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Scientists turn to Popeye to save planet
source: by Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Scientists have enlisted a new ally in the battle to save the planet - Popeye. They have found that spinach, which gives the cartoon sailor hissuperhuman strength, could be the power source the world needs to combat global warming. The discovery could lead to a new version of the old instruction: "Heat up your greens." Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported last week that the leafy vegetable could provide the missing ingredient needed to make solar cells sufficiently cheap and efficient to provide the world with electricity. The cells work by harnessing the power of photosynthesis to covert light into electricity...How To Heal the Air
source: by Antony Turner, Resurgence / AlterNet
Because the air is largely unseen, often referred to as mere "empty space," we don't even notice it. We believe that the atmosphere is a "dead" and accidental mixture of inert gases. We forget that the air that we breathe and share has been built up over billions of years by bacteria, to support and sustain our living planet. We need reminding that carbon has continuously been sucked out of the atmosphere and buried in limestone, chalk, coal, oil and gas deposits by huge natural processes in order for life to multiply and survive. Now we are reversing that process by digging and drilling huge amounts of these fossil fuels...Essie Mae's Name Now on Thurmond Monument
source: by JULIE HALENAR / Associated Press Writer
The name of Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter was added Thursday to his monument on the Statehouse grounds -- further public acknowledgment of what had once been a closely held secret. It took two hours to engrave "Essie Mae" under the names of the late senator's four children with his second wife, Nancy. "We are excited to no end, and we are so grateful that it moves one to tears of joy and gratitude," said Frank Wheaton, attorney for Essie Mae Washington Williams. Williams was not available for comment, he said. The General Assembly passed legislation in May to add Williams' name to Thurmond's statue, which was erected in the late 1990s and shows the one-time segregationist around age 60, at the peak of his political career. Thurmond was 22 when...Man Tries to Get Rid of Million Pennies
source: By Associated Press
A man is trying to get rid of his pennies -- all 1 million of them. Ron England bet his brother 30 years ago that he could save a million pennies in exchange for a dinner in Paris. And he did, eventually stacking up 20,000 rolls that fill 13 boxes in his garage. Now that he's moving, England wants to cash in the $10,000 in coppers, which weigh 3.6 tons, but is having a tough time finding someone who will take them without a price. "I've been working seriously for the past two weeks to get rid of these pennies," said England, 60, a Paramount Studios, Hollywood, projectionist who will soon retire with his wife to a home in Oregon. "It's kind of frustrating. Nobody will take them without charging me." The Coinstar machine at his supermarket isn't exactly made to accept a million pennies. A Santa Monica artist who welds couches out of pennies declined to call him back. Coin collectors said to call a bank...The Dalai Lama: A life less ordinary
source: Independent UK
At nearly 70, the Dalai Lama, god-king of Tibet (and friend to the stars), knows he cannot go on for ever. But, as Johann Hari discovers, he shows no signs of curbing his ambition or his opinions It's tough being a god-king in the 21st century. The Dalai Lama is staging a press conference for Scottish radio from his hotel suite, just an hour before he is due to address the Scottish Parliament. He is scratching his shaved head and wearing a stilted smile as I am ushered in. Security agents scan me with their eyes. They are here to protect His Holiness from Chinese assassins, but they cannot shield him from the mind-melting blandness of some of the Scottish press. "Your Holiness, how can we in the West be more compassionate?"... "Your Holiness, what is your favourite prayer?"...Sci-Fi Museum Is About More Than Ray Guns
source: by Gene Johnson / Associated Press Writer
The director of Seattle's new science fiction museum wants to get people thinking about "What if." "What if your best friend was an alien?" Donna Shirley asks. "What if you could erase things from your past? It gives people permission to speculate. ... We want to get kids thinking about what could really happen." In other words, the museum going for more than geek appeal, though it has plenty of that. Among the exhibits are Captain Kirk's original command chair from "Star Trek" (no, you can't sit in it), an interactive space station exhibit, fan magazines, posters and a ray-gun collection that could get the NRA excited about galaxies far, far away. The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, created with $20 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, opens June 18 in a remodeled section of his other Seattle museum...Canada biodiesel plant plans large increase in production
source: wastenews.com
Biox Corp. plans to scale up its 1 million liter per year Hamilton, Ontario, biodiesel pilot plant to a 60 million liter plant, the company said June 9. Biox's proprietary process converts oil and greases, such as vegetable oil, agricultural seed oil, waste animal fat and recycled cooking oils into ASTM D6751 and EN14214 grade biodiesel fuel. The fuel's cost is competitive with petroleum diesel, said Tim Haig, Biox president and CEO. Biox is headquartered in Oakville. The Hamilton facility will increase North America´s supply of biodiesel fuel by some 50 percent when completed. Biodiesel not only converts waste products into fuel, but also reduces less greenhouse gases than traditional petroleum diesel fuel...Collie's vocabulary rivals young child's, study says
source: by Rob Stein / The Washington Post
Rico, a 9-year-old Border collie from Germany, understands 200 human words, according to a new study. Rico, a border collie with what appears to be an uncanny talent for human language, may be the Albert Einstein of dogs or just your average pooch. Either way, scientists are wondering if man's best friend is smarter than they thought. A series of carefully designed studies concluded that the German dog has a stunningly large vocabulary and apparently can do something scientists thought only humans could do: Figure out, by the process of elimination, that a sound he has never heard must be the name of a toy he has never seen. That feat, described in today's issue of the journal Science, suggests that dog owners who claim their pets understand what they're saying and are trying to respond may have been right...The Problem Of Increasing Human Energy - Harnessing of the Sun's Energy.
source: by Nikola Tesla / PBS Archives
Of all the endless variety of phenomena which nature presents to our senses, there is none that fills our minds with greater wonder than that inconceivably complex movement which, in its entirety, we designate as human life; Its mysterious origin is veiled in the forever impenetrable mist of the past, its character is rendered incomprehensible by its infinite intricacy, and its destination is hidden in the unfathomable depths of the future. Whence does it come? What is it? Whither does it tend? are the great questions which the sages of all times have endeavored to answer. Modern science says: The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future. From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom. Lord Kelvin, in his profound meditations, allows us only a short span of life, something like six million years, after which time the suns bright light will have ceased to shine, and its life giving heat will have ebbed away, and our own earth will be a lump of ice, hurrying on through the eternal night. But do not let us despair. There will still be left upon it a glimmering spark of life, and there will be a chance to kindle a new fire on some distant star...Biodiesel Boom Well-Timed
source: by John Gartner / WIRED
Biodiesel fueling stations are sprouting like weeds across America, where production of the alternative fuel rose 66 percent in 2003. Experts say the rapid growth of the renewable fuel will stretch the country's tenuous petroleum supply while helping people breathe a little easier. Damon Toal-Rossi of Iowa City, Iowa, jumped on the biodiesel bandwagon after a friend outlined the benefits of using a fuel made from soy or vegetable oil. The software programmer liked the idea of a cleaner-burning fuel that reduces dependence on foreign oil so much that he traded in his gasoline-powered pickup truck for a diesel-powered Volkswagen Golf...Spelling Bee to Crown Champion Today
source: by Ben Feller / AP Education Writer
The best speller in the country will be determined in Washington today at the 77th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. The oral portion of the contest got under way yesterday with 256 contestants taking the stage. Of those, 191 spelled their first word correctly.
Nobody was directly eliminated for a wrong spelling yesterday but accuracy was still important. Finalists for today's round were selected using a point system based on their combined oral and written scores. Today, incorrect spellers will be eliminated.
The winner gets a prize package including $17,000 in cash and an engraved Spelling Bee cup. After getting every letter of "salicylate," "cribral" and "graupel," Hannah Grace Provenza had a little trouble spelling out her thoughts. "It's beyond my comprehension. Wow," said the beaming 14-year-old from Rockford, Ill., one of 46 children to advance to Thursday's finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee...Peace Gardens - Attaining homeland security by sewing the seeds of peace.
source: by Bruce Conway / www.lightwatcher.com (click graphic for large version)
One of the most successful civilian programs in WWI and WWII was the widespread cultivation of home victory gardens. The Federal Government did not support this program at first, due to the belief that it would be a poor allocation of resources and essential labor for a tiny yield of output. But as many of America's farmers went overseas to fight, domestic food production dwindled. This caused shortages and strict rationing of foodstuffs. Victory gardens quickly became an essential part of the civilian war effort. These small gardens supplied low cost and nutritious produce, and helped build morale during the hard times. By growing victory gardens, our grandparents resolved their food shortages with practicality and common sense...(more)Resistance to Patriot Act gaining ground - Communities are organizing
source: by Thanassis Cambanis / the Boston Globe
More than two centuries ago, the patriots of Brewster shut down the Colonial courts on Cape Cod in one of the first acts of resistance against the tyrannical rule of King George III. Now, deliberately evoking its Revolutionary history, Brewster Town Meeting has formally condemned the antiterrorist USA Patriot Act, united against the laws of a different leader named George. While the act is largely symbolic -- federal law enforcement agencies, not local governments, enforce the Patriot Act's new search, seizure, and detention provisions -- the grass-roots opposition has forged an unlikely alliance of people angry at Washington's domestic handling of the war on terror. In Brewster, anger at the Patriot Act has drawn together libertarians, an antitax group, and a Unitarian congregation, as well as a more traditional coalition of civil libertarians and antiwar activists...Take Back America Conference - June 2-4
source: Wes Boyd / MoveOn.org
On June 2nd, 3rd and 4th, we're co-sponsoring the biggest progressive conference of the year -- the Take Back America Conference in Washington D.C. So that every MoveOn member has a chance to be part of this amazing gathering, we're supporting a deep discount on conference registration for MoveOn members only -- $89.00 for three days, including meals during the day -- nearly a 50% discount. This will be the last time for all of us to get together before the November election, and plan the future of our growing movement to Take Back America...(to register see: https://secure.ctsg.com/ourfuture/moveonregister2004/)Conference looks at science behind love
source: By Associated Press
It's often looked to as a cure-all for nearly every ill, but what is the science behind love? More and more, researchers are using scientific techniques to try and isolate how love is fashioned and how it reveals itself. The Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, which studies and promotes healthy living, and the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have spent more than $3 million to fund nearly 40 love studies to be taken up at a weekend conference in Washington, D.C. The forum is expected to draw neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, public-health workers and theologians. "There have been studies that look at what happens to people if they are swamped with images of hate and violence," Lynn Underwood, vice president of health research for the Fetzer Institute, told the Kalamazoo Gazette. "But what we are doing is trying to understand what love does for people and where it can be used for interventions. We're looking at, how do you develop love and attitudes centered on the good of another...Tribe welcomes repatriated artifacts
source: By Jeff Barnard / API
An American Indian tribe Friday welcomed home artifacts that had been kept for nearly a century in a museum on the other side of the country. "God, Creator, Lord, we thank you for guiding what came home," Yurok tribal member Kathleen Vigil said, her eyes closed in prayer. "We praise you, too, for crying all the tears so that they can be put to rest and be happy, Lord." The artifacts were bought from tribal members in 1905 by Stewart Culin, the original curator of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, as part of a collection of 15,000 Indian artifacts, said Susan Kennedy Zeller, assistant curator for the New York museum's Arts of the Americas section. The artifacts included a vest of woven string and wood used as battle armor, two leather war caps, a pair of women's deerskin moccasins, a deer hoof necklace, 14 ceremonial arrows, three women's basket hats, a bone and leather dance whistle, a prayer pipe of soapstone and yew wood, and a deerskin tobacco pouch...Rafters fnish journey along the Nile
source: by Jasper Mortimer / Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt -- A crocodile chased them, a leopard prowled around their camp, and they paddled through war zones in Sudan and Uganda -- so four men and two women were relieved when they steered their two rafts into the Mediterranean Sea to finish a 4,160-mile journey along the Nile River. Expedition leader Hendri Coetzee, a professional whitewater rafter from South Africa, said he has been too busy to consider Friday's fulfillment of his dream, navigating the world's longest river from its source to the Mediterranean Sea in what is believed to be the first time in modern times. "I'm looking forward to sitting down somewhere for a bit of quiet and thinking about what it all means," he said by satellite phone as the rafts were on their final miles before reaching Rosetta in northern Egypt. The team set off from Jinja, Uganda, where the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria...Private spaceship makes it into space
source: by Dave Santucci / CNN
Aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his firm Scaled Composites took a giant leap early Thursday toward becoming the first private company to send a person into space. Scaled Composites, funded by Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen, set a new civilian altitude record of 40 miles in a craft called SpaceShipOne during a test flight above California's Mojave Desert. The firm is one of 24 companies from several countries competing for the $10 million X Prize, which will go to the first privately funded group to send three people on a 62.5-mile-high suborbital flight and repeat the feat within two weeks using the same vehicle. The nonprofit X Prize Foundation is sponsoring the contest to promote the development of a low-cost, efficient craft for space tourism in the same way prize competitions stimulated commercial aviation in the early 20th century...Visions for a new humanity - The New Harmonic Convergence - July 23 - 25
source: James Twyman
Join us in "The Revolution of Evolution," realizing a New World that is present NOW. Humanity is taking a stand, declaring to the Universe that WE HAVE ARRIVED!! This is a CALL TO ACTION for Luminaries around the world. On July 25th, hundreds of groups will celebrate the DAY OUT OF TIME, linking with the main event taking place in Ashland. Registration begins next week, and we need your presence to DECLARE the NEW WORLD. Mark your calendar today. JOIN JAMES TWYMAN, JOSE ARGUELLES, BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, NEALE DONALD WALSCH, STEPHEN SIMON, MARGARET STARBIRD, AND MANY OTHER LUMINARIES, FOR THE DAY OUT OF TIME CELEBRATION: "VISIONS FOR A NEW HUMANITY - A FESTIVAL OF THE FUTURE" - IN ASHLAND, OREGON ON JULY 23 - 25...Pedestrian paradise
source: By Jay Walljasper, Utne Reader / Alternet
One of the local characters in the small city where I grew up was Judge Green. A giant man, probably 6 feet 7, he was widely admired around town, in part because he had been star of the only Urbana High School team ever to make it to the championship game of the Illinois state basketball tournament. I remember him as a cheerful man who greeted everyone with a smile. But he had one trait that made him seem a bit peculiar: He walked to work every day. If you drove down Broadway Avenue at certain hours, you couldn't miss his towering figure striding along the sidewalk. One day, home from college and already an ardent environmentalist, I was walking uptown myself when it dawned on me that Judge Green's home was only a few blocks from the courthouse hardly more than half a mile. I was shocked. The man many folks thought eccentric (and I thought heroic) for not driving to work each day was covering a distance that would be nothing to pedestrians in Europe...Sustainability report awards environmental, social performance
source: by William Baue / SocialFunds.com
Earlier this month, the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) announced recipients of the second annual North American Sustainability Reporting Awards. Alberta-based Suncor Energy (ticker: SU) won top honors for the best sustainability report of the 32 submitted. Texas-based Dell (DELL) took home the award for the best environmental report of the 12 entered. Kinko's, a privately-held company that is also based in Texas, won the best first-time report. The awards seek to "encourage better reporting on sustainability," "reward best practice and provide guidance" to others publishing sustainability reports, and "increase accountability for impacts and responsiveness to stakeholders," according to...Sustainability in the city: Santa Monica reduces ecological footprint on the planet
source: U.S. Newswire
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Redefining Progress releases an innovate study analyzing the changes in Santa Monica's Ecological Footprint -- which tracks the amount of natural resources that humans consume. Results showed that between 1990 and 2000 Santa Monica's Ecological Footprint shrank 5.7 percent, 167 square miles. At 20.9 acres per capita the city's Footprint is considerably smaller than the US average. "In the year 2000, the US became the country with the largest average Ecological Footprint on the planet requiring 24 acres per person. This makes the city's progress all that much more impressive" said Jason Venetoulis, co-director of the Sustainable Indicators Program at Redefining Progress.
Dr. Venetoulis and the City of Santa Monica's Sustainable City team worked together in measuring and analyzing the city's Footprint. While their findings showed that the per capita and total Footprint was significantly reduced since the inception of the Sustainable City program...California bans E-Vote machines
source: By Kim Zetter / WIRED
California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ended five months of speculation and announced Friday that he was decertifying all electronic touch-screen voting machines in the state due to security concerns and lack of voter confidence. He also said that he was passing along evidence to the state's attorney general to bring criminal and civil charges against voting-machine-maker Diebold Election Systems for fraud. ll not tolerate deceitful tactics as engaged in by Diebold and we must send a clear and compelling message to the rest of the industry: Don't try to pull a fast one on the voters of California because there will be consequences if you do," he said. Shelley said the ban on touch-screen machines would stay in effect unless and until specific security measures could be put in place to safeguard the November vote...Many faiths, one message at UBC roundtable
source: Rosa Marchitelli / British Columbia Online News
A group of leading world spiritual leaders gathered in Vancouver say if people spent as much time developing their hearts as their brains, the world might not be such a troubled place. Their plea came during a roundtable discussion that featured Nobel Peace Prize winners the Dalai Lama, Archbiship Desmond Tutu and Iranian peace activist Shirin Ebadi. They were joined by the renowned Rabbi Salman Schachter-Shalomi and Jo-ann Archibald, internationally known for her efforts in reforming First Nations education.
Dalai Lama Even the moderator is an influential religious figure outspoken and controversial Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham, who is at the centre of the same-sex blessings debate. "I think there is a great thirst for a religion that removes boundaries instead of erecting barriers between people," said Ingham. All came to discuss the same topic "Balancing Educating the Mind with Educating the Heart" from very different perspectives. The Dalai Lama said modern education pays much more attention to development of the brain than that of the heart, and that family and religious values are in decline. Desmond Tutu and Ebadi agreed, telling...Schwarzenegger promises 'Hydrogen Highway' by 2010
source: Tom Chorneau / SFGate
After tooling across a university campus in a Toyota Highlander propelled by a clean-burning hydrogen engine, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Tuesday that California will have a network of stations offering the pollution-free fuel up and down the state within six years. The pledge, which has been made by the governor before, was formalized in an executive order he signed at a morning press conference at the University of California, Davis -- site of one of the country's most advanced centers for the study of alternative transportation systems. Although many industry experts say the governor's plans are ambitious -- estimated to cost $100 million -- Schwarzenegger said he believes the technology is available but government needs to play a catalyst role in making the new fuel system a reality. "Your government will lead by example," he said. "As I have said many times, the choice is not between economic progress and environmental protection. Here in California, growth and protecting our nature beauty go hand in hand."...Three Nobel laureates honored by University of British Columbia
source: AP
Three Nobel Peace Prize winners were honored by the University of British Columbia on Monday for their nonviolent resolutions to world conflict. The Dalai Lama, retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and human-rights activist Shirin Ebadi spoke to a gathering at the university before being granted honorary degrees. The exiled Tibetan Buddhist monk, who delivered a sold-out spiritual teaching to thousands in Vancouver over the weekend, vowed to fight to protect the culture and civil rights of people living in his Himalayan homeland...Hot tea and robes for returning astronauts
source: By Jonathan Brown
After six months circling the Earth on board the International Space Station, the British astronaut Michael Foale emerged from the Soyuz capsule yesterday feeling distinctly wobbly. "I feel the nice smell of earth ... and you are the first people I see after six months away. It's nice to be here," he said in Russian to the waiting search and rescue team, who were on hand with hot tea and warm fleeces. His bell-shaped module touched down perfectly in the steppes of Kazakhstan early yesterday morning after a three-and-a-half-hour descent - a "bull's-eye" landing, according to Nasa, which hailed the mission as a major advance in American-Russian space co-operation. Nasa-trained Mr Foale, 47, had spent the previous six months on the station with the Russian...Dutch build amphibious homes as new tactic
source: By Anthony Deutsch / Associated Press Writer
This low-lying land has a new weapon in its never-ending battle with the tides: amphibian houses. For centuries, the Dutch have built dikes to protect themselves from the sea. Now, with predictions of more frequent flooding due to climate change, they are looking for ways to live with water, not fight it. That change of thinking is reflected at a new housing project in this central Dutch village about 60 miles southeast of Amsterdam. It is a community of amphibious homes. Unlike the houseboats that line many Dutch canals or the floating villages of Asia, the several dozen homes are being built on solid ground. But they also are designed to float on flood water. Each house is made of lightweight wood, and the concrete base is hollow, giving it ship-like buoyancy. With no foundations anchored in the earth, the structure rests on the ground and is fastened to 15-foot-long mooring posts with sliding rings, allowing it to float upward should the river flood. All the electrical cables, water and sewage flow through flexible pipes inside the mooring piles...Italy holds 'peace marathon' in Holy Land
source: By Associated Press
Italian athletes, Catholic pilgrims, Israelis and Palestinians ran a "peace marathon" Friday from Jerusalem's Notre Dame Cathedral to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Fifteen Israelis joined the 15 Italians and pilgrims for the first leg of the 6.2 mile run, which led to an Israeli army checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the West Bank city where Christian tradition holds that Jesus was born...Earth Day 2004 - April 22
source: By Karin Czulik / KING5.com
Earth Day - to preserve what we have! Earth Day was first celebrated in the United States in 1970 in one of the largest demonstrations of its kind. Millions expressed their fear over what was happening to the environment and their dismay over the indifference by political leaders. Since then, Earth Day has emerged as a day observed by people all over the world.
It's a day that celebrates our planet, but also reminds people to take care of it, and to preserve and protect its natural resources. Many groups will use Earth Day 2004 to call for an increase in renewable energy and for responsible political leadership...Seeding renewables to grow jobs
source: By John Gartner / AlterNet
Trimming our reliance on fossil fuels is widely regarded as a strategy to stem alarming changes in the environment. It could also cut down the size of the unemployment line, according to research from the University of California at Berkeley. A new report states that investing in renewable energy sources including wind, solar, and biomass yields a greater return in job creation than spending on coal, gas, and petroleum exploration. The study, which was released on April 13, analyzed 13 independent renewable energy reports that were produced between 1999 and 2004. The report found that "Across a broad range of scenarios, the renewable energy sector generates more jobs per average megawatt of power installed, and per unit of energy produced, than the fossil fuel-based energy sector." The report determined that if the U.S. portfolio of energy sources remains constant through 2020, 86,369 new jobs would be created. However, if 20 percent...Wooden computers offer 'greener' desktop
source: Helen Pearson / Nature
Bored by your beige computer? A Swedish company is offering what they say is an ecofriendly alternative: a range of wooden computer monitors and keyboards that aim to brighten office life, while cutting the environmental impact of computer junk. Around 45 million new personal computer systems were bought in 2002-03 in the United States alone, many of which will end up in landfills. There is growing concern that the plastic skeletons are stacking up, and that toxic materials in their casings, chips and displays are leaching into the environment. Many standard plastic computer casings contain chemicals called brominated flame retardants, added to improve fire safety. Once in the environment, the cancer-causing chemicals are thought to accumulate in animal and human tissues.
To prevent this, Sollentuna-based company Swedx are making computer screens, keyboards and mice encased in timber. Swedx's wooden cases are custom built using wood logged from managed forests in China, and they decompose faster than plastic."...Could a little boy be proof of reincarnation?
source: ABC News
Nearly six decades ago, a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot on a mission over the Pacific was shot down by Japanese artillery. His name might have been forgotten, were it not for 6-year-old James Leininger. Quite a few people - including those who knew the fighter pilot - think James is the pilot, reincarnated. James' parents, Andrea and Bruce, a highly educated, modern couple, say they are "probably the people least likely to have a scenario like this pop up in their lives." But over time, they have become convinced their little son has had a former life. From an early age, James would play with nothing else but planes, his parents say. But when he was 2, they said the planes their son loved began to give him regular nightmares. "I'd wake him up and he'd be screaming," Andrea told ABCNEWS' Chris Cuomo. She said when she asked her son what he was dreaming about, he would say, "Airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out."...Be there - March for Women's Lives is a life-or-death decision
source: by Molly Ivins / Creators Syndicate
Women of America. This Sunday, April 25. Washington, D.C. The March for Women's Lives. Be there. This is it. It's all on the line now. Everyone who thinks she's too old, too tired and has done this too many times before, be there. Everyone who has never been to a women's march, who thought all the rights had long since been secured, who thinks feminism is old hat and has nothing to do with your life, be there. Bring your daughters, mothers, nieces, friends, husbands, sons and significant others. If you can't be there, get in touch with a local women's organization and help raise money for a "scholarship" to send someone else to represent you. Minority women, be there. The NAACP, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Black Women's Health Imperative and many other ...Meditation impacts teen blood pressure
source: By Daniel Yee / AP
A study by the Medical College of Georgia found that two 15-minute meditation sessions each day - once at home, the other at school - helped teenage students lower their blood pressure over four months. Their blood pressure even continued to drop for four months after the meditation sessions ended, researchers said Friday. One high school senior who benefited from the study was Nick Fitts. Fitts had a lot on his mind going into the research - two jobs, no car and rocky relations with his mother. The stress raised his blood pressure enough to put him at risk for developing hypertension, even though he kept active with track, band and junior ROTC...Russian group plans men on Mars by 2011
source: By Maria Denilova / Associated Press Writer
A group of Russian space experts on Friday announced an ambitious plan to send a six-man crew to Mars within a decade, a project it said would cost only $3.5 billion. Russian space officials dismissed the project as nonsense. A researcher at the Central Research Institute for Machine-Building, Russia's premier authority on space equipment design, said it would carry out the project with funding promised by Aerospace Systems, a little-known private Russian company that says it draws no resources from the state budget. The program envisions six people traveling to Mars and exploring it for several months before returning to Earth. The expedition is designed to last three years in all, and would depend on a fully equipped spacecraft containing its own garden, medical facilities and other amenities.
Georgy Uspensky, a department head at the institute, said that the comparatively small budget for the program reflected plans to use already existing spacecraft...Private manned rocket has 2nd test flight
source: By Associated Press
A manned rocket made its second powered test flight Thursday, one day after the government approved the private bid to fly to the edge of space and claim a $10 million prize. The SpaceShipOne rocket took off mated to a turbojet aircraft, separated and then flew under rocket power before landing at the Mojave Airport, according to its builder, Scaled Composites LLC. The flight was the second the spacecraft conducted using rocket power, and its 13th overall. Scaled Composites is one of more than two dozen teams competing for the $10 million X Prize, which will go to the first private effort to launch a manned craft to an altitude of 63 miles -- generally considered the edge of space -- twice within two weeks...Using capitalism to clean the sky
source: By Amit Asaravala / WIRED
Investing in the future of the Earth may seem like a hokey slogan for an environmental organization, but for the 49 students in Lynne Lewis' environmental economics class at Bates College, it's a requirement. Last month, students at the Lewiston, Maine, college bid on -- and won -- the rights to pollute the environment with nine tons of sulfur dioxide at an auction sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. They then proceeded to retire those rights, effectively keeping that sulfur dioxide from falling on Maine, or anywhere else, in the form of acid rain. It's a tactic for saving the environment that has been available to the public for more than a decade...Nationwide events to protest taxes for war
source: by Common Dreams
While millions of people in the U.S. are questioning the truth and consequences of the war in Iraq, more and more taxpayers are asking themselves how they can in good conscience pay for it, and many will be taking their protest to the street. On Tax Day, April 15, people around the country will be holding demonstrations and vigils or just leafleting with educational flyers in front of IRS offices and post offices around the U.S. In Portland, Oregon, protesters will gather at Pioneer Courthouse Square wearing barrels and not much else. Their message: "Military spending has stripped us of our resources for schools, healthcare, etc." At the Oakland, California, Federal Building, a press conference and creative nonviolent protest will announce, "We will not fund war and occupation." Joining this event will be Julia Butterfly Hill, who was recognized around the world for her two-year tree sit in the ancient redwood known as Luna. Last year, Ms Hill announced that she was making the largest single act of war tax resistance in history by reallocating over $100,000 in federal taxes to nonprofit organizations. Ms. Hill's tax bill was the result of a lawsuit settlement in which she donated 100% of the pro-ceeds to charity...Air America - Broadcasting from the Left with Al Franken
source: Joe Queenan / NPR
Credit: Bob HaywardMarch 31, 2004 -- The liberal-minded Air America radio network kicked off its programming at 6 a.m. Wednesday with the oddly familiar sounding Morning Sedition. Broadcast on six stations around the country -- and on XM satellite radio -- the new network features left-leaning celebrity hosts such as Al Franken (The O'Franken Factor) and Janeane Garofalo (The Majority Report). Cultural critic Joe Queenan joins NPR's Neal Conan and callers to discuss the launch of the radio network.
Listen in online with streaming media - http://www.airamericaradio.com/
Intuitions of the heart/mind
source: Institute of Heart Math
For centuries, the heart has been considered the source of emotion, courage and wisdom. At the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) Research Center, we are exploring the physiological mechanisms by which the heart communicates with the brain, thereby influencing information processing, perceptions, emotions and health. We are asking questions such as: Why do people experience the feeling or sensation of love and other positive emotional states in the area of the heart and what are the physiological ramifications of these emotions? How do stress and different emotional states affect the autonomic nervous system, the hormonal and immune systems, the heart and brain?...'God particle' may have been seen
source: By Paul Rincon / BBC News Online science staff
A scientist says one of the most sought after particles in physics - the Higgs boson - may have been found, but the evidence is still relatively weak. Peter Renton, of the University of Oxford, says the particle may have been detected by researchers at an atom-smashing facility in Switzerland. The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter. Dr Renton's assessment of the Higgs hunt is published in Nature magazine. His paper in the journal reviews the current state of play. "There's certainly evidence for something, whether it's the Higgs boson is questionable," Dr Renton, a particle physicist at Oxford, told BBC News Online. "It's compatible with the Higgs boson certainly, but only a direct observation would show...Modern-day explorers build spacecraft
sourc: by Betsy Taylor / Associated Press Writer
The reward is high, but so is the risk as some of the 27 teams pursuing a $10 million prize for the first privately funded manned spaceflight near a goal that once seemed outlandish. Organizers of the X Prize believe that teams could attempt the space trip as early as this summer. When the competition was announced just eight years ago, many were skeptical that any privately financed team could meet the requirements to collect the prize: Build a spacecraft capable of taking three passengers 62.5 miles above the planet, then make a second successful suborbital trip within two weeks. "It's going to happen in 2004. Someone will win it," said Gregg Maryniak, director of the St. Louis-based X Prize Foundation, a group created to spark development of reusable spacecraft that can take average citizens into space...Richard Clarke, folk hero
source: By Robert Dreyfuss, TomPaine.com
John F. Lehman, the former secretary of the Navy, probably wishes he hadn't asked Richard Clarke about Iraq on Wednesday. By doing so, he helped Clarke emerge as a new folk hero. Lehman also increased the chances that historians will view Clarke's devastating critique of Bush's terrorism and Iraq agenda as the beginning of the end of the Bush administration. The forum for all this was Richard Clarke's testimony in front of the bipartisan commission investigating terrorism and September 11. Clarke, of course, is the giant-killer and tell-all author whose recent release, Against All Enemies, blew the roof off of President Bush's claim to be a war president. Until Lehman's question, Clarke hadn't mentioned Iraq, though he'd quietly and effectively ripped President Bush to shreds for his failure...Living longer by eating less works at any age
source: Boston Globe
It's been known for decades that an animal's lifespan could be extended by severely reducing its calorie intake, while avoiding malnourishment. Calorie restriction slows the rate of aging, as well as the development of age-related diseases. (A few hardy, if hungry, souls are testing calorie restriction on themselves to see if this holds true for humans.) But it was also thought that a restricted diet had to be started early in an animal's life to work well.Nowa study on older mice in this week's Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences Early Edition suggests otherwise. Stephen Spindler of the University of California at Riverside and colleagues started late middle-aged mice on a restricted diet and found the same beneÞts: The mice lived almost six months longer and the onset and progression of cancers were slowed. Genetic analysis revealed that the older calorie-restricted mice had patterns of genetic activity similar to those of mice on the diet from their youth. The researchers suggest that drugs that could mimic the same patterns of genetic activity might give the same beneÞcial effects...Thousands march for peace
source: By Sarah Ferguson, AlterNet
In a preview of the kind of anti-Bush force that may converge in New York this summer during the Republican National Convention, tens of thousands of demonstrators from across the Northeast marched in Manhattan on Saturday to protest the one-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war and to demand an end to the American occupation. "Today we sent a message, not only to George Bush and his cronies in Washington but also to John Kerry and the people he wants to bring to the White House that our movement is alive and strong we're not going away," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, which initiated the call for a global peace demonstration last October. City officials estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000, but organizers said the number was closer to 100,000, considering that the march at one point spanned more than 40 blocks as it snaked through midtown. The New York demonstrations coincided with peace vigils and protests in close to 300 cities across the US and in 60 countries including an estimated 1 million Italians who filled the streets...Release of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi as condition for constitutional convention
source: Ron Corben / VOA News / Bangkok
Thailand's Foreign Minister says Burma's military government will need to release Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house detention before holding a planned constitutional convention. Aung San Suu Kyi's participation at the convention is seen as crucial to ensure international support for political reform in Burma. Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai told reporters Tuesday that the release of Burma's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was a key factor for the start of Burma's national constitutional convention. He said the convention can only start if she is released and he expects that to happen...Spiritual gangsters
source: submitted by John Kaminski / skylax@comcast.net
It's not the creed that's important, it's the integrity. It's not the name that we give to the thing we worship, it's recognizing the essence of that thing as the highest truth, the thing worth being worshipped, so that the name we put on it doesn't really matter, as long as we recognize the thing for what it is. We're too caught up in names, in identity, in rituals, and holiness. Piety makes me sick. Rituals bore me. What we're looking for is truth, and that can come in many guises, be from many place...The do-it-yourself economy
source: by Ellen Goodman / Washington Post / Workingforchange.com
Have you seen those economists scratching their heads trying to understand the jobless recovery? Every time they run the numbers they end up with a question mark: How is it possible that only 1,000 new jobs were created in the past month?
Well, maybe it's time we let them in on our little secret. The economy has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Only they aren't in the manufacturing sector. They aren't even in the service economy. They're in the self-service economy.
Companies are coming back to life without inviting employees back to work for one simple reason: they are outsourcing the jobs to us. You and I, my fellow Americans, have become the unpaid laborers of a do-it-yourself economy.Regime change movement picks up steam
source: By Don Hazen, AlterNet
Last summer, I sat in a hotel room at the Campaign for America's Future gathering in Washington D.C and listened to four presidential candidates John Edwards, John Kerry, Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich speak in rapid order. At that point, I didn't "have" a candidate, although I knew and admired Kucinich. But the issue already on my mind was electability; who among these candidates could go all the way come next November? I remember thinking as I listened to Kerry's speech, "OK, this guy is presidential, he's electable. I can live with John Kerry." The other candidates gave more rousing speeches and had more natural speaking talent, especially Kucinich, who brought the crowd to its feet a dozen times...Kids tell us what real love is
source: Janice Brooks / RENSE.com
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think: "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca - age 8...Robot dogs get social conscience installed
source: By Stephen Singer / Associated Press Writer
They sniff, wag their tails, fetch and run in packs. Inside their plastic and metallic skins, robotic dogs programmed by engineering students at Yale University even have a social conscience. The mechanical canines, equipped with just about everything but a wet nose, are wired to sniff out toxic materials at former landfills and radioactive sites, providing environmental information about parks, school yards and other public spaces. The robots have spurred toxic search projects in the United States, Europe and Australia. They are the brainchild of Natalie Jeremijenko, a lecturer in engineering at Yale and self-described technoartist. "Technology is a social actor," she said. "These dogs are programmed into instruments for social activism. It's technological politics in another form."...A global peace movement revival
source: By Tom Hayden, AlterNet
Natalia Ablova faces a tough challenge in her campaign against the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Ablova, who looks like any friendly middle-American in her plain dress, shoulder-length hair and reading glasses, is opposing the Iraq occupation on the streets of Kyrgistan, the only Central Asian country where such protest is permitted. "There is no chance for participatory democracy in our region," she laments. But last year, she led 30 human rights groups to the U.S. Embassy to denounce the invasion. Far from being alone, Natalia Ablova is complicating the Bush administration's war planning and its status as the sole superpower. On this March 20, the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq...Federal judge rules part of Patriot Act unconstitutional
source: RENSE.com / nbc4TVnews
A federal judge has ruled that a portion of the USA Patriot Act which bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations is unconstitutional and the government may not enforce it. David Cole, an attorney and Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project, said the ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the Patriot Act unconstitutional. In a 36-page ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution...Now it gets interesting -Think you know how 2004 will play out? Think again.
source: by Geov Parrish / WorkingForChange.com
Last week, between Bush's State of the Union, the Iowa Caucus results, and a few hundred thousand people on the streets in Iraq, anyone claiming to know how 2004 would play out got several rude shocks. At the end of it all, many, many questions suggest themselves. Moreover, amidst the media excitement, a couple of important stories got remarkably little play. The first of these was the apparent convening of a grand jury to investigate Karl Rove and company. The New York Times and others reported last week that a secret federal grand jury has been convened by the federal prosecutor charged with investigating the White House leak of the identity of Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA agent...Parrot's oratory stuns scientists
source: By Alex Kirby / BBC News Online environment correspondent
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short. The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour. He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do. N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine. N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world...Lessons from light shining through depression
source: by Dr. Darryl Pokea © 2004 all rights reserved
We are living in a civilization where it has become commonplace to pass pain around. Anyone can be vulnerable as they struggle to live. We all have witnessed the bullying and disrespect that generate helpless feelings in our workplace, our schools, with our neighbors, and within our families. While terrorism may be the overt manifestation of the insanity of passing pain onto others, hidden terrorism continues in each of us whenever we use one another as containers for our pain and carelessly discard them. Everyone's light is dimmed and lessons are lost when we use our pain as the new weapon of mass destruction...(continued)Academy of Sciences calls for universal health care by 2010
source: by Robert Pear / New York Times / Common Dreams
The president and Congress should immediately begin work to achieve health insurance coverage for all Americans by 2010, the National Academy of Sciences said on Wednesday. "It is time for our nation to extend coverage to everyone," the academy's Institute of Medicine said, in a report intended to put the issue back atop the national agenda. The report, summarizing three years of work by a panel of 15 experts, concluded, "Universal insurance coverage is an important and achievable goal for the country." The academy is an independent, nonpartisan body chartered by Congress. It did not endorse a specific legislative proposal or estimate the cost ...Streaker's karma
source: By Associated Press
men who went streaking through a Denny's restaurant were chilled and chagrined when they spotted a thief drive off in their getaway car, their clothes inside.
Naked in the 20-degree weather, the three young men huddled behind cars in a parking lot until police arrived.
"I don't think they were hiding. I think they were just concealing themselves," police spokesman Dick Cottam said.
The three entered the restaurant before daybreak Wednesday, wearing only shoes and hats. They left their car running so they could make a quick escape.Motor City plants a seed
source: Jim Hightower / jimhightower.com
Here's an inspiring story of renewal and human gumption to cheer you. It comes from Detroit - the hard-hit, gritty city that has lost thousands of its jobs and suffered a massive outflow of population over the last few decades, leaving abandoned buildings and vacant lots. Indeed, a third of the property within the city limits is nothing but boarded-up buildings and trash-littered lots. But, today, something new is growing in Detroit... literally. Coming off of dozens of those vacant lots are tons of hay, honey, chickens, goats' milk, tomatoes, herbs, beans, and even beef. This urban agricultural abundance is being produced by a hardy group of Detroiters who're turning Motor City into Garden City. More than 40 community gardens and microfarms...13-year-old celebrates birthday making 'PawsWatch' shelters
By: MARK SCHIELDROP / Animal Concerns.org
Hidden somewhere off the beaten path in Narragansett, a few homeless kitties now sleep on a warm bed of hay, surrounded by four wooden walls and with a tiled roof above their heads, protecting them from fierce nor'easters and freezing temperatures. Although the perfect resting place for a stray cat would be in a loving home, Elizabeth Lee, a seventh grader at the Narragansett Pier Middle School, has built two shelters for homeless cats and teamed up with PawsWatch, a Newport-based volunteer organization, to tuck them where feral felines roam.
"I saw an ad in the newspaper, that PawsWatch needed volunteers to make shelters, and I thought it would be a good idea," said Lee. As she approached her 13th birthday, instead of going somewhere with a group of friends or throwing a party, Lee decided to use the day to round up a workforce of her pals to hammer out a couple of shelters...A Gift of a Garden - Green activist Dan Barker is seeding many lives with hope
source: Smithsonian Magazine
In 1984, Dan Barker, a Vietnam vet studying philosophy at Oregon State University, had an epiphany. That spring, he felt himself drawn more to seed catalogs than to his texts on Hegel and Kant; he decided his life's work would be gardening. He wasn't thinking, though, about puttering in the backyard. He wanted to give gardens and the deep satisfaction of growing...Proof that the 'force' really is with us
source: Ai Lin Choo / Vancouver Sun
The ideas behind Star Wars, The X-Files and an assortment of other psychic films and shows may not be so far-fetched after all. According to a new study on visual perception, the "force" is possibly inherent in all of us, although we can't see it. For the many who sometimes walk into a room and feel that something is not quite right, the answer may lie in a sub-system of our visual experience, says Ronald Rensink, University of B.C. associate professor in psychology and computer science. "Basically visual perception then is two parts. It's got the sort of pictures we all know and love, and then we've got this other thing, this feeling, this using the force, this sensing stream, and they work in parallel, I think. They both operate at the same time," he said...'Spongebob' toy balloon flies 800 miles
source: By Associated Press
A Spongebob Squarepants balloon with a holiday wish attached traveled hundreds of miles from Central Mexico to southeast Texas, where a landowner found it in some bushes. "I could see it moving in the breeze off in the distance, and I couldn't make it out," Shirley Kennelly of Richmond told The Herald Coaster in Rosenberg. Kennelly was just returning from a hunting trip Sunday when he saw the balloon. Attached was a a green envelope with the words "Para Los 3 Reyes. Magos," meaning "For the Three Magic Kings," in the left corner. Inside the balloon was a piece of paper with photocopied pictures of toys the sender wanted for Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, which is celebrated in many Hispanic cultures on the 12th day after Christmas...Recognizing the voice of healing in the twenty first century.
source: by Dr. Darryl Pokea / All Rights Reserved
We need to wake up. For this author the most important element to understand energy transformation in healing is to realize the powerful effects our words and thoughts have on one another. Each one of us can have more of a negative impact than we want to be aware of. This causes damage. Equally important, we each have the potential to have profound positive effects on one another. This causes healing. We all grew up hearing "Sticks and Stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me." This clever rhyme is simply not true and the research I will cite in this article confirm...Building on our victories
source: by Eisha Mason / CommonDreams.org
We have arrived at the end of a tumultuous year in our world, in which our country and our own lives have changed dramatically. Last winter, in bitter cold, I was in Washington, D.C. marching to prevent the war in Iraq with 100,000 other dedicated Americans. We were a part of demonstrations all over the world, united in a desire for peace. We were cold, but our hearts were warm; and we dared to believe that we might really stop the coming war. But war came. And a year later, the Bush Administration continues its assault on civil liberties, on the environment, media, human services programs, and on our children's financial future...We must do what we can
source: By Diane Harvey / merak@sedona.net
John Kaminski's essay "What Do We Do?" states our collective predicament succinctly, comprehensively, and with poignant accuracy. He asks all the right questions, and he asks them in the right way. Since creative thinking can only arise from the way in which questions are framed in the first place, this is half the battle. Ultimately, the very answers we seek are hidden away inside the quality of the questions we ask. The problem is that few people ask the right questions: the questions based on the premise that everyone and everything matters. And fewer still burrow...New farm seen as model for wind energy
source: By Terence Chea / Associated Press Writer
Environmentalists say the dozens of turbines that rise more than 300 feet over wheat fields and herds of sheep here represent the future of wind energy -- and a model for overcoming the shortcomings that have kept wind from threatening the dominance of fossil fuels. The High Winds Energy Center, completed in December in the rolling hills between San Francisco and Sacramento, features turbines that can swivel with the direction of the wind, produce energy even if the wind is blowing less than 8 mph and generate 20 times more energy than earlier machines. This new wind system, along with similar ones being built around the country, promises to produce electricity at competitive prices -- all without disturbing surrounding farms and wildlife, two of the obstacles for wind power today. The 90 turbines at High Winds can generate 162 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 75,000 homes...Successful landing - NASA's Mars rover sends its first photos
source: By Andrew Bridges / AP Science Writer|
NASA's Spirit rover has sent its first images from Mars, showing a landscape scattered with small rocks that brought cheers from scientists. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began receiving the first of an estimated 60 to 80 images from Spirit's cameras late Saturday, just three hours after the robot made an apparently flawless landing on Mars. Scientists quickly assembled multiple black and white images to form a sweeping panoramic of the Martian landscape, as well as a bird's-eye view of the rover with its solar panels fully deployed...Digicam vs. Goliath
source: Nathan Fox / Working for change.com
MoveOn reality advertising campaign pits 'kids with iMacs' against Bush juggernaut Bush in 30 Seconds is a contest allowing anyone, amateur or professional, to submit a 30-second advertisement telling "the truth about George W. Bush." Hundreds have entered -- only one will survive. Progressive advocacy organization MoveOn.org, the contest sponsor, will use two rounds of judging to vote all but one spot off the island. The winner, having outlasted all competitors, will then go head-to-head with Bush himself, when MoveOn airs the winning ad on television. MoveOn, founded in 1998 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd in protest of the Clinton impeachment effort, bills itself as a "catalyst for a new kind of grassroots involvement." Today the organization has grown to encompass a network of over 1.7 million "online activists" with only a skeleton crew...Why Your Next Phone Call May Be online (and secure)
source: by Joshua Ellingson / WIRED
Voice over IP is cheap, easy, and available. Here's how it works. It started as a geek-out for corporate penny-pinchers. But now making phone calls using voice over Internet protocol is resonating with consumers. VoIP startups are promising cheap - sometimes free - calls to anywhere in the world. Stick wireless networking in the mix and voilà, voice over Wi-Fi. Add it all up and you get a disruptive technology that's making conventional phone companies nervous. Already 10 percent of all calls are transmitted with VoIP, and the adoption curve is arching steeply skyward. In the early days of VoIP, you needed software and a mike jacked into your PC to make a call. Today, a few providers offer adapters for traditional handsets that plug right into your broadband modem. Behind the scenes, VoIP works pretty much like email...Top German paper publishes only good news for Xmas
source: Reuters / Rense.com
Germany's top-selling newspaper published nothing but good news Wednesday, dropping its normal fare of crime, violence and scandal for stories about tax cuts, falling petrol prices and accelerating economic growth. "There's only good news today," Bild wrote in two-inch high letters at the top of page one, where the giant headlines are usually devoted to sex scandals, Germany's cannibal trial, killers, adulterers or dishonest politicians. Urging Germans to shed their natural frosty demeanor for the Christmas holiday season, Bild columnist Peter Bacher said there was always plenty of good news around, even if it was "sometimes overshadowed by evil, horror and terror."
Bild alsoSocial Capitalists - The top 20 groups that are changing the world.
Source: By: Cheryl Dahle / Fast Company
Every so often, our expectations of what is possible change. A new idea, an inspired invention, a resourceful person or group appears and alters the way we think about the world. Suddenly, sending a man to the moon, sprinting a mile in under four minutes, replacing a human heart with an artificial one, are no longer laughable propositions. We owe every quantum leap in our evolution as a society to those sorts of catalysts. You are about to meet 20 organizations that are in the business of changing expectations. They reshape reality - so that poor kids can attend college, so that people in the destitute corners of the world can get better health care, so that victims of human-rights abuses can be heard...The whispering wheel - A transportation breakthrough
source: by Thijs Westerbeek / Radio Nederland
A new Dutch invention can make cars, busses and other vehicles no less than 50 percent more efficient and thus more environmentally friendly. Better still, the technology is already available; it all comes down to a smart combination of existing systems. This winter, in the city of Apeldoorn, a city bus will be used to prove that the claims about the new invention are true. These are quite bold. E-traction, the company that developed the bus, boasts fuel savings of up to 60 per cent, with emissions down to only a fraction of the soot and carbon dioxide an ordinary bus would blow out of its tailpipe. In addition, the test bus requires no adaptation, its drivers need no extra training and there'll be no discomfort for passengers. It will simply run on diesel, just like all the other buses, and it should be just as reliable. One thing however will be very different; the Apeldoorn bus hardly makes a sound, hence its nickname "the whisperer". In-wheel engine. All this is made possible by an 'in-wheel' electric engine, in fact nothing more than a normal electric engine turned inside out...Federal Court defeats Bush anti-terror measures
source: by Jim Lobe / Common Dreams
U.S. civil liberties and human rights groups Thursday hailed the one-two punch delivered by two federal appeals courts against the Bush administration's refusal to recognize basic due-process rights of alleged U.S. and foreign detainees held as "enemy combatants" in Washington's "war on terrorism." "Not one, but two federal courts have rebuked the President today for his belief that he should be able to lock people up without basic access to our justice and without Congressional approval," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "No President should be able to assume such unilateral authority over people's freedoms, most crucially during times of threat to our national well-being," he added...The perfect holiday gift
source: By Molly Ivins / AlterNet
For those of us who are in a bit of lather about the state of the union these days and who hate to shop anyway the holidays offer a swell opportunity to help save the country and the earth, while getting rid of our entire shopping list at the same time. We can knock off our entire Christmas or Hanukkah gift lists without ever going near a mall. The perfect answer, of course, is to give money to a worthy cause in the name of your friends and loved ones. You simply send a check in honor of everyone on your list to some worthy cause you know they cherish and regard the simplicity of it. Checks do not require packaging. You will not be adding to the plastic peanut plague, so ecologically incorrect. A check is such a simple thing lightweight, portable, shipped without fuss by the U.S. Post Office for 37 cents and the mailperson picks it up for you. You can even call and put your donation on a credit card...Remembering the future
source: By Diane Harvey / merak@sedona.net
We can all heartily imagine it, and we must, if we wish to arrive sooner rather than later. At some elusive point in the future, the human race is alive and well, creatively inhabiting the sunny uplands of a peaceable and intelligent world. Somehow or other, we manage to climb up and out from the down-and-dirty, dimwitted and deadly here and now. On a higher turn of the spiral, we finally become fully human, and humane. Meanwhile, we are still being driven daft: run routinely and ritually amok, by miniscule numbers of mutant maddened chimps. Even snorting sides of beef are now elected to high office on this planet. One may well wonder just how far the zest for rule by the rudimentary will go: voting for brain stems?...Respect religious freedom in Tibet, U.S tells China
source: By Tibet.net
The U.S State Department yesterday released its 'International Religious Freedom Report, 2003' which will be submitted to the Congress by the Department in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The law provides that the Secretary of State shall transmit to Congress each year "an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom supplementing the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom." The report gives information on the deteriorating condition of religious freedom in Tibet and also touches upon the case of Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche who was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, and Lobsang Dhondup, an aide of Tulku, who was executed immediately after his death sentence...Group seeks E-Voting standards
source: By Kim Zetter / WIRED
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, the keepers of the atomic clock and the official arbiters of time in the United States, will attempt to restore trust and confidence in voting systems. That was the institute's announcement last week when it convened a conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to gather input from election officials, secretaries of state, voting-machine makers, computer security professionals and voting activists about how to address voters' lagging confidence in election systems -- particularly in electronic voting systems.
What might have been a contentious gathering, considering the ongoing disputes over electronic voting, turned out to be fairly tame. The discussion pitted critics of e-voting systems who want machines to produce an auditable paper trail...The Higher Mysteries
source: Dr. Norman Livergood / Hermes Press
From the beginning of recorded history, we have mention of sacred teachings concerning the rebirth of humans into a Higher Consciousness. In classical literature, reference is frequently made to "the Mysteries," (ta musteria), which became the technical term for secret rites and methods known and practiced only by the priest/hierophants who had been initiated. These sacred teachings were found in the empires of India, Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The Mysteries were taught in specially created Schools by priest-hierophants who developed extraordinary techniques to assist select candidates achieve a higher state of consciousness...The Battle of Darkness & Light
source: by Mary Sparrowdancer / http://www.sparrowdancer.com
It was due to my growing concerns about our country's growing health problems as well as the erosion of our civil liberties that, in November of 2002, I published a paper focusing upon both of these issues and spoke about them on several radio programs. The paper quietly made its way through Washington, D.C., and then around the world. The paper detailed the "revolving door" in Washington, D.C., an apparent turnstile between private industries and the United States government. Through this invisible door, industry managers pass directly into the very agencies that govern industry - the government's food, drug, agricultural and chemical regulatory departments - in order to influence regulations or speed the approval of their company's products. The paper, "Let Them Eat Anything," showed this unholy alliance, the conflict of interest that has contributed to a mounting epidemic of health problems in the United States...
Trapping the light fantastic
source: Hindustan Times
Physics seems to be in for the next big thing, if what researchers at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have achieved is any indication. They have reportedly frozen light and put a light beam literally behind bars. They apparently fired a short burst of red laser into a gas of hot rubidium atoms so that the electric and magnetic fields in the light interacted with matter. This is like putting drag chutes on the light beam so that it first slows down to a crawl, and is eventually brought to a complete halt. It sounds simple, but the actual physics involved must have taken some doing. After all, scientists have been trying to apply speed brakes on light for decades - with little success...Saddam captured alive in Tikrit
source: smh.com.au
Saddam Hussein was captured in his home town of Tikrit today in a major coup for the beleaguered US occupation forces. Paul Bremer, the top US administrator in Iraq, today confirmed Saddam Hussein's capture. "We got him," Bremer began the press conference. "This is a great day in Iraq's history. The tyrant is a prisoner." "There were no injuries. Not a single shot was fired," Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US general in Iraq, told the news conference in the Iraqi capital.
Soldiers tore off a false beard and took samples from the ousted dictator for DNA identity tests after digging down into a cellar...Iranian activist accepts Nobel Prize
source: By Doug Mellgren / Associated Press Writer
OSLO, Norway -- Iranian democracy activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, said Wednesday her award would inspire other women in the Islamic world to seek their rights and denounced leaders in the region who use religion as a pretext for dictatorship. Ebadi, Iran's first female judge, appeared at the award ceremony without the headscarf that Iran requires women to wear in public, in what many viewed as a silent expression of her battle for freedom.
The Oslo ceremony came as the 10 other Nobel winners in 2003, including six Americans, were in Stockholm, Sweden...Man of Peace - Child of Light
source: By Judith Moriarty / NoahsHouse@adelphia.net
It was February 2, 2001, and I had been invited to travel to Portland, Maine, to attend the sentencing of 77 year old peace activist Philip Berrigan. Philip did not deny that he and other demonstrators broke through a fence at a Maryland Air National Guard base and damaged two A-10 Thunderbolts. Berrigan said that the A-10 aircraft use armor-piercing ammunition that contains depleted uranium which he believes is the source of Gulf War Syndrome and the cause of numerous deaths and deformities of adults and children in Iraq and in our soldiers. He told the judge, of comparable age, "I was acting according to my conscience and the precepts of non-violent principles and laws". Berrigan was sentenced along with Susan Crane, 57, to a year in Federal Prison...Growing movement questions integrity of E-Voting
source: By Scott Shepard / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution / RENSE.com
Election officials and computer scientists are increasingly concerned that touch-screen electronic voting machines like the ones used in Georgia may be inaccurate and even susceptible to sabotage. Among some Democrats, there is deep distrust developing about the devices, particularly since a top executive in the voting machine industry is a major fund-raiser for President Bush. Industry officials insist that electronic balloting is reliable, accurate and secure and will help avert a repeat of the ballot-counting fiasco that held up results in Florida and sent the 2000 presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court. ..Teaching nonviolent regime change
source: Sean Gonsalves / Cape Cod Times
Peace, like freedom, is one of those things that everybody is "for." That's why when it comes to freedom, discerning wisdom requires that we ask: Freedom for whom (as in "free market" economics and "free trade" policy)? It's the same with peace. Peace under what circumstances? And who will bear the brunt of the burden? Given that noncombatants pay a disproportionate price in modern war, characterized as it is by escalating levels of terrorism, pure power moves wrapped in a veil of...Mark Twain's fog makes rare appearance
source: By Don Thompson / Associated Press Writer
A threatened species of frog thought to have inspired Mark Twain's tale of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" has been rediscovered in the county, 34 years after the frogs were last seen in the area. The children of a cattle rancher found the California red-legged frogs while playing around watering holes on their property, wildlife officials said Tuesday. They asked that the location not be disclosed as researchers work to protect the frogs and their habitat. A Fish and Wildlife Service biologist verified the discovery...NASA braces for rovers landing on Mars
source: By ANDREW BRIDGES / AP Science Writer
After seven routine months of spaceflight, NASA is bracing for six minutes of high anxiety in January, when the twin rovers it launched earlier this year punch through the Martian atmosphere to land on the Red Planet. Each of the unmanned, $400 million rovers must be slowed from 12,000 mph to a complete stop within minutes after first plunging into the planet's tenuous atmosphere. "Just getting to Mars is hard, but landing is more so," Ed Weiler, NASA's associate...11.28.03 - Buy Nothing Day to be celebrated in 55 countries
source: IndyMedia.org
In observance of what may very well be the most important holiday of the year for the anti-capitalist movement, people in at least 55 countries will celebrate "International Buy Nothing Day" this weekend. Begun in 1993 by the founders of Adbusters, the concept has taken root in diverse communities and manifested in multiple ways in cities throughout the world. In Europe, International Buy Nothing Day (BND) is celebrated the last Saturday in November (the 29th) while in the United States and Canada the event has coincided with the day after Thanksgiving. The latter date was chosen in response to the fact that the last Friday of November has become, due to intentional marketing strategies, the "biggest shopping day of the year" in the United States...Good buy, cruel world: A consumption manifesto
source: Umbra Fisk / grist magazine
Ever wonder when We the People stopped being called citizens and started being called consumers? Take back your real identity, and take the consumption-crazy days from Thanksgiving to New Year's in stride -- with Umbra Fisk's guide to graceful (and limited) consuming. Consumption is one of life's great pleasures. Buying things we crave, traveling to beautiful places, eating delectable food, owning every Stevie Wonder album: icing on the cake of life. But too often the effects of our blissful consumption make for a sad story. Giant cars exhaling dangerous exhaust, hog farms pumping out noxious pollutants, toxic trash heaps nudging into poor neighborhoods -- none of this if there weren't something to sell...Essay on the media and democracy
source: by Bill Moyers / CommonDreams.org
I am often asked why, as a journalist, I keep coming back to the story of media and democracy - how newspapers, radio stations, television and cable are being swallowed up by huge conglomerates. One answer comes from the former Yankee pitching star, Jim Bouton, who told me in an interview this week exactly what can happen when there's only one newspaper in a town and it's owned by a media conglomerate far from home. Bouton, you may remember, jolted the baseball world back in 1970 with his truth-telling diary of a season in the big leagues. Lo and behold, as Ball Four revealed to a shocked - shocked! - America, the "boys of summer" were just that - adolescents with overstuffed hormones...Who's the greenest of them all?
source: Amanda Griscom / grist magazine / Workingforchange.com
NRDC's new Robert Redford Building may be the most eco-friendly in the U.S. Truth be told, no one can really verify the claim that the Robert Redford Building is the nation's greenest structure. Though it is expected to receive the much-coveted Version 2 Platinum green building rating from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, which indicates the highest possible level of sustainable design, the building is just one of several others that may also soon carry this badge. But the claim itself represents a kind of triumph for the sustainable-building movement -- a gauntlet, finally, to be thrown down in the spirit of our famously competitive national ethos. It's about time that the all-American lust for superlatives and habit of one-upmanship be embraced by the building industry -- to see not only who can design the tallest and glitziest, but also who can out-green the rest.Beyond the pale green
source: Michelle Nijhuis / Grist magazine / Working for change
Organic food has hit the big time. The Whole Foods Market chain, the largest natural-foods retailer in the world, boasts 145 stores throughout North America; its leading competitor, Wild Oats, has 101 stores in 25 states and Canada. Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture put in place a set of national standards for organic food, smoothing the way for organic processors who buy ingredients from multiple states. Organic products -- fresh produce, frozen pizzas, and everything in between -- are now part of a multi-billion-dollar industry that's growing by 20 to 25 percent each year. But if you're reading this over an organic banana...The Blue Frontier campaign to save our living seas
source: by Ralph Nader / CommonDreams.org
It was a dinner gathering to remember. In a historic Washington, D.C. building there was assembly with such variety of talents dedicated to saving our awfully overburdened oceans that Blue Frontier director David Helvarg remarked "there's rarely been so much marine talent gathered in one place, since Jacques Cousteau dined alone." The dinner was the official launching of our Blue Frontier campaign to connect and help organize over 2000 coastal and maritime communities and civic associations into a powerful force to rollback the devastations that spell misuse and overuse of oceans, beaches, estuaries and bays. Assembled were ocean-savers such as John Passacantando of Greenpeace, Andy Sharpless of Oceana, Roger Berkowitz, the farseeing owner of the Legal Seafood restaurants, and Representatives George Miller, Steve Farr and Wayne Gilchrist who...Religious leaders call on US leaders to stop global warming
source: Common Dreams
PUBLIC EVENT: Clergy from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and other faith traditions will lead an interfaith service at the United Nations to call for action on the religious and moral challenge of global warming. This service of "repentance and renewal" will allow participants to say they're sorry for the ways that both American leaders and individuals have contributed to the problem and commit themselves to positive change. While the U.S. signed the Protocol in 1998, Congress never ratified it and President Bush has since repudiated it. Following the service, participants will visit 14 U.N. missions and meet with world leaders to discuss ways to strengthen U.S. commitment to action on this issue. Hundreds of people are expected to attend including large delegations from Massachusetts, Maine and New York. Wednesday, November 12...Pope puts 5 more on path toward Sainthood
source: By Frances D'Emilo / Associated Press Writer
Leading a long, solemn ceremony in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II put more faithful on the path toward sainthood Sunday, beatifying two Spaniards, an Italian, a Belgian and a Frenchwoman to give fresh inspiration to his flock. The voice of the ailing pontiff sounded strong as he presided over the two-hour beatification ceremony from the canopied altar on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica. While in most of his appearances lately the pope has remained practically immobile in a chair, John Paul at one point Sunday knelt in silent prayer, leaning on a kneeler...Personal voices: showing Bush the door in 2004
source; By Allan Hunt Badiner, AlterNet
The times call for a paraphrasing of the famous Mary Oliver question from her poem The Summer Day: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious chance to get Bush out of the White House?" As any informed person knows, the Bush regime is vulnerable on many fronts: the unprecedented national debt, the never-ending war in Iraq, the erosion of our civil liberties, etc. But perhaps the most insidious thing about this administration...Aussies do it right: E-Voting
source: By Kim Zetter / Wired News
While critics in the United States grow more concerned each day about the insecurity of electronic voting machines, Australians designed a system two years ago that addressed and eased most of those concerns: They chose to make the software running their system completely open to public scrutiny. Although a private Australian company designed the system, it was based on specifications set by independent election officials, who posted the code on the Internet for all to see and evaluate. What's more, it was accomplished from concept to product in six months. It went through a trial run in a state election in 2001...We, the People, will soon have our day
source: by Bruce Mulkey
Perhaps it took the blatant arrogance and supreme self-righteousness of the Bush Administration to wake us from our slumber. Perhaps it took the Asheville City Council's shameless pandering to a Texas corporation to move us into action. But regardless of the motivation, transformation is afoot, my friends. For politicians who have come to believe in their own entitlement, marketing themselves as though we're mere consumers of their pre-recorded sound bites, the time of reckoning is fast approaching. The Howard Dean phenomenon is a case in point. In one year's time Dean has become the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in part because of growing public disenchantment with the Washington elite...BuzzFlash interview: Bill Moyers - Host of PBS' "NOW"
source: Working Assets
Bill Moyers will be the keynote speaker at the National Conference on Media Reform in Madison, Wisconsin, on Nov. 8. Media reform is a subject near to his heart and a topic central to this BuzzFlash interview with him. Moyers is someone who knows both sides of the world of political media coverage, having served as Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. Over the years, we have come to know him as a thoughtful, impassioned journalist who has developed a voice and vision uniquely his own. Unlike...Help Pours in for Calif. Fire Victims
source: by Laura Wides / Associated Press Writer
The most destructive wildfires in California's history left thousands of people homeless, but help was pouring in. On Thursday, a stream of people dropped checks and clothing at a Red Cross collection site at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. The agency has provided food, shelter and small grants to more than 6,000 people from Ventura to San Diego County since the fires began. By midday, the agency had collected more than $100,000. Luke Schwaiger, age 4, plucked $3 in savings from his wallet while his 2-year-old brother, Jack, gave $1.An Open Letter to America: It's Time to Take Back Our Country
source: by John & Elaine Mellencamp
As the echo of the war drums fades away and the angry masses calling for blood slowly disperse, we, as a nation must now confront the truth. We face the unpleasant reality of an uncertain future, compromised safety, a failing economy, and the question of how a society of otherwise reasonable citizens was systematically lied to and manipulated into backing the political "hijacking" of Iraq. Before a single bomb was ever dropped, some of us, formerly called the "anti-American and unpatriotic," have questioned or opposed this war. Now, each day, as the dust settles and the truth slowly surfaces, more and more people come to the inevitable conclusion of what a debacle this whole war was. 39,000 bombs later, no weapons of mass destruction uncovered, no dangerous dictators captured, no connection to Sept 11. What have we gained but relentless media coverage of a fallen statue and some stolen oil fields -- the spoils of this misadventure...On the Duty of Civil Disobedience - by Henry David Thoreau
source: Lightman - [1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Goverment]
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government...Personal Voices: Ashcroft's Attack On Greenpeace
source: By John Passacantando, AlterNet
Yesterday the Greenpeace ship MV Esperanza arrived in Miami. However, rather than pulling into port, as Greenpeace ships do throughout the world, she will remain at anchor. The Port of Miami has refused us entry because John Ashcroft's Justice Department is prosecuting us for a protest action last year. The prosecution is unprecedented. Never before in U.S. history has an entire organization been prosecuted for a peaceful protest by its supporters. For years we have worked to end environmental destruction and human rights abuses in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. Destruction of these