Coen brothers target US coal industry
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/coen-brothers-coal-industry-film
Coen brothers target US coal industry
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment corespondent
Thursday February 26 2009
guardian.co.uk
The Coen brothers have applied their slightly off-kilter sensibility to the campaign against America's coal industry, with a new television advertisement debunking the notion of clean coal.
The filmmaking brothers, working from a concept and script supplied by the ad makers for the environmental campaigners, the Reality Coalition, Reality Coalition environmental campaign, produced a spot showing a salesman spraying black smog from an aerosol can around a home.
"Is regular clean enough for your family?," says the salesman as the children choke and sputter behind him. "Get clean coal clean."
The recruitment of Joel and Ethan Coen marks an escalation of the battle over coal. The final showdown could come as early as this April, with Barack Obama pressing Congress to pass green energy legislation.
Unlike their breakout film Fargo, which showed a corpse being put through a web chipper, and last year's No Country for Old Men, which had a psychotic killer go after a slew of victims with a pressure-driven device normally used to kill cattle, coal industry executives do not come to a violent end.
The brothers are to produce another television ad for the campaign later this year.
The Reality Coalition, an offshoot of Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, began focusing on industry claims that clean coal was feasible late last year, with high profile advertising campaign.
American taste for soft toilet roll 'worse than driving Hummers'
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america
American taste for soft toilet roll 'worse than driving Hummers'
Extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin forest causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions, say campaigners
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
Thursday February 26 2009
guardian.co.uk
The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.
"This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.
"Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution." Making toilet paper has a significant impact because of chemicals used in pulp manufacture and cutting down forests.
A campaign by Greenpeace seeks to raise consciousness among Americans about the environmental costs of their toilet habits and counter an aggressive new push by the paper industry giants to market so-called luxury brands.
More than 98% of the toilet roll sold in America comes from virgin forests, said Hershkowitz. In Europe and Latin America, up to 40% of toilet paper comes from recycled products. Greenpeace this week launched a cut-out-and-keep ecological ranking of toilet paper products.
"We have this myth in the US that recycled is just so low quality, it's like cardboard and is impossible to use," said Lindsey Allen, the forestry campaigner of Greenpeace.
The campaigning group says it produced the guide to counter an aggressive marketing push by the big paper product makers in which celebrities talk about the comforts of luxury brands of toilet paper and tissue.
Those brands, which put quilting and pockets of air between several layers of paper, are especially damaging to the environment.
Paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry. Its latest television advertisements show a woman caressing tissue infused with hand lotion.
The New York Times reported a 40% in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008. Paper companies are anxious to keep those percentages up, even as the recession bites. And Reuters reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its third quarter on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands.
But Kimberly-Clark, which touts its green credentials on its website, rejects the idea that it is pushing destructive products on an unwitting American public.
Dave Dixon, a company spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fibre had been on the market for years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.
"For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides," Dixon said. "It's the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to expect."
Take the Power Back: The Schedule for This Weekend's Anti-Arpaio Activities
By Stephen Lemons in Feathered Bastard
Wednesday, Feb. 25 2009 @ 6:16PM
Ready to rage against Arpaio? Boy, are you in luck.
Below is the schedule for this weekend's anti-Arpaio/anti-287(g) activities just released by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Several high-ranking NDLON staff members have re-confirmed that Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha will attend Saturday's march, so be there and be there early.
Word is Phoenix's anti-Hispanic nativist hillbillies will also show up as a counter-protest. They are truly a nasty bunch of semi-literate ofay Skoal-munchers. But keep this in mind: From a helicopter, they will just make the crowd look that much larger. So the joke's on their unemployed asses.
By Stephen Lemons in Feathered Bastard
Wednesday, Feb. 25 2009 @ 6:16PM
Ready to rage against Arpaio? Boy, are you in luck.
Below is the schedule for this weekend's anti-Arpaio/anti-287(g) activities just released by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Several high-ranking NDLON staff members have re-confirmed that Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha will attend Saturday's march, so be there and be there early.
Word is Phoenix's anti-Hispanic nativist hillbillies will also show up as a counter-protest. They are truly a nasty bunch of semi-literate ofay Skoal-munchers. But keep this in mind: From a helicopter, they will just make the crowd look that much larger. So the joke's on their unemployed asses.
NYTimes.com: Big U.S. Role in Lending to Students
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: February 25, 2009
The federal government has quietly increased its support of the student loan market to such a degree that the real question may be whether there is a role left for private lenders at all.
The Education Department agreed in the waning days of the Bush administration to expand its commitment to buy student loans to keep the market working, much as the government has agreed to buy up all manner of loans, from mortgages to commercial paper, to unfreeze various credit markets.
The newest initiative was announced late last fall when there was great concern about the ability of college students and their families to get continued financing for education. The most likely size of the program, detailed in the Federal Register on Jan. 15, was $25 billion.
Published: February 25, 2009
The federal government has quietly increased its support of the student loan market to such a degree that the real question may be whether there is a role left for private lenders at all.
The Education Department agreed in the waning days of the Bush administration to expand its commitment to buy student loans to keep the market working, much as the government has agreed to buy up all manner of loans, from mortgages to commercial paper, to unfreeze various credit markets.
The newest initiative was announced late last fall when there was great concern about the ability of college students and their families to get continued financing for education. The most likely size of the program, detailed in the Federal Register on Jan. 15, was $25 billion.
NYTimes.com: U.S. Is Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: February 25, 2009
PHOENIX — The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.
When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun store here called X-Caliber Guns.
Now, the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would send them to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year.
Published: February 25, 2009
PHOENIX — The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.
When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun store here called X-Caliber Guns.
Now, the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would send them to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year.
| STOLEN FROM AFRICA Source: baobabconnections.org We interview Logikal Ethix from the Canadian-based organisation. |
What is Stolen From Africa?
Stolen From Africa is a Toronto-based movement that uses fashion, music, media and community outreach to educate, uplift and to create discussions surrounding various forms oppressions on a local and global level in relation to the African diaspora and beyond.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/23/guerrilla-knitting-yarn-bombing-magda-sayeg
The fluffy face of graffiti
You've probably heard of guerrilla gardening, but what about guerrilla knitting? Perri Lewis joins one of the movement's leaders for a spot of 'yarn bombing' in London
Perri Lewis
If you strolled down the Southbank in London on Friday, you may have noticed pieces of brightly coloured knitting tied to various objects, or perhaps your bike lock was covered with wool. Welcome to guerrilla knitting.
This is graffiti, but with yarn. It's nothing new - people have been doing it for years, all over the world - but Friday's session was special. It was the first time that Magda Sayeg, one of the craft world's most revered guerrilla knitters, 'tagged' London.
The 35-year-old from Texas is the founder of Knitta Please, one of the first guerrilla knitting crews. Sayeg started out decorating her local area with leftover pieces of knitting from unfinished projects. She soon got more ambitious, travelling around the world and leaving bits of thread behind: she counts the Great Wall of China, a handful of Paris landmarks and the Welcome to Manhattan sign on the Brooklyn Bridge among her greatest conquests.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/18/john-mccain-barack-obama
John McCain, sore loser
Once a symbol of honour and integrity, the former presidential candidate is damaging his reputation by attacking Obama
Dylan Loewe
Friday February 20 2009
guardian.co.uk
Losing the presidency must be pretty tough. It's worse than losing a Super Bowl ? at least then you're a worthy prospect for the following year. It's worse than losing the gold medal at the Olympics ? at least that gets referred to as "winning the silver". A presidential loss signals the beginning of the end of a career rather than the start of something immense. It's akin to a wedding proposal gone bad, in which a man is left alone on his couch, wondering how the glowing future he pictured just walked out the door.
And everyone's watching.
Impressively, most newly-minted presidential losers have acted more as statesmen than politicians in the aftermath of their losses, seeming wiser, more friendly, more open than they had on the campaign trail. Some have even spurred the occasional "if only I'd known" syndrome in the American public. If only I'd known that Al Gore cared so much about the environment. If only I'd known that Bush Sr jumped out of airplanes. If only I'd known how much Bob Dole loves Pepsi and Viagra. If only.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2009/feb/19/first-amendment-abort-obama-sign
Did a police seizure of an 'abort Obama' sign violate the first amendment?
Paul Lester
Thursday February 19 2009
guardian.co.uk
Last week an Oklahoma City police officer pulled over Chip Harrison because of a sign in his car window reading, "Abort Obama Not the Unborn". The officer took the sign away, saying Harrison was entitled to his beliefs but that the US secret service "could construe this as a threat against President Obama".
A spokesman said a supervisor realised the officer's decision to take the sign was an error and returned it after Harrison called the police department. Following a search of his home, secret service officers decided Harrison was not a threat to Obama's safety.
Were Harrison's first amendment rights violated or was the police officer correct to confiscate the sign?
Mexico City -- Migration from Mexico, mainly to the United States, has fallen dramatically as fewer Mexicans leave their country to look for work abroad amid a global economic downturn, the government said Thursday.
The net outflow -- legal and illegal -- declined more than 50% in the 12 months ended in August compared with the same period a year earlier, said Eduardo Sojo, president of the board of Mexico's National Statistics, Geography and Information Institute.
The net outflow -- legal and illegal -- declined more than 50% in the 12 months ended in August compared with the same period a year earlier, said Eduardo Sojo, president of the board of Mexico's National Statistics, Geography and Information Institute.
Architects of the extreme
Designing architecture for the desert is akin to harnessing nature’s harshest elements – it requires equal parts ingenuity and respect.
While every desert is a challenge, not every desert is the same. Whether designing a home, a hotel, or an institution for the desert climate, architects agree that landscape, history and culture play key roles for designing in a region of extremes.
Abu Dhabi’s desert, for example, differs from the others in terms of light, vegetation and culture, says Antoine Predock, the esteemed American architect who is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Designing architecture for the desert is akin to harnessing nature’s harshest elements – it requires equal parts ingenuity and respect.
While every desert is a challenge, not every desert is the same. Whether designing a home, a hotel, or an institution for the desert climate, architects agree that landscape, history and culture play key roles for designing in a region of extremes.
Abu Dhabi’s desert, for example, differs from the others in terms of light, vegetation and culture, says Antoine Predock, the esteemed American architect who is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
SOULLESS
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az has shared a Huffington Post article with you
az has shared a Huffington Post article with you:
AG Holder: U.S. A "Nation Of Cowards" On Race
- sent by az
AG Holder: U.S. A "Nation Of Cowards" On Race
- sent by az
Endangered tortoise can?t catch a break
http://zoniereport.com/2009/02/endangered-tortoise-cant-catch-a-break/
The sender also included this note:
I think the TORTOISE will win even though it's slow
--
Sent via a FeedFlare link from a FeedBurner feed.
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/publishers/feedflare
Navajo film festival accepting entries
NAVAJO NATION — The Monument Valley Film Festival is calling for entries for its 2009 season.
For the past two years, the festival has showcased films produced, written or directed by American Indians from across the country.
The festival, in its third year, is expanding its call for entries and the number of awards available.
The program is open to all genres of film and filmmakers, but the films must be native-themed and films must be written, directed or produced by a Native American.
There is no entry fee. The deadline is May1.
For more information or to download a submission application, visit www.monumentvalley filmfest.com
—The Daily Times
Medill Reports: Global warming means deserts will spread, but urbanization may destroy them first
This link has been sent to you by : AZ
Global warming means deserts will spread, but urbanization may destroy them first
2/17/2009 3:30:23 AM
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=116345
Medill Reports
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu
Global warming means deserts will spread, but urbanization may destroy them first
2/17/2009 3:30:23 AM
Global warming threatens to spread the world's deserts. Yet their unique plants -- the source of foods, medicines and rich biodiversity for populations across time -- are dying due to urbanization. And, of the two, extinction of these ecosystems is the immediate risk.
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=116345
Medill Reports
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu
A Sociologist’s Look at Graffiti
By Sewell Chan
Espo/Stephen J. Powers The graffiti writer Espo created a satirical advertisement about quality-of-life crimes at Bedford Avenue and South Fifth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1996.
Gregory J. Snyder, a Baruch College sociologist, spent years hanging out with graffiti writers, earning their trust and conducting scores of interviews.
The new book based on his studies, “Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York’s Urban Underground,” reveals that he became more than an observer in that decade and a half: On very few occasions he wrote graffiti himself, scrawling his tag perhaps seven times.
The Boom Is Over. Long Live the Art!
LAST year Artforum magazine, one of the country’s leading contemporary art monthlies, felt as fat as a phone book, with issues running to 500 pages, most of them gallery advertisements. The current issue has just over 200 pages. Many ads have disappeared.
Academy's Choices Don't Reflect the Number of Women in Science
When the National Academy of Sciences was sharply criticized last year for including only 5 female scientists among its 60 new members, officials of the group that is the nation's most prominent scientific organization said they were striving mightily to change the overwhelmingly male complexion of their institution.
Now this year's new members have been announced, and of the 59 scientists and engineers voted into the academy, once again only five are women.
Monday, February 4, 2008
"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle
100,000 Parents of Citizens Were Deported Over 10 Years
WASHINGTON — Of nearly 2.2 million immigrants deported in the decade ended 2007, more than 100,000 were the parents of children who, having been born in the United States, were American citizens, according to a report issued Friday by the Department of Homeland Security.
Lawmakers Want Look at Sheriff in Arizona
Wind power becomes Europe's fastest growing energy source
The UK added 836MW of wind power to reach 3.24GW in 2008. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PAT
More wind power was installed in the EU than any other electricity-generating technology in 2008, according to data released yesterday.
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) produced figures showing wind power provided 43% of new capacity – or almost two gigawatts (GW) – compared with 35% for gas, 13% for oil, 4% for coal and 2% for hydro power.
US interior secretary halts offshore drilling plan.
US interior secretary Ken Salazar yesterday ordered an assessment of offshore oil and gas resources to help the Obama administration decide where to allow energy production along the nation's coastlines.
Did life begin on Earth more than once, ask scientists
Search for micro-organisms that may have emerged from different ancestors
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 February 2009 13.15 GMT
- Article history
Scientists have called for a "mission to Earth" to hunt for evidence of a second genesis that gave rise to life, but not as we know it.
The variety of life on Earth is widely considered to have evolved from a single common ancestor, but it is possible that basic organisms emerged more than once, leading to multiple trees of life.
Paul Davies at Arizona State University told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago that scientists should explore unusual environmental nooks and crannies on the planet and look for micro-organisms that thrive there. Any that live outside the boundaries of "normal" life could have evolved independently, he said.
"We must be open to the possibility that there's more than one tree of life," Davies said. "I'm not talking about mysterious shadow beings that we can't see, but the microbial realm could contain denizens of second or subsequent genesis."
4 in Congress request probe of Sheriff Arpaio’s policies
PHOENIX — Four members of Congress are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a civil rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, saying Sheriff Joe Arpaio has shown a disregard for Hispanics during his crime and immigration sweeps of heavily Latino areas in metropolitan Phoenix.
PHOENIX — Four members of Congress are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a civil rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, saying Sheriff Joe Arpaio has shown a disregard for Hispanics during his crime and immigration sweeps of heavily Latino areas in metropolitan Phoenix.
The four Democrats, who made the request Thursday, also asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to review the deal that gave special immigration powers to 160 officers who work for the Republican sheriff.
“His repeated course of conduct, which values publicity opportunities over the civil rights of the residents of Arizona, is too disturbing to leave enforcement of the civil rights laws to private litigants,” said the investigation request by Reps. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Zoe Lofgren of California and Robert Scott of Virginia.
Opinion: Arizona sheriff is an embarrassment to Homeland Security czar
SAN DIEGO — One of the most dangerous places to be in Arizona is caught between Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and one of his publicity stunts. That's just where Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano finds herself.
Months ago, Arpaio and his deputies began scouring Hispanic neighborhoods in the Phoenix area looking for illegal immigrants. So far, hundreds have been hauled away. Often in these types of operations, "probable cause" gets defined as brown skin and Spanish accents. So, there is no telling how many U.S.-born Hispanics were detained and harassed in the process.
All of which sets the stage for the stunt. The man who put inmates in pink underwear and fed them green bologna has some people in Arizona seeing red after he recently paraded about 200 illegal immigrants in shackles and prison stripes to his notorious "Tent City."
Of course, Arpaio did this after alerting the media.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 11, 2009; 2:26 PM
Wednesday, February 11, 2009; 2:26 PM
Members of an influential Washington think tank today recommended major changes in the nation's immigration policy, including freezing construction of a security fence along the U.S.- Mexican border and suspending "zero-tolerance" prosecution programs against all people caught crossing segments of the border.
NYTimes.com: Education Is All in Your Mind
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NYTimes.com: Need a Creative Boost? Find the Blue Room.
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Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted
The raids on homes around the country were billed as carefully planned hunts for dangerous immigrant fugitives, and given catchy names like Operation.And they garnered bigger increases in money and staff from Congress than any other program run byImmigration and Customs Enforcement, even as complaints grew that teams of armed agents were entering homes indiscriminately.
Return to Sender.
Anquan Boldin: Will the Arizona Cardinals Desert the Contract He Deserves?
Before the 2008-2009 season started, the Arizona Cardinals supposedly promised Anquan Boldin a new contract. A contract that presumably would have given him more than he is making now, with a dollar value more representative of his talent in relation to other wide receivers in the NFL.
Instead, the Cardinals decided to give his teammate, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, a new four-year deal worth $40 million. They forgot about their promise to Boldin and, in doing so, caused a major rift between him and the organization throughout the season.
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