Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage…
– Bruce Cockburn
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage…
…Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage
– Bruce Cockburn
Thanks to Susie for reminding me how much I’ve always liked this song…
From Planned Parenthood:
Here’s an article with more explanation. Apparently, even the American Medical Association is against this bill.
Here’s the list of key swing votes on the bill, and their phone numbers:
# Arkansas — Blanche Lincoln: (202) 224-4843
# Colorado — Ken Salazar: (202) 224-5852
# Delaware — Tom Carper: (202) 224-2441
# Indiana — Evan Bayh: (202) 224-5623
# Louisiana — Mary Landrieu: (202) 224-5824
# New Mexico — Jeff Bingaman: (202) 224-5521
# Oregon — Ron Wyden: (202) 224-5244
# Pennsylvania — Arlen Specter: (202) 224-4254
# South Dakota — Tim Johnson: (202) 224-5842
# Wisconsin — Herb Kohl: (202) 224-5653
Pick one and call, please.
Thank you, CG.
Finishing the sentence with the current administration: “We are keeping America safe.” Izzat a fact:
Protecting us from our own Congress does not mean “safe”.
Makes you wonder what the criteria are for getting on that list, doesn’t it?
Ahh, my little cabin friend, wonder no more. Great minds run on the same channel… I wonder about slightly cracked minds?
Well, if they have a quota to meet, that means eventually we’ll all be on the list, right?
How effective.
And is there a breakdown between Repub and Dem congresspersons caught by the list?
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RIAHD, Saudi Arabia (Sky News) one hour ago — Saudi Arabia’s king has warned the current crisis between Lebanon, the Palestinians and Israel could spark a full-scale Middle East war.
King Abdullah has also pledged $500m to rebuild Lebanon and $250m to help the Palestinians.
“If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war.”
King Abdullah≈ Covered in my diary —
Saudi King Abdullah: “… no other option but WAR.” ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
This little item will explain just why that no fly list has been inflated to over 200,000 (in Cabin Girl’s item above):
Marshals Say They Must File One Surveillance Detection Report, Or SDR, Per Month
You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they’re reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.
The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.
“Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft … and they did nothing wrong,” said one federal air marshal.
These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR. Air marshals told 7NEWS that managers in Las Vegas created and continue to maintain this potentially dangerous quota system.
Scientists have developed a once-a-day pill that they hope could potentially cure Alzheimer’s disease. Tests in mice have shown the drug, PBT2, prevents build up of the amyloid protein linked to the disease. Protein levels dropped by 60% within 24 hours of a single dose, and memory performance improved within five days.
NASA has eliminated the promise “to understand and protect our home planet” from its mission statement. That statement was repeatedly cited last winter by NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who said he was being threatened by political appointees for speaking about the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions. But NASA officials told The New York Times the elimination of the phrase that was used by Hansen was “pure coincidence.” The statement now proclaims the agency’s mission is “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”
A few weeks ago, there was a story here regarding what would happen on Jupiter when the Big Red Spot, a huge hurricane, had a close encounter with a smaller but similar storm? So far, surprisingly, nothing has happened, as you can see here, in a false-color image of the planet.
The increasing number of pine plantations in the southern United States could contribute to a rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, a new study reports. Hardwood forests tend to store more carbon than pine plantations do, the researchers said. And natural pine stands store more carbon than do pine plantations. A hardwood forest has more organic matter – leaves, branches, roots, and a mix of tree species – than a pine plantation does. More organic matter means more storage of carbon. Natural pine stands also have more organic matter than a carefully cultivated pine plantation – for instance, a natural pine stand typically has a wider variety of plant and tree species growing in it than a plantation does. To encourage owners of hardwood and natural pine forests to hold on to their stands, the researchers suggest that existing conservation programs and private transactions for carbon give credit to landowners who maintain or invest in hardwood stands.
A diet that scores low on the “glycemic index” helps overweight people lose body fat while also reducing levels of “bad” cholesterol that contributes to the risk of heart attack and stroke, a study shows. The glycemic index (GI) measures the impact of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels. Food with a high GI score, like a biscuit, causes sharper peaks in sugar levels than a low GI food, such as pasta. Earlier research has shown that low GI foods make people feel fuller for longer, and may promote the breakdown of fat. These foods also tend to contain more soluble fiber, which reduces total and low density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol.
In the early 20th century, Milutin Milankovitch, a leading astronomer and climatologist of the time, proposed that the Earth’s ice-age cycles could be predicted because they correspond directly with routine changes in the Earth’s orbit and its tilt over cycles of tens of thousands of years. Because of these changes, there are predictable variations in the amount of solar radiation striking the Earth’s surface. Milankovitch argued that low levels of summer radiation permit snow to accumulate as permanent ice, while high levels of solar radiation melt snow and ice. It all seemed so clean and simple. But new data suggests a more complex feedback between earth’s orbit, polar ice, and carbon dioxide levels, leading to cycles of various lengths, which change in relative importance over time. [If this report is correct, human-caused climate change may in effect “reset the clock” so the shortest cycles will predominate again, which makes sense at a gross level – a system with more energy stored in it (as heat) might be more likely to undergo more rapid changes than one that had cooled down and had less energy… – K.P.]
Higher tree species diversity leads directly to higher diversity of leaf-eating insects, researchers report. It may seem obvious that forests with greater numbers of tree species should support a wider variety of leaf-eating insects than do less diverse forests, but no one had ever done the research to rule out the alternative explanation: that insect species in the tropics eat the leaves of a smaller number of host trees (are more host specific), which would also result in more insect species in a given area. Individual temperate and tropical tree species were found to support similar numbers of leaf-eating insects. Host specificity did not differ significantly between temperate and tropical communities; therefore, the greater number of tree species in the tropics is the best explanation for higher insect diversity.
The steady discovery of giant planets orbiting stars other than our sun has heightened speculation that there could be Earth-type worlds in nearby planetary systems capable of sustaining life. Now researchers running computer simulations for four nearby systems that contain giant planets about the size of Jupiter have found one, 55 Cancri, that could have formed an Earth-like planet with the right conditions to support life.
A biologist studying wild songbirds in N.Y. State has found that all 178 he tested had unusually high levels of mercury in their blood and feathers, a sign that mercury has spread farther in the environment than thought.
The return of “Climate Change Rant du Jour”: Maybe it’s the weather, or the strain on the local power supply, or they’ve seen the three-month forecast for continued hotter than normal weather, but the LA Times yesterday delivered a double smackdown on global warming – one to the Administration, and one to the Wall Street Journal; the latter for continuing to publish pseudoscience questioning the reality of global warming. (Both LA Times links courtesy of Truthout)
The people of Kerala in India’s southwest are famed for turning fish into spicy feasts fit for gods, but last week the heavens turned provider as fish rained down on the aptly-named village of Manna, a newspaper reported on Monday. Similar reports of objects falling from the sky — including frogs and tomatoes — have been put down to spiraling whirlwinds or waterspouts that suck them up from land or water. They fall back to earth once the wind speed drops and can no longer support them.
More on Global Warming:
Republican “Let them eat cake” Leadership in action.
If the folks in the oil industry had an ounce of sense they really would buy themselves a better tool than Inhofe. The man really is ludicrous.
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Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said. Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “They should never be used in populated areas.”
«« click on image for HRW storyM483A1 DPICM artillery-delivered cluster munition present in the arsenal of an IDF unit in northern Israel. © Human Rights Watch 2006According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-fired cluster munitions at Blida around 3 p.m. on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village.
≈ Cross-posted from Steven D front page story —
White Phosphorus — The Lebanese Sequel ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Hats off to everyone on this site for doing such a tremendous job in providing cutting edge, progressive news stories. Just look on the front page, and recommended diaries, and you know what I mean.
I’m pretty busy here in New Orleans, and I’ve wanted to post much more than I have. All of these excellent articles are providing inspiration to stay involved in this online community.
It’s great to hear from you, duranta.
I hope you’ll post something about what you’ve been doing in New Orleans when you have a chance. It’s hard to believe nearly a year has passed since Katrina.
Link
The US House of Representatives is poised to consider a bill that would make it more difficult for consumers to protect their credit from identity thieves.
Backed by the lucrative financial-services industry, the Financial Data Protection Act of 2005 would narrow the circumstances in which consumers could restrict their credit activity to prevent fraudulent borrowing, and it would undermine stronger state-based reporting rules for companies that hold and sell consumer data.
“It’s shocking that at a time when data breaches are in the headlines daily and consumers are at greater risk than ever [of] identity theft, Congress would choose to vote on a bill that would strip consumers of their existing identity-theft protections,” Susanna Montezemolo, policy analyst with Consumers Union, said in a press statement. Consumers Union publishes Consumer Reports magazine.
Companies that stand to gain from the legislation have spent a small fortune on campaign contributions and lobbying.
[snip]
One of the most controversial provisions of the bill would make it much more difficult for consumers to “freeze” their credit, a process that enables consumers to make it nearly impossible for anyone – including the consumer him or herself – to open new credit cards without first going through extra security precautions.
Currently, a handful of states allow consumers to freeze their credit at will in order to protect themselves against fraud. But the bill would change the rules so that consumers in all states would have to supply evidence that identity theft has occurred before obtaining a freeze.
Congress isn’t just a bunch of pandering, dishonest, power drunk, money hungry assholes… they’re actually dangerous. I’m going to be mumbling under my breath all day about this one.