AYUKAWAHAMA, Japan — This small harbor on Japan’s northern coast, where whaling boats sit docked with harpoon guns proudly displayed, and shops sell carvings made from the ivorylike teeth of sperm whales, might seem to be an unlikely place to find opponents of the nation’s contested Antarctic whaling. Yet, local residents are breaking long-held taboos to speak out against the government-run Antarctic hunts, which they say invite international criticism that threatens the much more limited coastal hunts by people in this traditional whaling town. ‘The research whaling in the Antarctic is not about protecting culture, said Ichio Ishimori, a city councilman in Ishinomaki, of which Ayukawahama is a part. The Japanese government is facing renewed pressures at home and abroad to drastically scale back its so-called research whaling. Yet, Tokyo seems paralyzed by the same combination of nationalist passions and entrenched bureaucratic interests that have previously blocked any action to limit the three-decade-old whaling program. ‘We’re entering a new period on the whaling issue, but we don’t know what it means yet, said Shohei Yonemoto, a professor of environmental policy at the University of Tokyo. Clearly, the pressures for change are stronger than ever. The […]
DES MOINES, Iowa — More than 200,000 small nonprofits across the nation are days away from losing their tax-exempt status because they haven’t filed a new form with the Internal Revenue Service. Many of these groups already operate on razor-thin budgets and some worry an unexpected tax bill could force organizations to close. ‘The nonprofits in your backyards, some of them are going to be gone,’ said Suzanne Coffman, a spokeswoman for GuideStar, which tracks data on nonprofits. It’s most likely the nonprofits aren’t aware of the Monday deadline that only applies to groups that report $25,000 or less in income, excluding churches. Those organizations may not find out until Jan. 1, 2011, when they’re notified they have to pay taxes on donations they thought were exempt. And it could be months before their nonprofit status is restored. Congress required the form, called a 990-N, when it amended the tax code three years ago and groups with a fiscal year ending Dec. 31 had until Monday to meet the deadline. The Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics, which conducts economic and social policy research, estimated Friday that 214,000 nonprofit organizations haven’t filed the form […]
More U.S. troops were hospitalized for mental health disorders than any other reason in 2009. Mental health hospitalizations throughout the military topped injuries, battle wounds and even pregnancy and childbirth for the first time in 15 years of tracking by the Pentagon’s Medical Surveillance Monthly report. USA Today’s Gregg Zoroya broke the news Friday. Mental health care accounted for almost 40% of all days spent in hospitals by servicemembers last year, the report said. Of those hospitalizations, 5% lasted longer than 33 days. For most other conditions, fewer than 5% of hospitalizations exceeded 12 days, the report said. In 2009, there were 17,538 hospitalizations for mental health issues throughout the military, the study shows. That compares with 17,354 for pregnancy and childbirth reasons, and 11,156 for injuries and battle wounds. Psychological issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder exact a toll in lost manpower, the study said. Four mental health issues - depression, substance abuse, anxiety and adjustment problems such as PTSD - cost the Pentagon 488 years of lost duty in 2009. ‘There’s no shame in my game, Herschel Walker told a […]
On a wooded island more than a hundred miles northwest of Helsinki, in the town of Eurajoki, Finnish engineers are digging a tunnel. When it is done 10 years from now, it will corkscrew three miles in and 1,600 feet down into crystalline gneiss bedrock that has been the foundation of Finland for 1.8 billion years. And there, in a darkness that is still being created, the used fuel rods from Finland’s nuclear reactors - full of radioactive elements from the periodic table as dreamed up by Lord Voldemort, spitting neutrons and gamma rays - are to be sealed away forever, or at least 100,000 years. The place is called Onkalo (Finnish for ‘hidden) and it is the subject of ‘Into Eternity, a new documentary by Mr. Madsen. Watching it during the recent Tribeca Film Festival brought me into a more visceral contact with the vicissitudes of geologic time than I might have really wanted. These days I find that I can barely envision the future more than about six months ahead - hardly enough time even to plan for a proper summer vacation. My images of the deep future have always been vaguely utopian, like ‘Star […]
A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that individuals on the federal terrorist watch list were able to purchase firearms and explosives from licensed U.S. dealers 1,119 times. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) told the Senate Homeland Security Committee this month that Congress should close this ‘terror gap in the nation’s gun laws. ‘If society decides that these people are too dangerous to get on an airplane with other people, then it’s probably appropriate to look very hard before you let them buy a gun, he said. During the hearing, Bloomberg actually encountered some GOP opposition to this seemingly noncontroversial suggestion. Moreover, the NRA strongly objects to closing the ‘terror gap, calling legislation dealing with the issue ’21st Century McCarthyism. Bloomberg is ‘abusing the word ‘terrorist’ to resurrect and pursue a gun-control agenda, an NRA spokesperson said. But it appears that rank-and-file NRA members disagree with their leadership. Today at the NRA’s annual conference in Charlotte, NC, ThinkProgress asked dozens of NRA members if those on the terrorist watch list should be able to purchase firearms and an overwhelming majority agreed with Bloomberg on the need to close the ‘terror gap. Notably, one NRA […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
