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Friday, September 10, 2010

10 Sept - Night Miscellaney

The Man burns from a boom lift, Burning Man 2010Image by mr. nightshade via Flickr


 Pakistan floods affect 500,000 pregnant women
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/09/pakistan-pregnant-women.html?ref=rss

Tajiks Stopped From Traveling To Iran, Pakistan For Religious Courses
http://inteltrends.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/tajiks-stopped-from-traveling-to-iran-pakistan-for-religious-courses

  The Misnomer of Peace Talks
http://world.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/The-Misnomer-of-Peace-Talks
...Washington is contemptibly weak when it comes to Israel. The Israel Lobby is expert at working the phones and the opinion columns and the campaign donations. It even gets Washington to fight wars for it, as it did in Iraq, and as it now is attempting to do in Iran – surely, the acid test of inordinate influence on policy."

I don’t know how anyone given the task could draw a map of Israel: it is likely the only country in the world with no defined borders, and it actually has worked very hard over many decades to achieve this peculiar state.
As far as peace, in the limited sense of the absence of war, Israel already has achieved a kind of rough, de facto peace without any help from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have nothing to offer in the matter of peace if you judge peace by the standards Israel apparently does.

Israel has the peace that comes of infinitely greater power, systematic and ruthless use of that power, the reduction of the people it regards as opponents to squatters on their own land, and a world too intimidated to take any effective action for justice or fairness.
Mahmoud Abbas, an almost pitifully shuffling character who is the man supposedly representing Palestinian interests, is now approaching two years of playing president without an election: he has zero legitimacy with the Palestinians and the outside world. Even at that, his assumed authority extends only to parts of the West Bank of the territories.  

ANALYSIS: The Jammu and Kashmir situation: The Security Forces
http://inteltrends.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/analysis-the-jammu-and-kashmir-situation-the-security-forces
Asian News Int’l,  09 Sep 2010  (PART ONE)
Asian News Int’l,  09 Sep 2010  (PART TWO)  
 
Kashmir: Struggling for Peace
http://world.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/Kashmir-Struggling-for-Peace
As Muslims all across the globe are celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, the people of Kashmir are under siege. The Indian occupation forces have imposed round-the-clock curfews and severe restrictions on civilians’ movement; as a result they are unable to even pray in mosques or to have access to basic necessities of life, including hospitals. They have been living in a perpetual state of uncertainty, insecurity and helplessness.

Thousands of people, young and old, men and women, boys and girls, are defying curfews and out on the streets protesting against India’s rule and the occupation forces’ reign of terror to silence the people’s movement demanding an end to India’s occupation. More than 60 protesters, mainly young boys, have been killed and hundreds have been wounded, in less than two months, in pitched street battles between anti-occupation protesters attacking the troops with stones and chanting: “Go India, go back. We want freedom,” and the Indian occupation troops are using brute force against defenceless Kashmiris, e.g., live ammunition, crackdowns, surprised night raids, random arrests, severe beatings, humiliation of women, and other tactics to terrorise the population.

The New York Times reports from Srinagar on Friday August 20: “Paramilitary soldiers fired live ammunition to disperse anti-India protesters and wounded three people after residents accused troops of attacking their homes in India’s portion of Kashmir on Thursday (August 19). ‘They came to our homes, broke windows and trained their guns at us,’ said resident Mohammed Abdullah. ‘All of us came out and protested this aggressive and bullying act. But they fired on us.’ An 8-year-old boy wounded last week in firing by troops in the southern town of Anantnag died in a hospital on Thursday (August 19), taking the death toll to 60 in the last two months of demonstrations and clashes between the Indian forces and Kashmiri people.”

Basic foods and fuel supplies are running low and the people have been confined to their houses, with schools and businesses shut. The Indian Express reported from Srinagar on Friday July 30: “With no letup in unrest in Kashmir where curfew was re-imposed… people in cities and towns are facing a tough time getting food and essential commodities including medicines for their families.” Volunteers have established blood donation camps, pooled rice and vegetables in community kitchens at various locations and supplied food to the people in need and affected by the siege and also to patients in hospitals.

The people of Kashmir are so tired of the status quo that they want to do whatever it takes to have a normal life. This is precisely the reason the entire population is in support of the ongoing protests against India’s occupation. Whether the Kashmiri people are being heard or not by the world community, India and Pakistan, the people of Indian-administered Kashmir have been making a point, clearly and loudly, every day for the past three years, more particularly for last two months that the status quo is no more acceptable.
It is high time India realised the fact that control over a region alone does not mean sovereignty over a chunk of land. It is the people who make up a nation and if they are perpetually alienated, any territorial supremacy achieved through brute force alone can never guarantee long-term peace.
Enbridge shuts major Canada-U.S. oil line due to leak
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100910/canada/canada_us_enbridge_newleak
Enbridge Inc shut down the largest of its three major oil pipelines on Thursday, reducing supply on the main transit route for Canadian crude into the United States.

The incident, just six weeks after Enbridge was forced to shut a smaller part of its Lakehead system, pushed prompt crude futures toward $75 as it may ease a glut at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude futures.
Eva Golinger: U.S. Interference In Venezuelan Elections
http://inteltrends.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/eva-golinger-u-s-interference-in-venezuelan-elections
A report commissioned by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and published in May 2010 by the Spanish Foundation for International Relations and Foreign Dialogue (FRIDE) revealed that this year alone, international agencies are investing between $40-50 million in anti-Chávez groups in Venezuela. A large part of those funds have been channeled to the opposition coalition, Democratic Unity (MUD), and its campaign for the upcoming legislative elections on September 26.
A majority of funding comes from U.S. agencies, particularly USAID, which has maintained a presence in Venezuela since 2002 with the sole intention of aiding in President Chávez’s removal from power. For the past eight years, USAID has channeled millions into political parties, organizations and private media entities linked to the opposition, helping them to grow and unify, and providing strategic advice, support and resources for their political campaigns.
 How to Read Scientific Papers Without Reading Every Word
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/09/how_to_read_scientific_papers.php
Know What You're Looking For. Different bits of information are found in different places and in different forms, so what you're looking for will determine where you look, and how you find it.

For example, if you're just trying to get a general sense of what a given paper is about, it's often enough to read only the introduction and conclusion. If you're just after a specific numerical result, it's probably in the abstract, or toward the end of the paper. 
Look at the Pictures. Most experimental papers will have figures showing the arrangement of their apparatus, and often include things like timing diagrams showing how they did something. You can figure out a lot from these figures, and their captions. 
 U.S. shifts approach to deporting illegal immigrants
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-09-10-immigration10_ST_N.htm
To unclog courts, federal officials shift focus to illegal immigrants who've committed serious crimes

The Obama administration is changing the federal immigration enforcement strategy in ways that reduce the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants, even as states such as Arizona, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Texas are pushing to accelerate deportations.
recent changes:

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton ordered agency officials on Aug. 20 to begin dismissing deportation cases against people who haven't committed serious crimes and have credible immigration applications pending.

• A proposed directive from Morton posted on ICE's website for public comment last month would generally prohibit police from using misdemeanor traffic stops to send people to ICE. Traffic stops have led to increased deportations in recent years, according to Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank whose research supports tighter enforcement.

The directive said exceptions would be made in certain cases, such as when immigrants have serious criminal records.
Morton said in an interview that the new strategy is smarter, not softer, enforcement. At a time when more than 10 million people are in the country illegally, record sums are spent on enforcement and the federal budget faces huge deficits, it makes sense to target people who pose the biggest threat to public safety or national security, he said.

"Congress provides enough money to deport a little less than 400,000 people," Morton said. "My perspective is those 400,000 people shouldn't be the first 400,000 people in the door but rather 400,000 people who reflect some considered government enforcement policy based on a rational set of objectives and priorities."
 
Court voids Hazleton, Pa., law targeting illegal immigrants
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-09-10-pennlaw10_ST_N.htm
The law, passed in 2006 but held up by lawsuits, would have allowed the city to revoke the licenses of businesses that employed illegal immigrants and fine landlords who rented to them. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that the law infringed on the federal government's exclusive power to regulate immigration.

( While I believe the actions against immigrants ridiculously counterproductive as a category...in effect this means issuing a city business licence isn't under the jurisdiction of the city, but is as if construed as a right  )
More legal thuggery against a defender of science-based medicine
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/06/more_legal_thuggery.php
( More prevaricating while throwing in everything but the kitchen sink...but a good rant, even if I enthusiastically think he needs to get stuffed. )
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