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April 26 SftP [was] Film night 7:30 PM in Mt. Pleasant
"Who Are the Yes Men?"
Come join us in watching Yes Men footage and celebrating their heroic parodies, and their ability to connect the dots between complicated issues - making them palatable for mass consumption!
(watch for the next film night!)
La Casa
3166 Mount Pleasant St. NW, Washington, DC
5 blocks from Columbia Hts. Metro on the Green Line
Also near H4, H8, 42, 43, S2, S4 buses
DC Metro Science for the People meeting: 7 pm
Film showing: 7:30pm
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--- Jialing River, Chongqing, China during 2007 drought ---
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--- Near São Luis, Maranhão state, Brazil May 2009 ---
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--- Mountaintop removal in Kentucky ---
ARTICLES by DC METRO SftP
Education Research vs. Rhetoric: Congressional Hearings on No Child Left Behind, by Tim D'Emilio (Jan 4, 2007)
Torture: America's Brutal Prisons, by John.Kelly (Jan 5, 2007)
Salvage Logging - New Scientific Scandal, by Doug Boucher(Aug 15, 2006)
Junk Science, Wrongful Convictions and Terrorism, by John Kelly (Aug 20, 2006 )
Research Evidence and the Debate on Education: Reform vs. Change, by Tim D'Emilio (Aug 20, 2006)
Somethin's Fishy About Agricultural Biotechnology, by Preston Covington and Jane Zara (Aug 31, 2006)
Response and Resistance to Corporated-Backed Agrobiotechnologyby John Tharakan (Aug 31, 2006)
==>> Many more of our articles are in the SftP NEWSLETTER <<==
IN THE NEWS
Mandelbrot set see our Newsletter for original articles by DC Metro Science for the People members
. [Leslie Kaufman, NY Times, May 10] ! LATEST POSTS USAF Drones May Conduct “Incidental” Domestic Surveillance. "U.S. Air Force policy permits the incidental collection of domestic imagery by unmanned aerial systems (drones), but ordinarily would not allow targeted surveillance of a U.S. person. The Air Force policy was restated in a newly reissued instruction on oversight of Air Force intelligence." [Ordinarily? Read the article] Agent Orange Corn-on-the-cob Anyone? Meet thenewest happy couple: Frankencorn and 2,4-D. The chemical giant Dow is in line for approval for a new line of corn that has been genetically altered so that it can stand treatment with new more-potent weed-killers, this time laced with 2,4-D, known in Vietnam as Agent Orange - just as Monsanto did in the case of the herbicide Roundup. Norway: NATO Rehearses For War In The Arctic. For military leaders, global warming is a sure bet and in anticipation of a largely ice-free Arctic Ocean, feverish military activity taking place under the official label of a joint 'Norwegian-NATO-Partnership for Peace.' "The largest military exercise in the High North[involving 15 nations]...since the end of the Cold War ... was completed on March 21 in northern Norway.
Cold Response 2012 military exercise in Nordland, Norway. The yearly air land and maritime exercise is organized within NATO with a UN mandate. Australian Scientists: Deep Ocean Beneath Antarctic Responding Rapidly to Climate Change. New research reported by Agence France-Presse suggests that over half the dense Atlantic bottom water that forms and sinks along the edges of Antarctica and spreads globally along the ocean floors has vanished in the last 40 years. [Based on clarification by Maggie Zhou: It is thought that global-warming-induced melting has diluted the highly saline water and interfered with the sinking process, leading to "slowing down of the thermohaline circulation (a.k.a. the ocean conveyor belt), reducing nutrient and oxygen mixing, and can have profound effects on ocean ecosystems, and global/regional climate."] Game Over for the Climate. NASA's Hansen at his most alarming - calculates that if all the carbon contain in Canadas tar sands were oxidized, it would raise atmospheric CO2 to 500 ppm, leading to 50-foot+ sea level rises and drowning costal cities. He calls for defeat of the tar sands pipeline and a gradually-rising carbon tax. 40 Acres and a Rule: Draft Federal Fracking Regs Cover Only a Sliver of Land. proposed federal fracking rules would only apply to federally-managed land and the proposed requirement for disclosing the chemicals injected into the ground would be revealed to the public ,in many cases, only after drilling is completed. The Evolution Paradigm Shifts - interivew with James Shapiro. Shapiro's new book, "Evolution: A View from the 21st Century" is stirring up a storm of controversy by trying to questioning the paradigm of Darwinian evolution, just at a time when establishment scientists are being harrassed by the religious right. At the core of Shapiro's new synthesis is that "...the DNA record definitely does not support the slow accumulation of random gradual changes...", but the cell itself has the ability to participate in engineering. its own DNA. We Already Grow Enough Food For 10 Billion People -- and Still Can't End Hunger. A new study posted April 25 in Nature (Seufert, et al.) shows that non-organic methods are of growing food are still on average more efficient than organic methods, on average by 25%, but the variability is high. A combination of methods is suggested for feeding the world's growing population, but Gimenez points out that "Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth. The world already produces more than 1 ½ times enough food to feed everyone on the planet." Trivializing Fukushima. In response to an April 23 Washington Post editorial attempting to downplay the Fukushima nuclear tragedy and cheerleading a new expansionof nukes, Linda Gunter of Counterpunch sets out a powerful point-by-point rebuttal, emphasizing the distortions in the Post piece and pointing to the rapid growth in many areas of the world of non-carbon-based alternatives to nuclear. Impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature. Wind farms were found to cause a locally significant warming at night by mixing warmer air downward to dilute the near-surface cold inversionlayer. Grist predicts that the media will spin this into a big right-wind feeding frenzy and the Christian Science Monitor tries to head 'em off at the pass, reminding readers that the laws of thermodynamics haven't been repealed[yet].
The meltdown at Fukushima last year has led to the shutdown of the reactor complex there, but there is a serious ongoing problem with no solution in the near future: the highly radioactive spent fuel rods that contain 85 times more radioactivity than was released at Chernobyl and are sitting in cooling pools that require constant circulation of water, essentially forever. Some of the pools are elevated, some are exposed to the elements and all are still located in a highly active earthquake zone Rio+20 and the Neoliberal's "Green Economy". Seeking a Socially Inclusive Strategy for Climate Negotiations. The official pitch for Rio Earth Summit 1992 was "our common future", but the Rio+20 meeting in Brazil this June offers a negotiating text called The Future We Want. The question of course is, who is this "we"? Should we really worry about solar storms? Last month, the British government took the unprecedented step of declaring space weather one of the greatest threats to the country. Alongside terrorism, flooding and pandemics. Informative discussion of solar flares and CMEs(coronal mass ejections) and possible effects on our electronics-dominated technosphere. Our Bodies, Their Politics. In view of the posturing going on around birth control issues in the current political campaigns, we remind ourselves of a few grim facts: "More than 500,000 women die around the world each year from pregnancy-related causes, according to the WHO. A majority of those deaths occur in developing countries, but only a century ago American women faced similar fates. It was not until the 20th century that pregnancy-related death rates in the United States declined – a result of modern medicine, better sanitation and the advent of modern female contraception". State of Charge: Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings Across the United States. Driving an electric carinstead of a gasoline-powered car may actually increase net carbon emission, depending on the source of electricit Record Warm March Temperatures Continue Record-Breaking Periods. [Editorial comment: Common Dreams somewhat breathlessly reports that 15,000 new temperature records had been broken in the US March.This is a pretty meaningless number, since the map showsthat many of the measurements cited come from many stations located so close to each other that multiple record breakings are guaranteed]. But the lead sentence is scary enough: "The contiguous United States experienced the warmest March ever in the warmest start of the year ever in the warmest 12-month period ever."
---Cartoon published April 14 in Folha, São Paulo, Brazil--- How the US Uses Sexual Humiliation as a Political Tool to Control the Masses. What happened in the prisons of Iraq may soon be coming soon to a police station near you. Last week's 5-4 Supreme Court decision removing most restrictions on strip searches for even minor offenses is part of increasing sexual intrusion upon citizens The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center(Watch What You Say) A heavily fortified $2 billion complex is rising quickly outside an isolated desert town. It is the Utah Data Center, to be finished in Sept 2013, and is to capture and store in "near-bottomless databases...all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches" Protecting Psychologists Who Harm: The APA's Latest Wrong Turn The APA (American Psychological Association) has been struggling since the attacks of 2001 to contain dissident elements within the organization that have been speaking out against the co-operation of psychologists with torturers. In spite of a solid majority for an anti-torture resolution in 2008, APA leadership has continued to evade its implementation. ‘Public Transportation is a Human Right’: Demonstrators in 18 Cities Occupy Transit. Occupy ducked undergound last week, chaining open subway entrances in at least 18 cities to dramatize "the diversion of billions of tax dollars to war and the corporations that benefit from war,” said ATU International President Larry Hanley in a press statement. Why Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer to Global Warming. Some prominent environmentalists have been embracing nuclear power as a "green" alternative to burning carbon to buy us some time; and there the industry with government support is holding out hope for a "nuclear renaissance". But a promised new generation of nukes "has not been built and won’t be, because Wall Street won’t fund them. The only way nukes get built is with real or de facto socialism. The public sector has to pick up the tab, either during construction or after the fact, when bankrupt utilities get bailed out."[Christian Parenti,AlterNet, Apr4, 2012] Hacks of Valor. A Harvard law professor argues that the paranoid worldwide reactions to the creative hacks by Anonymous may be counterproductive to the capitalist power structure. The successful global campaign against ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) used the symboism of Anonymous as a kind of "soft power that allows millions of people, often in different countries, each of whom is individually weak, to surge in opposition to a given program or project enough to shape the outcome. In this sense, Anonymous has become a potent symbol of popular dissatisfaction with the concentration of political and corporate power in fewer and fewer hands."
Extreme Weather is the New Normal. The new IPCC report released Mar 28 once again increases the urgency of warnings about extreme events related to global warming. Events such as the unprecedented March heat over much of Eastern North America have been happening with increasing frequency, and are expected to become even more common. Money Talks, Science Walks: Millions Spent to Weaken FDA. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has just released a report showing that "between 2009 and 2011, prescription drug, biotechnology and medical device companies spent more than $700 million[(2/3 of this from drug companies] lobbying Congress and the Obama administration." Tennessee Passes Bill to Support Teaching of Climate Change Denial. More worries are ahead for science teachers in Tennessee (famous for the anti- Darwin "Scopes Monkey Trial") - not only do they have to tread carefully when they mention evolution, but now also face the ire of ignorant parents when they say "climate change" in the classroom. Why the Supreme Court Should Kill ‘Obamacare’. The court, says Lindorff, has the opportunity to create a crisis by "killing this monstrosity of political expedience and lobbyist strong-arming...and moving to real national health reform which would reduce costs substantially, provide quality health care to all, and finally drive a stake through the heart of the health insurance industry". It is noted that "family health crises are the major single cause of bankruptcies and homes foreclosures in the country". How to Write Like a Scientist. Why are articles in scientific journals so boring and badly written? "Why can’t we [scientists]write like other people write? Why can’t we tell our science in interesting, dynamic stories? Why must we write dryly? (Or, to rephrase that last sentence in the passive voice, as seems to be the scientific fashion, why must dryness be written by us?)" Why Magicians are a Scientist's Best Friend. Science for the People always complains about the mystification of science, and pseudo-science. What can we learn from magicians? "No matter how well educated, or how basically intelligent, trained, or observant a scientist may be, s/he may be a poor judge of a methodology employed in deliberate deception." Lessons from Obama's Keystone Cave-In. In a March 22 speech in Oklahoma, Obama reminded us how, over the last three years, " 'I’ve directedmy administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore.' And ...' We are drilling all over the place now.' As for pipelines, 'we’ve added enough new oil and gas pipelines to encircle the earth.' Climate blogger Joe Romm called the address 'Obama's worst speech ever.' " [Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, Mar23, 2012] ...at the southern site of the Keystne XL pipeline in Cushing, OK Remove Superbug-Breeding Antibiotics from Animal Feed. In 1977 - 40 years years ago, the FDA was ordered to begin proceedings againstwidespread us of antibiotics in animal feds. In the meantime the use has continued to spread, leading to increasing occurrences of of drug-resistant infections in humans. The new order from Judge Theodorem Katz is "to start proceedings to withdraw approval for the use of common antibiotics in animal feed". Again. See original Reuters story. 400 Chernobyls: Solar Flares, Electromagnetic Pulses and Nuclear Armageddon. There are 450 nuclear reactor power plants in the world and hundreds more under construction. They are all dependent on a reliable source of electricity to keep water flowing for cooling the reactor and usually, the spent fuel pools as well. What would happen if (or when) a giant electromagnetic storm of the magnitude observed in 1921 and 1859 causes massive long-term power disruptions blackouts? Solar Flare - NASA
Decline in Global Poverty? The World Bank recently (proudly) reported that the percentage of people living in extreme poverty (earning $1.25/day or less) has declined in almost every region of the developing world during the years 2005-2010.But questions are being raised about every aspect of this figure: Does this earnings-per-day approach really measure poverty? Does setting the threshold at $1.25 make any sense? Is the adjustment for purchasing power unbiased? How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii, carried and excreted by cats also infects many humans and may lie dormant in our brain cells. It was found to make strange changes in rats; not only did they lose some of their fear of cats, but became attracted to cat scent. In humans, t is claimed that T. gondii is involved in schizophrenia and also capable of making subtle changes in human behavior, even according to one study, to the extent of making infected people more prone to traffic accidents.. The Hidden Costs of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The battle over the pipeline is far from over; lots of money rides on the deal, and Obama's objection was mostly technical and didn't comment on the merits of the proposal. In fact, there is no shortage of gasoline; the U.S. is actually exporting gasoline. The Wind Industry’s License to Kill. Environmentalists are beginning to complain about wind-turbine-caused bird kills numbering in the hundreds of thousands, especially in the light of plans for accelerating growth of the wind energy sector.[Robert Bryce, Counterpunch, Mar 15, 2012] :Plan to Unleash Genetically Modified Mosquitoes. The plan is described by environmental groups as "dangerously misguided" and by scientists in Germany as based on ‘questionable pivotal scientific assertion[s]’; the company seeking permission, Oxitec, insists that there would be "no permanent change to the wild mosquito population".
Spying on Occupy: Prosecutors Subpoena Tweets, NYPD Arrests Protesters for ‘Thought Crimes’ The Tweets Belong to the People? Not in New York City they don't. Hi-tech protest tools cut both ways, and the cops can subpoena anything you've tweeted or intend to tweet (see also occucopters, Dec 23). "How Economics Shapes Science", interview with book's author Paula Stephan covers topics such as the impact of the competition for funding upon risk-taking in pursuing lines of research vs incremental advances; interactions with industry; increasing number of patents and attraction of foreign researchers. All Red Meat is Bad for You: . More good news for some of the creatures we feast upon: "Eating red meat — any amount and any type — appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range [An Pan et al., Harvard] study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years." [] An Executive Power to Kill? According to Attorney General Eric Holder, "The President of the United States can order the killing of US citizens, far from any battlefield, without charges, a trial, or any form of advance judicial approval." How did we get to this point? Do you trust Obama with this power? How about future presidents, with even more accurate ability to assassinate a presumed enemy from thousands of miles away? Will there be a future drone with your name on it? . Save the Lorax: Shun the Stuff. What would the Lorax do? According to the new Universal Studios animated film and "The Lorax" and its spinoff marketing, Mr. Lorax would be in elementary schools flacking everything from Mazda CX-5 SUVs with the “Truffula Seal of Approval” - to Truffula Chip Pancakes at IHOP. Psychologists and Torture, Then and Now. The 1963 CIA interrogation manual was the fruit of CIA-funded psychological research on electroshock treatment and sensory deprivation. Versions were widely used by governments in Asia and Latin America and eventually the techniques resurfaced in training protocols for post-9/11 interrogators at Gitmo.[ Human Engineering and Climate Change. Climate change is coming; why waste untold wealth on alternatives to carbon, or on dreaming up monster geo-engineering projects trying to prevent it? Does the answer may lie in engineering a better homo sapiens. This is apparently a serious article and has provoked much discussion on the list-serve of our sister group, SCIENCE-FOR-THE-PEOPLE (see archive for February: "Science for (Improving) the People", by Stewart Newman and check out the discussion posts as well) Colonialism in Africa helped launch the HIV epidemic a century ago. A fascinating peek into how the probable forays of colonial explorers into the African bush a century ago probably created the conditions for the jump of the HIV virus from primates to humans. The new anti-science assault on US schools - how anti-evolution campaigners are combining with climate change deniers to undermine public education. Posted Feb 17: Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science. It's well known that the well-heeled Heartland Institute is devoted to undermining scientific research on climate change. But a recent leak of sensitive Heartland documents, which were then published by the DeSmogBlog revealed plans for a stepped-up campaign, including a portion aimed at altering the teaching of science in schools. (see our Feb 4 post below for an idea of how efforts like this are already affecting science teachers)and also Heartland's counter-charges.[Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian UK, Feb 15] Posted Feb 17: Hacking Group Attacks Weapons Maker. Anonymous strikes again! This time the hackers with the white hats took down the web site of Combined Systems, supplier of weapons used to put down the last year's revolt in Bahrain. The group also "claimed to have stolen employee names, e-mails, addresses, passwords and client lists, and threatened the site’s administrators that if they helped Combined Systems rebuild its Web site, they would expose those companies’ client lists and e-mails as well." Combined Systems describes itself as a tactical weapons company and has recently supplied Egyptian security forces with riot control agents. [Nicole Perlroth, NY Times bits blog, Feb 14] Posted Feb 17: Propaganda stepped up post-Fukushima. "After Fukushima, almost every country with nuclear power stations paused to consider its position...The response of the UK was completely different. Only a day or two after the tsunami, when the situation was spiralling out of control and no one could know what the consequences would be, the government got together with the nuclear industry, not to consider what lessons could be learned from the events at Fukushima but to put out propaganda to allay any fears the public might have.[Staff report, Institute for Science in Society, Feb 14] Posted Feb 17: The right's stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left. George Monbiot on the basis of a Canadian study concludes that conservatives have on average relatively low "general intelligence" and tend to be more intolerant than average folks. If they're dumb, how come they're in charge?Says Monbiot - the left is too timid - "liberals in politics on both sides of the Atlantic continue to back off, yielding to the supremacy of the stupid. It's turkeys all the way down."[George Monbiot, The Guardian UK(via CommonDreams, Feb 6] Posted Feb 10: Watch 131 Years of Global Warming in 26 Seconds. A series of successive global images of year-by-year departures of surface temperatures from normal. Excellent depiction of how the warming process fluctuates from year to year and place to place.[Data from NASA,Climatecentral.org,Jan 30] Posted Feb 10: So What’s A Teacher to Do? Years of well-funded fossil-fuel industry propaganda have succeeded in recruiting the right wing to plant misinformation and outright lies in the minds of school parent, who in turn have successfully intimidated science teachers - as if creationism hadn't done enough damage. Be sure to read the discussion![Eugenie Scott. RealClimate,Feb 4] Posted Feb 10: Did Global Warming Cause Sidney Crosby’s Concussion? Parallels between denying that humans cause climate change and denying that sports-violence-caused concussions cause dementia.[Jeff Grant,Climatecentral.org,Jan 30] Posted Feb 4: Wall Street Journal Slammed for Giving Platform to Climate Change Deniers.In response to a widely-panned op-ed piece by a well-known group of global warming deniers, many without expertise in climate forecasting, a group of 39 climate scientists published a short rebuttal pointing out that the view prominently published in the WSJ was not shared by some 97% of actively publishing climate scientists and noted that the last decade again was the warmest in history. We at dcmetrosftp.org have just updated our climate links - please check them out.[Staff, CommonDreams,Feb 1] Posted Feb 4: US Uses Depleted Uranium, makes graveyards in Afghanistan. "An Afghan activist [Dr. Mohammad Daud Miraki]reveals the US is still using horrific depleted uranium weapons in Afghanistan, creating graveyards of people who die of cancer and other unusual diseases, Press TV reports." Also picked up by poorrichards-blog. [presstv.ir, feb 1] Posted Feb 4: Search for Aliens Is on Again, but Next Quest Is Finding Money. "Operating on money and equipment scrounged from the public and from Silicon Valley millionaires, and on the stubborn strength of their own dreams, a band of astronomers recently restarted one of the iconic quests of modern science, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — SETI, for short — which had been interrupted last year by a lack of financing..." [Dennis Overbye,NY Times,Jan 29] Posted Feb 4: Declaration of 2012 World Social Forum, Porto Alegre Brazil. Jan 28: "We, people of all continents ... fight against the causes of a systemic crisis expressed as the economic, financial, political, food, and environmental crisis, that puts at risk the survival of humankind. Decolonizing oppressed peoples and confronting imperialism is the main challenge of the social movements of all over the world..." [continued...] [Arjun Makhijani, IEER Press Release, Jan 28] Stephen Leahy,IPSnews.com,Jan 24 Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero,IPSnews.com,Jan 24 [Linda Penz Gunter Counterpunch, Jan20-22] [Chase Madar, Tom Dispatch (via Commondreams), Jan 20] [Ray Pierrehumbert and David Archer, RealClimate, Jan 16] [Ari Levaux, Atlantic (via Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing.net),Jan 09] [Common Dreams staff report, Jan 11] Robert NaimanCommonDreamsJan 11] [Nan Levinson, In These Times, jan 5] [Coleen Rowley, Common Dreams, Jan 5] Posted Jan 5, 2012 [Tom Englehart, Common Dreams, Jan 3]
Stuck in the sand in Afghanistan ====================== 2011 ============================= Posted Dec 31: Posted Dec 31 Posted Dec 31 [Steven Sherwood,Physics Today,Oct 11] [Steve Connor, The Independent(via Common Dreams), Dec 22]
News items for 2011 -
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