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GAIA AND HOMOSAPIENS

***** The Richard Dimbleby Lecture by HRH Prince Charles, titled “Facing the Future”
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***** Documentary - 43.39 min | Ihe Arctic - A Changing World - The Nature of Things
CBC - December 3, 2009 - Short sponsor's ad precedes film.
target="new"> - FILM ^

Jordan Page Pendulum Music Video
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"Listen" By Jordan Page
- LINK ^

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NoteThe symbol ^ denotes that that article can be read in full at the link. Articles with text in iralics are from last issue.

Imaging Life

Quote | "No Real Deal, and No Exit"
"The roof of our house is on fire but our leaders, our economic system and we ourselves are ignoring the alarms and continuing to add more fuel. There are no exit doors in our house; there is nowhere else to go."
IPS.org

Climate Change - As the World Turns

Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure
Deal thrashed out at talks condemned as climate change scepticism
The Guardian - Saturday, december 19. 2009
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The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement last night in Copenhagen, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.
After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord "recognises" the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but did not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

NGOs Getting Ready for Mexico
IPS/TerraViva - By Daniela Estrada - December 17, 2009
- LINK ^
COPENHAGEN Before the outcome of COP 15 has even emerged, Latin American social organisations are already discussing their strategies for the next climate summit, to be held in a year’s time in Mexico.

Editorial | Copenhagen - U.S. initiative, Canadian passivity
The Globe and Mail - Thursday, December 17, 2009
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National

Iran | Crowds gather to mourn reformist Iran cleric Montazeri
Advertisement - People converge on Qom for funeral
BBC - December 20, 2009
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Crowds of mourners are gathering in the Iranian city of Qom following the death of leading reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri at 87.
Some pro-reform websites say thousands of people are travelling to the city ahead of Monday's funeral. Other unverified reports say opposition supporters are also gathering in some squares in Tehran, fuelling government concern of increased political tension. Iran faced serious unrest after its disputed presidential election in June.

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, one of Shia Islam's most respected figures and a leading critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself said in August that the turmoil following the election "could lead to the fall of the regime".

Born into provincial family in 1922 and educated at a seminary. Arrested and tortured for leading protests against Iran monarchy
Designated successor to Islamic Republic's founder, Khomeini
Fell out with Khomeini in 1989 over Iran's human rights record
House arrest in 1997 for criticising current Supreme Leader
Issues a fatwa against President Ahmadinejad after 2009's election

He said Iran's clerical leadership was a dictatorship and issued a fatwa condemning the government after the election.

Iran - Opinion | Ahmadinejad: Obama walking down Bush's road
Press IV - December 18, 2009
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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his US counterpart Barack Obama talks of change but in reality is 'going down the same road' as his predecessor, George W. Bush. More than a week after Obama defended US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Ahmadinejad said Obama's oft-stated claims of change increasingly seem to be "just talk and nothing more."

"So far, Mr. Obama has only talked of bringing change to Washington, but US policies are not much different from before," said Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on the sidelines of UN talks on climate change in Denmark.

Pakisran | High court blocks officials from exiting country
CNN - December 17, 2009
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Nearly 280 government officials are put on 'exit control list after Pakistan's Supreme Court struck down an amnesty that had protected politicians from corruption charges, state media reported.

Pakistan government says it will not resign
BBC - December 20, 2009
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Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik in Karachi on 7 December 2009
Rehman Malik is one of thousands who benefited from the anti-graft amnesty

Pakistan's government has said it will not resign, following a court ruling which overturned an amnesty for politicians facing corruption charges.

Turkey President: I'll visit Israel only after life in Gaza improves
Haaretz - By Barak Ravid
- LINK ^

Turkish President Abdullah Gul told President Shimon Peres at a private meeting in Copenhagen on Friday that only after Israel takes action to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip would he pay Israel a visit.

UK | Blair, Obama and the Narcissist's Defense
Atlantic Free Press - By Chris Floyd - December 18, 2009
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In recent days we have all witnessed two vomitous eruptions of moral nullity that would tax the powers of a Voltaire or a Vidal to do them proper justice; they quite o'er-crow the meager gifts of a hack like me. But I will sketch a few observations here nonetheless, if only to add one more small voice to those few who bear witness to the evils perpetrated by our unaccountable leaders. 

We speak of course of Barack Obama's Nobel speech and Tony Blair's recent comments on the Iraq War. Let's take the lesser figure first.

Since leaving office, Tony Blair has dipped his blood-smeared snout into various corporate troughs, amassing millions, while simultaneously becoming one of the great whited sepulchres of our day, making a great show of his conversion to Catholicism, his "faith foundation," and so on. He has even lectured at Yale Divinity School. But this holy huckster looks more haunted every day. The glaring, bulging eyes, the frantic rictus of his grin – indistinguishable from the grimace of a man in gut-clenching pain --- and the ever-more strident, maniacal defense of his war crimes give compelling testimony to the hellish fires consuming his psyche.


Next month, Blair will go before the Chilcot Inquiry, a panel of UK Establishment worthies charged with investigating the origins of Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq. Although the worthies have been remarkably toothless in their questioning of the great and good so far – the smell of whitewash is definitely in the air – the inquiry has at least performed the useful function of bringing the forgotten subject of Iraq back into the public eye, while collating and confirming, with sworn testimony, much of what we have learned in dribs and drabs over the years about the rank, deliberate deceit behind this murderous catastrophe. One choice bit that has emerged from the inquiry is the revelation that the centerpiece of Blair's case for immediate war – the claim that Saddam Hussein could hit Europe with WMD-loaded missiles on just 45 minutes' notice – came from unconfirmed, third-hand gossip passed along by an Iraqi taxi driver.

Venezuela - Opinion | Chavez to Obama: Give back Nobel Prize
Press TV - Debember 18, 2009
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says his American counterpart Barack Obama should give his Nobel Peace Prize back as he is sending more soldiers to war-weary Afghanistan. "He [Obama] got the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day as he sent 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people in Afghanistan," he said during a speech at a climate change conference in Denmark.

"Obama should give back the prize," Chavez added on Thursday. The Venezuelan president also suggested that Bolivian President Evo Morales would have been a better choice for the award.

United States Government

Editorial | The Election Sabotage Commission
The New York Times - December 19, 2009
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No one is in charge these days at the Federal Election Commission, the agency that is supposed to enforce campaign law. Repeated stalemates engineered by Republican members raise the potential for runaway abuses in next year’s Congressional elections.

The six-member commission, shared evenly by the two parties, needs a majority for any enforcement action. For months, Republican members have cynically withheld their votes, rejecting staff investigators’ sound recommendations for citations and fines in current cases of obvious abuse. They seem to have completely forgotten why they are there: they are supposed to be enforcing the law, not sabotaging it.

Obama's Bioweapons Program

Global Research - By Tom Burghardt - December 20, 2009
- LINK ^

The Obama administration's recent declaration on bioweapons would simply be another run-of-the-mill example of our "change" president's duplicity were it not such an unmitigated disaster.

Recapitulating sinister Cold War practices that informed American ruling class consensus when it came to secretly toying with nature's most deadly pathogens, (a) because they could, (b) because it was, and is, highly profitable and (c) because they got with it, the profound failure by the administration to rein-in out-of-control corporate grifters, militarists and scientists thirsting after an endless flow of taxpayer dollars, have put us all on a potential glide path towards the abyss.

Since the roll-out of the Obama product-line January 21, on issues ranging from war and peace to economic justice and from civil liberties to healthcare, the "change" team exhibit the same callous disregard for disarmament proposals that characterized their Bushist predecessors in the Oval Office.

Nowhere is this reality so transparently delineated than by the administration's continuing efforts to derail plans to revitalize the moribund Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), rejecting binding verification protocols that would finally give the 1972 treaty teeth.

Obama Administration Launches Open Government Initiative

Truthout - By Mary Susan Littlepage - Thursday 17 December 2009
- LINK ^

As part of the Obama administration's plan to change the culture of secrecy in Washington, the White House last week issued the Open Government Directive, requiring federal agencies to take immediate, specific steps to open their work up to the public.

Congress | Op-Ed - The Democrats Blinked on Health Reform
Truthout - By Joe Conason - Saturday 19 December 2009
- LINK ^

By bowing to Sen. Joseph Lieberman and his obstructive pals in both parties on health care reform, President Obama has confirmed what Republicans always say about Democrats: They simply aren't strong enough to govern. Or at least the Democrats elected last year -- and their colleagues in the Senate leadership -- don't seem to be.

Their moment of truth came when Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and self-styled tough guy from Chicago, urged the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to strip out the most progressive aspects of the proposed health care reform bill in order to appease Lieberman. Unless the Connecticut senator got his way, he threatened to join a Republican filibuster -- conniving with a political minority to kill reforms that a majority of Americans has wanted and needed for decades.

Congress | Reid Has 60 Votes Needed to Pass Health Care Reform Bill
Truthout - By Jason Leopold Saturday 19 December 2009
- LINK ^

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled a final compromise Saturday morning to the Senate health care bill that some progressive Democratic leaders, labor unions, and grassroots organizations said has been gutted of any meaningful consumer reforms and amounts to a bailout for the insurance industry.

Congress | Auditors challenge $1 billion in Afghanistan costs
AP - December 17, 2009
- LINK ^

WASHINGTON — A Senate subcommittee says Pentagon auditors have challenged nearly $1 billion in charges by military contractors in Afghanistan. That's raising concerns on Capitol Hill about wasteful spending as the Obama administration expands the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

The contracting oversight subcommittee is holding a hearing Thursday to examine whether there's enough monitoring of contractors' work in Afghanistan. According to a memo distributed to subcommittee members before the hearing, the Defense Contract Audit Agency examined $5.9 billion in Afghanistan troop support contracts. The agency determined that $950 million of the costs were unreasonable or lacked enough documentation to support them.

Editor - Exorbitantly wastelul spending by the US military is nothing new. it has been a scandalous practice beginning with the Revoutiionary War.

Defense | U.S. spends $23 billion on Afghan contracts so far
Reuters - December 17, 2009
- LINK ^

The contract spending is expected to rise with President Barack Obama's planned surge of 30,000 U.S. forces into Afghanistan in the coming months, Senator Claire McCaskill said at a subcommittee hearing.

The Congressional Research Service recently said the United States has spent nearly $230 billion on the war in Afghanistan. That amount will jump to $300 billion once Congress has approved a military spending bill for fiscal 2010. The House has approved it and the Senate is expected to act on the bill this week.

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Topical News

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Economy and Finance

Bloomberg Economic News
- LINK ^

Bloomberg Current Worldwide Financial News
- LINK ^

Environment

Weather - US | Treacherous Snow Storm Strikes East Coast
The New York Times / AP - December 19, 2009
- LINK ^

WASHINGTON -- A blizzard-like storm rocked the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday, crippling travel across the region and leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without power. Five deaths appeared to have been caused by the storm system, which stretched from the Carolinas north to New England and also spread into some Midwestern states. The 16 inches of snow that fell at Reagan National Airport outside Washington was the most ever recorded for a single December day, while about 16 inches had also fallen in Philadelphia.

Food and Nutrition

Why Are We Fat and Ill? The Answer's in the Coca-Cola
Food Chsnge - By Kstherine Gustafson - December 18, 2009
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Humor

Between Hanukkah and Christmas
- LINK ^

Legal and Constitutional Issues

Bloomberg Index of Current Legal News
- LINK ^

Natural Resources

US | Stealing Water from the Future: California's Massive Groundwater Overdraft Newly Revealed
Alternet - By Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute - December 18, 2009
- LINK ^

California is heading for a catastrophe of huge proportions if the overdraft of groundwater continues at the same rate as the last few years. A NASA report summarizing data collected from new satellites confirms what most water observers have known for a long time. Massive amounts of groundwater are being sucked out of California’s Central Valley groundwater aquifers -- unreported, unmonitored, and unregulated.

Water Number: Between October 2003 and March 2009, more than 24 million acre-feet (30 cubic kilometers) of groundwater were pumped out of California’s Central Valley. This is overdraft of groundwater -- the pumping of groundwater faster than nature recharges it. Most of the overdraft is occurring in the San Joaquin Valley and it is occurring at a rate far faster than previously reported by the California Department of Water Resources.

Al Gore: A Billion People's Water at Risk From Melting Ice
Alternet / AFP - December 14, 2009
- LINK ^

At UN climate talks Monday, he warned that record melting of Polar and Himalayan ice could deprive deprive more than a billion people of access to clean water.

Science & Technology

Bloomberg Index of Current Science News
- LINK ^

Social Issues

Recording family histories before it's too late
Los Angeles Times - By Rosemary McClure - December 19, 2009
- LINK ^

The holidays are an ideal time for collecting and preserving the stories we've heard all our lives. And new technology and support groups are making it easier to capture such moments.

Violence - Civil and Governmental

US | CIA working with Palestinian security agents
US agency co-operating with Palestinian counterparts who allegedly torture Hamas supporters in West Bank
The Guardian - By Ian Cobain in Ramallah - Thursday, December 17, 2009
- LINK ^

Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned. Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups

Agent Orange Poisons New Generations in Vietnam
Time Magazine = By Martha Ann Overland / Danang - December 19, 2009
- LINK ^

This lonely section of the abandoned Danang air base was once crawling with U.S. airmen and machines. It was here where giant orange drums were stored and the herbicides they contained were mixed and loaded onto waiting planes. Whatever sloshed out soaked into the soil and eventually seeped into the water supply. Thirty years later, the rare visitor to the former U.S. air base is provided with rubber boots and protective clothing. Residue from Agent Orange, which was sprayed to deny enemy troops jungle cover, remains so toxic that this patch of land is considered one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the country. A recent study indicates that even three decades after the war ended, the cancer-causing dioxins are at levels 300 to 400 times higher than what is deemed to be safe.

After years of meetings, signings and photo ops, the U.S. held another ceremony in Vietnam on Dec. 16 to sign yet another memorandum of understanding as part of the continuing effort to manage Agent Orange's dark legacy. Yet there are grumblings that little — if anything — has been done to clean up the most contaminated sites. Since 2007, Congress has allocated a total of $6 million to help address Agent Orange issues in Vietnam. Not only does the amount not begin to scratch the surface of the problem or get rid of the tons of toxic soil around the nation, but there are questions about how the money is being spent. And several parties have noted with growing frustration that the money is primarily going to study the issue and hire consultants rather than implementing measures to prevent new generations from being exposed.

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Sound and Fury

Carrumpah-Lobo - The Homosapiens.ki Blog
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Music Video | Leonard Cohen | "Democracy Is Coming to the USA"
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