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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

13 Dec - Water News, not AWG

Picture of water runoffImage via Wikipedia
What's in the water?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/12/water-supply-contaminants.html
Environmental Working Group public interest organization has created an online database of water quality test results from 45 states.The group's analysis of utility information found that water agencies across the country have detected a total of more than 300 pollutants in supplies, more than half of which are not regulated by the government.

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set enforceable drinking water safety standards for only 114 of the 316 substances detected."

BERKELEY, CA - SEPTEMBER 19:  Garbage and wood...
Environmental Working Group

EWG In The News

SF Chronicle: Study Finds Chemicals, Pollutants in Newborns


United States Environmental Protection Agency sealImage via Wikipedia
12/3/2009

Latest EWG Coverage

EWG Releases

Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

A Game That’s Not So Great
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/opinion/13dowd.html?_r=1&igoogle=1
At a joint press conference Tuesday at the presidential palace in Kabul, Hamid Karzai surprised the usually unflappable Gates when he knocked down President Obama’s attempt to get out of Dodge.

Needling his American sugar daddy, the Afghan peacock observed: “For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources.”

Gates and Obama may have wanted to “light a fire,” as Gates put it, under the corrupt Afghan president and warn that the A.T.M. is closing, but Karzai called their bluff. He knows, as do the leaders in Iraq and Pakistan, that America is stuck bailing them out with billions every year, even when they dawdle, disappoint and deceive.

Gates and his generals in Afghanistan talked a lot last week about “partnering” with and “mentoring” the Afghan Army and police. But given the Flintstones nature of the country, it’s more basic. Americans have to teach the vast majority of Afghan recruits to read and write before they can get to security training. It’s hard to arrest people if you can’t read them their rights and take names.

It seems late to realize this, but Gates told reporters he had only recently learned the “eye-opener” that the Taliban were able to attract so many fighters because they paid more. Generals in Afghanistan said the Taliban dole out $250 to $300 a month, while the Afghan Army paid about $120. So Gates has made sure that recruits get a raise to $240.

The American solution is always to throw more money at a problem; now we’re in a bidding war with the Taliban, which doesn’t bode well for the democracy manqué.
If Rummy had been dissed by our inglorious glove puppets, he would have blown his top. 

Animal shelter welcomes kids 

Children played with dogs and cats as part of the Humane Society's program to allow their parents a `Date Night.'

http://www.miamiherald.com/cooper-city/story/1376533.html

State funds to curb teen smoking cut 28% - Indiana
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091212/NEWS07/312129979

Thriving small businesses still struggling to get loans
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/12/obama.bank.lenders/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn/1006/NEWS

United Nations Climate Change Conference  Dec 7 - Dec 18  2009


http://en.cop15.dk/frontpage


NEWS

The cuts in greenhouse gases offered at the 192-nation climate conference are "clearly not enough" to assure the world it will head off dangerous global warming, a key UN-affiliated scientist said Saturday. Read more

NEWS

African Union threatens to scuttle a deal

African Union climate negotiator Meles Zenawi has sought Chinese and Indian backing if the African demands are not being taken seriously. (Photo of Ethiopia's President Girma Wolde Giorgis (C) and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (L) on their arrival at a farewell ceremony for the Ethiopian delegation leaving for Copenhagen: Scanpix/Reuters) Read more

BLOGS


BEHIND THE SCENES

Interpreting COP15

12.12.09. A fifth of the UN interpretation service is working at COP15.Read blog

CLIMATE THINKERS

Time is up – the deadline is Copenhagen

07.12.09 Connie Hedegaard, Minister for the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen 2009, is the latest contributor to the Climate Thinkers Blog. Read blog

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