The place on the web where Ned Hamson: author, innovation and creativity counselor collects thoughts and shares information.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Denzel Washington voted 2012’s top money-making star
The star of “Flight” and “Safe House” was voted as the Top Money-Making Star of 2012 in Quigley Publishing’s 81st annual poll of exhibitors and film buyers, marking the actor’s eighth appearance in the ranking and his first win. Taking the top spot…
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Immigration Talk with a Mexican American: Stars Come Out for President Obama! Ask YOU to VOTE for him too!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Supreme Court denies Ohio request to curtail early voting
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Harry & David Peanut Butter Caught Up in Sunland Recall
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Why The New Coronavirus Unnerves Public Health: Remembering SARS | Wired Science | Wired.com
The concern underlying these developments is that exposure to the new virus seems to have occurred only or primarily in Saudi Arabia, which houses Mecca, the physical heart of Islam — and which, next month, will be the center of the worldwide annual pilgrimage known as the Hajj. The Hajj brings more than 2 million people to the country, in extraordinarily crowded conditions, and when those pilgrims leave, they disperse all over the world.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants: Designation of Critical Habitat for Jaguar
to designate as critical habitat approximately 339,220 hectares (838,232 acres) in Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise Counties, Arizona, and Hidalgo County, New Mexico.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Urban Food Week
Friday, August 10, 2012
Afghan Women's Writing Project | The Window
Try to see my future,
I see a long way to go.
Life changes its face as weather changes seasons
Trees lose leaves just as I
lose every day of my life.
and think, “Where did my smile go?
Where has my happiness gone?”
I am strange to myself.
Looking from my room’s window.
I see how my life is passing
But my days and nights the same
I am not a child at play anymore
I am not child to have my hand held
I am grown
I have to find my own way
As I look from my room’s window
I think how I will build my future.
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Amazon CARES: Wordless Wednesday: Nuns, Orphans, Rescue Dogs!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
New Baltic bacteria linked to ocean warming | Sci-Tech | DW.DE | 25.07.2012
Give a Garden | kidsgardening.org
Welcome to Give a Garden Initiative brought to you by the National Gardening Association. Together we can change the world, one garden at a time. This is your opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young people as well as in communities everywhere.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Hoop House Training Garden
OVERVIEW OF OUTDOOR IDEA
THE SPECIFICS: WHAT WILL THE $5,000 FUND?
Monday, July 23, 2012
Hoop House Training Garden
THE SPECIFICS: WHAT WILL THE $5,000 FUND?
Voter Protection Unit (VPU) - American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
ADC Voter Protection Unit (ADC-VPU)
- Will serve as the go-to person to election monitors across a voting district.
- Responsible for contacting the City or County Clerk should an issue arise.
- Set schedules across a district and be responsible for strategically placing monitors.
- Responsible for reporting to the ADC-VPU on the day‘s activities.
- Someone familiar with election monitoring, organized, familiar with the voting district.
- Primary responsibility will be to ensure the fairness of the election process.
- Will be placed at a polling station by the District Representative.
- Will be given specific instructions on what to look for on Election Day.
- Will be provided instructions on how to report any acts of voter intimidation
- Willing to commit to a 3-4 hour block and have be able to carry out the duties.
Friday, July 20, 2012
IPS – Impure Flows the Ganga | Inter Press Service
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Hoop House Training Garden
Overview of Outdoor Idea
We want to build a hoop house (green house) to support community gardening for children and adults in Hamilton, Ohio. Neighborhood people will help build and learn how to build their own and how to garden for good health, nutrition, and bringing the community together.The Specifics: What will the $5,000 fund?
The $5,000 will pay for materials to build a 40×80 foot hoop house, provide materials to build raised garden boxes inside it, organic planting materials, seeds, a water system, and will pay for water for at least first planting season. Reasonable ($20.00) season fees for using garden boxes and sales of surplus crops will pay for ongoing up keep.Monday, July 16, 2012
Eat Drink Better | Humane Egg Production Ruffles Feathers in the House of Representatives | Page: 1 | Eat Drink Better
Monday, April 30, 2012
Chilean Fish Farms and the Tragedy of the Commons
Friday, April 20, 2012
Egypt women to demonstrate in Cairo for representation in new constitution - Bikya Masr
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
IRIN Africa | MALI: Beyond the drought - “Families will disappear” | Mali | Food Security | Governance | Migration | Natural Disasters | Sahel Crisis | Security | Water & Sanitation
People emigrate to survive - not to steal your job! Same reason people left Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri for California during and after "dust bowl" years!
“It was the drought that made people move away from here,” Ousmane Touré said in Kayes, 450km northwest of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and a 10-hour bus ride across the scorched scrubland of the western Sahel. “There had been a tradition of emigration, but it was when the harvests failed in the 1970s that we saw a real surge in emigration. There was simply not enough to eat, so people took off for France, Germany and the United States. They knew it was only the way of feeding their families back home in Kayes. The same thing is happening this year.”
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Hoodies and Bandanas Do Not Justify Murder - NAM
In the summer of 1994, my friends and I were driving to a local basketball gym when our two cars were pulled over by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. My four friends in the lead car were asked to exit the vehicle and put their hands on the hood. I was in the back car with two other friends and we were allowed to stay inside.
Throughout this stop, from beginning to end, the deputies had their guns drawn on us.
I sat in the back right seat. When one of the deputies asked us for identification, I fumbled around inside my duffel bag.
“Don’t mess around in that bag,” the deputy sheriff said. “Or you might get shot.”
But how could I not be nervous? He had the damn barrel of a gun pointed inches from my head!
As I remember back, I can still feel the dominating, almost arrogant presence of that gun. How hot it felt. How it made me cringe. The fear ̢ۥ of cops and guns ̢ۥ the moment has permanently instilled in me.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Neocotinoid Pesticides Play a Role in Bees’ Decline, 2 Studies Find - NYTimes.com
In Thursday’s issue of the journal Science, two teams of researchers published studies suggesting that low levels of a common pesticide can have significant effects on bee colonies. One experiment, conducted by French researchers, indicates that the chemicals fog honeybee brains, making it harder for them to find their way home. The other study, by scientists in Britain, suggests that they keep bumblebees from supplying their hives with enough food to produce new queens.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Quick Hit: One woman’s experience with Texas’ new mandatory ultrasound law
Bad as you thought it would be? YES!
Here’s a rule: When you, as legislators with neither professional medical experience nor personal experience being pregnant, pass laws that result in doctors and nurses repeatedly apologizing to sobbing women, you’re doing something wrong.
“I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.In this horrifying case, the woman was terminating a much-wanted pregnancy. But it only takes a little imagination – and I suppose the compassion that anti-choice politicians have shown they clearly can’t muster – to think of other reasons patients and doctors might not want clueless politicians inserting their own views into the doctor’s office. As Carolyn Jones asks, “Shouldn’t women have a right to protect themselves from strangers’ opinions on their most personal matters?”
My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.
“I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I confess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Neo-Nazis cloak themselves in eco-rhetoric | Environment | DW.DE | 08.03.2012
The connection between right-wing extremism and environmentalism is not new, but experts believe the growing trend represents a real threat, because it helps push extremist views into the mainstream.
Two recent publications have responded, seeking to educate the public by explaining what's behind such efforts, and debunking certain lines of reasoning within them.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
TB levels in London as high as those in some African countries | Vaccine News Daily
Monday, February 27, 2012
THE DAILY STAR :: Opinion :: Columnist :: Lebanon's Palestinians, the shame rises
The current debate in Lebanon about the legal status of several hundred thousand resident Palestinian refugees reflects the best and worst of the Arab world. The mistreatment, abysmal living conditions and limited work, social security and property rights of these Palestinians are a lingering moral black mark – but change is in the air, initiated largely by Lebanese.
To be fair to Lebanon, all Arab countries similarly mistreat millions of Arab, Asian and African foreign guest workers, who often are treated little better than chattels or indentured laborers. Racism and discrimination are alive and well in most Arab societies. The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, however, are a distinct case. Most were born in the country and know no other residence. They are involuntary long-term refugees, and are not here by choice to work.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/Jun/30/Lebanons-Palestinians-the-shame-rises.ashx#ixzz1ndjLCgcb
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Afghan Women's Writing Project | Nature’s Origin
Trust an empty soil and it will grow a flower
for you whether or not you’ve seeded it. Trust is the origin of nature.
If we trust ourselves to do the things we want, we will do them.
Trust is the basis of a married life
in the union of two persons, or in a family.
If you decide to believe in someone, you will already think better of her.
By trusting people, I can do my best for them,
and if I think a person trusts in me, I must do better. I will.
Trust is in prayers, that the words of a human are heard by God.
Without trust, we would not step forward. Trust is the future.
The Kabul Writers
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Investigations: Utility Scale Wind Towers from China and Vietnam
there is a reasonable indication that an industry in the United States is threatened with material injury by reason of imports from China of utility scale wind towers, provided for in subheading 7308.20.00 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, that are alleged to be sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV) and that are alleged to be subsidized by the Government of China.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Senators take emergency oil reserve hostage to force Keystone approval
Will the GOP ever stop pushing Keystone XL? (Photo by truthout.)
Cross-posted from Climate Progress.
Republican congressional leaders have failed to force President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. But that’s not stopping them from trying over and over again, taking hostages in the process.
First they used the payroll tax cut extension as a vehicle to force a decision on the pipeline in 60 days, even before the final route was identified. Obama was forced to reject the permit because there was no time to assess its potential pollution.
This week, several senators took a different hostage: our emergency oil supply. On Feb. 13, Sens. David Vitter (R-La.), John Hoevan (R-N.D.), and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the Strategic Petroleum Supplies Act, S. 2100, that would prevent Obama from selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) unless Keystone is approved:
… the administration shall not authorize a sale of petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve … until the date on which all permits necessary … for the Keystone XL pipeline project application filed on September 19, 2008 (including amendments) have been issued.
In other words, unless the president approves Keystone, he cannot sell our emergency oil — even if Iran causes an oil supply disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, a hurricane or other disaster disables oil production or refining facilities, or any other type of event causes gasoline prices to soar above $4 per gallon. If any of these events happen, middle class Americans would pay significantly higher gasoline pump prices, giving billions of dollars more to big oil companies that made record profits last year.
These are not far-fetched examples — all of these situations occurred. President George H. W. Bush sold SPR oil in 1991 before the first Iraq war in case of a supply disruption. President George W. Bush sold SPR oil in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina knocked out oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama sold SPR oil in 2011 to offset the disruption of Libyan oil production due to its civil war. In fact, Sen. Vitter praised Obama for the latter SPR oil sale.
All of these SPR sales lowered gasoline prices and prevented significant economic damage while protecting drivers from huge gasoline price spikes. Such emergency sales would be prohibited under S. 2100 unless the Keystone XL pipeline is approved.
Additionally, this bill threatens our national security, because it would give Iran more incentive to cause an oil supply disruption knowing that the U.S. could not legally access its 695 million barrels of oil reserves.
These hostage-taking senators would argue that the Keystone XL pipeline — like the SPR — is vital to provide oil for Americans. However, that is false. It is likely that a large portion of the tar-sands oil sent to Texas refineries will be for export [PDF], and would not be sold in the U.S. At a December congressional hearing, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) questioned the CEO of Keystone pipeline owner TransCanda about keeping the tar-sands oil in the United States. The CEO “said he could not guarantee that the fuel from the pipeline would stay in the United States.”
Watch it:
On Feb. 14, 800,000 Americans signed an emergency petition
to senators urging them to stop trying to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. These Americans oppose the pipeline because it would lead to the doubling of Canadian tar-sands oil production, which produces 15 percent more carbon dioxide pollution compared to conventional oil, at a time when we must shift to lower carbon fuels to reduce the impacts of climate change.
The Senate is trying to force a pipeline route through Nebraska that is not yet identified, let alone evaluated to determine its impact on air and water quality. Because much of the tar-sands oil refined in the U.S. would go overseas, Americans would bear the environmental risks while other nations get the oil.
Sen. Vitter’s bill would force the president to approve the harmful Keystone XL pipeline just to get access to our emergency oil reserves and protect Americans from economic or security threats. Regardless of whether senators oppose or support approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, they should oppose this attempt to destroy a vital economic and national security safeguard.
Filed under: Oil, Politics