Julia Whitty - Big Changes in Ocean Salinity Intensifying Water Cycle

A paper [1] in Science today finds rapidly changing ocean salinities as a result of a warming atmosphere have intensified the global water cycle (evaporation and precipitation) by an incredible 4 percent between 1950 and 2000. That's twice the rate predicted by models. 

These same models have long forecast that dry areas of Earth will become drier and wet areas wetter in a warming climate—an intensification of the water cycle driven mostly by the capacity of warmer air to hold and redistribute more moisture in the form of water vapor.

But the rate of intensification of the global water cycle is happening far faster than imagined: at about 8 percent per degree Celsius of ocean warming since 1950.

At this rate, the authors calculate:

• The global water cycle will intensify by a whopping 16 percent in a 2°C warmer world
• The global water cycle will intensify by a frightening 24 percent in a 3°C warmer world

Read More:

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/04/warming-climate-driving-huge-salinity-and-water-cycle-changes-ocean

Andy Borowitz - Romney Pays Surprise Visit to his Money in the Caymans

In an uncharacteristically emotional scene for the presumptive GOP nominee, Mitt Romney today paid a surprise visit to his money in the Cayman Islands.

Speaking in a bank vault surrounded by stacks of cash, Mr. Romney praised his money for "the brave work you have done in the never-ending fight for freedom from Federal income tax."

"Thanks to your hard work, losers around the world are envious of me," he added.  "For that I salute you."

Stressing that his money's mission in the Caymans was "far from over," he refused to set any timetable for withdrawal.

In a reference to his bid for the Presidency, Mr. Romney told his money, "It would be an honor and a privilege to have my face on you someday."

Read More:

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/05/02/romney-pays-surprise-visit-to-his-money-in-the-caymans/

Barak Ravid - Israel joins UN list of states limiting human rights organizations

A senior UN official in Geneva last week listed Israel among the countries that she says are restricting the activities of human rights groups.

The statement, issued on Wednesday by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, lists Israel along with countries such as Belarus, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Ethiopia and Venezuela.

Israel was named due to the bill approved by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation six months ago to restrict funding by foreign governments to nonprofit organizations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the bill throughout most of its formulation. However, he ordered it frozen after Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said such a law would be struck down by the High Court of Justice.

Although the law never reached the Knesset, Pillay said in her statement: "In Israel, the recently adopted Foreign Funding Law could have a major impact on human rights organizations, subjecting them to rigorous reporting requirements, forcing them to declare foreign financial support in all public communications, and threatening heavy penalties for non-compliance."

Israel is the only democratic country listed in Pillay's statement. The others are all dictatorships or developing countries. Among them is Ethiopia, where human rights groups have been shut down by a law prohibiting foreign funding in excess of 10 percent of a group's budget. She also lists Cambodia, where a law is being promoted that would shutter NGOs whose work is found to "harm national unity, culture, customs and traditions of the Cambodian national society." In Belarus, which is ruled by the dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a law passed in October 2011 criminalizes the acceptance of foreign grants that are outlawed by the legislature.

Read More:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-joins-un-list-of-states-limiting-human-rights-organizations-1.427184

Eric Margolis - The Return of France’s Vichy Far Right

France and Europe were left shaken and confused after Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party won 18% of the vote in last week’s first round presidential election.

President Nicholas Sarkozy did better than polls had predicted, but the widely anticipated first place win of Socialist Francois Hollande was still a humiliation to the hyperkinetic Sarkozy who sought to wrap himself in the French flag. Polls show Hollande, a bland, unassuming figure, continues to lead Sarkozy in the final election to be held on 6 May.

The National Front is no longer on the ballot in the final two-man race, but it remains the hulking 800-kg gorilla in the ornate drawing room of French politics.

As Marine Le Pen said, French politics will never be the same again.

Just who and what does the National Front represent? I spent a day in the late 1980’s interviewing party founder and father of Marine, Jean Marie LePen, and have followed the LePens ever since.

Read More:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-margolis/42883/the-return-of-france-s-vichy-far-right

Dina Rasor - Prison Industries: "Don't Let Society Improve or We Lose Business"

One out of every 100 people in the United States is imprisoned. Even though we are 5 percent of the world's population, we have 25 percent of the prisoners in the world. We are number one in the world in the number of people we imprison - we even beat China. A normal reaction to this situation would be to try to reform our laws, our judicial system - including sentencing - our prison system and our society so that we would not have the disconcerting distinction of being the number-one jailer in the world.

Instead, in the past decade, there has been a movement to privatize more and more of our state and federal prisons to save money (which has not materialized) and ease overcrowding under the pressure of the courts. This has led to a wide world of influence peddling, self-dealing and lobbying while preying on a captured group of people to fill prison beds. Just as I have feared that privatizing the logistics of war will encourage private war-service industries to lobby for a hot war or long occupation to keep their industries viable, there has emerged a group of prison industries, state and federal legislators, and other players who will continue to benefit from our disgraceful ranking as the world's largest warden.

There are two very large and influential prison companies in the United States who are manipulating the system to make sure they have plenty of business: The GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). In the first part of this two-part series, I will explore The GEO Group's influence peddling; next week, I will look at CCA.

Read More:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8731-prison-industries-dont-let-society-improve-or-we-lose-business-part-i

Thomas C. Mountain - Destroying Africa With Western “Democracy”

Western style “democracy” is destroying Africa. It seems everywhere you look in Africa you see elections marked by violence and bloodshed. “Buy, rig or steal” is the name of the game and if that doesn't work, send in the French army and UN “peacekeepers” and rocket the presidential residence and just take over by brute force.

“Democracy” is supposed to mean that the leaders of a nation do what their people want them to do.

If you ask almost all Africans what they want most from their leaders they will tell you;

1) Enough food to eat.

2) Clean water to drink

3) A roof over their heads

4) Accessible and affordable medical care

5) Education for their children

Elections are way down on the list of grassroots African priorities.

Food, water, shelter and medical care, if a countries leadership is getting these priorities taken care of then they are actually practicing democracy and if they don't provide these services to their people they are not democratic, no matter the praised heaped on them by their neo-colonial masters in the west.

Read More:

http://www.countercurrents.org/mountain300412.htm

James Picerno - What Happened to Peak Oil?

Fears that the world is running short of oil aren’t going away, but judging by the latest figures on global oil production there’s no sign that the peak oil factor is an imminent threat. Global output rose to a new all-time high last December, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA): 75.384 million barrels per day, or just ahead of the previous peak of 75.170 million barrels a day in January 2011.

A new high may ease anxiety over oil supplies for the moment, but it’s sure to be a temporary respite. All the challenges that have weighed on the outlook for raising production over the past decade are still with us. Discoveries of big, easily recoverable supplies are dwindling. Yes, U.S. consumption of oil has reportedly fallen 10% since 2005, but world demand keeps rising, mostly because of increasing growth from China, India, and other emerging markets that are rapidly industrializing and using ever larger quantities of fossil fuels.

Read More:

http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2012/04/what-happened-to-peak-oil/?utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EconoMonitor%20Highlights%3A%20Challenging%20Bernanke%2C%20Austerity%20Debates%2C%20Growth%20Concerns

Ex-Israeli Spymaster: Leaders 'Messianic'

The former head of Israel's Shin Bet security agency has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of having "messianic feelings" behind their threats to launch a pre-emptive war on Iran and they should not be trusted.

Yuval Diskin and "Messianic" Netanyahu upon Diskin completing his term as head of the Israeli spy agency Shin Bet in May, 2011. "I don't have faith in the current leadership of Israel to lead us to an event of this magnitude, of war with Iran," Yuval Diskin said at a public meeting Friday, video of which was posted on the Internet the today and quickly became the lead news item in Israel.

"I do not believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on Messianic feelings," he continued. "I have seen them up close. They are not messiahs, these two, and they are not the people that I personally trust to lead Israel into an event."

Diskin said, "Over the past 10-15 years Israel has become more and more racist. All of the studies point to this. This is racism toward Arabs and toward foreigners, and we are also becoming a more belligerent society."

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/28

The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America

An entire way of life is rapidly dying right in front of our eyes.  The family farm is being systematically wiped out of existence in America, and big agribusiness and the federal government both have blood all over their hands.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today.  That doesn't mean that there is less farming going on.  U.S. farms are producing more than ever.  But what it does mean is that farming is increasingly becoming dominated by the big boys.  The rules of the game have been tilted in favor of big agribusiness so dramatically that most small farmers find that they simply cannot compete anymore.  Back in 1900, about 39 percent of the U.S. population worked on farms.  At this point, only about 2 percent of all Americans now live on farms.  Big agribusiness, the food processing conglomerates, and big seed companies such as Monsanto completely dominate the industry.  Unless something dramatic is done, the family farm is going to continue to be wiped out of existence.  Unfortunately, it does not look like things are going to turn around any time soon.

The way that the farming industry is structured today, it is simply not economically feasible to operate a small family farm.  According to Farm Aid, every week approximately 330 farmers leave their land for good.

Many old timers are trying to hang on for as long as they can.  A very large percentage of family farmers are in their fifties, sixties or seventies at this point.  Today, only about 6 percent of all farmers are under the age of 35.

Read More:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-family-farm-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america

Samuel Alexander - Can Renewable Energy Sustain Consumer Societies?

A new report has just been published which ought to provoke a Copernican revolution in dominant conceptions of renewable energy and of sustainability more generally. The message may not be one that environmentalists want to hear, but it is one that we must all take very seriously, or risk having our good intentions dedicated to goals that cannot actually solve the very real environmental crises that we face.

Most people, including many environmentalists, seem to believe that Western-style consumer lifestyles can be sustained and even globalised, provided the world transitions to systems of renewable energy and produces goods more cleanly and efficiently. This assumption is reflected especially clearly in political discussion on environmental issues, which consistently pushes the message that we can grow our economies while reducing ecological impact. This view relies heavily on the expectation that renewable energy sources can be substituted for fossil fuels, but very little attention is given to the question of whether that expectation is realistic. Environmentalists want to believe it, but of course merely wanting something does not affect the laws of physics.

With little recognition, Dr. Ted Trainer has spent the best part of a decade tirelessly surveying the best available data on renewable energy and other technologies, and he has recently published the culmination of his efforts with the Simplicity Institute. Contradicting widely held assumptions, Trainer presents a formidable case that renewable energy and other ‘tech-fixes’ will be unable to sustain growth-based and energy-intensive consumer societies, with implications that are as profound as they will be unwelcome.

Read More:

http://www.countercurrents.org/alexander280412.htm