Aythya valisineria Fuligule à dos blanc ou Morillon à dos blanc ou Milouin à dos blanc / Canvasback The Canvasback feeds almost exclusively on aquatic plants, Vallisneria, more specifically. However, its diet is complemented by consuming water insects, molluscs and various fish that it finds in freshwater marches, ponds, bays and lakes. A North-American bird, [...]
Archive for September, 2009
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 301, 302, 303 on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Today in History – September 28
Posted in This day in history, tagged September 28 on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Monday, Sept. 28, the 271st day of 2009. There are 94 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Sept. 28, 1909, satirical cartoonist Al Capp, the creator of “Li’l Abner,” was born in New Haven, Conn. On this date In 351, Roman Emperor Constantius II defeated the usurper Magnentius in [...]
C. diff rise due to ‘gene switch’
Posted in Health on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Most deaths from C. difficile occur in the over 65s The rise in Clostridium difficile infections in recent years is due to genetic changes rather than dirty hospitals, say UK researchers. Comparison of an historic strain and a strain from the outbreak at Stoke Mandeville hospital in 2003 found it had evolved to be more [...]
British Asians ‘outsourcing murder’
Posted in Other on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Some say up to 100 overseas Indians are killed every year in Punjab A BBC investigation has uncovered the deadly practice of British Asians travelling to India to hire contract killers. Family and business associates, who are lured to the sub-continent, are often the targets. In a country where murder is cheaper and less fraught [...]
Honduran threat to Brazil mission
Posted in Law, Politics, tagged Honduras on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Manuel Zelaya is living in the Brazilian embassy with some of his supporters Honduras has threatened to revoke Brazil’s right to a diplomatic mission in a dispute over the status of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Mr Zelaya took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa after sneaking into the country on Monday, three months [...]
The Health-Care Ego Trip
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
What’s driving the great health debate of 2009 is not a popular clamor for universal insurance. “Many Americans are balking again at the prospect of health care reform,” writes pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. A new Wall Street Journal poll found 41 percent of respondents opposed to President Obama’s proposals and 39 [...]
Klein Drowns in the Ethical Shallows
Posted in Computers, Editorials and opinion, Media on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
On Friday, Post blogger Ezra Klein took a short break from Barack Obama’s unpaid policy staff to respond to my last column and dismiss the importance of bigotry and hatred on the Internet. “That doesn’t describe the Internet I know,” he claims, “but the Internet is big, and Gerson might visit parts I miss.” Sometimes [...]
Hate in the Media
Posted in Computers, Editorials and opinion, Media on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
“In the course of a few years,” writes Michael Gerson, “a fringe party was able to define a national community by scapegoating internal enemies; elevate a single, messianic leader; and keep the public docile with hatred while the state committed unprecedented crimes. The adaptive use of new technology was central to this achievement.” That party? [...]
Obama the Gambler
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Betting That Machismo Is Not Foreign Policy At his United Nations debut, Barack Obama urged global cooperation to combat nuclear proliferation, climate change and other problems that go beyond the borders of any one country. The speech was well received around the world, except in one place — America’s right-wing netherworld, which quickly began whipping [...]
The Outrageous Arrest of Roman Polanski
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law, tagged Roman Polanski on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Of all nations, why was it Switzerland — the country that traditionally guarded the secret bank accounts of international criminals and corrupt dictators — that finally decided to arrest Roman Polanski? There must be some deeper story here, because by any reckoning the decision was bizarre — though not nearly as bizarre as the fact [...]
High Cost of Death Row
Posted in Editorials and opinion, tagged Death penalty on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death penalty — it’s immoral, does not deter murder and affects minorities disproportionately — we can add one more. It’s an economic drain on governments with already badly depleted budgets. It is far from a national trend, but some legislators have begun to have second thoughts about [...]
The U.S.-Iranian Triangle
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Iran on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
France and Germany fought three wars in 70 years before the bright idea dawned of enfolding their problem into something larger: the European Union. The United States and Iran have not gone to war but have a relationship of psychotic mistrust. The answer can only be the same: Broaden the context. The revelation that Iran [...]
A War President?
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
All spring and summer, it looked as though Joe Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut, would play the same role in the debate over President Obama’s Afghanistan policy that he played in the struggle over Iraq: as a champion of the surge-style counterinsurgency that Obama endorsed in March and as a defender of a wartime White [...]
How to Read a Column
Posted in Editorials and opinion on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
At last I am at liberty to vouchsafe to you the dozen rules in reading a political column. 1. Beware the pundit’s device of using a quotation from a liberal opposition figure to make a conservative case, and vice versa. Righties love to quote John F. Kennedy on life’s unfairness; lefties love to quote Ronald [...]
Cassandras of Climate
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on September 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it. And here’s the thing: I’m not engaging in hyperbole. These [...]
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 298, 299, 300 on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Podiceps grisegena Grèbe jougris / Red-necked Grebe With its solitary nature, the Red-necked Grebe nests in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region on the smooth waters of lakes, ponds or bays, that offer the essentials for its survival, namely small fish, crustaceans, and water insects. Eating feathers is also a part of its diet, because they facilitate its [...]
Honduras Just Wants an Election
Posted in Politics, tagged Honduras on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The U.S. demand that Mr. Zelaya be returned to power before a vote is destructive. At a luncheon reception for Brazilian President Lula da Silva earlier this year, a Brazilian official explained to me that the reason Brazil does not raise its voice for human rights in the dictatorship of Cuba is that it does [...]
Stately homes paying the bills with sexy parties
Posted in Economy and business, Living on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Orgies, S&M holidays and erotic film shoots. The bizarre ways the owners of our grandest houses are surviving A pole dancer performs her act on stage We have all seen them, their tantalising stone walls hunkering, fortress-like, along country lanes, protecting from view the fiercely territorial gentry who are bred to guard these age-old piles. [...]
There Are Only Two Choices Left on Iran
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Iran on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
An Israeli or U.S. military strike now, or a nuclear Tehran soon. Unless you are a connoisseur of small pictures of bearded, brooding fanatical clerics there is not much reason to collect Iranian currency. But I kept one bill on my desk at the State Department because of its watermark—an atom superimposed on the part [...]
Germany Goes for Growth
Posted in Economy and business, Politics, tagged Germany on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The center-right gets a governing majority. In the midst of its deepest postwar recession, Germany elected a conservative-free market government Sunday. Maybe the reports of capitalism’s demise have been premature. As we went to press, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party seemed poised to garner 33.7% of the votes, the [...]
William Safire
Posted in Politics, tagged Safire on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
A competitor who had our back when we needed him. In economic and foreign policy, like fashion and music, the 1970s were largely a miserable decade. But out of that woeful time arose a generation of conservative giants in journalism and public life, among them the New York Times columnist William Safire, who died yesterday [...]
France condemns Polanski arrest
Posted in Law, tagged Polanski on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Roman Polanski has not set foot in the US for more than 30 years France has condemned the arrest in Switzerland of film director Roman Polanski, who has French citizenship. Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he had been “stunned” to hear about the arrest, and President Nicolas Sarkozy was following the case. Mr Polanski, 76, [...]
Beatle’s essay found 50 years on
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
McCartney was 10 when he wrote the essay An essay written by Sir Paul McCartney as a 10-year-old has been found after lying undiscovered in Liverpool’s Central Library for more than 50 years. Years before the Beatles received their MBEs, he beat hundreds of other school children to win a prize for his 1953 essay [...]
By 2040 you will be able to upload your brain…
Posted in Other, Physical sciences on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
…or at least that’s what Ray Kurzweil thinks. He has spent his life inventing machines that help people, from the blind to dyslexics. Now, he believes we’re on the brink of a new age – the ‘singularity’ – when mind-boggling technology will allow us to email each other toast, run as fast as Usain Bolt [...]
Gadhafi cancels Canada visit
Posted in Other, tagged Libya on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi confirmed his reputation for mercurial behaviour and undoubtedly triggered waves of Canadian government relief by abruptly cancelling his stopover in Newfoundland. The African strongman apparently made the decision after one media report said his bizarre request to stay at the lieutenant governor’s residence in St. John’s was rebuffed. But officials haven’t [...]
Seti: The hunt for ET
Posted in Physical sciences, Space on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Scientists have been searching for aliens for 50 years, scanning the skies with an ever-more sophisticated array of radio telescopes and computers. Known as Seti, the search marks its half-century this month. Jennifer Armstrong and Andrew Johnson examine its close – and not so close – encounters. Scientists have been searching for aliens for 50 [...]
Cracking The Brain’s Numerical Code: Researchers Can Tell What Number A Person Has Seen
Posted in Other on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
By carefully observing and analyzing the pattern of activity in the brain, researchers have found that they can tell what number a person has just seen. They can similarly tell how many dots a person has been presented with, according to a report published online on September 24th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. [...]
Mao’s revolution at 60: He wouldn’t recognize it
Posted in History, tagged China on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
CHINA. Hangzhou. A young couple sit next to the famous West Lake. 2009 This Thursday, as tanks and missiles roll through Tiananmen Square in Beijing and fireworks explode overhead to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of Communist China, a retired factory worker will gather with her children and grandchildren in this historic city [...]
William Safire, Nixon Speechwriter and Times Columnist, Is Dead at 79
Posted in On Language, tagged September 27 2009 on September 27, 2009 | Comments Off
William Safire in 1984. William Safire, a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times who also wrote novels, books on politics and a Malaprop’s treasury of articles on language, died at a hospice in Rockville, Md., on Sunday. He was 79. The cause was pancreatic [...]
