GM Foods At the Moment

How to Avoid GM Food

There are currently eight major GM food crops on the market, so memorizing this list will help you avoid any and all food products that might contain GMO’s:

1.Soy
2.Corn
3.Cottonseed (used in vegetable cooking oils)
4.Canola (canola oil)
5.Sugar from sugar beets
6.Hawaiian papaya
7.Some varieties of zucchini
8.Crookneck squash
You’ll also want to avoid any kind of derivative of these, such as high fructose corn syrup, for example.

From

Churchill

As Churchill confessed: the ‘loss’ of India was one of “my greatest personal losses” And no doubt his lugubrious whine must be grasped in this context when he saidthat it was not only an irreparable‘loss’ for the British Empire but for humanity as a whole and “ a personal loss that will never cease to gnaw at my soul.”Abstracted from the bogus rhetorical outburst it simply meant that the lush pickings of empire flowed in his blood stream.And as you know he was a subaltern in the Indian imperial army. He was also a major shareholder in British tea plantations in Assam and the the South African gold mines of his friend Cecil Rhodes.



On his father’s side (his Mother was American industrial heiress) his family’s extensive pickings harked back to the East India Company to be vastly compounded in his own lifetime. These investments embraced large land holdings in the Punjab, commodity trading, mines, shipping and insuranceand a wide variety of other assets. Here was the assemblage of the personification of capital wedded to Big Politics. The two moved in easy consonance. Plunder is seldom faceless and in the case of India and the Empire Churchill, like members ofhis social caste, personified the scale of its parasitism.

Thatcher Among First to See Global Warming

2. Thatcher Among First to See Global Warming

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was credited with being the first world leader to voice alarm over global warming — but she also became one of the earliest “climate skeptics.”

Thatcher expressed concern over climate change in 1988, calling for urgent international action and citing evidence presented to the U.S. Senate by James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Christopher Booker noted in Britain’s Telegraph.

She supported the establishment of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in 1990 opened the Hadley Centre to study man-made global warming.

But in her 2003 book “Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World,” Thatcher issued “what amounts to an almost complete recantation of her earlier views,” Booker reported, and “voiced precisely the fundamental doubts about the warming scare that have since become familiar to us.”

She questioned whether carbon dioxide is the chief force influencing world climate, rather than natural factors such as solar activity, and said claims about rising sea levels were exaggerated.

“She mocked Al Gore and the futility of ‘costly and economically damaging’ schemes to reduce CO2 emissions,” Booker wrote. “She pointed out that the dangers of a world getting colder are far worse than those of a CO2-enriched world growing warmer.”

In fact, a prominent American geologist recently declared that global warming has ended and “even more harmful” global cooling has already begun.

As the Insider Report disclosed in May, Dr. Don Easterbrook, a university professor and associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, warned in a scientific paper that global cooling over the next two to three decades “will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”

Thatcher, Booker also observed, “recognized how distortions of the science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, left-wing political agenda which posed a serious threat to the progress and prosperity of mankind . . .

“What she set in train earlier continues to exercise its baleful influence to this day. But the fact that she became one of the first and most prominent of ‘climate skeptics’ has been almost entirely buried from view.”

Thatcher was back in the news recently when Britain’s Daily Mail reported that she had agreed to meet with Sarah Palin if the former Alaska governor visits Britain. Palin’s representatives had approached the “Iron Lady” to request the meeting.

“A meeting with Margaret Thatcher would be an enormous publicity coup for Sarah Palin,” a source in Britain told the newspaper.

“Palin’s big hero is Ronald Reagan. In U.S. Republican folklore, Thatcher and Reagan brought down the Soviet Union between them. That’s why Maggie is so important.”

Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers

https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-books-and-your-rights#privacy
Saved in Gmail



III. EFF Digital Book Checklist: The Extended Version1.

Does it protect your privacy? ^
Why it matters:

The ability to read privately and anonymously is essential to freedom of expression, thought and inquiry. In the world of physical books, bookstores, libraries, and individuals have long fought against the chilling effect of someone, especially someone from the government, looking over your shoulder as you read. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon stated when he joined EFF's efforts to insist that Google Books provide adequate protections for reader privacy:

If there is no privacy of thought — which includes implicitly the right to read what one wants, without the approval, consent or knowledge of others — then there is no privacy, period.1


Unfortunately, reader privacy has often been attacked. At the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, people were questioned on whether they had read Marx and Lenin. They were asked whether their spouses or associates had books by or about Stalin and Lenin on their bookshelves.2 And these efforts did not end with the McCarthy era. Between 2001 and 2005, libraries were contacted by law enforcement seeking information on patrons at least 200 times.3

Physical books have many natural protections for reader anonymity. For example, you can:

•browse through the stacks of your local library or bookstore without anyone tracking what you are looking at, what you pull off of the shelves as you browse or what pages you review;
•walk into a store and buy a book with cash, thereby avoiding any record of your purchase;
•hide a book under your bed so no one knows you're reading it;
•throw a book away after reading it and no one will ever know you had it;
•give a book to someone else without anyone knowing it;
•read a key part of a book that you own or borrow from the library multiple times, or not at all, with no one knowing.
Digital book practices may threaten these traditional protections. Digital book providers have the potential to track, aggregate, analyze, and disclose reader activity to an extent far beyond anything possible with physical books. Both book download services (like the Kindle) and those like Google Book Search (where the user accesses a book stored on a server) can continue tracking during and after the initial transaction, as well as maintain records of every book purchased over the lifetime of the reader. That means digital book providers can collect data on what books you search for, what books you browse, what pages you view, and for how long — and they can keep that data for a very long time. Most of this tracking is something bookstores and libraries could never do short of hiring an agent to follow patrons around the stacks and then into their homes.

What to look for:

Readers considering whether book products, tools or services adequately protect privacy should ask:

a.Does it limit the tracking of you and your reading?
Just as readers may anonymously browse books in a library or bookstore, readers should be able to search, browse, and preview digital books without being forced to identify themselves. To see whether a digital book provider is limiting tracking, ask whether it:

•Ensures that searching and browsing of books do not require user registration or the affirmative disclosure of any personal information;
•Connects any information collected from an individual reader with any other information the digital provider may know about the same individual from other sources without specific, informed, opt-in consent. This is especially important for book providers like Google that have multiple services collecting other information about users;
•Purges all logging or other information related to individual uses as soon as practicable, which in most instances should be no less than every 30 days. This purge should ensure that this information cannot be used to connect particular books viewed to particular computers or users;4 and
•Where possible, allows you to use anonymity providers, such as Tor, proxy servers, and anonymous VPN providers, when interacting with the service.

b.Does it protect you against disclosure of your reading habits?
Readers should be able to read and purchase books without worrying that the government or a third party may be effectively reading over their shoulder. To ensure that any stored information linking readers to the books they view or purchase is not disclosed to the government or third parties without proper protections, ask whether the provider will:

•Commit that it will not disclose information about you to government entities or others absent a warrant or court order unless required to do so by law;
•Notify you prior to complying with any government or third party request for your information (unless forbidden to do so by law or court order), and provide you with sufficient time to seek court review of the request; and
•Guarantee that it will not tell any business partners, or affiliates which books you purchased.

c.Does it give you control over the information it collects about you?
Readers of paper books can control information collected about them by, for example, buying books with cash. That freedom should not disappear as books go digital. Readers who want to assert some control over their own information should consider whether the provider will:

•Allow you to delete your books and ensure that this deletion removes any record of the purchase;
•Allow you to control what other local or remote computer users can see about your reading, possibly through the use of separate password-protected "bookshelves" or other technical means; and
•Establish a method to allow private reading of purchased books and private giving of books, such as allowing you to anonymously transfer or "gift" purchases to someone else (including transfer to other accounts you control), with no record of the fact of the original purchase.

d.Does it tell you what it's doing with the information it collects and can you enforce its commitments to you?
A provider committed to ensuring both transparency and enforceability in the protection of reader privacy will do some or all of the following:

•Provide a robust, easy-to-read notice of privacy provisions and policies;
•Ensure that any commitments it makes to protect reader privacy are legally enforceable by readers;
•Store all reader information exclusively in countries that have strong privacy protecting laws, especially as against demands for disclosure by law enforcement and private third parties;
•Ensure that any watermarks or other marking technologies used do not contain identifying information about users in a format that third parties can read or decipher. Any watermarks with personally identifying information about users should be disclosed to users sufficiently to alert them to the existence of such marks and the type of information they include; and
•Annually publish online, in a conspicuous and easily accessible area of its website, the type and number of information requests it receives from government entities or third parties.

2. Transparency: Does it tell you what it's doing? ^
Why it matters:

In the physical world, it's relatively simple to know everything you need to about the consequences of searching, buying, selling, and reading. You buy a book — in cash if you like — take it home, read it at your leisure, put it on the shelf, pass it on, or throw it away. Although, if you buy the book with a credit card you don't always know what information booksellers are keeping, or for how long, for the most part it's a simple, transparent process.

Not so for digital books. Some electronic books come laden with DRM, as well as any number of other "features" that may or may not be disclosed. For example, in 2009 Kindle users were shocked to learn that their readers included a feature that let Amazon delete their books remotely.5

We've seen where loading unexpected features onto consumer products can lead. In 2005, music fans learned (as a result of the independent effort of computer researchers) that Sony BMG had included copy-protection software in millions of music CDs that could create serious security and privacy problems on personal computers. The software actually did much more than just preventing copying, including reporting customer listening habits. This all happened to customers without appropriate notice and consent.6

Readers of digital books have little reason to trust the private companies that sell them their books and devices, and they shouldn't have to. Readers need to know what they are getting, so that they can make good choices about what to buy and how to use their books.

What to look for:

a.How clear are the disclosures? Will they be updated, and if so, how?

Your vendor should tell you, in advance and in plain, prominent language, what the device or service will be doing and how it will be doing it, especially if it is interacting with your computer or other device or service. What's more, that disclosure should be an ongoing obligation; if practices change, your vendor must make sure you can find out about it (and opt for a different provider, if need be).

b.Does it let you or others investigate to confirm that the product, device or service is actually functioning as promised?
Many companies limit users' ability to tinker with the technology they buy, via contractual terms, technological measures, or legal threats against reverse engineering and security audits. Others have cracked down on customers who publish reports about bugs and security flaws. As with any other digital device, a provider should allow customers to test and tinker with their devices and services to ensure that the device is actually working in the way it was promised.

3. What happens to your additions to the book like annotations, highlights, and commentary? ^
Why it matters:

Readers are accustomed to annotating physical books in any number of ways. They make notes in the margin, "dog-ear" the pages, lard them up with sticky notes, cut out favorite images, and frame them, etc. When they are done, the original book may be significantly altered and possibly more valuable.7 At the same time, those notes — which can provide an important window into a reader's thoughts — need not be shared with others if the reader prefers to keep them private.

Unfortunately, annotations to books kept "in the cloud" may disappear. An e-book provider might decide it no longer wants to retain the information. Upgrades to the service may interfere with your ability to access old notes. And e-book providers may limit your ability to share your notes with others.

On the flip side, as long as a provider keeps information about you, that information could be subject to disclosure. That means you may not be able to control whether your notes are made available to law enforcement, your boss, or the general public.

What to look for:

a.Can you keep your additions?
•Are annotations and additions kept "in the cloud" or locally where you can always have access to them?
•Can you make a local backup of annotations in usable form (note that for some e-books readers like the Kindle that have unique pagination and similar differences from physical or other e-books, this would likely require a local backup of the book plus annotations)?
•What happens if the provider's servers go down?8
•What happens if the provider decides that it is simply too expensive to support the additional material?9
•What happens if the vendor decides not to provide the book any longer?

b.Can you control who has access to your additions?
•Can you share your notes with others?
•Can your provider use your notes for other purposes (such as behavioral advertising)?
•Are annotations and additions shared with third parties by the provider either through marketing agreements or other partner arrangements?
•If your notes are stored remotely with the service provider, will the provider require a warrant or court order before turning those notes over to third parties?

4. Do you own the book? ^
Why it matters:

Purchasers of physical books always have the book and can lend or sell the book whenever and however they would like. They don't risk losing their book if they fail to pay an ongoing fee, violate the terms of a license agreement, or if the vendor simply decides not to continue the service. Their reading and use of the book is not — and without undue difficulty cannot be — monitored in the name of ensuring they stay within the terms of a license or for any other reason.

Ownership of books provides many protections like these. It protects readers from censorship, fosters secondary markets (i.e., used bookstores) that help protect us from price gouging, and helps less popular authors find new fans. It also ensures that your books stay yours: once you've purchased a book no one from the bookstore can come to your house later and demand the book back or hit a remote kill switch and do the same.

Perhaps most importantly, thanks to copyright's first sale doctrine, once you have lawfully obtained your copy, you are entitled to resell the book or give it away. This is what makes libraries, used bookstores, and giving books as gifts legal, all of which help authors as well as readers. Readers are more willing to shell out more for new book if they know they fully control its use and can re-sell that book later. Further, the used book market helps support a continuing vibrant book culture by making books available to readers who cannot otherwise afford them. Finally, borrowing books from friends or receiving books as gifts are a crucial means by which readers discover unfamiliar authors — which leads them to buy those authors' next books.

Many readers expect that the same rules will apply to their e-book purchases. However, electronic books have often been treated as "licensed" content, subject to legal and technical restrictions (primarily, DRM) that block readers' ability to resell, lend, or gift an e-book. More ominously, last year Kindle readers realized that their provider (Amazon) could actually reach down into their devices and pull books from their virtual shelves.10

We expect to see many different models for accessing books develop. But given the crucial benefits that ownership provides to readers and to the larger interests in privacy and freedom of expression, readers should not accept a world where all we can ever do is "rent" a book, subject to the whims of a digital "landlord."

What to look for:

a.Can you lend or resell?
One of the basic rights of ownership is the ability to lend, give away, or re-sell your property. Does your provider allow you to do that with books you buy? If so, how easy is it? DRM or other technological incompatibilities may inhibit your ability to transfer your book, so investigate these issues before you buy.

b.Is it locked down or do you have the freedom to move it to other readers, services or uses?
Another basic right of ownership is control — over both the products you buy and the devices you use. Find out if you can read your book on your laptop if that's more convenient. And, ask whether upgrades or other normal hardware adjustments might mean loss of your books.

c.Can the vendor take it away or edit it after you've purchased it?
Does the device allow a provider or anyone else to delete, delete access to, or alter the books on your device? If so, you bought it, but you don't really own it. A remote "delete" or "edit" switch for purchased books should not be built into e-book readers or other devices.

5. Is it censorship-resistant? ^
Why it matters:

Censorship resistance is one of the key benefits of buying books (as opposed to merely renting them, for example). When you own a book, that means you have the power to access it, preserve it, share it, and, if need be, hide it. Those same abilities must be preserved for digital books, lest digital book services become automated censors beyond George Orwell and Ray Bradbury's wildest dreams. Indeed, as Farhad Manjoo has noted, if a provider can delete an entire book, it can doubtless delete portions of a book as well. What is worse, such deletions may not always be the provider's own choice:

If Apple or Amazon can decide to delete stuff you've bought, then surely a court — or, to channel Orwell, perhaps even a totalitarian regime — could force them to do the same. Like a lot of others, I've predicted the Kindle is the future of publishing. Now we know what the future of book banning looks like, too.11


What to look for:

a.How easy is it to remove or edit books once access or possession has been given to readers?
Every new technology for sharing information has been met with efforts by public and private entities to control and limit the information made available. Censorship-resistant devices and services can make that effort harder by eliminating features that allow information to be deleted.

b.Is there a single entity that stores all the books, as in Google Books or the Kindle, such that political or legal pressure on that place might result in a loss of the work for all readers?
By the same token, censorship-resistant devices and services will make sure information is dispersed, so there is no easy, central point of vulnerability.

c.Are the books stored in a location where censorship is historically a problem, such as China or Saudi Arabia, or in a place that is relatively free of censorship?
A provider that cares about protecting access to knowledge will make sure its servers are located in a country with speech-friendly laws.

d.Are the copyright or other laws applicable to the books balanced, giving readers the protection of doctrines like fair use or copyright exceptions and limitations?
Censorship can come in many forms — sometimes governments intervene to shut down speech, and sometimes copyright and trademark owners misuse their rights to do so (e.g., business tycoon Howard Hughes bought up newspaper and magazine copyrights in order to suppress access to interviews he gave).12 To limit such "private" censorship, try to get books from providers located in countries that recognize speech-protecting doctrines like fair use.

6. Is It Burdened With Digital Rights Management? ^
Why it matters:

Early entrants in the digital books marketplace are already locking down their books with DRM, i.e., technologies that limit what you can do with the content you buys, usually in the name of reducing copyright infringement. Readers, authors, and publishers should take a hard look at the experience of DRM on digital music and reconsider the wisdom of this approach for digital books.

For readers, the lessons of DRM in digital music tell us that content restricted with DRM is less useful than content without DRM, and can even be dangerous. As discussed above, DRM schemes applied to music have opened up security vulnerabilities on computers and spied on listening habits. And, until its recent demise, DRM reduced consumer choice in music and music players. Apple's DRM scheme, for example, meant that purchases from Apple's iTunes Store would only play on Apple's own iPods.13

For authors and publishers, the lessons are equally plain. First, DRM will be no more effective at preventing unauthorized copying of books than it was for music.14 In an era of inexpensive cameras and optical character recognition (OCR) technologies, scanning books will just get cheaper and easier over time. Anything that can be read by humans can be photographed, OCR'ed, and uploaded — DRM will not change that. Second, DRM inevitably alienates at least some potential customers. Third, DRM will put the power in the hands of the technology companies that control the DRM standards, rather than authors and publishers, by locking customers and businesses into a proprietary platform.15 Author Cory Doctorow sums up the problem:

Imagine if, in addition to having control over what inventory they carry, [the big box stores] also carried your books in such a way that they could only be shelved on Walmart shelves, they could only be read in Walmart lamps, running Walmart light bulbs. Imagine the lock-in to your customers and the lack of control over your destiny that you have signed up with if this is the path you pursue. Well this is in fact what you get when you sell DRM'd ebooks or DRM'd music — in order to play back that DRM format, in order carry, manipulate or convert that DRM format, you have to license the DRM. The company that controls licensing for the DRM controls your business to the extent that your business is reliant on this.16


Some have argued that DRM is necessary for lending or leasing schemes. In fact, there is already "digital loan" software in wide use by public libraries that does not bother to impose any DRM on e-books, opting instead to automatically delete the books after the load period has expired.17 While users could defeat this by digging up and copying the underlying file, most users don't bother, just like most Netflix subscribers don't bother to copy the DVDs they rent, despite the ready availability of free software that can accomplish that goal.

Booksellers and publishers are still experimenting with digital book business models, and we support that experimentation. But authors and publishers should heed the lessons that the music industry learned the hard way — DRM is bad for business.

What to look for:

a.Is there DRM? If so, how does it limit your use of the book? Can you still lend, gift or resell the book? What features are enabled and which have been disabled?
DRM can come in many forms, some more pernicious than others. It's likely that vendors will experiment with different forms, which at least gives you an opportunity to vote with your wallets — just as music fans have.

b.Are you locked into a single reader technology or group of reader technologies, or can you choose any device you wish to read and otherwise use your book?
As noted, readers (not to mention authors and publishers) should be especially wary of DRM that locks them into a particular proprietary technology. Why would you want to give one company the ability to determine whether you'll be able to access a book you love?

c.Has the DRM been studied by independent researchers to confirm that it causes no security or other problems?
Remember the rootkit.18

d.Does it report on your activities or otherwise violate your privacy?
As discussed above, some forms of DRM give the vendor (or sometimes even a third party) a window into the customer's device. Your reading habits are nobody's business but your own, and selling you a book shouldn't become an excuse to monitor your activities.

7. Does it promote access to knowledge? ^
Why it matters:

Digital books have the potential to transform access to knowledge, in the U.S. and abroad. With physical books, access to books can be impeded by three barriers: archiving (physical books are expensive to preserve); indexing/search (even where catalogues are available online, searching for relevant books on a given topic can be difficult, and many books are not yet indexed); and obtaining books (once you find a book you think you want, you may need to buy it, borrow it or, if you have access to a library with the right relationships, attempt to order it via interlibrary loan). These barriers have traditionally hampered access to paper books; in areas without resources or first-class libraries, access to books can be well-nigh impossible.

Digital books offer hope of reducing these traditional barriers to access. But digital books will only live up to that promise if readers demand it.

What to look for:

a.Can authors and publishers easily dedicate their books to the public domain or Creative Commons or other flexible licensing schemes?
Rights-holders should be able to dedicate their books to the public domain and/or have the option to license the books via a Creative Commons ("CC") license or similar flexible licensing model. For example, after pressure from academic authors and others, Google and the Authors Guild announced that authors and publishers of books included in Google Books would be able to dedicate their books to the public domain or have the option to use a CC-license. For many rights-holders, promoting access and re-use of a work via a free CC license may be more valuable than charging readers. But in order for authors and rights-holders to make this choice, technology companies have to design their systems to accommodate and support public domain and CC license options.

b.Can you trust your "digital librarian" to enable access to as many works as possible?
Traditional libraries frown on limiting access to books unnecessarily. The proposed Google Book Search service reserves to Google the right to exclude any book "for editorial reasons." If, as is possible, Google becomes the only viable source for digital orphan works, this means that Google will have extraordinary influence over public access to those works.

c.Is it available to people without money, as public libraries are?
Digital book providers should ensure that readers in resource-poor areas have options for engaging with new digital resources. For example, Google has, as part of its proposed Google Book Search settlement with authors and publishers, proposed offering a free public access terminal for the Google Books collection to every public library in America.

d.Is it cost-effective for people of limited means?
The vast majority of global readers will never be able to afford the $300 Kindle 2. The best way to bring down costs is to foster vibrant, free-market competition in these technologies. This is one reason we should fear DRM for books; to the extent it impedes reverse engineering and interoperability (either by code or by contract), it is also likely to impede innovation and competition. (See below for a more detailed discussion of this.)

e.Is it available to people with disabilities?
Booksellers, publishers, and authors must work together to enable accessibility features so that people with print disabilities can enjoy the vastly expanded world of books on the same terms as the rest of us.19 Already, several leading e-book purveyors have taken steps to foster accessibility for digital books.20 Other vendors, such as Amazon, have limited their accessibility features, bowing to pressure from misguided copyright owners.

8. Does it foster or inhibit competition and innovation? ^
Why it matters:

Physical book publishing has traditionally been a reasonably competitive industry, to the benefit of readers.21 The publishing industry has consolidated in recent years, but there are still numerous academic, small, and specialty presses that help make sure readers will have access to multiple genres of books, at multiple price points. New technologies have made publishing cheaper and easier and, of course, we have recently seen disruptive innovation in the form of online book sales. We have also seen the continuing vitality of the used book market (including online markets). In short, competition and innovation has helped make physical books more accessible to more people, and help ensure that readers will have access to a wide range of voices and subjects.

If digital book publishing, selling, and sharing is to reach its full potential, we need the same robust competition and support for innovation. Competition will help ensure that readers continue to have options, such as the option to own DRM-free books, and should also help lower the price of digital books over time. Innovation is also likely to lead to both lower prices and, perhaps more importantly, new technologies that will continue to transform how we read and access books.

One key issue will be DRM. DRM can be used to lock readers into a vendor's format. Creating a barrier to entry and competition in the e-book reader market. In essence, device makers can hold their customers' book collections hostage to prevent those customers from switching to better (cheaper, easier to use, with more features) alternatives. DRM can also be used to limit innovation. In the DVD space, for example, DRM systems like the Content Scramble System (CSS) have become the legal "hook" that forces technology companies to enter into license agreements before they build products that can play movies.22 Those license agreements, in turn, define what the devices can and can't do, thereby protecting Hollywood business models from disruptive innovation. It would be a shame to see the same occur for digital books.

But DRM isn't the only issue. One of the reasons so many are concerned about the proposed Google Book Search Settlement is that it gives two entities — Google and a not-for-profit licensing entity called the Book Rights Registry ("BRR") — enormous power to shape innovation with respect to orphan works (i.e., books whose copyright owners cannot be easily found). For example, as James Grimmelman explains, under the terms of the settlement, the BRR is authorized to negotiate on behalf of all authors and publishers with respect to the millions of books covered by the settlement. Thus "[i]t could agree with Google on a privacy-intrusive DRM system that fed back usage information into a database used to do industry-wide price-fixing in the guise of price discrimination."23

What to look for:

a.Can books from this source be read on a variety of readers or formats? Conversely, can you read or access books from a variety of sources?
A digital Library of Alexandria won't do most people much good if they cannot read the books they find on devices they already have and/or devices that can be inexpensively purchased. It will be still less valuable if they can't share their discoveries with friends who may have different kinds of devices, or transfer their books to the laptop they already have. And it will be downright harmful if the Library builders could use it as a tool to force readers to buy (and upgrade, ad infinitum) a particular proprietary technology. If we want the reader experience with digital books to be as good (or better) than with paper books, we'll need flexible, interoperable formats and devices.

For example, one fundamental problem in the fledgling digital books market is that a major e-book reader vendor, Amazon, uses DRM and other techniques to lock readers into their libraries. That means Kindle owners can only read Kindle files and PDFs, and they can't transfer those libraries to a non-Kindle reader.24 What if you could lose your entire music collection as a result of upgrading your sound system?

There are alternatives. EPUB, a free open standard supported by a range of reading devices, allows readers to move their digital books across platforms rather than being locked into one particular device.25 Many providers that use EPUB deploy DRM in other ways, but at least their customers have a broader array of options.26

b.Can features be easily added or modified by users or third parties or must features be pre-approved by the provider?
As noted above, the DRM and contracts that accompany leading e-book readers and licensed content inhibit follow-on innovation. For example, the Kindle Terms and Conditions require that customers not "encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, modify, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Device or the Software, whether in whole or in part, create any derivative works from or of the Software, or bypass, modify, defeat or tamper with or circumvent any of the functions or protections of the Device or Software or any mechanisms operatively linked to the Software . . . ." In other words, no tinkering with or improving your device! Innovators will be reluctant to experiment with these products if they could face lawsuits for their trouble.

c.Does the provider depend on and/or promote agreements that limit competition?
With respect to devices, consider whether your provider has made long-term exclusive deals with major publishers that hinder competition and innovation. After all, you can't vote with your wallet if you don't have a range of options to vote for.

IV. ConclusionThe future of digital books must not be shaped solely by authors, publishers, booksellers or even librarians. Readers can and should play an active role in realizing the extraordinary potential of digital books — but only if we stay informed, ask questions, and demand that providers respect the rights and expectations that have been developed and defended for physical books. We hope readers will use this checklist to do just that

How Religion Evelved

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100208_religion

Re­li­gion evolved as a byprod­uct of pre-existing men­tal ca­pa­ci­ties, and not be­cause it ful­filled a spe­cif­ic func­tion of its own—though it can fa­cil­i­tate coop­era­t­ion in so­ci­e­ty, a study con­cludes.

Why re­li­gion emerged among early hu­mans re­mains a source of con­ten­tion among schol­ars. Many sci­en­tists be­lieve re­li­gion is ul­ti­mately based in the brain, but that still leaves un­clear how and why these be­hav­iors orig­i­nat­ed and how they may have been shaped dur­ing ev­o­lu­tion. Some arch­aeo­logists think re­li­gion came about partly as a stra­tegy by some peo­ple to grab pow­er, sim­ply by claim­ing some sort of se­cret know­ledge.

The Drug Cocktail To Feel Youthful

The 30 read­i­ly avail­a­ble vit­a­min and sup­ple­ment in­gre­di­ents used in the "cock­tail" tested on mice. In­gre­di­ents are list­ed along with the near­ly ex­act per­cent­ages in which they were in­clud­ed, high­est first. Mice received about 70 mg per day of the cock­tail. This par­tic­u­lar cock­tail is not avail­a­ble on the mar­ket, al­though re­search­ers are in­ves­ti­gat­ing de­vel­op­ing new sup­ple­ments based on the re­search. Note that many of these sub­stances are not gov­ern­ment re­gu­lated and that qual­ity and pur­ity are not always guar­ant­eed with com­merc­ially avai­lable pre­par­ations.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100215_life

Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States

http://mail.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey: "Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States"

While Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities are unconfirmed, the nuclear weapons capabilities of these five countries including delivery procedures are formally acknowledged.

The US has supplied some 480 B61 thermonuclear bombs to five non-nuclear NATO countries including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Casually disregarded by the Vienna based UN Nuclear Watchdog (IAEA), the US has actively contributed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Western Europe.

As part of this European stockpiling, Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base. (National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

By the recognised definition, these five countries are "undeclared nuclear weapons states".

The stockpiling and deployment of tactical B61 in these five "non-nuclear states" are intended for targets in the Middle East. Moreover, in accordance with "NATO strike plans", these thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs (stockpiled by the "non-nuclear States") could be launched "against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran" ( quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

Does this mean that Iran or Russia, which are potential targets of a nuclear attack originating from one or other of these five so-called non-nuclear states should contemplate defensive preemptive nuclear attacks against Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey? The answer is no, by any stretch of the imagination.

Binyam Mohamed

http://www.irr.org.uk/2010/february/ha000025.html

Meanwhile, in November 2009, the US court obtained the relevant material, and having looked at it, accepted Mohamed's allegations as true. The US court said this: '[Mr Mohamed's] trauma lasted for 2 long years. During that time, he was physically and psychologically tortured. His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in various plots to imperil Americans. The Government does not dispute this evidence ... even though the identity of the individual interrogator changed (from nameless Pakistanis, to Moroccans, to Americans) ... there is no question that throughout his ordeal Binyam Mohamed was being held at the behest of the United States ...The court finds that [Mr Mohamed's] will was overborne by his lengthy prior torture, and therefore his confessions ... do not represent reliable evidence to detain petitioner'.

Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

June 17, 2009: The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.

At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear................... read the rest here....

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/17jun_jetstream.htm
its in gmail if u cant get it

Moscow's Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence

http://www.popsci.com/node/42894/?cmpid=enews012810

Moscow's Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence, Including a Mastery of the Subway By Stuart Fox
Posted 01.21.2010 at 12:15 pm 35 Comments


Waiting for the 8:10 To Tverskaya Maxim Marmur, via The Financial Times
For every 300 Muscovites, there's a stray dog wandering the streets of Russia's capital. And according to Andrei Poyarkov, a researcher at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the fierce pressure of urban living has driven the dogs to evolve wolf-like traits, increased intelligence, and even the ability to navigate the subway.

Poyarkov has studied the dogs, which number about 35,000, for the last 30 years. Over that time, he observed the stray dog population lose the spotted coats, wagging tails, and friendliness that separate dogs from wolves, while at the same time evolving social structures and behaviors optimized to four ecological niches occupied by what Poyarkov calls guard dogs, scavengers, wild dogs, and beggars.

The guard dogs follow around, and receive food from, the security personnel at Moscow's many fenced in sites. They think the guards are their masters, and serve as semi-feral assistants. The scavengers roam the city eating garbage. The wild dogs are the most wolf-like, hunting mice, rats, and cats under the cover of night.

But beggar dogs have evolved the most specialized behavior. Relying on scraps of food from commuters, the beggar dogs can not only recognize which humans are most likely to give them something to eat, but have evolved to ride the subway. Using scents, and the ability to recognize the train conductor's names for different stops, they incorporate many stations into their territories.

Additionally, Poyarkov says the pack structure of the beggars reflects a reliance on brain over brawn for survival. In the beggar packs, the smartest dog, not the most physically dominant, occupies the alpha male position.

The evolution of Moscow's stray dogs has been going on since at least the mid-1800s, when Russian writers first mentioned the stray dog problem in the city. And that evolution has been propelled by deadly selective pressure. Most of the strays arrive on the streets as rejected house pets. Of those dogs kicked out of their homes, Poyarkov estimates fewer than 3 percent live long enough to breed. To survive those odds, a dog really does have to be the fittest.

For The Book

Neptune and Uranus May Have Oceans of Liquid Diamond

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/diamond-oceans-may-cover-neptune-and-uranus?cmpid=enews100121

Future humans won't have to wait to travel to Pandora for the chance to mine unobtanium, because Neptune and Uranus may have diamond icebergs floating atop liquid diamond seas closer to home. The surprise finding comes from the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, Discovery News reports.

Scientists zapped diamond with a laser at pressures 40 million times greater than the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, and then slowly reduced both temperature and pressure. They eventually found that diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, and that chunks of diamond will float in the liquid diamond.

Diamond oceans could explain why the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune appear tilted so far off their north-south axes, given that they could deflect or tilt the magnetic fields. Both planets may consist of up to 10 percent carbon, the elemental building block of diamond.

Scientists won't know for sure until they can launch missions to the planets, or try to simulate planetary conditions on Earth. But we'd wager it's worth a shot for NASA, if there's any chance that U.S. space missions could begin to pay for themselves in the distant future.

Heat Wave In 2007

All these pics are from the website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6914490.stm#maps

In a 'normal' summer, the Atlantic jetstream directs areas of low pressure, which bring cloud and rain, to the north of the UK. High pressure systems over Europe and the Atlantic bring warm, settled conditions.
Pressure chart: 29/6/06. Source: Met Office

This summer, the jetstream is flowing further south allowing low pressure systems to sweep straight over the centre of Britain. It is also pulling in warmer air from the sub-tropics and Africa which is sweeping over south-eastern Europe.
Pressure chart: 24/07/07. Source: Met Office

Up to 500 people have died in the past week from a heatwave in Hungary, a top health official has said.

Jet Streams

When they reach a latitude of 22°, the jet streams coincide with the generation of new sunspots, and a new solar cycle begins.

'Sluggish' jet streams linked to quiet Sun

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/39525

For The Book

Earth's Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer

http://www.livescience.com/space/091217-agu-earth-atmosphere-cooling.html

posted: 17 December 2009 09:44 am ET
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New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag.

New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag.

When the sun is relatively inactive — as it has been in recent years — the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find.

The results could help scientists better understand the swelling and shrinking of our planet's atmosphere, a phenomenon that affects the orbits of satellites and space junk.

The data, from NASA's TIMED mission, show that Earth's thermosphere (the layer above 62 miles or 100 km above the Earth's surface) "responds quite dramatically to the effects of the 11-year solar cycle," Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said here this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Knowing just how the energy flowing out from the sun naturally impacts the state of the thermosphere also will help scientists test predictions that man's emissions of carbon dioxide should cool this layer. (While that may seem to contradict the idea of global warming, it has long been known that carbon dioxide causes warming in the lowest part of the atmosphere and cooling in the upper layers of the atmosphere.)

Understanding the thermosphere

Earth's thermosphere is one of the least explored parts of the atmosphere, but it is important because "the thermosphere is where the sun first interacts with our atmosphere," said James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Va.

NASA launched the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesophere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission in 2001 to get a better picture of this outer layer. The energy that comes into it from the sun is absorbed by air molecules and reradiated to space during the normal ups and downs in solar energy that occur over a roughly 11-year time span.

The sun has been in a particularly prolonged and deep solar minimum for the last couple of years, with fewer sunspots and solar storms erupting on its surface. When the sun is in this state, it also sends less energy out in the soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet parts of its spectrum. These wavelengths of light have a significant impact on the thermosphere, where air molecules absorb their energy and the reradiate it in the form of infrared energy.

The TIMED mission measured both the amount of incoming solar energy in the thermosphere and the amount of energy being sent back out into space from the layer and found a significant decrease in both.

"The sun is in a very unusual period," said Marty Mlynczak, a TIMED team member at NASA Langley in Virginia. "The Earth's thermosphere is responding remarkably – up to an order of magnitude decrease in infrared emission/radiative cooling by some molecules."

Less radiation in both directions means that this layer of the atmosphere also cools substantially. In fact, the thermosphere has cooled by a factor of 10 since the last solar maximum in early 2002.

"I certainly didn't expect to see this eight years ago," Mlynczak said.

The exact temperature of the thermosphere can vary substantially, but the average temperature above 180 miles (300 km) is about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius) at solar minimum and 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (927 degrees Celsius) at solar maximum. (Though these temperatures sound hot, you would not actually feel warm in the thermosphere, because the molecules in that layer are too far apart.)

The temperature at this extreme solar minimum is likely a few degrees colder than in an average minimum, but that small change can cause a large change in the density of the layer.

What a drag

This same cooling effect is expected to happen (somewhat counterintuitively) as carbon dioxide concentrations increase from emissions at Earth's surface. So understanding the natural variability of this layer is important to detecting any changes from carbon dioxide increases.

The cooling effect also has an effect on the orbits of satellites, because it changes the density of the atmosphere layer. For example, if the layer heats up, it expands like a marshmallow in a microwave, as several scientists described it, and lower, denser parts of the atmosphere rise to higher altitudes. Essentially, as the upper atmosphere expands, the lower atmosphere also expands to fill the space. When the thermosphere cools, the opposite happens and the layers deflate and sink to lower altitudes.

The changing density means that satellites end up with either more or less drag on them, which can change the shape of their orbits. In the case of something like the Hubble Space Telescope, this can have implications on the orbiter's lifetime, Solomon told LiveScience. Less drag during a cooler period means the satellite might live longer, he said.

The cooling also could have implications for the buildup of so-called "space junk" – old satellites and pieces of satellites that have begun to litter the upper atmosphere and can pose a threat to other orbiting spacecraft, such as the International Space Station. Less drag means this junk gets speedier and could pose more of a threat.

More work is needed to fully understand the links between the sun's energy, rising greenhouse gas emissions and the Earth's outer atmosphere, the scientists said.

For The Book

Sun May Soon Send Magnetic Storms Toward Earth
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/01/11/sun-may-soon-send-magnetic-storms-toward-earth.html

DAN ELLIOTT,
Associated Press Writer

BOULDER, Colo.—The sun may finally be awakening from its longest quiet period in about a century and powering up to solar maximum, when it could fling disruptive electromagnetic storms toward Earth.


But once the sun does ramp up, it could be a relatively quiet solar maximum, with a below-average number of eruptions, scientists say.

Some researchers argue the sun has begun to enter solar maximum; others say it's not there yet. They do agree the current quiet period, or solar minimum, is the longest since the early 1900s, but they don't know why.

"For the average person or for a technological society like ours, a hundred years is a pretty long time," said Dan Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado.

A solar cycle usually lasts about 11 years, measured from one low point to the next. The most recent started about 13 years ago, in 1996.

Scientists won't declare the quiet period over until after a sustained stretch of activity, generally about three months, said Frank Eparvier, a scientist at the space physics lab.

"We've increased a little bit and had some strong active regions," Eparvier said, but it hasn't been long enough to say solar maximum has begun.

The sun goes through fairly regular cycles of more and fewer eruptions, averaging as many as 180 per day during solar maximum and dipping as low as zero per day during solar minimum.

The magnetic fields that cause the eruptions are themselves influenced by a mix of internal solar motions, including rotation, shears, turbulence and global circulation similar to Earth's ocean currents.

Sarah Gibson, a scientist with the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, calls it "a delicate mix of ordered and chaotic processes."

The consensus prediction for the next solar maximum is a small one, averaging about 90 or fewer sunspots a day in 2013, Eparvier said.

A panel of scientists convened by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Space Environment Service reviewed more than 100 published forecasts and eventually coalesced around the small-maximum prediction.

Solar eruptions can send billions of tons of magnetically charged particles into space at high speed. If those particle clouds, called plasma, collide with the Earth's magnetic field, they can create dramatic effects ranging from a beautiful aurora borealis to a devastating electrical blackout.

The sun's volatile magnetic fields can become so severely twisted that they snap and then reconnect, producing a flash called a solar flare and a plasma eruption, Gibson said. If the plasma's magnetic field collides with the Earth's own magnetic field, they connect with another powerful snap.

That can add electrical current on power lines, overtax transformers and set off a rapid collapse of parts of the power grid. It can disrupt radio signals, cause Global Positioning System devices to be off by the distance of a football field and cut off communication between ground controllers and jetliners flying over polar regions. That forces airlines to send planes on longer routes that take more time and burn more fuel.

United Airlines diverted 26 flights from their normal polar routes in January 2005 to avoid communications blackouts during solar storms.

In March 1989, a geomagnetic storm triggered the collapse of a power grid in Quebec, leaving an estimated 6 million people without electricity for nine hours. And in 2006, a burst of solar radiation disoriented virtually all GPS receivers on the lighted half of the Earth, the National Weather Service said.

Baker said radiation from solar flares could be harmful to space travelers and even airline crews who are repeatedly exposed to it on flights over the Earth's poles.

Solar plasma can also physically compress the Earth's magnetic field so much that it's smaller than the orbit of some satellites. Without that magnetic field to orient themselves, those satellites can have trouble communicating with ground stations. Baker estimated that $200 billion worth of satellites are in orbits that leave them vulnerable to such disruptions.

Some satellites are more vulnerable to radiation damage than previous models. During the Cold War, many satellites were "hardened" against enemy radiation attacks, but when that threat passed, designers took fewer protective measures.

___

On the Net:

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics: http://lasp.colorado.edu/

High Altitude Observatory: http://www.hao.ucar.edu/

Gold­en Ra­tio

The “pitch” of these notes, or their fre­quen­cies of vibra­t­ion, are in a ra­tio of about 1.618, the same “the gold­en ra­tio fa­mous from art and ar­chi­tec­ture,” he con­tin­ued. If two num­bers are re­lat­ed by the gold­en ra­tio, their sum is al­so re­lat­ed to the larg­er of them by the gold­en ra­tio. In oth­er words, if A di­vid­ed by B is that spe­cial num­ber, then A+B di­vid­ed by A is the same num­ber.

US War Machine

2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World
By Rick Rozoff

The Pentagon has also deployed special forces and other troops to the Philippines and launched naval, helicopter and missile attacks inside Somalia as well as assisting the Ethiopian invasion of that nation in 2006. Washington also arms, trains and supports the armed forces of Djibouti in their border war with Eritrea. In fact Djibouti hosts the U.S.'s only permanent military installation in Africa to date [2], Camp Lemonier, a United States Naval Expeditionary Base and home to the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), placed under the new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) when it was launched on October 1, 2008. The area of responsibility of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa takes in the nations of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen and as "areas of interest" the Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar.

On October 30 of 2009 the U.S. signed an agreement with the government of Colombia to acquire the essentially unlimited and unrestricted use of seven new military bases in the South American nation, including sites within immediate striking distance of both Venezuela and Ecuador. [9] American intelligence, special forces and other personnel will be complicit in ongoing counterinsurgency operations against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the nation's south as well as in rendering assistance to Washington's Colombian proxy for attacks inside Ecuador and Venezuela that will be portrayed as aimed at FARC forces in the two states.

Targeting two linchpins of and ultimately the entire Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Washington is laying the groundwork for a potential military conflagration in South and Central America and the Caribbean. After the U.S.-supported coup in Honduras on June 28, that nation has announced it will be the first ALBA member state to ever withdraw from the Alliance and the Pentagon will retain, perhaps expand, its military presence at the Soto Cano Air Base there.

In October a U.S. armed forces publication revealed that the Pentagon will spend $110 million to modernize and expand seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania, across the Black Sea from Russia, where it will station initial contingents of over 4,000 troops. [12]

In early December the U.S. signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Poland, which borders the Russian Kaliningrad territory, that "allows for the United States military to station American troops and military equipment on Polish territory." [13] The U.S. military forces will operate Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) batteries as part of the Pentagon's global interceptor missile system.

U.S. military websites recently announced that there have been 3.3 million deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 with 2 million U.S. service members sent to the two war zones. [17]

In this still young millennium American soldiers have also deployed in the hundreds of thousands to new bases and conflict and post-conflict zones in Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Colombia, Djibouti, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Mali, the Philippines, Romania, Uganda and Uzbekistan.