All Purpose Politics and News Thread

[Jina]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2
Very little said about the civilians, more about the results, like killing al-qaeda militants.

Read below about the school hit, the dad who's daughter bled to death in his arms, or the man who saw his parents and sister burned to the bones.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23595388

1 drone attacked might kill 1-2 al-qaeda leaders, but among the people who saw their family die by this drone, one will join al-qaeda or turn himself into a suicide bomber in an American public place. Vicious circle....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3634668.html

[Darth Penguin]

Henrietta Lacks: Family win recognition for immortal cells.

The family of a US woman whose cells revolutionised medical research have been granted a say over how they are used, six decades after her death.
Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman from Maryland, had cells removed from her by doctors when she was being treated for terminal cancer in 1951.
Researchers later found they were the first human cells that could be grown indefinitely in a laboratory.
The historic breakthrough paved the way for countless medical treatments.
The story of how an African-American tobacco farmer unwittingly transformed biomedicine was made famous by a 2010 best-seller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

I have the book on my wish list ATM. I'm just waiting for Christmas to come.

[vesper]

I strongly dislike drones. They are dehumanizing.
I read Obama is the only person win a nobel peace prize, who has personally ordered attacks (via drones) that have killed hundreds of children.

Drones should not be available to deployed like this. And they are coming to our cities now.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2
Very little said about the civilians, more about the results, like killing al-qaeda militants.

Read below about the school hit, the dad who's daughter bled to death in his arms, or the man who saw his parents and sister burned to the bones.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23595388

1 drone attacked might kill 1-2 al-qaeda leaders, but among the people who saw their family die by this drone, one will join al-qaeda or turn himself into a suicide bomber in an American public place. Vicious circle....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3634668.html

[Patty Smyth]

I strongly dislike drones. They are dehumanizing.
I read Obama is the only person win a nobel peace prize, who has personally ordered attacks (via drones) that have killed hundreds of children.

Drones should not be available to deployed like this. And they are coming to our cities now.

I don't like the idea of the peace prize going to any politicians. If you look at the list of names over the years some of those so called peacemakers can be considered terrorists.

[DaveP]

Can't wait to see this guy pack his bags. How many days until the election?

Heh, I can't wait to see your face when he's our future PM.

Sorry Patty, I'm just being cruel tonight.

[Patty Smyth]

Heh, I can't wait to see your face when he's our future PM.

Sorry Patty, I'm just being cruel tonight.

OH DAVE!!!! I like him about as much as I liked Paul Martin. lol Just something not right there.

Now I must go to bed scared I will need my blanky for the nightmares.

[DaveP]

I like him about as much as I liked Paul Martin.

I liked Martin, he was a pretty darn good finance minister (I can give credit where it's due). He was hopeless as PM though. I actually felt bad for him.

[Patty Smyth]

I liked Martin, he was a pretty darn good finance minister (I can give credit where it's due). He was hopeless as PM though. I actually felt bad for him.

What I disliked most about him was that he was whiny. He whined openly about wanting to be PM before Chretien's time was up. He criticized him while still working for him. I found that very low class. Chretien/Martin reminded me of the Clinton/Gore relationship in many ways. Alpha dog and subordinate.

I agree he was a good FM though.

[Patty Smyth]

p.s. He is laughing all the way to the bank mind you while I sit here watching The Omen.

[DaveP]

Leaving politics aside, most PM's in my lifetime were very good in the spotlight that comes with becoming PM. Harper, currently, is strong and forceful whether you agree with his decisions or not), Chretien before him had an amazing personality and could care less about his detractors, Mulroney was a bit of a demagogue, he loved the spotlight, and Trudeau, at the height of the cold war, showed that Canada was an independant nation by sometimes thumbing his nose at the Americans and even the British.

Turner and Campbell, I leave out. They were irrelavent. The sad thing is Martin falls in with them even though he won an election, unlike them.

Oh hell, I left out Joe Clark. Might have been a great PM but Trudeaumania and all...

And he was lacking charisma too.

[Patty Smyth]

Dion reminded me of Clark, neither stood a chance although Clark did win an election.

[Darth Penguin]

Bottle light inventor proud to be poor.

Alfredo Moser is a modern-day Thomas Edison, whose invention is lighting up the world. In 2002, the Brazilian mechanic had his own light-bulb moment and came up with way of illuminating his house during the day without electricity - using nothing more than plastic bottles filled with water and a tiny bit of bleach.
In the last two years his idea has spread throughout the world. It is expected to be in one million homes by early next year.
So how does it work? Simple refraction of sunlight, explains Moser, as he fills an empty two-litre plastic bottle.
"Add two capfuls of bleach to protect the water so it doesn't turn green [with algae]. The cleaner the bottle, the better," he adds.
Wrapping his face in a cloth he makes a hole in a roof tile with a drill. Then, from the bottom upwards, he pushes the bottle into the newly-made hole.
"You fix the bottle in with polyester resin. Even when it rains, the roof never leaks - not one drop."

[Patty Smyth]

Dr Sanjay changes his mind about pot. There was a terrific documentary on CNN on the weekend called WEED

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/09/health...html?hpt=he_t2

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta spent a year traveling around the world to shed light on the debate about marijuana. Catch his groundbreaking documentary "WEED" at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN.
(CNN) -- It was the pot story read around the world.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is used to making headlines. The brain surgeon and CNN's chief medical correspondent can't even leave his office and walk through CNN Center without tour groups stopping him to take his picture or compliment his work. But this time the intensity of interest in a story he wrote for CNN.com about how he changed his mind about the effectiveness of medical marijuana was something even he didn't anticipate.
"The attention has been pretty intense, and I was a little surprised," Gupta said. "I know it's a provocative topic, but the science is there to back it up."
More than 330,000 people shared the story on Facebook, and it started to trend on Twitter. His column inspired pot jokes as well as thoughtful conversations in publications around the world.

Dr. Gupta: I was wrong about weed

Gupta: I misled the public about weed

Gupta: Weed can be safer than narcotics
Vanity Fair referred to him as the "Dr. Phil of actual licensed physicians." The Los Angeles Times said it wouldn't go so far as to call him Dr. "Feelgood" but remarked about his change of heart. The Washington gossip site Wonkette posted a story with the headline, "When you've lost Sanjay Gupta you've lost America: Sanjay Gupta wants to get 'high' on the pot like a common jazz criminal." Even the usually sober Washington Post used its piece as a jumping-off point to ask, "Is pot the new gay marriage?" Some pollsshow more than half of all Americans now support both same-sex marriageand marijuana.
While the majority of Americans may share his opinion, Gupta said the medical community has been a little slower to embrace it.
"I understand there is concern that if you legalize it, kids will use it recreationally, and I don't want young people to do that, but our concern for their safety shouldn't keep patients who need this from getting access," Gupta said.
After his article appeared Thursday, Gupta said he received calls and e-mails from people from all walks of life who were grateful he started the conversation.
Doctors, judges, politicians and clergy got in touch to thank him for speaking up. And of course, he's had to put up with a lot of pot jokes. But he called it an important message more people need to hear.
"I guess I've tapped into something that hit at the right time," Gupta said. "That, or it was a really slow news day."

[vesper]

Oh one of those amazing days for Libertarians like me! Yahoo!!!

Associated Press retracts bogus North Pole lake photo <<- Santa was not available for comment
http://rare.us/story/associated-pres...le-lake-photo/

AP admitted that not only was the “lake” simply a small melt-pond but that it was natural, not due to global warming. The AP also admitted that the “lake” wasn’t even at the North Pole, explaining that the monitoring station where the photo was taken had drifted hundreds of miles to the south. - See more at: http://rare.us/story/associated-pres....aUb4va3e.dpuf

NOAA: Antarctic Sea Ice Hits 'Record High'...

it also stated that the Antarctica sea ice “reached a record high of 7.51 million square miles” on Sept. 26, 2012.

And the latest figures for this year show that there’s been a slowdown of melting in the Arctic this summer as well, with temperatures at the North Pole well below normal for this time of year. Meteorologist Joe i calls it “the coldest ever recorded.”

[DaveP]

^^Yes, snow melts in the summer, and then it forms ice pools on top of the sea ice. I've seen plenty in my years in the high arctic. What a surprise.

That said, I do believe the climate is changing. As it always has. And it always will.

Go back far enough and there was a mile of ice over Toronto, further and there were jungles on Baffin Island.