White Stork

Fact of the day: Moles can dig 15 feet per hour in good soils

Robert "Red" Robinson, senior vice president of Shannon & Wilson Inc., of Seattle. He was asked to compare the capabilities of moles and "moles," as tunnel-boring machines are affectionately known in the underground construction industry.

He sized up a typical 4-ounce mole versus the 642-ton Emerald Mole, the tunneling machine that recently completed the Beacon Hill light-rail tunnels for Sound Transit.

It turns out that, pound-for-pound, the tiny mole is an astounding 336 times mightier than the behometh Emerald Mole.

"It's all in the weight ratio of the two critters," Robinson wrote. "Anyone for nuclear-enhanced 600-ton, 20-foot-diameter, flesh-and-blood moles?"

Annie Kolb-Nelson at King County's Wastewater Treatment Division — several machines have been digging a tunnel for the Brightwater sewage-system at the rate of about 5 feet per hour on a good day — was similarly awed at the mighty mole, which can dig 15 feet per hour in good soils. Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com

Radiation emitted after just 50 minutes on a mobile phone increases the activity in brain cells

I feel like such a party pooper -

from edition.cnn.com

Cell phone exposure increases brain cell activity

(CNN) -- The radiation emitted after just 50 minutes on a mobile phone increases the activity in brain cells, according to a new government-funded study.

The small study, published in the Journal of American Medical Association, is the first to look specifically at how electromagnetic radiation from cell phones affects glucose metabolism, a normal function, in the brain.

Researchers measured brain activity of 47 healthy adults -- a small but scientifically valid size group for this type of study -- while using a mobile device. The levels were tested when the phone was in use (transmitting radiation) against the head and when against the head but in the off position. Compared with subjects whose phones were turned off, the group whose phones were on had "significantly higher" brain activity in the area closest to the telephone antenna.

Volkow says that since she began working with the National Institutes of Health researching the impact of cell phone radiation, she always uses a wired earpiece when talking on her cell phone. Read more at edition.cnn.com

One Day Sale Ends In Six Months

Snowdrops Signal The First Signs Of Spring

See more at photographworks.wordpress.com

The Biggest Holders Of U.S. Debt

This is a fascinating list. It is a list that starts with the smallest debt holder and works its way to the biggest.
The list begins with number 15 - Taiwan - with a US debt holding of $126.9 billion and works its way to a surprising conclusion. I guarantee that you will be amazed at who is at number 1 and the amount involved.

 from www.cnbc.com

The Biggest Holders of US Government Debt

As the US government spends an unprecedented amount of money to fix the nation's economy, there is an equally great need to raise the cash to pay for it. This is accomplished through borrowing, whereby Uncle Sam sells Treasury securities of varying maturity. For investors, the government bills, notes and bonds are considered a safe financial product because they have a guaranteed rate of return, based on faith in future US tax revenues. The government has been partially funding operations via Treasury securities for decades. This borrowing adds to the national debt, which has recently surpassed the $14 trillion mark and is rising every day. The amount of debt is quickly approaching the federal debt ceiling, a legal limit to borrowing which currently stands at $14.294 trillion.  Much of that debt is held by private sector, but about 40 percent is held by public entities, including parts of the government. Here's who owns the most. By Paul Toscano Updated 18 Jan 2011

As the US government spends an unprecedented amount of money to fix the nation's economy, there is an equally great need to raise the cash to pay for it. This is accomplished through borrowing, whereby Uncle Sam sells Treasury securities of varying maturity. For investors, the government bills, notes and bonds are considered a safe financial product because they have a guaranteed rate of return, based on faith in future US tax revenues. The government has been partially funding operations via Treasury securities for decades. This borrowing adds to the national debt, which has recently surpassed the $14 trillion mark and is rising every day. The amount of debt is quickly approaching the federal debt ceiling, a legal limit to borrowing which currently stands at $14.294 trillion.  Much of that debt is held by private sector, but about 40 percent is held by public entities, including parts of the government. Here's who owns the most. By Paul Toscano Updated 18 Jan 2011 Source: US Treasury, US Federal Reserve & US Office of Debt Management // Photo: Getty Images http://www.cnbc.com/id/29880401/The_Biggest_Holders_of_US_Government_Debt" title="Add to Twitter" rel="nofollow">Twitter LinkedIn More Share Read more at www.cnbc.com

Posting from Mac Dashboard

I installed this widget from http://www.google.com/macwidgets/ and I am posting from it.... 1,2,3, testing

Family world travel and volunteering: The Evolution Of A Volunteer Decision

Family world travel and volunteering: The Evolution Of A Volunteer Decision

See-Through Dress Elevates Royalty, Not

TODAY - 15 February, 2011

Kate's see-through dress to be sold The see-through dress which helped Kate Middleton catch the eye of Prince William is up for auction. See image Related links Royal Wedding Beckham: royal designer? Bafta's best-dressed

The see-through dress which helped Kate Middleton catch the eye of Prince William is up for auction. See image Read more at uk.yahoo.com

RSPB Cannot Swallow New Forest

Mark Avery of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) says his organisation is too smart to think of taking the New Forest off the Government's hands...

 from www.rspb.org.uk

If the RSPB thought that we could step in and make the New Forest a better place for wildlife and people then we'd say so - but we don't, and have no intention of pushing ourselves forward in that way.  We work in the New Forest now, in partnership with others, as we do in the Forest of Dean too, and we'd like to carry on working there with local people.  We might do more in future - but we aren't daft - we know when something is too big to swallow.  Read more at www.rspb.org.uk

George Monbiot in the Guardian on this Goverment: You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us"

A fine statement:
"And this government? It has learned the lesson that Thatcher never grasped. If you want to turn this country into another Mexico, where the ruling elite wallows in unimaginable, state-facilitated wealth while the rest can go to hell, you don't declare war on society, you don't lambast single mothers or refuse to apologise for Bloody Sunday. You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us."

 from www.guardian.co.uk

To us, it's an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it's the heist of the century

In David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy

'I would love to see tax reductions," David Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, "but when you're borrowing 11% of your GDP, it's not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn't." Oh no? Then how come he's planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory?

If you've heard nothing of it, you're in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone – and are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d'etat is taking place.

Like the dismantling of the NHS and the sale of public forests, no one voted for this measure, as it wasn't in the manifestos. While Cameron insists that he occupies the centre ground of British politics, that he shares our burdens and feels our pain, he has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century. The latest heist has been explained to me by the former tax inspector, now a Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks and current senior tax staff who can't be named. Here's how it works.

At the moment tax law ensures that companies based here, with branches in other countries, don't get taxed twice on the same money. They have to pay only the difference between our rate and that of the other country. If, for example, Dirty Oil plc pays 10% corporation tax on its profits in Oblivia, then shifts the money over here, it should pay a further 18% in the UK, to match our rate of 28%. But under the new proposals, companies will pay nothing at all in this country on money made by their foreign branches.

And this government? It has learned the lesson that Thatcher never grasped. If you want to turn this country into another Mexico, where the ruling elite wallows in unimaginable, state-facilitated wealth while the rest can go to hell, you don't declare war on society, you don't lambast single mothers or refuse to apologise for Bloody Sunday. You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

To David Cameron - Treating groups as having one negative point of view is to demonise them

It's not what the truth is - because there is no single truth about what motivates 'parts of society' - it's that the 70 million people who make up the UK population are just that - 70 million people - and treating groups as having one point of view is to demonise them just as surely as any fascist government has ever done.

 from www.independent.co.uk

Cameron: My war on multiculturalism

By Oliver Wright and Jerome Taylor

Saturday, 5 February 2011

David Cameron launched a devastating attack today on 30 years of multiculturalism in Britain, warning it is fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to home-grown Islamic terrorism.

Signalling a radical departure from the strategies of previous governments, Mr Cameron said that Britain must adopt a policy of "muscular liberalism" to enforce the values of equality, law and freedom of speech across all parts of society.

He warned Muslim groups that if they fail to endorse women's rights or promote integration, they will lose all government funding. All immigrants to Britain must speak English and schools will be expected to teach the country's common culture.

But his remarks have already infuriated Muslim groups, as they come on the day of what is expected to be the largest demonstration so far of anti-Muslim sentiment being planned by the English Defence League. They accused Mr Cameron of placing an unfair onus on minority communities to integrate, while failing to emphasise how the wider community can help immigrants feel more welcome in Britain. They suggested his speech was part of a concerted attack on multiculturalism from centre-right European governments and pointed out he was making it in Germany – where Chancellor Angela Merkel recently made a similar attack.

But Muslim groups said Mr Cameron's approach was simplistic and would not succeed in tackling extremism. "Communities are not static entities and there are those who see being British as their identity and there are those who do not feel that it is an overriding part of their identity," said Fiyaz Mughal, founder of interfaith group Faith Matters. "Finger-pointing at communities and then cutting social investment into projects is a sure-fire way of causing greater resentment. It blames some communities while his Government slashes social investment."

Inayat Bunglawala, chairman of Muslims4UK, described the speech as "deeply patronising". He said: "The overwhelming majority of UK Muslims are proud to be British and are appalled by the antics of a tiny group of extremists." Read more at www.independent.co.uk

Darjeeling Tea Pickers - From our trip to India early last year

Class Action Suit Against Ex President Carter

I suspect the judge will throw the case out as being a misuse of the court process. Time will tell.

 from www.israelnationalnews.com

Lawsuit: Carter Guilty of Consumer Fraud, Foists Lies on Readers

� by David Lev

While former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has a perfect right to his anti-Israel opinions – and certainly has the right to publish a book full of those opinions – he does not have the right to fob off a work of fiction as fact. That, says Israeli activist attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, is what has earned him the opprobrium of dozens of people who bought his book, “Palestine: Peace or Apartheid.” And now, says Darshan-Leitner, she is representing those unhappy customers in a class-action lawsuit against Carter, in order to get them a refund. Of course, Darshan-Leitner tells Israel National News, the issue is not simply one of consumer fraud. “During the trial, we will of course have to examine the facts in question, and we will of course unveil the falsity of much of what he writes. Carter makes numerous claims in the book that he knows to be false, and we know that he knows them to be false.” According to the complaint, filed in a New York court, Carter, “as a former American president and self-proclaimed Middle East expert ... knew that substantial and material portions of the book were untrue, and has failed to advise the public,” putting him in violation of New York State's Consumer Protection Laws, “specifically New York General Business Law section 349, which makes it unlawful to engage in deceptive acts in the course of conducting business.” The lawsuit also includes Carter's publisher, Simon and Schuster, as a defendant, since it allegedly refused to correct the facts, despite receiving numerous complaints from irate customers. Among the errors in the book, says Darshan-Leitner, is Carter's misrepresentation of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 336, which he cites as proof that Israel must withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines. “Even a child reading the documents will note that the resolutions say 'withdraw from land,' not 'all the land' captured in 1967,”� Darshan-Leitner says.�

Carter wrote this�despite the fact that Lord Caradon (British diplomat Hugh M. Foot), who authored the resolution, specifically stated that this was not the intent of the resolution. In a discussion in the House of Commons in 1969, Caradon said that “it would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial.” The suit cites this and numerous other quotes by Caradon and others affirming this fact. In addition, the suit says, Carter falsely depicted the 1949 armistice lines as an international border (they have never been recognized as such), that Israel has never “granted appreciable autonomy to the Palestinians” (thus ignoring the establishment and continued existence of the Palestinian Authority), and that Syria was prepared to accept a demilitarized Golan Heights (Syrian diplomats specifically denied that). In all, the suit cites over 50 specific facts that Carter got wrong, either out of ignorance or deliberately. Evidence contradicting Carter's assertion is brought from publicly available sources, including newspapers and books, as well as in affidavits from former members of Carter's own inner circle and negotiating teams. Darshan-Leitner said that neither she nor her partner in the lawsuit, David Schoen of Montgomery, Alabama, contacted Carter, since he has asserted many times, in print and in the media,� that his statements are�accurate. “Besides, many readers have contacted him and his publisher, only to be completely ignored. After their pleas for accuracy were not answered, they turned to us, and hence the lawsuit.” As the readers of the book, which sold about 200,000 copies, can be assumed to be reasonably well informed on Middle East affairs, the insult to their intelligence was all the greater, the attorney says. “Carter continuously portrayed his book as being accurate, and it was on that basis that readers bought the book. Imagine their disappointment, frustration and anger at being presented with a work of fiction.” Readers spent on average $27 for the book, so Darshan-Leitner is seeking about $5 million in compensatory damages in order to enable all customers to get their money back – plus, of course, punitive damages and court costs. And she has no fears that a judge will refuse to hear the case because of politics – because, although the context is political, the case is really about misrepresentation, slander, and consumer rights. “The lawsuit will expose all the falsehoods and misrepresentations in Carter's book and prove that his hatred of Israel has led him to commit this fraud on the public,”� Darshan-Leitner added. “He is entitled to his opinions, but deceptions and lies have no place in works of history.” (IsraelNationalNews.com) Read more at www.israelnationalnews.com