Furl http://www.furl.net/ http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.furl.net/member/kar1a.rss Furl archive. Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:03:45 GMT http://www.furl.net/item/39761904/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39761904 Sustainable farming across the world relies on cultivating a diversity of crops and livestock to maximise internal input, and this is in marked contrast to the high external input monoculture of industrial farming, which is proving unsustainable in many respects. Indirect support for the sustainability of agricultural diversity is coming from an unexpected quarter. Academic ecologists are discovering that biodiverse systems are more productive. [more>> Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:17:17 GMT Politics Agriculture Science 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39759132/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39759132 The Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) in northwest Montana is one of the last strongholds of the grizzly bear in the lower 48 states. Of the six established grizzly bear recovery zones, the NCDE is the third largest in area, potentially harboring the greatest number of grizzly bears, and is the only zone contiguous to a strong Canadian population. For these reasons it may have the best prospect of long-term survival for this threatened species. However, little information exists about the bears in this region and as agencies strive to recover the threatened grizzly bear, it is clear that there is a need to assess the grizzly bear population in the NCDE. Managers and biologists are working to identify population size, trend, survival, and the corridors that link separate populations. Advances in genetic technology allow us to address these parameters through the identification of species, sex, and individuals from DNA extracted from bear hair without ever handling a bear. This project will apply these techniques in conjunction with statistical models to estimate the number of grizzly bears inhabiting the NCDE. DNA will be analyzed from bear hair collected along survey routes and from systematically positioned hair snag stations. Grizzly bears identified from hair samples will be used in a mark recapture model to estimate the population of bears in the NCDE and will provide an independent calibration of the population index developed from survey routes. This information will be used to address future bear conservation issues. [more>> Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:02:01 GMT Politics Animals Science Montana 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39689716/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39689716 The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public. The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed, were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, according to four administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents. Although Justice Department lawyers, beginning in 2002, had signed off on the agency's interrogation methods, senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing. The memos were the first -- and, for years, the only -- tangible expressions of the administration's consent for the CIA's use of harsh measures to extract information from captured al-Qaeda leaders, the sources said. As early as the spring of 2002, several White House officials, including then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney, were given individual briefings by Tenet and his deputies, the officials said. Rice, in a statement to congressional investigators last month, confirmed the briefings and acknowledged that the CIA director had pressed the White House for "policy approval." [more>>> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:37:02 GMT Torture Politics U.S. Justice American Gulag 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39689584/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39689584 A newly reissued Department of Defense directive (link - pdf) explicitly prohibits several of the more controversial interrogation techniques that have previously been practiced against suspected enemy combatants. So, for example, the new directive states that “Use of SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape] techniques against a person in the custody or effective control of the Department of Defense or detained in a DoD facility is prohibited.” Waterboarding, in which a sensation of drowning is induced, is one such SERE technique. In another new prohibition, the directive states that “No dog shall be used as part of an interrogation approach or to harass, intimidate, threaten, or coerce a detainee for interrogation purposes.” Yet another new prohibition limits the role of psychologists advising interrogators: “Behavioral science consultants may not be used to determine detainee phobias for the purpose of exploitation during the interrogation process.” The new directive states that it simply “codifies existing DoD policies.” The restrictions noted above, however, did not appear in the prior edition of this directive (pdf), dated 2005. See “DoD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning,” DoD Directive 3115.09, October 9, 2008. Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:32:03 GMT Politics U.S. Justice American Gulag 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39689130/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39689130 Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination. [more>> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:18:30 GMT Politics Agriculture Monsanto 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39687974/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39687974 [excerpt] An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years. He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” [more>>> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:06:30 GMT Politics Rightwing Psychopaths Barack Obama Martin, Andy 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39687335/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39687335 The great American writer found nothing heroic in hunting the gentle creatures. Rather, he saw their killing as a great tragedy.... All this talk about moose hunting! It is as though, because of the animal's enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in "The Maine Woods," killing these big, gentle, myopic creatures is more "like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor's horses." [more>>> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:43:07 GMT Politics Animals Palin, Sarah 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39657678/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39657678 WASHINGTON — Home barely long enough to knock the Iraq dust off his boots, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno is returning to Baghdad to command a slowly shrinking force in possibly the final phase of American combat action. Odierno, who finished a 15-month stint as the No. 2 commander in February, moves up a spot Tuesday, succeeding Gen. David Petraeus as the overall commander of U.S. and allied forces in Iraq. Petraeus’ 20 months at the helm took Iraq from the brink of all-out civil war to a state of relative calm. With his new assignment, Odierno will rise in rank from three- to four-star general. It will fall to Odierno to chart a U.S.-Iraqi course for consolidating the hard-fought security gains and setting the stage for an eventual U.S. withdrawal. He arrives at a point of tension over Iraqi leaders’ insistence that all American forces — not just the combat troops — depart by 2011. The United Nations mandate that is the legal basis for the U.S. military presence expires in December. [more>>> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:17:17 GMT War On Iraq Politics Odierno, Ray 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39656254/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39656254 [excerpt] What looks like an imperative, or even wisdom in the short-term can very easily fall under the law of unintended consequences years later. As arms sales rise, and as the the U.S. sends increasingly sophisticated killing weapons abroad, the potential consequences for U.S. interests grow apace. [more>> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:16:03 GMT Politics Obama Administration 5 http://www.furl.net/item/39656009/forward http://www.furl.net/item/39656009 Forget the promises; there's only so much a president can achieve.... On inauguration day, a new U.S. president is a demigod, the embodiment of aspirations as vast as they are varied. Over the course of the years that follow, the president inevitably fails to fulfill those lofty hopes. So the cycle begins anew, and Americans look to the next occupant of the Oval Office to undo his predecessor's mistakes and usher in an era of lasting peace and sustained prosperity. This time around, expectations are, if anything, loftier than usual. The youthful and charismatic Sen. Barack Obama casts himself as the standard-bearer of those keenest to fix Washington, redeem America and save the world. "Yes, we can," Obama's anthem proclaims, inviting supporters to complete the thought by inserting their own fondest desire. Yes, we can: bring peace to the Middle East; reverse global warming; win the global war on terrorism. [more>>> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:07:23 GMT Politics Obama Administration 5