Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, December 01, 2009.
OND is a regular feature on Daily Kos, consisting of current news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Each editor of OND imparts their own presentation style and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
The OND concept was borne under the keen keyboard of Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Army Arrangement by Fela Anikulapo Kuti
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Meteor Blades often posts an open diary during the evening with a specific theme - such as, Green Diary Rescue - and typically links to that evening's OND. Consider this reference as returning the kind favor.
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Dubai, debt and a return to reality
By Chan Akya
Dec 1, 2009
Just as America hunkered down for its Thanksgiving holiday last week and the Muslim world sat down for the long Eid weekend, a bombshell announcement from the rulers of Dubai, one of the seven emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates, flashed across screens globally. Barely a few hours after receiving US$5 billion in fresh funds from the capital of the UAE, Abu Dhabi, for Dubai's government debt obligations, the rulers of Dubai had decided to push the tiny emirate's biggest company - Dubai World - into the perilous world of debt restructuring.
The reasons for the news being a surprise were manifold, not the least that the government had constantly assured investors (verbally - never in writing of course) that it would stand behind the Dubai World conglomerate under all circumstances. In the event, they appeared only to stand behind the company in order to push it over the cliff edge and into the creditors' abyss.
. . .
Let us remove all the drama from the Dubai saga, and consider the facts:
(1) High debt levels.
(2) Poor performing collateral for debt.
(3. Markets that expect continuing "strategic" bailouts.
(4) A fractious political climate around debt discussions.
(5) No real (sector-specific) growth to support future repayment.
If I read just the above and was asked to guess what exactly was the subject being discussed, a large number of options would spring up:
(a) US mortgage debt.
(b) Senior and subordinated debt of global banks.
(c) Smaller European governments (Greece, Ireland etc).
(d) Leveraged loans and high-yield bonds in the US and Europe.
(e) Chinese bank lending to the property sector. |
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First Comprehensive Review of the State of Antarctica's Climate
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 1, 2009
The first comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate and its relationship to the global climate system is published Dec. 1, 2009 by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The review -- Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment -- presents the latest research from the icy continent, identifies areas for future scientific research, and addresses the urgent questions that policy makers have about Antarctic melting, sea-level rise and biodiversity.
Based on the latest evidence from 100 world-leading scientists from 13 countries, the review focuses on the impact and consequences of rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Southern Ocean; rapid ice loss in parts of Antarctica and the increase in sea ice around the continent; the impact of climate change on Antarctica's plants and animals; the unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide levels; the connections between human-induced global change and natural variability; and the extraordinary finding that the ozone hole has shielded most of Antarctica from global warming. |
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Women's groups want long-term US presence in Afghanistan
By Karin Zeitvogel
December 1, 2009
Women's rights activists on Tuesday backed a US troop surge in Afghanistan but warned that hard-fought gains in women's rights will vanish without a long-term commitment to develop the country.
"If the US left, women would be back in their burkas," said Esther Hyneman, a member of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), a rights group advocating for Afghan women in the United States and Afghanistan.
Her comments came just hours before President Barack Obama's long-awaited speech on Afghanistan, during which he was set to announce an accelerated deployment of 30,000 troops within six months to the war-torn country and a US drawdown to begin by July 2011.
While a troop surge would help to bring much-needed security to Afghanistan, "the platform on which everything else can be built," the United States must meet its pledge to Afghan women, said Afghan-American Masuda Sultan, who serves on WAW's board. |
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Afghan Guards Out of Control
By Alexandra Andrews
Tue December 1, 2009 3:56 PM PST
"Trigger-happy" private security guards in Afghanistan are killing civilians and undercutting counterinsurgency efforts, reports today's Army Times.
About twice a week, convoys up to 50 vehicles long snake westward on Highway 1 in Afghanistan, ferrying supplies to coalition bases in Helmand province. The road runs through the Maywand district in Kandahar province, where more than 30 civilians have been wounded or killed in the past four years by the private guards tasked with protecting the convoys, according to the district's senior Afghan intelligence representative.
. . .
A U.S. officer in the area, Capt. Casey Thoreen, tells the paper that the heavily armed guards—mostly Afghans themselves—are like "gun-toting mercenaries with probably not a whole lot of training." The Afghan district chief said that most of them are heroin addicts. |
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The burning issue
By Ed Crooks
December 1 2009 13:46
When the International Energy Agency delivered its recent World Energy Outlook, one figure stood out: $500bn.
This is the amount that will need to be invested each year to keep inside the limits that scientists say are needed to head off the threat of catastrophic global warming – on top of the $1,200bn required simply to meet demand in a "business-as-usual" scenario. Such huge sums set the scale of the challenge the global energy system faces in delivering the supplies that consumers need without irreparably damaging the climate. If energy policy is to meet that challenge, it will need some creative and far-sighted thinking, and courageous political leadership.
So what policies are needed to bring about the "revolution" in energy that the IEA and others say is needed? Three guiding principles stand out.
. . .
Following those three principles for energy policy will not always be easy for democratic governments. Energy is likely to be more expensive, which is never popular. "Not in my back yard" opposition to wind farms or nuclear plants will have to be overcome. Some powerful vested interests will have to be defied. Unless the hard decisions are taken now, however, there will come a time when climate change and energy shortages cannot be ignored any longer. |
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Desertions undermine Afghan army
By (Al Jazeera)
Wednesday, December 02, 2009 03:09 Mecca time, 00:09 GMT
An exclusive Al Jazeera investigation has found that the number of existing security forces in Afghanistan has been greatly exaggerated with widespread desertions by members of the army and police. |
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South Africa vows to treat all babies with HIV
By (BBC)
21:09 GMT, Tuesday, 1 December 2009
All South African babies under the age of one will be treated if they test HIV-positive, President Jacob Zuma has announced in a major policy overhaul.
In a widely welcomed speech to mark World Aids Day, he promised more anti-retrovirals - drugs which the previous government said were too costly.
And he announced he was preparing to take an HIV test himself.
Each year 59,000 babies are born with HIV in a country where 5.2 million people live with the virus. |
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Sri Lanka war refugees leaving military camps
By (BBC)
16:55 GMT, Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Thousands of displaced Sri Lankans have begun leaving military-run camps opened up by the government in the north.
The general in charge of the biggest camp told the BBC people were free to leave temporarily - after giving their details so they can be monitored.
The camps house about 130,000 people driven from their homes during the offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels earlier this year.
. . .
There have been severe restrictions on access to the camps - set up for people fleeing the war zone during the government's final assault against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). |
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Russia sheds light on murder that sparked purges
By Dmitry Solovyov
Tue Dec 1, 2009 3:04pm EST
Russia on Tuesday published previously secret documents that shed light on a notorious murder 75 years ago that historians say sparked the purges of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
The mysterious killing of Stalin's rival Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934 has remained one of the Kremlin's most closely guarded riddles for decades because many of the key documents were immediately classified by the secret police.
. . .
Historians have long suspected that Stalin had Kirov killed to eliminate a rival and a potential threat.
But documents released on Tuesday by Russia's domestic intelligence agency -- including Nikolayev's diary, published with the permission of his son -- painted a picture of a disillusioned Communist Party functionary acting alone, out of bitterness and revenge. |
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Rwanda - first landmine-free country
By (BBC)
18:15 GMT, Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Rwanda is to be declared free of landmines - the first country to achieve this status.
The announcement is to be made at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Columbia.
Hundreds of people have been killed and horrifically injured by landmines in Rwanda.
Landmines were laid between 1990 and 1994 in Rwanda and over the past three years more than over 9,000 have been destroyed by Rwandan soldiers. |
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Small vehicles get ready for big outing
By Robert Snell and Scott Burgess
December 01. 2009 5:07PM
Automakers are planning a small-car assault at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which opens to media Wednesday, with fuel-efficient cars and crossovers playing a starring role, especially for General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.
The focus on smaller models coincides with a broad federal mandate to boost fuel efficiency and lower emissions; automakers are also taking advantage of an opportunity to sway opinion in California, the country's No. 1 auto market with the power to influence the rest of the country.
"It's no coincidence those are being launched in California," said auto analyst Erich Merkle of Autoconomy.com in Grand Rapids. "The prevailing wisdom in LA is that we need to have more fuel-efficient vehicles, lower CO2 emissions and smaller vehicles are one way to achieve that." |
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California water allocation hits record-low level
By Steve Gorman
Tue Dec 1, 2009 8:08pm EST
California officials said on Tuesday that drought and environmental restrictions have forced them to cut planned water deliveries to irrigation districts and cities statewide to just 5 percent of their contracted allotments.
Although the state Water Resources Department typically ends up supplying more water than first projected for an upcoming year, its 5 percent initial allocation for 2010 marks the smallest on record since the agency began delivering water in 1967.
Drastic cutbacks in irrigation supplies this year alone from both state and federal water projects have idled some 23,000 farm workers and 300,000 acres of cropland in California, according to researchers at the University of California at Davis. |
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At Camp Lejeune, Marines are ready to go
By Martha Quillin
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
In this town, where nearly everyone wears a Marine uniform or has a friend or family member in the corps, people seemed relieved Tuesday that President Barack Obama had decided to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan.
"Get it over with and bring 'em home," said Nellie Matson, who's retired from the Marine Corps, along with her husband and son-in-law, all of whom live in Jacksonville. Matson said all three would watch the president's address Tuesday night to hear him say he'd send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, the first of them Marines from Camp Lejeune, to try to bring the Taliban-led insurgency under control.
"We're hoping he's going to say, 'Enough's enough. This is what we're going to do, and then we're going to bring our men and women home,' " Matson said. |
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Energy secretary says U.S. losing edge, but can recover
By John Staed
November 30, 2009 at 6:48 p.m.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the type of innovation found at Clemson University is part of what is needed to help the country solve its energy problems.
But the country faces losing its superiority in the clean energy race as China and other countries are moving ahead of the United States on a number of fronts, including making fuel-efficient autos, building car batteries, developing electricity transmission infrastructure and nuclear power plants.
. . .
"They are serious about this," he said. China "just passed the U.S. in high-tech manufacturing. ... There is no reason anyone should pass the U.S. in high-tech manufacturing."
. . .
Green energy is also a job creator, Chu said. A DOE study of achieving 20 percent wind energy use in the U.S. by 2030 estimates 10,000 to 20,000 jobs could be created by the industry in South Carolina alone. |
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Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public
By Alice Schroeder
Dec. 1
"I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit," said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that "as a preliminary matter" it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
. . .
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage. |
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Back to what's happening:
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Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling
By George Monbiot
Monday 30 November 2009 19.30 GMT
When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world's peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country's government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee's tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I've broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.
So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.
Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works. |
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Where’s the data?
By group
27 November 2009
Much of the discussion in recent days has been motivated by the idea that climate science is somehow unfairly restricting access to raw data upon which scientific conclusions are based. This is a powerful meme and one that has clear resonance far beyond the people who are actually interested in analysing data themselves. However, many of the people raising this issue are not aware of what and how much data is actually available.
Therefore, we have set up a page of data links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions etc. We have made a start on this on a new Data Sources page, but if anyone has other links that we’ve missed, note them in the comments and we’ll update accordingly. |
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Company plans 500 megawatt wind farm in Montana
By (AP)
December 1, 2009
A Minnesota company has partnered with a Montana developer to pursue more than 500 megawatts of community-owned wind power in central Montana.
National Wind of Minneapolis and Montana Wind Resources of Billings said Monday the project would be built in phases of at least 100-megawatts each over the next five to eight years. Landowners in Judith Basin, Wheatland, Golden Valley and Fergus counties would share in any revenues. |
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Australia carbon laws fail, election possible
By Rob Taylor
Tue Dec 1, 2009 11:22pm EST
Australia's parliament rejected laws to set up a sweeping carbon trade scheme on Wednesday, scuttling a key climate change policy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and providing a trigger for an early 2010 election.
Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government would re-introduce the carbon trade bills in February to give the opposition Liberal Party one more chance to support the scheme, adding the government was not looking at an early election.
"We believe that over the Christmas period there is time for the calmer heads in the Liberal Party to consider this question, to consider acting in the national interest," Gillard told reporters.
"This nation is one of the hottest and driest continents on Earth. We are going to be hit particularly hard and early by climate change." |
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Kerry seeks more U.S. climate funds for poor nations
By Richard Cowan
Tue Dec 1, 2009 6:07pm EST
Two senators on Tuesday gave a boost to next week's global environmental summit in Copenhagen, with a senior Democrat advocating more U.S. funding of climate change efforts by poor nations and a key Republican calling for quick action on a U.S. climate bill.
Democratic Senator John Kerry, a leading advocate of climate control legislation in Congress, recommended that the Obama administration include $3 billion in next year's budget to help fund efforts to address global warming. This year's funding is about one third that amount.
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the few Republicans willing to negotiate with Democrats on a climate change bill, told Reuters, "I think we need to act by next spring" to pass a bill limiting U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. |
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Opinion: Why it's time for the honest use of pesticides
By Randi Hutter Epstein
December 1, 2009 07:02 ET
The bedbugs moved into my house. I was itching all night long and after about five futile attempts to blast them with pyrethroids, one of the few allowable pesticides, I was ready for something stronger. Anything really.
Compared to other pesticides, pyrethroids are less toxic to humans and apparently less toxic to bedbugs too. (Thanks to our zeal for abusing anything new, bedbugs in New York City, where I live, are more than 200 times resistant to pyrethroids compared with Florida bedbugs, according to a recent study.) All I wanted was my exterminator to sneak me some DDT or another banned chemical. I considered organophosphates — the ones that have been linked to cognitive impairments among children.
My bedbug fiasco — costly and time-consuming — got me thinking about the global balancing act of pesticides versus disease. The real issue is not about those of us in the developed world annoyed with bedbugs and lice (we dealt with those too), but the rest of the world who have to weigh the pros and cons of pesticides versus killer infections. |
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Believers' Inferences About God's Beliefs Are Uniquely Egocentric
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 1, 2009
Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people's beliefs, according to new study published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
. . .
The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God's standards. "The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing," they conclude. "This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."
But the research in no way denies the possibility that God's presumed beliefs also may provide guidance in situations where people are uncertain of their own beliefs, the co-authors noted. |
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How Did Flowering Plants Evolve to Dominate Earth?
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 1, 2009
To Charles Darwin it was an 'abominable mystery' and it is a question which has continued to vex evolutionists to this day: when did flowering plants evolve and how did they come to dominate plant life on earth? A new study in Ecology Letters reveals the evolutionary trigger which led to early flowering plants gaining a major competitive advantage over rival species, leading to their subsequent boom and abundance.
"Flowering plants are the most abundant and ecologically successful group of plants on earth," said Brodribb. "One reason for this dominance is the relatively high photosynthetic capacity of their leaves, but when and how this increased photosynthetic capacity evolved has been a mystery."
. . .
The evolution of dense leaf venation in flowering plants, around 140-100 million years ago, was an event with profound significance for the continued evolution of flowering plants. This step provided a 'cretaceous productivity stimulus package' which reverberated across the biosphere and led to these plants playing the fundamental role in the biological and atmospheric functions of the earth. |
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Some kids still swallowing soda can safety tabs
By Julie Steenhuysen
Tue Dec 1, 2009 1:00pm EST
Beverage can tops are still finding their way into the stomachs of some children, especially teens, despite being redesigned in the 1970s to keep people from swallowing them, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
A 16-year study at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center found 19 children had swallowed the safety tabs, which are designed to fold back but stay attached to cans for soda and other beverages.
"I think we all know if you fiddle with these stay tabs, you can easily break them off," Dr. Lane Donnelly, who led the study, told reporters at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago. |
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Surgeons Offering New Procedure for Acid Reflux, GERD
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 1, 2009
. . .
GERD, also referred to as chronic heartburn, is reflux and regurgitation of the contents of the stomach into the esophagus that is frequent and severe enough to impact daily life and may even damage the esophagus. It is one of the most common diseases, with more than 60 million Americans experiencing symptoms at least once a month. Approximately 14 million Americans have GERD so frequent and severe that they experience symptoms every day.
Normally, after swallowing, a valve between the esophagus and stomach opens to allow food to pass into the stomach, then closes to prevent reflux of the food back into the esophagus. With GERD, this valve is weakened or absent, allowing the acidic digestive juices from the stomach to flow back (or reflux) into the esophagus. Using the EsophyX, BMC surgeons are able to pass surgical instruments together with an endoscope through a patient's mouth and tighten or repair the weakened valve without making any incisions into the skin.
"Compared to laparoscopic or traditional surgery, patients treated via the endoscope have required less anesthesia and experienced less complication rates, shorter hospital stays and faster recovery, reduced patient discomfort, and no need for incisions," said Miguel Burch, MD, Co-Director of Esophageal and Acid Reflux Disorders, Center for Digestive Disorders at BMC. "Patients are typically able to return home and to normal activities the day following the procedure," he added. |
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Chevy Volt Can't Handle Hot Southwest, but Otherwise is Looking Good
By Jason Mick
November 30, 2009 1:51 PM
The 2011 GM Volt is generating unprecedented hype as the highest profile upcoming mass-market electric vehicle. With the U.S. government and automakers worldwide all betting big on electric vehicles, General Motors has done perhaps the best job at promoting its upcoming vehicle.
The vehicle is currently in the pre-production testing phase, in which the final bugs in the prototypes are ironed out via minor changes, largely to the vehicle's software and mechanical settings. A fleet of prototype Volts completed a long test-drive journey and engineers are now using the data collected to tweak the Volt. They hope to minimize its problems in the process.
. . .
However, as many have noted a couple of pivotal unknowns remain -- the Volt's finalized real world gas mileage and cost. The Volt will be available in all 50 states when it debuts, according to GM. It will be available for around $40,000, plus a $7,500 federal tax credit, which brings it to approximately $32,500 (excluding additional hybrid tax breaks in certain states). However, this price could be bumped significantly higher or lower still.
The vehicles will currently recharge in about 8 hours household 120-volt current, while special 240-volt charging stations can charge it in only 3 hours. GM estimates the car's fuel economy to be 230 mpg, but this value has yet to be confirmed in real world independent testing. One of GM's top priorities has been trying to tweak the gas mileage upwards during the testing cycle. |
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Google to limit free news access
By (BBC)
00:46 GMT, Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.
The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages.
Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.
Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages. |
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Facebook Profiles Capture True Personality, According to New Psychology Research
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 1, 2009
Online social networks such as Facebook are being used to express and communicate real personality, instead of an idealized virtual identity, according to new research from psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas at Austin.
"These findings suggest that online social networks are not so much about providing positive spin for the profile owners," he adds, "but are instead just another medium for engaging in genuine social interactions, much like the telephone."
. . .
"I think that being able to express personality accurately contributes to the popularity of online social networks in two ways," says Gosling. "First, it allows profile owners to let others know who they are and, in doing so, satisfies a basic need to be known by others. Second, it means that profile viewers feel they can trust the information they glean from online social network profiles, building their confidence in the system as a whole." |
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Microsoft, News Corp reports overplayed: source
By Diane Bartz
Tue Dec 1, 2009 1:54pm EST
Reports that News Corp and Microsoft were in talks for an exclusive deal that would exclude Google are overblown, a source close to the situation said on Tuesday.
There had been reports that Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, was considering removing the company's news from Google's Web search results, and was talking to Microsoft about listing the stories with its Bing search engine instead.
Microsoft would pay for the privilege, sources previously told Reuters, but it was not clear how much.
But a source said on Tuesday the financial basis for a deal may not be as strong as previously thought. |
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Microsoft denies "black screen of death" issues
By Bill Rigby
Tue Dec 1, 2009 4:40pm EST
Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it could find no evidence that recent security updates were causing problems with its new Windows 7 operating system, which some have dubbed the "black screen of death."
The problem, which has caused a small number of users to see a completely black screen after logging on, was identified by British software security firm Prevx last week, and received widespread attention after a report by the BBC on Tuesday.
Prevx had claimed that changes to Microsoft's operating system's registry -- the database that stores configuration settings -- were the most likely cause of the error, but Microsoft denied that. |
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End the gay blood ban
By Peter Tatchell
Monday 30 November 2009 20.30 GMT
Pressure is mounting on the Department of Health and the National Blood Service to end the blanket lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood. This sweeping prohibition was originally introduced in the early 1980s in response to the advent of the HIV pandemic. Well-intended at the time, it is now increasingly seen as a panic, knee-jerk over-reaction.
The ban states that no blood donation is acceptable from any man who has ever had oral or anal sex with another man – even just once, even with a condom.
Among those prohibited from donating blood are: gay couples in lifelong monogamous relationships, celibate gay and bisexual men, heterosexual men who experimented at school and males who last had gay sex in the 1960s – more than a decade before HIV was first diagnosed. Even if men from these groups take blood tests that show them to not have HIV, they are banned for life from donating blood. This policy is madness. |
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Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta Interviews Ray "The Banana Man" Comfort
By Maggie Koerth-Baker
3:28 PM December 1, 2009
Hemant Mehta does a fascinating interview with Ray Comfort, not about Creationism, but about Comfort's personal philosophy and the way he has gone about promoting Creationism and Christianity in general. Comfort, you'll recall, is the guy who tried to prove the existence of a benevolent interventionist God by appealing to the human-convenient shape of a banana--a plant that's been heavily modified by humans through controlled selection in agriculture. Kudos to Mehta for giving us a glimpse inside this particular head.
. . .
It's worth noting that, given Mehta's audience, this is pretty atheist-centric. However, I'm well aware that belief in the Christian God/Jesus (or any other deity) doesn't preclude acceptance of evolution and doesn't equate with scientific illiteracy. Mehta seems to be aware of that as well. Comfort, on the other hand, appears to be a little confused on the subject. |
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Imam aims to break Aids taboo
By Robert Pigott
11:23 GMT, Tuesday, 1 December 2009
. . .
"When you disclose it, straight away they think you are gay, or maybe you got it from a prostitute or you did something bad and Allah is punishing you. That is why it has to be kept secret."
So the African HIV Policy Network has asked imams to break the taboo by talking openly about HIV.
One of them, Mohamed Bashir of the North Brixton mosque in London, says imams need to acknowledge "that not everyone practices their religion to the letter".
. . .
"They have extra-marital relations that they will not speak about, and engage in risky behaviour. Some imams might not want to admit that."
. . .
He accepts that in the face of HIV, condoms may be the lesser of two evils, but says communicating that to a congregation is a sensitive issue. |
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Homicide Rates Linked to Trust in Government, Sense of Belonging, Study Suggests
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 1, 2009
When Americans begin routinely complaining about how they hate their government and don't trust their leaders, it may be time to look warily at the homicide rate.
. . . people's views about the legitimacy of government and how much they identify with their fellow citizens play a major role in how often they kill each other -- much more so than the usual theories revolving around guns, poverty, drugs, race, or a permissive justice system.
"The predisposition to murder is rooted in feelings and beliefs people have toward government and their fellow citizens," said Randolph Roth, author of the book and professor of history at Ohio State.
"It is these factors, which may seem impossibly remote from murder, that hold the key to understanding why the United States is so homicidal today." |
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'Made in China' Still Means 'Made With Exploited Labor'
By Ben Buchwalter
Tue December 1, 2009 2:11 PM PST
Think of it as Extreme Makeover: China Edition. This week CNN aired a China-produced commercial intended to repair the country's image after a slew of PR disasters. In the past half-decade, Chinese cough syrup, children's toys, and milk (among other products) have caused sickness and even death in consumers around the world. The new ad brushes these concerns aside, showing quick shots of clothes made in China but designed in France and an iPod made in China but using US software. An American voice concludes, "When it says 'Made in China,' it really means 'Made in China, made with the world.'" See the ad here:
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