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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

23 December - RSS SnapShot! Pt 2

Westlake Park, which contains the headquarters...Image via Wikipedia

Greg Palast

  • Palast ArrestedBusted by BP in Azerbaijan
    by Greg Palast BP's Azeri police arresting Palast for filming BP oil rig - Baku, Azerbaijan, December 2010"Here in Azerbaijan we believe in human rights. PLEASE GIVE US YOUR FILM." Oh, no, no, not good. The enforcers here come in three colors:  the military police still wearing their old Russian ...
  • The Real Wiki Hero
    by Marta Steele from OpEdNews with a Surprise P.S. from Greg Palast Is it not ironic that the same country that contributed Rupert Murdoch to the world has more recently donated Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks since 2007, when it was founded to "report on and publish important informat ...
  • WIKI-CREEP ASSANGE, THE SCAMPPvt. Bradley, the Cha ...
    by Greg Palast for Truthout/Buzzflash I'm a "hero" and it makes me want to puke.  This week I was voted a "Hero of the Media" in one of those fairly harmless polls that are little more than thermometers of face time on the idiot box. But this Nation Magazine gong is shared with Julian Assange, imp ...
  • Put a Little Palast in Your Stocking
    from Greg Palast For Chanukah, Christmas, Hajj 2010, Kwanzaa or whatever lights your candle, why not give the (tax deductible) gift of Truth? My latest disguise - fooled you? This year we have a few suggestions for Holiday gift-giving from the Palast Investigative Fund store: A Palast Gift Ca ...
  • Debt Vultures Shot for ChanukahLiberia is saved bu ...
    by Greg Palast for In These Times We got’m. I can hardly believe it. Yesterday, the financial vultures, the carcass-chewers who were preying on the dirt-poor African nation of Liberia, gave up. Two shadowy vulture funds, which had won a $43 million court judgment against Liberia, agreed to accept ...

Telegraph UK - oil

Ian Welsh

  • Because a lot of so-called Liberals don’t seem to ...
    Governments and individuals are different types of entities.   The presumption for government is that its proceedings and actions should be transparent to its citizens because it exists to serve its citizens, and they can only know that it is doing so, and doing so in ways they would approve of, if ...
  • Why DADT Repeal Will Pass and Dream Won’t
    Gays dropped their votes to Dems significantly from 2008 levels.  Hispanics voted for Democrats at about 2008 levels despite horrible policies against them.  You only have leverage if you are willing to defect in a high profile fashion.
  • Afghanistan’s 22% GDP Security Services
    If any nation that the US did not like and was not propping up spent 22% of its GDP on defense and projects to continue to spend at that level for most of a decade when its only enemy is an internal light infantry insurgency, the American foreign policy establishment would be very quick to [...]
  • The Torture Culture
    Ok, here’s the deal.  Torture does not work to get information.  Period.  You do not torture people to get information, you torture people to send information, or rather, to send a message. What is that message? We Torture People That’s all the message is. America is a torture culture.  The majo ...
  • The Torture Culture
    Ok, here’s the deal.  Torture does not work to get information.  Period.  You do not torture people to get information, you torture people to send information, or rather, to send a message. What is that message? We Torture People That’s all the message is. America is a torture culture.  The majo ...

Age of Autism

  • American Vaccine Court Rules DTaP (Pertussis Whoop ...
    We send our thoughts and prayers to Harry and Gina Tembenis, whose son Elias died as a result of a reaction to his DTaP (P = Pertussis/Whooping Cough) vaccination. If you don't know Harry and Gina, I can personally tell...
  • Solitude
    By Cathy Jameson In cleaning out my desk one day I uncovered a pile of computer discs. Some were those freebie ones you get in a fast food restaurant kids’ meal. Other ones stored digital family photo albums I have...
  • Age of Autism Comment of The Week
    Comment of the Week from Dan Burns' post "When the School Bus Stops Coming.": Having worked for 8 years directly supporting people with Severe Autism, I have seen firsthand how adults languish on thin ice when not given the amount...
  • My Son The Model
    By Deb Mylander (Photo by Fritz Liedtke at www.fritzphoto.com) "You know, he is handsome enough to be a model," the Target clerk said to me in the same tone of voice she would have used if she had been telling...
  • CDC “Stakeholder” Collaborations
    Katie Wright At Wednesday’s Mt. Sinai autism and environmental science conference the audience was subjected to an endless oration about the CDC’s “Learn the Signs” pr campaign as well as a vague discussion of “CDC/ stakeholder collaborations.” What either of...

Global BDS Movement

Farm Wars

  • The Vote Is In: Congressional Mafia Rams Food Safe ...
    Food Safety legislation passes! Codex, here we come...
  • Bribery and Graft abound as Reid attaches S.510 to ...
    S.510 Fake Food Safety bill was passed quickly late Sunday afternoon; a vote taken when the Senate could be assured few were watching or even aware that the vote on the criminalization of independent and family agriculture was taking place.
  • Food Safety Sneak Attack! Passed by Unanimous Cons ...
    As reported above, the Senate on Sunday night simply took the revised food safety language that was approved by the House in the CR, substituted it to the language of HR 2751, one of the original "Cash for Clunkers" bills from last year, and approved it by unanimous consent.
  • Conservation Easements (CEs)*:Read the fine print ...
    A basic Constitutional tenet of private property ownership in America is the landowner’s right to determine the use and disposition of his or her land. This ownership gives the property owner the right to occupy, use, lease, sell, develop, and deny public access to his or her land. Today, lando ...
  • Truth Squad Radio – Guardian Abuse!
    The legal abuse and exploitation of Gary Harvey: What happens when the state steps in and takes custody and control of an adult? Does the family have any rights?

Open Your Eyes News

  • New Gaza war ‘a question of when, not if&#82 ...
    BBC – A senior Israeli army officer has told the BBC that as long as Hamas remains in control of the Gaza Strip, another war is “a question of when, not if”. He said the Palestinian Islamist group had rearmed so much since the Israeli offensive two years ago that it was now in a [...]
  • Copper Tops Record as China Boosts Imports, Chile ...
    Bloomberg – Copper prices jumped to a record after China said monthly imports of the metal increased for the first time since August and an accident at the Collahuasi mine in Chile disrupted supply. Refined-copper imports by China, the largest user, surged 37 percent to 232,298 metric tons in Novemb ...
  • Immunity in Emerging Species of a Major Mosquito C ...
    ScienceDaily — In notable back-to-back papers appearing in the journal Science in October, teams of researchers, one led by Nora Besansky, a professor of biological sciences and a member of the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame, provided evidence that Anopheles gambiae, ...
  • US Senate approves nuclear arms treaty
    ABC – The US Senate has backed a nuclear arms control treaty that commits both Russia and America to cutting their weapons arsenal. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) passed the Senate 71 votes to 26, but not before lengthy delays and fierce arguments from Republicans, who felt the US w ...
  • After Dump, What Happens To Electronic Waste?
    NPR- Many people will receive a new computer or cell phone this holiday season â and throw out their old equipment. And when old TVs and computers end up in landfills, the toxic metals and flame retardants they contain can cause environmental problems.Yet even recycling your e-waste, as it’s called, ...

L.A. Times - Greenspace

  • Obama administration files WTO complaint against C ...
    The Obama administration on Wednesday backed the United Steelworkers union in its accusation that China is giving an illegal boost to wind power manufacturers there. By filing a case with the World Trade Organization, the U.S. is challenging the Asian...
  • Obama decision on polar bear status closely watche ...
    A long-simmering dispute about government protection of the polar bear has drawn in leading environmental law groups and the country’s most powerful business organizations. Both sides are concerned about the effect that a decision on the bear's status might have...
  • Alternative mobility tops list of 2011 green trend ...
    Luxury green vehicles and alternative mobility, such as peer-to-peer car-sharing, top the list of "Green Things to Watch in 2011," a new report from the global market research firm JWT. "A lot of people have been wondering if the recession...
  • Chromium-tainted drinking water: Time for a federa ...
    A type of chromium linked to cancer is turning up in tap water in more than two dozen cities, including Riverside, according to a study that urges federal regulators to adopt tougher standards. Even though scientists at the U.S. Environmental...
  • Treasury grant program for renewable energy projec ...
    The 1603 Treasury grant program -– a popular government incentive for renewable energy projects -– was extended Thursday night as Congress passed a major tax cut deal. The measure, which covers up to 30% of the cost of solar, wind...

water.org

  • Matt Damon talks Water.org on CBS Sunday Morning
    Matt Damon Wants to “Fit In” after Finding Fame (CBS News Sunday Morning – December 19, 2010) – Matt Damon is one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. But when he’s not acting, Damon says he simply wants to live a “normal” life and fit into his community. So what’s life like being Matt Damon? Harry [ ...
  • Matt Damon talks Water.org on Letterman (CBS)
    Matt Damon talks True Grit, Water.org on David Letterman (CBS – December 16, 2010) Matt Damon talks about Water.org starting at 4:30 in the video.
  • Water.org on YouTube’s Project4Awesome (YouT ...
    Water.org on YouTube’s Project4Awesome (YouTube P4A)  P4A: John & Hank Green Discuss Poverty & Water.org   P4A: Water.org with John and Hank Green (Part 1) P4A: Water.org with Mike McCamon, John and Hank Green (Part 2) Project for Awesome : WATER.org (Alex in the Shower) More Project for Awe ...
  • Water.org creating lasting change in Kenya (NGONew ...
    Kenya: Curbing Water Crisis (NGO News Africa) Kenya – Fortunately, there are a number of organizations that are picking up the challenge, providing water solutions. Water.org is working in the urban city of Kisumu and rural Eastern Province, offering both grant and WaterCredit programs. More than 60 ...
  • David Letterman “Water.org, now that’s ...
    Letterman Looking at Bottle: “Water.org, now that’s simple” (The Frager Factor) – Water.org co-founder and actor Matt Damon appeared on David Letterman’s show tonight to promote his new film True Grit, and his passion, Water.org, whose goal is to deliver fresh, clean drinking water around the world ...

Before It's News

Energy Probe - Nuclear Power,Utility Reform

  • The Deniers on CBC Radio's 'Ideas'
    The science is settled - is now the mantra of climate change activism? Those who disagree are either in denial or in the pay of an oil company. But long time environmentalist and energy activist Lawrence Solomon says no, the science is not settled on global warming. Ideas producer David Cayley break ...

Margaret's News

  • Republicans have now been shamed after Jon Stewart ...
    Momentum Building Toward A Christmas Miracle For Our 9/11 HeroesSubmitted by Joseph M. to US Politics & Gov't �|� �Note-it! �|� �Add a Comment
  • Wikileaks Reveals U.S. Tax Dollars Fund Child Sex ...
    Wikileaks Reveals U.S. Tax Dollars Fund Child Sex Slavery in AfghanistanSubmitted by Mari Basque to US Politics & Gov't �|� �Note-it! �|� �Add a Comment
  • Fear and loathing in Israel 2010
    This isn�t the place I grew up in. Where is that place? Where did it go? Racism has always existed in Israel, but something about the ease in its surfacing, something about how violent it is is different. It�s all out it the open, and nobody cares anymoreSubmitted by Margaret Mayer to World �|� �No ...
  • Demonstrators Scale the Separation Wall in Niilin
    Demonstrators scaled the 8 meter high barrier and flashed peace signs to the soldiers on the other side. As soldiers entered the agricultural land they used tear gas projectiles as large bullets, firing them directly at demonstrators.Submitted by Margaret Mayer to World �|� �Note-it! �|� �Add a Com ...
  • Introducing the no-state solution
    The Palestinians, on the other hand, owe us nothing. They had no part in the Holocaust that caused us to escape to their shores, they never kept us occupied under martial law, bereft of human rights, labor rights and all other imaginable rights. Submitted by Margaret Mayer to World �|� �Note-it! �| ...

Solar Energy / Energy Boom

News Blaze

  • Somali Athletics General Da'ud Cup Kicks Off in Mo ...
    The four-day competition is taking place at the open ground of Somali police academy which has in the past been working as Somalia's Olympic city, because of the country's Olympic village is being occupied by Islamist militants.
  • Myanmar Cyclone Victims Start to Rebuild But Need ...
    But the humanitarian community in Myanmar still needs funding, according to a news release. Only $20.5 million of the estimated $57 million required for both emergency and early recovery phases have so far been allocated by donors, with the main gap
  • Religious Leaders and UN Promote The Practice of E ...
    As Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, commemorates national Mothers' Day this week, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu leaders pledged at a conference led by the Ministries of Health and Religious Affairs to develop an action
  • EPA Requires Standard Chromium-6 Content in Drin ...
    The agency absolutely has a drinking water standard for total chromium, which includes chromium-6 (also known as Hexavalent Chromium), and we require water systems to test for it. This standard is based on the best available science and is enforceab
  • UN Boosts Response Readiness for Cote D'ivoire Ref ...
    The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it airlifted additional relief supplies to Liberia and Guinea from emergency stockpiles in Copenhagen at the weekend.

Historical Notes

libcom

  • Rabat: Unemployed Teachers' Demo Attacked by Polic ...
    Unemployed teachers beaten at protest, Today a group of several hundred unemployed people, mostly teachers, from the ANDCM (National Association of Unemployed Graduates in Morocco) held a protest in front of the Moroccan parliament in R ...
  • Cloth dyed in blood
    Bangladesh_min-wage_protest-12-Dec-2010-Chittagong.jpg Recent worker deaths in the Bangladeshi garment industry from police repression and from a factory fire. After lengthy negotia ...
  • WE’VE GOT THE RAGE! Nationwide report from the Gen ...
    15-peaceful_1786024i1.jpg No doubt remains, not even for the most naive, that the State – in close cooperation with all its supporters and mechanisms – has decided to wage a full-scale war against societ ...
  • The Tea Party: How the right is using them, and wh ...
    3966997161_eb5f4903e4.jpg For the full, original article, feel free to visit the Trial by Fire. The American conservative movement known as the Tea Party has caused quite a stir since its first protests ...
  • The day after…update on student protests
    0101214104038916_20101214.jpg The Senate has confirmed today – The Gelmini reform will be discussed next Monday 20th December, the final vote will be on the Wednesday. Today there have been more protests ...

Free Range International

  • You Can’t Handle the Truth
    The efforts of the international community to bring aid to Afghanistan, help develop the infrastructure with the goal of allowing Afghanistan a chance at self sufficiency are failing dismally.  That should not be a surprise to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the international aid racket ...
  • Afghanistan’s Forgotten Province
    There are a couple of recent articles in the flood of coverage about Afghanistan which caught my eye last week.  The first is factually wrong but I understand what the author was saying and he is, in a sense correct.  The second is factually correct, I understand what that reporter was saying too an ...
  • Rules of Engagement
    I have written in the past about night raids and aggressive ISAF convoy tactics causing unnecessary civilian casualties.  I have also written on the importance of not allowing enemy fighters who attack ISAF units to live and fight another day.  Counterinsurgency requires adaptation and my annoyance ...
  • Healing Ulcer
    After only 90 days of fighting to root the Taliban out of a place they have owned for over a decade  Gen McChrystal called Marjah a bleeding ulcer. That was an unbelievably stupid assessment given the nature of the enemy, the rules of engagement placed on the Marines by the General, and the paltry a ...
  • Afghanistan Summary
    This summary comes from Sami the Finn a.k.a Sami Kovanen, the Senior Information Analyst at Indicium Consulting. Sami has been in Afghanistan for over six years now and is one of the best informed analyst working outside of the ISAF security bubble.  He was kind enough to let me post this update and ...

The Story Behind the Story

  • Is there hidden messaging in The Simpson’s c ...
    Today, a friend named Alex sent me this post: Watch this video to understand how hollywood has given us early indications of foreknowledge of falseflag events including 9/11 and Katrina.  Consider the series “V” coming up on Jan 4 such predictive programming, and liken the “red rain” to chemtrails.  ...
  • The Bursting Debt Bubble – Power Point
    To see Dr. Ott’s newest power point – and to follow along with his radio broadcast, click here:   The Bursting Debt Bubble This is clearly THE BIGGEST STORY in American History. Spread the word — and Merry Christmas – (no thanks to the treasonous traitors at Goldman Sachs.)  
  • UTAH SOUND MONEY ACT (Brilliant!!!)
    Today I was introduced to Mr. Larry Hilton, JD, MBA – the author of a brilliant piece of much needed legislation that hopefully will pass the Utah legislature, and then each and every other state in this union. Here is his introduction to me for the “Utah Sound Money Act” —- Click here:  Sound Mone ...
  • Long Live King and Queen Obama!!!!
    Barack Obama enjoys living like a king, so why shouldn’t Michelle Obama live like a queen? The First Lady was photographed last night in Hawaii wearing $635 per pair designer shoes by Maison Martin Margiela. A woman lucky enough to have a job in this economy and working for the federal minimum wage ...
  • Remember November 22, 1963 – The Assassinati ...
    To honor the memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I think it important to post the following correspondence with independent researcher and film-maker John Hankey. This written dialog was first posted on Rense.com by Mr. Hankey back in 2007. A. True Ott, PhD The Reason JFK Jr Was Murdered From John Ha ...

du la bab - Now is the Time

  • Downsizing – downscaling? See these tiny hou ...
    Here’s a great company doing inspiring work www.tumbleweedhouses.com The company creator, Jay Shafer started off making a super small mobile home for himself measuring  just 89 square feet! Their video is a testament to less being more – they’re now selling ready made mobile cabins and the plans fo ...
  • Air powered environmentally friendly car being pro ...
    Sounds a little strange right – an air powered car – why isn’t this big news I wonder… There’s a great company in France operated by a former Formula 1 engineer now producing cars running on compressed air. They’re not great to look at, super fast, or I’m guessing really comfortable, but they’re in ...
  • Deforestation – environmental & human effect ...
    There are many types of forest in the world from Temperate Forest to Tropical forest. The one thing all forests have in common is that the trees in them act as the lungs to our planet converting CO2 to Oxygen.  In addition, forests provide a canopy or shading of the earth which helps maintain temper ...
  • Could cancer be Fungus? If so, maybe here’s ...
    Recently I visited a dear friend who has been dealing with breast cancer for over ten years. After a long attempt to avoid surgery and medication, she was forced to have a double mastectomy. She has chosen to avoid the chemo treatments. This takes a lot of courage given that the standard thing to do ...
  • Doctors Warn about GM Food Risks
    It’s barely been a week since I wrote about the dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods and now the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has released a strongly-worded warning about the health dangers associated with Frankenfoods. Calling for a moratorium on GM foods, the AAEM says t ...

Mansbridge One on One - CBC

  • Antony Beevor, War Historian (Nov 7, 2009)
    At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of eleventh month we pause, and remember those who have sacrificed in times of war. And there were millions in the last century. One author who has studied some of the 20th century's most historic battles has a new book, and this week he's our guest in what h ...
  • Danielle Smith, Leader of the Wildrose Alliance Pa ...
    She's been around Alberta politics since she was pretty young, and she's made her mark. Now she's being talked of as a potential Premier. All this with a party that didn't even exist two years ago. What's her story - and what does it mean for the rest of the country? This week we find out.
  • Dr. Susy Hota, Infectious Diseases Specialist (Oct ...
    Are you tired of hearing about HINI -- the swine flu? That's not surprising because there's been a half year of information coming your way -- some of it contradictory, much of it confusing. This week's guest helps us get down to basics -- what you need to know, and why you need to know it.
  • Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Jan 9, 2010)
    This month marks four years since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. There have been few dull moments during that time and certainly no lack of controversy. This week, with a new year starting and new issues facing his government, the Prime Minister is our guest.
  • Brian Wilson, musician (encore), (Nov, 28, 2009)
    This week, an encore presentation of one of our most memorable interviews from 2004 -- the musical genius behind the Beach Boys, the young California group that went head to head against the Beatles in the 1960s.

Scotts Contracting

  • Green tech and the household energy gluttons- Gues ...
    - How to keep your home as Green as you can. Going Green is now the generational movement for manufacturers and consumers alike. The old energy guzzlers are on the way out, and good riddance. New Green technology is obliterating … Continue reading →
  • Space Saving Cabinet Corner Units
    Available at: Scott’s Contracting scottscontracting http://www.stlouisrenewableenergy.blogspot.com http://scottscontracting.wordpress.com
  • DOE-Loan Guarantee 1.3 billion for Oregon Wind Far ...
    Department of Energy Finalizes Loan Guarantee to Support World’s Largest Wind Project Caithness Shepherds Flat project 845-Megawatt Wind Facility Will Create Hundreds of Jobs and Avoid Over 1.2 Million Tons of Carbon Dioxide Annually. Washington D.C. — U.S. Energy Secretary … Continue reading →
  • Oil News:No New Drilling in East Coast Waters 7 Yr ...
    On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Scott’s Contracting wrote: The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it would not propose any new oil drilling in waters off the East Coast of the United States for at least the … Continue reading →
  • Solar= Hot Spot for U.S. Exports- Creates JOBS
    On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Scott’s Contracting wrote: Another study released this week shows that solar jobs in the U.S. are responsible for some very positive export news. The report, U.S. Solar Energy Trade Assessment 2010, … Continue reading →

The View From Abroad

Foreign Policy in Focus - Military (US)

Law.com

Iranian.com

  • ابراز نگرانی یک کمیته سازمان ملل از وضع حقوق بشر ا ...
    کمیته سوم مجمع عمومی سازمان ملل متحد با صدور قطعنامه ای از "نقض مکرر و جاری حقوق بشر در ایران" عمیقا ابراز نگرانی کرده و از جمهوری اسلامی خواسته است که به طور جدی به تعهدات بین المللی خود در زمینه حقوق بشر عمل کند. قطعنامه کمیته سوم با ۸۰ رای موافق، در برابر ۴۴ رای مخالف تصویب شد و ۵۷ کشور هم به آن ...
  • Couple in money laundering case released on bond
    A McAllen couple accused of secretly sending more than $1.8 million to Iran during a nine-year span is out on bond after being indicted in federal court last week.
  • Iran Stops Fuel Delivery, Afghanistan Says, and Pr ...
    Government officials expressed alarm on Wednesday about what they described as Iran’s unexplained ban on fuel exports to Afghanistan, asserting that at least 1,400 loaded tankers were parked on Iran’s side of three border crossings. Abdul Karim Barahwe, the governor of Nimroz Province in western Afg ...
  • بيچاره جنبشي كه سكينه و شهلا پرچم آن باشند !
    محافل ضدانقلاب از اينكه متهمان فاسدالاخلاق و قاتلي چون «سكينه- م» و «شهلا- ج» تبديل به پرچم جنبش سبز در خارج كشور و در رسانه هاي غربي شده اند نگران و گله مند هستند.
  • Iran leader heads to Turkey eyeing support ahead o ...
    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad heads to Turkey on Thursday, looking for at least moral support from his increasingly influential neighbor a month before nuclear talks with six major powers in Istanbul.

Most Revolutionary Act

  • 1968
    I have just read a fascinating book by British author Mark Kurlansky regarding the global liberation struggles that occurred in 1968. For progressives of my generation, this was a year of great hope and inspiration – one that saw millions of students and workers protesting in the streets. I bought ...
  • Britain: Coldest December in 100 years
    Record Cold Predicted Back in June There was a massive blizzard in Britain yesterday, closing both London airports. I find it very intriguing that the UK is experiencing its coldest December in 100 years  especially as this is what Dr Gianluigi Zangari predicted in July, when he first reported that ...
  • The Politics of Traffic Taming
    Street reclaiming is a global, bottom-up movement to reclaim our neighborhoods from the automobile. David Engwicht, inventor of the Walking School Bus and author of Mental Speed Bumps: the Smarter Way to Tame Traffic, views traffic as a social problem, not a design problem. Instead of looking to ...
  • Reclaiming Our Streets: A Model for Social Change
    I have recently joined a growing worldwide initiative to reclaim neighborhood streets from the automobile. It’s a movement driven both by climate change activists seeking to reduce carbon emissions – and by social change advocates seeking to reverse the steep drop-off in civic engagement. The aliena ...
  • An Alternative to Corporate Insurance
    The health insurance lobby’s aggressive corporatization of health care – which started in the 1980s when Reagan deregulated the insurance industry- has had devastating effects on the US health care system. As Michael Moore portrays in the film Sicko, it has bankrupted thousands of families. He intro ...

Doug's Darkworld

  • Another Symptom of the Colonial Mind Set: Internat ...
    Last week the “International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act” failed in the House of Representatives, despite passing unanimously in the Senate. This was a “bipartisan” bill ostensibly designed to “require the federal government to develop a plan to combat child marriage with the g ...
  • GIANT GAMMA RAY EMITTING BUBBLES DISCOVERED NEAR M ...
    Yes, it’s true, scientists have discovered two huge gamma ray emitting bubbles emerging from the Milky Way. The above image is what they look like … if the viewer is considerably outside the galaxy and can see gamma rays. People can’t see gamma rays, so the above image is “false colour” so to speak. ...
  • George Armstrong Custer meets Buffalo Calf Road Wo ...
    Ah, the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Or the Battle on the Greasy Grass. Or the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek. Or as us white people call it, the Battle of  the Little Bighorn or Custer’s Last Stand. It’s in the news lately, because a military flag that was carried into the battle by Custer’s [...]
  • Is America on the Road to Fascism?
    “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”    — George Orwell   When I was a child and a young man, I lived in a free country. Now the government sticks its hands in my pants and searches my crotch if I want to fly a  plane. And already happening, [...]
  • Ron Paul on Wikileaks: Lying is Not Patriotic
    I normally don’t publish guest articles, but this week I’m on a  roll. The Time Traveller post was just for fun, today’s post is deadly serious. I was writing my own post on Wikileaks, when I came across Congressman Ron Paul’s latest words on the subject. He covers the situation quite nicely, and s ...

FourWinds10

Crisis Maven

  • Economic Musings VI: Modern Economies – Dyin ...
    There is a great debate in the history of economics whether there can be under-consumption in any real historic moment of the state of an economy and if so, whether it has detrimental effects and if so, what is to be done about it. And modern economists seem to have found a magic wand with [...]
  • Blogs and Web Sites you may want to follow
    The following is a list of blogs and websites that CrisisMaven has followed and observed over the last few months and that readers may want to check out from time to time. Note: neither the sequence of how the blogs are listed here nor any comments by CrisisMaven are an endorsement nor criticism of ...
  • Economic Musings VII: Marketing doesn’t adve ...
    Have you ever wondered if marketing and advertising are the same, if not, what’s the difference and which is the more important of the two? And why should you care? The most successful economic model is without doubt the market economy. It is the consequence of the wealth effects of the division of ...
  • CrisisMaven’s Blog News 2010-03-07: Over 25,000 We ...
    Yesterday around 16:37 GMT we passed the 25,000 threshold … - next report will probably be posted when we’re past the 50,000 mark. Thanks to all avid readers: on 2010-03-18 at around 19:25 GMT we went past our first 20,000 views on our blog in about eight weeks since we began publishing! After that, ...
  • Economic Musings VIII: Is there a limit to economi ...
    Something which puzzles many thinkers and frightens many young people concerned about waste or the pillaging of our natural resources is the question: can “an economy” (whatever that is – we’ll come to that in a minute) grow indefinitely? How can there be unlimited economic growth if we’ve never hea ...

Capital Flow Analysis

  • Stock buybacks are bad for investors: Further evid ...
    In the working paper “The Buyback Monitor - July 2009: Corporate Stock Buyback Profits of 273 Firms from 2000 into 2009“, published on the Social Sciences Research Network, M.A. Gumport, CFA, provides further evidence that stock buybacks are not as good for investors as often touted. The following ...
  • Why Obama’s healthcare scheme portends stagflatio ...
    The trillion-dollar Obama health care plan increases the odds that US economic recover will be delayed, and that unemployment and inflation will increase. The main thrust of the Obama plan is to increase taxes on individuals earning more than $250,000 a year, while forcing all but the tiniest bus ...
  • How long would it take to work off the US trade de ...
    The rest of the world holds $16.8 trillion in US financial assets, according to Federal Reserve release Z.1, as of Q1 2009. [...]
  • Why Bernanke’s flawed “exit strategy” policy porte ...
    In a lead op-ed editorial in the Wall Street Journal on July 21, 2009, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke revealed the Fed’s exit strategy with regards to the inflationary effects of the Obama “spending is stimulus” packages and other government measure to contain the current crisis. This articl ...
  • Stocks surge on spurious earnings reports: Q2 2009
    No one knows for sure the real earnings of American corporations. In Q1 2009, according to the Federal Reserve flow of funds table F.102, after-tax profits of US non-financial, non-farm corporations, on an annual basis, were about $589.9 billion. However, about 50% of these after-tax earnings were ...

R-Squared Energy Blog

  • Borrowing For the Present at Our Children’s Expens ...
    Join the forum discussion on this post Dreams of a Child This past week my youngest son told me that he wanted to be president when he grows up. I still remember when I felt that way. As a child, I thought “I would make a good president.” I thought I had the qualities that you [...]
  • Guest Post: Roof Shingles Meet Solar Panels
    Join the forum discussion on this post The following guest post was written by Daniel Fielding, a freelance writer who focuses on gadgets and the environment. He is the lead editor for Shades of Green, a Green Technology Blog. Roof Shingles Meet Solar Panels By Daniel Fielding “We have the te ...
  • Sustainability is the Key to Long-Term Energy Secu ...
    Join the forum discussion on this post Why We Love Trees I don’t often talk about my job, but I am going to today just a bit. I am the Chief Technology Officer for a renewable energy company. Our primary goal is to develop affordable and sustainable energy for a world that we believe will [...]
  • Critical Decisions Looming for Japan’s Nuclear Ind ...
    Join the forum discussion on this post The following guest post was written by the staff of Global Intelligence Report. SITUATION: Japan is advancing with plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and boost its external nuclear exports. These decisions will impact the conduct of Japan’s global non-p ...
  • How the RFA Wastes Your Tax Dollars – Part II: Bla ...
    Join the forum discussion on this post In Part I we saw that the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) pays for shoddy studies and then cites them to fear-monger into getting more tax dollars. Hypocritically, when they are challenged with a critical point on ethanol, they attempt to cast doubt by ques ...

Discovery Educator Network

  • The World Clock – Time Zones
    Comments:Find out what time it is in that part of the globe your wanting to communicate with from school. - Dean MantzTags: worldclock, time, timezonesby: Dean Mantz
  • LEGO Digital Designer : Virtual Building Software
    Comments:You can download for free software for PC or Mac to create your own Lego creations. - Dean MantzTags: lego, software, design, education, freewareby: Dean Mantz
  • Social bookmarking sites - Google Docs
    Comments:Here is a global collaborative Google doc with alternative ideas to replace Yahoo's removal of Delicious. - Dean MantzTags: socialbookmarking, googledoc, deliciousby: Dean Mantz
  • psdtechPD - Cell Phones
    Comments:Parkland School Division provides resources for successful integration/use of mobile devices. - Dean MantzTags: phones, cell, cellphones, psdtechpd, mobile, ipod, iPad, iPhoneby: Dean Mantz
  • Body Browser - Google Labs
    Comments:To use Body Browser, you'll need a Web browser with WebGL support. Click here to get the new Google Chrome beta, or visit khronos.org for more choices. - Fred DelventhalTags: google, body, anatomy, science, educationby: Fred Delventhal

Rodale News

  • Good Vacuum Cleaners Could Save Your Lungs
    RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—It's officially winter, and we're all going to be holing up in our homes to escape the cold for the next few months. We'll be doing so with all the dust, allergens, and indoor air pollutants that linger indoors. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency likes to stress, ...
  • Factory Farms Use 30 Million Pounds of Antibiotics ...
    RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—For the first time ever, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compiled and released the amount of antibiotics used in animals raised for people to eat, and the amount is even higher than previous estimates from environmental advocacy groups. The FDA concludes that i ...
  • Women: Eliminate Heart Attack Risk by Nearly 90 Pe ...
    RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Job stress and worrying about job security can both take a toll on a woman's body, although the two issues affect female health differently, according to research presented last month at the American Heart Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago. But whether chronic work-r ...
  • Genetically Engineered Alfalfa Could Be Growing in ...
    RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—A genetically engineered crop used in conjunction with a common pesticide that's known to reduce a plant's ability to take up micronutrients essential for human life may be approved and in the ground by the spring 2011 growing season. The United States Department of Agricu ...
  • Starting Today, Make This a Stress-Free Holiday We ...
    RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PAâEvery year, we eagerly anticipate an indulgent, relaxing, and revitalizing holiday break. Despite the fact that, for many of us, the holidays usually involve at least one frantic dash to finish last-minute shopping, entertain visitors, and cook like crazy. Whether you're g ...

big think

  • Losing Reagan's Legacy
    When 71 senators to voted to ratify New START it was a huge victory for Obama and the Democrats. The vote would normally have been a victory for Republicans. The original START—which stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—was one of Ronald Reagan’s signature achievements. Ultimately signed by .. ...
  • Julian Assange, Rape Allegations, and the Catch-22 ...
    Amanda Marcotte has a brilliant essay in Slate on the rape allegations against Julian Assange and the Catch-22 of why more victims don't come forward. We're bombarded with erroneous stereotypes about how "real victims" act, then we use those stereotypes to preemptively and unfairly smear accusers ...
  • The Attack that Never Happened
    We all know that Yemen has serious problems that are not limited to just AQAP.� But there have also been a few bright spots in recent months. Topping the list was the Gulf Cup - a two week soccer tournament in Aden and Abyan in the south of Yemen.� Leading up to the tournament there was a great ...
  • Maybe Hold Off on the Eggnog 'Til Next Year...
    Against all odds and predictions the Food Safety and Modernization Act passed Congress this week. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation, the first major overhaul of the country's food safety laws in over 70 years. This year saw the largest recall of tainted eggs in American history: ...
  • The Guantanamo Conundrum
    Today Charlie Savage of the New York Times, who does an excellent job making complicated legal stories understandable, has a piece on the latest bit of Guantanamo Bay news.� According to his piece, President Obama's advisers are proposing a system that would establish a parole board-like committee ...

Information Liberation

  • Against Net Neutrality: Don't Trust the State to " ...
    As a recent column in the Wall Street Journal reminds us, online freedom is jeopardized in the name of *net neutrality* (The FCC*s Threat to Internet Freedom). This is just another case of the state re-labeling things to sound benign but that are rea...
  • Will Net Neutrality Save the Internet?
    Advocates say that "Net Neutrality" will "save the Internet." But does the Internet need saving? Net Neutrality is a proposed set of regulatory powers that would grant the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the ability to control how Int...
  • Police fine men for rescuing deer, say they should ...
    Two men who rescued a deer trapped in Patapsco River ice were each fined $90 by a state Natural Resources Police officer because they did not have life vests aboard the inflatable boat they used to reach the animal. [...] Hart said the Natural Res...
  • Government Waste: 20 Of The Craziest Things That T ...
    You are not going to believe some of the things that the U.S. government is spending money on.* According to a shocking new report, U.S. taxpayer money is being spent to study World of Warcraft, to study how Americans find love on the Internet, and t...
  • Budget Cuts To Darken SoCal City Street Lights
    VISTA (AP) * To trim $9 million from their budget, Vista officials say they will shut off half of the city*s residential street lights in March unless property owners agree to pay higher lighting fees. Fees could cost residents of the north San Di...

Be Responsible - Be Free!

  • Ozboy’s Bar And Grill Is Closed For Repairs
    It’s only temporary. A couple of weeks. But the recent shenanigans round here have forced me to do some thinking about how LibertyGibbert can run better in the future. I’ve spoken to a couple of you about this today, to … Continue reading →
  • The Dragon’s Dissent Part III: Naked Nationa ...
    The emergence of China as the world’s new superpower has raised many questions in the international community and across the blogosphere regarding the longer-range agenda of the Middle Kingdom. In a recent discussion on this forum, the question of Chinese … Continue reading →
  • U.S. Elections: Will Liberty Win?
    Well today’s the day. As just about every other blog in the sphere is covering the elections today, I thought I’d throw the forum open, and we can discuss the results as they come in, in real time. If as … Continue reading →
  • Libertarianism And Drug Liberalization
    G’day everyone, Just arrived back home safe and sound. Sorry there hasn’t been a new post in several days, but just at the moment my family needs me more than the Bar and Grill does. Dr. Dave has graciously stepped … Continue reading →
  • Stealing Democracy?
    G’day everyone, Ozboy here. The United States mid-term elections are just one week away, and the mounting resentment many Americans feel about the way their country is being governed appears certain to be made clear at the polls. One of … Continue reading →

FAS - Secrecy News

  • Shrink the Classification System
    Faced with release of hundreds of thousands of classified records by Wikileaks in recent months, what should the government do?  The best answer might be to release hundreds of millions of such records!  By stripping away the accretions of decades of overclassification, a wholesale reduction in clas ...
  • Classified Information Policy, and More from CRS
    Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf). “Classified Information Policy and Executive Order 13526,” December 10, 2010. “Screening and Securing Air Cargo: Background and Issues for Congress, ...
  • Goodbye, Mr. Bond
    Last year, Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) told reporters that there is “a far Left-wing fringe group that wants to disclose all our vulnerabilities. I don’t know what their motives are but I think they are very dangerous to our security.” More hating on Wikileaks?  No, Senator Bond was actually ta ...
  • Support Secrecy News
    Many thanks to those readers who have already made contributions to help support Secrecy News.  If you are able and willing to join them, tax-deductible contributions can be made here (select “Government Secrecy” from the drop-down menu to direct your donation to Secrecy News). You can also write a ...
  • JASON: Science of Cyber Security Needs More Work
    “Cyber security is now critical to our survival but as a field of research [it] does not have a firm scientific basis,” according to the Department of Defense.  “Our current security approaches have had limited success and have become an arms race with our adversaries.  In order to achieve securit ...

Sciencebase - Breaking Science News

  • Sciencebase person of the year 2010
    Anyone can pick someone famous, a Zuckerberg, a Jobs, a Gaga, and call them their person of the year. But, how about a personal person of the year? Here’s my pick of the people who have had the biggest impact on me this year, whether through their retweet efforts on Twitter, their comments on my [.. ...
  • Periodic table of videos at the movies
    Regular Sciencebase followers will by now know only too well the Periodic Table of Videos from Nottingham University and my good friend Martyn Poliakoff. The creators of the video series recently ran a competition for viewers to create a movie-style poster to promote the videos and had an astounding ...
  • A few facts about asbestos
    Today, medical journal The Lancet has publicly criticised the Canadian government for its attitude towards asbestos, saying that although Canada will not expose its own citizens to asbestos, it will continue exporting the deadly substance to developing nations [Canada accused of hypocrisy, Lancet]. ...
  • What is nature worth?
    Each hour 3 species vanish forever, we’ve lost a fifth of the planet’s coral reefs, almost a third of its mangrove forests, and half of the world’s wetlands. But, how do you count the cost? Perhaps a business perspective is needed. If we considered the natural world as providing products and service ...
  • Searching for scientific abbreviations
    Ambiguous abbreviations and acronyms are annoyances when it comes to text search and data mining. As a writer-editor, I was always taught to spell out the long form (LF) of a short form (SF) at first mention in a document so that the reader would know that when I mentioned EBV I was referring to [.. ...

RFF Library

  • Reg Stat — A Portal to the History of EPA&#8 ...
    US EPA http://www.epa.gov/regstat/ Reg Stat provides information on EPA documents published in the Federal Register between 2005 and 2009. It also provides in-depth information on rulemakings likely to be of most interest to stakeholders — those rules signed by the EPA administrator that substantive ...
  • Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2010
    US Congress Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2010 [Switchboard blog] …Just a few moments ago, the House of Representatives passed a bill that will help accelerate the clean-up of Americaâs millions of dirty diesels.  This bill, the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2010 (S. 3973/ H.R. 6482) will b ...
  • Regulating Air Emissions from Ships: The State of ...
    Institute on Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre, European Commission / Apollonia Miola, Biagio Ciuffo, Emiliano Giovine, Marleen Marra http://tinyurl.com/22pylz2 [from Summary] In recent years public concerns regarding the environmental impacts of maritime transport have increased ...
  • CITIES: Car Industry, Road Transport and an Intern ...
    Potsdam Institute, Technical University Berlin, and BMW Group / Ottmar Edenhofer, Felix Creutzig, Christian Flachsland, Emily McGlynn, Jan Minx, and Steffen Brunner http://tinyurl.com/28q5apr [Abstract] This report evaluates existing regulations for climate change mitigation in the transport sector ...
  • UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics
    UNCTAD http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/tdstat35_en.pdf [From publication webpage] The UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics has been issued. The volume provides essential data for analyzing and measuring world trade, investment, international financial flows and development. In deviation to earlier editions, ...

Scientific American - News

  • Dawn of the Deed: the Origin of Sex
    Scientists used to think that, among backboned animals, internal fertilization and carrying the young inside the mother's body originated in sharks and their kin some 350 million years ago. Before then, sexual reproduction in fish consisted of spawning, wherein females deposit eggs in the water, the ...
  • Science of TRON : Getting Up to Speed with Telepo ...
    LOS ANGELES--When Steven Lisberger made the original 1982 cult film TRON , he was ineligible for an Academy Award for visual effects, because he'd used computers--and believe it or not, that was considered a form of cheating at that time. [More]
  • Clean Getaway?: Antarctica Tourism Snowballs, but ...
    On December 7, 2010, the cruise ship Clelia II had begun the final crossing of its weeklong Antarctic cruise. What remained of the journey was the notoriously dangerous Drake Passage between Antarctica and South America. And that day the ship was hit by a massive wave that shattered one of its b ...
  • Low-Grade Science: Primary School Students Conduct ...
    Twenty-five primary school students in the U.K. are the authors of a new study on how bees perceive color and patterns. In fact, the children devised the research, conducted the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote up the results. Led by neuroscientist Beau Lotto, of University College London, t ...
  • FCC Ends Net Neutrality Debate (for Now) by Passin ...
    Members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agreed on one thing at Tuesday's meeting: the Internet does not need to be fixed. Despite this shared sentiment, the FCC's commissioners are divided on whether the government should act in anticipation of potential problems as the Internet mat ...

RAWA News

  • Simple Solutions Save Women’s Lives in Afgha ...
    The Huffington Post: You would think there would be more of an uproar in a country with the highest maternal death rates. No other country in the world loses more women in childbirth than Afghanistan. None. Rarely has being first at something meant so much loss. It's not just the women either, lest ...
  • Hashish Trade Resurgent in Afghan North
    IWPR: Although production is illegal, the cannabis grown in Balkh has long been prized throughout Afghanistan for its quality. Three years ago, a successful eradication campaign by international and Afghan forces virtually wiped out opium poppy cultivation in the province.
  • Why Night Raids May Doom U.S. Prospects in Afghani ...
    Time: Night-time raids by Special Forces have become a mainstay of the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they have turned much of the local population in the war zone against the Western presence. The conflicting narratives over what transpired in an Oct. 3 raid in the rugged farm ...
  • 11 injured as demonstrators clash with police in E ...
    Xinhua: Eleven people including three policemen and eight demostrators were injured as they clashed in eastern Paktia province on Saturday, provincial police chief Abdul Ghafar Safi said. “Eight demonstrators and three police sustained injuries as police opened fire to disperse the demonstrators but ...
  • Hundreds demand justice in war-blighted Afghanista ...
    The Associated Press: Several hundred demonstrators, some holding photographs of victims of three decades of war, shouted for justice and peace .... In recognition of International Human Rights Day, about 300 people participated in a demonstration in the capital, Kabul, organized by the Social Assoc ...

frogblog

  • Before the holiday season ends send a submission o ...
    It’s almost Christmas time and I’m sure most of you are ready for a holiday. But before you go, if you live in Auckland, Rodney, Whangarei, or anywhere else and want smart transport decisions please take a few minutes to make a submission on the New Zealand Transport Agency’s lates ...
  • ACC privatisation: Let the fightback begin
    I’ve run the “ACC: undermine, cut privatise” banner on a few posts on ACC over the last couple of years, and now we’re seeing the third leg of the trifecta emerging with the announcement yesterday that ACC’s work account is to be partially privatised. This may be good news for some ...
  • Why NZ sent army engineers to Iraq in 2003
    There has been outrage from Helen Clark, Phil Goff and Jim Anderton over a claim by a US Embassy official (in the Wikileaks documents) that: “Senior MOD officials (strictly protect) tell us it was not until Finance Minister Michael Cullen pointed out in a subsequent Cabinet meeting ...
  • General debate, December 22, 2010
    Happy summer solstice.
  • New Auckland motorway causes congestion
    The Herald has carried another story today about how building a motorway has made congestion worse in Auckland, not better. Suprised? The New Zealand Transport Agency has admitted that they seriously under-estimated how much traffic their upgrades of State Highway 16 (SH16) to form ...

Patronus Analytical

J Kozy

  • Western Civilization and Classical Economics: The ...
    When a civilization abandons its morality, no rationalization can be devised to justify its continued existence. It is likely that many reasons can be given for this abandonment in the Western world, although I am convinced that one predominatesthe expansion of law. Law once governed various kin ...
  • The Mythical United States of America: Rushing int ...
    The mythical United States of America so highly lauded exists nowhere. It is a Shangri-la. The Preamble of the Constitution makes perfectly clear what kind of nation the United States was meant to be. What exists today fulfills none of those goals. Some have argued that the nation was a fraud fr ...
  • As Western Civilization Lies Dying
    The Western commercial system exists to extract more from consumers than it supplies in products and services. Its goal is profit and has never been the improvement of the human condition but to exploit it. When governments institutionalize this system, they place their nations on suicidal paths, be ...
  • Is Perfect Research Possible
    Some claim that there is no hope of doing perfect research. So, is there hope of doing perfect research? Of course there issometimes! It all depends on the whetherwhether the subject is limited and whether the researcher can write and is intelligent enough to adequately evaluate the evidence. Un ...
  • The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: Last Gasp of ...
    No civilization in history that collapsed after a period of greatness has ever regained its dominance. Egypt lasted for three millennia; today it is little more than a field for archeological study. The Persian Empire, which lasted for more than three hundred years, became the largest and most p ...

MoJo - Kevin Drum

  • Weird Science
    This is from a small study which might turn out to be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt. (Or sugar.) But apparently the placebo effect might work even if patients know they're getting fake medicine: Half the patients were given a bottle with the word "placebo" printed on it. The pills it hel ...
  • A Congress That Works! Huzzah!
    Jon Chait on the flurry of congressional activity that closed out the year: I strongly approve of the ends of the lame duck Congress, but as a small-d democrat, I don't approve of the means. Why should Congress have a period of time to act in which many members enjoy zero accountability before th ...
  • Filibuster Reform Warms Up
    This is unexpected: every single returning Senate Democrat has signed a letter urging Harry Reid to change the rules surrounding filibusters when the new Congress convenes in January. Ezra Klein has a good take on this: They say elections have consequences. So too, it turns out, does obstruction. . ...
  • Senate Deal on First Responders Gets Closer
    Greg Sargent reports that the 9/11 first-responders bill might pass after all: UPDATE, 12:43 p.m.: Senate aides say they are now hopeful they can pass the bill via "unanimous consent," which means it can happen quickly today. More when I learn it. UPDATE, 1:08 p.m.: GOP Senator Mike Enzi, one of th ...
  • Net Neutrality Fever
    The FCC approved new net neutrality rules yesterday, and conservative talkers have gone ballistic. It's a "Trojan horse"; it's "total government control of the Internet"; it's "yet another government takeover." ThinkProgress provides a handy greatest hits compilation on the right, and George Zornic ...

Insanity Report

  • Sometimes NOW Needs to STFU
    The National Organization for Women filed complaints against local Hooters restaurants Thursday, but not for exploiting its scantily clad waitresses by subjecting them to leering and groping customers. The subject this time was Hooters’ catering to children. The restaurants in San Francisco, San Bru ...
  • FacePalm of the Week: Rep. Peter King To Hold Hea ...
    I’ll keep this short:  Peter King….Go fuck yourself. NEW YORK â The incoming chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security said Sunday that he will hold hearings on the “radicalization of the American Muslim community.” In an op-ed piece in Newsday, Rep. Peter King said such hearings are cri ...
  • IC 217: Ain’t Shit
    Topics for the show: Redskins and their stupid management decisions Mike Vick “wants” a dog Dog lovers can’t kiss Mike Vick’s ass and go fuck themselves Steve Harvey’s new book about “ain’t shit niggas” DADT passes and the President gets a win Share with your friends:
  • Senate Democrats Show Their Frustrations with the ...
    I wrote a piece last week about the incessant whining of liberals over the President’s tax cut deal with Republicans.  As expected, some people thought the basis of my article was my “Undying Support” as an Obama Stan.  Not at all.  My major problem with the whining is that it’s always focused at th ...
  • Jon Stewart Gives the DNC All the Ammo They Need
    Seriously, someone at the DNC needs to take parts of this and run these ads from now until 2012. The fact that Republicans have been leaving 9/11 first responders hanging when it comes Health Care is one of the most despicable things they’ve done in the last 2 years. It’s truly horrible. The Daily S ...

Simple Climate

  • A picture of climate change is worth 1,000 words
    Global warming illustrated: one simple diagram of the basic science that I made, along with a host of images from scientific institutions allow me to shut up for once, and let the pictures talk for themselves.
  • Choose the ultimate Simple Climate explanation
    Vote for previous poll-winners in the final poll to choose the best explanation of climate change given to me by scientists I've interviewed for my blog this year.
  • Polar bears offer beacon of climate hope
    There is unlikely to be a tipping point beyond which we cannot prevent Arctic ice disappearing, US researchers find this week, although to keep enough to allow a sustainable polar bear population temperatures must stay less than 1.25ºC above pre-industrial revolution levels.
  • What could climate change cost us?
    In 2006 the Stern report estimated the costs of stabilising atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 1 percent of world GDP, while the costs of not stabilising could reach 10 percent. Why then are finance-obsessed countries still struggling to agree what to do?
  • Simple Climate poll part 4: The effects of change
    Choose from some eye-opening descriptions - the last seven of 26 scientists' attempts to clearly communicate climate change on my blog this year - of how global warming is affecting our planet to select the one that best conveys the situation.

e!Science News

  • Complementary medicines can be dangerous for child ...
    Complementary medicines (CAM) can be dangerous for children and can even prove fatal, if substituted for conventional medicine, indicates an audit of kids' CAM treatment published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. read more
  • Mount Sinai researchers make major breakthrough in ...
    In a breakthrough that could lead to new treatments for patients with malignant melanoma, researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered that a particular protein suppresses the progression of melanoma through regulation of an oncogene, or gene responsible for cancer growth. The stu ...
  • University of Minnesota discovery suggests a new w ...
    Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered how HIV binds to and destroys a specific human antiviral protein called APOBEC3F. The results suggest that a simple chemical change can convert APOBEC3F to a more effective antiviral agent and that shielding of a common feature shared by rel ...
  • America's stroke belt partially fueled by fried fi ...
    Eating a Southern staple, fried fish, could be one reason people in Alabama and across the "stroke belt" states are more likely than other Americans to die of a stroke, according to a study published in the December 22, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of ...
  • Placebos work -- even without deception
    For most of us, the "placebo effect" is synonymous with the power of positive thinking; it works because you believe you're taking a real drug. But a new study rattles this assumption. read more

unEarthed

Brave New Climate

  • Energy and climate books I read in 2010
    Here is a selection of sustainable energy and climate change books I read in 2010. I’ve provided a few sentence summary of each book (from my perspective) and a Rating out of 5. Some books have been reviewed in more detail on BNC already — enter from the title of the book in this website’s search bo ...
  • OzEA – The second story
    The Oz-Energy-Analysis.org project continues to hum away in the background, building momentum. For those who don’t recall what OzEA is, read these two posts from earlier in the year on BNC: OZ-ENERGY-ANALYSIS.ORG â open science for the new millennium OzEA modelling â large-scale wind power using a b ...
  • Media reactions to the Energy paper – part 2
    In a previous post (part 1), I described some media reactions to my recent Energy paper (on how carbon pricing changes the relative competitiveness of low-carbon baseload generating technologies). The section of the media I covered in that post is often considered to be ‘progressive’ and environment ...
  • Idea: financing large capital cost electricity pro ...
    Guest post by Dr Gene Preston. Gene has had a long career as a power system engineer, performing generation planning, transmission planning, and distribution planning for Austin Energy. He is currently doing transmission studies for wind developers. He wrote all his own modeling software including t ...
  • Monthly Argument debate: climate change – is ...
    Remember this? Want to see me go head-to-head in a ‘bar room brawl’ with Jim Green and a representative from Friends of the Earth (Cam Walker)? Want to see on what I agree — and disagree — with Arthur Dent (formerly Albert Langer) on energy options for the future and the possibility of nuclear energ ...

Indigenist Opinion

  • CARLOS IN DC: Censorship of Carlos in DC: Bye Blog ...
    CARLOS IN DC: Censorship of Carlos in DC: Bye Blogger
  • Borneo tribesman arrested in palm oil conflict - S ...
    Borneo tribesman arrested in palm oil conflict - Survival International An Iban tribesman in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder following an argument with workers from a palm oil company. Tribesman Liam Rengga denies the charges, and claims ...
  • Valerie Taliman: Taliman: Racist rhetoric fuels ha ...
    Taliman: Racist rhetoric fuels hate crimes | Indian Country Today | Opinion In Navajo culture, there is a teaching that “your words are like a prayer.” Words have the power to manifest our reality, to literally bring things into being. Growing up, our elders admonished us to be careful with our wor ...
  • Georgia Prison Strike Hits Third Day | News One
    Georgia Prison Strike Hits Third Day | News One Georgia — On Thursday morning, December 9, 2010, thousands of Georgia prisoners refused to work, stopped all other activities and locked down in their cells in a peaceful protest for their human rights. The December 9 Strike became the biggest prison ...
  • Attempts to prosecute WikiLeaks endanger press fre ...
    Attempts to prosecute WikiLeaks endanger press freedoms - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com: "During the Bush era, I frequently wrote about escalating attacks by the U.S. Government on press freedoms. The Bush DOJ vowed to prosecute whistleblowers while steadfastly refusing to do the same for the high-le ...

Republicans are a Disease

  • Coming Soon – Reagan, America’s Greate ...
    The damage Ronald Reagan did to our nation is staggering. Coming soon…
  • Peter Johnson Rails Against “Congress” ...
    Of course he forgot to mention it was only Republicans in congress that voted “No”. An innocent mistake, I am sure. Peter, you pathetic pile of human feces. You left out the word Republican before the word Senators over and over and over. REPUBLICAN SENATORS kept the bill from coming up for a vote. ...
  • Wikileaks Anyone?
    I. F. Stone “To suppress the truth in the name of national security is the surest way to undermine what we claim to be preserving”
  • Obama Just Lost 2012
    Caving this time cost you your job. Extending tax cuts for the filthy rich while giving crumbs to the starving makes me sick to my stomach. Just giving the Republicans everything they want without so much as a whimper. Barry, you are not a Democrat. In fact I want my money back.
  • Republicans, Don’t Listen to David Stockman
    If you are a Republican, you had better not listen to David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director that created the trickle down fantasy. If you accidentally listen to what he says, you would realize that more tax cuts, the main plank in the Republican platform is insane. He is not happy with President ...

Appalachia Rising

  • Day of Action and Conference Vision Statements
    Appalachia Rising: Day of Action September 25 – 27, 2010, Washington DC Appalachia Rising is a mass mobilization in Washington DC on September 27, 2010 calling for the abolition of mountaintop removal and surface mining. It is a culmination of the national movement against surface mining and a found ...
  • Press Conference to be Held on June 15
    Thousands to March in DC Calling for the Abolition of Mountaintop Removal Press Conference June 15 in Charleston, WV Announces Mass Mobilization Appalachia Rising WHEN: June 15, 10:00 AM WHERE: WV State Capitol Back Steps Near Fountain, Charleston, WV CONTACTS: West Virginia Bo Webb –            304-237-2688       o ...
  • Press Inquiries
    All media inquiries should be sent to Bo Webb webb.bo@gmail.com Set up interviews via email. Previous Press Releases and Media Public Launch Press Conference Report Back, with video Press Conference Held on June 15 Announces Appalachia Rising Video June 15 Appalachia Public Launch Press Conference H ...
  • New Flier for Appalachia Rising
  • Appalachia Rising Uniting Celebrities, Appalachian ...
    Appalachia Rising Uniting Celebrities, Appalachians, and Scientists for the Abolition of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Ashley Judd, Woody Harrelson, Gloria Reuben, Kyra Sedgewick, Kevin Bacon, Ed Begley Jr., Kathy Mattea, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, James Hansen, and Darryl Hannah rallying behind coalfi ...

Amped Status

+972

  • Netanyahu warns against out of control racism in I ...
    The similarities are shocking stark. Everyday Israel is becomming more and more like the American South in the 1950’s. I am writing not about the West Bank or Gaza but about the Israel within the green line. Bibi Netanyahu warned today that violence against minorities will not be tolerated. The Prim ...
  • Israeli MKs impotent in the face of racism
    The Knesset Lobby for Civil Egalitarianism and Pluralism, founded just over half a year ago, held an emergency session open to the public last Tuesday to address the letter signed by hundreds of rabbis in Israel banning the sale or rental of property in Israel to non-Jews. A variety of MKs, professo ...
  • How the mayor (of a Nazareth suburb) stole Christm ...
    Nazareth, Jesus’s hometown, is today a bustling city of over 70,000 people. The people of Nazareth are termed “Arab citizens of Israel” or “1948 Palestinians,” depending on one’s politics. About a third of Nazarenes are Christians, the rest are Muslim. On the hill rising above the dense town and its ...
  • BDS comes to JStreet
    In 2005, one hundred seventy Palestinian civil society organizations began a global non-violent boycott, divestment and sanction movement (BDS) aimed at forcing Israel to abide by international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. BDS has since become a major factor in the ‘Israel debate’ as ...
  • ISRAEL: Far from Feminist
    In his celebrated New York Review of Books essay, Peter Beinart wrote: âFor several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door.â Too often, I feel that Israel has asked its women (and men) to check their feminism at the door. The irony is th ...

Sustainability,water,etc - Oz gov't

Matt Weidner Blog

  • BOMBSHELL- THE NEXT ROBO SIGNER CONTROVERSY- ROBO ...
    Hat tips again to Ice Legal…. The bombs just keep dropping…attached is a deposition of a “robo verifier”.  I also thought it would be helpful to include the copy of the Florida Supreme Court’s Task Force on Residential Mortgage Foreclosures so we could all be reminded what prompted the Florida Supr ...
  • LENDER BREAK INS/BANK BURGLARIES- THEY JUST DON&#8 ...
    Does anyone in America care that banks have resorted to kicking down doors whenever they want?  I get clients that come to my office and just leave their property, just walk away when the banks do this because they believe the banks have the right to do so….they’re often surprised when I tell them ...
  • BANK BREAK INS- New York Times- What Will You Do T ...
    It’s happening all over the country…banks breaking into people’s homes, with no court order, with no legal authority, with no right to do so.  Taking property, trashing homes, ruining lives….sometimes when there are no mortgages on the property at all… One of my cases is mentioned in the article, a ...
  • The Problem With Non-Judicial Foreclosures- The Ad ...
    You think we’ve got it bad in states like Florida where judges theoretically look over the questionable practices and documents in the foreclosures?  Well, not so fast…as recently reported in comments related to the New Jersey Supreme Courts investigation into foreclosure practices, approximately 9 ...
  • The Lender Processing Service Depositions- And An ...
    It’s not just our foreclosure courtrooms that are in chaos, it’s our entire real property ownership system.  Important functions of thousands of our county public recording offices were turned over to a private company with 50 employees and 20,000 “certifying officers” and now record title ownershi ...

abelard - news

The Parallel Parliament

  • Credit Due
    Just in time for Christmas, Stephen Harper and the UN Secretary General have opted to give the world a gift that has some goodness and purpose in it. Last week, Ban Ki-moon announced the establishment of a special commission designed to push those nations that made commitments to child and women’s h ...
  • Parliament’s Castle
    Each and every day the Chateau Laurier looms into view as I work my way to and from Parliament. It remains one of my favourite sites. Born and raised in Calgary, the Banff Springs Hotel has remained the most memorable hotel in the world for me. It was constructed and designed to match a string [...]
  • It’s Over
    The fall session of Parliament ended yesterday not so much with a whimper but with mockery. At the end of months of activity, little resulted in the way of meaningful legislation. While MPs milled about offering holiday wishes, you could sense an emptiness and loss of purpose. The great questions co ...
  • Still Hazy After All These Years
    It took until the latter half of 2010 for the weaknesses of the Conservative government’s new foreign policy to come home to roost. I was in the crowd on Canada Day in front of the Peace Tower three years ago when the Prime Minister stated that “Canada is back” on the world stage as a [...]
  • A Special Group
    Last week I was asked to speak at the special recognition gathering for the maintenance staff on Parliament Hill. What a wonderful group of people, many of whom donated some three decades of service to making sure this place runs properly. I was more than thrilled to share how they had been of assis ...

Vaccine Awakening

  • Counting Blessings, Remembering the Children
    by Barbara Loe Fisher Every Christmas and New Year, when I give thanks for the people who have blessed my life, I remember the mothers and fathers of severely vaccine injured children, who have taught me the most about love and courage. I know that my son, Chris, who developed brain inflammation ...
  • Thousands Of Americans Register for NVIC's New Adv ...
    by Barbara Loe Fisher Thousands of Americans living in all 50 states took action and registered for the new NVIC Advocacy Portal at www.NVICadvocacy.org during Vaccine Awareness Week (Nov. 1-6, 2010) co-sponsored by the National Vaccine Information C ...
  • Vaccine Science: A Search for Truth
    by Barbara Loe Fisher February 2009 turned out to be a month when vaccine science was put on trial in the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington, D.C., in mainstream media and on the internet, in the British Medical Journal and in vaccine safety research initiatives by the U.S. Department of Health and ...
  • Talking Vaccine Science with Government: Why Do It ...
    by Barbara Loe Fisher After the historic election in November that saw Barack Obama elected President, I wondered what he and his Administration would do about addressing the question that is on the minds of many parents: Why are so many vaccinated children today chronically ill, suffering with lea ...
  • Vaccine Bullies & Fighting Back
    By Barbara Loe Fisher During the past decade, families in the United Kingdom, Canada and America have witnessed the demonization of brave doctors and parents of vaccine injured children. It has been both sickening and frightening to watch physicians and some journalists engage in a relentless perse ...

2020 Science

  • Lost in the Maize
    My son Alex’s school puts on a highly prestigious musical each year. Competition for the lead roles is tough. Closed-door auditions are held to ensure the most talented kids get the leading roles â reward-through-merit in action you might say. Apart from the fact that some parents involved in the pr ...
  • The NNI at 10 – did I really say that?
    I must have been just a little worked up when I spoke with Gwyneth Shaw at the New Haven Independent a couple of weeks ago on nanotechnology.  I’m usually fairly circumspect with my comments to reporters (OK, so I know some readers have just spattered their coffee across the computer screen, but do ...
  • Small gods and the art of technology innovation
    There’s something rather liberating about being asked to give a no-holds talk on your perspective on life, the universe and everything.  So when the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center asked if I would speak as part of their “Where do we go from here?” series, I jumped at it. No holds barred is pro ...
  • Reviewing the National Nanotechnology Initiative S ...
    Here’s a bit of trivia: with the 4000 character limit on comments on the National Nanotechnology Initiative Draft Strategic Plan, you might as well ditch the official portal, and tweet your comments to the Office of Science and Technology Policy – 28 tweets would do it! As you can probably guess, I’ ...
  • Lost in the Maize
    Iâm writing this at Detroit airport, en route to Dubai via Heathrow.  By rights, I should be writing the usual stuff about how traveling to exotic places isnât all itâs cracked up to be – the mantra of the seasoned traveler.  But as itâs the day after Thanksgiving, I thought I would suck it up [.. ...

Reader Supported News

  • CIA Launches "WTF" - A WikiLeaks Inquiry ...
    Excerpt: "Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: WTF ..." WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, attends a news conference in London with Kristin Hrafnsson, Phil Shiner and John Sloboda, 10/23/10. (photo: Reuter ...
  • Senate Passes Scaled-Down 9/11 Health Bill
    Intro: "The Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to cover the cost of medical care for rescue workers and others who became sick from breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center." Firefighters make their way over the ruins of the World Trade Center thr ...
  • Banks Accused of Illegally Breaking Into Homes
    Andrew Martin reports: "In an era when millions of homes have received foreclosure notices nationwide, lawsuits detailing bank break-ins like the one at Ms. Ash's house keep surfacing. And in the wake of the scandal involving shoddy, sometimes illegal paperwork that has buffeted the nation's biggest ...
  • WikiLeaks Cables: Bangladeshi 'Death Squad' Traine ...
    Intro: "Rapid Action Batallion, accused of hundreds of extra-judicial killings, received training from UK officers, cables reveal." Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have received training in 'investigative interviewing techniques'. (photo: Abir Abdullah/EPA) Sorry, your browser c ...
  • Net Neutrality Gets a Fig-Leaf From the FCC
    Reader Supported News, Associated Press, Federal Communications Commission, FCC, Julius Genachowski, Net Neutrality, Capitol Hill, Democrats, Republicans, wireless carriers, blocking access, unreasonable network discrimination Julius Genachowski leads the Federal Communications Commission, which ...

War Resisters League

  • The other “Afghanistan Report”
    Whose stories are we telling about the war in Afghanistan? On the day following the White House report on the war in Afghanistan that names the war as a qualified success and calls for the U.S. to “stay the course,” we must lift up the alternative stories and reports of this near-decade of occupatio ...
  • Join the Online Demonstration for Peace in Korea - ...
    President Obama is sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington (carrying 75 warplanes and a crew of over 6000) and other warships for additional war-games with the South Korean military beginning Sunday, November 28.� This only escalates the already tense situation on the Kore ...
  • IVAW Women’s Retreat this weekend!
    Dear Supporters, My name is Joyce Wagner. I am a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, and I am a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. This Labor Day, IVAW women will hold our first ever retreat in support of women veterans. Your donation today will help us make [...]
  • Protest nuclear warhead test launch tomorrow!
    Protest September 14, 11:55 pm (midnight) missile launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base: NOTE 09/14/10: THIS LAUNCH AND PROTEST HAVE BEEN CANCELED– More info to come! Join the protest of the test launch of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) thermo-nuclear warhead delivery system ...
  • International Days of Action in Solidarity with Br ...
    Support Bradley Manning! Oakland, California, USA Thursday, September 16th, 7-9pm Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland CA (Between Telegraph and Broadway) Speakers: DANIEL ELLSBERG, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower COL. ANN WRIGHT (ret.), former US diplomat RAY MCGOVERN, former CIA analyst AIMEE AL ...

Center for a Livable Future

  • Yakima Valley Releases Draft Air Quality Policy fo ...
    Unlike agricultural water discharges which are regulated for large farms defined as CAFO by the EPA and the Clean Water Act, most agricultural air emissions are not regulated. Water discharges and air emissions that are related to industrial scale agricultural operations in rural areas are big conce ...
  • No title
    By Julia DeBruicker Valliant On the front porch, boots stamp away snow, and then the farmer steps inside.  The glasses fog up.  Off comes the jacket, the cap, and out goes the hand in greeting.  After a season spent grazing cows and sheep and pasturing pigs, hens and turkeys, meat producers from ar ...
  • Happy Holidays from the Johns Hopkins Center for a ...
  • Looking at Food System Issues through a ‘Food Just ...
    I first came upon the term “food justice” from an organization in Oakland called People’s Grocery led by Brahm Ahmadi and others who were fighting against an unjust food system in the “food desert” of West Oakland. At the time, it was an area that left residents with liquor stores and [...]
  • Fair Food in Our 21st Century Economy
    Last Wednesday, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) held the last of a series of joint workshops on “Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy.” This particular workshop was held at the USDA in Washington D.C. and focu ...

A special project of Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation

  • Crazy Like a Fox
    In a fit of anger, Hamid Karzai axes his director of intelligence, Amrullah Saleh. But is there method to his madness?
  • Addicted to Contractors
    The United States is hooked on privatized warfare in Afghanistan. And it's more costly than you think.
  • How to Whip the Afghan Army Into Shape
    Much of President Barack Obama's strategy rests on the creation of a new, more competent Afghan military. Here's what he'll need to know to get the job done.
  • Obama's Indecent Interval
    Despite the U.S. president's pleas to the contrary, the war in Afghanistan looks more like Vietnam than ever.
  • Divide and Conquer
    At an upcoming conference in London, the Afghan government will unveil its plan to bring the Taliban rank and file back into the political fold -- and plead for international assistance for its new initiative. 

Field Notes - Alberta Environment

Stop NATO

  • Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Milita ...
    Stop NATO December 23, 2010 Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II Rick Rozoff On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense Department budget. The bill, the National Defense Authorization ...
  • NATO Trains Afghan Army To Guard Asian Pipeline
    Stop NATO December 19, 2010 NATO Trains Afghan Army To Guard Asian Pipeline Rick Rozoff On December 11 the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan and the energy minister of India met in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat to bring to fruition fifteen years of planning by interests in the U ...
  • U.S. Prepares For New Decade Of War In Asia
    Stop NATO December 16, 2010 U.S. Prepares For New Decade Of War In Asia Rick Rozoff The United States is engaged in the longest war in its 234-year history in Afghanistan, one that will begin its eleventh calendar year in two weeks. Like the war that had been America’s longest before now, that in In ...
  • U.S. Builds Military Alliance With Japan, South Ko ...
    Stop NATO December 14, 2010 U.S. Builds Military Alliance With Japan, South Korea For War In The East Rick Rozoff Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton summoned her Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Foreign Ministers Seiji Maehara and Kim Sung-hwan, to Washington for trilateral talks on ...
  • White House Intensifies Military Buildup In Poland
    Stop NATO December 10, 2010 White House Intensifies Military Buildup In Poland Rick Rozoff Immediately on the heels of reports in the Guardian and other Western news media that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization has crafted a strategy to intervene with nine army divisions in the Baltic ...

Before It's News

Intel Hub

  • Rothschild-Sponsored Third Party Effort Unveiled
    American Free Press By Michael Collins Piper LATEST IN AN ONGOING SERIES Yes, the Rothschild dynasty-connected billionaire families and financial groups who own the mass media in America—interlocked with the banking interests controlling privately owned Federal Reserve System that dominates the worl ...
  • The Golem – Payday Monsanto feat Luca & Tril ...
    Taken from the new Payday Monsanto LP – out early 2011. download links coming soon… www.paydaymonsanto.com Payday Monsanto is now on The Intel Hub News Network! Tune in Saturdays 8pm est. Related Posts: IHNN: CIA Waterboarding, Zionist House Resolution, and Community Trash Collectors IHNN: Greece Ri ...
  • After Hours-Long Worldwide Outage, Skype Back to N ...
    Fox News Skype’s popular Internet telephony service has returned to normal, following an hours-long interruption of service that prevented millions of users worldwide from phoning home. Users across the globe reported issues accessing the service Wednesday morning, prompting the company to acknowled ...
  • Obama Executive Order Targets Fourth Amendment
    Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com Remember when Barry Obama said he would close Gitmo because it wasn’t right to hold people without formal charges and trials? He made the pledge soon after assuming the ceremonial throne. He said he would get it done within 12 months. Barry didn’t really mean it. Now comes wo ...
  • You Are Being Warned! Freezing Temps Worldwide May ...
    IMVA Dr. Mark Sircus This strange weather phenomenon, which you will see in the video below, happened in Newfoundland where the waves were actually frozen as they crashed on the beach. This is exactly what one would expect at the end of the warmest year on record, right? Are we freezing because of g ...

FRS

  • “Standing together against US government wit ...
    22 December 2010 As The Electronic Intifada reported in November, international solidarity and anti-war activists are facing a new wave of repression in the United States. Since 24 September, two dozen activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities across the country have been handed subpoenas b ...
  • US: The political police in a world where all are ...
    [New structures of repressive power are fashioned every day, built on tissues of lies, fabrications, suppositions, and profiles fed by cultural fears, contempt and hostility.  The words are familiar:  "illegals", "terrorists", "gangs", "outsiders", "Muslims"--because they have drummed them until the ...
  • US targets Palestine Solidarity: More Grand Jury s ...
    [The news today reveals that the Electronic Intifada (see it at http://electronicintifada.net) is  yet another target of repressive government moves against the Palestine and other internationalist solidarity movements.  Active defense of our movement and further development of our international sol ...
  • Three Wounded in Gaza, Three Arrested in Nablus
    21.12.10 – 10:00 Gaza City â PNN – Israeli air raids on Monday night in Gaza Strip left three wounded, while a predawn incursion into the northern West Bank city of Nablus ended with three Palestinians arrested in the village of Beit Hasan. . In Gaza, local sources said the airstrikes were carried o ...
  • Censorship/Suppression Watch: Apple deletes WikiLe ...
    December 21, 2010 8:13 AM Has it found common cause with Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Bank of America? Igor Barinov’s WikiLeaks App didn’t get much attention when it appeared on the App Store last Saturday. That’s not a big surprise. After all, the iPhone app wasn’t an official WikiLeak’s pr ...

Ken O'Keefe

  • TJP Liberty Report Gaza – Collecting Rocks & ...
    Since March 2010 Israel has shot 97 Palestinians who were collecting rocks or tending to their crops. In the last three weeks 22 Palestinians have been shot. What makes this all the more disgusting is that these people are doing this work simply to survive. In the case of collecting rocks they are d ...
  • The little town of Bethlehem
  • TJP Liberty Report from Gaza ‘Life in Jabaly ...
    My latest video report from Gaza.
  • BBC Panorama ‘Death in the Med’ is 100 ...
    This is a letter from Ted (from Liverpool) who pretty much dismantles BBC; please share. Aloha Ted, An absolute joy to read.  I will be spreading this enthusiastically and look forward to seeing how many of the “journalists” at the BBC manage to report the truth about their disgusting propaganda pi ...
  • TJP Liberty Report from Gaza ‘Story of Areej ...
    Throughout my time in Palestine I am constantly reminded of how I would feel as a parent to endure not being able to provide all that a child needs.  Whether it be proper food on the table, clean drinking water, schools and supplies or that most basic need of loving security, all of these things [.. ...

StillSmallVoice

  • Food fight?
    Former Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate and current reality show star Sarah Palin made a light poke at Michelle Obama's�health initiative�on Palin's show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Is it really a nanny state situation when a First Lady suggests people exercise and eat healthy fo ...
  • It's signed
    And thanks, Carol, for the link.
  • Foundation makes donation to homeless shelters
    Citizens Bank Foundation has awarded $55,000 to Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness to help 36 emergency shelters across the state with the increased cost of heating their facilities this winter.  The grant was presented on Tuesday, National Homeless Person Memorial Day, the first day of w ...
  • Has Christmas lost its meaning to commercialism?
    Read the Bloggingheads' take on it at the New York Times. And thanks, Letha, for the link. Flickr photo
  • What's your calling?
    Are you watching "The Calling" on PBS? You can read more here or here. And you can read an essay from the director, Danny Alpert,�here.

Associated Content

Popsci - Science

  • Video: Smartest Dog Ever Can Pick Out 1,022 Toys B ...
    Bet your Christmas puppy won’t be able to do this. Actually, you’d better hope it can’t, because your dog-toy needs might break the bank. A border collie named Chaser has learned the names of 1,022 individual items — more than any other animal, even the legendary Alex the parrot. Psychologists All ...
  • FYI: What Is the Evolutionary Purpose of Tickling?
    You probably know that you can't tickle yourself. And although you might be able to tickle a total stranger, your brain also strongly discourages you from doing something so socially awkward. These facts offer insight into tickling’s evolutionary purpose, says Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist at ...
  • FYI: What Is the Evolutionary Purpose of Tickling?
    You probably know that you can't tickle yourself. And although you might be able to tickle a total stranger, your brain also strongly discourages you from doing something so socially awkward. These facts offer insight into tickling’s evolutionary purpose, says Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist at ...
  • Japanese Create A Mutant Mouse That Tweets Like a ...
    A laboratory at the University of Osaka running an ongoing study on evolution has revealed that they’ve produced a genetically engineered mouse that tweets like a bird. They’ve produced more than 100 of them actually, as well as a mouse with short limbs and one with a tail like a dachshund. It’s al ...
  • Total Lunar Eclipse Visible From North America Ton ...
    And it's the first lunar eclipse to fall on the winter solstice in 372 years For the first time since 1638, a total lunar eclipse will be visible from North America on the longest night of the year. That night just happens to be tonight, starting at 1:32 AM, so all you moon-oglers will have to stay ...

Veterans Today

  • 9/11Video: Tower Explosions Occurred Prior to Plan ...
    In the video there are two shots of the planes colliding into the World Trade Center towers, the second airplane didn’t exactly look like a commercial plane. In both cases, the explosions relating to the planes' collisions appear to occur prior to the planes' impact…!
  • JEFF GATES: WHY IS ISRAELI SPY JONATHAN POLLARD B ...
    Why Is Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard Back in the News? By Jeff Gates Over the past two months, Benjamin Netanyahu has mentioned the fate of jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard six times in meetings with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Israel lobby also mounted a letter-wri ...
  • President Obama’s Statement on Repeal of &#8 ...
    With his signature today, the President put in motion the end of a policy that has hurt our military as a whole, that has forced thousands of those who serve to do so under a cloud of anxiety and isolation, and that has stood as a symbol of the barriers to unity and equality in our [...]
  • The War Prayer
    “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth”âMark Twain (March 30, 1905). On the occasion of the publication of the Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, published on the centenary of the author’s death, here is another work published post ...
  • War Is Over If We Want It, by John Lennon
    The power of music to inspire has never been so eloquently illustrated as by John Lennon as he spoke for peace in the face of 1,000,000s dead, maimed and traumatized in the Vietnam War; efforts that engaged President Nixon to attempt to deport such a dangerous man. Even now, the music of John Lennon ...

War is Business

  • Is The Pentagon The World’s Biggest Sucker?
    The Pentagon demonstrated an astonishingly naïve level of trust with a company run from a hotel suite and registered at a mail drop in the tropics.
  • Security Firms Shake Down Oil Companies In Iraq
    “Halliburton often receives…’questionable’ reports of vulnerability of employees to kidnapping and ransom. [Halliburton's manager for Iraq] recently saw an internal memo from their security company which tasked its employees to emphasize the persistent danger faced by IOCs [international oil compani ...
  • Now That’s Charity: Bill Exempts Nonprofits ...
    There’s some curious language in the annual Pentagon budget bill that passed the US House of Representatives last Friday, and awaits Senate approval. Section 832 of the fiscal year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act is titled “extension of regulations on contractors performing private security ...
  • Gracias
    Last week, War Is Business had an item picked up by Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog. Even better, the site got a really nice write-up at the website of Mother Jones magazine. Thanks to them for the recognition, thanks to the readers who’ve aided our research efforts through the DIY WIB form, and t ...
  • Defense Sector Proves, Accountability Is For Sucke ...
    Tricare officials have worried in private meetings about the high cost of cognitive rehabilitation, which can cost $15,000 to $50,000 per soldier. â¢â¢â¢ In public, the US military insurance program cites bogus “studies,” not cost, to justify its failure to cover brain injury treatment for “nearly 4 ...

Hudson's Weather & Climate

  • Is the perceived rise in flooding real?
    It was claimed by experts following the floods of Autumn 2000 that such rainfall events were a taste of things to come, with increased autumn and winter rainfall a central projection of climate models. In fact, current forecasts for later this century suggest that parts of Yorkshire will see an inc ...
  • Winter's on its way
    Winter looks set to come early to the UK with very cold air expected to sweep southwards across most areas by the end of the week and into next weekend. By Saturday, the air will be unusually cold for November and with still relatively warm seas, all the ingredients are there for some heavy falls ...
  • Snow showers and Ice for many tonight
    The first wintry night of the season may pose problems for some commuters across parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in the morning. Showers already running down the North Sea and into coastal areas will gradually move inland through tonight as the steering flow veers more to the Northeast. Most o ...
  • Winter to continue well into next week
    It has been the earliest spell of cold weather and snow to envelop the whole of the UK since 1993. But it hasn't been the earliest snow locally; in fact here in Yorkshire we have had snow in November on several occasions since 1993. And spare a thought for Spain and Portugal. The jet stream will st ...
  • Records tumble as winter tightens its grip
    UPDATE AT 10pm on Monday 29th Nov Bradford Lister park recorded minus 7.5C; the coldest November night since records began in 1908. Linton on Ouse recorded its coldest November night too with minus 11.2C. Remarkably on November 4th the same station recorded its highest daytime November temperatur ...

    Blacklisted News

    The Intelligence Daily

    My AntiWar

    CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

    • Is a US-Iran Nuclear Deal in the Works?
      Summary: Between now and January the United States is going to have to engage in some spirited, behind-the-scenes talks with Iran to make the negotiations work. source: The Nationread more
    • Former US Senator Gravel: 'Israeli lobby behind Ir ...
      Summary: The United States has imposed fresh unilateral sanctions on several Iranian companies ahead of the upcoming multifaceted talks between Iran and the P5+1. The following is the transcript of Press TV's interview with former US senator Mike Gravel on the issue. source: Press TVread mor ...
    • Lula Strongly Criticized Obama for His Dishonest A ...
      Summary: Lula Brazil’s President after several months past the Tehran Nuclear Declaration strongly criticized US President Barack Obama for turning his back on efforts made by Brazil and Turkey over peaceful resumption of a nuclear fuel swap dea with Iran. source: Hamsayehread more
    • Iran-P5+1 talks to continue in Brazil
      Summary: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hinted that after talks with major world powers in Turkey, Tehran plans to continue negotiations in Brazil and then Iran. source: Press TVread more
    • Carrying anti-Iran tales, top official angled for ...
      Summary: India's first major embarrassment from the Wikileaks closet came tumbling out on Friday with the revelation that a top official had initiated unauthorised contact with the United States embassy to complain about Iran and pitch for a U.S. visit, where he could receive inputs that would ...

    The Daily Galaxy

    • The Daily Galaxy 'Holiday' Contest -Win a Free $50 ...
      Use it towards a purchase of an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Hundreds of Other Apple Products and Accessories. Users of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon are invited to discover, review and share Daily Galaxy posts you love on...
    • TOTAL Eclipse! December 21 (A Viewer's Guide)
      The combination of a total eclipse of the moon and the winter solstice will make for a rare late tonight and tomorrow. Although lunar eclipses are common, there hasn't been one on Dec. 21 in 372 years, NASA says. The...
    • Did Monster 'Dark Stars' Spawn the Supermassive Bl ...
      Dark matter not only had a role to play in fueling early stars, it may have created "dark stars" so massive that they went on to spawn supermassive black holes found at the cores of the one trillion galaxies estimated...
    • Today's Most Popular: Recent Findings Hints Quantu ...
      In what would be a potentially explosive finding, a team of scientists at the National University of Singapore suggested that it is quantum entanglement that holds our DNA together. In quantum entanglement, two objects are connected by an invisible wave...
    • Image of the Day: X-rays From Lightning -What Supe ...
      Using a custom-built camera the size of a refrigerator, Florida researchers have made the world’s first crude pictures of X-rays streaming from a stroke of lightning. Seeing X-rays in relation to the lightning “leader,” the initial spark and the channel...

    Natural News

    • US Surgeon General lies by omission: Smoking one c ...
      (NaturalNews) In what can only be called a bizarre leap of pseudoscience, U.S. Surgeon General Dr Regina M. Benjamin recently announced that smoking one cigarette can kill you. In fact, she says, just breathing in the smoke from someone else cigarette can kill you, she claims. It's all part of a jus ...
    • Study: fluoridated water causes brain damage in ch ...
      (NaturalNews) A new study pre-published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives confirms that fluoridated water causes brain damage in children. The most recent among 23 others pertaining to fluoride and lowered IQ levels, the new study so strongly proves that fluoride is a dangerous, brain ...
    • FCC internet takeover faces potential roadblock
      (NaturalNews) Just days after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to essentially take over the internet, FOX News is reporting that a procedural delay could bring any new FCC rules to a grinding halt. Several Congressmen plan to take advantage of the 60-day waiting period requir ...
    • Terrorist may poison the food supply (but the food ...
      (NaturalNews) Always on the terror streak, the mainstream media is now warning Americans that terrorists may strike the food supply by dumping poison into restaurant salad bars and buffets, for example. CBS News broke the story, quoting anonymous "intelligence" sources who insist that terrorists mig ...
    • Leaked reports reveal US threatened EU to accept G ...
      (NaturalNews) The European Union (EU) has been largely resistant to adopting genetically-modified organisms (GMO), and rightly so considering their threat to human health and to the environment. But recently-released leaked cables have revealed that Bush Administration-appointed, former U.S. Ambassa ...

    Threat Level

    • Judge Slaps Government’s Wrist For Illegal Wiretap
      A federal judge on Tuesday awarded $20,400 each to two American lawyers illegally wiretapped by the George W. Bush administration, and granted their counsel $2.5 million for the costs litigating the case for more than four years. It was the first and likely only lawsuit in which there was a ruling a ...
    • Apple Bans Lame WikiLeaks App
      Apple on Monday banned an iPhone and iPad app designed to facilitate access to WikiLeaks’ unfolding cache of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, putting the company on the growing list of U.S. corporations aligned against the secret-spilling site. “We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because ...
    • Newspaper Lawsuit Factory Sues Over ‘Death Ray’ Im ...
      Righthaven, the Las Vegas copyright troll formed this spring, has moved beyond lawsuits over newspaper articles and begun targeting websites for the unauthorized reposting of images. First up, more than a dozen infringement lawsuits concerning the so-called Vdara “death ray.” The Vdara “death ray” d ...
    • Video: The Time Julian Assange Hacked the Pentagon
      WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reflects on his hacking of a Defense Department network in the 1990s.
    • Details of Sex Crime Allegations Against WikiLeaks ...
      Leaked police reports from Sweden are providing the most detailed account to date of the rape and molestation allegations circling WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange was freed from a London jail on $300,000 bail on Thursday, after being held for nine days on an arrest warrant issued from Swed ...

    PERRspectives : Blog

    • Haley Barbour and the GOP Confederacy of Dunces
      of the Jim Crow era is that the Mississippi Governor and would-have-been 2012 White House hopeful has plenty of company among the leading lights of the Republican Party. From flying the Confederate flag to talking up secession and nullification, Republicans for years have been casually trafficking ...
    • Studies Refute Justice Kennedy on Post-Abortion Sy ...
      In one of the most condescending and paternalistic Supreme Court opinions in recent memory, Justice Anthony Kennedy in April 2007 upheld a federal late term abortion ban on the grounds that "some women come to regret their choice." 18 months later, an exhaustive study of 20 years of research conclu ...
    • The Final Fury of John McCain
      Over the last several weeks, John McCain's rapid descent into furious incoherence has spawned a cottage industry of McCainologists. But his open scorn and seething rage over Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the DREAM Act, the START Treaty and even aid to 9/11 responders is hardly McCain's first performance o ...
    • Sarah Palin's Double Standard on Double Standards
      Like a broken clock, even Sarah Palin is occasionally right. So it is with her suggestion that the perpetually weepy incoming House Speaker John Boehner is getting a free pass for theatrical water works a woman could never survive politically. As it turns out, the half-term governor is speaking fr ...
    • Your Tax Dollars at Work
      On Friday, the House approved the $801 billion "compromise" tax bill, sending it on to the White House for President Obama's signature. Over the next two years, that budget-busting, gilded class giveaway will cost the Treasury $70 billion in revenue lost from the top 2% of taxpayers and another $25 ...

    Blackspot News Feed

    • The Great Tax Cut Debate - Myths and Facts
      In the lame-duck Congress agenda, perhaps the most substantive debate is over whether to continue tax breaks for the rich. President Obama and most Congressional Democrats want to extend the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, everyone making under $250,000. Republicans want to extend the tax ...
    • What Landslide?: A Closer Look at the Midterm Elec ...
      By now, everyone has heard of the conservative "tidal wave" that has overtaken Congress and most gubernatorial seats throughout the U.S. Indeed, anyone who has watched mainstream media coverage probably understands the midterm election results as a "rebuke of Obama's policies," with the "Tea Party m ...
    • INS Targets Community Leaders, Not Criminals
      When people the world over think of Arizona nowadays, they generally think of Governor Jan Brewer, Sheriff Joe Arpaio or state representative Russell Pearce – the poster children of the state's move toward legalized discrimination and racial profiling. If they are closely following the politics of t ...
    • Dancing with Dynamite:How Citizens Can be More Tha ...
      Two years ago, President Obama sailed into the White House on the winds of voters’ desire for widespread social change and their disgust with two wars and a massive recession associated with George W. Bush. Only two years into his presidency and the concurrent Democratic takeover of Congress, howeve ...
    • Pope Says Condoms Acceptable 'In Certain Cases'
      Until now, the Vatican had prohibited the use of any form of contraception -- other than abstinence -- even as a guard against sexually transmitted disease.

    Consortium News

    • 'Giant' Holbrooke Failed on Afghan War
      Eulogies are pouring in for US 'Afghan War' envoy Richard Holbrooke, but is all this praise warranted, asks Ray McGovern. December 14, 2010
    • The War to Silence WikiLeaks
      The US assault on WikiLeaks raises doubts about the nation's commitment to freedom of the press, argues Elliot D. Cohen. December 13, 2010
    • WikiLeaks and the Power of Truth
      The WikiLeaks' disclosures offer detail and context to government actions that strengthen democracy, writes Rory O'Connor. December 13, 2010
    • Bush v. Gore's Dark American Decade
      Ten years ago, five Republican US Supreme Court justices put the country on a path toward disaster, recalls Robert Parry. December 12, 2010
    • How the Right Shapes US 'Reality'
      From global warming to foreign wars, the Right shapes the "reality" of many Americans, observes Lawrence Davidson. December 11, 2010

    CounterPunch

    Institute for Middle East Understanding

    Water - AlterNet

    Public Citizen in Texas

    • Far from the madding crowd
      It’s well after 10pm and the crowd at the Sunset Advisory Commission hearing has dwindled, including the commisioners.  Of the 12 commissioners, I’m only seeing five still on the dias and as the camera periodically pans the audience, one can see that it has thinned considerably since this morning. ...
    • Sunset Commission hearing keeps going and going an ...
      Here I am at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar people watching Christmas shoppers (for those readers not  from Austin, the Armadillo Bazaar is an annual artist Christmas venue which has been happening in our fair city for 30+ years and runs every day the two weeks before Christmas – yes they are he ...
    • Texas, home to Big Oil, takes shine to solar power ...
      Reuters carried a good story with this headline Texas, home to Big Oil takes a shine to solar power that describes the solar potential that exists, along with industry involvement and how it could be expanded here if we could just develop some statewide policy that supports it. Too bad the commissio ...
    • Texas Blog Roundup for Monday, Dec 13, 2010
      The Texas Progressive Alliance is stocking up on figgy pudding as it brings you this week’s blog roundup. Off the Kuff covered a shoddy attempt by new Harris County Tax Assessor Don Sumners to disallow voter registration efforts at naturalization ceremonies. Letters From Texas projected out the grim ...
    • Pecan Grower’s Lament
      As the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission’s hearing on TxDOT, TxRRC and TCEQ continues, visiting citizens have been sharing their stories with us.  Many of them are here to testify about issues they have had with TCEQ, and we hope the commission will move the hearing along so that those who have tr ...

    Unexplained Mysteries

    • New Zealand releases UFO files
      The New Zealand government has released hundreds of documents on UFOs dating back as far as 1954. New Zealand Air Force spokeman Kavae Tamariki has em...
    • Paralysed woman cured by faith healer ?
      A woman who had been confined to a weelchair for 23 years was allegedly cured by a British faith healer. A video of Delia Knox standing up during her ...
    • Theatre stages Klingon Christmas Carol
      A theatre in Chicago is giving Strek Trek fans a treat this Christmas with a production entirely in Klingon. Its a new take on the classic Dickens tal...
    • Rendlesham - was it an Air Force blunder ?
      Was the Rendleshem UFO actually an Apollo capsule dropped from a helicopter by accident ? The theory involves the capsule being accidently dropped aft...
    • World's first permanent 'bionic' eyes
      For the first time bionic eye implants will become available to patients on a permanent basis. The revolutionary microchip can be implanted in to the ...

    Grassroots

    • Building food sovereignty and economic justice
      2010_brazil_site_visit_026.jpg �read more
    • Traveling with The Vía Campesina’s Caravans for Li ...
      soberania_ya.jpg ��¡La Tierra No Se Vende � Se Ama y Se Defiende!� (English translation: �The Land is Not for Sale � It must be Loved and Defended!�) � A change from woman fighting against a large dam in Alpuyeca, Mexico read more
    • Brazilian referendum seeks limits to land concentr ...
      plebiscito_popular_logo.jpg Members of the Brazilian National Forum for Agrarian Reform and Justice announced this week the results of a non-binding referendum about whether the Brazilian government should limit the concentration of land held ...
    • Development Volunteer
      Grassroots International has an opportunity for someone interested in assisting our Development team on an ongoing, on-line research project to identify possible funding sources, including from foundations and ally organizations. We are looking for someone to start immediately, working flexible dayt ...
    • Setting the Standard for Global Resource Rights De ...
      4420078955_43729050f0_b.jpg The United Nations designates December 10 as International Human Rights Day. At Grassroots International, we give special recognition to the efforts of our partners and allies around the world—but for them, it’s jus ...

    Climate

    • Governments Vow to Overhaul Environmental Monitori ...
      Source:� Globe and Mail The federal and provincial governments are vowing to establish a "gold standard" of environmental monitoring of the oil sands after reports suggested regulators are flying blind.
    • U.S. Renewable Energy Tax Grants Extended for 1 Ye ...
      Source:� Reuters The renewable energy industry cheered the passage of the U.S. tax bill, which included a provision to extend a generous grant program for projects in the fast-growing sector.
    • State of Alaska to Sue Over Polar Bears
      Source:� AP The state of Alaska says it intends to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over protections recently put in place to help polar bears faced with the effects of climate change.
    • House Dems to Interior: More Science Needed Before ...
      Source:� The Hill More than 35 House Dems are urging the Interior Department not to approve Royal Dutch Shell's request to drill in waters off Alaska's coast until more scientific information is available.
    • EPA to Double Down on Climate
      Source:� Politico The Obama administration is expected to roll out a major greenhouse gas policy as soon as Wednesday, signaling it won't back off its push to fight climate change.

    GreenBiz

    • 12 Energy Efficiency Tips from EDF 'Elves'
      In the spirit of the holiday season, EDF's Climate Corps team shares tips to help businesses be more energy efficient all year long.
    • UL Environment's EPD Program Offers Greater Produc ...
      Amid increasing demands for verified information about products' impact on the planet, UL Environment will launch an environmental product declaration program in January. Building materials, lighting and textile makers are among the businesses that have already expressed interest in such a service.
    • Why It's Time to Rethink Recycling in the US
      Traditional plastic bottle recycling bills in the U.S. often leave out other types of packaging that end up in landfills, but a new hybrid recycling program in the Canadian province of Manitoba may demonstrate how industry can take successfully take sole responsibility for its product packaging wast ...
    • Energy Management Not a Priority for Many CFOs
      Early research results suggest that energy management is far from a top priority for many chief financial officers, yet this area represents a rich area of cost savings at a time when revenue growth for many companies has stagnated.
    • GM's Journey From the Gulf to the Volt
      Let's bring some perspective to GM's use of waste from Gulf oil spill cleanup booms in the Volt and its other recent electric and hybrid vehicle news.

    Reuters Global

    • The best reads of 2010
      Reuters Editor Toni Reinhold chooses the best Reuters reads of 2010. Stories that are interesting, informative, eye opening and enlightening.
    • UN victory for gay rights supporters
      Suporters of rights for gays and lesbians worldwide secured a major victory at the United Nations this week. The 192-nation U.N. General Assembly voted to restore a reference to killings due to sexual orientation that had been deleted from a resolution condemning unjustified slayings.
    • Africa’s trying tradition of sit-tight leade ...
      As a new president takes office in Africa with a vow to follow Nelson Mandela's example in unifying his country, he might also remember Mandela's willingness to step down rather than become another sit-tight ruler.
    • Pakistan:the unintended consequences of U.S. press ...
      U.S. pressure on Pakistan to do more to fight Islamist militants is having dangerously unpredictable consequences. Pakistan is pushing back and calling for a political settlement in Afghanistan.
    • China’s South Asia tour: win-win meets zero ...
      Just over a year ago, President Barack Obama suggested during a visit to Beijing that China and the United States could cooperate on bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan. As I wrote at the time, China — Islamabad’s most loyal partner — was an obvious country to turn to for help in working ...

    Booman Tribune

    • He Ate Your Lunch
      Today was such a good day that it actually led me to watch a little Fox News just so I could gloat a little bit. I was rewarded by seeing Rick Santorum looking shell-shocked and dumbfounded that the president had been able to reel off such a succession of major victories. As for Fox News, they are ...
    • Obama Sweeps Almost Everything
      The president supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] and enacting the Employee Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA], but he knows that neither will happen in the next two years unless attitudes change dramatically within the Republican caucus. As for his own attitude, he hints again that he ...
    • DADT is Dead
      Nice touch. "We are not a nation that says don't ask don't tell. We're a nation that says out of many we are one." - President Barack Obama, December 22, 2010, before signing the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law. The policy is dead. Discuss
    • Gitmo Cowards
      The New York Times makes a funny: Civil liberties and human rights groups many of whom dislike any policy that involves holding prisoners without trial reacted with ambivalence to the report that the Obama team has been working on an executive order to establish formal reviews. Find me anyon ...
    • Time to Talk Some Smack
      The Senate passed a test-vote on START ratification with 67 votes. What this means is that the president is going to succeed in his number one priority foreign policy item in his first two years in the White House. He also just completed a total repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, and ...

    European Tribune

    Futurismic

    • Personal Information: episode 24
      Personal Information is a new serial sci-fi webcomic from Sarah “Does Not Equal” Ennals. Follow Futurismic on Twitter for more nuggets of near-future fun and weirdness! Share and Enjoy:Follow Futurismic on Twitter for more nuggets of near-future fun and weirdness!
    • Arguments against life extension
      Via Michael Anissimov, here’s a spectacularly empty diatribe against “deathhackers” by TechCrunch‘s Paul Carr. Carr objects to the idea of radical life extension as advocated by transhumanists, which is fair enough, but as written here most of his objections seem to boil down to personal distate tow ...
    • Daddy, where does innovation come from?
      Plenty of folk have been linking to this excerpt from Matt Ridley’s new book The Rational Optimist, and with good reason – it’s a provocative piece that plays to advocates (and opponents) of free trade, open exchange, copyright reform and much more. The basic thesis? The one persistent factor that h ...
    • Replacement arms: mechanical or biological?
      Prosthetic limbs are still in their infancy, but there’s a lot of progress being made: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is working with Darpa (who else?), and has a research grant for trying out their mind-controlled modular prosthetic arm on five test subjects over the next couple of years ...
    • How to be a futurist
      The irrepressible Scott “Basic Instructions” Meyer has the lowdown if you’re thinking of a career in futurism: Click through for the whole thing. But take it from me, being a futurist is a lot of work for no money. Or maybe that’s just the way I do it… and I’ve never been featured in a [...]Follow F ...

    Therapy News

    • How We Think About Addiction: Happiness, Stigma, a ...
      A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Once a person becomes addicted to a substance, be it alcohol, tobacco or drugs, the addiction becomes a biological and medical problem. But how as person thinks about quitting, and often, why they started using the substance in the first place, is far more psychologica ...
    • What Do You Do When You Can’t Afford Treatment?
      A GoodTherapy.org News Headline While understanding of how therapy’s effectiveness is growing, many people’s health insurance plans—if they are insured—do not provide enough coverage for that person to receive adequate treatment. As recently documented in the New York Times, this is especially true ...
    • Therapy Issues: Discerning the Professional from t ...
      A GoodTherapy.org News Summary The role of a therapist or counselor is a unique one. Therapists are trained professionals: they are educated, licensed, and experienced in their area of practice. Their work is bordered by offices and structured by schedules. And it’s exactly that: their work. The cli ...
    • Address Your Stress: It’s Essential
      A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Not addressing stress and anxiety can have measurable psychological and physical affects. Itâs easy to view stress in the short term: just get through this project, this busy day, this hectic week, the holiday season – then everything will be calm. But according to ne ...
    • When Resources are Lacking, Who Provides Counselin ...
      A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Ideally, those who struggle emotionally and psychologically will find a therapist or counselor who is well-trained, well-qualified, and experienced. But the global reality is that not all people have access to such mental health professionals. Finances are often a dete ...

    Mountaintop Removal

    • Crede Haskins Calhoun: Mountaintop removal is dest ...
      Crede Haskins Calhoun: Mountaintop removal is destroying state Charleston Gazette The original federal lawsuit in West Virginia where the honorable Judge Hayden ruled that the mining practice of mountaintop removal violated the Clean ...
    • Coal Industry's Orwellian Rebranding of Mountainto ...
      Coal Industry's Orwellian Rebranding of Mountaintop Removal Natural Resources Defense Council (blog) The coal industry reportedly has a cynical plan to re-brand mountaintop removal to make it seem more palatable to the public. In this case, blowing up an ... Initiative looks to change public percep ...
    • Sierra Club: 2010, Outlook Dimmed for Coal - eNews ...
      Red, Green, and Blue Sierra Club: 2010, Outlook Dimmed for Coal eNews Park Forest Most new mountaintop removal coal mining permits are on hold while EPA determines if they meet clean water protection standards. ... This Year, the Outlook Dimmed for CoalAlterNet (blog) all 3 news articles�� ...
    • Coal Lobbyist Grinches Stole 2010 As Obama Transpa ...
      Coal Lobbyist Grinches Stole 2010 As Obama Transparency Initiative Falters De Smog Blog (blog) There's also the continued assault on Appalachian communities and waterways posed by mountaintop removal mining. “We're tearing up the Appalachian Mountains ...
    • A conversation with Bill McKibben - Grist Magazine
      A conversation with Bill McKibben Grist Magazine I was drawn into the mountaintop-removal plight when I gave a talk at Virginia Tech. The students told me about nearby Coal River Mountain, which Massey ... and more��

    Memeorandum

    • MooreandMe: And Then He Came Down (Sady/Tiger Beat ...
      Sady / Tiger Beatdown: MooreandMe: And Then He Came Down  —  Last night, I did something I hadn't done in a very long time.  I took a long, hot bath.  I just laid there, and I started to feel how tired I was, and I started to feel less tense.  And then I got up, and I went to my bedroom, and I laid ...
    • 9/11 First Responders Storm Tom Coburn's Office To ...
      The Huffington Post: 9/11 First Responders Storm Tom Coburn's Office To Protest Block On Their Health Care Bill (VIDEO)  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? … UPDATE: The Senate has reached a deal that is expected to allow for the passage of a scaled-down health care package.  —  Senator Coburn responded in ...
    • 111th Congress comes to a close; new session begin ...
      Alexander Bolton / The Hill: 111th Congress comes to a close; new session begins on Jan. 5  —  The House on Wednesday evening passed a motion to adjourn the 111th Congress “Sine Die”, bringing to a close Democrats four-year reign in the lower chamber.  —  It also ended what has been the most produc ...
    • Steven Spielberg advising Nancy Pelosi on rebrandi ...
      Rachel Weiner / The Fix: Steven Spielberg advising Nancy Pelosi on rebranding Democrats … THE FIX NEWSLETTERS … THE LIVE FIX … POLITICS & PINTS
    • Shock: Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson f ...
      Stephen C. Webster / Raw Story: Shock: Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson favors marijuana legalization  —  Robertson a welcome addition to drug reform circles, former narc tells Raw Story  —  Count this among the 10 things nobody ever expected to see in their lifetimes: 700 Club founder Pa ...

    Energy & Environment News

    5+ quakes - 7 days

    China Dialogue

    • Too little to waste
      Boosting supply won’t solve Beijing’s chronic water shortage unless the government also tackles the careless habits of city dwellers, Yin Mingwan tells Jiang Hongtao. “We’ve been using it for over a decade, how can it just run out?” Mrs Wang lives in the Tianxin Jiayuan complex in the Beijing subu ...
    • Development with identity
      Forest conservation projects in China transformed livelihoods but also brought an end to traditional agriculture, threatening crop and animal species and, Andreas Wilkes explains, culture too.A township government in Gongshan county, in south-west China's Yunnan province, appointed Bingdang (a pseud ...
    • After the flood
      Half a year on, scientists are starting to understand the ecological impact of Pakistan’s devastating floods – and it’s a mixed bag. Zofeen T Ebrahim reports.Five months ago, floods triggered by torrential rains submerged one-fifth of Pakistan, killing 2,000 people and destroying the property, livel ...
    • Living on the edge
      Low-lying deltas are home to half the world’s population and much of its wealth, but they are also on the frontlines of climate change. Olivia Boyd looks at the challenges.This year, officials in Jakarta realised they had a serious problem: rain – and more rain. Indonesia’s wet months are famously s ...
    • Relic of a planned economy
      Chinese business is paying the price for inefficient and unfair green policies. It’s time for the government to re-think its role in environmental protection, writes Tang Hao.2010 is the final year of China’s 11th Five-Year Plan. In the first four years, the energy-intensity of the Chinese economy f ...

    AlterNet Top Stories

    Threat Level

    • Judge Slaps Government’s Wrist For Illegal Wiretap
      A federal judge on Tuesday awarded $20,400 each to two American lawyers illegally wiretapped by the George W. Bush administration, and granted their counsel $2.5 million for the costs litigating the case for more than four years. It was the first and likely only lawsuit in which there was a ruling a ...
    • Apple Bans Lame WikiLeaks App
      Apple on Monday banned an iPhone and iPad app designed to facilitate access to WikiLeaks’ unfolding cache of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, putting the company on the growing list of U.S. corporations aligned against the secret-spilling site. “We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because ...
    • Newspaper Lawsuit Factory Sues Over ‘Death Ray’ Im ...
      Righthaven, the Las Vegas copyright troll formed this spring, has moved beyond lawsuits over newspaper articles and begun targeting websites for the unauthorized reposting of images. First up, more than a dozen infringement lawsuits concerning the so-called Vdara “death ray.” The Vdara “death ray” d ...
    • Video: The Time Julian Assange Hacked the Pentagon
      WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reflects on his hacking of a Defense Department network in the 1990s.
    • Details of Sex Crime Allegations Against WikiLeaks ...
      Leaked police reports from Sweden are providing the most detailed account to date of the rape and molestation allegations circling WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange was freed from a London jail on $300,000 bail on Thursday, after being held for nine days on an arrest warrant issued from Swed ...

    Reuters - Most Popular Articles

    • Drunken driver gets 51 years for death of Angels p ...
      LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The young motorist convicted of murder for driving drunk in the car crash that killed Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was sentenced to 51 years to life on Wednesday.
    • Woman arrested after disabled teen left at SeaWorl ...
      ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A Miami woman on Tuesday posted bail and was released from jail following her arrest for allegedly abandoning her severely disabled 18-year-old son at SeaWorld theme park.
    • Oil jumps to 2-year high on stockpile drop and col ...
      NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil jumped above $90 a barrel on Wednesday to settle at that level for the first time in 26 months as a third straight weekly drop in U.S. crude inventories and cold weather spurred pre-holiday buying.
    • Carcinogen Found in Many Cities' Tap Water
      An analysis of 35 U.S. cities' tap water has found that 31 one of these water sources contain exceedingly high levels of hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen.The study is the first of its kind ever to be released to the public and comes, fortuitously, as the EPA is deciding whether to set safe dr ...
    • Special Report: Is America the sick man of the glo ...
      SAGINAW, Michigan (Reuters) - Not long ago, if you wanted steak for lunch at the Texan Restaurant, less than two minutes drive from the Nexteer Automotive assembly plant, you had to be in the door by 11 o'clock in the morning. If you arrived any later, you joined a long line with other laggards and ...

    IntelNews

    • News you may have missed #461
      London expels Russian diplomat for spying. Syria saw Israel behind aide's assassination, leaked cables show. Israel to publicly press for release of spy held in US. Continue reading →
    • WikiLeaks revelations keep coming, but few pay att ...
      Most Western news outlets are now focusing almost exclusively on the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Few are paying attention to the details of Assangeâs rape allegations in Sweden, which have sparked an interesting âthough limitedâ debate about possible links between Assangeâs accusers an ...
    • Israel silent on alleged Mossad spy ring uncovered ...
      Israeli government officials have refused comment on charges announced yesterday against an alleged Mossad spy ring in neighboring Egypt. Less than a week after the discovery of what appear to be Israeli surveillance devices hidden in the mountains around Lebanese capital Beirut, two Israelis have b ...
    • Mystery ‘spy devices’ found in Lebanon mountains
      A statement issued by the Lebanese armed forces last week details the discovery of at least two mysterious spy devices located in mountain ranges around the Lebanese capital Beirut. The discovery, which was apparently made early last week, concerns two allegedly Israeli-made electronic devices hidde ...
    • News you may have missed #460
      Deported Russian spy gets Rosneft oil job. WikiLeaks defectors to launch OpenLeaks alternative. Former spies see benefits in WikiLeaks disclosures. Continue reading →

    War is a Crime.org

    • Be the Peace You Want to See on Earth
      By David Swanson "And the bewildered herd is still believing Everything we've been told from our birth Hell they won't lie to me Not on my own damn TV But how much is a liar's word worth And what happened to peace on earth" --Willie Nelson When President Barack Obama joined the ranks of Henry ...
    • Jay Bybee and Me: Our Secret Relationship
      By Susan Harman     It’s time the world knew of my secret relationship. It’s been going on discreetly now for a year and a half. Although it’s unrequited, I’m very loyal, and hold firmly to the belief that some day my fidelity will be rewarded. Who’s the recipient of my faithful attentions? None oth ...
    • THANKS TO YOUR EFFORTS: UN looking into WikiLeaks ...
      BY the Associated Press HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- The United Nations' top anti-torture envoy is looking into a complaint that the Army private suspected of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks has been mistreated in custody, a spokesperson said Wednesday. The office of Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur ...
    • AUDIO: Malalai Joia, David Swanson, and Lila Garre ...
      Listen here: mp3.
    • U.S. Plan for High-Risk Raids into Pakistan Is Mor ...
      By Gareth Porter, IPS WASHINGTON, Dec 22, 2010 (IPS) - This week's leak to the New York Times of a proposal for U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids against Afghan insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan may be intended to put more pressure on the Pakistani military to take action against those sanc ...

    Grist - News

    • California approves first broad U.S. climate plan
      by Agence France-Presse. SAN FRANCISCO -- California has approved the most sweeping U.S. plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, acting on its own against climate change as proposed nationwide plans flounder in Washington. The largest U.S. state, which would be the world's eighth largest econom ...
    • U.S. sues BP, nine others over Gulf oil spill
      by Agence France-Presse. WASHINGTON -- The United States filed suit Wednesday against BP and nine other companies for damages stemming from this year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst in U.S. history. The complaint was filed by the Justice Department with a federal court in New Orlean ...
    • Climate talks make progress as Bolivia demands mor ...
      by Agence France-Presse. CANCUN -- The world's climate negotiators on Thursday inched toward compromise on fighting deforestation and assisting poor nations, even as Bolivia's firebrand leader demanded more aggressive action. With one day left for the U.N.-led talks in Mexico, South African Pres ...
    • Guarded hope at U.N. climate talks
      by Agence France-Presse. CANCUN, Mexico -- Negotiators on climate change were raising their hopes Sunday after signs of modest progress in Mexico, but a dispute over the future of the Kyoto Protocol threatened to derail momentum. The 194-nation talks at the Caribbean resort city of Cancun were ...
    • Cancun climate talks hit bump thanks to Japan and ...
      by Agence France-Presse. CANCUN, Mexico -- World climate talks struck a sour note on their third day Wednesday as Japan was accused of weakening the campaign for a post-2012 treaty by retreating from the landmark Kyoto Protocol. With negotiators laboring to unblock a complex, interlinked two-tr ...

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    Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

    Time - Top Stories

    Farming Pathogens

    • That’s the Thicke
      The logistics of a just, equitable and healthy agricultural landscape here in the United States would remain a problem if Michael Pollan himself, Wendell Berry, or better yet Fred Magdoff were appointed Secretary of Agriculture. Decades-long efforts pealing back agribusiness both as paradigm and inf ...
    • Farming Pathogens Semifinalist
      Thanks to your votes Farming Pathogens piece ‘The Alan Greenspan Strain’ is a semifinalist in 3 Quarks Daily’s search for best political blog post of the year. Those posts remaining will be judged as early as today by 3 Quarks Daily editors. The final six will then be judged by Harper’s and Lapham’s ...
    • Vote Farming Pathogens
      Farming Pathogens post ‘The Alan Greenspan Strain’ is nominated for a 3 Quarks Daily award for political blogging. Public voting is open today until 11:59pm EST. Vote here. The successful nominations out of the round of public voting will be judged by Lewis Lapham, of Harper’s and Lapham’s Quarterly ...
    • Grainmorrah
      I gave the following presentation Friday night at Give & Take, an interactive show and tell happy hour held monthly at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. Both informative and a lot of fun. Even our ancestors, without a smartphone among them, played like kids on the harvest moon. But fair warning: histo ...
    • Help/Harm
      Many of us only reluctantly accept one of life’s toughest lessons. In the course of doing our very best to make a better world–decades all blood, sweat and tears in the face of hideous odds–we may discover ourselves really fouling a few things up. The road to hell, etc., etc. Never realizing our mis ...

    Suzie-Q

    • Lunar Eclipse 2010 PHOTOS
      Lunar Eclipse 2010 PHOTOS: Images Of December’s Rare Full Moon Event From Around The World The Huffington Post |  Travis Walter Donovan First Posted: 12-21-10 10:20 AM   |   Updated: 12-21-10 10:20 AM Last Monday night or early Tuesday morning, depending on your location, many around the wor ...
    • Ray Mcgovern, Daniel Ellsberg, and other senior de ...
      The Indypendent 131 Arrested at Veteran-Led Civil Resistance to Wars at the White House Dec. 16 By Ellen Davidson December 16, 2010 | Posted in Ellen Davidson , IndyBlog , War | Email this article Veterans For Peace board member Elliott Adams chained himself to the White House fence with a bicycle l ...
    • In the Mideast, The US is a Helpless Giant
      Eric Margolis, Information Clearing House, Dec 13, 2010 In 1956, Britain, France and Israel colluded to invade Egypt to overthrow its hugely popular nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Israel provoked border clashes and quickly captured the Sinai Peninsula. The British and French landed at Suez. ...
    • Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid
      Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid News Corpse / By Mark Howard A new survey of American voters shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. December 15, 2010 | Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News ...
    • Does Nigeria Have A Case Against Dick Cheney?
      Does Nigeria Have a Case Against Dick Cheney? Africa Legal Brief Monday, 13 December 2010 20:42 Nigerian officials have indicted former Vice President Dick Cheney for bribing the Nigerian government in the ’90s. The accusation stems from Cheney’s reign as CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. Last y ...

    Solari

    • Holiday Greetings From Solari!
      “A Partridge in a Pear Tree,” is a wonderful symbol for holiday giving. But this year, weâd like to suggest a new symbolânamely, “A White Dove in a Pear-Apple-Peach-Orange-Cherry-Plum-Tomato-Zucchini-Carrot-Squash-Pepper-Grape-and-Nut Tree.” To explain: I spent the last four months crisscrossing ...
    • Munis Take a Dive
      View Larger Chart . . . Continue reading the article . . . Related reading: State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning CBS News (19 Dec 10)
    • Stop Shooting Yourself in The Foot! Buy The Real S ...
      By Franklin Sanders Behold, Silver Bugs, the Promised Land! Investors are piling into silver, at last having discovered silver’s astounding bull market future, and silver soars daily. Adding fuel to the fire, the Internet is flaming with a campaign to catch JP Morgan short silver. With silver pis ...
    • Surfers Spread the Message of Responsible Shopping ...
      By Heather Box Kyle Thiermann, a 20-year-old professional surfer from Santa Cruz California, stood in a clothing factory in Sri Lanka amongst the commotion of the sewing machines, fabric cutters and conveyor belts as workers bustled to make sporting wear that would be distributed in the United Stat ...
    • Winter Solstice 2010
      The luster will be a bit “off” on Dec. 21st, the first day of northern winter, when the full Moon passes almost dead-center through Earth’s shadow. For 72 minutes of eerie totality, an amber light will play across the snows of North America, throwing landscapes into an unusual state of ruddy shadow ...

    Insurgency Watch - Newswire

    • Times Scare
      ISLAMABAD–The apparent links between Pakistan and Faisal Shahzad are certainly cause for concern, but let’s not lose site of things here. The attack in Times Square was a fizzle. The rush to claim credit is a bit embarassing for the TTP and looks like it was — like the attack itself — a rush job. [. ...
    • 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 AfghanistanSri Lanka Gu ...
    • 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��

    AlterNet - Rights and Liberties

    Sideways News

    • Could you be a 10:10 community champion?
      The Guardian Newspaper and Franny Armstrong, through the Guardian 10:10 campaign, challenge organisations and individuals to cut their carbon footprint by 10%.
    • Brit mums strict about eco-chores
      Families in the UK are increasingly likely to be nagged about doing eco-chores, a new study conducted on behalf of the Energy Saving Trust has revealed.
    • UK venue offers rainforest weddings
      Getting married in a luscious rainforest has never been easier or more eco-friendly, according to the Eden Project.
    • Battery recycling 'too difficult'
      The European Recycling Platform (ERP) reports that while only a third of households at present recycle batteries, four out of five said they would do so if it was made easier.
    • 10 green resolutions to save you money
      By taking green steps at home, you can save money and make life easier. Being smart about waste, consumption and resources won't only win you the thanks of forthcoming generations: you'll feel the financial benefit immediately. 1. Make money from old electronics As your electronic goods become obsol ...

    Fabius Maximus

    • We were participants in one of the great battles o ...
      Summary:  Some of the “great battles” were nothing of the kind.  This is easily seen by comparing them with a truly great battle, one that looks to have decisive effects:  9-11. For centuries western historians described the Battle of Tours (aka Poitiers) as one of the world’s decisive battles. ...
    • For the holiday season, here are some comforting t ...
      Summary:  As the sky darkens over America we find comfort in logical but incorrect beliefs, ignoring the horrifying nature of our core problem.  Here are two comforting examples. (1)  Our leaders have bad advisors In both national security and economics we have well-funded think-tanks advocating ...
    • Second thoughts by 2 major boosters of the Af-Pak ...
      Summary:   Guest author Bernard Finel discusses yet another think-tank report giving prescriptions for the Af-Pak War.  But this one is a surprise, a serious walk-back by one of the powerful institutional advocates of our foreign wars.  Perhaps they’re cutting their losses and gearing up for t ...
    • The insight that must precede reform of America: t ...
      Summary:  The last few weeks have produced news confirming that the Constitution is dead, the still heart of the Republic.  Realistic planning for reform must start with that grim fact or remain pie-in-the-sky fantasy. From the mailbag:  “There is only one peaceful solution to our great crisis, f ...
    • The story of the early 21st century: the future a ...
      Summary:  This is the first in a series looking at the US and global situations.   Here  we look at one of the large processes ending the post-WWII era — the leveraging and deleveraging of the developed nations.  It’s as much a psychological and political process as an economic one.  It’s a ...

    Open Your Eyes News

    • New Gaza war ‘a question of when, not if’
      BBC – A senior Israeli army officer has told the BBC that as long as Hamas remains in control of the Gaza Strip, another war is “a question of when, not if”. He said the Palestinian Islamist group had rearmed so much since the Israeli offensive two years ago that it was now in a [...]
    • Copper Tops Record as China Boosts Imports, Chile ...
      Bloomberg – Copper prices jumped to a record after China said monthly imports of the metal increased for the first time since August and an accident at the Collahuasi mine in Chile disrupted supply. Refined-copper imports by China, the largest user, surged 37 percent to 232,298 metric tons in Novemb ...
    • Immunity in Emerging Species of a Major Mosquito C ...
      ScienceDaily — In notable back-to-back papers appearing in the journal Science in October, teams of researchers, one led by Nora Besansky, a professor of biological sciences and a member of the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame, provided evidence that Anopheles gambiae, ...
    • US Senate approves nuclear arms treaty
      ABC – The US Senate has backed a nuclear arms control treaty that commits both Russia and America to cutting their weapons arsenal. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) passed the Senate 71 votes to 26, but not before lengthy delays and fierce arguments from Republicans, who felt the US w ...
    • After Dump, What Happens To Electronic Waste?
      NPR- Many people will receive a new computer or cell phone this holiday season â and throw out their old equipment. And when old TVs and computers end up in landfills, the toxic metals and flame retardants they contain can cause environmental problems.Yet even recycling your e-waste, as it’s called, ...

    The Progressive Realist

    • START Ratified
      So new START is ratified 71-26. Like Daniel Larison says, we can all be happy that a group of hardcore Republican ideologues were unsuccessful in scuttling the reset with Russia and eliminating our ability to monitor their nuclear arsenal either out of misguided radicalism or for the sole purpose of ...
    • Partial Iraqi Cabinet Approved by Parliament
      Iraq’s parliament voting on new cabinet Dec. 21, 2010 (AP) On December 21, 2010 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki walked into parliament, rattled off the names of 29 minister nominees, who were then elected by a hand vote by lawmakers. The group then posed for pictures, and the event was over. In th ...
    • Pakistan at the Brink
      To many observers, Pakistan has long been at the brink of an existential crisis, much of it due to a growing insurgency exacerbated by the war in Afghanistan. But now the economy is in crisis, too. The catastrophic floods have imploded the struggling economy raising the specter of frightening conseq ...
    • New START Passes, 71-26: Is Pete Rouse the Magic?
      It's an interesting day when Robert Kagan, now at Brookings, is praising the President for his foreign policy and national security achievements. Noting Obama's success (and I should add John Kerry's and Joe Biden's) in pushing through ratification of the New START agreement with Russia, Kagan ...
    • Obama's Embrace of Indefinite Detention
      So now we know how the Obama administration is going to handle indefinite detention. It's both terrible and better than how the last administration handled it, which is to say pretty much consistent with the administration's record. Detainees subject to indefinite detention would go through a review ...

    TAPPED - The American Prospect

    • Lightning Round: I Think We Can All Agree that thi ...
      Normally, there wouldn't be much to say about Think Progress' compilation of conservatives freaking out about the FCC's enforcement of Net Neutrality rules. What haven't conservatives called a "government takeover" in the past two years? But in this case, it's an especially dense critique, and spea ...
    • Why Net Neutrality's All the Rage.
      To piggyback on Jamelle's argument that the more bombastic conservative arguments that we're hearing against net neutrality are symptomatic of a reflexive anti-liberalism, it's worth keeping in mind that the historical record of communications debates in particular in this country made it fairly ea ...
    • The Little Picture: A Promise Kept.
      (Courtesy of Sen. Harry Reid's Office) Sen. Harry Reid returns gay-rights advocate Dan Choi's West Point ring, which Reid promised he would return after "don't ask, don't tell" was repealed. "Five months after I promised to repeal #DADT, I’m so happy to give back this West Point ring to @ltdancho ...
    • Reflexive Anti-Liberalism.
      Kevin Drum is baffled by conservative opposition to "net neutrality": I've had an email conversation lately with a conservative reader who is absolutely convinced that this is an effort by Democrats to rid the internet of conservative voices. But as Zornick notes, this is nuts. The whole point of n ...
    • No, You Can't Have Your Spy Back.
      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to formally ask President Obama to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Read Spencer Ackerman, who knows about these things, for some context�to this story, which includes, rather interestingly, the Center for American Progress' national security ...

    Buzzflash

    • Pope Blames Sexual Abuse of Children by Priests on ...
      TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH When priests have sexually abused children for decades It's hard for even a Pope to try A Hail Mary pass like, "It's all the secular world's fault!" And really expect it to fly.read more
    • Is the FBI Helping the Chilean Government to Suppr ...
      NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH While historic FBI shenanigans committed against Native Americans within the United States are well known, Wikileaks documents now reveal that the law enforcement agency has set its sights on other indigenous peoples farther afield --- in South America no less.  The rev ...
    • Disappearing Bees and Bayer: A Deadly Combo. What ...
      BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH A leaked document reveals that the EPA is disregarding findings 'that widespread use of clothianidin imperils the health of the nation's honeybees' says a Colorado beekeeper, the recipient of the document. If the Environmental Protection Agency had evidence that a spec ...
    • Yes, Maureen Dowd, We've Already Had a Gay Preside ...
      HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH Maureen Dowd, in her December 19th column, muses on the possibility of a gay Commander in Chief in the wake of the passage of the repeal of DADT.  In Dowd's commentary, Congressman Barnie Frank points out that we've already had a gay president: James Buchanan.  BuzzFla ...
    • Chutzpah! Right Wing Hate Group Plays the "Hate Ca ...
      BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH In the topsy-turvy world that is right wing politics, anti-gay conservative groups are attacking a venerable civil rights organization, accusing it of "character assassination." I'm sure you've heard this before -- and it will not surprise you one bit -- but a liberal o ...

    Glenn Greenwald - Salon

    The BiPartisan Report

    Sciencebase

    • Sciencebase person of the year 2010
      Anyone can pick someone famous, a Zuckerberg, a Jobs, a Gaga, and call them their person of the year. But, how about a personal person of the year? Here’s my pick of the people who have had the biggest impact on me this year, whether through their retweet efforts on Twitter, their comments on my [.. ...
    • Periodic table of videos at the movies
      Regular Sciencebase followers will by now know only too well the Periodic Table of Videos from Nottingham University and my good friend Martyn Poliakoff. The creators of the video series recently ran a competition for viewers to create a movie-style poster to promote the videos and had an astounding ...
    • A few facts about asbestos
      Today, medical journal The Lancet has publicly criticised the Canadian government for its attitude towards asbestos, saying that although Canada will not expose its own citizens to asbestos, it will continue exporting the deadly substance to developing nations [Canada accused of hypocrisy, Lancet]. ...
    • What is nature worth?
      Each hour 3 species vanish forever, we’ve lost a fifth of the planet’s coral reefs, almost a third of its mangrove forests, and half of the world’s wetlands. But, how do you count the cost? Perhaps a business perspective is needed. If we considered the natural world as providing products and service ...
    • Searching for scientific abbreviations
      Ambiguous abbreviations and acronyms are annoyances when it comes to text search and data mining. As a writer-editor, I was always taught to spell out the long form (LF) of a short form (SF) at first mention in a document so that the reader would know that when I mentioned EBV I was referring to [.. ...

    Common Dreams-Progressive Newswire

    • Cost of START Treaty
      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 21, 2010Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)Alice Slater is the New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and is on the coordinating committee of Abolition 2000, a disarmament coalition. She said today: "The Obama administration will pay a heavy price to r ...
    • Oxfam Scales Up Its Aid in Colombia as Worst Flood ...
      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 21, 2010Oxfam InternationalOxfam is today scaling up its aid effort to reach 200,000 people affected by the severe floods that have hit Colombia in recent weeks. The floods have affected more than two million people in 28 out of 32 districts in the country. The agency ...
    • FCC Approves Flawed Net Neutrality Rule
      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 21, 2010ACLUThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today passed a new rule clarifying the legal authority of the FCC to enforce network neutrality principles. Network neutrality principles protect free speech online by prohibiting the owner of a network from p ...
    • FCC Net Neutrality Order a ‘Squandered Opportunity ...
      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 21, 2010Free PressBy a 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission approved new rules intended to prevent Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from acting as gatekeepers on the Web. The rules, however, heavily favor the industry they are in ...
    • Republicans Stymie Progress on Judicial Nomination ...
      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 21, 2010People for the American WayAccording to media reports, Senate Republicans have agreed to confirm at least 19 of the 38 judicial nominations pending on the Senate's calendar at the beginning of the lame duck session in exchange for a commitment that Senate Democ ...

    Common Dreams-Views

    • War and Planet Earth: Toward a Sustainable Peace
      by Randall Amster and Michael NaglerOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about language, ideas, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. - Rumiread more
    • Obama's Tax Deal: Read the Small Print
      by Dean BakerThe enthusiasm of the US business press for the compromise tax package worked out by President Obama and Republicans in Congress led to a mini-euphoria of upbeat economic projections for 2011. While the economy will do better with this tax package than if no deal were forthcoming, much ...
    • The Spirit of Scrooge
      by Caroline HamiltonEveryone knows the story of "A Christmas Carol": the grouchy old man who dismisses Christmas greetings with "Bah, humbug!," his hard-working clerk Bob Cratchit, cheerful, crippled Tiny Tim, the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. This is a good time to reread the sto ...
    • Witness at the White House Fence
      by Ray McGovern “Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are,” my grandmother would often say with a light Irish lilt but unmistakable seriousness, an admonition about taking care in choosing what company you keep. On Thursday, I could sense her smiling down through the snow as I stood p ...
    • DREAM's on the Rise Now, and Nothing Can Kill It
      by Jessica RitterThink youth activism in the U.S. is dead? Think again.Many Americans who are committed to issues of social and economic justice bemoan the current state of activism among young adults. They are often portrayed as apathetic and uninformed young people who would rather spend hours on ...

    Newshoggers - AfPak

    • Demolishing Afghanistan To Save It
      By Steve Hynd Our friend Gareth Porter has an important new piece in which he describes how General Petraeus, supposed COIN guru, has thrown out "population centric" anything in an attempt to show some short-term success for the occupation in Afghanistan. The military offensive in Kandahar, which ha ...
    • Revisiting the Clauswitzian disconnect in Afghanis ...
      By Dave Anderson: Counterinsurgency (COIN) is expensive, time consuming, and often practiced in areas of secondary or tertiary interests. These attributes often lead to a Clauswitzian disconnect between real political constraints and the operational doctrine of COIN, as COIN demands much more than t ...
    • Failure, Not Progress, in Afghanistan
      By Derrick Crowe and Robert Greenwald On Thursday, December 16, 2010, the White House will use its December review to try to spin the disastrous Afghanistan War plan by citing "progress" in the military campaign, but the available facts paint a picture of a war that's not making us safer and th ...
    • The Pentagon's Credibility Cage Match
      By Steve Hynd In the red corner! The Pentagon and Saint General David Petraeus, who claim that things are getting better in Afghanistan because Petraeus has thrown out the COIN book he wrote the foreword to, escalating airstrikes and unpopular night raids. Wait another Friedman Unit - six months - t ...
    • Obama's Afghan Review - The Fix Is In
      By Steve Hynd The six month review of progress in Afghanistan that President Obama promised when he ordered the surge there is due on Thursday. But don't hold your breath for anything radical - the fix is in. Today, Admiral Mullen became just the latest senior official to say that nothing would be c ...

    Water Wars

    • Water wars: Hearing looms on eminent domain takeov ...
      According to the California Department of Public Health, drinking water being served to Lake Forest Water Company customers exceeded state arsenic levels in 2007, and the problem has not been corrected, despite water company owner Rick Dewante saying it has.
    • Water wars: Hearing looms on eminent domain takeov ...
      According to the California Department of Public Health, drinking water being served to Lake Forest Water Company customers exceeded state arsenic levels in 2007, and the problem has not been corrected, despite water company owner Rick Dewante saying it has.
    • Water wars: Hearing looms on eminent domain takeov ...
      According to the California Department of Public Health, drinking water being served to Lake Forest Water Company customers exceeded state arsenic levels in 2007, and the problem has not been corrected, despite water company owner Rick Dewante saying it has.
    • Water wars: Hearing looms on eminent domain takeov ...
      According to the California Department of Public Health, drinking water being served to Lake Forest Water Company customers exceeded state arsenic levels in 2007, and the problem has not been corrected, despite water company owner Rick Dewante saying it has.
    • Water wars: Hearing looms on eminent domain takeov ...
      According to the California Department of Public Health, drinking water being served to Lake Forest Water Company customers exceeded state arsenic levels in 2007, and the problem has not been corrected, despite water company owner Rick Dewante saying it has.

    WordPress | Economics

    • Chinese Chess
      by Irwin M. Seltzer (Editor’s Note: Here is a major media right-wing Republican publication th
    • Steak and Potatoes and Price Indices
      Writing about Tyler’s argument got me thinking some more about Will’s argument on price indices. Tha
    • last night in the vestibule
      i was hoping that it was the wind again pretending to be an old senile actor trying to carry a messa
    • Babylonian madness
      Here’s an interesting paper from Mathew Forstater, a colleague of F. Randall Wray at the Unive
    • Cornering Commodities
      It appears that either Blythe is trying to corner all commodity markets, or the Investments Bankster

    Electronic Intifada

    • Ameer Makhoul's perpetual trial
      We arrive at the Haifa court building around 11am, half an hour after proceedings began in the ongoing trial of Ameer Makhoul, a leading Palestinian activist who holds Isra ...
    • Israeli warplanes attack Gaza refuge
      A heap of ruins and dust is all that remains of a dairy that Israeli warplanes destroyed yesterday in the central Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. The ruins of the dairy are adjacen ...
    • Israeli air strikes kill five Palestinians in Gaza
      In an ongoing assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli fighter jets struck the southern city of Rafah early this morning, injuring four. Today's air strikes come after Israeli f ...
    • Standing together against US government witch hunt
      The ongoing government campaign against anti-war activists is a stark reminder of the unabated deterioration of civil liberties and political rights in the United States. These dev ...
    • Israeli arms firm to benefit from EU-funded resear ...
      BRUSSELS (IPS) - Arms traders are seeking to convince the European Union that publicly-funded scientific research grants should help develop weapons for future wars. In a series of ...

    Afghanistan Sun

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