Friday News Bucket

20 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on June 16, 2006 at 7:44 am

   Oops: WashPo

   Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office on Thursday accepted the resignation of an aide who had told a reporter that Maliki was considering a limited amnesty that would likely include guerrillas who had attacked U.S. troops, the aide said.

   The Maliki aide who resigned, Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, stood by his account of amnesty considerations, reported Thursday by The Washington Post. Kadhimi said Maliki had indicated the same position less directly in public. “The prime minister himself has said that he is ready to give amnesty to the so-called resistance, provided they have not been involved in killing Iraqis,” Kadhimi said Thursday…

   Quite a corner that’s been turned, dontcha think?

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 16, 2006 at 9:04 am

     …In a war-torn country groping for peace
     Which is every war-torn country groping for peace
     With an occupying empire who’s overreached
     (Every occupying empire will eventually overreach)

2. 

   CabinGirl on June 16, 2006 at 7:52 am

   Murtha smackdown of a GOP chickenhawk from Texas? YouTube via Huffington Post

   Nice.

3. 

   ask on June 16, 2006 at 9:01 am

   Basra Begins to Fall Apart

   BAGHDAD, Jun 16 (IPS) – Basra in the south of Iraq is beginning to splinter under increasing violence and sectarian divisions.
   Smuggling of oil on a large scale coupled with increasing violence and the lack of basic services like water and electricity has caused increasing tensions in the city, 570km south of Baghdad. More than 100 civilians have been killed in Basra so far this month.
   Residents are pointing the finger at the governor and the British military, which occupies the city.
   Before the recent spate of killings, Basra had a reputation as one of the most peaceful cities in occupied Iraq. The British military — whose 8,000 soldiers in Iraq control Basra — were considered by many to be more humane than their American counterparts.
   But when thousands of residents took to the streets earlier this month to protest high unemployment and corruption in the governor’s office, the British attacked the demonstrators with helicopters. Fighters responded.

   • 

     CabinGirl on June 16, 2006 at 9:49 am

     Maybe that’s what they mean by “progress in Iraq”?

     • 

       ask on June 16, 2006 at 10:47 am

       Or this:

       BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people inside a Shi’ite mosque in Baghdad on Friday, police said, a day after the national security adviser said al Qaeda’s days are numbered in
       Iraq.

4. 

   ask on June 16, 2006 at 9:03 am

   Available Environmental Interventions Could Save Millions of Lives

   GENEVA, Jun 16 (IPS) – One quarter of the global disease burden in adults is related to environmental risk factors that could be modified with existing interventions, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a new report Friday.
   And in the case of children, environmental factors are involved in more than one-third of the disease burden, said Carlos Corvalán, coordinator of WHO’s department of public health and environment and co-author of the report.
   However, “the positive message is that we know which type of interventions need to be done in order to reduce that burden of disease and make sure that our health will benefit,” said María Neira, WHO director of public health and environment.
   “We are talking about interventions that are available,” Neira told IPS “We are talking about reducing air pollution indoors and outdoors, about better access to clean water, about the prevention of chronic acute respiratory infections through the use of better fuels, about even the prevention of some non-communicable diseases such as cancer by regulating exposure to certain chemicals or improving the working environment and making sure that all of these will be contributing to our health.”
   The WHO is thus calling on environmental policymakers, industry, energy, transport and the health sector to work towards the objective of making “wise investments” in terms of the environment, in order to prevent health problems related to environmental factors, she added.

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 16, 2006 at 9:12 am

     All environmental issues have big, big human health effect components, which is only natural, since we’re a part of the ecosystem, too.  I cannot understand why Democrats don’t grab onto that aspect of environmental issues to close the sale with the public.  Even conservatives have kids that get asthma from bad air (How much are you gonna let that kid suffer while waiting for the rapture?).  Unless AG and friends are right and the Democrats have been bought lock, stock ,and barrel by the same business and industrial interests that own the Republicans.  In which case we may be seriously screwed here, folks, without shall we say, euphemistically, “major social change at a more fundamental level.”

5. 

   boran2 on June 16, 2006 at 9:05 am

   There must be some unseen benefit to big business here:

   ENS Link

   Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Proclaimed a National Monument

   WASHINGTON, DC, June 15, 2006 (ENS) – Today, President George W. Bush signed a proclamation designating the waters of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national monument. The status confers immediate and permanent protection upon 140,000 square miles federal waters surrounding 10 islands and atolls creating the largest single conservation area in the history of the United States, and the world’s largest protected marine area.

   • 

     ask on June 16, 2006 at 9:20 am

     There must be some unseen benefit to big business here:

     Maybe we should ask to see the signing statement?

   • 

     Knoxville Progressive on June 16, 2006 at 9:22 am

     The far end of the island chain being preserved is Midway, which, being ecologically degraded from past military use, could become a new tourist destination with big hotels, etc.  (I assume some kind of airfield is already there from the military use.)

     Marine preserves have also been shown to act as areas where depleted marine life can recover, and later move out to surrounding areas, which then have better fishing.  If there are enough marine preserves, sustainable fisheries become quite feasible.

     I think the real reason for this is political.  Nixon also turned to the environment as an easy way to bolster his poor image, signing the clean air and clean water acts, founding EPA and NOAA, etc.  The ecosystem doesn’t care if he’s just trying to salvage a bit of a legacy – at this point environmentalists will take whatever we can get, like a starving prisoner offered some wormy gruel.  It won’t stop us from opposing him, but it may allow him some shred of a legacy if he keeps it up.  The reefs and forests don’t care; any relief is good relief.

6. 

   ask on June 16, 2006 at 9:08 am

   Civil war fears after 64 die in Sri Lanka

   At least 64 people were killed in a landmine attack on a packed civilian bus in Sri Lanka yesterday, sparking immediate fears that the blast, the worst single act of violence since the 2002 ceasefire, could push the island back into civil war.
   The Sri Lankan government accused Tamil Tiger rebels of being behind the attack on the bus, and last night air strikes were under way near Kilinochchi, the Tigers’ de facto capital.
   The Tigers denied involvement in the bus attack, and said the government air strikes on Kilinochchi meant “they are showing they are ready for war” .
   Among the dead in the bus explosion were at least 13 children. The blast was huge, according to witnesses. “The bus was blown over,” Chintha Irangani, a survivor, told reporters.

7. 

   Knoxville Progressive on June 16, 2006 at 9:27 am

   OK, this is getting to be a bad habit, guys…  [Yes, this is a different chemical spill in China than the one reported yesterday]  Explosions at a chemical plant in eastern China have left two people missing and released large amounts of toxic gas, sparking fears of pollution, state media reported late Thursday. The series of blasts at the Longxin Chemical Plant in Longquan city early on Thursday set two of its factories on fire and released large amounts of harmful gas, Xinhua news agency said, quoting firefighters.  The plant produces industrial-grade hydrogen peroxide, containing arsenic and other potentially toxic heavy metals.  The nearby river passes through cities with a population of 9.5 million.

   Jerome will be happy today:  France on Thursday announced major increases in rates for energy from renewable sources that has to be purchased by the state-owned electricity provider, EDF. Since February 2000, Electricite de France has been required to buy power from operators of renewable sources at a price set by the government, under a program aimed at boosting clean energy.

   Permafrost, permanently frozen soil, isn’t staying frozen and a type of soil called loess contained deep within thawing permafrost may be releasing significant, and previously unaccounted for, amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

   People really do mellow with age (I know I have, LOL!)  Elderly people may be better at perceiving happiness and worse at perceiving fear, a new study suggests. The finding supports the idea that people do mellow with age.  Previous behavioral studies have suggested that the elderly are more emotionally stable than younger people, which may have provided an evolutionary advantage to tribes where they could have acted to mediate disputes in a nonviolent manner.

   You know you’re getting closer to the cutting edge when you find the places where people are arguing.  Here are three examples:

   Part of Darwin’s theory of evolution is the concept of sexual selection, as exemplified by the elaborate tail of the male peacock.  The tail seems to serve no useful purpose, unless the peacocks have it for the sake of reproduction. The male’s fancy tail entrances the staid peahen. Darwin used this idea to explain the biological quirks that natural selection couldn’t explain. If a trait wasn’t in the service of survival, then it was probably in the service of seduction.  However, modern biological research has run into a problem with the theory of sexual selection – it has trouble explaining why homosexual behavior is a normal part of the range of behaviors in (so far) 450 different species.  A review of the topic is here.  [I tried to use this line on a fundamentalist:  Did God create all those creatures gay?  He cleverly responded, “No, it’s Adam’s fall that contaminated the entire universe with sin.  This is just one example.”  At which point my head exploded.]

   Over at the blog Living the Scientific Life, GrrlScientist has a rant about Steven Hawking’s recent comment that we need to colonize space to save ourselves, with interesting discussion from commenters, in case that story provoked you one way or the other.

   Ecologists who specialize in restoring degraded ecosystems, such as “brownfields” or old strip mines, face an extra challenge in our time of increasingly rapid climate change.  Do you restore the land to what traditionally was the ecosystem for that area, knowing it’s changing?  Or do you try to create something better adapted to the new climate?  How do you decide what to do?  Enter that discussion here.

   • 

     Nag on June 16, 2006 at 9:46 am

     “At which point my head exploded.”

     Oh Knox, you just gave me a good giggle. I watched an excellent program on the Apocolypse/rapture last night and if they can believe that tripe, they can believe anything, including placing the blame for animal sexual behavior on Adam. Wow. That’s a new one for me. (snort)

8. 

   vieravisionary on June 16, 2006 at 9:55 am

   Disaster relief firm’s 9/11 fraud not prosecuted

   Once-secret documents obtained by The Associated Press detail how the company, Kieger Enterprises of Lino Lakes, Minn., went unpunished for the Sept. 11 thefts after the government discovered FBI agents and other government officials had stolen artifacts from New York’s ground zero.

   Federal prosecutors eventually charged KEI and some executives with fraud, including overbilling the government in several disasters, but excluded the Sept. 11 thefts. Officially, the government can’t fully explain why.

   The lead investigators for the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency told AP that the plan to prosecute KEI for those thefts stopped as soon as it became clear in late summer 2002 that an FBI agent in Minnesota had stolen a crystal globe from ground zero.

   That prompted a broader review that ultimately found 16 government employees, including a top FBI executive and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, had such artifacts from New York or the Pentagon.

   Read the entire article for yourself.  Sad, very sad.

9. 

   Nag on June 16, 2006 at 10:11 am

   Link

   Fired – For Love Without Marriage

   The owners of a roller skating rink have fired an 18-year-old woman they called one of their “Top 10” employees because she moved in with her boyfriend, violating a company ethics policy that prohibits “live-in relationships of an intimate nature.”

   “I loved my job and I didn’t want to leave,” Crystal Plotner told the Coeur d’Alene Press this week.

   She said she was fired after casually telling her bosses, Skate Plaza owners Marvin and Pat Miller, that she planned to move in with her boyfriend in mid-May.

   Before terminating her, Plotner said the Millers said she and her boyfriend should “check out their church.” She declined.

   The rise of the wacko religious right in this country has truely put me off of organized religion for good. This steady chip, chip, chipping away of individual rights in the name of religious beliefs sucks out loud.

   • 

     Nag on June 16, 2006 at 10:17 am

     By the way, this little passion play took place in Boise, Idaho.

     The owners wanted to set a good example for the young people that are attracted to their business. What about the example of punishing someone because their beliefs don’t mesh with your own? Hate filled religious bigotry is always a good example for young people, don’t you think?.

   • 

     CabinGirl on June 16, 2006 at 10:18 am

     Unbelievable.  Actually, not.

10. 

    Nag on June 16, 2006 at 10:49 am

    Link

    Only on The Colbert Report:

    Westmoreland co-sponsors bill on the Ten Commandments and can’t even name them

    Colbert: You have not introduced a single piece of legislation since you entered Congress.

    Westmoreland: That’s correct.

    Colbert: This has been called a do nothing Congress. Is it safe to say you’re the do nothingest?

    Westmoreland: I, I, ..Well there’s one other do nothiner. I don’t know who that is, but they’re a Democrat.

    Colbert: What can we get rid of to balance the budget?

    Westmoreland: The Dept. of Education.

    Colbert: What are the Ten Commandments?

    Westmoreland: You mean all of them?–Um… Don’t murder. Don’t lie. Don’t steal Um… I can’t name them all.

    emailer Ruth asks: Does this guy deserve a $3,300 pay raise?

    The guy co-sponsors a bill about the Ten Commandments and doesn’t even know them. Priceless.

    snort!

    • 

      vieravisionary on June 16, 2006 at 1:02 pm