Monday, August 13th, 2012
ARTURO GARCIA, - The Raw Story
Stephan: The distortion of human sexuality within a religious context, as this and the next story indicate, contitutes one of the most destructive trends in human culture. Its power is so great people will put themselves through individual and social mutilations that cripple both them and their culture.
In a bid to offer more women career opportunities without running afowl of Sharia law, the Saudi Arabian government is putting together a group of all-women cities.
According to Russia Today, construction on the first new municipality, an industrial hub slated to be part of the city of Hafuf in the eastern part of the country, is slated to begin next year, under the direction of the Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon).
Officials say the new hub will focus on the textile industry and create about 5,000 jobs, with women figuring in in both managerial roles and working on production lines.
‘I’m sure that women can demonstrate their efficiency in many aspects and clarify the industries that best suit their interests, their nature and their ability,
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Sunday, August 12th, 2012
DEAN KUIPERS, - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: This is one of the game changing non-carbon based technologies which may save humanity. Particularly note the last paragraph of this story, which makes the point about decentralization that I have been writing about for over ten years.
One of the holy grails of solar cell technology may have been found, with researchers at UCLA announcing they have created a new organic polymer that produces electricity, is nearly transparent and is more durable and malleable than silicon.
The applications are mind-boggling. Windows that produce electricity. Buildings wrapped in transparent solar cells. Laptops and phones – or even cars or planes – whose outer coverings act as chargers. It might even be sprayed on as a liquid. The promise of cheap and easy-to-apply site-generated solar electricity might now be a lot closer to reality.
Of course, the idea of solar films and solar plastics is not new. The breakthrough to making a transparent film, however, came with isolating only one band of light in the spectrum.
‘[A solar film] harvests light and turns it into electricity. In our case, we harvest only the infrared part,
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Sunday, August 12th, 2012
CHRISTOPHER R. SCHWALM, CHRISTOPHER A. WILLIAMS and KEVIN SCHAEFER, - The New York Times
Stephan: More bad news about climate change. Notice these authors no longer say it can be stopped only that they think it is still possible to prevent the worst outcome.
The continued opposition to making major changes, to transition from old energy to new non-carbon based energy in my view constitutes a crime against humanity. Not that I think anyone will ever be held accountable.
The one hope I see is that LENR and major breakthroughs in other alternatives will be taken up by localities and regions. I don't expect anything to happen at the Federal level that really addresses the crisis. Decentralization, I think, is the only way forward.
Christopher R. Schwalm is a research assistant professor of earth sciences at Northern Arizona University. Christopher A. Williams is an assistant professor of geography at Clark University. Kevin Schaefer is a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
BY many measurements, this summer’s drought is one for the record books. But so was last year’s drought in the South Central states. And it has been only a decade since an extreme five-year drought hit the American West. Widespread annual droughts, once a rare calamity, have become more frequent and are set to become the ‘new normal.
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Sunday, August 12th, 2012
KAY STEIGER, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is a bit of good news, and an example of what citizen power can accomplish. Because of the massive pushback this Louisiana school administration got, they changed their policies.
A Louisiana charter school that came under fire for a policy of kicking out girls that are pregnant or suspected of being pregnant has reversed its policy.
‘Blaming the victim is never the appropriate response to misconduct,
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Sunday, August 12th, 2012
Stephan: This is an excellent account of the massive transition that is taking place in how the news is disseminated. We barely understand this transition, except that it is wholly dependent on the net, and phone systems. It seems to me this whole system is very fragile.
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale struck the coast of northeastern Japan, triggering a tsunami that would kill more than 18,000 people and leave an estimated $180 billion in damage. The news media worldwide provided extensive coverage of the disaster and its aftermath, but millions of people also turned to the web to learn about the event on the video sharing website YouTube. [1]
In the seven days following the disaster (March 11-18), the 20 most viewed news-related videos on YouTube all focused on the tragedy-and were viewed more than 96 million times.
What people saw in these videos also represented a new kind of visual journalism. Most of that footage was recorded by citizen eyewitnesses who found themselves caught in the tragedy. Some of that video was posted by the citizens themselves. Most of this citizen-footage, however, was posted by news organizations incorporating user-generated content into their news offerings. The most watched video of all was shot by what appeared to be fixed closed-circuit surveillance camera at the Sendai airport.
The disaster in Japan was hardly a unique case. Worldwide YouTube is becoming a major platform for viewing news. In 2011 and early […]
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