1/26/2011
1/25/2011
Mystery of Earth's Greatest Extinction May Be Solved
The massive natural CO2 emissions from the Siberian traps' coal fires are analogous to the man-made CO2 emissions from burning coal for power and cement production. Humans are in the process of recreating the conditions that led to the greatest mass extinction event in earth's history.
Amplify’d from www.dailykos.com
Two hundred fifty million years ago the CO2 levels shot up in the atmosphere, the oceans turned into acid, temperatures skyrocketed and death embraced the earth, killing over 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species. The prime suspect has long been a series of massive volcanic eruptions in Russia known as the Siberian Traps eruptions. One of the other suspected causes was a meteorite impact, because basaltic volcanic eruptions don't emit enough CO2 to cause a global catastrophe. The cause of the massive spike in CO2 has been a mystery.
Now the missing clue, has been found: 250 million year old coal ash.
The Permian extinction, known as the great dying, was the largest extinction in earth's history.
Source: Wikipedia
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1/22/2011
Vermont Is Gearing Up to Strike a Major Blow to Corporate Personhood
"The profits and institutional survival of large corporations are often in direct conflict with the essential needs and rights of human beings," it states, noting that corporations "have used their so-called rights to successfully seek the judicial reversal of democratically enacted laws.”
Amplify’d from www.alternet.org
Vermont Is Gearing Up to Strike a Major Blow to Corporate Personhood
On the anniversary of the Citizens United decision, Vermont politicians are moving to deny corporations the rights that humans enjoy.
A year ago today, the Supreme Court issued its bizarre Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections as a form of “free speech” for the corporate “person.” Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the dissent, had the task of recalling the majority to planet earth and basic common sense.
"Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires," wrote Stevens. "Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
Fortunately, movements are afoot to reverse a century of accumulated powers and protections granted to corporations by wacky judicial decisions.
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1/11/2011
Record Labels To Pay $45 Million for Pirating Artists’ Music
Warner Music, Sony BMG Music, EMI Music and Universal Music were sued for the illegal use of thousands of tracks and risked paying damages of up to $6 billion.
Amplify’d from torrentfreak.com
Record Labels To Pay $45 Million for Pirating Artists’ Music
The major record labels are known for their harsh stance on copyright infringements, which in an ironic turn of events is now costing them millions of dollars. Revealing a double standard when it comes to ‘piracy’, Warner Music, Sony BMG Music, EMI Music and Universal Music now have to pay Canadian artists $45 Million for the illegal use of thousands of tracks on compilation CDs.
It is no secret that the major record labels have a double standard when it comes to copyright. On the one hand they try to put operators of BitTorrent sites in jail and ruin the lives of single mothers and students by demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, and on the other they sell CDs containing music for which they haven’t always cleared the rights. This happens worldwide and more frequently than one would think.
Over the years the labels have made a habit of using songs from a wide variety of artists for compilation CDs without securing the rights. They simply use the recording and make note of it on “pending list” so they can deal with it later. This has been going on since the 1980s and since then the list of unpaid tracks (or copyright infringements) has grown to 300,000 in Canada alone.
This questionable practice has been the subject of an interesting Canadian class action lawsuit which was started in 2008. A group of artists and composers who grew tired of waiting endlessly for their money filed a lawsuit against four major labels connected to the CRIA, the local equivalent of the RIAA.
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Land fizzing like soda pop: farmer says CO2 injected underground is leaking
Since 2000, Cenovus has injected about 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide underground to force more oil from an aging field and safely store greenhouse gases that would otherwise contribute to climate change.
But in 2005, the Kerrs began noticing algae blooms, clots of foam and multicoloured scum in two ponds at the bottom of a gravel quarry on their land. Sometimes, the ponds bubbled. Small animals — cats, rabbits and goats — were regularly found dead a few metres away.
Then there were the explosions.
Amplify’d from www.winnipegfreepress.com
Land fizzing like soda pop: farmer says CO2 injected underground is leaking
A Saskatchewan farm couple whose land lies over the world's largest carbon capture and storage project says greenhouse gases seeping from the soil are killing animals and sending groundwater foaming to the surface like shaken soda pop.
The gases were supposed to have been injected permanently underground.
Cameron and Jane Kerr own nine quarter-sections of land above the Weyburn oilfield in eastern Saskatchewan. They released a consultant's report Tuesday that links high concentrations of carbon dioxide in their soil to 6,000 tonnes of the gas injected underground every day by energy giant Cenovus (TSX:CVE) in an attempt to enhance oil recovery and fight climate change.
"We knew, obviously, there was something wrong," said Jane Kerr.
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Don’t Blame Sarah Palin, Just Stop Paying Attention!
..."Rush Limbaugh makes money getting simpleminded people to feel good about their intellectually undernourished brain spasms. He’s very good at it, and I scarcely believe a fraction of what he says. Sarah Palin embarrasses herself almost immediately upon opening her mouth to speak or upon moving her fingers to send messages to her dull flock."...
Amplify’d from www.vanityfair.com
America has a new name to splash across the front pages of its newspapers and Web sites: Jared Lee Loughner, age 22, accused of shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others last Saturday in Tucson, Arizona.
Almost immediately after the horrific event, which left six dead and 14 wounded, people searched for a reason for Loughner’s actions. Almost immediately, Sarah Palin’s name came up. On her Web site, Palin had posted a map of the United States with marks designating the home states of Democratic politicians to defeat. The marks, some say, resemble crosshair sights, and Giffords was one of the Democrats singled out. The map has been taken off the site, and Palin has sent her condolences to the victims and their families. I hope she’s feeling better.
Since then, popular conservative radio personalities have been talking nonstop to deflect the onslaught of incoming flak from people accusing them of inciting dangerous behavior with the content of their shows.
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1/10/2011
OMG! "An attack on Sarah palen Could Bring Down The Republic"!!!!
LOL! LOL! This has got to be the Funniest and most nauseating thing GLEN BECK has ever said! What a freaking joke! Watch the video on site! LOL! oh' and he's NOT JOKING!!!!
Amplify’d from www.therightscoop.com
This is probably the closest thing we’ll get to hear from Sarah Palin this soon on this weekend’s unfortunate events. Glenn Beck reads part of an email from Sarah Palin to him in light of the massive smear job the Left is perpetrating against her. Beck reads his part first and then part of her response. Here is how she replied to him (according to Beck):
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Why Obama's National Internet ID Solution is a Really, REALLY Bad Idea
This is a very dangerous step towards increasing the power and reach of the government into our pocketbooks.
Amplify’d from www.techi.com
Why Obama's National Internet ID Solution is a Really, REALLY Bad Idea
When it comes to the Internet, the US government usually doesn’t have a clue. That seems to be the case with the recent announcement of the Obama Administration’s plans to develop an internet identity system that officials claim will reduce fraud and identity theft while streamlining online transactions.
Cut to the chase: the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is a bad idea. On the surface having something that will increase online transactions and reduce identity theft makes (some) sense. Security is the #1 reason that people avoid online transactions and in an age that is continuously going more and more digital, it would appear prudent to take steps towards improving security.
This step is not a prudent one. It will lead us down the wrong path for several reasons.
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1/09/2011
The Next Net
Lets Do it!
Amplify’d from shareable.net
The Next Net
The moment the "net neutrality" debate began was the moment the net neutrality debate was lost. For once the fate of a network - its fairness, its rule set, its capacity for social or economic reformation - is in the hands of policymakers and the corporations funding them - that network loses its power to effect change. The mere fact that lawmakers and lobbyists now control the future of the net should be enough to turn us elsewhere.
Of course the Internet was never truly free, bottom-up, decentralized, or chaotic. Yes, it may have been designed with many nodes and redundancies for it to withstand a nuclear attack, but it has always been absolutely controlled by central authorities. From its Domain Name Servers to its IP addresses, the Internet depends on highly centralized mechanisms to send our packets from one place to another.
The ease with which a Senator can make a phone call to have a website such as Wikileaks yanked from the net mirrors the ease with which an entire top-level domain, like say .ir, can be excised. And no, even if some smart people jot down the numeric ip addresses of the websites they want to see before the names are yanked, offending addresses can still be blocked by any number of cooperating government and corporate trunks, relays, and ISPs. That's why ministers in China finally concluded (in cables released by Wikileaks, no less) that the Internet was "no threat."
That's right. I propose we abandon the Internet, or at least accept the fact that it has been surrendered to corporate control like pretty much everything else in Western society. It was bound to happen, and its flawed, centralized architecture made it ripe for conquest.
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5,200 Pentagon Employees Purchased Child Pornography
Amplify’d from www.roguegovernment.com
5,200 Pentagon Employees Purchased Child Pornography
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1/08/2011
US subpoenas Wikileaks tweets, and why this could affect you
The order asks specifically for names of those attached to selected accounts, user and screen names, and any registered mailing or postal addresses. It also asks for email addresses, credit card details where possible, and even content relating to connected mobile phones.
Amplify’d from www.zdnet.com
US subpoenas Wikileaks tweets, and why this could affect you
The US government has subpoenaed Twitter in a bid to support an ongoing criminal investigation into whether Wikileaks and people involved or connected to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic member of parliament, broke the law.
According to Wikileaks lawyer Mark Stephens live on the BBC News a short time ago, it is believed Facebook and Google (see here) have also been contacted regarding Wikileaks members and potential whistleblowers.
The order asks specifically for names of those attached to selected accounts, user and screen names, and any registered mailing or postal addresses. It also asks for email addresses, credit card details where possible, and even content relating to connected mobile phones.
The server logs which could identify the computer and geographical location of where even private messages were sent from have also been ordered to be handed over.
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1/07/2011
Drill Close to Reaching 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake
Very exciting!
Amplify’d from www.wired.com
Drill Close to Reaching 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake
Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit.
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1/05/2011
Down and Out on $250,000 a Year
"This is not satire. This appears to be a completely serious attempt to justify the extension of the Bush tax cuts by showing a "typical" family of 4 with no debt (other than a mortgage) struggling to get by on a quarter of a million dollars a year.!!!!!"OK, I'am gonna to puke now...excuse me please!
Amplify’d from www.thefiscaltimes.com
Down and Out on $250,000 a Year
The bottom line: It’s not exactly easy street
for our $250,000-a-year family, especially
when it lives in high-tax areas on either coast.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bko5x
Why Washington Hates Hugo Chavez
The details of Chavez's efforts have been largely omitted in the US media where he is regularly demonized as a "leftist strongman" or a dictator.
Amplify’d from www.globalresearch.ca
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1/03/2011
Scalia: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination
Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center, called the justice's comments "shocking" and said he was essentially saying that if the government sanctions discrimination against women, the judiciary offers no recourse.
Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON -- The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
In a newly-published interview with the legal magazine California Lawyer, Scalia said that while the Constitution does not disallow the passage of legislation outlawing such discrimination, it doesn't itself outlaw that behavior:
Greenberger added that under Scalia's doctrine, women could be legally barred from juries, paid less by the government, receive fewer benefits in the armed forces, and be excluded from state-run schools -- all things that have happened in the past, before their rights to equal protection were enforced.
"In these comments, Justice Scalia says if Congress wants to protect laws that prohibit sex discrimination, that's up to them," she said. "But what if they want to pass laws that discriminate? Then he says that there's nothing the court will do to protect women from government-sanctioned discrimination against them. And that's a pretty shocking position to take in 2011. It's especially shocking in light of the decades of precedents and the numbers of justices who have agreed that there is protection in the 14th Amendment against sex discrimination, and struck down many, many laws in many, many areas on the basis of that protection."
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Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy'
Stockman's indictment warns that the Republican party's "new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one:"
Amplify’d from www.marketwatch.com
Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy'
Commentary: How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal discipline
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."
Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."
Please listen with an open mind, no matter your party affiliation: This makes for a powerful history lesson, because it exposes how both parties are responsible for destroying the U.S. economy. Listen closely:
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How much more can the oppressed take before they revolt?
The timidity and silencing of the left fuels the steady impoverishment of a dispossessed working class and a beleaguered middle class. It solidifies a corporate oligarchy that is dismantling the anemic regulatory agencies that once protected citizens from predatory corporations. The economic system is designed to bail out Wall Street rather than replace the trillions of dollars and millions of jobs lost by workers. And the only hope left, Nader argues, is if the conservatives in the right-wing movement break from the corporatists. If the big banks again start going to the cliff and calling for new bailouts, Nader says, this may provoke a schism between conservative groups embodied by figures such as Ron Paul, and corporate lackeys.
Amplify’d from www.informationclearinghouse.info
Ralph Nader: ‘The Left Has Nowhere to Go’
By Chris Hedges
January 03, 2010 "Truthdig' - -Ralph Nader in a CNN poll a few days before the 2008 presidential election had an estimated 3 percent of the electorate, or about 4 million people, behind his candidacy. But once the votes were counted, his support dwindled to a little over 700,000. Nader believes that many of his supporters entered the polling booth and could not bring themselves to challenge the Democrats and Barack Obama. I suspect Nader is right. And this retreat is another example of the lack of nerve we must overcome if we are going to battle back against the corporate state. A vote for Nader or Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2008 was an act of defiance. A vote for Obama and the Democrats was an act of submission. We cannot afford to be submissive anymore.
"The more outrageous the Republicans become, the weaker the left becomes," Nader said when I reached him at his home in Connecticut on Sunday. "The more outrageous they become, the more the left has to accept the slightly less outrageous corporate Democrats."
Nader fears a repeat of the left's cowardice in the next election, a cowardice that has further empowered the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, maintained the role of the Democratic Party as a lackey for corporations, and accelerated the reconfiguration of the country into a neo-feudalist state
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1/02/2011
View Quadrantid meteor shower tonight (1/3/11)
One of the most intense and briefest meteor showers of the year, the Quadrantids, will peak overnight tonight.
Amplify’d from www.post-gazette.com
One of the most intense and briefest meteor showers of the year, the Quadrantids, will peak overnight tonight. Because the show is usually only a few hours long and often obscured by winter weather, it doesn't have the same celebrated status as the Geminids or Perseids. However, the Quadrantid shower, which won't be affected by the moon this year, can produce about 40 "shooting stars" per hour before dawn.
Quadrantid meteors take their name from an obsolete constellation, Quadrans Muralis, found in early 19th-century star atlases between Draco, Hercules and Bootes.
To view January's only meteor shower, simply go outside after midnight and face northeast. Observe from a location that's as dark as possible. and leave your telescope or binoculars at home.
The shower's radiant (a point in the sky from which meteors appear to stream) will lie about 15 degrees above the northeastern horizon in the constellation Bootes at 2 a.m. Quadrantid meteors can appear anywhere in the heavens, but their trails will point back toward the radiant.
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The Historical Framework of Globalization
The “Fed’s” covert policies and clandestine machinations are accelerating the “need” and “demand” for a global currency to replace existing national currencies. In previous eras, the implementation of such plans and intentions would have been deemed high treason and appropriately punished; in today’s parlance, it should most properly be categorized as an act of terrorism.
Amplify’d from www.globalresearch.ca
Our era is largely defined by two highly interlinked concepts: globalization and the so-called “war on terrorism.” As geopolitical-economic operatives, both concepts complement each other as significant means to specific ends; both shape important aspects of our daily lives and determine form and content of much that passes for public discourse. Particularly in Europe and in the United States, populations are kept vigilant to the “clear and present dangers” ostensibly posed by “international terrorism” through mnemonic icons of troop movements in Central Asia and/or strategically deployed bomb plots that are purportedly thwarted “just in time” by our intelligence services. As if copied from the lecture notes of Carl Schmitt, a totalitarian “enemy” has been constructed which can conveniently be called back into service at a moment’s notice should public memory begin to fade.
Elite bankers in the United States and Europe conceived and enacted the Federal Reserve system as a major stepping stone toward eventual global governance of a neo-feudalistic society. The continuing global economic crisis was also conceived and implemented as a further essential tool in bringing about a one-world government controlled by bankers and their intellectual shills sitting in crucial positions and calling the shots -- qui custodiet custodes?
11) See Ellen Brown, “The Towers of Basel: Secretive Plan to Create a Global Central Bank,” The Global Economic Crisis. The Great Depression of the XXI Century, ed. Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, (Montreal: Global Research Publishers, 2010) 330 - 342.
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