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http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/sciencebase-science-news-links-for-august-16th-through-august-23rd.html
These are the latest science news links and snippets from Sciencebase:
- That underwater hydrocarbon plume is still there – Things in the Gulf of Mexico may not be cleaning themselves up quite as fast as some had claimed and many had hoped. Surprise, surprise
- Paracetamol use and risk of asthma in teenagers studied – NHS Choices – Health News – It is not possible in a study of this design to determine whether the positive association observed was causal.
- Piped David Bradley – My main science blogs, going down the tubes? Yahoo Pipes pulls in all the feeds from Sciencebase (science), Sciencetext (tech), ReactiveReports (chemistry), SciScoop (forum), and ImagingStorm (scientific photos)
- New colour-change test for melamine contamination of milk products – First pets died in the US, then babies in China succumbed to the scurrilous practice of artificially boosting protein readings in milk products by adding the nitrogen-rich industrial chemical melamine to milk products. Now, researchers in China have published details of a simple test for melamine contamination, in the peer-reviewed journal Talanta.
- Good God! Can’t a Journal Author Have Any Fun Anymore? – Jesus cures case of influenza, gets retracted by scholarly journal
- Drug testing – A simple analytical approach to identifying drugs of abuse would be a boon to forensic scientists and law enforcement agencies. A collaboration between researchers in the US and Europe demonstrates how an assessment of different methods using chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry reveals that multivariate selectivity can take into account the degree of resolution between nominally unresolved peaks due to the presence of various drugs in a forensic sample and so allow quicker identification.
In order to keep up with the latest science news and views from Sciencebase add the site newsfeed to your
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My Yahoo! or click here to subscribe to the RSS. Meanwhile, read more of the latest science news headlines from the AAAS's Eurekalert Service as soon as the embargoes lift, reporting on nanotechnology, latest science news, stem cells, proteomics, genomics, evolution, and more. More
breaking science news here, this time from Eurekalert's European counterpart AlphaGalileo.
Is the US Pulling the Plug on Iraqi Workers?
http://www.truth-out.org/is-us-pulling-plug-iraqi-workers62632
Early in the morning of July 21, police stormed the offices of the Iraqi Electrical Utility Workers Union in Basra, the poverty-stricken capital of Iraq's oil-rich south. A shamefaced officer told Hashmeya Muhsin, the first woman to head a national union in Iraq, that they'd come to carry out the orders of Electricity Minister Hussain al-Shahristani to shut the union down. As more police arrived, they took the membership records, the files documenting often-atrocious working conditions, the leaflets for demonstrations protesting Basra's agonizing power outages, the computers and the phones. Finally, Muhsin and her coworkers were pushed out and the doors locked.
Shahristani's order prohibits all trade union activity in the plants operated by the ministry, closes union offices, and seizes control of union assets from bank accounts to furniture. The order says the ministry will determine what rights have been given to union officers, and take them all away. Anyone who protests, it says, will be arrested under Iraq's Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005.
So ended seven years in which workers in the region's power plants have fought for the right to organize a legal union, to bargain with the electrical ministry, and to stop the contracting-out and privatization schemes that have threatened their jobs.
( Iraqi infrastructure - especially power generation which affects all water treatment, sewage treatment, irrigation, schools, hospitals...and even traffic lights - has been rendered useless from attacks that predated 2003. Nuclear Power Generation in Iraq - like Iran and North Korea - has constantly been 'framed' as a 'risk' by the biggest military powerhouse on the planet, abrogating the terms of guaranteeing responsible and peaceful civilian use of nuclear power generation included in the international Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty under its Third Pillar ; stimulating illicit nuclear technology exchange. The proponents of peace are therefore disguised as those of War and 'fined' and harassed as War Criminals...by the War Criminals themselves...including and especially by 'Peace Prize' recipient Barack Obama.
This is the same scenario seen in the 'conscripting' of nations into NATO to carry out 'Land War in Europe' in an organization originally formed to justify delivery of war materials to Britain during World War II in the North Atlantic...which was itself started by a political system whose birth and leader's education was funded in the U.S.A. Check the history of George Bush's family - about Prescott Bush and George H.W.,
once Director of the C.I.A.
Meanwhile, back home, infrastructure degrades from neglect...and worse. )
Soldier, Ask Not
- Soldier, Ask Not is a science fiction novel written by Gordon R. Dickson and published in 1967, based on a Hugo Award-winning short story of the same name, first published in 1964 in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction. It is part of Dickson's Childe Cycle series, in which mankind has reached the stars and divided into specialized splinter groups.
- Old Earth remains populated by the traditional variety of "full-spectrum" people, the younger worlds have developed "splinter" cultures, taking very divergent paths and developing specialized cultures. Most notable of these are: the Exotics, philosophers, mystics and psychologists; the Friendlies, puritan faith-holders who supplement the meager production of their rocky worlds by hiring out as mercenaries; and the Dorsai, true professional soldiers, highly skilled and expertly trained. Other worlds have specialized in different ways, in the sciences, mining, agriculture or commerce.
The primary medium of interplanetary trade is in personal service contracts. The worlds are divided into the "loose" worlds, where individuals maintain some control over their contracts, and the "tight" worlds, where personal contracts may be bought and sold regardless of the wishes of the individual worker.
- Tam Olyn is an ambitious, vain, angry young man. Orphaned at a young age, and raised by a nihilist uncle, he cares little for others, with the possible exception of his younger sister, Eileen. Following his graduation from school, he is ready to launch his career as a journalist among the stars.
In a prelude to the main events of the book, he and Eileen visit the Final Encyclopedia, a centuries-long project to try and collect and catalog all knowledge. While standing at the center of the index room, Tam is identified as a one-in-a-billion person who can actually hear the voices of humanity while there. The dying director of the Encyclopedia wants him to stay on and succeed him, but an Exotic, Padma from the planet Mara, reads him as having no identity with others, no empathy, no soul. He cannot help the Encyclopedia.
His sister has become engaged to Jamethon Black, a young mercenary from the Friendly world of Harmony. Despite the fact that Black seems a very decent young man, Tam callously manipulates his sister into breaking the engagement.
Shortly, he leaves Earth, beginning his profession as a newsman. In the following five years, he advances in his profession, while his sister emigrates to Cassida, and marries a young engineer there.
While covering a war on New Earth, he finds his sister's husband, who has been drafted, and attempts to keep him out of harm's way by using him as an assistant. The plan backfires. His brother-in-law, along with several other prisoners, is slaughtered by a fanatic Friendly soldier, in violation of the laws of war. Despite the fanatic's execution for his war crime, Tam chooses to blame the entire Friendly culture, and sets out to destroy them.
Unfortunately, Tam has the ability to analyze people and situations, and manipulate them expertly. Padma observes his actions, and tries to put a brake on his behavior, but he will not be stopped. By manipulating events, he creates a situation for the Friendlies that may result in their destruction as a viable culture.
In the culmination of events, he arrives to cover a war on the planet of St. Marie, a small agrarian world. On one side are the Dorsai mercenary forces hired by the government, led by the identical twin brothers, Ian and Kensie Graeme. The twins, who appear in a number of other stories, are opposites in every way. Kensie is warm, friendly, loved by all, and a great leader of men. Ian is cold as ice, analytical, and a great tactician. He is respected and feared.
On the other side are a group of Friendlies who had been misled into supporting an abortive local revolution. The Friendlies are led by Jamethon Black, whose engagement Tam had broken years earlier. The Friendlies are hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered. Tam has manipulated the situation so that not only will the Friendlies lose, but their ability to hire out their soldiers will be crippled, possibly leading to the end of their viability as a culture.
In the end, he is thwarted only by the faith of Black, and the honor and courage of the Graeme brothers, despite the incredible cost to them. The best qualities of the splinter cultures defeat the worst qualities of Tam Olyn.
As Padma explains to him, had he succeeded, not only would a necessary component of the human spirit have been lost, but the entire balance of power among the worlds would have been horribly upset. Eventually, Padma manages to break through his shell, allowing Tam to grow into more of a human being, and take his place at the Final Encyclopedia.
A key event in the war, barely mentioned in this book, is the death of Kensie Graeme, and the manner in which his brother's honor prevents the bloodbath which could have resulted at the hands of Kensie's angry troops. These events occur after Tam has left the planet. The story is told in great detail in the short story, Brothers.
Told You So, Economy in the Toliet »
(
Is that to toilet as Julie-8 is to Juliette ? )
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog
The Right To Vote, The Right To An Education »
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog
a girls’ school had
poisonous gas spread throughout the school, sickening a number of the girls and teachers. Who would do such a thing? The
Taliban would:
[snip] Wednesday’s incident follows a similar pattern seen in other recent attacks at girls’ schools involving an airborne substance which officials say could be some form of gas.
Those have raised fears that the Taliban and other allied groups who oppose female education are using a new method to scare them away from classes. [snip]
Read the rest
(
That 'poisonous gas' is an example of sick humour...in English, at least. So's this Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - equating 'underwear' to WMD...is indecent. )
Somali shell attack injures Koranic schoolchildren
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10683293
targeting government and African Union (AU) bases in the Bondhere and Shibi districts. A UN-backed (
imposed ) interim government has been struggling to contain the rebels, who control most of southern Somalia.
Al-Qaida-linked militants claim Uganda blasts
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38194835/ns/world_news-africa
THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch2.htm
In February 1998, the 40-year-old Saudi exile Usama Bin Ladin and a fugitive Egyptian physician, Ayman al Zawahiri, arranged from their Afghan headquarters for an Arabic newspaper in London to publish what they termed a fatwa issued in the name of a "World Islamic Front."
A fatwa is normally an interpretation of Islamic law by a respected Islamic authority, but
neither Bin Ladin, Zawahiri, nor the three others who signed this statement were scholars of Islamic law. Claiming that America had declared war against God and his messenger, they called for the murder of any American, anywhere on earth, as the "individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."1
(
Bin Laden...you know...'friend' of the Bu$h family. )
Taiwan looks at US Islamophobia
http://polizeros.com/2010/08/26/taiwan-looks-at-us-islamophobia/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PoliticsInTheZeros+%28Politics+in+the+Zeros%29
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
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