Japan, Right Wing Douchebaggery, Military Industrial Complex, Prison Industrial Complex, Cyberwar, Islamophobia, Revolutions, Oil and Resources
Japan
Why Are Senior US Officials Presuming to Lecture the Japanese on Courage?: I’m struggling to understand why Obama Administration officials appear to be trying to lecture the Japanese government and particularly its nuclear emergency workers on the seriousness of the situation at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Generation Station. How is this helpful? You would think that the US would be bending over backwards to provide whatever help the Japanese request or need but without presuming to suggest that we know better than they how to handle a situation that has gone well beyond previous events and experience and off the charts when one checks the “what should you do if” manual…The Japanese have just suffered one of the worst triple catastrophes in their or anyone’s history. Thousands have been killed, more thousands may never be found. Whole towns and villages have been destroyed by the the quakes or wiped away by the tsunami. And now they face a desperate situation at this nuclear facility with no assured solutions and all options involving huge dangers to workers. But they hardly need to be told this by some anonymous smuck sitting in Washington, especially one representing a US government that is failing to address the needs of America. Nor do the Japanese need to be told by an unnamed American official to buck up and be more courageous. Dozens of workers dealing with the quakes, the tsunami and now the reactor crisis have risked their lives. The fifty or more people who have been working close to the failed reactors may already have been exposed to lethal doses. These people know what they’re facing and yet they’re still confronting the dangers and have been doing so for a week. The helicopter pilots now dropping water over Units 3 and 4, and the firemen working the hoses below, are also risking their lives, as are control room crews. Earth to cowardly US official: STFU. [ the anonymous statement given to ABC from an unnamed White House (or senior) official][16 mar 2011]
Thursday Night in Japan: Water Spraying Fails, Radiation High at Reactor Buildings: As of Thursday night Japan time, it appears that delivery of water from helicopters and the ground has been ineffective, radiation rates are still high around the reactor buildings, installation of an electric supply to run coolant pumps is delayed until Friday at the earliest, the US is organizing evacuation flights and China is calling for more information from the Japanese government. [17 mar 2011]
Japan’s earthquake death toll set to hit 25,000 as it emerges ANOTHER town has 10,000 people missing –Ishinomaki confirms the huge number of its citizens missing –North Eastern port town was hit by 20ft tsunami: The terrible toll of Japan’s double disaster became clearer today as it emerged as many as 25,000 people could be dead. As rescue crews trawled through mile after mile of tsunami-stricken wasteland, officials from the coastal town of Ishinomaki confirmed that 10,000 of their citizens were missing. The unimaginable figure is the same given as in the town of Minamisanriku, also in Miyagi state, which lost around half its population when it was razed to the ground by the 20 foot high wall of water.[16 Mar 2011]
Fukushima No. 4 reactor’s coolant may be boiling, evaporating: Fukushima’s imperiled nuclear plant is now facing another crisis, with authorities there stating a fourth reactor’s nuclear waste is overheating, which could lead to more spent fuel becoming unstable, compounding an already dire situation. After explosions at the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors at Fukushima’s Dai Ichi nuclear facility in Japan destroyed containment buildings, latest reports reveal the growing crisis now includes an unstable situation at its No. 4 reactor.[16 Mar 2011]
NRC Chair: “No Water In The Spent Fuel Pool” at Unit 4: The chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned this afternoon that all of the water is gone from the spent fuel pool at reactor four of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing “extremely high” radiation levels. “We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures,” NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He suspected a hydrogen explosion occurred in the unit, due to the uncovering of the fuel in the pool.[16 Mar 2011]
More Smoke At Melting-Down Reactor –Radiation Levels 300 Times Normal South of Plant: Smoke or steam was seen again on Thursday morning at three reactors in Japan. A top U.S. nuclear official says there is no water left in one nuclear reactor that is melting down. A Japanese official disputes that report. The Japanese public TV network NHK said more smoke was seen at the Fukushima plant at 7:30 a.m. local time (or 6:30 p.m. ET) at units 2, 3 and 4. NHK also said police armed with firehouse may drive up to the injured reactors and try to flood them with water. Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told Congress on Wednesday afternoon that unit 4 at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan had no water left in its containment pool, based on information obtained by the U.S.[16 Mar 2011]
Radiation Plume to Reach Southern California Late Friday: A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday. The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.[17 Mar 2011]
Nuclear Crisis — Report: Diluted Radiation Plumes Will Reach California in Days; Japanese Efforts See Little Reward: Update: This morning’s report in the New York Times is grim indeed, describing the failure of multiple “ever more desperate and unconventional methods to cool damaged reactors” to make a significant impacts. Extremely high levels of radiation are preventing some efforts, hindering workers from getting too close to the zone. The Times also describes conflicting messages from American and Japanese officials, as Americans such as Gregory Jaczko, the chair of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have been much more fatalistic in public than their Japanese counterparts. Americans have recommemded evacuation within a 50-mile radius of the plant. Another article suggests that non-threatening radiation plumes could reach the West Coast of the U.S. in days. The radiation plumes from the plant “will “churn” across the ocean, “touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday” according to a projection from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, a UN-run organization. USA Today — without information on radioactivity levels in Fukushima, there’s no way of predicting how much radiation will hit the US[16 mar 2011]
Right Wing Douchebaggery
Music For Madison: Steve Earle Steps Up (With a Digression About the Fall of Communism): Steve Earle, who’s hands-down one of the best songwriters of our time, has re-released two union-themed songs on iTunes to support the Madison protesters. “Harlan Man” and “The Mountain” are being issued as a special “2-track digital single” (I didn’t know you could do that), with all proceeds going to The America Votes Labor Unity Fund, through SaveWorkers.org.[17 mar 2011]
Arizona Lawmakers Try to Ban Undocumented Children from Public Schools: Arizona lawmakers are considering two bills that would block undocumented immigrants’ access to education to an even greater degree than current state law. SB 1611 — sponsored by state Senate President Russell Pearce (R) — bans undocumented students from enrolling in Kindergarten through 12th grade and attending community college. It also requires schools to notify law enforcement agencies if parents are unable to submit proof that their child is a citizen or legal resident. The other bill, SB 1407, requires schools to submit data on the number of enrolled undocumented and authorized immigrants alike, under threat of funding loss.[16 mar 2011]
Watch: Michael Moore, Protesters Come Out Against “Financial Martial Law”: Michael Moore has called Michigan Governor Rick Snyder “Scott Walker on steroids,” and with good reason. Even as protests geared up in Wisconsin, Snyder pushed through what’s been described as “financial martial law” — legislation that gives appointed CEOs the authority to run local governments and school boards and nullify collective bargaining rights. Hundreds showed up in Lansing to protest Snyder’s efforts today, which also, unsurprisingly, include outrageously massive tax cuts for the rich. Michael Moore has provided live video of the event (h/t Raw Story) [16 mar 2011]
GOP Plans to End Foreclosure Assistance Programs: Though their stated pledges since coming to power have been to ‘cut the deficit’ and ‘create jobs,’ House Republicans will soon take a series of votes to further solidify a radical agenda that does neither. Instead, this week they will bring to the floor two bills – the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Termination Act, H.R. 839, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program Termination Act (H.R. 861) – to end critical programs that help families and communities reeling from the effects of a financial crisis they didn’t create.[16 mar 2011]
Military Industrial Complex
NORAD conducting training flights over Washington area: The North American Aerospace Defense Command is conducting another round of training flights over the Washington area between midnight and 3 a.m. Thursday. The exercise, dubbed Falcon Virgo, is designed to hone NORAD’s intercept and identification operations as well as test the national capital region’s visual warning system. Civil Air Patrol and Air Force aircraft will participate in the exercise.[16 Mar 2011]
Contractors Watching Contractors? Where Is the True Oversight? (Part I): This is the first part of a two part series looking at the trend by the DoD to hire contractors to oversee other DoD contractors instead of doing the management and oversight themselves. Both Charles Smith and Robert Bauman are former DoD oversight and investigative personnel and they will explain fundamental and insidious problems with this new DoD fad, how and why it got started, how it hurts our defense and troops and what to do to begin to change it. This whole initiative by the DoD to shirk its oversight and management duties while cutting their own personnel to such a level that they are unable to successfully oversee even the oversight contractors has an unreal feel to it. The logic the Army uses to justify this during wartime seems like a trip by Alice to Wonderland. I have not seen such strange contracting moves since the DoD tried, in the 1980s, to get their errant contractors to voluntarily disclose their mismanagement and fraud, i.e., asking the contractors to fill out their own self-arrest forms. This new trend to have oversight contractors is complicated and destructive, so they will explain the problem this week and provide more evidence and solutions next week. Fasten your seatbelts; it is going to be a bumpy ride explaining these bizarre moves in military procurement.[16 mar 2011]
Prison Industrial Complex
ACLU: Treatment of WikiLeaks suspect is unconstitutional: The treatment of alleged WikiLeaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning is inhumane and violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, the ACLU charges. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates Wednesday, claiming that reports Manning is being forced to sleep naked in a military prison is a “gratuitously harsh treatment” that “violates fundamental constitutional norms.”[16 Mar 2011]
Cyberwar
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media: The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.[17 mar 2011]
Scary: People Who Watch and Trust Fox News Will Surprise You: One in four Americans believes “most or all” of what’s said on Fox News, despite Fox’s fabrication of everything from death panels to Climategate. [14 mar 2011]
Study: Majority of Consumers Obtain News From Online Sources: For the first time, 21st century consumers are reading the news online more than in print, according to the “State of the News Media 2011″ report by the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism. Only television remains the most-used resource for news among American adults, but the gap is closing…Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at NYU, said there is more to the decline of print news than an increased use of the Internet. “The rise of digital technology and the economic crash have been used to account for the general breakdown [of print] and that’s a simplistic explanation. The problems of the news business are far more profound than that. I think they have more to do with the failure of the news to deal honestly with issues that matter to people.” Mainstream publications have become more focused on “serving the interests of their advertisers,” Miller said. “They shy away from stories that the government doesn’t want people thinking about … people don’t trust the media in large part for good reason.”[16 mar 2011]
Islamophobia
Southwest Apologizes For Booting Muslim Woman From Flight: The airline that kicked Kevin Smith off a flight for being “too fat to fly” yet allowed three children to fly to Nashville without their parents’ knowledge is at it again — and now their incompetence has a racist twist! On Sunday, San Diego State University graduate student Irum Abassi was removed from a flight because she was wearing a head scarf and a flight attendant heard her say “It’s a go” on her phone. Except, she was actually saying, “I’ve got to go,” like everyone says when the flight attendants tell you to switch off your cell. [17 mar 2011]
Islamophobia Can Create Radicalization: Let me state quite directly: Islamophobia and those who promote it are a greater threat to the United States of America than Anwar al Awlaqi and his rag-tag team of terrorists. The Islamophobia we are witnessing today is the latest campaign by bigots to tear apart the very fabric of America.[7 mar 2011]
Revolutions
4 Times Journalists Are Missing in Libya: The New York Times said Wednesday that four of its journalists reporting on the conflict in Libya were missing. Editors said they were last in contact with the journalists, who were reporting from the eastern city of Ajdabiya, on Tuesday morning New York time. And despite secondhand reports that they had been swept up by Libyan government forces, the newspaper said it could not confirm that information.[17 Mar 2011]
Oil and Resources
Canada’s unique wetlands under threat: report: Canada must limit large-scale industrial activity in its boreal forest, the world’s largest intact timberland, to preserve millions of lakes and rivers critical to forming Arctic sea ice, a new report said Wednesday. The first of its kind study by the Pew Environment Group shows Canada’s boreal forest contains more unfrozen freshwater than any other ecosystem, totaling more than 197 million acres of surface freshwater. “When you look at a color-coded map of the world’s (unspoiled) freshwater reserves (marked in blue), it’s just shocking to see all the blue in Canada,” the study’s lead author Jeffrey Wells told AFP. Canada’s boreal forest possesses one quarter of the planet’s wetlands, half the world’s lakes larger than one square kilometer in size, five of the 50 largest rivers and the single largest remaining unpolluted fresh water body, Great Bear Lake. [16 mar 2011]
F.D.Brightly
Shorter Question Everything
Japan, Right Wing Douchebaggery, Military Industrial Complex, Prison Industrial Complex, Cyberwar, Islamophobia, Revolutions, Oil and Resources
Japan
Why Are Senior US Officials Presuming to Lecture the Japanese on Courage?: I’m struggling to understand why Obama Administration officials appear to be trying to lecture the Japanese government and particularly its nuclear emergency workers on the seriousness of the situation at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Generation Station. How is this helpful? You would think that the US would be bending over backwards to provide whatever help the Japanese request or need but without presuming to suggest that we know better than they how to handle a situation that has gone well beyond previous events and experience and off the charts when one checks the “what should you do if” manual…The Japanese have just suffered one of the worst triple catastrophes in their or anyone’s history. Thousands have been killed, more thousands may never be found. Whole towns and villages have been destroyed by the the quakes or wiped away by the tsunami. And now they face a desperate situation at this nuclear facility with no assured solutions and all options involving huge dangers to workers. But they hardly need to be told this by some anonymous smuck sitting in Washington, especially one representing a US government that is failing to address the needs of America. Nor do the Japanese need to be told by an unnamed American official to buck up and be more courageous. Dozens of workers dealing with the quakes, the tsunami and now the reactor crisis have risked their lives. The fifty or more people who have been working close to the failed reactors may already have been exposed to lethal doses. These people know what they’re facing and yet they’re still confronting the dangers and have been doing so for a week. The helicopter pilots now dropping water over Units 3 and 4, and the firemen working the hoses below, are also risking their lives, as are control room crews. Earth to cowardly US official: STFU. [ the anonymous statement given to ABC from an unnamed White House (or senior) official][16 mar 2011]
Thursday Night in Japan: Water Spraying Fails, Radiation High at Reactor Buildings: As of Thursday night Japan time, it appears that delivery of water from helicopters and the ground has been ineffective, radiation rates are still high around the reactor buildings, installation of an electric supply to run coolant pumps is delayed until Friday at the earliest, the US is organizing evacuation flights and China is calling for more information from the Japanese government. [17 mar 2011]
Japan’s earthquake death toll set to hit 25,000 as it emerges ANOTHER town has 10,000 people missing –Ishinomaki confirms the huge number of its citizens missing –North Eastern port town was hit by 20ft tsunami: The terrible toll of Japan’s double disaster became clearer today as it emerged as many as 25,000 people could be dead. As rescue crews trawled through mile after mile of tsunami-stricken wasteland, officials from the coastal town of Ishinomaki confirmed that 10,000 of their citizens were missing. The unimaginable figure is the same given as in the town of Minamisanriku, also in Miyagi state, which lost around half its population when it was razed to the ground by the 20 foot high wall of water.[16 Mar 2011]
Fukushima No. 4 reactor’s coolant may be boiling, evaporating: Fukushima’s imperiled nuclear plant is now facing another crisis, with authorities there stating a fourth reactor’s nuclear waste is overheating, which could lead to more spent fuel becoming unstable, compounding an already dire situation. After explosions at the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors at Fukushima’s Dai Ichi nuclear facility in Japan destroyed containment buildings, latest reports reveal the growing crisis now includes an unstable situation at its No. 4 reactor.[16 Mar 2011]
NRC Chair: “No Water In The Spent Fuel Pool” at Unit 4: The chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned this afternoon that all of the water is gone from the spent fuel pool at reactor four of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing “extremely high” radiation levels. “We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures,” NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He suspected a hydrogen explosion occurred in the unit, due to the uncovering of the fuel in the pool.[16 Mar 2011]
More Smoke At Melting-Down Reactor –Radiation Levels 300 Times Normal South of Plant: Smoke or steam was seen again on Thursday morning at three reactors in Japan. A top U.S. nuclear official says there is no water left in one nuclear reactor that is melting down. A Japanese official disputes that report. The Japanese public TV network NHK said more smoke was seen at the Fukushima plant at 7:30 a.m. local time (or 6:30 p.m. ET) at units 2, 3 and 4. NHK also said police armed with firehouse may drive up to the injured reactors and try to flood them with water. Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told Congress on Wednesday afternoon that unit 4 at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan had no water left in its containment pool, based on information obtained by the U.S.[16 Mar 2011]
Radiation Plume to Reach Southern California Late Friday: A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday. The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.[17 Mar 2011]
Nuclear Crisis — Report: Diluted Radiation Plumes Will Reach California in Days; Japanese Efforts See Little Reward: Update: This morning’s report in the New York Times is grim indeed, describing the failure of multiple “ever more desperate and unconventional methods to cool damaged reactors” to make a significant impacts. Extremely high levels of radiation are preventing some efforts, hindering workers from getting too close to the zone. The Times also describes conflicting messages from American and Japanese officials, as Americans such as Gregory Jaczko, the chair of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have been much more fatalistic in public than their Japanese counterparts. Americans have recommemded evacuation within a 50-mile radius of the plant. Another article suggests that non-threatening radiation plumes could reach the West Coast of the U.S. in days. The radiation plumes from the plant “will “churn” across the ocean, “touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday” according to a projection from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, a UN-run organization. USA Today — without information on radioactivity levels in Fukushima, there’s no way of predicting how much radiation will hit the US[16 mar 2011]
Right Wing Douchebaggery
Music For Madison: Steve Earle Steps Up (With a Digression About the Fall of Communism): Steve Earle, who’s hands-down one of the best songwriters of our time, has re-released two union-themed songs on iTunes to support the Madison protesters. “Harlan Man” and “The Mountain” are being issued as a special “2-track digital single” (I didn’t know you could do that), with all proceeds going to The America Votes Labor Unity Fund, through SaveWorkers.org.[17 mar 2011]
Arizona Lawmakers Try to Ban Undocumented Children from Public Schools: Arizona lawmakers are considering two bills that would block undocumented immigrants’ access to education to an even greater degree than current state law. SB 1611 — sponsored by state Senate President Russell Pearce (R) — bans undocumented students from enrolling in Kindergarten through 12th grade and attending community college. It also requires schools to notify law enforcement agencies if parents are unable to submit proof that their child is a citizen or legal resident. The other bill, SB 1407, requires schools to submit data on the number of enrolled undocumented and authorized immigrants alike, under threat of funding loss.[16 mar 2011]
Watch: Michael Moore, Protesters Come Out Against “Financial Martial Law”: Michael Moore has called Michigan Governor Rick Snyder “Scott Walker on steroids,” and with good reason. Even as protests geared up in Wisconsin, Snyder pushed through what’s been described as “financial martial law” — legislation that gives appointed CEOs the authority to run local governments and school boards and nullify collective bargaining rights. Hundreds showed up in Lansing to protest Snyder’s efforts today, which also, unsurprisingly, include outrageously massive tax cuts for the rich. Michael Moore has provided live video of the event (h/t Raw Story) [16 mar 2011]
GOP Plans to End Foreclosure Assistance Programs: Though their stated pledges since coming to power have been to ‘cut the deficit’ and ‘create jobs,’ House Republicans will soon take a series of votes to further solidify a radical agenda that does neither. Instead, this week they will bring to the floor two bills – the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Termination Act, H.R. 839, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program Termination Act (H.R. 861) – to end critical programs that help families and communities reeling from the effects of a financial crisis they didn’t create.[16 mar 2011]
Military Industrial Complex
NORAD conducting training flights over Washington area: The North American Aerospace Defense Command is conducting another round of training flights over the Washington area between midnight and 3 a.m. Thursday. The exercise, dubbed Falcon Virgo, is designed to hone NORAD’s intercept and identification operations as well as test the national capital region’s visual warning system. Civil Air Patrol and Air Force aircraft will participate in the exercise.[16 Mar 2011]
Contractors Watching Contractors? Where Is the True Oversight? (Part I): This is the first part of a two part series looking at the trend by the DoD to hire contractors to oversee other DoD contractors instead of doing the management and oversight themselves. Both Charles Smith and Robert Bauman are former DoD oversight and investigative personnel and they will explain fundamental and insidious problems with this new DoD fad, how and why it got started, how it hurts our defense and troops and what to do to begin to change it. This whole initiative by the DoD to shirk its oversight and management duties while cutting their own personnel to such a level that they are unable to successfully oversee even the oversight contractors has an unreal feel to it. The logic the Army uses to justify this during wartime seems like a trip by Alice to Wonderland. I have not seen such strange contracting moves since the DoD tried, in the 1980s, to get their errant contractors to voluntarily disclose their mismanagement and fraud, i.e., asking the contractors to fill out their own self-arrest forms. This new trend to have oversight contractors is complicated and destructive, so they will explain the problem this week and provide more evidence and solutions next week. Fasten your seatbelts; it is going to be a bumpy ride explaining these bizarre moves in military procurement.[16 mar 2011]
Prison Industrial Complex
ACLU: Treatment of WikiLeaks suspect is unconstitutional: The treatment of alleged WikiLeaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning is inhumane and violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, the ACLU charges. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates Wednesday, claiming that reports Manning is being forced to sleep naked in a military prison is a “gratuitously harsh treatment” that “violates fundamental constitutional norms.”[16 Mar 2011]
Cyberwar
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media: The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.[17 mar 2011]
Scary: People Who Watch and Trust Fox News Will Surprise You: One in four Americans believes “most or all” of what’s said on Fox News, despite Fox’s fabrication of everything from death panels to Climategate. [14 mar 2011]
Study: Majority of Consumers Obtain News From Online Sources: For the first time, 21st century consumers are reading the news online more than in print, according to the “State of the News Media 2011″ report by the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism. Only television remains the most-used resource for news among American adults, but the gap is closing…Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at NYU, said there is more to the decline of print news than an increased use of the Internet. “The rise of digital technology and the economic crash have been used to account for the general breakdown [of print] and that’s a simplistic explanation. The problems of the news business are far more profound than that. I think they have more to do with the failure of the news to deal honestly with issues that matter to people.” Mainstream publications have become more focused on “serving the interests of their advertisers,” Miller said. “They shy away from stories that the government doesn’t want people thinking about … people don’t trust the media in large part for good reason.”[16 mar 2011]
Islamophobia
Southwest Apologizes For Booting Muslim Woman From Flight: The airline that kicked Kevin Smith off a flight for being “too fat to fly” yet allowed three children to fly to Nashville without their parents’ knowledge is at it again — and now their incompetence has a racist twist! On Sunday, San Diego State University graduate student Irum Abassi was removed from a flight because she was wearing a head scarf and a flight attendant heard her say “It’s a go” on her phone. Except, she was actually saying, “I’ve got to go,” like everyone says when the flight attendants tell you to switch off your cell. [17 mar 2011]
Islamophobia Can Create Radicalization: Let me state quite directly: Islamophobia and those who promote it are a greater threat to the United States of America than Anwar al Awlaqi and his rag-tag team of terrorists. The Islamophobia we are witnessing today is the latest campaign by bigots to tear apart the very fabric of America.[7 mar 2011]
Revolutions
4 Times Journalists Are Missing in Libya: The New York Times said Wednesday that four of its journalists reporting on the conflict in Libya were missing. Editors said they were last in contact with the journalists, who were reporting from the eastern city of Ajdabiya, on Tuesday morning New York time. And despite secondhand reports that they had been swept up by Libyan government forces, the newspaper said it could not confirm that information.[17 Mar 2011]
Oil and Resources
Canada’s unique wetlands under threat: report: Canada must limit large-scale industrial activity in its boreal forest, the world’s largest intact timberland, to preserve millions of lakes and rivers critical to forming Arctic sea ice, a new report said Wednesday. The first of its kind study by the Pew Environment Group shows Canada’s boreal forest contains more unfrozen freshwater than any other ecosystem, totaling more than 197 million acres of surface freshwater. “When you look at a color-coded map of the world’s (unspoiled) freshwater reserves (marked in blue), it’s just shocking to see all the blue in Canada,” the study’s lead author Jeffrey Wells told AFP. Canada’s boreal forest possesses one quarter of the planet’s wetlands, half the world’s lakes larger than one square kilometer in size, five of the 50 largest rivers and the single largest remaining unpolluted fresh water body, Great Bear Lake. [16 mar 2011]