daveeza

"The chapter Propensity Toward War bristles with examples of fiscal pillage disguised as “defense spending”. Mander digs up buried facts and explodes them like land mines: a quarter of the Pentagon budget finances 5,429 military bases in the US and in 38 foreign lands; post-Vietnam military spending has cost more than US$420 trillion; Pentagon spending consumes US$780 billion a year – 45% of America’s discretionary spending; add the unreported billions lavished on “national security”, and the tab tops US$1 trillion annually. Today, the US excels in only one area of economic endeavour: the production and deployment of military weaponry and troops. The Capitalism=Happiness link? It’s a hoax. For most Americans, happiness peaked in 1956 (at the dawn of the TV Age). The US now leads the industrialised world in divorce, obesity, imprisonments, maternal and infant mortality, rape, armed robbery and wealth inequality. Mander concedes that capitalism “built the world we live in”, but it “also... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Tropical Permaculture Growing Delicious Fruit And Vegetables The Smart Way, In A Healthy And Organic Garden That Mostly Looks After Itself. Permaculture is about "...saving the planet and living to be a hundred, while throwing very impressive dinner parties and organising other creatures to do most of the work." That is a quote from gardening book author Linda Woodrow, and it is my favourite "definition" of permaculture. Linda is right, and she summed it up perfectly. That's exactly what this site is all about! Growing Chillies Growing Chillies Growing Basil Growing Basil Growing Pineapples Growing Pineapples Growing Papaya Growing Papaya Growing Cashews Growing Cashews Growing Mango Growing Mangoes Growing Salad Vegetables Salad Vegetables Growing Asian Vegetables Asian Vegetables Growing Ornamental Vegetables Ornamental Vegetables If you ever contemplated growing fruit, herbs or vegetables, but thought it's too hard, too difficult or too much work, then let this site convince you... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Also consider that GM was "gifted" tax losses from the "Old GM" corporation in amounts of $45 billion. What that really means is the "New GM" can write off current profits up to that amount and not pay taxes on it. That's a complete joke, in my opinion. Think of it like this: GM took our tax dollars to save its company, and then after turning 13 quarters of profit, it still isn't paying a single income-tax dollar. Are you kidding me? News flash: My recent taxes cost me and my wallet a bundle, and I didn't turn billions in profit. Too often, people assume that since GM received nearly $50 billion in taxpayer funding, and when people hear that GM has fully repaid its obligations, we assume that means it repaid the said $50 billion. That couldn't be further from the truth. GM has merely paid its initial pure loan of $6.7 billion with interest, and rebought some of its own shares from the Treasury -- often at a cheaper price. Most of us taxpayers don't even realize Ford paid an effective... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"news Comment inShare118 Tumblr May Reject Yahoo’s $1.1B Acquisition Offer For Being “Too Low” Josh Constine posted yesterday Comments Tumblr not Tumblr employees feel that Yahoo’s $1.1 billion offer is “too low” and view it as “only a first offer,” according to sources close to acquisition talks. Yahoo may have to increase the offer to close the deal. An acquisition by some tech giant is likely in the cards for Tumblr, though, as sources say the company only has a few months of cash runway left. The news comes after AllThingsD reported Yahoo was in advanced talks to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, and the portal’s board of directors are set to meet on Sunday night to discuss the potential deal. Forbes reports that Facebook and Microsoft have also expressed interest in acquiring Tumblr. However, Forbes says that Yahoo has lock-up agreement arranged with Tumblr that prevents the blogging platform from holding a “bake-off” or bidding war for the right to buy it. If Yahoo comes to the... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"“Sure you do, you just aren’t aware of that yet. For many years now, we’ve looked at everything you’ve looked at online. Everything. We know what you want, and when you want it, down to the time of day. Why wait for you to request it? And in fact, why wait for you to discover that you even want to request it? We can just serve it to you.” The car stopped, and we got out on an airstrip. Tens of thousands of drones sat on the tarmac. Possibly hundreds of thousands. All of them equipped with cameras. “You’ve heard about our fleet of planes,” said Page’s Being. “That was just a start. What we needed to effectively see everything, everywhere, at once, was a complete air force. So we built one. You are wondering why they aren’t in the air, I know. It’s because of this.” He opened his hand and dozens of robotic bugs crawled out and swarmed over his arm and body. “These are Google Spiders. They’ve crawled the entire island, and now we’re ready to release them globally. We’re sending them... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Yes, more traditional business practices are going digital these days. Though sometimes, a good ol' physical business card is just as effective for that networking event, trade fair or random grocery store encounter. But to make yourself memorable, leave behind the ho-hum, stock-designed business cards in favor of something a bit more creative. Who knows? It might be worth that little extra investment when your company stands out from the stack of cards already on everyone's desk." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Pope Francis issued a strong call for world financial reform on Thursday, condemning a heartless "dictatorship of the economy" and saying the economic crisis had made life worse for millions in rich and poor countries. "Money has to serve, not to rule," he told ambassadors in the first major speech about finance since his election in March in which he also urged states to take greater control of their economies and protect the weakest. The economic crisis had created fear and desperation, diminished joy of life and increased violence and poverty as more people struggled to get by in "undignified" ways, the pope said. There was a "need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone," he added. "We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal," he said. The... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Add a comment 23 24 7 1 BeagleBoneBlack01_small The mini-computer market just got a bit more crowded today. DIYers and students looking for an affordable single-board computer that packs a little more punch than the Raspberry Pi – but who don’t need all the bells and whistles of the UDOO – should take a look at the $45 BeagleBone Black announced today by the BeagleBoard.org community. About the size of a credit card, the BeagleBone Black is game for anything, including your robot-making projects. BeagleBoard co-founder Jason Kridner told Ars Technica that it’s essentially a Linux computer with a powerful 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor from Texas Instrument (SitaraTM AM335x), 512MB RAM, and 2GB of on-board storage. Unlike the Raspberry Pi which relies on its SD Card slot to load software (including its operating system), Linux and Cloud9 IDE are preloaded onto this BeagleBoard so it frees up its microSD Card slot for whatever you need. It even offers an upgraded Web interface for... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Both men agree that the climate is in peril and we must move quickly to reduce carbon emissions. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. So is it time to begin serious geoengineering research? That’s where the disagreement kicks in. Caldeira argues that we should be doing the research now so that when calls for a technofix rise at some moment of future crisis, we can at least know what we’re doing, instead of fumbling blindly. He admits that 15 years ago he thought the idea was “loony” and recognizes the possibility of unintended consequences and unforeseen disasters. But he believes the chance that geoengineering could be a lesser-of-evils for our warming world is worth exploring. He likens it to “chemotherapy for the planet”: Poison is poison, but sometimes you resort to it to cope with something even worse. Hamilton, in turn, argues that geoengineering research is fraught with dangers of mythic proportions. (He makes the case at length in a short, powerful new book, Earthmasters:... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Equivalency Agreements were at one time an administrative tool used exclusively by Alberta to allow for that Province to undertake reviews and avoid duplication by the Federal Government. In recent highly contentious legislation, the use of Equivalency Agreements was forwarded by the Harper government to remove the Federal review components on so called "minor projects" making the Provinces sole arbiters. Given that Taseko's Fish Lake project was rejected by the Federal process but passed the provincial assessment we gain insight into why Harper made these adjustments. However, in the case of the Equivalency Agreement in British Columbia the exact opposite is occurring and the Province is being cut out of the process in order "to avoid duplication." This stands in stark contrast to both the traditional application of these agreements and how they are being currently utilized by this government. Our environment Minister needs to clarify why. Otherwise, it seems that not only are they... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"No issue has been more important to me, none has been more special to me than writing about CeCe McDonald," Hill said. "This speaks to the many, many battles we have in front of us as an LGBT community, as an ally community, as a community of people who are struggling to create a world that is more fair, more just, more democratic and ultimately just more free. We have so much work to do and I hope that the work that we all do tonight and the work that we do when we leave here will continue to make the world a little bit better and a little bit safer." McDonald was at a tavern in June 2011 when three people, one man and two women, allegedly began hurling racist and transphobic insults at her. One of the women may have thrown a glass at McDonald, leading to a fight. The man who allegedly was part of the berating was stabbed to death, with McDonald charged with his death. In 2012, she accepted a second-degree manslaughter plea, which would mean 41 months in prison for her. Stay tuned for more details." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Nobody will be surprised to hear an economics professor who is interested in policy claim that we need a “commission” made up of economic policy experts. But the reality is that in Canada today, the only politicians speaking aloud about climate change are those of the non-blue variety. The political landscape has become so polarized and negative that Canadians are wary of what anyone is saying. In what passes for debate today, lots of silly things get said just to score political points; the rarely uttered sensible things get lost in the day-to-day political noise. So we need a new approach to getting this debate moving. Maybe such an “expert commission” is the only way to re-start today’s climate change debate in a country where pragmatic conservatives are missing in action. Christopher Ragan teaches economics at McGill University; during 2009 and 2010 he was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at the federal Department of Finance in Ottawa." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Administration officials said they offered up the data with hopes that its release would administer a market corrective, forcing hospitals to take greater heed of competitors while arming ordinary people with information they could use to seek a better deal. The data could also spur health insurance companies to negotiate with hospitals to seek lower prices. "Our purpose for posting this information is to shine a much stronger light on these practices," said Jonathan Blum, director of the Center for Medicare. "What drives some hospitals to have significantly higher charges than their geographic peers? I don't think anyone here has come up with a good economic argument." The very fact that prices are now public may bring change, he added. "Hopefully, it will cause hospitals themselves to take a hard look at their charge-master practices and to ask hard questions of themselves as an industry why there is so much variation," he said. The amounts hospitals charge Medicare are not the... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"The new design improves on the original molten-salt reactor by changing the internal geometry and using different materials. Transatomic is keeping many of the design details to itself, but one change involves eliminating the graphite that took up 90 percent of the volume of the Oak Ridge reactor. The company has also modified conditions in the reactor to produce faster neutrons, which makes it possible to burn most of the material that is ordinarily discarded as waste. A conventional reactor produces about 20 metric tons of high-level waste a year, and that material needs to be stored for 100,000 years. The 500-megawatt Transatomic reactor will produce only four kilograms of such waste a year, along with 250 kilograms of lower-level waste that has to be stored for a few hundred years. The company’s next step is raising $5 million to run five experiments to help validate the basic design. Russ Wilcox, Transatomic’s CEO and the former CEO of E Ink, estimates that it will take eight years to build a prototype reactor—at a cost of $200 million." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"The new design improves on the original molten-salt reactor by changing the internal geometry and using different materials. Transatomic is keeping many of the design details to itself, but one change involves eliminating the graphite that took up 90 percent of the volume of the Oak Ridge reactor. The company has also modified conditions in the reactor to produce faster neutrons, which makes it possible to burn most of the material that is ordinarily discarded as waste. A conventional reactor produces about 20 metric tons of high-level waste a year, and that material needs to be stored for 100,000 years. The 500-megawatt Transatomic reactor will produce only four kilograms of such waste a year, along with 250 kilograms of lower-level waste that has to be stored for a few hundred years. The company’s next step is raising $5 million to run five experiments to help validate the basic design. Russ Wilcox, Transatomic’s CEO and the former CEO of E Ink, estimates that it will take eight years to build a prototype reactor—at a cost of $200 million." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"The annular Pebble Bed Advanced High Temperature Reactor (PB-AHTR) design has a nominal thermal power output of 900 MWth (and electrical output of 410 MWe). The PB-AHTR differs from conventional helium-cooled HTRs because its liquid salt coolant enables operation with a core power density of 20 to 30 MWth/m3, compared to the 4.8 to 6.0 MWth/m3 typical of modular helium reactors (MHRs).1 The PB-AHTR delivers heat with a core outlet temperature of 704oC, achieving 46% thermal efficiency with a multi-reheat helium Brayton (gas-turbine) cycle. The low-pressure, chemically inert liquid-salt coolant, with its high heat capacity and capability for natural circulation heat transfer, provides: (1) robust safety (including fully passive decay-heat removal) and (2) improved economics with passive safety systems that allow higher power densities and longer-term scaling to large reactor sizes [>1000 MW(e)] for central station applications." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Since winning his majority, the prime minister has increasingly given vent to his anti-union venom. Last fall, he brought in a bill placing an onerous and unnecessary financial reporting burden on unions, while sparing professional and business associations a similar burden. Breaking the back of public sector unions is key to any plan to smash labour power in Canada, since the public sector is much more unionized — 75 per cent, compared to just 16 per cent of the private sector — and therefore better equipped to withstand attacks. So Harper’s latest salvo — legislation enabling the cabinet to intervene in collective bargaining at Crown corporations — is aimed at revving up his campaign against public sector unions. Business think-tanks, like the Fraser Institute, are helping out by generating papers showing that pay is higher in the public sector. That’s true; that’s what collective action achieves. But the difference is not dramatic, and is mostly due to higher public sector wages... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Since winning his majority, the prime minister has increasingly given vent to his anti-union venom. Last fall, he brought in a bill placing an onerous and unnecessary financial reporting burden on unions, while sparing professional and business associations a similar burden. Breaking the back of public sector unions is key to any plan to smash labour power in Canada, since the public sector is much more unionized — 75 per cent, compared to just 16 per cent of the private sector — and therefore better equipped to withstand attacks. So Harper’s latest salvo — legislation enabling the cabinet to intervene in collective bargaining at Crown corporations — is aimed at revving up his campaign against public sector unions. Business think-tanks, like the Fraser Institute, are helping out by generating papers showing that pay is higher in the public sector. That’s true; that’s what collective action achieves. But the difference is not dramatic, and is mostly due to higher public sector wages... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"If the story were to end here, until Tamerlan resurfaces as a suspect in the Boston bombing, the "Second Boston Massacre," it would be incredible enough. But it does not end. In 2012, exactly as the Russians warned that he was preparing for "travel...to join unspecified underground groups," that is what Tamerlan did. This has not escaped the attention of the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Texas Republican Mike McCaul. McCaul told Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union: The American people need to understand that the Chechen rebels are some of the fiercest jihadist warriors out there...they have also made an alliance with Al Qaeda. McCaul reminded us that the jihadist creed espoused by Chechen extremists was not anti-American only in the abstract. Chechens have been active in Iraq. McCaul told Crowley that one of his constituents, a soldier, had been killed by nine Chechen fighters in Iraq. Chechen jihadists are not just talking about killing Americans. As... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"The biggest oil and gas pipeline company in Canada is breaking National Energy Board safety rules at 117 of its 125 pump stations across the country, but Enbridge says it's not to blame. Enbridge was ordered by the Canadian energy regulator to disclose whether or not it had backup power to operate emergency shut-down systems in the facilities that keep oil flowing through its pipes. The company told the NEB only eight of its pump stations complied with the board's backup power system regulation. On top of that, Enbridge disclosed that 83 of its pump stations were missing emergency shut-down buttons. But the NEB admits that it has only just started to concentrate inspections on regulations covering backup power and shut-down systems. The regulations are anywhere from 14 to 19 years old." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Bookmark and Share Print français MEDIA RELEASE For Immediate Release May 6, 2013 EU-Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans Note: CETA negotiations continue in Brussels today (May 6) through at least Wednesday. Amsterdam/Brussels/Ottawa – The proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union (EU) and Canada would grant energy companies far-reaching rights to challenge bans and regulations of environmentally damaging shale gas development (fracking), a new briefing by Corporate Europe Observatory, The Council of Canadians and the Transnational Institute shows. As Canadian negotiators visit Brussels this week to move the CETA negotiations further towards conclusion, “The right to say no” warns the proposed investment protection clauses in the agreement would jeopardise governments’ ability to regulate or ban fracking. Currently, EU member states and Canadian provinces are studying the environmental and public health risks of this newly... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Ferguson attempted to smear Keynes and deprive him of standing in intellectual debate by calling him a deviant. That is what many conservatives after all believe gays are, and the childlessness charge is a none too subtle reference to the supposedly ‘unnatural’ character of homosocial love, which is ‘childless,’ in contrast with the biblical injunction ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (which, however, is manifestly very bad advice. Why does conservatism even have the implicit category of the deviant lurking in the back of its collective mind? Contemporary Conservatism erects a social hierarchy, with wealthy heterosexual Westerners (and their compradors) at the top, and other groups queuing behind them from below. The wealthy Western heterosexuals are autonomous wealth-creators, constantly dragged down by the foolish impulse to regulate inherent in the government, which in any case represents the unwashed hoi polloi. Ferguson’s remarks come on top of another conservative Harvard scandal, as... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"With the world's attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night. Fifty miles southeast of the capital, private security guards working for Vancouver-based mining firm Tahoe Resources shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road in front of Tahoe’s El Escobal silver mine. The mining company’s head of security was arrested while attempting to flee the country. A police officer and a campesino were killed during conflicts earlier this week. Through it all, demonstrations against the mining project have continued amid conflicting reports and government... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

Largely silent throughout most of the recent developments, Tahoe Resources issued a statement on Wednesday, May 1, “to clarify inaccurate media reports about violent incidents that have broken out in recent days.” In line with the company’s response after the murder of Xinka leader Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Tahoe claimed the incident in Jalapa had nothing whatsoever to do with the mine.... more... - daveeza

"Gude said it was difficult to figure out how much the United States has spent overall on Guantanamo detention facilities since it began housing prisoners there in 2002 because administrations only recently have been noting the expense in a budget line item. "I don't know if I've ever seen an estimate but it is certainly more than $1 billion by a comfortable margin, I would say, probably more than $2 billion," Gude said. Above the annual operating cost, capital spending on the prison could rise again if the Pentagon receives the funding it says it needs to renovate the place. General John Kelly, the head of Southern Command, which is responsible for Guantanamo, told a House of Representatives panel in March that he needed some $170 million to improve the facilities for troops stationed at the base as part of detention operations. Kelly said the living conditions were "pretty questionable" and told the panel, "We need to take care of our troops." (Reporting By David Alexander; Editing... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"The committee of former members of Congress appeared to be moved and highly interested to hear the testimony of the first international panel of the day, especially the riveting close encounter aerial "dogfight" described by Peruvian fighter pilot, Col. Oscar Santa-Maria. Cong. Darlene Hooley (Dem/Oregon) closed the morning session with praise for the panel: "I want to thank our panel for being here today. This has been really interesting and your openness and what's happening in each of your countries has been a real eye-opener for the rest of us." Former Peruvian Air Force Pilot's Riveting UFO Encounter Possibly the most intriguing testimony offered today so far came from a former 25-year Peruvian air force fighter pilot. Col. Oscar Santa-Maria (pictured below). In 1980, he was ordered to takeoff and shoot down a sphere-shaped UFO that was in restricted airspace near an air base. The encounter lasted more than 20 minutes." - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"Documents obtained by Postmedia News indicate much of this “larger, more robust contribution” to the U.S.-led war on drugs has been driven by the military itself, which has seen the mission as a key opportunity in the aftermath of Afghanistan. National Defence reports that the total cost of Operation Caribbe has increased from $25.3 million in 2008-09 to an estimated $282.2 million this year, reflecting that increased involvement as more military assets are dedicated to the mission. (Officially, National Defence says the actual cost of participating in Operation Caribbe was $7.4 million in 2008-09 and $9.6 million this year because the rest of the costs would have been incurred whether the mission was undertaken or not.) This expanded role, which has gone largely unreported, has included some prickly legal questions beyond the actions of the HMCS Goose Bay and Kingston. In 2010, for example, the Conservative government agreed to let armed U.S. Coast Guard boarding teams ride in... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"While most of the news on Venezuela in the week since the 14 April presidential election focused on the efforts of losing candidate Henrique Capriles to challenge the results, another campaign, based in Washington, was quite revealing – and the two were most definitely related. Without Washington's strong support – the first time it had refused to recognise a Venezuelan election result – it is unlikely that Capriles would have joined the hardcore elements of his camp in pretending that the election was stolen. Washington's efforts to de-legitimise the election mark a significant escalation of US efforts at regime change in Venezuela. Not since its involvement in the 2002 military coup has the US government done this much to promote open conflict in Venezuela. When the White House first announced on Monday that a 100% audit of the votes was "an important, prudent and necessary step", this was not a genuine effort to promote a recount. It amounted to telling the government of Venezuela... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beach-head from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its "fellow travellers" in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter. The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser. This organisation put together several exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s. One of the most significant, "The New American Painting", visited every big European city in 1958-59.... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet

"But there are two big concerns with what this new central banker elite has done. One is that no one really understands the consequences of pumping such vast amounts of money into the world economy. It's already distorted the prices of certain assets, and some fear hyperinflation or market crashes are inevitable (the subject of tomorrow's column). The other is that it's caused a massive shift in wealth, from savers to borrowers, and is taking money out of the pockets of almost everyone approaching or at retirement age. A war on savings Probably the most painful of the consequences of quantitative easing has been borne by the elderly. interactive The Monarchs of Money Most of that generation grew up believing that if you save and exercise prudence that you will earn at least a modest return on your hard-earned money to keep you comfortable in your old age, perhaps along with a pension. But the money-printing orgy of the last five years looks to have shot that notion to smithereens.... more... - daveeza from Bookmarklet