Headlining this part of the blog might at least give notice that it's there - to any who don't have the patience to scroll through all that stuff!
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Results for Op Ed News ( of 221 )
Showing posts with label pollution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pollution. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
12 Aug - Water Related Search Returns
Usually records of search spider returns are at the bottom of RSS SnapShot! posts. I do that not just to provide a record, but because I find on my link lists/posts that Google returns do not resolve ; the page won't load completely on such long posts. Op-Ed News' sidebar tool also failed to load ; so I deleted an admired source's updated list of articles simply because it didn't work here - nor was I going to repost their site wholesale.
Headlining this part of the blog might at least give notice that it's there - to any who don't have the patience to scroll through all that stuff!
Headlining this part of the blog might at least give notice that it's there - to any who don't have the patience to scroll through all that stuff!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
3 Aug - EnviroNews
Image via CrunchBasehttp://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/07/30/mb-wheat-board-crop-outlook-manitoba.html?ref=rss
Farmers will likely face bleaker returns in the coming year because of heavy rains in recent months that soaked much of the Prairies. Excess rains have left 4.25 million hectares unseeded and ruined the prospects for another one million hectares that did get in the ground.
Oilsands database shows chronic pollution
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/07/30/edmonton-oilsands-pollution-database-timoney.html?ref=rss
You start to see hundreds and hundreds of fairly serious (emissions) well above the regulated guidelines and nothing's done.You go and look at the next month and nothing's done. The same pattern continues month in, month out, year in, year out.
Most of the records had to be obtained using federal and provincial freedom-of-information legislation. The result is a database that takes up 14 megabytes of computer memory.
Oilsands pollution database (FTP)
Negligence
http://my.opera.com/arduinna/blog
Dying waterways need federal help: minister
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2010/07/25/anoxic-rivers-need-federal-help.html?ref=rss
Anoxia, the absence of oxygen in water often caused by a build-up of nutrients from farming, septic systems, or clear-cut logging.
It causes a bloom of aquatic vegetation that rots, stinks and sucks oxygen from the water, killing fish and shellfish.
Environmental activists win Ramon Magsaysay award
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10840011
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, a survivor of the WWII nuclear bomb, has led a global campaign for nuclear disarmament.
Photographer Huo Daishan has publicised the poisoning of the Huai river.
Ancient reptile tracks found in N.B.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/30/reptile-footprints.html?ref=rss
Scientists have discovered 318 million-year-old reptile footprints in rock slabs that have broken free of the sea cliffs, and say they show reptiles were the first vertebrates — animals with a backbone — to move inland away from the swampy coasts.
Pie ruling a boon to potential G20 lawsuit
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/23/supreme-court-pie-ruling-reaction-g20.html?ref=rss
Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward was arrested Aug. 1, 2002, because he matched the description from a tip police received about a man planning to throw a pie at then-prime minister Chrétien. The lawyer was arrested, spent hours behind bars and was strip-searched.
Friday’s Supreme Court ruling upheld $5,000 in damages against British Columbia for breaching Ward’s charter rights. Essentially, it means people whose rights are infringed can seek damages even if they suffered no actual loss and even if authorities acted in good faith.
David Midanik, one lawyer pursuing a class-action lawsuit related to police action at the G20, says he’s received a lot of inquiries but many are unwilling to represent the lawsuit due largely to mistrust of the system.
“They believe because police behaved the way they did … that there’s little or no chance of a court — which they see as part of the same thing — giving them justice, so they’re reluctant to co-operate,” said Midanik.
Midanik believes, however, that though the ruling doesn’t mark a legal change, it could make more people feel comfortable enough to come out of the woodwork with their claims.
Hiring prison-farm workers not an option: union
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/07/26/prison-farms-hiring.html?ref=rss
Cheryl Gallant, Conservative MP: Prison farms were being closed because no one who comes out of the program is able to find work in agriculture and prison work should provide inmates with marketable skills.
Renfrew County National Farmers Union secretary treasurer Lauretta Rice said farmers don't have the money to hire anyone new, much less ex-convicts.
"We can hardly keep our farms going here, without taking extra people, there's just no work for these people," she said.
The Correctional Service of Canada said in February 2009 it would wind down Canada's six farms over a two-year period. The government has estimated that the farms, which were started in the 1880s, cost roughly $4 million a year. Farms in Atlantic Canada and the Prairies were auctioned off in June. The two remaining farms are in Kingston, Ont.
( Cost $4 million a year ? That sounds like a fabulous custodial bargain to me. Who is going to profit at taxpayer expense ? )
EI denied to mother caring for sick son
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/07/29/nb-ei-benefits-denied-brain-surgery-636.html?ref=rss
The best of Calvin & Hobbes!
http://calvy.wordpress.com
DND computers used to change Wikipedia site
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/29/wikipedia-dnd.html?ref=rss
As first reported in a story by Postmedia, Wikipedia traced the edits to computers owned by Defence Research Development Canada's Ottawa offices. Wikipedia locked down the entry, labelled the changes as vandalism and only allowed recognized editors to work on the page.
In one entry, all information outlining the criticism of the jets and the plan to buy them was removed. In another, someone added that Ignatieff thought the deal to buy the planes for Canada was an "awesome, amazing decision to proceed with this contract." In reality, Ignatieff has been critical of the sole-source contract, calling for a reconvening of the defence committee to examine the decision.
All’s Not Fair When it Comes to Energy Subsidies
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/alls-not-fair-when-it-comes-to-energy-subsidies
Fuels of convenience are getting around 10 times the advantages around the world as non-polluting energy sources.
Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance :
Setting aside the fact that in many cases clean energy competes on its own merits — for instance in the case of well‐situated wind farms and Brazilian sugarcane ethanol — this analysis shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around ten times the subsidy for renewables. And that is without taking into account the enormous security and public health costs of fossil fuels, as well as the appalling pollution catastrophes on the Gulf Coast, the Niger Delta and elsewhere. Read the rest…
NYT
About Dot Earth
By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, which recently moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section, Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracks relevant developments from suburbia to Siberia. The blog is an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts.
- Follow Revkin on Twitter | Facebook | Google Reader | YouTube | RSS
Introducing 
Apture allows readers to dig deeper into a subject without ever leaving the blog post. When you click on any link marked by the icons 
, 
, or 
, you will be able to view video, reference materials, images and other related media. Please e-mail your feedback and thoughts on this feature to apture@nyt.com.On the Oil Spill
An Unfolding Environmental Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
After an explosion on April 20 of an oil rig leased by the oil company BP, crude oil has been gushing into the gulf in the worst oil disaster in United States history.
On the Dot
Energy
New Options Needed
Access to cheap energy underpins modern societies. Finding enough to fuel industrialized economies and pull developing countries out of poverty without overheating the climate is a central challenge of the 21st century.Climate
The Arctic in Transition
Enshrined in history as an untouchable frontier, the Arctic is being transformed by significant warming, a rising thirst for oil and gas, and international tussles over shipping routes and seabed resources.Society
Slow Drips, Hard Knocks
Human advancement can be aided by curbing everyday losses like the millions of avoidable deaths from indoor smoke and tainted water, and by increasing resilience in the face of predictable calamities like earthquakes and drought.Biology
Life, Wild and Managed
Earth’s veneer of millions of plant and animal species is a vital resource that will need careful tending as human populations and their demands for land, protein and fuels grow.Slide Show
A Planet in Flux
Andrew C. Revkin began exploring the human impact on the environment nearly 30 years ago. An early stop was Papeete, Tahiti. This narrated slide show describes his extensive travels.
How are climate change, scarcer resources, population growth and other challenges reshaping society? From science to business to politics to living, reporters track the high-stakes pursuit of a greener globe in a dialogue with experts and readers. Join the discussion at Green.
Killing the future in its cradle Carl Pope - Chairman Sierra Club ***
While Washington waits to see just how many wrenches the oil industry can throw into the Democratic Congressional leadership's effort to pass a modest "reform oil drilling, help low-carbon vehicles, and finance jobs and green-home makeovers" bill, the rest of us need to do some serious thinking about the next round.
It's very bad news that we won't have comprehensive energy and climate legislation by January.
It's worse news why we find ourselves in this situation: Because oil and coal have in recent months been able to leverage their old alliances with manufacturers, utilities, regulators, and ideological reactionaries to block not just cap-and-trade legislation but all kinds of attempts to move forward toward clean energy -- whether in Congress or elsewhere.
We need to level the playing field. We're not short of capital to finance the energy revolution. Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash and having a hard time finding credit-worthy, high-return investments. Clean-energy investments have very high returns, and the federal government could use its backstop authority to guarantee high-quality clean-energy loans -- instead of throwing billions at low-quality, high-default nuclear boondoggles.
Incidentally, this is exactly what China is already doing. You don't need an elaborate, quant-modeled, impossible-to-understand, collateralized debt obligation to make this work -- it's just old-fashioned project finance.
( These are excerpts. At the original I make a comment which is almost as long as what I reposted here.)
Green, a New Blog From the News Side
Energy and the Environment
How are climate change, scarcer resources, population growth and other challenges reshaping society? From science to business to politics to living, reporters track the high-stakes pursuit of a greener globe in a dialogue with experts and readers. Join the discussion at Green.Killing the future in its cradle Carl Pope - Chairman Sierra Club ***
While Washington waits to see just how many wrenches the oil industry can throw into the Democratic Congressional leadership's effort to pass a modest "reform oil drilling, help low-carbon vehicles, and finance jobs and green-home makeovers" bill, the rest of us need to do some serious thinking about the next round.
It's very bad news that we won't have comprehensive energy and climate legislation by January.
It's worse news why we find ourselves in this situation: Because oil and coal have in recent months been able to leverage their old alliances with manufacturers, utilities, regulators, and ideological reactionaries to block not just cap-and-trade legislation but all kinds of attempts to move forward toward clean energy -- whether in Congress or elsewhere.
We need to level the playing field. We're not short of capital to finance the energy revolution. Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash and having a hard time finding credit-worthy, high-return investments. Clean-energy investments have very high returns, and the federal government could use its backstop authority to guarantee high-quality clean-energy loans -- instead of throwing billions at low-quality, high-default nuclear boondoggles.
Incidentally, this is exactly what China is already doing. You don't need an elaborate, quant-modeled, impossible-to-understand, collateralized debt obligation to make this work -- it's just old-fashioned project finance.
( These are excerpts. At the original I make a comment which is almost as long as what I reposted here.)
Friday, June 25, 2010
25 June - The Conjunction of Hubris & a Republic Living on the Edge
Below is the repeated scenario the U.S. beats the world into accepting.
Iran faces fresh US sanctions
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201062545934360999.html
The bill would effectively deprive foreign banks of access to the US financial system if they do business with key Iranian banks or the Revolutionary Guards.Such banks would be "shut out of the US financial system," Howard Berman, the bill's author in the House of Representatives and foreign affairs committee chairman, said.
Global suppliers of gasoline to Iran could also be frozen out of the US banking system or prevented from carrying out property transactions and foreign exchange in the United States if they do business with Iran.
"Because of this legislation, we will be posing a choice to companies around the world. Do you want to do business with Iran, or do you want to do business with the United States?" John McCain, a Republican senator, said during the senate debate.
Under current US law, US companies are prohibited from doing business with Iran and foreign companies with big investments in Iran's energy sector can also be sanctioned, but many US politicians say this has not been enforced.
Isn't this what is known in sparring circles as 'leading with one's chin' ?
You can tell I'm no economist. The idea of the nation with a debt ratio so huge that the falling GDP is/was 7% of the total outstanding - and a further gift equaling previous debt was made to organized crime last year - while continuing to run a huge deficit 'funding' inter-country mass murder in Asia - has the gall to tell creditors and financial institutions they will be 'locked out' of I.O.U. payment that is already 'smoke and mirrors' backed by nothing in the middle of breakdown of the international financial system which it has hijacked ! And sabotaged.
This for something that had pretensions to being a reliable international medium of exchange.
The mind boggles.
Well. There's a sure cure for recession.
Global collapse just accelerated many times.
It's a good thing my perceptions do not reflect reality. Or do they ?
What do you make of it when a financial entity decides that it has not flaunted its irresponsibilities sufficiently and knows no restraint on 'going it alone' ?
When the koolaid swilled by the people is totally at odds with world thought ? Heck, if it was fairly reported, it's at odds with Their thought.
Going from being a creditor nation to a debtor nation alone should not advertise fiscal competence. Even for the Spendthrift Nation there is no sign of anything approaching alarm at rampant egoism.
The Gulf pollution just killed a great Caribbean resource. Seaports are more than cheap shipping : they access(ed) cheap protein to feed people. All you have to do is go get it. Tourism already has a hit from damage unrepaired from Hurricane Katrina. What will worries about toxic pollution in the air and water both do to attract people ?
I actually think I have scarcely scratched the surface of the problems from toxic proliferation. Infrastructure degradation must include sewage lagoons and drinking water supplies.The 'barriers' at New Orleans were a farce before Katrina. These days there are no sandbanks to break the force of the sea.
The 'recovery'...didn't include employment. How many ways are there to hide a great farce that is killing the tax base of governments at every level worldwide ?
Now...this might not be the 'straw that broke the camel's back.' After all...this garbage has been going on for decades. But not in these circumstances.
I've covered the absolute bafflegab about Iran to exhaustion. But if you missed it, not so long ago I posted a summary of many points.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/06/24-june-rights-of-npt.html
But. It makes no sense ! Why ?
It's part of larger interlocking schemes.
See Documents : Post Saddam Iraq
Wikipedia. Hydraulic Empire...or Water Empire. And Iraq and more are right in there. So are we. Check the sidebar folks. Water - Wealth & Empire
Too long ?
I put these in the StumbleUpon file oldephartte. Oil, gas....the similarities are unmistakable.
Iran faces fresh US sanctions
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201062545934360999.html
The bill would effectively deprive foreign banks of access to the US financial system if they do business with key Iranian banks or the Revolutionary Guards.Such banks would be "shut out of the US financial system," Howard Berman, the bill's author in the House of Representatives and foreign affairs committee chairman, said.
Global suppliers of gasoline to Iran could also be frozen out of the US banking system or prevented from carrying out property transactions and foreign exchange in the United States if they do business with Iran.
"Because of this legislation, we will be posing a choice to companies around the world. Do you want to do business with Iran, or do you want to do business with the United States?" John McCain, a Republican senator, said during the senate debate.
Under current US law, US companies are prohibited from doing business with Iran and foreign companies with big investments in Iran's energy sector can also be sanctioned, but many US politicians say this has not been enforced.
Isn't this what is known in sparring circles as 'leading with one's chin' ?
You can tell I'm no economist. The idea of the nation with a debt ratio so huge that the falling GDP is/was 7% of the total outstanding - and a further gift equaling previous debt was made to organized crime last year - while continuing to run a huge deficit 'funding' inter-country mass murder in Asia - has the gall to tell creditors and financial institutions they will be 'locked out' of I.O.U. payment that is already 'smoke and mirrors' backed by nothing in the middle of breakdown of the international financial system which it has hijacked ! And sabotaged.
This for something that had pretensions to being a reliable international medium of exchange.
The mind boggles.
Well. There's a sure cure for recession.
Global collapse just accelerated many times.
It's a good thing my perceptions do not reflect reality. Or do they ?
What do you make of it when a financial entity decides that it has not flaunted its irresponsibilities sufficiently and knows no restraint on 'going it alone' ?
When the koolaid swilled by the people is totally at odds with world thought ? Heck, if it was fairly reported, it's at odds with Their thought.
Going from being a creditor nation to a debtor nation alone should not advertise fiscal competence. Even for the Spendthrift Nation there is no sign of anything approaching alarm at rampant egoism.
The Underlying Fraud In Banking
I'm going to talk about the inherent fraud over the last five or so years in the housing (and other lending) markets, and it is NOT where you think it is.
It is, in fact, in both the accounting treatment and assumptions that were in fact made by both borrowers and lenders - simply put, they are nowhere near the same.
I actually think I have scarcely scratched the surface of the problems from toxic proliferation. Infrastructure degradation must include sewage lagoons and drinking water supplies.The 'barriers' at New Orleans were a farce before Katrina. These days there are no sandbanks to break the force of the sea.
The 'recovery'...didn't include employment. How many ways are there to hide a great farce that is killing the tax base of governments at every level worldwide ?
Now...this might not be the 'straw that broke the camel's back.' After all...this garbage has been going on for decades. But not in these circumstances.
I've covered the absolute bafflegab about Iran to exhaustion. But if you missed it, not so long ago I posted a summary of many points.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/06/24-june-rights-of-npt.html
But. It makes no sense ! Why ?
It's part of larger interlocking schemes.
See Documents : Post Saddam Iraq
Wikipedia. Hydraulic Empire...or Water Empire. And Iraq and more are right in there. So are we. Check the sidebar folks. Water - Wealth & Empire
Too long ?
I put these in the StumbleUpon file oldephartte. Oil, gas....the similarities are unmistakable.
"How to Destroy the Earth's Fresh Water Supplies Without Anyone Finding Out"
Welcome to the Resource Wars.
THE ANTIREPTILIAN IRATION is blunt. And here's something I may put in the Water file to show how ignoring a problem...will surely create a bigger. And such can be 'helped along' too.
The Mississippi Levee System and the Old River Control Structure
Ellet also mentioned the effects of increased cultivation, manmade cutoffs/shortcuts, and the lengthening of the delta all of which will increase the probability and magnitude of floods. He concluded that the flooding problem would worsen with time as the Mississippi Basin becomes more settled. According to Ellet, “It is shown that each of these causes is likely to be progressive, and that the future floods throughout the length and breadth of the delta, and along the great streams tributary to the Mississippi, are destined to rise higher and higher, as society spreads over the upper States, as population adjacent to the river increases, and the inundated low lands appreciate in value”.
The channelization produced by the levees and control structures deprives natural wetlands of the sediments normally deposited during flooding. Wetlands rely on sediments from distributaries and flooding to counteract subsidence, the compaction of sediments under their own weight. Water flows faster in subsidized areas, and distributaries can rapidly expand into wide channels, causing wetlands to disappear under the influx of water. The coastal marshes of Louisiana provide a natural barrier against the erosion causes by the fierce storms which often come from the Gulf. Because of the loss of these wetlands, the Louisiana coast has receded several thousands of feet over the past few decades, and commercial fishermen have also been deprived of a ready source of income.
Most of the problems resulting from the levee system, including wetland degradation, stem from channelization.
Taken in isolation, these problems may seem serious but manageable. Taken together in a time when the economy is falling apart leads me to 'serious doubts' - a little 'British understatement' there - that it will happen.
Ellet also mentioned the effects of increased cultivation, manmade cutoffs/shortcuts, and the lengthening of the delta all of which will increase the probability and magnitude of floods. He concluded that the flooding problem would worsen with time as the Mississippi Basin becomes more settled. According to Ellet, “It is shown that each of these causes is likely to be progressive, and that the future floods throughout the length and breadth of the delta, and along the great streams tributary to the Mississippi, are destined to rise higher and higher, as society spreads over the upper States, as population adjacent to the river increases, and the inundated low lands appreciate in value”.
The channelization produced by the levees and control structures deprives natural wetlands of the sediments normally deposited during flooding. Wetlands rely on sediments from distributaries and flooding to counteract subsidence, the compaction of sediments under their own weight. Water flows faster in subsidized areas, and distributaries can rapidly expand into wide channels, causing wetlands to disappear under the influx of water. The coastal marshes of Louisiana provide a natural barrier against the erosion causes by the fierce storms which often come from the Gulf. Because of the loss of these wetlands, the Louisiana coast has receded several thousands of feet over the past few decades, and commercial fishermen have also been deprived of a ready source of income.
Most of the problems resulting from the levee system, including wetland degradation, stem from channelization.
Taken in isolation, these problems may seem serious but manageable. Taken together in a time when the economy is falling apart leads me to 'serious doubts' - a little 'British understatement' there - that it will happen.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
28 Apr - Late Links
Image by vaishalee via Flickrhttp://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/how-polluted-is-us-drinking-water
As regulators struggle to maintain 40 years of halting progress in cleaning up U.S. tap water, countless Americans will inevitably be drinking unsafe water long into the future — both from unregulated pollutants and regulated ones that make it past water-treatment plants. Not all of these pollutants will be dangerous, and even some that are may only cause mild stomach pains, or may take years to show any effects. But since chipping away at the uncertainty will be a slow process, here's a quick look at what we do know about U.S. water supplies and the pollutants that plague them.
Hat Tip Trager Water Report
Wars Over Water Will Become a Reality
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/conservation/news-inevitable-wars-about-access-water
Demand for fresh water is increasing all the time, but since the supply of it is a constant, a real battle goes on with nature to try turning the odds in our favour. The additions of supposedly healthy additives to drinking water is a prime example of how foolish man can be with this valuable resource. US drinking water has been found to contain over 700 synthetic chemicals.
The building of ever larger dams around he world is causing really damaging disruption to the world’s eco-systems.Thousands died of Rift Valley Fever – directly caused by the new Aswan dam on the Nile, which proved an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. The same happened in Mauritania in 1987 after the building of the Diama dam on the Senegal river.
Water shapes the geography of the world and governs the existence of all life within it, but still not all of its properties or capabilities are fully understood. That it should feature so strongly in religion is hardly surprising. Not for nothing is it sometimes referred to as ‘Adam’s Ale’.
Big business is now taking a keen interest, staking claim to the great lakes of Canada, which hold 25% of the world’s fresh water supply.
Good Bacteria vs Human Hygiene
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/nature/news-desirable-dirt
A British study of 11,000 children – by Andrea Sheriff and the Institute of Child health – showed that while the kids who were washed the most were the most likely to develop allergies, exactly the reverse was true of those who washed least!
Professor Graham Rook – immunologist at University College London – expounds the ‘Hygiene Hypothesis’ – which simply believes that it is that exposure to bacteria, which have survived on earth far longer than we, which strengthens and aids our immune system in its work.
( That's a lot more 'politically correct' than saying - as I do - that routinely infusing one's environment with toxins will cause more health problems than it will solve : even in hospitals.
Anyone who has ever read WHMIS or TDG instructions and relevant cautions about chemicals will appreciate the mindset behind advising people of danger...so as to evade responsibility for them being at risk from substances that are, in essence, more or less diluted poisons and corrosives. Cleanliness entails dirt removal...not chemical deposits or choking airborne particulate suspensions.
Who else thought so ? A lady called Florence Nightingale : who revolutionized patient care in the Boer conflict by insisting on surgical survivors experiencing fresh air and sunshine. )
Most Americans still live in unclean air
http://www.thegreeno.com/green-news/pollution-news/report-most-americans-still-live-in-unclean-air.html
The two biggest air pollution threats in the United States are ozone and particle pollution, the Lung Association said. Others include carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and a variety of toxic substances.
American Lung Association's report: http://www.stateoftheair.org
Cape Wind, first U.S. offshore wind farm, approved
Winds from Siberia Reduce Arctic Sea Ice Cover, Norwegian Researchers Find
Massive Southern Ocean Current Discovered
Australia delays carbon trading scheme
Startling studies: take kids outside or sentence them to disease and shorter lifespans
http://wwww.examiner.com/x-4002-Green-Living-Examiner~y2010m2d8-Startling-studies-take-kids-outside-or-sentence-them-to-disease-and-shorter-lifespans
Kids aged 2-5 sit in front a a TV screen more than 32 hours per week.
The average American child (ages 8 to 18) now spends seven hours 38 minutes plugged in per day. Scientists now report that nature is essential to brain functioning and brain development. Twenty-four million U.S. children have sub-optimal levels of Vitamin D, which can be absorbed through the skin by good old-fashioned sunlight.
A Swine Flu Post-Mortem
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385936&rel_no=1
the flu case.com on redditt
( Best I can do until Jane Bürgermeister gets her site back up )
PERC
Environmental Water Markets:
Restoring Streams Through Trade
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Monday, January 25, 2010
25 Jan - BlogNews
Persian Empire
Following a steady stream of recent philosophical visitors – Rorty, Habermas, Ricoeur – will Negri prove an appropriate guide for a country which is in Condoleeza Rice’s recent terms an ‘outpost of tyranny’, and as such most definitely outside of what America (though not Negri) understands by Empire?
It is impossible to ignore the Iranian experience of revolution – conceived in the first place precisely as coming ‘from below’ – and the manner in which it was all too quickly captured by repressive and reactionary factions. Many, it seems, put their faith in the long slow march of modernization, driven by the vast and technologically astute youth (the result of a post-revolutionary population boom in the 1980s). If there is to be a new Iranian revolution from below, it is unlikely to take the form of a plebeian carnival or quasi-Biblical ‘exodus’.
Robert Gates Confirms What U.S. Government Has Denied for Months: Blackwater Is in Pakistan
The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars
What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to re-inflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next fifteen to twenty years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, increasing the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan, which have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws and restore habeas corpus.
Conspiracy Theories
Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.
( Self-fulfilling prophecy : the best way to deal with conspiracy suspicions is a conspiracy. )
Underwater, but Will They Leave the Pool?
A provocative paper by Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona,makes the case that borrowers are actually suffering from a norm asymmetry. In other words, they think they are obligated to repay their loans even if it is not in their financial interest to do so, while their lenders are free to do whatever maximizes profits. It 's as if borrowers are playing in a poker game in which they are the only ones who think bluffing is unethical.
That norm might have been appropriate when the lender was the local banker. More commonly these days, however, the loan was initiated by an aggressive mortgage broker who maximized his fees at the expense of the borrower s costs, while the debt was packaged and sold to investors who bought mortgage-backed securities in the hope of earning high returns, using models that predicted possible default rates.
Why Is a Utility Paying Customers?
As saving energy becomes a rallying cry for utilities and the government, Idaho Power is in the vanguard. Since 2004, it has been paying farmers like Mr. Erwin to cut power use at crucial times, resulting in drop-offs of as much as 5.6 percent of peak power demand.
In a related program, it pays homeowners to turn off their air-conditioners briefly at times of high demand.
Other efficiency initiatives by the utility, including one promoting attic insulation, have saved about 500,000 megawatt-hours of power since 2002, according to the company — roughly equal to the amount used by 5,000 gadget-filled homes over eight years.
Free Checking Could Go the Way of Free Toasters
Starting in July, banks will need explicit permission from customers before allowing them to use their debit cards to spend more than they have in their bank accounts on a one-time purchase. Similar restrictions will apply to A.T.M. withdrawals.
Banks earn billions in overdraft fees, money that helps pay for free checking.
A chunk of that revenue will disappear when some consumers elect not to sign up for the opportunity to spend more than they have. This week, Bank of America said that $160 million in overdraft fee revenue had already disappeared, because of changes it made in its policies ahead of the new federal rules.
When that money evaporates as other banks comply with the regulations, they’re going to try to make it up some other way, particularly if they’re paying more taxes to the federal government and have fewer ways to trade their way to outsize profits.
ACORN's Real Crime: Empowering the Poor
We've been getting an overload of bunk in recent weeks from a gaggle of Fox-brained Republican Congress critters. They've been flapping their gums to demonize and destroy a grassroots group that has offended them by--get ready to be outraged--organizing and helping to empower thousands of Americans who live in low-income and working-class neighborhoods all across the country.
ACORN is this grassroots group. For four decades, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has been going door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, to extend basic democratic tools to people who've been dissed and dismissed by the political system. What ACORN's effort amounts to is civic education. Few members of the local chapters have ever been active in community decision making. After all, that process is usually held in the tight grip of moneyed interests who reside and work in distant, much tonier zip codes, and regular folks rarely are welcome.
Through ACORN, however, these powerless ones get an immersion in self-help democracy, learning how to operate in the public sphere to become both political and economic players. They form their own neighborhood organizations, elect officers, and choose a set of issues to push--from bank redlining to better garbage pickup, from rip-off utility bills to enforcement of antipollution regulations. They soon discover that working together, they have actual power to get things done through direct actions, group negotiations, and voter participation.
This demoWe've been getting an overload of bunk in recent weeks from a gaggle of Fox-brained Republican Congress critters. They've been flapping their gums to demonize and destroy a grassroots group that has offended them by--get ready to be outraged--organizing and helping to empower thousands of Americans who live in low-income and working-class neighborhoods all across the country.
An engaged, organized, educated, and motivated group of low-wage Americans with an agenda of progressive change is not a sight that delights the corporate establishment--especially when the group has proved to be an impressive force in congressional and presidential elections. This is why the money powers have unleashed (and funded) their snarling hounds of right-wing politics to go after ACORN with a blood lust.
The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now
You may now be surprised to find that you inadvertently gave Facebook the right to publicize your private information including status updates, photos, and shared links.
Want to change things back? Read on to find out how.
Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare
In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and occasionally caustic soda.
Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA, and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp, they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10 different antibiotics.
How Factory Farms Are Pumping Americans Full of Deadly Bacteria and Pathogens
After reading www.BirdFluBook.org, by Dr. Michael Greger, I was stunned to realize the extent to which we have endangered our health by allowing factory farms to flourish and produce 99 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs we eat. Not only are dangerous flu viruses mutating because of these concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but we are also being exposed to some other very serious bacteria and pathogens. Things have gotten out of hand in our food production, especially in the livestock sector.
In Part I of my interview with Dr. Greger, he explained the growing potential of deadly flu viruses. In Part 2 of the interview, we discuss E. coli, salmonella and other worrisome pathogens.
The 15 most toxic places to live
On Street Tracing Haiti’s Pain, Survival Goes On
Avenue Poupelard crosses a major north-south thoroughfare, Avenue Martin Luther King. At their intersection, a sign in English — “We need help. Food. Water.” — has arrows pointing both east and west.
Haiti’s Homeless Are Short Hundreds of Thousands of Tents, Aid Groups Say
In Haiti, Many Amputees Have No Place to Go
Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm
Regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur. With no single agency overseeing medical radiation, there is no central clearinghouse of cases. Accidents are chronically underreported, records show, and some states do not require that they be reported at all.
In June, The Times reported that a Philadelphia hospital gave the wrong radiation dose to more than 90 patients with prostate cancer — and then kept quiet about it. In 2005, a Florida hospital disclosed that 77 brain cancer patients had received 50 percent more radiation than prescribed because one of the most powerful — and supposedly precise — linear accelerators had been programmed incorrectly for nearly a year.
Dr. John J. Feldmeier, a radiation oncologist at the University of Toledo and a leading authority on the treatment of radiation injuries, estimates that 1 in 20 patients will suffer injuries.
30 Japanese Hornets Massacre 30,000 Bees
Help desks under siege
Following a steady stream of recent philosophical visitors – Rorty, Habermas, Ricoeur – will Negri prove an appropriate guide for a country which is in Condoleeza Rice’s recent terms an ‘outpost of tyranny’, and as such most definitely outside of what America (though not Negri) understands by Empire?
It is impossible to ignore the Iranian experience of revolution – conceived in the first place precisely as coming ‘from below’ – and the manner in which it was all too quickly captured by repressive and reactionary factions. Many, it seems, put their faith in the long slow march of modernization, driven by the vast and technologically astute youth (the result of a post-revolutionary population boom in the 1980s). If there is to be a new Iranian revolution from below, it is unlikely to take the form of a plebeian carnival or quasi-Biblical ‘exodus’.
Robert Gates Confirms What U.S. Government Has Denied for Months: Blackwater Is in Pakistan
The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars
What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to re-inflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next fifteen to twenty years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, increasing the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan, which have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws and restore habeas corpus.
Conspiracy Theories
Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.
( Self-fulfilling prophecy : the best way to deal with conspiracy suspicions is a conspiracy. )
Underwater, but Will They Leave the Pool?
A provocative paper by Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona,makes the case that borrowers are actually suffering from a norm asymmetry. In other words, they think they are obligated to repay their loans even if it is not in their financial interest to do so, while their lenders are free to do whatever maximizes profits. It 's as if borrowers are playing in a poker game in which they are the only ones who think bluffing is unethical.
That norm might have been appropriate when the lender was the local banker. More commonly these days, however, the loan was initiated by an aggressive mortgage broker who maximized his fees at the expense of the borrower s costs, while the debt was packaged and sold to investors who bought mortgage-backed securities in the hope of earning high returns, using models that predicted possible default rates.
Why Is a Utility Paying Customers?
As saving energy becomes a rallying cry for utilities and the government, Idaho Power is in the vanguard. Since 2004, it has been paying farmers like Mr. Erwin to cut power use at crucial times, resulting in drop-offs of as much as 5.6 percent of peak power demand.
In a related program, it pays homeowners to turn off their air-conditioners briefly at times of high demand.
Other efficiency initiatives by the utility, including one promoting attic insulation, have saved about 500,000 megawatt-hours of power since 2002, according to the company — roughly equal to the amount used by 5,000 gadget-filled homes over eight years.
Free Checking Could Go the Way of Free Toasters
Starting in July, banks will need explicit permission from customers before allowing them to use their debit cards to spend more than they have in their bank accounts on a one-time purchase. Similar restrictions will apply to A.T.M. withdrawals.
Banks earn billions in overdraft fees, money that helps pay for free checking.
A chunk of that revenue will disappear when some consumers elect not to sign up for the opportunity to spend more than they have. This week, Bank of America said that $160 million in overdraft fee revenue had already disappeared, because of changes it made in its policies ahead of the new federal rules.
When that money evaporates as other banks comply with the regulations, they’re going to try to make it up some other way, particularly if they’re paying more taxes to the federal government and have fewer ways to trade their way to outsize profits.
ACORN's Real Crime: Empowering the Poor
We've been getting an overload of bunk in recent weeks from a gaggle of Fox-brained Republican Congress critters. They've been flapping their gums to demonize and destroy a grassroots group that has offended them by--get ready to be outraged--organizing and helping to empower thousands of Americans who live in low-income and working-class neighborhoods all across the country.
ACORN is this grassroots group. For four decades, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has been going door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, to extend basic democratic tools to people who've been dissed and dismissed by the political system. What ACORN's effort amounts to is civic education. Few members of the local chapters have ever been active in community decision making. After all, that process is usually held in the tight grip of moneyed interests who reside and work in distant, much tonier zip codes, and regular folks rarely are welcome.
Through ACORN, however, these powerless ones get an immersion in self-help democracy, learning how to operate in the public sphere to become both political and economic players. They form their own neighborhood organizations, elect officers, and choose a set of issues to push--from bank redlining to better garbage pickup, from rip-off utility bills to enforcement of antipollution regulations. They soon discover that working together, they have actual power to get things done through direct actions, group negotiations, and voter participation.
This demoWe've been getting an overload of bunk in recent weeks from a gaggle of Fox-brained Republican Congress critters. They've been flapping their gums to demonize and destroy a grassroots group that has offended them by--get ready to be outraged--organizing and helping to empower thousands of Americans who live in low-income and working-class neighborhoods all across the country.
An engaged, organized, educated, and motivated group of low-wage Americans with an agenda of progressive change is not a sight that delights the corporate establishment--especially when the group has proved to be an impressive force in congressional and presidential elections. This is why the money powers have unleashed (and funded) their snarling hounds of right-wing politics to go after ACORN with a blood lust.
The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now
You may now be surprised to find that you inadvertently gave Facebook the right to publicize your private information including status updates, photos, and shared links.
Want to change things back? Read on to find out how.
Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare
In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and occasionally caustic soda.
Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA, and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp, they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10 different antibiotics.
How Factory Farms Are Pumping Americans Full of Deadly Bacteria and Pathogens
After reading www.BirdFluBook.org, by Dr. Michael Greger, I was stunned to realize the extent to which we have endangered our health by allowing factory farms to flourish and produce 99 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs we eat. Not only are dangerous flu viruses mutating because of these concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but we are also being exposed to some other very serious bacteria and pathogens. Things have gotten out of hand in our food production, especially in the livestock sector.
In Part I of my interview with Dr. Greger, he explained the growing potential of deadly flu viruses. In Part 2 of the interview, we discuss E. coli, salmonella and other worrisome pathogens.
The 15 most toxic places to live
On Street Tracing Haiti’s Pain, Survival Goes On
Avenue Poupelard crosses a major north-south thoroughfare, Avenue Martin Luther King. At their intersection, a sign in English — “We need help. Food. Water.” — has arrows pointing both east and west.
Haiti’s Homeless Are Short Hundreds of Thousands of Tents, Aid Groups Say
In Haiti, Many Amputees Have No Place to Go
Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm
Regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur. With no single agency overseeing medical radiation, there is no central clearinghouse of cases. Accidents are chronically underreported, records show, and some states do not require that they be reported at all.
In June, The Times reported that a Philadelphia hospital gave the wrong radiation dose to more than 90 patients with prostate cancer — and then kept quiet about it. In 2005, a Florida hospital disclosed that 77 brain cancer patients had received 50 percent more radiation than prescribed because one of the most powerful — and supposedly precise — linear accelerators had been programmed incorrectly for nearly a year.
Dr. John J. Feldmeier, a radiation oncologist at the University of Toledo and a leading authority on the treatment of radiation injuries, estimates that 1 in 20 patients will suffer injuries.
30 Japanese Hornets Massacre 30,000 Bees
Help desks under siege
Friday, December 18, 2009
18 Dec - Enviroblogging
fotoFRONTERA
( Now, I don't speak Italian : but I do know what 'Felice Navidad' means. )
Creekside
Harper says "very comfortable" with being led by the US
After the United States hammered out an agreement with 19 other major powers at an emergency meeting in Copenhagen to which Canada was not invited, Harper said Canada had been represe...
Solving border pollution woes
A recently dug city of San Diego pilot channel saved ranchers in the Tijuana River Valley from being hit by mudslides caused by the Department of Homeland Security’s massive earthen border barrier. Mayor Jerry Sanders and Councilman Ben Hueso had the foresight to secure emergency permits to save valley homes, farms and ranches from the damage associated with the inexpert earthen border barrier engineering.
One of the growing problems that plagues the Tijuana River Valley after it rains is the glut of thousands of used tires that wash across the border.U.S. agencies should support the efforts of the city of Tijuana and the state of Baja California Norte to expand their new system of low-cost sewage treatment and water reclamation plants. At a cost of between $10-15 million each, these plants represent the best hope for stopping the flow of wastewater across the border and into the ocean. Additionally the International Boundary and Water Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can help Mexico finance efforts to permanently stop the flow of treated sewage into the ocean at the San Antonio de los Buenos site six miles south of the border.
DEANASA Report Highlights Need to Retire Drainage Impaired Land in California
Stealing Water from the Future: California's Massive Groundwater Overdraft Newly Revealed
Underused Drilling Practices Could Avoid Pollution
Canadian Cities Leading the Charge Against Bottled Water
Damning New Evidence Raises Concerns About Threats to New York's Water from Gas Drilling
What the Frack? Poisoning our Water in the Name of Energy Profits
Good Cod Almighty, We've Got a Global Fishing Crisis
25 Years Since the Bhopal Disaster, We've All Become Victims of the Chemical Industry
Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Running Water and Food
The War on Soy: Why the 'Miracle Food' May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare
Mystery of World's Worst Mass Arsenic Poisoning Finally Solved
The culprit are tens of thousands of man-made ponds excavated to provide soil for flood protection.
On November 10th, the AMA reversed its long-held position that marijuana has no acceptable medicinal value and adopted anew policy position favoring medical marijuana. The AMA called on the U.S. government to reconsider its current classification as a Schedule I substance. (The government categorizes drugs into “Schedules.” Four of the five actually regulate the use of substances, but Schedule I drugs—such as marijuana, heroin and LSD—are completely banned.)
However, a week after the announcement of this historic reversal, the DEA still hadn’t removed mention of the AMA’s old, anti-medical-marijuana position from its website.
So, the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of cops, judges and prosecutors calling for the legalization and regulation of all drugs, created anaction alert asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order the DEA to scrub the bogus statements from the web.
After just one day of emails from activists, the information disappeared. One might conclude this quick response was the handiwork of Obama’s tech-savvy team, if it weren’t for the other government websites still spreading misinformation about the AMA's position on medical marijuana. Both the White House "drug czar's" office and the DEA's “scare the children” youth website still contain inaccurate statements about AMA's position on medical marijuana.
Facing an epidemic of drug-related overdose deaths and disease transmission from dirty needles, the Portugal government took a bold step in 2001 and decriminalized the personal use and possession of all drugs, including heroin and cocaine. The police were told not to arrest anyone found taking any kind of drug. In 2009, the results of Portugal's decriminalization were released, and the results were striking: Drug-related problems, including the transmission of diseases, deaths from drug overdoses and incarceration, all decreased dramatically, while drug use did not go up. Portugal's experience is instructive; it showed the world that the sky did not fall with decriminalization and took the debate from theory to practice.
For all the recent progress, drug policy reformers are under no illusion that the drug war will end any time soon. We know that drug prohibition and our harsh drug laws - fueled by a prison-industrial complex that locks up 500,000 of our fellow Americans on drug-related offenses - are poised to continue for some time wasting tens of billions of dollars a year and leading to the deaths of thousands of Mexicans and Americans every year due to prohibition-related violence. But we are clearly moving in the right direction, toward a more rational drug policy based on compassion, health, science and human rights. We need people to continue to join the movement to end this unwinnable war. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
- December 18, 2009
- More »
$57,077.60 -- That's What We're Paying Each Minute for the Occupation of Afghanistan
Jo Comerford, Tomdispatch.com
World: The $30 billion cost of Obama's surge alone would place the US in the top-ten for global military spending, sandwiched between Italy and Saudi Arabia.
8 Things We Love That Climate Change Will Force Us to Kiss Good-Bye
Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Environment: We face losing everything from 50,000 species a year to the world's best wines. How to put it all in perspective?
Banks Get into the Unemployment Biz, and Quickly Start the Rip-offs
Barbara Koeppel, Consortium News
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: As states pay unemployment benefits with bank debit cards, the jobless are seeing their fees add up.
Randall Robinson
AnUnbroken Agony
Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President
On February 29th, 2004 the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced to leave his country. The twice elected President was kidnapped, along with his Haitian-American wife, by American soldiers and flown, against his will, to the isolated Central African Republic. Although the American government has denied ousting Aristide it was clear that the Haitian people’s most recent attempt at self-determination had not been crushed by Haitian paramilitaries as Washington claimed.
In An Unbroken Agony, bestselling author and social justice advocate Randall Robinson explores the heroic and tragic history of Haiti. He traces the history of a people forced across the Atlantic in chains; recounting their spectacularly successful slave revolt against France and the two hundred years of reprisals that would follow. The fate of Aristide’s presidency is tied to this people’s century-long quest for self-determination and his removal from power exposes the apartheid-like forces that frustrate these aspirations even today.
18 nations got together, and decided how to rebuild the country. But they set up a centralized, de-provincialized process which was exactly the opposite of the Marshall Plan after World War II. That was a provincialized, decentralized process, and only recently, in the last couple of years, has that started to change.
We’re planning a show for this Monday on Iran and its global crackdown on dissent, and want to hear directly from Iranians. We invite you to call in to the show while we’re on the air live, and/or to post messages here at our website.
More »( There goes the bullshit...)
China's Hu unveils landmark Turkmenistan pipeline
China's President Hu Jintao on Monday unveiled a landmark pipeline to transport Turkmen natural gas to China, a key victory for Beijing in its drive for access to Central Asian resources.
Hu, together with the presidents of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, turned a symbolic wheel at a refinery in Samandepe in Turkmenistan's vast Karakum desert which opened the pipeline to start the first gas flowing.
"China is positive about our cooperation and the opening of this gas pipeline is another platform for collaboration and cooperation between our friendly nations," Hu told reporters.
The 7,000 kilometre (4,350 mile) gas pipeline is a significant victory for Beijing, marking the culmination of years of lobbying for influence over the region's strategic energy resources, traditionally dominated by Moscow.
It first runs for 1,800 kilometres in Central Asia -- snaking through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan -- before linking up with a further 5,000-plus kilometres of pipeline in China's far-west Xinjiang region.
Abuse of Pregnant Prisoners Goes Beyond Shackling During Labor
We’ve written here at Feministe before about the common practice of U.S. prisons shackling pregnant prisoners in while they are in labor. And despite the increased recognition that such treatment is inhuman, it’s one that has not entirely ceased.
Now an article over at Alternet (originally published at The Nation) gives us awful if not hugely shocking news: shackling during labor isn’t the only atrocious and dangerous treatment that pregnant prisoners are receiving. Rather, many have been undergoing abuse at the hands of the prison system for months:
When women are brought to a hospital in shackles, the pain and humiliation they endure likely caps months of difficulty from being pregnant behind bars, months without adequate prenatal care or nutrition, or even basics like a bed to sleep on or clothes to accommodate their changing shape.
The lack of common sense and compassion with which imprisoned pregnant women are treated is chilling. Three stories illustrate the dangers women face when they cannot get anyone to take their medical needs seriously.
First, some women are not taken to the hospital until after they have already given birth, despite having informed staff members that they are in labor. Women wind up giving birth in their cells with the assistance of a nurse, corrections officer or cellmates. Others give birth in their cells with nobody to help. Both situations endanger the woman and her baby. Nineteen-year-old Terra K. screamed, pounded on the door and asked for the nurse in the Dubuque County Jail in Iowa, only to give birth alone in her cell. Afterward she asked, “How does somebody have a baby in jail without anybody noticing?”
I'm sure everyone has heard about the "War On Christmas." You know, "Jesus Is The Reason For The Season" and "You can't take the Christ out of Christmas," or that if you use Xmas instead of Christmas, you are taking Christ out of Christmas. You should also know I'm a Godless liberal/communist/socialist heathen. Because being liberal means you can't be religious, only Godless. It's true because Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck tells us so. The media also tells us that "political correctness" has taken over. We are all living in fear and it's all the fault of the liberals and PC police. Or so people want you to think. I lost faith in our media a long time ago, but it seems things are getting worse and there are less sources of reliable information out there because now we have media trying to compete with Twitter and Facebook instead of actually doing something like finding out the truth.
Why Do So Many Women Experience the “Imposter Syndrome”?
In an earlier review of fellow PT blogger Susan Pinker’s book The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls and the Real Difference Between the Sexes, we ponder why it is that so many highly successful women experience the “imposter syndrome” – the persistent feeling that, despite their well-deserved success and accolades, they are somehow frauds and will soon be exposed – while very few comparable men experience it.
We suspect that one reason why so many women but very few men experience the imposter syndrome may be because the definition of success in the evolutionarily novel contemporary society is biased toward males. Nobody recognizes women who are successful in female terms. So part of the problem may be definitional. If we are right, then any man who receives worldwide accolades as a wonderful father or friend should also experience the imposter syndrome, even though we would not expect anyone to receive such recognition, once again, precisely because “success” in our society is defined in male terms.
New Brunswick's electricity rates would be nearly triple current levels if the province had tied power rate increases to inflation 50 years ago, according to a CBC review.
New Brunswick is proposing to permanently tie provincial power rates to inflation beginning in 2015 as part of its deal to sell NB Power to Hydro-Québec.
The move is part of a provincial push to house the homeless during the cold snap. It also comes as the province rolls out its controversial Assistance to Shelter Act, which allows officers to take the homeless to a shelter without their consent.
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