Archive for April, 2009

The Green House of the Future

The Green House of the Future

We asked architects to draw up plans for the most energy-efficient houses they could imagine. They imagined quite a bit.

What will the energy-efficient house of the future look like?

It could have gardens on its walls or a pond stocked with fish for dinner. It might mimic a tree, turning sunlight into energy and carbon dioxide into oxygen. Or perhaps it will be more like a lizard, changing its color to suit the weather and healing itself when it gets damaged.

Those are just a handful of the possibilities that emerged from an exercise in futurism. The Wall Street Journal asked four architects to design an energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable house without regard to cost, technology, aesthetics or the way we are used to living.

The idea was not to dream up anything impossible or unlikely — in other words, no antigravity living rooms. Instead, we asked the architects to think of what technology might make possible in the next few decades. They in turn asked us to rethink the way we live.

“This is a time of re-examining values, re-examining what we need,” says one of our architects, Rick Cook, of the New York firm Cook + Fox. “We are re-examining the idea of home.”

via The Green House of the Future – WSJ.com.

GM to cut 21,000 US factory jobs, shed Pontiac

GM to cut 21,000 US factory jobs, shed Pontiac

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take more than half its stock in exchange for half of GM’s government debt as part of a major restructuring that would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the company.

via GM to cut 21,000 US factory jobs, shed Pontiac.

Income Inequality Is Increasing

The U-Turn

Income Inequality Is Increasing

Emmanuel Saez, 36, a public economics expert teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, was awarded the 2009 John Bates Clark Medal last week. Nobody has done more to describe the broad changes in income distribution in the United States that have taken place during the last ninety years.

His most striking finding has been to confirm the widespread intuition that income inequality has been increasing – that one of the key regularities of post-World War II economics had fallen apart. It was in 1955 that Simon Kuznets, then of the Johns Hopkins University, observed that inequality in developing countries tended to describe an “inverted-U,” rising substantially for a time as workers moved from farms into industrial cites, then steadily diminishing as output grew and gains from increased productivity were more evenly distributed.

via Economic Principals » Blog Archive » The U-Turn.

GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness

GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness

by John Nichols

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey’s attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.

And his partisan attacks on his efforts seem not just creepy, but dangerous.

via GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness | CommonDreams.org.

Non-Violent Protests Against West Bank Barrier Turn Increasingly Dangerous

Non-Violent Protests Against West Bank Barrier Turn Increasingly Dangerous

Palestinian demonstrations intended to be peaceful met with Israeli teargas, stun grenades and sometimes live ammunition

BIL’IN – It began calmly enough with a march down the high street after midday prayers at the mosque. Palestinian villagers were surrounded by dozens of foreigners singing and waving flags. They turned and headed out to the olive-tree fields and up towards the broad path of Israel’s West Bank barrier. There, behind a concrete hilltop bunker, the Israeli soldiers looked down on them.

via Non-Violent Protests Against West Bank Barrier Turn Increasingly Dangerous | CommonDreams.org.

Secret Tax Havens Burdening Tax Payers and Future Generations

Secret Tax Havens Burdening Tax Payers and Future Generations

A recent study by the Government Accountability Office found that nearly 80 percent of the biggest U.S. corporations maintain offshore tax havens including America’s biggest bailed out banks.

A newly released report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund found that many of America’s largest companies are cheating the federal government out of trillions of dollars and placing a greater burden on average taxpayers by hiding profits in offshore shell companies and fake headquarters.

The groups most recent report on tax havens found that the U.S. Treasury Department loses approximately $100 billion each and every year due to American businesses utilizing tax havens.

The report found that the biggest victims of tax cheats are the American taxpayers and law-abiding U.S. companies that are forced to foot the bill.

“Secrecy and gimmickry in the financial system has many victims,” the report found. “This has become increasingly evident as our current financial system collapsed over the last several months. Corporations that avoid taxes by using offshore tax havens can count all taxpayers as their victims – both individuals and other corporations.”

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Computer Program to Take On ‘Jeopardy!’

Computer Program to Take On ‘Jeopardy!’

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. — This highly successful television quiz show is the latest challenge for artificial intelligence.

What is “Jeopardy”?

That is correct.

I.B.M. plans to announce Monday that it is in the final stages of completing a computer program to compete against human “Jeopardy!” contestants. If the program beats the humans, the field of artificial intelligence will have made a leap forward.

I.B.M. scientists previously devised a chess-playing program to run on a supercomputer called Deep Blue. That program beat the world champion Garry Kasparov in a controversial 1997 match (Mr. Kasparov called the match unfair and secured a draw in a later one against another version of the program).

via Computer Program to Take On ‘Jeopardy!’ – NYTimes.com.

Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club

Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club

Last June, with a financial hurricane gathering force, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. convened the nation’s economic stewards for a brainstorming session. What emergency powers might the government want at its disposal to confront the crisis? he asked.

Timothy F. Geithner, who as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank oversaw many of the nation’s most powerful financial institutions, stunned the group with the audacity of his answer. He proposed asking Congress to give the president broad power to guarantee all the debt in the banking system, according to two participants, including Michele Davis, then an assistant Treasury secretary.

The proposal quickly died amid protests that it was politically untenable because it could put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars.

via Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club – NYTimes.com.

Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness

Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness

Bush’s Brain doesn’t appear to be quite so prescient in the face of a potential global flu epidemic.

Writing in a column in the Wall Street Journal in February, Rove attacked Democrats for what he dubbed as reckless spending — stimulus money being doled out to industries “that added jobs last year.”

Among them? Education and healthcare.

What nefarious programs were Democrats trying to insert? Among other things, Rove cited $900 million for “pandemic flu preparations.”

“There’s also $4 billion for health programs like obesity control and smoking cessation, $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations,” Rove wrote.

via Raw Story » Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness.

British nuclear subs repeatedly leaked radioactive material

British nuclear subs repeatedly leaked radioactive material

The British Ministry of Defense caused shock on Monday when it disclosed, in response to a Freedom of Information request, that nuclear submarines at its Faslane base have leaked radioactive material at least eight times in the last decade.

“The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007 and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde, while last year a radioactive waste plant manager was replaced,” reported the Guardian. “It emerged he had no qualifications in radioactive waste management.

“The repeated safety breaches, which have been revealed in documents released to Channel 4 News, are so serious that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has warned that it would consider closing the base down if it had the legal powers to do so.”

The HM Naval Base Clyde, located at Faslane near Glasgow, is where the United Kingdom stations its Trident nuclear rockets and nuclear-powered submarines.

via The Raw Story | British nuclear subs repeatedly leaked radioactive material.

Bybee’s ‘remoteness from the actual torturers’ increases his ‘degree of responsibility.’

Bybee’s ‘remoteness from the actual torturers’ increases his ‘degree of responsibility.’

Jon Eisenberg, one of the lawyers who is representing the plaintiffs in a case challenging Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, writes in the Philadephia Inquirer today that Jay Bybee’s “remoteness from the actual torturers increases his degree of responsibility”:

impeachbybee.jpgBybee did not write the torture memo he signed; it was written by John Yoo, then at the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and currently a law school professor who writes a monthly column for The Inquirer. Bybee just signed off on the memo, two desks removed from the torture chamber. Did he even read it? He must have. Did he think much about it? How could he have, and then signed such an abhorrent thing? This is evil thoughtlessness. […]

Far from absolving him of guilt, his remoteness from the actual torturers – his thoughtlessness – increases the degree of his responsibility. His is a special kind of evil – the evil of nonchalance where there should be outrage. […]

I wonder whether Bybee feels guilty before God. He certainly has no business being a federal judge. His presence on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals brings disgrace to that court. He should resign.

via Think Progress » Bybee’s ‘remoteness from the actual torturers’ increases his ‘degree of responsibility.’.

The Crisis Hasn’t Hit Everywhere: 10 States Weathering the Economic Storm

The Crisis Hasn’t Hit Everywhere: 10 States Weathering the Economic Storm.

Not every state has been burned by the housing bust. And having oil and gas revenues doesn’t hurt either.

The economies of 10 states are outperforming the US economy as a whole, according to a just-released study by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, an independent research group in Albany, NY, which analyzes state and local government.

The two biggest reasons, say the authors of the report, are that most of these states have economies that benefited through much of 2008 from high and rising oil and natural gas prices, and their real estate markets have not suffered the bust to the extent seen elsewhere.

“As for lessons for other states, they’re not too easy to emulate,” says Donald Boyd, co-author of the report. “Have a lot of oil, and don’t run your real estate prices up into the stratosphere.”

via The Crisis Hasn’t Hit Everywhere: 10 States Weathering the Economic Storm | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.

Tomorrow’s Protests at 100s of Bank of Americas Is AlterNet’s Top Take Action Campaign of the Week

Tomorrow’s Protests at 100s of Bank of Americas Is AlterNet’s Top Take Action Campaign of the Week

Join angry citizens who will be protesting across the country, demanding that CEO Ken Lewis be fired andthat BOA stop consumer abuses.

Are you angry about corporate executives raking in millions of dollars of bonuses for colossal financial failures from your tax dollars, while working people lose jobs and benefits?

Or how about the predatory lending and the arbitrary raising of interest rates on credit cards by big banks awash in billions of dollars of government payoffs? That probably makes you angry too. And you are not alone.  There are tens of thousands of Americans, and organizations who are with you and are doing something abou it tomorrow. Click here to join the angry citizens who will be protesting at hundreds of Bank of America’s around the country, demanding that CEO Ken Lewis be fired, that BOA stop consumer abuses, provide health care to all of its employees and stop lobbying against pro-labor legislation like EFCA. BofA has accepted 45 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

AlterNet’s Top Ten Take Action Campaigns

We need more dissent like tomorrow’s “Take Back the Economy” rallies protests which are imaginative, broad based, and gets to the heart of the matter — c

via Tomorrow’s Protests at 100s of Bank of Americas Is AlterNet’s Top Take Action Campaign of the Week | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.

Glenn Beck: A Savvy Fraud Who Knows Just How to Please His Audience of Conservative Suckers

Glenn Beck: A Savvy Fraud Who Knows Just How to Please His Audience of Conservative Suckers

The faux right-wing pundit is laughing and crying in the backseat of his stretch limo, all the way to the bank.

Fox News host Glenn Beck has done all the necessary spadework to position himself at the center of a brewing and increasingly paranoid right-wing insurgency. From challenging Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison to prove he isn’t working with Al Qaeda, to taking tearful stands against Barack Obama’s Democratic Reich, the self-described “rodeo clown” is pushing his televised tirades and skits closer to the angrier, more unhinged fare of his daily talk radio show, now ranked third nationally, where he has been honing his confessional Molotov-throwing shtick for a decade.

Glenn Beck is deft at making himself an elusive and slippery target. As media watchdogs and satirists step up their attacks on Beck’s blubbering baboonery, the host has countered with well-practiced public relations Aikido. He has embraced comparisons between himself and Network‘s Howard Beale, who rode an on-air crack-up to record ratings. On his shows and in print, he has claimed at turns to be “crazy,” “borderline schizophrenic,” and “just a clown.”

But is he really? After all of the Comedy Central satires, the studious cataloging of falsehoods and outrages, and the public back-and-forth about his mental state, the big questions about Beck — Who the hell is this guy? And is he for real? — remain largely unanswered and even unasked in any serious way.

via Glenn Beck: A Savvy Fraud Who Knows Just How to Please His Audience of Conservative Suckers | Media and Technology | AlterNet.

Swine Flu, GOP Panic, Flip Flop

Swine Flu, GOP Panic, Flip Flop

So we might have a pandemic of swine flu in our future? Rick Perry, who has decried help from Washington, is now wetting his pants and begging for help from. . . Washington. Meanwhile, who gutted the pandemic preparedness money from the Obama stimulus package? the GOP, led by Rove. But Rush Limbaugh is still a swine.

Commentary By: Steven Reynolds

It appears we may have the beginnings of a pandemic on our hands. the swine flu that has killed 86 people in Mexico is showing up in the US, with 8 cases in New York so far, and one in Ohio. No deaths here as yet, but this is definitely something the CDC is on top of. Still, it is early and it is good to keep the populace ready, aware, but calm. that’s just what the CDC is doing, it seems to me. From the Los Angeles Times:

Federal officials today declared a public health emergency involving human swine flu, warning Americans to prepare for widespread outbreaks now or in the future, yet urging them not to panic.

In a briefing at the White House, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Richard Besser, said that eight cases of suspected swine flu in New York had been confirmed and that another had been identified in Ohio, bringing the U.S. total to 20 cases.

“As we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease,” Besser said. “We’re going to see more severe disease in this country.”

via All Spin Zone » Swine Flu, GOP Panic, Flip Flop.

Israel’s secret plan for West Bank expansion

Israel’s secret plan for West Bank expansion

Palestinians condemn ‘extremely dangerous’ scheme to grow settlement

Israel has taken a step towards expanding the largest settlement in the West Bank, a move Palestinians warn will leave their future state unviable and further isolate its future capital, East Jerusalem

The Israeli Peace Now group, which monitors settlement growth, said it had obtained plans drawn up by experts that the interior ministry had commissioned which call for expanding the sprawling Maale Adumim settlement near Jerusalem southward by 1200 hectares, placing what is now the separate smaller settlement of Kedar within Maale Adumim’s boundaries.

The expansion is on a highly sensitive piece of real estate that both sides see as holding the key to whether the Palestinians will have a viable state with their own corridor between the north and south parts of the West Bank.

via Israel’s secret plan for West Bank expansion – Middle East, World – The Independent.

The Torture Timeline

The Torture Timeline

In the past 10 days, the revelation of once classified memos and Senate reports has greatly elucidated how torture happened. This timeline shows the key relevant legal and military events. New information is marked in italics.

2001

September 11: Afghanistan-based terrorist organization al Qaeda attacks the United States. Nearly 3,000 people die.

September 14: A congressional resolution authorizes U.S. President George W. Bush to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to combat the countries and groups behind 9/11. Vice President Dick Cheney promises that the United States will use “any means at our disposal” to combat terrorism.

September 16: In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Cheney says the government will need to work through “the dark side.” He continues: “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion. …It’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal.”

September 17: Bush gives the CIA the authority to kill, capture, and detain al Qaeda operatives. The CIA lays plans for secret overseas prisons and special interrogations.

September 25: Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) lawyer John Yoo submits a memo to the White House advising that Bush may preemptively wage war anywhere in the world, against any country or organization that harbors or supports any terrorist group, linked to the 9/11 attacks or not.

November 13: Bush issues an executive order declaring that the United States will try any foreigners who commit acts of terrorism or harbor terrorists via military commission, under rules written by the executive branch.

December: The Department of Defense general counsel’s office solicits information on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which advises on counterinterrogation techniques known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape).

2002

January 11: The first 20 prisoners picked up in Afghanistan arrive in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

via Foreign Policy: The Torture Timeline.

The Next Big Thing: H20

OPS:  Surprise. The author of this article is chairman of Nestlé.

The Next Big Thing: H20 – By Peter Brabeck-Letmathe

As food prices skyrocketed over the last two years, countries and state-sponsored companies were quietly snapping up land around the world. Few noticed when South Korea began investing in farms in Madagascar, or when China, Japan, Libya, Egypt, and Persian Gulf countries acquired farmland in Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Mozambique, Uganda, Ethiopia, Brazil, Pakistan, Central Asia, and Russia. From what little has emerged publicly, the total land purchased since early 2007 adds up to at least twice the cereal cropland of Germany.

The purchases weren’t about land, but water. For with the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part of the deal. Estimated on the basis of one crop per year, the land purchased represents 55 to 65 cubic kilometers of embedded freshwater, an amount equal to roughly 1½ times the water held by the Hoover Dam. And, because this water has no price, the investors can take it over virtually free. It’s not quite a scenario from a James Bond movie, but the rush to lock up scarce water resources in agricultural belts is nonetheless disturbing. It suggests another food crisis might not be too far away.

In a sense, the great water grab is only prudent: Some 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn for human use goes into agriculture, but underground aquifers are falling—in some regions by several meters per year—and rivers are running dry due to overuse. The worst problems are in some of the world’s most important agricultural areas: eastern Spain, the U.S. Great Plains, the Middle East and North Africa, and parts of Pakistan, northwest India, and northeast China. As the former head of the International Water Management Institute warned, “We could be facing annual losses equivalent to the entire grain crops of India and the U.S. combined” if current trends hold.

via Foreign Policy: The Next Big Thing: H20.

Conservative Zombie Ideas Haunting Us Still

Conservative Zombie Ideas Haunting Us Still

How do you kill a zombie idea? I mean, like the tenets of right-wing political philosophy that have been proven dead wrong—yet, they continue to rise up and gnaw at the flesh of America’s body politic. I wonder, because every time members of Congress walk into the Capitol, zombie ideas shamble in with them. As many as 200 members of Congress—most of them House Republicans—remain in the grip of creepy, brain-eating political beliefs, like these:

Zombie idea: Government is the problem, and the less government, the better. Twenty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan famously said, “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Since then, a mob of right-wing ideologues have mindlessly repeated or embellished Reagan’s remark. Grover Norquist made the goal sound rather monstrous—shrinking government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Grover, you drown things in bathtubs?

The high water-mark of “government is the problem” conservatism surely was the 2005 attempt to privatize the granddaddy of all big government programs, Social Security. That effort was beaten back by a storm of protest, and just months later the tide turned in this philosophical battle when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005.

via Conservative Zombie Ideas Haunting Us Still | OurFuture.org.

Money for Nothing

Money for Nothing - Paul Krugman

On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.” The most prominently featured of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had earned their immense wealth through their contributions to society.

Soon after that article was printed, the financial edifice Mr. Weill took credit for helping to build collapsed, inflicting immense collateral damage in the process. Even if we manage to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, the world economy will take years to recover from this crisis.

All of which explains why we should be disturbed by an article in Sunday’s Times reporting that pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring again — right back up to 2007 levels.

Why is this disturbing? Let me count the ways.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Money for Nothing – NYTimes.com.

David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes

David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes

- Glenn Greenwald

I read David Broder’s truly wretched screed yesterday — in which he demands immunity for Bush officials from investigation and prosecution and attacks those who advocate accountability — and decided that I wouldn’t write about it until today because I didn’t want it to infect my Saturday. For purposes of catharsis, I did immediately note on Twitter that Broder’s article was “a tour de force of Beltway sickness – even for him” and that “the Washington press corps has exactly the ‘dean’ it deserves.” Fortunately, Hilzoy, Scott Lemieux and Roger Ailes — among others — have now made most of the points quite conclusively that need to be made about the morally depraved joke that David Broder is, leaving just a couple of observations worth noting.

To justify the absolute immunity he wants for government lawbreakers, Broder describes the Bush era as “one of the darkest chapters of American history, when certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion in hopes of extracting information about threats to the United States.” But that’s easy to say now that the Bush presidency is over and the evidence of its criminality so undeniable. But Broder never said any such thing while it was all taking place, when it mattered. In fact, he did the opposite: he mocked those who tried to sound the alarm about how radical and “dark” the Bush presidency was and repeatedly defended what Bush officials were doing as perfectly normal, unalarming and well within the bounds of mainstream and legitimate policy.

via David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sees growth in Gilead stake – Oct. 31, 2005

Rumsfeld’s growing stake in Tamiflu

Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing

NEW YORK (Fortune) – The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it’s proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that’s now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms don’t reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead’s stock from $35 to $47. That’s made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

via Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sees growth in Gilead stake – Oct. 31, 2005.

McCain, Napolitano and the myth that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada

McCain, Napolitano and the myth that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada

Janet Napolitano, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary recently informed a CBC interviewer that some of the terrorist-hijackers who carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001 entered the United States from Canada. This week Senator John McCain told Fox News: “Well, some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada as you know.”

Canadians, including government officials, journalists and tourists traveling in the U.S., have refuted this falsehood many times over the years.

When alerted to her error, Napolitano claimed she had misunderstood a question in her CBC interview and that she was well aware that the 9/11 attackers had not entered the U.S. from Canada. Blame it on the CBC. No one around the cabinet table in Washington will upbraid you for that.

The myth of the 9/11 perpetrators crossing the border from Canada is hardy and resistant to all efforts to expunge it.

Twenty-four hours after the terror attacks, the Canadian border was fingered as the hole in the perimeter through which the terrorist hijackers entered the United States. ABC News broadcast a story that cited unidentified U.S. authorities as saying that most of the hijackers had entered the U.S. through Canada. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were investigating the possibility that some of the terrorists crossed the Canadian border and proceeded to Boston where they could have been involved in hijacking an American airlines aircraft that was flown into the World Trade Centre. ABC reported that U.S. authorities were checking on whether a group of the hijackers had crossed the border from Quebec en route to Jackman, Maine. A tiny hamlet about twenty-five kilometres inside Maine, Jackman is located in remote, lightly populated mountainous country.

via McCain, Napolitano and the myth that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada | rabble.ca.

Remembering the past to change the future – We must hold the torture state accountable

Remembering the past to change the future – We must hold the torture state accountable

“Get the good old syringe boys and fill it to the brim
We’ve caught another n-word and we’ll operate on him
Let someone take the handle who can work it with a vim
Shouting the battle cry of freedom”

A U.S. Army marching song composed during the Philippine War entitled “The Water Cure” to celebrate a version of waterboarding used on Filipinos

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

  Poet and philosopher, George Santayana 

Betrayal of American ideals or business as usual under imperialism?

The Obama administration has ignited another debate regarding the use of torture by the U.S. government by releasing four more “torture memos” from the Department of Justice. In this debate many arguing for prosecution of those that tortured and also of those who ordered or facilitated the torture, state something to the effect that this is necessary to return the nation to its mythical “ideals,” as a nation that does not use or condone torture. But they are only half-right.

Yes! The torturers need to be prosecuted. It is crucial that Bush, Cheney, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, and many other top criminals who either ordered or enabled torture during the Bush regime be prosecuted and imprisoned. But we should be under no illusions that the U.S. began torture only under the Bush regime or that U.S. imperialism has not used torture as a regular tool to enforce its rule for its entire existence. The collective U.S. historical memory is very short, or in some cases non-existent. This is particularly true when it comes to the subject of torture.

via OpEdNews » Remembering the past to change the future – We must hold the torture state accountable.

U.S. Steps Up Alert as More Swine Flu Is Found

U.S. Steps Up Alert as More Swine Flu Is Found

Precaution Taken Despite Mildness Of Cases Detected Domestically

The United States declared a “public health emergency” yesterday as countries from New Zealand to Scotland investigated suspected cases of illness that they feared might be a strain of swine flu that has been identified in Mexico, the United States and Canada.

As of yesterday, however, no confirmed cases of the newly emerged flu strain had been found outside those three countries. Many of the people under observation around the world reported recent travel to Mexico.

With the U.S. announcement, civilian and military stockpiles of antiviral drugs were being readied for rapid distribution in the event that transmission of swine flu virus accelerates. The declaration also called for greater vigilance at border crossings and in airports for travelers who are coughing or appear ill.

Those steps fell far short of those that could be invoked in a confirmed pandemic, which could include restricting travel, actively screening travelers for fever or illness, quarantining the sick, closing schools and banning public gatherings.

via U.S. Steps Up Alert as More Swine Flu Is Found – washingtonpost.com.

Quotes of the Day

“VP Cheney Frightens Easily.   He Lives on Fear”
- Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Ret.

~~~~~~~~~

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along,
because once I have persuaded him he will stick.
If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared,
and then he is gone.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Torture and American Exceptionalism

Torture and American Exceptionalism

If President Barack Obama refuses to hold the Bush administration accountable for torture, his decision would be the latest example of American exceptionalism, the concept that the United States doesn’t have to operate by the same moral and legal standards as other nations.

News analyst Pepe Escobar examines the dilemma that Obama faces in having released documentary evidence of the Bush administration’s use of torture and then insisting that no prosecutions or other punishments should follow.

via Consortiumnews.com.

McCain: Torture Memo Prosecution Bad Idea (Chiefly For All Congress That Knew About It) & Bybee

OPS: Grampy speaks on Torture and accountability

YouTube – McCain: Torture Memo Prosecution Bad Idea (Chiefly For All Congress That Knew About It) & Bybee.

Head of Obama’s transition team calls for Bybee impeachment

Head of Obama’s transition team calls for Bybee impeachment

Another voice has joined the chorus calling for federal judge and ‘torture memo’ author Jay Bybee to either resign or be impeached.

John Podesta, who oversaw Obama’s transition team and was former president Clinton’s chief of staff, said Sunday that “a simple matter would be to remove [Bybee] from office.” Support for impeachment from Podesta, who heads the Center for American Progress Action, a think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, could foreshadow support for such a step from the president himself.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday morning, Podesta said: “…[T]here is a distinction between going back and prosecuting in the criminal courts the actors who were involved in these memos and letting Judge Bybee continue to sit on a court one step removed from the Supreme Court. He’s acting and listening to cases and making judgments of others, and we know that he authorized things that were illegal under U.S. law and violated the U.S. obligations under international treaties…”

The other panelists on the show, David Gergen and former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein, disagreed with Podesta’s call for impeachment; pressed by show host John King about whether the Obama administration would support impeachment proceedings, Podesta said “You’ll have to ask them, but I suspect they don’t.”

Obama this week signaled his openness to the possibility of prosecutions of Bush officials who wrote legal opinions supporting torture, even while voicing his opposition to a special congressional investigation into the matter.

via The Raw Story » Head of Obama’s transition team calls for Bybee impeachment.

Google Earth Tracking Swine Flu Infections

An Interactive Map

H1N1 Swine Flu

H1N1 Swine flu in 2009

Pink markers are suspect

Purple markers are confirmed

Deaths lack a dot in marker

via H1N1 Swine Flu – Google Maps.

US declares public health emergency over swine flu outbreak

US declares public health emergency over swine flu outbreak

World health officials Sunday stepped up the battle against a new swine flu blamed for dozens of deaths in Mexico, as the US declared a public emergency amid signs the disease was spreading.

The United States will screen visitors arriving from infected areas, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, as 20 cases were confirmed in five states.

Suspected cases were also being investigated in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and six new infections were confirmed in Canada.

Authorities in Mexico, where the new multi-strain swine flu was first detected, confirmed 20 people have died and warned the death toll could be as high as 81. Five people were said to have died in the capital in the past 24 hours.

“As we look for cases of swine flu, we are seeing more cases of swine flu. We expect to see more cases of swine flu,” Richard Besser, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control, told a White House press conference.

via The Raw Story | US declares public health emergency over swine flu outbreak.

Judge: It’s ‘high time’ to legalize pot

Judge: It’s ‘high time’ to legalize pot

A judge and Vietnam veteran from Orange County, California is on a publicity crusade to get marijuana legalized.

From NBC San Diego:

Jim Gray is a Vietnam combat veteran who spent 25 years on Orange County’s ‘bench’. He’s riled a lot of anti-drug crusaders with his critiques of America’s war on narcotics.

In his view, it’s ‘high time’ — so to speak — for another approach to marijuana.

“We would make marijuana less available for our children than it is today,” Gray said.
“Why is that? Because alcohol is controlled by the government, and illegal drugs are controlled by drug dealers, and they don’t ask for ID. So what’s not to like?”

If you’re interested in the drug war debate, definitely click through and check out the full interview with Mr. Gray. Here’s a recent video of him (uploaded by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) spreading the legalization message on Fox:

via The Raw Story » Judge: It’s ‘high time’ to legalize pot.

Gingrich On Whether Waterboarding Is Torture: ‘I Can’t Tell You’

Gingrich On Whether Waterboarding Is Torture: ‘I Can’t Tell You’

On Friday, Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren interviewed former House speaker Newt Gingrich regarding President Obama’s recent release of Bush-era OLC torture memos. Throughout the interview, Gingrich tried to sit on the fence of the torture debate — saying, for example, that “releasing the documents last week was a big mistake” but also saying “I want to see the United States run the risk, at times, of not learning certain things in order to establish a standard for civilization.”

When Van Susteren asked if waterboarding is torture, Gingrich hemmed and hawed. “I think it’s something we shouldn’t do,” he said, but he qualified his statement, adding, “Lawyers I respect a great deal say it is absolutely within the law. Other lawyers say it absolutely is not. I mean, this is a debatable area.” When asked if waterboarding violates international law, Gingrich played dumb:

VAN SUSTEREN: But you said a minute ago that it was torture, waterboarding…

GINGRICH: No, I said it’s not something we should do.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK. Is it torture or not?

GINGRICH: I — I — I think it’s — I can’t tell you.

VAN SUSTEREN: Does it violate the Geneva Convention?

GINGRICH: I honestly don’t know.

Watch it:

via Think Progress » Gingrich On Whether Waterboarding Is Torture: ‘I Can’t Tell You’.

Humboldt County cities restrict military

Humboldt County cities restrict military

\This picturesque community among the redwoods, once dubbed “the Berkeley of the north” for its reputation for unabashed liberalism, has repeatedly thumbed its nose at the federal government.

Over the years, its civic leaders have declared this city a sanctuary for military resisters to the Persian Gulf War and barred local enforcement of the Patriot Act. If they had had enough pull, President George W. Bush would have been impeached at least once.

Now Arcata is at it again, with a law blocking the military from recruiting anybody in town under the age of 18. And this time, the law has the backing not of a few City Council activists, but of thousands of voters who went to the polls in November.

On the same day, voters in Eureka, a historically politically staid city a dozen miles away, surprised everybody by approving an identical measure.

via Humboldt County cities restrict military.

Global race is on to contain swine flu outbreak

Global race is on to contain swine flu outbreak

U.S. declares state of emergency as 20 cases confirmed; 86 dead in Mexico

WASHINGTON – The world’s governments raced to avoid both a pandemic and global hysteria Sunday as more possible swine flu cases surfaced from Canada to New Zealand and the United States declared a public health emergency. “It’s not a time to panic,” the White House said.

Mexico, the outbreak’s epicenter with up to 86 suspected deaths, canceled some church services and closed markets and restaurants. Few people ventured onto the streets, and some wore face masks. Canada became the third country to confirm cases, in six people, including some students who — like some New York City spring-breakers — got mildly ill in Mexico. Countries across Asia promised to quarantine feverish travelers returning from flu-affected areas.

via Global race is on to contain swine flu outbreak – Infectious diseases- msnbc.com.

WHO Fukuda: No Evidence Swine Flu Is Bioterrorism Attack

WHO Fukuda: No Evidence Swine Flu Is Bioterrorism Attack

ZURICH -(Dow Jones)- The World Health Organization said Sunday there is no evidence an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico represents an act of bioterrorism.

“There are no signs we are dealing with purposeful actions,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s temporary assistant director-general for Health Security and the Environment, said on a media call.

Fukuda was responding to a question about U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Mexico, where at least 81 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by the flu-like illness in Mexico, according to the WHO.

via WHO Fukuda: No Evidence Swine Flu Is Bioterrorism Attack.

Venture capital firm set to reap rewards on swine flu

Venture capital firm set to reap rewards on swine flu

LOS ANGELES, April 24 (Reuters) – The swine flu outbreak is likely to benefit one of the most prolific and successful venture capital firms in the United States: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Thomson Reuters Private Equity Week reported on Friday.

Shares of the two public companies in the firm’s portfolio of eight Pandemic and Bio Defense companies — BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX.O) and Novavax (NVAX.O) — jumped Friday on news that the swine flu killed a reported 60 people in Mexico and has infected people in the United States.

The World Health Organization said the virus appears to be susceptible to Roche’s (ROG.VX) flu drug Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, but not to older flu drugs such as amantadine.

Shares of Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG closed up 3.48 percent after falling sharply earlier in the week on a cancer drug disappointment, while shares of U.S. biotechnology company Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O), which gets royalties from Roche on Tamiflu sales, slipped 10 cents to $45.80 on Friday.

But BioCryst, a maker of drugs that block key enzymes in viral diseases, jumped more than 26 percent on Friday to $2.21 per share. Viral vaccine maker Novavax rose more than 75 percent to $1.42 per share.

via Venture capital firm set to reap rewards on swine flu | Deals | Regulatory News | Reuters.

Flu ‘Oddities’ Archives

Here’s just one example of many listed: Jakarta ends stand-off on bird flu vaccines — Indonesia’s health minister accused the US of trying to use bird flu samples to create a biological weapon. 24 Feb 2008 Samples of bird flu virus are at the centre of an extraordinary political battle in Indonesia, as arguments rage over the profits from potentially life-saving vaccines. After receiving an assurance that Jakarta would have access to affordable vaccines, Indonesia finally sent 12 samples to a World Health Organisation (WHO) laboratory last Friday after hanging on to them since August. The situation worsened last week after it emerged that Siti Fadilah Supari, Indonesia’s health minister, had accused the United States in a new book she has written of trying to use the material to create a biological weapon.

Flu ‘Oddities’ Archives

Note: These are the Flu ‘Oddities’ archives. Recent items are here: Flu ‘Oddities’

*****

Jakarta ends stand-off on bird flu vaccines –Indonesia’s health minister accused the US of trying to use bird flu samples to create a biological weapon. 24 Feb 2008 Samples of bird flu virus are at the centre of an extraordinary political battle in Indonesia, as arguments rage over the profits from potentially life-saving vaccines. After receiving an assurance that Jakarta would have access to affordable vaccines, Indonesia finally sent 12 samples to a World Health Organisation (WHO) laboratory last Friday after hanging on to them since August. The situation worsened last week after it emerged that Siti Fadilah Supari, Indonesia’s health minister, had accused the United States in a new book she has written of trying to use the material to create a biological weapon.

US involved in bird flu conspiracy: Indonesia 20 Feb 2008 (Transcript from AM, Australia’s ABC.) Peter Cave: Indonesia’s Health Minister has suggested that the United States may be involved in a conspiracy to use the bird flu virus to develop biological weapons. The extraordinary allegation is included in a new book, endorsed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which describes Indonesia’s fight to assert its ownership of its virulent strains of avian influenza. Concerns over that issue prompted Indonesia last year to stop sharing virus samples with the World Health Organization as Jakarta correspondent Geoff Thompson reports. Dr Supari expresses alarm at WHO laboratories sharing bird flu virus data with the United States national laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where nuclear weapons are developed.

Indonesia accuses US of bird flu plot 20 Feb 2008 The Indonesian Health Minister has said the United States and the World Health Organisation are part of a global conspiracy to profit from the spread of bird flu and the US may use samples to produce biological weapons… In the book, Dr Supari writes that WHO laboratories forwarded influenza viruses to Western companies so they could profit by selling vaccines back to developing countries. Some Indonesian samples had been sent to a US Defence Department laboratory, Dr Supari says, adding that “some of our seed viruses had been in a laboratory known as a facility developing biological weapons in a superpower country”.

via Citizens for Legitimate Government.

Ben Sherwood: Swine Flu Survival: The Science of a Single Sneeze (and Three Simple Ways to Protect Yourself)

Swine Flu Survival: The Science of a Single Sneeze (and Three Simple Ways to Protect Yourself)

A single sneeze propels 100,000 droplets into the air at around 90 mph, landing on door knobs, ATM keypads, elevator buttons, escalator railings, and grocery cart handles. In a subway station at rush hour, according to British researchers, as many as 10 percent of all commuters can come in contact with the spray and residue from just one sneeze (or sternutation). That means as many as 150 commuters can be sickened by one uncovered achoo.

No wonder health officials are extremely concerned about the new strain of swine flu that has infected at least 20 Americans in five states, killed some 80 people in Mexico, and has traveled to the other side of the world in New Zealand. Understandably, US authorities – following the lead of the World Health Organization (WHO) – have declared a “public health emergency.”

“This virus has, clearly, a pandemic potential,” says Margaret Chan, director general of WHO. Why? The virulent new H1N1 swine flu strain spreads quickly and efficiently from human to human. It’s “a completely novel virus,” says the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). This latest variant is a mixture of human virus, bird virus, and pig viruses from all over the world. Experts say it’s particularly worrisome because people are getting sick without any encounters with pigs. Even worse, young, healthy people (ages 20-40) are dying at a striking rate, a telltale sign of the worst flu epidemics.

via Ben Sherwood: Swine Flu Survival: The Science of a Single Sneeze (and Three Simple Ways to Protect Yourself).

Murder He Wrote: Why Aren’t Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Being Prosecuted?

Murder He Wrote: Why Aren’t Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Being Prosecuted?

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG – By Mark Karlin

If you’re a mafia kingpin and you authorize a “hit,” the feds will nail you for murder if they can prove the case.

As I have detailed in two recent BuzzFlash editor blog entries, the proof that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld authorized, promoted and ordered actions that led to the murder and deaths of perhaps hundreds of detainees and merely “assumed bad guys” — not to mention rapes and other brutality — is overwhelming. The authors of legal memos, whose writers include Bush-appointed Federal Judge Jay Bybee, should certainly be disbarred.

But that doesn’t begin to address the underlying crimes that include the unnecesary and horrifying deaths of anyone that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld — and Condoleezza Rice — believed was in the way of their demonic “War on Terrorism” (which for Cheney and Rumsfeld — and others — was really a war for natural resources).

Details abound in the public record — as we have mentioned — of the homicidal acts that led to the deaths and disappearances of countless of individuals the Bush Gulag apparatus deemed “suspicious.” Some of the bodies have been accounted for; some of the alleged “enemies” just disappeared — as was the case in Chile and Argentina during the infamous reign of terror in those countries.

As I noted:

via Murder He Wrote: Why Aren’t Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Being Prosecuted? | BuzzFlash.org.

Nanotechnology to aid the commercial viability of Algal Bio-fuel Production

Nanotechnology to aid the commercial viability of Algal Bio-fuel Production

The algae! Yes – the same slimy brown-green ‘plant’ that makes a pond or a lake look yucky – is the creating a great buzz as the most promising source of alternative energy. And now nanotechnology is being leveraged to add some more zing to the promise!

Algae are some of the simplest of the living organisms and can’t even be classified as plants as they lack any differentiation into various structures such as leaves, roots or other organs that characterize a plant. Yet this simple structure is the very reason for the alarming growth rate of the algae: Under optimal conditions, it can double its mass overnight.

One interesting aspect of the bio-fuel generation from algae is other side benefits such as carbon mitigation; the algae consumes carbon-dioxide (CO2) to grow, besides water and sunlight.  What also adds to the potential is the fact that oil forms up to 50% of the algae’s mass. Compare this with palm-oil trees having at most 20% of their mass as oil. Furthermore, it is not only the algae-oil that can be used for bio-diesel generation but algae-carbohydrates can also be fermented into ethanol or gasified into bio-gas, or into methane, or into hydrogen. Indeed, the time is ripe for doing more than simple pilots for bio-fuel generation from algae. The Venice example, discussed on Ecoworldly earlier, is one such recent initiative that demonstrates co-operation and building of complete infrastructure for bio-reactors and CO2 provisioning etc. India too has another example to offer of going beyond simple pilots.

via Nanotechnology to aid the commercial viability of Algal Bio-fuel Production : EcoWorldly.

Self Healing Cement Flexible Enough to Withstand Earthquakes Invented

Self Healing Cement Flexible Enough to Withstand Earthquakes

Invented

Concrete that

maintains itself by healing cracks improves the sustainability of infrastructure through its longer service life and lower maintenance inputs. Now researchers have developed flexible, self healing cement that won’t suffer catastrophic failure when strained in an earthquake.

We are so used to seeing maintenance teams working on our concrete buildings and structures that this expensive and carbon and energy intensive operation is taken for granted.

But what if these structures could maintain themselves just as our bodies do when they heal cuts and scrapes? Dr Victor C. Li of the University of Michigan felt that this could be achieved through the development of new concretes. Self-healing cement is not a new idea. There is evidence of healing even in some ancient Roman buildings. However, it very seldom occurs with modern concrete and concrete designs.

via Self Healing Cement Flexible Enough to Withstand Earthquakes Invented : EcoWorldly.

40% of Amazon Will Disappear Despite Climate Change Efforts

40% of Amazon Will Disappear Despite Climate Change Efforts

Fourty percent or more of the Amazon rainforest will be “decimated” by the middle of the next century even if we cut all CO2 emissions by 2050, said the UK Met Office. The finding was presented this past month in Copenhagen, which is preparing to host the UN Climate Change Conference in December.

Human-driven deforestation (measured by a net decrease in tree density) will occur even in the absence of a 3° Celsius or more increase in global, average temperature, which is what many scientists believe to be necessary for rain forest loss to pass a “tipping point”. This may be an indication that the Amazonian Rain Forest is already locked into an irreversible trend, regardless of what humans do now to mitigate it. Critics say that the model fails to reproduce the current climate exactly, but supporters argue that the model closely replicates 20th Century Rain forest patterns.

Presiding over this month’s Copenhagen meeting was the Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen who took an active part in the proceeding by asking key climate questions of conference panel scientists. Many questions left unanswered by the last IPCC (the UN sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report of April, 2007 were addressed at the conference, chief of which was the question of whether or not the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets were experiencing a net loss of ice mass. The last IPCC report left this issue unresolved due to a lack (at the time) of hard data on glacial movement.

via 40% of Amazon Will Disappear Despite Climate Change Efforts : EcoWorldly.

‘Obama, Please Beat Us!’ on Renewable Energy, says Denmark

‘Obama, Please Beat Us!’ on Renewable Energy, says Denmark

This week, Obama’s alternative energy promises prompted Danish Minister of Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaard to say she’d be happy if the US took Denmark’s first place title on renewable energy.

Obama, visiting a wind power plant in Iowa on Earth Day, said that the US would make great efforts to surpass Denmark as the leader in wind power and other renewable resources. The US President said that currently America produces less than 3% of it’s electricity from renewable sources, like wind and solar.

“Now, in comparison,” Obama said, “Denmark produces almost 20 percent of their electricity through wind power. We pioneered solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in generating it, even though we’ve got more sun than either country.”

“I don’t accept this is the way it has to be. When it comes to renewable energy, I don’t think we should be followers, I think it’s time for us to lead.”

Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard, a leader on alternative energy, says she’d like to see him try. Really. Hedegaard told Danish news agency Ritzau:
via ‘Obama, Please Beat Us!’ on Renewable Energy, says Denmark : EcoWorldly.

Study: 54% Increase in Climate Refugees by 2015

‘Right to Survive’ Study Predicts 54% Increase in Climate Refugees by 2015

In six years time, the number of people affected each year by the climate crises is projected to rise by 54 per cent to 375 million. This will not just be overwhelming for the humanitarian aid system it would also further the inequity that plagues the world and will make the fight for climate justice even more challenging.

In a recent report on the “Right to Survive” released by the international agency Oxfam, it has been projected that over the next six years there would be a 54% increase in climate refugees. The shocking study that revealed this fact now calls for a complete re-engineering of the way the world responds to, prepares for and prevents disasters. The projected rise is mainly due to a combination of entrenched poverty and people migrating to densely populated slums which are prone to the increasing number of climatic events. This is compounded by the political failure to address these risks and a humanitarian system which is not fit for purpose.

“While there has been a steady increase in climate related events, it is poverty and political indifference that make(s) a storm a disaster,” was Nisha Agrawal CEO of Oxfam India’s response to the Report.  The report further warns that as climate change gathers pace, the trend in climate disasters is likely to continue to increase and so rich countries must commit now to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep global warming as far below 2°C as possible, and to provide at least $50 billion a year in finance to help poor countries adapt to unavoidable climate change.

In further highlighting the problem, the report suggests that hunger is on the increase, caused by drought, population density and an increasing demand for meat and dairy products in emerging economies. People are being driven from their homes – it is estimated up to a billion people will be forced from their homes by 2050 due to climate change, environmental degradation, and conflict. And finally more people are losing their jobs due to the global economic crisis.

via EcoWorldly – International Environmental News for the World Citizen.

Universal Healthcare: Are We Missing The Real Debate?

Universal Healthcare: Are We Missing The Real Debate?

The debate in Washington between those who believe universal healthcare equals socialized medicine and the end of the world vs. those who believe that single payer, government mandated health insurance is the only way to stop the selfish evil insurance companies has begun and is gaining steam.

I believe that single payer universal healthcare is a worthy goal, since I fundamentally believe that good health should be a right and not a privilege. Unfortunately, implementation of it will likely prove to be hard when the reality of the power of the healthcare and pharmaceutical lobbies in Washington are taken into account. They have spent a lot of money and have the ear of key members of congress. I am concerned that there is no appetite for real change, and that fear will instead lead to a doubling down on the status quo.

I have hope that President Obama will walk the walk. However, his actions say otherwise. His willingness to take single payer off the table with out vigorous debate, and his choice of Tom Daschle as HHS secretary and Sanjay Gupta as the surgeon general both speak to his willingness to pay lip service to change while putting in folks who are friendly to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries respectively. Furthermore, his health advisory team consists of people like Ezekiel Emmanuel who has ties to Humana. I am concerned that health insurance overhaul will mean a further power grab by the insurance companies. If nothing fundamentally changes about how health insurance is delivered, what will stop them from continuing their same practices? They will simply benefit from having more patients to pay premiums. History tells us this is a recipe for disaster for both patients and physicians and a pay day for the insurance companies under the guise of healthcare for all.

via Universal Healthcare: Are We Missing The Real Debate? | discuss, debate, decide.

CDC – Key Facts about Swine Influenza (Swine Flu)

Key Facts about Swine Influenza (Swine Flu)

In the past, CDC received reports of approximately one human swine influenza virus infection every one to two years in the U.S., but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza have been reported. The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing.

Swine Flu

What is Swine Influenza?
Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate among swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930.

How many swine flu viruses are there?
Like all influenza viruses, swine flu viruses change constantly. Pigs can be infected by avian influenza and human influenza viruses as well as swine influenza viruses. When influenza viruses from different species infect pigs, the viruses can reassort (i.e. swap genes) and new viruses that are a mix of swine, human and/or avian influenza viruses can emerge. Over the years, different variations of swine flu viruses have emerged. At this time, there are four main influenza type A virus subtypes that have been isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1. However, most of the recently isolated influenza viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses.

Swine Flu in Humans

Can humans catch swine flu?
Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs (e.g. children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry). In addition, there have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others. For example, an outbreak of apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin in 1988 resulted in multiple human infections, and, although no community outbreak resulted, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient.

via CDC – Influenza (Flu) | Key Facts about Swine Influenza (Swine Flu).

Scientific Proof of Reincarnation

Scientific Proof of Reincarnation–Dr. Ian Stevenson

Either he [Dr. Stevenson] is making a colossal mistake. Or he will be known as the Galileo of the 20th century.” Dr Harold Lief in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

About Dr. Ian Stevenson

Omni Magazine’s Interview with Dr. Ian Stevenson

Sweet Swarnlata: An Example Case of Dr. Ian Stevenson’s

Excerpted

Omni Magazine Interview
with Dr. Ian Stevenson
By Meryle Secrest

This interview was published in 1988. It shows yet more of the many fascinating ideas and views that Dr. Ian Stevenson holds, as he draws from his fifty years of education and research into the foundations of human personality.

The idea that some children of ages three to five not only remember a previous existence, but can identify loved ones from it, strikes most Westerners as so bizarre that it compels disbelief. Perhaps this is why the world’s foremost investigator of the phenomenon, Dr. Ian Stevenson, has attracted so little attention.

Since the late Sixties Dr. Ian Stevenson, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and Director or the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia, has documented cases in India, Africa, the Near and Far East, Britain, the United States, and elsewhere in which young children have astonished their parents with precise details about the people they claim to have been. Some of these children have recognized former homes and neighborhoods as well as still-living friends and relatives. They have recalled events in their purported previous lives, including their often violent deaths. Sometimes their birthmarks resemble scars that correspond to wounds that led, they claim, to their deaths.

via Grant Lawrence–Bodhi Thunder: Scientific Proof of Reincarnation–Dr. Ian Stevenson.

Start Your Victory Gardens, America

Start Your Victory Gardens, America

This can be as simple as a few potted herbs or tomato plants to a community garden or a full scale farm for profit. Get out in the fresh air and get some exercise this weekend. Turn your soil and mix in some organic matter such as composted leaves and grass clippings, coffee grinds and egg shells and other composted kitchen waste. A small bag of composted manure from the garden store goes a long way. For large plots, you may want to rent or borrow a tiller. Those in the North can start your seeds indoors. Lettuce and spinach can be planted directly in the ground weekly or bi-weekly.
The key to healthy eating is including more fresh vegetables, fruits, and whole grains in our diets.

I have been a backyard gardener since childhood. The experience is educational, therapeutic, healthful, and rewarding. When you harvest and share the bounty of your garden, you will have a fine experience.

Here is a great gardening website at about.com with lots of information and articles.

Happy Arbor Day! Get out and hug a tree today!

Wisconsin’s war against agriculture: Fines, imprisonment and property seizure

Wisconsin’s war against agriculture: Fines, imprisonment and property seizure

Wisconsin is the blueprint for the remaining states: what happens there is going to happen to all

independent ranchers, farmers and producers across the country if any of these fake food safety bills, or National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is passed into law.

“The first thing they did when they got the authority to write rules … was to grant themselves the authority to conduct warrant-less searches.” Paul Griepentrog

In the course of researching various topics, running down leads on information and ferreting out the plans behind the public propaganda used to infringe on one right after another, I sometimes stumble across someone who has so much verifiable information, I am left astounded. This was the case when I happened across a gentleman farmer named Paul Griepentrog while researching the laws or bills about Premises ID and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

I already knew the mandatory law had been bought and paid for in Wisconsin through the use of a USDA “cooperative agreement” to the tune of 35 million dollars.

In a recent interview I asked Paul to answer a few questions about what is really happening to Wisconsin residents who are being forced onto these illegal programs:

via OpEdNews » Wisconsin’s war against agriculture: Fines, imprisonment and property seizure.

Podesta Calls For Bybee Impeachment On CNN, Delivers Your Petitions To Congress

OPS: a beginning or a distraction?

Podesta Calls For Bybee Impeachment On CNN, Delivers Your Petitions To Congress

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Center for American Progress Action Fund President and CEO John Podesta called on Congress to commence impeachment hearings against Jay Bybee, should he decide not to voluntarily resign his seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Podesta said:

The one thing I disagree with you and David [Gergen] about is I do think there’s a distinction between going back and prosecuting in criminal courts the actors who were involved in these memos and letting Judge Bybee continue to sit on a court one step removed from the Supreme Court. He’s acting and listening to cases, making judgments of others, and we know he authorized things that were illegal under U.S. law and violated the U.S. obligations under international treaties.

If he would do the right thing, he should just simply resign. If he doesn’t, I think this is one matter where he continues to sit — he doesn’t have the moral or legal authority to continue to do that. And I think a simple matter would be to remove him from office.

Podesta added that he suspects the White House doesn’t agree with the call for impeaching Bybee. The other panelists — David Gergen and former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein — disagreed with the call for impeachment. Watch it:

via Think Progress » Podesta Calls For Bybee Impeachment On CNN, Delivers Your Petitions To Congress.

Corn ethanol approaches a moment of truth

Corn ethanol approaches a moment of truth

Corn ethanol (not to mention soy biodiesel) may have reached a turning point. But it is regulators, not legislators, who are in the driver’s seat. A series of regulatory rulings, one expected as early as today, may help to determine whether corn ethanol or soy biodiesel will play any meaningful role in our future biofuel mix.

Today, the California Air Resources Board plans to rule on its proposed definition of a Low Carbon Fuel Standard. As the LA Times explains:

via Corn ethanol approaches a moment of truth | Grist.

Obama DOJ Asks Court to Okay Seizure of Cell Phone Location Data Without Probable Cause

Obama DOJ Asks Court to Okay Seizure of Cell Phone Location Data Without Probable Cause

via Obama DOJ Asks Court to Okay Seizure of Cell Phone Location Data Without Probable Cause – TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime.

Malpractice

Malpractice -  By Dean Baker

When it comes to health care, economists ignore their own rules

Fundamental economic principles tell us that goods should be sold at their marginal cost of production—the cost of producing one more unit of the good. If a company needs to pay twenty dollars for the material and labor used to produce one more shirt, then shirts should sell for twenty dollars plus a small profit-earning markup. The price-equals-marginal-cost principle maximizes economic efficiency and limits opportunities for fraud and corruption. Building on this principle, economists also strongly advocate globalization: the elimination of trade barriers allows consumers to buy goods and services from where they are cheapest, thus maximizing global efficiency and output.

Unfortunately, when it comes to health care, these principles are routinely violated. Prescription drugs that could be manufactured and sold profitably for a few dollars per prescription may instead sell for thousands. Performing one more high-tech scan or other medical test may require just a few cents of electricity and a couple of hundred dollars worth of a technician’s or a doctor’s time. But diagnostic procedures can be billed at several thousand dollars a shot. Prices are often well above marginal costs, yet economists involved in health care reform rarely recognize this as a problem.

Nor do they show their usual zeal for trade. Health care may have features that make it place-specific, but globalization offers clear opportunities for gains. Specifically, the health care system can take greater advantage of foreign doctors and highly skilled medical professionals, who can be trained at far lower cost in the developing world than the United States. And it is simple to design mechanisms that increase the number of trained personnel by an amount sufficient to supply both the United States and developing countries with more doctors and health care professionals. We should also consider that globalization offers people ways to get health care where it is cheaper, which is already happening to some extent with the growth of medical tourism.

via Boston Review — Malpractice.

Swiss ask US to drop UBS case

OPS:  I guess it was a pipe dream after all

Swiss ask US to drop UBS case

Two countries negotiating new tax accord

WASHINGTON, April 25 – Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz asked US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Saturday to drop a legal case involving clients of UBS bank in return for a new tax accord the two countries are about to negotiate.

Mr Merz told reporters the new tax agreement would need to be adopted by lawmakers in both countries and perhaps be put to referendum in Switzerland, where it could stumble if the US tax evasion case was still hanging over UBS.

Mr Merz, who met Mr Geithner in Washington on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s semi-annual meetings, told reporters Mr Geithner understood the point and said he would consider it, even if he could not reply immediately.

Under international pressure Switzerland, whose banking industry is famous for its secrecy, announced earlier this month that it would move towards internationally accepted standards of bank information disclosure in tax fraud cases.

via FT.com / US / Politics & Foreign policy – Swiss ask US to drop UBS case.

New flu strain threatens Mexico and US

New flu strain threatens Mexico and US

Mexico on the weekend declared a formal state of alert in and around the capital as the death toll from an outbreak of a new strain of influenza rose to up to 81.

Late on Saturday, authorities cancelled public events, including ministerial speaking engagements, large-scale meetings and rock concerts in the city.

In the US, Michael Bloomberg, New York mayor, on Sunday said eight suspected cases of swine flu at a school in Queen’s were confirmed to be the new strain of flu.

However, he emphasised the symptoms of the more than 100 students experiencing them were mild and so far there were no other confirmed outbreaks in any other parts of the city.

In Mexico, Jose´ Angel Cordova, health minister, on Saturday confirmed that 20 of 81 flu-related deaths reported so far were caused by the new porcine-flu virus, which first appeared in Mexico on April 13.

He also said that there was a likelihood that the remaining 61 cases were also caused by the virus. In all, there have been 1,324 cases of influenza reported since the outbreak.

via FT.com / US & Canada – New flu strain threatens Mexico and US.

Stock market bulls have got it wrong, warns Nouriel Roubini

OPS:  This parallels what Thom Hartmann has been saying for weeks.

Stock market bulls have got it wrong, warns Nouriel Roubini – by Nick Clark

Nouriel Roubini, the so-called “arch bear” economist who predicted the current financial crisis in 2006, added further gloom yesterday after he wrote off recent rises in global stock markets as no more than a dead cat bounce.

While an increasing number of analysts have in recent weeks urged investors to go back into equities, Mr Roubini, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business who has emerged as one of the most respected economic voices in the wake of the credit crunch, warned yesterday that he didn’t yet see a buying opportunity.

He holds little faith in the recent market rallies, which prompted some to suggest a recovery was underway. “I’m still cautious and bearish,” he said. “I believe we are closer to a bottom in the stock market than a year ago, but this is a bear market rally.”

Anthony Bolton, fund manager at Fidelity International, said last month that a bull phase had started, while analysts at Goldman Sachs have argued in recent weeks that “we are past the low point in the economic cycle”.

However, Mr Roubini, dubbed “Dr Doom” for his warnings about financial meltdown, said there would be more bad news in the next few quarters.

via Stock market bulls have got it wrong, warns Nouriel Roubini.

Chernobyl: The Horrific Legacy

Chernobyl: The Horrific Legacy – 23 years and counting

by Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri

On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station reactor number 4 exploded at 1:24 a.m. “Tons of radioactive dust was” unleashed “into the air…transported by winds, [and] it contaminated both hemispheres of our planet, settling wherever it rained. The emissions of radioactivity lasted [short-term] for 10 days.”(1)

On 29 April, “fatal levels of radioactivity were recorded…in Poland, Austria, Romania, Finland, and Sweden.”(2) The day after (30 April), it hit Switzerland and Italy. By 2 May, it reached France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Greece. The next day, Israel, Kuwait, and Turkey were contaminated. Then, over the next few days, “radioactive substances” were recorded in Japan (3 May), China (4 May), India (5 May), and the US and Canada (6 May).

The radioactive spew from this explosion was “200 times greater than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.”(3) Not one person was safe from this catastrophic nuclear explosion; and “65-million people were contaminated…more than 400,000 people were forced to evacuate the area [around Chernobyl], losing their homes, possessions and jobs

via Chernobyl: The Horrific Legacy.

Five questions for Robert Reich

Five questions for Robert Reich

Reich reveals why he is so pessimistic about the economy

IN OUR lead story this week we say that the worst thing for the world economy would be to assume the worst is over. In order to reinforce our gloom, Democracy in America recently talked to another measured pessimist, Robert Reich. Mr Reich served as secretary of labour under Bill Clinton and is currently a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book is “Supercapitalism“, which contends that the rise of capitalism has weakened democracy in America. Most importantly, Mr Reich is also a blogger.

DIA: You say on your blog that “we’re not at the beginning of the end” of this downturn, and perhaps not even “at the end of the beginning”. Why so pessimistic?

Mr Reich: I do believe we’re approaching the end of the beginning, but I see little reason for optimism over the next 12 to 18 months. Aggregate demand is so far short of total capacity that we’re still caught in a vicious cycle in which employers have to continue to cut payrolls, which shrinks consumers’ wallets and forces them to buy even less and postpone payments on their loans, which causes more layoffs and generates more bad loans. The stimulus is a step forward but it’s less than what’s needed, and it doesn’t really take full effect until the middle of 2010.

DIA: Do you see any parallels between this economy and the one that you and your colleagues in the Clinton administration inherited in 1993?

Mr Reich: No. At that time the nation was emerging from a medium-sized recession.

via Five questions for Robert Reich | Democracy in America | Economist.com.

100 days later, nation waits for FDA overhaul

100 days later, nation waits for FDA overhaul

Agency is so understaffed, it inspects less than 1 percent of imported food

The Food and Drug Administration may be the only federal agency that both political parties agree is in desperate need of an overhaul.

President Barack Obama is promising action, though progress has been slow in the first 100 days. His choice to head the FDA — Dr. Margaret Hamburg — still has not been confirmed by congress.

Assuming Hamburg is confirmed, she will head an agency whose own Science Board concluded more than two years ago “is at risk of failing to carry out its mandate, leaving our citizens at risk of grievous harm.”

via 100 days later, nation waits for FDA overhaul – The First 100 Days- msnbc.com.

How To Be Happier: Stay Connected To Your Past

How To Be Happier: Stay Connected To Your Past

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in — no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

A while back, my husband and I noticed a characteristic we shared – neither of us did a particularly good job of staying connected with our past. It was true of us as a couple, too, once we got married. In each stage of life, we’d have good friends, but when we moved to the next stage, we found it difficult to stay connected to the people to whom we’d earlier been close. I’m not sure I would have remarked on this fact if I hadn’t seen the contrast to my younger sister – she does an outstanding job of staying close to friends from every stage of her life.

via Gretchen Rubin: How To Be Happier: Stay Connected To Your Past.

Nouriel Roubini: The bottom is still a year off,

‘I Am Dr. Realist’

The bottom is still a year off, says the economist who warned of the plunge.

Most other economists rolled their eyes when Nouriel Roubini warned in a September 2006 speech to the International Monetary Fund that the global bubble was going to burst. They nicknamed him “Dr. Doom”—and then the hard times hit. As finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s major economic powers gather in Washington this weekend, they might consider listening to what Roubini has to say now. The New York University professor told NEWSWEEK’s Lally Weymouth why he sees more trouble ahead and what the recovery will look like. Excerpts:

N.Z .Students test positive for Swine Flu

OPS:  Then did this really start in Mexico?

YouTube – N.Z .Students test positive for Swine Flu.

New U.S. swine flu cases spread pandemic fears

New U.S. swine flu cases spread pandemic fears

Newly confirmed cases in NYC bring the total in U.S. to 19 so far

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that same strain of the human swine influenza that has killed people in Mexico has infected at least eight students of a high school.

Before that, there were at least 11 confirmed cases of swine flu in California, Texas and Kansas. Patients have ranged in age from 9 to over 50. New York health officials said more than 100 students at the St. Francis Preparatory School, in Queens, recently began suffering a fever, sore throat and aches and pains. Some of their relatives also have been ill.

Some St. Francis students had recently traveled to Mexico, The New York Times and New York Post reported Sunday.

via New U.S. swine flu cases spread pandemic fears – Infectious diseases- msnbc.com.

IMF promoting world currency – US dollar is set to crash

OPS: Be sure to watch all three parts.    As Keiser points out – the ONLY way out of this for the US is to MANUFACTURE, and…… undo 30 years of  Reaganomics.  Keiser NAILS it – simply dead-on.

note: they use the term “neo-liberal” keep in mind that neo-liberal=Neo-con.

IMF promoting world currency – US dollar is set to crash

YouTube – Max Keiser on FIne Print – 25/04/09 – Part 1.

Part 2 Part 3

Redefining Capitalism After the Fall

Redefining Capitalism After the Fall

THE recession will end. No one is marking the calendar, least of all President Obama, but the president is hinting at an audacious ambition as he waits for that inevitable if distant day: a redefining of American capitalism.

In a series of comments in recent weeks, Mr. Obama has begun to sketch a vision of where he would like to drive the economy once this crisis is past. His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment. He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class and make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity. And he would seek a consensus recognizing that an activist government is an acceptable and necessary partner for a stable, market-based economy.

“We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand,” he said last week.

via Obamanomics – Redefining Capitalism After the Fall – NYTimes.com.

Lawrence O’Donnell PWNS GOP Strategist Phil Musser

O’Donnell bitch slaps and slam dunks another wingnut sociopathic propagandist  – Luv this guy!

YouTube – Lawrence O’Donnell PWNS GOP Strategist Phil Musser.

Tackling the Trade Deficit

Tackling the Trade Deficit

China, Japan, Mexico and Canada should all be forced to pay for the privilege of accessing the world’s most lucrative market. Under our current system anyone and everyone is given free and unrestricted entry.

The trade deficit in the United States is one of the most pervasive and destructive afflictions facing our economy today. In the past four years this economy has accumulated annual deficits of $711 billion, $753 billion, $700 billion and $681 billion dollars respectively.

The large drop from 2006 ($753 billion) to 2008 ($681 billion) has more to do with the economic downturn and the collapse of consumer income than it does with any positive shift in U.S. output.

Since 1976 the United States has lost well over $7 trillion dollars (the inflation-adjusted figure would double or triple that amount) to our trade deficit. During the Bush administration the trade deficit actually managed to outpace the much beleaguered federal budget deficits – meaning consumer spending hurt this economy more than government waste.

Exacerbating the situation is the fact that the Obama administration seems committed to maintaining the current trade system. If anything they hope to increase the “openness” of the U.S. market and make us more conducive to large deficits in the future. We added almost $5 trillion to our trade debt in the last decade alone, the last thing this country needs is more of the same.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

China Bolstering Nuclear Navy

China Bolstering Nuclear Navy

The American people fund the buildup of China’s military every year with their frivolous consumption of Chinese-made goods.

In preparation for celebrations of its 60th anniversary the Chinese Navy is organizing an international event to display its newest equipment and weapons systems to the world. One of the things being heavily discussed in the lead up to the event is the possibility of China developing a home-grown aircraft carrier – the first to serve the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The PLA is increasing its funding to modern nuclear powered vessels which could compete technologically with the highest class of Russian and American war machines. The Chinese navy already maintains large surface and submarine fleets, but the addition of an aircraft carrier would be a major step toward ascending to the pinnacle of world military power.

The PLA maintains a very large land-based military and its navy is already one of the most formidable in Asia. However, they have always lacked the ability to project power which comes with maintaining a carrier fleet.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Why is peak oil important?

Why is peak oil important?

Colin Campbell: Peak Oil is a turning point for mankind. It is a big subject.

In short, the population only doubled over the first 17 centuries of the last millennium. But then came coal followed by oil and gas, and the population increased six-fold. These new energy sources, especially oil, the easiest, allowed the rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade and agriculture allowing the economy to expand greatly. It was accompanied by the growth of financial capital as banks lent more than they had on deposit, confident that Tomorrow’s Expansion was collateral for Today’s Debt.

But now we face the dawn of the Second Half of the Age of Oil when supply declines from natural depletion, meaning that debt goes bad (as is already happening) and the economy contracts. Today’s oil supply support 6.7 billion people, but by 2050 the supply will be enough to support no more than about 2.5 billion in their present way of life. So the challenges of using less and finding other energy sources is great.

The transition threatens to be a time of great tension : there are already tribal wars in Africa, disturbances in many places including rioting in Greece. Urban conditions will become especially difficult.

via The Oil Drum: Europe | Interview with Colin Campbell.

Report: New Orleans levees still too weak

Report: Post-Katrina levees not strong enough

Experts also recommend elevating more homes, abandoning neighborhoods

NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans should increase the strength of new levees being built to protect against catastrophic hurricanes, elevate more houses and abandon neighborhoods that rest below sea level, an independent research panel said Friday.

Levees under construction by the Army Corps of Engineers aren’t being built to a high-enough flood protection standard, said the report by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.

The independent panel of experts was asked by the federal government to review the corps’ investigation of levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and its work to avoid such a catastrophe again. The corps is spending about $14 billion to raise levees and build floodgates able to withstand a “100-year” storm, or a moderately dangerous hurricane with a 1-in-100 chance of hitting any given year. The corps plans to finish by 2011.

via Report: New Orleans levees still too weak – Life- msnbc.com.

Governments on alert as swine flu threat goes global

Governments on alert as swine flu threat goes global

HONG KONG — Asian health officials went on alert Sunday as a flu strain that has killed dozens of people in Mexico appeared to have spread to New Zealand, underscoring warnings of a potential pandemic.

Governments across the region, which has in recent years been at the forefront of the SARS and bird flu epidemics, stepped up checks at airports and urged the public to be on guard for symptoms of the new multi-strain flu.

Ten New Zealand students who recently traveled to Mexico are “likely” to have contracted swine fever, Health Minister Tony Ryall said Sunday — the first suspected cases in the region of more than three billion people.

They were among a group of three teachers and 22 students from Auckland who returned home on Saturday. Thirteen students and one teacher had displayed flu-like symptoms and were quarantined in their homes while undergoing tests.

via The Raw Story | Governments on alert as swine flu threat goes global.

Secessionist Gov. Rick Perry asks for federal help to deal with swine flu.

Secessionist Gov. Rick Perry asks for federal help to deal with swine flu.

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who was last making headlines for suggesting that Texas may consider seceding from the Union, is requesting help from the federal government to deal with a possible swine flu pandemic:

perryGov. Rick Perry today in a precautionary measure requested the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide 37,430 courses of antiviral medications from the Strategic National Stockpile to Texas to prevent the spread of swine flu. Currently, three cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Texas.

According to a recent DailyKos/Research 2000 poll, “37% of Texans and 51% of Lone Star Republicans agree with Gov. Rick Perry’s recent suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States. … Imagine the outcries of patriotism (or lack thereof) if Massachusetts or New York hinted at secession during the Bush years,” writes NBC’s Mark Murray. And imagine how Texas would deal with the swine flu without federal assistance.

via Think Progress » Secessionist Gov. Rick Perry asks for federal help to deal with swine flu..

Poll: 69 percent approve of Obama, highest ‘right track’ numbers in six years.

Poll: 69 percent approve of Obama, highest ‘right track’ numbers in six years.

An ABC News poll released this morning shows that a vast majority — 69 percent — of Americans approve of President Obama and 72 percent view him favorably, “the best job approval rating at this point in 20 years, [and] the broadest personal popularity since Ronald Reagan.” Fifty percent now say the United States is headed in the right direction, up 31 points since the end of the Bush administration, when only 19 percent thought the country was on the right track. Other figures from the poll:

– “Fifty-eight percent approve of Obama’s work on the economy.”

– “Obama leads the Republicans in Congress in trust to handle the economy by a garish 61-24 percent.”

– “A remarkable 90 percent say Obama is ‘willing to listen to different points of view’; fewer than half said that about George W. Bush.”

– Seventy-seven “percent call Obama a strong leader, nearly matching Bush’s best a few months after 9/11.”

A majority supported Obama’s decision to release the torture memos, but only 49 percent support his blanket ban on torture. That said, a majority still favors holding investigations into the Bush administration’s use of torture.

via Think Progress » Poll: 69 percent approve of Obama, highest ‘right track’ numbers in six years..

OBAMA Greeted in Mexico by Man who Died Day Later of Flu Symptoms

Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak

April 25 (Bloomberg) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an emergency in his country’s swine flu outbreak, giving him powers to order quarantines and suspend public events.

Authorities have canceled school at all levels in Mexico City and the state of Mexico until further notice, and the government has shut most public and government activities in the area. The emergency decree, published today in the state gazette, gives the president authority to take more action.

“The federal government under my charge will not hesitate a moment to take all, all the measures necessary to respond with efficiency and opportunity to this respiratory epidemic,” Calderon said today during a speech to inaugurate a hospital in the southern state of Oaxaca.

At least 20 deaths in Mexico from the disease are confirmed, Health Minister Jose Cordova said yesterday. The strain is a variant of H1N1 swine influenza that has also sickened at least eight people in California and Texas. As many as 68 deaths may be attributed to the virus in Mexico, and about 1,000 people in the Mexico City area are showing symptoms of the illness, Cordoba said.

Obama’s Visit

via Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak – Bloomberg.com.

Swine-flu outbreak linked to Smithfield factory farms

Swine-flu outbreak linked to Smithfield factory farms

The self-identified leader of the Ohio Militia, a conspiracy-minded “Patriot” group, released a video earlier this week calling for 1 million heavily armed antigovernment demonstrators to march on Washington, D.C., this coming July 4.

“We need to do something,” he said. “We need to make a dent.”

Identifying himself as “Pale Horse,” apparently a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and speaking through a creepy voice distorter, the Ohio militiaman detailed his brazen vision: “A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can get 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.”

The Ohio Militia website contains apocalyptic language and imagery, along with references to various 9/11 and “North American Union” conspiracy theories. Videos show men said to be Ohio Militia members engaged in small-unit, live-fire combat training. One video is titled “America’s Wake Up Call: Buy Guns.” A different video slideshow depicts assault weapons, mushroom clouds, George Bush, Satan, Osama bin Laden and lots of men in camouflage on maneuvers. It’s set to “Goofy’s Concern,” a song by Butthole Surfers, a psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas, that includes these lyrics: “I don’t give a fuck about the FBI! I don’t give a fuck about the CIA! I don’t give a fuck about LSD! I don’t give a fuck about anything!”

via Swine-flu outbreak linked to Smithfield factory farms | Grist.

Ohio Militia Calls for Armed March on Washington

Ohio Militia Calls for Armed March on Washington

| Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center

The self-identified leader of the Ohio Militia, a conspiracy-minded “Patriot” group, released a video earlier this week calling for 1 million heavily armed antigovernment demonstrators to march on Washington, D.C., this coming July 4.

“We need to do something,” he said. “We need to make a dent.”

Identifying himself as “Pale Horse,” apparently a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and speaking through a creepy voice distorter, the Ohio militiaman detailed his brazen vision: “A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can get 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.”

The Ohio Militia website contains apocalyptic language and imagery, along with references to various 9/11 and “North American Union” conspiracy theories. Videos show men said to be Ohio Militia members engaged in small-unit, live-fire combat training. One video is titled “America’s Wake Up Call: Buy Guns.” A different video slideshow depicts assault weapons, mushroom clouds, George Bush, Satan, Osama bin Laden and lots of men in camouflage on maneuvers. It’s set to “Goofy’s Concern,” a song by Butthole Surfers, a psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas, that includes these lyrics: “I don’t give a fuck about the FBI! I don’t give a fuck about the CIA! I don’t give a fuck about LSD! I don’t give a fuck about anything!”

via Ohio Militia Calls for Armed March on Washington | Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center.

Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu, though admitted sending live pandemic flu viruses to subcontractor

Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu, though admitted

sending live pandemic flu viruses to subcontractor

The OMFG moment of the century: Illinois-based Baxter working on vaccine to ‘stop’ swine flu outbreak in Mexico 25 Apr 2009 Specialty drug maker Baxter International Inc. will work with the World Health Organization to develop a vaccine that could stem [foment] an outbreak of a deadly swine flu strain in Mexico. Baxter spokesman Christopher Bona said Saturday that the Deerfield, Ill.-based company has asked the WHO for a sample of the flu strain. He says Baxter has patented technology that allows the company to develop vaccines in half the time it usually takes — about 13 weeks instead of 26. [Is Baxter International taking a page from the Blackwater playbook? Just as Blackwater/Xe keep on killing to justify their multi-billion dollar contracts to provide 'security' in Iraq and Afghanistan, Baxter International is poised to make *billions* to vaccinate people against their pandemic.]

Are you ready? Wait for it…

Virus mix-up by lab could have resulted in pandemic [Uh, it apparently f*cking *did.*] 06 Mar 2009 It’s emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab [the Austrian branch of US vaccine company, Baxter] last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.

‘This was infected with a bird flu virus.’ Viral Pandemic H5N1 flu threat: Illinois-based Baxter contaminates European labs by error 25 Feb 2009 According to the scientific network PROMED, Baxter International Inc. in Austria “unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in laboratories in 3 neighboring countries, raising concern about the potential spread of the deadly disease”. As PROMED reports, the contamination has been discovered when ferrets at a laboratory in the Czech Republic died after being inoculated with vaccine made from the samples early this month. “The material came from Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter, which reported the incident to the Austrian Ministry of Health, Sigrid Rosenberger, a ministry spokeswoman, said today in a telephone interview”, the network-alert-system is quoting. “This was infected with a bird flu virus,” Rosenberger said. “There were some people from the company who handled it.”

via Citizens for Legitimate Government.

Time Magazine examines success of drug decriminalization in Portugal

Time Magazine examines success of drug decriminalization in Portugal – - Glenn Greenwald

The report I wrote for, and last month presented at, the Cato Institute on the success of full-scale drug decriminalization in Portugal spawned a fair amount of media discussion — in places such as Scientific American, The Wall St. Journal, The Vancouver Sun and many others — but now, rather amazingly, Time Magazine has published a new article, by Maia Szalavitz, that substantively and impressively examines the report and its implications. Though the headline — “The Portuguese Experiment: Did Legalizing Drugs Work?” — is inaccurate (Portugal decriminalized, not legalized, drugs), the article itself (which Time is promoting with a fair amount of prominence) provides an excellent discussion of the unambiguous success of drug decriminalization and the impact which those findings ought to have on our own drug policy debates:

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

“Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

via Time Magazine examines success of drug decriminalization in Portugal – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Mel Gibson’s family values

Mel Gibson’s family values

The ultra-orthodox Catholic can’t get remarried in the church unless he says he made a “mistake” and gets an annulment — after a 28-year marriage. Time to reform Catholic divorce.

April 26, 2009 | Holy Week ended with a big bang in the conservative Catholic community. Robyn Moore, Mel Gibson’s wife of 28 years and mother of their seven children, filed for divorce in Los Angeles. With no prenuptial agreement, she is likely to get a settlement worth somewhere around half a billion dollars. Seems like a small price for 28 years of living with Mad Max and his homophobia, anti-Semitism and ultra-orthodox Catholicism.

In a joint statement, the couple acknowledge that they separated in August 2006 shortly after Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. When he was arrested Gibson publicly humiliated his family by engaging in a drunken tirade claiming that the Jews started all the wars in the world and asking a female police sergeant who was filming the event, “What are you looking at, sugar tits.”

But the tipping point that led Moore to seek a divorce seems to have been the publication of photos and stories about Gibson cavorting on a Costa Rican beach with an unidentified young woman. A Russian pop idol named Oksana says she’s the one and Gibson has asked her to marry him. Others claim the woman on the beach was a different Oksana, 39-year-old Ukrainian singer Oksana Grigorieva, who lives in a house owned by the CFO of Gibson’s production company Icon and is the former girlfriend of Timothy Dalton.

via Mel Gibson’s family values | Salon.

Neocon Torture Defense is Melting

Neocon Torture Defense is Melting

The poor neocons – their defenses for torture are melting away right in front of our eyes.

1. “America Doesn’t Torture.” That’s what George Bush and his administration insisted. Of course we all saw the Abu Ghraib photos. We know roughly 100 prisoners died, roughly 30 deemed manslaughter by the U.S. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported the horrifying ordeals of 14 who survived. The Senate Armed Services Committee documented the deliberate bureaucratic spread of “torture” based on SERE from Gitmo to Bagram to Abu Ghraib. Judge Susan Crawford concluded even the combination of “milder” techniques constituted “torture.” And we just learned Abu Zubaydah (AZ) and Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) were waterboarded 266 times. Scratch that one.

2. “Waterboarding Isn’t Torture.” Sure – tell that to the Japanese soldiers we prosecuted for waterboarding after World War II; some were hanged. Or the U.S. soldiers we court-martialed in the Phillippines. Or the sherriff we prosecuted in the southwest. Heck, tell that to the Spanish Inquisition. If it isn’t torture, why did the CIA destroy every one of the waterboarding tapes? Scratch that one.

3. “Torture Prevented Another 9/11.” Bush said that as well in 2006, claiming the torture of KSM in March 2003 prevented a 9/11-style attack on the Library Tower in Los Angeles. But that attack was stopped in February 2002, more than a year before KSM was captured. Scratch that one.

4. “Torture Gave Us Valuable Intelligence.” That’s Dick Cheney’s current defense and his argument for declassifying two memos that allegedly prove his case. But as all Cheney-watchers know, this is simply an exercise in “cherry picking” evidence that he likes while suppressing evidence he doesn’t – especially the CIA Inspector General’s report concluding torture didn’t work. And the evidence that the only valuable intelligence from AZ and KSM was obtained by FBI interrogators without torture, while subsequent CIA torture produced only lies. Scratch that one.

more………

via Neocon Torture Defense is Melting | Democrats.com.

Our misguided fight against Somali pirates

Our misguided fight against Somali pirates

Those teenage high-seas renegades are not about to team up with terrorists, so why is the U.S. military devoting so much attention to them?

April 24, 2009 | In comic books, bad guys often team up to fight the forces of good. The Masters of Evil battle the Avengers superhero team. The Joker and Scarecrow ally against Batman. Lex Luthor and Brainiac take on Superman.

And the Somali pirates, who have dominated recent headlines with their hijacking and hostage-taking, join hands with al-Qaida to form a dynamic evil duo against the United States and our allies. We’re the friendly monsters — a big, hulking superpower with a heart of gold — and they’re the aliens from Planet Amok.

In the comic-book imagination of some of our leading pundits, the two headline threats against U.S. power are indeed on the verge of teaming up. The intelligence world is abuzz with news that radical Islamists in Somalia are financing the pirates and taking a cut of their booty. Given this “bigger picture,” Fred Iklé urges us simply to “kill the pirates.” Robert Kaplan waxes more hypothetical. “The big danger in our day is that piracy can potentially serve as a platform for terrorists,” he writes. “Using pirate techniques, vessels can be hijacked and blown up in the middle of a crowded strait, or a cruise ship seized and the passengers of certain nationalities thrown overboard.”

via Our misguided fight against Somali pirates | Salon.

Democrats near deal to fast-track health bill

Democrats near deal to “fast-track” health bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Democrats are near a deal to ram through legislation overhauling the U.S. healthcare system, overriding Republican objections to one of President Barack Obama‘s top policy goals.

Party aides said on Friday Democratic leaders who control both chambers of Congress had reached a tentative agreement to fast-track a pending health package, which would prevent Republicans from blocking it.

The plan to push a healthcare package through Congress, which could be formally agreed upon next week as part of a final budget resolution, would enrage Republicans who had hoped to have a significant say in proposed changes to the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.

“We are prepared to do this because we are not confident Republicans are going to work with us,” one party aide said. “This is the direction we’re heading,” another aide said.

Obama and fellow Democrats in Congress aim to pass by the end of the year a sweeping measure to revamp the healthcare system and provide insurance to all Americans. Major fights over costs and the role of government in individuals’ medical care are certain.

via Democrats near deal to fast-track health bill | Health | Reuters.

Goal of eliminating malaria in sight: experts

Goal of eliminating malaria in sight: experts

* Efforts bring goal of eradicating malaria within sight

* Disease still infects 500 million a year, kills 1 million

* Vaccine tests starting shortly

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) – Fresh efforts and funding to tackle malaria in recent years have brought the goal of eradicating the deadly disease within sight, health experts said on Friday.

Wiping out malaria worldwide could take decades but many countries where it is endemic are on the brink of eliminating the disease, which infects up to 500 million people a year and kills nearly one million worldwide, they said.

“The vision of achieving elimination in a number of countries is certainly in sight,” said Rifat Atun, strategy director at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international financing institution.

via Goal of eliminating malaria in sight: experts | Health | Reuters.

Murder He Wrote: Why Aren’t Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Being Prosecuted?

Murder He Wrote: Why Aren’t Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Being Prosecuted?

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG  – By Mark Karlin

If you’re a mafia kingpin and you authorize a “hit,” the feds will nail you for murder if they can prove the case.

As I have detailed in two recent BuzzFlash editor blog entries, the proof that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld authorized, promoted and ordered actions that led to the murder and deaths of perhaps hundreds of detainees and merely “assumed bad guys” — not to mention rapes and other brutality — is overwhelming. The authors of legal memos, whose writers include Bush-appointed Federal Judge Jay Bybee, should certainly be disbarred.

But that doesn’t begin to address the underlying crimes that include the unnecesary and horrifying deaths of anyone that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld — and Condoleezza Rice — believed was in the way of their demonic “War on Terrorism” (which for Cheney and Rumsfeld — and others — was really a war for natural resources).

Details abound in the public record — as we have mentioned — of the homicidal acts that led to the deaths and disappearances of countless of individuals the Bush Gulag apparatus deemed “suspicious.” Some of the bodies have been accounted for; some of the alleged “enemies” just disappeared — as was the case in Chile and Argentina during the infamous reign of terror in those countries.

As I noted:

via Murder He Wrote: Why Aren’t Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Being Prosecuted? | BuzzFlash.org.

The Banality of Bush White House Evil

The Banality of Bush White House Evil

Frank Rich

WE don’t like our evil to be banal. Ten years after Columbine, it only now may be sinking in that the psychopathic killers were not jock-hating dorks from a “Trench Coat Mafia,” or, as ABC News maintained at the time, “part of a dark, underground national phenomenon known as the Gothic movement.” In the new best seller “Columbine,” the journalist Dave Cullen reaffirms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were instead ordinary American teenagers who worked at the local pizza joint, loved their parents and were popular among their classmates.

On Tuesday, it will be five years since Americans first confronted the photographs from Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes II.” Here, too, we want to cling to myths that quarantine the evil. If our country committed torture, surely it did so to prevent Armageddon, in a patriotic ticking-time-bomb scenario out of “24.” If anyone deserves blame, it was only those identified by President Bush as “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”: promiscuous, sinister-looking lowlifes like Lynddie England, Charles Graner and the other grunts who were held accountable while the top command got a pass.

We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years. But as Mark Danner recently wrote in The New York Review of Books, for all the revelations, one essential fact remains unchanged: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Banality of Bush White House Evil – NYTimes.com.

Quote of the Day

Among a people generally corrupt,
liberty cannot long exist.

-  Edmund Burke

The Psychologists of Torture

The Psychologists of Torture

Medical professionals designed and helped to implement Bush administration interrogation practices.

By Frederick Clarkson

One of the key, if underreported, findings in Tuesday’s bombshell Senate committee report on the Bush-era treatment of U.S. military detainees was the role of civilian and military psychologists in devising, directing and overseeing the torture of prisoners.

While the report highlights the role of senior Bush administration officials in approving “aggressive” interrogation techniques, it also exposes how medical professionals helped to transform the Pentagon’s torture resistance program into tactics used against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and CIA “black” sites.

Understanding the role of these professionals should be a “specific focus” of an investigation into the use of these tactics, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which has condemned the tactics as illegal and medically unethical.

via The Psychologists of Torture — In These Times.

Jordan’s King Abdullah: Israel must choose integration or isolation

Jordan’s King Abdullah: Israel must choose integration or isolation

By Haaretz Service and Reuters

Jordan’s King Abdullah on Friday said that Israel must choose between integrating into the region or remaining isolated, and warned that delaying a two-state solution would be disastrous for Israelis and Palestinians.

The Jewish state can “integrate into the region…or to remain fortress Israel, isolated, holding itself and the entire region hostage to continued confrontation,” Abdullah said during his visit to Washington.

Abdullah urged American leaders to back a two-state solution as outlined in the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel normalized ties with all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it seized in the 1967 war, the creation of a Palestinian state and a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.

via Jordan’s King Abdullah: Israel must choose integration or isolation – Haaretz – Israel News.

Child Obesity is a Criminal Corporate Conspiracy

Child Obesity is a Criminal Corporate Conspiracy

We are all aware that America has gone fat. Obesity is rampant. I remember when I was in school. It was pretty rare to have overweight kids in class. Looking back on my old elementary school pictures, I see one person who could be considered obese among several class pictures. It was a rare occurrence. Today, it is estimated that around 1/3 of our school children suffer from obesity. Why? Simple. It’s a corporate conspiracy.

Did you know that public schools actually teach kids to eat hamburgers, bacon, fries and cokes as a way to control their weight?

Would it surprise you that Coca-Cola and McDonald’s spend millions on “educational materials” for schools?
via OpEdNews » Child Obesity is a Criminal Corporate Conspiracy.

Democratic complicity and what “politicizing justice” really means

Democratic complicity and what “politicizing justice” really means

by Glenn Greenwald

Bush-defending opponents of investigations and prosecutions think they’ve discovered a trump card:  the claim that Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman were briefed on the torture programs and assented to them.  The core assumption here shared by most establishment pundits is that the call for criminal investigations is nothing more than a partisan-driven desire to harm Republicans and Bush officials (“retribution”), and if they can show that some Democratic officials might be swept up in the inquiry, then, they assume, that will motivate investigation proponents to think twice.

Those who make that argument are clearly projecting.  They view everything in partisan and political terms — it’s why virtually all media discussions are about what David Gregory calls “the politics of the torture debate” rather than the substantive issues surrounding these serious crimes — and they are thus incapable of understanding that not everyone is burdened by the same sad affliction that plagues them.

via OpEdNews » Democratic complicity and what “politicizing justice” really means.

California’s low-carbon fuel standard has oil companies anxious

California’s low-carbon fuel standard has oil companies anxious

In car-crazy California, a new fuel standard ordered by state officials to curb greenhouse gases could dramatically change how vehicles run.

It also could have a huge effect on cost.

The petroleum industry and some economists say the new standard adopted by the state Air Resources Board on Thursday will cost motorists billions, because blending gasoline will become considerably more complicated.

But state officials and environmentalists say the “low-carbon fuel standard” will actually save Californians money by reducing oil consumption and ushering in a competitive new era of biofuels and electric vehicles.

The stakes are enormous. The price of fuel can have a significant impact on the state’s economic health. When gas hit $4.50 last summer, it severely hurt tourism and caused delivery companies to impose fuel surcharges.

via California’s low-carbon fuel standard has oil companies anxious – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee.

2 swine flus in Kan., US total 11; 8 likely in NYC

2 swine flus in Kan., US total 11; 8 likely in NYC

NEW YORK — At least two cases of the human swine influenza have been confirmed in Kansas and one more in California, bringing the U.S. total to 11. At least eight students at a New York City high school probably have swine flu, but health officials said Saturday they don’t know whether they have the same strain of the virus that has killed scores of people in Mexico.

A strain of the flu has killed as many as 68 people and sickened more than 1,000 across Mexico. The World Health Organization chief said Saturday the strain has “pandemic potential” and it may be too late to contain a sudden outbreak.

Kansas health officials said Saturday they had confirmed swine flu in a married couple living in the central part of the state after the husband visited Mexico. The couple, who live in Dickinson County, were not hospitalized, and the state described their illnesses as mild.

Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, the state health officer, said, “Fortunately, the man and woman understand the gravity of the situation and are very willing to isolate themselves.”

via 2 swine flus in Kan., US total 11; 8 likely in NYC.

Second-in-command of hijacked ship blasts Rush Limbaugh’s ‘disgusting’ comments.

Second-in-command of hijacked ship blasts Rush Limbaugh’s ‘disgusting’ comments.

Earlier this month, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh brought attention to the fact that the hijackers of the Maersk Alabama ship were “black Muslim teenagers.” “Now, just imagine the hue and cry had a Republican president ordered the shooting of black teenagers on the high seas,” said Limbaugh, later joking, “If only President Obama had known that the three Somali community organizers are actually young black Muslim teenagers, I’m sure he wouldn’t have given the order to shoot.” Yesterday, Shane Murphy, the second-in-command of the Maersk, returned home and sharply criticized Limbaugh’s remarks:

via Think Progress » Second-in-command of hijacked ship blasts Rush Limbaugh’s ‘disgusting’ comments..

Swine flu cases spread within U.S.

Swine flu cases spread within U.S.

Video: As Mexico (right) takes steps to halt the disease’s spread, cases are reported or suspected in several U.S. states.

via Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News- msnbc.com.

GM employee stock fund dumps all company shares

GM employee stock fund dumps all company shares

WASHINGTON (AP) – The manager of General Motors’ employee stock fund has sold off all remaining shares of the troubled auto maker, which is closing plants and slashing costs in a bid to avoid bankruptcy.

General Motors revealed in a regulatory filing late Friday that its employee stock-purchase plan has unloaded all shares of the company in favor of short-term and money market investments. The plan’s financial manager, State Street Bank and Trust Co., said it began selling off shares of the Detroit automaker in late March “due to the economic climate and the circumstances surrounding GM’s business.” GM disclosed the development in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

via Excite News – GM employee stock fund dumps all company shares.

Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak

Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak

April 25 (Bloomberg) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an emergency in his country’s swine flu outbreak, giving him powers to order quarantines and suspend public events.

Authorities have canceled school at all levels in Mexico City and the state of Mexico until further notice, and the government has shut most public and government activities in the area. The emergency decree, published today in the state gazette, gives the president authority to take more action.

“The federal government under my charge will not hesitate a moment to take all, all the measures necessary to respond with efficiency and opportunity to this respiratory epidemic,” Calderon said today during a speech to inaugurate a hospital in the southern state of Oaxaca.

At least 20 deaths in Mexico from the disease are confirmed, Health Minister Jose Cordova said yesterday. The strain is a variant of H1N1 swine influenza that has also sickened at least eight people in California and Texas. As many as 68 deaths may be attributed to the virus in Mexico, and about 1,000 people in the Mexico City area are showing symptoms of the illness, Cordoba said.

Obama’s Visit

via Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak – Bloomberg.com.

Al Gore Embarrasses Another Republican Fool

YouTube – Al Gore Embarrasses Another Republican Fool.

BILL MAHER: Moronic Conservative Response to Global Warming Science

YouTube – BILL MAHER: Moronic Conservative Response to Global Warming Science.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Ret: “VP Cheney Frightens Easily. He Lives on Fear”

“VP Cheney Frightens Easily. He Lives on Fear”

YouTube – Rachel Maddow – Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Ret. – Torture and Cheney. Ouch, Dick….