Eideard

Guttenberg and Chen at the signing ceremony
Daylife/AFP/Getty Images

Germany and China just signed trade agreements worth $14 billion as a delegation from Beijing launched a European buying trip aimed at combatting the global economic downturn.

Deals involving 36 companies focused on the electronics, automotive, textile and medical industries among others.

“With this, both countries have set a clear sign against the economic crisis,” German Economic Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told reporters at a joint news conference with Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming following a ceremonial signing of the deals.

Both ministers said the move was intended to demonstrate their nations’ rejection of protectionism and support of open markets as the best instruments to combat the international financial crisis.

“China and Germany are the world’s leading exporting nations. These agreements set a good signal for the whole world,” said Chen.

No doubt Bobby Jindal and the rest of the Herbert Hoover brigade will ask for TV time to oppose the agreements. After all, they don’t bear the stamp of approval of great economists like McCain and Bush.

President Barack Obama’s budget outline has called for eliminating substantial tax breaks and increasing fees for the oil and natural gas industry, while boosting funding for cleaner fuel development.

Obama has made transforming the way Americans use energy a priority for his presidency. He has pledged to double U.S. renewable energy production in three years and wants 10 percent of electricity to come from clean energy sources by 2012.

His budget includes more than $50 million in increased funding for the Interior Department to conduct environmental studies to assess alternative energy resources and bolster clean energy development.

Obama’s plan, which must still be approved by Congress, would levy an excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas, raising $5.3 billion in revenue from 2011 to 2019.

This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf would only affect those companies that are currently not paying any royalties due to a loophole, said an Interior Department official. The official said producers who already pay royalties will receive a tax credit.

Oil industry execs, lobbyists and their tame politicians are already whining about the proposals. When will these thugs realize that American voters are tired of being screwed by the Oil Patch Boys?

The northward and inland movement of North American birds, confirmed by thousands of citizen-observations, has provided new and powerful evidence that climate change is having a serious impact on natural systems, according to a new report by Audubon (BirdLife in the USA). The findings signal the need for dramatic policy changes to combat pervasive ecological disruption.

Analyses of citizen-gathered data from the past 40 years of Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count reveal that 58% of the 305 widespread species that winter on the continent have shifted significantly north since 1968, some by hundreds of kilometres. Movement was detected among species of every type, including more than 70% of highly adaptable forest and feeder birds. Only 38% of grassland species mirrored the trend, reflecting the constraints of their severely-depleted habitat and suggesting that they now face a double threat from the combined stresses of habitat loss and climate adaptation.

Population shifts among individual species are common and can have many causes. However, Audubon scientists say the ongoing trend of movement by some 177 species—closely correlated to long-term winter temperature increases—reveals an undeniable link to the changing climate.

“Birds are showing us how the heavy hand of humanity is tipping the balance of nature and causing ecological disruption in ways we are just beginning to predict and comprehend”, said report co-author Dr Greg Butcher. “Common sense dictates that we act now to curb the causes and impacts of global warming to the extent we can, and shape our policies to better cope with the disruptions we cannot avoid.”

I couldn’t agree more. Friends in northern California tell me of dramatic increases in purple finch arrivals and numbers – while here in northern New Mexico we’re seeing population of bluebirds that traditionally pass through – southbound in late autumn, northbound in spring – wintering over. We’ve picked up a new species or two of doves which I haven’t seen, yet – but, hear on my daily walks.

I joke about the last-noted. It sounds like a 10lb mourning dive with a sore throat!

An Israeli girl has become a divorcee at the age of 14.

It all began as a lark, in a schoolyard where a 17-year-old boy recently declared the girl his wife, reciting a Jewish ritual vow in front of witnesses, and she accepted his ring.

That, and what a spokeswoman for Israel’s Rabbinical Courts said was the consummation of their marriage, was enough to make them man and wife in the Jewish state.

Spokeswoman Efrat Orbach, describing the girl as the youngest Jewish divorcee in Israel’s modern history, said the couple was granted a rabbinical divorce this week.

Under Israeli criminal law, sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl are not illegal as long as her male partner is no more than three years her senior.

Sounds like Texas to me.

The Obama administration has vowed to end years of cost overruns and schedule delays in U.S. weapons programs, calling acquisition reform one of the Pentagon’s highest priorities.

The fiscal 2010 budget overview released on Thursday called for a 4 percent increase in the Pentagon’s base budget to $533.7 billion, to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, improve medical services for wounded troops, and reform the way the Department of Defense buys weapons.

The plan did not include any details about specific weapons programs that may be targeted for cancellation or cutbacks, although President Barack Obama this week said he would end Cold War programs that are not being used.

The most useless Cold War program in use – is stationing American troops all over the globe. Our own portable Maginot Line of defense against a mythical enemy that’s supposed to come marching around the corner in direct confrontation. Absolutely unnecessary. Expensive? You betcha.

“The administration is committed to reforming the defense acquisition process so that taxpayer dollars are not wasted,” the budget outline said. “When it comes to the defense of our nation, it’s critical that every dollar is spent in the most effective way possible…”

The Pentagon’s “95 largest acquisition programs are an average of two years behind schedule and have exceeded their original budgets by a combined total of almost $300 billion,” Senator Carl Levin, the Democrat who heads the committee said.

“We simply cannot afford this kind of continued waste and inefficiency.”

And bring the troops home. Now.

Looks like I may be offline for a while – till we figure out what’s wrong. Sorry.

UPDATE: See comments. Back on the cyberstreet!

In sex education classes, 94 percent of Texas school districts teach that abstaining from sex is the only healthy option for unmarried couples, and, in many cases, students are given misleading and inaccurate information about the risks associated with sex.

Two percent of districts — in a state that has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation — ignore the subject completely, according to the study.

The two-year study, “Just Say Don’t Know: Sexuality Education in Texas Public Schools,” was conducted by two Texas State University researchers and funded by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, the research arm of the Texas Freedom Network, which describes itself as “a mainstream voice to counter the religious right…”

“Most of the mistruths share a common purpose, and a likely effect, and that is discouraging young people who might already be sexually active from using condoms, a message I find shocking as a professional health educator,” Wiley said.

The Texas education code does not require public schools to offer sex education. But if they do, it must be abstinence-focused, and instruction about contraceptives should be couched in terms of how often they fail, according to language added to the code in 1995. According to the study, 4 percent of districts offer an “abstinence-plus curriculum.”

On wearing condoms during sex, the Brady district has told teens, “Well if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off a bridge, at least wear these elbow pads.”

Don’t you love public school curricula designed by 19th-Century politicians?

A federal anti-terror law that requires longshoremen, truckers and others to submit to criminal background checks has ensnared another class of transportation worker — mule drivers.

Mule skinners must abide by federal law and apply for Transportation Worker Identification Credentials, TSA says.

Yes, so-called mule skinners — in this case, seasonal workers who dress in colonial garb at a historical park in Easton, Pa. — must apply for biometric Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC), according to the Transportation Security Administration, which says it is bound by federal law.

The requirement has officials of the Hugh Moore Historical Park perplexed.

“We have one boat. It’s pulled by two mules. On a good day they might go 2 miles per hour,” said Sarah B. Hays, the park’s director of operations.

The park’s two-mile canal does not pass any military bases, nuclear power plants or other sensitive facilities. And, park officials say, the mules could be considered weapons of mass destruction only if they were aimed at something resembling food…

Each of the park workers on the canal boat – who already are Coast Guard certified [an older bureaucracy] – will have to spend $100 apiece for appropriate biometric ID and background check.

A couple who claimed benefits while sailing around the world in a £100,000 yacht have been told that they face jail.

Shashi Bacheta, 52, and Jeffrey Coles, 58, had spent almost two years sailing around the world on the 70ft vessel, living off the proceeds from their post office and property businesses. They were found out when photographs emerged of them sailing the yacht in the Canaries.

Bacheta claimed she was so ill she could not get out of bed in Swansea, when in fact she was scuba diving off Kenya. By the end of the sailing trip she had claimed almost £50,000 in housing benefits, disability living allowances, council tax relief and income support. Coles helped her to obtain an extra £12,000 and backed up her claims that they were not living together.

The fraud came undone after they came across two former police officers in Gran Canaria who were also sailing the world. Months later, Jeffrey Fish, who investigated the couple on behalf of Swansea county council, found mention of their yacht, Kismet, on a blog kept by the retired police officers and a photograph showing Bacheta and Coles looking tanned in the Canaries. Fish said the pictures contradicted Bacheta’s claims that she was so ill she needed 24-hour care. “The photograph said it all.”

Some crooks are so smug about their crookedness they think no one will ever catch them. Did they never hear of the Internet?

In the Republican response to last night’s presidential address to a joint session of Congress, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal chided the lawmakers for earmarking “$140 million for something called volcano monitoring.” The funds he was referring to are part of the $787 billion stimulus package…some 12 percent ($98.3 billion) of the monies are set aside for transportation and infrastructure projects, including volcano monitoring and other natural disaster prevention programs.

The U.S. Geological Society (USGS) is in charge of keeping tabs on volcanoes in the U.S. and its territories. The agency is currently monitoring more than 150 of them (from Yellowstone in Wyoming to Kilauea in Hawaii), some 65 of which show signs of seismic activity and are more likely than the others to erupt (including Redoubt in Alaska and Mauna Loa in Hawaii). But USGS officials aren’t just worried about Hollywood-caliber lava blowups. Other threats include potentially deadly landslides, falling rocky ash, and inundation by toxic gases that can be triggered by volcanic eruptions.

Is volcano monitoring important?

It’s extremely important. There are obvious hazards to nearby residents. Beyond human safety, there are huge economic concerns. It’s not that eruptions can be stopped, but, like a hurricane, it’s good to know when it’s coming…

There’s a huge hazard in the air from eruption plumes. Volcanic ash is not like ash from the fireplace. It’s basically pulverized rocks and glass particles. Putting glass in a jet engine isn’t good. That’s why the monitoring in Alaska is extremely important to the aviation industry.

Looks like Republicans have an anti-science track record to maintain. We went through the same ignorance, the same pig-headed foolishness when Sarah Palin prattled about wasting money on French fruit flies.