25 January - RSS SnapShot! Pt 2

libcom

• Go Slow Strike at FagorMastercook (Mondragon capit ...
  Workers fight for wage increase. A work-to-rule strike in underway in Wroclaw's FagorMastercook factory. Despite exceptionally good output, increased exports and a healthy profit, most workers are still taking home a meager 350 euros a m ...
• Student struggle in the Netherlands
  Last Friday, January 21, the Netherlands saw student action on a massive scale. Fifteen thousand students and sympathisers, maybe more, came together for a protest rally on the Malieveld in The Hague, the city in which the Dutch government is located. The acti ...
• Rebels in the Maghreb… who they are?
  Rebels in the Maghreb… who they are? The State and its enlightened commentators were first selling us that it was about: • a little obstacle in the smooth running of business, to get round as soon as possible; • an expression of brutality peculiar to countries not well civilized; read more
• Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Post ...
  Announcement of new book that develops a truly global history of the anarchist movement. Book Announcement: Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940 URL: http://labourhistory.net/news/i1012_6.php "Anar ...
• Insurrection in North Africa: the story so far
  Tunisia-protests-007.jpg In the latest development in the rapidly escalating situation in North Africa, the Tunisian President has been forced out of power, a new government formed and a state of emergen ...

Free Range International

• What Is the Problem Here?
  One of the Chim Chims’ has asked to put up a guest post on a topic near and dear to both our hearts for different reasons:  the continuing efforts of the New York Times to kill a program I doubt was that big of a deal to begin with.  Chim Chim is a member of [...]
• The Start of a Long Year
  A few weeks back home we’re a blessing and also a time to partake in my favorite thing to do which is doing nothing.  I’m an expert.  While I was away a few articles caught my attention and they serve as a useful point of departure to evaluate where we are at the start of [...]
• You Can’t Handle the Truth
  The efforts of the international community to bring aid to Afghanistan, help develop the infrastructure with the goal of allowing Afghanistan a chance at self sufficiency are failing dismally.  That should not be a surprise to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the international aid racket ...
• Afghanistan’s Forgotten Province
  There are a couple of recent articles in the flood of coverage about Afghanistan which caught my eye last week.  The first is factually wrong but I understand what the author was saying and he is, in a sense correct.  The second is factually correct, I understand what that reporter was saying too an ...
• Rules of Engagement
  I have written in the past about night raids and aggressive ISAF convoy tactics causing unnecessary civilian casualties.  I have also written on the importance of not allowing enemy fighters who attack ISAF units to live and fight another day.  Counterinsurgency requires adaptation and my annoyance ...

The Story Behind the Story

• The Story Behind the Story of Chinese Delegation&# ...
  Good Morning Friends: I submit this is exactly what Comrade Clinton promised Comrade Ju in her visit back in January 2009.  REMEMBER??  (She was literally hours into her Secretary of State position, when Hillary heads to Bejing!!!) I absolutely love what Donald Trump had to say to CNN’s Wolf Blitz ...
• Activity on the “New Madrid Fault”.
  Connecting the dots, folks, is what I try to do. Remember the “Swine Flu Pandemic” last winter?  Is that event somehow connected in any way with the Gulf oil spill and the dueterium laser attack on Deepwater Horizon?  Are the dead birds and animals in Arkansas and Kentucky connected as well?  I t ...
• Will the REAL “Jared Lee Loughner” Ple ...
• Is A. True Ott “Sorcha Faal”? Not Eve ...
  I have recently had a dozen or so people e-mail me concerning what I believe to have been an honest mistake — a patriot blog identified me, A. True Ott, with being “Sorcha Faal”.  The author even posted my picture.  He quickly apologized to me for his error, claiming that his “information” came fr ...
• Top 30 Hidden FACTS about “America”
  In order to understand what is REALLY going on covertly, “behind the curtain” in America – one needs to internalize and understand the following 30 basic facts about “The Powers That Be”.  (TPTB). Thirty Little Known Facts about America 1. The IRS is NOT a U.S. Government Agency.  It is an Agency ...

du la bab - Now is the Time

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

Mansbridge One on One - CBC

• Antony Beevor, War Historian (Nov 7, 2009)
  At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of eleventh month we pause, and remember those who have sacrificed in times of war. And there were millions in the last century. One author who has studied some of the 20th century's most historic battles has a new book, and this week he's our guest in what h ...
• Danielle Smith, Leader of the Wildrose Alliance Pa ...
  She's been around Alberta politics since she was pretty young, and she's made her mark. Now she's being talked of as a potential Premier. All this with a party that didn't even exist two years ago. What's her story - and what does it mean for the rest of the country? This week we find out.
• Dr. Shana Kelley, University of Toronto (October 3 ...
  Research labs around the world are on the constant hunt for new ways of fighting one of the world's great killers - cancer. In one lab in Toronto, exciting promise on a new technique for early detection. The possibilities are endless: for fighting cancer, and other diseases, both here in our world, ...
• Steve Nash, Two-time NBA MVP (Sept 19, 2009)
  He's one of the best basketball players on the planet, and he's made millions at it. But there's more to this week's guest than just the game. A lot more. This Canadian now makes his name on the courts, in the movies, and doing some pretty good things around the world. This week, he's our guest.
• Robert Fowler, Held Hostage by al Qaeda in Africa ...
  Kidnapped by al Qaeda. The very thought causes shudders. But it happened to this week's guest: one of Canada's former senior diplomats in Africa on a special mission for the United Nations. The challenge: solving a dispute between the government of Niger and the rebel movement MNJ. This week, the Un ...

Scotts Contracting

• Free shipping on PV kits to East or West Coast!
  On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Scott’s Contracting wrote: On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Scott’s Contracting wrote: Photovoltaic Energy Production Create Clean Green Energy Readily available are our high quality kits Kits include … Continue reading →
• Recycling Jobs: Habitat For Humanity Internships A ...
  On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Scott’s Contracting wrote: Guest Post: Habitat for Humanity Internship On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Katy Mike Habitat For Humanity Internships Available! Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis (HFHSL) is … Continue reading →
• DOE_Weatherization_Recovery_Act_Saves $1,200,000,0 ...
  weatherized more than 300,000 homes reduce home energy bills reduces energy consumption- average 35 percent $400 saved bills 1st YR 300,000 homes x $400 Saved = $1,200,000,000   email Scotts Contracting to schedule a Home Weatherization Inspection.   Scotty, will Analyze … Continue reading →
• Q?Fall of Rome due to Climate Change?
  A: Tree Rings Report Odd Weather Patterns… … study of tree rings … provides evidence of climate shifts … occurred from A.D. 250 to 550, a period better known as the fall of the Roman Empire. Read Report News: January … Continue reading →
• 2011 EPA Awards $25 Million to Improve Air Quality
  On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:09 AM, U.S. EPA wrote: CONTACTS: Latisha Petteway (News Media Only) petteway.latisha 202-564-3191 202-564-4355 Dale Kemery (News Media Only) kemery.dale 202-564-7839 202-564-4355 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 21, 2011 EPA Awards $25 Million to … Continue reading →

The View From Abroad

• Putting Things in Perspective
  The shooting in Tucson should make all Americans rethink our tragic War on Terror policies.
• Last Words Worth Acting Upon
  Richard Holbrooke knew we should end the war in Afghanistan.
• Logic, Not Emotions, Should Rule the Day
  Unemployment benefits meant to help the unemployed actually do more harm than good.
• Logic Not Emotions Should Rule the Day
  Unemployment benefits meant to help the unemployed actually do more harm than good.
• Your Vote Didn’t Count Last Tuesday
  Fed policy decision cancels out the voice of voters.

Foreign Policy in Focus - Military (US)

• Operation Desert Storm: Our Last "Clean" War
  Remember that glorious day when Wolf Blitzer cringed beneath the rockets' red glare in Baghdad?
• Does the Taboo Against the Use of Nuclear Weapons ...
  The trouble with taboos is that they're made to be broken.
• The Empire Strikes Back at Latin America
  The Obama administration's acceptance of the Honduran coup sent a chill throughout Latin America.
• 60-Second Expert: Afghanistan
  The U.S. military no longer cares about winning "hearts and minds."
• New Year 2011, Okinawa and the Future of East Asia
  The mood across East Asia as 2011 dawns is one of foreboding.

Law.com

• Latest Chevron Outtake: 'They're All Corrupt!'
  Donziger muses 'The judicial system is so utterly weak' in Corporate Counsel's latest release of outtakes from the documentary Crude.
• Minus Kagan, Supreme Court Lets 'Don't Ask' Policy ...
  In an order Friday, the Supreme Court denied a motion aimed at allowing a worldwide ban on enforcement of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military to take effect.
• MGA Loses Effort to Stall Trial in Fee Fight With ...
  A Los Angeles judge issued a tentative ruling Friday denying toymaker MGA Entertainment's efforts to stay a lawsuit that was filed by its former lawyers at O'Melveny & Myers.
• Proskauer and English Firm End Their Merger Discus ...
  Proskauer Rose and SJ Berwin said Friday they had decided against merging, putting to an end months of speculation about a possible trans-Atlantic tie-up between the two law firms. The firms in a joint statement said "we recognized that the timetable necessary to reach the agreements that would ensu ...
• IRS Throws In Towel on Closely Watched Internation ...

Iranian.com

• Asian cheetahs racing toward extinction
  The conventional wisdom about cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) is wrong, according to new discoveries that could have wide-ranging impacts on conservation of the world's fastest land animal.read more
• HRW slams 'suppression' in S Arabia
  The Human Rights Watch has seriously questioned Saudi Arabia's mistreatment of women, foreign labor and the Kingdom's Shia minority. The NGO warned on Monday that Riyadh was either suppressing or failing to protect the rights of the people, while only managing to ceremonially carry out required ref ...
• موقعیت متزلزل رهبر در حوزه علمیه چند پاره قم
  جریان‌های حوزه به مراتب شدیدتر از فتنه بود و اگر از درون حوزه صدایی مقابل رهبری بلند می‌شد، بی‌تردید نه قابل سرکوب بود و نه قابل مبارزه و مقابله. دشمن هم آتش را زیاد می‌کرد و این مساله خطرناک بود
• Two Post-elections Political Prisoners Hanged
  The Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA), reported on executions of two political prisoners, Jafar Kazemi, and Mohammad Ali Haji Ahgaee. One of the pieces of evidence introduced by the Iranian Judiciary about the two individuals’ death sentences is their having sent photographs and videos of ...
• Executed Political Prisoner’s Wife: They Didn’t In ...
  In a telephone interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Jafar Kazemi’s wife said that when she went to visit her husband at Evin Prison a few hours ago, she was informed that he had been executed earlier this morning. “They executed him without informing us or his lawyer. ...

Most Revolutionary Act

• The Cellphone Controversy
  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised the FDA, acting under pressure from the cellphone and wireless industry, has declared cellphones, Wi-Fi and cellphone towers safe. Nor that industry sponsored research of the health effects of EMR (electromagnetic radiation) comes up with very different results than ...
• 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):  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 ...

Doug's Darkworld

• The 1977 Lawndale Illinois Thunderbird Attack
  In 1977 a giant bird attacked and tried to carry away a ten year old boy in central Illinois in front of multiple witnesses. Actually, two giant birds attacked, but only one tried to carry the kid away. The mother witnessed the attack and chased after the bird yelling, the bird released the boy and ...
• 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 [... ...

FourWinds10

• THE GULF OF MEXICO IS DYING: A SPECIAL REPORT ON ...
• 2. US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter ...
  The US military is responsible for the most egregious and widespread pollution of the planet, yet this information and accompanying documentation goes almost entirely unreported. In spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military goes largely unaddressed by environmental organizat ...
• The Search for BP's Oil
  "Dolphins off the bow!" � I race to the front of the WeatherBird II, a research vessel owned by the University of South Florida. There they are, doing their sleek silvery thing, weaving between translucent waves, disappearing under the boat, reappearing in perfect formation on the other side. fter t ...
• THE GULF OF MEXICO IS DYING - A Special Report on ...
• Consequences of the BP Oil Spill
  The BP oil disaster might end up shifting the entire global energy paradigm -- IF the public is aware of the situation and its consequences. Here are some of the long term effects of the disaster. � Dr. Mercola's Comments: � It's been just over seven months since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, lead ...

Crisis Maven

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

Capital Flow Analysis

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

R-Squared Energy Blog

• 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 ...

Discovery Educator Network

• backchan.nl -- Conferences
  Tags: backchannel, Tools, presentation, conferences, education, Collaboration, conference, softwareby: Dean Mantz
• Clorox.com | Teachers
  Tags: science, health, clorox, germs, teachers, lessonplans, educationby: Dean Mantz
• 2011-01-14 Using Google Docs to Support Your PLC - ...
  Comments:Quite a collection of resources providing integration ideas and tutorial resources regarding the use of Google Apps for Education. - Dean MantzTags: googledocs, google, plc, pln, education, edtech, tutorials, docsby: Dean Mantz
• Dr. Alice Christie's GoogleTreks™ Site
  Tags: googlemaps, googletreks, google, science, alicechristie, iste, web2.0by: Dean Mantz
• High School - PhET Simulations
  Tags: interactive, science, simulationsby: Cheryl Lykowski

Rodale News

• 4 Alternative Cooking Oils That Belong in Every Ki ...
  RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Last year, a California law went into effect banning the use of trans fats in restaurant cooking. Last week, Walmart announced that it will start requiring all its suppliers to remove industrially produced trans fats from all processed foods—which according to the USDA contr ...
• Does This Chemical Make Me Look Fat? 'Obesogens' L ...
  RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—There's more to the obesity epidemic than eating too many hot wings and excess sitting. Certainly, poor food choices, particularly too much sugar and sweeteners, and a lack of exercise are major pieces of the obesity puzzle. But a landmark 2002 study, published i ...
• 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 ...

big think

• The Death of Monogamy, Greatly Exaggerated
  USA Today posted an article on Saturday with the headline “Young Couples Often Disagree about Monogamy” in which they assert:  Many young American couples can't agree on whether they've decided to have sex only with each other, a new study shows.  Oregon State University researchers analyzed dat ...
• Announcing the Science in Society Film and Lecture ...
  This semester at American University, the School of Communication has launched the inaugural Science in Society Film and Lecture series, an initiative designed to engage students, faculty, and the Washington, DC community in thought-provoking discussions about the many intersections among science .. ...
• All the volcano webcams of the world
  So, I finally got this project done! We all do a lot of webcam watching here on Eruptions. A lot of the time when a new eruption occurs, the first question posted is “is there a webcam?”, so I thought I’d try to come up with a definitive list of extant volcano webcam, organized by region of the ...R ...
• The Other Kidnapping
  Yesterday we talked about the kidnapping of Tawakul Karman (the government has wisely decided to release her today), but I didn't mention the kidnapping of Taha Husayn Ali Muhsin (Ar.), the son of a commander in Yemen's Special Forces from the Sanhan tribe. For those who follow Yemen closely his . ...
• Order! Order! Time To Go Mr Speaker!
  The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, is in trouble. Rumours of a plot to unseat him have been swirling around Westminster this week, with Deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans, being touted as a possible replacement – and preferably sooner rather than later – by some Tory MPs. If Evans is making ...

Information Liberation

• Cop shows up at house for unrelated issue, nobody ...
  We're from the government, we're here to randomly kill your dog. KVAL News reports: According to neighbors and Robinson, the detective stopped by Robinson's home to talk to him about an unrelated case involving one of his neighbors. Robinson s...
• Tarpon Springs Police arrest a college student tap ...
  It's called "Cop Watching," where people tape police officers as they make stops and arrests. Tommy Frane says it's not that people who do the taping are against police officers, but they want to hold them accountable, like they do all public officia...
• Oakland County deputies raid medical marijuana com ...
  Oakland County Sheriff's deputies on Wednesday raided an Oak Park magazine, dispensary and hydroponic shop run by a local entrepreneur who says marijuana saved his life after a foot injury ended his construction career. A spokesman for Rick "Big D...
• Man acquitted of charges from refusing to show TSA ...
  We have reaction just in to our newsroom... from a seattle man arrested after refusing to show his i-d to security agents at the sunport ... and filming the incident. just about an hour ago... an albuquerque jury cleared phil mocek of all charges. ...
• Bipartisan praise for Joe Lieberman
  Joe Lieberman this week announced his involuntary retirement from the Senate -- compelled by humiliatingly high disapproval ratings in his own state and the 2006 ejection from his own party -- and Beltway denizens are now rushing to heap praise on t...

Be Responsible - Be Free!

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

FAS - Secrecy News

• CRS Director’s Retirement Renews Old Questio ...
  Daniel P. Mulhollan, director of the Congressional Research Service, told CRS staff last week that he will be retiring in April.  Mr. Mulhollan, who joined CRS in 1969, has been director of the congressional support organization for the past 14 years, making him its longest-serving leader. Although ...
• State of the Union: Tradition and Function
  The history and characteristic features of the State of the Union address, to be delivered by President Obama on January 25, were reviewed in a recent report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service. “Presidents often acknowledge the difficult nature of the goals they set, but such acknowledgme ...
• CIA Views China’s “Student Informant S ...
  The Chinese Communist Party employs a growing network of student informants who monitor political expression on university campuses and denounce professors and students for politically subversive or unconventional views, according to a recent report (pdf) from the Central Intelligence Agency. Establ ...
• 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 ...

Sciencebase - Breaking Science News

• A tetralogy of science news
  Four more picks from the latest science news by David Bradley Tales of the unexpected: a night with Tim Radford – My mentor at The Guardian, Tim Radford, told tales of science writing at a special event last week and warned the audience that the public can be very squeamish about new scientific prac ...
• 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 ...

RFF Library

• Increasing the Momentum of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Ref ...
  Global Subsidies Initiative, UN Environment Programme http://www.globalsubsidies.org/files/assets/ffs_conference.pdf [From report website] In the last 12 months, the reform of fossil-fuel subsidies has been high on international agendas: the G-20 and APEC have committed to phasing out inefficient fo ...
• Embracing Complexity: Meeting the Challenges of In ...
  International Union of Forest Research Organizations / Jeremy Rayner, Alexander Buck, and Pia Katila (eds.) http://www.iufro.org/download/file/6580/4539/ws28.pdf/ [From Press Release] A new study issued today by some of the world’s top experts on forest governance finds fault with a spate of interna ...
• Cognitive Barriers to Environmental Action: Proble ...
  Harvard Business School / Lisa L. Shu and Max H. Bazerman http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-046.pdf [Abstract] We explore interventions at the level of the individual and focus on recognized cognitive barriers from the behavioral decision-making literature. In particular, we highlight three cogniti ...
• 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 ...

Scientific American - News

• 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 ...

RAWA News

• US support for Afghan war slips to new low: poll
  AFP: US public support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped to the lowest level since Barack Obama became president, a poll showed Tuesday. The survey by Quinnipiac University showed voters said by a 51 to 41 percent margin than the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan. Still, the r ...
• Report: Pakistani spy agency rushed Mullah Omar to ...
  The Washington Post: Mullah Omar, the elusive, one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, had a heart attack Jan. 7 and was treated for several days in a Karachi hospital with the help of Pakistan’s spy agency, according to a private intelligence network run by former CIA, State Department and military ...
• ISAF strike kills 6 of a family in Kunar
  PAN: NATO-led soldiers killed six members of a family during an airstrike in eastern Kunar province, a provincial council member alleged on Sunday. But the alliance rejected the allegation as baseless. The overnight bombardment took place in the Kodi area of Asmar district, bordering Pakistan, Haji ...
• The “dancing boys” of Afghanistan: Doc ...
  Frontline: In a country with deep rooted religious and social norms, it is baffling to see how young boys are readily available for sexual abuse. A documentary secretly filmed by an Afghan journalist exposes the heart wrenching custom where young Afghan boys are bought as sexual slaves for the rich.
• The Plight Of Afghanistan’s Child Water Carr ...
  RFE/RL: Early each morning, the schoolchildren of the Aqibi Silo neighborhood emerge from their homes on a hillside near the center of Kabul.But they don’t go to class. Instead, they go off to fetch water -- over and over again -- until long after the school day is done. They begin by tumbling down ...

frogblog

• Cool animated video of Auckland transport
  There’s a cool video doing the rounds on the blogosphere right now which shows the Auckland public transport network working over a 24 hour period. An animated map of Auckland’s public transport network from Chris McDowall on Vimeo. Watching it really highlights to me how radial th ...
• 0800NEWCOPS: Fail in every possible way
  I can scarcely believe this Police recruitment poster.  In fact, I initially thought it was a photoshopped spoof when I saw it over at LudditeJourno a couple of days ago.  But there’s a link to a NZ Herald story from a couple of weeks back that authenticates it. Cue in the “Clint R ...
• Wikileaks gives impetus to Waihopai protest
  It was good to be part of the protest outside the Waihopai spybase on Saturday. It is a bit out of the way, so the numbers involved are never that large, but they do represent the concern of many New Zealanders that the presence of the base compromises the independence of New Zealan ...
• Protesting under the water
  I’m still annoyed the Bluegreens, including the Conservation Minister, plan to cruise Akaroa Harbour this weekend so soon after they declined the local marine reserve application. How rude! Understandably there is going to be a local protest this weekend and whilst I can’t be there, ...
• The fair Wairoa needs some cleaning up
  On a rainy Sunday I embarked on stage 3 of my Rivers Tour, on the Wairoa River in Clevedon (just east of Auckland). The Wairoa is threatened by agricultural runoff and poorly maintained septic tanks. Around three quarters of tests on the Wairoa show faecal contamination above safe l ...

Patronus Analytical

• Greek aid worker kidnapped in Pakistan
• Aid worker killed in Iraq
• Update on kidnapped Greek aid worker
• NGO worker beaten to death in Dhaka
• Canadian aid worker murdered in Honduras

J Kozy

• Can America Be Changed?
  If the American people ever hope to take back their country, they need to understand America's political economy so the parts of it that are morally offensive and economically ineffective can be repudiated. Only then will Americans be able to make the changes that are needed to make Lincoln's dr ...
• 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 ...

MoJo - Kevin Drum

• The Virtue of Self-Control
  This isn't too surprising, but a new study that tracked over a thousand children from the age of 3 to the age of 32 has found that the long-term effects of poor self-control are at least as important as intelligence and social class origin: Childhood self-control predicted adult health problems.... ...
• The Mystery of Fact Checking
  Megan McArdle comments on a book review that bemoans its target's many basic factual errors: This is what fact checkers are for, and I don't understand why book publishers don't have them. They cost money, to be sure--but not that much money....A quarter of a million dollars a year would get you t ...
• The Myth of Slow Growth
  Earlier this morning I suggested that policies aimed at economic growth, though obviously a good thing, aren't enough to raise middle class fortunes. You also need economic policies that focus on the middle class. Matt Yglesias counters: I’m not really sure how separate they are. I think the specif ...
• The GOP's Healthcare Non-Plan
  The Republican mantra on healthcare reform is "Repeal and Replace." But replace it with what? Ross Douthat has some ideas, one of which is this: Republicans should work to deregulate the new health care exchanges, so that high-deductible, catastrophic coverage can be purchased as easily as comprehe ...
• Filibuster Reform is Dead
  Over the weekend a reader asked me whatever happened to Democratic plans to reform the filibuster at the beginning of this year's Senate session. It's still in progress, I said, but I hadn't heard anything specific. However, that was because I didn't read the paper on Saturday. Paul Kane reports: T ...

Insanity Report

• IC 224: It’s Not a Date When…
  Topics for the show: We had some technical difficulties with Dylan’s mic at the beginning of the show Keith Olbermann leaves MSNBC Steve Harvey’s ex-wife got a “Confindential” package from his mistress Pointless relationship advice It’s not a date when… how do you know he really loves you? Share wit ...
• 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 [...] ...

Simple Climate

• 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.

e!Science News

• Deep brain stimulation may help hard-to-control hi ...
  Researchers were surprised to discover what may be a potential new treatment for difficult-to-control high blood pressure, according to a case report published in the January 25, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. read more
• Faster development might have its costs
  Fast development is often perceived as an advantage, as it enables better harmony with one's environment and readiness to cope with the challenges that it poses. However, research conducted at the University of Haifa, Israel, and University of California, Santa Cruz, and published in the scientific ...
• The first single-fingered dinosaur
  A new species of parrot-sized dinosaur, the first discovered with only one finger, has been unearthed in Inner Mongolia, China. read more
• Blue crab research may help Chesapeake Bay waterme ...
  A research effort designed to prevent the introduction of viruses to blue crabs in a research hatchery could end up helping Chesapeake Bay watermen improve their bottom line by reducing the number of soft shell crabs perishing before reaching the market. The findings, published in the journal Diseas ...
• Genome of blue stain fungus evolved to bypass tree ...
  The genome of the fungus that helps mountain pine beetles infect and kill lodgepole pines has been decoded in a University of British Columbia study. read more

unEarthed

• Mark Rey, Green Lobbyist?
  Arch enemy of the Roadless Rule working for anti-offroad groups. Go figure. Thanks to an email from my old friend George Alderson, I nearly dropped my teeth the ot ...
• MTR Mining Update: Watching the Groundswell for Ch ...
  Movement to stop the destruction picks up after historic EPA action on MTR A photo mosaic of the late Judy Bonds, a crusader to stop MTR, made up of 650 Earthjustice photo submissions. ...
• Friday Finds: Celebrity Frackdown
  Canned mercury, dirty Apples, pollution-seeking sweatshirts Protesters against hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale. Photo courtesy of Marcellus Protest. ...
• Oil Commission Warns Drillers To Slow Down and Wis ...
  Gulf spill proves need for more science before heading to Arctic Arctic ice adds to high risk of drilling oil Despite obvious differences, the icy Arctic Ocean ...
• Tr-Ash Talk: Please, Not in Their Backyard
  Low-income community rebels against proposed 15-story toxic coal ash landfill TVA landfill full of coal ash (This is the latest in a weekly series of 50 Tr-Ash ...

Brave New Climate

• 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 [.. ...

Indigenist Opinion

• We Twisted King’s Dream, So We Live With His Night ...
  We Twisted King’s Dream, So We Live With His Nightmare - COLORLINES: "Then of course came the venal cooptation of King’s crowning public moment—the 1963 March on Washington—by Glenn Beck, this past August. Insisting that it was time to “reclaim the civil rights movement,” because conservatives were ...
• What the Zapatistas can teach us about the climate ...
  What the Zapatistas can teach us about the climate crisis: [permaculture-media] "The Line of Dignity proposes that equity between North and South can only be reached when the Northern notion of environmental sustainability (preservation of resources for planetary needs and future generations) is mat ...
• NYPD Cops' Training Included an Anti-Muslim Horror ...
  NYPD Cops' Training Included an Anti-Muslim Horror Flick - Page 1 - Columns - New York - Village Voice: "And not just some diddly 20-minute educational film, either. It was a full-length color feature, with more explosions than a Transformers sequel and more blood-splattered victims than an HBO Worl ...
• The New Gay � Why Don’t Gender Rights Have a Bigge ...
  The New Gay � Why Don’t Gender Rights Have a Bigger Queer Following?: "The combat role has been a focal point of gender-role terror over several decades about integration of women and queer people in the armed forces. I’d like to start my storytelling in 1980, with one of my favorite forgotten “nati ...
• Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and the silence of frie ...
  Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and the silence of friends: [mondoweiss.net] "We know the most vociferous opponents of Palestinian freedom that walk the halls of Congress. Their words and actions are clearly supportive of the most brutal of Israeli actions against Palestinians, leaving no room for doubt ...

Republicans are a Disease

• Impeach Clarence Thomas Now
  While Clarence Thomas ruled repeatedly for the benefit of the oligarchs, the Heritage Foundation paid his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Thomas neglected to claim this income on his financial disclosure statements, which is a crime if I remember correctly. So here we have billionaires la ...
• Who Will Be Glenn Beck’s Next Target?
  So which “liberal” will be targeted for assassination on next on the Glenn Beck show? Which champion of the poor will be the next target of his rants? Which community organizer will Beck blame for all that is wrong in America?  What leader of an organization that is empowering minorities, and attem ...
• Glenn Beck
  So who did Glenn Beck say we should shoot in the head today?
• Sarah, Sarah, Sarah Blood Libel?
  Will someone please break the news to her… So Sarah. How exactly do I reload my vote? And please answer this question. How may death threats have your “fans” issued?
• Today
  Today the Tea Party chickens have come home to roost.

Appalachia Rising

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

Amped Status

• Horrific Arizona Massacre Is A Sign of Tragedies t ...
  Let This Tragedy Be A Wake Up Call. Given Socio-Political Conditions, Many More Violent Acts On the Way.
• AmpedStatus.com Hit By Mass DoS Attacks
  As you may have noticed, for most of the day yesterday AmpedStatus.com was down. Shortly after posting our new report we were hit with a heavy barrage of DoS attacks...
• Obama Renews Commitment to Complete Destruction of ...
  Obama has just doubled down on the side of the financial terrorists. Meet Bill Daley and Gene Sperling - another JP Morgan-Goldman Sachs attack. Let's dig deep into their past and reveal everything that you need to know.
• I Will Not Participate In the Journalism of Appeas ...
  Don’t you get it? This is a war! This is a mass slaughter carried out by economic policy. This is the elimination of the existence of a middle class. These are financial terrorists committing crimes against humanity. Our country is under attack!
• The Wall Street Pentagon Papers: Biggest Scam In W ...
  The Global Banking Cartel has now been so blatantly exposed, you cannot possibly get away with pretending that we live in a nation of law based on the Constitution. The jig is up.

+972

• Breaking: 11 year old child arrested in Nabi Saleh
  The 11 year old brother of Isalm Tamimi- a 14 year old child who was arrested in Nabi Saleh during a night raid on the village- has been arrested this morning by the army in Nabi Saleh. Isalm Tamimi was interrogated for eight hours after his arrest early Sunday morning. Yesterday, the state asked fo ...
• Palestine Papers reveal limits of Israeli power
  The Palestine Papers themselves are not that interesting or revelatory. However, the way they have been paraded in the media in the mere 24 hours since their release is. If you take a look at the vast amounts of coverage, reactions and commentaries, they are all framed in the discourse of a simple p ...
• Condi Rice on the Naqba: “Bad things happen ...
  Like the Wikileaks documents, the Palestine Papers are interesting not just because of their revelations (some of these scoops were known before), but also, and perhaps even mostly, because of the tone and style of statesmen behind closed doors. This nugget is from the Guardian: PA leaders repeatedl ...
• The Palestine Papers: The ultimate confirmation
  The cables released last night by Al Jazeera, which form the Palestine Papers, have provided ultimate confirmation of what many on the ground have known for some time – Israel is not interested in an equitable two state solution. Instead Israel is interested in maintaining the status quo, which nece ...
• The Palestine Papers: An end to the myth of Israel ...
  Instead of going through the commentary on the recently released “Palestine Papers,” I suggest readers start by checking out some of the documents themselves. Even for those suspicious of the “generous Israeli offer vs. Arab rejectionism” narrative of the 2008 talks as I was, some of the documents a ...

Sustainability,water,etc - Oz gov't

• New Lynton to Belair urban trail is open for busi ...
  Cyclists and pedestrians are already taking advantage of the recently completed Lynton to Belair Urban Trail.
• Emergency heritage protection for Jordan River le ...
  The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, has used emergency powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to place the Jordan River Levee site, near Brighton in Tasmania, on the national heritage list.
• Sydney Theatre Company shows the world how to 'Sw ...
  The Sydney Theatre Company will officially open another innovative 'Green Precinct', jointly funded under the Gillard Government's Green Precincts Fund.
• Investing in Australia's desalination industry ...
  The National Centre of Excellence in Desalination has awarded nearly $3 million in funding to research projects investigating ways to advance desalination technology.
• Have your say on a sustainable population strateg ...
  The Sustainable Population Strategy Issues Paper has been released, calling for all Australians to have their say about Australia's changing population.

Matt Weidner Blog

• Financial Crisis Commission Recommends Criminal Pr ...
  The bipartisan panel appointed by Congress to investigate the financial crisis has concluded that several financial industry figures appear to have broken the law and has referred multiple cases to state or federal authorities for potential prosecution, according to two sources directly involved in ...
• Fighting the Government…The Real Battle in F ...
  I have grown increasingly frustrated in fighting this battle because in many cases the fight is senseless. More often than not, a deal could be reached that would serve the best interests of the homeowner and……it would make the most business sense to the lender.  The problem is in many cases it’s n ...
• BOMBSHELL- TAXPAYERS PAY MILLIONS FOR FANNIE/FREDD ...
  I’ve become numb to all the fraud, the questionable dealings and the utter failure of our courts, regulators and government officials in the midst of Fraudclosuregate.  The revelations continue to roll out and still nothing, absolutely nothing to protect the American people from all this.  It seem ...
• Unclean Hands as a Defense to Foreclosure
  If you can get the trial court to listen, there are a mountain of cases which would help you prepare a defense to foreclosure based on the Plaintiff’s unclean hands or improper conduct…. “Although the unclean hands defense may be asserted in foreclosure cases when the parties are in privity, see, e. ...
• The 2nd Annual Rally in Tally, March 9th 2011!
  Mark your calendars and make plans to attend. Last year, we planned our day to lobby the Capitol in Tallahassee in a few days.  This year, we’re planning far in advance to make sure we make a real impact.  It just so happens that this is the same day that the bankers in Florida will [...]

abelard - news

• some of the socialist monster legacy | politics uk ...
  The sort of madness that the current coalition government is starting to dismantle. They must also write new, more sane, memes.
• get your kicks on route 66: the original | fun new ...
  We all know the high-speed rock-n-roll version, don't we? Well, here's the guy who wrote it.
• which country owns 3rd highest value of us treasur ...
  China clearly is high on thr list of US creditors, and Japan not so obviously. But the third largest US creditor being so close to home? Well, well, well...
• Le Tour de France : cycling tactics | the Tour de ...
  Any race requires being able to outsmart the others, as well as out-cycling them. A three-week race needs even more tactics. Here is an outline.
• on the dire state of so-called peer-reviewed 'scie ...
  To make their name with spectacular results of studies and experiments, scientists are consistently cooking the books.

The Parallel Parliament

• Winds of Change – Projects
  It’s been difficult only getting to Sudan for one week a year because of my parliamentary schedule – visits used to be far more frequent. Yet we have been fortunate in having a good number of Canadians travelling with us each year. Some have been coming for the last five years. That leaves my wife, ...
• 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 ...

Vaccine Awakening

• 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 ...

2020 Science

• Nanotechnology – what web resources do you find mo ...
  Over at the Risk Science Center blog, I have posted a request for help on web-based nanotechnology resources. Given that 2020 Science has such a nano-savvy readership, I thought I would cross-post the request here. If you have any suggestions on useful websites dealing with nanotechnology – especial ...
• Building a sustainable future: World Economic Foru ...
  “Technology doesn’t just happen” – people must be sick of hearing me say this.  Yet as chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies, it’s something I seem to end up saying rather a lot as we strive to help decision-leaders maximize the benefits of technology inno ...
• Lost in the Maize
  Last September, I started posting my reflections on the weirdness of  academia – amongst other things – every Friday, under the title Lost in the Maize.  In part this was to document the shift from being a pseudo-academic to a real one.  But it was also to provide some motivation to keep on blogg ...
• Lost in the Maize
  It’s the beginning of a new year, and I’m going through the usual soul-searching exercise of thinking about what is working and what isn’t with the blog. Over on the 2020 Science Facebook page (remember that?) I’ve asked for readers’ thoughts on what they’ve enjoyed, on 2020 Science, what could be b ...
• US National Nanotechnology Initiative draft EHS St ...
  Update 1/6/11: The comment period has been extended to January 21 There are only two days left to comment on the current draft US National Nanotechnology Initiative Environmental, Health and Safety strategy (the comment period closes January 6) – so time to read the draft, log in to the portal and a ...

Reader Supported News

• Tea Time for Scalia
  The report begins: "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will speak on Monday on the separation of powers at an event organized by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and her Tea Party Caucus." Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. (photo: Reuters) Sorry, your browser cannot display frames!
• "Mr. President, Your People Are Dead."
  Intro: "Who is El General, and what did he have to do with the fall of the government of Tunisia?" A Tunisian protester lies bloody in the streets of Tunis, 01/18/11. (photo: Getty Images) Sorry, your browser cannot display frames!
• The Best Healthcare News You Didn't Hear This Week
  Nancy Goldstein begins: "How is it that one of the most incredibly important and far-reaching new health policies of the twenty-first century went into effect this past week, and you probably haven't heard of it? I'm referring to the new guidelines that protect the rights of all patients at more tha ...
• Abuses Alleged in Secretive Iraq Green Zone Jail
  Ned Parker reports: "Detainees are reportedly held without trial and are subject to abuse at a Green Zone jail run by an elite unit that falls under Prime Minister Maliki's office. Promises of reform have not been met, even as he appears to consolidate more power." Iraqi soldiers guard a blindfol ...
• Glenn Beck Flashback: "Shoot Them In the Head ...
  Excerpted Beck quote: "They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you." Glenn Beck on air promoting Elizabeth Dilling's book, 'The Red Network,' 06/06/10. (photo: Glenn Beck Radio) Sor ...

War Resisters League

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

Center for a Livable Future

• Shovel ready: Cuban urban agriculture as job creat ...
  Iâve just returned from eight days in Cuba studying their sustainable agricultural system — especially their urban agriculture sector — and I have several key take-aways. One of the biggest insights was the untapped potential of urban agriculture as a creator of good jobs. The Cuban system was re ...
• New kit can help farmers reduce pesticide impact
  A Farmer Information Kit released recently by the Maryland Pesticide Network (MPN) seems to show that concern about the impacts of pesticides on our environment and health is becoming more widespread, judging by the organizations and disciplines that were part of the kit’s production. The kit is a ...
• Leading U.S. Food Service Provider Introduces Meat ...
  The national non-profit Meatless Monday campaign is proving to be “The Little Engine That Could” in the environmental public health world. In just the last two years national awareness of Meatless Monday more than doubled. According to a commissioned survey by FGI Research more than 30 percent of Am ...
• 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 ...

A special project of Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation

• The FP Salon: Peter Bergen's The Longest War
  An FP round-table discussion on counterterrorism expert Peter Bergen's latest book. A decade after 9/11, is the war on terrorism a war we can win?
• Crazy Like a Fox
  In a fit of anger, Hamid Karzai axes his director of intelligence, Amrullah Saleh. But is there method to his madness?
• Addicted to Contractors
  The United States is hooked on privatized warfare in Afghanistan. And it's more costly than you think.
• How to Whip the Afghan Army Into Shape
  Much of President Barack Obama's strategy rests on the creation of a new, more competent Afghan military. Here's what he'll need to know to get the job done.
• Obama's Indecent Interval
  Despite the U.S. president's pleas to the contrary, the war in Afghanistan looks more like Vietnam than ever.

Field Notes - Alberta Environment

• Job Opportunity: Conservation Volunteers Intern, N ...
  Position Conservation Volunteers Intern Organization Nature Conservancy of Canada — Alberta Region Organization Application Deadline 4 Feb 2011 (All day) Location Calgary Link to Full Job ...
• Green Budget Coalition's Recommendations for Budge ...
  THe Green Budget Coalition The Green Budget Coalition, comprising 21 leading Canadian environmental and conservation organisations, is pleased to share its Recommendations for Budget 2011, detailing their recommendations for the 2011 federal ...
• ENGO responses to Royal Society of Canada's report ...
  1) Pembina responds to Royal Society of Canada report http://www.pembina.org/media-release/2141 2) Sierra Club Canada responds to Royal Society of Canada report http://prairie.sierraclub.ca/en/tar-sands/media/release/sierra-club-cana… 3) Royal Society Report on Tar Sands ignores Trad ...
• CPAWS Northern Alberta's comments on Elk Island Na ...
  The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – Northern Alberta Chapter has posted their comments on the Elk Island National Park Draft Management Plan to their Facebook page. Source: CPAWS Northern Alberta
• ASN Watershed Stewardship Grant Program
  Organization:  Alberta Stewardship Network Deadline:  1 Feb 2011 (All day) The Alberta Stewardship Network (AS ...

Stop NATO

• Ivory Coast: Testing Ground For U.S.-Backed Africa ...
  Stop NATO January 23, 2011 Ivory Coast: Testing Ground For U.S.-Backed African Standby Force Rick Rozoff The announcements of presidential election results last month in West Africa and Eastern Europe have served as the pretext for the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organi ...
• 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 ...

Before It's News

• Republican_and_Marxist_Date_Night_in_D.C.
• Who_Runs_the_Democrats
• Praxair_Wins_Three_Contracts_-_Analyst_Blog
• With_Each_New_Diagnosis...
• Steling_falls_on_poor_GDP_figures_8211;_Tuesday_25 ...

Intel Hub

• Air Force Conducting Urban Environmental Training ...
  AF training on Outer Banks Tue. & Wed. WAVY.com MANTEO, NC (WAVY) – The Special Operations Unit from Pope Air Force Base will be conducting urban environmental training exercises in Nags Head and Roanoke Island on Tuesday and Wednesday, Dare County officials announced. Residents are urged not to be ...
• High-Ranking Members of US Military Part of ‘Knigh ...
  Raw Story By Stephen C. Webster Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has broken some massive stories in his day, but uncovering secret societies within the highest echelons of America’s military would probably be the biggest of his career. Well, get ready for the media storm, because that’s ...
• A Blueprint For Truth
  The Intel Hub By Joe Joseph On my last show, I had the honor and privilege of interviewing retired FBI Field Agent Don Adams.  Mr. Adams is one of the last surviving Field Agents that took part in President John F. Kennedy’s assassination investigation.   He is a veteran of the Korean War, and a ret ...
• It’s All Just “Coincidental” – V ...
  IMVA Dr. Mark Sircus On the 20th of January 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said there have been 36 confirmed reports of seizures this flu season in children ages 6 months through 2 years in the United States. The seizures occurred within one day after they were vaccinated with Fluzone, ...
• Bono and Bill Gates-backed Global Health Charity E ...
  Activist Post What institutions can you trust these days with your donations?  The Associated Press reported today that the $21.7 billion Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a fraud where at least two-thirds of the funds were “pocketed,” and donated medicines were sold on the bl ...

FRS

• “The Palestine Papers” reveal how Pale ...
  ⢠Negotiators agreed just 10,000 to return ⢠PLO agreed Israel could be a ‘Jewish state’ ⢠US suggested Palestinians live in Latin America Ian Black and Seumas Milne guardian.co.uk Monday 24 January 2011    Palestinian negotiators privately agreed that only 10, 000 refugees and their families â o ...
• An urgent call: Return former President Jean-Bertr ...
  Full Page Ad in the Sunday Miami Herald – January 23, 2011 Haiti Action Committee is honored to post this full-page ad that appeared Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011 in the Miami Herald, echoing the call of Haitiâs democratic movement for the return of President Aristide. Signed by hundreds of people, it deman ...
• Al-Jazeera will release ‘Palestine Papers&#8 ...
  washingtonpost.com By Janine Zacharia, Washington Post Staff Writer January 24, 2011 JERUSALEM – Palestinian negotiators were willing in 2008 to concede sections of East Jerusalem to Israeli control as part of a final peace deal, according to a newly exposed cache of memos that al-Jazeera TV said ca ...
• 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 ...

Ken O'Keefe

• 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 ...

StillSmallVoice

• Write your own caption
  And can someone tell me: Did the Storm That Was the End All Storms crap out on us? The forecasts were awful this weekend, but now? Not so much.
• A little more about Brisenia Flores
  In the shadow of January's awful shooting at the Tucson shopping center, we may have overlooked a tragedy that is playing out in court starting with opening arguments today, that of the shooting murder of 9-year old Brisenia Flores, and her father, Raul, also known as Junior, during a 2009 home inva ...
• Embrace the drone?
  If surveillance drones are the way of law-enforcement future, do we need to start talking about privacy in our backyards? (I should say here that all I have in my backyard is a patio, some furniture, and a beat-up yard castle that holds lawn implements -- and, at present, a boatload of snow. I h ...
• Why that abortion/slavery analogy just doesn't wor ...
  From Ta-Nehisi Coates, at The Atlantic. Coates writes: The notion that enslaved African-Americans were considered non-persons "without the right to exist" is bad history. Forgive me for quoting myself, but we've been here so many times: Slaves married. Slaves were baptized. Slaves were converted t ...
• Fill the Bug, Part III
  The grandbabies culled through their library recently to assemble a box of books for poor kids, so Monday morning, I went to South Park Inn. Holding the door was a man of indeterminate age wearing Nike athletic slippers and tube socks. My car thermometer read “5.” I asked if he was cold -- a stupid ...

Associated Content

• Mitch McConnell: Obama to Propose Corporate Tax Cu ...
  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that one of the proposals President Barack Obama will make during his upcoming State of the Union address will be to lower the corporate tax rate, currently the highest in the industrialized world.Contributor: Mark Whittington Published: Jan 24, 2011
• The Latest Hollywood Engagement and Baby News; Opr ...
  Best to start off the week right with the latest to join the ranks of Hollywood's engaged and soon-to-be parents. First off, Emma Bunton is engaged! . . . Alright, let's try that again. Baby Spice is engaged! There we go.Contributor: Sarah F. Sullivan Published: Jan 24, 2011
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt to Host a TV Show? Not Big ...
  A CNN insider reveals that Schmidt has been pursuing a career in television for over a year. Some may be concerned about a big brother influence, if he makes it.Contributor: Donna Porter Published: Jan 24, 2011
• Caleb Hanie Bright Spot in Bears' Loss to Packers
  The Bears played for the most part a miserable game against the Green Bay Packers. However, third-stringer Caleb Hanie was a bright spot for the Bears. How did he play?Contributor: Gary Davis Published: Jan 24, 2011
• Questions Emerge After Bears' Loss to Green Bay
  The Bears really didn't seem ready to play the Green Bay Packers. Should we be critical of them?Contributor: Gary Davis Published: Jan 24, 2011

Popsci - Science

• Mutant Enzymes Created Through "Artificial Selecti ...
  Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have successfully induced an artificial kind of “natural selection” to create enzymes that can protect animals against the effects of nerve gas. It's almost an accelerated evolution--one that could help protect people from nerve agent poiso ...
• Federal Government To Develop Its Own Drugs In Eff ...
  Faced with a diminished drug-development pipeline in the private sector, the Obama administration is starting a federal drug development center, aiming to spur the creation of new medicines. The new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences will get $1 billion in funding to conduct drug ...
• How To Genetically Modify a Seed, Step By Step
  Using nature as a guide, geneticists build plants with qualities evolution could never produce ST. LOUIS — In a nondescript basement lab, jeans-clad engineers clutch blueprints, scrape stepladders across the unfinished floor and chat about the Cardinals as they tighten bolts on a new prototype devi ...
• How Do You Define Galaxy? Astronomers Embark on De ...
  It’s too late for Pluto, but you can help prevent the Milky Way from being reclassified as a "galactisimal" The more astronomers learn about space, the more questions they come up with. Such as, “what is a galaxy, anyway?” This time, you get to help them decide. Galaxies were first defined when Edw ...
• FYI: When Will We Evolve Out Of Our Useless Append ...
  Never. We’re probably stuck with our appendix, pinky toes, tailbone and just about all of our other evolutionary holdovers. Wisdom teeth may eventually go, but major changes like losing an appendage (teeth included) take millions and millions of years — who knows if humans will even be around that ...

Veterans Today

• Afghanistan: The Karzai-Medvedev Russian Roulette
  By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent trip to Moscow marks an unprecedented state level rendezvous by an Afghanistan Head of State. The first since the Soviet backed President Najibullah’s trip; whose term ended shortly after the Soviet Union withdrew its force ...
• Americas great game in Afghanistan
  By Brig Asif Haroon Raja War on terror has entered tenth year but the US is still clueless when and how it will terminate the war. One of the reasons for its lack of progress is that in its given set of priorities, Afghanistan was accorded lower priority since it was considered an almost accomplishe ...
• CHINA-US DIPLOMACY AND AF-PAK
  A Silver Line for Pakistan Brig Samson S Sharaf The visit of the Chinese President Hu Jintao to USA will not live in memory for the declarations that were made in the joint press conferences and the press releases. They are more significant in what has not been said. In the backdrop are diplomatic f ...
• The Country Is Not a Corporation, and Layoffs Are ...
  Honestly, there are so few nuggets of genuine wisdom in Washington that watching the Sunday talk-show hackery is a form of psychological torture. If only I could afford to throw a brick through my television! The only one who ever seems to notice the real stories behind the stage sets and dramatic s ...
• First Amendment—Minus One
  Corporate media consolidation is no news and an attack on your capacity to think Recently a MSNBC host has been deleted. I found his speech, ideas, vilification of people I admire and political ideas as awful. I am going to miss him. In America those that speak against the popular presentation of “h ...

War is Business

• Video: South Korean Special Forces Rescue The MV S ...
  More news about Saracen International. Also: Did a private intel agency push rumors about Hamid Karzai's drug use?Thanks for subscribing to War Is Business. Join the investigation and register for free, or
• 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

Hudson's Weather & Climate

• 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 ...

Internat'l Political Economy

• 'End of History' Fukuyama Raps US, Lauds China
  While I try to be a conscientious scholar, a neat thing about academia is that you don't even have to be right to gain attention. Take Francis Fukuyama [please!] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he gained notoriety for his now widely derided "End of History" thesis that all political-economic ...
• When Basel III Met the Yankee Bubblemeisters
  In German, weltmeister is the world champion in English. But, when it comes to inflating asset price bubbles, perhaps we can relax the rules of grammar and syntax and declare our American friends the global bubblemeisters. Not being content with one housing bubble and its demise, let's just say the ...
• Eurosceptics & UK-Baltic 'Anti-French Alliance'
  $acre bleu! While the IPE Zone doesn't do conspiracy theories, the above post title was suggested by none other than the Financial Times, not some Eurosceptic rag which are a dime a dozen here in the UK. Alas, there is always a vocal bunch of Euro-haters perpetually voicing their opposition to UK in ...
• '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 ...

Economic Collapse Blog

• Paper Money Madness: Inflation-Fueled Economic Gro ...
  If the U.S. economy "grows" by 4 percent in 2011, but by the end of the year we are paying $3.00 for a loaf of bread, $4.00 for a gallon of milk and $5.00 for a gallon of gasoline are the American people going to be better off economically or worse off?  The answer is [...]
• Two Americas: 12 Facts That Show That Those Who Ar ...
  Most Americans have a deep aversion to the phrase "redistribution of wealth", and rightly so.  On a fundamental level, it is just not right to take the money that one man has worked so hard to earn and "redistribute" it to someone else.  In the political realm, the phrase "a redistr ...
• Economy News Nightmare: 20 Things That You Should ...
  Today America is very, very frustrated.  In fact, we probably have not seen this level of anger in the country since World War 2 ended.  So why are so many Americans so frustrated and so angry right now?  Well, for most Americans it comes down to the economy.  Very few things are mo ...
• 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 ...

Infoshop - Alt Media

• Philadelphia: Seeking submissions for defenestrato ...
  It's cold! A good time to stay in and write that piece you keep meaning to for Philly's radical paper of optimism and refusal defenestrator. Our...
• NYC Anarchist Book Fair Table and Presentation App ...
  The 5th Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair will be held Saturday, April 9, 2011, at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, NYC. Present...
• New Issue: Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #55
  The Winter 2011 issue of Anarcho-Syndicalist Review (#55) is now available. This issue features a special section on workers' culture and marks ...
• Some Anarchists Discuss What We’re Reading
  Instead of a book review column written by one person, we invited several folks to review their favorite recent books. Three responded: Cindy ...
• Resistance issue 128, December 2010 - January 2011
  Full text and PDF of the Anarchist Federation's free paper. Contents include the growing student movement in the UK, resisting the cuts, struggles ...

E U Times

• China’s new Stealth Fighter may use US Technology
  Chinese officials recently unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority — and some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself. Balkan military officials and other experts have told The Associated Press that i ...
• Hawaii official now swears: No Obama birth certifi ...
  Signs affidavit declaring long-form, hospital-generated document absent. Former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams has now signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neith ...
• Russians want Lenin removed from Red Square
  Two-thirds of Russians want Vladimir Lenin to be removed from his Red Square mausoleum in central Moscow, a new poll has shown. The poll, organised by Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party, comes after a senior figure in the party sparked a lively debate on the issue, saying the time had come ...
• Thousands To Protest Against Mubarak in Egypt
  Thousands of Egyptians are expected to protest today against the repressive 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. If there are mass demonstrations, it will be the biggest test so far of the theory that this month’s Tunisian uprising could result in a domino effect across the region. Egypt’s bigge ...
• U.S. Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision: Const ...
  The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that serves to allow judges to void the Constitution in their courtrooms. The decision was issued on January 18, 2011, and the Court did not even explain the decision (Docket No. 10-632, 10-633, and 10-690). One word decisions: denied. Presented with ...

Voiceless Victim

• 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 ...

WL Central

• 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 ...

U N News

• UN: Number of cholera deaths in Haiti shows signs ...
  The number of people dying from cholera in Haiti has been on a downward trend or has stabilized in all ten of the country's departments affected by the outbreak, the United Nations humanitarian office reported today, adding that the number of hospitalized people has also been decreasing.
• 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 ...

Conspiracy Reality TV

• 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 ...

Rewilding Institute

• Conservation News Brief
  Captain Paul Watson to arrive in Australia for final preparations for Operation Musashi Friday Harbor, WA – Just days after reaffirming that they will head to the Southern Oceans alone to defend the whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary, even after Greenpeace and the Australian government have ...
• Whaling Opponents Collide at Sea
  On board the Steve Irwin in the Ross Sea –February 6th, 2009, 0800 Hours (Sydney Time)  February 5th, 2009 1300 Hours (PST), 75 Degrees 44 Minutes South and 165 Degrees 39 Minutes West The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin collided with the Yushin Maru No.2 this morning in the Ross Sea as the harpoon v ...
• Dave Foreman’s Recent Speech At Nebraska Wesleyan ...
  Here’s a great speech Dave did in Nebraska recently. Fetzer Lecture Rewilding North America THURSDAY, MARCH 26 Click Here To Listen In!
• New Website All About Mexican Gray Wolves!
  There are only 52 Mexican gray wolves in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico. The Rewilding Institute has joined with local, regional, and national conservation, scientific, and sportsmen’s organizations, and concerned citizens in launching a new website, mexicanwolves.org, to help save this highly ...
• Follow Rewilding On Twitter
  We’ve gotten with the times and signed up for a brand new Twitter account.  Now you can follow TRI on Twitter and get updates when we have new posts on the site. Follow Rewilding on Twitter!

  Blacklisted News

• GLOBA: accelerating technologies will create a glo ...
• How Excess Spending, Taxation, and Controls are De ...
  Politicians, ‘Progressive’ activists, NeoCon Imperialists, and bankers worldwide love to spend money and love the unending supply of it from; 1. taxing ‘other people,’ and 2. fiat paper money (‘face value’ decreed by government) from the central banks that create and control it.
• One Day After Securing A Huge Deal With China, Boe ...
• Mexico to become first country to use iris scans o ...
  Mexico will on Monday become the first country to start using iris scans for identity cards, according to the government.
• Water, Not Oil Could Soon Become the World’s Great ...
  Writing about the 1967 Six Day War in his 2001 memoirs, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that "While the border disputes between Syria and ourselves were of great significance, the matter of water diversion was a stark issue of life and death."

The Intelligence Daily

• IntelFilter — January 19, 2010
  January 19, 1981 – Iran Hostage Crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to...
• IntelFilter — January 24, 2010
  January 24, 2003 —  The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins...
• UK: Renewables Won’t Keep the Lights On
  Comment: If it does not work in the UK, it definitely won’t work here. (The Oil Drum) —...
• Ivory Coast: Testing Ground For U.S.-Backed Africa ...
  By Rick Rozoff The announcements of presidential election results last month in West Africa and...
• Should you pay down your debt?
  By Gail Tverberg The question of whether a person should pay down debts comes up often, when there...

My AntiWar

• Canadian Troops to Begin Withdrawing From Afghan C ...
• Abbas Deemed It ‘Illogical’ for Israel ...
• Iran: Warships to Sail to Mediterranean
• Pro-Palestinian Groups Plan Largest Gaza Flotilla ...
• NATO to Decide First Afghan Handovers by March, Ra ...

CASMII - Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

• Iran to P5+1: Stop following up Zionists
  Summary: A day after multifaceted talks between Iran and the P5+1, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad advises the six major world powers to stop following up the path of Israel. source: Press TVread more
• 'Iran open to talks, no preconditions set'
  Summary: A senior Iranian official says Tehran is ready for further talks with major world powers provided that its rights are not violated, refuting claims that it has set preconditions. source: Press TVread more
• Swiss Deny Linking UBS To Iran, Guantanamo Inmates
  Summary: The Swiss government Thursday denied directly linking economic sanctions against Iran and an offer to resettle two Guantanamo detainees in Switzerland to a U.S. case against Swiss bank UBS AG. He was responding to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from July 2009 made public by WikiLeaks, ...
• Iran sees Istanbul meeting a good talk opportunity ...
  Summary: "I think this meeting is creating a very good opportunity for dialogue between the parties, for demonstrating mutual respect, and for discussing issues of mutual interest," Akhundzadeh told Interfax news agency in an interview. "The Istanbul meeting also offers a good opportunity for co ...
• A time not for celebrating victory over Iran
  Summary: The international controversy over Iran’s nuclear program simply boils down to this unverified assumption that Iran is determined to produce nuclear bombs. However, no one among Western politicians seems to want to consider this plausible argument that the fact that Iran has not yet de ...

The Daily Galaxy

• Supergiant Supernova: Betelgeuse Could Explode and ...
  Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in the sky, could burst into its supernova phase and become as bright as a full moon - and last for as long as a year. The massive star is visible in the winter...
• Mars Express Releases Images of Mystery Moon Phobo ...
  One of the least reflective bodies in the solar system, Mars largest moon, Phobos, orbits the planet below the synchronous orbit radius (it moves around Mars faster than the planet itself rotates). The images were taken by the European Space...
• Image of the Day: Puffins on Shiant Islands, Scotl ...
  Black-and-white razorbills (at right) and bright-beaked puffins (at left and in air, at center) find a perfect habitat on the Shiant Islands, a few miles southeast of Lewis, Scotland. Nearly 8,000 razorbills and more than 200,000 puffins are estimated to...
• NASA May 'Beam Up' Future Spaceships
  NASA is conducting a study to examine the possibility of using beamed energy propulsion for space launches that would involve focusing microwave or laser beams on a heat exchanger aboard the rocket. The heat exchanger would transfer the radiation’s energy...
• The Daily Flash -Sci, Space, Tech (1/25)
  Mars Mission Nearing Its Thrilling, Fake Touchdown Rejoice! Six fake astronauts near the end of their simulated Mars mission, and will set foot on Earth, which they will pretend is Mars. It's the closest a human will get to the...

Natural News

• GMO lies: Deliberate misuse of the term "genetical ...
  (NaturalNews) It's one of the most common false arguments of GMO pushers: There's nothing to be worried about with genetically modified foods, they argue, because almost everything is genetically modified, they claim. What they're referring to is the genetic selection used in the long, slow developm ...
• Antioxidants offer natural help for men who are in ...
  (NaturalNews) The multi-million dollar infertility industry offers a huge list of expensive -- and often invasive -- tests and procedures to help couples who have difficulty conceiving, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Unfortunately, assisted reproduc ...
• Monsanto launches deceptive ad campaign in despera ...
  (NaturalNews) Monsanto has become the new Marlboro, with a new advertising campaign designed to improved its hopelessly-tarnished image. Except instead of handsome cowboys smoking cigarettes, Monsanto is plastering images of hardy American farmers and their crop fields on billboards and bus stops th ...
• Goodbye, Jack Lalanne, and thanks for all the heal ...
  (NaturalNews) Today NaturalNews honors Jack Lalanne, the fitness guru who motivated America to get off its lazy tush and start moving. Lalanne passed away last night at the age of 96, probably with a barbell in his hands.In an age where celebrities are now dying in their 40s, 50s and 60s, for a man ...
• Farmers forced to buy expensive chemical arsenals ...
  (NaturalNews) Genetically-modified (GM) crops require an intensive, regular application of pesticides and herbicides as part of their proprietary cultivation regimen. But the consequences of growing GMs has been the emergence of pesticide- and herbicide-resistant superweeds, which have gotten so out ...

Threat Level

• Bradley Manning Friend Prevented from Visiting Sol ...
  Military officials at the brig where accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is imprisoned prevented a long-time visitor from seeing the soldier after discovering that the car he was driving had expired registration tags. Authorities detained David House, a friend of Manning’s, for nearly two hour ...
• Obama Nominates RIAA Lawyer for Solicitor General
  President Barack Obama nominated former Recording Industry Association of America lawyer Donald Verrilli Jr. on Monday to serve as the nation’s solicitor general. If confirmed by the Senate, Verilli, now the White House deputy counsel, would assume the powerful position left vacant by Elena Kagan, w ...
• 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 ...

PERRspectives : Blog

• GOP Takes Credit, Deflects Blame on Economy. Again ...
  Two new surveys released today are just the latest signs the U.S. economic recovery is gaining steam. While a USA Today panel found "nine of 10 economists said they're more optimistic than three months ago," the National Association for Business Economics reported that "more firms expressing positi ...
• 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 ...

Blackspot News Feed

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

Consortium News

• The Disappearance of Keith Olbermann
  The abrupt ouster of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann reminds progressives how weak their media grip is in America, writes Robert Parry. January 22, 2011
• Obama Submits to Israel Lobby
  Refocusing on reelection, President Obama assembles "usual suspects" to reframe his Mideast policies, writes Lawrence Davidson. January 21, 2011
• The Roots of US Religious Tolerance
  As Republicans plan congressional hearings on Muslims, Rev. Howard Bess reflects on the US traditions of religious tolerance. January 21, 2011
• Another MLK Holiday Is Safely Past
  Now that Martin Luther King Day (and Christmas) are past, Washington can get back to the business of war, notes Gary Kohls. January 21, 2011
• Remembering Zorro's Vietnam Legacy
  Barry Zorthian was a Vietnam War legend who straddled the line between press management and psy-ops, recalls Don North. January 20, 2011

CounterPunch

• :
• Alexander Cockburn : Autumn of the Driveler
• Carl Ginsburg : Life in the Low to Mid-Teens
• Alexander Cockburn : Loose-Lip McChrystal Did Obam ...
• Alexander Cockburn : He Should Have Kept His Mouth ...

Institute for Middle East Understanding

• The Palestine Papers: The ultimate confirmation ( ...
  We are left with a number of revelations that are not surprising or new. Israel is not interested in an equitable two state solution, preferring a one state in which the Palestinians are ...
• Swapping land for Unviable Palestinian State (Al ...
• Expelling Israel's Palestinian Arab population? ( ...
  But The Palestine Papers reveal that Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, did say it: During several 2008 meetings with Palestinian negotiators, Livni proposed annexing Arab vil ...
• Papers show Israel spurned major concessions offer ...
  For more than a decade, since the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, the mantra of Israeli politics has been: "There is no Palestinian partner for peace." Yesterday, the first of h ...
• Barack Obama lifts then crushes Palestinian peace ...
  The rise and rapid collapse of Palestinian hopes invested in Barack Obama are laid bare in graphic detail in the leaked documents. They make clear that PLO leaders continue to regard a st ...

Water - AlterNet

• Have Public Servants Charged with Protecting Drink ...
  Environmentalists are squaring off against the gas drilling industry, but the playing field does not appear to be level.
• 4 Places You Should Never Buy Seafood From
  Here is a quick-and-dirty list of four seafood retailers that have adopted reprehensible practices in their quest for fish-driven profit.
• California's 'Big One' Could Be Massive 'Superstor ...
  The planet's rising temps mean the state faces greater risk of a "superstorm" that could flood the Central Valley, causing damage that would dwarf even a major earthquake.
• Opponents to Fracking Disclosure Take Big Money Fr ...
  The Natural Gas Caucus received 19 times more money from the oil and gas industry between 2009 and 2010 than those Congressional leaders wanting fracking regulation.
• Vision: 8 Reasons Global Capitalism Makes Our Live ...
  A new film explores how globalization has resulted in crises of the economy, the environment and the human spirit -- and points the way to a new path.

Public Citizen in Texas

• STP license renewal – Opportunity for public parti ...
  On January 13th, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced the opportunity to request a hearing on an application to renew the operating licenses for the South Texas Project (STP) Units 1 and 2 which will expire on Aug. 20, 2027, and Dec. 15, 2028, respectively. South Texas Project Nuclear O ...
• Texas’ 82nd Legislature – a bumpy ride?
  The Texas Legislature opened its 2011 session yesterday amid a great deal of fanfare, but little substance at this point.  However, we can expect more interesting things to happen starting today when the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission makes their legislative recommendations for such controvercial ...
• WCS press conferance 094 [Flickr]
  Public Citizen Texas posted a photo:
• Harold Simmons: the political contributor who keep ...
  In December Texans for Public Justice reported that Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons had contributed $620,000 to Governor Rick Perry.  TPJ’s publication Lobby Watch questioned how Perryâs appointees could objectively regulate Simmonsâ nuclear ambitions. That question looms larger after Simmons gav ...
• San Antonio Tying Renewable Energy to the Growth o ...
  CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby announced that the utility will acquire an additional 50 megawatts of solar power and that the company chosen to build the new plants for it will be required to locate a portion of its business in San Antonio.  Currently the negotiations include a leading solar manufactur ...

Unexplained Mysteries

• World's newest wild cat has two forms
  The elusive Sunda leopard makes its debut as a new species in two locations. For many years scientists assumed that all clouded leopards were of one s...
• Family sees crosses miracle on window
  New Orleans family believes crosses appearing in bathroom window to be a miracle. A day after moving into their new home one New Orleans family believ...
• Flying robots to replace builders?
  University researchers have created networked robots to replace construction workers. In an effort to take human error out of construction work Univer...
• Russian moon recording released
  The recording details Russia's attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon hours before Apollo 11. In July 1969 the Soviet lunar spacecraft Luna 15 was i...
• "Idaho snake house" up for sale
  The home's owners fled the premesis last year due to its infestation by thousands of snakes. The unenviable task of trying to sell the property has fa...

Grassroots

• Man-made disasters need human solutions: Honduras ...
  45215_124975520882877_100001112887609_128997_8228661_n.jpg read more
• One Year on in Haiti
  Previous Publication Info Previous publication:� Huffington Post Outside Link:� One Year on in Haiti oneyear.jpg Shee ...
• God Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise…
  Subheadline:� Planning for disaster is part of responsible development river-haiti.jpg Those living on the margins have very little wiggle room for survival even in good times.�But ...
• Gaza: Stories of Strength amid Assault and Siege
  3407229255_9879b60da3_b.jpg �Year before last, I was sitting in the living room of my childhood home sharing a cup of morning coffee with my mother and musing over the holidays. We laughed over kitschy Christmas gifts from well-meaning relativ ...
• Petitioning the Israeli High Court for Justice
  cast.jpg Our partner, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), works to protect human rights and promote the rule of law. They have been recognized as an effective voice of the Palestinian people through awards such as the Human Rights ...

Climate

• Obama Climate Adviser to Depart in Latest Staff Ch ...
  Source:� Reuters A key climate adviser to Pres. Obama will step down soon, administration officials said, in the latest staff departure as the White House adapts to a shift in power in Congress. �
• EU Carbon Trading Thefts Reveal Systemic Flaws
  Source:� AP The news last week that hackers had stolen $38 million in emissions permits from carbon trading firms revealed just how vulnerable Europe's emissions trading market was.
• Cost of Natural Disasters $109 billion in 2010: U. ...
  Source:� Reuters Natural disasters caused $109 billion in economic damage last year, three times more than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing most of the cost, the UN said Monday.
• South Africa Flood Death Toll Rises as Government ...
  Source:� Guardian Flooding in South Africa has killed more than 100 people, forced at least 8,400 from their homes and prompted the government to declare 33 disaster areas.
• China Province Hit by Worst Drought, Warning on Wh ...
  Source:� Reuters Most of China's wheat-growing areas in the north are suffering from drought with some seeing no rain for three months while the province of Shandong is facing its worst drought in a century.

GreenBiz

• 7 Reasons to Enlist Your Company in EDF's Climate ...
  As the Environmental Defense Fund's Climate Corps enters its fourth year, the program that places MBA candidates at firms to ferret out energy savings details the advantages for companies that participate.
• Facebook, Microsoft, Dunkin' and More Join EDF's C ...
  The Environmental Defense Fund's 2011 Climate Corps program adds new companies to the roster of major firms that will welcome MBA candidates to their facilities this summer to search for potential energy savings. �
• Apple Takes Heat from Chinese NGOs of Supply Chain ...
  A major report from a group of Chinese NGOs accuses the technology giant of 'dodging' questions about its green credentials and workers' rights.
• Green Technology at the Heart of $45B in US-China ...
  Green business deals to develop technology for eco-friendly cities, renewable energy projects, carbon capture programs and solutions to make coal plants cleaner make up more than two-thirds of the $45 billion in US-China export deals announced during the visit of China's President Hu Jintao.
• Walmart Donates $2M for Food Bank Energy Efficienc ...
  �Walmart's charity arm is donating $2 million to more than a dozen food banks in the U.S. to fund energy-efficiency programs.

Reuters Global

• Pakistan, blasphemy, and a tale of two women
  Two very different women have stood up to Pakistan's religious right at a time when their political leaders are afraid to speak out.
• Pakistan and Mullah Omar: who knows where he is?
  The New York Times has an intriguing story about the sourcing for a report that did the rounds last week saying that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) rushed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar to Karachi last week after he suffered a heart attack.
• Panda diplomacy: the remix
  The latest chapter of panda diplomacy was written at the National Zoo, where the Chinese government agreed to lengthen the "loan" of popular panda pair Mei Xiang and Tian Tian for another five years. Does Washington love them because they look like babies?
• Musharraf’s Kashmir deal, mirage or oasis?
  Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf gives his views on a roadmap for peace in Kashmir which he agreed with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
• Washington flatfooted by return of Haiti’s & ...
  Haiti's infamous "Baby Doc", Jean Claude Duvalier, made a surprise reappearance in his homeland this weekend, and Washington's planners had less than an hour to prepare.

Booman Tribune

• Mysterious Popularity
  The president is currently more popular than he's been since November 2009. I guess everyone will have an argument for why that is the case. The White House thinks it's because they had a very successful lame-duck session and were able to get some bipartisan support for the first time of Obama's p ...
• Gays Responsible for End of the World
  Climate Change? Dead Birds? Weird Weather? Floods? Droughts? Massive wildfires? Polar ice disappearing? What's up with that? Well we could look for an atheistic scientific explanation which relies on the notoriously inaccurate scientific method, or we could instead look to the infallible word ...
• Screwed on a Technicality
  Rahm Emanuel has been ruled ineligible to be on the ballot for mayor of Chicago because he didn't maintain a residence there while he was serving as chief of staff to the president of the United States. He'll try to get the Illinois Supreme Court to hear his case, but he could be screwed on a techn ...
• Stupid Democrats
  I'm not sure why some Democrats in the Senate enjoy giving the Republican minority effective veto power over their entire agenda, but according to Politico that seems to be the case among senior leadership. Theres no deal yet on how to change Senate filibuster rules, but Democrats and Republicans ...
• Maybe We Get What We Want
  Obama is remaking his administration, as is detailed in John Heilemann's big piece in New York magazine. Judging the ultimate political impact of this endeavor will be impossible until November 2012. But contrary to the feral howling on the left or the applause of many Beltway tapioca centrists ...

European Tribune

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 2 ...
  �A Daily Review Of International Online Media�Europe on this date in history:1918 - Ukraine declares...
• Monday Open Thread
  Gather round the fire...
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 24 ...
  �A Daily Review Of International Online Media�Europe on this date in history:41 - Gaius Caesar...
• Sunday Open Thread
  A threadful of open...
• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 2 ...
  �A Daily Review Of International Online Media�Europeans on this date in history:Quite a date for...

Futurismic

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

Therapy News

• Depression and Acne, Acne and Depression
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline Struggling with acne can put puts people at a higher risk for suffering depression. Studies in the past have supported this link, often speculating that depression is a result of prescription medications used to treat acne. But a new report from the British Medical Jo ...
• Addictive Gaming: When Virtual Reality Impinges on ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Headline As younger generations are increasingly plugged-in, connections between technology use and mental health are a big area of concern, and of research. A new study in the journal Pediatrics has linked video game addiction with depression, poor grades, social phobia and a ...
• Guilty of Financial Infidelity? Here’s How to Rede ...
  By Denise Kautzer, MA, LPC, CPA Click here to contact Denise and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile Do you find yourself spending secretively? Hiding bills from your spouse? Opening bank accounts or credit cards without informing your partner? You may be guilty of financial infidelity and your actio ...
• After First Impressions, Changing Perceptions is D ...
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Here’s some interesting new insight into the human mind: first perceptions are even harder to overcome than most people had realized. According to research conducted on an international scale, our first impression of a person, place or idea becomes our brain’s default ...
• Breast Cancer and Mental Health
  A GoodTherapy.org News Summary Any life-threatening disease is bound to have both immediate and long-term impacts on the way a person sees the world. On one hand, it’s a reminder to cherish every day you have with loved ones—to not let precious moments go by unsavored. A serious disease can also mak ...

Mountaintop Removal

• Activists dismayed by Manchin's plan to curb EPA - ...
  WOWK Activists dismayed by Manchin's plan to curb EPA Wheeling Intelligencer The agency ruled that destructive and unsustainable mining practices at what could have been the state's largest mountaintop removal operation would cause ... Rally set for coal industry ThursdayDaily Mail - Charleston His ...
• Julia 'Judy' Bonds dies at 58; environmental activ ...
  Los Angeles Times Julia 'Judy' Bonds dies at 58; environmental activist fought coal giant Massey Los Angeles Times Julia "Judy" Bonds, seen in 2009, was a descendant of generations of West Virginia coal miners who blamed mountaintop removal coal mining for devastating ... In Memoriam: Judy Bonds, M ...
• Historic EPA Action Provokes Hysterical Reaction F ...
  WOWK Historic EPA Action Provokes Hysterical Reaction From the Coal Industry Huffington Post (blog) In the wake of EPA's veto last week of the largest mountaintop removal mine permit ever proposed in West Virginia, the grandstanding of West Virginia ... Manchin 'looking for balance' on environment, ...
• Coal Industry Still Thriving: Demand Is High - Aom ...
  Change.org (blog) Coal Industry Still Thriving: Demand Is High Aomid In Appalachia, pressure campaigns are already starting to prove effective in the case of mountaintop removal ... Will Michigan State University Stop Supporting Massey Energy's Corrupt Coal ...Change.org (blog) all 7 news articles ...
• Suddenly, the GOP loves the economy - Salon
  Salon Suddenly, the GOP loves the economy Salon Because it shows that the EPA is finally willing to do its job and enforce the laws on mountaintop removal mining. Ever since the Bush administration came ... and more��

Memeorandum

• NBC: U.S. can't link accused Army private to Assan ...
  Jim Miklaszewski / msnbc.com: NBC: U.S. can't link accused Army private to Assange  —  Military also denies allegations that Bradley Manning is being mistreated  —  Below:  —  U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed a ...
• SITE NEWS: Tweets can now become Techmeme headline ...
  For as long as newsmakers have used Twitter, tweets have broken news stories. And yet for Techmeme, linking directly to tweets was never imperative - after all most newsworthy tweets are blogged within minutes, moreover with helpful context. But still it seemed as if something was missing in pass ...
• Obama's State of the Union: Meditations in an Emer ...
  Alex Wagner / Politics Daily: Obama's State of the Union: Meditations in an Emergency … Emboldened with renewed public confidence, President Barack Obama will walk into the Capitol building on Tuesday evening with the wind in his sails.  Recent polling shows that the president's approval rating ha ...
• National Archives Discovers Date Change on Lincoln ...
  National Archives and Records Administration: National Archives Discovers Date Change on Lincoln Record  —  Thomas Lowry Confesses to Altering Lincoln Pardon to April 14, 1865  —  Washington, DC...Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that Thomas Lowry, a long-time Linco ...
• The War on Demand - Something really strange has h ...
  Paul Krugman: The War on Demand  —  Something really strange has happened to the debate over economic policy in the face of the Great Recession and its aftermath — or maybe the real point is that events have revealed the true nature of the debate, stripping away some of the illusions.

Energy & Environment News

• Alternative Fuels Don’t Benefit the Militar ...
  The report contends that the military is spending too much time and money exploring experimental biofuels.
• Green: High PCB Levels Found in Another N.Y. Schoo ...
  At P.S. 11 in Brooklyn, 18 of 28 samples taken in 11 spaces, including classrooms, showed PCBs above the regulatory level of 50 parts per million.
• Green: A Test Drive for the All-Electric Leaf
  A lack of charging infrastructure is probably the most serious limitation, a reviewer suggests.
• Green: Industry Group's Self-Depiction Raises Eyeb ...
  The Water Advocacy Coalition casts itself as an alliance of groups "that have an interest in and actively protect our nation's waters and wetlands resources." But it's a lobbying group for farming, mining and manufacturing interests.
• Green: If You Build It, Will They Charge?
  Car-charging stations in Tennessee will rely on a mix of solar power and batteries, and some of the energy will flow to and from the grid.

5+ quakes - 7 days

• M 5.0, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia
  Tuesday, January 25, 2011 08:30:06 UTCTuesday, January 25, 2011 07:30:06 PM at epicenterDepth: 29.60 km (18.39 mi)
• M 5.3, Andreanof Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska
  Tuesday, January 25, 2011 07:46:34 UTCMonday, January 24, 2011 09:46:34 PM at epicenterDepth: 57.30 km (35.60 mi)
• M 5.1, off the coast of El Salvador
  Tuesday, January 25, 2011 06:18:45 UTCTuesday, January 25, 2011 12:18:45 AM at epicenterDepth: 41.90 km (26.04 mi)
• M 5.0, south of Africa
  Tuesday, January 25, 2011 05:39:37 UTCTuesday, January 25, 2011 06:39:37 AM at epicenterDepth: 10.10 km (6.28 mi)
• M 5.5, near the east coast of Honshu, Japan
  Tuesday, January 25, 2011 05:24:41 UTCTuesday, January 25, 2011 02:24:41 PM at epicenterDepth: 21.70 km (13.48 mi)

China Dialogue

• Power to the people?
  As winter power shortages shroud Nepal in familiar darkness, Deepak Adhikari unravels the country’s hydro debate.With winter in full swing, the spectre of planned power cuts, euphemistically called “load shedding”, is haunting Nepal's electricity consumers. The country’s citizens dread this time of ...
• 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 ...

AlterNet Top Stories

• Stop the Austerity Craze! Massive Budget Slashing ...
  The DC-Wall Street power circuit, with a big assist from the corporate media, is blindly pushing an agenda that could lead to massive social upheaval.
• Fox Gives GOP Presidential Wannabes $54.7 Million ...
  Last year, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, John Bolton, and Rick Santorum appeared on Fox regularly.
• Leaked 'Palestine Papers' Show Bad Faith Negotiati ...
  What's striking about these documents is the degree to which the U.S. pressures the Palestinians, and how much American diplomats are in cahoots with Israel.
• GOP Timebomb: How Republican Star Paul Ryan's Radi ...
  Republicans are elevating Rep. Paul Ryan, whose disastrous conservative economic "roadmap" will gut the social safety net and put money in the hands of the rich.
• Conservatives Freak Out Over MTVâ€&trad ...
  How MTV’s remake of a terrific British show, and the subsequent Parents TV Council outrage, does a disservice to actual American teens.

Threat Level

• Bradley Manning Friend Prevented from Visiting Sol ...
  Military officials at the brig where accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is imprisoned prevented a long-time visitor from seeing the soldier after discovering that the car he was driving had expired registration tags. Authorities detained David House, a friend of Manning’s, for nearly two hour ...
• Obama Nominates RIAA Lawyer for Solicitor General
  President Barack Obama nominated former Recording Industry Association of America lawyer Donald Verrilli Jr. on Monday to serve as the nation’s solicitor general. If confirmed by the Senate, Verilli, now the White House deputy counsel, would assume the powerful position left vacant by Elena Kagan, w ...
• 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 ...

Reuters - Most Popular Articles

• Former MSNBC anchor Olbermann says career not dead
  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, who abruptly left his top-rated show at the U.S. cable news network last week, said on Monday that "reports of the death of my career are greatly exaggerated."
• Comedian Steve Harvey attacked by ex-wife on YouTu ...
  LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Mary Harvey wants the world to know why her marriage to Steve Harvey failed.
• Blocking "rogue gene" may stop cancer spread-study
  * Scientists say finding could lead to new drugs in a decade
• Comedian Steve Harvey attacked by ex-wife on YouTu ...
  LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Mary Harvey wants the world to know why her marriage to Steve Harvey failed.
• Analysis: What is Plan B if China dumps its U.S. d ...
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - When borrowing money it's always good to have a Plan B in case a big creditor pulls the plug. That should be true whether the sum is a few thousand dollars or about a trillion, the size of the United States government's debt to China.

IntelNews

• News you may have missed #471 (ex-spy edition)
  Interview with ex-CIA analyst David Kanin. New book by ex-CIA agent Everett. Ex-MI5 officer questions UK spying priorities. Continue reading →
• South African spy chief had secret US talks, embas ...
  South Africaâs spy chief regularly gave the American embassy in Pretoria detailed information on internal African National Congress (ANC) politics, according to a diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks. The cable, entitled âZuma Advisor Threatens to Expose Political Skeletonsâ, was authored on Septemb ...
• US paying ‘price in blood’ for Israel-Palestine co ...
  Two former CIA officers have warned that America will continue âpaying an increasing price in bloodâ for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and urged the White House to directly meddle in domestic Israeli politics in order to help end the dispute. Continue reading →
• News you may have missed #470
  Blackwater still working for US despite denials. CIA gets spooky with new radio commercials. Iranian shah's son found dead in Boston. Continue reading →
• Ex-CIA agent and anti-Castro militant on trial in ...
  A former CIA agent and militant anticommunist, who is idolized by Americaâs anti-Castro Cubans, but is considered a terrorist in parts of Latin America, has gone on trial in Texas. Continue reading →

War is a Crime.org

• The "Palestine Papers" Revealed
  The "Palestine Papers" Revealed - by Stephen Lendman On January 23, Al Jazeera released breaking news on its extensive "Palestine Papers" coverage, introducing them, saying: It "obtained more than 1,600 internal documents from a decade of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations," writer Gregg Carlstrom exp ...
• Torture and Faith: Conundrum or Oxymoron?
  Torture at 'Justice': Better Not to Ask By Ray McGovern On Sunday, I attended an informal talk given in a parish hall by the Justice Department’s Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. His topic: “The way his work for justice is defined by his faith.” During the Q&A after his tal ...
• Government Admits Brig Commander Improperly Put Br ...
  By Emptywheel at FireDogLake The government has admitted to MSNBC that the Brig Commander at Quantico improperly put Bradley Manning on suicide watch last week. The officials told NBC News, however, that a U.S. Marine commander did violate procedure when he placed Manning on “suicide watch” last we ...
• Afghanistan War Weekly: January 24, 2011
  The US “surge” in Afghanistan has failed on three major counts. Despite thousands more soldiers, the US/Afghanistan government has not increased the amount of territory it controls, except where there is overwhelming force on the spot. And US/NATO forces are far too few to actively occupy more than ...
• Tuesday During State of Union is "Free Bradley Man ...
  During Tuesday night's State of the Union speech starting at 9pm EST, flood the White House switchboard for the duration of the speech with calls to "Free Bradley Manning, President Obama Order Charges Dismissed!" Start 1/2 hour before the speech begins! White House: Comments: 202-456-1111 Switch ...

Grist - News

• 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 ...

Popular Bookmarks on Del.icio.us

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Technorati - What's Hot in Blogs

• How to Raise Socially Healthy Children That Find i ...
  How to keep children as friends for life.
• Saying Goodbye to One of My Favorite Fitness and H ...
  Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, died Sunday of pneumonia. Why he was so special - and so ahead of his time.
• Global Mood Ring for the Tech Age
  What in the world is the world thinking?
• Rahm Emanuel Tossed Off Chi Ballot For Residency R ...
  After pleasing board of election commissioners and lower court, Rahm gets no love from Appeals Court.
• OMG! ‘Gossip Girl’ Game Lends High-Society Aura to ...
  New Game Based on Popular Show on CW Network

Time - Top Stories

• State of the Union Preview: A 2012 Kickoff
  How many memorable State of the Union speeches can you think of? I can conjure just three indelible moments from the past 20 years.
• With Her Half-Sister Revelation, Oprah Gets Her Op ...
  Oprah Winfrey discovers that she has had a secret half-sister since she was nine years old.
• State of the Union: Why the Middle East Won't Be t ...
  Washington's influence on events is slipping fast in the region that has been the dominant focus of U.S. foreign policy over the past decade
• Ireland's Ruling Party: Is It the End for Fianna F ...
  With its government crippled and in chaos, Ireland looks ahead to an early election that will spell the end of Fianna Fail's long rule
• New Antidepressant May Not Kill Sex Drive
  In clinical trials, Viibryd led to fewer sexual side effects than may be commonly seen with other depression drugs.

Farming Pathogens

• 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 ...

Suzie-Q

• SOTU Preview: Obama To Focus Speech On Jobs, Innov ...
  SOTU Preview: Obama To Focus Speech On Jobs, Innovation, Cooperation Via: Huffington Post JULIE PACE   01/22/11 11:55 PM   WASHINGTON — Under pressure to energize the economy, President Barack Obama said Saturday he will use his State of the Union address to outline an agenda to create jobs now and ...
• 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 ...

Solari

• Quote du Jour
  “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.” ~ Louis Armstrong
• Fannie & Freddie Stick Fraudster Legal Bills to th ...
  By Gretchen Morgenson Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when ...
• Here It Comes - The Big Lie - We Need GMO To Feed ...
  Genetically-modified crops could help prevent a future global hunger crisis, the Government’s chief scientific adviser said. Professor Sir John Beddington said there was no one ‘’silver bullet” to the ”enormously serious” problem of feeding the world in the future in the face of problems such as cl ...
• V for Victory
  Continue reading the article . . .
• Food Facism: The Traceability Rule Cometh
  By Lyndsey Layton In response to a new federal food safety law and growing consumer interest, vast amounts of new data are being generated about the complicated path that food takes from field to supermarket shelf. And, increasingly, some of that information is being offered to curious shoppers, wh ...

Insurgency Watch - Newswire

• Times Scare
  ISLAMABAD–The apparent links between Pakistan and Faisal Shahzad are certainly cause for concern, but let’s not lose site of things here. The attack in Times Square was a fizzle. The rush to claim credit is a bit embarassing for the TTP and looks like it was — like the attack itself — a rush job. [. ...
• Stepping up - University at Buffalo The Spectrum
  Stepping up University at Buffalo The Spectrum The president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, recognized the direness of the situation and began to mobilize military forces to combat the Taliban. ... and more��
• Obama, us leaders should contemplate future of Afg ...
  BBC News Obama, us leaders should contemplate future of Afghan women Chicago Tribune Would nuclear-armed Pakistan become even more vulnerable to its own Taliban insurgency? Will a defeat embolden America's enemies? That line of thinking must ... Vietnam syndrome has begun in AfghanistanSri Lanka Gu ...
• Officials: Campus blasts perplexing - United Press ...
  Officials: Campus blasts perplexing United Press International ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- The International Islamic University, where bomb blasts killed at least six people, is a unique Pakistani institution ... and more��
• Schools closed in Pakistan after bombing - GMA new ...
  Schools closed in Pakistan after bombing GMA news.tv An Associated Press reporter met three Taliban fighters Tuesday traveling in a car with darkened windows at Shaktoi, a town close to the border between ... and more��

AlterNet - Rights and Liberties

• Tucson Hero Daniel Hernandez Invited to State of t ...
  Daniel Hernandez' heroism in the Tucson shootings has its roots in his progressive values. Will the right celebrate this gay Latino hero?
• U.S. Rejects Indigenous Rights in Favor of Failed ...
  Why is the United States formally objecting to Bolivia's request to the UN to allow its ancestral practice of coca leaf chewing?
• Tucson Hero Daniel Hernandez Michelle Obama's Gues ...
  Daniel Hernandez' heroism in the Tucson shootings has its roots in his progressive values. Will the right celebrate this gay Latino hero?
• The Pentagon Won't Stop Spewing Propaganda About P ...
  Why won't the Pentagon engage in honest, grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantánamo?
• Resolution Calling to Amend the Constitution Banni ...
  On the anniversary of the Citizens United decision, Vermont politicians are moving to deny corporations the rights that humans enjoy.

Sideways News

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

Fabius Maximus

• 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 ...