Terra Daily - Rethinking the ocean's role in Pacific climate

by Staff Writers, Terra Daily
Miami FL (SPX) Nov 22, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Rethinking_the_ocean_role_in_Pacific_climate_999.html 

University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science researchers have climate scientists rethinking a commonly held theory about the ocean's role in theglobal climate system.

The new findings can aid scientists in better understanding and predicting changes in the Pacific climate and its impacts around the globe.

According to the study's lead author, UM Rosenstiel School Professor Amy Clement, the tropical atmospheric pressure system know as the Southern Oscillation (a periodic fluctuation of atmospheric pressure commonly observed as the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which brings unusually warm water across the Pacific Ocean basin) plays a bigger, more fundamental role in the climate system than just being El Nino's atmospheric counterpart.

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Terra Daily - China to call for extension of Kyoto at climate talks

by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) Nov 22, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/China_to_call_for_extension_of_Kyoto_at_climate_talks_999.html

China, the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, said Tuesday it will push at next week's climate talks for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which requires rich nations to reduce their emissions.

Beijing's top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua also called on wealthy nations to hammer out a funding mechanism to help developing countries implement efforts to address global warming at the Durban meeting.

But he said China would only take on commitments "appropriate to our stage of development", reiterating Beijing's long-held view that poorer countries should not be required to make binding commitments on emissions.

"The emission-reduction plan for developed countries in the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol should be made clear as soon as possible," Xie told reporters, ahead of next week's UN climate talks in Durban.

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UPI - Dalai Lama questions self-immolation

by Staff Writers
New Delhi (UPI) Nov 21, 2011

The Dalai Lama said he doesn't encourage self-immolation by monks and nuns protesting China's control over Tibet and questions the usefulness of the acts as a protest tool.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the 76-year-old Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader denied accusations by Chinese authorities that he is actively encouraging Tibetans to set themselves on fire in public places.

He said "the question is how much effect" the self-immolations have on the Chinese authorities and their more than 50 years of rule in Tibet.

"There is courage -- very strong courage" by the people who set themselves on fire. "But how much effect? Courage alone is no substitute. You must utilize your wisdom."

He said many Tibetans of all walks of life have died for a more free Tibet and the Chinese authorities response is to clamp down harder on the population.

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Washington's Blog - Fukushima: “China Syndrome Is Inevitable” … “Huge Steam Explosions”

“Massive Hydrovolcanic Explosion” or a “Nuclear Bomb-Type Explosion” May Occur

By Washington's Blog 

Global Research, November 22, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27804

Fukushima May Blow

I’ve repeatedly noted that we may experience a “China syndrome” type of accident at Fukushima.

For example, I pointed out in September:

Mainichi Dailly News notes:

As a radiation meteorology and nuclear safety expert at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, Hiroaki Koide [says]:

The nuclear disaster is ongoing.

***

At present, I believe that there is a possibility that massive amounts of radioactive materials will be released into the environment again.

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Peter Dale Scott - The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11

By Prof. Peter Dale Scott

Global Research, November 22, 2011

Asia Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47, No 2, - 2011-11-21

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27806 

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

       -- Senator Frank Church (1975)

I would like to discuss four major and badly understood events C the John F. Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. I will analyze these deep events as part of a deeper political process linking them, a process that has helped build up repressive power in America at the expense of democracy. 

In recent years I have been talking about a dark force behind these events -- a force which, for want of a better term, I have clumsily called a “deep state,” operating both within and outside the public state. Today for the first time I want to identify part of that dark force, a part which has operated for five decades or more at the edge of the public state. This part of the dark force has a name not invented by me: the Doomsday Project, the Pentagon’s name for the emergency planning “to keep the White House and Pentagon running during and after a nuclear war or some other major crisis.”1

My point is a simple and important one: to show that the Doomsday Project of the 1980s, and the earlier emergency planning that developed into it, have played a role in the background of all the deep events I shall discuss.

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Michael Beckel - Religious Lobby on the Rise

Published on Monday, November 21, 2011 by OpenSecrets Blog

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/21-4

by Michael Beckel

The religious lobby is on the rise, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The number of religious organizations playing the influence game in Washington has swelled since 1970, according to the Pew study. In 1970, less than 40 groups were involved with lobbying or advocacy efforts. Now, that number has risen to more than 200.

The Pew report notes that lobbying for the faithful is often a multi-million-dollar prerogative.

Pew estimated that more than 200 groups currently spend a combined nearly $400 million a year on lobbying and advocacy work.

As OpenSecrets Blog has previously noted, only some of this is directly disclosed to Congress in the form of regular lobbying reports.

When Congress passed the Lobbying Disclosure Act in 1995, it provided for a few exceptions to disclosure rules, including lobbying communications made by a “church, its integrated auxiliary or a convention or association of churches that is exempt from filing a federal income tax return," as well as a "religious order."

The only instances in which a church must disclose its lobbying is if it spends a “substantial” amount of money on lobbying, if more than 20 percent of its lobbyist’s income is from direct lobbying on behalf of the church or if it hires an outside lobbying firm.

Then, the hired firm is required to disclose that it has lobbied on behalf of a religious institution.

The “substantial” test is a murky one, with little enforcement of it, and as is the 20 percent rule, unless attention is drawn to the organization.

Nevertheless, research by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that lobbying by religious organizations frequently exceeds $1 million a year.

In 2007, the highest year on record, 34 religious groups spent a combined $3.7 million on lobbying and hired 108 lobbyists, according to the Center's research.

During the first three quarters of this year, 23 religious groups spent a combined $1.7 million on lobbying and hired 68 lobbyists, according to the Center's research.

Brad Johnson - GOP Deniers Block Creation Of Climate Service

Published on Monday, November 21, 2011 by ThinkProgress

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/11/21/373634/gop-deniers-block-creation-of-climate-service/

by Brad Johnson

Science-averse Republicans have once again blocked the establishment of a National Climate Service by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, moving from denial of man-made climate change to the denial of climate itself. “I’m very concerned that NOAA has taken steps to form what amounts to a shadow climate service operation,” House science committee chair Ralph Hall (R-TX) cried in September. At a hearing in June, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) blasted the budget-neutral plan to consolidate NOAA’s existing, widely dispersed, climate capabilities under a single management structure as “propaganda services.” In the committee report submitted by appropriations chair Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) for the 2012 budget, the National Climate Service is expressly forbidden:

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Jack Shenker and Luke Harding - US Firm's Teargas Used Against Tahrir Square Protesters

Published on Monday, November 21, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/21/tahrir-square-us-teargas-used-egypt

Egypt's military junta fired CS gas cartridges made by Combined Systems Inc of Pennsylvania, say demonstrators

by Jack Shenker in Cairo and Luke Harding

The teargas used by interior ministry troops in Cairo's Tahrir Square is supplied by a US company. Demonstrators say cartridges retrieved from the scene are branded with the name and address of Combined Systems Inc (CSI).

The firm is located in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. It specializes in supplying what it calls "crowd control devices" to armies and "homeland security agencies" around the world. It also manufactures lethal military equipment.

Protesters say the CS gas seems more powerful than that used by Egyptian police during the country's last popular uprising in February. "It's stronger, it burns your face, it makes you feel like your whole body is seizing up," one witness said. He added: "It doesn't seem to be combated by Coke or vinegar."

Experts told the Guardian the gas was likely to be standard CS gas, but the effects could be exacerbated by physical exertion.

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Wendell Potter - The Health Care Industry's Stranglehold on Congress

Monday 21 November 2011

by: Wendell Potter, iWatch News [3] | Op-Ed

Special interests target the independent board that may be the last best hope for Medicare reform.

One of the reasons why Congress has been largely unable to make the American health care system more efficient and equitable is because of the stranglehold lobbyists for special interests have on the institution.

Whenever lawmakers consider any kind of meaningful reform, the proposed remedies inevitably create winners and losers. Physicians’ incomes most likely will be affected in some way, as will the profits of all the other major players: the hospitals, the drug companies, the medical device manufacturers, and the insurers, just to name a few. The list is long, and the platoons of highly paid and well-connected lobbyists who represent their interests comprise a large private army that conquered Capitol Hill years ago.

One has to wonder, then, how in the world Congress was able to include a provision in last year’s health care reform law to establish an independent board that would strip Congress of some of the authority it currently has — but rarely is able to exercise — over the Medicare program.

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Cesar Chelala - How to Own a Congressman

Published on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/22-1 

by César Chelala

A widespread perception that Congress people respond increasingly to special interests has received additional support from a person who knows something about it. In a cynical interview with Lesley Stahl, from “60 minutes” Jack Abramoff, one of the most notorious lobbyists in recent times, explains the tactics that he used in dealing with people in Congress. In addition, he gives a chilling assessment of recent reforms intended to change this situation.

Infamous Washington D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff reveals how he kept hundreds of Bush-era congressional staffers in his pocket. In 2011, it was estimated that there were over 13,000 registered federal lobbyists based in Washington, DC. They spend huge amounts of money on their work, up to $3.5 billion in 2010 according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Their competence as individuals, groups or corporations to lobby the government is protected by the right to petition clause in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

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