Egretta cærulea Aigrette bleue / Little Blue Heron A marsh bird, the Little blue Heron nests in colonies in the United States, from California to New Jersey. An occasional visitor in the southernmost part of Québec and the Maritimes, it has a varied diet made up of fish and insects as well as amphibians and [...]
Archive for September, 2009
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 307, 308, 309 on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Today in History – September 29
Posted in This day in history, tagged September 29 on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Tuesday, Sept. 29, the 272nd day of 2009. There are 93 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Sept. 29, 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead in his Vatican apartment just over a month after becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church. On this date In 642, Arab [...]
The View From Pakistan’s Spies
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Other on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The headquarters of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate is a black-ribbed stucco building in the Aabpara neighborhood of the capital. Its operatives, described by wary Pakistanis as “the boys from Aabpara,” play a powerful and mysterious role in the life of the country. Their “tentacles,” as one ISI officer terms the agency’s spy networks, stretch [...]
Obama’s Dick Cheney Moment
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Law on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
President Obama’s decision not to go to Congress for help in establishing reasonable standards for the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees is a failure of leadership in the project of putting American law on a sound basis for a long-term confrontation with terrorism. It is bad for the country, for national security and for civil [...]
Time to Act Like a President
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
President Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown make a statement on Iran Friday at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing [...]
How to Press the Advantage With Iran
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Iran on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
TEHRAN’S disclosure that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qum has derailed the Obama administration’s already faltering efforts to engage with Iran. The United States will now cling even more tightly to the futile hope that international pressure and domestic instability will induce major changes in Iranian decision-making. [...]
An Incomplete State Secrets Fix
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law, Politics on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
One of the ways that the Bush administration tried to avoid accountability for its serious misconduct in the name of fighting terrorism was the misuse of an evidentiary rule called the state secrets privilege. The Obama administration has essentially embraced the Bush approach in existing cases, trying to toss out important lawsuits alleging kidnapping, torture [...]
The Next Culture War
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on September 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Centuries ago, historians came up with a classic theory to explain the rise and decline of nations. The theory was that great nations start out tough-minded and energetic. Toughness and energy lead to wealth and power. Wealth and power lead to affluence and luxury. Affluence and luxury lead to decadence, corruption and decline. “Human nature, [...]
The People’s Liberation Army on Parade
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged China on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
There’s more than what meets the eye. Perhaps the most prominent event marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China will be a massive parade showcasing the People’s Liberation Army’s newest technologies. Chinese and Western reports indicate some 52 weapons will be unveiled, including intercontinental and medium-range ballistic missiles, unmanned [...]
Talking Iran Down The Nuclear Road
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Economy and business, tagged Iran on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Obama’s outstretched hand encourages Iran’s quest for the bomb. The way the Obama administration portrays them, this week’s talks between Iran and the so-called 5+1 group of nations represent a diplomatic breakthrough. Indeed they do—for Iran, that is. The group, consisting of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, talked [...]
Trade Paper Trail
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The costs of Obama’s failure of leadership keep mounting. The message out of Washington is that President Obama can “manage” a trade war with China. The latest antidumping filing—this time, from U.S. paper makers—demonstrates why that’s not the case. The United Steelworkers union and three U.S. paper companies charged Wednesday that China and Indonesia unfairly [...]
The WSJ Guide to ObamaCare
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
A comprehensive collection of our editorials and op-eds. Review and Outlook September 28: Max’s Mad Mandate September 25: Unsafe at Any Speed September 24: Medicare and Gag Orders September 22: Baucus Bludgeons Humana September 21: Obama’s Nontax Tax September 18: The Innovation Tax September 17: Public Option Lite September 16: Another Health-Care Invention September 11: [...]
Rhetorical Tax Evasion
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The IRS says it will fine or jail you for not paying Obama’s mandate levy. President Obama’s effort to deny that his mandate to buy insurance is a tax has taken another thumping, this time from fellow Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee. Chairman Max Baucus’s bill includes the so-called individual mandate, along with what [...]
French Atomic Pique
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Sarkozy unloads on Obama’s ‘virtual’ disarmament reality. French President Nicolas Sarkozy flanked by President Barack Obama, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news about Tehran’s secret [...]
The Neocons Make a Comeback
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Neocons are back because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin never went away. The other day I was asked by a writer for a mainstream French newspaper to say something about the “return” of the neoconservatives. His thesis seemed to be that the shambles of Barack Obama’s foreign policy had, after only nine [...]
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 304, 305, 306 on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Arenaria interpres Tournepierre à collier / Ruddy Turnstone The territory of the Ruddy Turnstone is the Canadian North, where it nests in the tundra, on the rocky plateaus and the low islands. It feeds on insects, molluscs and crustaceans that it finds on shores by turning over stones, shells and algae with its beak. During [...]
Warmer U.S.-Russia Relations May Yield Little in Action Toward Iran
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics, tagged Iran, Russia on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The Kremlin has long responded to proposals for tougher sanctions against Iran with arms folded and a scowl. Last week, that attitude began softening, bringing the Obama administration closer to a diplomatic coup in its efforts to contain the Iranian nuclear program. But the relatively conciliatory statements by Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, present an [...]
In the eyes of a bear, an activist was born
Posted in Animals, Other on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The chase? A black bear hustles to catch dinner as the salmon scatter in utter terror. If you’ve been there, the photographs will send a chill through you, and if you haven’t, you’ll want to start making plans. In his new book, Emeralds at the Edge – Observations of an accidental activist, wilderness photographer Andrew [...]
Two Proteins Enable Skin Cells To Regenerate
Posted in Health on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Skin deep. In a skin grafting experiment, skin with TCF3 and TCF4 (top), unlike skin without the two proteins (bottom), can activate epidermal stem cells to replenish skin cells on the surface that have died and flaked off. Never mind facial masks and exfoliating scrubs, skin takes care of itself. Stem cells located within the [...]
Secret Agent Editors
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The Obama scandals bring a new era of opacity at the New York Times. Clark Hoyt, “public editor” of the New York Times, has weighed in on his paper’s coverage of the Acorn scandal–or rather its lack thereof. Right off the bat, he delivers a half-truth: On Sept. 12, an Associated Press article inside The [...]
Lab Demonstrates 3-D Printing In Glass
Posted in Physical sciences on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
An object printed from powdered glass, using the Solheim Lab’s new Vitraglyphic process. A team of engineers and artists working at the University of Washington’s Solheim Rapid Manufacturing Laboratory has developed a way to create glass objects using a conventional 3-D printer. The technique allows a new type of material to be used in such [...]
Toad Venom In Cancer Treatment: Traditional Chinese Medicine Is Well-tolerated, Study Shows
Posted in Health on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Huachansu, a Chinese medicine that comes from the dried venom secreted by the skin glands of toads, has tolerable toxicity levels, even at doses eight times those normally administered, and may slow disease progression in some cancer patients, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The results from the Phase [...]
The cat that ate the evidence
Posted in Weird cases on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
In law courts across the world no financial case had turned on the contents of a cat’s litter tray until a recent decision at the administrative court in Frankfurt, Germany. The story begins with Peter Neumann’s cat and its expensive food tastes. The cat, Neumann argued, ate a €500 banknote. Holding some fragments of the [...]
Zoo babies
Posted in Animals, Photo galleries on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Looking like ET, a baby gibbon is held by its mother in Vienna’s Schoenbrunn zoo. Three-month-old tiger cub Kinwah with German shepherd dog Rumble who has taken on the role of protective older brother. They are pictured at Mogo Zoo in Australia where Kinwah was born. A young King Penguin is looked after by older [...]
Woody Plants Adapted To Past Climate Change More Slowly Than Herbs
Posted in Energy and Environment on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Santa Elena Cloud Forest in Costa Rica. If evolutionary history repeats itself, woody plants may have a harder time than herbaceous plants keeping pace with global warming. Can we predict which species will be most vulnerable to climate change by studying how they responded in the past? A new study of flowering plants provides a [...]
Uncommon knowledge
Posted in Uncommon knowledge on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Stats that teams ignore THE USE OF STATISTICS in professional sports has accelerated in recent years. Nevertheless, it looks like teams are still leaving a lot of money on the table. Researchers from the University of Chicago analyzed every pitch thrown in Major League Baseball from 2002-2006 and every play in the National Football League [...]
Tax deductible sex
Posted in Weird cases on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The US Tax Court has recently ruled that money spent on prostitutes and pornography is a not tax deductible expense, even for a New York lawyer. William G Halby, an established Brooklyn tax lawyer, submitted to the Internal Revenue Services a range of expenses he wanted deducted from his tax liability as “medical expenses”. Under [...]
Engineers Track Bacteria’s Kayak Paddle-like Motion For First Time
Posted in Health, Natural sciences on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The team took sequential images of the E. coli bacteria to track their movements, which resemble the motion of a kayak paddle, through a liquid medium. Yale engineers have for the first time observed and tracked E. coli bacteria moving in a liquid medium with a motion similar to that of a kayak paddle. Their [...]
Cow dung cremations catch on in Bihar
Posted in Living on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
_____ The new mode of cremation has achieved widespread social acceptance In India’s remote north-east, recent floods have forced people in the state of Bihar to come up with an environmentally friendly way to cremate their dead. Where traditionally only the wood from a mango tree was used to fuel the funeral fire in this [...]
