Tringa solitaria Chevalier solitaire / Solitary Sandpiper The Solitary Sandpiper feeds in the shallow waters of wooded marshes, small lakes and beaver ponds. It feeds on the water insects, larvae, small cructaceans and small frogs that it finds in its territory, which is located in Québec’s median zone, between the Témiscamingue and the Côte-Nord regions. [...]
Archive for September, 2009
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 289, 290, 291 on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Today in History – September 26
Posted in This day in history, tagged September 26 on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Saturday, Sept. 26, the 269th day of 2009. There are 96 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Sept. 26, 1789, during the administration of President George Washington, Thomas Jefferson was confirmed by the Senate to be the first U.S. secretary of state; John Jay, the first chief justice of [...]
Regaining their balance
Posted in Economy and business, tagged G 20 on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The G20 summit A new chapter for the world economy, maybe THE last time the leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) met, in London in April, their unenviable task was to steer the world economy away from a 1930s-style depression. They succeeded, thanks to an unprecedented fiscal and monetary gusher and a raft of [...]
Health Reform Collides With Labor’s Cadillac
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The health-care debate is supposed to be more civil now. But I guess Gerald McEntee didn’t get the memo. During the recent AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh, the labor leader blasted the draft bill put forth by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.): “It’s all bull manure,” McEntee roared. “It’s bull manure.” Except he didn’t [...]
Dealing With Iran’s Deception
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Tehran could soon have humankind’s most frightening weapon if substantial diplomatic progress is not made in the coming days. The United States, along with its partners Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany (known as the “P5 plus one”), will sit down on Thursday with a representative of Iran. From the American perspective, the principal item [...]
Israel’s Final Warning to the World?
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
It was hard, listening to Binyamin Netanyahu excoriating the United Nations on Thursday, to avoid the impression that this speech — in all its righteous, angry, victimized fury — could one day be seen as a milestone in the Mideast’s march toward war. Here was the Israeli prime minister, standing before the very body that [...]
All about Obama
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
I’ve refrained from commenting on President Obama’s address to the United Nations General Assembly because the speech made me angry. And most postings — or letters, or e-mails — written while angry are better discarded or deleted. But this address grows more disturbing on further reading. Some major presidential speeches deserve to be remembered, quoted [...]
Can Vitamin D Improve Your Athletic Performance?
Posted in Health on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
When scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport recently decided to check the Vitamin D status of some of that country’s elite female gymnasts, their findings were fairly alarming. Of the 18 gymnasts tested, 15 had levels that were “below current recommended guidelines for optimal bone health,” the study’s authors report. Six of these had [...]
The Lost Student
Posted in Living on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Patrick was the sort of student who made a teacher curious. There was something capacious inside him. He preferred listening to speaking. Others rushed, jostled, to get to the front of the lunch line. Patrick hung back. Patrick’s grin was a half-grin — as if he’d once trained himself not to smile but had since [...]
Phantonym
Posted in On Language, tagged September 27 2009 on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
For the prospective college class of 2015, the next three weeks loom large. High-school juniors across the country, facing their first Preliminary SAT exams, are engrossed in improving their vocabulary. Here’s a thought that might help: A word that means the opposite of another is an antonym; a word that looks as if it means [...]
The Thaw at the Roof of the World
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
SPEAKING this week at the United Nations, President Hu Jintao of China declared that his country “fully appreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change.” As well it should. China is beginning to realize that it has a lot to lose from the carbon dioxide that the world so blithely emits into the earth’s [...]
Fed Up With War
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion on September 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Most Americans, looking at a globe, would be hard pressed to find Afghanistan. Americans on the whole know very little about the land or its people — and care even less. They know we’re at war over there, wherever it is, but if you were to ask what a Pashtun is or mention the name [...]
Ghost Writers
Posted in Literature on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
A new wave of posthumous releases from authors like Vladimir Nabokov, David Foster Wallace and Ralph Ellison raises thorny questions about what the writers intended. After author David Foster Wallace committed suicide last September, his longtime agent, Bonnie Nadell, found herself lost in a maze of words. Scattered on two different computers and in hard [...]
Don’t Bore Us With the Obvious
Posted in Other on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Sports talk should reveal the secret world of athletes September is the perfect month for sports fans. Baseball is rushing toward the playoffs, pro and college football start in earnest, and the U.S. Open showcases the elite in tennis, all accessible by flicking the remote. Thank goodness for TV. Well, sort of. While my high-def [...]
A fervent wish for peace ‘so I can see what happiness tastes like’
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Living, tagged Afghanistan, Behind the veil, Part 6 on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Shafiqa is finding happiness as a shut-in after a relative is injured in the war. One dreams about the “taste” of happiness, another about having one more chance to sit and talk with her slain husband. One hopes her children outlive her and finish their education. Above all else, though, they wish for “security.” For [...]
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 286, 287, 288 on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Anser albifrons Oie rieuse (mâle et femelle) / Greater White-fronted Goose (male and female) The habitat of the Greater White-fronted Goose is the arctic tundra of Alaska, the North-West Territories and Greenland. Passing through all of southern Québec in the fall, it migrates to the American West Coast in the winter. A grass eater, the [...]
A Melting Pot Full of Words
Posted in Literature on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
A vast essay collection erases the lines between literature, history and popular culture When the music critic Greil Marcus set out to make sense of rock and roll in the early 1970s, he tried something that seems more intuitive now than it did then: He looked to American literature as a backdrop for what he [...]
Novels About Mental Disorders
Posted in Literature on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Douwe Draaisma picks novels that focus on mental disorders 1. Motherless Brooklyn By Jonathan Lethem Doubleday, 1999 Now that neurologists and psychiatrists tend to describe diseases rather than the case histories of individual patients, novelists have stepped in to fill the void. Many fictional characters these days suffer from syndromes and disorders, giving voice to [...]
Health Problems Health Care Can’t Fix
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
President Obama and Michael Moore’s inconvenient truth. Maybe President Obama has watched too much “Sicko” because he sure likes to reiterate Michael Moore’s bromides. In his joint address of Congress, he said: “We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for [...]
The British Disease
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged England on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Gordon Brown is widely believed to have taken lessons in how to smile. Whenever I am in Amsterdam, I stay in a small, elegant and well-run hotel. The excellent and obliging staff are all Dutch. Whenever I am in London, I stay at a small, elegant and well-run hotel. The excellent and obliging staff are [...]
Congress Needs a 72-Hour Waiting Period
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Voters want enough time to debate bills. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t. Polls show overwhelming agreement outside the Beltway that it’s more important for Congress to get health-care reform done right than done quickly. A Polling Company survey conducted last month found 95% agreeing that members of Congress shouldn’t vote on any bill they haven’t read in [...]
Quality Reporting Doesn’t Come Cheap
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Media on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
The decline of newspapers is a tragedy for democracy. How can it be stopped? Imagine yourself the proprietor of a venerable and profitable business whose success is based on the quality of your distinctive product, the brand loyalty of your customers, and the fair price they are willing to pay for the value you provide. [...]
Too Big to Ignore
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Volcker says Treasury’s reform will lead to future bailouts. He’s right. President Obama’s economic advisers are struggling to sell their financial reform plan to . . . an Obama economic adviser. Paul Volcker, the Democrat and former Federal Reserve chairman who worked with President Reagan to slay inflation in the 1980s, now leads President Obama’s [...]
The Disarmament Illusion
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Iran on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Obama pursues arms control treaties; Iran builds the bomb. President Obama appreciates “teachable moments,” so let’s all discuss this week’s lesson in arms control theory and practice. The President brought his soaring sermon about “a world without [nuclear] weapons” before the U.N. General Assembly. He called for a new arms control treaty and won Security [...]
Will Google Be the Giraffe That Grows a Back Scratcher?
Posted in Computers on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Or: How search engines are about to drive dictionary sites out of business. Ostensibly, this is the story of dictionary Web sites and their impending demise. But really, this is the story of the oxpecker. I ask your patience while I get ornithological; we’ve got a metaphor to spin. Meet the oxpecker bird a plucky, [...]
LSD Returns–For Psychotherapeutics
Posted in Health on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
LSD makes a comeback as a possible clinical treatment Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, lambasted the countercultural movement for marginalizing a chemical that he asserted had potential benefits as an invaluable supplement to psychotherapy and spiritual practices such as meditation. “This joy at having fathered LSD was tarnished after more than ten years of [...]
Palau pioneers ‘shark sanctuary’
Posted in Animals, Energy and Environment on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
_____ Hammerheads are among hundreds of species found in Palau’s waters Palau is to create the world’s first “shark sanctuary”, banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters. The President of the tiny Pacific republic, Johnson Toribiong, announced the sanctuary during Friday’s session of the UN General Assembly. With half of the world’s oceanic sharks [...]
Future is TV-shaped, says Intel
Posted in Computers, Media, Other on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Intel said the TV of the future would require a lot of computing power By 2015 more than 12 billion devices will be capable of connecting to 500 billion hours of TV and video content, says chip giant Intel. It said its vision of TV everywhere will be more personal, social, ubiquitous and informative. “TV [...]
Butterfly ‘GPS’ found in antennae
Posted in Natural sciences on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
_____ The location of the Monarch’s overwintering site is in central Mexico North America’s Monarch butterflies use a 24-hour “clock” in their antennae to help navigate the 4,000km to overwinter in Mexico, say scientists. Every autumn about 100 million Monarch butterflies migrate to the south. The insects navigate according to the position of the Sun, [...]
Dinosaurs had ‘earliest feathers’
Posted in Natural sciences on September 25, 2009 | Comments Off
_____ An artist’s impression of how these creatures may have looked Exceptionally well preserved dinosaur fossils uncovered in north-eastern China display the earliest known feathers. The creatures are all more than 150 million years old. The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the oldest recognised bird discovered in Germany. Professor Xu Xing and [...]
