Thursday May 07, 2009

Ben the bouncy Brit wins the 'Best Job in the World'

Kristen Gelineau
Associated Press

A bungee-jumping, ostrich-riding British charity worker was named the winner today of what's been dubbed the "Best Job in the World" - a six-month contract to serve as caretaker of a tropical Australian island.

Ben Southall, 34, of Petersfield, beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world for the dream assignment to swim, explore and relax on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef while writing a blog to promote the area.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

Sea 'snake' generates electricity with every wave

Colin Barras
New Scientist

Anaconda, a giant rubber "snake" that floats offshore and converts wave energy to electricity, is a step closer to commercialisation. An 8-metre long, 1/25th scale version is currently undergoing tests in a large wave tank in Gosport, UK, and a full-size working version could be a reality in five years.

Harnessing the power of waves is an attractive proposition because they are much more energy dense than wind.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

How to mend a broken Britain

Irwin Stelzer
New Statesman

Neither of the major parties has a credible plan for limiting the damage caused by borrow-spend-and-tax economics. So what is to be done?

The question no longer is whether Britain is broke: it is. Or whether the financial plan laid out by the Chancellor is disastrous: it is. Or whether the spending binge on which the government is engaged is sustainable: it isn’t.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

US game plods deploy robot enforcement menagerie

Lewis Page
The Register

Actually, some bears don't shit in the woods

American game wardens and wildlife plods are deploying lifelike robotic bears, deer and turkeys in the battle against poachers, according to reports.

National Geographic reports on the trend in wilderness robo-prey sting busts, explaining how scofflaw huntsmen are lured into the arms of the law:
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Thursday May 07, 2009

News Corp will charge for newspaper websites, says Rupert Murdoch

Andrew Clark
The Guardian

Current days of free internet will soon be over, says media mogul

Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a ­"malfunctioning" business model.

Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

DNA records of innocent to be kept

Robert Verkaik
Independent

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is accused today of undermining the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" by insisting on keeping DNA records of people cleared of crime.

Plans for a modified national database outlined by the Government today would allow the police to retain records of thousands of innocent people for up to six years. In cases of serious violent or sexual crime, the time limit would be extended to 12 years.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet
Counterpunch

How can we explain the fact that famine still exists in the 21st century? One person in seven on this planet is permanently hungry.

The causes are well known: a profound injustice in the distribution of wealth and the monopolizing of land by a small minority of large landowners. According to the FAO , 963 million people were suffering from famine in 2008. Paradoxically, these people mainly live in rural areas.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

There's No Ammo on the Shelves -- Is It the Gun Nuts' Fear of Obama-lypse?

Yasha Levine
AlterNet

A trip to the L.A. exurb and desert city of Victorville tells you all you need to know about why it's so hard to buy ammunition these days.

Ever since it became clear that Barack Obama would be our next president, there's been an unprecedented run on guns 'n ammo in America. Partly this is fueled by fears, some justified some not, that Obama will outlaw a broad range of assault weapons; partly it's fueled by socioeconomic factors, racism and right-wing hate.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

New Standards Could Cut Tax Breaks for Corn-Based Ethanol

Jim Tankersley
The Los Angeles Times

Rules proposed by the Obama administration set the stage for a battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.

The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed renewable-fuel standards that could reduce the $3 billion a year in federal tax breaks given to producers of corn-based ethanol. The move sets the stage for a major battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

Revealed: U.S. Interrogators May Have Killed Dozens of Detainees

John Byrne
Raw Story

In all, 98 detainees have died while in U.S. hands, with 34 identified as homicides, at least eight of which were tortured to death.

United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and followup investigations.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

U.N. Inquiry Critical of Israeli Attacks in Gaza

Thalif Deen
Inter Press Service

A detailed 184-page report critical of Israeli attacks on U.N. personnel and buildings during the Gaza conflict last December-January has been meticulously stripped down to a 27-page document - mostly due to political sensitivities and on security grounds.

Responding to charges he had released only a "watered down" version of the report by a four-member U.N. Board of Inquiry (BoI), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon vehemently denied the accusation.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

40 Million Nonbelievers in America? The Secret Is Almost Out

Ronald Aronson
Religion Dispatches

Buried in the results of a recent survey is the fact that secularists may now be one of America’s largest minorities—larger than gays or African Americans. Will nonbelievers, traditionally one of the most loathed demographics, begin to feel their oats and demand greater recognition in the public square?

As reported in yesterday’s New York Times, a South Carolina chapter of Habitat for Humanity prohibited a group of Secular Humanist volunteers from wearing their “Non-Prophet Organization” T-shirts; a Charleston-area teacher “came out” as a nonbeliever after years of church dinners and demurrals; and Humanist Loretta Haskell struggled over her role as a church musician.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

First face transplant patient in US shows face

Associated Press

Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of Connie Culp's face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman.

Culp stepped forward yesterday to show off the results of America's first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

'Green' lightbulbs poison workers

Michael Sheridan, Foshan
Times

Hundreds of factory staff are being made ill by mercury used in bulbs destined for the West

When British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

The Coming End of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Socialism

Simon Dumenco
Advertising Age

Thank God for Tech Moguls Who Redistribute VC Wealth So We Can Cybersocialize Freely. For Now, That Is.

Twitter founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone should thank God it was just a cardinal, and not the pope.

Last week, according to the Times of London, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland told the country's Catholics to "Make someone the gift of a prayer through text, Twitter or e-mail every day. Such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another."
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Thursday May 07, 2009

Thought police muscle up in Britain

Hal G. P. Colebatch
The Australian

Britain appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.

There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.
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Thursday May 07, 2009

Press 'print' for a light-emitting T-shirt

Michael Fitzpatrick
New Scientist

Electronic displays that can be printed onto virtually any surface, including paper and fabric, are now a step closer, thanks to the creation of a light-emitting ink.

A team at Dai Nippon Printing in Tokyo, Japan, has used a conventional screen-printing technique to deposit a thin layer of the ink, a luminescent gel, onto a surface. The gel consists of a ruthenium compound that emits a bright light when a voltage is applied to it, along with an electrolyte and silica nanoparticles.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Exposed: MI5's secret deals in Camp X-ray

Robert Verkaik
Independent

How MI5 attempted to recruit prison camp inmates

MI5 secretly tried to hire British men held in Guantanamo Bay and other US prison camps by promising to protect them from their American captors and help secure their return home to the United Kingdom, The Independent has learnt.

One of the men, Richard Belmar, was told he would be paid "well" for his services if he was willing to work undercover for MI5.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can’t Crack

Steven Levy
Wired

The most celebrated inscription at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, used to be the biblical phrase chiseled into marble in the main lobby: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

But in recent years, another text has been the subject of intense scrutiny inside the Company and out: 865 characters of seeming gibberish, punched out of half-inch-thick copper in a courtyard.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Mininova Filters Copyright Infringing Torrents

Ernesto
Torrent Freak

Just a few days before their court appearance, Mininova, the largest BitTorrent site on the Internet, has started to filter content. The site is using a third party content recognition system that will detect and remove torrent files that link to copyright infringing files.

Starting today, Mininova will use a content recognition system that detects and removes torrent files linking to copyright infringing files. The system will also prevent the torrents from being re-uploaded to mininova later on.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Swedish couple demand right to name baby 'Q'

Lester Haines
The Register

Now pay attention, Supreme Administrative Court

A Swedish couple's battle to name their son "Q" will shortly arrive on appeal at the Supreme Administrative Court, aka Regeringsrätten, which will determine if current regs allow single-letter first names.

The parents insist the sprog is not named in honour of the James Bond gadgetmeister, but is rather the victim of a wayward, last-minute decision. This didn't much impress the powers that be, who ruled Q offside.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Milking the motorist: How speed cameras rake in £10,000 an HOUR from drivers

James Slack
Daily Mail

Labour was last night accused of ‘milking the motorist’ after it emerged speed cameras are netting £10,000 for the Treasury every hour.

Home Office figures show the number of fixed penalty notices handed out for speeding has increased by 100 per cent in ten years.

The vast majority were given to drivers caught by speed cameras, of which there are now around 6,000.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Britons face working until 70 to help bring public debt under control

Angela Monaghan and Edmund Conway
Telegraph

Britons will have to work until the age of 70, at least five years beyond the current retirement age, if the Government is to stand any hope of bringing public debt under control over the next decade, a report claims.

The scale of the debt that Gordon Brown takes on to fight the economic crisis means that future governments will have to consider drastic measures to ease it, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The think tank said it would be all but impossible for the Government to return Britain's total public debt to 40 per cent of gross domestic product, currently equivalent to £600billion, until 2023.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Jacqui Smith enlists high street help for ID cards scheme

Alan Travis
The Guardian

High street chemists, post offices and photo shops are to be used to record the electronic fingerprints and other biometric data needed for the national identity card scheme, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, is to announce today.

The decision to use high street shops sidesteps the need for the Home Office to set up a network of enrolment centres with mobile units to operate in rural areas.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Japanese scientist claims breakthrough with organ grown in sheep

Leo Lewis
Times

Huddled at the back of her shed, bleating under a magnificent winter coat and tearing cheerfully at a bale of hay, she is possibly the answer to Japan’s chronic national shortage of organ donors: a sheep with a revolutionary secret.

Guided by one of the animal’s lab-coated creators, the visitor’s hand is led to the creature’s underbelly and towards a spot in the middle under eight inches of greasy wool. Lurking there is a spare pancreas.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Named and shamed: the 16 barred from UK

Beverley Rouse
Press Association

Sixteen people banned from entering the UK were "named and shamed" by the Home Office yesterday.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

The list includes hate preachers, anti-gay protesters and a far- right US talk show host.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

To Power a Nation

Manuel Garcia, Jnr
Counterpunch

To Power a Nation

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a blimp hangar-sized array of 192 laser pathways whose pulsed rays are amplified to high power, and bounced through an elaborate arrangement of mirrors, to converge simultaneously upon a pea-sized target filled with deuterium and tritium (heavier isotopes of hydrogen), for the purpose of compressing it to the point where nuclear fusion reactions occur, and net energy is produced.

NIF is located on the grounds of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) about 50 km east of San Francisco, California.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

YouTube completes a year of being blocked in Turkey

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders condemns the fact the video-sharing website YouTube has been inaccessible in Turkey for the past 12 months. Access has not been restored since it was blocked exactly one year ago today as a result of three orders issued by Ankara magistrate courts without any specific reason being given.

“The blocking of YouTube has gone on long enough,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the Turkish authorities to amend their legislation regulating Internet use instead of than arbitrarily censoring content.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Swine Flu Fears Lead to the Ludicrous

Spiegel International

The world is taking the danger represented by swine flu seriously with measures in place across the globe to prevent the spread of the virus. Some efforts, though, have bordered on the absurd.

Cinco de Mayo was cancelled. Schools were closed. And cafes across Mexico City were shuttered. But this week, normality is slowly returning to Mexico with the frightening outbreak of swine flu continuing to wane in the country. President Felipe Calderon said on Tuesday that some schools would reopen on Thursday as would universities. Infections, he said, were trending downward.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Creative minds: the links between mental illness and creativity

Roger Dobson
Independent

All too often, creativity goes hand in hand with mental illness. Now we're starting to understand why.

At first glance, Einstein, Salvador Dali, Tony Hancock, and Beach Boy Brian Wilson would seem to have little in common. Their areas of physics, modern art, comedy, and rock music, are light years apart. So what, if anything, could possibly link minds that gave the world the theory of relativity, great surreal art, iconic comedy, and songs about surfing?
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Could we shut the net down?

Michael Brooks
New Scientist

Almost certainly not. Much of the infrastructure - the servers, cabling and satellites, and the internet service providers (ISPs) that run them - is in private hands. A government might be able to mandate that ISPs in their territory be shut down, but people could still receive data through satellite links controlled by companies not answerable to that government.

To extend that shutdown across national borders is barely conceivable. "One very powerful government could have strong effects on their own country, but it would be very difficult to do on a worldwide basis," says Milton Mueller of the international Internet Governance Project.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Spam levels plummet says McAfee

Ellen Messmer
Network World (US)

It may not seem like it but global spam volumes have dropped 20 percent for the first quarter this year according to McAfee's latest research on the topic.

The company attributed the dramatic reduction in spam to the November shutdown of the notorious McColo spam-generating site. In the McAfee Threat Report for the First Quarter 2009, the security firm said spam levels are still 30 percent below their peak seen in the third quarter of last year right before the shutdown of the rogue ISP McColo.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Crap Happens: A Grist Special Report on How We Dispose of Our Poop

Tom Twigg
Grist

Three hundred million Americans head to the restroom multiple times a day. The amount of sludge produced staggers the mine—7 million dry tons per year and counting. And it’s not even just crap—it contains residues from everything else we put down the drain, from the detergent in your dishwasher to the chemicals used at the industrial plant down the street.

Can the United States continue to flush all that waste down the drain? Can Western-style sanitary practices be replicated throughout the developing world without breaking the natural water and nutrient cycles?
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Pakistani Army Flattening Villages as It Battles Taliban

Saeed Shah
McClatchy Newspapers

The Pakistani army's assault against Islamic militants in Buner, in northwest Pakistan, is flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes, residents escaping the fighting said Monday.

"We didn't see any Taliban; they are up in the mountains, yet the army flattens our villages," Zaroon Mohammad, 45, told McClatchy as he walked with about a dozen scrawny cattle and the male members of his family in the relative safety of Chinglai village in southern Buner.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Revealed: the face of the first European

Steve Connor
Independent

35,000-year-old skull fragments found in Romania are made flesh by scientists

The face of the first anatomically-modern human to live in Europe has been revealed. It belonged to a man – or woman – who inhabited the ancient forests of the Carpathian Mountains in what is now Romania about 35,000 years ago
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Deadly Games

Camillo "Mac" Bica
Truthout

For several years now, the video game America's Army has ranked among the top ten online action games and has attracted more than nine million players who have participated in more than 380 million virtual "missions" from basic training to fighting the "War on Terrorism."

In recent years, America's Army has improved significantly, becoming even more sophisticated and desirable and expanding its application to console versions for Xbox and Xbox 360.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Dems About to Pass the Filibuster Barrier, But Why Should Having 60 Votes Matter?

Roy Ulrich
AlterNet

The word filibuster doesn't appear in any of our founding documents. How on earth did this take control of the legislative process?

The Electoral College is provided for in the United States Constitution. The filibuster is not. In fact, the word doesn't appear in any of our founding documents. Its derivation is from the Spanish filibustero, meaning "pirate" or "freebooter." In the legislative context, a filibuster is the use of delaying tactics to block legislation. It is a mechanism available only in the Senate.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Scandal, spin and cover-up: Secret Whitehall

Colin Brown
Independent

The ‘Smeargate’ affair is merely a footnote in its long history of scandal, spin and cover-up. The most famous street in British politics has always had a dark side.

It'll be small consolation to Gordon Brown, but the secrecy, smears and sleaze which have dogged his government in recent months have been part of the fabric of Whitehall for five centuries. Damian McBride is now a pariah figure at Westminster. But his attempts at the black arts were mild compared to the treachery of the man who gave his name to Downing Street.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Web providers must limit internet's carbon footprint, say experts

Bobbie Johnson
The Guardian

Soaring online demand stretching companies' ability to deliver content as net uses more power and raises costs

The internet's increasing appetite for electricity poses a major threat to companies such as Google, according to scientists and industry executives.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

US should give up Internet domain control says EU

Paul Meller
IDG News Service

The US should relinquish control of Internet governance said the European commissioner for Internet-related issues.Viviane Reding has called for a new multilateral approach once the current system expires at the end of September.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a private, not-for profit corporation established in California. It is responsible for some of the most sensitive issues related to Internet governance, such as top-level domains and management of the Domain Name System, which ensures that millions of computers can connect to each other.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Life may not be fair, but that's still no excuse for an unjust society

Will Hutton
The Observer

What's "fair"? Well, it's a concept that is horribly abused. Almost everybody seems to be complaining that they are the victims of some gross injustice, showing little sense of what fairness really means. It could be Michael Caine crying out that it's not fair that he has to pay a 50p tax rate to keep some layabout in bed.

Or it could be working-class voters tempted to vote BNP because they are outraged so many immigrants allegedly have automatic access to schools, housing and hospitals for which they haven't paid. Oh, it's all so unfair.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Palestinians try cheese-making and produce a fine pecorino

Dion Nissenbaum
McClatchy Newspapers

It's not exactly the romantic Italian countryside, but this tiny Palestinian sheep farm has become the unlikely headquarters for an unusual culinary experiment.

A small group of Italian agronomists is trying to transform this scruffy hilltop into the Palestinian Tuscany by setting up the West Bank's first Italian cheese factory.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Mutation fears grow after human gives virus to pig

Steve Connor
Independent

200 animals develop flu symptoms but none die on farm in Alberta, Canada

A pig farm in Canada has seen the first documented instance of swine flu being transmitted from humans back into animals, raising concerns that the H1N1 virus at the centre of the outbreak may mutate into a more virulent form.

A Canadian farm worker transmitted the H1N1 virus to the swine herd in Alberta after a trip to Mexico. About 200 pigs from a herd of more than 2,000 developed symptoms, but none have died, health officials said yesterday
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Why the Faithful Approve of Torture

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
The Washington Post

The more often you go to church, the more you approve of torture. This is a troubling finding of a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Shouldn't it be the opposite? After all, who would Jesus torture? Since Jesus wouldn't even let Peter use a sword and defend him from arrest, it would seem that those who follow Jesus would strenuously oppose the violence of torture. But, not so in America today.

Instead, more than half of people who attend worship at least once a week, or 54%, said that using torture on suspected terrorists was "often" or "sometimes" justified.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Two Berkshire towns plagued by rats which have become immune to poison

Telegraph

Two towns in Berkshire are suffering a rise in the rat population because vermin have developed near-immunity to standard poisons, pest control experts have warned.

The British Pest Control Association (BPCA) is calling on the Government to allow the use of more powerful pesticides to contain Britain's growing rodent population.

It is estimated that their numbers have swelled by 13 per cent in the past year to more than 50 million, one for every person living in England.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Atheists fight to keep God out of Irish law

Henry McDonald
The Observer

Campaigners seek to block legislation carrying hefty fines for blasphemy

A group that claims to represent the rights of atheists in Ireland has launched a campaign to expel God from the Irish constitution, starting with an attempt to block plans for a new blasphemy law.

Atheist Ireland, which is led by a Bono impersonator and the writer of a hit musical about Roy Keane's infamous World Cup tantrum, says the proposed legislation combines the oppressive religious thinking of 1950s Catholic Ireland and Islamic fundamentalism.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

More sugar in rusks than a chocolate digestive

Martin Hickman
Independent

Study finds 'healthy' baby foods contain 'staggering' levels of saturated fat

Some baby foods contain "staggering" amounts of sugar and fat that make them worse than junk food, according to a survey published today.

Farley's Original Rusks contain more sugar than McVities Chocolate Digestives, and Heinz Toddler Mini Cheese Biscuits have proportionately more saturated fat than a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Caught in the net

James Harkin
New Statesman

Whatever prophets of the net say, information for its own sake is not power. Power is power. The relentless gush of electronic information and invitations to offer feedback which now come our way can often obscure where real power lies

Thursday 26 March 2009, day 66 of Barack Obama’s presidency, may be remembered as the moment at which his clean-living administration went to pot. The occasion was the launch of Obama’s online town hall, Open for Questions, designed to build on the momentum of his net-fuelled campaign by inviting ordinary Americans to pose questions directly to their new leader.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Stonehenge protester King Arthur Pendragon defies eviction order

The Guardian

Druid formerly known as John Rothwell vows to continue with protest until Stonehenge is open to all

The druid protester King Arthur Pendragon defied a court order to leave Stonehenge this afternoon, vowing to continue his protest until the site is open to all.

Pendragon, formerly known as John Rothwell, set up camp on the edge of the site in June 2008 and faces eviction by Wiltshire council, which says he is blocking the public highway.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Fight to legalise iPhone jailbreaking goes to court

Robert McMillan
IDG News Service

Apple' is set for a legal battle as it takes on the jailbreakers. The US Copyright Office is considering whether to allow an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that would permit jailbreaking.

Vice President of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing Greg Joswiak put forward the Apple case, as the Copyright Office held the first in a series of hearings on possible exemptions to the nation's copyright law.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Defying the Economic Odds

Dilip Hiro
Tomdispatch.com

The World Melts Down, China Grows

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a new world order is emerging -- with its center gravitating towards China. The statistics speak for themselves. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the world's gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by an alarming 1.3% this year.

Yet, defying this global trend, China expects an annual economic growth rate of 6.5% to 8.5%. During the first quarter of 2009, the world's leading stock markets combined fell by 4.5%. In contrast, the Shanghai stock exchange index leapt by a whopping 38%. In March, car sales in China hit a record 1.1 million, surpassing the U.S. for the third month in a row.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Britain's estates are 'social concentration camps'

Emily Dugan
Independent

Three decades of failed policies have destroyed the life chances of millions living in public housing, says a devastating new report.

Millions of people have been condemned to live under "social apartheid" by 30 years of poor housing policies, a damning report on council estates will say this week.

The 107-page report, to be published on Friday, condemns successive governments for pushing poorer people into what it condemns as "social concentration camps" set away from private housing, jobs and shops.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

The future of energy

Zoe Cormier
Green Living Online

Betting on wave dragons, sea snakes, green crude, power kites and other cleantech innovations to fuel the planet.

Hydroelectric dams come with their own environmental collateral, crop-based ethanol turned out to be far from sustainable (and in some cases worse than fossil fuels), and the dream of the hydrogen economy remains elusive.

But newer and greener technologies arein development within the renewable energy sector, which is already seeing big growth in wind farms, solar power towers and other forms of clean energy.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

The Madmen did well

John Pilger
New Statesman

The first 100 days of Barack Obama’s presidency have shown him to be a marketing exec’s dream, a Marlboro Man for the Noughties – and little else.

The BBC’s American soap Mad Men offers a rare glimpse of the power of corporate advertising. The promotion of smoking half a century ago by the “smart” people of Madison Avenue, who knew the truth, led to countless deaths.

Advertising and its twin, public relations, became a way of deceiving dreamt up by those who had read Freud and applied mass psychology to anything from cigarettes to politics. Just as Marlboro Man was virility itself, so politicians could be branded, packaged and sold.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Premium rate operators must not abuse social network info, warns regulator

OUT-LAW

Premium rate phone companies must be careful not to abuse the personal data available on social networking sites when marketing their services, the premium-rate regulator has said.

PhonepayPlus (PPP) has said that premium rate services are increasingly being marketed on social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, but that companies must ensure that personal data published on the sites is not abused.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Wind farm's radar system stops birds getting the chop

Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian

Texas claims world first in using Nasa technology to spare migrating species

It could be considered an air traffic control system for birds who have flown perilously off course. A wind farm in southern Texas, situated on a flight path used by millions of birds each autumn and spring, is pioneering the use of radar technology to avoid deadly collisions between a 2,500lb rotating blade and bird.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Once Again, France Will Vote on Piracy

Eric Pfanner
International Herald Tribune

A French “three strikes” plan for digital piracy is getting its second chance.

As expected, the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy last week revived a proposal to crack down on online piracy by cutting off the Internet connections of people who ignored two warnings to stop unauthorized downloads of copyrighted movies and music.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

EU Should Help Close Guantanamo by Resettling Detainees

Human Rights Watch

US Attorney General Can Speed Process by Taking in Uighurs

European countries should help the Obama administration close the Guantanamo Bay prison by offering to resettle some detainees who face torture at home, Human Rights Watch said today. US Attorney General Eric Holder is in Europe this week to discuss Guantanamo resettlement and other issues.

"European countries have long called on the United States to close Guantanamo," said Stacy Sullivan, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Bling Dynasty: Enter the Dragon

Joshua Kurlantzick
Mother Jones

How China is picking over America's carcass.

Wang Jianxi is the picture of an investment banker—close-cropped hair, owlish glasses, crisp business suits. A vice president of Beijing's $200 billion state-controlled investment fund, he travels in the same rarefied circles as the men and women of Goldman Sachs, UBS, and other Western financial giants. In their company, he goes by "Jesse."

And like any savvy banker, Jesse knows the value of PR. As China Investment Corporation was getting off the ground in 2007, Wang hit the Western conference circuit to insist that the fund—governed by a group of senior Communist Party members—would have no political leanings. He cruised from one American think tank to the next, delivering lectures on the global economy, and even sat down one-on-one with Charlie Rose.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

An invention that could change the internet for ever

Andrew Johnson
Independent

Revolutionary new web software could put giants such as Google in the shade when it comes out later this month.

The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.

The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet's Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel

Rory McCarthy
The Guardian

Report increases pressure over displaced families but mayor says planning policy even-handed

The United Nations has called on Israel to end its programme of demolishing homes in East Jerusalem and tackle a mounting housing crisis for Palestinians in the city.

Dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem are demolished each year because they do not have planning permits. Critics say the demolitions are part of an effort to extend Israeli control as Jewish settlements continue to expand.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Why freeing Willy was the wrong thing to do

Catherine Brahic
New Scientist

Willy was never really free. The killer whale star of the Hollywood movie Free Willy had to be cared for by humans even after he was released and he never successfully integrated with his wild kin. Researchers now say attempts to return him to the wild were misguided.

"We believe the best option for [Willy] was the open pen he had in Norway, with care from his trainers," says Malene Simon of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, who participated in efforts to reintegrate the cetacean in the wild and is lead author of the study.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

Cannabis Cafes in Dutch Border Region to Go Members Only?

Stop The Drug War

All of the cannabis cafes in the Dutch border province of Limburg may be turned into members-only clubs in a bid to stop "drug tourism," the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant reported over the weekend. The proposal came from Gerd Leers, the mayor of Maastricht, the largest town in the province.

Limburg hosts 30 of the cannabis cafes, also known as coffee shops, that attract thousands of visitors from the less cannabis-friendly neighboring countries of France, Belgium and Germany each year.
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Wednesday May 06, 2009

The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy

Seth Sandronsky
Truthout

A bit like Malcom X, author Minqi Li used prison time to read widely. The latter studied radical political economy for two years when Chinese leaders locked him up for a critical public speech after the Tiananmen upsurge in 1989. That was then. He is an author and assistant professor of economics at the University of Utah now. Li's "The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy" is a must-read for all concerned with the future of the earth and its people.

Throughout the book, Li employs a term from world-system theorist Immanuel Wallerstein, the "endless accumulation of capital." That process has spread outward from Western Europe over the past four-plus centuries.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Cubist kitchen could stem gadget invasion

Paul Marks
New Scientist

Inventor James Dyson, best known for the bagless vacuum cleaner, now wants to compactify our kitchens.

In a US patent application filed last week, Dyson and his colleagues Peter Gammack and David Campbell describe a cunning way to save space on overcrowded kitchen worktops by radically changing the design of the gadgets that typically clutter them.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Kabul's new elite live high on West's largesse

Patrick Cockburn
Independent

'Gilded cage' lifestyle reveals the ugly truth about foreign aid in Afghanistan

Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Kiss the Era of Human Rights Goodbye

Karen Greenberg
TomDispatch.com

What Bush Willed to Obama and the World

These days, it's virtually impossible to escape the world of torture the Bush administration constructed. Whether we like it or not, almost every day we learn ever more about the full range of its shameful policies, about who the culprits were, and just which crimes they might be prosecuted for. But in the morass of memos, testimony, op-eds, punditry, whistle-blowing, documents, and who knows what else, with all the blaming, evasion, and denial going on, somehow we've overlooked the most significant victim of all.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

This Is Primarily a Crisis of Globalization

Hakim El Karaoui
Marianne2

The source of the crisis is stagnation in domestic demand.

Conventional wisdom today ascribes the 2008 crisis to a financial crisis caused, on the one hand, by the crisis in the American real estate market, especially that of the least-solvent households ("subprime"), and, on the other hand, by the excesses of eager and greedy financiers against a background of populist slogans such as "everyone a homeowner!"

As for the crisis' aggravation in 2009, that's supposedly due to the diffusion of the financial crisis into the "real economy," a truly odd expression if you think about it.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Telescopes that could see the future

Steve Connor
Independent

Scientists hope probes to be launched soon will help them predict how the Universe may end

A pair of space telescopes to be launched later this month will help to answer some of the biggest questions in the Universe – such as how did we get to where we are now, and where are we likely to end up.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

China cancels America's credit card

Press TV

China, wary of the troubled US economy, has 'canceled America's credit card' by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman says.

China has the world's largest foreign reserves, believed to be mostly in dollars, along with around 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds, more than any other country.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Dalai Lama's brain challenge produces split decision

Ewen Callaway
New Scientist

If you're going to challenge the Dalai Lama to a memory game, don't do it just after he's meditated. New research finds that meditation boosts visual memory, but only in the short term.

The findings counter the claims of some monks who say that years of practicing a meditation technique that centres on creating an elaborate mental picture of deities can offer long-lasting improvements in visual memory and processing.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

US general says Pakistan could be just two weeks from collapse

Isambard Wilkinson
Telegraph

There may be just two weeks left to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing Pakistan’s government, Gen David Petraeus, the commander of American forces in the region, has told officials.

American officials have watched with growing anxiety as Taliban fighters have strengthened their grip on north-western Pakistan.

Militants advanced to within 60 miles of Islamabad, the capital, last month and were pushed back only when the US put pressure on Pakistan to launch a counter-offensive.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

US Congress wants hack teams for self-penetration

Dan Goodin
The Register

While girding power grid

The United States Congress this week delved further into the country's cybersecurity preparedness as members introduced two bills designed to protect federal networks and electric power grids from attacks.

One bill, dubbed the US Information and Communications Enhancement Act of 2009, would mandate the formation of hacker teams that would actively try to penetrate government networks.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Use of police stop-and-search powers under terror law surges

Alan Travis
The Guardian

Claims that the police are misusing their stop-and-search powers under the anti-terror laws were voiced last night after the publication of official figures showing a surge in their use since summer 2007.

Ministry of Justice figures show that stop and searches under the controversial section 44 of the counter-terror legislation soared from 37,197 in 2006-07 to 117,278 in 2007-08.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

Angry farmers sabotage Chinese oil equipment in southern Iraq

Salah al-Rubai
Azzaman

Angry Iraqi farmers have grounded Chinese oil activities in southern Iraq to a halt, sources and residents said.

They said the farmers destroyed cables and pipelines the Chinese have extended over their farms.

It is the second incident in less than a week involving the Ahdab oil field which the China National Petroleum Corporation is developing.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

How Britons fuel destruction of the rainforest

Martin Hickman
Independent

British consumers are fuelling the rising demand for palm oil, speeding up the destruction of rainforests and killing off orangutans

A cooking oil that is driving the destruction of the rainforests, displacing native people and threatening the survival of the orangutan is present in dozens of Britain's leading grocery brands, an investigation by The Independent has found.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

The myth of Talibanistan

Pepe Escobar
Aisa Times

Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media - from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.

But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won't fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.

Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both.
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Tuesday May 05, 2009

What's Behind the Epidemic of Family-Killings? Could it Be Anti-Depressants?

Martha Rosenberg
AlterNet

Economic stress is usually blamed, but a bunch of government-approved psychoactive drugs have proven homicidal and suicidal side effects.

The late comedian Richard Pryor used to riff about a fictitious interview with a mass murderer.

"But why did you kill [gulp] everyone in the house?" asks the reporter.

"They was home."

Today it wouldn't be funny.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Bernie Madoff

Michael Moore
Time

Elie Wiesel called him a "God." His investors called him a "genius." But, proving correct that old adage from the country and western song, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.
Bernie Madoff, for at least 20 years, ran a Ponzi scheme on thousands of clients, among them the people you and I would consider the best and brightest.

Business leaders, celebrities, charities, even some of his own relatives and his defense attorney were taken for a ride (this has to be the first time a lawyer was hosed by the client).
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Monday May 04, 2009

Freedom from lice may have led to modern allergies

Debora MacKenzie
New Scientist

It is well established that intestinal parasites dampen mammalian immune reactions. But in a surprise result, scientists have found that another kind of parasite – the body louse – does too. That means the epidemic of allergic disorders in modern, urban people might be due to our having rid ourselves of lice and worms.

The "hygiene hypothesis" holds that our immune systems evolved to compensate for continual infections with parasitic gut worms, which secrete chemicals that reduce our immune responses.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Life-threatening disease is the price we pay for cheap meat

Johann Hari
Independent

Modern factory farms have created a 'perfect storm' environment for powerful viruses

A swelling number of scientists believe swine flu has not happened by accident. No: they argue that this global pandemic – and all the deaths we are about to see – is the direct result of our demand for cheap meat. So is the way we produce our food really making us sick as a pig?

At first glance, this seems wrong. All through history, viruses have mutated, and sometimes they have taken nasty forms that scythe through the human population.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Research spells the end of sleepy laptops

Agam Shah
IDG News Service

Laptops in 'sleep mode' that drain battery life could be soon something of the past after researchers at several US universities developed a technology that will instantly wake up laptops, even if they are in a shut-down state.

University researchers have built ferroelectric material - commonly found on smartcards - on silicon, which could allow certain transistors to retain information after power is shut off. Scientists from Pennsylvania State University, Cornell University and Northwestern University are involved in the research.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Self Repairing Polymers

Janice Karin
The Future Of Things

Researchers Biswajit Ghosh and Marek Urban at the University of Southern Mississippi are developing self-repairing polymers that will heal themselves upon exposure to sunlight. The new material is composed of scratch-resistant polyurethane, oxetane (OXE), and chitosan (CHI) - as the OXE bleeds out into nicks in the polyurethane, it chemically bonds with the CHI to fill the gap when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation such as sunlight.

This combination of components is the key to the self-repairing layer. Polyurethane is an elastic polymer that's already quite resistant to scratches, providing the first layer of protection.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Search and Seizure: Supreme Court Limits Police Car Search Powers

Stop The Drug War

A narrowly divided US Supreme Court Tuesday refused to expand police search powers at the expense of privacy rights, ruling that police cannot search a suspect's vehicle after the suspect has been detained and arrested absent probable cause. The 5-4 decision came in Arizona v. Gant.

In that case, Rodney Gant was a suspect in a drug investigation. As Tucson police surveilled a suspected drug house where they had come into contact with Gant earlier, Gant drove up and exited his vehicle.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Where are the net's dark corners?

Ben Crystall
New Scientist

There are plenty of places online that you would do well to steer clear of. A brief visit to some unsavoury websites, for instance, could leave your computer infected with worms or viruses. Then there are the "black holes" to worry about.

If your emails mysteriously disappear, or your favourite website is suddenly unobtainable, you might have run into one.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Climate countdown: Half a trillion tonnes of carbon left to burn

David Adam
The Guardian

To avoid dangerous climate change of 2C, the world can only burn another half a trillion tonnes of carbon, climate change experts warn

The world has already burned half the fossil fuels necessary to bring about a catastrophic 2C rise in average global temperature, scientists revealed today.

The experts say about half a trillion tonnes of carbon have been consumed since the industrial revolution. To prevent a 2C rise, they say, the total burnt must be kept to below a trillion tonnes. On current rates, that figure will be reached in 40 years.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Pothole 'every 120 yards' on Britain's roads

Jonathan Brown
Independent

Highways would take 15 years to repair

Whether there are now enough holes to fill the Albert Hall might never be known, but the number plaguing British roads has soared by 32 per cent since last year and the average road now boasts a pothole every 120 yards.

A report reveals that the condition of bitumen under local authority care has deteriorated in most regions beyond the benchmark of 4,000 holes endured by Blackburn motorists in John Lennon's 1967 song, "A Day in the Life".
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Monday May 04, 2009

Sexing It Up for the Bad Economy

Lily Blau
Sirens

When times get tough, women get… naked? Well, some do, and many others have started to consider it—for better or for worse.

It used to happen every six months or so. I would be on my way home from the restaurant where I work to make ends meet, smelling of salsa and coffee and the tequila I didn’t drink, and wondering how over the past 14 hours of horror I hadn’t even made $100. And then it would come to me, this pleasingly simple thought: Maybe I could be a stripper.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Enraged About Corporate Greed? Kidnap Your Boss

Christopher Ketcham
AlterNet

The French have taken to bossnapping -- "sequestering" their bosses while keeping them comfortable and safe -- to protest economic unfairness.

In answer to their own economic crisis, the French have taken up "bossnapping."

Here's how it works: An executive of a company, perhaps the CEO, stands before a group of his employees, puts his hands together, sighs, and then, with regret as smooth as brie, explains the fact that downsizing is needed to meet the exigencies of economic crisis (read: the preservation of profits in downturn).
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Monday May 04, 2009

Torturing for America

Thomas Darnstädt
Spiegel International

Barack Obama has released memos detailing torture methods approved by the Bush administration but has stopped short of punishing the perpetrators. His decision puts the US to the kind of test it has not seen since Vietnam or Watergate.

What should a president do about the crimes of his predecessor? Barack Obama had been "thinking about this for four weeks, really," says his advisor David Axelrod.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Tablet to treat multiple sclerosis seen as huge step forward

Denis Campbell
The Guardian

Campaigners for the 85,000 Britons with multiple sclerosis yesterday welcomed the emergence of a drug promising to greatly alleviate symptoms of the debilitating disease.

Trials of cladribine found that it offers significant benefit to the estimated 55,000 people who have relapsing-remitting MS, its commonest form, with alternating periods of good and bad health but a decline, sometimes into total paralysis, when the gaps between spells start to shorten.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Dozens of CIA "Ghost Prisoners" Missing

William Fisher
Inter Press Service

At least three dozen detainees who were held in the CIA's secret prisons overseas appear to be missing – and efforts by human rights organisations to track their whereabouts have been unsuccessful.

The story of these "ghost prisoners" was comprehensively documented last week by Pro Publica, an online investigative journalism group.

In September 2007, Michael V. Hayden, then director of the CIA, said, "fewer than 100 people had been detained at CIA's facilities." One memo released last week confirmed that the CIA had custody of at least 94 people as of May 2005 and "employed enhanced techniques to varying degrees in the interrogations of 28 of these."
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Monday May 04, 2009

Is a scientist's face proof that a £20 skin cream really gets rid of wrinkles?

Jeremy Laurance
Independent

It doesn't cost £400 a jar and arrive in a gold-embossed box decorated with pseudo-scientific jargon.

Instead, the £19.75 No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum can be found on the shelves of Boots – and as of today it becomes the first anti-ageing cream scientifically proven to eliminate wrinkles.
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Monday May 04, 2009

The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs

Arlen Specter
The New York Review of Books

In the seven and a half years since September 11, the United States has witnessed one of the greatest expansions of executive authority in its history, at the expense of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers.

President Obama, as only the third sitting senator to be elected president in American history, and the first since John F. Kennedy, may be more likely to respect the separation of powers than President Bush was. But rather than put my faith in any president to restrain the executive branch, I intend to take several concrete steps, which I hope the new president will support.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Who controls the internet?

Michael Brooks
New Scientist

The official answer is no one, but it is a half-truth that few swallow. If all nations are equal online, the US is more equal than others.

Not that it is an easy issue to define. The internet is, essentially, a group of protocols by which computers communicate, and innumerable servers and cables, most of which are in private hands. However, in terms of influence, the overwhelming balance of power lies with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, based in Marina Del Rey, California.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Clean, safe and a little bit dull... the world's most liveable cities

John Lichfield
Independent

Forget Paris, New York or London, the best places to settle no longer need to be happening – as Vienna proves

The songbook of the world's most likeable cities needs an urgent rewrite. "We will always have Dusseldorf"; "I love Zurich in the springtime"; "Tulips from Vancouver"; "Maybe it's because I'm a Frankfurter that I love Frankfurt so".

In a survey of the world's most liveable towns, published yesterday, European cities dominate but not the European cities that you might imagine. Paris comes only 33rd, between Adelaide and Brisbane. London comes 38th, jointly with Yokohama.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Detainees Can Pursue Suit Against CIA

Carol J. Williams
The Los Angeles Times

The US government cannot avoid trial by claiming the state secrets privilege in the lawsuit brought by ex-Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed and four others, who allege they were tortured.

The president cannot avoid trial of a lawsuit brought by five former CIA captives, who allege they were tortured, by proclaiming the entire case a protected state secret, a federal appeals panel ruled today.
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Monday May 04, 2009

No tuna, no salmon. No oysters, no skate. No cod and chips

Andrew Purvis
The Observer

Imagine a world without seafood for supper. It's nearer than you think.

As I step off the train at Heysel, in the shadow of the notorious football stadium, the vast art deco structure of the Palais du Centenaire rises like a cathedral. With its four soaring buttresses topped by statues, the Palais forms the centrepiece of the Parc des Expositions in Brussels - a trade-fair complex built in the 1930s to commemorate a century of independence from the Netherlands.

This is the temporary home of thousands of fish products from around the world as 23,000 delegates descend from 80 countries for the annual European Seafood Exposition - the world's largest seafood trade show and a grim reminder of man's dominion over the oceans.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Google offers tool to assess public data

Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)

Google is looking to make it easier for citizens to get a handle on public information such as government statistics. In a blog post, Ola Rosling, a Google product manager, said that the company had launched a new Google search feature designed to make it easier to find and compare public information.

"The data we're including in this first launch represents just a small fraction of all the interesting public data available on the web," wrote Rosling, noting that the data comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau's Population Division.
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Monday May 04, 2009

TV adverts for personal loans face ban

Martin Hickman
Independent

Advertising regulator to crackdown on 'irresponsible' lending offers

Television adverts that casually invite viewers to borrow thousands of pounds are to be banned in a crackdown on the £95bn loan industry, The Independent has learned.

The Advertising Standards Authority will use a new social responsibility code to stamp out reckless consumer credit promotions, consigning to history the tempting offer to "combine all your existing debts into one easy monthly payment", its chairman Lord Chris Smith said.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report

John Vidal
The Guardian

Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme study tells of profound changes to sea ice and permafrost, among others.

Arctic Ice

Extensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists.

In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Waterboarding the Rule of Law

Steve Weissman
Truthout

Asked what he thought of Western civilization, the nonviolent Mahatma Gandhi famously replied, "I think it would be a good idea." Unless millions of Americans now demand better, we can say the same of "the rule of law." What a good idea it would have been, but - like the tooth fairy - it will not exist, not when competing priorities get in the way. The balancing - and trimming - is well on its way.

Should a special prosecutor hold Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld accountable for violating the law against torture when they specifically authorized waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and sexual humiliation of detainees?
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Monday May 04, 2009

De Guatemala a Guatepeor - or - Out of the frying pan, into the fire

Peter Costantini
Huffington Post

When I asked Juan Us Tiquiram, "How was the trip from Guatemala?" he replied: "Well, I made it. The idea is to get here to the United States. And it went well since I got here."

Us, a middle-aged construction worker from the Quiché region, had traveled north two years ago seeking work to support his family in Guatemala City. Behind the stoicism of his answer lies a brutal double gauntlet that Central Americans have to run on the road north.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Samsung announces Android phone

Dan Nystedt
IDG News Service

Samsung has become the first major mobile phone maker to launch a smartphone based on Google's Android software.

The South Korean company has introduced the I7500, which sports a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera and 8GB of internal memory. It's 11.9 millimetres thick. The phone will be available in major European countries starting from June, the company said.
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Monday May 04, 2009

How a Tiny Parasite Helped Shape History

Sonia Shah
AlterNet

Malaria has played a huge role in our past.

Last weekend, the mosquitoes emerged from the narrow stream that trickles by our house outside Baltimore, flitting around the ankles of my 9-year-old son, skipping stones with his pants rolled up to his knees.

These days, it's just a benign sign of warmer months to come, but it wasn't always so.
Not too long ago, the local Anopheles mosquitoes -- like dozens of mosquito species around the world today -- were just as likely to slip in a few Plasmodium parasites with their itchy bites, roiling their victims with the chills and fever named after the Italian for bad air, mal'aria.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Sacha Baron Cohen: The men in his life

Guy Adams
Indepenent

His latest alter ego, a gay Austrian fashionista, is already hailed as a work of genius. But can Sacha Baron Cohen ever just be himself?

They didn't know, the Alabama National Guard. Never realised that allowing a German documentary-maker into their high-security training camp 65 miles east of Birmingham would go so wrong.
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Monday May 04, 2009

Bin Laden could be dead, whereabouts unknown: Zardari

Zeeshan Haider
Reuters

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday that the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden remained a mystery and there was a suspicion that he could be dead.

Speaking to international media, Zardari said U.S. officials had told him that they had no trace of the al Qaeda chief, although they habitually say he is most likely in Pakistan.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

Eat this cake and face a £200 fine

Deborah Cohen
The Guardian

A growing number of websites and NHS schemes offer cash incentives to get you healthy - or penalties should you fail.

Would having to give a large sum of money to charity each time you light a cigarette help you stop smoking? Or would knowing that each week you fail to shed any fat will result in you donating funds to George Bush's presidential library and museum be enough to make you lose weight?
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Saturday May 02, 2009

Cost of stealing company data? One slap-up meal

Carrie-Ann Skinner
PC Advisor

You think you can trust your work colleagues? According to just-released research more than one third of employees would steal sensitive company information if they thought they could earn a decent price from the theft.

The research, commissioned by Infosecurity Europe, revealed that of those willing to steal sensitive data, 63 percent would expect at least £1m for their troubles, while 10 percent would want enough to pay off their mortgage. Worryingly, 2 percent admitted all they'd want in return for data theft was a slap-up meal.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

How your search queries can predict the future

Jim Giles
New Scientist

Real-time web search – which scours only the latest updates to services like Twitter – is currently generating quite a buzz because it can provide a glimpse of what people around the world are thinking or doing at any given moment. Interest in this kind of search is so great that, according to recent leaks, Google is considering buying Twitter.

The latest research from the internet search giant, though, suggests that real-time results could be even more powerful – they may reveal the future as well as the present.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Robert Bryce
Counterpunch

The ethanol scammers have no shame. None. And neither does the ethanol industry’s new hired gun, General Wesley Clark.

Last week, the EPA announced that it was considering raising the volume of ethanol that could be blended into gasoline from the current limit of 10% to as much as 15%. The agency is reacting to a petition from the pro-ethanol trade group, Growth Energy, a recently formed group that has hired Clark to be its spokes-general. More on Clark in a moment.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

Swine Flu: What You Need to Know

Brandon Keim
Wired

Since the first reports in early April of several unusual cases of flu in Mexico’s Veracruz state, the world has been increasingly transfixed by the outbreak of a highly contagious and potentially lethal new type of influenza. Here’s a Wired.com primer on what you need to know about H1N1, or swine flu:

Approximately 1,600 cases have been reported so far in Mexico, and 103 people have died. Not all the cases have been officially confirmed, but it’s believed that the same virus strain is responsible. Many of those who died were between the ages of 25 and 45.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

Polish pianist stops show with anti-US tirade

Andrew Gumbel
The Guardian

Krystian Zimerman, the great Polish concert pianist, is usually a man of few words. He doesn't, as a rule, talk to the audience during performances. He says little or nothing in the press between his all-too-rare concert tours - not even about his habit of travelling everywhere with his own Steinway grand piano. He rarely grants them the pleasure of an encore.

So he triggered more than the usual rumble of discomfort when he raised his voice in the closing stages of a recital at Los Angeles' Disney Hall on Sunday night and announced he would no longer perform in the United States in protest against Washington's military policies.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

Scrap ID cards now, say Cabinet rebels

Nigel Morris and Colin Brown
Independent

Controversial £5 billion scheme should be sacrificed to ease public spending crisis

Senior cabinet ministers are privately discussing a plan to scrap the Government's £5bn identity cards programme as part of cuts to public spending, The Independent has learnt.

The ministers believe that some "sacred cows" will have to be sacrificed in the effort to reduce Britain's debt mountain. They are raising fresh questions over the future of the ID card programme as the Cabinet faces renewed pressure to find economies beyond a promised £9bn in "efficiency savings".
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Saturday May 02, 2009

Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Patrick Cockburn
Counterpunch

"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq. It was the team led by Major Alexander [a named assumed for security reasons] that obtained the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq.

Zarqawi was then killed by bombs dropped by two US aircraft on the farm where he was hiding outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006. Major Alexander said that he learnt where Zarqawi was during a six-hour interrogation of a prisoner with whom he established relations of trust.
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Saturday May 02, 2009

'Panic Can Spread More Quickly Than Swine Flu'

Spiegel International

With the first case of swine flu confirmed in Europe, the world is gripped by fear of a global pandemic. German newspapers on Monday examine the measures taken to contain the disease and some warn against the spread of panic.

With more than 100 people dead in Mexico and almost 30 infected in the US and Canada, the threat of a flu pandemic is gripping the world. Although there had been hopes that the emergency could be contained to the North American continent, Europe saw its first confirmed case on Monday.
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