July 31, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Recent polling on comprehensive healthcare reform has come to resemble something like push-polling, and major US media outlets have reported on poll results with a focus that skews the actual outcome in favor of opponents of major reform. The New York Times yesterday reported on “the latest New York Times/CBS News poll” with the plays-to-all-parties headline “New Poll Finds Growing Unease on Health Plan”, then leads with immensely misleading language about the meaning of the results.
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July 31, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
In an odd exchange between neoconservative luminary Bill Kristol and comic news anchor Jon Stewart, Kristol found himself, perhaps inadvertently, arguing that government run healthcare for the US military was “first class healthcare” and that the rest of the public did not deserve such high quality. Stewart, delighted, challenged the logic of Kristol’s argument, pointing out that Kristol was at once arguing that the public should get its health insurance entirely from the private sector, but that what the public ‘should’ have would be less quality than the government-run military healthcare service.
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July 31, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Physicist Brian Greene explains in this rich, yet concise video, how superstring theory is giving new shape to our understanding of the universe. Dr. Greene gives an astoundingly cogent and simple explanation for how what seem to be three dimensions of space might actually be ten dimensions, with seven bound up in complex Calabi-Yau shapes that almost defy explanation.
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July 30, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The alleged violent, even lethal brutality which Iran’s security forces have used against detained opposition supporters has mushroomed into a full-blown prisoner-abuse scandal that is sowing anger and shock among the people of Iran. The alleged abuses run the gamut from mass beatings in darkness, ripping off of finger and toe nails and forcing detainees to lick the inside of dirty toilets. At least 150 people are estimated to have been killed in the crackdown, since the 12 June vote.
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July 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The government of Sudan has abducted a United Nations media worker and is preparing to issue a verdict that might have her flogged 40 times for the “crime” of wearing pants. According to Sudan’s extreme interpretation of Islamic law, the aid worker’s two-legged pants are considered to cause “harassment to the public sentiments”. She will be brutally whipped 40 times as punishment for risking the emotional discomfort of Sudanese citizens, by wearing pants that for most people conceal a woman’s body from view.
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July 29, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Para lograr la reconciliación y fortalecer la democracia, conformaremos un Gobierno de Unidad y Reconciliación Nacional, integrado por representantes de los diversos partidos políticos, reconocidos por su capacidad, honorabilidad, idoneidad y voluntad para dialogar, quienes ocuparán las distintas Secretarías y Subsecretarías de Estado, de conformidad con el artículo 246 y siguientes de la Constitución de la República de Honduras.
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July 29, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Pressure is mounting by the day on the government that replaced Manuel Zelaya, under the presidency of Roberto Micheletti. Zelaya remains camped just inside the Nicaraguan border, planning to re-enter Honduras and demanding he be restored to the presidency. The US has revoked diplomatic visas for four Honduran officials linked to Zelaya’s ouster, which is widely seen as an illegal coup in the international community. The Organization of American States (OAS) bars any use of military power to remove an elected government.
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July 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
One day, recently, I saw a fire-engine, crawling its way through a stop light, sirens blaring, hulking its way to provide the noble service of putting out someone’s fire or performing some other rescue operation. It was pouring a dark grey exhaust from one side, looking shiny new and well cared for, but obviously lacking advanced exhaust filtering or clean-energy drive technologies.
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July 29, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Senators Hatch (R-UT) and Cornyn (R-TX) have positioned themselves in the camp of “purified” Republican ideology, with a vaguely explained no-vote against Sonia Sotomayor. Sen. Hatch, who has never, in his 33 years in the Senate, voted against a Supreme Court nominee did not explain what specifically he found so objectionable in Sotomayor’s extensive judicial record, but kept close to code-words that might tip conservatives as to his ideological stance. Cornyn also appeared to critics to be “posturing” as he voted no against a nominee whose credentials he acknowledged.
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July 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States is working to develop closer strategic and economic relations with China. The relationship has always been tricky, due to the binary opposition of strategies, which is convenient for those who would like to disqualify the other side’s policies as “evil” or contrary to all reason. Pres. Barack Obama has been clear that he sees the US-China relationship as one of global ethical responsibility, and the driving economic and political bond in the 21st century.
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July 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Amazon Kindle DX is a beautiful device. Its design is user-friendly, intuitive and cohesive. It is clean-edged, minimal and thinner than many major magazines. Its format size is comfortable and makes tactile sense; it feels like something you hold in order to read, giving it a useful aesthetic kinship to books or magazines, a vast improvement on smaller e-reading devices. It is, in point of fact, far more comfortable than planting yourself in front of a computer monitor to read large amounts of text.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
DNA is an amazingly efficient memory bank for the design and scheduling of biological development. Cell DNA have their own replication systems, but human scientists who want to interfere with the content of the genome have been working to find ways to achieve artificial replication and synthesis of disparate properties, and now they may have achieved a landmark breakthrough.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Researchers have stumbled upon a surprise possible treatment for swelling of nerves in the spinal cord. It turns out that FD&C blue dye No. 1 bears certain key similarities to a compound used to treat nerve inflammation. Since there is no active immediate treatment for spinal cord injuries, and secondary inflammation often leads to long-term damage, this treatment holds great promise. The one side-effect observed: the rats’ skin turned blue.
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July 27, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Financial Times is the latest publication to weigh in on mounting expectations that Apple will release a touchscreen tablet computer this fall. There are rumors the computer maker is hoping to counter the rise of cheap netbooks with something lower-cost than their standard Macs and with a larger screen based on the model of the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The news could mean a breakthrough in personal computing standards and even portability of the workplace.
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July 26, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In a tucked-away corner of the New Zealand coastline, a couple, both architects, Lance and Nicola Herbst, have designed a self-sustaining “off-the-grid” home that lends flavor and mood to everyday living. Their cedar-clad bungalow is designed to interact with the natural environment and optimize its use of resources, such as energy, water and nutrients.
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July 25, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Iranian opposition has grown resurgent as top clerics decried the government’s crackdown on civilian demonstrators and called for the release of political prisoners and accountability and legitimacy among the leadership. Now, a global day of action has been organized by Iranian opposition groups in exile, with demonstrations in Manila, Seoul, Brussels, Berlin, London, New York and elsewhere.
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July 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Life for women in Darfuri refugee camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad is extremely hard. Many have no access to any public authority that will investigate violence against women, and medical facilities are scarce to non-existent. While rape is rampant, and has allegedly been used as a “weapon of war” by the Khartoum backed militia engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, women are seldom able to find safety in seeking help from local authorities.
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July 25, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The influenza A/H1N1 virus, known as “swine flu”, continues to spread, while governments step up efforts to help private industry produce a safe and effective vaccine. The southern hemisphere is now entering flu season, where the number of cases is expected to multiply and to spread across borders at perhaps unprecedented rates, a prospect which has public health officials working to establish means of prevention and containment.
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July 24, 2009 :: Severino Villalonso :: Comments Off
This afternoon, the ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was reported to have crossed “one step” into Honduran territory, only to retreat a couple of steps back into Nicaraguan territory. The Honduran military, with orders to arrest Zelaya upon his setting foot inside the country, did not respond, apparently waiting to see if Zelaya would push further into the country. US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has said Zelaya’s actions are “reckless”.
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July 24, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: 2 Comments
Natalya Estemirova was a seasoned journalist and well-known human rights activist and researcher. She was one of the leading sources of information about human rights abuses and major atrocities committed in Chechnya, and was considered a leading voice against authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
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July 24, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
“Estoy en la zona intermedia en la frontera de Nicaragua” declared ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, on video broadcast around the world, while speaking with someone reported to be from his family, whom he had hoped to meet at the border. Zelaya is, as of 15:55 EDT, today, about to re-enter Honduras from the territory of Nicaragua, amid a “caravan” of supporters. It is thought to be possible he is communicating with Honduran security forces.
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July 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Obama used his prime-time press conference last night to dive straight into the fray on healthcare reform, pledging commitment to bold action, demanding cost-cutting measures and promising to bring affordable coverage within reach of all Americans. He did not specify if he wanted an “individual mandate” that all Americans buy into one plan or another, and he did not promise that no insurer would be allowed to deny treatment under any circumstances.
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July 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Access to the internet must be a basic human right, across the globe, for a number of reasons. First of all, legitimate, transparent democratic processes of government require in today’s world that information flow freely and that citizens be empowered to share information and to find information, according to their choices and their needs.
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July 23, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: Comments Off
The 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been declared ended, with the taking of the Tigers’ last strongholds, the reported “liberation” of the civilian population of the region, and the killing of LTTE founder and supreme commander Velupillai Prabhakaran, whom the government declared to have died on 18 May 2009, in an attack on an ambulance reportedly carrying LTTE leaders.
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July 22, 2009 :: staff :: 7 Comments
The number of people officially recognized as having no healthcare insurance coverage in the United States has jumped from 46 million in 2007 to 52 million in 2009. The Center for American Progress reported in May that the rate of uninsurance was up substantially in all 50 states. The rate of increase, based on research from the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, means the rate at which uninsurance is increasing in the US is without precedent.
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July 22, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Preventive use of antibiotics has one salient effect: it speeds the evolution of targeted bacteria, allowing them to develop pervasive resistance to known treatments. In short, preventive administration of antibiotics makes diseases far more dangerous. The US government is now seeking to end the practice of administering antibiotics to livestock, which health officials believe is putting human health at risk.
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July 22, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is filing a federal lawsuit to force release of documents the intelligence community has refused to turn over in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. US intelligence agencies keep records of internal reports and investigations of alleged wrongdoing, and are obliged to report that wrongdoing to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), but may have failed to do so in recent years.
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July 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 7 Comments
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported last week that the healthcare plan currently being debated in Congress would likely cause federal expenses related to healthcare to increase. But it did not report that the plan would cause average per-patient costs to increase across the entire healthcare market, as opponents of healthcare reform are alleging. In fact, that philosophical point has not been disproven by any budgetary analysis to date.
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July 21, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Esteemed Harvard professor, and one of the leading African American scholars in the United States, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, PhD., was arrested at his home, by a police officer who suspected he might be a burglar. Dr. Gates had reportedly returned home from a trip to China, to find his front door “jammed”; he asked his cab driver to help him get the door open. A neighbor reportedly phoned police and reported a burglary in progress, when she saw two black men trying to force a door open by leaning into it.
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July 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama has proposed a national high-speed rail program that would develop eight to ten regions for high-speed rail (currently, only the so-called northeast corridor, running from Washington, DC, to Boston, through Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, has a regular high-speed service), as part of a phased-in long-term economic recovery plan. The rail project comes into play also as part of Obama’s plans for a comprehensive energy-sector overhaul, aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
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July 20, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The US space agency NASA’s Apollo 11 mission was the first to land a human being on the surface of the Moon, on 20 July 1969. The lunar module, known as Eagle, landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon. They spent one day there, and both stepped outside the lander to explore the otherworldly environment.
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July 20, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
This is what the debate in Congress is all about: Whether we’ll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under, and more Americans lose their coverage. Or whether we’ll seize this opportunity – one we might not have again for generations – and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009.
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July 20, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Former president and leading reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami has urged that Iran hold a nationwide referendum to allow voters to judge whether the 12 June election was legitimate or whether the government has sought to stay in power through mass fraud and other illegal means. Several reformist websites have reportedly carried the news, with Khatami saying “Durability of order and continuation of the country’s progress hinge on restoring public trust”.
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July 20, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
America’s banks have, over the last decade, entered into a dangerous fictional world of projected automatic wealth in which they expect that all payments they might receive will without fail materialize, regardless of circumstance. They treat the human beings with whom they have major financial relationships as if they were nothing more than endless fonts of easy money. This is the crisis of reasoning and cash flow we are, as a people, as a global society, trying to solve.
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July 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Khmer Rouge sought to establish a red Khmer empire in Cambodia, with some ambitions of expansion beyond the nation’s borders, by stamping out any human life or mind that varied from the project, as narrowly conceived by Pol Pot and his murderous regime. The “killing fields” that ensued, with the mass slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million people, were an attempt to establish a new break in time, the time before and the time after the purification —as the regime proposed— of all Cambodia.
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July 19, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Sami al-Haj, a reporter working for TV news network al-Jazeera, was jailed for six years at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, before being cleared and released. He is now setting up a team to file suit against former Pres. George W. Bush and other officials within his administration for damages related to his imprisonment.
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July 19, 2009 :: staff :: 7 Comments
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is back on the world stage, making a major visit to India, to discuss strategic issues, energy, diplomacy and counter-terrorism. She used her arrival to warn India not to make the same mistakes the US has made in delaying action to reduce emissions and combat climate change. She suggested “a great country like India” has the resources and ingenuity to avoid falling into the same traps of political inaction.
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July 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Carbon offsets allow the use of carbon-emitting processes to help fund and develop clean alternatives, which can then compete with and possibly replace the offending carbon-emitters. But there are also ways in which carbon offsetting can be used to combat poverty around the world. If offsets are focused on reducing bad habits, resulting from those engaging in those habits having either no alternative or no training to find alternatives, people living in the poorest conditions can find themselves benefitting from the clean energy revolution.
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July 18, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
Many in the news business have touted Cronkite’s passionate interest in new technologies and his willingness to take the work of the field reporter to the cutting edge of radio and television media, despite his early start in the business of ink and newsprint. More than oppose emerging media which had shifted the news culture away from his principles, he urged fellow reporters to be rigorous, thoughtful and given to probing investigation, so that the service they provided would be worthy of the expectations the public invests in the free press.
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July 18, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
Pictures and video from Tehran yesterday showed government forces storming into huge crowds of unarmed civilians, many of them gathered to support the opposition leaders who had gone to Tehran University to listen to Ayatollah Rafsanjani, a leading cleric and former president, deliver a sermon at Friday prayers. The security forces rode motorcycles into crowds of demonstrators and used teargas and batons to assault those assembled.
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July 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
From the beginning, these founders understood how change would come — just as King and all the civil rights giants did later. They understood that unjust laws needed to be overturned; that legislation needed to be passed; and that Presidents needed to be pressured into action. They knew that the stain of slavery and the sin of segregation had to be lifted in the courtroom, and in the legislature, and in the hearts and the minds of Americans.
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July 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
American journalism has lost one of its elder statesmen. Walter Cronkite was one of the founding fathers of broadcast journalism, pioneering a warm, conversational style for delivering facts with detachment and gravitas. The old-style newsman delivered news to the American viewing public about John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the protests of the 1960s, the Moon landing (40 years ago Monday), Watergate and other major moments of crisis and achievement.
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July 17, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that calls into question whether plans now under debate in Congress would achieve the cost-effectiveness Pres. Obama seeks has 6 senators saying they want the reform process to “slow down”. They seek a “budget-neutral” plan, as called for by the president. Obama does not want to slow down the process, argues that the administration has already located savings to pay for reform over 10 years, and is opposed to conservative Democratic senators’ desire to tax healthcare benefits to raise revenues.
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July 17, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
Wearing green wristbands indicative of support for Mir Hossein Mousavi’s opposition movement, a large but undetermined number of protesters gathered outside Tehran University, after prayers led by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to express their support for the defeated presidential candidate and his charges of election fraud. The Ayandeh news web site estimates that between 1.5 million and 2.5 million people gathered around Tehran University, either to get a glimpse of Friday prayers or show support for the opposition.
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July 17, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Dear President Obama, As you are about to visit Russia at President Dmitri Medvedev’s invitation, the international press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders would like to draw your attention to the frequency of crimes of violence against journalists in Russia and the prevailing impunity for those responsible.
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July 17, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
The American Medical Association (AMA), long a leading opponent of major national healthcare reforms, has now backed the House of Representatives’ HR 3200, known as America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The AMA president J. James Rohack, MD, affirmed the group’s support for the House measure, writing “This legislation includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform”.
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July 17, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Opposition presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi will reportedly attend Friday prayers in Tehran, to be led by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, their most powerful supporter in the clerical establishment, seen as a chief rival to Pres. Ahmedinejad and Ayatollah Khamene’i. The event will be the opposition leaders’ first public appearance since the disputed presidential election of 12 June.
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July 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The influenza A/H1N1 virus, popularly known as “swine flu” was officially declared a pandemic in June. Shortly after the pandemic declaration, it was confirmed that H1N1 was confirmed in human patients in 74 countries. In the 5 weeks since then, it has spread rapidly and is now confirmed to have caused human infection in 140 countries.
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July 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Labour party government of the United Kingdom has announced plans to establish an aggressive overhaul of national energy markets, shifting to 40% low-carbon energy sourcing, across all industries, by 2020. The energy secretary, Ed Milliband, will be given control of allocation of electricity across the energy grid, in an effort to speed the green-energy revolution to allow the UK to meet its legally-binding agreed emissions cuts of 34% by 2020.
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July 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
EMPATHY IS NOT PREJUDICE: it is the ability to imagine the point of view of the other. Without this ability to engage in thoughtful outreach, beyond one’s own personal realm of experience, and empathize with the human situation of the other, no jurist can begin to understand the human meaning of the arguments made in their court, and objectivity remains wholly beyond their reach.
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