Puck

Andrew Revkin has been writing about environmentalism’s elephant in the room — population:

Discussions of food policy, climate change, international security and many other global issues often take place in isolation, cut off from consideration of other factors delineating the pinch points as humanity’s population and appetites crest in the next couple of generations.

via Feeding Fewer Than 9 Billion – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com.

I’ve been remiss in adding anything to Puck for the past month because I’ve been traveling in Europe. You can check out some videos, photos and more at honeymoonadventure.posterous.com.

Charlotte Higgins knows an awful lot about really old stuff. When she says “classics,” she’s not talking about rock ‘n’ roll shredders from the 1970s. She’s talking Greek and Latin language writers from before Jesus first spit up on a pile of hay.

It’s All Greek to Me is one of those compendium books that, in a series of snippets and vignettes, tries to give the casual reader (commuting on the train or hanging out in a café trying not to be distracted by everything go on around her) a sense of where she came from.

But that sense will only be even moderately inclusive if our imaginary casual reader is very, very white. There’s no sense in Higgins’ book of there being any foundational culture other than the Greeks. Indeed, there’s no indication here that having the Greeks as the foundation of all that is good, true and beautiful might not be such a good or beautiful thing. There’s no sense here of the horrible xenophobia that is central to the ancient Greek cultures, nor of the racist sense of superiority that infuses much of ancient Greek literature. Even though they lived in a Mediterranean culture themselves, the Greeks figured that pretty much everyone living in the “warm climates” was lazy, uncultivated — and dark-skinned. Read the rest of this entry »

Doug Stanhope: Voice of America – ABORTION IS GREEN.

Well, duh.

via YouTube – Doug Stanhope: Voice of America – ABORTION IS GREEN.

This comes from the latest Harper’s email. If stripped of U.S. citizenship, I wonder then what happens? Are you kicked out of the country? Rendered with extreme prejudice to Syria? Does anybody know?

Senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Scott Brown of Massachusetts proposed a bill to allow the State Department to strip Americans of their citizenship if there is evidence that they support terrorism. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported the measure, and House speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed with its “spirit.”

The New York Times has more details but no answers to my questions.

Blood sucking vampires may have caused mutations in the human genome, scientists have found — at least based on analogy with what they really did find.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have found the first solid evidence of horizontal DNA transfer, the movement of genetic material among non-mating species, between parasitic invertebrates and some of their vertebrate hosts.

The long-held theory is that mammals obtain genes vertically, or handed down from parents to offspring. Bacteria receive their genes vertically and also horizontally, passed from one unrelated individual to another or even between different species. Such lateral gene transfers are frequent in bacteria and essential for rapid adaptation to environmental and physiological challenges, such as exposure to antibiotics.

Until recently, it was not known horizontal transfer could propel the evolution of complex multicellular organisms like mammals. In 2008, Feschotte [of UT Arlington] and his colleagues published the first unequivocal evidence of horizontal DNA transfer.

“Since these bugs frequently feed on humans, it is conceivable that bugs and humans may have exchanged DNA through the mechanism we uncovered. Detecting recent transfers to humans would require examining people that have been exposed to the bugs for thousands of years, such as native South American populations,” Feschotte said.

via Scientists uncover transfer of genetic material between blood-sucking insect and mammals.

The world’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made last month the warmest March on record, according to federal government scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

Taken separately, average ocean temperatures were the warmest for any March and the global land surface was the fourth warmest for any March on record.

Additionally, the planet has seen the fourth warmest January through March period on record, NOAA analysts conclude.

Arctic sea ice covered an average of 5.8 million square miles (15.1 million square kilometers) during March. This is 4.1 percent below the 1979-2000 average expanse, and the fifth-smallest March coverage since records began in 1979.

Ice coverage traditionally reaches its maximum in March, and NOAA scientists observed that this was the 17th consecutive March with below-average Arctic sea ice coverage.

Melanie Fitzpatrick, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the recent data are part of an overarching trend.

“The continuing warming trend of temperatures worldwide explodes the global cooling myth contrarians have been peddling for the past several years,” Fitzpatrick said.

“While we can’t draw strong conclusions from a single month, we know that global warming will bring more record-breaking temperatures in the future. Hot months are just a harbinger of a future that could include more heat waves, more droughts, and species extinctions as animals attempt to migrate to colder areas and run out of habitat,” she said.

“The good news is that the degree to which global warming affects our economy and environment is ultimately up to us,” Fitzpatrick said. “If we significantly reduce emissions, we can avoid the worst effects of climate change.”

via Global Temperatures Last Month Broke Heat Records for March.

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.

via NCLR: issues & cases > case docket > greene v. county of sonoma et al. See also Dan Savage’s column in today’s Stranger and President Obama’s request last week that the “Department of Health and Human Services…  establish a rule that would prevent hospitals from denying visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners.”

Apparently, this all took place in Sonoma County. Read the rest of this entry »

On the day that Goldman Sachs’ deliberate fraud became known, betting against its own shareholders in a scheme that greatly contributed to the 2008 financial meltdown, the Republicans announced that they will collectively prevent the Wall Street Reform bill from coming to the floor for debate. They say the bill is a bailout. It’s not. It is a bill that would help prevent exactly the type of fraud perpetrated by Goldman Sachs against the American taxpayer. It should now be clear who the Republicans are working for.

In the mid-western American sky, Wednesday, April 14th. Courtesy KWWL in Iowa. Fast-forward to :28:

There’s more info on National Geographic.