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Thomas Paine

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

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

21 December - My Yahoo!

A view of Bonavista harbour looking north in N...Image via Wikipedia

Extreme weather warnings issued in Nfld. 

Fierce winds and pounding waves will strike numerous communities in Newfoundland.

The warnings cover the island's south coast, most of its west coast and the Burin, Avalon and Bonavista peninsulas, and compound travel problems that have already cancelled Marine Atlantic's ferry crossings to Nova Scotia.
Winds will gust up to 120 km/h in parts of the Avalon and Burin peninsulas.
Meteorologist Devon Telford said water levels will be particularly high on the east side of the Burin Peninsula, and in other areas as well.

 Marine Atlantic ferry Leif Ericson in the proc...Image via Wikipedia

Credit card rules rile Calgary restaurant owner

One Calgary restaurateur is standing behind the federal Competition Bureau's move to investigate Canada's largest credit card companies.
The bureau says Visa and Mastercard is engaging in unfair and anti-competitive practices it fears are hurting small businesses and consumers.
Marco Abdi, owner of La Brezza Ristorante at 990 First Ave. N.E., said every time he swipes a credit card, it seems the fees increase. He believes it's getting in the way of him growing his business.

Vanunu’s Perseverance Drives Them Crazy

Rafael Poch - Pravda


Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced in 1986 to 18 years in prison for “treason” and “spying.” His crime was to disclose the secret of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. Released in 2004, he is still banned from contacting the press and cannot move freely. At the Berlin gathering, the name of Julian Assange, and another popularizer of disclosing secrets was very present, the Irish Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize 1976, calling the enforced absence of Vanunu “shameful.”
Corrigan-Maguire and five other Nobel laureates, including the German Günter Grass, called for Vanunu to be allowed to go to Berlin, without obtaining even an answer. In his absence, some pacifist Israeli Vanunu partners were informed at once and participated in the event, including the journalist, Gideon Spiro, founder of the support committee for Vanunu.
.......
Do they accuse you of anti-Semitism in Israel?
On 5 October 1986, the British newspaper The S...Image via Wikipedia
It is the atomic bomb of propaganda. For example, if someone from Spain condemns the Israeli system of Apartheid, the answer is that you continue in the Spanish tradition that once expelled the Jews. If you are really an anti-Semite, then nevermind, but if you are a humanist, an advocate of human rights and peace, they force you to explain, to defend yourself, you put on the defensive.
It is an effective weapon, especially in Germany, which gives submarines capable of carrying nuclear missiles to Israel, a madness that contributes to the next holocaust, a shame to the previous one, an utter stupidity for Israel. But that weapon is losing power, because both the generation that was a victim as well as those who promoted the slaughter of Jews in Europe, is disappearing. In twenty years, this resource will disappear. German policy does not support Israel, but its militarism.
It’s madness: they are contributing to the next nuclear holocaust, arming with the technology of mass destruction the region most stirred up in the world. And the things about the submarines was started by Joschka Fischer, of the pacifist political Green Party … We must prevent Iran from the bomb, but if we just focus on Iran and allow Israel to have them, then any other Arab country will want to have them. We favor a nuclear-free Middle East because it is a matter of survival for all, including Israelis.

Divided FCC adopts Internet traffic rules

U.S. communications regulators adopted Internet traffic rules on Tuesday that prevent providers from blocking lawful content but still let them ration access to their networks.

At issue is whether regulators need to guarantee that all stakeholders continue to have reasonable access to the Internet, a principle often called "net neutrality," or whether the Internet is best left to flourish unregulated.
The FCC's ability to regulate the Internet has been in doubt since an appeals court in April said the agency lacked the authority to stop cable company Comcast Corp from blocking bandwidth-hogging applications.
Senior FCC officials have said they will invoke new legal arguments not employed in the Comcast case.

U.S. executions fall due to cost and lack of lethal drug

One factor reducing or delaying executions is difficulty obtaining sodium thiopental, one of the drugs used in lethal injection executions, the Washington-based group said.
Executions were postponed or canceled in five states due to a shortage of the drug, it said. Arizona imported some from Britain, where executions have been abolished, but Britain is now restricting the drug's exportation.

 

Deutsche Bank to pay $553 million to resolve tax shelter fraud investigation

Deutsche Bank admitted criminal wrongdoing and agreed to pay more than US$550 million in connection with its participation in tax shelters that enabled the rich to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in American taxes, U.S. authorities announced Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors and the Justice Department's tax division announced the deal, saying a non-prosecution agreement requires the bank to continue co-operating and to submit to the appointment of an independent expert who will review its compliance measures and ensure it does not help people dodge taxes in the future.
Authorities said the $533,633,153 payment by the bank will include that amount of taxes and interest that the Internal Revenue Service was unable to collect from taxpayers from 1996 to 2002 because of the misconduct. It also includes a civil penalty of more than $149 million.

 

Rising food costs force poor to make bad choices

Have We Really Solved the Mystery Behind the Shocking Die-off of Bees?

The New York Times made a long-awaited (and much emailed) announcement on its front page last week: The mystery of the ongoing and agriculturally devastating bee die-off (aka Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD) has been cracked!US migratory beekeepers loading tractor-traile...Image via Wikipedia

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One. Reporter Kirk Johnson takes a wrong turn. 

In essence, he confuses proximate and efficient causes (i.e. what bees ultimately succumb to vs. what makes hives susceptible to collapse) and from that logical error, a whole series of cascading failures ensue. Read Katherine Eban’s crack piece of reporting for Fortune that dissects the problematic nature of the Times article; the underlying study; its lead author, Jerry Bromenshenk; and the role in the whole debate of the pesticide company Bayer CropScience.

The study itself makes no conclusive claims about the causes of colony collapse disorder. Eban quotes from the paper that the research does not “clearly define” that the virus/fungus combination is “a marker, a cause, or a consequence of CCD.” A scientist interviewed by Eban very helpfully offers the metaphor of HIV to describe what’s going on with bees. HIV doesn’t kill you — it’s the opportunistic infections and diseases that follow HIV’s dismantling of a sufferer’s immune system that do. In the case of bees, the virus/fungus combo are most likely the follow-on infections that kill off an already weakened hive. The Times left out key pieces of the real story of the fight over research into what’s killing the bees.


As I wrote last January, many scientists believe that a novel class of pesticides called neonicotinoids — which are insect neurotoxins — has played a major role in CCD worldwide. An Italian entomologist at the University of Padua, Vincenzo Girolami, has research currently undergoing peer review showing that bees can be exposed to lethal levels of these pesticides through the use of seeding machines that sow neonicotinoid-coated seeds. These devices throw up a toxic cloud of pesticide as they work: bees fly through the cloud and either die or take the pesticide back to the hive. Once inside, even at low doses, it can cause disorientation or, as Girolami calls it, “intoxication” of whole hives.
The maker of this pesticide is Bayer CropScience. What does a corporation do when it discovers it may have developed and marketed a dangerous and potentially devastating product? Here in America, you confuse, you obfuscate, and you buy off scientists.
And as Eban skillfully details, that’s exactly what Bayer has been doing for the last decade or so.
last year Italy banned neonicotinoid-coated corn seeds and, according to this report, after the first non-neonicotinoid sowing, nary a hive was lost, although neonicotinoid spraying is still allowed in some areas — and still linked with bee deaths. France has also banned coated seeds — though there, as in Germany, the pesticide lobby has fended off total bans for now. As for the U.S., Bayer successfully convinced a judge to throw out crucial evidence in the beekeeper lawsuit and has, to date, prevented the EPA from releasing the data the agency used to approve neonicotinoids in the first place.

TAPI Pipeline Prospects

The leaders of four nations Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) met in the second week of December 2010 in the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat to sign two agreements called Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA) and Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) to foster the prospects of TAPI pipeline. The agreements will boost the prospects of the pipeline as they lay down the terms of gas supply and inter-governmental cooperation. The 1680 km pipeline estimated to cost $7.6 billion, will supply India and Pakistan about 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas and to Afghanistan 700 million cubic feet gas per year from Turkmenistan’s southern Yoloten-Osman and Dowletabad gas fields. The successful completion of pipeline, projected at the year 2014, will undoubtedly meet significant energy requirements of the three countries of the region. The pipeline will pass from southern gas fields of Turkmenistan and reach by crossing Afghanistan Pakistan’s national gas network at Multan, and then cross to India and reach the Fazilka point in the Indian state of Punjab. Though it will be premature to pronounce the certainty of pipeline deal at present because there are other crucial agreements such as Gas Supply Purchase Agreement (GSPA), Gas Transportation Agreement and Host Country Agreement are yet to be signed. However, despite the differences of perceptions among the parties the deal has moved forward substantially.

China urges Nhttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=9097666276440622860&postID=3260806885804575241orth Korea to accept nuclear inspectors

( Surely NK will resist efforts to get them to prove that they are defenceless and MAD - Mutual Assured Destruction - is not a plausible concern. After all...it isn't as if we believe the forces assailing them are not armed to the teeth with every imagineable weapon under the Sun...and some that aren't to most of us  ) 

 

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 No Quarter

  • Goodbye To 2010, And Dreams For 2011 - 4 hours agoAs the holiday season continues, here are a couple of videos just for fun. Good ol’ JibJab has composed a great synopsis of 2010 in this funny (and too true) video: Oh, my – how funny was that? I lo...
  • The 12 Days–Irish Style + Open Thread - 14 hours agoMany have had fun with what it would be like if the 12 Days of Christmas actually played themselves out in real time. But this one really cracked me up. This is about how it would go in my ...
  • Joe Biden Old Blighty Cold Bitten - 22 hours agoAs Joe Biden labels Assange a “hi-tech terrorist,” Old Blighty’s Assange problem continues to manufacture details, such as how Assange the Australian national released the Climategate emails of 2009 (...
  • A Miracle Of Music - 1 day agoI just saw the most incredible story about a man named Derek Amato. Back in 2006, he hit his head on the bottom of a swimming pool. The result of that brain injury was the gift of music. That knock...
  • Daggers - 1 day ago

 

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Green Life

  • Green New Year's Resolutions: Volunteer More - 6 hours agoIt’s almost midnight — do you know where your resolutions are? If not, worry not: We’ve got a few suggestions lined up for you this week. While in years past, we provided you with specific eco - act...
  • Green Fashion Monday: Ugly Christmas Sweater Tees - 1 day agoOn Fashion Monday , we highlight a hip, green fashion item. Got a stylish eco-friendly product to recommend? Tell us about it and look for it in an upcoming blog post. Wondering what to w...
  • A Musical Caterpillar? - 1 day agoNext time you're walking in nature and you hear a whistling sound coming from the leaves, don't be overly flattered. Chances are it's a walnut sphinx caterpillar , which has been found to be able to m...
  • Green New Year's Resolutions: Commit to Activism - 1 day agoIt’s almost midnight — do you know where your resolutions are? If not, worry not: We’ve got a few suggestions lined up for you this week. While in years past, we provided you with specific eco - acts ...
  • Daily Roundup: December 17, 2010 - 3 days ago

 

 Gawker

 

 MercoPress

 

 Florida Oil Spill Law

 

  • US shift may mean end of bilateral approach - 0 minutes ago"It is clear that the international community is nearing a crossroads at which a decision must be made on whether this current approach should be continued. The alternative is for the international co...
  • Lebanon: Finding Consensus without the Factions - 0 minutes ago"As for the factions of "exiles", although in some ways I sympathize with them and respect the intensity of their feelings, the firestorm of name-calling and misrepresentation they created over our de...
  • What we'll learn from the next round of Wikileaks - 0 minutes ago"Spoke to several senior officers in IDF Intelligence. They can't understand why we are neglecting the Syria-Israel negotiating track in favor of an obviously failed Israeli-Palestinian process. Explo...
  • Last Call for a Peaceful Settlement - 0 minutes ago"The natural conclusion to all of this is that the Americans can never be the impartial and honest broker the Palestinians had hoped for. While this is a disheartening conclusion, there is an even mor...
  • WikiLeaks, ICRC and Kashmir - 0 minutes ago

 

Voltaire

 

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