Current Events

A Sad Day For Peanut Butter

2009-01-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

(CNN) — "A Georgia peanut butter plant found salmonella in their products in at least 10 instances over the past two years, but sent out the contaminated peanut butter anyway, federal officials revealed Tuesday."

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/27/peanut-plant-knowingly-sent-out-tainted-products/

How to rescue the bank bailout

2009-01-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

Great synopsis of the bank bailout thus far and an argument for nationalization. from Joseph Stiglitz.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/26/stiglitz.finance.crisis/index.html

The $53 trillion asteroid

2008-03-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

Let's say a giant asteroid was headed toward Earth right now and experts say it has a good chance of ending civilization as we know it. Let's also say that we've known about this asteroid for years but even as it gets closer and closer our leaders do nothing.

"Don't worry," they tell us, "The next administration will figure something out."

With the future of our country at stake, would Americans really sit back and tolerate that kind of inaction? Of course not -- we'd be sharpening our pitchforks and demanding answers.

Well there may not be a space asteroid heading toward us, but there is an economic one -- and the threat to our future is just as severe.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/26/beck.deficit/index.html

Who gets rich off $3 gas - who doesn't

2008-03-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/13/news/economy/gas_gallon/index.htm?postversion=2008031404

The Autumn of the Multitaskers

2008-01-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/multitasking

Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy. One man’s odyssey through the nightmare of infinite connectivity

by Walter Kirn

The Evolutionary Brain Glitch That Makes Terrorism Fail

2007-07-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

"Two people are sitting in a room together: an experimenter and a subject. The experimenter gets up and closes the door, and the room becomes quieter. The subject is likely to believe that the experimenter's purpose in closing the door was to make the room quieter.

This is an example of correspondent inference theory. People tend to infer the motives -- and also the disposition -- of someone who performs an action based on the effects of his actions, and not on external or situational factors. If you see someone violently hitting someone else, you assume it's because he wanted to -- and is a violent person -- and not because he's play-acting. If you read about someone getting into a car accident, you assume it's because he's a bad driver and not because he was simply unlucky. And -- more importantly for this column -- if you read about a terrorist, you assume that terrorism is his ultimate goal."

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/07/securitymatters_0712

Study Documents the Power of Indoor Plants

2007-05-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

From the article:

* Americans spent an average of $147 on domestic plants for their homes last year.
* Research suggests that indoor plants reduce symptoms of fatigue, headache, cough and dry skin.
* Plant-filled rooms contain up to 60 percent fewer airborne molds and bacteria than rooms without plants, studies show.
* America’s favorite potted flowering plant is the poinsettia.
* There are more than 65,000 greenhouses in the U.S.
* Most American Christmas trees are grown in Oregon and North Carolina.
* The following plants are best at decontaminating air and balancing humidity: Areca, Reed and Dwarf date palms; Boston ferns, English ivy and Peace Lilies.

Study Documents the Power of Indoor Plants

Chinese Student Arrested for Making Video Game Map of School

2007-05-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

And the overreaction begins...

student_arrested.html

Jury convicts Libby on four of five charges

2007-03-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

Jury convicts Libby on four of five charges

Afghan children die as US drops one-tonne bombs

2007-03-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

Nine civilians, including four children, were killed in Afghanistan when US planes dropped two 2,000lb bombs on their mud home. Their deaths came after at least eight civilians were killed by US Marines a day earlier.

It has been a disastrous two days for the Americans in Afghanistan. First US Marines trying to get to safety after being ambushed by a suicide bomber sprayed gunfire wildly across one of the busiest roads in the country, killing passers-by.

And now US planes have dropped two bombs on a family home, killing children aged between six months and five years.

Last year, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai wept as he pleaded for Western soldiers to take more care to avoid killing civilians. But the killings continue.

Afghan children die as US drops one-tonne bombs

US, North Korea meet to unravel half century of enmity

2007-03-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

The United States and North Korea begin landmark negotiations Monday on normalizing relations, a long-standing condition set by the reclusive communist regime for abandoning its nuclear ambitions

US, North Korea meet to unravel half century of enmity

Why Can't We Talk about Peace in Public?

2007-03-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

America's growing economic dependence on the hi-tech defense industry is creating a culture that views peace and nonviolence as seditious concepts.

Why Can't We Talk about Peace in Public?

Scott Ritter on Hillary Clinton and Iraq

2007-03-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

It Doesn't Matter If Hillary Apologizes for Her Iraq War Vote

Hillary Clinton knew years before she voted for the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs -- Bill Clinton lied about Iraq's weapons programs to justify attacking the country in 1998.

Senator Hillary Clinton wants to become President Hillary Clinton. "I'm in, and I'm in to win," she said, announcing her plans to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 Presidential election.

Let there be no doubt that Hillary Clinton is about as slippery a species of politician that exists, one who has demonstrated an ability to morph facts into a nebulous blob which blurs the record and distorts the truth. While she has demonstrated this less than flattering ability on a number of issues, nowhere is it so blatant as when dealing with the issue of the ongoing war in Iraq and Hillary Clinton's vote in favor of this war.

Iraqis consider return home: 'Maybe in a million years'

2007-03-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

Since the war began four years ago this month, up to 2-million Iraqis have fled their violent, chaotic country. The diaspora has spread throughout much of the region, with Iraqis now living in Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.

Ahmed and Sara Jabar were among the first to move to Jordan, soon after the Americans captured Baghdad in 2003 and the city descended into a hell of looting and thuggery.

They found a $105-a-month walkup in a run-down building, its dim halls littered with trash and broken glass. But "the most important thing is to feel secure," says the 31-year-old Ahmed. "The rest you can manage."

Until a year ago, he worked as a taxi driver ferrying other Iraqis from Baghdad to Amman. One day, Jordanian authorities refused to let his passengers enter, so they turned back toward Baghdad. Near Ramadi, the taxi came under fire.

Five passengers were killed. One passenger and Jabar survived, though he was in a coma for two months. Bullets broke his right leg and three bones in his face.

When he recovered well enough to walk, albeit with metal pins in his leg, Jabar got a job in a bakery. He makes $12 a day, barely enough for food and rent. And not nearly enough for the $250 taxi ride to the Iraqi border, 200 miles away. The Jabars have only a three-month residency permit, meaning every 90 days they are supposed to go back to Iraq and re-enter Jordan.

The latest three months were up Feb. 14. As long as they don't cause trouble, the authorities won't bother them, the couple hope.

It is rare to find an Iraqi here who hasn't lost someone to the mayhem back home, and the Jabars are no exception. In September, Ahmed Jabar's brother disappeared. He had been married three months.

In October, Sara's nephew and niece were killed in a suicide bombing. He was 14. She was 10.

Do the Jabars think they will ever return to Iraq?

"No," says Sara.

"Maybe in a million years," says Ahmed.

Iraqis_consider_return

Harvard doctor says he's future for Congo

2006-07-17T06:08:00.000-07:00

Congo's least likely presidential candidate says it's time for Africa to let go of its gun-toting dictators and elect people who can think.

congo_coming_from_america

World Cup 2006

2006-07-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Their Cheating Hearts:

worldcup_theater

"As soon as the first card happy referees set the tone of the tournament, a number of players - not all certainly but enough - have tried to use it to their advantage. A roll here, a dying swan routine there: one could be forgiven for thinking on occasion that there were more snipers in the upper tier of German stadiums this summer than on the rooftops of Basra.

The game is turning into a theatre for outrageous charlatans and thieves, conning those watching in the grounds and at home as much as they are the referees. The art of defending, if not a dying one then certainly very unwell, becomes a lottery when a mistimed tackle could easily be your last contribution to a game."

...

"Only when the punishment truly fits the crime will we start to rid the game of this cancer and maybe avoid the heartbreak of another tournament that promises us the world and then runs off with a Portuguese waiter with an eye for the theatrical."

Warren Buffett gives away his fortune to Bill Gates

2006-06-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

"The world's second richest man - who's now worth $44 billion - tells editor-at-large Carol Loomis he will start giving away 85% of his wealth in July - most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/fortune/charity1.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

US harbors Cuban terrorists

2006-06-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

"The Bush administration finally took action against alleged terrorists living in plain sight in Miami, but they weren’t the right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in actual acts of terror, such as blowing a civilian Cuban airliner out of the sky. They were seven young black men whose crime was more 'aspirational than operational,' the FBI said."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/062406.html

Words from a U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist on World Refugee Day

2006-06-23T05:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 20th, was World Refugee Day. U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist Joey Cheek wrote this piece calling attention to Darfur after he donated $40,000 of his prize money to a Darfur-focused charity.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=cheek/060620

For more information:
http://www.savedarfur.org/

House says no to permanent bases in Iraq

2006-06-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

Finally, some good news!

http://washtimes.com/upi/20060621-045752-4579r.htm

The House of Representatives has passed a bill barring the U.S. military from establishing permanent bases in Iraq.
The 2007 Defense Authorization Act, approved by the House Wednesday, includes language sponsored by Democratic war critic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, banning the United States from negotiating for permanent bases with the government of Iraq. Language to that effect was included in both versions of the Senate and House emergency war supplemental but was stripped out during conference earlier this month.
On Tuesday, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, introduced an amendment deleting the permanent basing language. It was defeated by a vote of 50-376.
John Isaacs, the president of the liberal Council for a Livable World, said Wednesday the vote shows the Republican-dominated House -- while rejecting a firm withdrawal date from Iraq -- is also against an open-ended occupation.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., spoke against the King amendment, saying it played into al-Qaida's propaganda that the United States is trying to establish a permanent foothold in the Middle East.
"If we strike this prohibition from this bill that was well thought out, what we are saying to the Iraqi people and what I am satisfied the propaganda machine of al Qaida in Iraq are going to do is use this and say: see there, we told you so. The Americans plan to occupy us for the rest of our lives," Young said.
U.S. military officials told United Press Iinternational the plan for Iraq's bases has been to collapse U.S. forces back from occupying more than 60 bases to 10 primary bases, which are ultimately intended to be turned over to Iraq's 10 divisions.

Chinese Censorship

2006-02-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

Party elders attack China censors
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4712134.stm

"A group of former senior Communist party officials in China have launched a scathing attack on the country's handling of the media and information...Among the signatories are an ex-aide to Mao Zedong, a former newspaper editor and a former party propaganda chief...'History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance,' the group said in the letter, according to Reuters news agency."

Welcome!

2006-02-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my new current events blog. I will be frequently posting links to interesting articles and news items I come across, and occasionally I may provide some editorialization of my own, if my article selection isn't enough information to deduce my political leanings ;-)