AS THE ARCTIC MELTS: WORRIED ABOUT RISING SEA LEVELS? BETTER WORRY TOO ABOUT RAPID ACIDIFICATION OF ARCTIC WATERS. New scientific report, reviewed by BBC, documents the rise in pH levels in Arctic region as CO-2 emissions are absorbed in the cold waters of a polar meltdown. The degree of the environmental threat from this [...]
FEDS WANT MAJOR EXPANSION OF SECRET WIRETAP POWERS OVER WEB-BASED SERVICES. Facebook, Google, Skype and other brand names behind your favorite internet sites and programs are chafing at proposed new rules from the Obama administration that would force companies to comply with sweeping wiretaps and information requests from the FBI and Justice Department. While companies [...]
“WITH VARYING DEGREES OF CONFIDENCE.“ White House sends message to Congress saying that Syria “may” (according to U.S. intelligence agencies) have used chemical weapons against its own population. This cautious wording seems both to move U.S. toward a view that a “red line” may have been crossed that would justify (overt) U.S. intervention in [...]
IS AMERICA DEALING WITH THE NEEDS OF ITS GROWING HOMELESS POPULATION? NOT EVEN CLOSE, SAYS DIANE NILAN. Ever since the War on Poverty became the War on the Poor and the federal government opened its boondoggling agenda of “10 year plans” to “eradicate” homelessness, most U.S. communities have managed to ignore the immediate needs [...]
IN 25 U.S. STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A HOMELESS PERSON CAN LOSE HIS/HER CHILDREN BY THE ACT OF TRYING TO OBTAIN SOCIAL SERVICES TO HELP PROVIDE FOR THEM. As in so many ways that the homeless are “criminalized” rather than being provided for, these states make application for assistance actionable instances of “abuse [...]
“OUR GOAL WAS TO SHUT DOWN A PORTION OF AMERICA FOR A WHOLE DAY.” Producer of a new TV series, “House of Cards,” says this with a “laugh,” but it is no laughing matter to TV producers who are catering to a new kind of “binge-watching” among fans of particular TV programs. Rather than [...]
ISRAEL: GET YOUR GAS MASK, YITZAK! SYRIA MAY BE ABOUT TO “TRANSFER” ITS CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO THE HEZBOLLAH MILITIA IN LEBANON. Israeli warplanes, for the first time in six years, launch an airstrike keep inside Syria, allegedly targeting a convoy headed toward Lebanon with such weapons. Although analysts doubt that either Syria or its [...]
18,000 MILE TRIP ADDS ANOTHER GIANT OIL RIG TO DRILLING IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. Operation owned jointly by Royal Dutch Shell and BP brings a huge platform from South Korea, to be assembled at a port in Texas, then to join a slew of rigs seeking to extend the producing life of the [...]
The percentage of American workers belonging to labor unions has sunk to a nearly century-old low, representing the changing dynamics of the nation’s workforce and the consequences of a headlong rush by lawmakers to adopt “pro-business” economic polices. Organized labor has come under assault by legislators from Capitol Hill to statehouses across the country [...]
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN LOOKS AT THE GLOBE AND FINDS TURMOIL AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT IN THE “MIDDLE RUN” FUTURE. While predictions for a given year are a “fool’s mission” and those for centuries in the future only too easy to make, those for the “middle run” of a decade or so hence are subject to [...]
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