Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
DANIEL HIGHT, - CBS (Memphis)
Stephan: Here is the shadow of 3-D printing. It is too expensive and difficult for most people to 3-D print a gun, but this is early days. Capability will go up and price come down, just as with computers, and the long term effect, I believe, will be to render gun control meaningless.
BARTLETT, TENNESSEE — People most commonly use their computer to print pictures, letters, and resumes, but the technology is coming where someone can print a fully functioning gun.
It has many concerned on who could get their hands on one, but some local 3-D printing hobbyists say it’s not that simple.
Those with the MidSouth Makers hand-build their own three-dimensional printers and they cost around $1,000 a piece, but a printer capable of recreating a fully, functioning gun, they claim, would cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Right now, the group is capable of printing things like whistles, computer cases, tablet stands, even more 3-D printers.
‘The big movement is to try and model a whole lot of things,
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
, - University of Chicago
Stephan: One of the reasons nothing adequate to the problem is being done about climate change, and the growing pollution of the earth, is that these issues are not priorities for people around the world. One should ask: Why is it a process that threatens the very nature of civilization worldwide is of so little interest to the people of the earth? Could it be the result of a cynical disinformation campaign, paid for by those corporate interests which profit from the maintenance of the status quo?
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS –A newly released international study reveals that the issue of climate change is not a priority for people in the United States and around the world.
The surveys showed that when asked to rank priority worries, people were five times more likely to point to the economy over the environment. Additionally, when asked about climate change, people identified the issue as more of a national problem than a personal concern.
Coordinated surveys, conducted by the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 33 countries from 1993 through 2010, ‘are the first and only surveys that put long-term attitudes toward environmental issues in general and global climate change in particular in an international perspective,
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
MARYALICE AYMONG, - MSNBC
Stephan: This is an extraordinary example of the Great Schism Trend: Open nullification by a state of Federal law. It is, of course, a Republican effort. If this were to stand every state in the union could decide to pick and choose which Federal laws it chose to observe. What really gets me about this is that its natural next step is state police arresting Federal agents.
After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, President Obama and other gun-control advocates have urged Congress to develop bipartisan gun-control legislation. In addition, the president signed 23 executive actions to help curb gun violence.
Lawmakers in some states have responded to the push for new regulations with their own statewide proposals. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo led the charge as the first governor since the Sandy Hook shooting to sign gun-control legislation into law. The legislation calls for a statewide gun registry and places restrictions on ammunition magazines.
Other states have moved in the opposite direction, with lawmakers crafting bills that seek to make federal gun-control laws unenforceable within the borders of their state.
The latest on the list? Alaska. On Monday, the state’s Republican-led House voted passed a bill that would exempt Alaskans from following federal gun laws. Federal agents who attempt to enforce them would be subject to felony charges.
If this sounds like nullification to you, that was exactly what the bill’s sponsor, Speaker Mike Chenault had in mind. In a January press conference, Chenault, a Republican, told a local reporter that individuals in his district were ‘looking at nullification
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Stephan: Here is a very interesting assessment of what is happening as a result of the Washington and Colorado elections, which ended state marijuana prohibition. Note particularly the effect on the Mexican Mafias.
DENVER, LA PAZ, LISBON AND MADRID — FROM the Colorado state capitol in Denver, head south on Broadway, one of the city’s main arteries, and before long you find yourself in ‘Broadsterdam
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Tuesday, February 26th, 2013
MICHAEL MCCARTHY, - The Independent (UK)
Stephan: This is very good news. Not perfect, as you'll see, but very good. In the U.K. those interested in preserving the bees seem to have reached critical mass. If there is improvement in the U.K. there will be irresistible pressure to do the same in the U.S. I think China will also adopt this. The Chinese are already having to hand pollinate in some areas, and finding it very heavy going. I just hope aren't too late.
Controversial nerve-agent pesticides widely linked to decline in bees around the world should be banned, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says today.
Neonicotinoids should no longer be used on crops which attract bees and other pollinating insects, the RSPB says, in a call for the Government to support a proposed EU ban on the three most common neonicotinoid substances.
The intervention of the million-member society comes after a mounting tide of evidence indicating linkages between the use of the chemicals, made by the agribusiness giants Bayer and Syngenta, and collapses in colonies of honey bees and bumblebees.
More than 30 separate scientific studies in the last three years have shown adverse effects on insects from neonicotinoids, which are ‘systemic’ insecticides, meaning they enter every part of the target plants – including the pollen and nectar which bees harvest. In January, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a scientific opinion recommending that the three main substances – imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam – should not be used on crops attractive to bees. RSPB agricultural policy officer Ellie Crane said yesterday: ‘We’ve been reviewing the science for a long time, and scientists are telling us that neonicotinoids might be killing bees.
‘Everyone […]
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