Nobel laureate says happiness important for growth
LONDON (Reuters) - Levels of happiness could help shape economic policy in the industrialized world in the same way such factors have gained prominence in developing countries, said economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.
Sen, 76, said citizens' quality of life and their general wellbeing should be considered as a measure when looking at overall economic success, particularly since developed countries face social issues such as unemployment despite economic growth.
Meteor Blade’s Green Diary Rescue celebrates Daily Kos eco diarists Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday!
New York Congress Members Promise to Push for Immigration Reform
New York Democratic representatives Yvette Clarke, Charles Rangel and Anthony Weiner came out this week in support of comprehensive immigration reform during a Thanksgiving event that also recognized immigrants’ heritage and contributions to the city
During Monday’s event, the three members of Congress criticized the current immigration system as broken and inhumane. "Too many families are being kept apart by the hypocrisy of a system that encourages people to come and work, then tries to criminalize them when they want to stay. We have an obligation, a moral obligation, to see that these laws are changed," Rangel said.
U.S. banks less exposed to Dubai than European rivals
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- U.S. banks are probably less exposed than European rivals to a potential debt default by Dubai World, but a lack of transparency and the interconnectedness of the modern financial system make it difficult to know which institutions are ultimately exposed, analysts said this week.
Dubai said late Wednesday that it would restructure Dubai World, a sprawling conglomerate behind many of the largest construction projects in the Persian Gulf emirate.
Union balks at Florida plan to expand public rail
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A bill that would help create a commuter rail system for parts of Florida is being challenged by union leaders who call the proposal an attack on organized labor.
Florida AFL-CIO President Mike Williams said the Florida Department of Transportation, the Crist Administration and Florida House want to allow the state to replace protected railroad workers with less qualified, less experienced non-union transit employees.
"That threatens vital protections for thousands of workers and, by extension, the safety of the riding public," Williams said.
Legislative leaders are expecting to go into special session Thursday on proposals to expand Florida's public rail system along the I-4 corridor and in the densely populated South Florida region. Florida lawmakers hope a strong bipartisan showing, supporting an advanced rail system will garner federal financial backing.
Scottsdale Banker's Son Missing in Germany for Seven Days; No Clues, but Kidnapping Suggested as Motivev
A week has passed since the son of a Scottsdale banker disappeared after a late-night party in Frankfurt, Germany, but no clues have turned up.
"There have been a lot of resources called in to assist us, but to date there are no hints, no nothing," Jeff Hollahan told Germany's The Local of his efforts to find his 22-year-old son, Devon Hollahan. "He's literally just dropped off the face of the earth."
Justice Dept. Says Acorn Can Be Paid
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.
Dem committees outraise GOP in October
WASHINGTON — Fundraising for Democratic campaign committees is surging, helping the party to extend a winning streak in competitive special elections and giving House Democrats a more than 3-to-1 advantage over Republicans in cash stockpiled for the battles ahead, campaign-finance reports show.
The Democratic National Committee, along with the fundraising arm for House Democrats, outraised Republican committees last month. Overall, all Democratic committees ended October with nearly $38.8 million cash on hand, compared with $21.3 million for Republicans.
New group tries to convince Cheney to run in 2012
Washington (CNN) – A new group wants former Vice President Dick Cheney back in the White House.
The organization - "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" - launched on Friday, and unveiled their new Web site. Their aim: To convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House. But there may be a major roadblock to the group's pitch - Cheney himself.
CT Report: Green Party 'Picketing' Ralph Nader In Hopes He'll Run For Senate
Members of one of America's oldest Protestant churches officially apologized Friday — for the first time — for massacring and displacing Native Americans 400 years ago.
"We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land," the Rev. Robert Chase told descendants from both sides. "With pain, we the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events."
The minister spoke on Native American Heritage Day at a reconciliation ceremony of the Lenape tribe with the Collegiate Church, started in 1628 in then-New Amsterdam as the Reformed Dutch Church.
Palin protest: San Francisco bookseller will donate profits from 'Going Rogue' to Alaska Wildlife Alliance
Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue," may have struck a chord with the former Alaska governor's many fans, but there don't seem to be many wildlife advocates among that group. (We'd imagine Palin doesn't have too many fans among the vegan community, either, owing to her comments in the book that "If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?")
Shortly after the book's release, independent bookstore owner Don Muller (himself an Alaska resident, but decidedly opposed to Palin's often controversial positions on that state's wildlife management) decided that he'd donate the profits from "Going Rogue" sales to the group Defenders of Wildlife, which has gone head-to-head with Palin in the past. (By using Palin's book sales as a way to support the group, Muller said, he was able to "carry the book and do something positive.") Now, Ecorazzi reports, Muller's not the only one.
San Francisco bookstore Green Apple Books has announced that it, too, will donate the profits from its "Going Rogue" sales to a decidedly anti-Palin charity: The Alaska Wildlife Alliance, which ardently opposes the airborne wolf hunting that Palin made a point of supporting as Alaska's governor.
Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From ‘Twilight’
From a male point of view, the only redeeming feature of the Twilight books and movies is the ammunition they provide against female claims of innate moral superiority over men.
Whenever a woman criticizes a man’s lust, aggression, shallowness or any other lesser angel of his personality, the quick-witted fellow can point to the millions of women addicted to the base, insipid, bad-boy-worshiping, misogynist syrup so many female viewers of all ages knelt to this past weekend, when The Twilight Saga: New Moon raked in $147 million at the box office, setting several records.
Cops on trail of "gingerbread town" vandals
OSLO The people of Bergen rolled out the cookie dough Monday as local police tried to sniff out vandals who destroyed the Norwegian city's traditional Christmas decoration -- a town of gingerbread houses.
Saturday vandals entered a massive tent in central Bergen and crushed most of the 650-cookie-house town, topping off the ruins with paint and fire extinguisher foam.
Police in Norway's second largest city asked the public to offer information that could lead to the perpetrators.
Canada, Australia ranked best places for expats
Looking to work overseas? Head to Canada, Australia or Thailand, according to an annual global survey which found recession-hit Britain was one of the worst locations to live for expatriates.
The second annual Expat Experience survey, commissioned by HSBC Bank International, revealed that expats in Canada have the best quality of life and found it among the easiest places in the world to integrate with the local population.
Australia and Thailand also came in the top three in the survey of 3,146 people working in 30 different industries and 50 countries, even though Thailand was one of the countries worst-hit by the recession for expats.
Herbal supplements may raise blood lead levels
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some herbal supplements may boost the levels of lead in the blood of women, new research shows.
Among 12,807 men and women age 20 and older, Dr. Catherine Buettner, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues found blood lead levels about 10 percent higher in women, but not men, who used specific herbal supplements.
CIA goes hiring in heart of Arab America
DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) - At Tuhama's Lebanese deli in Dearborn, and at bakeries and barbershops throughout town, it's no secret the CIA is looking for a few good spies.
"There is a lot of talk, and nobody likes it," said Hamze Chehade, a 48-year-old Lebanese-American, taking a bite of his chicken shawarma.
In dire need of agents fluent in Arabic, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has made an unusual public show of its recruiting effort in Dearborn -- a city of 100,000 with the densest Arab population in the United States.
Iconic Class
Christian McKay has been teased about his uncanny resemblance to Orson Welles, a comparison he did not like. He wanted to be compared to Richard Burton. Still, when he found himself relegated to playing eunuchs in Shakespearean productions—"and that's several rungs lower than spear carriers," he says—followed by 18 months of unemployment, he reappraised the idea of Welles as a kind of alter ego. McKay performed the one-man show "Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles," by his pal Mark Jenkins, at the Edinburgh Festival and in London, Toronto, and New York. In Gotham, the actor was seen by Richard Linklater, who cast him as Welles in his film "Me and Orson Welles." McKay admits it's a meteoric career leap. Nevertheless, he acknowledges there's something to be said for being an unknown.
World of Warcraft target of latest suit from PSN plaintiff
San Jose man adds Activision Blizzard to growing list of courtroom opponents, takes issue with MMOG fees, alleges ill effects on mental health, seeks $1 million.
After being banned from Sony's PlayStation Network during a game of Resistance: Fall of Man, a San Jose, California gamer sued the electronics giant, alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights. That case was dismissed in September, but the plaintiff was undeterred. In addition to filing in an appeal in that case, earlier this month he filed a new suit against Microsoft and Nintendo. In that case, he alleged that a broken Xbox 360 caused him undue stress, and that a Wii system update blocking access to the Homebrew Channel third-party program interfered with his inalienable right to pursue happiness.
World's Most Expensive iPhone
GoldStriker International, the manufacturer of highly exclusive (read: expensive) handsets, has managed to create the most expensive phone ever earlier this week. The modified iPhone 3G that they have managed to create will set you back by a cool 1.92 million pounds!
The decked up iPhone 3GS comes studded with almost 271 grams of 22 carat gold and as many as 136 diamonds worth a cool 68 carat. The diamonds are on the front bezel. Even the front home button features a diamond (a very rare one at that) weighing 7.1 carat. The phone was painstakingly built over a period of over ten months by Stuart Hughes.
Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters, This Holiday Season's Big Toy Craze, First Caused Stir in Phoenix
Valley Fever told you about one kids toy this year, and it turned out to be what the Associated Press now calls "this year's bona fide must-have toy."
Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters, formerly called Go Go Pets hamsters, got their start with some test marketing in Phoenix this past spring. Valley residents fell in love with the small, furry robots.
UK and France propose climate fund for poor
UK PM Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have proposed a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing nations deal with climate change.
Mr Brown said the $10bn (£6bn) fund should also be used to help developing nations cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Both spoke at the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad, the last major world forum before the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen on 7 December.
Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels.
Obama Bringing Hope To Copenhagen, But Whither Hillary?
The White House has announced that President Barack Obama will participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen, Denmark on Wednesday, December 9th, before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Sweden. He will commit the United States to achieving greenhouse gas reductions of "in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020," essentially a return to 1990 levels of emissions.
The U.S. delegation will include a large number of Cabinet-level (in the language of international diplomacy, "ministerial level") officials. U.S. delegates "will keynote a series of events highlighting actions by the Obama Administration to provide domestic and global leadership in the transition to a clean energy economy."
Ecological farms: the only real way to feed an increasingly hungry world
There are those who would like us to believe that industrialized farming is the only way to feed the earth’s growing population. Disinformation comes daily from powerful industrial agricultural companies whose profits depend entirely on the sale of chemicals, genetically modified (GM) seeds, and food processing. Furthermore, they maintain that massive-scale farming methods are key to adapting to climate change.
This is just not so.
Contrary to what the propaganda tells us, yields from industrial crops do not consistently produce more food. It’s an industry-generated myth that ecologically-safe organic agriculture yields less than conventional agriculture. In fact, a comprehensive study comparing 293 crops from industrial and organic growers demonstrates that organic farm yields are roughly comparable to industrial farms in developed countries; and result in much higher yields in the developing world.
Sacrifice green turtles? Indonesia says no way
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has rejected a push by the resort island of Bali for rare turtles to be legally slain in Hindu ceremonies, siding with conservationists of the protected reptiles against religious advocates, an official said Friday.
Bali Governor I Made Mangku Pastika enraged environmentalists by advocating a quota of 1,000 green turtles be killed each year, strictly for ceremonial purposes.
He said legally killed turtles should not end up in cooking pots, served to tourists in restaurants as soup or turtle skewers as they had in the past.
Scores killed or hurt in Russia train
Scores of people have been killed or injured in a train crash in Russia, reports say.
A major rescue effort was under way, as one official said 22 people had died and 55 were hurt.
Several carriages of the express train came off the tracks as it travelled from Moscow to St Petersburg, on one of Russia's busiest rail links.
Law enforcement sources said a small crater had been found at the scene, sparking speculation of a blast.
Palestinian police shut West Bank radio station
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Palestinian police closed a radio station in the West Bank after Israel charged the broadcasts interfered with Israeli military and airport communications, a Palestinian security source said on Friday.
Majdi al-Arabid, owner of the al-Hariya station, said Palestinian forces had arrested him and kept him in custody for a day when he refused their orders to shut the station, then freed him on bail on Friday.
The station's broadcasts are pro-Fatah, the secular Palestinian movement headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. Once based in the coastal Gaza Strip, al-Arabid moved the station to the West Bank when Hamas Islamists seized Gaza in 2007.
Philippine Mayor Charged With Mass Murder for Election-Related Massacre
Philippine authorities have charged a town mayor with mass murder in connection with an election-related massacre of 57 people that shocked the nation.
Andal Ampatuan Jr. was charged Friday after authorities flew him to the capital, Manila, from the southern Philippines, where he turned himself in the day before.
Saab failure another dent in China's auto dreams
GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - China's automakers may dominate their home market, now the world's largest, but the collapse of the sale of Saab to a Chinese-backed group shows it will be a bumpy ride for them to build a global profile.
Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp (BAIC) ranks 10th among China's automakers, who are looking for a short cut to the global market by snapping up assets from distressed Western giants such as General Motors.
The Chinese generally churn out low-end cars for the booming domestic market and lack the technology and management and marketing expertise to handle global brands.
Khmer Rouge war-crimes trial of prison chief Duch closes in surprise twist
Phnom Penh, Cambodia - In a surprising plea on the final day of statements at the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal Friday, a prison chief asked judges to release him, claiming he was not a high-ranking member of the regime.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his nom de guerre, "Duch," was in charge of the S-21 prison, where he oversaw the torture and execution of approximately 15,000 people.
Prosecution lawyers have asked for a 40-year sentence for the 67-year old, arguing that Duch was a key intelligence operative (to read about his transformation from Khmer Rouge torturer born-again Christian, click here). Defense lawyers pleaded for leniency, suggesting that their client has been made a scapegoat.They have noted that S-21 was one of a network of similar prisons, and pointed out that Duch is the only one of the four suspects currently facing charges to admit his role in atrocities committed by the regime.
Canada deports Tamil film director
CHENNAI: Tamil film director and a prominent LTTE supporter, Seeman, was deported from Canada on Thursday after he made an allegedly inflammatory
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speech in support of the terror organisation.
Seeman was taken into custody in Toronto, where Sri Lankan Tamils live in large numbers. He was there for a series of meetings, but was taken into custody before he could travel further.
According to reports in the Canadian media, Sebastian Seeman, who has been arrested several times in the past for the same reason, was taken into custody by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on Thursday, the birth anniversary of LTTE leader V Prabhakaran, who was killed at the end of the war in Sri Lanka last May
Iran's treatment of Ebadi 'deeply reprehensible': US
WASHINGTON — The United States on Friday said Iran's alleged seizure of human rights activist Shrin Ebadi's bank accounts and Nobel prize medal was "deeply reprehensible," and called on Iran to end its harassment of the lawyer.
"We find these reports deeply reprehensible," State Department spokesman Darby Garrett Holladay said in a statement.
"This is just one more example of the Iranian leadership's lack of basic respect for human rights," he added.
"We urge the Iranian authorities to end their harassment of Ms Ebadi and to respect the human rights of all of their citizens who are working to make their voices heard," the spokesman said.