Friday, December 10, 2010
this has to stop
December brings the biggest showdown with Illinois' and possibly the nation's most gluttonous corporate freeloader: the corn ethanol industry.
Symbolically, the upcoming battle of budget hawks against ethanol's special pleaders is as significant as the fight over continuing the Bush tax cuts.
At issue is whether Congress will allow corpulent ethanol subsidies and a tariff against some imported ethanol to expire on Dec. 31. The ethanol industry has been tromping around Washington like starving bears, hoping to get the deal done during this lame-duck session of Congress, before budget-cutting hunters arrive in the next Congress.
Ethanol's supporters assert that it is an environmentally friendly, renewable and cost-effective gasoline additive. Its opponents dispute it on every point, arguing, among other things, that ethanol costs more than gasoline to make, raises food prices, increases tailpipe pollution and encourages cultivation of fragile lands. But dare to question ethanol, which consumes 41 percent of the corn crop, and snowstorms of studies are produced, from both sides. Clearly, the science supporting ethanol is "unsettled." Which makes spending billions of taxpayers' and consumers' dollars on ethanol at best a costly crapshoot.
Despite that, the Environmental Protection Agency recently decided that we aren't consuming enough of it. Instead of mandating that 10 percent of gasoline sold at the pump be ethanol, as has been required for years, the EPA issued its so-called E15 rule, which raised to 15 percent the allowable blend of ethanol for cars and certain trucks built since 2007. In that, the EPA ignored studies pointing to the harmful effects that 50 percent increase will have on cars, including the agency's own conclusion that it would damage the catalytic converters of tens of millions of cars now on the road.
Wait, that's only the start. The ethanol industry also receives a tax credit amounting to 45 cents a gallon and is aided by a tariff on sugar-cane ethanol valued at 54 cents. In addition, the 2007 energy act mandates the use of renewable fuels, including ethanol: 10.5 billion gallons in 2009, 14 billion in 2011 and 36 billion by 2022.
This is extraordinary. And insane. Here, the government creates a fake market for ethanol, then subsidizes the market, and then protects the market against foreign competition.
This has to stop. But don't count on it.
Agribusiness is an American biggie, especially in Illinois, loaded as we are with ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland Co., commodities markets, corn farmers and countless refiners, processors, haulers and investors. Their people sit on important corporate boards and their campaign contributions flow into Congress and state legislatures. Even cost-cutters will pretend not to notice the need to carve away at this turkey, one of the most heavily subsidized businesses in America. And, I haven't even mentioned the tens of billions of federal dollars that go for crop subsidies and other boons for wheat, cotton, sugar, peanuts, dairy, wool and other types of farmers.
Critics of these subsidies get it from the right and the left. But opposing the subsidies is a growing coalition from the right and left. Among them are the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, International Dairy Foods Association and Grocery Manufacturers Association. As their Web site (followthescience.org) illustrates, they are united in their opposition to the EPA's E15 rule for a variety of environmental and economic reasons, including, no doubt, their own self-interest. The coalition earlier this month filed a federal lawsuit charging that the EPA exceeded its statutory powers by issuing the rule. (chicagotribune.com)
Royal Ruckus
Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, react as their car is attacked by protesters in London. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
A Rolls-Royce limousine carrying Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, was attacked and 12 police officers were injured in London late Thursday amid violent student protests.
A rear window was smashed and the vehicle was splattered with paint as up to 20 demonstrators lunged at the vehicle, carrying the couple to a theater in the West End.
Clarence House said the couple were "unharmed" and they arrived on time at the London Palladium for the Royal Variety Performance, although the Duchess of Cornwall appeared shaken by the ordeal.
Reports said the vehicle was attacked with fists, kicks and bottles, with protesters chanting "Off with their heads!" and "Tory scum."
Clashes escalated among thousands of students gathered in parts of the capital Thursday evening after MPs controversially voted to increase UK college fees from £3,290 ($5,200) to £9,000 ($14,000) per year -- a vote that saw splits within the ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. (read more)
Shameful day in England
Ninth of December, Two Thousand and Ten ~ a day to remember, a day when the ConDem government stole the future from children in England, lets not pretend that it was ever so good. The government consists of millionaires educated themselves at Oxford or Cambridge, finding their chums on the playing fields of Eton. A shameful day, 28 liberal democrat hypocrites broke their election promises and voted for university fees to treble overnight.
There clearly is no democracy in this country, no choice between any political party and the wishes of the people do not count with greedy, lying politicians and their millionaire, or is it billionaire banker friends, these bankers and other millionaires in this country do not even pay their taxes, have profited from insider dealing, profiteering, as bank overdraft fees soar to 19% and are tainted by their love of money, which they have foolishly mistaken for power.
The poor must pay for the rich man’s vampiric greed, for the inadequate man’s futile attempt to feel better about his own inadequacies. Oh yes the poor must pay. The poor who will keep breeding! That’s how they speak of us, they make sure our wages are kept low, that jobs are hard to come by and then they steal from us through taxation to feed their parasitical and useless government machine. Oh lets not forget they indulge in illegal and immoral wars to murder our children and the people of other countries, making sure to contaminate with depleted uranium to prolong the torture and death,
Children, young men and women protested outside parliament, the only way they could make their voices heard, literally through the walls, they called all day, in the cold, in the dark, they were heard in the chambers of the hypocrites, no doubt as they chanted, youthful voices, wanting a future. Did the politicians listen as they indulged in strange handshakes, called in favours from the days when they were children themselves? Did the so-called elected people turn an ear to the calls from outside? No they thought of their own pockets, their own comfortable lives and condemned a generation to less.
Never tell me we live in a democracy, never tell me we have a voice, never tell me that politics don’t affect you, and never, never believe another lie…………………
The advantages of ADD
The kind of focused attention ordinarily required in a classroom is not all that helpful overcoming obstacles outside the classroom. A wider focus of attention, which is usually associated with ADD, is actually more adaptive according to neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman [link]. And from what I’ve seen, I believe it ..! They found that when students are more receptive and open to distraction, they do better navigating a computer-simulated labyrinth than when they are focused and blocking out distractions (as seen on an fMRI). Students actually see and hear more .. finding their way faster by heuristic than by analytic reasoning. In other words, discovering relationships between vague and loosely connected information was more advantageous than step-by-step analysis.
I found the same thing to be true once while I was applying for a home loan. After obtaining the 1st mortgage ..I was looking for a bank to help me with the down-payment. After three banks turned me down because they considered this ‘risky’ and ‘somewhat irresponsible’ ..I sat on the beach, got over the feeling that I was ‘risky’ (and somewhat irresponsible) ..and pulled together the real reasons why. They had nothing to do with my ability to meet my obligations. It was not a personal failing on my part but a circumstance of the recession (i.e. time required to find a buyer for my prior home). When I put this and other reasons down in a letter-of-explanation ..the next bank understood intuitively and, with just a couple of questions ..they approved my application.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
one
cosmos
magnet
ball
rod
slot
moist
heat
fur
peach
deep
together
one
connect
vibrate
enter
resonate
peak
ecstasy
warmth
conscious
child
time
space
end
a better way
"What is wrong with us? Why do we seem to care so little about our own safety, our own health, and the future of our children?" asks Maria Rodale, farmer, author and CEO of Rodale Inc. "Why are we willing to pay thousands of dollars for vitro fertility treatments when we can't conceive, but not a few extra dollars for the organic food that might help to preserve the reproductive health of our own and future generations?"
In her powerful and informative new book, Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe, Maria Rodale has done all of the thinking and the research about organic farming for us. Yay, we don't have to think! Following in the path of her grandfather, JI Rodale, who launched Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1942 and her father Robert Rodale, who devoted his life to educating others on health and environmental issues, Maria Rodale explains why and how we must immediately begin to undo the damage we have done to the environment and to ourselves.
The 'Farming System Trial' that her father, Robert Rodale began in 1990, is now the longest running scientific study comparing 'synthetic-chemical' versus 'organic' agriculture. After 20 years of experiments, the trial clearly shows that organic farming is not only more productive than chemical farming, especially during times of flood or drought, but that soil farmed organically is a necessary step toward solving our climate crisis. 'Mycorrhizal fungi' which grow at the roots of plants, stores carbon. These miraculous fungi build our soil and its health while also sequestering excess carbon and pulling it underground.
(read more) (rodaleinstitute.org)
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Electronic Frontier Foundation
From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 — well before the Internet was on most people's radar — and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.
Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. By mobilizing more than 61,000 concerned citizens through our Action Center, EFF beats back bad legislation. In addition to advising policymakers, EFF educates the press and public.
EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit and depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive; because two-thirds of our budget comes from individual donors, every contribution is critical to helping EFF fight — and win — more cases. (read more)
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Wild Wild Angels
Of course you don't know what it means,
To live for someone else, you can't just take,
And when you're bitten by the truth,
You blame it on your mis-spent youth,
You never seem to learn by your mistakes.
So don't talk to me of wild wild angels,
Wild wild angels on the skyways,
Those wild wild angels on the highways of your life,
'Cos it's people like you who never knew,
What wild wild angels have to face.
And I ain't hangin' round to see,
You turn on someone else like me,
I'm still alive and you know the way I live,
But baby that's one way you'll never be,
Such simple things you fail to see,
You take back everything you ever give.
So don't talk to me of wild wild angels,
Wild wild angels on the skyways,
Those wild wild angels on the highways of your life,
'Cos it's people like you who never knew,
What wild wild angels have to face.
So don't talk to me of wild wild angels,
Wild wild angels on the skyways,
Those wild wild angels on the highways of your life,
'Cos it's people like you who never knew,
What wild wild angels have to face.
So don't talk to me of wild wild angels,
Wild wild angels on the skyways,
Those wild wild angels on the highways of your life,
'Cos it's people like you who never knew,
What wild wild angels have to face.
December 7, 1941
USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship of the United States Navy and the first to be named "Arizona". On March 4, 1913, Congress authorized the construction of Arizona, named to honor the 48th state's admission into the union on 14 February 1912. The ship was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of "super-dreadnought" battleships.
She is most remembered because of her sinking, with the loss of 1,177 lives, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the event that goaded the US into World War II. Unlike most of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, the Arizona could not be salvaged, although the U.S. Navy removed several elements of the ship that were reused. The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and was established as a memorial to all those who died during the Pearl Harbor attack. (read more)
British Jewry goes 'off-message' over Israel
British Jewry’s relationship with Israel is undergoing seismic change. The monolithic “Israel right or wrong” support of the mainstream suddenly cracked when one of the community’s most senior leaders went dramatically off-message.
As the Jewish Chronicle reported Mick Davis, chairman of the pre-eminent Anglo-Israel charity, the UJIA, and the executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, “shattered a longstanding taboo by publicly criticising the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the peace process, voicing moral reservations about some of Israel’s policies and calling for criticism of Israel to be voiced freely throughout the community.”
What followed was an “I am Spartacus” moment. As the Israeli embassy and their cohort of diehard loyalists within Anglo-Jewry looked on aghast, one heavyweight community player after another voiced support for Mr Davis.
They included figures who have worked tirelessly throughout their professional lives to defend Jewish rights, promote Israel’s right to peace and security and neutralise the ugly sisters of anti-Zionist/anti-Semitism. Nobody could ever accuse the likes of Jon Mendelson, Gordon Brown’s chief fundraiser and former Labour Friends of Israel chairman, or Bicom chairman Poju Zabludowicz, of possessing an iota of “self-hatred”.
Monday, December 6, 2010
hero or villain ?
Julian Paul Assange (born 3 July 1971) is an Australian journalist, publisher and Internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor in chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Before working with the website, he was a physics and mathematics student as well as a computer programmer. He has lived in several countries and has told reporters he is constantly on the move. He makes irregular public appearances to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative reporting; he has also won three journalism awards for his work with WikiLeaks.
Assange founded the controversial WikiLeaks website in 2006 and serves on its advisory board. In this capacity, he has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the African coast, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and material involving large banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer among other documents. He has recently received widespread public attention for the publication of classified material from WikiLeaks documenting details about the involvement of the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing the United States diplomatic cables leak. According to The Guardian, this has placed Assange "at the centre of intense media speculation and a hate campaign against him in America".
On 30 November 2010, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons; concomitantly, a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him. He is wanted for questioning on suspicion of "sex crimes"; it is reported that while having consensual sex his condom broke and he either did not disclose the breakage to his partner or continued after his partner asked him to stop. He has not been formally charged with any crime. (read more)
No Snow in Paradise
All the lighting
Decked-out boats
And Christmas floats
Steel Pan soundtrack
Riding bare-back
Twinkling palm tree
Christmastime novelty
Sand between toes
But nobody knows
Dreams of snowfall,
Beer, and football
Brothers on the sofa
I’m sipping on a mocha
Waking up to frost
Reminding me of time I’ve lost
Queuing up for Boat Parade
This year feels like a charade
Calling Daddy on the phone
Is not the same as being home
Little sis decorates the tree
Wonder if they think of me?
On the beach for Christmas Day
For once I wish I were away
Holidays in Paradise
Still smell of pumpkin spice
But waves crashing on the sand
Don’t sound like Winter Wonderland
Banks braced as King Eric's day of reckoning arrives
It all began two months ago with a muddled interview on a French regional newspaper website by Eric Cantona, the footballer turned film actor. Cantona, 44, suggested that it was time for a "bloodless" revolt against capitalism. "If 20 million people withdraw their money, the system collapses, no need for weapons, blood, or anything," he said. Was this a joke? Had Eric, the sardine philosopher, become a cod revolutionary?
More than 34,000 people around the world, mainly in France, Italy and Britain, have taken Cantona's big idea seriously. They have pledged their support to internet sites which have called for a co-ordinated "bank run" tomorrow. Another 27,000 are said to be "considering" joining in.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Concern for the Future
The fact that this nation is rapidly sinking should be no great surprise. America was founded on blood, on slavery, on forced labor. The vast majority of Americans live on stolen land. We have built an economy based on the endless exploitation of foreign labor while allowing the domestic work force to fester. We have allowed our infrastructure to undergo a steady and inexorable collapse from persistent neglect. We have turned over many of the essential aspects of the Commons, such as healthcare, over to the practices of those who live for profit. As a result tens of millions of human beings have been knowingly deprived of access to health care so that a certain few can make hundreds of millions of dollars. These dollars have been built upon needless suffering and unnecessary death. We have placed profit above all else allowing for the sanctioned production of such toxic products as tobacco, Agent Orange, depleted uranium weaponry and napalm. This is a kind of brutality and butchery that is not essentially different than the practices of so-called “organized crime.”
We have failed at educating our people so abysmally that superstition and crazed religious beliefs have trumped science. As a result, the plundering of the planet continues since the threat of climate change is seen as a nasty little hoax perpetrated by godless scientists. We have become a people that are essentially asleep and numb to our own supreme foolishness.
America has been conducting a foreign policy based upon the bankrupt concept of exceptionalism i.e. that we, as a nation, are somehow inherently allowed to behave in regards to other nations anyway we choose regardless of how criminal that behavior might be. As a result, tens of millions of human beings, mostly of different color, have been literally crushed under the weight of massive and brutal military power.
The cumulative weight of our past has left its indelible imprint on character of the nation. We should fear for the future. This fear is misplaced, however, if we focus on the national debt or the supposed threat of socialism or unemployment, for example. We should be concerned, instead, for the people that we have become. If we wish to change the future, we must change ourselves.
Friday, December 3, 2010
"The Bard"
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.
Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. (read more)
Look To The Skies
Look at the United Kingdom of Great Britain, covered, very neatly under a blanket of snow, it’s white and crisp, children are having time off school and a new concept has come into the workplace, “Snow days” in the temperate climate that we enjoy in the UK have we ever before experience such a universal coving in snow? We are a long island, facing the Atlantic, our weather is variable up and down the country, Scotland very often does see snow, and the south coast, with unique micro climates very seldom enjoys the universal blanket that we have at the moment.
Perhaps, grounds for suspicion in these days of Chemical trails and HAARP weather changing technology, certainly it has been a long time since clear blue skies we seen over our green and pleasant land. However for the past five days I have seen no sky at all, a blanket of low lying white obscures any sight of the sky, I have not seen the sun or the moon for nearly a week, and I look, there is zero visibility, and yet planes still fly overhead to and from Heathrow airport. I miss both the sun and the moon; perhaps many others do without realising it. (read more...)