Zapatero highlighted four main priorities for the Spanish presidency.

    The first was the efficient application of the Treaty of Lisbon, which he considered vital to reach other goals.

    The second priority was to ensure economic recovery by enhancing cooperation between member states and the application of the Strategy for Sustainable Economic Growth.

    Zapatero also aimed to strengthen the EU presence and influence on the international stage, while his fourth main priority was to bring EU citizens closer to the bloc through developing rights and freedom.

Philip H. Gordon
Assistant SecretaryBureau of European and Eurasian AffairsStatement before the Subcommittee on Europe of the House Foreign Affairs Committee

The United States and the European Union form a community of shared values and a partnership of shared interests. We are united by our deep commitment to freedom, security, human rights, the rule of law, and open markets. Our 800 million democratically- governed citizens are bound together by enduring links of culture and commerce, by our shared history and our common hopes for the future. The EU is one of our most crucial partners in addressing regional and global challenges around the world. Our shared priorities cover all the major U.S. foreign policy concerns including: stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan, contending with the Iranian nuclear program, addressing global climate change, pursuing a permanent and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, managing our responses to the global financial crises, enhancing energy security, and promoting the spread of democratic and market reforms to every corner of Europe. The U.S.-European economic relationship is one of the central drivers of the world economy. For example, the value of U.S. goods and services exports to the EU is over five times the value of our exports to China, and from 2000 to 2008, over half of total U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) was in Europe. Lastly, it is also worth noting the human dimension of our ties. Our links are not just those of shared values, trade ties, and political traditions, but also the millions of our citizens who travel each year to our countries to work, to study, or simply to visit.

...

We look forward to working with these new institutions as they define their new roles and develop their capacity. We fully recognize that the process of building up new institutions takes time; for our part, we are ready to engage. We hope EU member states will invest the post-Lisbon institutions with the authority and capacity to make concrete contributions to the pressing global challenges we face together.

...

The United States faces a daunting array of global challenges that no one country can handle on its own. For a variety of critical issues, from climate change, to the Doha Round of trade talks, from the Balkans, to Iran, solutions will require working in close concert with our European partners. We believe that the Lisbon Treaty represents a serious effort by our EU partners to streamline their policymaking process. We understand that, as with all efforts to reform complex institutions, this is a work in progress, and that it may take time for the new institutions to demonstrate their impact. Nevertheless, we hope that the changes brought by Lisbon will make the EU a stronger partner for the United States, and increase the role of Europe on the world's stage. We want the EU to be that stronger partner and we certainly intend to do our part to engage closely with the new institutions, but in the end their ultimate effectiveness will be determined by the will of EU Member States to invest in them. I thank you again, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for the opportunity to appear before you on this subject. I look forward to answering your questions on this important topic.

Three Russian activists critical of the Kremlin have received the EU's top human rights award, in recognition of the dangers they face in carrying out their work.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalyov and Oleg Orlov from human rights group Memorial were awarded the Sakharov Prize, which comes with a $72,850 honorarium, at a European parliament ceremony in Strasbourg, France.

Jerzy Buzek, the European Parliament president, said despite the pride he felt for Memorial he also felt "bitterness that it is necessary to award this kind of prize in Europe".

Three MPs have become the first to challenge an auditor's request that they repay money they claimed on expenses dating back five years.

Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne, Labour's Frank Cook and Conservative Bernard Jenkin are appealing against Sir Thomas Legg's findings.

Sir Thomas was asked to review all MPs' second home claims since 2004 after the expenses scandal broke in May.

MPs have until the end of the day to signal their intention to appeal.

A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.

He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker. He's shy. He doesn't do the D.C. dinner-party circuit; he prefers to eat at home with his wife, who still makes him do the dishes and take out the trash. Then they do crosswords or read. Because Ben Bernanke is a nerd. (See pictures of Ben Bernanke's life from childhood to chairmanship.)

He just happens to be the most powerful nerd on the planet.

The lawsuit, filed with the New York Supreme Court by the Security Police and Fire Professionals of America Retirement Fund, names chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and other executives and board members as defendants.

Goldman has faced a maelstrom of criticism for setting aside billions for year-end payouts soon after the firm paid back its $10 billion taxpayer bailout.

Goldman is accused in the lawsuit of "blindly" rewarding executives "for corporate performance that has absolutely nothing to do with the skill of the company's employees." The lawsuit states that Goldman is estimated to issue payouts in excess of $22 billion.

An employee shareholding, along with profit sharing and the division's conversion into a German joint-stock company "can be part of the final settlement," Nick Reilly, who was appointed president of GM Europe today after running the unit on a temporary basis, said at a press briefing at Opel headquarters in the Frankfurt suburb of Ruesselsheim.

GM decided last month against selling Opel to Magna International Inc. (MGA) and instead plans a 3.3 billion-euro ($5 billion) reorganization of the unprofitable unit that would be financed mainly by European Union nations. Reilly said following a meeting with EU industry ministers in Brussels today that the plan's completion may take until the beginning of January.

The U.S. company is seeking 2.7 billion euros from EU countries where Opel and its sister Vauxhall brand have plants, with GM providing the remaining 600 million euros. Swedish Industry Minister Maud Olofsson, who led the meeting of her EU counterparts with Reilly, said before the gathering that GM won't be permitted to receive assistance that kept jobs in one nation at the expense of employees elsewhere in the bloc.

heques will be phased out by October 2018, but only if adequate alternatives are developed, the body that oversees payments strategy has said.

The board of the UK Payments Council has set the date in a bid to encourage the advance of other forms of payment.

The first cheque was written 350 years ago and the decision will be greeted with disappointment by some small businesses and consumers.

The Council said there should be "no scenario" for using cheques by 2018.

This frankness and honest statement of the situation is the reason that Paul Volcker, one of the most credible advisors in the Obama Administration, is a marginalized voice as compared to Larry Summers and Turbo Tim. Ironic, because only by assuming Volcker's leadership style can the US President hope to get his country out of this cycle of monetary bubbles, systemic fragility, and chronic imbalances driven by an outsized, counterproductive financial sector.

   DER SPIEGEL: But even though there are still more people being fired than hired, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is saying that the recession is technically over. Do you agree with him?

    Paul Volcker: You know, people get very technical about these things. We had a quarter of increased growth but I don't think we are out of the woods.

    SPIEGEL: You expect a backlash?

    Volcker: The recovery is quite slow and I expect it to continue to be pretty slow and restrained for a variety of reasons and the possibility of a relapse can't be entirely discounted. I'm not predicting it but I think we have to be careful.

    SPIEGEL: What is the difference between this deep recession and all the other recessions we have seen since World War II?

    Volcker: What complicates this situation, as compared to the ordinary garden variety recession, is that we have this financial collapse on top of an economic disequilibrium. Too much consumption and too little investment, too many imports and too few exports. We have not been on a sustainable economic track and that has to be changed. But those changes don't come overnight, they don't come in a quarter, they don't come in a year. You can begin them but that is a process that takes time. If we don't make that adjustment and if we again pump up consumption, we will just walk into another crisis.

    SPIEGEL: The US has not yet instituted any kind of reform policy. What we see is the government and the Federal Reserve pouring money into the economy. If one looks beyond that money, one sees that the economy is in fact still shrinking.

    Volcker: What should I say? That's right. We have not yet achieved self-reinforcing recovery. We are heavily dependent upon government support so far. We are on a government support system, both in the financial markets and in the economy...

"Intel has engaged in a deliberate campaign to hamstring competitive threats to its monopoly," said Richard A. Feinstein, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition. "It's been running roughshod over the principles of fair play and the laws protecting competition on the merits"

The recent rise in gold prices is only partially justified by fundamentals. Nor is it clear why investors should stock up on gold if the global economy dips into recession again and concerns about a near depression and rampant deflation rise sharply. If you truly fear a global economic meltdown, you should stock up on guns, canned food, and other commodities that you can actually use in your log cabin.

U.S. Senators John McCain and Maria Cantwell proposed reinstating the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that split commercial and investment banking to rein in Wall Street firms in response to the financial crisis.

"Under our proposal, too-big-to-fail banks would be forced to return to the business of conventional banking, leaving the task of risk taking or management to others," McCain, an Arizona Republican, said at a Washington news conference. A former bank regulator said splitting up companies is "crazy."

McCain and Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, join other lawmakers in Congress proposing to reinstate the 1933 law, repealed a decade ago by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that led to a rise in conglomerates including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. active in retail banking, insurance and proprietary trading. Legislation to reinstate the ban was introduced today in the House.

Read more...

HR 4375(The text of H.R.4375 has not yet been received from GPO): To restore certain provisions of the Banking Act of 1933, commonly referred to as the "Glass-Steagall Act", and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] (introduced 12/16/2009)      Cosponsors (5)
Latest Major Action: 12/16/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

COSPONSORS(5), ALPHABETICAL [followed by Cosponsors withdrawn]:     (Sort: by date)
      Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] - 12/16/2009
      Rep Inslee, Jay [WA-1] - 12/16/2009
      Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] - 12/16/2009
      Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 12/16/2009
      Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] - 12/16/2009

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Speaking at the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington, Army Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, said the roughly $150 million test was a departure from the more standard scenario of a North Korean attack.

It also would be more difficult testing the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system against a missile that would be faster and more direct as it races toward the United States than a simulated strike from North Korea.

...

His comments came the same day that diplomats disclosed concerns among intelligence agencies that Iran tested a key atomic bomb component as recently as 2007. The finding, if proven true, would clash with Iran's assertion that its nuclear work is for civilian use.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has extended the mandates of both president Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas-dominated parliament until new elections are held.

The decision was made by PLO's Central Council at a meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday.

Qaid al-Ghul, a PLO representative said: "The PLO took the decision that president Abbas and the Legislative Council will continue their duties until the next election in accordance with the Basic Law."

South Asia's largest prison - Tihar central jail in New Delhi - is hoping to become the first in the world to go green, by using renewable energy, recycled waste and cutting its electricity consumption.

China today announced it had begun construction of the world's longest sea bridge - barely 18 months after opening the current record-holder.

The Y-shaped link between Hong Kong, Macau and China will be around 50km (31 miles) long in total, 35km of which will span the sea, said the state news agency Xinhua. Due to be completed by 2015, the 73bn yuan (£6.75bn) cost of the bridge will be shared by the authorities in the three territories.

The structure also includes a 5.5km underwater tunnel with artificial islands to join it to bridges on each side.

URL

Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorism, PL 107-40
NB. SCOTUS opinion of AUMF rationale in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
TITLE 50--WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE, 50 US 33 War Powers Resolution,  Pub. L. 98-119, Pub. L. 93-148

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn says the state will need to get three appraisals in order to set a sale price for the property, which has seen an investment of state dollars exceeding $170 million. The prison would be sold to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which would then lease part of the prison to the Department of Defense....

A letter outlining the purchase notes that federal departments and agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense, will work with state and local law enforcement authorities to identify and mitigate risks. Federal officials also have consulted with local, county and state law enforcement authorities to begin the process of identifying additional resources they may require to handle the increased population of federal inmates and detainees...

Congress also will likely get in on the act when the administration asks for money to buy the prison or seeks changes in federal law regarding the transfer of detainees to the U.S. Among those expecting the issue to be discussed in the nation's capitol is U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill. "Language was passed earlier this year that said federal funds could not be used to house detainees on U.S. soil. That would have to be amended," Hare said Tuesday.

Read more...

Yet another funding option appears in Senate confirmation of the House appropriations bill passed today. It could increase the Federal Bureau of Prisons' budget by $170M plus payroll for "thousands" of shovel-ready jobs.


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The EU says European fishing fleets will have to cut their catches of cod, haddock and sole next year, but a ban on anchovy fishing has been lifted.

The quota for cod fishing is being cut by 15-35%, depending on the area. But there is an exemption for cod fishing in West Scotland and the Celtic Sea.

There are increased quotas for some fish, including plaice - by up to 14% - and herring - by 72% in the Celtic Sea.

Anchovy fishing will resume in the Bay of Biscay. A ban was imposed in 2005.

That is seen as good news for French and Spanish trawlers.

If you could ride a spaceship to this planet -- which you couldn't, because it is 40 light-years away -- you would first approach the small, feeble red star that the planet orbits once every 38 hours, Charbonneau says. Then you'd see the planet, bigger and heavier than Earth, and probably enshrouded in an alien atmosphere.

Plunging down through that atmosphere, Charbonneau says, the light from the star would most likely dim and disappear until you were in darkness. Then, if you kept going down and your ship could survive the crushing pressure of the atmosphere, you might splash into a hot ocean.

At least, that's what Charbonneau and his colleagues think this planet is like. There's no way to know for sure, with current technology.

Ball, 71, claimed that spiders' flatulence was more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels, and criticised the "bad science" of global warming during a performance at a Christmas show in celebration of atheism and science.

Audience members at `Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People' at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London responded with slow handclaps, whistles, jeers until he left the stage.One blogger who was in the audience wrote that Ball had delivered a "ten minute rant descending to an incoherent ramble" in which he said that he doubted the small proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cause global warming.

They added: "A cry of `shame' from the audience broke the dam, the boos started and a perplexed and shaken-looking Ball was finally forced from the stage."

Calling a truce in a long and bitter battle, timber executives and environmentalists united Wednesday in supporting legislation to codify and expand current protections for old-growth forests on federal land in eastern Oregon.

After nearly eight months of talks, representatives of both groups joined Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, at a news conference in Washington as he introduced a bill that would ban cutting of trees more than 21 inches in diameter and protect delicate watershed areas.

Such prohibitions are already in place in many forests but are administrative in nature rather than mandated by law, and subject to rollback at any time.

In return for their support for such limits, which they had previously fought, timber groups were promised steady, unimpeded access to younger trees as part of a broader program to assure the health of the forests and fire prevention.

The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks -- and still be legal.

Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

Other recent studies have found that even some chemicals regulated by that law pose risks at much smaller concentrations than previously known. However, many of the act's standards for those chemicals have not been updated since the 1980s, and some remain essentially unchanged since the law was passed in 1974.

All told, more than 62 million Americans have been exposed since 2004 to drinking water that did not meet at least one commonly used government health guideline intended to help protect people from cancer or serious disease, according to an analysis by The Times of more than 19 million drinking-water test results from the District of Columbia and the 45 states that made data available. In some cases, people have been exposed for years to water that did not meet those guidelines.

RTÉ News: Challenge to underage sex law

The boy's lawyers told the court the legislation proceeded on the basis that the boy was 'the guilty party' and the girl was a 'comely maiden' whose virtue must be protected.

...

Mr Hogan said the State's justification for the provision in the legislation was that an underage girl would be deterred from engaging in sexual activity by the prospect of becoming pregnant.

The Oireachtas had to 'equalise' the positions of a boy and a girl by providing an equal deterrent to a boy in the form of making the sexual activity a criminal offence, he said.

He added that no sane person would encourage a 14 and a 15-year-old to engage in sexual activity but he said this was nakedly gender based legislation.

He said no one would suggest that pregnancy in a young girl was something that could be countenanced but he said there was no comparison between pregnancy and the prosecution for a sexual offence, which would destroy a young life.

The result of the referendum on banning the construction of new minarets in Switzerland, the motherland of the Red Cross, is without a doubt the fruit of a campaign led by the Swiss People's Party (SVP), a right-wing populist and racist party, which exploited the widespread, vague fear of Islam in the West and stirred up other irrational fears to spread panic among the Swiss - as if Muslim armies stood before the gates of the Alpine country!

This development in Switzerland is also alarming because it signals a relapse into outdated modes of thinking and calls into question the principle of neutrality with respect to all religions in the modern constitutional state.

Nevertheless, it is important not to lose sight of one decisive fact: namely that the Swiss government rejected the ban initiative right from the start and, presumably with the help of human rights groups, will attempt to have this surprising referendum result overturned by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

I can now read the paper onscreen, with some sections nicely cached for offline browsing and a cleverly designed user interface that lets me put the Media and Technology sections at the top of the paper, mark articles as favourites and quickly find related stories.

I can't - yet - buy anything like extra content, early access to stories or the ability to search the archive, but I would imagine that the business plans and functional specifications for those features are already being pored over at Kings Place, the paper's shiny new office near King's Cross in London.

They had better be, because one immediate result is that I have stopped buying the paper in the morning, except on Saturday when the social setting is completely different and scattered sections, coffee and conversation are a vital part of the weekend.

Minister for Broadband, Senator Stephen Conroy, released the long-awaited Internet filter trial report yesterday and announced the Government's plan to introduce a mandatory ISP-level filtering legislation to Parliament.

...

Cannon criticised the unbridled nature of the Internet, claiming existing regulations were too lax. He saw online content control as an inexorable and necessary outcome.

...

While wary of Australia becoming the next "Great Firewall", like China's stringent Internet censorship regime, Cannon claimed the ISP filtering plan would be dictated by society and less so by Government.

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers - skin and lung - a move they say could revolutionise cancer care.

Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, say the Wellcome Trust team.

Eagle-eyed fans of Twitter and The New York Times may have noticed a change in the Web addresses used to share some articles from The Times's Web site on Twitter. Beginning Wednesday, the links are compressed into a custom New York Times URL that begins with "nyti.ms."

The customized links are powered by Bit.ly, a New York-based start-up that has become the de facto service

When Javier de Frutos's dance tribute to the great Russian impresario Diaghilev premiered in London on 13 October, the work - with its deformed pope, pregnant nuns and wild sex - received a mixed reception: walkouts and boos combined with an ecstatic response from its fans.

It was a succès de scandale, recalling the brawls at the premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913, which Diaghilev famously commissioned. The following day, the BBC announced it would broadcast the piece, along with three other new dance works commissioned by Sadler's Wells in honour of Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.

But last month it became clear that the BBC had decided pull the transmission of De Frutos's work, set for a pre-watershed slot on Friday on BBC4 - and now de Frutos is hitting back at a decision he believes is "silly as well as dangerous".

The Supreme Court has found a Jewish school guilty of race discrimination for refusing places to pupils it did not consider to be ethnically Jewish.

Nine justices ruled, by a small majority, that the JFS in London had breached race relations legislation.

The case was brought by a Jewish man whose son was not given a place because his wife was not regarded as Jewish under rules set by the Chief Rabbi.

The parents were angry that their Jewish status was being questioned.

In this video, two British police officers come up to a young woman who is filming a building and harass her, imply that she is a terrorist, intimidate her, demand to see her footage. The policeman says that he's harassing her for being "cocky" -- punishing her for failing to cringe sufficiently

Whether Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is not the point. He didn't. The fact is, he got it, and was gifted with the chance of a lifetime to make a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the glare of Nobel could have attained instant standing.

He failed miserably, producing a hodge-podge that resembled the work of a bright but undisciplined sophomore.

He was hoist on the  petard of  classical "just war theory," a theory that, properly understood, condemns his decision to send yet more kill-power into Afghanistan.

This theory which is much misused and little understood is designed to build a wall of assumptions against state-sponsored violence, i.e. war. It puts the burden of proof on the warrior where it belongs.

Read more...

Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky discuss what's happening in journalism after its disruption by technology. Rosen, a student of the press, is associate professor of journalism at NYU and the author of What Are Journalists For? Shirky, a student of the Internet, is an adjunct professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program and the author of Here Comes Everybody.

USA 4.6
UK   3.8
Sweden 2.7

You can't be me, I'm taken

Scientists have found that men who took the time to engage in cultural activities or artistic pursuits were less likely to suffer from depression, a condition that affects one in five Britons.
Cultural factors were shown to have a stronger effect on happiness than personal wealth or occupation.

Agunbiade was subsequently called in to chat with Newsom. The conversation between the mayor-who-slept-with-his-appointments-secretary and the department-head-accused-of-sexually-and-religiously-harassing-his-spokeswoman (in writing!) must have been one for the ages. Whatever was said, the outcome was this: Agunbiade resigned not long after, and Dennis this year received a $91,000 settlement from the city.

Minus the alleged harassment, city government is filled with Yomi Agunbiades -- and they're hardly ever disciplined, let alone fired. When asked, former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin couldn't remember the last time a higher-up in city government was removed for incompetence. "There must have been somebody," he said at last, vainly searching for a name.

Accordingly, millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted on good ideas that fail for stupid reasons, and stupid ideas that fail for good reasons, and hardly anyone is taken to task.

Read more...

People assumed he was getting rich off the publicity and began hounding him. He could not get local aid because charities believed he had been paid for the trip to New York. He moved the family from their village in Kalmunai to the city of Batticaloa, on Sri Lanka's east coast.

Unlike many tsunami survivors who were given houses by the government, Abhilash and his family stay in an unfinished two-room house built on his aunt's land.

As for the boy himself, he says he still doesn't know what happened to him, or why the media come looking for him on a tsunami anniversary.

To a modern eye, the pictures look elaborate, funny, somewhat dated and a little bit naughty. But around 160 years ago, someone in authority was so disgusted by them that the entire album of 40 drawings - including these four examples - was seized and consigned to a vault in the Home Office. There it stayed, forgotten, long after ideas on what was fit for the public to see had liberalised.

Then two years ago the Home Office was broken up and many of its functions transferred to the newly created Ministry of Justice. That involved moving personnel, equipment and files to new MoJ headquarters. As a mountain of old files came in from the department that dealt with pornography, David Pearson, an MoJ civil servant, came upon an unusual find which, on examination, turned out to be drawings by James Gillray, one of the greatest political caricaturists in history.

Elizabeth Poblete, 22, did not know she was pregnant, and called for a doctor when she felt unwell a week ago while hoisting weights in the gym in Sao Paulo, where she lives.

...

Doctors calculated that Miss Poblete must have been six months pregnant. The training and diet observed by female weightlifters can cause irregular menstruation.

Miss Poblete competed for her country in the Beijing Olympics last year. She had been seeking to beef up her body to move from the 75-kilo category to 85 kilos over the past few months.

I've always had very much time for the company of eccentrics. 'Professor' Bruce Lacey was another who blew the mind of this nice middle class lad. And Quentin Crisp - though I only met him a few times. Eccentrics seem to be focii for convergence of disparate influences. Do we have fewer eccentrics today? Are we homogenized? Do we all have the same information?

You can't be me, I'm taken

Kristina Larsen, a spokeswoman for Climate Justice Action (CJA) -- the group organizing the protest -- told CNN that police have used pepper spray and dogs to contain the protests.

Around 3,000 activists convened at two railway stations in the Danish capital early on Wednesday and began their march towards the Bella Center -- the scene of the climate talks.

CJA is calling for activists to "take over the conference for one day and transform it into a 'People's Assembly'."

Two of the world's two most radical presidents today shook up the Copenhagen climate change summit by blaming climate change squarely on capitalism and demanding billions of dollars in "reparations" from rich countries.

Bolivian President Evo Morales called on the world leaders to raise their ambitions radically and hold temperature increases over the next century to just 1C. In the most ambitious statement yet made at the climate summit, Morales demanded rich countries pay climate change reparations and proposed an international climate court of justice to prosecute countries for climate "crimes".

"Our objective is to save humanity and not just half of humanity. We are here to save mother earth. Our objective is to reduce climate change to [under] 1C. [above this] many islands will disappear and Africa will suffer a holocaust," he said. Limiting warming to 1C would need an end to all emissions and billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide to be sucked from the air and stored.

As flagged earlier today, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told the summit that the African group of nations would scale back climate funding demands into line with the $100bn a year proposed by the UK and endorsed by a number of industrialised countries.

...

Zenawi added that African Nations would also support plans for a $10bn fast track fund that would run between 2010 and 2012, and back proposals from industrialised nations that much of the long term funding is "financed by creative financing mechanisms", such as levies imposed on the carbon market.

The move is a significant breakthrough as it appears to bring the funding expectations of a large number of developing countries into line with what key industrialised nations are offering. To date China has been calling for long term funding from developing nations to be in the region of one per cent of industrialised nation's GDP or $600bn a year from 2020. But with China stating that it does not expect to receive much, if any, of that funding, the move from African nations to accept a more modest offer will raise hopes that an agreement on funding will be reached.

Todd Stern: "I'm not anticipating any change in the mitigation commitment. I think that's something that the President announced just--I don't know, I guess it was a couple of weeks ago. And so, I don't think there's going to be a change in that commitment."

Stern also renewed his opposition to the payment of climate reparations to poorer countries most affected by global warming.

Todd Stern: "We fully recognize our historic role in putting emissions up in the atmosphere, and we also fully recognize our responsibility to be part of an overall global effort to help poorer countries, both with regard to the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change and the need to help them develop on a sustainable path, which at this point in our collective history means low carbon path. Reparations, to me, conveys a sense of culpability, guilt, that kind of thing. I just--I don't think that that's a legitimate--a legitimate way to look at it."

For further information read Angelica Navarro, Chief Climate Negotiator for Bolivia, Introduction to Climate Debt: "We're not begging for aid," 9 Dec 2009

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.