47, an environmental scientist, Italian-American, married, 2 sons, originally a Catholic from Philly, now a Taoist ecophilosopher in the South due to job transfer. Enjoy jazz, hockey, good food and hikes in the woods.
British astronomers said Monday they have discovered two new, very faint companion galaxies to the Milky Way. The first was found in the direction of the constellation Canes Venatici, or the Hunting Dogs, by Daniel Zucker of Cambridge University. His colleague Vasily Belokurov discovered the second in the constellation Bootes, or the Herdsman.
Unsolicited plug department: This month’s issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (free online) has several interesting articles on topics like traffic and susceptibility to childhood asthma, disease risks for divers in polluted waters, prenatal lead exposure effects on child IQ, arsenic exposure and diabetes, particulate exposure and heart disease, etc. This journal is well worth a bookmark and monthly check if you’re interested in the intersection of the environment and public health.
Researchers have found that thunderstorms over Tibet provide a main pathway for water vapor and chemicals to travel from Earth’s lower atmosphere – where human activity directly affects atmospheric composition – to the stratosphere, where the protective ozone layer resides. More here.
If Jordan and Syria execute their plan to construct one more dam on the Jordan River they will reduce the water flow to little more than a trickle, fear environmentalists and politicians familiar with the region. More here.
For almost a decade, people have been told by their doctors and pharmacists to avoid grapefruit juice if they are being treated with certain medications, including some drugs that control blood pressure or cholesterol. Studies have shown that grapefruit juice can cause more of these drugs to enter the blood stream, resulting in undesirable and even dangerous side effects. Researchers have now identified the molecules responsible for this effect, compounds called furanocoumarins. This may lead to development of furanocoumarin-free grapefruit juice to patients who would otherwise need to avoid grapefruit, and screening other foods for the potential for drug interactions by determining whether they contain furanocoumarins. It may also be possible to add furanocoumarins to formulations of certain drugs that tend to be poorly or erratically absorbed to improve their oral delivery.
An environmental success story: Leatherback sea turtles are making a comeback. Researchers in St. Croix [now there’s a tough assignment] found a marked increase in the number of nesting leatherback females from less than 30 in the 1980s to 186 in 2001, as well as a more than 20-fold increase in annual hatchling production from around 2,000 to more than 49,000. Efforts to save the species have been ongoing since 1982.
White blood cells from a strain of cancer-resistant mice cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice, researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reported. Details here.
New technologies that mimic the way insects, plants and animals overcome engineering problems could help reduce our dependence on energy. When faced with engineering difficulties, such as lifting a load or coping with extremes of heat, up to 70 per cent of man-made technologies manipulate energy, often increasing the amount used, in order to resolve the problem. However, only 5 per cent of natural `machines’ rely on energy in the same way. Instead, insects, plants, birds and mammals rely on the structure and organization of their body parts and behavior; the solutions to problems are designed in: Although mankind has looked to nature for inspiration for generations, `biomimetic’ devices are a relatively recent phenomenon. The stable wing in airplanes, Velcro and self-cleaning paint are all simple devices based on natural inspiration. Currently, there is only a 12 per cent similarity in the way biology and technology solves the problems they are faced with.
ARBIL, May 10 (IPS) – Kurds had long waited for the day when the new prime minister walked into the parliament hall with his deputy and cabinet members.
The ceremony Sunday marked the coming together of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in a unified government, after years of separation.
Nechirvan Barzani of the KDP was appointed the new prime minister. Omar Fatah of PUK was appointed deputy prime minister. A 42-member cabinet took oath in a 105-member parliament.
The two Kurdish parties came together close to ten years after signing a peace accord in Washington in 1997.
The coming together of the two Kurdish factions stood in marked contrast to what is happening elsewhere in Iraq. A Kurdish parliament is now in place, in Baghdad it is not.
Quite an achievement considering how the KDP and PUK were at each other’s throats for all those years.
BRUSSELS, May 10 (IPS) – Leading civil society groups are preparing to challenge leaders at the European-Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) summit in Vienna this week.
Heads of state and governments from 60 countries will meet May 11-13 for the fourth EU-LAC summit. The summit agenda covers issues as diverse as human rights, the environment, development, trade, and cooperation over drugs and terrorism.
Civil society groups plan to raise concerns over all of these.
Participants at an alternative civil society summit want EU and LAC leaders to stop promoting the free trade agenda, and have organised a ‘people’s tribunal’ May 11 on violation of human rights by corporate power.
(more)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) 5 minutes ago — Judge J. Michael Luttig has resigned from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to accept a job as senior vice president and general counsel for Boeing Co.
Luttig, 51, a conservative judge, had been mentioned last year as a possible nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
He was appointed to the 4th Circuit by former President Bush in 1991, becoming the youngest federal appeals court judge in the country. The Richmond-based appeals court is widely viewed as the most conservative in the nation.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 337 F.3d 335 (2003) (available here). In his dissent from the court’s denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Luttig suggested that on rehearing he would have agreed with the government’s position that the role of a court in a habeas proceeding is to “confirm that there is a factual basis supporting the military’s determination that a detainee is indeed an enemy combatant.” This stance is more deferential to executive power than the rule ultimately adopted by the Supreme Court, which held that a combatant be given a “meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.”
news clip today on the Bahgdad Combat Hospital to get a fresh taste of what the Administration’s lies are costing our troops too. I can’t get the clip to play on my computer so I haven’t linked to it. I probably need to have a CNN subscription and I would if it was worth it but it would be a ripoff to me to pay for something like that with only one video clip a month displaying reality for the American people. I will not give those fuckers one thin dime that I don’t have to!
For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion.
These numbers show that the Bush administration was unrealistically optimistic in its prewar prediction that the total cost would be about $50 billion.
And the same numbers raise questions about the Bush administration’s claim that the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be prohibitive, causing (in President Bush’s own words) “serious harm to the U.S. economy.”
With respect to the Iraq war, careful estimates come from Scott Wallsten, a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers who is now at the American Enterprise Institute. Writing at the end of 2005, Wallsten estimated the aggregate American cost at about $300 billion. With the costs incurred since then, and an anticipated appropriation soon, the total will exceed $350 billion.
Responding for the first time to accusations last week by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, that Moscow had rolled back democracy, Mr Putin said: “Where is all this pathos about protecting human rights and democracy when it comes to the need to pursue their own interests?
“Here, it seems, everything is allowed; there are no restrictions whatsoever. We are aware what is going on in the world. Comrade wolf knows whom to eat, he eats without listening, and he’s clearly not going to listen to anyone.”
As the UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, (who help write the legal opinion on the legality of the Iraq war), calls for Guantanamo to close. It has become “a symbol of injustice”
In the strongest criticism of the camp yet by a senior British official, Lord Goldsmith told a conference on global security in central London that the continued existence of the detention centre was “unacceptable”.
“It is time, in my view, that it should close,” he said. “I believe it would also help to remove what has become a symbol to many, right or wrong, of injustice.
“The historic tradition of the United States as a beacon of freedom, of liberty and of justice deserves the removal of this symbol.”
Lord Goldsmith said the reliance of the camp on military tribunals did not meet the UK’s commitment to the principle of a fair trial.
Remind me please, how many frineds do we have left?
I might be completely off base here, but I don’t think Russia has ever really been a friend. I also think that when Vladimir and George were becoming so buddy-buddy, that Vlad was giving George instructions on how to dismantle democracy. It appears the consolidation of power in both countries is going the same way. At least it seems that way to me.
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (AFP) – Islamist militants have been gaining the upper hand in fighting in Mogadishu and now control roughly 80 percent of the Somali capital, according to a UN Security Council report.
The council panel which monitors the UN arms embargo on Somalia released its report as fresh fighting raged in lawless Mogadishu between Islamist militants and gunmen loyal to a US-backed alliance of warlords.
Machine gun, artillery and rocket fire echoed through the city’s streets after a ceasefire called by Islamic courts collapsed.
The UN report said the warlords alliance had been “severely degraded” by a series of bloody fights with the Islamic militants, who managed to strengthen their hold over large areas formerly held by the warlords.
The recent Mogadishu fighting pits the fundamentalists against the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT). The newly-formed alliance has vowed to curb the growing influence of the Islamic courts that have gained backing by restoring a semblance of stability to areas in Mogadishu by enforcing Sharia (Islamic) law.
The UN report made it clear that all warring factions — the TFG, the fundamentalists and the warlord alliance — are supported by other unnamed states. “The clandestine support of individual states is narrowly defined and motivated by self-interest,” it said. “As a result, the (UN) Monitoring Group sees no end to the trend of continued clandestine state support and, therefore, no end to the ongoing militarization in the near future.”
The Islamic militants were said to be using foreign fighters as well as shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons and to have overrun APRCT territory, killing or capturing alliance militia members.
Somalia has been without a functioning central government for nearly 15 years and has been wracked by warlord-fuelled violence since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamad Siad Barre.
British astronomers said Monday they have discovered two new, very faint companion galaxies to the Milky Way. The first was found in the direction of the constellation Canes Venatici, or the Hunting Dogs, by Daniel Zucker of Cambridge University. His colleague Vasily Belokurov discovered the second in the constellation Bootes, or the Herdsman.
Fast-growing China and India helped to drive up global greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent over 1992-2002, fueling the effects of climate change. Details here. But in lieu of a climate change rant du jour, here’s a report on developments in increasingly energy-efficient, more environmentally benign and more technically flexible light emitting diode technology, which many now believe will replace incandescent and fluorescent fixtures in 10 years or less. High “WOW!” factor; go have a look.
A volcano on the Kamchatka peninsula in far eastern Russia erupted Tuesday in a powerful explosion that spewed smoke and ash up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) into the air and sent red-hot lava flowing down the volcano’s slopes, news agencies reported.
Unsolicited plug department: This month’s issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (free online) has several interesting articles on topics like traffic and susceptibility to childhood asthma, disease risks for divers in polluted waters, prenatal lead exposure effects on child IQ, arsenic exposure and diabetes, particulate exposure and heart disease, etc. This journal is well worth a bookmark and monthly check if you’re interested in the intersection of the environment and public health.
Researchers have found that thunderstorms over Tibet provide a main pathway for water vapor and chemicals to travel from Earth’s lower atmosphere – where human activity directly affects atmospheric composition – to the stratosphere, where the protective ozone layer resides. More here.
If Jordan and Syria execute their plan to construct one more dam on the Jordan River they will reduce the water flow to little more than a trickle, fear environmentalists and politicians familiar with the region. More here.
For almost a decade, people have been told by their doctors and pharmacists to avoid grapefruit juice if they are being treated with certain medications, including some drugs that control blood pressure or cholesterol. Studies have shown that grapefruit juice can cause more of these drugs to enter the blood stream, resulting in undesirable and even dangerous side effects. Researchers have now identified the molecules responsible for this effect, compounds called furanocoumarins. This may lead to development of furanocoumarin-free grapefruit juice to patients who would otherwise need to avoid grapefruit, and screening other foods for the potential for drug interactions by determining whether they contain furanocoumarins. It may also be possible to add furanocoumarins to formulations of certain drugs that tend to be poorly or erratically absorbed to improve their oral delivery.
Several failures on the International Space Station in recent weeks have left the orbiting outpost with fewer altitude-boosting options. The failures leave the station slightly more vulnerable to being hit by a piece of space debris, although it is a remote possibility. The station has to move to avoid space debris about once a year on average, whenever the chance of a collision reaches 1 in 10,000… And NASA and the Indian space agency, ISRO, said Tuesday they have shelved a plan for an Indian astronaut to fly to the International Space Station aboard a space shuttle, despite an agreement made last year during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington. ISRO would have paid for the astronaut’s training, but NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Tuesday that he must restrict the number of remaining shuttle flights and limit crews and passengers only to those necessary to fly the shuttle or build the space station.
An environmental success story: Leatherback sea turtles are making a comeback. Researchers in St. Croix [now there’s a tough assignment] found a marked increase in the number of nesting leatherback females from less than 30 in the 1980s to 186 in 2001, as well as a more than 20-fold increase in annual hatchling production from around 2,000 to more than 49,000. Efforts to save the species have been ongoing since 1982.
White blood cells from a strain of cancer-resistant mice cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice, researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reported. Details here.
New technologies that mimic the way insects, plants and animals overcome engineering problems could help reduce our dependence on energy. When faced with engineering difficulties, such as lifting a load or coping with extremes of heat, up to 70 per cent of man-made technologies manipulate energy, often increasing the amount used, in order to resolve the problem. However, only 5 per cent of natural `machines’ rely on energy in the same way. Instead, insects, plants, birds and mammals rely on the structure and organization of their body parts and behavior; the solutions to problems are designed in: Although mankind has looked to nature for inspiration for generations, `biomimetic’ devices are a relatively recent phenomenon. The stable wing in airplanes, Velcro and self-cleaning paint are all simple devices based on natural inspiration. Currently, there is only a 12 per cent similarity in the way biology and technology solves the problems they are faced with.
Kurds Overtake the Rest
Quite an achievement considering how the KDP and PUK were at each other’s throats for all those years.
Ok, I have a couple of questions.
I could say something snarky involving Quebec, but I’ll resist the temptation. 😉
while Quebec has issues with the rest of Canada, it is still a province with representatives in the federal Parliament and behaving..
And US media NPR is already referring to “Iraqi Kurdistan” behaving like a sovereign unoccupied country.
And how about this:
Civil Society to ‘Try’ Multinationals
.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) 5 minutes ago — Judge J. Michael Luttig has resigned from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to accept a job as senior vice president and general counsel for Boeing Co.
Luttig, 51, a conservative judge, had been mentioned last year as a possible nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
He was appointed to the 4th Circuit by former President Bush in 1991, becoming the youngest federal appeals court judge in the country. The Richmond-based appeals court is widely viewed as the most conservative in the nation.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 337 F.3d 335 (2003) (available here). In his dissent from the court’s denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Luttig suggested that on rehearing he would have agreed with the government’s position that the role of a court in a habeas proceeding is to “confirm that there is a factual basis supporting the military’s determination that a detainee is indeed an enemy combatant.” This stance is more deferential to executive power than the rule ultimately adopted by the Supreme Court, which held that a combatant be given a “meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Lives and the Balance on Buzzflash is worth downloading and watching and crying.
but the misspelled link still works though I think
news clip today on the Bahgdad Combat Hospital to get a fresh taste of what the Administration’s lies are costing our troops too. I can’t get the clip to play on my computer so I haven’t linked to it. I probably need to have a CNN subscription and I would if it was worth it but it would be a ripoff to me to pay for something like that with only one video clip a month displaying reality for the American people. I will not give those fuckers one thin dime that I don’t have to!
It’s Only $300 Billion
‘Tis the week of losing friends
Buddy Putin refers to US as a wolf “who eats without listening”
As the UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, (who help write the legal opinion on the legality of the Iraq war), calls for Guantanamo to close. It has become “a symbol of injustice”
Remind me please, how many frineds do we have left?
I might be completely off base here, but I don’t think Russia has ever really been a friend. I also think that when Vladimir and George were becoming so buddy-buddy, that Vlad was giving George instructions on how to dismantle democracy. It appears the consolidation of power in both countries is going the same way. At least it seems that way to me.
.
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (AFP) – Islamist militants have been gaining the upper hand in fighting in Mogadishu and now control roughly 80 percent of the Somali capital, according to a UN Security Council report.
The council panel which monitors the UN arms embargo on Somalia released its report as fresh fighting raged in lawless Mogadishu between Islamist militants and gunmen loyal to a US-backed alliance of warlords.
Both groups are opposed to the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) as a central government.
Machine gun, artillery and rocket fire echoed through the city’s streets after a ceasefire called by Islamic courts collapsed.
The UN report said the warlords alliance had been “severely degraded” by a series of bloody fights with the Islamic militants, who managed to strengthen their hold over large areas formerly held by the warlords.
The recent Mogadishu fighting pits the fundamentalists against the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT). The newly-formed alliance has vowed to curb the growing influence of the Islamic courts that have gained backing by restoring a semblance of stability to areas in Mogadishu by enforcing Sharia (Islamic) law.
The UN report made it clear that all warring factions — the TFG, the fundamentalists and the warlord alliance — are supported by other unnamed states. “The clandestine support of individual states is narrowly defined and motivated by self-interest,” it said. “As a result, the (UN) Monitoring Group sees no end to the trend of continued clandestine state support and, therefore, no end to the ongoing militarization in the near future.”
The Islamic militants were said to be using foreign fighters as well as shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons and to have overrun APRCT territory, killing or capturing alliance militia members.
Somalia has been without a functioning central government for nearly 15 years and has been wracked by warlord-fuelled violence since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamad Siad Barre.
● At Least 96 Killed in Somali Fighting
● Somaliland Times
≈ Cross-posted from my diary — Economic Siege Imposed on the Palestinians ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY