Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, December 08, 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: Tommy The Cat by Primus
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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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Where Is the Fossil-Fuel Industry in Copenhagen?
By Jonathan Hiskes
Tue Dec. 8, 2009 12:35 PM PST
. . .
What you don’t see there are displays for the fossil-fuel industries that have massive financial stakes in the negotiations here. There is no table for Exxon Mobil, which made more profits than any company in the world last year. There is no table for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), or any other coal group for that matter.
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Another reason: oil and coal companies don’t need to make their pitches here. Their work has already been done, in a sense, in Washington and other seats of government. National capitals tend to provide better access to decision-makers than international conferences such as COP15 do, according to several energy industry officials. It’s easier to work on familiar turf.
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One way to look at all of the green activism, rallies, and side events in Copenhagen is to call it a big game of catch-up, chasing after the larger fossil fuel lobbies. The U.S. oil and gas industry spent $35 million in political contributions last year; the coal mining industry spent $3.4 million; and electric utilities spent $20 million, according to opensecrets.org. So the green theater here will be eye-catching, and loud, and will try to make up for the fact that polluting industries have historically kicked their butts in getting lawmakers and bureaucrats to protect their interests. |
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People Living in Poorer Neighborhoods at Increased Risk for Death, Worse Health Risks
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 8, 2009
Regardless of an individual's dietary and lifestyle risk factors, living in a poorer or more socioeconomically deprived neighborhood may increase a person's risk for death, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held Dec. 6-9, 2009.
Researchers conducted the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study and found that people living in poorer neighborhoods, as determined by U.S. Census data, reported higher health risks, including heart disease and cancer, and were more likely to die sooner regardless of lifestyle and other risk factors.
"We were expecting that once we controlled for these lifestyle and medical risk factors, the differences would go away," said Chyke Doubeni, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of family medicine and community health and assistant vice provost for diversity at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "We weren't surprised by the unadjusted differences, but we were surprised that the differences persisted after controlling for lifestyle factors such as smoking, diet, exercise and medical risks." |
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Indonesia battles with widespread corruption
By Karishma Vaswani
00:34 GMT, Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Ask James Sunda about corruption in Indonesia and he will tell you a story that will make you laugh out loud.
The 50-year-old musician had a simple problem - he lost his driving licence last year, so he went to his local police office thinking his details must be on file and getting a replacement would be easy.
. . .
"The police told me it would be a quick and painless procedure," he said. "Most Indonesians would have got the hint: pay some money, and get your licence. But I wasn't having any of it."
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A recent report by the US-based Human Rights Watch estimates that corruption in Indonesia's forestry industry alone costs the economy $2bn a year.
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In another damning blow to Indonesia's economy, the European Union has come out with a report saying that one of the main reasons its investors are reluctant to come to Indonesia is the perception of high levels of graft in the country.
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India displays multi-vector diplomacy
By M K Bhadrakumar
Dec 9, 2009
. . .
United States' decline as the lone superpower is adding impetus to a strengthening of the India-Russia relationship.
The Barack Obama administration's new thinking on South Asia has impacted on US-India ties. The US shift has included a more balanced approach to ties with India and Pakistan; a soft-pedaling on the rapid "militarization" of the US-India strategic partnership that started during the George W Bush presidency; and divergent US-Indian perceptions over the Afghan crisis, among others.
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These cataclysmic changes put India in a great predicament as until recently it had near-implicit faith in the infallibility of US power and India's place in America's scheme of things as an Asian "balancer" and "counterweight" to China. No doubt, the US will continue to be by far the number one "strategic partner" for India. But Indian aspirations need to be curtailed - given the "fatal arithmetic of imperial decline" of the US, to quote Ferguson - and the resultant shortfalls in expectations need to be bridged.
New Delhi has sobered up to the true import of Obama's "smart power". A serious effort has begun to deepen the US-India partnership by taking it in new directions. India estimates that it holds a trump card insofar as the economy has recovered from the impact of the global downturn and is growing at an annual rate of more than 6% annual rate, which may accelerate toward a 9% growth rate in the next two-year period. Meanwhile, New Delhi is watching warily a "demilitarization" of the US's partnership with India under Obama's watch. India's longstanding desire to source "dual-use technology" from the US continues to run up against obstacles.
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The Russian and Indian leaderships took a common position on Afghanistan - support for President Hamid Karzai's government; emphasis on the imperative of a robust counter-terrorist campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban; rejection of any attempt to differentiate between "good" and "bad" Taliban; the need for "strict observance" of the United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Taliban leaders; and a commitment to a "democratic, pluralistic and stable" Afghanistan. |
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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US lawmakers seek drug trafficking program review
By (AFP)
December 08, 2009
The House of Representatives passed a bill creating an independent commission to review 28 years and billions of dollars spent on drug-fighting programs in Latin America.
"Clearly, the time has come to take a fresh look at our counternarcotics efforts here at home and throughout the Americas, and the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission will do just that," said bill-sponsor Representative Elliot Engel.
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The United States invested 11.3 billion dollars from 1980 to 2008 in Latin America to counter drug trafficking, especially in Colombia, and the Drug Enforcement Administration spent another 2.5 million, according to information included in the bill.
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The proposed commission, he said, "will assess all aspects of our drug policy, including domestic prevention and treatment programs." |
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The Localization of Agriculture
By Lester R. Brown
December 01, 2009
In the United States, there has been a surge of interest in eating fresh local foods, corresponding with mounting concerns about the climate effects of consuming food from distant places and about the obesity and other health problems associated with junk food diets. This is reflected in the rise in urban gardening, school gardening, and farmers’ markets.
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This trend toward localization is reflected in the recent rise in the number of farms in the United States, which may be the reversal of a century-long trend of farm consolidation. Between the agricultural census of 2002 and that of 2007, the number of farms in the United States increased by 4 percent to roughly 2.2 million. The new farms were mostly small, many of them operated by women, whose numbers in farming jumped from 238,000 in 2002 to 306,000 in 2007, a rise of nearly 30 percent.
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As agriculture localizes, livestock production will likely start to shift away from mega-sized cattle, hog, and poultry feeding operations. The shift from factory farm production of milk, meat, and eggs by returning to mixed crop-livestock operations facilitates nutrient recycling as local farmers return livestock manure to the land. The combination of high prices of natural gas, which is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, and of phosphate, as reserves are depleted, suggests a much greater future emphasis on nutrient recycling—an area where small farmers producing for local markets have a distinct advantage over massive feeding operations.
In combination with moving down the food chain to eat fewer livestock products, reducing the food miles in our diets can dramatically reduce energy use in the food economy. And as world food insecurity mounts, more and more people will be looking to produce some of their own food in backyards, in front yards, on rooftops, in community gardens, and elsewhere, further contributing to the localization of agriculture. |
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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:
Random notes related to this video:
Livewire: What does it mean for America and the world now that Obama won the Presidential election?
Claypool: Well, I think for the world we get a huge Les Claypoolchunk of respect back. I think it's very obvious when Obama went over to Europe and thousands and thousands of people came to see him. I think it's a immediate bolster of our credibility around the planet. It definitely makes it better for guys like me who travel in other countries. You couldn't go anywhere without people asking "What's up with this President of yours?"
Livewire: Well after the first Bush election - the majority of the world hated our government and after the second Bush election most of the world hated the American people as well.
Claypool: Oh yeah, they questioned our senility. (laughs) Or our intelligence.
Back to what's happening:
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3 Bets the DOE Is Placing on Science to Break the Climate Stalemate
By Alexis Madrigal
December 7, 2009 | 3:54 pm
. . .
The new arm of the Department of Energy, which is dedicated to high-risk, high-reward innovations, is betting $100 million on batteries for cars, new materials for capturing carbon, and microorganisms that can convert sunlight and carbon dioxide directly into fuels.
"This solicitation focuses on three cutting-edge technology areas which could have a transformational impact," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu, in a release.
Energy gets used in a lot of different ways, so no single technology can make all the difference. That said, a few key pieces of technology would provide the political world with better clean-energy options. We use coal to make half the nation’s electricity. Fossil fuels, mostly oil, burned for transportation account for roughly one-third of American emissions. Finding cheaper, cleaner solutions to the key problems of baseload generation and fuel for cars would be major steps toward reducing carbon emission and dependence on foreign oil.
This is the second call for proposals the DOE outfit has issued. ARPA is modeled after the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. This new request is as narrow as the last was wide. In the first grants announced in October, ARPA-E spread the first $150 million from its coffers broadly on 37 different technologies across the energy landscape from building efficiency to biomass conversion to waste heat capture. Each endeavor received between $500,000 and $9 million. |
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U of A's David Schindler confirms untold levels of oil sands pollution on the Athabasca
By Brian Murphy
7-Dec-2009
After an exhaustive study of air and water pollution along the Athabasca River and its tributaries from Fort McMurray to Lake Athabasca, researchers say pollution levels have increased as a direct result of nearby oil sands operations.
University of Alberta biological sciences professor David Schindler was part of the team that conducted a long term air and water study and found high levels of Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds. PACs are a group of organic contaminants containing several known carcinogens, mutagens, and teratogens. The highest levels of PAC's were found within 50 kilometres of two major oil sands up graders.
Schindler says that government and industry have claimed the pollution is a naturally occurring seepage from the oil sands deposits and are not related to the oil sands industry. |
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Scientists Detect PCBs on South America’s Highest Peak
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 8, 2009
Even the snow on Aconcagua Mountain in the Andes is polluted with PCBs. An international team of researchers detected low concentrations of these toxic, carcinogenic chlorine compounds in samples taken from America's highest mountain. The snow samples taken at an altitude of 6200 metres are among the highest traces found anywhere in the world of these substances, which have been banned since 2001.
In particular, the samples contained more persistent compounds like hexachlorobiphenyl (PCB 138) and heptachlorobiphenyl (PCB 180). Mountain ranges could be a natural trap for persistent organic pollutants that are transported by the atmosphere all over the world, say the scientists from IIQAB in Barcelona (Now IDAEA), the UFZ in Leipzig and the University of Concepcion in Chile, writing in the journal Environmental Chemistry Letters. According to the researchers, these findings highlight the need to investigate further the role of mountains in the spread of these pollutants and the associated risks. Just a few weeks ago, Swiss researchers found similar persistent environmental pollutants in glacial lakes in the Alps and pointed to potential risks to drinking water supplies.
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". . . detecting PCBs in the snow on top of Aconcagua clearly shows that these compounds are transported to the Andes by the atmosphere and accumulate there." The research findings are also relevant in relation to climate change: "The shrinking of the glaciers could lead to the pollutants stored in the glacier snow being carried down with the melt water," fears Roberto Quiroz. South America is not the only part of the world in which water from melting glaciers plays an important role in irrigation for farming and as a source of drinking water. |
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Life on Mars Theory Boosted by New Methane Study
By (ScienceDaily)
Dec. 8, 2009
Scientists have ruled out the possibility that methane is delivered to Mars by meteorites, raising fresh hopes that the gas might be generated by life on the red planet, in research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Methane has a short lifetime of just a few hundred years on Mars because it is constantly being depleted by a chemical reaction in the planet's atmosphere, caused by sunlight. Scientists analysing data from telescopic observations and unmanned space missions have discovered that methane on Mars is being constantly replenished by an unknown source and they are keen to uncover how the levels of methane are being topped up.
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However, the new study, by researchers from Imperial College London, shows that the volumes of methane that could be released by the meteorites entering Mars's atmosphere are too low to maintain the current atmospheric levels of methane. Previous studies have also ruled out the possibility that the methane is delivered through volcanic activity.
This leaves only two plausible theories to explain the gas's presence, according to the researchers behind the latest findings. Either there are microorganisms living in the Martian soil that are producing methane gas as a by-product of their metabolic processes, or methane is being produced as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water. |
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Publishers Join Forces to Save Themselves with 'Hulu for Magazines'
By Adam Frucci
Dec 8, 2009 10:24 AM
Time Warner, Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corp. have officially joined forces to create a new way to distribute digital versions of magazines. Forgive my skepticism, but I don't think selling digital magazines will save publishing.
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And just where will these digital magazines be distributed? On the theoretical Apple Tablet? On the Kindle or Nook? None of these are great options. Apple, Amazon and Barnes and Noble are all pretty deeply in the content-delivery business, and they may not be all that excited to have these publishers invading their territory. And, well, the Kindle and Nook are in no way designed to handle the sort of multimedia package that we've seen demos of.
And all of this is based on the idea that people will actually be willing to pay for these "digital magazines," which I don't think they will be. The magazine industry seems to think that by taking content that works perfectly fine on websites—text, images and video—and mushing them into a weird version of page-based magazines, people will treat them like the old format and will be willing to pay for them. I doubt it. The traditional magazine format was designed for paper magazines, and that format doesn't make sense digitally. |
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Ancestry site puts Hitler's war service online
By Paul Casciato
Tue Dec 8, 2009 1:43pm EST
Ancestry.co.uk, which bills itself as Britain's leading family history website, has begun the online launch of the Bavarian WWI Personnel Rosters, a collection of records showing the military service activities of 1.5 million soldiers who fought with the Bavarian Regiment in the "war to end all wars."
The documents include those of then 25-year-old volunteer Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler, whose record describes him as a "Catholic," an "Artist" and a "Messenger (bike rider) for the Regiment," whose role was to carry dispatches back and forth from the command staff to units near the battlefield.
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They show Hitler was awarded five medals, decorations and other awards, including the Iron Cross twice, 1st and 2nd Class.
The paper originals are held by the Bavaria State Archives, which is working in partnership with Ancestry.co.uk to launch this collection, Ancestry said in a statement on its website. |
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The big marriage breakup
By Amelia Gentleman
Wednesday 9 December 2009
The clash between David Cameron and Ed Balls last week over whether marriage has a central role to play in addressing social breakdown has signalled that the institution will be one of the key ideological flashpoints of the next general election. But the issue is a slippery one to understand fully, with both sides using the extensive research available to come to contradictory conclusions – arguing either that marriage is a vital force for good, or merely a red herring, distracting attention from more fundamental social issues such as poverty and disadvantage.
Cameron said the Conservative party will "celebrate" and "encourage" marriage, and accused Labour of a "pathological inability to recognise that marriage is a good thing". But children's secretary Balls responded: "The Tory policy is that marriage is first class and any other relationship is second class. That is fundamentally not in the interests of children. We should be about supporting strong and stable relationships."
The Conservative party is committed to recognising marriage in the tax and benefits system – although precisely what this will consist of remains unclear, amid dissent within the party about the cost, and scepticism outside over whether it will really encourage greater family stability, and whether it could end up channelling money from the poor to the rich.
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Kate Bell, director of policy at Gingerbread, a charity supporting lone parents, has strong evidence to show that it is not lone parenthood itself that causes poor outcomes for children, but other factors, often associated with being a single parent, including poverty and experiencing high levels of family conflict. |
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Woman dines with cardboard cutout man in San Francisco
By Lisa Katayama
5:00 AM December 8, 2009
A woman walks into a restaurant. She's alone, but she requests a table for two. She sits down, pulls a giant piece of cardboard out of her oversized bag, and unrolls a three-foot cutout of a human being. It has what looks like a computer-generated cartoon man etched on one side. She places the cardboard man gently on the seat across from her, making sure his body folds neatly at the hip crease and that his legs dangle comfortably below him. Then she opens up her menu.
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The woman called her companion Peter or Stan. She ordered an appetizer for herself and a halibut dish for Peter/Stan. She was probably a tourist; she wanted to take pictures with Peter/Stan as the sun was setting, and while she was waiting for her food, she asked Joel if he could recommend any memorabilia from the gift shop so she could buy him a little something. . .
Whenever I write articles about Japanese men who have body pillow girlfriends or marry their video game girlfriends, a flood of comments about how crazy and f****ed up Japanese culture is inevitably follow. But this type of virtual relationship exists in the US, too. In September, NBC Miami reported on a woman who carries around a cardboard cutout of her soldier boyfriend, and Joel's testimony of the woman and Peter/Stan suggests that she's not the only one.
The idea of a person developing an emotional attachment to an object is easy to ridicule, but it's actually common. Whether the object of that affectionate bond is a teddy bear, a cardboard version of your hubby, or an imaginary character etched on a body pillow doesn't really matter. But within the spectrum of objects that people can have feelings for, some anthropomorphized things tend to make spectators feel more uncomfortable or weirded-out than others. The fact that some "love objects" are okay, while others stigmatize, challenges our notions of acceptable human behavior. As inanimate objects increasingly take on roles that humans used to fill, those challenges are likely to become more common. |
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