Category: In The News

Can You Say, ‘Bienvenidos’?

Can You Say, 'Bienvenidos'?
Maybe the real fear is more visceral than that. Maybe it's that you don't have to extrapolate immigration and fertility rates very far into the future to see an America in which minorities — Hispanic, African and Asian Americans — are a majority. To put it another way: an America in which whites join the rest of us as just another minority. That's already the case in our two most populous states, California and Texas, according to the Census Bureau, with others including New York, Arizona and Florida likely to follow soon.

Don't freak out, folks. It's not the end of the world. You might ask your black neighbors for advice on how to cope.

Rebuilding needs, here and there

Rebuilding needs, here and there – Commentary – The Washington Times,
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of outstanding homicide warrants are for illegal aliens. The lethal 18th Street Gang has an estimated 20,000 members, over half illegal aliens, according to a ranking member of LAPD, speaking not for attribution. The LA-based MS-13 (Mara Salvatruchka), whose membership was originally limited to street-tough Salvadorans, now numbers 50,000 (10,000 in Los Angeles alone). These gangs thrive where infrastructure decays.

While I think it is a bit of strech to blame crumbling infrastructure for criminal gangs, De Borchgrave's commentary is alarming. Continue reading “Rebuilding needs, here and there”

Reasearch on Pre-Historic Climate Change

AAAS – AAAS News Release
"If you go back in time, you have to go back to the middle Pliocene before you get to see a climate that was as warm as what we are going to see in the next 50 to 100 years in our own time," Chandler said.

Ocean temperatures rose substantially during that warming episode—as much as 7 to 9 degrees Celsius (about 12 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas of the North Atlantic. But scientists are puzzled. The carbon dioxide levels at that time — inferred from geochemical data — were roughly comparable to our own time, approaching 400 parts per million.

The natural trigger for the PETM warming episode remains a subject of intense debate, but Thomas said a leading hypothesis involves the release of huge amounts of methane gas that had been trapped in ice compounds called methane hydrates. Methane produces less carbon dioxide than coal when it is burned as a fuel, and it is a powerful greenhouse gas. Most methane hydrates in the present oceans are frozen in sediments in the deep oceans, but some are associated with permafrost soils in the Arctic. Release of the methane can occur through natural processes, including underwater landslides or other seismic events, or by warming of ocean waters. Once released, the gas can induce atmospheric warming that has a positive feedback effect, releasing still more gas as ocean waters and permafrost regions begin to warm. The process can reach a tipping point where it starts to rapidly accelerate.

The Iran Plans

Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker:
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Congressmen Grill Swiss Bankers Over Ties to Bin Laden, Iran, Cuba

Congressmen Grill Swiss Bankers Over Ties to Bin Laden, Iran, Cuba
It is the latest in a series of inquiries spawned in 2003 when American soldiers liberating Iraq discovered $762 million in American currency stashed in hideouts belonging to Saddam Hussein. The serial numbers on the banknotes were traced to UBS, which distributed the currency as part of the Extended Custodial Inventory Program run by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Federal Reserve program, in cooperation with international banks, allowed clients to exchange old American banknotes for new ones. One condition of the program was that the international banks were not allowed to accept cash from countries against which America maintains sanctions. They also were not allowed to transfer cash to such countries.

When American investigators probed the $762 million that emerged in Iraq, they found that UBS had also provided $3.9 billion in American currency for Fidel Castro's Cuba, $1 billion for Iran, and $30 million for Libya. 

The ‘Let Us Eat Cake’ Generation

Foreign Policy: The ‘Let Us Eat Cake’ Generation

When Marie Antoinette purportedly said, “let them eat cake,” it showed how out of touch the French aristocracy was with the people. Now, it’s the people who are out of touch with the world beyond France. The new generation wants what their parents had: jobs guaranteed for life, complete with five-weeks of vacation every year.

‘Gospel of Judas’ Surfaces After 1,700 Years

'Gospel of Judas' Surfaces After 1,700 Years – New York Times
The Gospel of Judas is only one of many texts discovered in the last 65 years, including the gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by Gnostics.

The Gnostics' beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.

As the findings have trickled down to churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now regard the Bible not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out.

For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers. The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most favored disciple and willing collaborator.

To see more go to National Geographic, who financed the project. 

Chávez, Seeking Foreign Allies, Spends Billions

Chávez, Seeking Foreign Allies, Spends Billions – New York Times
With Venezuela's oil revenues rising 32 percent last year, Mr. Chávez has been subsidizing samba parades in Brazil, eye surgery for poor Mexicans and even heating fuel for poor families from Maine to the Bronx to Philadelphia. By some estimates, the spending now surpasses the nearly $2 billion Washington allocates annually to pay for development programs and the drug war in western South America.

Suppose You Were an Illegal Immigrant in Mexico…

Suppose You Were an Illegal Immigrant in Mexico… – by Christopher Chantrill
But just read what Mexico wrote into its 1917 constitution on the matter of foreigners, as told by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.. He’s reporting on a paper Mexico's Glass House by J. Michael Waller.

In Article 33 of the constitution: "Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country." You mean, like take part in mammoth demonstrations and marches?

In brief, Waller writes:

* Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.
* Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.
* Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.
* Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.
* Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.
* Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.
* Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.
* Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.

Discovered: missing link that solves a mystery of evolution

Guardian Unlimited | Science | Discovered: missing link that solves a mystery of evolution
Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago.

Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action – like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds.

Dr Clack said that, judging from the fossil, the first evolutionary transition from sea to land probably involved learning how to breathe air. "Tiktaalik has lost a series of bones that, in fishes, covers the gill region and helps to operate the gill-breathing mechanism," she said. "The air-breathing mechanism it had would have been elaborated and having lost the series of bones that lies between the head and the shoulder girdle means it's got a neck, it can raise its head more easily in order to gulp the air.

Click here for NY Times Coverage of this story