Junk climate science? EPA does not buy it: EPA Rejects Claims of Flawed Climate Science.

Backbone of marine food chain in alarming decline.

Big chunk of ice falls off glacier in Greeland, witnessed by NASA.

In a radio interview with Bill Manders on Jan. 25, Sharron Angle — the GOP candidate and Tea Party darling challenging Harry Reid for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat — came out firmly against abortion. She even took the extreme position that women should not have control over their reproductive rights in cases of rape or incest, because it would interfere with God’s “plan” for them…

Radio Station Seeks to Empower Palestinian Women

Palestinian women are hoping to improve their lives by using the air waves. A group of women in the West Bank this month launched one of the first all-women’s radio stations in the Arab world.

Palestinian women start an all female car racing team

The British-backed team is made of up of women from 18 to 39 years-old. British consulate spokesperson Karen McLuskie says, “They are inspiring in a conflict zone where fun is low on the priority list.”

Brazilian Woman Forced to Carry Fetus Without a Brain

…Let’s be clear: the fetus has no brain. It is not alive, and it will never be alive. It is an empty vessel, a bundle of flesh that will never be a living human being. The judge is forcing a woman to carry and nourish a lifeless vessel, out of some strange belief that the “right to life” applies to something that can never be alive…

Women Adamant for Change as the Maldives Struggles to Reform

MALÉ, June 24, 2010 (IPS) – Authorities in the Maldives view women’s issues as a core human rights problem and are keen to tackle them head on, but cultural and religious issues often stand in the way.

“No doubt the government of President Mohamed Nasheed recognises many problems and is willing to tackle them, but there’s limited ability to do so because of deep-rooted cultural and religious issues,” according to a Maldivian journalist, who declined to be named.

Congressional negotiators reached a deal yesterday to reconcile the House and Senate versions of financial regulatory reform. The bill contains an obscure provision “that requires any publicly traded company that uses certain minerals to file reports annually with the Securities and Exchange Commission certifying whether the minerals originated in Congo or neighboring countries.” Many of the minerals used in electronic devices like cell phones and computers are mined in the Congo, a country “plagued by regional conflict and a deadly scramble for its vast natural resources.”

Income Gaps Between Very Rich and Everyone Else More Than Tripled In Last Three Decades, New Data Show

The gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007 (the period for which these data are available), according to data the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued last week. Taken together with prior research, the new data suggest greater income concentration at the top of the income scale than at any time since 1928.

While the recession that began in December 2007 likely reduced the income of the wealthiest Americans substantially and may thereby shrink the income gap between rich and poor households, a similar development that occurred around the bursting of the dot.com bubble and the 2001 recession turned out to be just a speed bump. Incomes at the top more than made up the lost ground from 2003 to 2005.

Oliver Stone: The US Has Launched Military Interventions and Political Coups Fifty-Five Times in Latin America

Critically-acclaimed Hollywood Director Oliver Stone dropped by our studio for a Brave New Conversation, where I spoke with him about his latest documentary South of the Border, scheduled to be released in more than 30 countries this month. South of the Border begins by exploring the role that the corporate-owned mainstream media in the U.S. and Venezuela have played in shaping American’s perspectives on South America, beginning with clips of the attempted coup on Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In the Brave New Conversation, Stone describes the South American press…

Former President Carter could be prosecuted for monitoring fair elections in Lebanon

The US Supreme Court endorsed Monday a broad reading of the law criminalizing “material support” to terrorism, a statute that critics argue targets legitimate free speech.

In a six to three vote, the highest US court sided with the government and found that an NGO could face prosecution for providing non-terror-related support, including rights training, to US-designated terror groups.

Supreme Court Boosts Federal Prosecutors in Terror Cases

Washington – The Supreme Court on Monday bolstered law enforcement in national security cases, permitting prosecution of U.S. organizations that provide non-violent legal training or advice to designated terrorist groups.

In the year’s most anticipated war-on-terrorism decision, the court by a 6-3 vote ruled that legal and political training proposed to be offered by the Humanitarian Law Project and several California-based groups could amount to “material support” for terrorists.

Sundance Breakout Documentary “GasLand” Premieres on HBO. This Disturbing Film Is A Must See.

“GasLand” is the most important and politically incendiary documentary we’ve seen since “Sicko”. Kudos to HBO for showing this Sundance award winning film; do whatever you can to make sure you (and everyone you know) see it. (You’ll never quite get over the shots of officials insisting there’s nothing harmful in the drinking water, juxtaposed with a scene of fire coming out of someone’s tap water. And of course, officials consistently decline to sample the water they keep insisting is “safe”.)

The film focuses on damage to water supplies done by the high-powered natural gas mining process known as “fracking,” and the shameless efforts by industry and politicians to cover it up. It’s all too resonant with what just happened in the Gulf. (The energy industry has already issued a point by point rebuttal. Fox says he’s putting together his own response.)

Monsanto GM seed ban is overturned by US Supreme Court

The bio-tech company Monsanto can sell genetically modified seeds before safety tests on them are completed, the US Supreme Court has ruled.

A lower court had barred the sale of the modified alfalfa seeds until an environmental impact study could be carried out.

But seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices decided that ruling was unconstitutional.

In the meantime, the people who have primarily caused anthropogenic global warming are also feeling its effects, but ironically.

Come and visit the Stonewall DFL booth at this year’s Pride Festival! The festival lasts 2 days. Loring Park is located in the southwest portion of downtown Minneapolis, near 94 and Hennepin Ave. Address is 1382 Willow St. Minneapolis, MN 55403. Contact Stonewall DFL chair, Al Oertwig, at glbtout@hotmail.com for more information.

Speaking to radio host Lars Larson … [Sharron] Angle, who recently won the GOP nomination to take on Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that people were “looking toward those Second Amendment remedies” to stop the Democratic agenda…

New PAC aims to put conservative Christians into Minnesota courts

A new political action committee aimed at getting conservatives elected to judicial posts in Minnesota has been formed by Republican activists Joe Salmon and Dorothy Fleming. This fall, the slate of endorsees by the Justice in Minnesota PAC have all run for court positions in the past and lost — and all subscribe to conservative Christian beliefs including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Klobuchar formaldehyde bill clears Senate

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar that aims to create the toughest standards in the world on formaldehyde levels in wood products passed the Senate today by unanimous consent.

Klobuchar’s bill seeks to protect consumers from “potentially hazardous levels of the chemical formaldehyde.” Formaldehyde is used as a “chemical intermediary” in many household items, adhesives, solvents and composite wood used in furniture, cabinets, countertops and flooring.

On May 27th, more than a month into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama strode to the podium in the East Room of the White House. For weeks, the administration had been insisting that BP alone was to blame for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf – and the ongoing failure to stop the massive leak. “They have the technical expertise to plug the hole,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said only six days earlier. “It is their responsibility.” The president, Gibbs added, lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role – a curious line of argument from an administration that has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad and has nationalized much of the auto industry. “If BP is not accomplishing the task, can you just federalize it?” a reporter asked. “No,” Gibbs replied.

Now, however, the president was suddenly standing up to take command of the cleanup effort.

Why Factory Farms May Finally Be Held Responsible for Their Polluting Waste

In a legal settlement that could affect the entire U.S. meat industry, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to identify and investigate thousands of factory farms that have been avoiding government regulation for water pollution with animal waste.

The fatal disasters at the Upper Big Branch Mine and Deepwater Horizon are fresh evidence the Bush-Cheney corporate culture continues in some federal agencies charged with overseeing industry. President Obama needs to change that culture fast.

Formal investigations are underway, but it appears that lax federal oversight and enforcement, combined with corporate corner-cutting and greed, are implicated in both of the energy industry tragedies — the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years and the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Massey Energy’s mine and BP’s drilling ship in the Gulf were subject to federal oversight. In both cases, oversight failed.

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The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report

In April 2010 Chevron released its 2009 Annual Report. It would not take long for the cover design – Chevron’s Gulf of Mexico ultra-deepwater drillship, the Discoverer Clear Leader – to seem a terribly poor choice.

Just days prior to publication, 18,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a Chevron operated pipeline in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Louisiana.

A far worse disaster struck less than two weeks later. The largest blowout of an oil and gas well in the Gulf of Mexico in 30 years killed eleven people and saturated the surrounding areas in a blanket of oily destruction. The rig was owned and operated by Transocean, the same company with which Chevron has a five-year contract to operate the Discoverer Clear Leader, among other Chevron offshore rigs.

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U.S. launches criminal probe of BP spill

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that federal authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

Holder would not specify which companies or individuals might be the targets of the probe, saying he did not “want to cast aspersions” while investigators come to their conclusions.

He said federal clean air and pollution laws give him the power to open the investigations, which he added had been going on for “some weeks.”

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We are inviting all posts that challenge pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions of who scientists/engineers are, what they look like, how they behave, what they do, etc. A cross-disciplinary examination of this issue is encouraged and posts about everything from the merging of art and science or science and faith, to posts that highlight social life to how people from well-represented groups are strong advocates of diversity initiatives.

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