November 20, 2012

Proof positive that politicians can be real jackasses

QUITO, Ecuador — The demand of dozens of citizens has been denied in the Ecuadorean city of Guayaquil: There will be no jackass running for the legislature.

At least 40 people paraded their candidate through the city's streets to the electoral council offices. Mr. Burro even wore a tie. But officials refused to even let them in the door on Thursday, even though backers had dummied up a mock voter registration card showing the candidate's photo superimposed on a man wearing a business suit.

Donkey backer Daniel Molina told local television stations the goal was to call voters' attention to the seriousness of the February election, not to insult any party.


http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-odd/20121120/LT.ODD.Ecuador.Donkey.Denied/

November 20, 2012

If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month

from Grist's Gristmill blog:



If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month
By Philip Bump


This image sums up 2012, temperature-wise.



Nowhere on the surface of the planet have we seen any record cold temperatures over the course of the year so far. Every land surface in the world saw warmer-than-average temperatures except Alaska and the eastern tip of Russia. The continental United States has been blanketed with record warmth — and the seas just off the East Coast have been much warmer than average, for which Sandy sends her thanks.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration summarizes October 2012:



Emphasis added. If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average. That’s beyond astonishing. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/news/if-youre-27-or-younger-youve-never-experienced-a-colder-than-average-month/

November 20, 2012

If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month

from Grist's Gristmill blog:



If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month
By Philip Bump


This image sums up 2012, temperature-wise.



Nowhere on the surface of the planet have we seen any record cold temperatures over the course of the year so far. Every land surface in the world saw warmer-than-average temperatures except Alaska and the eastern tip of Russia. The continental United States has been blanketed with record warmth — and the seas just off the East Coast have been much warmer than average, for which Sandy sends her thanks.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration summarizes October 2012:



Emphasis added. If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average. That’s beyond astonishing. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/news/if-youre-27-or-younger-youve-never-experienced-a-colder-than-average-month/

November 20, 2012

University gives ‘frackademics’ the boot

from Grist:



University gives ‘frackademics’ the boot
By Susie Cagle


SUNY Buffalo has shuttered its Shale Resources and Society Institute, aka a pro-fracking, on-campus think tank with big energy connections and a record of shilling for junk science.



The closure comes as a direct result of the center’s misleading and error-filled May 15 report touting a warmer, fuzzier, safer fracking industry.

University of Buffalo President Satish Tripathi announced the closure.



New Yorkers Against Fracking celebrated Tripathi’s decision.



OK, that’s enough celebrating. Drink some of that cool, clean water and get back to those game-changing grassroots community initiatives, folks.


http://grist.org/news/university-gives-frackademics-the-boot/

November 19, 2012

World Nut Daily Editor: YOU ARE ALL GONNA DIE !!!!!

from Right Wing Watch:




Farah: America is about to be 'Destroyed by God'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/19/2012 10:15 am


WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been beside himself over the President Obama’s election victory, writing that his re-election is proof that the U.S. is “where ancient Israel was before being destroyed by God.” He now claims that “the election, whether it was the result of voter fraud or stupidity or both, suggests America is turning rapidly away from God,” and now “we are in full apostasy boogie.”




http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/farah-america-about-to-be-destroyed

November 19, 2012

Israel's Battle Against Hamas Could Spark Wildfire

from Der Spiegel:



The bitter battle in Gaza highlights the fact that Islamist extremists have gained ground in the Palestinian territories with support from Egypt and Iran. The next battleground is likely to be the United Nations, where the Palestinians are seeking observer status. Has Israel miscalculated with its new offensive?

The current situation in the Middle East is reminiscent of events that unfolded shortly before Christmas in 2008, when then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched a campaign against the radical Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip to stop it from launching rockets at his country -- and, most likely, with the aim of securing a second term in office. Elections were around the corner, and Olmert's opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu, was ahead in the polls.

Olmert had more than 1,000 bombs dropped on Gaza, and 10,000 Israeli troops marched into the territory. Building by building, they fought their way through refugee camps, villages and Gaza City. Well over 1,000 Palestinians lay dead in the wreckage before the extremists finally abandoned their resistance. "We have reached all of our objectives in Gaza," Olmert declared after three weeks of war, "and Hamas has been dealt a heavy blow." Opposition leader Netanyahu wasn't convinced. "The next government will have no choice but to finish the job," he said. Netanyahu ultimately won the election, using slogans like "Strong on Security" in his campaign.

Now Netanyahu is fighting for votes once again, and this time, as the current prime minister, he too is fighting terror. His army has been attacking Gaza since the middle of last week, in an operation dubbed Pillar of Defense. Netanyahu's aim is to use force to achieve the peace on the Gaza front that Olmert was unable to secure four years ago. And perhaps, two months before the election, Netanyahu is also hoping for a war bonus, even though he is already ahead in the polls. At the very least, a military campaign against Gaza is a distraction from the serious social problems Israel currently faces. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israeli-attacks-put-new-balance-of-power-in-mideast-to-test-a-868041.html

November 19, 2012

Another Reason to Hate Global Warming: Lousy Coffee

Another Reason to Hate Global Warming: Lousy Coffee
By Caroline Winter on November 15, 2012


(Bloomberg Businessweek) Is the world’s coffee supply threatened by global warming? A recently published scientific study concludes that as much as 99.7 percent of wild Arabica coffee—the bean that accounts for 70 percent of the global market—may fall victim to rising temperatures by 2080. Farmers will still be able to cultivate Arabica coffee—at least for a while—but the bean’s genetic pool will be severely reduced.

The study, conducted by scientists at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, in collaboration with Ethiopia’s Environment and Coffee Forum, focuses primarily on Ethiopia, considered to be the birthplace of coffee. Temperatures there have been going up by an average of almost 0.3 degrees per decade since 1960, according to Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens and one of the study’s authors. Soon, he says, ancient Arabica plants may not be able to survive. “It doesn’t take a scientist to realize: Hang on a minute, if coffee can only produce a good crop in a sort of 4 to 5 degree range, [steadily rising temperatures] could have a significant impact,” he says. The optimal temperature range for growing Arabica is 18C to 21C (64F to 70F).

The Kew study shows that wild Arabica beans in South Sudan and Kenya, which exist in smaller numbers than in Ethiopia, will also be impacted. In fact, Davis says the plants in South Sudan, which have been around for thousands of years, may be gone “in the next 10 to 20 years.”

In recent days, some alarmist news articles have interpreted the Kew study to mean devastation for all the world’s coffee beans, as well as the imminent extinction of all lattes and cappuccinos. Davis is careful to point out that this is not the case. Farmers around the world will likely find ways to keep growing the strains of Arabica they already have. What’s at stake is Ethiopia’s wild Arabica, which Davis says is home to anywhere from 80 percent to 98.8 percent of the species’s gene pool. Preserving and transplanting those wild Arabica strains to other locales in mass quantities would be no small task. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-15/the-coffee-beans-endangered-gene-pool

November 19, 2012

Chris Hedges: Elites Will Make Gazans of Us All

from truthdig:



Elites Will Make Gazans of Us All

Posted on Nov 19, 2012
By Chris Hedges


Gaza is a window on our coming dystopia. The growing divide between the world’s elite and its miserable masses of humanity is maintained through spiraling violence. Many impoverished regions of the world, which have fallen off the economic cliff, are beginning to resemble Gaza, where 1.6 million Palestinians live in the planet’s largest internment camp. These sacrifice zones, filled with seas of pitifully poor people trapped in squalid slums or mud-walled villages, are increasingly hemmed in by electronic fences, monitored by surveillance cameras and drones and surrounded by border guards or military units that shoot to kill. These nightmarish dystopias extend from sub-Saharan Africa to Pakistan to China. They are places where targeted assassinations are carried out, where brutal military assaults are pressed against peoples left defenseless, without an army, navy or air force. All attempts at resistance, however ineffective, are met with the indiscriminate slaughter that characterizes modern industrial warfare.

In the new global landscape, as in Israel’s occupied territories and the United States’ own imperial projects in Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, massacres of thousands of defenseless innocents are labeled wars. Resistance is called a provocation, terrorism or a crime against humanity. The rule of law, as well as respect for the most basic civil liberties and the right of self-determination, is a public relations fiction used to placate the consciences of those who live in the zones of privilege. Prisoners are routinely tortured and “disappeared.” The severance of food and medical supplies is an accepted tactic of control. Lies permeate the airwaves. Religious, racial and ethnic groups are demonized. Missiles rain down on concrete hovels, mechanized units fire on unarmed villagers, gunboats pound refugee camps with heavy shells, and the dead, including children, line the corridors of hospitals that lack electricity and medicine.

The impending collapse of the international economy, the assaults on the climate, the resulting droughts, flooding, precipitous decline in crop yields and rising food prices are creating a universe where power is divided between the narrow elites, who hold in their hands sophisticated instruments of death, and the enraged masses. The crises are fostering a class war that will dwarf anything imagined by Karl Marx. They are establishing a world where most will be hungry and live in fear, while a few will gorge themselves on delicacies in protected compounds. And more and more people will have to be sacrificed to keep this imbalance in place.

Because it has the power to do so, Israel—as does the United States—flouts international law to keep a subject population in misery. The continued presence of Israeli occupation forces defies nearly a hundred U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for them to withdraw. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, established in June 2007, is a brutal form of collective punishment that violates Article 33 of the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention, which set up rules for the “Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.” The blockade has turned Gaza into a sliver of hell, an Israeli-administered ghetto where thousands have died, including the 1,400 civilians killed in the Israeli incursion of 2008. With 95 percent of factories shut down, Palestinian industry has virtually ceased functioning. The remaining 5 percent operate at 25 to 50 percent capacity. Even the fishing industry is moribund. Israel refuses to let fishermen travel more than three miles from the coastline, and within the fishing zone boats frequently come under Israeli fire. The Israeli border patrols have seized 35 percent of the agricultural land in Gaza for a buffer zone. The collapsing infrastructure and Israeli seizure of aquifers mean that in many refugee camps, such as Khan Yunis, there is no running water. UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) estimates that 80 percent of all Gazans now rely on food aid. And the claim of Israeli self-defense belies the fact that it is Israel that maintains an illegal occupation and violates international law by carrying out collective punishment of Palestinians. It is Israel that chose to escalate the violence when during an incursion into Gaza earlier this month its forces fatally shot a 13-year-old boy. As the world breaks down, this becomes the new paradigm—modern warlords awash in terrifying technologies and weapons murdering whole peoples. We do the same in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/elites_will_make_gazans_of_us_all_20121119/

November 19, 2012

les chiens touchés

Right-wing dogs are turning on each other all over the world.


Fillon and Cope claim win in French UMP vote


Both candidates have claimed victory in the race to become France's next opposition leader, in a contest marred by allegations of vote-rigging.

Hundreds of votes are said to separate right-wing candidate Jean-Francois Cope and ex-PM Francois Fillon.

As the neck-and-neck result emerged, supporters of both UMP candidates made accusations of vote fraud.

The party has been without a leader since Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in the May presidential election. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20388722

November 19, 2012

New York Post-Sandy Is a Lesson in How Social Injustice Will Amplify the Ravages of Global Warming

AlterNet / By Steven Wishnia

New York Post-Sandy Is a Lesson in How Social Injustice Will Amplify the Ravages of Global Warming
There's a reason some of New York's public housing communities were forced to wait so long for basic services to be restored after the storm.

November 18, 2012 |

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.


Sixteen and a half days after Hurricane Sandy sent an 11-foot wave surging over the boardwalk, Coney Island is slowly resurrecting itself. Workers carry sheetrock into gutted bodegas on Surf Avenue, the street closest to the ocean. A block inland, a hammer resounds inside the United Community Baptist Church on Mermaid Avenue, rebuilding the wrecked pulpit. The church took on five feet of water, and “nothing in here was salvageable,” says Pastor Connis Mobley, but he hopes to have power and water restored by the spring.

The Surf Neighborhood Gourmet Food bodega is restocking, the sandy sidewalk out front piled with plastic-wrapped pallets of paper plates, cups, Clorox Wipes, and beer. It’s the first grocery in the neighborhood to reopen, says manager George Fox, and everything has to be replaced. “What was good we donated to the community. We threw out everything else.”

The neighborhood’s supermarkets are still closed. The nearest open one is on the Brooklyn mainland, more than a mile away, says Tiesha, a 42-year-old mother who just picked up donated food in the parking lot next to the minor-league Brooklyn Cyclones’ ballpark. About 50 people are lined up there. Women pushing strollers with toddlers in pink parkas fill shopping carts with cases of bottled water and tiny school-lunch cartons of milk and orange juice, boxes of crackers and pasta, cans of beef stew and jars of spaghetti sauce. An orange-vested volunteer calls out “Next!” and “Keep it moving.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/new-york-post-sandy-lesson-how-social-injustice-will-amplify-ravages-global-warming