Author's posts
Nov 18 2009
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread
31 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Science |
1 Last chance prep talks wrap up ahead of Copenhagen
by Slim Allagui, AFP
Tue Nov 17, 2:06 pm ET
| COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Environment ministers from 44 key countries on Tuesday wrapped up closed-door talks aimed at laying the groundwork for a political agreement at next month’s UN conference on global warming.
Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard described the meeting as “very constructive.” Delegations included major greenhouse gas emitters, including China, the United States, India and Brazil, as well as several island nations and African states that are among the poorest in the world and most vulnerable to climate change. |
Nov 17 2009
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News. 58 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Somalia, Afghanistan shamed in graft league table
AFP
36 mins ago
| BERLIN (AFP) – Lawless Somalia and war-torn Afghanistan topped a blacklist on Tuesday of the world’s most corrupt countries drawn up by the anti-graft watchdog Transparency International.
TI’s annual corruption index showed how countries devastated by conflict have become overrun by graft with Iraq, Sudan and Myanmar accounting for the three other states in the bottom five of the chart. The Berlin-based organisation said that countries whose infrastructure had been “torn apart” by conflict needed help from outside to prevent a culture of corruption taking root. |
Nov 16 2009
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News. 61 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Afghanistan launches unit to tackle corruption
by Thibauld Malterre, AFP
1 hr 5 mins ago
| KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan government said Monday it had formed a major crime unit to tackle corruption, following escalating Western pressure on President Hamid Karzai to fight graft.
“A giant step is being taken today in announcing the opening of the major crime task force,” Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told a news conference with the British and US ambassadors. The government denied that the creation of the new entity was in response to huge Western pressure for concrete action to wipe out corruption. |
Nov 16 2009
Missing the Point
Perhaps it will grow on me, but at the moment I’m underimpressed with the new Prisoner.
That link is to the Wikipedia entry for the original and what you don’t get from it, or it’s pale, tepid remake, is the urgency and energy of the paranoia.
This is a Prisoner on Quaaludes and Thorazine, vaguely aware of all the rampant wrongness around him, but unsure of what it is.
The real Prisoner is black and white, Patrick knows precisely where he is- an exact replica of his London flat, but not the same place at all.
Where am I?
In the village.
What do you want?
Information.
Whose side are you on?
That would be telling.
We want information…Information…INFORMATION!You won’t get it!
By hook or by crook, we will.
Who are you?
The new Number Two.
Who is Number One?
You are Number Six.
I am not a number.
I am a free man!
The Prisoner is born in rebellion- “Why did you resign?” This Prisoner is born in confusion- “Why are you torturing me?”
The Prisoner has hope and confidence, panache. He looks at the world and knows what it is.
This Prisoner?
He has no principles, just confusion and unease.
Perhaps that is a truer statement of the human condition, but I can’t relate to it. I’ve never had any doubt. I may die, but I’ll never surrender.
Nov 16 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S News. 48 Stories.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Kosovo vote a first since independence declaration
by Ismet Hajdari, AFP
2 hrs 37 mins ago
| PRISTINA (AFP) – Kosovo went to the polls Sunday for the first time since the ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia last year, amid a partial boycott by a divided Serbian community.
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the local election “is the most important since the proclamation of independence” as he voted in bright sunshine in Pristina, accompanied by his family. According to the electoral commission, some 45 percent of the 1.5 million eligible voters voted for mayors and local representatives in what Serbia sees as a renegade southern province. Polls closed at 7:00 pm. |
Nov 15 2009
The Week In Review
Since last Saturday (and not including yesterday) I’ve brought 297 stories to your attention more or less, an average of 42.6 a day.
| Saturday 11/7 | 33 | Sunday 11/8 | 16 |
| Monday 11/9 | 35 | Tuesday 11/10 | 52 |
| Wednesday Science 11/11 | 30 | Wednesday 11/11 | 35 |
| Thursday 11/12 | 50 | Friday 11/13 | 46 |
I think by any objective measure this is a lot of news, even counting falling asleep on Sunday.
Because of the volume it can be easy to overlook some important stories or trends and that’s why I’m posting The Week in Review– to highlight things you may have missed.
This week’s featured subject-
Saturday 11/7 – 1 Monday 11/9 – 4
Tuesday 11/10 – 4 |
Nov 14 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News. 62 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Suicide car bomb ‘kills 11’ in NW Pakistan
by Lehaz Ali, AFP
1 hr 58 mins ago
| PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A suicide bomber blew up his explosives-filled car Saturday at a police checkpoint in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 11 people, officials said.
In the second suicide strike to hit the troubled city in two days, the bomber detonated when police asked him to stop for a search, Peshawar district administration chief Sahibzada Anis told AFP. The latest in a spate of devastating attacks comes as 30,000 troops press their most ambitious assault yet against Taliban militants in their mountain strongholds on the Afghan border. |
| It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?… It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood, I’ve always wanted to have a neighbor just like you. So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day. |
Nov 14 2009
Scooter Libby Justice
A restoration of the rule of law — meaning an end to immunity for high-level political officials who commit crimes — was a central prong of the Obama campaign. Those who called for a pardon of Lewis Libby — even on the oh-so-clever “progressive” political grounds concocted by Bauer — were as antithetical to that pledge could be. Yet here is that pro-pardon Washington lawyer now being named as White House counsel.
Then again, one of the few positions more expressive of “Scooter Libby justice” than calling for a pardon of Libby himself is the view that all high-level Bush officials should be immunized from prosecution — even those who committed grievous war crimes and other serious felonies — because it’s more important that we “look to the future” than it is to apply the rule of law equally. If immunity for high-level war criminals — and for lawbreakinng telecoms — isn’t “Scooter Libby justice,” what is?
Viewed that way, Bauer will seem to fit in well in his new position.
Nov 13 2009
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
Now with U.S. News. 48 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Pakistan bombings kill 18 as spy agency hit
by Lehaz Ali, AFP
Fri Nov 13, 8:36 am ET
| PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A powerful suicide car bomb ripped through the Peshawar headquarters of Pakistan’s top spy agency Friday, killing at least 10 people and leaving much of the fortified building in ruins.
A similar bombing killed eight people in another northwest town, the latest in a spate of attacks as 30,000 troops press their most ambitious assault yet against Taliban militants in their mountain strongholds on the Afghan border. The attack devastated the three-storey Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) provincial headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar, sending huge clouds of smoke spewing into the sky and destroying more than half of the building. |
Nov 12 2009
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News. 54 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 US Afghan envoy warns against troop surge: reports
by Laurent Lozano, AFP
2 hrs 33 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US envoy to Afghanistan has warned against a troop surge for the country as President Barack Obama heads to Asia, weighing strategy options in the eight-year conflict, reports said Thursday.
The Washington Post and The New York Times reported that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, a retired army general who commanded US forces in Afghanistan from 2005-2007, detailed his concerns in classified cables last week. Eikenberry also expressed worries about the behavior of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was re-elected to a five year term in August polls tainted by widespread fraud, the Post said. |
Nov 11 2009
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
36 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 World remembers sacrifice of WWI lost generation
by Rory Mulholland, AFP
2 hrs 45 mins ago
| PARIS (AFP) – Former foes France and Germany held a joint World War I Armistice Day ceremony for the first time as events around the globe Wednesday honoured the millions killed in the conflict.
In London, Queen Elizabeth II led tributes to the war dead, including the growing number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But the last British veteran of the 1914-18 conflict boycotted official events. President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel rekindled the flame on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and vowed that their nations would never wage war on each other again. |