http://australianconservative.com/2010/10/cool-it-official-trailer/ Cool It is based upon the book of the same name and lectures by Bjorn Lomborg, the controversial author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. Award-winning filmmaker Ondi Timoner travels the world with Lomborg exploring the real facts and true science of global warming and its impact. Lomborg is the founder and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centrrer, a globally respected think tank that brings together the world’s leading economists to prioritise major global problems – among them malaria, the lack of potable water and HIV/AIDS – based upon a cost/benefit analysis of available solutions. Amidst the strong and polarised opinions within the global warming debate, Cool It follows Lomborg on his mission to bring the smartest solutions to climate change, environmental pollution, and other major problems in the world.
In 1929, the Church of Scotland Mission, which had a long and successful history of missionary work among the Kikuyu in colonial Kenya, began a campaign to eradicate the practice of female circumcision. The results were hardly what church members hoped for. Large numbers of Kikuyu left the church, and Kenya’s leading anticolonial political organization mounted a vigorous attack on the church’s policies. Female circumcision became a nationalist issue, and a custom that might have gradually disappeared grew further entrenched. Nearly 40 percent of Kenyan women today are estimated to have undergone some form of it.
So if you care about the foreign victims of immemorial, immoral rituals, you will want to proceed carefully and perhaps learn from history. International humanitarian campaigns don’t have to backfire. It might be useful to look at their notable successes, in fact, and see what swung the balance.
Take the late-19th-century campaign against foot-binding in China. The custom began to die out in the first decade of the 20th century. In most places, it happened quickly. The American political scientist Gerry Mackie, an expert on social norms, gives the example of a large group of families in a rural area south of Beijing, in which 99 […]
US military logs reveal 109,032 deaths between January 2004 and December last year, including 66,000 civilian fatalities and 3,771 described as ‘Friendly
HONOLULU — Lillie Gonzales does whatever it takes to provide for three ravenous sons who live under her roof. She grows her own vegetables at home on Kauai, runs her own small business and like a record 42 million other Americans, she relies on food stamps.
Gonzales and her husband consistently qualify for food stamps now that Hawaii and other states are quietly expanding eligibility and offering the benefit to more working, moderate income families.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed by The Associated Press shows that 30 states have adopted rules making it easier to qualify for food stamps since 2007. In all, 38 states have loosened eligibility standards.
Hawaii has gone farther than most, allowing a family like Gonzales’ to earn up to $59,328 and still get food stamps.
Prior to an Oct. 1 increase, the income eligibility limit for a Hawaii family of five was $38,568 a year.
‘If I didn’t have food stamps, I would be buying white rice and Spam every day,’ said Gonzales, whose Island Angels business makes Hawaiian-style fabric angel ornaments, quilts, aprons and purses.
Eligibility for food stamps varies from state to state, with the 11 most generous states allowing families to apply if their gross […]
Long-term use of low-dose aspirin reduces colon cancer risk, U.K. researchers find.
Low-dose aspirin takers have a 24% lower risk of colon cancer and a 35% lower risk of dying from colon cancer, find University of Oxford researcher Peter Rothwell and colleagues.
‘The new findings on the effect of low-dose aspirin should be included in advice given to the public,’ Rothwell says in a news release.
The findings are based on analysis of 20-year follow-up data from five clinical trials. All of the studies were performed before sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy became widespread methods of screening for colon cancer. It’s not clear whether better screening reduces the benefit seen for aspirin.
And aspirin can have serious side effects, including severe stomach bleeding. While low doses of aspirin reduce this risk, people should consult a health care provider before adding aspirin to their daily health regimen.
However, the findings suggest that aspirin has a particular effect on more aggressive and faster growing colon cancers, particularly those in the proximal colon, which can be detected by colonoscopy but not by sigmoidoscopy.
This makes the study findings significant, says Alison Ross, senior science information officer at Cancer Research U.K.
‘This is the first large study to show that low doses […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
