Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
Stephan: So many lost opportunities in the U.S., so many jobs that could have existed. And the Florida legislature is trying to pass a law whose effect would be to wipe out wind power in that state.
AMSTERDAM, May 8, 2011 (Associated Press) – Denmark earns the biggest share of its national revenue from producing windmills and other clean technologies, and the United States is rapidly expanding its clean-technology sector. But no country can match China’s pace of growth, according to a new report.
China’s production of green technologies has grown a remarkable 77 per cent a year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. The report was expected to be released Monday at an industry conference in Amsterdam.
‘The Chinese have made, on the political level, a conscious decision to capture this market and to develop this market aggressively,
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RACHEL TABACHNICK, - AlterNet
Stephan: You think the Koch brothers are the only billionaire rightwing theocrats trying to shape the United States to their design? Think again. This article outs another one, the DeVos Family, committed to willful ignorance.
Since the 2010 elections, voucher bills have popped up in legislatures around the nation. From Pennsylvania to Indiana to Florida, state governments across the country have introduced bills that would take money from public schools and use it to send students to private and religious institutions.
Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But ‘school choice,’ as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.
The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.
By now, you’ve surely heard of the Koch brothers, whose behind-the-scenes financing of right-wing causes has been widely documented in the past year. The DeVoses have remained largely under the radar, despite the fact that their stealth assault on America’s schools has the […]
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LOIS RAIN, - Health Freedom Alliance
Stephan: Ronlyn sent me this article, and it left me stunned. Could this be true? Yes. This is what the conservative attack on the FDA's oversight and regulatory power has wrought. Is this o.k. with you?
Did you know your meats contain this meat glue? Just one more way food producers can sell more, while lowering the quality of what you consume. If it’s so harmless and miraculous, why didn’t we know before? It’s not on labels because technically it not part of formulation of the product. That’s a giant stretch. It is not harmless
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EMILY BEAMENT, - The Independent (U.K.)
Stephan: Another unconsidered impact of climate change about which we will do little or nothing,
Climate change is increasing the number of disasters which hit children in poor countries, campaigners have warned.
According to a study by Unicef, Plan International and Save the Children, there has been a steady increase in disasters linked to climate change over the past 10 to 20 years.
It warns that low-level frequent climatic disasters including floods and droughts hit children hard. The report looked at eight countries which regularly experience such events, and found a link between an increase in disasters and diarrhoea, low birth weight and malnutrition. In most of the countries children’s education suffered because of disaster damage and illness.
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Stephan: Thanks to Damien Broderick, PhD.
A new study of DNA suggests North America was originally populated by just a few dozen people who crossed a land bridge from Asia during the last Ice Age.
About 14,000 years ago, humans crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia to North America, most experts agree. But just how many intrepid explorers were involved in spawning subsequent populations has not been known.
Previous DNA analyses of the New World’s founding looked at just one gene and assumed populations sizes have been constant over time. The new study looked at nine genomic regions to account for variations in single genes, and it assumed that sizes of founding populations change over time. The method favored actual genetic data over estimates used in previous calculations.
The Land Bridge
NPS
‘The estimated effective size of the founding population for the New World is about 70 individuals,’ said Jody Hey, a professor of genetics at Rutgers University.
Hey’s calculations are also consistent with archeological evidence suggesting the initial settlement occurred around 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.
‘The beauty of the new methodology is that it uses actual DNA sequences collected from Asian peoples and Native Americans, an approach that can provide a detailed portrait of historical populations,’ Hey said.
Hey focused on […]
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