International News Jan. 2007 to March 2008
(Posts under content list. Scroll down. posts from previous older blog that would not allow transfer. BB)
• Mar. 7, 2008 – The Difference Between Them and Us. China and the United States
Jan. 22, 2008 – Hold On To Your Hat! Stock Markets around the world
• Dec. 27, 2007 – 21st. Century Plague (bird flu)
• Jan. 21, 2008 – Asians Have No Confidence in “Stimulus Package” (Economy)
Jan. 21, 2008 – “Drunk in a Bankrupt World”? Jest maybe we are! (economy)
• Dec. 4, 2007 – Iran Stopped it’s Nuclear Program? I’m Not buying that!
• Nov. 19, 2007 – Say No to Nuclear Weapons? Say What!?
• Sep. 16, 2007 – The Green Team can Rest Easy about New Bomb (Russia’s new bomb)
• Aug. 18, 2007 – Beware: The Axis of Evil is Growing. (Iran and China)
• Jun. 22, 2007 – Changing Attitudes at the United Nations?
• Jun. 22, 2007 – Changing Attitudes at the United Nations?
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News (News You Might Have Missed From Around the World and comments)
• Feb. 1, 2007 – To Russia With a Load of Much Needed Love and Compassion (AIDS)
• Jan. 29, 2007 – Of Interest at Yahoo: Women’s brains, New humanoid, How tough women compete, Melting glaciers
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• Mar. 7, 2008 – The Difference Between Them and Us.
“The diversion of water to Beijing for the Olympics and for big hydropower projects threatens the lives of millions of peasant farmers in China’s north-western provinces, according to a senior Chinese government official.”
• Jan. 22, 2008 – Hold On To Your Hat!
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• Jan. 22, 2008 – Hold On To Your Hat!
Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate as Global Markets Drop
Federal Reserve cuts rate by three-fourths of a percent, responding to global stock sell-off and a growing sense of crisis in financial markets.”
Bernanke also want the incentive monies to go to low and moderate income workers. This is the best plan IMO if money is going to be given away and the deficit increased because it is a certainty that these people will spend the money. BB
“A Global Selloff
January 22, 2008; Page A18
“What was that about “decoupling”? There has been lots of hopeful talk in recent months that European and Asian economies are starting to free themselves from dependence on growth in the U.S. Well, not so fast. Yesterday’s rout in global stocks showed once again that as America goes, so goes the rest of the global economy.
The economies of Europe and Asia continue to be tightly bound to America’s. Taking goods and services together, the European Union and U.S. account for the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world, illustrating their economic interdependence and common risks. Europe’s well-developed financial system has already shown it isn’t immune to U.S. subprime contagion, which is also contributing to investor jitters.”
“Yesterday’s selloff suggests that Europe and Asia are in for a bumpy ride as the U.S. economy tries to right itself. Traders in those markets apparently don’t have any more faith than we do in the “temporary” stimulus packages being discussed in Washington. All the more reason for policy makers to seek their own pro-growth policies, not least by continuing their attempts at tax, labor and financial reform. That’s especially true of countries that rely heavily on exports. It’s time to focus on policies that can create more domestic prosperity.”
• Jan. 21, 2008 – Asians Have No Confidence in “Stimulus Package”
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• Jan. 21, 2008 – Asians Have No Confidence in “Stimulus Package”
Why won’t the stimulus package work as it should with people pouring the money back into the economy by spending? Because the wrong people will get the “tax rebate” that is proposed. The tax payers will get the rebate and are the people who are just as likely to save the money as spend it. The low income masses (60% of the working population) who pay little or no income taxes and who would certainly spend the money won’t get a cent. This is after all an election year and tho the Democratic candidates are yelling for a wholesale give away they feel safe in doing so because they know that Congress will not take this step and alienate the voters. (middle class tax payers are more likely to vote that low income people)
Now don’t take this that I personally am in favor of a huge give away program to low income people because I am not at all. I am for Congress making drastic and immediate cuts in spending. Or at the very least to “freeze” spending on non-essentials like all the ear marks and new weapons systems and other things we can well do without for a time. This message will resonate in the rest of the world to our benefit. There will be a recession in the United States because of cuts government spending causing lay offs and hardship to those industries dependent on government spending, but it will encourage the rest of the world, and especially the Asians, to continue investing in the United States thus giving our economy time to adjust.
You see we and Europe depend on the Asian Markets to hold up our economies by 1) sending us cheaper goods due to cheaper labor costs, and 2) investing their excess profits in our economies. But the fact is that the Asians do not need to deal with the United States or Europe because there is enough trading within the Asian block countries to sustain them. (“Some analysts predict that Asia won’t suffer dramatically from a U.S. recession because increased trade and investment within Asia has made the region less reliant on the United States than in the past. Excluding Japan, 43 percent of Asia’s exports go to other nations in the region, Lehman Brothers calculates, up from 37 percent in 1995.”) So they are dumping these US investments as fast as they can. Look for Wall Street to panic when the market opens tomorrow. MLK Day has given us a one day reprieve.
The following article gives more detail and uses the appropriate terminology, but my blue-collar assessment of the situation says pretty much the same thing. BB
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Headlines: Stock markets plunge worldwide
By TOBY ANDERSON, AP Business Writer
LONDON “Stocks fell sharply worldwide Monday following declines on Wall Street last week amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government’s stimulus plan to prevent a recession.”
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It certainly looks to be inevitable now that we are in deep doo doo, and that the Europeans are following their Asian counterparts in having lost faith in our government’s ability to pull us out of a recession. Or, rather probably the truth is worse than that and they have followed most Americans in having lost faith that Congress can do anything but point and shout at the other party. BB
Breaking News Alert The New York Times Monday, January 21, 2008 -- 12:11 PM ET ----- Headline: Stock Markets in Europe Plunge 7 Percent "Stocks fell steeply in Europe on Monday after sharp overnight declines in Asia, reacting to fears that an American recession was unavoidable and would crimp global growth. The DAX index in Germany closed off 7.16 percent and the CAC 40 in France lost 6.83 percent. British stocks fared slightly less badly; the FTSE 100 lost 5.48 percent. United States financial markets are closed today; Canadian and Mexican stocks were off sharply at midday."
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• Jan. 21, 2008 – “Drunk in a Bankrupt”? Jest maybe we are!
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Jan. 21, 2008 – “Drunk in a Bankrupt World”? Jest maybe we are!
Headlines: Drunk in a Bankrupt World
This story may explain the tumble in the Asian markets Monday. It is well written and interesting reading. Mr. Chan Akya theorizes that five events that took place last week put the real jinks on the US economy. At first when you read the excerpt below you will say, “No way!” “How in the Hell does he figure these things fit together?” But read the story and then decide. He makes sense. Or at least more sense than anyone else I have read. BB Chan Akya says, “….politicians and central bankers are stumbling around aimlessly blaming any convenient target for the problems faced by their constituents. They need some help in connecting the dots; here then is an attempt towards the objective. In this article, I will examine the common thread running between five different stories that surfaced this week:
1) Mounting credit losses and attendant capital raising by US banks.
2) The World Bank’s most recent acknowledgment of the corruption that plagues most of its projects, this time involving healthcare projects in India.
3) China’s further tightening of lending conditions at its commercial banks even as it announces explicit price curbs on key food and other products.
4) The launch in India of the world’s cheapest car.
• Dec. 27, 2007 – 21st. Century Plague
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• Dec. 27, 2007 – 21st. Century Plague
WHO confirms human-to-human bird flu case
GENEVA (Reuters), “The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday a single case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in Pakistan but said there was no apparent risk of it spreading wider.”
Bird Flu virus has finally mutated into a form that can be transmitted from human to human. Of course we have all known this was coming, and we can all be certain the assurance the World Health Organization gives above in the quote is hog wash. In the world of the twenty first century there is simply no way to contain any communicable disease. And this one has the potential of being deadly to tens of millions of the world’s population.
When it begins to spread expect a total breakdown in any sort of civil order or humanity. Governments will be helpless to control their populations from mass murders of anyone suspected of carrying the disease, riots, wholesale burnings of entire cities and of course people trying to flee. But in this case there simply won’t be anywhere to run to.
Of course I hope I am wrong. However, medical personnel have been expecting this for two decades now. Our over use of antibiotics have created ‘monster germs’. As quickly as new effective defenses against new viruses are developed they become compromised by over use. People refuse to allow relatively minor diseases to run their course, but instead run to a doctor and demand a shot or handful of pills to get rid of it right now. Well this time it doesn’t appear so far that any immediate cure is going to surface since scientists have been working on it for several years now with no success.
Nowhere to run to. BB
• Dec. 4, 2007 – Iran Stopped it’s Nuclern Program? I’m Not buying that!
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• Dec. 4, 2007 – Iran Stopped it’s Nuclear Program? I’m Not buying that!
This action is simply not in agreement with the character of the Middle Eastern power figures mind set, as I understand them. They want power and they want to dominate not only the Middle East but the world. What would give them this power? You better believe it is nuclear weapons! With their finger on the true WMD their goals of world domination are well in reach.
The world at large feels it can deal with most countries leaders who have the nuclear powers at their disposal because most are rising in the world of trade and using that avenue to world domination. China is the primary example of this. They don’t want to cut off the head of the golden goose who buys their goods.
Some have lunatics at the head of their government such as North Korea, but even lunatics can be dealt with and reasoned with. They don’t believe in a hereafter so their goals of gaining power on the world stage are rooted in the here and now.
The religious fanatics of the Muslim world however are an entirely different matter. They do believe very strongly in a hereafter and it is their goal to come out as top dogs in this new and glorious and everlasting paradise that Mohammed and Allah has promised them. So why when they are so close should they give up their goals?
No, I am not buying into the latest from Washington’s intelligence community. My question however remains large: Why? BB
• Nov. 19, 2007 – Say No to Nuclear Weapons? Say What!?
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• Nov. 19, 2007 – Say No to Nuclear Weapons? Say What!?
Thank Goodness for the 37% who expressed some semblance of sanity. May they continue to hold the cards in their steady hands. If they do we in the United States just may survive the madness in the world after all. BB
• Sep. 16, 2007 – The Green Team can Rest Easy about New Bomb
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070911/78058645.html
I ran across this article while browsing and just could not believe what I was reading.
“Russia has tested a thermobaric bomb that is the most powerful in the world, a top military official said Tuesday.
Known as a vacuum bomb, it uses a fuel-air explosive and can create overpressures equal to an atomic bomb, said Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
“It is environmentally friendly, compared to a nuclear bomb, and it will enable us to ensure national security and at the same time stand up to international terrorism in any part of the globe and in any situation,” he said.”
Wow! That sure takes a load of worry off my shoulders knowing that the Russians now have an “environmentally friendly” bomb!
• Aug. 18, 2007 – Beware: The Axis of Evil is Growing.
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• Aug. 18, 2007 – Beware: The Axis of Evil is Growing.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20070817/bs_ibd_ibd/2007817issues01
I believe the following quotes from this article tells the whole story and it scares the stuffing’s out of me. The actions of this groups is especially significant, or should be significant, in view of the articles I have been blogging on concerning the United State’s indebtedness to the world and especially China. Recall how England was stopped by the United States (Eisenhower) in the 1950’s in an invasion of the Suez they felt necessary because they were so deeply indebted to us? This street named Indebtedness Hammerlock goes both ways, only today the stakes are much, much higher. I am not sure what you or I can do about any of this, but read, weep and at least understand what is happening and what is at stake. BB
“Geopolitics: Iran’s Ahmadinejad condemns U.S. missile defense plans in Europe at a meeting of a group seen as the anti-NATO. Then the group’s founders hold a joint military exercise. Is another evil empire in the offing?
Echoing a charge by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. seeks global dominance, Ahmadinejad called the sites a threat to the region. “These intentions,” he said, “go beyond just one country. They are a concern for much of the continent, Asia and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) members.” We hope so.”
“Iran’s involvement in the group is interesting and ominous. Ahmadinejad, like his Russian and Chinese counterparts, opposes U.S. efforts at missile defense, largely because it would thwart the fruits of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. Indeed, the defense sites in Europe are designed to deal with the Iranian threat.”
“On Aug. 17, some 6,000 troops from Russia and China, with a handful from the other SCO members, conducted their first ever joint military exercises on Russian soil. The war games coincided with a massive Russian Air Force exercise in which dozens of Russian strategic bombers were dispatched over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. What that had to do with fighting terrorists escapes us.”
“Putin, Chinese leader Hu Jintao and other leaders of the SCO nations attended the exercise, which followed the Thursday summit. A statement issued by the group advised: “Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations.” In other words: Keep off the grass.”
“This is all the more reason why the United States should proceed at full speed with deploying missile interceptors and tracking radars in Poland and the Czech Republic. Congress should also fully fund the airborne laser program (ABL). The administration asked for $549 million for ABL in the 2008 budget. The request was cut by $200 million in the Senate and by $250 million in the House.”
“On July 9, the ABL was tested successfully, with a modified Air Force 747-F actively locating and tracking a target through atmospheric distortion and hitting it with its lasers A few of those patrolling the skies over Iraq and the Persian Gulf would send Tehran and its friends in the SCO a message they need to hear.”
• Jun. 22, 2007 – Changing Attitudes at the United Nations?
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• Jun. 22, 2007 – Changing Attitudes at the United Nations?
“U.N.’s Ban faults rights council over Israel
By Patrick Worsnip Wed Jun 20, 7:51 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Western nations on Wednesday in criticizing the world body’s own Human Rights Council for picking on Israel as part of an agreement on its working rules.
The European Union, Canada and the United States had already attacked the singling-out of Israel’s role in the occupied Palestinian territories for continued special investigation, under the deal reached in Geneva on Monday.
A U.N. statement said: “The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.”
Maybe there is some hope that that building in New York that American tax dollars support disproportionately contains a decent human being or two. BB
• Jun. 20, 2007 – A Lesson in Hypocracies.
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• Jun. 20, 2007 – A Lesson in Hypocrisies.
By Victor Davis Hanson
One enduring truth is that when barbaric means that destroy a culture of civilization’s trappings and rule of law in order to change from one groups having the power to govern to another groups having the power the destruction will always undermine the aggressors success. In brief, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
In this essay Victor Hanson addresses this ages old lesson that has never been learned by mankind. In ages past when cultures were isolated, people illiterate and communication between groups non-existent perhaps it could be understood, if not forgiven, that groups would war against each other with violent force and destruction. But for these same practices to be taking place in the 20th. and 21st. centuries is beyond rational explanation. Stupid, unintelligent, unthinkable, obtuse are all adjectives that apply, but then in this case simply are not profound enough. And yet the practice continues to this day.
The United States and England, and a few other countries with small involvement, destroyed Iraq in order to take power from an unstable dictator, who may or may not have had ties to terrorist groups who had attacked the United States and Great Britain and most European nations. Terrorist have their roots in less stable countries in the Middle East and Asia but it was believed by our governments that Iraq was the most active supporter of terrorism. These two countries, the United States and England’s, first wave of battle was to use the air forces to destroy the infrastructure of the country before sending in the ground troops to attack the Iraqi Army. The argument would be of course that it had to be done in order to get Saddam Hussein out while saving as many lives as possible. Destroying the infrastructure of the country would immobilize Saddam’s Army. And sadly I have no doubt that in this case it was true and this mad man and dictator had to be ousted because he was a threat to world stability. Our governments, both England and the United States knew before hand that they would have to quickly replace and/or repair what had been destroyed in order to stabilize the Iraqi nation, and were prepared to do this. The re-builders were in fact following in the footsteps of the Armies. However we were not permitted to complete our mission and plans for rebuilding the country before the barbarian mentality and terrorist methods of the defeated group( the Sunnis) who were in power under Saddam in Iraq halted and destroyed any progress towards rebuilding that was being made. These Iraqi people themselves continued to destroy their own country in a deadly civil war determine to retain their power over other ethnic and religious groups in their country rather than back a combined democratic government of all the groups for the good of all the people. The most virulent group were the Sunnis who invited terrorist and Jihadist in to help them gain control of the country.
Now the Sunni have found themselves trying to exist in a cesspool of self inflicted destruction of all the necessities of a civilized life, and self incurred hatred from the other people’s in Iraq who having been made to suffer from their bombs and hatred are not ready to forgive and accept them now into the democratic process and government. The Sunni also found themselves being attacked by those they invited in as allies against their fellow countrymen. Finally realizing their mistakes they have joined forces with the United States in the western territories of Iraq to defeat and throw the terrorist from their homeland. The question is: is it too little too late? Will the other Iraqis, the Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north, share their country and oil wealth with the Sunni? The oil is primarily located in the north and the south with the poorest area being the area populated mainly by Sunnis. This remains to be seen. My guess from the past experiences with these people is that they will not accept the Sunnis, and so there will continue to be a civil war for decades waged between the groups and each side will allow terrorist from other countries back in to help defeat the other groups.
Hanson then turns his attention to the Palestinian Gaza and what is happening there now that they could possibly have had a state of their own but two different groups wanted power and the old destructive ways of terrorism were used again.
“For years Fatah and Palestinian authority-sanctioned terrorists themselves have undermined civil society by torturing, murdering, and bombing innocents. It was accepted by them that the laws of civilization–due process, exemption of civilians from attacks, and the rule of law–did not apply to Yasser Arafat’s government that was as corrupt as it was savage. If you ever were in need of dialysis after you blew up the local clinic and shot the doctors, you could always cross the border to the nearby Zionist entity for treatment.”
But suddenly such Fatah terrorists are being out-terrorized by an even more barbaric Hamas, whose thugs have even looted the Nobel Peace Prize given Arafat. What barbarians! Where is the law?”
“So now the outgunned Fatah gangsters are suddenly crying about the uncivilized evils of looting, gangs, and random killings. Just as ………… (Hamas) insurrectionists destroying civil society, so Fatah once erased civilization’s protocols on the presumption that no one else would dare do to them what they routinely did to others. How bizarre that Arafat’s followers of all people are reduced to appealing to international norms of decency and legality to avoid their utter destruction in Gaza by Hamas.”
Hanson goes on in his article to warn other groups who are making use of terrorism and destruction to gain their means of this age old lesson. The Sunnis are now reaping what they sowed. The Palestinian people now are reaping what they have sowed. He tells the Muslims who have fled to European countries and the United States to look and listen and learn before they travel any further down the path they have place their feet upon in the adopted countries.
“ Middle Eastern and North African Muslims flock to Europe to enjoy a chance at tolerance and freedom long denied at home. But no sooner have many arrived than they slur their adopted continent as decadent, and chose instead to live by a de facto intolerant code of Sharia Law. Only in a free West do these immigrants have the opportunity of denying the free choice of association and lifestyle to their fellow Muslims. And yet if the West were to adopt their own Middle East nihilism, it would eventually itself devolve into a Libya, Syria, or Egypt. Then disenchanted, but unrepentant Muslim immigrants would desperately search for some new West that they could once again both simultaneously enjoy and destabilize.”
Hanson reminds Mexico to “do unto others……” before they themselves fall prey to the fruits they are sowing. The Mexican economy counts on the billions sent home by the illegal aliens coming into the United States. The government has even published a comic book telling their people how best to break their and our laws and cross the borders safely. But they have the problem of immigrants crossing their southern borders from even more desperately poor countries.
“In response, Mexico’s policy toward illegal immigrants on its southern border is as brutal as America’s is humane. Violators are often summarily deported–if they are not first robbed by Mexican officials or beaten and killed by criminal gangs. Mexicans may lecture Americans about our purported sins in trying to secure our border, but they don’t seem to care what their own government does to Guatemalans. Again, the irony arises that a government that has abandoned the rule of international law suddenly is worried that another country may be doing to it what it does to others.”
Where will it all end? When will we ever learn? BB
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• Apr. 2, 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News
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• Apr. 2, 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News
“Once again, the newly minted United Nations Human Rights Council has proven itself to be just as cynical and useless as the UN Commission on Human Rights it replaced last year.”
I hardly expected anything else. Did anyone else? The United Nations is the most expensive white elephant in the world. The United States should totally drop out and let the ineffective monster collapse.
Tokyo, Japan: Japan’s Textbooks Reflect Revised History (New York Times Sunday, April 1, 2007) ” Tokyo March 31, 2007 In another sign that Japan is pressing ahead in revising its history of World War II, new high school textbooks will no longer acknowledge that the Imperial Army was responsible for a major atrocity in Okinawa, the government announced late Friday. “
“The Ministry of Education ordered publishers to delete passages stating that the Imperial Army ordered civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa, as the island was about to fall to American troops in the final months of the war.”
This is no surprise. The Japanese have refused to acknowledge their culpability in WWII always. They have in fact never even acknowledged defeat. The only aspect of WWII they do accept is the US dropping the Atom bomb on their cities. They are a strange people. Everything they have and are is due to the United States rebuilding their cities and their culture after the war instead of placing blame, and yet what we have accomplished is to allow them to fool themselves into believing it all never happened. Before their defeat in WWII they were a totally controlled people whose belief the emporer was a God allowed for no independent thought. These serious and highly intelligent people were repressed to the point of inhumanity in carrying out the wishes of their emporer. An inhumanity that they are yet too traumatized to recognize beyond denying. Perhaps in time future generations will forgive their ancesters inhuman behaviors under the dictatorship of the God emporer and thus accept the massive amounts of historical data concerning the war.
A Past Feautured story AT WAR
Life and Death
Western guilt blinds us to the nature of Islamic extremism.
BY SHELBY STEELE Sunday, August 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT article is well worth another read. The White races quilt flourishes around the world, not just here in G’boro. When will we learn that spreading modernity and bringing the rest of the world into the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries was our destiny. Or, fate? It was impossible for Europe to develop without exploring, and yes exploiting, the entire world. But the White race brought more than they took ultimately; so why the guilt? No answer to that. It is merely a fact.
• Apr. 1, 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News
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• Apr. 1, 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News
Mr. Putin is of course warning against this as it will start a new round of the arms race. As if the first one ever stopped. Only thing different is that now the world has a few more players.
Washington: “Overfishing of sharks makes scallops vanish: study” By wiping out one of the oceans big bad guys we have left one of the “hoods” they normally feed on alone to propagate. Rays and Skates are increasing in the North Atlantic waters as the sharks decline. Now the over populated rays and skates are eating up all of the Bay scallops and oysters.
Since “hoods” are normally very crafty the ray and skates will start looking for prey that is a little harder to get to like having to dig for buried shell fish and coming in closer to the coast and raiding the wetland which are the ocean’s nursery.
There might be a lesson in this: Could it be that the oceans like society need a bad guy to Hate and blame, and very much needed to keep the not so bad guys in line? And in this way they rather entertain each other ignoring the rest of us as we go our mundane way.
Greensboro or there abouts: A new blog is getting much attention and no end of comments and laughs. Effed Up is apparently being done by someone not too fond of Ed. Or it could be Ed himself since I understand he is willing to do most anything to get his numbers up, and negative advertising works too. At any rate some fun to be had, so for you who like me have been behind the 8 ball for the past week or so and not heard about it, take a peek.
Russia: It will be interesting to see what Putin does this year at the end of his two terms. Russia’s new constitution allows a leader only two terms. Will he finally come out of the closet and declare himself the dictator I believe him to be, or will he merely “allow” others to be elected and rule from behind. The latter is chancy because there is no telling when the people will vote against him and his puppet which would then lead to bloody battles in the streets. No, I think Mr. Putin will play on the immense popularity he has right now and have that portion of the constitution written out of the contract so he can continue to be “elected” by the people. BB
• Mar. 31, 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News
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• Mar. 31, 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News
Baghdad: Iraqi death toll reaches 400 in the last three days. The insurgents and sectarian militias are fighting each other for dominance now that the Democrats have passed a Iraq1 funding bill to which has been attached a time table for US retreat from Iraq. Of course American soldiers are being caught in the middle and have become the target for both sides. This is of course what the Democrats were warned would happen if thy put a date on leaving. Things will only escalate from this point. (sigh).
Dayton, Ohio: Military to use bomb-sniffing robots. 70% of American casualties in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs. There are over 5000 robots in Iraq and Afghanistan which soldiers use to search in caves and buildings, to detect mines and to find roadside and car bombs. But up to this point the only means of detecting the bombs was with the robot’s camera. The “Fido” robot will actually be able to detect the odor of the explosives used to make the bomb. The iRobot Corporation is making the first 100 for the military at their facilities in Dayton, Ohio and will be shipping them to Iraq in the next few months.
BBC News, London: It seems Iran tried to make a deal to let the 15 sailors they captured they claimed in their waters for the 5 Iranians the US caught in Iraq. Bush and Blair said no deal.
Afghan’-southern Pakistani border: Dozens die’ in Pakistan fighting Tribesmen from the partially autonomous southern Waziristan region which butts up against Afghanistan are apparently backing the government and throwing the militants fighting for al-Qaeda out of their part of Pakistan. This is the mountainous terrain where these terrorist have been hiding from US troops.
Washington, DC: Nancy Pelosi, “the jet is not big enough” Democrat Speaker of the House is jetting off to Syria early next week. Syria is neighbors of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon and is suspected of having the WMD’s that belonged to Saddam. Syria has also been a major player in the insurgency in Iraq. Provoked Ebola a safe harbor during the Israeli Lebanon War and is sitting with Iran like a big spider waiting for the Iraqi Sunnis and shia to weaken each other and for the Americans to get out so the two can divide up the spoils. Why Pelosi feels she has anything to gain from this trip other than mocking the President and assuring a few more of our American troops will die, I have no idea. She is 3rd. in line for the presidency and maybe she thinks a quick impeachment of Bush and a quicker heart attach by Cheney will put her in the White House so she is in training for the job.
Iran: Iran holds US dollars as 20% of it’s reserves, but has been dumping them on the market. This reduces the value of the dollar. In a further move to harm, and perhaps even depress, the US economy Iran is urging the euro be used to purchase oil instead of the dollar which has always been used. This move would further deflate the value of the dollar and this added to the high oil prices our economy could be looking at a real down turn.
• Feb. 9, 2007 – Some Good, Some Bad and Some Ugly; News from Around the World Today
Much ado about nothing, but the rioting has spread and could possibly start another round of terrorist activities.
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Italy, Britain, Canada, Norway and Russia announced their funding commitments at a ceremony in Rome and led by Italy to launched a $1.5 billion project to help develop vaccines they said could save millions of lives in poor nations, and called on others to join them.
Currently there is little financial incentive for drug companies to develop vaccines for poor countries that cannot afford them. It is hoped these committed funds will spur the development of needed drugs sooner than is currently the case which takes 15-20 year to reach poorer countries.
The first target diseases will be pneumococcal diseases pneumonia and meningitis, which kill 1.6 million people per year in poor countries, more than half of whom are children under five.
The pilot project aims to provide pneumococcus vaccines for 70 to 100 million people and can save up to 5.4 million lives by 2030, a statement said.
The dream is that, in time, AMCs will also be used to fight other diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
Italy is the lead contributor to the pilot scheme, committing $635 million dollars between 2010 and 2020. Britain has committed $485 million, Canada $200 million, Russia $80 million and Norway $50 million. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has guaranteed a further $50 million.
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Unbelievable! Dear Lord how stupid is mankind? Read on:
Greenhouse gas ocean burial can start Feb 10
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Fri Feb 9, 11:32 AM ET
OSLO (Reuters) – International rules allowing burial of greenhouse gases beneath the seabed enter into force on Saturday in what will be a step toward fighting global warming, if storage costs are cut and leaks can be averted.
Carbon dioxide is not toxic but can lead to acidification of sea water, making it hard for creatures from shrimp to oysters to build shells. In heavy concentrations above ground it can displace air and so asphyxiate animals and plants.
This will pave the way for carbon storage in sub-seabed geological formations however the rules say gases injected must consist overwhelmingly of carbon dioxide with no added waste.
There is however much uncertainty about what “overwhelmingly” meant emissions from a coal-fired power plant, for instance, might include some toxic sulphur dioxide.
Statoil Corporation has injected about nine million tons of carbon dioxide in rocks far below its Sleipner gas field in the past decade, with no signs of leaks. The company claims. Two other big carbon storage sites are in operation in Canada and Algeria and more are planned.
It seems we are determined to make the wrong choices to curb global warming when there are so many safe and clean alternatives available. I cry for our children.
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UK wind power reaches milestone
The UK has become only the seventh nation in the world to have more than two gigawatts (GW) of operational wind power capacity.
BBC News February 7, 2007
Latest government figures show that 4.2% of the UK’s electricity is generated by renewables, including wind, solar, hydro and biomass.
But they are facing the same problems with wind farms as we are here in the US; the people are all for them but not in their back yard! There is also a lot of concern for birds being killed when they fly into the turbines. Of course no one seems to understand that more birds will be killed and become extinct if global warming is not gotten under control. Stupidity has no bounds!
Despite having some of the best wind resources in Europe, the UK is still a long way behind the world’s leading nation on wind power.
Germany has more than 20GW of wind energy capacity, 10 times as much as the UK.
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$25 million Prize for technology to scrub carbon dioxide from the Atmosphere.
By Jeremy Lovell Fri Feb 9, 11:29 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) Airline tycoon Richard Branson announced on Friday a $25 million prize for the first person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.
“Man created the problem and therefore man should solve the problem,” he told a news conference to reveal the Virgin Earth Challenge.
“Unless we can devise a way of removing CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the earth’s atmosphere we will lose half of all species on earth, all the coral reefs, 100 million people will be displaced, farmlands will become deserts and rain forests wastelands.”
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• Feb. 1, 2007 – To Russia With a Load of Much Needed Love and Compassion
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• Feb. 1, 2007 – To Russia With a Load of Much Needed Love and Compassion
The article went on to say it takes doctors 18 months to confirm that babies are HIV positive and so the babies must stay in the hospital until they are diagnosed. Those who are AIDS positive will remain living at the hospital because they are the unwanted, reminds one of the leprosy untouchables in the Bible doesn’t it? In Russia this is indeed the attitude towards people with AIDS.
But I remember well two cases of children with AIDS in the 1980’s when we lived in Florida and the parents wanted to send these children to public school. The public outcry against allowing this was loud and clear. The state however forced the schools to allow the children to attend classes. One little girl was allowed to attend school but then had to sit at a desk isolated from all other desks and not permitted to play on the playground with the other children. Indeed a show of compassion.
One family had two boys with hemophilia who were infected because of their necessary blood transfusions. One evening when the family was away their house was burned to the ground. They left Florida.
Most of us have come a long way towards understanding AIDS and showing people infected with more compassion.
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Another story concerning abandoned children in Russia was also in the BBC report. The mother of a child being treated in a hospital heard muffled mumbling and went to investigate. She found babies with tape over their mouths. When she asked a nurse why this was the nurse said their crying disturbed the nurses and told her to mind her own business. Luckily she had used her cell phone to take pictures to document this abuse. What will be done about this abuse however is not certain because Russia’s orphanages are much like the stereo types of Little Orphan Annie fame.
• Jan. 29, 2007 – Of Interest at Yahoo: Women’s brains, New humanoid, How tough women compete, Melting glaciers
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• Jan. 29, 2007 – Of Interest at Yahoo: Women’s brains, New humanoid, How tough women compete, Melting glaciers
Woman’s fertility cycle affects brain, scans show
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070129/sc_nm/brain_hormones_dc_1
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Mon Jan 29, 5:03 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A woman’s hormones affect specific parts of the brain called the reward pathway, researchers said on Monday in a finding that could offer insight into treating drug abuse and mood disorders.
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Scientists: Flores island “Hobbit” is new species
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070129/sc_nm/hobbit_species_dc_1
By Will Dunham Mon Jan 29, 6:39 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The tiny woman dubbed the Hobbit who lived 18,000 years ago on a remote Indonesian island deserves to be deemed a new human species and not a deformed modern human as skeptics assert, researchers said on Monday.
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Opinion How ‘ma’amisma’ can change politics
By Harriet Rubin Mon Jan 29, 8:22 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070129/cm_usatoday/howmaamismacanchangepolitics
Ma’amisma makes a strong woman appear ultimately non-threatening – a quality we have not seen much in our youth-intoxicated culture. But the world is changing. In France, never a bastion of powerful women, presidential candidate Segolene Royal, 53, is selling herself as the mother protector of the nation. She’s taking a page from the playbook of great queens and women who behave like them. After their youthful sexuality fades, ma’amisma women stand toe to toe with powerful men. They often refer to love and trust as bold alternatives to the hard edges of powers that be.
The history of female leaders – queens, presidents, prime ministers – reveals that they sell ma’amisma hard. Israeli’s Golda Meir, for example, was no conventional object of desire. She seduced by making her desires plain, like any good mother. In “Munich”, Steven Spielberg’s historically inspired account of Israel’s plot to avenge the murder of its Olympic athletes, Meir takes five minutes to persuade young man to abandon his pregnant wife and promising career for her own desperate mission. That is ma’amisma.
- Posted in: International News
- Tagged: China, economy, Russia, United Nations
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