Clipmarks | jklugman's clips

Lieberman to Seek Pardon for Manhattan Terrorist

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:24:10 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

on July 20, 2008, Senator Joe Lieberman was recorded on video telling Miriam Arocena, wife of Eduardo Arocena, the Federally-convicted leader of the Cuban-American terrorist group Omega 7, that he will carry back to Washington her request for a Presidential pardon for her husband. Arocena is serving a mandatory life sentence and was convicted on 25 Federal counts in New York and 24 counts in New York.

Lieberman said:

"It's my responsibility, it's my responsibility. I will carry it [the pardon request] back. I will carry it back. Yeah. I feel...I think of you like you were my family.... I'll bring it back. I'll do my best."

“From 1975 to 1982, Omega 7 conducted a series of bombings in the New York metropolitan area that injured bystanders and damaged homes, businesses, and a church. The bombsites included Avery Fisher Hall, Madison Square Garden, JFK Airport, the ticket office of Aeroflot (the Soviet airline), and the Cuban Mission to the United Nations."

Tags: joe lieberman, joseph lieberman, hypocrisy, war-on-terror, war on terror, eduardo arocena, cuba, omega 7

Haaretz editor: Israel facing existential crisis

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:07:22 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: The outgoing editor of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz spoke at the London Jewish Book Week.

On the 2005 Chris McGreal series that appeared in the Guardian, comparing Israel to South Africa:

Landau was "outraged" by the articles at the time, but went on: "I don't feel like that any more. I don't feel that my outrage did sufficient justice to that piece of journalism because I feel that we in Israel have got ourselves into a situation in which we will indeed be facing a South African dilemma.

"We will have a country in which we will become the minority and the majority will be denied their political and civil rights. When I re-read the Chris McGreal reports I no longer feel necessarily that that was totally tendentious. It might have been a prophetic piece of journalism. But the point is that the outrage which I gave voice to was an inadequate reaction. The reaction should have been: 'has he got a point?'"

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

"It is high time that the Anglo-Jewish community and intelligentsia stopped devoting an inordinate amount of its pro-Israel energies to a minute parsing of what the BBC or the Guardian wrote about Sderot [the Israeli town regularly hit by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip] today or yesterday," he told the London Jewish Book Week audience.

"The problem of Sderot and Gaza is not how many times the BBC refers to it. The problem is that Israel is mortally, existentially threatened. It has no long-term future if it can't resolve its conflict with the Palestinians," Landau added.

"I submit to you that these words I am using merely scratch the depths of our disaster, our tragedy," Landau said. "We have a huge, vast army. Every flick of its tail leads to wholesale death across the border, including children and babies and old people because we are so strong and they are so weak. And yet they are threatening our sovereign state."

Tags: israel, guardian, occupation, palestine, alan rusbridger, david landau, haaretz, chris mcgreal, south africa

Parisian rental bike experiment

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:30:23 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: I would love if something like this was adopted in my city.

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

But those ugly bikes are at the heart of a hugely successful rental program that could serve as a model for cities in the United States.

The bikes are called Velibs, and there are more than 20,500 of them in the French capital. Parisians rent them by swiping a membership card at one of more than 1,450 self service stations scattered across the city.

Velib execs are the first to admit that the program has been designed with the commuter in mind. Bikes are are available for 30 minute intervals -- pick one up, get where you need to go, and drop it off at a station within a half hour or you'll pay late fees.

As for the bikes themselves, they're designed for durability, not sleek good looks. Because they're used an average of 10 to 15 times per day, they're built to be sturdy, and are heavier than typical city bikes (nearly 50 pounds).

Bikes are reallocated to rental stations as needed by a fleet of 20 natural gas trucks and, and a maintenance team provides cleaning and repair.

Tags: bicycling, bike, paris, france, environment

Gypsy girls' corpses on beach fail to put off sunbathers

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:20:14 GMT

clipped by: pjr-s

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Gypsy girls' corpses on beach in Italy fail to put off sunbathers

John Hooper in Rome

Questions about the attitude of Italians to their Roma minority were again being asked yesterday after photographs were published of sunbathers continuing as normal with a day at the beach despite the bodies of two Gypsy girls who had drowned being laid out on the sand nearby.

"But the knot of curious onlookers that formed around the girls' bodies dissolved as [swiftly] as it had formed," the newspaper Corriere della Sera reported. "Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away on the shoulders [of the officers] between bathers stretched out in the sun."

The civil liberties group EveryOne said it was unconvinced by reports of the incident at Torregaveta and asked whether there might be something more sinister behind it.

Iran: Death to non-Muslims

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:06:22 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

Lawmakers in Iran are considering a proposal to make the death penalty automatic for those who leave the Muslim faith.

Abe Ghafari of Iranian Christians International, Inc. (ICI) was at least a little surprised to learn the news. "Before, it was like an option that an Islamic judge could decide to use or not to use -- but now it will become an automatic thing. And from the language of the legislation, it seems like something that cannot be appealed," Ghafari contends.

The death penalty would primarily apply to those who convert to the Christian faith. "There are large numbers of conversions from Islam, maybe even in the tens of thousands every year, and this is causing concern in the Islamic circles in Iran," Ghafari explains.

People who use the Internet to convert people away from the Muslim faith will also be subject to the death penalty.

Information on legislation provided by ICI about Iranian apostasy and the death penalty is available here.

Tags: iran, muslims, islam, murder, christianity, government, human rights

"The Dark Knight" Earns An Unprecedented $18,489,000

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:18:28 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: BURBANK, Calif., Jul 18, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Just past the stroke of midnight, Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Dark Knight" broke the record for a 12:01 a.m. film opening, earning an unprecedented $18,489,000 at the box office.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Legendary Pictures, a Syncopy Production, a Christopher Nolan film, "The Dark Knight," starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morgan Freeman. Nolan directed the film from a screenplay written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan.

Clip Source: www.moviesonline.ca

The Newest Dark Knight photos are in from Warner Brothers

The film reunites Bale with director Christopher Nolan and takes Batman across the world in his quest to fight a growing criminal threat.

With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Batman has been making headway against local crime...until a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker (Heath Ledger) unleashes a fresh reign of chaos across Gotham City.

Clip Source: i27.tinypic.com

Clip Source: www.moviesonline.ca

Clip Source: backseatcuddler.com

Clip Source: www.moviesonline.ca

To stop this devious new menace--Batman's most personal and vicious enemy yet--he will have to use every high-tech weapon in his arsenal and confront everything he believes. Check it out in IMAX and theaters on July 18th.

Tags: "the dark knight", christopher nolan, batman, christian bale, the joker, heath ledger, michael caine, gary oldman, morgan freeman, maggie gyllenhaal

Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:16:49 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: www.dailytech.com

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity

has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling.

Tags: global warming, scam, science

In Gitmo for giving a bad grade to a student

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:44:15 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: What the CIA told the Bush Admin in 2002

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

AMY GOODMAN: Jane Mayer, you also report that back in 2002, the CIA warned that up to a third of the prisoners at Guantanamo may have been imprisoned by mistake.

JANE MAYER: Isn’t that—to me, this is one of the amazing anecdotes

It’s not the ACLU. It’s not, you know, some kind of outside human rights group. It’s the CIA

the CIA sent a particular expert down to Guantanamo in the summer of 2002 to figure out what’s going on. Why are we not getting better intelligence out of these detainees

he came back saying, “Bad news. The reason we’re not getting better intelligence,

is that about a third of the people are innocent.” From what he could tell, they were just mistakes.

AMY GOODMAN: Mistake, like, for example, bounty hunters.

JANE MAYER: Right, sure. Bounty hunters

and people who were put—there

because of personal grudges

one detainee

had been a teacher of somebody and given them a bad grade, and the person that he’d flunked pointed him out as a terrorist, and he was rounded up.

Tags: war on terror, war crimes, gitmo, bush

Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens..Debate

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:42:29 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: *Everyone* I'm around believes the myth of 'global warming'.

Clip Source: www.dailytech.com

Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
Michael Asher (Blog) - July 16, 2008 9:35 PM

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."

Where did global warming go?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:24:56 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: junkscience.com

Evidence doesn't bare out alarmist claims of global warming - THESE are the seven graphs that should make the Rudd Government feel sick.

These are the seven graphs that should make you ask: What? Has global warming now stopped?

Look for yourself. They show that the world hasn't warmed for a decade, and has even cooled for several years.

See for yourself: Click here to view the graphs in detail (pdf)

Sea ice now isn't melting, but spreading. The seas have not just stopped rising, but started to fall.

Nor is the weather getting wilder. Cyclones, as well as tornadoes and hurricanes, aren't increasing and the rain in Australia hasn't stopped falling.

What's more, the slight warming we saw over the century until 1998 still makes the world no hotter today than it was 1000 years ago.

In fact, it's even a bit cooler. So, dude, where's my global warming? (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)

Tags: environment, global warming, scam

There is no climate crisis: Hoax revealed

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:01:58 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%;

CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;

Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;

The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;

The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated;

“Global warming” halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years; Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;

The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;

Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;

In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.

Clip Source: scienceandpublicpolicy.org

Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports

Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.

“… Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no ‘climate crisis’ at all. … The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”

Video of torture at Guatanamo - WARNING:Graphic video

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:29:50 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

This persecution of Gypsies is now the shame of Europe

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:46:32 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

This persecution of Gypsies is now the shame of Europe

Italy's campaign against the Roma has ominous echoes of its fascist past, and the silence of our leaders is deafening

At the heart of Europe, police have begun fingerprinting children on the basis of their race - with barely a murmur of protest from European governments. Last week, Silvio Berlusconi's new rightwing Italian administration announced plans to carry out a national registration of all the country's estimated 150,000 Gypsies - Roma and Sinti people - whether Italian-born or migrants. Interior minister and leading light of the xenophobic Northern League, Roberto Maroni, insisted that taking fingerprints of all Roma, including children, was needed to "prevent begging" and, if necessary, remove the children from their parents.

Genetic Determinants of Self Identity and Social Recognition in Bacteria

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:47:19 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: The understanding of self and other and social recognition in ... bacteria!

Clip Source: www.sciencemag.org

The bacterium Proteus mirabilis is capable of movement on solidsurfaces by a type of motility called swarming. Boundaries formbetween swarming colonies of different P. mirabilis strainsbut not between colonies of a single strain. A fundamental requirementfor boundary formation is the ability to discriminate betweenself and nonself. We have isolated mutants that form boundarieswith their parent. The mutations map within a six-gene locusthat we term ids for identification of self. Five of the genesin the ids locus are required for recognition of the parentstrain as self. Three of the ids genes are interchangeable betweenstrains, and two encode specific molecular identifiers.

Tags: bacteria, science, genetics, identity, social

Obama removes surge criticism from his website

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:38:45 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: More change.

Clip Source: townhall.com

Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

... Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

(... And he thought nobody would notice.)

Not only is this a tacit admission that Obama was wrong about the surge ("judgment" -- not experience -- matters most, right?) -- but this move also shows a more sinister, secretive Obama.