in the list is Nora Barrows-Friedman and Dennis Bernstein from Flashpoints Radio at KPFA in Berkeley. Flashpoints has recently been under threat by management at KPFA loosing over 50% of its funding in the past th ...
  
• Joe Klein’s Fatuous Fantasy
  Michael Collins Time Magazine’s Joe Klein is having an allergic reaction to free speech and public debate. The title of his latest column says it all:   The Left’s Idiocy on Health Reform. It’s an ex cathedra pronouncement from a made man at one of the nation’s oldest media properties. What’s go ...
  
• American Mantra: Free Market Capitalism and Obama
  American Mantra: Free Market Capitalism and Obama By Peter Phillips Free Market Capitalism remains the the dominant American ideological truth. The decline of communism opened the door for unrepentant free marketers to boldly espouse market competition as the final solution for global harmony. Accor ...
  

AlterNet's Breaking News

• Olbermann: Cheney ‘is nothing m ...
• Grayson suggests Satan wrote introduction to Chene ...
• Johnson and Johnson heiress found dead in LA
• Nestle makes giant pizza strike, leaves Cadbury to ...
• Buffett's Berkshire opposes Kraft share plan for C ...

Institute for Policy Studies

• Bye-bye, Dubai
• In 2010, Let's Treat our Domestic Workers Better
• Lessons of the Gaza Freedom March
• Stone Hammered to Gravel
• Don't Negotiate with the Taliban

Pine River World News

• Israel editorial: Name the enemy
  The following editorial is from The Jerusalem Post. Name the enemy ©   The Jerusalem Post January 4, 2009   updated The clear, present and continuing danger posed to Western civilization by the worldwide Islamist terror network cannot be overcome while the American, European and other freedom-lovi ...
  
• Is the Fed Juicing the Stock Market?
  The following commentary is reprinted with permission from Global Research. Is the Fed Juicing the Stock Market? ©   Global Research By Mike Whitney January 2, 2010 Is the Fed manipulating the stock market? TrimTabs CEO Charles Biderman seems to think so, and he makes a strong case for his theory ...
  
• CIA swears revenge for Afghan attack
  The following article is from The Times of India. CIA swears revenge for Afghan attack ©   The Times of India By Chidanand Rajghatta January 2, 2010 WASHINGTON (TNN): The CIA has sworn to avenge the killing of seven of its operatives by a suicide bomber at a forward operating base (FOB) close to t ...
  
• Alex Lantier: Thirty years since the Soviet invasi ...
  The following commentary is reprinted with permission from World Socialist Web Site. Thirty years since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ©   World Socialist Web Site By Alex Lantier December 30, 2009 In the press coverage of President Barack Obama's recent decision to deploy more US troops to Af ...
  
• Muttallab: What happened?
  The following opinion is reprinted with permission from The African Executive, Nairobi. Muttallab:  What happened? ©  Patrick Nwadike Source:   The African Executive December 30, 2009 After all the hue and cry, it is important to look at the events of the past few days, from 25th December to 27th ...
  

PDA AMERICA

• The top 9 eco-stories of 2009 (that have nothing t ...
  My wife, my editor, my family, my dog — they all tell me I’m obsessed with climate change. (My best friend does, too, but I discount that opinion because he’s an oil prospector.) Well, you know ...
  
• The 20 Best Socially Conscious Movies of the Decad ...
  By Peter Z. Scheer | Cross-posted from Truth-Dig 2009 was a record year at the box office, but there are those who worry that Hollywood has gone into decline over the last decade. Moviegoers are reportedly ...
  
• Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett
  From Dec 28th 2009, Brad Parker hosts this Connect the Dots. Our guests are David Swanson, Marcy Winograd and Wayne Williams. We will be discussing Progressive Peace Plans, Progressive Candidate Messaging and the Fair ...
  
• The Israel/Gaza Face-Off In Los Angeles
  By Linda Milazzo | PDA Blog Contributor onday night, in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead that killed 1,400 Gazans, and in solidarity with the 1,400 international peace pilgrims converging in Egypt ...
  
• 2009—The PDA Year in Review
  2009—The PDA Year in Review This year was only weeks old when PDA members came together in Washington for a grassroots leadership meeting. The eyes of the world were focused on Washington in anticipation of the ...
  

Marler Blog

• FDA sues Listeria Cheese Maker over insanitary con ...
  From an FDA Press Release: FDA Takes Action Against New Jersey Cheese Manufacturer - Company failed to correct violations despite federal, state warnings The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced intentions to ask a federal court to shut down a New Jersey cheese manufacturer with an alle ...
  
• Antibiotic Resistance in Salmonella
  With several recent recalls of Salmonella-tainted beef in 2009 and recent reports of Salmonella-tainted chicken, getting a better understanding of Salmonella - especially Antibiotic Resistance in Salmonella - is a good way to start off the New Year. Salmonella is a leading cause of foodborne illness ...
  
• So, why still the silence from CDC, FSIS, National ...
  To refresh, on Christmas Eve, National Steak and Poultry recalled approximately 248,000 pounds of beef products (“mechanically tenderized” steak) that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. The recalled meat was linked to illnesses in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington. ...
  
• "We're not waiting to be the victim of the next fo ...
  So say, Peter Hurley. Lynn Terry of the Portland Oregonian profiled my clients, Peter and his young son who was a victim of the Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella Outbreak in 2009 – “Year-end profile: Portland officer advocates food safety on son's behalf.” It is a great read and a great pict ...
  
• First Lady Michelle Obama on Iron Chef America - W ...
  Michelle Obama, America’s First Lady, will be a guest of ‘ ’Iron Chef America,” a show I have never watched on the Food Network. It will be airing January 3, 2010 and the White House portion was filmed in late October . My friends over at Obamafoodorama were kind enough to put up this teaser video ...
  

AutoblogGreen

• AutoblogGreen for 01.05.10
  Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 From 250 million to 246 million. It's not a big change, but the trend could continue. Venture Beat: Chevy Volt will fail We ...
  
• Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four ...
  Filed under: Car Buying 2009 was not a good year for car sales. No surprises there. An interesting side effect of lowered sales last year, though, is that the total number of vehicles in the overall U.S. car fleet dropped. There were 250 million cars here in 2008, and only 246 million at the end ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 01.04.10
  Ten Plug-In Cars We're Impatiently Waiting For In 2010 This could be one heck of a year. Ten green cars to remember from the last 100 years Speaking of which, it wasn't too bad of a century, ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.31.09
  Study: Plug-in cars are cleaner than gas, hydrogen cars could be worse But some hydrogen cars are as clean as EVs, say the study authors. Gas To Electric, Santa Monica make up in PHEV conversion fight ...
  
• AutoblogGreen for 12.30.09
  The decade's top five green transportation predictions - and how they fared Nostradamus had it easy. Enterprising DIYer adds boat tail to Pontiac Firefly to boost mileage It loo ...
  

Rafe's Radar

• Facebook cuts off Suicide Machine access
  There are cleaner ways to terminate your social-networking accounts than to use this script-based site, which Facebook says it has blocked. ...
  
• Seesmic buying Ping.fm social update service
  Twitter and Facebook client company Seesmic acquiring write-once, post-anywhere service Ping.fm. But why?
  
• Valley VC learns to embrace government
  Famous venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson avoided politics--as long as he could. Now dealing with the feds is a job skill.
  
• Reporters' Roundtable Podcast: Biggest tech storie ...
  This week on the Roundtable: The biggest tech stories of 2009! With my boss, CNET Editor in Chief Scott Ard , and Buzz Out Loud host (and my co-conspirator on Real Deal ) Tom Merritt . Listen now: Download today's podcast Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subsc ...
  
• Dear newspapers: I will pay for your content, once
  Asking subscribers to pay for the same content twice will not work.
  

Camera Obscura

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

Democracy Now!

• 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 ...
  
• Coming Up: Dr. Atul Gawande
  Dr. Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and staff writer for the New Yorker magazine joins us to discuss health care reform and his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.
  
• 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
  
• TARIQ ALI: “Obama’s Afghan-Pak Syndrom ...
  Tariq Ali is author of more than 20 books, including history, politics, and fiction. His most recent books are Protocols of the Elders of Sodom (2009) and The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (2008). He is a regular contributor to The Guardian, New Left Review, and the London Rev ...
  

Farming Pathogens

• We Are All Astronauts Now
  Five years ago I gave copies of this essay to a few friends and family as a year-end holiday gift. As a first stab I think it’s aged well, despite its ignorance of the work of Berger, Harvey, Reichenbach, among others. I offer it now to everyone else in a similar spirit–all in good fun, [...]
  
• Pigs Do Fly! Implications for Influenza
  The influenza genome is segmented. Eight pieces of single-stranded RNA encode for 11 proteins: PB2, PB1, PB1-F2, PA, HA, NP, NA, M1, M2, NS1, and NS2. The segmentation allows influenza of different subtypes infecting the same host to trade segments like card players on a Friday night. Most of the re ...
  
• Breeding Influenza: The Political Virology of Offs ...
  What better way to medicate against a holiday’s genocidal origins and the hunger now swelling worldwide in the wake of a related banker-brought recession than with a bellyful of turkey, stuffing, yams, and pumpkin pie? Despite its rotten ambiguities Thanksgiving remains my favorite American holiday. ...
  
• A Visitation of the Influenza
  In seeping through the world’s every nook and cranny, pandemics have a way of forcing themselves into our lives as a lurking presence. Even the most insular of functionaries, who typically makes his living solving problems by ignoring them, straightens up and takes notice.    As an epidemic wave a ...
  
• I Do Like Green Eggs and Ham
  Much of what we’ve addressed on this blog has focused on the epidemiological failures of industrial farming. But what of the alternatives? Can we farm in another way? Is another world possible?    It’s only since I’ve moved to the Midwest that I’ve learned that not only is that world possible, it’ ...
  

Digg Green

• Sweden Allows Wolf Hunting After 45 Year Ban
  For the government of Sweden, having 237 wolves in the entire nation is a few too many. So after a 45 years, the country's parliament has issued a decree allowing the population of wolves to be reduced to what it deems an appropriate maximum: 210 wolves.
  
• Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 y ...
  Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.
  
• Beyond recycling and light bulbs
  If Americans really take the plunge and enter a carbon-constrained world, it might look a little like the Stokes family's home in Falls Church. With help from Sweden, 4 Northern Virginia families are 'Climate Pilots'
  
• Are Tigers Butchered for Trade at "Zoos" in China?
  Many Chinese tourist attractions are secretly operating as fronts for illegal tiger farming, butchering captive tigers for the multibillion-dollar black market in wildlife parts, conservationists say.
  
• Keeping Your Clunker: More Eco-Friendly than the P ...
  Life cycle dynamics and other issues are discussed.
  

Invisible Opportunity

• Video – Over Populated World? Do the Maths. ...
  more about "Video – Over Populated World? Do the …", posted with vodpod
  
• The Creatures from the Black Lagoon of the Reptile ...
  By Les Visible The reason they came up with an underwear bomber is the same reason they came up with a shoe bomber. First they wanted to get into your shoes and then they wanted to get into your underwear. After that they want to get into your body. But job one, day one, they want [...]
  
• Vanunu: our duty to speak up The absurd persecutio ...
  By Duncan Campbell More than five years ago, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the Israeli nuclear facility in Dimona, was released from prison after serving 18 years for revealing Israel’s nuclear weapons secrets. This week he was arrested again in Jerusalem, accused of talking to foreigners ...
  
• Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: ‘I was vi ...
  By Aaron Foley Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday. Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab alle ...
  
• Is the Detroit Nigerian “Terrorist” An ...
  By Bruce Dixon What does the hapless Nigerian mope yanked off a plane in Detroit Christmas Day for setting his lap on fire have in common with color-coded terror alerts, with the shoeless, homeless Miami Haitians convicted of trying to bring down the Sears Tower, or with the 2004 pre-election videos ...
  

  Insurgency Watch - Posts

• InsurgencyWatch moving to True/Slant
  In the coming days, InsurgencyWatch will be moving to True/Slant, “an original content news network tailored to both the ‘Entrepreneurial Journalist’ and marketers who want a more effective way to engage with digital audiences.” (That’s what the official about page says.) It’s not a decision I’ve ma ...
  
• Kerry-Lugar’s First Victim
  If true, this is total bullshit: After strong criticism on the Kerry-Lugar bill in Pakistan, the government has decided to replace Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani and the announcement in this respect is expected within the next two days. There’s nothing in the bill reasonable Pakist ...
  
• Pakistan’s Civil War Heating Up
  In the aftermath of this weekend’s assault on the Pakistani General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the Taliban hit again in Alpuri, in the Shangla district east of Mingora in Swat. According to military sources who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press, a 13- or ...
  
• At Home with a Swat Lashkar
  I just finished up a few days in Swat and while I’m working on a story about it, I thought you might like to see a few pictures I took while there. Enjoy. Share/Save
  
• FACTBOX: Uzbek militant leader killed in Pakistan ...
  Washington PostFACTBOX: Uzbek militant leader killed in PakistanReutersBy this time he is thought to have fled the region for the safe haven of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. * Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader ...Pakistan to Target Taliba...
  

AlterNet - DrugReporter

• The Best Chance Yet for Legalizing Marijuana
  Tax Cannabis 2010 faces hurdles as it prepares for its test on the California ballot next November.
  
• The Year In Pot: Top 10 Events That Will Change th ...
  There has been a tidal shift in politics and on Marijuana laws in America, from Obama lightening up on pot prosecutions to the recognition of cancer prevention properties.
  
• AlterNet's Most Popular Sex and Drugs Stories of 2 ...
  From "Big Booty Beauty and the New Sexual Aesthetic" to "5 Things the Corporate Media Don't Want You to Know About Cannabis."
  
• The Search for an Endangered Mushroom That Could C ...
  Unlocking the secrets of this fungi may be one of the most important discoveries to the future of human health. But time is running short for the endangered mushroom.
  
• 10 Reasons the U.S. Military Should (Officially) U ...
  Medical marijuana may have a host of advantages over other treatments for traumatized vets, but the VA won't even study its efficacy.
  

Twilight Earth

• Report: 31 Million Pounds of Toxins Released Into ...
  A study released in 2009 lists the Ohio River as leading the nation in total toxic discharges. Related posts: 2009 Global Climate Change Impact Report Released Coleman “Natural” Beef recalls 1 Million Pounds of Hamburger U.S. Petroleum Industry Responsible for 25% of Toxic Pollutants in North Am ...
  
• Flow – For the Love of Water: Full Documentary
  The full documentary film "Flow - For the Love of Water." This award winning documentary is a must see film about what is becoming one of the most important issues of our time. Related posts: Food Inc. – Full Documentary The World According to Monsanto – Full Documentary WaterCheck Clean Water Gi ...
  
• Food Inc. – Full Documentary
  In this full online Food Inc. documentary, filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry. You'll never eat the same. Related posts: Putting the Gross in Groceries – Food Inc. the Documentary The World According to Monsanto – Full Documentary Good News Monday – Bloggers Dona ...
  
• Make a Video – Win $2,500.00: Reduce-ReUse-Recycle ...
  The U.S. EPA is sponsoring a video contest that challenges people to produce short, creative videos that highlight the “Three Rs” of individual consumption. Related posts: Do You Want to Do More Than Recycle? How to Precycle. Reuse-day Tuesday, 3 Ring Binders, Plastic-ware and Coffee Grounds ...
  
• Pope Benedicts 2010 Message to the World: Environm ...
  Pope Benedict's 2010 Environmental message: If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. Related posts: Pope Says – Environmental Degradation Ends by Living Ethically What is Environmentalism? Full Copenhagen Speech Transcripts of 5 World Leaders
  

Inhabitat

• Spiraling Skyscraper Pod City For a Future London
  Design team Chimera has conceived of a incredible series of spiraling skyscrapers for London modeled after the complex ecosystems created by the mangrove tree. Dubbed Mangal City, the project is an “urban ecological system” composed of modular pod capsules that shift to adapt to environmental and co ...
  
• Google Unveils Software That Battles Deforestation
  Google seems to have its hand in virtually everything, from ocean mapping to home energy monitors. Now the search engine giant can add reducing deforestation to its lengthy resume. The company’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, recently unveiled new software that can actually track and monitor global ...
  
• Tobacco: The Next Big Biofuel?
  We’ve seen biofuels made from some pretty strange substances — tuberculosis bacteria, watermelons, and chocolate, to name a few — but a new effort to gather biofuel from tobacco leaves might win the award for best use of a carcinogenic plant. Researchers at the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratory at ...
  
• Gordon Brown’s New Year Resolution: Reach Climate ...
  The beginning of a new year is a time to set goals and make plans for the future, and a New Year’s resolution we desperately want to come to fruition is a global agreement on climate change. That being said, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is taking matters into his own hands and has made reaching [ ...
  
• Tallest Building in the World, The Burj Dubai, Ope ...
  Whether you love it or hate it, the Burj Dubai, the tallest building on the face of the planet and the one the whole world has been anticipating, opens today in Dubai! Standing at least 160 stories high (the final height will be revealed at the inauguration ceremony), the controversial tower does no ...
  

Pogue's Posts

• Check-in Done Right
  How one hotel uses already-collected information to help streamline your arrival.
  
• Verizon's New Motto: Why Not Be Evil?
  Verizon Wireless continues in its efforts to be the least-liked mobile carrier in America.
  
• Verizon Responds to Consumer Complaints
  The wireless carrier addresses two issues raised by consumers and this blog.
  
• Should e-Books Be Copy Protected?
  The issues involved with copy protection haven't changed. They're the same on e-books as they are with everything else.
  
• Free Speech (Recognition)
  This week, I tried out Dragon Dictation, a new, free, very real app for the iPhone from Nuance.
  

Open Your Eyes News

• Massive oil spill threatens China’s supplies
  ABC – A massive oil spill into the Yellow River in central China is threatening the drinking water of towns and cities. Last Wednesday 150,000 litres of diesel oil spilled out of a ruptured pipeline and into two tributaries of the Yellow River. The contamination, which for days went unreported, has ...
  
• Use of Potentially Harmful Chemicals Kept Secret U ...
  Washington Post – Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all p ...
  
• Israeli Citizen asks Israeli Government to explain ...
  Palestine Telegraph – At last we see a genuinely concerned Israeli Citizen asking questions of their government regarding the IDF’s use of weapons containing uranium components. Ms Lynda Brayer, BA, LL.B., Advocate is a well known Israeli Human Rights Lawyer and Political Activist. Historically Ms B ...
  
• Deforestation tolls natural capital worth $4.5tr e ...
  The Nation – The United Nations is marking 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity to curb the unprecedented loss of the world’s species due to human activity at an alarming rate some experts put at 1,000 times the natural progression. In this connection, a slew of events highlighting the v ...
  
• The shameful Saudi slave trade – will America stop ...
  India Daily – It is shameful that America tolerates Saudi slave trades and buys oil from these slave trading nation. Habib Hussain of Moradabad, who hid in a toilet on an AI flight from Saudi Arabia to return to India says Indian labourers are sold like cattle in Saudi Arabia. “There was no point [ ...
  

Monkey Smashes Heaven

• Revolutionary classics: Shubel Morgan’s On t ...
  Shubel Morgan on the Theory of Productive Forces: LLVPW part 1: LLVPW part 2: Posted in ..Monkey and the Troublemakers, ..Shubel Morgan, Communism, Economics, Maoism, Maoism Third Worldism, Maoisme, Maoismo, Movies, Theory
  
• Happy new year to all Maoist-Third Worldists and o ...
  Happy new year to all Maoist-Third Worldists and our allies! (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Our movement has made impressive gains in the past year. Maoist-Third Worldist cells aligned with Monkey Smashes Heaven (MSH) have increased in North America and in the rest of the world. The Revolution ...
  
• Amerikkkans reactionary as hell on the Iran issue
  Amerikkkans reactionary as hell on the Iran issue (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) A new poll confirms that Amerikans are still thirsty for Iranian blood.  A surprising 84 percent of the US population says that it has been following news reports about Iran’s nuclear program. Nearly half, 48 perc ...
  
• More Fuck the Troops
  from Politics Are Over Posted in ..Politics Are Over, Amerikkka, anti-fascism, Communism, Idiot Amerikkkans, Maoism, Maoism Third Worldism, Maoisme, Maoismo, North America
  
• Stalin, Mao, and Lin Biao born in December
  Stalin, Mao, and Lin Biao born in December (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) Three great revolutionaries were born in December. Stalin was born on December 21st, 1887. Stalin is remembered for his great accomplishment of leading the Soviet Union through socialist construction. He is also remember ...
  

PakAlert

• Obama’s War On Yemen
  By Stephen Lendman Besides waging direct or proxy wars on multiple fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, Sudan, Eastern Congo, elsewhere in Africa, and likely to erupt almost anywhere at any time, Yemen is now a new front in America’s “war on terror” under a president, w ...
  
• Americans Are Cowards And Want To Be Slaves
  By freemeninstitute.com Are Americans willing to trade their freedoms for a false sense of security? This is the crucial question that must be answered before a successful struggle for liberty can be fought and won. If it is shown that the majority of Americans will readily trade their freedoms for ...
  
• Intelligence Sources: Plane Bomb Attempt A False F ...
  By Wayne Madsen Note – There is no url included as this information is only available to paying members of the Wayne Madsen website. However, because of the significance of this report, a member has kindly sent this along to be circulated. Intelligence sources: Plane incident a false flag involving ...
  
• 33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True, ...
  By Jonathan Elinoff, New World Order Report Most people can’t resist getting the details on the latest conspiracy theories, no matter how far-fetched they may seem. At the same time, many people quickly denounce any conspiracy theory as untrue … and sometimes as unpatriotic or just plain ridiculou ...
  
• 2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World
  January 1 ushered in the last year of the first decade of a new millennium and ten consecutive years of the United States conducting war in the Greater Middle East. by Rick Rozoff Beginning with the October 7, 2001 missile and bomb attacks on Afghanistan, American combat operations abroad ...
  

ecogeek

• Fossil Fuel Free Cargo Ship
  Cargo ships are a very efficient means of shipping cargo in terms of cost and energy per ton of freight moved. But the ships use some of the dirtiest fuel, and global shipping is responsible for 3-4% of all greenhouse gas emissions. So, while cleaning up ocean freight isn't the sole solution t ...
  
• 2009 Saw Less Media Coverage of Environment
  Yes, you read that headline correctly.  Last year saw less media coverage of climate change and the environment than the two previous years. Really?  Even with continued scientific evidence of climate change being published, the lead-up to an international conference on the subject and the feeling ...
  
• Are Dolphins People?
  The line between species is pretty clear. Dolphins most recent common ancestor with us is a long way down the line. But the question of whether Dolphins are, in a rather philosophically scientific way, people is a lot more complicated. Now, of course, the ethics are confusing. What do we value abou ...
  
• All Londoners Will be Within a Mile of a Charging ...
  London mayor Boris Johnson launched a new plan called the Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan for London that will allow all Londoners to be within one mile of an electric vehicle charging station in five years. The plan calls for the installation of 25,000 charging points at public, residential and com ...
  
• Will Dolphins Need Noise-Canceling Headphones? Ri ...
  Researchers at the University of Hawaii have discovered a strange and potentially damaging result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere:  louder oceans.  More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more acidic seas and more acidic seas produce fewer sound-absorbing chemical reactions meaning noise will travel ...
  

Times Online - Science

• Met Office warns of 40cm of snow within hours in S ...
  The Met Office issued an emergency warning today that London and the Home Counties could be buried by more then 40cm (16in) of snow overnight.
  
• Travel advice: what to do if your flight is disrup ...
  What if my flight is cancelled?
  
• Tour operators slash long-haul holiday prices
  Some of the biggest package holiday companies offer the poorest service, according to the Which? magazine customer satisfaction table compiled from the experiences of its 4,500 members.
  
• Situation vacant: would-be Crusoe for remote islan ...
  A new warden is being sought for a rugged outcrop of rock off the coast of South Wales.
  
• Big freeze: the latest airport and flights news
  Manchester Airport is not operating flights until at least midday due to heavy snow. A decision will be made then over whether to resume flights based on the weather forecast. Passengers are being advised on the airpiort's Twitter feed to check with their airline before travelling to the airpor ...
  

Environment _ National Geographic

• "Lost" Amazon Complex Found; Shapes Seen by Satell ...
  Hundreds of circles, squares, and other geometric shapes once hidden by forest hint at a previously unknown ancient society that flourished in the Amazon, a new study says.
  
• Melting Glaciers Nourishing Oceans With Ancient Ca ...
  Alaska's marine animals have an unexpected nutrient in their diets: ancient carbon from glacier melt, a new study says.
  
• Giant Salamanders Helped to Spawn
  A new program in Japan is helping giant salamanders get past dams built to control flooding so the rare amphibians can lay their eggs upstream. Video.
  
• PHOTOS: Dolphin "Drive Hunts" Continue in Japan, E ...
  Dolphin "drive" hunts, a bloody tradition denounced in the recent documentary The Cove, continue in Japan and Denmark's Faroe Islands.
  
• Sharks Killed for Oil Used in Swine Flu Vaccine
  Millions of doses of the H1N1/09 vaccine contain a substance called squalene, which is extracted from the livers of rare deep-sea sharks caught in the wild, conservationists say.
  

drinking liberally in new milford ( with beersphere feeds )

• Be Careful What You Bargain For...
  “We need to stop looking at the tea parties as separate from the Republican party, If we do that, we can stand up and create the biggest tent of all.” - Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) Via BarbinMD , we catch a glimpse into the mind of a "Man of Faith" and Tea Party leader: But that's not just your typic ...
  
• Do they know it's Christmas time?
  We grabbed a card off of one of those Christmas "Wish Trees" for a local homeless shelter when I took the boys out to get their hair cuts the other day. It was from a 10 year old girl living in the shelter. What was she asking for? "Home Essentials" Ya know: Tooth brush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo ...
  
• Who the heck is Barry Cafero?
  Via ctblogger : I know it's early to be making this call but I'm almost certain no one topping this comment today: It's ok that Larry Cafero doesn't know my name. Over the course of the next year, he'll quickly realize that Connecticut voters don't know his, either. -Connecticut Democratic Party C ...
  
• Monday Morning Peak
  Image Taken From National Geographic Forget about Wednesday being hump day this week. The peak was already hit this morning, if you are among today's sleepy heads that stayed up to watch the Gemenids meteor showers : Coming fast on the heels of its more famous cousin the Leonid meteor shower —which ...
  
• Jon Stewart on Healthcare
  The Daily Show's Jon Stewart takes a look at the healthcare successes of the Democrats: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Democratic Super Majority www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview (h/t GottaLaff :)
  

SPL Center

• Potential Jurors Being Interviewed for the Bill Wh ...
  ROANOKE, VA. — After sitting through his own threat trial in Brooklyn, hate blogger Hal Turner may find himself back in a federal courtroom sooner than expected — this time as a witness in a similar case. Turner was on the list of dozens of potential witnesses that a government prosecutor read durin ...
  
• Uganda’s Harsh Anti-Gay Legislation Has Amer ...
  While activists around the world criticize pending legislation in Uganda they call the “kill the gays” bill, some Americans are being outed for their connections to those involved in the proposed statute. The latest is Richard Cohen, who claims he has successfully counseled thousands of gays to beco ...
  
• Columnist Describes Barrage of Threats from Nazi L ...
  ROANOKE, VA. — Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts told the jury this afternoon that his “blood ran cold” when he received an E-mail from white supremacist Bill White with his home address, telephone number and a reference to his wife. When he clicked a link in the E-mail and saw that Whi ...
  
• Revealed! David Irving Can Be a Jerk
  So secretive is Holocaust denier David Irving that he often doesn’t reveal the locations of his lectures until hours before they’re scheduled to begin — and even then, he only tells vetted guests. It must have been a blow, therefore, when his private E-mails appeared on the Internet, courtesy of sel ...
  
• Indictments Detail Alleged Police Cover-up in Beat ...
  At about 11:30 on the night of July 12, 2008, six teenagers brutally assaulted a Latino man in a Shenandoah, Pa., park while yelling “Fucking spic, “Go back to Mexico” and “Tell your fucking Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah.” As they gathered at one of their homes after the attack, ...
  

change: org.

• Already Banned Gay Marriage? Make Heterosexual Div ...
  What's a politician to do when they've already successfully campaigned to ban same-sex marriage in their state? They could hang up their homophobic boxing gloves, call it a political career, and bask in the bright red glow of a state that doesn't recognize equal rights. But alas, retirement doesn't ...
  
• 5 Food Films Everyone Who Eats Should See
  Film is one of the most powerful means of illustrating a point, and those concerned with the American food industry have learned to make the most out of this medium. With last year's astonishing Food, Inc. , the field of political food film has come into its own. Here are six movies anyone concerned ...
  
• Why You Need to Know Your Health Plan’s Actuarial ...
  If you’re following the healthcare reform debate at all, you know there’s a bit of noise over two austere-sounding health plan concepts: medical loss ratio and actuarial value. They sound bone-dry and bring to mind visuals of bean-counters lost in complex calculations. Yes, these are bean-counting ...
  
• Best Couple of 2010: Annise Parker and Joel Osteen
  She's the recently elected openly lesbian mayor of Houston. He's the megachurch pastor of one of the biggest houses of worship in the entire country, if not the world. Put them together, and you get an inauguration ceremony that makes President Obama's dance with Rick Warren last year seem almost bl ...
  
• Ignoring Threats in South Sudan?
  The warning signs of looming disaster in South Sudan have been discussed ad nauseum over the past year, but judging from the current state of emergency response preparedness, you'd think the region's possible descent into large-scale violence was the world's best kept secret. In a report released la ...
  

Common Dreams -News

• Catalonia Votes to Ban Bullfighting
  by Alasdair Fotheringham in Madrid Already faced with a rapidly ageing fanbase at home and widespread incomprehension and rejection abroad, Spanish bullfighting has suffered another major setback after the Catalan parliament voted to outlaw it completely across the region. The decision was so contro ...
  
• Cities, Counties Take Back Corporate Tax Breaks
  by Don Babwin CHICAGO - Cash-strapped communities have a message for corporations that promised jobs in return for tax breaks: A deal's a deal. As the recession drags on, municipalities struggling to fix roads, fund schools and pay bills increasingly are rescinding tax abatements to companies that d ...
  
• Aughts Were a Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Worker ...
  by Neil Irwin For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for American households. But since 2000, the story is starkly different. The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversa ...
  
• Climate Change Scepticism Will Increase Hardship f ...
  by Adam Vaughan Climate change scepticism is likely to surge in 2010 and could exacerbate "hardship" for the planet's poorest people, one of the world's leading authorities on climate change has told the Guardian. read more
  
• Swimming in Natural Gas: The Greenwashing of an In ...
  by Adam Federman There has never been a better moment for natural gas. It is the “other” fossil fuel, touted as a clean alternative to coal and oil. It may be non-renewable, proponents argue, but it is a bridge or transition fuel to a happier future. Not surprisingly, the industry has gone to ...
  

Lifehacker

• Better Talking Lets You Practice And Review for I ...
  If you're nervous about an upcoming job interview, Better Talking can help you practice and smooth out the bumps in your delivery. Better Talking offers free automated phone interviews. You visit the web site, sign up with your name and email, and you're given a phone number and a pin number. Call t ...
  
• A Primer on Tracking Your Life's Data [Capture To ...
  Web PR consultant Steve Rubel is kicking off 2010 with big ideas, and one of them is a resolution to track your life with data tools. From notebooks to Evernote, spreadsheets to Nike+, it's a good year for universal capture. Image by Wired.com . Steve's post handily runs through the benefits and bes ...
  
• In-Store "Optimization" is Usually Useless, Often ...
  The Consumerist blog put laptops bought at Best Buy with a heavily marketed $40 "optimization" to the test against standard editions of those same systems. It turns out running a few apps yourself is, by far, the better solution. After failing to get a clear explanation on what Best Buy's "optimizat ...
  
• How a $530 Nexus One Might Actually Save Moneco [ ...
  You've probably heard about Google's Nexus One launch today , with a cost of $180 with a two-year T-Mobile contract and—wait, $530 without? Actually, that math might make sense, as blogger Ben Ferguson shows in his cost breakdown. He's considering buying a data-only plan from T-Mobile and relying pr ...
  
• Flexamail Helps You Social Network and Browse Fro ...
  If you're bent on updating your social network status or checking out a new web site, firewalls be damned, Flexamail can help you update your accounts and receive web sites via email. Rather than engage in a complicated game of cat and mouse involving proxies, tunneling, and other maneuvers, Flexama ...
  

Newshoggers - AfPak

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

Water Wars

• When Rivers Run Dry: Northeast Wrestles With Water ...
  When it comes to water shortages in the U.S., the Northeast probably isn't the first place that jumps to mind. California would be more like it. But there are water wars brewing in this region, too.
  
• Mike Nichols: Carp canal but another chapter in th ...
  There are a lot of fish tales going around. Here is a true one that is about more than just the recently famous Asian carp.
  
• Water Wars: Governors of Three States Meet (First ...
  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Charlie Crist has returned from the water summit. Tuesday afternoon, Crist met with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue in Montgomery to discuss the 18-year water wars among the states.
  
• Top 9 Local Stories (The Austin Chronicle)
  1) WET OR DRY? For it or agin' it, the 25-years-in-the-planning Water Treatment Plant No. 4 dominated city politics for several months, with City Council finally voting narrowly to move forward with the massive multiphase project.
  
• Water wars: public-monitoring chance opens this mo ...
  Foothills counties where water flows start have a stake in federal and state proceedings, say officials from the Regional Council of Rural Counties.
  

WordPress | Economics

• PIN is sin... says Credit Card company... go figur ...
  Try figuring this out, and you’re caught in a maze. Indeed, I’m amazed at the lack of tr
  
• Science & Soul: Amazon Catfish
  Science News in Brief Nasa’s Kepler Space Telescope found its five new exoplanets (planets bey
  
• We Take Visa, Visa, And Visa
  Andrew Martin at NYT: Every day, millions of Americans stand at store checkout counters and make a s
  
• Does 2010 signify the beginning for the “Mumpreneu ...
  Does 2010 signify the beginning for the “Mumpreneur”? “Mumpreneur” is a term that seems
  
• High Expectations/Low Standards
  TNR compares Obama to Herbert Hoover…”but it doesn’t have to be that way”, t
  

Electronic Intifada

• Gaza Freedom Marchers issue the "Cairo Declaration ...
  Gaza Freedom Marchers have approved a declaration aimed at accelerating the global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, calling for a global mass, dem ...
  
• Unbreakable in Cairo
  Though I have lived most of my life in and around Chicago, it has never been my complete home. My sisters and I were born as first-generation Palestinian-Americans coming from Kuwait and for this reas ...
  
• Sailing into trouble: "To Gaza with Love" reviewed
  To Gaza with Love is a documentary by Aki Nawaz for Iran's English-language channel Press TV. It is an account of the first boats that successfully broke the siege of Gaza in August 2008. The f ...
  
• "I hope that I die on my land"
  Fatima Mohammed Yassin, 49, is a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bilin in the occupied West Bank. In spite of Israel's occupation and construction of its wall in the West Bank, including on Bil ...
  
• Targeting human rights defenders
  Israel still believes it can act with impunity. It will only stop if there is a cost to its human rights violations. Appeals to the Israeli authorities to respect due process are not enough, as ...
  

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

• Business Lobbyists Yearn For The Days When Elaine ...
  With the calendar turning to 2010, the Associated Press took a look back at the first year of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’ tenure, pointing out that “her aggressive moves to boost enforcement and crack down on businesses that violate workplace safety rules have sent employers scrambling to make sure ...
  
• Arpaio Admits To Not Reading His Own Book, Blames ...
  During a recent seven hour deposition as part of a racial profiling lawsuit against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, attorney David Bodney grilled the Sheriff over specific references to the “reconquista” conspiracy theory in his 2008 book, “Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigrat ...
  
• Kristol And Hume: Failed Al Qaeda Christmas Attack ...
  What’s more pathetic than Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claiming “credit” for the failed Christmas Day attack? Conservative commentators hailing that attack as a “success.” Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol argued that, even though Nigerian extremist Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab onl ...
  
• Thirteen Attorney Generals Question Constitutional ...
  Conservative lawmakers have tried to dismantle health care reform by questioning the constitutionality of the requirement to purchase health insurance, but now attorney generals in at least 13 states are challenging the so-called Nebraska sweet heart deal secured by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) to fund Ne ...
  
• Big Banks ‘Making A Killing’ Thanks To ...
  Early last year, I highlighted a couple of reports that banks were aiming to exploit the Public-Private Investment Fund (PPIP), which Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner set up to purge financial institutions of their toxic assets. At the time, the banks which were supposed to be getting rid of their to ...
  

thwap's schoolyard

• Prorogation and the Culture of Impunity
  Note: The following is a response to Todd, who critiqued my last post from a Marxist perspective. Todd, I've been in transit, seeing family members, and now, drinking heavily due to my numerous psychological problems. I have been wrestling with some of your comments on and off over the last few da ...
  
• Dear General Natynczyk, ... You've confused me.
  Hunh. No sooner do I post the results of a morning's work and I find out that it's old news . 11:50 a,m. And here we go! The CDS is up -- and, as predicted by Colleague Fitz-Mo, he begins by citing his May 2007 statement on that whole prisoner-who-wasn't-a-prisoner transfer-that-wasn't-a-transfer ...
  
• harper Prorogues Parliament (Again)
  Well, he did it . Together with our shit-for-brains Governor General, harper has prorogued parliament again. His insulting rationalization is that he can concentrate on the economy (which, you'll remember, harper has been insisting has been recovering nicely thanks to his steady hand on the tiller ...
  
• If harper Prorogues
  Others in the blogosphere point to the even stronger rumours that harper is planning to cowardly prorogue parliament until after the fascist spectacle of the Olympics in order to avoid public accountability for his possible complicity in war crimes in Afghanistan. This is unacceptable. If harper d ...
  
• Child Slaves in Haiti
  Say! Why don't we check in on " Haiti ... the core [of] our engagement in the Americas, as our largest program in the region ," Canada's second-biggest foreign initiative after the mega-success [please note: that's sarcasm] of Afghanistan? How are Canada and Haiti doing? After all, Canada (at the ...
  

Financial Sense Editorials

• What To Expect in 2010
  by J. R. Nyquist. "In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gateways, portals and bridges. He has been used to symbolize the march of time, the transition from one age to another. He is often represented as having two faces: one peering into the future and the other into the past."
  
• Economic Aspects of the Pension Problem
  by Antal Fekete. "On February 23, 1950, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle published an article from Ludwig von Mises with the above title. In it the author concentrated on the threat of inflation as the greatest danger to pension rights. Sixty years later another danger is looming large on the ...
  
• Th*nk*ng (2010)
  by Fred Cederholm. "I’ve been thinking about 2010. Actually I’ve been thinking about 2009, predictions, meddling, muddling, Real Estate, and Yemen. Happy New Year!!! I don’t know about you, but I am really happy that 2009 is behind US. "
  
• Divergences Spread And Grow More Profound
  by Captain Hook. "Divergences in various markets, indicators, and data continue to grow across the gambit, with patterns indicating some sort of resolution is set for as early as next week – as discussed previously. "
  
• Lets Talk Metals
  by Ray Long. "What if Metals could talk? Pretend you're at a party. The Elements are milling about. Could you imagine the buzz? Tungsten points out that Gold has a flaw in his character, but tells him "If you'll cover for me, I won't admit I'm the heavy in all this."
  

on Government Oversight

• Morning Smoke: New Offshore Patrol Cutters in the ...
  Coast Guard Eyes New Cutter [War Is Boring] Northrop Grumman HQ to D.C. area [Politico] Looking at the federal contracting landscape in 2010 [Federal News Radio] DeRegistered Lobbyists Start New Firm [National Journal] Iraqi government plans to file suit against...
  
• Morning Smoke: What's Next for the Joint Strike Fi ...
  The End is Near for JSF (at least the end of 2009) [Ares] What to Watch in 2010 [DoD Buzz] Obama directs agencies to classify less, share more [Federal Times] Colo. firm employs the most retired officers as mentors [Federal...
  
• LANL Researchers Blow Up Building with Civil War-l ...
  Nope, that's not a headline from The Onion. POGO has just learned that researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally blew a building apart a few weeks ago with a massive gun that acts like a Civil War cannon....
  
• A Video Message from Danielle
  As Danielle says, it's been one heck of a year over here at POGO. We covered a lot of ground and are proud of our accomplishments, but we wouldn't have been able to make it without you. Thank you for...
  
• Morning Smoke: Obama Signs Defense Appropriations ...
  Spending Bill Becomes Law [Air Force Magazine] Classified Bomber Under Consideration [Aviation Week] Oshkosh FMTV Bid 'Unbelievable [DoD Buzz] New Executive Order Awaits Presidential Decision [Secrecy News] Washington to Reduce Funding for U.S. Contractors in Pakistan [ProPublica] Doctors' Spat Expo ...
  

Science Express

• UCSB physicists move one step closer to quantum co ...
  Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing. The work is published online today on the Science Express Web site.
  
• Research sheds light on workings of anti-cancer dr ...
  (PhysOrg.com) -- The copper sequestering drug tetrathiomolybdate (TM) has been shown in studies to be effective in the treatment of Wilson disease, a disease caused by an overload of copper, and certain metastatic cancers. That much is known. Very little, however, is known about how the drug works a ...
  
• Researchers develop cheap, easy 'kitchen chemistry ...
  A team at The Scripps Research Institute has made major strides in solving a problem that has been plaguing chemists for many years: how best to break carbon-hydrogen bonds and then to create new bonds to join molecules together. This problem is of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry, whic ...
  
• Rice physicists find reappearing quantum trios
  Using atoms at temperatures colder than deep space, Rice University physicists have delivered overwhelming proof for a once-scoffed-at theory that's become a hotbed for research some 40 years after it first appeared. In a paper available online in Science Express, Rice's team offers experimental evi ...
  
• Researchers recalculate age of Solar System
  (PhysOrg.com) -- Lead-lead (Pb-Pb) dating is among the most widely used radiometric dating techniques to determine the age of really old things, such as the age of the Earth or the Solar System. However, recent advances in instrumentation now allow scientists to make more precise measurements that p ...
  

TechDirt

• Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie
  techflaws.org was the first of a few to point out that Nintendo, for some bizarre reason, decided to completely shut down a fan made film based on the immensely popular classic video game The Legend of Zelda . Apparently the fan-made film took a few years to produce, but once it was done, it was re ...
  
• Unexpected, But Good: Justice Department Says FCC ...
  You don't really expect the Justice Department to be involved in the question of spectrum allocation, but it has suggested that the FCC free up more spectrum for broadband efforts . The reason is that this is coming from the antitrust division of the DoJ, and the hope is that with more spectrum, it ...
  
• CNN's Take On 'Book Piracy'
  paperbag was the first of a whole bunch of you to send in CNN's article on 'book piracy.' To be honest, there was so little substance in the article that I didn't see much of a reason to post it -- but since people keep submitting it, it seems that quite a few of you are hoping to discuss it. A lo ...
  
• UK Sets Up A Panel To Review Libel Laws
  For quite some time, we've been noting how ridiculous UK libel laws are (and, by the way, we still have not been sued by the person in the UK who insisted we had libeled her ), and there have been ongoing efforts to change those laws. While it's not much, it's a start to find out that the UK govern ...
  
• The Next Big Innovation Will Start Out Looking Lik ...
  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. One of the key points to understand in Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma is ...
  

VacTruth

• Red Bluff man loses his driver’s license aft ...
  . . . Tang Lor Contra Costa Times 01/04/10 With a number of people getting flu shots all sorts of side effects and reactions have been reported, but most people don’t end up losing their driver’s license because of a flu shot. Red Bluff resident Robert Roof claims the shot is what triggered a serie ...
  
• Nemeroff & The First House That Glaxo Built?
  . . . Ed Silverman Pharmalot 01/05/09 Yesterday, we wrote that Charles Nemeroff, the controversial psychiatry professor at Emory University in Atlanta, had just purchased a $1.9 million, six-bedroom, seven-bath home in the Coconut Grove section of Miami, as he prepares for his new job at the Univer ...
  
• Julie Gerberding Primed Big Pharma’s Pump wi ...
  . . . Robert Scott Bell vactruth.com 01/04/2010 (vactruth.com) The most recent in a long list of government bureaucrats to leave the public dole and take up the high-paying cause of Big Pharma is none other than former head of the CDC Julie Gerberding. One year and one day from the date of departur ...
  
• Are Vaccinations Good Parenting?
  . . . LoseTheBackPain.com 1/04/2010 While shopping near the kids section of a clothing store last week, a brochure caught my eye. The front was adorned with a very large picture of a baby caught in wide-eyed surprise. The title read, “Whooping cough sounds scary. Promise me you’ll get vaccinated.” ...
  
• Garlic prices soar in China amid flu fears
  . . . By Calum MacLeod USA TODAY BEIJING Wrapped up in earmuffs and a heavy jacket to fight the Beijing winter, Liu Zhan shows little sign of soaring wealth. Until he removes his gloves — and reveals a large gold ring. At the Chinese capital’s biggest vegetable wholesale market, other traders cal ...
  

BroadSnark

• Anarchism – What’s in a Name?
  With all the stigma attached to the world anarchism, why call yourself an anarchist? Anarchists are bound to ask themselves that question at some point.  Perhaps you run across another news report where anarchists are blamed for some random violence.  Maybe some pundit compares anarchists to terro ...
  
• Happy New Year
  
  
• What You Liked, 2009 Edition
  Breaking news isn’t really my thing, but it does bring the traffic.  The article I wrote after attending CATO/Glenn Greenwald’s release of the Portugal decriminalization study was the most popular post this year.  And the snowball war post came in at number three. White America’s Existential Crisi ...
  
• Poor Man Can’t Eat, Rich Man Can’t Sle ...
  I used to shoplift as a kid.  When I was about fourteen, I was busted with a purse full of makeup and banned from Rite Aid for life. My father was unusually rational about the whole incident.  Clearly, all the crap I had in my room could not have been purchased with my babysitting money.  And [...]
  
• Times Are Tough
  
  

Executive Intelligence Review

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

Armies of Liberation

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

Dark Politricks

• Climate Change Believer Criticizes Cap and Trade
  By Anthony Gregory James Hansen is the latest climate change instigator to complain about Cap and Trade. He worries that the program will increase carbon emissions. We could say this raises some questions: If carbon is a pollutant, why do they seek to create a new commodity market in the rig ...
  
• Ron Paul Back on Larry King Tonight
  By Matt Hawes Dr. Paul will appear on Larry King Live tonight to discuss terrorism, the TSA, and related issues.  We’re still uncertain on hit time, but stay tuned for any updates.  The show airs at 9 pm eastern on CNN. View the original article at Campaign for Liberty
  
• Given Everything That’s Happened, Shouldn&#8 ...
  Given that Cheney is apparently at least partly responsible for creating the terror problem in Yemen ... And that one of the most highly decorated soldiers of all time says that "war is a racket" ... Given that FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan ...
  
• Gold Prices May Hit $1,375 in 2010
  Spot gold prices could hit $1,375 in 2010, predicts John Licata, chief investment strategist at Blue Phoenix. He explains why to guest host, Michael McCormick from Belvedere Share Managers & CNBC’s Oriel Morrison.
  
• -12C: Britain facing one of the coldest winters in ...
  Much of Britain was forced to a standstill today as snow and ice brought transport networks to an abrupt halt. Airports were closed, entire bus services were suspended in some of the UK’s major towns and cities, while motorists became trapped in tailbacks up to 12 miles long. It comes as business l ...
  

food and water watch

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

treehugger

• Baby Bottle Heats Up Milk Without Electricity
  Images via Karim Rashid Karim Rashid has come up with a new gadget that is supposedly a wonder-device for parents. This bottle can heat up milk to body temperature without the use of electricity, so that parents and babies on the go can still enjoy warm milk during meal time. The notion that a ple ...
  
• Scientists Study East Coast Igneous Rocks for CO2 ...
  Undersea locations with the same type of rock as the New Jeresy Palisades are being examined. Photo: Meredith P. via flickr. Here's some interesting research on the storage part of the carbon capture and storage equation: Researchers from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory repo ...
  
• Weird Research: Genetically Altering Tobacco For U ...
  Tobacco harvesting machinery. Image credit: Kirpy . Welcome to addictive auto emissions. Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University are working toward turning tobacco into a source of oil used for biofuel ( Science Daily ). Breathing exhaust could be good for long haul truck drivers trying to st ...
  
• LG OLED TVs Already Hitting Stores
  Image via YouTube Earlier this year we heard that we could expect OLED TVs to hit the market in the next 18 months . We saw the early stages of that when Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV hit stores at the beginning of the year. And it looks like LG has bumped that estimate up a little more, at least in South ...
  
• Book Review: Prosperity Without Growth - Economics ...
  Image via Earthscan It's the beginning of a new year and with so many economic and environmental challenges ahead we need all the inspiration we can get to help us get over our Copenhangovers! For all the myriad of reasons that the Copenhagen Climate Summit failed surely the tensions over economic ...
  

Biosingularity

• Alcohol Ups Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence
  If youve been diagnosed with breast cancer, you may want to cut down on alcoholic beverages.Thats the suggestion of researchers who found that cancer is 34% more likely to come back in breast cancer survivors who drink more than three drinks a week, compared with those who abstain or drink less.Drin ...
  
• Drug-Free Method of Blocking Fear Memories
  Scientists at New York University report they have developed a drug-free, noninvasive way to temporarily block the return of fearful memories in people. The technique, the researchers contend, could eventually change the way scientists view how the brain’s memory storage process works and perhaps ev ...
  
• New skin stem cells surprisingly similar to those ...
  Scientists have discovered a new type of stem cell in the skin that acts surprisingly like certain stem cells found in embryos: both can generate fat, bone, cartilage, and even nerve cells. These newly-described dermal stem cells may one day prove useful for treating neurological disorders and persi ...
  
• Testosterone link to aggression all in the mind
  Giving women more of the male hormone testosterone can turn them into fairer and more amiable game players, according to tests.A single dose of testosterone was enough to have this effect, European scientists found, but only if the woman was oblivious to the treatment.If she realised she had receive ...
  
• Coffee May Cut Risk of Prostate Cancer
  Drinking coffee regularly may help lower the risk of advanced prostate cancer, a study shows. The study, presented this week at a conference of the American Association for Cancer Research in Houston, shows men who drank the most coffee were nearly 60% less likely to develop advanced prostate cancer ...
  

CFACT

• Illegal aliens: An environmental boon?
• Peta's thrust into classrooms
• Drilling for straight facts on ANWR development
• Greens change tune on hydrogen tech
• Fruitful Dominion: A new environmental ethic?
  Responsible stewardship can bring prosperity to all of the earth's inhabitants
  

Ria Novosti Online News

• Pirates take ship with 10 Ukrainians to Somali coa ...
  Somali pirates have taken the U.K.-flagged Asian Glory vehicle carrier with 25 crew members, including 10 Ukrainians, to a port in Somalia, the European Union Naval Force Somalia said on its website on Tuesday.
  
• Belarus lowers oil export duty to $267 per metric ...
  Belarus has lowered its crude oil export duty from $271 to $267 per metric ton from January 1, the country's Council of Ministers said in a decree on Tuesday.
  
• Russia-Belarus oil dispute
  
  
• UN World Food Program halts food distribution in s ...
  The UN World Food Program has halted its humanitarian operations in a number of southern Somali regions due to escalating attacks from armed groups, the organization said on its website on Tuesday.
  
• Israeli FM speaks against deadlines in Israeli-Pal ...
  Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has spoken against setting deadlines in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israeli media has reported.
  

Ria Novosti - Science & Technology

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

Pruning Shears

• This Week In Tyranny
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post The TSA subpoenaed a blogger who posted a new screening directive, then backed down . This doesn’t have as much to do with procedures at the TSA (though it has something to do with that) as the outsized sense of authority that feder ...
  
• Best Music of 2009
  Introduction If you dig these songs please consider buying them. Most can be had for less than a buck. All these were downloaded freely and legally this year so I’m posting them in good faith. Links will be live for a week. If you hold the copyright on one and would like it removed, please let me ...
  
• A Bold Prediction
  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the Wall Street Journal will not have an article on December 30th, 2010 detailing the ways in which various stakeholders attempt to coordinate end-of-life decisions in order to take advantage of the nearly expired estate tax holiday.
  
• Through the Looking Glass With the DOJ
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post The case of Guatánamo detainee Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi took a bizarre turn last week. He is represented by habeas lawyer H. Candace Gorman and is, as Andy Worthington pointed out , overwhelmingly likely to be innocent. He has neve ...
  
• This Week In Tyranny
  No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post David Obey Bluster Watch. On Afghanistan :“There ain’t going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan,” House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “If they ask for an incre ...
  

Natural Health News

• Eleven Ways to Think Outside the Box
  Thinking outside the box is more than just a business cliché. It means approaching problems in new, innovative ways and conceptualizing problems differently. Here are 11 ways to beef up your out-of-the-box thinking skills. 1. Study another industry Go to the library and pick up a trade magazine in a ...
  
• Diet Commandments for Pain Patients
  Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition whose symptoms include muscle and tissue pain, fatigue, depression, and sleep disturbances. Recent data suggests that central sensitization, in which neurons in the spinal cord become sensitized by inflammation or cell damage, may be involved in the way fibromyalg ...
  
• Smoking and Drinking Increases Risks of Gut and Th ...
  A new study confirms that smoking raises your risks of the major forms of esophageal and stomach cancers, while drinking has more narrow effects. In a study that followed more than 120,000 adults for 16 years, researchers found that smoking increased the risk of the two main forms of stomach cancer, ...
  
• Did Americans Get Any Healthier Over Past Decade?
  Roughly a decade ago, the U.S. government set some lofty health goals for the nation to reach by 2010. But there are more obese Americans than a decade ago, not fewer. Americans also eat more salt and fat, not less. And more Americans have high blood pressure. More children have untreated tooth deca ...
  
• European Parliament to Investigate WHO and 'Pandem ...
  The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry regarding the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the drug industry’s influence on the World Health Organization (WHO).   The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has ...
  

Antemedius

• What If The President Was Black?
  The Real News Network's Paul Jay talks with Glen Ford, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report , "The Journal of African American Political Thought and Action" , who evaluates the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, who observes, for a variety of good reasons, that the first US black president ...
  
• Crony Capitalism
  Dr. Robert A. Johnson currently serves on the United Nations Commission of Experts on International Monetary Reform under the Chairmanship of Joseph Stiglitz. He is also the Director of Economic Policy for the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI) in New York. Dr. Johnson was previously a ...
  
• No, We're Not a Broken People
  By David Swanson In 2004 I began speaking at rallies and forums around the country on issues of peace and justice, something I've done off-and-on ever since. Up through 2008, it was extremely unusual for questions from the audience to consist of pure defeatism. In 2009, it was rare to get through ...
  
• McCain Could Have Meant Less War
  By David Swanson After two stolen elections by Bush-Cheney, an election of Grandpa John "Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain and his sorority president sidekick -- whether honest or blatantly stolen and tolerated -- would have said something hugely depressing and debilitating about the American people. But argu ...
  
• Crony Capitalism, Part 2
  Yesterday in Crony Capitalism we heard Dr. Robert Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on International Monetary Reform under the Chairmanship of Joseph Stiglitz, and Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) , talking with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the c ...
  

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

• Burr…
  
  
• Burt Rutan’s presentation against Anthropogenic Gl ...
  Burt Rutan presentation against Anthropogenic Global Warming at the Oshkosh EAA AirVenture 2009
  
• Aussie greens lynching polar bears?
  The greens are distraught over the circus that was Copenhagen. As the Brisbane Courier-Mail reports, Aussie greens have resorted to lynching polar bears...
  
• Climategate: the most underreported story of 2009
  Andrew Breitbart's Big Government site has just released they article on the most underreported stories of 2009. But guess what they put up as numero uno? You guessed it--climategate.
  
• As Galileo was to the Catholic Church, anthropogen ...
  As Galileo was to the Catholic Church, anthropogenic climate change skeptics are to the Church of Settled Science. Galileo was denounced "for holding as true the false doctrine" against the Holy Scripture. Sound familiar?
  

  Blacklisted News

• China will soon have the power to switch off the l ...
  The recent hanging of Briton Akmal Shaikh in China proves that Beijing has no need to worry about what Britain thinks, argues Con Coughlin.
  
• VIDEO: 9/11 Commission Chairman: Would-be Detroit ...
  The GOP chairman's quote raised eyebrows; by his logic, the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers may also have "done us a favor" by drawing US attention to extremism in Afghanistan.
  
• Yemen - Behind The Al-Qaeda Scenarios A Geopolitic ...
  What the world has been subjected to since is the emergence of a new target for the US 'War on Terror,' namely a desolate state on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen. A closer look at the background suggests the Pentagon and US intelligence have a hidden agenda in Yemen.
  
• Hundreds of National Guardsmen exposed to toxic ch ...
  Six years later, some of the Guardsmen assigned to provide security for Task Force RIO at the plant are dead, dying or suffering from serious health problems--including rashes, perforated septums and lung disease. One of the foremost experts in sodium dichromate, Dr. Herman  Gibb, says the Guardsmen ...
  
• 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist
  Sure, the gear may look like it came straight out of Avatar or Battlestar Galactica . But all of the laser weapons, robots, sonic blasters and puke rays pictured here are real.
  

The Intelligence Daily

• The Strange Case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
  By Tom Burghardt Despite some $40 billion dollars spent by the American people on airline security... For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• 2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World
  By Rick Rozoff January 1 will usher in the last year of the first decade of a new millennium and... For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage
  By Rady Ananda In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the... For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• American Disappointment
  By Joel Hirschhorn My anger has morphed into sadness, heartbreak actually. As the decade of zeros... For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  
• Credit Suisse Accused of Defrauding Resort Investo ...
  The Credit Suisse Group has been sued for $24 billion by property owners who claim that the Swiss... For more details, please click on the link to read the article
  

My AntiWar

• Clinton says US still open to talks with Iran
  Summary: Hillary ClintonSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration is not closing the door on possible negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme, despite intransigence from Tehran. Speaking to reporters at the State Department today, Clinton said it is clear tha ...
  
• Chinese firms evade U.S. Iran sanctions: report
  Summary: One Chinese firm, a unit of state-owned China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp., has made nearly 300 illegal shipments to U.S. firms since a ban was imposed on CPMIEC and its affiliates in mid-2006, the newspaper said, citing an analysis of shipping records by the Wisconsin Project o ...
  
• New Iran sanctions within a month: Israeli ministe ...
  Summary: “There is agreement in Washington, Moscow and Beijing that a nuclear Iran would destroy the current world order,” he said. Ayalon’s comments came as the New York Times reported that the President Barack Obama administration believes domestic unrest and signs of unexpected trouble in Iran’ ...
  
• Moscow says no need for new Iran sanctions
  Summary: Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. Andrei Nesterenko said the issue of new international sanctions against Tehran “has not been considered in the framework of the Group of Six [Iran Six].” “It is our position that… sanctions alone cannot solve the problem, and there is a need for ...
  
• Al-Qaeda in ‘Sahara Emirate’

Open ID

• Yahoo - Gallery

Rogue Government.com

• 9/11 commission chairman says would-be plane bomb ...
  
  
• 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist
  
  
• US general urges strip search of Muslim men
  A retired US general and member of Iran Policy Committee (IPC) says all 18 to 28 years old Muslim men should be strip searched at airports as "one of these bombers" will explode an airliner in the coming days.
  
• Total Network Surveillance System Operational In ...
  New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone’s online life.
  
• Confusion in Europe after US demands more securit ...
  Airline passengers bound for the United States faced a hodgepodge of heightened security measures across Europe on Monday, but airports did not appear to be following a U.S. request for increased screening of passengers from 14 countries.
  

Innovation Canada

• i2eye with James Hesser
  Two years ago, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2009 the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, people around the globe have been marking the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei. Laypeople, especially children ...
  
• Model scientists
  When hurricane season officially blew to a close in the Atlantic basin at the end of November, two Quebec researchers did not exhale in relief. That’s because René Laprise and Louis-philippe Caron were still looking for hurricane data from the past to help create a tool to predict future storm patte ...
  
• i2eye with Andrew Weaver
  As a child growing up in Victoria, if Andrew Weaver had to choose between watching a hockey game or a Jacques Cousteau program, the ocean explorer won out every time. Now a professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, Weaver has joined a crew o ...
  
• Extreme exposure
  It’s about 5°C in the chamber, and Geoff Hartley, wearing a burlap tunic and sandals, is trying with numb fingers to put small pegs in small holes. It’s just another day of chillin’ out at the Brock University lab of Stephen Cheung, a world-renowned scientist who studies the impacts of extreme tempe ...
  
• Green Growers
  Deborah Henderson likes to think about the Cuban capital of Havana when she goes in to work. Not the music or the beaches, per se, but the vegetables and the gardens. “Over 75 percent or more of the vegetables consumed in Havana are produced within the city,” claims Henderson. As the director of the ...
  

Signs of the times

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

Threat Level

• TSA Agent Posed as Blogger in Bid to Identify Agen ...
  A TSA agent who served a civil subpoena on blogger Steven Frischling last week also posed as the blogger in order to trick the blogger’s anonymous source into revealing his identity, according to someone familiar with the incident. The agent, while in possession of Frischling’s BlackBerry, typed a m ...
  
• Decision Looms on iPhone Hack
  The geek masses are anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the next wonder gadget at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week. What’s more, Apple is expected to drop the tablet bomb in San Francisco this month. But overlooked and lurking behind this gadget envy is an important regulat ...
  
• Author of Torture, Spy Memos Was Just Doing His Jo ...
  The government lawyer who wrote memos authorizing the Bush administration to engage in torture and warrantless surveillance says he was just doing his job, according to a recent interview. Asked by the New York Times if he regretted writing the torture memos, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General ...
  
• TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers
  In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used. Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served wit ...
  
• Feds Warn Small Businesses to Use Dedicated PC for ...
  In the wake of a rash of hacks on computers owned by small businesses, the FBI and the American Banking Association have issued an alert advising businesses to use only a dedicated PC for online banking, according to USA Today. The alert was issued after numerous small businesses, universities and l ...
  

PERRspectives : Blog

• Republicans Now the Party of Armageddon
  When the obscure evangelical radio host turned Biblical numerologist Harold Camping predicts the end of the world will arrive on May 21, 2011, it's not a cause for concern. But what about when many of the leading voices of a...
  
• Blue States Balk at Funding Red State Health Care
  The civil war over health care reform is rapidly becoming a war between the states. To great fanfare, seven state attorneys general - all of them Republicans - have promised legal action to block the Senate health care bill's Medicaid...
  
• For GOP, Short Memories on Terror Plots and Presid ...
  That Republicans would try to politicize the failed Christmas terror attack was about as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Even less surprising is the utter falsehood and sheer hypocrisy of their ham-handed...
  
• Republicans Now the Party of Armageddon
  When the obscure evangelical radio host turned Biblical numerologist Harold Camping predicts the end of the world will arrive on May 21, 2011, it's not a cause for concern. But what about when many of the leading voices of a...
  
• Shoes vs. Underwear: The GOP's Terror Distinction
  The similarities between failed airplane bombers Richard Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are striking. Each Al Qaeda convert was radicalized in London. Reid and Abdulmutallab were each subdued by fellow passengers after their explosive devices failed to detonate. The two...
  

Blackspot News Feed

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

Consortium News

• Afghan 'Dirty War' Escalates
  A U.S. commando raid killing10 Afghanis and a bomb attack on a CIA base camp mark a worsening dirty war, says Douglas Valentine. January 4, 2010
  
• Ellsberg on Vanunu's Re-Arrest
  Israel's re-arrest of nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu should have prompted widespread outrage, writes Daniel Ellsberg. January 4, 2010
  
• McGovern, Goodman on Terror Wars
  Former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Melvin Goodman discuss end-of-year terror developments on a Peter B. Collins podcast. January 4, 2010
  
• A Ripple of Hope from the Past
  Too often, President Obama is pressured by the likes of Dick Cheney, when Lisa Pease says he should listen to Robert Kennedy. December 31, 2009
  
• The Danger of Defeatism
  President Obama's victory for "hope" has given way to despair and defeatism among many backers, says David Swanson. December 31, 2009
  

CounterPunch

• Uri Avnery : The Iron Wall
• Mike Whitney: Bernanke in Atlanta
• Patrick Cockburn : The Ugly Fortress
• Dave Lindorff : Are U.S. Forces Executing Afghan K ...
• Dr. Susan Block : About a Boy: Inside the Two Head ...

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• Jerusalem should be at the center of peace efforts ...
  The first decade of the twenty-first century has been a disastrous one for Palestinians. Negotiations efforts were dealt a dramatic blow, historic leaders and potential leaders were killed, assassinated or i ...
  
• A girl called Jewel: part 2 (Witness with Raageh ...
• Targeting human rights defenders (Nadia Hijab, Th ...
  I remember the day I first met Jamal Juma'. He was speaking at a United Nations conference in 2003 about the damage being done by Israel's wall. The audience was shocked: Many had heard that Israel had start ...
  
• Palestinian reconciliation 'close' (Al Jazeera)
  A senior Hamas leader has said that the Palestinian group is close to reconciliation with the rival Fatah movement. Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas political leader, said during a visit to Saudi Arabia on Sunday t ...
  
• Is there really a difference between Israel and ap ...
  The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which appealed against the ban on Route 443, dared suggest the word apartheid and was reprimanded for it. In her ruling, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wro ...
  

Water - AlterNet

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

TruthHugger

• 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 ...
  
• Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round Up Dec 14, ...
  TXsharon at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS helps you follow the money to see why Governor Perry and others want Texans to keep breathing toxic air. BossKitty at TruthHugger is proud to give a Hat Tip to Houston – Annise Parker inherits a City of Progress. The Stonewall Democrats of Denton Coun ...
  

Dandelion Salad - Featured Writers' Posts

• 2009: The Year that “Perpetual Motion” Ended By St ...
  By Steve Windisch (jibbguy) Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Jibbguy’s Blog January 5, 2010 Loo
  
• Welcome To Twenty-Ten: The Year Of Resistance! by ...
  by Cindy Sheehan Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbo
  
• The New Scarlet Letters: ‘NC’ by Sibel Edmonds
  by Sibel Edmonds Featured Writer Dandelion Salad originally published by Boiling Frogs Post 4 Januar
  
• Escape from Pottersville: The North Dakota Model f ...
  by Dr. Ellen Brown Featured Writer Dandelion Salad webofdebt.com Jan. 4, 2009 The recent proposal to
  
• U.S. to subject foreign air travellers from 14 cou ...
  Propaganda Alert compiled by Cem Ertür Featured Writer Dandelion Salad 4 January 2010 1) U.S. to sub
  

Unexplained Mysteries

• Relic reveals Noah's ark was circular
  Newly translated instructions found on an ancient tablet over 3700 years old have revealed that Noah's ark was circular in shape. The ancient tablet w...
  
• Historian identifies "man who never was"
  A historian has claimed to have proved the identity of the "Man Who Never Was" who was used as a deception during World War 2. In 1943 the allies plan...
  
• Face of Jesus appears on banana peel
  Jesus has been appearing in a lot of bizarre places these past few years, now he's turned up in the peel of a banana. 39-year-old Lisa Swinton was tuc...
  
• NASA marks Spirit rover's 6th year on Mars
  It's 6 years since NASA's Spirit rover arrived on Mars but having spent the last 9 months stuck in sand its future is looking bleak. There's no ignori...
  
• Vatican's secret archives revealed
  An extensive collection of 105 letters and documents from the Vatican's secret archives have been published for the first time. The collection include...
  

Grassroots

• Gaza Freedom March -- No Token Delegation
  Nitin Sawhney, a friend of Grassroots International and long time activist for Palestinian rights, was one of the 100 delegates, from the over 1300 international delegate-members of the Gaza Freedom March, chosen to go into Gaza through a last minute intervention by Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian ...
  
• Gaza Freedom Marchers await entry, keep vigil
  Hedy-sign.jpg   Starting on New Year’s Eve, the Gaza Freedom March (sponsored by Grassroots International and scores of other organizations) was set up to be an amazing international show of solidarity for the Palestinian people trapped in thi ...
  
• Remembering Dennis Brutus
  dennisbrutus.jpg South African poet, anti-apartheid and human rights activist, climate change warrior, and Grassroots International founder, Dennis Brutus passed away in Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday, December 26, 2009. He was 85. Accord ...
  
• Money’s Coming to Cool the Planet
  Subheadline:  What’s the Winning Spending Plan? Outside Author:  Daniel Moss Previous publication:  Foreign Policy in Focus ...
  
• Cooling the Earth with Food Sovereignty
  Outside Author:  Loie Hayes Previous publication:  Insights, Vol. 23 #2 (Fall 2009) brazil200907-332.jpg   read mor ...
  

Climate

• January 5, 2010
  New BLM Rules to Limit Wind Power in Wyoming (Reuters) Wind energy development is "functionally precluded" in about 20 percent of Wyoming under new Bureau of Land Management guidelines laid out to protect a threatened bird, the governor's office said. New French Carbon Tax Draft Will Exempt E ...
  
• January 4, 2010
  UK Prime Minister: Climate Change Deal Still Possible (Reuters) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he has an idea for moving forward with a global agreement to combat climate change in spite of the limited results of last month's Copenhagen meeting. Sun, Wind, Wave: EU Unites on Renewab ...
  
• January 2-3, 2010
  Nations Made Limited Progress at Copenhagen Summit, India Says (Bloomberg) Indian PM Manmohan Singh said nations made "limited progress" at the Copenhagen climate change summit, and no one was satisfied with the outcome. Australian Ruling Party Has Solid Lead (Reuters) Australia's Labor gov ...
  
• January 1, 2010
  US Agencies May Have to Consider Climate Before They Act (Los Angeles Times) The White House is poised to order all federal agencies to evaluate any major actions they take, such as building highways or logging national forests, to determine how they would contribute to and be affected by clima ...
  
• December 31, 2009
  Global Warming Blamed for Rise in Malaria on Mount Kenya (London Times) Global warming has caused a seven-fold increase in malaria cases on the slopes of Mount Kenya, researchers found. A 2C increase in average temperatures there in the past 20 years allowed disease carriers to reach higher alt ...
  

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

• Are US Forces Executing Kids in Afghanistan?
  The Taliban suicide attack that killed a group of CIA agents in Afghanistan on a base that was directing US drone aircraft used to attack Taliban leaders was big news in the US over the past week, with the airwaves and front pages filled with sympathetic stories referring to the fact that the female ...
  
• An American World of War: What to Watch for in 201 ...
  — from Tomdispatch By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. We don’t name our years, but if we did, this one might prospectively be called the Year of the Assassin. We, of course, think of ourselves as something like the peaceable kingdom. Af ...
  
• Challenges and Opportunities in the Coming Decade
  Crossposted with openDemocracy , which asked writers to reflect on three questions: 1) What was the most significant trend in the century's first decade? 2) What do you most hope for, and most fear, about the decade to come? 3) What idea do you see fading and/or emerging in 2010 and beyond? The g ...
  
• Bush Calls Last Decade 'Tough Act to Follow'
  CRAWFORD, TX (The Borowitz Report) - The decade just past was "an awesome one in just about every way" and will be hard to top, according to former President George W. Bush. In a new interview with the former president, Mr. Bush reflected on the highlights of what he believes will be known as "The G ...
  
• Misadventures on Someone Else's Land
  [Editor’s Note: Below is the first installment of a compilation of columns our features editor Beth Connors-Manke began writing in the spring of 2009. The column was originally entitled “Misadventures on Someone Else’s Land” and focused on urban gardening in Lexington, Kentucky. Being peripatetic, B ...
  

Ten Percent

• 5 Months of Theatre
  As per the weather my connection is faltering so who knows if this gets posted… how thrilling we have 5 months of election pantomime as none of the three parties are significantly deviating form neoliberalism and them and the media have all agreed there must be cuts so orthodox economics that create ...
  
• Friday???!
  The shame, the ignominy, the  first Friday of the year, the first Friday of the new decade, the first day of the NEw Year…a Friday! and what happened? Nothing, absolutely fuck all. My addled brain overcome with the disorientating effect of holiday weeks where the days become mutable utterly failed ...
  
• Gaza Freedom March Statement
  The Gaza Freedom March has come to an end, but before the protesters dispersed they agreed on the following statement: End Israeli Apartheid Cairo Declaration January 1, 2010 We, international delegates meeting in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March 2009 in collective response to an initiative from ...
  
• New Year, Same Shit?
  Courtiers relaying gossip to the hoi polloi. Canada under its Neocons, who needs a parliament? The Genocidal Lusts of Imperial Elites Tribal justice- The Blackwater mercenaries who massacred 17 Iraqi civilians have been let off by a US judge because they gave evidence under duress – the threat of ...
  
• 2010, The Year We Make Contact
  What the!?!?! Yes it’s almost a New Decade but Xmas, my birthday and a failed phone line have all made this the first post in a couple of days, worst of all I missed my birthday/blog’s birthday which was yesterday (though the splendid Happy Famous Artists blog did manage to commemorate this most imp ...
  

Booman Tribune

• Dick Cheney Would Have Done Better
  From that forgotten, no longer Central Front on the War on Terror, an update: ... Iraq has become a guinea pig for its leaders to test which security measures will succeed in stopping the mass killings of Iraqis. This, after 400 Iraqis were killed in three high-profile bombings during the last fi ...
  
• Bloody Nose
  The CIA really took one on the nose with the attack in Afghanistan by a Jordanian double agent. I have a sneaking suspicion that the CIA is going to be quite intent on exacting revenge for this for a very long time. The New York Times says that the double agent was brought to Afghanistan to help h ...
  
• Afternoon Open Thread
  Now that someone's getting a little more settled in here at Chez Cabin, I just want to say thank you to everyone for all the good wishes over the past few days. And now for the gratuitous baby pic of the day... :)
  
• Serious Questions
  I always wonder what American conservatives think when they read about conservative asshats in other countries, like Iraq. Do they recognize themselves? Or do they somehow keep those two thoughts segregated. And, if the latter, isn't that a mild form of brain damage?
  
• It's Ping-Pong After All
  It looks like the House and Senate will ping-pong the health care bill. I previously said that it would be a betrayal to use the ping-pong method, but now that I see their reasons I understand why they want to do it this way and I'll have to wait to see the results before I can form an opinion on t ...
  

European Tribune

• Offshore wind to take off!
  Gordon Brown to launch £100bn wind energy programme Gordon Brown will this week launch a...
  
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 5 ...
   A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:1932 – Birth of...
  
• Monday Open Thread
  and... drum roll!...
  
• Product Placement: yay or nay?
  From today's Guardian: Ministers are facing fierce opposition from medical groups, teaching unions and children's...
  
• Commission consultation on citizens initiatives
  Among the many reductions in democracy introduced n the Lisbon Treaty - along with increased...
  

Futurismic

• Cheer up, emo writer – maybe positive sf really co ...
  Well, it turns out my mother may have been right after all* – listening to music with positive messages in the lyrics encourages consideration and empathetic behaviour in teenagers, according to research at the University of Sussex here in the UK. Apparently, people who listen Michael Jackson’s “Hea ...
  
• See-through goldfish
  Every now and again, scientific research comes up with something that can be marketed beyond the laboratory circuit. Researchers at Mie University and Nagoya University in central Japan have just perfected the genetic manipulations required to make a transparent goldfish, and they’re hot on the tail ...
  
• NEW FICTION: WHITE SWAN by Jason Stoddard
  Freya’s eyes dart to the door. She has work. They all have work, in the nanoelectronics slum of Portland’s Pearl district. Atomic force microscopes run on 16-hour shifts, new discoveries to win more energy credits, more tiny luxuries, more badges of status. Especially hard for mid-scoring people lik ...
  
• US$330,000 for a virtual space station?
  For the vast majority of readers here, I expect virtual economies consume very little of your meatspace money, if any at all. But some folk place a huge real-money value on intangible virtual items… via Cheryl Morgan comes news of a guy who just spuffed US$330,000 on a virtual space station in the E ...
  
• Table of contents for the Shine anthology announce ...
  Editor Jetse de Vries has posted up the full table of contents for his forthcoming Shine anthology of optimistic science fiction… and I’m proud to see there are quite a few Futurismic alumni among the names mentioned! Here’s the full run-down: “The Earth of Yunhe” – Eric Gregory “The Greenman Watch ...
  

Therapy News

• Arizona Psychotherapist Considers New Year’s Resol ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary At the beginning of each year, many people find themselves reflecting on the year that has passed and picking out specific things about themselves and their lives that they may wish to change. Whether it’s the sense of fresh opportunities or simply the social acceptanc ...
  
• NPR Recalls Expose of WWII Mental Health Instituti ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline While the conscientious objectors working at a Pennyslvania mental health institution made their moves to uncover deplorable conditions over half a century ago, recent interest in their stories has shown that the issue of the treatment of those with mental health conc ...
  
• Labels and the Therapeutic Relationship
  By Aylee Welch, LICSW, Body Psychotherapy Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Aylee and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Before we go further into the theory underlying Core Energetics, Core Evolution and other body-psychotherapies, I want to discuss the therapeutic relationship. This ...
  
• New Year’s Resolutions and the Absent but Implicit
  By Lucy Cotter, MFT, Narrative Therapy Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Lucy and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Michael White (2000) describes the “absent but implicit” as “associated with the idea that in order to express one’s experience of life, one must distinguish this experie ...
  
• Healing your Inner Child with Hypnotherapy
  By Holly Holmes-Meredith, D. Min., MFT, Board Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Hypnotherapy Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Holly and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile In order to thrive and grow into our potentials, we all have basic needs that must be met consistently. The most ...
  

Mountaintop Removal

• EPA to announce deal on Hobet mine permit - Charle ...
  EPA to announce deal on Hobet mine permit Charleston Gazette ... Agency has signed off on an expansion permit for Patriot Coal's huge Hobet 21 mountaintop-removal complex along the Boone-Lincoln county border. ... Rahall: EPA Drops Objection to W.Va. Surface Mine ABC News Rahall: EPA To Issue Permi ...
  
• W.Va. energy debate sells out - Washington Examine ...
  W.Va. energy debate sells out Washington Examiner Robert F. Kennedy, is an opponent of mountaintop removal mining. Richmond, Va.-based Massey is central Appalachia's largest coal producer. W.Va. Energy Debate Sells Out WJZ all 7 news articles »
  
• Lonesome Hobo Economics: The Big Minus - Political ...
  Lonesome Hobo Economics: The Big Minus Political Affairs Magazine At various points, I have become distracted, by the Afghanistan question, by the banking reform and exec pay debates, by mountaintop removal issues in my ...
  
• Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate in Ap ...
  Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate in Appalachia coal country Louisville Courier-Journal “ Mountaintop-removal mining blasts away our souls, blasts away our communities, the souls of the workers who are doing the work and our cultural and natural ... Fear of violence grows in mountaintop ...
  
• Obama's First Year a Good One for the Environment ...
  Obama's First Year a Good One for the Environment Opposing Views As cited in the assessment, notable progress is being made on an issue of particular concern to me: mountaintop removal coal mining. ...
  

Memeorandum

• New scanners break child porn laws (Alan Travis/Gu ...
  Alan Travis / Guardian : New scanners break child porn laws   —  The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.  —  Privacy campaigners claim the images creat ...
  
• How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market (And ...
  Andrew Martin / New York Times : How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market   —  Every day, millions of Americans stand at store checkout counters and make a seemingly random decision: after swiping their debit card, they choose whether to punch in a code, or to sign their name.  —  It is a poin ...
  
• Poll: Republican Scott Brown Trails by 11 in Mass. ...
  John McCormack / Weekly Standard : Poll: Republican Scott Brown Trails by 11 in Mass. Senate Race   —  There has been a notable absence of public polling in the January 19 special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.  That will begin to change tomorrow, when Scott Rasmussen ...
  
• MI5 told US about Detroit bomber's terror links 'a ...
  Telegraph : MI5 told US about Detroit bomber's terror links ‘a year ago’   —  Britain told American intelligence agents more than a year ago that the Detroit bomber had links to extremists, according to Downing Street.  —  The prime minister's spokesman indicated that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was ...
  
• Democrats Considering Health Care-Immigration Deal ...
  Christina Bellantoni / TPMDC : Democrats Considering Health Care-Immigration Deal To Overcome Key Sticking Point   —  Lawmakers who want to extend health coverage to illegal immigrants will not block the passage of the final health care reform bill so long as the White House offers a substantive p ...
  

Energy & Environment News

• For Controversial Wind Farm Off Cape Cod, Latest H ...
  The National Park Service ruled for two Massachusetts Indian tribes, who argued that an offshore wind-power project would impede their ritual greeting of the sunrise.
  
• Oil Feud Reflects Growing Rift Between Russia and ...
  The quarrel, over an oil subsidy that has helped prop up Belarus’s leader, appears to be an attempt by Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, to settle a political score.
  
• Where There’s Smoke ... There’s a Tr ...
  As temperatures drop, efforts to curb pollution from burning wood are clashing with tradition.
  
• Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home
  Experts say millions in developing countries could be on the move because of worsening climate change.
  
• Russia-Belarus Oil Dispute Threatens Europe&#x2019 ...
  The two countries failed to renew an agreement on crude oil export tariffs that expired on New Year’s Eve, raising the prospect of another midwinter fuel shut-off.
  

5+ quakes - 7 days

• M 6.8, Solomon Islands
  Tuesday, January 5, 2010 12:15:40 UTC Tuesday, January 5, 2010 11:15:40 PM at epicenter Depth : 70.00 km (43.50 mi)
  
• M 6.9, Solomon Islands
  Tuesday, January 5, 2010 12:15:37 UTC Tuesday, January 5, 2010 11:15:37 PM at epicenter Depth : 35.00 km (21.75 mi)
  
• M 5.4, Solomon Islands
  Monday, January 4, 2010 14:24:21 UTC Tuesday, January 5, 2010 01:24:21 AM at epicenter Depth : 35.00 km (21.75 mi)
  
• M 5.8, eastern New Guinea region, Papua New Guinea
  Sunday, January 3, 2010 04:11:42 UTC Sunday, January 3, 2010 02:11:42 PM at epicenter Depth : 57.50 km (35.73 mi)
  
• M 6.2, Mariana Islands region
  Saturday, January 2, 2010 08:45:33 UTC Saturday, January 2, 2010 06:45:33 PM at epicenter Depth : 10.00 km (6.21 mi)
  

China Dialogue

• Can consumers save our climate?
  After Copenhagen, can market forces – and consumers in particular – help address global warming? John Elkington looks at the promises and pitfalls of “green” consumption. Many of the business and government leaders who gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate talks believe that market f ...
  
• Dubai: a modern parable
  With its debt, excess and exploitation, the glitzy emirate is not alone in a world living on credit. But, writes Jonathan Freedland, its riches could have been spent so much better. When future generations sit their children down to tell the story of the great crash of the early 21st century, they w ...
  
• Slideshow: eye on Mozambique (2)
  In the second segment of a two-part slideshow, Daniel Ribeiro looks at the problem of handling solid waste in the country’s capital, Maputo. .
  
• Madagascar feels the heat
  Deforestation, drought and political instability have ravaged a nation rich in wildlife but poor in infrastructure. And, reports David Smith, climate change is blamed for playing havoc with harvests and the seasons. Remanonjona Feroce founded the village of Anjamahavelo – meaning At the Lucky Baobab ...
  
• Briefing: the Copenhagen Accord
  What happened at the COP15 climate talks? Tan Copsey explains the new agreement. After two chaotic weeks, 188 countries reached a limited agreement in Copenhagen to continue global efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in order to address climate change.  The talks were quite unlike the ...
  

AlterNet Top Stories

• Bachmann: GOP Should "Allow Themselves to Be ...
  She's not alone. "We need to stop looking at the tea parties as separate from the Republican party," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said last month.
  
• Is Taco Bell's New Commercial Claiming Weight Loss ...
  Christine Dougherty claims that she lost 54 pounds on Taco Bell's new Drive Thru Diet, but if you read a little closer you can why.
  
• Can Atheists Learn From Christianity?
  Exhausted by capitalism and endless jingoistic violence, a few non-believing philosophers are turning to God. Sort of.
  
• How Main Street Got Shafted While Wall Street Boun ...
  Unless you work on Wall Street, you've probably had a hard year. Don't expect 2010 to be any better.
  
• Is Bono the Most Popular Man in the World?
  What should we make of Bono, who uses his immense platform to highlight social justice issues? Is he a hero or a hypocrite?
  

Threat Level

• TSA Agent Posed as Blogger in Bid to Identify Agen ...
  A TSA agent who served a civil subpoena on blogger Steven Frischling last week also posed as the blogger in order to trick the blogger’s anonymous source into revealing his identity, according to someone familiar with the incident. The agent, while in possession of Frischling’s BlackBerry, typed a m ...
  
• Decision Looms on iPhone Hack
  The geek masses are anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the next wonder gadget at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week. What’s more, Apple is expected to drop the tablet bomb in San Francisco this month. But overlooked and lurking behind this gadget envy is an important regulat ...
  
• Author of Torture, Spy Memos Was Just Doing His Jo ...
  The government lawyer who wrote memos authorizing the Bush administration to engage in torture and warrantless surveillance says he was just doing his job, according to a recent interview. Asked by the New York Times if he regretted writing the torture memos, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General ...
  
• TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers
  In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used. Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served wit ...
  
• Feds Warn Small Businesses to Use Dedicated PC for ...
  In the wake of a rash of hacks on computers owned by small businesses, the FBI and the American Banking Association have issued an alert advising businesses to use only a dedicated PC for online banking, according to USA Today. The alert was issued after numerous small businesses, universities and l ...
  

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• Nexus One Phone Officially Pits Google Against App ...
  Is the economy getting any better? The New York Times reports that it’s actually becoming hard to tell. Many of the economic indicators that experts have traditionally turned to in years past seem broken or ill-suited for today’s world. The main example is the uptick in manufacturing, which, in the ...
  
• Toyota, Honda step up small-car war in India
  NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Co and Honda Motor Co launched new compact cars to tap the fast-growing and price-sensitive India market as they and other automakers seek to put a dire 2009 behind them.
  
• Obama to unveil counterterrorism reforms
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday plans to unveil reforms aimed at thwarting future attacks like the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing, as he seeks to limit political fallout from the incident.
  
• S&P, Nasdaq up on strong factory orders
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained on Tuesday as investors welcomed further signs of improvement in the manufacturing sector, brushing off a sharp slump in pending home sales for November.
  
• Plunging home prices pull Manhattan buyers back in
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home prices in Manhattan fell in the double digits in the fourth quarter, but the markdown pushed buyers into the market, according to several reports released on Tuesday by New York City's biggest brokerages.
  

Equality Trust

• The importance of economic equality - Time.com
  Read the Time.com Q&A with ichard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
  
• Call for fundamental rethink of the value of work
  Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than city bankers, according to a new method of calculating the value of different jobs published today. The new economics foundation (nef) called for a "fundamental rethink" of how the value of work was recognised and rewarded. The think tank said its s ...
  
• The Spirit Level - New Statesman book of the decad ...
  Wilkinson and Pickett's study gave scientific weight to a long-held claim of the left: that people are happier and healthier when they live in societies where wealth is distributed more equally. But the book's influence stretches across party lines and its findings are likely to shape political deba ...
  
• Levelling the bankers' bonuses
  Read a letter by Malcolm Clark, Director of the One Society Campaign in today's Guardian, about the positives for bankers of losing their bonuses. Peter Preston (The rewards of banking, 7 December) has a point: bankers are human too. Most of them want exactly the same as us: a decent quality of life ...
  
• Dr Lynne Friedli on the impact of inequality on me ...
  Dr Lynne Friedli talks about the impact of inequality on mental health, in a discussion with John Humphrys on the Today Programme - scroll down to 07.33 Listen to the discussion
  

IntelNews

• Files reveal previously unknown UK-Soviet diplomat ...
  A previously unknown fracas between two British diplomatic officials, their wives, and a team of Soviet intelligence agents, has been revealed in declassified British government reports.
  
• News you may have missed #0241
  3 of 7 CIA agents killed in Afghanistan are identified. Al Qaeda greater now than on 9/11, says ex-CIA agent.
  
• Breaking news: CIA officers were killed by Jordani ...
  ver since I posted “The Meaning of the Suicide Attack on the CIA”, on this blog, I have been telling reporters who contacted me and that the attack at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman was probably carried out by a double agent. A news report has just appeared on NBC, which appears to confirm jus ...
  
• Iran monarchists, foreign spies, behind suspicious ...
  There is no question that the domestic security situation in Iran is critical, and that we may soon witness crucial political shifts in the Islamic Republic. At the same time, however, observers should be cognizant of what Politico’s Laura Rozen calls “a notable uptick [...] in very fishy stories” f ...
  
• News you may have missed #0240
  Major purge in Gambian security services continues. Jerusalem memorial may honor British Auschwitz spy.
  

After Downing Street.org

• Move Your Money
  
  
• Federal Enforcement To Be Used Against You, But No ...
  Federal Enforcement To Be Used Against You, But Not To Protect You From The Insurance Companies By Jon Walker | FireDogLake There is no better proof that the Senate bill is a massive giveaway to the health care industry than the radically different enforcement mechanism for the individual mandat ...
  
• Americans Slow Spending On Health Care
  Americans slow spending on health care By John Fritze | USA Today Excerpts: ...Health care spending rose 4.4% in 2008 to $2.3 trillion, or $7,681 per person, the smallest increase since the spending was first tracked in 1960, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The report ...
  
• Afghanistan's NATO Force Needs Top Civilian: UN
  Afghanistan's NATO force needs top civilian: UN By AFP | Google News The NATO-led international security force in Afghanistan should appoint a senior civilian official to help improve political and development coordination, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a report released Monday. The report also stre ...
  
• Iraq to Support Blackwater Lawsuit in US Courts
  Iraq to Support Blackwater Lawsuit in US Courts | Common Dreams Iraq will help victims of the 2007 shooting of civilians in Baghdad to file a U.S. lawsuit against employees of security firm Blackwater, an incident that turned a spotlight on the United States' use of private contractors in war zones. ...
  

Grist - News

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

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Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

• Video: Chris Henry's Fiancée Loleini Tonga Speaks
  Loleini Tonga, fiancée of Chris Henry, discusses the Bengals' star's death.
  
• Blogging Resolutions for 2010
  Things I plan on doing to keep blogging fun.
  
• How Avatar's Advanced Technology Will Rule CES
  Will 3D be the next new thing in consumer home electronics?
  
• Seesmic Purchases All-in-One Status Updater Ping.f ...
  Seesmic aiming to be leader in social browsing wars
  
• Blog Off Event Gives Social Media ROI Tangible Res ...
  Blog Off II will be discussing results of concerted effort to prove social media's ROI.
  

Time - Top Stories

• Will New Airport Body Scanners Stop Terrorist Atta ...
  Britain and the Netherlands are pushing ahead with plans to install full-body scanners at airports to thwart terrorist attacks. But critics say the machines may not be effective and are a violation of privacy
  
• California Gay-Marriage Lawsuit Dares to Make Its ...
  Many gay-rights advocates did not want to see this pro-marriage case argued by a top-notch legal team get to trial. But now, that very procedure is about to begin
  
• Why Overcoming Phobias Can Be So Daunting
  Amid new data on erasing fear, one man's quest to quash his (odd) source of dread
  
• Q&A: 'Eat, Pray, Love' Author Elizabeth Gilbert
  After nearly swearing off marriage, the best-selling author of 'Eat, Pray, Love' took three years to explore the real meaning of an evolving institution before committing to it
  
• How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Adult Obesity
  Scientists are gaining new insight into how the psychological experience of childhood neglect causes physical effects like obesity, heart attack and stroke
  

Washington Independent

• GOP Activists Dream of a Massachusetts Upset
  "This is one of those lopsided things where if they win it's nothing," said Grover Norquist, "and if we win it's the cover of Time magazine."
  
• Mysterious Poll Finds Coakley Winning by 11 in Mas ...
  John McCormack reports on a “private poll conducted last week by a reputable non-partisan firm” on the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate, one that finds Democratic candidate Martha Coakley 11 points ahead, 50-39, of Republican candidate Scott Brown. That’s more mystery than you want fro ...
  
• McChrystal Intelligence Adviser Strongly Criticize ...
  This is the beginning of an assessment written by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the senior-most intelligence adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for the Center for a New American Security about intelligence and the Afghanistan war: Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community ...
  
• New Mammogram Guidelines Contradict Controversial ...
  Just when you thought breast cancer screening couldn’t get any more confusing, two national medical groups issued new mammogram guidelines Monday recommending that women begin routine screenings at age 40. Issued by the Society of Breast Imaging and the American College of Radiology, the guidelines ...
  
• Those Birther Calls to Glenn Beck, Explained
  Some nice folks on Twitter have informed me of the actual culprits behind the wave of “birther” calls to Glenn Beck’s radio show: a coordinated campaign dubbed “Operation Flood It.” Here’s the explanation and the mission, as posted on Dec. 21 on the forum of the anti-Obama church ATLAH Worldwide: An ...
  

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

• Local legal coalitions to protect environment aga ...
  We are rapidly approaching the era of Frankenfood and if the Agrocorp’s have their way we won’t even be able to grow our own. There is a movement to re-instate small farms and organic methods, but large corporations like Monsanto are buying influence in government, in our educational system, and ev ...
  
• Tea Partiers Bring Guns To Anti-Obama Rally In New ...
  New Mexican Tea Partiers Bring Guns To Anti-Obama Rally TPM Muckraker Justin Elliott | January 4, 2010, 10:21AM A group of tea partiers and Second Amendment activists in New Mexico decided to kick off the new decade with a show of arms at a demonstration protesting President Obama’s “socialist” p ...
  
• People power demands: ‘get tough on Tony Bla ...
  By Andrew Grice, Political Editor | Independent | Monday, 4 January 2010 An internet-based “people power” campaign is asking its 60,000 members to draw up the “tough questions” that Tony Blair must be asked when he is questioned by the Iraq inquiry this year. 38 Degrees, a group set up last year in ...
  
• Joe Lieberman: How About Another War?
  John Nichols, The Nation, Dec 28, 2009 Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who began openly and aggressively angling for a war with Iraq just weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and who has been the most ardent advocate for expanding the U.S. occupation ...
  
• The Underwear Bomber – Crushing Freedom With ...
  Joe Quinn | SOTT.net | Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:30 EST Strange as it may seem, a couple of weeks ago as I ruminated on Obama’s broken promise to bring the troops home, his attempt to out-warmonger the Bush administration and his plummeting popularity, I thought to myself: “ya know, what that guy (or rat ...
  

Solari

• Judge Dismisses Charges Against Blackwater Guards ...
  By Jason Leopold A federal judge in Washington, DC on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater guards involved in the massacre of 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007, an incident that led to a public outcry over the government’s increasing reliance on contractors in th ...
  
• Faith & Finance: A Boom in Religious Funds
  What if Jesus where a stock picker? It’s a question more investors seem to be asking these days. At a time when investors’ confidence in the markets has been shaken—even after the big rally of 2009—experts say a growing number of Americans are integrating their faith with their finances. The number ...
  
• Morgan Stanley “Defrauded Investors”
  By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (MS.N) has been sued by a Virgin Islands pension fund that accused the Wall Street bank of defrauding investors by marketing $1.2 billion (753 million pounds) of risky mortgage-related notes that it expected to fail. The lawsuit filed December ...
  
• Arabia Takes The New Silk Road to China, Spurning ...
  By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard “We’re seeing the rise of the East, but I don’t think we’re seeing the fall of the West. China and the Middle East are for the most part massively short of food and water. The US, Australia, France and Germany are all food exporters, and if climate change is serious, that ...
  
• “Corporate Cash Grows”
  As we move into the new year and 2010 forecast after forecast hits the Street, invariably the “mountain of money on the sidelines” argument is being put forth by more than a good number of Street seers and pundits as a rationale for bullishness on financial assets, and equities specifically. Conti ...
  

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

• Right-Wing 'Experts' Justify Profiling, Body Scann ...
  A retired general makes egregious claims that that "in the next 30-100 days," there is "very high probability a US airliner will come down."
  
• What's Next: Muslim-Only Lines At Airports?
  The public whispers and the right wing’s open talk of Muslim-only airport lines are fueling even greater racial division, fear and hysteria.
  
• Judge Gives Blackwater Huge New Year's Gift, Dismi ...
  Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007.
  
• The Global War on Stealth Underwear
  There is no "war" against terrorism. What George W. Bush launched and Barack Obama insists on perpetuating does not qualify.
  
• Why Obama Must Keep Releasing Yemenis From Guant&A ...
  The failed bomb plot on Christmas Day has prompted lawmakers to declare that no more Yemenis should be released from Guantánamo. They're wrong.
  

Sideways News

• Meditation to be available on NHS?
  Meditation should be available on the NHS as an alternative treatment to depression, according to the Mental Health Foundation .
  
• CES to showcase green gadgets
  The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas kicks off later this week (7th January) and will aim to showcase an array of green gadgets.
  
• Boiler scrappage scheme rolled out
  The Government has capitalised on the success of the car scrappage scheme by rolling out a similar initiative for boiler units, in a bid to cut energy costs and reduce the UK's carbon footprint.
  
• Europe's first renewable power grid
  Europe's first electricity grid dedicated to renewable energy is one step closer to reality as policymakers in nine countries look to progress plans to link clean-energy projects from around the North Sea, reports the Guardian.
  
• 'Self driving' car tests unveiled
  A revolutionary roadtrain system that would allow cars to "drive themselves" as part of a convoy of vehicles on the motorway is set to undergo testing next year. The EU project, known as Safe Road Trains for the Environment (Sartre), has been co-ordinated with the help of a UK company to develop tec ...
  

Fabius Maximus

• FM newswire for 5 January, hot articles for your m ...
  It’s astonishing how often folks say in comments that they use only information sources that match their preconceptions.  “I don’t read him, he’s a lefty/right/evildoer.”  This is a recipe for ignorance.  The FM newswire cites sources from a wide range of viewpoints.  Esp from the fringes, wher ...
  
• A parable of America today – subways here an ...
  One of the great oddities of 21st century America:  our inability to learn from other nations.  Our health care system stands as the definitive proof of this.  Our system costs twice that of other nations, yet returns equivalent results in aggregate (and vastly inferior results for those without ...
  
• The real pirates sailing the seas, in whom we have ...
  Summary:  Pirates roam the seas, doing massive damage but avoiding retribution from the world’s civilized nations.  Because they’re invisible!   To stop this scourge we must overcome our blindness.  We can do so, if we wish to do so. Somalia’s pirates are a trivial threat to the world’s econom ...
  
• About that article by Jim Manzi I cited this morni ...
  Cited in today’s FM newswire:  “Keeping America’s Edge“, Jim Manzi, National Affairs, Winter 2010.  I described this as “Powerful insights from a bright guy.” I read this quckly (aka sloppy work).  His description of the inherent conflict between cohesion and innovation was interesting, and ...
  
• FM newswire for 3 January, hot articles for your m ...
  Today’s links to interesting news and analysis. “Keeping America’s Edge“, Jim Manzi, National Affairs, Winter 2010 — Powerful insights from a bright guy. “China’s Population to Peak at 1.4 Billion Around 2026, India to Become Most Populous Country in 2025“, Census Bureau, 15 December 2009 “Ri ...
  

sibeledmonds - tweets

• sibeledmonds: The Makings of a Police State Part 5 ...
  sibeledmonds: The Makings of a Police State Part 5: The Nation of Cleared & Not Cleared. Read here at Boiling Frogs Post: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: The Makings of a Police State Part 5 ...
  sibeledmonds: The Makings of a Police State Part 5: The New Scarlet Letters ‘NC’ Read it at Boiling Frogs Post: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post Updates: Lithuani ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Post Updates: Lithuania & CIA Black Sites, the Case of Mysterious Helicopters in Afghanistan &More http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Show presents AT&T Whi ...
  sibeledmonds: Boiling Frogs Show presents AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein on NSA illegal wiretapping program, US Media & more http://boilingfrogspost.com
  
• sibeledmonds: The Star Power of Chicago: A Preside ...
  sibeledmonds: The Star Power of Chicago: A President, a Chief of Staff, a Governor, a Mayor, a Criminal Convict…Read here: http://boilingfrogspost.com
  

WIRED Magazine | Science

• Elusive Supermassive-Black-Hole Mergers Finally Fo ...
  WASHINGTON — The universe is one big dance party for black holes. New observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope found 33 merged galaxies in which pairs of supermassive black holes are “waltzing” around the galactic centers. “Our result shows that such walt ...
  
• New Exoplanet Hunter Makes First 5 Discoveries
  The Kepler Space Telescope, a designated planet-hunting satellite, has found its first five planets, among them an odd, massive world only as dense as styrofoam. The number of planets now known outside the solar system has risen to over 400, but none is yet Earth-like enough to harbor life. Right n ...
  
• Wired Science’s Most Popular Space Stories of 2009
  > We love space, and so do you. This is a fact, well established by our Christmas-morning-level anticipation every time Hubble or Cassini or Spitzer release a new image, and your happy, clicky, tweety responses to virtually anything we post that has to do with space. So  ...
  
• Age of the Solar System Needs to Be Recalculated
  A trusted equation for calculating the age of the solar system may need rewriting. New measurements show that one of the equation’s assumptions — that certain kinds of uranium always appear in the same relative quantities in meteorites — is wrong. “Since the 1950s, or even before that, no one had b ...
  
• Tasmanian Devil Cancer Culprit Revealed
    Scientists have discovered the true identity of a contagious form of cancer that is killing Tasmanian devils. The cancer, called devil facial tumor disease, stems from cells that normally insulate nerve fibers, a new study shows. Genetic analysis of tumors taken from infected devils in different ...
  

The Progressive Realist

• Obama De-Securitizes America's Counter-Terrorism S ...
  President Barack Obama meets with John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, in the Oval Office, Jan. 4, 2010. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza) While assessing President Obama's first year in office many analysts have insisted that there is some ...
  
• Ayatollah Saanei Succeeds Montazeri as Spiritual G ...
  In a country as spiritual as Iran, it is impossible to separate religious and political issues. Any political movement or faction must substantiate its views and stances with religious rationale based on the rulings of a qualified Shi’a scholar, or risk appearing marginalized. Thus, upon the Decembe ...
  
• Keeping Yemen in Perspective
  It’s just words, but the idea, that instability in Yemen is a “global threat” seems obviously overblown. As I said before the challenge posed by Yemen—a country that, I promise you, no prominent American pundits or politicians know anything about—is to articulate the idea that America can have ...
  
• Did Al-Qaeda Ever Matter as Much as We Think it Di ...
  Marc Lynch has a post well worth reading on the Al-Qaeda’s diminishing influence in the Arab world: The Arab media's indifference to the story speaks to a vitally important trend. Al-Qaeda's attempted acts of terrorism simply no longer carry the kind of persuasive political force with mass Arab or ...
  
• Leading Indicators: Off the Radar News Roundup
  - India's foreign minister gave his year-end review of India's regional relations . Focusing on recent India-China tensions, he described a situation that I'd sum up as prickly but manageable. - Turkey's foreign minister gave his New Year's address to the diplomatic corps , outlining five planks for ...
  

TAPPED - The American Prospect

• Lightning Round: 2010 Shaping Up to be Like 2009, ...
  As 2009 came to a close, it should be apparent to all that there was nothing the GOP wasn't willing to exploit in order to attack Democrats in general and the president in particular, for whom they have bottomless loathing of. Or as a Republican congressional candidate in Minnesota put it, defeatin ...
  
• Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings.
  Let’s say you’re a State Department official, and you learn that in a country with a strong terrorist presence, there may be a bomb attack on the United States embassy. Do you 1) close the embassy, thereby protecting the lives of the personnel there, or 2) Keep the embassy open, cause you know, to h ...
  
• What's Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010.
  Just about everything you'll hear coming out of Washington starting now is really about November's mid-term election. The gravitational pull of the midterms was already apparent last year, as Republicans marched in perfect lockstep to vote against whatever the president and Dems proposed -- Republic ...
  
• Rush Limbaugh, Union Apologist.
  While on vacation in Hawaii, Rush Limbaugh experienced chest pains and had to spend some time in a hospital there to receive an angiogram. Health-wise, it turned out that Limbaugh was fine, and he drew on his experiences to suggest that health-care reform is unnecessary: Based on what happened to m ...
  
• New Year's Resolutions for Improving Political Dia ...
  Courtney Martin maps out a path for American self-improvement: As the new decade dawns, plenty of institutions -- from gyms to retailers to churches -- will be trying to capitalize on the resolution spirit. The advertising copy promises: Now's the time to join, to run, to buy. Our usually frenetic ...
  

Andy Worthington

• Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List (Updated ...
  Please support my work! Back in March, I published a four-part list identifying all 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002, as “the culmination of a three-year project to record the stories of all the prisoners held at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cub ...
  
• On Antiwar Radio, Andy Worthington Discusses Guant ...
  In the dying days of the decade, I was delighted to talk once more to Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio about the latest news regarding Guantánamo. The show — my 12th appearance with Scott — is available here, and in it Scott and I focused initially on the ABC News story linking the failed Christmas [. ...
  
• Why Obama Must Continue Releasing Yemenis From Gua ...
  The weekend before Christmas, 12 prisoners were released from Guantánamo. In two previous articles, I told the stories of six of these men — two Somalis and four Afghans — and in this final article I look at the stories of the six Yemenis who were also released. These releases were enormously impor ...
  
• Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo with Brad Fr ...
  On Tuesday, I was delighted to talk once more with Brad Friedman, muckraking citizen journalist and host of The Brad Blog, standing in for Mike Malloy on the progressive talk show out of Dallas, Texas. This was a 2 am start for me, but it’s always a pleasure to talk to Brad, and I’m happy that [...]
  
• Video: Q&A with Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghayes, Andy ...
  On October 21, at the launch of the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington) at the Cochrane Theatre in London, Spectacle, the production company, filmed the Q&A session following the screening, in which Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghaye ...
  

Buzzflash

• How About Some Facts to Go With Those Opinions
  Body In the crush of anomalies, non sequiturs and incongruities of every description that confound our public discourse most opinions are riddled with partisan rhetoric. Agreeing to disagree is part of the democratic process but political dissenters use a false dialectic when they rail a ...
  
• The GOP's barbaric propagandists
  Body "One thing he's got going for him," said a Capitol Hill aide about President Obama, "is Republicans have no credibility on this issue [and] when they're sending out former Vice President Cheney, you know they’ve hit the bottom of the barrel." True, in the rational world Republicans ...
  
• Brent Budowsky: The Lost Decade
  BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY by Brent Budowsky The lost decade that will thankfully come to an end began with a huge bubble of shameless greed and wanton wealth that was labeled the NASDAQ bubble, which ended in a collapse accompanied by huge paydays, mammoth bonuses and lucrative stock option deals f ...
  
• Chris Matthews: Ritz-Carlton populist!
  by Steven C. Day Ever so rarely, like manna from heaven, the Gods of irony give us a gift, bringing a little light into our dreary lives. Such an occasion was there for all to behold on the Chris Matthews show Tuesday night. Chris had invited his wife , Kathleen Matthews — a surprisingly appealing p ...
  
• Hoping Real Change Will Show Up
  Body   As 2009 draws to a close many of the nation’s problems remain unresolved and real change has not been effected. Whatever the president’s intentions, a combination of the right’s concerted effort to stand in the way of whatever he proposed, the disastrous consequences of a deep rec ...
  

Glenn Greenwald - Salon

• Civilian trials and the so-called rule of law
  I was wondering if someone could reconcile these three things: From Obama terrorism adviser John Brennan, on this weekend's Meet the Press :   MR. GREGORY: Why isn't [Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab] being treated as an enemy combatant instead of a criminal? MR. BRENNAN: Well, because, first of all, w ...
  
• The degrading effects of Terrorism fears
  I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but David Brooks actually had an excellent column in yesterday's New York Times that makes several insightful and important points.  Brooks documents how "childish, contemptuous and hysterical" the national reaction has been to this latest terrorist episode ...
  
• They hate us for our freedoms
  National Review 's Cliff May, yesterday : A Bipartisan Proposal Step (1): Return all Gitmo detainees to Yemen. Step (2): Use Predator missiles to strike the baggage-claim area 20 minutes after they arrive. Just an idea. Virtually all of the 90 Yemeni detainees currently at Guantanamo have bee ...
  
• Fulfilling Al Qaeda's "warrior" wish
  It's so striking how often the agenda of America's Right and the desires of Al Qaeda Terrorists perfectly coincide.  The greatest gift one could give Terrorists is to fulfill their supreme wish:  to treat them ( i.e. , venerate them) as warriors -- enemy combatants -- rather than as what they are:  ...
  
• Craving terrorist melodrama
  As dumb as our political discourse typically is, it gets dumber by many magnitudes whenever there's a terrorism-related scare (of the Islamic variety).  From The Washington Pos t's editorial writer Jo-Ann Armao : Why is Obama still in Hawaii? President Obama wants us all to know he’s tak ...
  

The BiPartisan Report

• Sheldon Whitehouse brings truth to the Senate floo ...
• Pesky facts spoil GOP’s mammogram arguments
• Those holier than thou Conservatives
• Dennis Kucinich: Enemy of the good, pursuer of the ...
• Betsy’s Bullshit, Round 2

Sciencebase

• Classic musical science and Stradivarnish
  It won’t necessarily be music to the classical purist’s ear, but chemists have been instrumental in revealing the secret beneath the varnish on a Stradivari violins, and the secret is: there is no secret. Antonio Stradivari is perhaps the most famous instrument maker of all time. He is especially c ...
  
• Most useless machine ever
  The most useless machine ever has rapidly become the internet’s first viral hit of the New Year. Essentially, it’s a little wooden box with a switch, but you’ve got to watch the video to see it in action: But, of course, it’s anything but a useless machine, it’s the embodiment of at least one prin ...
  
• Intute hot topics in physical science
  Over on the Intute site in the physical sciences section you will find the December science news round up from yours truly: What’s the buzz at the LHC? – After a frustrating false start, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) finally got it up and running in its underground home at CERN on the Swiss-Frenc ...
  
• Five-step plan for green design
  I recently saw a research paper discussing the lack of tools for designers hoping to make their products greener, more environmentally benign, sustainable even. The paper focused more on the likes of coming up with a green espresso machine and offered a five-step scheme for getting the green creden ...
  
• Happy Solstice Event
  Wishing all readers, commenters, contacts, fellow tweeps and scientwists, Facebook fans, and friends everywhere a happy mid-seasonal, solstice feast event from sciencebase.com… …I couldn’t just say Happy Christmas could I? It’s not as if it’s scientifically possible to reconcile a belief in any arc ...
  

Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

• Judge Overturns Decision to Open Off-road Vehicle ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 4, 2010 Center for Biological Diversity An administrative law judge for the Interior Board of Land Appeals upheld the Center for Biological Diversity appeal of the Bureau of Land Management's decision to open two off-road vehicle routes in desert tortoise habitat in eas ...
  
• Airline Security Should Protect Americans' Rights ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 4, 2010 ACLU The Obama administration announced Sunday it will subject the citizens of 14 nations who are flying to the United States to intensified screening at airports, including being subjected to full-body pat downs or body scanners. According to the American Civil ...
  
• Free Press, Consumer Groups Call on Antitrust Auth ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 4, 2010 Free Press Free Press and other consumer groups are calling on federal antitrust authorities and Congress to investigate agreements among giant media companies to stifle competition in the emerging market for online television programming. read more
  
• Americans Attacked in Cairo Over Gaza March; Video ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 4, 2010 Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) A high-stakes standoff continues today in Cairo. On New Year's Eve -- shortly after the Egyptian government had prevented buses from taking them to Gaza -- hundreds of people, including scores from the U.S., who were attemp ...
  
• Suit to Be Filed Over Delay in Protection for Peng ...
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 4, 2010 Center for Biological Diversity The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network filed a formal notice today that they intend to sue the Obama administration for illegally delaying protection of penguins under the Endangered Species Act. ...
  

Common Dreams-Views

• TV Competition Nowhere: How the Cable Industry Is ...
  by Josh Silver On Monday, public interest groups called on federal authorities to investigate a plan by the largest cable, satellite and phone companies that threatens the future of Web-based video. "TV Everywhere" gets programmers like TNT, TBS and CBS to keep their content offline unless a viewer ...
  
• Welcome to Orwell’s World
  by John Pilger In Nineteen Eighty-Four , George Orwell described a superstate, Oceania, whose language of war inverted lies that "passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'." read more
  
• Getting Away with Torture
  by David Cole 1. In the fall of 2002, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen on his way home from Tunisia, was pulled out of line by US officials while changing planes at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. He was locked up for twelve days, much of that time incommunicado, and harshly interrogated. When he ...
  
• My Cat is No Fat Cat
  by Sarah Anderson It's a good thing my long-haired calico Hyacinth can't read the newspaper. Otherwise I'm sure she'd be deeply offended by all the recent headlines about "fat cats." President Obama used the derogatory term in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes." "I did not run for office to be helpi ...
  
• The Road to Healthcare is Paved with Bad Intention ...
  by Randall Amster A few months ago I inquired, rhetorically, " does anyone in the healthcare debate really care about health ?" Obviously the answer was and is a resounding NO, as the discussion has wholly devolved upon insurance coverage to the exclusion of substantive aspects of health like nutrit ...
  

Karl Burkart

• 1973: the year environmental filmmaking was born
  Two of the best films of all time explored the sinister underbelly of environmental politics -- Chinatown & Soylent Green.
  
• Is Avatar radical environmental propaganda?
  Environmentalist and producer Harold Linde weighs in on the Hollywood-izing of the environmental movement.
  
• 11th Hour: How one film saved an ancient forest
  On the heels of a failed COP15, one story reminds me of the importance of media in the fight to save our planet.
  
• Glowing wallpaper could replace the bulb
  What incandescents did for the oil lamp, OLED wallpaper may do for the light bulb.
  
• 2010 may be Finland's breakthrough year in cleante ...
  Technology pundit Shawn Lesser identifies 11 breakthrough companies in Finland's expanding cleantech sector.
  

Water Privatization

• 2009 provided no shortage of highs and lows in Ric ...
  Looking back on 2009, it is no surprise that the state of the economy dictated most of the year's headlines. Issues such as mass layoffs, budget problems, stimulus projects and even crimes can all be traced back to the faltering economy. Despite the tough financial times, many annual events went off ...
  
• 'Beach privatization' discussed (The Garden Island ...
  LIHU‘E — Members of the county body that annually recommends properties to be acquired for open space and public access purposes are concerned about “vegetative encroachment and beach privatization.”
  
• Top stories of 2009: Killings, 901 Sherman, sewage ...
  January The Novato City Council began consideration of the Marin Energy Authority, a joint powers authority created by county supervisors in November 2008. The council must decide whether to join MEA as part of the Marin Clean Energy initiative.
  
• Top stories of 2009: Killings, 901 Sherman, sewage ...
  January The Novato City Council began consideration of the Marin Energy Authority, a joint powers authority created by county supervisors in November 2008. The council must decide whether to join MEA as part of the Marin Clean Energy initiative.
  
• Quinn picks Ald. Flores to head state commerce pan ...
  Ald. Manuel "Manny" Flores (1st) is being tapped to head the Illinois Commerce Commission, the state body responsible for regulating utilities.Gov. Quinn is expected to announce Flores' appointment as ICC chairman this morning.It is unclear when Flores will resign. Quinn is one of the founders of th ...
  

Guardian

• UK air passengers face increased security measures
  Government to announce increase in searches and baggage inspections after Christmas Day bomb attempt Millions of air passengers face an increase in pat-down searches and hand luggage inspections under a government crackdown on airport security after the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt. The gov ...
  
• Iceland president blocks Icesave cash
  Olafur Grimsson refuses to sign bill that would hand £3.4bn to Britain and Netherlands after anger from the Icelandic people The president of Iceland has refused to sign a bill to repay more than €3.8bn (£3.4bn) to Britain and the Netherlands following the collapse of the country's Icesave bank in 2 ...
  
• Court overturns Briatore F1 life ban
  • Former Renault principal was banned over rigged 2008 race • Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed his car Flavio Briatore, the former principal of the Renault Formula One team, has had his life ban from motor racing overturned. The decision was made at a hearing in front of a French court today. B ...
  
• Tesco gives a little help to bookshop
  Supermarket points shoppers to Linghams in Wirral after manager complains about discounting to supermarket's chief executive It's no secret that, faced with cutthroat competition from the supermarkets and Amazon, independent booksellers are struggling to survive. But in a cheering tale of Goliath gi ...
  
• Tory MP Peter Ainsworth to stand down
  Former shadow cabinet minister to quit at general election in order to pursue his interests in the arts and the environment outside parliament Another senior Tory announced he was to quit the Commons at the next general election today as the exodus of MPs continued. Peter Ainsworth, a former shadow ...
  

McClatchey

• Congress will return to face tough issues
  A weary Congress returns to work this month wary of new battles over big-ticket issues, some of its members said.
  
• Killer of highway patrolman denied parole
  A man convicted in the 1975 murder of a California Highway Patrol officer near Los Banos will remain in prison for at least another 15 years, a state parole board has decided.
  
• War crimes allegations and execution threat keeps ...
  Gen. Vang Pao has canceled plans to stage a peaceful return to Laos this week after the communist regime announced he would be executed as a Vietnam War criminal if he goes back.
  
• IRS announces new rules for tax preparers
  The days of sitting down with a shoe box of receipts and filling out a tax return yourself on paper are largely gone.
  
• In Texas, Republicans outnumber Democrats on prima ...
  FORT WORTH — A flurry of last-day filings for local elected offices will give voters plenty of contested races to consider in March, including primary challenges to some Republican incumbents who have gone unchallenged in recent elections.
  

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch

• 2010: Intruders on a biodiverse year?
  In a somewhat dank and dreary London back garden, I've just been watching grey squirrels carrying off and eating bits of stale Christmas cake that we'd left out for them and the birds. If we'd been quick enough with the camera, it would have made a fantastic picture, with the bushy-tailed squirrel ...
  
• Best wishes from a white land
  Just a quick note, today, to say "best wishes" to everyone about to celebrate Christmas or some other winter festival. Here in London, it's been refreshing (in more ways than one!) to see snow on the ground and kids out playing in it - a reminder of childhood days. For me, it's time to put the lap ...
  
• COP15: (No) Hopenhagen?
  Everywhere you go in Copenhagen, you're met with two kinds of advertising poster. One sells lingerie, the morning walk to the railway station bringing a sequence of scarcely clad models smiling unfeasibly in the freezing morning air. The other sells hope. "Hopenhagen" has been the city's alterna ...
  
• COP15: Deal or no deal?
  0043 CET Saturday: Now, we are totally - totally - into uncharted territory. A US president has reached an climate change agreement with leaders of just four countries - although a few more clearly had a inkling of what was going on. The White House announced the deal - this is supposed to be a UN ...
  
• A tale of two superpowers
  1926 CET: It's supposed to be about two degrees. It appears to have come down to two men. As I write, US President Barack Obama and China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are locked in a room somewhere around this conference centre - a meeting that could answer the question of whether ther's a deal here ...
  

Afghanistan Sun

• Hamid Karzai expects full parliament for cabinet n ...
  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked parliamentarians to stay in Kabul until a new cabinet has been approved.
  
• Broken promises forcing former 'reformed&#039 ...
  Kandahar (Afghanistan), Jan 5: Former Taliban insurgents, who surrendered their weapons to the Afghan government under a reconciliation program, have said that they have no choice, but to go back to fighting as the government has broken promises of providing land and money to them.
  
• Suicide Bomber at US Base in Afghanistan Was al-Qa ...
  Afghan Taliban Kill 8 Americans, 7 Afghans, 5 Canadians U.S. media say a suicide bomber who attacked a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian working as an al-Qaida double agent. ...
  
• US spies in Afghanistan are clueless, says intelli ...
  END: Module - M24 Article Headline with no image --> BEGIN: Module - Main Article --> America's deputy chief of military intelligence in Afghanistan has issued a damning indictment o...
  
• Karzai to try again with new cabinet line-up
  KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to present a new list of cabinet nominees to Parliament on Saturday, an official said, replacing 17 names unexpectedly rejected by members l...
  

Futurismic

• Cheer up, emo writer – maybe positive sf really co ...
  Well, it turns out my mother may have been right after all* – listening to music with positive messages in the lyrics encourages consideration and empathetic behaviour in teenagers, according to research at the University of Sussex here in the UK. Apparently, people who listen Michael Jackson’s “Hea ...
  
• See-through goldfish
  Every now and again, scientific research comes up with something that can be marketed beyond the laboratory circuit. Researchers at Mie University and Nagoya University in central Japan have just perfected the genetic manipulations required to make a transparent goldfish, and they’re hot on the tail ...
  
• NEW FICTION: WHITE SWAN by Jason Stoddard
  Freya’s eyes dart to the door. She has work. They all have work, in the nanoelectronics slum of Portland’s Pearl district. Atomic force microscopes run on 16-hour shifts, new discoveries to win more energy credits, more tiny luxuries, more badges of status. Especially hard for mid-scoring people lik ...
  
• US$330,000 for a virtual space station?
  For the vast majority of readers here, I expect virtual economies consume very little of your meatspace money, if any at all. But some folk place a huge real-money value on intangible virtual items… via Cheryl Morgan comes news of a guy who just spuffed US$330,000 on a virtual space station in the E ...
  
• Table of contents for the Shine anthology announce ...
  Editor Jetse de Vries has posted up the full table of contents for his forthcoming Shine anthology of optimistic science fiction… and I’m proud to see there are quite a few Futurismic alumni among the names mentioned! Here’s the full run-down: “The Earth of Yunhe” – Eric Gregory “The Greenman Watch ...
  

geopolitics | geoeconomics

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

Whistleblowers Protection Blog

• DC Council improves whistleblower protection law
  On Monday, the District of Columbia Council approved the Whistleblower Protection Amendment Act of 2009 , which strengthens the DC Whistleblower Protection Act (DC Code § 1-615.51 et seq.) and The Employees of District Contractors and Instrumentality Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 (DC Code § 2 ...
  
• IRS rule to clarify taxation of personal injury co ...
  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is now considering a proposed regulation that would expand the types of personal injury compensations that are exempt from income tax.  The proposed rule would eliminate the requirement that compensation be paid as part of a tort remedy.  However, the proposed rule ...
  
• 60 Minutes featured Birkenfeld case
  The CBS news magazine 60 Minutes featured a story about UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld this Sunday. In the story, Birkenfeld says he is the first Swiss banker ever to speak publicly about the famously secretive industry. He provided inside information that helped uncover thousands of untaxed S ...
  
• UBS Tax Fraud Whistleblower Person of the Year Hon ...
  Bradley Birkenfeld, the former international banker who blew whistle on the largest tax fraud in U.S. history just received the honor of being named Tax Analysts inaugural annual "Person of the Year." The award recognized Mr. Birkenfeld's contribution in exposing UBS bank's tax fraud scheme and help ...
  
• Birkenfeld asks Justice Department to reconsider p ...
  Attorneys for UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld have written to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking that he reconsider the Justice Department's prior recommendation that Birkenfeld be sentenced to prison.  The attorneys have asked specifically that the Justice Department investigate the vera ...
  

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

• Armed Robbery at Toronto Japanese restaurant
  Diners at Nikada Sushi Robata were robbed at gun point Monday night in Toronto. Two men in masks broke into the establishment demanding cash, jewelry and cellphones from frightened patrons.
  
• Hero dog spends night in clinic after saving boy f ...
  Angel, the 18-month-old White Retriever who saved an 11-year-old boy's life by fighting with a cougar, suffered puncture wounds from bites. But Angel is expected to be home Tuesday says Dr. Jack Anvik. (VIDEO)
  
• Alberta man killed in B.C. avalanche, three others ...
  An Alberta man in his 30s has died after being swept away in a massive avalanche in back country near Rossland, B.C. RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk says there is an extreme avalanche hazard in the area and the body will likely be retrieved Tuesday.
  
• Guns and Roses: The Play opens in Toronto January ...
  A different type of theatre is coming to Toronto this month - inspired by real Toronto teens and the city's headlines, Guns & Roses is a fast-paced, honest look into the lives of these teens and the often too-secret world they inhabit.
  
• Apple to start shipping tablet computer in March o ...
  The rumours have been flying for a while now. Is Apple working on releasing a tablet computer or not? Are they focusing on this and looking towards an early 2010 release? The answer is no one knows for sure.
  

End Homelessness | Change.org

• Code Blue Outreach Can't Remove All Barriers to Sh ...
  Tonight, the mercury in NYC will fall below 30 degrees. Such freezing temperatures are deadly for people who sleep outdoors, particularly when there's already snow on the ground. So it's only appropriate that the city has issued its most serious weather alert. But although NYC's severe weather alert ...
  
• Young, Homeless, and Invisible in Chicago
  Sandra is a young girl homeless on the streets of Chicago. She lost her job and place to stay. Sandra really is invisible. Hundreds of people walk past as she tries to panhandle enough for a nights hotel stay. And because she sleeps in a hotel, government agencies do not count her as being homeless. ...
  
• "This is no life": Ailing Economy Kicks Day Labore ...
  Befor e the recession, millions were already at the tipping point. When it takes 3 minimum wage jobs to keep an apartment, as it does in many American cities, economic security at best means making it to the next paycheck. For undocumented day laborers in New York City, security in every sense is ev ...
  
• 5 Reasons to Feel Hopeful in 2010
  Homelessness reached crisis proportions in 2009. But there's reason to feel hopeful that things will take a turn for the better in 2010. Here are the top five reasons why: 5. Ending veteran homelessness While many have called the VA's commitment to ending veteran homelessness in five years "bold," w ...
  
• It's up to Citizen Journalists to Uncover the Face ...
  Everyone knows a mainstream, disciplined, and socially responsible journalism industry that reveals deeper truths about things like homelessness is dead. This same industry has been droning on about every detail of its uncomfortably self-indulgent gasps from beyond the grave for at least 10 years. ...
  

Ceasefire.ca

• Air Force Association pushes CF-18 replacement
  The Air Force Association of Canada is pressing the government to proceed as soon as possible on a replacement for the CF-18 fighter, David Pugliese reports. The Next Generation Fighter program, expected to cost as much as $10 billion, is intended to procure about 65 aircraft to replace the CF-18 in ...
  
• Happy nuke year?
  The world’s nuclear arsenal has declined significantly from its Cold War peak, but the number of nuclear weapons still in existence remains absurdly high, as a recent overview produced by the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council shows. Worldwide deployments of ...
  
• PM prorogues Parliament
  Prime Minister Stephen Harper went ahead with his much-anticipated plan to prorogue Parliament on Wednesday, shutting down the operations of the House of Commons and Senate until March 3rd. The prorogation will have the effect of preventing parliamentary discussion of the detainee torture scandal fo ...
  
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• Moens warns of “existentialist” threat
  Simon Fraser University professor Alexander Moens warns in a new paper published by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute that Canada and its NATO allies face an “existentialist threat”. But, no, the problem apparently is not that Jean-Paul Sartre or one of the other existentialists has ...
  

Kevin Trudeau Show

• Are Airport Scanners a Scan?
  January 4, 2010 The Independent By Jane Merrick The explosive device smuggled in the clothing of the Detroit bomb suspect would not have been detected by body-scanners set to be introduced in British airports, an expert on the technology warned last night. The claim severely undermines Gordon Brown’ ...
  
• Extremists Working On More American Attacks
  January 4, 2010 AP News A top counterterrorism official is warning that al-Qaida and other extremists are working to test U.S. defenses and launch an attack on American soil. National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter says the failed Christmas Day attempt to bring down a U.S. airliner ...
  
• Security Services Knew Of Detroit Underwear Bomber ...
  January 4, 2010 TimesOnline.co.uk By David Leppard and Dan McDougall The security services knew three years ago that the Detroit bomber had “multiple communications” with Islamic extremists in Britain, it emerged this weekend. Counterterrorism officials said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “reaching o ...
  
• 9/11 Commission Chairman Says Would-Be Plane Bombe ...
  January 4, 2010 The Raw Story By John Byrne The Republican chairman of the Bush Administration’s 9/11 Commission declared Sunday that the would-be-terrorist who tried to blow up a plane en route to Detroit “probably did us a favor.” The GOP chairman’s quote raised eyebrows; by his logic, the Sept. 1 ...
  
• U.S. Growth Deemed Bleak For Next Decade
  January 4, 2010 Reuters By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa A dismal job market, a crippled real estate sector and hobbled banks will keep a lid on U.S. economic growth over the coming decade, some of the nation’s leading economists said on Sunday. Speaking at American Economic Association’s mammoth yearly g ...
  

Pambazuka News

• USA: Black coalition to protest expanding U.S. war ...
  A newly-formed Black coalition has announced a rally and march on the White House to take place November 7, 2009 beginning in Washington, D.C.’s historic Malcolm X Park. The rally and march are to protest the expanding U.S. wars and other policy ini...
  
• Brazil: Bloggers on why there is still racism in t ...
  Two weeks ago, Global Voices Online reported the story of Januário Alves de Santana, a black man who had been beaten and punched by security guards of one of the largest international retailers in Brazil. He was waiting for his family in the car park...
  
• Global: It takes a Villager
  Owino Odhiambo left his tiny Kenyan village less than a decade ago to immerse himself completely in American culture. Equipped with American citizenship, two degrees, and five years experience working as a dedicated graphic designer in New York City,...
  
• Honduras: Implications of coup for Afro-descendant ...
  Currently, the country of Honduras in Central America is experiencing its worst political crisis in decades. In the aftermath of the military coup that forcibly removed President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, there have been various developments that have r...
  
• Guadeloupe: Demand for support for the independenc ...
  Felix Alain Flémin, secretary general of the Guadeloupe Communist Party (GCP) has called for international solidarity in support of the struggle for independence and self-determination of the people of those Caribbean islands under French colonial do...
  

War in Context

• Turkey helps Viva Palestina deliver aid to Gaza
  Turkish MPs to enter Gaza with Viva Palestina convoy in Egypt World Bulletin, January 4, 2010 Five Turkish MPs will on Monday join an international aid convoy that has reached Egyptian port one-week later after the date that they initially hoped to reach Gaza Strip on the first anniversary of Israel ...
  
• War in the Age of Terrorism
  War in the Age of Terrorism By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 4, 2010 This is change: we’ve gone from change we can believe in, to a change in the mood music. If Dick Cheney was the éminence grise behind George Bush, one could now be forgiven for thinking that George Bush himself has quietl ...
  
• UPDATED - Jordan emerges as key CIA counterterrori ...
  UPDATED with NBC report on the identity of the man who attacked the CIA last week: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Jordan emerges as key CIA counterterrorism ally By Joby Warrick, Washington Post, January 4, 2010 Hours after last week’s deadly attack on a C ...
  
• An American world of war
  An American world of war By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse, TomDispatch, January 3, 2010 … let’s pause a moment as the New Year begins and take stock of ourselves as what we truly are: the preeminent war-making machine on planet Earth. Let’s peer into the future, and consider just what the Amer ...
  
• Yemen dismisses Al Qaeda threat as ‘exaggerated’
  Yemen dismisses Al Qaeda threat as ‘exaggerated’ By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2010 Yemeni officials on Sunday dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda in their country as “exaggerated” and downplayed the possibility of cooperating closely with the United States in fighting Islamic ...
  

Watts Up With That?

• G.P. Bear goes to Washington – Part 11
  By Bill Steigerwald “Polar Bear Manifesto” U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING With a bang the Senate hearing room’s double-doors suddenly flew open. A SWAT team of 12 Navy SEALs in full riot gear and body armor stormed in, knelt down and aimed [...]
  
• Coal Creek Redux
  Guest post by Richard Keen, Ph.D. To paraphrase Led Zeppelin, “It’s been cooling, I ain’t fooing…” December was a chilly month across much of the U.S., and at my site (the NWS co-op station for Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado, NW of Denver at an elevation 8950 feet, or 720 millibars, December was the co ...
  
• Where Are The Corpses?
  Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Abstract The record of continental (as opposed to island) bird and mammal extinctions in the last five centuries was analyzed to determine if the “species-area” relationship actually works to predict extinctions. Very few continental birds or mammals are recorded as h ...
  
• The 2009 weblog awards – zilched
  Kevin Aylward makes a surprising announcement. Guess I’ll have to settle for “nominee with a boatload of nominations“. Update – The 2009 Weblog Awards are off 4 Jan 2010 It is with a great deal of regret that I must inform everyone that The 2009 Weblog Awards are canceled. Unfortunately the resou ...
  
• BBC swaps “coldest December since 1981&#8243 ...
  BBC reported: Coldest December since 1981 (BBC, January 3, 2010) It is still showing up in Google, but changes are afoot, odd that a headline like that can’t stand on its own: http://www.google.com/search?q=Coldest+December+since+1981%E2%80%8E+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t And google news: http://news.go ...
  

Dandelion Salad

• U.S. Venezuelan Relations: Imperialism and Revolut ...
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ By James Petras Axis of Logic Tuesday, Jan 5, 2010 Historically Latin America has been of great importance to the United States on numerous counts:  the region has in the past, provided the US with a trade surplus; its outflows of licit and ill-begotten funds ...
  
• 2009: The Year that “Perpetual Motion” Ended By St ...
  By Steve Windisch (jibbguy) Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Jibbguy’s Blog January 5, 2010 Looking back over the year 2009, we can see many important changes. Interestingly enough, the major changes soon to be related here were mostly not publicized in the Mainstream… Yet they certainly happene ...
  
• James Heintz: The grim state of the states
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ TheRealNews January 02, 2010 Story transcript James Heintz: 900,000 state workers across the US could lose jobs as state deficits explode James Heintz has written on a wide range of economic policy issues, including job creation, global labor standards, egalita ...
  
• Poison bullets: Depleted Uranium factor covered-up ...
  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/ RussiaToday January 05, 2010 Many American and British soldiers who have returned from Iraq are complaining about Depleted Uranium-related illnesses. They accuse both the Pentagon and the UK Ministry of Defense of covering up the problem. Poison Bullets follows ...
  
• Obama: When Empire + Militarism Equals Peace? by S ...
  by Sean Fenley Dandelion Salad The Anything and Everything Jan. 3, 2010 Reading through the transcript of Obama’s speech in Oslo, it is startling to read how Obama attempted to make his hawkish beliefs and theories congeal with such respected pillars of non-violence as Martin Luther King Jr. and ...
  

Your New Reality

• No title
  “We cannot rely on money and the banking system and government to come up with all the answers. People years ago were more self-reliant and were more able to take hold of the reins and do things themselves. I think we need to get back some of those basics.” .
  
• No title
  Kill The Bloggers Another mainstream media story, this time from the New York Times , pushing the new reality where news consumers will supposedly have to soon start paying digital cash to read stories, columns and watch news video online. I've been reading about this for getting onto two years, an ...
  
• No title
  "You Imagine Missing It All And Suddenly It's So Much More Precious" Carl Sagan in interview May 1996 : Carl Sagan died on December 20, 1996
  
• No title
  "They leave a data footprint. They tell me what they are interested in. They tell me what kinds of things they are searching on. They tell me what kinds of articles they are reading. They tell me whether a user is interested in preparing for the tax season for next year. They tell me whether the us ...
  
• No title
  It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like A "Fuck You" Christmas.... Update, Dec. 21 : Rage Against The Machine have the UK Number One Single for Christmas, and sent tens of thousands of pounds the way of a homeless charity. Frontman Zack De La Rocha declares victory for real music with something to say ov ...
  

Wired - Science

• Elusive Supermassive-Black-Hole Mergers Finally Fo ...
  WASHINGTON — The universe is one big dance party for black holes. New observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope found 33 merged galaxies in which pairs of supermassive black holes are “waltzing” around the galactic centers. “Our result shows that such walt ...
  
• New Exoplanet Hunter Makes First 5 Discoveries
  The Kepler Space Telescope, a designated planet-hunting satellite, has found its first five planets, among them an odd, massive world only as dense as styrofoam. The number of planets now known outside the solar system has risen to over 400, but none is yet Earth-like enough to harbor life. Right n ...
  
• Wired Science’s Most Popular Space Stories of 2009
  > We love space, and so do you. This is a fact, well established by our Christmas-morning-level anticipation every time Hubble or Cassini or Spitzer release a new image, and your happy, clicky, tweety responses to virtually anything we post that has to do with space. So  ...
  
• Age of the Solar System Needs to Be Recalculated
  A trusted equation for calculating the age of the solar system may need rewriting. New measurements show that one of the equation’s assumptions — that certain kinds of uranium always appear in the same relative quantities in meteorites — is wrong. “Since the 1950s, or even before that, no one had b ...
  
• Tasmanian Devil Cancer Culprit Revealed
    Scientists have discovered the true identity of a contagious form of cancer that is killing Tasmanian devils. The cancer, called devil facial tumor disease, stems from cells that normally insulate nerve fibers, a new study shows. Genetic analysis of tumors taken from infected devils in different ...
  

Israeli Occupation Archive

• Nadia Hijab: When Does It Become Genocide?
  “Genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation… It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, ...
  
• Are IDF dogs trained to pounce all who say ‘God is ...
  "IDF dogs are trained to pounce and attack any Arab who shouts Allah Hu Akbar, as a Pavlovian reaction," said [MK Ahmed] Tibi. "So here I say: Allah Hu Akbar. Are there any dogs here to attack me?" The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now ...
  
• Akiva Eldar: Are Israel and apartheid South Africa ...
  In Israel... institutional discrimination is meant to preserve the supremacy of a group of Jewish settlers over Palestinian Arabs. As far as discriminatory practices are concerned, it's hard to find... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, ...
  
• Israel wary of US-Arab arms deals
  The United States has recently signed major arms deals with several Arab states. Israeli officials have expressed concern at the scope and content of the agreements. Among the recipients of the... The Israeli Occupation Archive (IOA) covers Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, now i ...
  
• Failing Gaza: A Report One Year after Operation Ca ...
  Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, no recovery, no more excuses A Report One Year after Operation Cast Lead December 2009 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...
  

Ria Novosti - Military

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

NewsWise

• Prepared Patient: A Day in the Life of Your Prescr ...
  At one time or another, we all handle prescription medicines for ourselves, our children, our older relatives. Here's what to what to look for -- and what to do if you don't see what you should.
  
• Galaxy History Revealed in this Colorful Hubble Vi ...
  More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly. This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide ...
  
• Hubble Reaches the "Undiscovered Country" of Prime ...
  NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before. Results from Hubble's new infrared camera, the Wide Field Camera 3, on the Ultra Deep Field (taken in August 2009) are ...
  
• Psychology Popular Among College Students
  People are very interested in why we do what we do. College students are studying adolescence through aging.
  
• Before Or After Birth, Gene Linked to Mental Healt ...
  Scientists have long eyed mutations in a gene known as DISC1 as a possible contributor to schizophrenia and mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder. Now, new research led by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that perturbing this gene during prenatal periods, postnatal periods or b ...
  

Intel Trends

• Mujahideen forum: Who Was the CIA Suicide Bomber i ...
  The following report was posted on a mujahideen forum. Who Was the CIA Suicide Bomber in Afghanistan? Source:  Ansar Al-Mujahideen > Headlines > Ummah News January 5, 2010 ·   Who was the CIA suicide-bomber in Afghanistan? ·   Who sent him to work as CIA agent? ·   When and Why? The answers to thes ...
  
• IntelTrends 05-JAN-2010
  Major terrorist attack thwarted in North Caucasus RIA, 05 Jan Police in Russia's North Caucasus Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria have prevented a major terrorist attack after discovering a 40-liter barrel stuffed with explosives near the Baksan-Azau highway. INDONESIA: Timika Airport authorities summ ...
  
• REPORT: Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intel ...
  The following report is from Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Link for full text is located at bottom of summary. Fixing Intel:  A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevent in Afghanistan Source:  Center for a New American Security Author(s):  Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt ...
  
• IntelTrends 04-JAN-2010
  'Swabs better than body scanners' say U.S. security officials Telegraph, 04 Jan Swabbing airline passengers and their hand luggage for chemicals is cheaper, easier and more effective than the hotly-debated use of X-ray style body scanners, according to two top former U.S. government security offici ...
  
• Complete details on recent Yemeni deadly operation ...
  The following report is from Yemen News Agency (SABA). Complete details on recent deadly operations against al-Qaeda ©   SABA By Mohammad Taher Translated and edited by:  Mahmoud Assamiee January 3, 2010 SANA'A, Jan. 03 (Saba) - In a battle demonstrated the strength and ability of the security forc ...
  

Organic Consumers.org

• John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO: I Don't Believe In C ...
  As Al Gore said a year or so ago, the time for argument is past. There's a clear consensus among scientists--90% agree that Climate Change is significantly caused by human activities. 94% agree that it's a real and present danger, not a far-off hypothetical fear for science fiction writers to have f ...
  
• After Scary Year, Will Food in 2010 Be Any Safer?
  Here's a holiday menu that we'd all like to forget: For the appetizer: San Antonio Bay oysters polluted with Noroviruses. For the main course: grilled beef infected with E. coli from contaminated tenderizing needles; chicken with Campylobacter or imported ham with Listeria monocytogenes. Then there ...
  
• Use of Potentially Harmful Chemicals Kept Secret U ...
  Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States -- from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners -- nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials ...
  
• Ammonia-Treated Pink Slime Now in Most U.S. Ground ...
  You're not going to believe what millions of Americans have been eating the last few years (Thanks, Bush! Thanks meat industry lobbyists!). Click here to read this article
  
• Tax Trash Before It Becomes Trash
  In the garage of my mother's Ottawa home is a brand-new "Green Bin," ready and waiting for January's first pick-up of household scraps. This year marks that city's addition to the ranks of municipalities great and small that collect compostables in order to reduce waste going to landfills. Click her ...
  

fotoFrontera

• 58 pinturas digitales de Raphael Lacoste
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. PresidiaCreative , comparte con todos nosotros 58 trabajos artísticos realizados por Raphael Lacoste . Un artista digital de la ciudad de Montreal que ha participado en videojuegos como Prince of Persia y Assassin’s Cree ...
  
• BibliOdyssey en Blogspot
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. BibliOdyssey , es un sitio que recientemente fue reconocido por Blogger como Blog of Note . Las razones son muchas y entre ellas podemos descubrir la enorme cantidad de imágenes relativas a libros, ilustraciones, ciencia ...
  
• Wallpapers de celebridades en Skins.be
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. Skins.be , es un sitio especializado en ofrecernos la más grande y variada colección de wallpapers dedicados a las celebridades, mujeres hermosas , personajes famosos del cine y la televisión, artistas consagradas como; ...
  
• La creatividad de ChevronGuy en DeviantArt
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. Chevron Guy , es un magnífico diseñador gráfico que a través del DeviantArt , nos comparte sus grandes dotes de creatividad. La fusión de elementos en cada uno de sus trabajos, dan testimonio de su gran capacidad para cr ...
  
• Colección de wallpapers en InterfaceLIFT
  Nota: Haz click aquí o sobre la imagen para entrar y ver todas las fotografías. InterfaceLIFT , es más que todo un excelente lugar donde usted podrá encontrar una enorme colección de wallpapers . Le sugiero explorar con cuidado las diferentes categorías, tamaños y fechas. Según nuestros cálculos, es ...
  

Executive Intelligence Review

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

  NM Utility Gets Renewable Energy Plan Extension

  ABC News

  - Jan 04, 2010

  - 17 hours ago

  AP New Mexico regulators have given the state's largest utility another three weeks to turn in a filing that spells out how it will incorporate renewable ...

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Minnesota Power Acquires Direct Current Line for Renewable Energy Transmission

  AZoCleantech

  - Jan 05, 2010

  - 4 hours ago

  The transmission line was acquired by Minnesota Power for advancing its long-term plan of bringing more renewable energy into its network as well as for the ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  US Reaffirms Commitment to 'Fast Track' Solar on Federal Land

  GetSolar.com (blog)

  - Jan 05, 2010

  - 36 minutes ago

  A week ago, the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reaffirmed its commitment to keep 31 renewable energy projects on a “fast track process” through the ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Europe May Bundle Renewable Energy Generators, Sueddeutsche Says

  Bloomberg

  - Jan 04, 2010

  - 10 hours ago

  5 (Bloomberg) -- Germany and eight other European nations are considering linking up their renewable energy operations by building a communal power grid ...

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  Human Habitat

  ecology water energy

  Wash. Enviro Groups Have Modest Legislative Agenda

  ABC News

  - Jan 04, 2010

  - Jan 04, 2010

  Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines, chairman of the House Ecology & Parks Committee. The 2009 session, when lawmakers were dealing with a $9 billion revenue ...

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  'Recycle mobiles, help ecology'

  Arab News

  - Jan 04, 2010

  - 16 hours ago

  JEDDAH: By donating your unwanted mobile phone you'll prevent highly toxic materials ending up in a landfill. This was the message given by Nokia at the ...

  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  Public to comment on plan to remove slag from Black Sand Beach

  Access Washington

  - Jan 04, 2010

  - 17 hours ago

  The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) and Teck American Inc. (Teck) in Spokane will provide an overview of the project and answer questions from ...

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  clipped from Google - 1/2010

  American Ecology Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.18 per Share

  RTT News (press release)

  - Jan 04, 2010

  - Jan 04, 2010

  American Ecology Corporation , through its subsidiaries, provides radioactive, PCB, hazardous, and non-hazardous waste services to commercial and government ...

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  Water Power

  water floods pollution

  Spill puts China water supplies at risk

  The Australian

  - Jan 05, 2010

  - 3 hours ago

  CHINESE authorities are scrambling to protect the drinking water for tens of millions of people after a massive fuel leak into the Yellow River spilled into ...

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  U.S. stocks stay under water after mixed reports

  MarketWatch

  - Jan 05, 2010

  - 1 hour ago

  NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- US stocks remained lower Tuesday after separate reports had factory orders up and pending home sales down in November. ...

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  For American Water board, 'yes' votes needed

  Philadelphia Inquirer

  - Jan 05, 2010

  - 12 minutes ago

  American Water Works Inc. has adopted an increasingly popular method for electing directors that prevents directors from being elected with as little as one ...

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  Frigid weather rupturing water mains

  Atlanta Journal Constitution

  - Jan 05, 2010

  - 1 hour ago

  By Mike Morris Atlanta's frigid weather -- the coldest in nearly a year -- was playing havoc with the city's water lines Tuesday morning as numerous mains ...

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