Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
STEPHEN C. WEBSTER, - AlterNet
Stephan: This is a story few are talking about but I think it is very important. It shows that FOX is not only a propaganda organization, an expression of the corporate antipode of the class struggle, but that it is willing to fabricate news events. This is extraordinarily dangerous to American society, and it is to the demonstrators' credit that they can make this distinction. We have reached a tip point I think. This is waking up the compassionate life-affirming populace in the same way that the distressed far Right is stimulated by fear anger, and hate.
I think the evidence is clear. One can not be far Right and fact based.
Fox News has been making a lot of hay about one of their reporters allegedly being ‘punched’ by a protester in Madison, Wisconsin.
Turns out, that didn’t happen.
Mike Tobin, reporting from amid the massive demonstration on Friday, claimed that one of the protesters ‘punched’ him in the arm. In another broadcast, he claimed a man threatened to break his neck1.
In both cases, supporting evidence for these claims was not broadcast — yet still, Tobin’s reports have been widely2 cited3 across conservative blogs that seem eager to depict union workers as hateful and violent.
What’s worse, Tobin’s allegation that he was assaulted might have slipped past without rebuttal were it not for a camera-equipped bystander, who captured the scene.
Turns out, someone merely touched his shoulder, as evidenced in the video below. The incident he claimed was a ‘punch’ could instead be described as a pat, at most.
That was apparently enough for him to later declare that even after being ‘punched, he was just too nice of a guy to press charges4.
Fox News reporters have been repeatedly5 shouted6 down7 by union protesters, many of whom simply chant ‘Fox News lies!’ every time the network’s cameras set up for a live shot.
That repeated reaction led […]
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Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
MIKE STOBBE, Medical Writer - The Associated Press
Stephan: I went to the Seattle Flower Show with Ronlyn a few days ago. I am told it is one of the world's major shows. I can't say but it was quite wonderful -- Forest glades in a conference hall. At lunch we sat at a table with two Canadian women. These attractive middle aged gardeners shared their sadness over what they see in America. They spoke of it as one would a family member whose self-inflicted dysfunctionalities (I made that word up) were slowly wrecking their life.
We have so many things telling us we are on the wrong course, and so much unused data available to us telling us what works.
ATLANTA – American adults have a significantly higher rate of obesity than their neighbors to the north, a new study says.
About 24 percent of Canadians are obese compared to more than 34 percent of Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Wednesday.
Researchers looked at height and weight data taken in surveys in both countries during 2007-09.
The two countries have different racial demographics. The United States has more black and Hispanic people, and both have higher rates of obesity. But even looking solely at white people, there was still a big difference - a 26 percent obesity rate in Canada compared to 33 percent in the United States.
It’s not clear why that is, said study-co-author Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
‘We share this border and many other things. It’s a question we need to investigate more,’ said Ogden, whose co-authors included a researcher at Statistics Canada.
Another mystery: In children there was little difference. The childhood obesity rate was 15.5 percent in the United States and 12 percent in Canada, but the difference was not statistically significant.
This study is the first time the CDC has compared American obesity rates with […]
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Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, Op-ed Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: I think this essay is dead on.
Future historians will long puzzle over how the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest over the confiscation of his fruit stand, managed to trigger popular uprisings across the Arab/Muslim world. We know the big causes - tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media. But since being in Egypt, I’ve been putting together my own back-of-the-envelope guess list of what I’d call the ‘not-so-obvious forces
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Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
SIMON HENDERSON, - Foreign Policy
Stephan: I cannot get the image out of my mind, perhaps because this is what we have tied ourselves to. Imagine: A dark and rainy night, as Snoopy puts it, the dam bursts... and Jeddah and its palaces are wiped away by a tsunami of human bodily waste. It is at once comic and cataclysmic. In Islamic countries, as anyone knows who has been there, it is hard to get public toilets cleaned. It is considered unclean work. So what happens if this corrupt society inadvertently lets this happen?
Thomas Friedman is right, we are at the beginning of a vast geopolitical shift, driven by the networked young.
Simon Henderson, the Baker fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is author of 'After King Abdullah: Succession in Saudi Arabia.'
As the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia has huge earnings but, by virtue of its relatively large population, has a GDP per capita much lower than those of neighboring Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Even this wealth is badly distributed, and, in Jeddah, many still face real hardship.
King Abdullah’s generosity to the people of Saudi Arabia was probably motivated by a desire to both ease the difficulties of the kingdom’s own poor and reinforce the House of Saud’s reputation during what promises to be a difficult transition period. The princes are going to need the support over the next few months.
In televised and well-photographed action in the Council of Ministers building over the last few months, a bizarre charade is being played out. Crown Prince Sultan, King Abdullah’s designated successor, is chairing meetings of the Council of Ministers, as well as greeting visiting foreigners and Saudi dignitaries. Sultan, however, is reportedly suffering1 from Alzheimer’s disease and, anecdotally, does not even recognize government ministers who he has known for years. A WikiLeaks cable described2 Sultan as ‘for all intents and purposes incapacitated.’
Keeping Sultan in the public eye appears to be an elaborate deception carried out by his younger […]
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Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
MARK MARTIN, - TECHNEWSWORLD
Stephan: We may finally be there with cold fusion. If so the conversion from petroleum could be measured in less than a decade.
Cold fusion — the largely discredited science of making more energy from less — may be making a comeback.
Controversial yet high-profile demonstrations in Italy last month purported to show a cold fusion device turning 400 watts of heat power into 12,400 watts. The eye-popping 31-fold increase — also known as an ‘excess heat effect’ — illustrates why lay observers say cold fusion is the ‘holy grail of energy independence’ and why many scientists doubt, some to the point of apoplexy.
Twenty-two years ago, University of Utah chemist Stanley Pons and University of Southampton chemist Martin Fleischmann made similar but ultimately unreproducible claims that turned their 15 minutes of fame into banishment from the scientific community.
Since he’s only seen second hand accounts of this latest project, University of Missouri Vice Chancellor for Research Robert Duncan, Ph.D., an expert in low-temperature physics, said he ‘can neither criticize nor endorse’ it.
‘But I do know that excess heat effects are real, and although we do not fundamentally understand their origins, the world’s scientific community would be remiss if it does not seriously pursue these fascinating new observations,’ Duncan told TechNewsWorld.
The Italian Project
The reactor demonstrated in Italy is the brainchild of University of Bologna physics professor […]
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