Mereja

Category: News

  • ‘Unlawful Deaths’ in Afghanistan?

    Afghan relatives wait outside a hospital in Kandahar. (EPA/ZumaPress.com)

    A very disturbing — and disturbingly vague — announcement came early this morning from the U.S. military command in Afghanistan. According to Army Lt. Col. Joseph “Todd” Breasseale, a command spokesman, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division is investigating whether an unknown number of American soldiers are responsible for the “unlawful deaths” of “as many as three” Afghan civilians.

    Image by: Matt Mahurin

    Image by: Matt Mahurin

    Breasseale’s statement leaves many key details vague, including how many soldiers are involved in whatever incident CID is investigating; specifically where it took place; and when it occurred. But whatever occurred was serious enough to get additional soldiers from the same unit to come forward to their chain of command with knowledge of the incident earlier this month. The statement makes it sound as if the potential criminal act was planned in advance of its commission, as allegations of “illegal drug use, assault and conspiracy” are involved, although it isn’t clear if those allegations have to do with the incident or with the cohort of soldiers under investigation more generally.

    One of the soldiers in question is being held in pre-trial detention. No charges have been filed yet.

    Breasseale said in an email that he couldn’t discuss further detail about the case right now. “The bottom line is that we are executing this investigation by the numbers and will not compromise our ability to gather and maintain evidence,” he said. He added that more specificity about the case will probably be available “once the charges are preferred,” an indication that CID’s investigation has progressed to the point where it is more likely than not that the soldiers involved will face charges.

    It is unfortunately difficult to infer what incident this case involves. Over the past few months, despite the restrictions on rules of engagement that Gen. Stanley McChrystal issued last year to minimize civilian casualties, there have been several high-profile cases of civilian deaths at the hands of NATO forces. A so-called “night raid” earlier this month in Nangahar Province left locals saying 11 civilians were killed by U.S. troops, even though NATO considers all to be insurgents, and their anger led to a violent protest in which Afghan police killed someone. On February 12 in Gardez, also in Afghanistan’s east, U.S. Special Forces killed two men and three women — two of whom were pregnant — during a house raid, and had to correct an initial mistaken announcement that attributed the women’s deaths to insurgents. And although this incident doesn’t sound like the one under investigation, a misunderstanding at a Kandahar checkpoint led soldiers to open fire on a passenger bus, leaving four civilians dead.

    Statistics from McChrystal’s command compiled by USA Today last month found that NATO-caused civilian casualties have risen in early 2010 from a comparable period in 2009, a disturbing increase the command attributes to an increased tempo of military operations. In a joint press conference last week with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, President Obama expressed personal anguish over civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

    Before McChrystal took command in Afghanistan, he said that the perceptions of the Afghan people that the NATO coalition is interested in protecting them from harm and the Afghan government is interested in enriching their lives would be “strategically decisive” in the nearly nine-year war. His counterinsurgency guidance instructs his troops to assume additional risk to their own lives in the interest of preventing civilians from being accidentally killed. After the Paktia incident, McChrystal consolidated his hold over Special Operations Forces operating in Afghanistan.

    The U.S. military command in Afghanistan “is committed to the security and safety of the Afghan population,” Breasseale’s statement concluded, “and will ensure any crimes are investigated fully and those responsible will be held accountable.”

  • What’s Really Behind the iPhone’s China Problem [IPhone]

    Among the markets that Apple hasn’t quite been able to crack with their iPhone, China has to be the most frustrating. It’s a huge opportunity that’s being missed. And now we finally know exactly why. More »










    iPhone – Handhelds – Smartphones – Twitter – Apple

  • Frank Popper on Shrinking Cities

    I have posted on the Poppers work on the Buffalo Commons concept a couple of years back.  Here he is addressing the deteriation of the urban environment in the Midwest in particular.  It is well worth a read.
    The problem as we presently experience it is one of a lack of a well thought out and sustained economic base.  It has been far too easy to just let growth happen and when the drivers of that growth dissipated it became too late to respond.
    Perhaps cities are meant to be more ephemeral than we would like.  Certainly that was true in the small towns of the Great Plains and in the Canadian Prairies in particular.  Cities were meant to last longer.
    The core problem is a lack of a working community template that is inherently stable and also responsive.  I think that I can make this happen in a rural environment and distribute urban populations into that environment.  Such a system may then support the urban environment.
    China seems to have achieved something like this out of centuries of custom, as perhaps has India and Europe.  None of it is properly supported nor even properly encouraged but it is still more stable than the North American experience.    
    The first failure of the US urban environment is the existence of a large proportion of impoverished residents who are poorly utilized as a source of general community wealth generation.  Their housing is typically substandard and access to services can be described as grudging.  Yet they see the city as their only hope and remain.
    This group can naturally be folded into a proper agro village style environment were their presence is economically fruitful and support is inexpensive to provide by design.  They also supply the one resource presently missing in modern agriculture and that is occasional manpower.
    Modern transportation accesses the urban amenities including urban employment.
    The simple idea is to marry a  modern high rise village compound to a working farm integrating the two as much as may be possible and even desirable while providing a fruitful life way for all age groups.
    This is presently not done in the urban environment and is not feasible on the modern farm. I argue that this is the primary source of the lack of sustainability.
    An Interview with Frank Popper about Shrinking Cities, Buffalo Commons, and the Future of Flint
    FRIDAY, MAY 14, 2010
    Deborah and Frank Popper
    http://www.flintexpats.com/2010/05/interview-with-frank-popper-about.html

    What do shrinking cities like Flint have in common with remote grazing land in Colorado?

    Frank J. Popper is just the person to answer that question. The land-use expert from Chicago is a professor at Rutger’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and teaches regularly in the Environmental Studies Program at Princeton. In 1987 he published an article with his wife, Deborah Popper, a geographer at City University of New York and Princeton University, advocating the creation of what they called the Buffalo Commons. They argued that using the drier portions of the Great Plains for farming and ranching was unsustainable, leading to environmental damage and a dwindling population. Instead, they suggested returning 139,000 square miles of the Great Plains to native prairie where the buffalo could, once again, roam. In short, they wanted to turn parts of ten western states into a vast nature preserve.

    Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times called it “the boldest idea in America today…the biggest step to redefine America since the Alaska purchase.” The locals is states like Kansas, Montana and Nebraska were less enthused.

    In an interview with Flint Expatriates, Popper discusses death threats, the links between deindustrialization and agricultural decline, the fate of shrinking cities, and the heartless genius of capitalism.


    What was the response to the Buffalo Commons idea?

    It was extremely negative in the region. Everyone else from outside the region thought it was a great idea. There was a period in the early nineties when we were speaking in the plains five times a year and sooner or later it would emerge that they had hired private detectives to protect us. We had death threats at one meeting that eventually had to be cancelled. If you’re county is suggested as part of the Buffalo Commons, you’re not going to like it very much.


    Have conditions in the Great Plains changed over the years?

    The basic conditions that we described in 1987 are either still there or have intensified. But late last year we picked up our first serious editorial endorsement. Two McClatchy papers in Kansas City and Wichita suggested that two counties in western Kansas should become the core of Buffalo Commons National Park, and that elicited a lot of letters from those two counties. But I think over time it will work and we will live to see it.

    The emerging ideas about how to deal with shrinking cities like Flint echo a lot of your recommendations from the eighties about how to approach the Great Plains. What’s the connection?

    It’s very clear that the industrial decline as it’s still unfolding is almost exactly parallel to the earlier rural decline in the United States. In rural areas, agriculture reached a high point in the late 19th century, and then it started going through a kind of slow motion collapse that the country largely didn’t realize until the dust bowl of the depression. In the 20th century, the industrial sector likewise hits its high point and then started shedding people, only it happened in more urban places like Detroit. The U.S. had these two great cycles play out. And there is the beginning of an argument that the dotcom bust, the mortgage foreclosure crisis and the credit crunch that has now hit a number of sunbelt cities really hard indicates that the information age is beginning to shed people, too. And it’s a largely suburban phenomena so you have a trifecta of decline — rural agricultural, urban industrial, and suburban information age.

    Why are cities and regions so reluctant to accept that they are getting smaller?

    It’s part of American culture to believe were number one, we grow every year etc., etc. So all of this — whether its Buffalo Commons or shrinking cities — feels very un-American. A lot of people ended up describing Buffalo Commons as manifest destiny in reverse, which kind of makes sense. Shrinking cities could be described as unbuilding cities that all those late 19th-centrury, early 20th-century industrialists and laborers sought to build up. And that hurts for their descendants down the line. It also comes with another sort of sting. Good blue-collar jobs that promised upward mobility have just disappeared.

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RBw-psMN_Ew/S-2DPSCCzoI/AAAAAAAAHjI/TeRzMDtrFrA/s400/populationdensity+map.jpg
    A population density map of the United States. Click to enlarge

    How does America’s approach shrinking cities compare to the rest of the world?

    I think the American way is to do nothing until it’s too late, then throw everything at it and improvise and hope everything works. And somehow, insofar as the country’s still here, it has worked. But the European or the Japanese way would involve much more thought, much more foresight, much more central planning, and much less improvising. They would implement a more, shall we say, sustained effort. The American way is different. Europeans have wondered for years and years why cities like Detroit or Cleveland are left to rot on the vine. There’s a lot of this French hauteur when they ask “How’d you let this happen?”

    Do shrinking cities have any advantages over agricultural regions as they face declining populations?

    The urban areas have this huge advantage over all these larger American regions that are going through this. They have actual governments with real jurisdiction. Corrupt as Detroit or Philadelphia or Camden may be, they have actual governments that are supposed to be in charge of them. Who’s in charge of western Kansas? Who’s in charge of the Great Plains? Who is in charge of the lower Mississippi Delta or central Appalachia? All they’ve got are these distant federal agencies whose past performance is not exactly encouraging.

    Why wasn’t there a greater outcry as the agricultural economy and the industrial economy collapsed?

    One reason for the rest of the country not to care is that there’s no shortage of the consumer goods that these places once produced. All this decline of agriculture doesn’t mean we’re running out of food. We’ve got food coming out of our ears. Likewise, Flint has suffered through all this, but it’s not like it’s hard to buy a car in this country. It’s not as if Flint can behave like a child and say “I’m going to hold my nose and stop you from getting cars until you do the right thing.” Flint died and you can get zero A.P.R. financing. Western Kansas is on its last legs and, gee, cereal is cheaper than ever.

    In some sense that’s the genius of capitalism — it’s heartless. But if you look at the local results and the cultural results and the environmental results you shake your head. But I don’t see America getting away from what I would call a little sarcastically the “wisdom” of the market. I don’t think it’s going to change.

    So is there any large-scale economic fallout from these monumental changes?

    Probably not, and it hurts to say so. And the only way I can feel good about saying that is to immediately point to the non-economic losses, the cultural losses. The losses of ways of life. The notion of the factory worker working for his or her children. The notion of the farmer working to build up the country and supply the rest of the world with food. We’re losing distinctive ways of life. When we lose that we lose something important, but it’s not like The Wall Street Journal cares. And I feel uncomfortable saying that. From a purely economic point of view, it’s just the price of getting more efficient. It’s a classic example of Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction, which is no fun if you’re on the destruction end.

    Does the decline of cities like Flint mirror the death of the middle class in the United States?


    I think it’s more the decline of the lower-middle class in the United States. Even when those jobs in the auto factories paid very high wages they were still for socially lower-middle-class people. I think there was always the notion in immigrant families and working-class families who worked in those situations that the current generation would work hard so that the children could go off and not have to do those kind of jobs. And when those jobs paid well that was a perfectly reasonable ambition. It’s the cutting off of that ambition that really hurts now. The same thing has been true on farms and ranches in rural parts of the united states.

    The basic premise of shrinking cities resonates with a lot of people, but there’s not a lot detail in the plan. Is this a concern?

    The shrinking city approach is really the core of what’s needed to improve these places. I guess what I see is an emerging movement that’s improvising every step of the way, often under extreme political pressure. My sense is that it’s sort of like Boris Yeltsin in the ‘90s, making it up as he goes along because he has no other options. That’s not meant as a criticism at all. Cities like Flint and Detroit have gotten so desperate that a lot of policy Hail Mary’s are necessary. And it’s hard in an era of budget shortfalls, but part of the process will be figuring out what does and doesn’t work. The shrinking city [concept] is sufficiently new that things will be discovered on the fly. And this is not uncommon. My impression is that that’s how the Civil War was fought; that’s how the New Deal was created. It’s how NASA operated in the 1960s, which is thought of as a sort of golden age. This is not an unusual situation.

    What about the prospect of a single business or industry moving into a shrinking city and reviving it?

    In none of these cities — including the Southern and European ones — is there any hope whatsoever of a serious new industry coming. I think I can say that categorically.

    Will relocating residents to a more viable central urban core work?

    When you’re talking about many of these neighborhoods, you’re talking about really poor people who are not likely to move. We’ve tried this at different times and different places in this country, and I don’t think any of them were shining points in American history. It evokes all that 1950s urban renewal stuff which didn’t work, but we keep trying to do anyway. More likely is that you’ll get this reversion to a more rural feel to parts of the city, maybe even a suburban feel. That could provide some form of stability for the city. It could even be a retirement option for some people.

    Care to make a prediction of how this approach will play out in cities like Flint?

    I think a few neighborhoods will benefit and things will turn around precisely because the upside of the shrinking city plan — the green economics, the growth of small retail — will work. But the really poor places, the worst neighborhoods, they’ve got real problems, as they always have. I would worry about the really poor ones. I don’t know what will happen to places like that, and I’m not of good conscience about it.

  • Lindsay Lohan Thinks Her Judge Is A “Mean Girl”

    Lindsay “The Dog Ate My Passport” Lohan won’t be back to Los Angeles in time for her mandatory court date today because travel troubles have left her stranded Cannes. The star’s passport was allegedly stolen/lost (Depending on who’s telling the story…)during the famed film festival, but if she misses the hearing, the judge has threatened to issue a bench warrant for her arrest.

    The threat has infuriated Lindsay, who is convinced that Judge Marsha Revel has it in for her, gabs a chatty pal of the trouble-attracting star.

    “Lindsay thinks that judge is so mean. Lindsay wants a new judge that isn’t as bossy and strict. I mean, who the hell does that judge think she is demanding people to show up at 8:30 in the morning? It’s not like Lindsay isn’t busy. She’s an international movie star.”

    LiLo is doing her best to rectify the passport debacle and has an appointment set up with the American embassy to replace the document.


  • $5m Port Kembla wave generator wrecked

    The Illawara Mercury reports the Oceanlinx wave power generator at Port Kembla has suffered a mishap – $5m Port Kembla wave generator wrecked.

    A $5 million wave energy project off Port Kembla is facing ruin after it broke free from its moorings and crashed into rocks in rough seas.

    The barge-like prototype, one of the first of its type in the world, snapped free of pylons 150m offshore about 1.30pm and was swept into the eastern breakwall, where it was grounded last night. …

    Fears were held for the safety of the barge overnight, with a heavy swell and 4m waves expected. The rough seas are expected to ease from midday today. …

    A spokesman for the project’s Sydney-based developer, Oceanlinx, said there were more than double the required mooring lines in place to ensure its safe operation. “The unit was safely disconnected from the power grid and efforts are now underway to retrieve the unit from the breakwater.”

    It will be a blow to Oceanlinx, which had been keen to prove the project was commercially viable. The wave-to-energy barge, known as the Mk3, was at the forefront of marine renewable technology and has operated for four years.



  • Climate change attacks followup | Bad Astronomy

    earthonfireLast week, I wrote about a second investigation clearing climate change scientists from any wrongdoing in the horrid manufactured controversy of climategate. In that post, and an earlier one, I mentioned that Virginia State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was starting a witch hunt, investigating the work of scientist Michael Mann while he was at the University of Virginia. Cuccinelli’s actions are transparently driven by political bias; Mann has been shown repeatedly to have worked honestly and above-board.

    I’m not the only one who thinks that. Chris Mooney at The Intersection has quotes and links from a scathing Washington Post editorial, condemning Cuccinelli for his actions. And the Post doesn’t hold back, even calling UVa out, telling them to get a spine and stand up to this attack. Chris put up a second post about how scientists themselves have picked up this banner. Oh, and here’s a third post about the AAAS condemning Cuccinelli as well.

    Ironically, Cuccinelli claims his investigation is because he thinks tax money was wasted or that Mann defrauded the tax payers… but it’s Cuccinelli’s investigation that’s the true waste of taxpayer money. This attack by him started after Mann was already exonerated, making Cuccinelli’s motives pretty clear. Oh, did I say “ironically”? I meant Orwellian.

    On top of the Washington Post’s call, over 250 members of the National Academy of Sciences — the U.S.’s premier and most prestigious organization for science — have publicly condemned these attacks as well:

    Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence.

    I couldn’t have said it better myself. I urge everyone to read both the WashPo article and the full statement by the NAS.

    And for you deniers who plague the comments of every blog post I make on this topic, loading it with obfuscation, noise, and distraction from the actual topic: these posts by me are not politically driven. In fact, given the opportunities for new businesses and new technology, preventing global climate change should be a major plank of the Republican Party, which claims to stand for such things.

    So instead of blindly assaulting me with trivially ridiculous accusations, you might want to examine the motivations behind the political attacks on real science. Many of you claim to be skeptics. Well then, be skeptical, but be real skeptics. I am, and always have been — I’ve examined the claims, the science, and the techniques, and have come to the conclusion that global warming is real, and that humans are overwhelmingly the most likely cause of its recent acceleration.

    I know I can say this all I want and it won’t help; the Noise Machine is impervious to logic and reality. But when you read those comments, you might want to keep this image in the back of your mind:

    lalalala_ottercanthearyou



  • New Peugeot 308 GTi: getting the GTI badge magic back

    Peugeot 308 GTi

    A new Peugeot 308 GTi is back in the Peugeot range after the company must have decided that abandoning its traditions and the models that Peugeot fans love was not so great for the new brand strategy after all. The new sports hatchback is available as a five-door model only and is equipped with the new 1.6-litre THP engine which debuted on the Peugeot RCZ coupé, and a six-speed manual gearbox.

    The new engine has 200 hp and 275 Nm of torque with turbocharger and variable valve timing. If that’s not enough, Sound System technology gives the new 308 GTi a distinctive acceleration sound. The new GTi could also signal a step in more environmentally friendly sports hatches for Peugeot, consuming just 6.9 litres/100 km of fuel and producing 159 g/km of CO2 emissions.

    Our colleagues at Motosblog.fr are already asking whether you think the new Peugeot deserves the GTi badge. Let’s hope so, because the brand really needed to make a good one to get its mojo back on this front. According to reports, it could cost about 24,000 euros and will be available from July this year.

    Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi

    Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi
    Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi Peugeot 308 GTi


  • What’s next for the oil spill?









    Daniel Beltrá / Greenpeace via EPA

    An aerial view shows ships surrounded by the Deepwater Horizon oil slick on May 18.



    The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is entering a new phase, one month after the explosion that touched off the disaster. It’s finally sinking in among environmental experts, policymakers and the general public that this spill is unlike any other. The impact will be felt hundreds of miles away from the deep-sea leak, for years after it’s been stopped.

    …(read more)

  • Windows Mobile phone used to control Mindstorm Robot

    Antonvh has managed, apparently after much blood, sweat and tears, to interface his Windows Mobile handset with his LEGO Mindstorm NXT racecar.  The connection is via bluetooth, and he has generously made his code and a step by step guide available for those wishing to emulate his success.

    Read more about what could be a fun weekend project (not the blood, sweat and tears are out of the way) at NTXpad here.

    Has anyone else managed a similar feat? Let us know below.


  • Ron Walters on Slavery

    This article is of course a reasoned rebuttal to the recent article by Gates that I commented on.  We obviously can troop around this circle until hell really freezes over.
    I would like to share a few thoughts.
    The end of slavery coincided with the emergence of fiat money toward the end of the eighteenth century.  Innovation in government finance altered the relationship between labor and land decisively and led to the increasing mobility and independence of labor.
    The original deal, however unfortunate, consisted of shifting labor from one subsistence village with no currency base to another such village.  This village also operated a subsistence economy but was also expected to contribute to the general upkeep of the larger plantation.  That was usually demanding only during harvest.  Though we can be sure plenty of extra work was found.
    My point is that during the eighteenth century there was little change in condition and expectation.  In addition, in this world of short money supply, many whites were also sold off or indentured as a method of economic exchange.  This all meant that the active currency of the time and also for the preceding millennia was the use of a human worker.
    Gold supply was always in short supply and insufficient to the needs of the economy as compared to our present expectations.  Thus a barter economy depended on trade in labor.
    Fortunately in the aftermath of the Roman world, the Christian and Islamic worlds both opposed slavery even though it continued to function unabated until the rise of the use of fiat currency.  A culture of short term slavery persisted often contractual.  I suspect that it was rare for an individual to die in the state of slavery in the European environment, and the ability to end slavery by declaring for Islam surely had the same effect there.  That all may have been moot in Islam for women.
    Then we come up to the last phase of the slavery industry in which the victims were a clearly separate race that simply could not blend in and ultimately escape.  I suspect that Indians who were caught up in slavery simply intermarried resulting in offspring able to pass into white society inside of a single generation.  This was clearly not possible for Africans.
    So at the same time that the classical economic model that created slavery began to actually fail, the owners moved to preserve the slave status of Africans through a presumption of inferiority that evolved into classical racism. This was likely unplanned but a natural tendency which Africans could not escape because of visibility.
    Yet the economic model itself was failing because the advent of increasing monetarization began destroying the margins available and drove the system toward sharecropping at least.  Owners discovered that paying upkeep for twelve months in exchange for a few months of need was a bad bargain.  Ready cash made this very visible.  The last vestiges of it all disappeared with capital driven mechanization.
    Thus tortured as the history is, slavery was a form of classical currency that lasted until an efficient modern currency system arose to displace it.  The remnants we still see today will not survive the implementation of a modern government economy globally over the next two generations.
    Ron Walters…Professor Gates and the Blame for Slavery
    by Dr. Ron Walters
    Originally published May 04, 2010
    http://www.afro.com/sections/opinion/story.htm?storyid=1124
     (NNPA) — Like everyone else who read Professor Henry L. Gates’ piece in the New York Times asserting that Africans were just as responsible for slavery as Europeans, I was aghast because he is one of the most acclaimed scholars in the country and his position lends credibility to those who oppose an historical corrective for the oppression of African peoples. Admittedly, my concern also arises from the publication of my most recent book on reparations, The Price of Racial Reconciliation, in which I take a strong position favoring reparations as a long time member of this movement. ?
    Although Gates’ argument is cast in scholarly terms, it should be said that he is not a recognized scholar of African history, a fact which has caused him to design a simple equation of the culpability of Africans with Europeans in the slave trade. This cannot be so, even if one accedes his point that Africans were surely involved in the slave trade. ?
    The other side of the story is that in the 300 years from the middle of the 16th to the 19th centuries, the slave trade evolved into one of the primary, if not the engine of the first sincere wave of globalization. The development of trading firms from Spain and Portugal to England were the result of the enormous profits from the trade that enriched towns and cities throughout Europe and the Americas and allowed for the extension of European armies and traders into the interior of Africa to concretize the process of colonialism.
    ?I use the word “concretize” because Gates seems to infer that Africans were on an equal part with Europeans in this process. They were not. Consider if you were a chief who sold an enslaved African to a European and received a bottle of rum or some trinkets for the sale. ?What could you do with that resource? How powerful was it? On the other hand, the person who was sold to the European constituted a dynamic resource because he and she could produce others, could work for years to enrich the owner and with the profits, the owner could create new civilizations. There then, is no sense of “equality” between the two in the process of the exchange of slaves.
    ?But even if you credit Professor Gates’ argument that Africans were just as culpable as Europeans for slavery, how does that wash when it was the Europeans who possessed the gold, salt, trinkets, liquor and other items they could exchange for slaves, together with the means of transporting them to new areas of the globe. Even though Europeans did not traverse the interior of Africa until the middle of the 19th century, they did not need to do so, because most of the West African population was near to the Coastal areas except for the Angola/Congolese areas. The great civilizations of the Mali/Songhai area was defeated by the Islamic invasion beginning in the 7th century and was still under the control of much of North Africa at the time of European entry into Africa. ?
    So, Europeans built fortresses on the coast of West Africa to administer the process of slavery made possible by the introduction of European armies that did make forays into the interior and back to the coast with slaves. In short, the truth is that if Europeans did not have the infrastructure for slavery, it would not have been profitable to Africans and thus, would not have become the vast commercial global enterprise that it did.?
    I consider the slave trade one of the aspects of what I call “The Grand Narrative of Oppression.” This narrative has many parts. Professor Gates’ argument does not take into consideration the fact that when the transatlantic slave trade ended, a local slave trade matured inside the United States run by Whites with the same features of production and distribution of enslaved peoples that carried over from the original trade. ?
    Then, he does not consider the fact that slavery itself extended into the 20th century and that the racism against so-called “free” peoples of African descent became a major feature of oppression that also calls for reparations.?
    While writing my book, I was in South Africa and ran into a Zulu chief who understood reparations this way: my friend stole my bicycle from me, then he came to me several months later and wanted to be my friend again. ?
    I told him that he must return the bicycle first. His friend hesitated because not only did he not have the bicycle, he had used it to enrich himself beyond the status of his friend. Thus, the issue of reparations is one of justice. With the monumental profits that were derived from the slave, although one can accede to the fact that Africans did participate in the transatlantic slave trade, one cannot equate that with European culpability for slavery. ? ?
    Dr. Ron Walters is a political analyst and professor emeritus of the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is “The Price of Racial Reconciliation”(University of Michigan Press).

  • X Games adds SuperRally to rally events

    Filed under: ,

    The ESPN X Games are coming to the LA Coliseum July 29 to August 1, and for the first time, SuperRally will be coming with them. Americans might know SuperRally as the Harley Davidson events, but it’s actually a renaming of the European sport of RallyCross, which looks for all the world like motocross but with cars.

    The field begins with 12 drivers who will do time trial runs to decide the grids for three elimination races. According to ESPN, “The winner of the Elimination heats and the highest seeded driver who has not yet advanced will compete in a four-lap last chance qualifier (LCQ). The winner of the LCQ will join the winners of the Elimination heat races in the five-lap final race.”

    We’re not quite sure how that’s going to work, but we’re sure there’ll be a lot of wheelspin, jumps and flying dirt, which is really what this is all about anyway. Tickets for the X Games go on sale June 24. Thanks for the tip, Joe!

    [Source: Rally America | Image: Jeff Gross/Getty Images]

    X Games adds SuperRally to rally events originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 20 May 2010 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Low Carbon Palm Oil for Indonesia?

    An upcoming United States-Indonesia partnership is an opportunity to tackle deforestation.

    In a June visit, President Barack Obama and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are expected to formalize a new “Comprehensive Partnership” between the United States and Indonesia, two of the world’s leading greenhouse gas-emitting nations. While the details of this partnership have not yet been released, one thing is certain: a true comprehensive partnership between these two countries is an unprecedented opportunity to address the global climate challenge through reducing emissions from deforestation.

    Indonesia has announced that a key strategy for “low carbon prosperity” is the use of degraded land rather than forested or peat land for oil palm plantation expansion. The effective implementation of this strategy—combined with international support for avoiding deforestation—can help protect Indonesia’s globally significant carbon- and biodiversity-rich tropical rainforests while promoting local prosperity.

    Forests and Palm Oil: Contradictory Policies?

    In late 2009, Indonesia committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020, or by 41 percent with foreign assistance. Land use change from deforestation and peat land conversion has accounted for more than 80 percent of Indonesia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Indonesia aims to achieve a majority of its targeted reductions by reducing emissions from deforestation and peat land conversion.

    At the same time, in response to growing global and local demand, Indonesia aims to approximately double its current palm oil production to 40 million metric tons per year by 2020. By some estimates this will require an additional 5 million hectares of oil palm plantations (an area larger than Switzerland).

    Current expansion plans include the conversion of forest and peat land. (Photo: WRI)

    Palm oil is a lucrative crop; it is used as a common cooking oil and biofuel, as well as an ingredient in many processed foods and cosmetics. Palm oil production generates profits, employment, infrastructure development and government revenue.

    Even with substantial yield improvements, further expansion of land use will be necessary to achieve these production targets. Many plantations are already planned on land that is currently forested. If the planned expansion occurs at the expense of forest and peat lands–—as it has in the past—Indonesia will be unable to achieve its emissions reductions target and the world will suffer the irreplaceable loss of Indonesia’s biodiverse tropical forests.

    An Alternative: Palm Oil on Degraded Land

    An attractive alternative is to expand palm oil production on degraded land instead of forested or peat land.

    In this context, degraded land refers to areas that were cleared of forests long ago and that now contain low carbon stocks and low levels of biodiversity, such as alang alang grasslands. According to economic analyses by WWF1 and Indonesia’s National Development Planning Agency2, as well as fieldwork carried out by WRI and local partner Sekala, many of these areas have suitable soil for oil palm cultivation, can produce comparable yields relative to recently deforested land, and are viewed as underproductive by local communities.

    Area cleared of forest where alang alang grass and tropical bracken now dominate the landscape. (Photo: Sekala)

    A number of studies indicate that there is enough degraded land to accommodate Indonesia’s expected oil palm expansion past 2020. The Indonesian government estimates that a strategy that diverts future oil palm expansion away from peat to degraded land could reduce projected greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent without a significant reduction in total economic benefits.

    The Challenge: Implementation

    Recognizing this opportunity, WRI and Sekala have been working to divert planned oil palm plantations away from forests to degraded land instead—a kind of “land swap”—in West Kalimantan, Indonesia (see project POTICO). WRI and its partners have identified four key challenges to implementing an effective, equitable nationwide strategy for using degraded land for plantation expansion:

    • Technical. Policy-makers lack the accurate land cover and land use spatial data needed to develop and implement an effective degraded land utilization strategy. This shortcoming constrains the government’s ability to identify degraded land suitable for oil palm expansion and to conduct land use monitoring and enforcement activities.

    • Legal. In many areas, physically degraded land is legally classified as “forest” and therefore unavailable for agricultural expansion, while forested land is legally classified as “non-forest” and therefore at risk of conversion.

    • Social. Oil palm plantation projects face high risk of social conflict due to land tenure issues. This is especially a problem on degraded lands which tend to have more claims than forested areas. Historically, poorly managed projects have resulted in highly unequal distribution of costs and benefits of expansion, leading to the marginalization of local communities.

    • Financial. Many permits for plantation development on forested land have already been issued. Changing these permits and ensuring the long term sustainable management of the forest will likely require financial incentives for local stakeholders—companies, communities, and governments—who expected to benefit from plantation development. These incentives could include payments for reducing emissions from deforestation or revenues from low impact forest uses.

    A Vision for a United States-Indonesia Partnership

    The United States-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership can overcome these challenges by supporting the following actions:

    1. Develop accurate and up-to-date spatial data to assist Indonesia’s execution of a strategy to utilize degraded land for oil palm development.
    2. Based on this data, revise land use plans (zoning) such that degraded areas are classified for agricultural use while forest and peat lands are classified for conservation or sustainable management, through a process that incorporates best practices in participatory spatial planning.
    3. Issue future permits according to these revised land use plans, through a process that incorporates best practice stakeholder engagement, including obtaining free prior and informed consent of relevant communities.
    4. Develop financial incentives (e.g., via a fund, low interest loans, or other mechanisms) for companies, communities, and local governments to relocate planned plantations from forested to degraded land, and to generate benefits from low impact uses of the forested land previously slated for conversion.
    5. Establish a public measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) system to enable Indonesia to enforce compliance with the degraded land utilization strategy and demonstrate progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land use change.

    By supporting these activities, the U.S.-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership can create improved livelihoods in Indonesia through sustainable agricultural expansion while avoiding deforestation and reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

    More Information

    WRI and NewPage Launch Partnership to Protect Indonesian Forests

    1. T. Fairhurst and D. McLaughlin, “Sustainable Oil Palm Development on Degraded Land in Kalimantan.” WWF, 2009. ↩

    2. Indonesian National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) “Reducing carbon emissions from Indonesia’s peatlands,” 2009 ↩

  • American Idol 2010: Goodbye Casey James

    american idol results may 19thAnd there were only two. Americal Idol 2010 is nearing its end this season. Last Tuesday, Lee DeWyze was performing really well but will he make in this weeks elimination?



    As usual, American Idol like all other seasons was a great succes, with high ratings, no doubt its one of the top shows ever on television. You will be able to see Simon Cowell for only one more week in this seasons American idol. He is not only an important person but he contributed to the success of this show.

    Now lets go down to business, last night was a great night for all since Justin Bieber had his performance on the legendary American Idol stage. After Bieber left the stage, it was Ryan Seacrest who told the world that Lee DeWyze was safe, and will be performing in the finals. Crystal Bowersox and Casey James were left, since many would love both of them to stay, there’s no way around, one has to go, that’s the rules. This is why we have to say Goodbye to Casey James because he was sent home.

    Related posts:

    1. Huge Applause for Justin Bieber’s Performance
    2. Teen Super Star, Justin Bieber, To Perform At 2010 MuchMusic Video Awards
    3. Wango Tango 2010 Features Justin Bieber and Adam Lambert

  • Roman and Medieval Conformed in Himalyas




    This item is a solid confirmation of a global climate effect that is outside of the experience of Europe and further confirms the strength of the millennial cycle recently posted on in this blog.
    This means that all climate modeling must build in this thousand year long bias which is presently upward for the next few centuries.  It is not a great shift but it is certainly positive.  The total amplitude over the entire range is under two degrees and we are likely just entering the warm part for the next several centuries.
    It is safe to grow those grape vines in northern latitudes and it is time to begin dairy farming in Greenland again.
    The cycle length looks pretty close to been just under one thousand years to a high degree of certainty over the past several thousands of years.  Any switch over happens within a fifty year period.
    The Roman and Medieval Warm Periods at Paradise Lake, Northwestern Himalaya

    Reference
    Bhattacharyya, A., Sharma, J., Shah, S.K. and Chaudhary, V. 2007. Climatic changes during the last 1800 yrs BP from Paradise Lake, Sela Pass, Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast Himalaya. Current Science 93: 983-987.
    http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N4/C3.php
    What was done

    The authors developed a relative history of atmospheric warmth and moisture covering the last 1800 years for the region surrounding Paradise Lake — which is located in the Northeastern Himalaya at approximately 27°30.324’N, 92°06.269’E — based on pollen and carbon isotopic (δ13C) analyses of a one-meter-long sediment profile they obtained from a pit “dug along the dry bed of the lakeshore.”

    What was learned

    Bhattacharyya et al. report that their climatic reconstruction revealed a “warm and moist climate, similar to the prevailing present-day conditions,” around AD 240 — which would represent the last part of the Roman Warm Period — as well as another such period that turned out to be “more warmer [our italics] 1100 yrs BP (around AD 985) corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period.”

    What it means

    The existence of these two periods — the former of which was at least as warm as the present, and the latter of which was actually warmer than the present — occurring at times when the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration was more than 100 ppm less than it is today, clearly suggests that today’s warmth could well be due to a repeat performance of whatever it was that produced the equally high and higher temperatures, respectively, of these two earlier warm periods. And this study is but one of many distributed throughout the world that suggest the very same thing, as illustrated by the data we have archived in our Medieval Warm Period Project. Therefore, with each passing week,literally (because we post a new such study in each week’s new issue of CO2 Science), it becomes ever more difficult for climate alarmists to claim that our current warmth is unprecedented over the past two millennia or more, and that it must thus be due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

  • Xbox Cufflinks Almost Justify Dressing Up…Almost [Fashion]

    The sole flaw with the modern hoodie is that it has neither need nor room for these authentic Xbox button cufflinks. $40. [Etsy via Unplggd] More »










    Xbox – Microsoft – Games – Video game – Console Platforms

  • Sand-X ATV: A Ferrari da areias

    Off-Road Sand-X ATV

    Não é exagero dizer que o Sand-X ATV pode ser considerado uma Ferrari da areia pois o diferenciado veiculo, que mistura características um Snowbile (veiculo de andar na neve) com um ATV (All Terrain Vehicle), apresenta um aceleração de 0 a 100 km/h na areia de apenas 2,8 segundos, o mesmo tempo de aceleração que uma Ferrari Enzo faz no asfalto até chegar nos 100 km/h.

    O Sand-X ATV é oferecido pela empresa Suíça especializada em veículos off-road Platune, e é produzido sob o lema “Patrulha do Deserto”. Suas características permitem que ele seja utilizado no transporte de pessoas e cargas em diversos tipos de terreno adversos como na areia, neve e lama, além do asfalto.

    Sua excelente potencia já relatada é oriunda de um motor de 1200 cc que ainda tem uma autonomia de 350 km. E autonomia é um item de chave para o veiculo, que será destinado principalmente para o mercado do Oriente Médio e seus excêntricos abonados clientes onde, sabe-se que nessas localidades existem diversos desertos e ai a necessidade de percorrer grandes distancias sem abastecer.

    Sua carroceria também utiliza materiais de ultima geração, como um composto de Kevlar ultra-resistente. Além de servir para o lazer e meio de transporte comum, o veiculo Sand-X ATV servira também para fins militares e para o governo. Seu preço ainda não foi divulgado pela Platune, mas as suas vendas já começaram nos Emirados Árabes Unidos, através da Exotic Cars Dubai.

    Off-Road Sand-X ATVOff-Road Sand-X ATVOff-Road Sand-X ATVOff-Road Sand-X ATV

    Veja o video e mais fotos do Sand-X ATV logo abaixo.

    Off-Road Sand-X ATV
    Off-Road Sand-X ATVOff-Road Sand-X ATVOff-Road Sand-X ATVOff-Road Sand-X ATV

    Fonte: 4WheelsNews


  • YouTube is added to the banned sites in Pakistan

    YouTube is added to the banned sites in Pakistan

    YouTube and some Wikipedia pages are added to the list of websites banned in Pakistan, on Wednesday after a court ordered the temporary blocking Facebook because the site issued a call to draw the prophet Mohammed. Draw the prophet is prohibited outright by the Muslim religious laws.

    Pakistani authorities for social networks broadcast sacrilegious content. Facebook will remain restricted until 31 May, it ruled the U.S. Supreme Court. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was the body that ordered the Internet providers to close YouTube and Facebook, among others, in the country. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has blocked 450 websites containing derogatory material in his opinion.

    The authorities have even set up a hotline where citizens can call to report offensive material they have seen on the network.

    YouTube has not yet reacted to the ban. But Facebook issued a statement saying that “while this contest does not violate our terms for content, we understand that it may be illegal in some countries.”

    Facebook page “Day of the drawings of Muhammad” had on Thursday with nearly 80,000 people registered.

    In response to competition from Facebook created another web page under the name “Against the Day of the drawings of Muhammad” which calls for boycott of the site and already exceeded the 90,000 fans.

    Related posts:

    1. Pakistan Prohibits Facebook in the Country Because of “Draw Mohammed Day”
    2. Facebook Users Found More Loyal To News
    3. Facebook: Privacy Setting, 2010

  • The Kickstand Coffee shop, powered and transported by bicycles

    Kickstand-Mobile-Coffee-Bar-1.jpg
    We all love that steaming hot cup of coffee every now and then. Well, just incase we can’t find a coffee shop around, the Kickstand crew have come up with a novel way of serving that hot cuppa, anywhere they please. The shop these guys have set up is powered by bicycles, and also transported by them. A mobile coffee shop, the Kickstand Coffee first set shop at McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The entire shop can be hauled around with just two cycles, with each cart weighing around 160 pounds. The bike-carts are also slim enough to negotiate terrible city traffic with easy, to make sure your coffee shop is set up nearby.

    The shop has beans from Cafe Grumpy and Gimme! Coffee to offer, ground by hand. We sure would love to see more shops like these, perhaps a pizza shop with ovens powered by the sun!

    Kickstand-Mobile-Coffee-Bar-2.jpg

    Kickstand-Mobile-Coffee-Bar-3.jpg

    [Inhabitat]

  • New Hurricane research by Kirk Melhuish

    Article Tags: Jim Elsner, Kirk Melhuish, Robert Hodges, Solar News

    New research from the May hurricane conference of the American Meteorological Society sheds new light just ahead of the start of the season June first.

    Evidence linking solar variability with USA hurricanes, by Robert Hodges and Jim Elsner of Florida State University. They showed that the probability of three or more hurricanes hitting the U.S. during a hurricane season with warmer than average sea surface temperatures increases dramatically during minima in the 11-year sunspot cycle. The odds increase from 20% to 40% for years when the sunspot activity is in the lower 25% of the sunspot cycle, compared to years in the upper 25% of the cycle. Near the peak of the sunspot cycle, the odds of at least one hurricane hitting the U.S. are just 25%, but at solar minimum, the odds increase sharply to 64%. The authors studied the period 1851 – 2008, and controlled for other variables such as changes in sea surface temperature and El Niño. Such a large impact of the sun on hurricanes might seem surprising, given that the change in solar energy at all light wavelengths is only about 0.1%. This relatively small change causes just a 0.1°C change in Earth’s mean surface temperature between the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle (high solar activity) and the minimum of the sunspot cycle (where we are now.) However, variation in radiation between extrema of the solar cycle can be 10% or more in portions of the UV range (Elsner et al., 2008.) The strong change in UV light causes globally averaged temperature swings in the lower stratosphere of 0.4°C between the minimum and maximum of the sunspot cycle–four times as great as the difference measured at Earth’s surface (Lean, 2009). This sensitivity of the stratosphere to UV light is due to the fact the ozone layer is located in the stratosphere. Ozone absorbs a large amount of UV light, causing the stratosphere to heat up when solar activity is high. The authors speculate that a warmer stratosphere then heats up the upper troposphere, making the atmosphere more stable. An unstable atmosphere–with hot temperatures at the surface and cold conditions in the upper troposphere–are conducive for stronger hurricanes. Thus, we would expect to see reductions in hurricanes during the peak of the sunspot cycle.

    Source: examiner.com

    Read in full with comments »   


  • OurStage Lifts Curtain on $2.6M

    Wade Roush wrote:

    Chelmsford, MA-based OurStage, which runs an online community where indie bands gain recognition through audience voting in monthly contests, has raised $2.63 million in an offering combining equity, options, and warrants, according to a regulatory filing. In 2009 the company collected $3 million out of an intended $6 million Series B round; its backers then included Portland, ME- and Austin, TX-based Signature Capital and a large group of about 100 angel investors. Added to the company’s 2008 series A round of $13 million, the new money brings the startup’s total venture pot to roughly $19 million. In March OurStage announced a strategic partnership with MTV Networks, owned by Viacom (NYSE: VIA).

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