Archive for February, 2010
Israel Bombs Gaza’s Agricultural Sector To The Brink
From the Political Theatrics blog:
“If we didn’t get the wheat planted today, we would not have had crops this year,” says Abu Saleh Abu Taima, eyeing the two Israeli military jeeps parked along the border fence east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. Although his land is more than 300 meters away, technically outside of the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone,” Abu Taima has reason to be wary.
“They shot at us yesterday. I was here with my wife and nephews.”
Like many farmers along Gaza’s eastern and northern borders, Abu Taima has been delayed planting by the absence of water and the threat from Israeli soldiers along the border.
With most of Gaza’s border region wells, cisterns and water lines destroyed by Israeli forces during last winter’s attacks, farmers have been largely left with no option but to wait for heavier rains.
“Israeli soldiers started intensively bulldozing the land in 2003. But they finished the job…
Robert Greenwald Attacks Kennedy Miniseries On History Channel
From the very start of our home video business, we’ve worked with director Robert Greenwald, who has become a sort of Defender of the Faith for progressive politics. It speaks volumes that when Robert takes up a cause, it lands on the front page of the New York Times (story below). I have to say I’m also delighted that Robert has highlighted the problem with much of the History Channel’s programming – it’s not history, it’s entertainment with a focus on ratings at the expense of veracity:
A new mini-series about John F. Kennedy’s presidency that is being prepared by the History channel does not yet have a cast or a premiere date. Not a frame of footage has been shot. It does, however, have prominent critics who want it brought to a halt.
The critics, including Theodore C. Sorensen, a former Kennedy adviser, say they have read the scripts for the project and that those contain errors of fact and emphasis. But like a similar controversy over a 2003 television film about Ronald Reagan, the dispute over the embryonic Kennedy series seems to say as much about the enduring place of the Kennedys as a battleground in the culture wars as it does about history itself.
The mini-series, called “The Kennedys,” is the brainchild of Joel Surnow, a creator of the Fox action show “24” and an outspoken political conservative…
Americans United For Change Goes After Wall Street ‘Casinos’ With TV Ad
From Americans United For Change:
Americans United for Change and American Family Voices unveiled a new television ad today as part of a ramped up coalitional effort urging Congress to pass President Obama’s financial regulatory reform plan to make Wall Street more transparent and accountable and prevent another financial crisis. The new ad comes as Citi, one of the largest recipients of taxpayer dollars, revealed how Wall Street is fully back to business as usual by announcing plans to create “the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis.”
UN Climate Panel Admits Dutch Sea Level Flaw
Reported via Reuters:
OSLO — The UN panel of climate experts overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level, according to a preliminary report on Saturday, admitting yet another flaw after a row last month over Himalayan glacier melt.
A background note by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a 2007 report wrongly stated that 55 percent of the country was below sea level since the figure included areas above sea level, prone to flooding along rivers.
The United Nations has said errors in the 2007 report of about 3,000 pages do not affect the core conclusions that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are warming the globe.
“The sea level statistic was used for background information only, and the updated information remains consistent with the overall conclusions,” the IPCC note dated February 12 said.
Skeptics say errors have exposed sloppiness and over-reliance on “grey literature” outside leading scientific journals. The…
Human Bones Could Reveal Truth of Japan’s ‘Unit 731′ Experiments
Julian Ryall writes in the Telegraph:
The Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious medical research team carried out secret human experiments regarded as some of the worst war crimes in history.
Its scientists subjected more than 10,000 people per year to grotesque Josef Mengele-style torture in the name of science, including captured Russian soldiers and downed American aircrews. The experiments included hanging people upside down until they choked, burying them alive, injecting air into their veins and placing them in high-pressure chambers.
Now new detail about their victims’ suffering could be revealed after the authorities in Tokyo announced plans to open an investigation into human bones thought to have come from the unit. A new search is also due to be carried out for mass graves that may contain more victims of human experiments.
Cigarettes Might Be Infectious
Janet Raloff writes in Science News:
The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.
“Nearly every paper that you pick up discussing the health effects of cigarettes starts out with something to the effect that smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke experience high rates of respiratory infections,” notes Amy Sapkota of the University of Maryland, College Park. The presumption has been that smoking renders people vulnerable to disease by impairing lung function or immunity. And it may well do both.
“But nobody talks about cigarettes as a source of those infections,” she says. Her new data now suggest that’s distinctly possible.
If these germs are alive, something she has not yet confirmed, just handling cigarettes or putting an unlit one to the mouth could be enough to cause an infection.
Read More: Science News
…
Survey Finds Many Veterans Use Marijuana For PTSD
Steve Elliott writes in Toke of the Town:
Many veterans and others are using cannabis medically to treat the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to preliminary results of a new survey.
Cannabis Science Inc., which describes itself as “an emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company,” is reviewing the interim results of its survey of more than 1,400 people.
“It is clear that many veterans are already using herbal cannabis to self-medicate to relieve the symptoms of PTSD,” said Dr. Robert Melamede, president and CEO of Cannabis Science.
“Consequently, there is a clear need for standardized, FDA approved, oral cannabis products which can, and should be, provided to veterans and others who can benefit from its use,” Melamede said.
Pregnant Woman Kicked Off Airplane For Asking For Water
There’s no justice for famous chubby directors, or it seems now, the thirsty on airplanes. Huffington Post reports:
It’s not just famous directors who are getting kicked off planes for bizarre reasons.
A New York doctor claims that he was booted from a Spirit Airlines flight for asking for water for his pregnant wife on Sunday.
Mitchell Roslin, the Chief of Obesity Surgery at Manhattan’s Lenox Hill Hospital, says that after being grounded at LaGuardia Airport for two hours in a hot plane his attempts to get water for his 7-month pregnant wife were repeatedly refused.
Roslin informed the New York Post that flight attendants told him that it was “against corporate policy” to give him water before the plane was in the air.
FDA Says It’s Unable to Regulate BPA, Considered Hazardous Since the 1930s
Meg Kissinger reports in the Journal Sentinel:
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials say they are powerless to regulate BPA, although they have declared the chemical to be a safety concern for fetuses, babies and young children.
A quirk in the rules allows BPA makers to skirt federal regulation.
“We may have to go after legislation to change it,” Joshua Sharfstein, the FDA’s principal deputy director, told the Journal Sentinel. The newspaper has been investigating the government’s lack of regulation regarding BPA for three years.
FDA officials announced Friday that they had reversed their position that bisphenol A is safe. The chemical, used to line most food and beverage cans, has been found in the urine of 93% of Americans tested.
The agency now considers BPA to be of some concern for effects on the brain, behavior and prostate glands of fetuses and the very young. Scientific studies have raised concerns about the chemical’s link…
Lunargate! Alex Burns Examines the Weird World of Moon Landing Conspiracies
The recent cuts to NASA’s budget, including the axing of the upcoming lunar missions, the Ares Rocket System, and the Orion Spacecraft, have left many of us quite scared for the future of the U.S. space program. This classic article from Alex Burns examines those that question whether or not NASA even got to the moon in the first place. Are we afraid to go back, or to go there at all?
Lunargate by Alex Burns
In a now infamous 1961 speech, US President John F. Kennedy pledged that America’s space program would “place a man on the moon before the decade’s close.” At the heart of cold war battles for geopolitical supremacy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs also became the vehicle for inculcating domestic populations with American values and belief systems.
NASA’s growing power, its protection by the Kennedy administration, and the rise of the Right Stuff astronaut as celebrity hid the steady growth of the Military-Industrial Complex that Eisenhower had warned about.
These anxieties — of monolithic social institutions controlling information, and the decline of US global empires — are the core of conspiracy theories claiming the historic Apollo moon landings were elaborately faked. The world was hoaxed.
Don’t Turn Good Scientists into Poor Entrepreneurs
From New Scientist:
The UK’s science minister, Paul Drayson, gave a speech in Oxford on the future of science in the UK a few days ago. It is worth taking stock of his central message, one which has been made since the days of Margaret Thatcher: how can we make money out of science?
He is a real science minister, clearly not rolling over in front of the discredited economic rent-a-wizards who think the best way out of a downturn is to pay more bonuses and cut investment in science and education. Unlike his opposite number, he is yet to promise major cuts in science.
Drayson outlines the intimate links between some great science and various industries, including the business in which he made his fortune. He points out how addressing practical problems benefits science, and vice versa. It’s all true.
Once again, he points out that our processes for creating wealth from science do…
John Mellencamp Proposed to Replace Evan Bayh in Senate Race
From the Village Voice:
Now that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is out of the picture, some people are pushing for John Mellencamp, aka John Cougar, aka John Camp Cougar Mellencamp, to run on the Democratic line for his seat.
Mellencamp is from Indiana, where he was born in a small town, and lives in Bloomington, which he asserts is a small town; he also predicts that he will prob’ly die in a small town. He has previously been nominated to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, has suggested a Mellencamp candidacy, as has Roger Ebert. A Facebook page has been put up for that purpose, with 238 members at present.
[Read more at the Village Voice]
Despite Obama’s Nuclear Bailout, Georgia Power Still Increasing Rates
From the AP:
Georgia Power still plans to increase rates next year to finance two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle despite billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees announced Tuesday by the Obama administration.Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson said any savings the utility will see from the federal loan backing won’t occur until January 2012. That means ratepayers will see their electric bills rise by an average of $1.30 a month in 2011 as planned, he said.
The Obama administration said the nuclear plant near Augusta had been selected to receive more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees. The expansion at Vogtle will mark the first nuclear power plant construction in the United States in nearly three decades.
The two new reactors are scheduled to be completed in 2017 at a price tag of $14 billion.
Last year, the Georgia Legislature approved a bill allowing Georgia Power to begin charging ratepayers for…
Utah Eyes Slashing Senior Year Of High School To Save Money
By Sahil Kapur for Raw Story:
Imagine being forced to skip your senior year of high school. Or having the option.
If you live in Utah, that could become a reality. In an effort to bridge a $700 million budget shortfall, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars has put forth a plan to eliminate 12th grade in high school, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Facing a wealth of criticism from parents, teachers and students alike, Buttars defended a scaled down version of the idea wherein students simply had the option to exit before their final year, claiming the proposal could save the state about $60 million…
[continues at Raw Story]
Now We Know What Killed King Tutankhamun. Or Do We?
I’ve just returned from the International Conference on Ancient Studies in Dubai. By the time I left I was almost deliriously tired, enough perhaps to find a passionate and fiery exchange between two wonderful speakers from the conference, Ahmed Osman and Andrew Collins, debating who or what killed Egypt’s King Tut as we drove to the airport, highly comical. I can already hear in my mind Mr. Osman’s contempt for this report in the New York Times (he firmly believes that the boy king was murdered):
King Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh, was frail, crippled and suffered “multiple disorders” when he died at age 19 in about 1324 B.C., but scientists have now determined the most likely agents of death: a severe bout of malaria combined with a degenerative bone condition.
The mummified feet of King Tutankhamun in a 2007 photograph. Scientists have now determined that the boy pharaoh most likely died of a severe bout…
Danny Schechter: Haiti One Month Later
Danny Schechter, director of the forthcoming disinformation® documentary Plunder: The Crime of our Time, dissects the failure of the Haiti relief efforts, which have been slow and sluggish from the start:
Should We Clone Neanderthals?
Zach Zorich examines the scientific, legal, and ethical obstacles for Archaelogy:
If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 years those beads have been gathering tiny fragments of DNA from samples of dissolved organic materials, including pieces of Neanderthal bone. Genetic sequences have given paleoanthropologists a new line of evidence for testing ideas about the biology of our closest extinct relative.
The first studies of Neanderthal DNA focused on the genetic sequences of mitochondria, the microscopic organelles that convert food to energy within cells. In 2005, however, 454 began a collaborative project with the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, to sequence the full genetic code of a Neanderthal woman who died in Croatia’s Vindija cave 30,000 years ago. As…
The Question of Questions
By Robert Singer
Can Jared Diamond’s “Geographic Determinism” answer “Yali’s ‘Cargo’ Question”: Why “they” are so rich and “we” are so poor?
Geographic Determinism: The shape and location of continents, flora, fauna, microbes, water, climate, topography determine history: Civilizations benefit because human populations with an east-west orientation (east-west) have a more consistent climate than those with a north-south orientation (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared M. Diamond).
No, it cannot.
Civilizations benefit because God and the House of Rothschild so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son to the human populations with an east-west orientation, that whosoever believeth in him shall not have to obey the laws of nature.
Original sin entered the world when man went from trying to survive, to trying to justify his existence. “Cogito, ergo sum“, less ambiguously translated: “I am thinking, therefore I exist”, which is the foundation of Western philosophy.
Societies of civilized savages began when hunters and gatherers started farming and discovered toilet paper…
‘Wolfgirl’ Investigated For Severing Dog Head
In light of the just-opened Benicio Del Toro film The Wolf Man, it’s important to realize that we are living among real-life wolf people:
Wolfie Blackheart is not an ordinary 18-year-old. She believes she is a wolf — technically, a werewolf.
And last week, she used a pocketknife in her kitchen to decapitate a dog — already dead, according to Wolfie — that had been missing since Jan. 5. “I severed the head, boiled the head,” Wolfie said. “People make the mistake of hacking the spine, which will fracture the skull…You also have to put (the head) outside for the brains to leak out.”
Wolfie has Tourette’s syndrome, which causes her to yip — a result of head trauma suffered in a car crash about a decade ago, her mother said.
She’s also a member of a wolf pack: “I’m a wolf, and I have a group of other friends who are canines,” she…
