How America Turned Into a Nation of Speedfreaks and Ritalin Patients
January 3rd, 2011Via: Alternet:
In the fullness of history, all the different varieties of speed may have been products of the twentieth century, even though they are still around nearly a decade into the twenty-first, and show no sign of waning. Speed is too much of a reflection of its time. The twentieth century was an era of acceleration.
Related: Speed-Speed-Speedfreak: A Fast History of Amphetamine by Mick Farren
The Lamb Chop Boom
January 3rd, 2011Via: Foreign Policy:
Forget gold and oil. Investors looking to beat the recession in the next decade might want to consider hitting the open range and starting a sheep farm. In 2010, Australian rams began selling for more than $100 a head for the first time in history as dwindling stocks sent mutton prices soaring. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is forecasting a 300,000-ton shortage in the global lamb supply over the next five years. That’s bad news for the growing number of consumers in the Middle East and Asia with a taste for lamb, but a windfall for long-struggling farmers in Australia and New Zealand, the world’s two largest sheep producers.
Think the Employment Situation is Bad in the U.S.? Try Getting a Job in Southern Europe
January 3rd, 2011Via: New York Times:
Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.
It galled her that even with her competence and fluency in five languages, it was nearly impossible to land a paying job. Working as an unpaid trainee lawyer was bad enough, she thought, but doing it at Italy’s social security administration seemed too much. She not only worked for free on behalf of the nation’s elderly, who have generally crowded out the young for jobs, but her efforts there did not even apply to her own pension.
“It was absurd,” said Ms. Esposito, a strong-willed woman with a healthy sense of outrage.
The outrage of the young has erupted, sometimes violently, on the streets of Greece and Italy in recent weeks, as students and more radical anarchists protest not only specific austerity measures in flattened economies but a rising reality in Southern Europe: People like Ms. Esposito feel increasingly shut out of their own futures. Experts warn of volatility in state finances and the broader society as the most highly educated generation in the history of the Mediterranean hits one of its worst job markets.
Politicians are slowly beginning to take notice. Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, devoted his year-end message on Friday to “the pervasive malaise among young people,” weeks after protests against budget cuts to the university system brought the issue to the fore.
Giuliano Amato, an economist and former Italian prime minister, was even more blunt. “By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones,” he recently told Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest newspaper.
The daughter of a fireman and a high school teacher, Ms. Esposito was the first in her family to graduate from college and the first to study foreign languages. She has an Italian law degree and a master’s from Germany and was an intern at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It has not helped.
“I have every possible certificate,” Ms. Esposito said dryly. “I have everything except a death certificate.”
Related: Euro: One-in-Five Chance of Surviving Next Decade
Gorgon Stare
January 3rd, 2011Via: Washington Post:
In ancient times, Gorgon was a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them. In modern times, Gorgon may be one of the military’s most valuable new tools.
This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.
The system, made up of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, can transmit live images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements. It can send up to 65 different images to different users; by contrast, Air Force drones today shoot video from a single camera over a “soda straw” area the size of a building or two.
With the new tool, analysts will no longer have to guess where to point the camera, said Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, the Air Force’s assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we’re looking at, and we can see everything.”
Sacramento Girl Needed Amputations After 5-Hour Wait at Emergency Room
January 1st, 2011Via: Sacramento Bee:
As his tiny daughter’s skin turned blotchy and her body went limp during a lengthy wait at Methodist Hospital’s emergency room, Ryan Jeffers panicked.
“This wasn’t a simple flu,” he said. “My daughter needed help.”
Little did he know that the girl was near death from a common infection that had invaded her blood and was raging out of control, ultimately causing the amputation of both of her feet and one of her hands.
Malyia Jeffers, 2, is still fighting for her life at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and her Sacramento parents are left wondering how a simple Strep A bug turned into a medical horror story.
Spain and Italy Have to Refinance Over $530 Billion of Bonds in the Spring
January 1st, 2011Via: Reuters:
The euro currency area has only a one-in-five chance of surviving in its current form over the next 10 years because of competitive imbalances between its members, a leading British think tank said on Friday.
The Center for Economics and Business Research said Spain and Italy would have to refinance over 400 billion euros ($530 billion) of bonds in the spring, potentially sparking a fresh crisis within the 16-nation euro area.
“The euro might break up at this point, though European politicians are normally able to respond to a crisis,” said CEBR Chief Executive Douglas McWilliams in a list of 10 forecasts for 2011.
Sovereign debt crises in Greece and Ireland have rocked euro nations this year, leading some commentators to speculate that Germany could eventually lose patience with bailing out its more profligate neighbors, triggering a split in the currency bloc.
‘Crash Taxes’ Are Growing in Popularity Among Cash-Strapped California Cities
January 1st, 2011Let me understand this: There’s no discount on all the other taxes people pay to the state, and then they get charged by the state when there’s an emergency? Maniac fascists have no concept of enough.
There’s one voice of sanity in this article:
“To me, it’s an outrage. We’re already paying these people — the police department, the fire department, the emergency vehicle drivers — handsome salaries and benefits,” said Lew Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee. “Either we stop this kind of nonsense or we should quit paying taxes for these kind of services.”
Via: Los Angeles Times:
One more good reason to drive safely in California: If you cause an accident, you may be on the hook to pay the police and firefighters who show up to help.
At least 50 cities in the state have adopted so-called crash-tax laws allowing local governments to seek reimbursement from insurance companies for the costs of sending public emergency crews to accident scenes. The fees can amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars. If insurers don’t pay, cities can hire collection agents to seek payment from the motorists involved.
Ivory Coast on the ‘Brink of Genocide’
January 1st, 2011A few terms that don’t appear in the story below: Oil, diamonds, cobalt, gold, iron, manganese and nickel.
Cocoa, however, is mentioned.
Via: Guardian:
Ivory Coast is on the “brink of genocide” and the world must take urgent action, the country’s new ambassador to the UN has warned. Youssoufou Bamba also claimed that some houses were being marked according to the tribe of the occupier.
The plea came as the UN accused the security forces of the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, of blocking access to mass graves, saying investigators believed as many as 80 bodies may be in one building.
World leaders have stepped up pressure on Gbagbo to quit in favour of Alassane Ouattara, who is widely recognised as having won last month’s elections.
Speaking in New York, Bamba, who was appointed by Ouattara, described him as the rightful ruler of Ivory Coast. “He has been elected in a free, fair, transparent, democratic election,” he said.
“The result has been proclaimed by the independent electoral commission, certified by the UN. To me the debate is over, now you are talking about how and when Mr Gbagbo will leave office.”
Bamba alleged there had been a “massive violation of human rights”, with more than 170 people killed during street demonstrations. “One of the messages I try to get across is to tell we are on the brink of genocide. Something should be done.”
He implied that Ouattara strongholds, which are largely in the north, could be targeted by Gbagbo backers, saying: “If houses are being marked according to your tribe, what is going to be next?”
200,000 Australians Affected by Floods Covering Larger Area than France and Germany Combined
January 1st, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Some 200,000 Australians have been affected by flood waters covering an area larger than France and Germany combined.
Military aircraft dropped supplies to towns cut off by floods as rising rivers inundated or isolated 22 towns in the state of Queensland.
…
Officials say half of Queensland’s 715,305 square miles is affected, after being hit by as much as 24 inches of rain this month, causing swollen rivers to overflow.
While the rain has stopped, the rivers are still surging to new heights and overflowing into low-lying towns as the water makes its way toward the sea.
The TSA’s State-Mandated Molestation
December 31st, 2010Via: Guardian:
The ACLU maintains an ever-growing database of these indignities, many so graphic they’re illegal to broadcast over public airwaves. Actions that violate FCC standards are embraced by the TSA. “Mary in Texas” reported:
The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone … I was touched in the pubic region in between my labia … She then moved her hand across my pubic region and down the inner part of my upper thigh to the floor. She repeated this procedure on the other side. I was shocked and broke into tears.
A woman named Chris said:
“In the four times she explored the area where my inner thigh met my crotch, she touched my labia each time, and one pass made contact with my clitoris, through two layers of clothing. I told her I felt humiliated, assaulted and abused … In my work as a nurse, if I did what the TSA did against a patient’s will it would be considered assault and battery, and I did not see how the TSA should have different rules.”
Recipients of such treatment aren’t allowed to show distress. Melissa from Massachusetts did anyway:
“I was shaking and crying the entire time. I was begging them to hurry up but they kept stopping and telling me to calm down. It is impossible to gain composure when a stranger has her hands in your underwear.”
