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12-31-08

• "Auld Lang Syne" - Aretha Franklin & Billy Preston (youtube)
• Researchers unlock secrets of 1918 flu pandemic - a group of three genes that lets the virus invade the lungs and cause pneumonia (reuters). Four licensed drugs can fight flu but the viruses regularly mutate into resistant forms -- just as bacteria evolve into forms that evade antibiotics.
• Pueblo, Colorado smoking ban lowers heart attacks by 41% (reuters)
• Episcopal Church Splits Over Gay Equality (thenation). Enough already! This has been going on for years. Get on with the split and get on with life. Let the knuckle draggers join Chief Knuckle Dragger Peter Akinola (nothing racial implied) of Nigeria and wallow joyously in their hate and self-righteousness. Let those left behind breathe deeply a little fresh air for once without their departed brethren.
• Project Censored's # 2 story for 2009: Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA (projectcensored). The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)—headquartered in Washington—aims to integrate the three nations into a single political, economic, and security bloc. This is the North American Union (NAU) that is being set up with little media coverage and no public debate. Some opponents fear the three nations could eventually be folded together similarly to the European Union, with a common currency, the Amero. Ron Paul has advanced this scenario (youtube). Obama denies it is happening (youtube). Will the US be forced into this marriage by Bush's profligacy, driving the value of the dollar so low the people have no recourse but to accept the change? With eight years to go, will Obama be the usher?
• New Year spectacular in Sydney (guardian.co.uk)
• So Help Me God: Northern California Atheist Targets Inauguration (msnbc) (politicalticker). California plaintiff wants equality for all by getting religious mythology out of The People's inauguration ceremony. Sam Harris eloquently articulates his case for not being a theist (video.google 1hr10min). Atheist comedian Pat Condell sounds off (youtube 6min).
• No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in ‘Passive Houses (nyt)
• Israel rejects 48-Hour Cease-Fire Plan (guardian.co.uk), Ah, so many Palestinians yet to murder, so little time. 390 Palestinians dead since Saturday. Oh, but I guess they were all militant rocketeers, right? Wrong, falling bombs don't discriminate. - Israel prohibits Palestinian students from studying either in the West Bank or abroad, then bombs Gaza's leading university (counterpunch). Presidents of American colleges and universities remain notably silent. - Israel's War Crimes (thenation). The Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions - Cynthia McKinney to Obama: “Say Something” About Gaza Humanitarian Crisis (blackagendareport) Israel has a history of very short wars. Maybe if Obama waits a few more days, the murdering will be finished -- for now. It just wouldn't do to say anything that might upset our companion Israel. Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (democracynow on youtube). Jimmy Carter pounds Israel on Palestinian apartheid (youtube)
• The Sky in Motion (apod video) Position cursor over image, right-click the start-pause button to enlarge it to full-screen or to later reduce it.

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12-30-08

• US government still investigating the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster (nyt). Where are the continuing government investigations of the 9/11 coup d'état?
• Obama takes time out from his vacation to condemn Illinois governor for filling his vacant senate seat, but has no comment on Israel's barbaric ongoing attacks on Gaza's general population.. Now, that's change we can believe in! But maybe he's just thinking it all over for awhile before making some very humane, judicious remarks later. Does anyone remember that Obama rushed directly from his nomination in Denver to speak next morning at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington?
• Fuel Efficiency Standards by Country Table from An Inconvenient Truth - US automakers should be forced to improve mileage efficiency drastically or be sold to foreign automakers who will. And auto-industry-shill Congressman John Dingell should be unceremoniously kicked out of the halls of congress for fighting improved fuel efficiency standards in congress for so many years. The damage he has done to this country and the planet is immeasurable.
• Bush was as ignorant of foreign affairs as Sarah Palin (ap) - More White House oral history (vanityfair) - Republicans have tragically proven themselves too criminally irresponsible to ever hold political power in this country again -- at ANY level. (IMHO)
• Over One Million Violent Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation (projectcensored), (orb) surpassing the Rwandan genocide of 1994. (Project Censored's #1 Censored Story for 2009) These one million deaths, along with those of the fallen soldiers of the so-called "coalition of the willing" are on the heads of every one of the five proactive Republican supreme court justices/operatives who placed George W. Bush on the throne, and every neocon and willing or frightened politician who aided and abetted Bush in the criminal actions that shoved this nation into such an unholy misadventure. Bush says he sleeps very well at night. Would he if his life were hanging in the balance in a trial for his heinous abuse of power?
• Project Censored's Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 (projectcensored)
• Scientific American's 10 Biggest Science Stories of 2008 (sciam)
• Pakistan says India moves troops toward shared border (cbcnews)
• Palestinian Lives for Israeli Votes (Tariq Ali, guardian.co.uk) - George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel (Glenn Greenwald, salon) Beltway orthodoxy: whatever Israel does is absolutely right and the US must fully and unconditionally support them. 70% of Americans reject this viewpoint. Congress ignores this fact just as they did similarly high numbers of Americans who wanted us out of Iraq. George Washington: "The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave" producing "a variety of evils." Glenn's one must-read article on the Israeli-Gaza conflict: Gaza the logic of colonial power (guardian.co.uk) - Why Are Palestinians Expected to Do What Americans Would Never Do? (firedoglake)
• Obama is considering another cash stimulus of $140 billion (ap), going to US workers who actually still have jobs, even though history shows such giveaways do NOT stimulate the economy, because the money more often than not goes to purposes other than buying new 'stuff'. Also, since so much of our new 'stuff' is imported from 3rd-world countries where workers earn pennies for their labor, much of the money that is spent on our new 'stuff' actually goes to foreign businesses and to wealthy US owners of foreign businesses, not generally to US workers, thus effectively exporting the stimulus money while further enriching some retail owners such as Walmart's Walton family, who already collectively have as much money as the US's poorest 120 million people combined. The middle class has indeed been financing the plutocrats who pull our strings in almost every significant way. Since that oligarchy also pulls the strings of government, they have also engineered the tax code through Republican and Democratic administration alike to favor themselves and shift to everyone else the financial burden of running our country and maintaining our bloated and very expensive military empire. Obama promised repeatedly to change Bush's tax pampering of the rich. Now, he has already indicated he plans to renege on part of that promise by allowing Bush's misbegotten tax giveaways to continue undisturbed, rather than end them as he promised and use the money for sorely needed domestic programs. This $140 billion will not produce many new desperately needed jobs. It will add pocket money to those Americans lucky enough to still have payroll deductions in their lives. On the other hand, give financial relief to ALL lower-middle-class and poor Americans - YES. They will spend it immediately on the necessities of life. Start turning the tax code back against those well-heeled oligarches who have raped the middle class and the US Treasury for decades - YES. Make the tax code equitable for all - YES. Will Obama's handlers ever allow him to do that? Do T-Rexes still eat dogs in San Diego?
• AC/DC Levi's 501 Ads (youtube Straight - youtube Gay)
• Earth view from the ISS (apod)

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12-29-08

• Bush's one-time best choice to lead Homeland Security, Bernie Kerik, just can't stay out of trouble. He would have fit into the Bush regime so well. (nyt)
• In service to their uber-rich paymasters, Bush regime has stripped workers of basic protections and slowed OSHA (lasvegassun)
  
• Chinese tainted toys, the tainted milk, the tainted pet food, the tainted food products, the tainted pharmaceuticals, the tainted furniture, the generally low quality products and now the tainted drywall (tcpalm) Emitting dangerous fumes
• Christopher Hitchens has such a way with words Rick Warren's Role in the Inauguration (slate)
• Republican Obstructionist Games Mitch McConnell Puts the Brakes on Stimulus Plan (wapo)
• Mayday Over Ohio Another Rove Enemy [Mike Connell] Goes Down in Flames (bloggernewsnetwork) (rawstory) - Rove's IT Guru Warned of Sabotage Before Fatal Plane Crash; Was Set to Testify (democracynow video) (youtube) (velvetrevolution) (computerworld)
• Another cave-in to his elite handlers Obama was wrong to scuttle his windfall oil-profits tax plan (Wayne Madsen, grandforksherald)
• MoveOn members moved by basic survival fears over need for full civil rights and the rule of law (politico) (yglesias) Members chose universal health care, economic recovery and job creation, building a green economy/stopping climate change, and end the war in Iraq over holding the Bush administration accountable, fighting for gay rights and LGBT equality, and reforming campaigns and elections. Who's listening to whom?
• Broadcast networks have stopped sending full-time correspondents to Iraq (nyt) (thinkprogress)
• Reaffirmed yet one more time Premarital abstinence pledges are ineffective and harmful (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) (wapo) (thinkprogress) - Teenagers Who Make Such Promises Are Just as Likely to Have Sex, and Less Likely to Use Protection. [This finding has been around for years.]
• From the biggest brother country in the West, Internet Censorship?- Websites could get cinema-style ratings (reuters) - "to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material"
• Chile says Chaiten volcano still poses danger (reuters) - Chile has the second largest and most active chain of volcanoes in the world after Indonesia.
• Bird flu found in poultry in northern Vietnam (reuters) - The H5N1 strain has killed 247 people globally among the 391 confirmed cases of infection since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Vietnam has 106 infections, the second highest number of cases among 15 countries with known human cases after Indonesia. Very high risk of bird flu returning during the winter and spring in northern Vietnam. The H5N1 strain seems to thrive best in low temperature.
• Wal-Mart to start selling 4 ($197) and 8 gigabyte ($297) iPhones (reuters) - Plus 2-year contract with AT&T
• Obama looks to ease 46-year-old sanctions a little against Cuba (reuters)
• Pakistan urges "de-escalation" with India (reuters)
• Israeli Attacks Kill Over 310 in Gaza in One of Israel’s Bloodiest Attacks on Palestinians Since 1948 (democracynow video) - Protests throughout Europe and Middle East against Israeli Blitzkrieg against Gaza population (afp) - A Hundred Eyes for an Eye (Norman Solomon, afterdowningstreet) - Why to they fight? (Map of shrinking Palestinian borders) - Qumsiyeh A Human Rights Web (Links Page)
• The mamas and the papas - California dreamin (youtube)
  
• NGC 1569 Starburst in a Dwarf Irregular Galaxy (apod)