In early 2010, one of Washington DC’s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: “It’s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.”
The remark, which likened killing hundreds of men, women and children – many of them noncombatants – with trimming the grass, was greeted with a light tittering around the room, which was filled with some of Washington’s most elite, highly educated and well-paid Middle East experts. Not a single one objected to the panelist’s black humor.
Likening Palestinians to Blades of Grass
Fracking Sand May Pose Health Hazard To Workers, Residents
The first time Bill Ferullo saw the white plumes drifting from a natural gas fracking site, he got out of his car to take pictures. "I didn't know what it was," he recalled. "But two minutes later my chest was burning. It burned all night."
In the two years since, Ferullo has watched similar dust clouds travel as far as a mile, he estimates, from gas drilling operations around his home in Bradford County, Pa. He has also since learned what hazards they may carry. One component in particular concerns Ferullo, as well as other residents and environmental health experts: silica sand, a long-known cause of debilitating and deadly diseases such as silicosis and lung cancer.
Israel rejects call to join anti-nuclear treaty
Israel on Saturday rejected as "flawed and hypocritical" a declaration by signatories of a global anti-nuclear arms treaty that urged it to sign the pact and make its atomic facilities subject to U.N. inspections.
All 189 parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the United States, called on Friday in a declaration that singled out Israel for a conference in 2012 to discuss banning weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
"As a non-signatory state of the NPT, Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this conference, which has no authority over Israel," the Israeli government said in an emailed statement.
Does Sugar Kill? How the Sugar Industry Hid the Toxic Truth
On a brisk spring Tuesday in 1976, a pair of executives from the Sugar Association stepped up to the podium of a Chicago ballroom to accept the Oscar of the public relations world, the Silver Anvil award for excellence in " the forging of public opinion. "
The trade group had recently pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in PR history. For nearly a decade, the sugar industry had been buffeted by crisis after crisis as the media and the public soured on sugar and scientists began to view it as a likely cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Pipelines Explained: How Safe are America’s 2.5 Million Miles of Pipelines?
At 6:11 p.m. on September 6, 2010, San Bruno, Calif. 911 received an urgent call. A gas station had just exploded and a fire with flames reaching 300 feet was raging through the neighborhood. The explosion was so large that residents suspected an airplane crash.
But the real culprit was found underground: a ruptured pipeline spewing natural gas caused a blast that left behind a 72 foot long crater, killed eight people, and injured more than fifty.
Over 2,000 miles away in Michigan, workers were still cleaning up another pipeline accident, which spilled 840,000 gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010. Estimated to cost $800 million, the accident is the most expensive pipeline spill in U.S. history.
Alex Baer: SOP: Work POV & Catch-22 to SNAFU
Pretty much Standard Operating Procedure these days: When bad things happen, have your legal and PR staff closely question and challenge the Point of View of accusers, while working every Catch-22 connection and boondoggle in stock, trusting complaints will crash in on themselves from sheer confusion, crosswinds, and weight.
Once the status quo has been maintained and Situation Normal (All Fouled Up) has been re-instituted, one can then declare victory and divvy out promotions and bonuses, taking a year off with full pay and benefits.
Praire2: Making reality for fun and profit
The billionaires who pass out the right-wing Kool-Aid are desperately trying to push the fantasy that they are going to act out Ayn Rand's novel, and leave us all to starve if we allow that Kenyan Socialist to raise their taxes by a couple of points. That's not what it's about of course.
These people will still have more money than they could ever burn if they tried. They're really afraid that the middle class will realize they've been screwed and start wanting their country back.
Alex Baer: Keep it Simple, Stewards
Sometimes we make it a lot harder on ourselves than we have to. This is where the acronym KISS comes in handy -- Keep It Sane and Simple.
There are other variations on that acronymic theme, of course. Many of them even contain no rough language whatever, surprisingly, when referring to our stalwart national stewards, aka members of Congress.
The point, although it seems especially prone to idly wandering away today, is easy enough to re-grasp: Sometimes the answers for our most difficult challenges and problems are right in front of us, jumping up and down, waving like mad, trying to be seen and heard.
UNFPA Report: Access to family planning is an essential human right
Access to family planning is an essential human right that unlocks unprecedented rewards for economic development, says new UNFPA report.
Making voluntary family planning available to everyone in developing countries would reduce costs for maternal and newborn health care by $11.3 billion annually, according to The State of World Population 2012, published today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
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