- You Can’t Argue With Success
Much of the work that went into the Voluntary Simplicity and Y2K movements (see prior blogs) has been incorporated into Transition Towns and other sustainability-related movements. There are now literally millions of groups worldwide focused on some aspect of bioregional sustainability. The most vis ...
- Sustainability: Choosing the Right Crisis
I think Heinberg and Hopkins are right (see previous blog):Â sustainability activists should focus on resource scarcity, rather than climate change. It’s just too damned hard to persuade large numbers of people to undertake major lifestyle changes around something they can’t directly experience. Ex ...
- Don’t Panic: the Failure at Cancun
This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd becau ...
- The Poisons in Household Cleaners
Owing to stranglehold powerful corporate lobbies have on Congress and federal regulatory agencies (such as the EPA and FDA), the US has the worst record in the industrialized world for regulating toxic chemicals. The sad thing is that the majority of Americans are totally clueless about the poisons ...
- Natural Cosmetic Alternatives
(OS isn't allowing me to respond to comments on my original post - so I'm doing a new one in response to Joan): � Sorry Joan, I meant to post some links and forgot: http://www.ewg.org/2010sunscreen/best-beach-sport-sunscreens/ http://nochemicalcosmetics.com/cosmetics/ http://mindfulmomma.typ ...
- And the War Rages Ever On
The war. The one war. The only war. The war that has been raging since at least 1492, when Spanish shock troops first waded ashore in the new world. In some senses a war that has been raging since the crusades in the seventh century. A war that has roots going back to the Greeks [...]
- Sticks and stones may break my bones (but words wi ...
I’m sure almost every English speaking person heard that in their childhood, a mantra someone uses when someone has called them names. Of course if it was actually true, there would be no need to say so, the mere fact that such idioms exist is proof positive that words can most definitely hurt. Word ...
- WHERE THE HELL WAS HOMELAND SECURITY?
Nearly ten years after 9/11, and ten years of staggering spending on security, ever expanding powers of government search and surveillance, terror alerts and terror warnings, ever more humiliating and intrusive searches to go on a plane (and coming soon searches in buses, malls, and train stat ...
- War, Religion, Terrorism, and Other Random Nonsens ...
My last post generated a number of thoughtful comments, so I thought I’d write a follow up post. Not to mention that my life has gotten extremely busy, I’m between Internet connections, and my main computer got an ugly virus. So I won’t have the time or the means to write dedicated posts in the [... ...
- The Year and the Decade in Review, Short Version: ...
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. And what a year and a decade it’s been. We’ve come a long ways since the odometer rolled over in 2000, and are a decade into a century I could barely imagine when I was a young [...]
- 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 ...
- 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 ...
- EPA Expands E15 Decree
Join the forum discussion on this post This week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of 15% ethanol fuel blends (E15) for 2011-2006 model year cars: EPA Grants E15 Fuel Waiver for Model Years 2001 – 2006 Cars and Light Trucks WASHINGTON â The U.S. Environmental Protection A ...
- Marginal Land Produces Marginal Biomass
Join the forum discussion on this post The global potential for energy crops is a topic of great interest, and the media is often filled with reports of the potential for production on marginal land. Indeed, some of these reports go so far as to suggest that a substantial fraction or even all of cu ...
- Who, How, and Why: $140 Oil and $5 Gas
Join the forum discussion on this post The following guest post is from OilPrice.com. ———————————— Who, How, and Why: $140 Oil and $5 Gas According to a loosely-organized apocalyptic Christian movement, May 21, 2011 will be the “end of days.” On or about that same date, the price of oil i ...
- Range Fuels Out of Money?
Join the forum discussion on this post It is no secret that I have been a critic of Range Fuels — not necessarily of their technology but of their approach. I won’t rehash all of the issues I have had with the company; in a nutshell I felt they like were making claims that were [...]
- When Economic Recovery Collides with Flat Oil Prod ...
Join the forum discussion on this post A theme that I commonly discuss in articles and presentations is the problem of economic recovery when oil prices are high. If the market is well-supplied and there is ample excess oil production capacity, oil prices tend to be moderate and stable, and economi ...
- Olive Oil + Leafy Vegetables Recipes Cuts Heart Di ...
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—If you need further motivation to follow the so-called Mediterranean diet, consider some new, amazing research findings on two of the diet’s staples: leafy green vegetables and olive oil. In the study on 30,000 women, researchers found that women who consumed at least one se ...
- Walmart's Big, Healthy Move Bypasses Organics
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PAâThursday morning, the world's largest retailer announced that it's using its corporate clout to trim the waistlines and boost the heart health of the American public. At a press conference in Washington, Walmart executives pledged to cut the sodium content of processed foods ...
- The Nickel Pincher: Make Cozy Bedding from Organic ...
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—There's nothing like curling up in a bed of flannel sheets while it's snowing outside. If you find yourself needing to warm up your bedroom décor this winter, check out my favorite sources for bedding: Freecycle.org and a local thrift store. While secondhand sheets are unlik ...
- USDA to OK Genetically Modified Alfalfa; Good-Bye ...
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Despite rough economic times, more and more people are buying organic, not just to protect the planet, but also to keep their families safe from toxic pesticides linked to ADHD, autism, and certain cancers, among other things. Many also choose organic to keep genetically eng ...
- 5 Salads Worth Laughing Over
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Is salad all that funny? Even the tastiest ones don't generally make people burst out laughing. Unless we're talking about "Women Laughing Alone with Salad," the stock photo cliché called out recently by Thehairpin.com, and since bounced all over the Internet. Can a salad-ba ...
- Choosing Who Is By Your Side
On Wednesday, Republicans and a handful of Democrats in the House voted to repeal last year’s health care reform bill. Repeal won’t get pass the Senate—although Republicans insist the vote isn’t merely symbolic—but the vote is part of a backlash against the Democrats’ signature accomplishment of the ...
- Has Facebook Killed Sentence Structure?
“A kind of death of the sentence by collective neglect,” is how Adam Haslett puts it in his piece, “The Art of Good Writing,” in the Weekend FT. Haslett, one of his generation’s finest writers, divines sentences at no risk of neglect, or illness. But his piece is provocative. He does not say t ...
- The Reagan Centennial (Or Happiness--Part 3: A Ha ...
Ronald Reagan would have been 100 on February 6.� If they had a cure for Alzheimer's, you know he would have made it.� Health-obsessed Americans today (disproportionally sophisticated liberals) should at least�look to Reagan for longevity tips.� He was one of our more vigorous presidents, despite .. ...
- Two Books Bolster My Thoughts About Gabrielle Giff ...
Although I had to play catch up like everyone else in Atlanta this week after last week’s version of The Snow That Wouldn’t Go, the violent tragedy in Tucson Arizona has been on the periphery all week. For the last few days, whenever I heard the name Gabrielle Giffords, I was reminded of an old ...R ...
- Turbulent Times For UK Opposition
For many in the Labour Party, the promotion of Ed Balls to Shadow Chancellor was as inevitable as it was long overdue. I was among many party members who argued at the time of Ed Miliband’s election as Labour leader that Balls was the natural candidate for the Treasury brief. He’s a pugilist wit ...
- 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 →
- Senate Offices Told to Avoid WikiLeaks
“Do not visit the WikiLeaks site,” the Office of Senate Security told Senate employees and contractors in a memorandum (pdf) that was circulated to Senate offices this week. Senate employees are free to access news reports that may discuss classified material, but they were instructed not to downloa ...
- DoD Takes Flexible View on Deleting Wikileaks Docs
Department of Defense employees who downloaded classified documents from Wikileaks onto unclassified government computer systems may delete them without further “sanitizing” their systems or taking any other remedial measures, the Pentagon said in a policy memo (pdf) last week. The release of classi ...
- ODNI Secrecy Activity, “Population” In ...
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported a notable increase in its classification activity last year, along with an even greater increase in the ODNI “population.” The number of ODNI “derivative classification decisions” — referring to the classification of new records under prev ...
- A Week in the Chinese Blogosphere (December 2010)
Chinese bloggers “expressed rage and despondence after learning about the plight of 12 mentally retarded men from Sichuan province who were sold into slavery to work at a building materials plant in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region,” according to a CIA review of the Chinese blogosphere (pdf) du ...
- A Bumpy Start for Fundamental Classification Revie ...
The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review is the Obama Administration’s most ambitious effort to confront the problem of overclassification. It requires each agency that classifies information to conduct a detailed review of all of its classification guides in order to identify obsolete classif ...
- Even more science news
Science news snippets from the net meanderings of David Bradley Fighting malaria without DDT = FAIL – Review suggests DDT essential in fight against malaria, despite claims for green approaches. A new research paper exposes allegedly false claims and misrepresentations of science by United Nations e ...
- Free chemistry dictionary
UPDATE: 2011-01-20 Version 3.0 of the chemistry dictionary is now available. Now, with crowd-sourced, user-submitted words and an OpenOffice.org dictionary extension. “It took me the better part of a month,” Azman told us, “but I’ve made my own and I want it to be as open-source as possible. Chemspy ...
- Social networking with research data
I’d previously used the phrase “Napster for Research Papers” when thinking about Mendeley. Mendeley lets you upload your own research papers to your personal library under publishers’ fair use agreements and to share them with their peers as you might share a traditional paper reprint. So, maybe Nap ...
- Even more science news
Science news snippets from the net meanderings of David Bradley Sir David King on climate change – King said, “We hear enough from the climate change skeptics that I have to repeat some fundamentals that you’ve probably heard before.” Fifty-five million years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentrations stoo ...
- Yet more science news
Latest science news snippets from Sciencebase Bee team funded by Bayer – It is revealed that the lead investigator in the study that recently published results suggesting that bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) is due to the combined effect of a virus and a fungus is funded by the insecticide compan ...
- Findings and Recommendations by the California Car ...
California Carbon Capture and Storage Review Panel http://tinyurl.com/4nomkns [From Executive Summary] Recognizing the importance of CCS for Californiaâs industrial and electricity sectors, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California Energy Commission (Energy Commission), and the A ...
- Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or The Shape of the F ...
Harvard Business School / Annissa Alusi, Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, Tiona Zuzul http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-062.pdf [Abstract] Two trends are likely to define the 21st century: threats to the sustainability of the natural environment and dramatic increases in urbanization. This paper ...
- Climate Policy and Innovation in the Absence of Co ...
Belfer Center, Kennedy School / Ashokankur Datta and E. Somanathan http://tinyurl.com/4wk26jt [Abstract] It is well-recognized that new technology is a crucial part of any solution to the problem of climate change. But since investments in research and development take time to mature, price and quan ...
- The Food Gap: The Impacts of Climate Change on Foo ...
Universal Ecological Fund http://www.feu-us.org/images/The_Food_Gap.pdf [From report website] The temperature of the planet would increase by, at least, 2.4ºCelsius (4.3º Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, if the current business-as-usual path is followed. Under the current distribution pattern ...
- The Impact of Local Permitting on the Cost of Sola ...
Sun Run, Inc. http://tinyurl.com/49vrxre [Executive Summary] The policy goal of supporting solar is to create the scale necessary to achieve grid parity, the point where solar stands on its own as an economic choice for millions of homeowners, without the need for subsidies. While solar equipment pr ...
- Entangled En Masse: Physicists Crank Out Billions ...
Entanglement, that most counterintuitive quantum phenomenon by which particles share an unseen link that aligns their properties, is looking more mundane all the time. Just last week two groups of researchers reported entangling a photon with a crystal-based device , potentially paving the way for ...
- Experts Criticize Evidence Used to Diagnose Leak a ...
The recent release of an independent geochemical consulting firm's report concluding that carbon dioxide is leaking from one of the world's largest CO2 geologic storage projects--located at the Weyburn–Midale oil fields in Saskatchewan--has caused a public relations crisis, not only for Cenovus E ...
- Tearing into the Metrodome: Are Other Air-Pressuri ...
With a roof made of fabric similar to that used in trampolines, it's not hard to envision why 43 centimeters of snow tore through Minneapolis's Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome last month. What is perhaps harder to imagine is why anyone would consider keeping in place an inflatable domed stadium that mo ...
- Sticky Business: Video Shows the Right Way to Extr ...
Dissecting a black widow spider to get its silk glands seems like a task fraught with peril. Luckily, for anyone who dares, now there is video from scientists to show you how it's done.Research labs do not want the silk glands of these infamous spiders for some kind of bizarre trophies. Spider silks ...
- Unnatural Genes Used to Replace Missing DNA Keep C ...
Synthetic biology garnered national headlines in May 2010 when a team led by J. Craig Venter announced it had created the world’s first “ synthetic cell ." The group used computers to copy an entire bacterial genome that, when inserted into a cell whose own genome had been removed, "booted up" the c ...
- Fake feminism NATO-style
New Euorope: Back in 2002, the Indian writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly satirised the official excuses for the invasion of Afghanistan . “It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas,” she said. “We are being asked t ...
- Feature: War Displaced People in Kabul Slum Cry fo ...
Xinhua: No education, lack of food and winter clothes. In Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, hundreds of war displaced children and their families are crying for relief assistance from the government. Currently, there are 804 families living in the slum, in west of the city, with the largest family of 15 ...
- Around 20 Afghan migrants feared drowned off Corfu
AFP: cargo ship rescued scores of Afghan migrants in heavy seas off the Greek island of Corfu Sunday following a night of drama, but survivors said 21 more were missing after falling overboard. Rescue services were alerted during the night after the 35-metre (114-foot) Hasan Reis vessel packed with ...
- 17 Afghan civilians killed by roadside bombs in 24 ...
Los Angeles Times: Nine wedding guests, including a child, are among the victims. Insurgents target Western troops with the homemade bombs, but usually it’s civilians who are killed or maimed. Civilians are dying in record numbers as the war in Afghanistan grinds into its 10th year, and crude but po ...
- Home fires: the world’s most lethal pollutio ...
The Independent: The world’s deadliest pollution does not come from factories billowing smoke, industries tainting water supplies or chemicals seeping into farm land. It comes from within people’s own homes. Smoke from domestic fires kills nearly two million people each year and sickens millions mor ...
- The Media in America: Selling Views, Calling it Ne ...
America's journalists are not "newshounds" They are nothing more than salesclerks, hocking the products their employers want to sell. The pretty faces that now function as most television news anchors are no different than the pretty models used to sell other products. The American "free" press ...
- America's Next Failure: the Police State
Every police force in the nation has cold (unsolved) cases. The War on Drugs has been ineffective for more than forty years. No one knows where a vast number of illegal immigrants even are. The CIA has been unable to locate Osama bin Laden after more than ten years of searching. Your local police ca ...
- 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 ...
- Chart of the Day: Financial Assets
The Wall Street Journal reports: Over the two years ending September 2010, Americans withdrew a net $311 billion — or about 1.4% of their disposable income — from their savings and investment accounts, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s a sharp divergence from the previous 57 years, during ...
- Housekeeping Note
Just to clear up a couple of things from the previous post: No, I don't think private sector unions are going to make a comeback. I'm not delusional. No, I don't think the middle class wage stagnation of the past few decades is due solely to the demise of unions. I do, however, think tha ...
- Power, Baby, Power
Tim Lee says that American liberalism has incorporated libertarian critiques at a striking rate over the past few decades: Libertarians have had a pretty impressive winning streak in recent decades, especially on economic policy. Income tax rates are way down. Numerous industries have been deregu ...
- Who Wants to Repeal Healthcare Reform?
Via Greg Sargent, I see that the New York Times decided to go the extra mile and do more than simply ask people if they support or oppose the healthcare reform law. They first asked them if they wanted the law repealed, and if so, what part they wanted repealed. The basic result was 48% in favor of ...
- A Near Death Experience for the Death Penalty?
Trouble in death penalty land: The sole American manufacturer of an anesthetic widely used in lethal injections said Friday that it would no longer produce the drug, a move likely to delay more executions and force states to adopt new drug combinations....No other American companies manufacture t ...
- Oh Look…It’s Rick Santorum
Hold on, I haven’t said this in a while so I might be a little rusty: Rick Santorum…..GO FUCK YOURSELF Seriously, did this guy just essentially compare black people not being considered people under the Constitution as slaves to a fetus that could be placed in a petri dish and frozen like a mini-piz ...
- The House Repeals Health Care Reform
This is so stupid but not for the reasons most people will tell you. Most people will focus on how repealing Health Care Reform will take away Health Care opportunities for people with pre-existing conditions, children trying to stay on their parent’s insurance and those 36+ million who couldn’t af ...
- IC 223: A STD Called Weezy
Topics for the show: Kriss explains his new term for horrible drivers Hunters and fishermen and their stories Rolling Stone does a perplexing interview of Lil Wayne Amare Stoudemire gets in “trouble” Colleges should focus on the STUDENT part of student athlete It takes two to tango Share with your f ...
- FacePalm of the Week: World’s Worst Hunter
(Reuters) – A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter’s gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday. The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a [...] ...
- Poor Sean Hannity
Poor Sean Hannity. With the emergence of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck’s popularity, the Birthers and the very vocal nutcases in the Tea Party, Hannity finds himself in the position of not being the ‘Go to’ voice of ignorance for Right Wing Nutjobs. Like Christoph Waltz’s character in The Green Hornet ...
- Rain-soaked plants trudge downhill
Surveys separated by 70 years show how climate change in Northern California has increased rainfall, causing plants to move to generally warmer, drier, lower altitude habitats.
- Ice melt poses dual sea rise and water access thre ...
One-fifth of the ice held in the world's ice caps and glaciers will melt by 2100, affecting water availability, adding around 12 cm to sea levels and threatening some coastal regions, predicts University of British Columbia's Valentina Radić.
- Greenhouse gases break temperature-rainfall link
While warmer air can take up more water than colder air, the extra heat trapped in the lower atmosphere by gases like CO2 decreases how much of this is released as precipitation, explains Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research's Katja Frieler.
- Dust research polishes climate models
The smallest, cooling, particles are a lower proportion of all atmospheric dust than climate models assume, says the US National Center for Atmospheric Research's Jasper Kok, likely meaning there are more particles than previously thought overall and helping improve accuracy of climate predictions i ...
- Climate change can be understood and tackled
In the ultimate simple climate change explanation, leading climate analyst Kevin Trenberth notes carbon dioxide has gone up over 35% since pre-industrial times, with over half of that since 1970 - but other researchers I've spoken to this year give cause for hope that this can be slowed.
- CT scanning aids rapid diagnosis, treatment planni ...
The use of CT scanning to evaluate abdominal pain in emergency departments can help physicians arrive at a diagnosis quickly and decisively. A study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and appearing in the February issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology also finds that informa ...
- Islands in the sky: How isolated are mountain top ...
Do mountain tops act as sky islands for species that live at high elevations? Are plant populations on these mountain tops isolated from one another because the valleys between them act as barriers, or can pollinators act as bridges allowing genes to flow among distant populations? read more
- Scientists find industrial pollutants in Eastern L ...
Researchers from Upstate New York institutions, including the University at Buffalo, have documented elevated levels of two industrial pollutants in carp in eastern Lake Erie, adding to the body of scientific work demonstrating the lasting environmental effects of human activity and waste disposal o ...
- Johns Hopkins scientists crack genetic code for fo ...
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have deciphered the genetic code for a type of pancreatic cancer, called neuroendocrine or islet cell tumors. The work, described online in the Jan. 20 issue of Science Express, shows that patients whose tumors have certain coding "mistakes" live twice as long as those wi ...
- Dow AgriSciences, MU researcher develop a way to c ...
They pop up in farm fields across 22 states, and they've been called the single largest threat to production agriculture that farmers have ever seen. They are "superweeds" – undesirable plants that can tolerate multiple herbicides, including the popular gylphosate, also known as RoundUp – and they c ...
- The cost of ending global warming – a calcul ...
Guest Post by Chris Uhlik. Dr Uhlik did a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford 1979–1990. He worked at Toyota in Japan, built robot controllers, cellular telephone systems, internet routers, and now does engineering management at Google. Among his 8 years of projects as an engineeri ...
- Livestock and Climate Change … Status update
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. His recently published book is CSIRO Perfidy. The United Nations report Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS) came out in 2006 with an estimate that 18 percent of anthropogenic greenhou ...
- QLD floods highlight the cost of climate extremes
After a long, hot period of drought in eastern Australia, spanning much of the 1990s and 2000s and referred to as the worst in 1000 years (see also discussion on BNC on the drought here and the strange winter of 2009 here), the period 2010-2011 has seen record rainfall and rural flooding events in A ...
- Government intervention on fossil fuel pollution
Guest post by DV82XL. He is a Canadian chemist and materials scientist (and regular BNC commenter). An earlier relevant post by this author can be read here: An informed public is key to acceptance of nuclear energy. I have been watching with some amusement the debate here at BNC surrounding the ide ...
- BNC as a resource – call for help
The Brave New Climate blog started out in Aug 2008 as a modest affair. But over the course of 333 posts (and counting), it has grown into quite a resource, covering a wide variety of topics on sustainable energy and climate change. It is about to launch into its 4th year on the circuit! The blog [.. ...
- Tunisia between Democracy and Anarchy | Informed C ...
Tunisia between Democracy and Anarchy | Informed Comment: "Tunisians woke Saturday morning to delirious joy at the advent of political liberty, but many worried about the simultaneous advent of social anarchy. The fall of the government of dictator Zine al-Abedin Ben Ali after 23 years left behind ...
- Manifesting Tyranny Over Sacred Lands � Tibettruth
Manifesting Tyranny Over Sacred Lands � Tibettruth: "What is it about colonial invaders and occupiers that drives them to target sites of profound spiritual importance, and subsequently desecrate them in the eyes of people, for whom such locations are of vital cultural and religious importance. It ...
- Palestinian Pundit: From someone's facebook status
Palestinian Pundit: From someone's facebook status: "Tunis was the first Arab country that abolished slavery in 1848. First Arab country that enacted a constitution in 1861. First Arab country that abolished polygamy in 1956. First Arab country that legalized abortion in 1973. First Arab country t ...
- Nepal: Identity Politics and Federalism � Eurasia ...
Nepal: Identity Politics and Federalism � Eurasia Review: Nepal : Identity Politics and Federalism , the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the political challenges to the establishment of a federal system and the risks if the process fails. The drafting of a constitu ...
- Fidel Castro: An Atrocious Act
Fidel Castro: An Atrocious Act By FIDEL CASTRO Sad news was broadcast this afternoon from the United States: Gabrielle Giffords, Democratic congresswoman for Arizona, was the victim of a criminal attempt while taking part at a political meeting at her electoral district in Tucson. On the other sid ...
- 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 ...
- Why is the mayor of Tel Aviv hiding the city’ ...
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai is promoting a comprehensive master plan for the city, while leaving the media, civil society groups and the city’s own residence in the dark about the plan’s full scope and details. By Jesse Fox Halfway through his third term in power, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai is pr ...
- Netanyahu’s office parrots baseless spin on ...
The fierce backlash against attacks on Israeli human rights NGOs has pushed to the front an old argument against foreign funding for these groups. Various right wing columnists and politicians have been parroting it, but now you hear it from Netanyahu’s office as well: As for questioning the legiti ...
- The army never misses an opportunity to miss an op ...
Right wing pundits have often said that Palestinians, when in talks with Israel, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The more time that I spend in the West Bank and watch the behavior of the Israeli army towards Palestinians, the more I feel that the statement should be said about the ...
- Artists playing Tel Aviv should insist on Palestin ...
The debate regarding the cultural boycott of Israel is framed around the wrong questions So Macy Gray decided to perform in Tel Aviv. After sharing her hesitation with her fans on Facebook, Gray apparently made up her mind not to cancel the gigs she planned to have in Israel. One of her tweets impli ...
- Sonia Peres & Israeli society
Sonia Peres, wife of Shimon Peres for 67 years, died peacefully in her sleep on 20 January. She was 87 years old. The media eulogized her with photos and reminiscences of pre-and-early Israeli society, when everyone knew everyone and people lived far more modestly. But Israel is still a very small c ...
- Winds of Change – The Referendum and Faith
It’s Sunday today. The southern Sudanese in certain areas will be winding their way towards their respective places of worship. In Juba, the large churches will be full. In Gordhim, where our team was based for the trip’s duration, the church is being renovated and so the people will seat themselves ...
- Winds of Change – The Referendum and Women
The women of both north and south Sudan are remarkably tenacious and adaptive. This past decade witnessed leaders of women’s groups from both regions holding joint peace conferences in an effort to put an end to two decades of war and to give their children a chance at a better life. It is this last ...
- Winds of Change – From Darfur to Independenc ...
I had only just been elected for a month when in January 2007 we journeyed with a large team of businesswomen to oversee our programs in south Sudan. All was normal until the third day, when someone approached us saying that thousands of internally displaced families from Darfur had been found hidin ...
- Winds of Change – The Ballot Process
Given the stakes, a large international and domestic effort has gone into the process of making the Sudanese referendum as legitimate as possible under the circumstances. A clear-cut timeline was laid out to reach this point. November 15, 2010 – Beginning of registration December 8, 2010 – Last day ...
- “Winds of Change – The Referendum Vote ...
We arrived in south Sudan a few days before the Sunday referendum (January 9th) to see everything in a state of readiness and expectation. Nothing was overlooked. Training classes were underway, informing people of the process of the vote. International observers were in the process of last-minute a ...
- New Vaccine Science Can Help Bridge the Divide
by Barbara Loe Fisher Fear of the unknown is what terrifies us the most, fear of being unable to have control over what the future holds. At the root of that fear is knowing that the choices we make today could have a profound impact on what happens tomorrow. 1 Fear is a strong emotion tha ...
- 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 ...
- Obama’s 21st century regulatory system will demand ...
Cross posted from the Risk Science Center Blog: There’s a lot to like in President Obama’s perspective on 21st century regulation. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Obama outlines his thinking behind his new executive order to review and revise a convoluted and potentially disruptive federal r ...
- NOVA Making Stuff, nanomaterials and a web-lactati ...
Next week sees the debut of the PBS science program NOVA’s new series Making Stuff – a four part special “exploring the materials that will shape our future”, hosted by NY Times technology columnist David Pogue. You may recall that I expressed some reservations over the program’s approach to bioengi ...
- Nanoparticle Toxicity dropped from the World Econo ...
As I report on the Risk Science Blog, the latest iteration of the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report has dropped “Nanoparticle Toxicity” as an emerging and significant risk. Instead, the far more generic “Threats from New Technologies” takes its place. This is a welcome move – but I do have ...
- A bluffer’s guide to Risk Science in the 21st cent ...
A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati under the slightly provocative title “Small Gods and the Art of Technology Innovation”. The talk is now available on-line (slides and audio at least) – and viewable below – through the excellent work of the folk at CAC. R ...
- Lost in the Maize
Hegswarm – what a great word! Far more elegant and versatile than the “Gray Goo” that has nibbled at the heels of nanotechnology for the past decade. Over the holiday break, I’ve escaped academia for the relative sanity of family reunions and mince pies, and have been catching up on some reading. ...
- Guarantee Keith Is Not Done in the Broadcast World
The report begins: "Former MSNBC talent David Shuster knows what it's like to be on the bad side of the suits upstairs at 30 Rock. Placed on an indefinite suspension when it came out that he had auditioned for his own show on rival network CNN." Keith Olbermann delivers a Special Comment on MSNBC ...
- WikiLeaks Points to US Meddling in Haiti
Intro: "US embassy cables reveal how anxious the US was to enlist Brazil to keep the deposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of Haiti." Minustah's commander, Brazilian Army General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2005. (photo: Ariana Cubillos/AP) Sorry, your browser c ...
- Jeffrey Immelt - Green Energy Proponent
Intro: "President Obama has a new economic advisor, GE CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt, who will run Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, succeeding Paul A. Volcker. Immelt has been an outspoken advocate for clean energy." GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt speaks during the 20th World Energy Congr ...
- Lawyers Condemn Abuse of Bradley Manning
Excerpt: "The complaint was filed on Wednesday and on Thursday the marines downgraded his classification from suicide watch to prevention of injury. But Coombs argues that prevention of injury is not significantly different in practical terms and is seeking his removal from maximum security." Bra ...
- Amanda Knox 'Murder Knife' DNA Evidence to Be Rete ...
Intro: "An appeal court has given two independent forensic experts 90 days to carry out a review of controversial evidence used to convict Amanda Knox." Amanda Knox, 23, is serving 26 years for the murder of Meredith Kercher in November 2007, 06/31/10. (photo: Guardian UK) Sorry, your brows ...
- 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 ...
- Cuban Pesos: A Farmer’s Market Experience
CLF’s Sr. Research Program Coordinators Jesse Kurtz-Nicholl and Sarah Rodman are visiting Cuba as part of a Natural Environmental Ecological Management delegation. Members of the group will see first hand large-scale Cuban infrastructure developed to support its 18-year-old, world-renowned sustainab ...
- Conference Envisions a Very Different Future Harve ...
Thirty years ago, Bruce Springsteen wrote the lyric “from small things, mama, big things one day come.” In a sense, that was part of the message of Fred Kirschenmann’s keynote address at the 12th annual conference of Future Harvest-Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, although his addres ...
- Greetings from Cuba!
CLF’s Sr. Research Program Coordinators Jesse Kurtz-Nicholl and Sarah Rodman are visiting Cuba as part of a Natural Environmental Ecological Management delegation. Members of the group will see first hand large-scale Cuban infrastructure developed to support its 18-year-old, world-renowned sustainab ...
- Are you learning your food habits at home? Doesn’ ...
When I was a teacher, a common gripe among the staff was that the parent’s “weren’t doing their job” at home and how were “we,” the teachers supposed to make up for students whose parents didn’t read to them or encourage them to do their homework. This ongoing blame game ranged from discussions of r ...
- New FDA Numbers Reveal Food Animals Consume Lion’s ...
Antibiotics, one of world’s greatest medical discoveries, are slowly losing their effectiveness in fighting bacterial infections and the massive use of the drugs in food animals may be the biggest culprit. The growing threat of antibiotic resistance is largely due to the misuse and overuse of antibi ...
- Britain Spearheads “Mini-NATO” In Arct ...
Stop NATO January 22, 2011 Britain Spearheads “Mini-NATO” In Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea Rick Rozoff On January 19 and 20 British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted his counterparts from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the first Nordic Baltic Summit to conso ...
- Washington To Rearm Georgia For New Conflicts
Stop NATO January 14, 2011 Washington To Rearm Georgia For New Conflicts Rick Rozoff Recent reports in the Russian news media have detailed plans by the U.S. to provide the Mikheil Saakashvili government in Georgia with tens of millions of dollars worth of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. The Ru ...
- U.S. Recruits Japan As Global Military Partner
Stop NATO January 12, 2011 U.S. Recruits Japan As Global Military Partner Rick Rozoff During the preceding week the U.S.’s top military officer identified Asia as the central focus of the Pentagon’s attention in the world, U.S. warships joined Japanese counterparts in military maneuvers in the East ...
- Militarization Of Energy Policy: U.S. Africa Comma ...
Stop NATO January 8, 2011 Militarization Of Energy Policy: U.S. Africa Command And Gulf Of Guinea Rick Rozoff At the beginning of the century, while the United States was still embroiled in military interventions in the Balkans and had launched what would become the longest war in its history in Afg ...
- U.S. Employs Afghan War To Build Global NATO
Stop NATO January 6, 2011 U.S. Employs Afghan War To Build Global NATO Rick Rozoff In an article entitled “How Afghanistan Became a War for NATO,” American journalist Gareth Porter argued that, contrary to the official position that an estimated 52,000 non-American troops from the North Atlantic Tre ...
- Wikileaks Is The “Cognitive InfiltrationR ...
Webster G. Tarpley Tarpley.net Awareness is growing around the world that the Wikileaks-Julian Assange theater of the absurd is radically inauthentic – a psyop. Wikileaks and its impaired boss represent a classic form of limited hangout or self-exposure, a kind of lurid striptease in which the front ...
- Big Ears: ‘Largest’ Secret Spy Hub Uncovered in Is ...
RT It’s been described as Israel’s ‘big ears’. A huge facility where it’s claimed phone calls and e-mails from all across the Middle East and beyond, can be monitored for intelligence. Hidden from prying eyes for decades in the desert, it’s become a focus for investigative journalists. Related Posts ...
- Cop Tells G20 Protester “This Is Ain’t ...
This is what happens whenever the international banksters meet to continue forming their world government. Every single G20 has been filled with police brutality as the police work against the people and protect the banks. Related Posts: ACLU Puts Faces on Violations of Civil Liberties(Secret Police ...
- Donald Trump: ‘China is Our Enemy’
A fired-up Donald Trump says China is manipulating the U.S. and that the country is not our friend. Related Posts: Raw Video: Protests Against Hu Jintao in Chicago Chinese Leader Disingenuous About Tibetan Issues, Improving Human Rights China To Send Troops to N Korea: Report Communist China to “Bai ...
- USDA Found to be Poisoning Bird Populations, Causi ...
Natural News By Mike Adams U.S. government commits avian holocaust with mass poisoning of millions of birds Not all the mysterious bird die-offs that have been witnessed around the globe recently are due to unexplained causes. A recent mass die-off event witnessed in Yankton, South Dakota was traced ...
- US: For decades, Chicago Police tortured many Blac ...
// // Jon Burge Sentenced To 4 1/2 Years In Prison: Convicted Of Lying About Police Torture KAREN HAWKINS 01/21/11 CHICAGO — Decades after young black men in Chicago first began claiming that a white policeman shocked, burned and suffocated them to get confessions, former officer Jon Burge is headed ...
- Thousands call for ouster of Yemeni president
The Associated Press , Jan. 22 2011 ADEN, Yemen â Drawing inspiration from the revolt in Tunisia, thousands of Yemenis fed up with their president’s 32-year rule demanded his ouster Saturday in a noisy demonstration that appeared to be the first large-scale public challenge to the strongman. Clashes ...
- 50 Years since the US-sponsored assassination of C ...
An Assassination’s Long Shadow By ADAM HOCHSCHILD, New York Times Op-Ed Contributor Published: January 16, 2011 TODAY, millions of people on another continent are observing the 50th anniversary of an event few Americans remember, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. A slight, goateed man with black ...
- India: The war on “fashionable Maoist though ...
MK: Maoism fashionable in universities A STAFF REPORTER, The Telegraph � Calcutta, Jan. 21: Governor M.K. Narayanan, the chancellor of the state�s universities, today said Maoism was becoming �fashionable� in varsities and added that a �section of the civil society was feeling encouraged and taking ...
- Protest against “Literary Festival” in ...
Chomsky, Arundhati, lead protest to writers meet in Galle [TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 23:37 GMT] “This is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in ...
- The Samouni Family Children – Survivors of t ...
January 12, 2011 is a day I will never forget, visiting the Samouni family could not possibly be anything but a life-changing event. Words simply cannot describe the devastation wrought upon this family by a marauding band of Israeli psychopaths, otherwise known as the Givati Brigade of the Israeli ...
- On the verge of Cast Lead II, a look back
Today our team in Gaza met the Awaja family from Thabat. There were nine members of this family, seven children aged 1 to 12 years old, but one son was murdered during Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), so seven children is now six. Today we visited a few days in the life of this family, courtesy [. ...
- Egyptian Blockade of Gaza – Blocking Ramsey ...
Egyptian Blockade of Gaza – Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General Of the US but long time enemy of US imperialism is being blocked by Egypt (under US orders) into entering Gaza at this moment. All required protocols were followed on the Egyptian side, but once again Egypt plays its role in collabora ...
- Egypt Blocking Yet Another Humanitarian Aid Convoy ...
Right now the Asian Convoy to Gaza is having the same problems with the Egyptian government that virtually every convoy has, including the Road to Hope Convoy (R2H). The corruption of the Egyptian regime and the active role it plays in blockading Gaza, partial though it may be, shames all Arabs, sha ...
- TJP Liberty Report Gaza – 2nd Anniversary Ca ...
- A little more reading with Sunday's column...
To read the column, go here. To read more on Haiti, go here. To read more about Diocese of Norwich Outreach to Haiti, go here�or here. To read more about the Jan. 31 memorial Mass, go here. To read more about Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, go here. AP photo �
- This just makes me happy
Years ago, I saw one of these clocks hanging in a colleague's home, but the Courant had long since stopped making this kind of�tchotchke, as far as I could tell. No way they're making them now. Anything with "Courant" stamped on it is highly-prized, at least by people like me, and not just because ...
- Fill the Bug is moving along
And there's a promise of more to come. Plus, I've collected some money, as well. Wahoo!
- Trends! Because crystal balls are keen!
Cliff sends this, a round-up of trends to watch in the coming year. Among the trends are families moving in together (yikes!) and the effect of the growing prison population on society at large, although it says here that Connecticut's prison population is at a 10-year low (scroll down just a bit). ...
- Tomorrow is the annivesary of Roe v. Wade
It's been 38 years since the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the country. (And all Connecticut residents know the importance of the state in this decision, right? With Griswold v. Connecticut?) At Revolution (oooh! Communists!) Bob Avakian writes about the morality of abo ...
- Report: Obama to Call for More Spending at State o ...
If the report on the upcoming State of the Union address is accurate, one will have to hand it to President Barack Obama. He is not one to go with the political flow when it comes to his own policy proposals.Contributor: Mark Whittington Published: Jan 22, 2011
- Rudy Giuliani Could Run for President in 2012 Agai ...
Rudy Giuliani might run for president in 2012 just to face Sarah Palin. Could Rudy Giuliani win the 2012 election?Contributor: Ryan Christopher DeVault Published: Jan 22, 2011
- Debt Relief Amendment Gaining Traction
As the debate over increasing the debt limit heats up, there is a movement gaining traction to limit Congress' ability to increase the federal debt.Contributor: Mark Lindgren Published: Jan 22, 2011
- Carlina White Update: Ann Pettway Sought by FBI in ...
Ann Pettway, the woman many believe may have been responsible for the abduction of a 19-day-old baby from a New York hospital in 1987, has disappeared in the last couple days. She is being sought by North Carolina, New York, and federal...Contributor: Saul Relative Published: Jan 22, 2011
- Kobe Bryant Calls Denver Nuggets Fans "Idiots" for ...
Kobe Bryant called Denver Nuggets fans "idiots" and "stupid" for booing Carmelo Anthony.Contributor: Ryan Christopher DeVault Published: Jan 22, 2011
- This Week In The Future: January 17-21, 2011
This Week in the Future, things are heating up, but not from global warming (for once). If you are the first to identify the four PopSci stories from this week represented in resident artist Baarbarian's illustration, you will win a t-shirt of the image. (Or, if you just can't wait, you can buy o ...
- Mars500 Crew All Set For Upcoming Fake Mars Landin ...
A band of make-believe space travelers locked in a steel capsule in Moscow is about to “land” on Mars, mission managers said Friday, nearly halfway through their 520-day mission. The tenacious Mars500 crew has been locked together for 233 days (as of Jan. 21) and are preparing for their mock arriva ...
- Archive Gallery: Mankind's Fascination With the Mo ...
- Archive Gallery: Mankind's Eternal Fascination Wit ...
What's on the moon? Here are the "midget-sun hypothesis," lunar snow, and more wild speculations we made prior to the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 Few things have inspired as much mythology and mystique as the moon. We've credited it with triggering madness, housing deities and rousing werewolves. Eve ...
- New Nanocomposite Magnets Could Reduce the Demand ...
A little exchange coupling goes a long way. Rare earth elements are getting a lot of ink these days, as questions about future supply have led to both political and economic tensions, and to a renewed search for rare earth deposits in North America, Australia, and parts of Southeast Asia. But some ...
- United States Air Force Reponds in Defense of Chri ...
Updated: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and its allies waged a new line of attacks towards Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, the Superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), demanding that the self-proclaimed “Lordâs Army” soldier, Clebe, not be allowed to proselytize Academy ca ...
- GORDON DUFF AND ROBERT ROSEBROCK: GANGSTERS, VETE ...
WHY IS GENERAL SHENSEKI UNABLE TO REMOVE CRIMINALS FROM THE VA? By Gordon Duff and Robert Rosebrock for Veterans Today Last year, Robert Rosebrock, advocate for homeless veterans and VT staffer, was arrested in Los Angeles on a series of Federal charges. Rosebrock was accused of violating convolute ...
- ALAN HART: OBAMA AND ISRAEL, A QUESTION OF COURAG ...
Would the isolation of America persuade Obama not to veto? By Alan Hart STAFF WRITER Despite strong U.S. opposition, a proposed resolution condemning Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank did make it to the UN Security Council. It was not put to a vote and no vote is expected for some time, ...
- Chaplain Kathie: When they can’t see the en ...
When they can’t see the enemy By Chaplain Kathie STAFF WRITER “We don’t know who we’re fighting over there, who’s friendly and who isn’t,” he said. “They’re always watching us. We’re basically fighting blind.” This was said by a wounded Marine after battle in Sangin Afghanistan. It is the nature of ...
- WEBSTER TARPLEY: WIKILEAKS A “COGNITIVE INF ...
Nihilists of The World Unite: Wikileaks Is The “Cognitive Infiltration” Operation Demanded by Cass Sunstein By Webster Tarpley at www.tarpleynet.com Awareness is growing around the world that the Wikileaks-Julian Assange theater of the absurd is radically inauthentic â a psyop. Wikileaks and its imp ...
- Who Is Saracen International? What Is It Doing In ...
It appears that Erik Prince, an American mercenary, has partnered with a group of equally notorious South African guns-for-hire for a paramilitary mission in an Islamic nation, under a corporate banner harking back to the Crusades. But what does it all mean?Thanks for subscribing to War Is Business. ...
- A Week’s Worth Of News, Bullet-Pointed
Big fish Viktor Bout had a fleet of aircraft delivering high-tech weapons around the world. Small fish Anna Fermanova stuffed some night-vision scopes into her luggage.Thanks for subscribing to War Is Business. Join the investigation and register for free, or
- General Dynamics Makes ‘Things Stop Happenin ...
Whether or not the new US approach in Afghanistan succeeds, the Abrams deployments are good news for the tanks' manufacturers.Thanks for subscribing to War Is Business. Join the investigation and register for free, or
- New Security Contracts At US Embassy In Tunis
Ten days before the revolution, the State Department gave out a $214,000 contract to to install "forced entry/ballistic resistant" upgrades to the embassy in Tunis.Thanks for subscribing to War Is Business. Join the investigation and register for free, or
- Eisenhower Needs Amy Chua’s Publicist—Plus, ...
The intrinsic problem with most arms trade journals: "the people they write about are the same people they write for."Thanks for subscribing to War Is Business. Join the investigation and register for free, or
- Met Office: 2010 Globally second warmest on record
Last week, researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, where temperature records extend back to 1880, announced that global surface temperatures in 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest on record. This was similar to data released by National Oceanic and Atmospheric A ...
- The Met Office DID forecast a cold winter.
There's been much in the news over the last week or so, regarding the issue of whether or not the Met Office did forecast a cold winter, and if so was this communicated to the government. You can read one version of events in the Independent newspaper by clicking here. Readers of this blog will kno ...
- Coal takes the strain...again.
On BBC Look North on friday I reported that during the recent intense cold weather, it's been our traditional coal and gas fired power stations that have been working flat out to keep our homes and businesses warm. And for the third winter running, the intense cold has gone hand in hand with per ...
- December 2010 update: Second coldest since 1659
Met Office provisional figures show that December 2010 with a mean CET temperature of -0.7C was the second coldest since records began in 1659, beaten only by December 1890 which had a mean of -0.8C. The diagram below shows how the month ranks with other cold Decembers, a truly memorable month cli ...
- First global temperature data published: 1998 stil ...
The first eagerly awaited data on 2010 global temperatures shows that although it was a very close run thing, 2010 has failed to beat 1998 which still holds the title of hottest year on record. The UAH global temperature satellite data, recorded and compiled by the University of Alabama in the USA ...
- 'Last Ticket for the Titanic?' Estonia Joins Euroz ...
I have been to Tallinn, the lovely capital of Estonia. What's more, my favourite choral ensemble is the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) whose music I enjoy as a man of taste if not necessarily wealth [!--my first pun of the year]. Bang on schedule despite a torrid 2009, the tiny former S ...
- FX Intervention Trifecta: Korea, Malaysia, Thailan ...
Oh, will the combatants ever cease from "international currency war" so we can celebrate the holidays in relative peace? With the US dollar doing another of its habitual swoons due to much-lamented American free money policies, Asian economies not particularly keen on shooting themselves in the foot ...
- China: Moving from or Clinging to Export Reliance?
We have, dear friends, reached the end of another year. Still, there is interesting news that suggest the Chinese are already thinking about 2011 while we're still celebrating the arrival of a new year (Chinese new year is still on February 3). The changes identified below seemingly indicate contras ...
- Indonesia Mounts Its Defence in Int'l Currency War
Just a little over a decade ago, Indonesia was the epicentre of the Asian financial crisis. In a matter of months, the local currency, the Indonesian rupiah (IDR), had lost eighty percent of its value as foreign investors fled the country as quickly as they came. After all, they call it "hot money" ...
- Philippines' Economics of Excessive Vacation
Is too much vacation bad? Working in academia right now, I must unreservedly state that one of its perks is having more free time once the semester is out. However, for the clock puncher / office slave classes, things are not as straightforward. Take the example of the Philippines. Inheriting a "hec ...
- 14 Eye Opening Statistics Which Reveal Just How Dr ...
Most Americans have become so accustomed to the "new normal" of continual economic decline that they don't even remember how good things were just a few short years ago. Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in p ...
- Huge Numbers Of Dead Animals, Dead Birds And Dead ...
Just what in the world is going on out there? Large groups of animals are keeling over dead, thousands of birds are falling out of the sky dead and millions of dead fish are washing ashore all over the globe. Something is happening. Do any of you know what is causing all this, be ...
- Instead Of Using This Period Of Economic Stability ...
The fact that the official U.S. government unemployment rate has dipped slightly is good news. However, it is not the "economic turning point" that Barack Obama and others are proclaiming it to be. Rather, what we are in right now is "the calm before the storm". The massive amoun ...
- Which Of The Currencies Of The World Is Going To C ...
Last year was an absolutely fascinating time for world currency markets. The yen, the dollar and the euro all took their turns in the spotlight. Each experienced wild swings at various times, but the overall theme that we saw was that faith in paper currencies is dying. The bigge ...
- In The Future You May Not Be Able To Provide The B ...
Today, millions of American families are extremely stressed out because they are working as hard as they can and yet they find at the end of the month they still haven't been able to pay all of the bills. Unfortunately, things are only going to get rougher in the years ahead. The ...
- In Tunisia, Ben Ali was ‘big brother’
One Tunisian recounts his run-ins with the party of President Zine el Abidine ben Ali, which asked him repeatedly to become a ‘citizen watcher’ and inform on friends, family and co-workers. Reporting from Tunis, Tunisia â He remembers the form. You filled it out to become a “citizen watcher” for the ...
- Rep. Cohen: Ventura’s Show Promotes Terrorism
After making a comment comparing establishment Republicans opposed to Obamacare to Nazi propagandist Goebbels, Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen went on CIA operative Anderson Cooper’s CNN show to defend himself. During the interview, Cohen took a swipe at Jesse Ventura and his popular TruTV show. ...
- 2 out of 3 new jobs given to migrants
Two in every three new UK jobs went to foreign-born workers, shock figures showed yesterday. The statistic emerged on the day Britain’s jobless total hit 2.5 million, including a record 951,000 16 to 24-year-olds. The Office for National Statistics figures intensified fears that unemployment will so ...
- Mom Loses Her 6 Kids Over Game Addiction, Filthy H ...
Six children were removed from their Uniontown home after investigators found them living in filth and animal waste. Police said their mother was addicted to online computer games, so she neglected her children and didnât clean the house for years. The children’s stepfather, James Boord, spoke with ...
- EU brainwashing denies the roots of our civilisati ...
Filled with barbaric hatred and envy, Islamic extremists constantly plot the downfall of our civilisation. Tragically for us they have an ally in their lethal cause: the elite of the European Union. Just like Muslim zealots, the ideological fanatics of Brussels have nothing but contempt for our Chri ...
- How Much More Evidence Do You Need Before You Stop ...
Documentary evidence was revealed in Ireland this week proving that Catholic officials do not report sex crimes against children to the police, and that this is official Church policy originating from Rome. Such disclosures should have been answered with judicial inquiries, charges being laid, and i ...
- Bill Zeller and others must not die in vain
The tragedy of Bill Zeller’s lifetime of suffering from the effects of childhood sexual and physical abuse, which finally resulted in his recent suicide has touched people around the world. Bill was obviously a very special person and a great loss to those who knew him, and the rest of the world. Bi ...
- Please Explain Why Catholic Bishops Get Away with ...
I read with horror this week that a youth worker in the Northern Territory of Australia is facing charges under mandatory reporting laws. Her crime? While she did eventually report her concern about the possible sexual abuse of a five-year old child, she has been summonsed to appear before a magistr ...
- “Apostolic Visitation” another Papal P ...
Will the "apostolic visitation" result in any real, concrete action, or is the Church driven PR resulting from the event an end in itself? Will the Church be held accountable for producing any changes or do they expect the smoke and mirrors of the "apostolic visitation" to obscure the fact that once ...
- Child Sexual Abuse Victims Abandoned by their Fami ...
I have discovered a disturbing thing about children abused by Catholic Church sponsored sexual predators. I’ve met a lot of other victims recently and heard their histories, each one shocking in its own way. Each victim has their own twist of the knife that makes their story truly heart wrenching, s ...
- 2011-01-07 EFF: The Best of Cablegate: Instances W ...
TweetEFF has chosen the cables they feel have "been critical to understanding and evaluating controversial events." Their choices: “Dancing Boy” Scandal Alleges Child Prostitution, Possible Drug Use among U.S. Private Contractors Pfizer Allegedly Sought to Blackmail Nigerian Regulator to Stop Lawsu ...
- Twitter Details & Messages of Birgitta Jónsdóttir ...
TweetThe US Department of Justice has issued a subpoena on Twitter for material related to Birgitta Jónsdóttir, including her personal details and, it can be assumed, all her private direct messages. Ms Jónsdóttir twittered thus: department of justice are requesting twitter to provide the info - i ...
- 2011-01-08: Peter King: Zeal of Hypocrites
TweetA month ago, on the 7th of December, a week after Peter King made his controversial Wikileaks Is Terrorism" comments, I posted this rather lengthy article to my blog, and linked to it from WL Central, documenting both King's hypocrisy and the possible motives he might have for taking such a rad ...
- 2011-01-08: U.S. DOJ Twitter Subpoena Updates
TweetShortly after news of the subpoena issued to Twitter by the The U.S. Department of Justice emerged, an electronic copy of the subpoena surfaced and was, of course, circulated via Twitter. (A copy of the subpoena can be found here in pdf format.) Birgitta Jónsdóttir, one of 63 members of Iceland ...
- 2011-01-08: Twitter on censorship: No censorship o ...
TweetIt was December 14 when Twitter first received the sealed order to turn over information on several of its users. Twitter could simply have provided the information requested, instead of acting, on January 5, to have the order unsealed. The unsealing of the subpoena allowed the Twitter users in ...
- Latin American and Caribbean unemployment dropped ...
The economic upturn in most Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2010 fuelled a 0.6 percentage point drop in unemployment - from 8.1 per cent in 2009 to 7.5 per cent - and is expected to lead to a further decrease of between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points this year, the United Nations reported t ...
- UN human rights chief voices concern over migrants ...
The United Nations human rights chief today voiced deep concern over the fate of a group of about 40 migrants who have been missing since they were abducted in Mexico last month, and death threats to a prominent human rights defender assisting other migrants who escaped the kidnapping ordeal.
- Haiti must respect international mission's elector ...
Haiti's electoral council must take full account of an international mission's findings, reportedly eliminating the Government candidate from the presidential run-off, or face the prospect of considerable unrest, the United Nations peacekeeping chief warned today.
- UN independent human rights expert urges support f ...
Noting the pending legal proceedings against Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former Haitian leader who returned to his home country earlier this week, the United Nations independent expert on human rights in Haiti today urged the international community to "allow justice to take its course" in the Caribbe ...
- Former Haitian leader's return raises impunity iss ...
The return to Haiti of former Haitian leader Jean Claude Duvalier clearly raises issues of impunity and accountability, the United Nations human rights office said today, adding that it was looking into the matter.
- Mystery Missile Launch, Big Pharma Begins Microchi ...
Once activated by stomach acid, the embedded microchip begins sensing its environment and broadcasting data to a receiver worn by the patient. This receiver is also a transmitter that can send the data over the internet to a doctor.
- 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction
The British Government's story of what happened, how, and why is contained in three reports comprising just over 200 pages. There is virtually no forensic physical evidence in the public domain. The first two reports were published simultaneously in 2006, ten months after 7/7. One was a home office ...
- The Absurdity Of Starting A Small Business In The ...
In the 1950s only about 1 in 20 Americans needed the government blessing to do their job. Today, that number is more than 1 in 3. And government puts all kinds of requirements on would be entrepreneurs making it harder for these entrepreneurs to start and grow small businesses.
- CIA Whistleblower: “Heart Attack Gun”
Senator: Does this pistol fire the dart? CIA Dir: Yes, it does, Mr. Chairman, and a special one was developed which potentially would be able to enter the target without perception.
- Naked Truth Behind Body Scanners
He's abusing his relationship with the public by pretending to be a public servant and talking about how these back-scatter scanners are going to make us safer? He stands to benefit because he's getting payed by the manufacturing companies to go all over the networks saying that these scanners are T ...
- "The Globocrats": Davos and the Bilderberg
The Economist's special report on global leaders
- Quantitative Easing Is Causing Food Prices to Skyr ...
In case you’ve missed it, food riots are spreading throughout the developing world Already Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, and even Laos are experiencing riots and protests due to soaring food prices.
- HOT: Fed Hides Major Accounting Change
Concerns that the Federal Reserve could suffer losses on its massive bond holdings may have driven the central bank to adopt a little-noticed accounting change with huge implications: it makes insolvency much less likely.
- BP's spilled oil is washing up in people
This month the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released the results of tests performed on blood samples collected from Gulf residents. Whole blood samples were collected from 12 people between the ages of 10 and 66 in September, November and December and analyzed by a professional lab i ...
- Italian scientists claim to have demonstrated cold ...
Despite the intense skepticism, a small community of scientists is still investigating near-room-temperature fusion reactions. The latest news occurred last week, when Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion ...
- Stellar Factories of the Orion Nebula: The Mystery ...
This Three-colour composite shows the young object Herbig-Haro 34 in the protostar stage of evolution 1,500 light-years from Earth, near the famous Orion Nebula -one of the most productive star birth regions in the Milky Way. This object has a...
- Arctic Temperatures Reach Tipping Point -A Warning ...
A recent study shows the Arctic climate system may be more sensitive to greenhouse warming than previously thought, and that current levels of Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to create a tipping point -significant, irreversible shifts in...
- A Galaxy Cluster 1000 Times Size of Milky Way Con ...
European Space Agency's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton provided astronomers a glimpse of the largest cluster of galaxies ever seen in the distant, early universe. The discovery of this far-off group, estimated to contain a thousand times the mass of our...
- Could the Universe Be A Giant Quantum Computer? (T ...
MIT scientist Seth Lloyd proposes that information is a quantifiable physical value, as much as mass or motion -that any physical system--a river, you, the universe--is a quantum mechanical computer. Lloyd has calculated that "a computer made up of all...
- Barcelona Astronomers Discover Giant Planet
A team of researchers from the Institute of Space Sciences (IEEC-CSIC) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has discovered, for the first time, a delta Scuti pulsating star that hosts a hot giant transiting planet called WASP-33 (also known as HD15082)...
- U.S. government commits avian holocaust with mass ...
(NaturalNews) The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is engaged in what can only be called an avian holocaust through its Bye Bye Blackbird program that has poisoned tens of millions of birds over the last decade. The USDA even reports the number of birds it has poisoned to death in a PD ...
- Pesticides give rise to mutant bed bugs
(NaturalNews) Bedbugs are coming back with a vengeance, and a new study out of Ohio State University says that pesticides and insecticides are at least jointly responsible for spawning a new breed of mutant bedbugs that is genetically-resistant to the very chemicals commonly used to eradicate it..Pe ...
- Apple rated worst multinational polluter in China
(NaturalNews) Apple Inc. is known worldwide for creating computers, iPhones, and other electronic devices with unique lines and clean designs. But the multinational giant has also been pinned as the worst company for pollution and "occupational health hazard incidents" at its facilities in China.Man ...
- USDA found to be poisoning bird populations, causi ...
(NaturalNews) Not all the mysterious bird die-offs that have been witnessed around the globe recently are due to unexplained causes. A recent mass die-off event witnessed in Yankton, South Dakota was traced back to the USDA which admitted to carrying out a mass poisoning of the birds.After hundreds ...
- Flu vaccine causing infant seizures; FDA to invest ...
(NaturalNews) The Sanofi-Aventis flu vaccine known as "Fluzone" is causing febrile seizures in children, the FDA revealed yesterday. According to the FDA, 42 cases of seizures have been reported in children receiving the Fluzone vaccine. Most of the children suffering seizures are under the age of t ...
- Speedy Drivers Can Hide From Cops, But Not Hackers
Millions of people who use smartphone software to avoid police speed traps may have fallen into a trap set by hackers instead. Trapster, a GPS-based app that lets iPhone, Android and BlackBerry owners report and view police speed traps on a map, alerted users this week that their passwords may have ...
- Defense Attorney Files Complaint Alleging Mistreat ...
The attorney for suspected WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning filed a formal complaint this week over Manning’s treatment at the Marine Corps brig where he is being detained. Attorney David E. Coombs filed the complaint on Wednesday, the day after Manning was abruptly placed on suicide watch by ...
- Parents Sue Expert Witness Who Made Fake Child-Por ...
An Ohio lawyer who serves as an expert witness in child pornography cases might be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in civil damages for Photoshopping courtroom exhibits of children having sex. Attorney Dean Boland purchased innocent pictures of four juvenile girls from a Canadian st ...
- Claim: WikiLeaks Published Documents Siphoned Over ...
Music and movie pirates may not be the only ones trolling peer-to-peer networks for booty. The secret-spilling site WikiLeaks may also have used file sharing networks to obtain some of the documents it has published, according to a computer-security firm. The allegations come from Tiversa, a Pennsy ...
- Supreme Court Upholds Intrusive Government Backgro ...
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that U.S. government contractors must undergo the same background checks as federal employees. A lower court had declared the checks an unconstitutional “broad inquisition” when applied to the contractors. The challenged background investigations sought ...
- Republicans Can't Hide Their Ryan Eyes
This week, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced they would deploy Rep. Paul Ryan to give the Republican rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address. But while Boehner is now touting Ryan as "uniquely qualified to address the state of our econo ...
- Meet the Venomous Paul Broun
On Thursday, Georgia Republican Congressman Paul Broun insisted he would not sit with Democrats during next week's State of the Union address when "Barack Obama spews his venom." That's quite a charge, coming as it does from a man who equated health care reform to the "War of Yankee Aggression", co ...
- New Civility Short-Lived in Health Care Debate
In the run-up to Wednesday's vote by House Republicans to undo the Affordable Care Act, the McClatchy papers asked, "Will it last? Health care repeal debate takes on civil tone." The answer, of course, was no. The Republican Party that brought America bogus charges of "death panels," the "governme ...
- The Republican Patients' Bill of Wrongs
On Wednesday, House Republicans will keep half of their grandstanding promise to "repeal and replace" the 2010 health care reform law. But the easy part ends there. As the Washington Post explains, GOP leaders are still far offering anything to replace the Affordable Care Act they hope to kill in ...
- Republicans Shelby, Paul Call for Over $1 Trillion ...
In the run-up to November's midterm elections, David Leonhardt of the New York Times presciently warned, "In their Pledge to America, Congressional Republicans have used the old trick of promising specific tax cuts and vague spending cuts," adding, "It's the politically easy approach, and it is like ...
- 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.
- Texas Hill Country CREZ (Transmission line) Projec ...
The Public Utility Commission pass a scaled-back version of a controversial power line project through the Hill Country to bring West Texas wind energy to the urban centers on Thursday, January 20th. The commission was under a Monday deadline to act on the project. The three-member panel spent much ...
- Hill Country transmission (CREZ) line decision pos ...
As an end of the month deadline looms, PUC once again postponed a final decision on the route of a controversial portion of the lines and towers that will carry wind power from West Texas through the Hill Country and on to the state’s more populated regions At this point it looks like PUC will [...]
- EPA wants to move ahead and issue Texas greenhouse ...
According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has asked a Washington court to allow it to issue greenhouse gas permits in Texas, even though the state has asked the judges to stop the federal move. The EPA filed its motion on Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Was ...
- Another Texas nuclear plant unit down
Luminant, operator of the two-unit Comanche Peak nuclear power plant 45 miles southwest of Fort Worth, shut down the facility’s Unit 1 reactor about 7 p.m. Thursday and they were still working earlier today to correct the problem that caused the shutdown. No word yet as to when the unit would be ba ...
- EPA v. Texas: Showdown in Dallas
The much anticipated hearing between the Environmental Protection Agency and Texas regarding the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will occur this morning in Dallas, Texas. The hearing is set to begin at 10:00 AM and is expected to continue through 7:00 PM this evening. The hearing will be he ...
- A Nation of Bedwetters
One thing that was confirmed by the recent WikiLeaks release is that the rest of the world is significantly less inclined to take any of the innocent prisoners at Guantanamo because we are not willing to take them ourselves. ...the rest of the world sees Guantanamo as a collection of both innoc ...
- Casual Observation
The CIA's zombies never die. Dewey Clarridge is still running amok two decades after Poppy pardoned him on Christmas Eve 1992. This is the guy running his own private spy network in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The private spying operation, which The New York Times disclosed last year, was ta ...
- Olbermann Quits
I wonder what precipitated this: Keith Olbermann, the highest-rated host on MSNBC, announced abruptly on the air Friday night that he was leaving his show, Countdown, immediately. The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the network for some time, especially since he ...
- Frivolous Friday Open Thread
I'm declaring 2012 a Dana Milbank-free year. Who's with me? Hey, it's Funky Friday. Have some music. Believe it or not, the music is related to my declaration. No phonies. Discuss
- If Not Romney, Then Who?
There was a point in 2007 when it looked like John McCain's campaign was dead. He had no money. His staff was leaving. He wasn't doing great in the polls. But he had one thing going for him. The competition was ludicrous. There was no way that the people were going to make Tom Tancredo, Ron Pa ...
- 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 ...
- Psychotherapy News Weekly Round-Up
A GoodTherapy.org Psychotherapy News Weekly Round-Up Hope you all had exactly the kind of week you needed. This week’s major news largely covers huge events going on in our world today: examining the Tuscon shooting, recovering from natural disasters, and the House’s repeal of the health care bill, ...
- Fighting Suicide Through Superheroes
A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Preventing suicide takes involvement and dedication from everyone: therapists and counselors, parents and administrators, even celebrities and role models. Some role models are real people, and others are fictional characters. Marvel Comics is doing their part with a ...
- Does Living at High Altitude Put You at Risk for S ...
A GoodTherapy.org News Headline It just may, according to new research published in High Altitude Medicine & Biology. The journal found a statistically significant increase in suicide among people who live at higher altitudes; they also ruled out altitude-related health problems as the cause of suic ...
- Setting Goals for Self Esteem
By Tina Gilbertson, MA, Self-Esteem Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Tina and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Did you make a new year’s resolution to do something differently in 2011? If so, you’re in a great position to improve your self-esteem while you’re at it. Your level of sel ...
- Animals & Psyche
By Mary Alice Long, PhD Jungian Psychotherapy Topic Expert Contributor Click here to contact Mary Alice and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Anima(ls) meaning breath….soul By encouraging the soul’s interest in animals, we can embrace what animals have: resilience, pleasure, and a link to the eleme ...
- Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A. ( ...
Mark Mazzetti / New York Times: Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A. — WASHINGTON — Duane R. Clarridge parted company with the Central Intelligence Agency more than two decades ago, but from poolside at his home near San Diego, he still runs a network of spies. — Over the past two ...
- The Left's Tucson Strategy: Stage Two (John/Power ...
John / Power Line: The Left's Tucson Strategy: Stage Two — The Left's attempt to link the Tucson shootings to angry rhetoric (not theirs, of course) was stage one of a broader strategy—what both military men and political strategists refer to as preparing the battlefield. The movement to feign n ...
- NEW DETAILS: "MSNBC And Keith Olbermann Have Ended ...
Deadline.com: NEW DETAILS: “MSNBC And Keith Olbermann Have Ended Their Contract”; Lefty MSNBC About To Make Right Turn? — 2ND UPDATE, SATURDAY AM: An MSNBC insider told this to Deadline today about Keith Olbermann's departure Friday: … Rachel Maddow & Bill Maher React To Keith Olbermann's Ouster ...
- Keith Olbermann's Exit - Secret Deal (TMZ.com)
TMZ.com: Keith Olbermann's Exit — Secret Deal — Keith Olbermann saw the handwriting on the wall with the new owner of NBC and cut a deal for his exit that will give him money and options — sources tell TMZ. — Here's how it went down. Sources familiar with the situation tell us …
- Mitt Romney wins N.H. GOP straw poll (Kasie Hunt/T ...
Kasie Hunt / The Politico: Mitt Romney wins N.H. GOP straw poll — DERRY, N.H. - Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the first presidential straw poll of the 2012 cycle, kicking off New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary election race. — Romney won with 35 percent, beating second-pla ...
- M 5.1, Bonin Islands, Japan region
Sunday, January 23, 2011 10:58:19 UTCSunday, January 23, 2011 08:58:19 PM at epicenterDepth: 9.90 km (6.15 mi)
- M 5.3, southern Sumatra, Indonesia
Sunday, January 23, 2011 09:05:34 UTCSunday, January 23, 2011 04:05:34 PM at epicenterDepth: 49.90 km (31.01 mi)
- M 5.3, Bonin Islands, Japan region
Friday, January 21, 2011 06:32:22 UTCFriday, January 21, 2011 04:32:22 PM at epicenterDepth: 9.80 km (6.09 mi)
- M 5.0, Saint Kitts and Nevis region, Leeward Islan ...
Friday, January 21, 2011 03:37:16 UTCThursday, January 20, 2011 11:37:16 PM at epicenterDepth: 163.70 km (101.72 mi)
- M 5.2, Ryukyu Islands, Japan
Thursday, January 20, 2011 11:36:41 UTCThursday, January 20, 2011 08:36:41 PM at epicenterDepth: 158.40 km (98.43 mi)
- China’s great disappearing lake
Northern China’s largest body of freshwater is shrinking, but can it be saved? Huo Weiya travelled to Inner Mongolia to find out.Dalai Lake is shrinking. For years, the water level of northern China’s largest freshwater lake – lying on the Hulunbuir grasslands of Inner Mongolia, close to the borders ...
- For Brand, a new shade of green
American “techno-hippy” Stewart Brand says a shift to nuclear power and genetically modified foods is needed to address global warming. He explains his controversial change of position to Damian Carrington.Stewart Brand appears to have squeezed many lives into his 71 years and defies easy categorisa ...
- Soot strategies
As the power of black carbon to accelerate ice-melt becomes clearer, climate-change policymakers are giving more time to this long overlooked pollutant. Jenny Johnson reports.Global efforts to mitigate climate change are beginning to take aim at a once-obscure pollutant called “black carbon” in a sh ...
- Failure to engage
As the Year of the Tiger draws to an end, Meng Si reviews its key environmental events and awards China poor marks for public participation.On the last day of December, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection rejected a request from non-profit group Chongqing Green Volunteers for a re-examinati ...
- A new era for Tibet’s rivers
Construction of a massive dam on the Yarlung Zangbo marks a turning point for Tibet, write He Haining and Jiang Yannan. A development boom is coming.The rushing waters of the Yarlung Zangbo, the last of China’s great rivers to remain undammed, will soon be history. On November 12 last year, the buil ...
- Speedy Drivers Can Hide From Cops, But Not Hackers
Millions of people who use smartphone software to avoid police speed traps may have fallen into a trap set by hackers instead. Trapster, a GPS-based app that lets iPhone, Android and BlackBerry owners report and view police speed traps on a map, alerted users this week that their passwords may have ...
- Defense Attorney Files Complaint Alleging Mistreat ...
The attorney for suspected WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning filed a formal complaint this week over Manning’s treatment at the Marine Corps brig where he is being detained. Attorney David E. Coombs filed the complaint on Wednesday, the day after Manning was abruptly placed on suicide watch by ...
- Parents Sue Expert Witness Who Made Fake Child-Por ...
An Ohio lawyer who serves as an expert witness in child pornography cases might be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in civil damages for Photoshopping courtroom exhibits of children having sex. Attorney Dean Boland purchased innocent pictures of four juvenile girls from a Canadian st ...
- Claim: WikiLeaks Published Documents Siphoned Over ...
Music and movie pirates may not be the only ones trolling peer-to-peer networks for booty. The secret-spilling site WikiLeaks may also have used file sharing networks to obtain some of the documents it has published, according to a computer-security firm. The allegations come from Tiversa, a Pennsy ...
- Supreme Court Upholds Intrusive Government Backgro ...
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that U.S. government contractors must undergo the same background checks as federal employees. A lower court had declared the checks an unconstitutional “broad inquisition” when applied to the contractors. The challenged background investigations sought ...
- VIDEO: What Happened to the Antiwar Movement
- Into the Future
Astonishing theater unfolded in Washington, DC when former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and former Vice Presidents Richard Cheney and Joe Biden were taken into custody and transported to a courthouse soon after arriving in the United States. Photographers captured images of the four, r ...
- Iraq: Questions Still Unanswered
As well as those about the necessity of leaving Afghanistan, instead of helping them as once again promised, to smolder into a much more dangerous occupation theater and still no bin Laden! Chilcots got the only show in town, we here don't do accountability for that done in our names, where we can r ...
- Tony Blair at the Iraq inquiry:
Day of regret, Day of reckoning The Chilcot Inquiry will help write history's verdict on Tony Blair - and he may not like it Return to the fray: Tony Blair giving evidence Photo: REUTERS 23rd January 2011 - His government did not, in Alastair Campbell’s words, “do God”. But on Friday the gods, yet ...
- Reneging on Guantánamo
There's a large element within this Country that seems bound and determined to tear apart what this Country is suppose to stand for on the World stage as well as within. They also seem to want to stoke their fears by creating as much hatred towards us, thus enemies of, for a perpetual state of confl ...
- 2010 warmest ever year, says U.N. weather agency
by Agence France-Presse. GENEVA -- The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that 2010 was the warmest year on record, confirming a "significant" long-term trend of global warming and producing exceptional weather variations. The trend also helped to melt Arctic sea ice cover t ...
- Apple under fire for pollution and poisoned Chines ...
by Agence France-Presse. SHANGHAI -- Chinese environmental groups on Thursday singled out Apple for failing to tackle concerns over pollution and the health of workers at plants making parts for trendy gadgets such as its iPhone. In a new report, the groups said the U.S. giant ranked last in a ...
- Mitsubishi launching eight green cars by 2016
by Agence France-Presse. TOKYO -- Japan's Mitsubishi Motors said Thursday it would launch a new lineup of environmentally friendly cars by March 2016 and double operating profit in the next three years by focusing on emerging markets. Mitsubishi will launch a total of eight electric vehicles an ...
- Obama says U.S. and China share climate goals
by Agence France-Presse. WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed with him on the need to fight climate change by moving ahead in international negotiations. Meeting with Hu at the White House, Obama touched on last month's accord in Cancun, M ...
- Obama admin creates new agencies for oil oversight
by Agence France-Presse. WASHINGTON -- Three separate bodies will now oversee offshore oil resources, once handled by an agency whose poor management was exposed after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, U.S. officials announced Wednesday. President Barack Obama had promised to overhaul the Minerals ...
- The Scientific American
Science is the business right now. If the science works, the business works, and vice versa. –Craig Venter Bird flu marinates a chicken in its own juices, a satay best avoided whatever the menu special. In such short an order better for the bistro than the barn, infected birds rapidly bleed from the ...
- Fearful Symmetry
A colleague, genuinely perplexed, even outraged, asked me what the fuck was going on with all those dead birds in Arkansas. And, tongue-in-cheek, what would Mulder and Scully say? Scully: Mulder, it’s me. I got your message. Really, Beebe, Arkansas for a flock of dead birds? Does Skinner approve? Mu ...
- The Great Recession Flu
Swine flu is so 2009. Like La Roux and v-neck t-shirts. And yet the United Kingdom is presently suffering a swine flu attack worse than anything it faced in 2009. The number of flu patients in intensive care has risen by 60 per cent in the past week to 738, four times greater than at [...]
- Alien vs. Predator
Dallas: [looks at a pen being dissolved by alien's body fluid] I haven’t seen anything like that except, uh, molecular acid. Brett: It must be using it for blood. Parker: It’s got a wonderful defense mechanism. You don’t dare kill it. –Alien (1979) NASA announced earlier this month one of its resear ...
- 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 ...
- Olbermann vs The Corporate Media
Olbermann’s MSNBC Exit Was Weeks in the Making NY Times January 22, 2011, 2:48 pm By BILL CARTER On Thursday, NBC’s news division staged an elaborate presentation for advertisers, seeking to sell commercial time in NBC’s news programs over the next year. All the members of MSNBC’s prime-time lineup ...
- Tony Blair at British Iraq Inquiry
C-SPAN For a second time former British Prime Minister Tony Blair testified before the Committee of Inquiry on the Iraq War. January 2010, Mr. Blair testified before the five-member group on his role during the lead up to the war, military preparedness, and his relationship with President George W. ...
- Thanks to Socialized Medicine, Dick Cheney Is Stil ...
Question for the tea party and everyone who voted for tea party Republicans in November: Did you enjoy your purely cosmetic vote to repeal the health care reform law? Personally, I would feel pandered to, and not particularly satisfied with all of that fiscally expensive congressional time being was ...
- Kennedy’s Speeches Revisited
As good as Kennedy’s inaugural was, the speeches that define him historically were given within just over 50 hours in June 1963, one of them prepared secretly over months, the other practically ad-libbed. JFK’s Eloquence, 50 Years Later E.J. Dionne, Jr. | Truthdig | Posted on Jan 19, 2011 It’s remem ...
- Tougher Gun Laws?
Poll: Majority Of Americans, Including Gun Owners, Support Tougher Restrictions Huff Post- Amanda Terkel First Posted: 01/18/11 09:07 AMÂ Updated: 01/18/11 09:47 AM WASHINGTON — Despite powerful lobbying against any new gun-control measures by groups like the National Rifle Association, a new bipart ...
- Building Little Republics in a Collapsing Empire
By Sam Smith Several years after the passage of the Federal Boating Act of 1958, the Second Coast Guard District in St. Louis sent a team of unarmed men, and a van with outboard patrol boat in tow, to Oklahoma to begin safety inspections of vessels on a federal waterway. A few days later, the men [. ...
- The Sun Rises Two Days Early in Greenland
By Daily Mail Reporter The sun over Greenland has risen two days early, baffling scientists and sparking fears that Arctic icecaps are melting faster than previously thought. Experts say the sun should have risen over the Arctic nation’s most westerly town, Ilulissat, yesterday, ending a month-and- ...
- Healthy Money Summit
The Healthy Money Summit is next week, January 24-27th. It’s an open conversation on how we can create a healthier, happier, more productive relationship with money. Join Catherine for a discussion on “Healthy Economic Systems” with Helena Norberg-Hodge and Riane Eisler on Tuesday, January 25th f ...
- Monsanto Wins the 2010 Corporate Hall of Shame!
Monsanto garnered 38% of the vote to win the 2010 Corporate Hall of Shame. From using aggressive legal tactics to intimidate and bankrupt local farmers to its reckless promotion of genetically modified organisms, the list of Monsanto’s abuses is long, and the negative impacts on human rights and th ...
- Vanishing of the Bees
The documentary film, Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by Ellen Page, takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee. Directors George Langworthy and Maryam Henein present not just a story about the mysterious ...
- 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��
- More jobs, bought at a dear cost (to be paid for i ...
Summary:   The US economy continues its slow “recovery.” It’s not an organic recovery, as it results from three years of massive fiscal and monetary stimulus — powerful medicine, with serious side-effects (to be felt in the future). Lost in our delusions, we confuse this with actual health. ...
- 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 ...
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