Hopefully the storms in the south are over for awhile and people can get the debris cleared away. Some places sure got hit hard. We were lucky here and just got heavy rain storms and a lot cooler temps.
Want to thank rj for the links today! Thanks rj! check him out at Global Glass Onion.
Japan
TruthOut: "To Work at Fukushima, You Have to Be Ready to Die"
NPR: Japanese Farmers Linger In State Of Uncertainty
WashingtonPost: Operator of Japan’s stricken nuclear plant announces plan to resolve crisis in 6 to 9 months
Reuters: Unlike BP, Japan's crisis-hit TEPCO has little to sell(Reuters) - Like oil-leaking BP plc (BP.L) a year ago, disaster-whipped Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) is mulling a fire sale of assets to help pay compensation claims against its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Global Conflict
Guardian: Yemeni women join street protests against president Saleh President's 'no-women' comment draws hundreds of thousands of enraged Yemenis out for mass protests
Reuters: U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition: report
France25: US Senate asks UN to rescind Gaza War report 15 Apr 2011
The US Senate asked the United Nations to rescind a report on the Gaza War after its lead author said he was wrong to conclude Israel targeted civilians during the 2008-2009 offensive. The text was adopted by unanimous consent. It also [*insanely*] urges UN chief Ban Ki-moon to help "reform" the Human Rights Council "so that it no longer unfairly, disproportionately, and falsely criticizes Israel on a regular basis."
TruthOut: Migrants "Fleeing Death" as Qaddafi's Attacks on Misrata Mount, and Rebels Flee Ajdabiya
TomDispatch: Tomgram: Ira Chernus, The Great Israeli Security Scam
WSWS: Contact Group meeting in Doha plans imperialist carve-up of Libya By Alex Lantier 14 Apr 2011
The Contact Group, an assembly of foreign ministers from Western and Arab countries backing the Benghazi-based Libyan rebels of the Interim Transitional National Council (INC), met yesterday in Doha, Qatar. The meeting highlighted the INC’s role as a stooge of the imperialist powers, particularly the US, Britain and France, who are promoting it as their proxy force in a bitter civil war in Libya... INC member Mahmoud Chammam called on the US government to "liberate the funds" of the Gaddafi regime--that is, an estimated $30 billion of Libyan oil earnings held by Western banks. Normally used to pay for Libyan social spending and public sector workers’ salaries, these funds would be stolen by the major banks to pay for INC weapons and supplies.
Time: Indonesia's Rash of 'Do-It-Yourself Jihad'
AlterNet: 3 Myths About Israel Promoted by the Right-Wing Pro-Israel LobbyThese myths create an image of Israel as an insecure nation and shape Washington's policies in the Middle East.
Financial News
MarketWatch666: notes on the week ended april 16th
Reuters: IMF warns response to credit boom "insufficient"
DailyBail: Video - Dennis Kucinich: "Is This The United States Congress Or The Board Of Directors Of Goldman Sachs" (video)
RawStory: Borders execs to get big bonuses after laying off 6,000Bookseller Borders Group Inc. (BGP) wants to give their executives up to $8.3 million at a time the company is in bankruptcy and laying off 6,000 employees.
FDL: Geithner: House Republicans Already Assured President They Would Raise the Debt LimitSpeaking on ABC’s This Week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dropped the dime on Congressional Republicans, announcing that they assured President Obama that they would vote to raise the debt limit later this year.
AmericanDream: The End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
GlobeandMail: Anti-euro party gains in Finnish vote threaten Portugal bailout
Forbes: Is the People’s Bank of China Insolvent?
AmericanDream: 35 Statistics That Show The Average American Family Has Been Broke Down, Tore Down, Beat Down, Busted And Disgusted By This Economy
MyBudget360: Meet the new financial boss, same as the old financial boss – Commercial real estate bailout implicates Federal Reserve as Fed balance sheet balloons to $2.7 trillion. CRE values down $3 trillion from their 2008 peak.
bofa666: This blog is a response to BofA's attempt to register domain names that may be used to disparage it, as reported in the Financial Times
US Uncut "Pay Up!" Flashmob at Bank of America 4/15/11
StarTribune: Rich are getting richer? Exactly right - Economists use three main tools to study inequality. They measure poverty.They compute the Gini coefficient. And they compare the income or wealth of the rich (or the very rich) to that of the rest of us. On all of these counts the U.S. record since 1970 is grim for all but those at the top. The Census Bureau's 2009 poverty threshold for a family of two adults with two children was $21,756; for a single adult aged less than 65, it was $11,161. The poverty rate, giving the percentage of Americans living below this threshold, varies over time as the economy waxes and wanes.Lately it's been rising. In 2009, 43 million Americans, one of every seven (14.3 percent), lived in poverty. That's up from 25.5 million (12.6 percent) in 1970.The Gini coefficient measures inequality for all of us, not just the poor. It can be zero (if income is distributed equally); it can be 100 (if, impossibly, a single family captures the entire national income), or anything in between. A higher Gini means more inequality. The Census Bureau tells us the U.S. Gini has risen from 39.4 in 1970 to 46.2 in 2000, and to 46.8 in 2009.
LAT: Neediest and sickest pay the price under GOP budget - If there was any doubt that the debate over deficits is not about numbers but philosophies of government — it just exploits the vocabulary of fiscal policy — these two events should lay it to rest.
Peak oil and Energy News
MotherJones: First Tar Sands Mine Approved In US The Canadian tar sands industry is invading the United States. Alberta-based Earth Energy Resources has won all necessary permits to excavate tar sands oil from a 62-acre site in Uintah County, Utah. And that's just the start. Earth Energy has 7,800 acres of Utah state land under lease and plans to acquire more. The company estimates that its holdings contain more than 250 million barrels of recoverable oil.
yahooNews: Saudi slashes oil output, says market oversupplied
MSNBC: Gallon of gas now tops $4 in six states and D.C.
National average price has risen for 26 straight days, now at $3.83
Grist: Texas to install world’s largest wind energy storage system
Environmental News
NPR: Tornadoes Leave Destruction Unmatched In Decades
abcNews: Tornado Aftermath: Midwest, South Cleans Up After Series of TwistersResidents in the Midwest and the South are cleaning up today after a series of tornadoes ripped through 14 states and left at least 45 people dead over the weekend.
More than 243 twisters have caused extensive damage from Oklahoma to Virginia since Thursday. Parts of the Midwest and the South were hit by flash floods and hail.
ibtimes: Scenes of destruction from tornado-hit North Carolina [SLIDESHOW]
ArchaeologyNewsNetwork: Aboriginal stone site feared wrecked
"Cultural sites are protected in Queensland, there's a ... $750,000 fine for destroying them knowingly," he said. Mr Strong said he knew of cases where companies were happy to pay the fine and continue with their mining efforts.
"The gas companies have a green light to do whatever they want, and the government is acting as the department to smooth the way for them," he said.
MotherJones: Ranches With Wolves
ONE WARM EVENING early last summer, I found myself in New Mexico's Gila wilderness at Bucky's BBQ Bash. Beyond celebrating the birthday of Bucky Allred, garrulous owner of the Blue Front Bar and Café (one of two bars in tiny Glenwood), the annual shindig has a higher purpose: raising money to help ranchers get rid of wolves.
MotherJones: Will Big Solar Bulldoze Sacred Tribal Sites?
ClimateProgress: Science Sunday: “The economics (or lack thereof) of aerosol geoengineering”
Is the aerosol strategy intergenerationally unethical?
Reuters: Death toll at 43 as tornadoes, storms rake South
Alternet: Mystery Illnesses Plague Louisiana Oil Spill Crews
The state of Louisiana has reported 415 cases of health problems linked to the spill.
NYT: Chemicals Were Injected Into Wells, Report Says
AlterNet: "The Oil Is Not Gone": BP Tries to Block Gulf Residents from Shareholder MeetingBP tried to deny me and others affected by the spill access to their shareholder meeting, but we would not be silenced.
America in Decline
FederalNewsRadio: White House draft bill expands DHS cyber responsibilities
DHS oversees all civilian cybersecurity 14 Apr 2011 Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks. The proposal would codify much of the administration's memo from July 2010 expanding DHS's cyber responsibilities for civilian networks. The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.
CNN: TSA security looks at people who complain about... TSA security 15 Apr 2011 Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator Transportation Security Administration officers consider when looking for possible criminals and terrorists, CNN has learned exclusively. And, when combined with other behavioral indicators, it could result in a traveler facing additional scrutiny. CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 "behavioral indicators" that TSA behavior detection officers use to identify potentially "high risk" passengers at the nation's airports.
News.com.au: Sick of remembering your online passwords? Let the White House manage it for you
AlterNet: Our Public Schools Are Churning Out Drones for the Corporate State
Unconscious civilizations become totalitarian wastelands.
BlackListedNews: Privacy Protection and the Secret State's Surveillance Powers
Forbes: Gov. Scott Walker Reportedly Planning Financial Martial Law In Wisconsin - Reports are surfacing that Scott Walker is now preparing his next assault on the democratic political process in the State of Wisconsin. Following the lead of Michigan GOP Governor Rick Snyder, Walker is said to be preparing a plan that would allow him to force local governments to submit to a financial stress test with an eye towards permitting the governor to take over municipalities that fail to meet with Walker’s approval. According to the reports, should a locality’s financial position come up short, the Walker legislation would empower the governor to insert a financial manager of his choosing into local government with the ability to cancel union contracts, push aside duly elected local government officials and school board members and take control of Wisconsin cities and towns whenever he sees fit to do so. Such a law would additionally give Walker unchallenged power to end municipal services of which he disapproves, including safety net assistance to those in need.
Food and Water
CSMonitor: Staph in meat: Are US cattle and poultry over-drugged?
A new report warns that Staph bacteria are showing up in high rates at supermarkets, raising concerns about whether US meat and poultry industries rely too heavily on antibiotic drugs.
Science and Technology
RawStory: ‘Robot journalist’ out-writes human sports reporter
Somewhere in the greater Washington D.C. area, there's a sportswriter for GWSports.com who likely wants to crawl under his or her desk and not come out for a while, lest they be mocked for being bested by a robot.
CSMonitor: Five new technologies that will change the world (and win at Jeopardy!)
Five forms of new technology that can change the world: From the computer that beats humans on "Jeopardy!" to cellphone apps for African pick-and-hoe farmers, to satellites that spy on human rights abusers.
Medical and Health
Bloomberg: Geiger Counters Unlikely to Detect Radiation in Food, Water
Geiger counters are probably ineffective for consumers in detecting hazardous levels of radiation in food and water at home, scientists, professors and device makers said.
Wikileaks
MercuryNews: Private visits with WikiLeaks suspect denied
NYT: Germany: An Appeal to Obama Over a U.S. Prisoner's Treatment
Other News
Yahoo: Rent a country
CSMonitor: Street harassment of women: It's a bigger problem than you thinkFrom Yemen to California, more than 90 percent of women have faced public harassment. It's not a compliment, a minor annoyance, or a woman’s fault. It’s bullying behavior. And we can't just ignore it. Here's how to respond.
Time: Objectivists in Love: Ayn Rand Fans Get Dating Site
PBS: In China, Factory Workers Allege Poisoning From iPhone Production
Special correspondent Jeffrey Kaye reports from the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, where some factory workers say they've been poisoned by exposure to a toxic chemical while working at an Apple iPhone assembly plant.
CSMonitor: Bay of Pigs: Cuba celebrates at opening of Party summit
Bay of Pigs celebrations coincides with Communist Party congress in Cuba.
ModernSurvivalBlog: What in the Sky is Google Hiding?
The Forums
TinfoilPalace: Can the Matrix be real?
TinfoilPalace: 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft.
TheOilAge: Illinois Democrats push right wing education "reform"
TheOilAge: Saudi's full of it...
Hubberts-Arms: Austerity measures and how to deal with them: or Czech President steals a pen
Hubberts-Arms: My film, almost done! (dermot's PO film is about finished! I can't wait to see it!)
SilentCountry: Half Past Human
SilentCountry: TAE - Bailing Out The Thimble With The Titanic
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