( – promoted by TheMomCat)

If you’ve ever visited the Daily Kos you may have noticed my nightly comments where I post a video from the series called Sixty Symbols on the Overnight News Digest. I thought you might enjoy these videos with some additional explication and exploration. There are a whole passel of them so getting through them all will take some time. I wonder, as I begin this random walk, where it will take me and what exciting and cool things I might learn and share.

I’m sure you all have some understanding of solar eclipses, at least enough to know that making lots of noise will chase the sun eating dragon away. : )    Although it may look as if the Dragon Moon swallows a helpless Sun during an eclipse the Moon is, of course, much much smaller than the Sun. It is actually a happy coincidence that in the epoch of man the Moon’s apparent size nearly perfectly fits over the disk of the Sun. The Sun’s distance from the Earth is about 390 times the Moon’s distance, and the Sun’s diameter is about 400 times the Moon’s diameter. Because these ratios are approximately the same, the Sun and the Moon as seen from Earth appear to be approximately the same size: about 0.5 degree of arc in angular measure.1 Yet the Moon moves in an elliptical orbit. Sometimes it is closer to Earth, sometimes farther away. The Earth itself also moves in an elliptical orbit with the same effect with respect to the Sun (though to a much lesser extent—relatively). Considering these two facts helps us understand that the apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon can vary. Essentially the type of eclipse depends on the Moon’s apparent diameter. There are four types of solar eclipses: A total eclipse occurs when the apparent diameter of the Moon matches or is greater than the apparent diameter of the Sun and totally covers the Sun. Only a small band of the surface of the Earth will experience ‘totality’. An annular eclipse occurs when the apparent diameter of the Moon is less than that of the Sun. When the Moon fully covers the Sun a bright ring or annulus appears to the observer. A partial eclipse is where the Moon partially covers the face of the Sun. The Sun and Moon are not directly in line with respect to the observer. A hybrid eclipse are rare (A & B type) eclipses which occur when at some points of the transit of the Moon’s shadow it appears as a total eclipse while at other points it appears as an annular eclipse. Total eclipse in the umbra. Annular eclipse in the antumbra. Partial eclipse in the penumbra.              Figure 2      Picture not to scale

                                 Table 1. Solar Eclipses: 2011 – 2020⁵

If you live in Europe the last total eclipse you might have viewed occurred on August 11, 1999. This was Europe’s first since 1990 andfor Great Britain the first since 1927. European’s will have to be satisfied with partialeclipses (though a trip to the Faroes in 2015 might prove interesting). The last eclipse to touch on U.S. soil was the eclipse of July 11th, 1991which was visible over parts of Hawaii. So, when will the next total eclipse occur in the United States? August 21, 2017

Abbondanza! Two total eclipses in 7 years.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 12 is the 346th day of the year (347th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 19 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1787, Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the Constitution, by a vote of 46 to 23. Pennsylvania was the first large state to ratify, as well as the first state to endure a serious Anti-Federalist challenge to ratification.

Pennsylvania drafted the most radical of the state constitutions during the War for Independence. By excluding Quakers and all other pacifists unwilling to take oaths of allegiance to the Revolutionary cause, a fervently anti-British and anti-Indian Scots-Irish faction had seized power for the first time in the remarkably diverse state. Only when pacifists were again able to exercise the franchise in peacetime was it conceivable that the more conservative U.S. Constitution might pass in Pennsylvania. Large states had the most to lose by joining a strengthened union. James Wilson’s genius in describing the nature of layered sovereignty in a federal republic, using the solar system as an analogy, was invaluable in convincing Pennsylvanians to ratify. Anti-Federalists found themselves in the hypocritical position of criticizing the federal Constitution for failing to codify the freedom of religious practice they had actively denied their fellow citizens during the War for Independence.

 627 – Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II’s Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh.

1098 – First Crusade: Massacre of Ma’arrat al-Numan – Crusaders breach the town’s walls and massacre about 20,000 inhabitants. After finding themselves with insufficient food, they resort to cannibalism.

1408 – The Order of the Dragon a monarchical chivalric order was created by Sigismund of Luxembourg, then King of Hungary.

1531 – Our Lady of Guadalupe (Spanish: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.) An image appeared miraculously on the cloak of Juan Diego, a simple indigenous peasant, on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: Second Battle of Ushant – A Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt in HMS Victory, defeats a French fleet.

1787 – Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the United States Constitution five days after Delaware became the first.

1862 – USS Cairo sinks on the Yazoo River, becoming the first armored ship to be sunk by an electrically detonated mine.

1870 – Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the second black U.S. congressman, the first one being Hiram Revels.

1897 – Belo Horizonte, the first planned city in Brazil, is founded.

1901 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal at Signal Hill in St John’s, Newfoundland.

1911 – Delhi replaces Calcutta as the capital of India.

1911 – King George V of the United Kingdom and Mary of Teck are enthroned as Emperor and Empress of India.

1917 – In Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys.

1918 – Flag of Estonia is raised atop the Pikk Hermann for the first time.

1925 – The Majlis of Iran votes to crown Reza Khan as the new Shah of Persia.

1935 – Lebensborn Project, a Nazi reproduction program, is founded by Heinrich Himmler.

1936 – Xi’an Incident: The Generalissimo of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek is kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang.

1941 – World War II: USMC F4F “Wildcats” sink the first 4 major Japanese ships off Wake Island.

1941 – World War II: UK declares war on Bulgaria. Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States. India declares war on Japan.

1941 – Adolf Hitler announces extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery

1942 – World War II: German troops begin Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad.

1950 – Paula Ackerman, the first woman appointed to perform rabbinical functions in the United States, leads the congregation in her first services.

1958 – Guinea joins the United Nations.

1963 – Kenya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1964 – Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta becomes the first President of the Republic of Kenya.

1979 – Coup d’etat of December Twelfth: South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, alleging involvement in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee.

1979 – President of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq, confers Nishan-e-Imtiaz on Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam.

1979 – The unrecognised state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia returns to British control and resumes using the name Southern Rhodesia.

1979 – A major earthquake and tsunami kill 259 people in Colombia.

1982 – Women’s peace protest at Greenham Common – 30,000 women hold hands and form a human chain around the 14.5 kilometres (9.0 mi) perimeter fence.

1984 – Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya becomes the third president of Mauritania after a coup d’etat against Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla while the latter was attending a summit.

1985 – Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashes after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland killing 256, including 248 members of the United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

1988 – The Clapham Junction rail crash kills thirty-five and injures hundreds after two collisions of three commuter trains – one of the worst train crashes in the United Kingdom.

1991 – Russian Federation gains independence from the USSR.

2000 – The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore

2005 – Gebran Tueni, Lebanese journalist and politician, is assassinated.

2006 – Peugeot produces its last car at the Ryton Plant signalling the end of mass car production in Coventry, formerly a major centre of the British motor industry.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day

         o Edburga of Minster-in-Thanet

         o Vicelinus

         o Feast of the Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe

   * Constitution Day, not a public holiday since 2005. (Russia)

   * Feast of Masa’il (“Questions”), the first day of the 15th month of the Baha’i calendar (Baha’i Faith)

   * Jamhuri Day, celebrate the independence of Kenya from Britain in 1963. (Kenya)

   * Neutrality Day and Student Youth Day, celebrate the status of permanent positive neutrality recognized by the UN General Assembly Resolution on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan on December 12, 1995 (Turkmenistan)

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The likely winner, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. If this sounds implausible to you, then read this

President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have sunk to the lowest level of his presidency, so low that he’d lose the White House to Republican Mitt Romney if the election were held today, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

The biggest reason for Obama’s fall: a sharp drop in approval among Democrats and liberals, apparently unhappy with his moves toward the center since he led the party to landslide losses in November’s midterm elections. At the same time, he’s gained nothing among independents.

“He’s having the worst of both worlds right now,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in New York, which conducted the national survey.

“As he moves to the center, he’s not picking up support among independents and he’s having some fall-off among his base. If his strategy is to gain independents and keep the Democrats in tow, it isn’t working so far.”

and look at this

Have things gotten better since late 2008, when Democrats took over? The answer is, not really. Unemployment went from about 8.5 percent when Obama took office, to 9.6 percent now. Millions of Americans’ mortgages are underwater. And despite wasting over a year on health care reform, almost no one has gotten new or better insurance as a result. In fact, the number of people with health insurance is even lower now than prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act.

The Republicans won back the House this past election not because they have a better idea or that Americans trust them, but to send a message to the President what he’s been doing hasn’t made it better. Raising taxes on on the poorest Americans and giving the top 2% free money that they won’t invest in jobs in this country, Obama will continue to alienate not just progressive, but independent voters and moderate Republicans. Obama can continue to turn his back on his supporters, break his campaign promises and negotiate with the “enemy” behind closed doors or he can move back to the left and start fighting for the people who put him in office. His choice. If he continues on the path he has now taken with this his tax cut bill, we will be watching President Mitt Romney take the oath of office January 20, 2012.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

This will be a full court press to get the Obama tax bill approved. Set your BS meters.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: David Axelrod will be front and center with Ms. Amanpour defending the Obama attack on 98% of America.

The saving grace for this hour will be Paul Krugman at the Round Table with George Will, Cokie Roberts and Matthew Dowd.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr Schieffer’s guests David Axelrod, Senior White House Adviser (This guy is really making the rounds), Howard Dean, former Democratic National Committee Chair and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

This could be interesting.

The Chris Matthews Show: Tweetie’s guest this week are pretty much the usual suspects: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor, Helene Cooper, The New York Times White House Correspondent and Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Senior Editor.

They will discuss these topics:

Did Barack Obama Get Back on the Right Track This Week?

Top Ten Political Gaffes of the Year

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Joining “Lurch” will be the “other Glen Beck with a white board”, Austin Goolsbee, trying to defend Obama’s latest cave exploration. Also, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, another politician that hasn’t seen a regressive tax he didn’t like, giving his corporatist opinion about Beltway gridlock. (I-195 has always sucked at rush hour).

The Round table should be a lively affair that actually might get me to watch. NY Rep. Anthony Weiner, who strongly opposes the Obama tax cuts, sits down with Fmr. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN), Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot, and NBC News White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie.

Axelrod gets a break

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Oh Noes! Here he is again! David Axelrod discussing guess what.

At least Candy has some balance with guests Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jim McDermott, two Democrats who are speaking out against the president’s compromise and telling the White House to stand up to the Republican Party and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who is one of a number of Democrats who have expressed their disappointment with Obama’s deal, but he’ll vote for it anyway.

The last guest will be Dennis Blair, the former director of national intelligence, who will babble about the tensions with North Korea and justification for staying in Afghanistan and, finally, call for Julian Assange’s hanging.

Gotta get that Wilileaks shot in there

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: It seems Mr. Axelrod missed Fareed’s show. Eh, too “international”

The President cut a deal with the GOP to continue the Bush tax cuts while extending unemployment benefits. Fareed’s take on the issue? It’s a missed opportunity to invest in America’s long term growth. And he’ll tell you about a country that seems to be setting itself up for the future, while the U.S. is putting more on the credit card.

Next up, he’s the most decorated soldier in Israel, a former Prime Minister, and that nation’s current Minister of Defense. Ehud Barak sits down with Fareed to talk about what we all know — thanks to Wikileaks – his country and a few of its Arab neighbors might have in common: the fear of a nuclear Iran. Barak also talks about how to move the peace process forward.

Then, one of the Republican party’s top women on why the GOP has the wrong attitude after its electoral victory. Former member of President George W. Bush’s cabinet and former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman on fixing that attitude problem…and on Sarah Palin’s chances for 2012. And what in the world: Glenn Beck says 10% of the world’s Muslims are terrorists. Could that be true?

After that, a GPS panel on how China handled the Nobel Peace Prize controversy and what’s behind that nation’s aggressive foreign policy moves?

And finally a look at the Star of David, in the last place on earth you might expect to find it.

Now for the other Sunday pundits:

Robert Reich: Why Bill Clinton’s Favorable View of Obama’s Tax Deal Should Be Disregarded

Bill Clinton seems the perfect validator for Barack Obama — which is why the president is utilizing the former president for selling his tax deal. After all, the economy boomed when Clinton was president and 22 million net new jobs were created. From a more narrow political perspective — and this is important to Democrats in Washington — Bill Clinton was reelected, even though he lost both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms.

But the analogy falls apart as soon as you realize Clinton’s economy was vastly different from Obama’s. The recession Clinton inherited was relatively small, and caused by the Fed raising interest rates too high to ward off inflation. So it could be reversed by the Fed lowering interest rates — as the Fed did in 1994. By 1995, the so-called “jobless recovery” had morphed into a full-blown jobs recovery. By 1996, at pollster Dick Morris’s urging, Clinton could proclaim to the American people “you’ve never had it so good, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Johann Hari: The Banks Have Not Been Reregulated by Our Corrupt Politicians. So Get Ready for the Next Crash

Two years ago, you were mugged. So was I. So was everybody we know. You remember that night. The mugger wore a pin-striped suit from Saville Row, and when he cornered you at the cash machine, he said if you didn’t hand over $1 trillion in cash guarantees now now now, he’d knife the global economy in the heart. Oh, he was polite enough: he called the mugging a “bank bailout,” and promised that, sure, tomorrow he’d change my ways, so this will never happen again, guv’nor. But since then he has been laughing in your face — and preparing for an even bigger mugging next time.

There was a time when we left the question of banking to nerds, wonks, and lobbyists. You can leave this question to them again, if you want — but the price could be your job and your home.

To understand the renewed disaster that is waiting for us, you need to recap the story of how the bankers crashed the global economy. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, everybody realized the banks had behaved in a reckless and risky way with the people’s money, and they resolved to never let it happen again. President Franklin Roosevelt called them “malefactors of great wealth”, and said “I welcome their hatred.” In response to public pressure, he introduced strict regulations. Banks had to behave conservatively. They couldn’t take the deposits of ordinary people and gamble with them on Wall Street. They had to hold substantial capital reserves. They were locked in a golden cage, and similar rules spread across the world. For sixty years, it worked well. . . . .

It is all going to happen again, unless there is hefty public anger and pressure to bring back the banking regulations that worked so well between the 1930s and the 1990s. We need to take our government back from the corrupt clutches of the City. If we go back to sleep, we will be mugged again, and next time it will be with a bigger knife and deeper stab wounds. You can, at least, bank on that.

Dean Baker: The Obama Tax Deal: Giving the Hostage Takers More Hostages

As readers of this blog know, I was originally willing to support the package that President Obama negotiated with the Republicans. While I am not happy about giving tax breaks to rich people, President Obama extracted more concessions from the Republicans than I had expected in the form of extending unemployment insurance benefits, an expanded earned income tax credit, and most importantly a substantial reduction in the payroll tax.

However, after further thought and conversations with people around Washington (first and foremost, Nancy Altman, the co-director of Social Security Works), I have become convinced that this deal would be a disaster. Paul Krugman does a nice job laying out the limited benefits of the stimulus, but my greater concern is what happens to Social Security in this story. Effectively, this deal would give us a permanent two-percentage point reduction in the payroll tax in a Washington climate very hostile to Social Security.

The logic is that the tax cut is scheduled to expire in December of next year. While it would require new legislation to extend the cuts, the Republicans will describe the failure to extend the cuts as a tax increase on middle class workers. (Several Republicans have already told reporters that this would be their view.)

Jon Walker: In Tax Deal with GOP, Obama Didn’t Win as Many Concessions as Advertised

President Obama seems remarkably proud of himself for the many “concessions” he won from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as part of their deal to extend all the Bush tax cuts for two years. The administration has really tried to spin the “success” of this deal by claiming Obama got $238 billion in spending while the Republicans got only $114 billion of spending on what they want. Yet, it seems almost all of the “concessions” Obama claims to have won were ideas actually promoted by Republicans. The amount of money allocated for things Obama wanted that didn’t have bipartisan support is much smaller.

Overall, a very Republican Package

Looking at the entire package, it is a very pro-Republican proposal. Many of the items in the package that Obama and other Democrats have bragged about winning already had Republican support or were originally Republican ideas. Republicans have long pushed for a payroll tax cut, expanding the child tax credit, and special tax treatment for business investment. Congress probably could have passed all of these even without Obama giving in on the estate tax, so you can’t really count them as real concessions. Even the extension of unemployment benefits, which is a win for Obama, is only a partial cocession, given that the White House would have been able to get a shorter extension, separate from this deal.

The portion of the tax cut deal actually being spent on items that were not supported by Republicans and conservatives-like the college tuition tax credit-is relatively small. By my count, Obama really “got” a little over $80 billion in actual concessions from the Republicans-much less than the $114 billion in giveaways to the position Obama said he opposed.

It is hard to look at the totality of this package with its mostly Republican ideas and think Obama actually got a good deal-that is unless you accept the fact that he really didn’t want to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy right now, so he wasn’t actually giving up that much himself.

WikiLeaks’ advocates are wreaking ‘hacktivism’



By Ian Shapira and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

In England, a 26-year-old advertising agency employee caters to multinational clients but on the side has been communicating with a secretive band of strangers devoted to supporting WikiLeaks.

Halfway around the world, a 24-year-old in Montana has used a publicly available – and, according to security experts, suddenly popular software program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon with the goal of shutting down Web sites of WikiLeaks’ perceived enemies.

Syria’s underground poetry scene

Local poet Luqman Derki’s weekly poetry night held in a hotel basement attracts hundreds of locals seeking to present and hear original poetry.

By Tom Howard, Correspondent  

It is Monday night in the basement bar of the Fardoss Tower Hotel in Damascus and a packed audience is getting restless. Local poet, journalist, and playwright Luqman Derki takes to the podium. Silencing the crowd with a glare, he begins to recite an ode to love and loss.

Welcome to Beit al-Qasid (house of the poet), Mr. Derki’s weekly poetry night. What began informally in 2006 is now a phenomenon attracting hundreds.

“The main idea was to take poetry out of its typical setting,” says Derki. “Poetry evenings can be so boring, so I decided create something free and exciting.”

USA

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

 

By LOUISE STORY

Published: December 11, 2010  

On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.

The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable – and controversial – fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk.

Financial arms race underway in Washington

Posh fundraisers already are in full swing after record spending on midterms. Nobody wants to get ambushed again.  

By Tom Hamburger and Matea Gold, Tribune Washington Bureau

Reporting from Washington – When it comes to money in politics, the new normal is already on vivid display.

It could be seen last week in posh restaurants and corporate townhouses on Capitol Hill, where politicians held fundraisers at a record pace. It was evident at Washington’s blue-chip law firms, where campaign finance lawyers began work setting up new political committees to collect unlimited donations. It was apparent in the halls of Congress, where lawmakers swapped strategies about how to contend with muscular interest groups looking to take them out.

Europe

Business

Retail industry

Britain’s high street chains are named by sweatshop probe

Marks & Spencer, Next, Monsoon, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge accused by anti-poverty campaigners

Gethin Chamberlain

The Observer, Sunday 12 December 2010

Some of the biggest names on the British high street use Indian sweatshops which pay poverty wages and break labour laws to keep costs to a bare minimum, according to a new report.

Marks & Spencer, Next, Monsoon, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge are all named as having used factories which exploit their workers.

The allegations – levelled in a report by anti-poverty campaigners War on Want and Labour Behind the Label – will come as a particular embarrassment to M&S, which is running a glitzy, multi-million pound TV advertising campaign under the slogan “Don’t put a foot wrong this Christmas”. It is the second time this year the company has faced sweatshop allegations.

Kosovo holds historic election as division persists  

Kosovo is holding its first parliamentary election since unilaterally declaring independence from Serbia almost three years ago.

The BBC  12 December 2010

The ethnic Albanian majority and small Serb minority remain largely estranged, more than a decade after a Nato-led conflict broke Belgrade’s control.

Serbia has not recognised Kosovo’s independence and most Serbs are expected to boycott the elections.

The EU says the election is important for Kosovo’s hopes of entry.

During the campaign, institutionalised corruption and the dire state of Kosovo’s economy have consistently topped lists of voter concerns.

Middle East

‘Our lives became something we’d never dreamt’: The former Israeli soldiers who have testified against army abuses

Former Israeli soldiers who have testified against army abuses have for the first time given up their anonymity, to make their voices all the harder to ignore. Donald Macintyre gets an exclusive preview of a powerful new book

Sunday, 12 December 2010

For anyone who has covered Israel, the West Bank and Gaza over the past few years, reading Occupation of the Territories, the new book from the Israeli ex-soldiers organisation Breaking the Silence, can be an eerily evocative experience.

A conscript from the Givati Brigade, for example, describes how troops in the company operating next to his inside Gaza during 2008 had talked about an event earlier in the day. After knocking on the door of a Palestinian house and receiving no immediate answer, they had placed a “fox” – military slang for explosives used to break through doors and walls – outside the front door.

Deadly act scripted for state TV  



December 12, 2010  

TEHRAN: Iran’s English-language Press TV has aired footage of a woman, sentenced to death by stoning, re-enacting what it said was the murder of her husband.

The broadcast came a day after reports from Germany that Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, whose case has sparked an international outcry, had been released.

But those hopes were dashed as Iranian authorities mocked talk of her release by saying Mohammadi-Ashtiani was still in custody.

Asia

Mothers – the hidden addicts of Afghanistan  

Opium is routinely used as a painkiller in parts of the country where there is little medical help

By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul Sunday, 12 December 2010

Mariana lies on her bed in the Sanga Amaj clinic in Kabul. She shares a small ward with 12 women enrolled in the clinic’s 45-day residential drug rehabilitation programme. At 22, she is five months pregnant with her fourth child. Her one-year-old son lies in a separate room of the clinic. He is also addicted to opium.

Mariana is one of an estimated one million Afghan adults addicted to illegal drugs, according to the latest survey from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Big fat red faces for Singapore leaders  



Philip Dorling and Nick McKenzie

December 12, 2010  

MALAYSIA’S “dangerous” decline is fuelled by incompetent politicians, Thailand is dogged by corruption and a “very erratic” crown prince, Japan is a “big fat loser” and India is ”stupid”.

So say some of Singapore’s highest ranking officials, according to leaked US State Department cables which are likely to spark intense political controversy in the region.

The cables, leaked exclusively to The Sun-Herald by WikiLeaks, detail separate meetings between senior US officials and Singapore’s Foreign Affairs chiefs Peter Ho, Bilahari Kausikan and Tommy Koh.

Africa

Central Africa: four-nation ‘sting’ operation busts wildlife smuggling ring

Conservationists hail breakthrough in regional co-operation to fight illegal traffic in ivory, parrots, skins and live animals

Charlotte Wilkins Yaoundé, Cameroon

The Observer, Sunday 12 December 2010  

Sting operationsby wildlife activists in central Africa have broken up highly organised smuggling rings sending endangered species abroad, leading to the arrest of key dealers and the recovery of hundreds of kilos of ivory, turtle shells and animal skins.

The clampdown took place across four neighbouring countries: Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.Observers said the arrests last week, co-ordinated by the Last Great Ape Organisation (Laga), a wildlife law-enforcement NGO, in Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville, marked a big step towards regional enforcement of the laws protecting endangered species.

South Sudan ruling party supports independence



JUBA, SUDAN  

“Since unity has s not been made attractive, we are promoting what our people choose because we are following the people,” said Anne Itto, deputy secretary general of the southern branch of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Asked to clarify, she told reporters: “Separation.”

Almost three million people have signed up to vote in southern Sudan’s independence referendum in January, organisers of the vote said on Wednesday at the close of registration.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

All of my life, I’ve loved these animals. There’s something both awful and lovely about them. Or lovely about how they inspire awe, or awe-ful about how much I love them, or lovely about how they fill me with awe, or awe-inspiring about how lovely they are or . . . .

Well, foxes and ravens . . . . .

Frosty the Snowman (Jimmy Durante), Frosty Returns (Jonathan Winters), The Flight Before Christmas.  It’s a Wonderful Life (the classic, don’t let Glenn Beck ruin it for you.  A very young and attractive Donna Reed.  A very evil corporatist bankster Lionel Barrymore.).  The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (inferior to Tolkien in every way).

Archaeology is the search for fact… not truth. If it’s truth you’re looking for, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall.

• ABC Family– The Santa Clause 2, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (told you there’d be plenty of repeats)
• AMC– White Christmas x 2
• Bravo– House marathon
• Comedy– Scary Movie 4, Balls of Fury
• Disney– The Game Plan
• Discovery– Finding Amelia (Earhart)
• E!– The Whole Nine Yards
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Colorado State @ Kansas, Gonzaga @ Notre Dame
• FX– Tropic Thunder
• Lifetime– A Boyfriend for Christmas, James Patterson’s Sundays at Tiffany’s
• Oxygen– Practical Magic, Something’s Gotta Give x 2
• Sci Fi– Polar Storm, Ice Quake x 2
• Style– The Dish (premier)
• TBS– Fred Claus (again), The House Bunny (also again)
• Turner Classic– Meet Me in St. Louis (Judy Garland night)
• TLC– Sarah Palin’s Alaska marathon (including fish clubbing and the ironically titled She’s A Great Shot)
• TNT– The Forbidden Kingdom x 2
• Toon– Surf’s Up
• USA– Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade x 2
• Vs.– Point Break
• VH1– Fight Club

Later-

• AMC– Holiday Inn (the original debut of White Christmas)
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• FX– The League marathon
• Sci Fi– Yeti
• TBS– Joe Dirt
• Turner Classic– The Clock, The Pirate (more Judy)

SNL– Paul Rudd and Paul McCartney.

GitS SAC: 2nd Gig– Trial, Affection (Episodes 10 & 11)

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don’t do one.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

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Gbagbo’s rivals bid for backing of I.Coast military

by Roland Lloyd Parry, AFP

Thu Dec 9, 4:55 pm ET

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Pressure on Laurent Gbagbo to quit power in Ivory Coast after a disputed presidential poll intensified Thursday with world powers freezing him out and domestic rivals seeking the army’s allegiance.

After the African Union (AU) suspended Ivory Coast from its ranks and the United States warned of sanctions, the rival administration set up by Alassane Ouattara demanded the national military recognise him as head of state.

“The government demands that the Security and Defence Forces carry out their republican mission under President Alassane Ouattara, the supreme chief of the armed forces,” said Ouattara’s government in a statement.

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