Spanish Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero arrives in Washington amid speculation that a key US-EU summit planned for May could be postponed thanks to President Obama's decision to skip it.  

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero arrives in Washington on Wednesday for a 2-day visit to the US in the wake of the announcement that President Barack Obama would not participate in the annual EU/US summit.

Spain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, is scheduled to host the summit with US and EU leaders on May 24-25.

The United States said on Tuesday that it was in touch with the Spanish government after it voiced disappointment over Obama's decision to skip the Madrid summit.

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Reports said Zapatero was not scheduled to meet Obama, but may have a chance to speak with him at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, where the Spanish prime minister is to give a Bible reading.

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After years of eroding support, Germany's Social Democrats are back in the opposition. But the party is having difficulty charting its course. Party leaders Sigmar Gabriel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier have competing visions for how the SPD should attempt to return to power.

They are standing together, the party leader and the parliamentary floor leader, demonstratively close to each other. One of the two men has his hands folded in front of his stomach and the other, with his left hand in the pocket of his trousers, says: "Okay, Sigmar, why don't you begin."

It's a Tuesday afternoon in late January, and Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chairman Sigmar Gabriel and SPD floor leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier are standing in a room on the fifth floor of a government building in Berlin, facing a handful of cameras and notebook-wielding reporters. The two SPD leaders are here to give their assessment of the government's Afghanistan strategy, which Chancellor Angela Merkel explained earlier in the day.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The huge rise in illegal waste shipments in recent years, Europe's thousands of illegal landfills, particularly in Italy and France, and the poor quality of waste management infrastructure in many member states means that a dedicated European Union agency devoted to waste is required, the commission has concluded.

The number of illegal shipments of waste to developing countries has increased dramatically in recent years

As much as a fifth of waste shipments that have been inspected in the bloc are illegal, according to a new Brussels report. Calling the increase in waste shipments in the last two decades "dramatic," the document notes that exports of waste paper by the EU15 - the older members of the bloc ahead of the eastern enlargement in 2004 - from 1995 to 2005 increased increased more than five-fold and those of waste plastic, seven-fold. Hazardous waste, the report notes, is often shipped to developing countries with poor waste management facilities, while electrical waste is shipped as second-hand goods.

"Illegal dumping of waste continues on a significant scale, many landfill sites are sub standard and in some member states, basic waste infrastructure is still missing. Illegal waste shipments are also a concern," reads the report.

Herman Van Rompuy, the new president of the EU, has been accused of having 'delusions of grandeur' over his choice of a summit venue.

Mr Van Rompuy has caused consternation in Brussels after he tried to hold his first EU summit, dedicated to greater "economic union", in a palace.

After pressure from Europe's capitals, Mr Van Rompuy switched the Brussels summit to another prestigious, but less regal, building hundreds of yards away from the usual office block venue where EU leaders meet.

Harriet Harman has backed away from a confrontation with religious leaders over who they can employ, making clear that she will not force contentious amendments to the Equality Bill through Parliament.

Ministers were astonished on Monday when the Pope said that the Bill violated "natural justice" and urged bishops to fight it. But that attack, along with the strength of opposition in the Lords and the limited time left to get Bills passed before the election, has sapped the Government's enthusiasm to continue the fight.

Ms Harman, the Equalities Minister, has been engaged in a long dispute with churches and religious organisations over their exemption from anti-discrimination employment law, and how it affects "non-religious" posts.

The dispute led to a government defeat on a key amendment to the Bill last week in the Lords, but it was expected that Ms Harman would reintroduce the measure, or one similar.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Potential instability in Bosnia and violence in South Caucasus will pose the main threats to EU security in 2010, the US' intelligence chief has said, while depicting the EU's largest neighbour, Russia, as stuck in a Cold War-era mentality.

The US' Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, put forward his assessment in a testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in Washington on Tuesday (2 February.)

The EU police mission in Bosnia: The US highlighted the Balkan country as being the least stable in Europe

"Events in the Balkans will again pose the principal challenges to stability in Europe in 2010," he said, singling out separatist tendencies in ethnic Serb enclaves in Bosnia and Kosovo as the key problem.

"I remain concerned about Bosnia's future stability. While neither widespread violence nor a formal break-up of the state appears imminent, ethnic agendas still dominate the political process."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Bulgaria's EU commissioner designate sailed through a tame parliamentary hearing on Wednesday (3 February), ensuring that the vote on the investiture of the entire European Commission will take place next week.

Kristalina Georgieva, a World Bank vice-president, confidently answered questions over three hours on a range of issues to do with humanitarian aid and disaster relief, the portfolio she is to take up once the new commission is approved.

Kristalina Georgieva gave an assured performance on Wednesday before MEPs

Starting the hearing, which saw questions on how she would deal with the humanitarian situations in Haiti, the Sudan, Burma, the Congo, Afghanistan and Gaza amongst others, she pledged to "strive to be a strong voice for those in dire need."

The veil issue has shown its face in French politics once again, after radical anti-capitalist fringe party the NPA revealed that one of its candidates (pictured) in forthcoming regional elections wears an Islamic headscarf.

A candidate for a radical French anti-capitalist party in the forthcoming regional elections wears a headscarf as a token of her Islamic faith, something that has raised eyebrows in this rigidly secular society.

All the more so because the NPA (New Anti-capitalist Party), led by Trotskyist postman Olivier Besancenot, is a party that generates headlines for its extreme left wing position on issues including militant secularism.

Scarf-wearing Ilham Moussaid (pictured), a student and a party treasurer, is NPA candidate for the regional council of Vaucluse in southern France, Besancenot confirmed to French daily Le Figaro.

One of Denmark's major unions is warning the EU against draconian wage demands on Greece.

Denmark's Union of Public Employees (FOA) is warning the European Union of the effect on future Danish EU referenda if the Union demands that Greece should cut its public employee wages.

"It is totally unacceptable for the European Union to meddle in wage developments," says FOA Chairman Dennis Kristensen, under whose umbrella most of Denmark's public employees are organised.

Tony Blair and his closest advisers have used their evidence to the Iraq inquiry to smear those criticising the decision to taken Britain to war, according to one of the former Prime Minister's most senior diplomats.

In an interview with The Independent, Sir Christopher Meyer, the former ambassador in Washington, said he regarded it as a "badge of honour" that he had faced criticism during the inquiry from Mr Blair, his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and his director of communications, Alastair Campbell. He added that turning on opposition was the "modus operandi" of the Blair administration.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has been accused of misleading the public in his use of crime statistics.

The Tories have said data shows a big rise in violent crime during Labour's time in government - but the way the figures were compiled changed in 2002.

Now the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority has told Mr Grayling his statements are "likely to damage public trust in official statistics".

Mr Grayling has denied "airbrushing" the statistics to suit his cause.

He had to defend his position on Wednesday after Conservatives sent the figures to activists in constituencies throughout England and Wales in an effort to demonstrate the government's failure on law and order.

Computer hackers have launched a massive phishing attack on the German Emissions Trading Authority. Reports in Germany claim the hackers reaped millions of euros in fraudulent emissions trading certificates. 

The European trade in CO2 emissions permits has been brought to a virtual standstill after computer hackers cracked security codes to gain access to company accounts last week.

The Financial Times Deutschland reported on Wednesday that the hackers launched a so-called "phishing attack" in which they asked companies involved in the emissions trading scheme to re-register with the German Emissions Trading Authority (DEHSt).

Companies which did so, the newspaper wrote, suffered huge losses as the hackers stole and then sold their carbon permits on the European emissions market.

At the border crossing in the town of Narva, people queue for over two days to take advantage of cheaper petrol prices in Russia. With the Estonian economy faltering, small-time smuggling is on the rise.

According to Vladimir Mižui, who is the director of Transservis-N -- a company which manages Narva's border crossings -- only 5% of people crossing into Russia are going there as tourists or for bona fide business. All of the other visitors to Ivangorod -- the Russian town on the other side of the border where service stations have been springing up like mushrooms -- simply fill their cars with petrol and drive straight back to Estonia.

With unemployment on the rise, large numbers of small-time smugglers are attempting to earn a living from the difference in fuel prices. In Russia, petrol is almost twice as cheap as it is in Estonia, and crossing the border is particularly easy for holders of the special gray passport -- which is usually attributed to members of the Estonia's Russian minority -- because they do not need a visa. In the past, many locals in Narva earned a living by selling contraband cigarettes, but this source of income has now dried up with the introduction of a new law which has made it illegal to bring back more than two packets of cigarettes from Russia.

Arnold Hoek knew that setting up a company renting out motorised Solex bikes would fill a gap in the market. Nevertheless the 57-year-old on sickness pay could not find a single bank willing to grant him a loan. In spite of this, Mr Hoek has been able to fulfil his dream, because of microcredit.
 
Before he got microcredit, he didn't know these kind of loans were available in the Netherlands. But he thinks it is logical that microfinance is not just available to people in developing countries: "The story about a farmer who can buy a cow thanks to microcredit is one I can empathise with, because I'm actually in the same situation."

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's president says his country deserves to become a member of Group of 20 now that its economy has grown to become the 18th largest in the world.

President Lech Kaczynski argued that Poland, the largest of 10 ex-communist nations that joined the European Union in recent years, has grown in influence and belongs in the world's premier forum for discussing major economic issues.

"The place for my country is within the G-20," Kaczynski said Tuesday during a meeting with diplomats in Warsaw.

Poland's economy has enjoyed strong growth since embracing a market economy 20 years ago, and got a further boost with EU membership in 2004.

Switzerland says it will continue to freeze the assets of former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier in a bid to keep them out of the hands of his family.

The latest move in the long-running saga immediately followed a Federal Court decision to reverse a lower court's ruling that a large share of the $5.7 million (SFr6 million) in Swiss accounts should have gone to charities working in Haiti.

Duvalier's family and supporters have petitioned to reclaim the money.

"In view of the criminal origin of these funds, [the government] in this way avoids releasing the approximately $5.7 million for the benefit of the Duvalier clan," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Italy's financial police are seizing 73.3 million euros ($102 million) of assets from Bank of America Corp. and a unit of Dexia SA as part of a probe into an alleged derivatives fraud in the region of Apulia....

Merrill Lynch, bought by Bank of America in January 2009, managed the bond sales for Apulia in 2003 and 2004. The bank didn't provide the municipality with appropriate information on the financing, said the prosecutor. Officials at the municipality didn't speak English, and contracts weren't translated into Italian.

Merrill also recommended that Apulia seek advice from an international law firm, without disclosing that Merrill itself had a long-standing business relationship with the law firm, the prosecutor said.

thass ma boy Harold F.'s joint! He be VICE CHEERMAN... when he ain't taking FABBY to do his business...

Prosecutors allege that when the banks arranged swaps and created a fund that invests money the region set aside to repay the bonds in 2023, they misled the region about the economic advantages of the transaction. Banks skewed the swaps to their advantage to hide fees, the prosecutor said.

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Investors now view a default by the U.S. Treasury as more likely than a default by the Coca-Cola Company.

Along with giving Ben Bernanke another term, the Senate voted yesterday to boost the federal debt ceiling by another $2 trillion to a titanic $14.3 trillion. Yet as Democrats debate whether to use the headroom to launch a new trillion-dollar health care entitlement, the choice may not reside with the House (which must still vote on the debt ceiling) but with the bond market.

Trading in the credit-default swap market this week shows that investors now view a default by the U.S. Treasury as more likely than a default by the Coca-Cola Company. Until very recently, this scenario seemed about as likely as Coke winning a taste infringement suit against Coke Zero. Now the United States has taken its place next to Italy and Spain in a special club that no major country wants to join -- countries whose debt is considered less safe than that of Blue Chip businesses.

Mr. Obama may not be deterred by the verdicts rendered by voters in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia lately. But he won't be able to ignore investors if they send Washington's currently cheap borrowing costs soaring. That would surely be the result if markets become convinced that spending and inflation are destined to run out of control under the combo of Nancy Pelosi and Ben Bernanke. To be sure, we're not there yet. But the recent financial crisis should have taught us that, when markets make up their mind that the story has changed, they can turn against you with blinding speed.

One of the premises of your work is the notion that "ideas have consequences". You are interested primarily in the power of ideas and particularly in the way ideas fail in reality. But your work seems to lack the opposite approach - how material circumstances (or perceptions of how circumstances can change) shape ideas. Take neoliberalism. Hayek, arguably its founding father and also an aristocrat, believed with a Blair-like conviction that his world was under material threat from political ideas such as the welfare state. He did not just pluck these beliefs out of thin air; they were a response to a world in which he thought he would quickly find himself if he did not act. The crisis in self-belief of the West that began in the 1960s (the Paris events of 1968, `postmodernism', the rise of the counterculture, etc) were as much a response to the economic difficulties of the end of the post-war boom in the late 1960s as they were some strange set of new ideas, and the principal actors were the baby-boomer generation that had been the young beneficiaries of that boom. Crucially, ideas require fertile ground in order to gain mass acceptance. It was the subsequent economic meltdown of the late 1970s that prepared the way for the mass acceptance of the radical neoliberal reforms that Thatcher would make to Britain. There are historians like Robert Brenner who show in epic detail (e.g. in his book The Economics of Global Turbulence) how it was the emergence of production centres like Japan that caused of the end of the post-war boom in the West, and how all the ideas about countering that development, including forty years of neoliberalism, have failed - witness also the rise of China etc -- culminating in the material crisis of neoliberalism that we are enduring right now.

At Saturday's Tea Party conference in Dallas I'll be outlining how Tea Party Democrats can run against Obama administration policies that are counter to both Tea Party and traditional Democratic values. It is the Washington elite that have moved away from the ideals of Jefferson and Jackson with policies that are, at best, regressive, elitist, and destructive to our quality of life. And who's benefiting? Not the millions who voted Democratic who are losing their jobs and their homes. And with GDP now moving higher while unemployment rises, all that additional wealth is flowing up to the top. This Democratic President and Congress was not elected to enrich the bankers, insurance executives, drug companies, and union leaders at the expense of the rest of us, in a perversion of true core Democratic values. Unfortunately, the so-called economic experts have confused themselves and their political masters with contrived explanations for the way the economy works, and their limited vision has limited the range of policy choice. The result has been a monumental economic and social disaster caused by an obvious shortage of aggregate demand. The spending power needed to make mortgage payments, car payments, and do a bit of shopping- all of which would fix the economy and end the financial crisis- just isn't there.

The answer is a full payroll tax holiday, where the US Treasury would make all FICA payments for both employees and employers that regressively remove 15% of every pay check from dollar one up to $106,800 of income. The take home pay of a husband and wife with a combined income of $100,000 per year would increase by over $650 a month, and quickly restore output and employment. Rather than funding the banks from the top down with an improbable trickle down theory that would have made Reagan blush, this tax cut restores the incomes necessary to support all economic activity from the bottom up. Instead of funding the financial sector with $trillions, the payroll tax holiday instead simply stops taking $trillions away from people working for a living.

Read more...

trippy

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Civilians 'put at greater risk to save military lives' in winter attack - revelations that will pile pressure on Netanyahu to set up full inquiry

A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war, The Independent can reveal.

The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as "means and intentions" - whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon - as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy - devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war - as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers".

The US and China are already the two most powerful countries in the world. As allies, they would be unstoppable. Is the era of a double superpower taking shape?

When China sneezes, the whole world gets a cold. Bill Clinton recognized this during his term as United States president, speaking of the "potential challenge that a strong China could present to the United States in the future." At the same time, he warned of the risk presented by a "weak China," which could destabilize large regions of Asia.

Now Clinton's successor and fellow Democrat Barack Obama is looking for ways to work more closely with the giant nation, with its 1.3 billion people. Obama believes that cooperation with China is essential in the coming years. "The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations, and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone," the US president said during his recent visit to China.

The US and Russia have agreed in principle on a deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) that expired in December after 15 years as the centerpiece of nuclear arms control, the Wall Street Journal reports today.

The deal, which officials said could be ready to sign in two months, would cut each side's nuclear arsenal to between 1,500 and 1,675 operationally deployed warheads -- down from 2,200 on the American side and 2,800 in Russia, which has also kept an unknown number in reserve.

Both countries would also commit to deeper cuts in the number of operational launch vehicles, whether missiles, submarines or aircraft. The total number would be limited to between 700 and 800 on each side. "There may be finessing and fine-turning, but the issues, from our perspective, are all addressed," a US official said. Chief among these issues was Russian resistance to international inspections of its launch sites and a proposal for both powers to share missile test data.

I'm waiting for Tom Campbell to do one about Fiorina and HP.

Haiti's official seismologist, who predicted the recent earthquake, has warned that an even stronger one is likely to hit Port-au-Prince within the next 20 years. Now the Haitian government is debating how and if the capital should be rebuilt -- or if it should be moved elsewhere.

Claude Prépetit had seen it coming in his figures. He had done the calculations, in millimeters and in centuries, he had calculated the pressure that was building up beneath his feet, and he had estimated the energy that would eventually be discharged. And when the earth finally did shake, and falling concrete ceilings, stone walls and wooden beams killed at least 170,000 people within the space of 40 seconds, that was when Prépetit thought to himself: "This is it -- this has to be a seven."

He had predicted an earthquake with a magnitude of about 7.2 points on the Richter scale, and the actual quake measured 7.0. For years, he had taken precise measurements and performed careful calculations, and he had done his job exceedingly well.

Brazil has approved the controversial construction of a giant hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Amazon, defying a 20-year protest by indigenous and environmental campaigners who say that the project will devastate the surrounding rainforest and threaten the survival of local tribes.

The Belo Monte project on the Xingu river, an Amazon tributary, was started in the 1990s but abandoned amid widespread protests at home and abroad. The rock star Sting led a campaign against the plan with tribal leaders, and revisited Brazil in November last year to urge the Government to consider the impact of deforestation on greenhouse gas levels and global warming.

The $17billion (£11billion) dam in the northern state of Pará will be the world's third-largest and could provide electricity to 23million homes, a supply that the Government says is vital to the country's economic growth. Critics argue that the flooding of 500 sq km of rainforest will damage fish stocks and wildlife and force the displacement of indigenous peoples.

Carlos Minc, the Environment Minister, said on Monday that the land flooded would be a fraction of the 5,000 sq km originally planned. "The environmental impact exists but it has been weighed up, calculated and reduced," he said. "Not one Indian on indigenous land will be displaced."

Reporting from Washington - The Obama administration today will unveil a revamped strategy to ramp up the nation's use of biofuel in hopes of fixing a government effort that officials admit has fallen short in its attempts to wean cars and trucks away from fossil fuels and move toward ethanol, biodiesel and other crop-based fuels.

The new strategy, which the president will outline in an afternoon meeting with Cabinet secretaries and his top energy advisor, seeks to put the United States on track to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 -- the amount mandated by Congress in the 2007 energy bill.

Study detects predicted wavelike properties during photosynthesis

A dash of sunlight, a sprinkle of light-harvesting proteins and a healthy dollop of carbon dioxide is about all it takes to whip up a batch of tasty plant food -- but you might want some quantum physics to stir the pot. Scientists have caught photosynthetic lake-dwelling algae performing long-lasting quantum tricks at room temperature. The results, published February 4 in Nature, suggest that quantum mechanics may be at the heart of sunlight-to-energy conversion in living organisms.

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Photosynthesis relies on special proteins that absorb incoming photons, or particles of light. These photons excite electrons in the protein, touching off a series of electron transfers that ultimately ferry the energy-laden electrons to centralized collection stations (called photosystems) where the conversion of energy to carbohydrates begins.

Under normal, everyday rules, electrons would make their way to their destinations with quick random hops. But recent studies of photosynthetic bacteria and plants suggest that the electrons might act more like correlated waves instead of hopping particles, a behavior predicted by quantum mechanics (SN: 5/9/09, p. 26). These studies have mainly seen such quantum effects at very low temperatures, where the system is held very still. Scholes and colleagues devised an experiment to see whether these quantum-mechanical wavelike properties were also present at normal temperatures.

The researchers purified the light-catching proteins from two types of photosynthetic algae called cryptophytes. At room temperature, the team shone a laser onto the proteins to excite them and used a second laser pulse to see where the excited electrons traveled. Patterns of long-lasting electron waves -- a property called quantum coherence -- indicated that quantum weirdness was at work.

"This study shows that quantum coherence is present at room temperature," says Graham Fleming, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley -- a result predicted from his lab's previous studies. "It is very likely a general feature of photosynthetic light harvesting complexes," says Fleming, who pioneered some of the early studies on quantum effects in photosynthesis.

To get a better sense of algae's perks and problems, a research team from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville examined the energy costs and environmental impacts of producing algae for fuel. The team then compared these with similar values from algae's biofuel peers -- corn, canola and switchgrass. The algal life-cycle analysis, which used numbers from an online database and published research, finds that algae farms need to minimize use of fertilizer and freshwater to compete with other biofuel plants.

One way to do this would be to put algae operations next to wastewater treatment plants or facilities that emit carbon dioxide. Municipalities should consider infrastructure changes that accommodate algae's food and water needs, says environmental engineer and study coauthor Andres Clarens of UVA. Algae farms will have a much smaller energy footprint if they use recycled carbon dioxide, nutrients and water, rather than virgin products, says Clarens. In the analysis, algae production's dominant energy inputs came from making the fertilizer and carbon dioxide fed to the tiny photosynthesizers, Clarens says.

....

The analysis by Clarens' team starts by considering an algae operation that approaches maximum inefficiency. The researchers examined the energy footprint of algae that is fed CO2 from tanks and synthetic nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers. This approach puts the carbon column in the red, the researchers report. The only arenas where algae came off better than corn, switchgrass and canola were land use and nutrient runoff. Growing algae in wastewater and feeding it recycled nutrients and recycled CO2 greened up the process considerably, the researchers report. Researchers in the public and private sectors are already investigating these strategies, putting algae ponds next to facilities with CO2 emissions that can be captured.

Bypassing synthetic fertilizers is also crucial. Composting the remaining algae biomass after the energy-rich lipids have been extracted could supply a partial food source for the next crop of algae, Sheehan says. And using concentrated nutrients extracted from wastewater such as sewage -- nutrients that require dilution before they are released into the environment -- would also reduce the need for chemical fertilizer, Clarens and his colleagues note.

Clarens cites as an example technologies that involve "source-separated urine," which can recover nitrogen from human waste before it is diluted in treatment plants. Such technologies may play an important role in supplying nutrients to the fuel sources of the future. "There are a lot of nutrients that we flush down the toilet," he says.

WASHINGTON -- An academic board of inquiry has largely cleared a noted Pennsylvania State University climatologist of scientific misconduct, but a second panel will convene to determine whether his behavior undermined public faith in the science of climate change, the university said Wednesday.

The scientist, Dr. Michael E. Mann, has been at the center of a dispute arising from the unauthorized release of more than 1,000 e-mail messages from the servers of the University of East Anglia in England, home to one of the world's premier climate research units.

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In the best-known message, he refers to a "trick" in a graph he produced a decade ago showing 1,000 years of essentially steady global surface temperatures followed by a sharp upward spike in the 20th century, seemingly corresponding to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The so-called hockey stick graph has become an icon for environmentalists. It was prominently displayed in a 2001 United Nations report concluding that greenhouse gases from human activities had probably caused most of the warming measured since 1950.

In some of the e-mail messages, Dr. Mann refers to his assembly of data from a number of different sources, including ancient tree rings and earth core samples, as a "trick." Critics pounced on the term and said it was evidence that Dr. Mann and other scientists had manipulated temperature data to support their conclusions. But the Pennsylvania State inquiry board said the term "trick" was used by scientists and mathematicians to refer to an insight that solves a problem. "The so-called trick was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field," the panel said.

The e-mail messages also contained suggestions that Dr. Mann had hidden or destroyed e-mail messages and other information relating to a United Nations climate change report to prevent other scientists from reviewing them. Dr. Mann produced the material in question, and the Pennsylvania State board cleared him of the charge.

Fighting for one's right to party is a losing battle in Paris and Amsterdam. First in a series about European nightlife. Following installments will zoom in on some of Europe's major cities.

Paris' renowned nightlife is on the brink of death - so many locals say. Last Sunday, musicians, hospitality professionals and nightclub owners from France's capital sounded the alarm over the declining quality of Parisian nightlife by handing over a petition to their mayor. The assembled fine fleur of the the towns party crowd collected 14,000 signatures to support their plea to their fellow Parisians, particularly the ones employed in law enforcement, to be more tolerant of the clamour nocturnal frolicking inevitably brings.

Le Monde, a French daily, went as far to dub Paris the "European Capital of Boredom". So much for the City of Lights. Paris is not the only European city where people are worried about their nightlife. A grassroot group named Ai!Amsterdam, a pun on the Dutch capital's slogan 'I Amsterdam' last summer produced a manifesto that reads as a litany of complaints over city policy towards bars and clubs. Over past years, bars have been fined because their patrons were drinking on a terrace while standing, instead of sitting, as the law dictates. Opening hours are being further restricted, the group claimed. A ban on terrace heating is also under consideration. "Just imagine what would happen if we enjoyed ourselves!" the manifesto sardonically reflects.

A tourist lost in the dark on a frozen sea in northern Germany has been rescued after flashes from his camera were spotted on a beach webcam.

The man, who has not been named, had become lost after walking onto ice off St Peter-Ording to photograph a sunset, police in the North Sea area said.

A woman watching the sunset via webcam hundreds of kilometres away in southern Germany noticed the flashes.

She alerted police who were able to guide the man to safety.

The photographer, a German tourist in his 40s, could have frozen to death or fallen through the ice, police said.

It's official. The Internet, which has virtually revolutionised the world, has been nominated for the '2010 Nobel Peace Prize'.

The Internet was proposed by the Italian edition of the popular 'Wired' magazine for promoting "dialogue, debate and consensus through communication" as well as democracy, the media reported.

Premier endorsers of Internet for Nobel Peace Prize nomination include 2003 Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and famous Italian surgeon, known for his contributions to breast cancer treatments, Umberto Veronesi.

'Wired Italy' has also launched a dedicated campaign, 'Internet for Peace', which will carry on till September 2010, featuring different stories and experiences of those who with the web have tried to do something concrete to promote peace and harmony in the world.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The dominant form of online video advertising -- the pre-roll ad -- is still an unwelcome sight for a broad cross-section of consumers, according to online analytics firm TubeMogul.

Nearly 16% of viewers click away from a pre-roll video ad rather than watch it to get to video content, according to new research. For newspapers and magazine sites, where interruptive advertising isn't the norm and video is a secondary storytelling device, the trend is worse: nearly 25%.

"Surfing the internet can expose a 'dark side' of the soul, with online addicts more likely to be depressed," the Daily Mail reported. It said that research has found that the worst affected were depressed and addicted "possibly because they are substituting the net for normal social activities".

This study questioned 1,319 users of social networking sites on their internet use and their depressive symptoms. Although it found an association between the two, this does not prove causation. It's possible that a person uses the internet more because they are depressed, not the other way around. Other limitations include the fact that only 18 people were `addicted', and the questionnaires assessing their depressive symptoms are not a diagnosis of depression on their own.

A link between depression and internet addiction is not out of the question. There are established links between depression and other addictive behaviours, such as gambling and alcoholism. However, the suggestion of a causal relationship will need further research, as will the implication that social isolation caused by internet addiction might contribute.

Then in December 1979 just what the Neoconservatives had been predicting seemed to come true. The Soviet army came through the Salang Tunnel and occupied Afghanistan. The next year Reagan swept to power and 50 members of the Committee on the Present Danger were appointed to the Reagan administration.

And at the same time John Lennon was assassinated in New York. To the Neoconservatives it symbolised the end of a terrible corrupt era in America. It was the death of the hated counterculture.

Norman Podhoretz's daughter had married another Neoconservative called Elliot Abrams. After Lennon's death Abrams gave his opinion - using words that could have been lifted from his father-in-law's rant about liberal hypocrisy and blacks 15 years before:

"I'm sorry. Why is John Lennon's death getting more attention than Elvis Presley's? Because Lennon is perceived as a left-wing figure politically, anti-establishment, a man of social conscience with concern for the poor. And therefore, he's being made into a great figure. Too much has been made of his life. It does not deserve a full day's television and radio coverage. I'm sick of it."

Elliot Abrams went off to help support the Contras in Nicaragua for President Reagan, while many of the other Neoconservatives set out to persuade the president to send sophisticated weapons to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan

Then they found the most surprising ally.

Ahmad Zahir's sister Zahira had fled to the US. She set up a hair salon in Washington DC. It was in the Watergate building. This led her to get lots of high-profile clients, and then one day in the early 80s President Reagan asked her to cut his hair.

his writing style is so interesting... lucid and spacious, with a real sense of how music permeates life, rather than just being its soundtrack.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois treasurer [!] since 2007, will face Republican Mark Kirk, a five-term congressman from Chicago's northern suburbs.

"Come November, congressman, your days as a Washington insider are over," Giannoulias, 33 [!], a presidential friend and basketball buddy, said in his victory speech last night. Kirk in his speech set the stage for the "Sopranos" ad [!], posted on YouTube, when he attacked Illinois Democrats on corruption and other issues...

Giannoulias, whose family bank has given loans to a bookmaker as well as convicted Illinois influence peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko [!], led Kirk 42 percent [!] to 34 percent in a survey Of state voters taken Jan. 22-25 by Public Policy Polling. The poll had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

A moderate on social issues and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Kirk, 50, is seeking to replace Senator Roland Burris [!], a Democrat who decided against running for the seat following his controversial appointment to it by Blagojevich in December 2008....

In the battle for the Democratic nomination for governor, incumbent Patrick Quinn, who replaced Blagojevich, led 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent over state Comptroller Dan Hynes, according to an Associated Press tally that included 100 percent of the state's precincts....

The Republican primary for governor also was a tight race that had yet to be decided. State senator Bill Brady led state senator Kirk Dillard, 20.3 percent to 20.2 percent, with 100 percent of precincts counted in the AP's tally. Just 406 votes separated the two in the latest count in a contest that featured seven candidates....

In other primary results, Ethan Hastert, son of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert [!], lost to Randy Hultgren for the Republican nomination for the congressional seat west of Chicago that his father held, according to the AP. The seat is now occupied by Democrat Bill Foster.

Read more...

The organizer of the National Tea Party Convention, at which Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann will speak next month, cynically took advantage of conservative activists' willingness to work on behalf of the Tea Party cause in his bid to launch a money-making enterprise, according to one fellow Tea Partier.

Kevin Smith told TPMmuckraker that Judson Phillips, the Nashville defense lawyer behind the upcoming National Tea Party Convention, abruptly turned Tea Party Nation into a for-profit corporation last year, shocking fellow activists who had discussed setting up the fledgling group as a non-profit.

"I can't even describe to you the anger we had with him, using our volunteer labor and our passion for the movement to build his start-up," said Smith.

Smith's comments are only the latest in a barrage of criticism, which we've detailed, of Phillips and his convention, grandly billed as an effort to bring together Tea Party activists from across the country. Tea Party activists have raised concerns in recent days over the event's $549 price tag, its location at a swank Nashville hotel -- hardly in keeping with the movement's grassroots image -- and the decision to pay Sarah Palin perhaps as much as $100,000.

fun buncha folks

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

Europe's oldest man, Stanley Lucas, has celebrated his 110th birthday in his home town in Cornwall and attributed his long life to fresh air and good country food.

Mr Lucas, who is also believed to be the world's third oldest man, said he had never smoked, enjoys only the odd glass of sherry, and had never travelled far.

He celebrated the birthday in Bude, Cornwall, surrounded by his family and friends, including his daughter, Phyllis, her husband, Gordon, two grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

Harold Ford may not be running for Senate yet, but Friday he passed an important milestone: he got his first protester. The boisterous critic - armed with signs that read "Liar" and "Anti-choice, anti-gay, snake-oil Harry, go away!" - crashed a Ford sitdown with Brooklyn Democratic leaders in Williamsburg [Crooklyn].

"I took the day off from work," protester Jon Winkleman said. "It was worth it."

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Newly single Bush brain Karl Rove was overheard yesterday telling his Fox makeup artist that he was going on his first post-divorce date--with someone who used to work under him at the White House.

RFQ...