Eideard

A US climate scientist at the centre of a row over Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s stance on climate change has spoken out for the first time, condemning the polarisation of the issue.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, had written a chapter for Gingrich’s upcoming book of essays on the environment. The chapter was aimed at climate sceptics, and those who fear it will cost too much to deal with climate change, but it was ditched by the presidential candidate after the book came under attack by rightwing talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Gingrich, desperate to shore up his conservative credentials, said of the chapter at a recent campaign event: “That’s not going to be in the book. We didn’t know that they were doing that and we told them to kill it.”

In her first extensive comment on the matter, Hayhoe told the Guardian she condemned the polarisation of a crucial global concern. “I really, really deplore the politicisation and polarisation of this issue. There are these increasingly unprincipled attempts to polarise the science when the science is fact – like the sky is blue, the grass is green and the temperature of our planet is increasing.”

The decision to drop her contribution arrived as a complete shock to Hayhoe, who was told in a 7 December email that her chapter had been accepted without major changes. Days later, the chapter was on the scrap heap…

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A book advising dentists on how to run their practices Mongolian warlord style has won the Diagram prize for oddest book title of the year.

Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way, by former dentist Michael Young, offers a guide on how to build an empire in the dentistry field. It includes chapters on managing conflict situations, team building and “planning for disaster”…

In his book, Young argues that despite the western world viewing the legendary warrior in negative terms, his warmongering tenacity is required to build a successful business.

Its closest rival was 8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings, which details the development and application of friction stir welding at a German symposium last May…

This year’s other shortlisted titles were What Colour Is Your Dog?, The Italian’s One-Night Love-Child, Myth of the Social Volcano and The Generosity of the Dead.

Previous winners of the prize include Living with Crazy Buttocks, Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers, How to Avoid Huge Ships and Highlights in the History of Concrete.

Rock on Michael Young. I can’t wait to see if my dentist has read this, yet.

Michelle Obama is to follow in her husband’s footsteps by writing a book about the organic garden she started at the White House and her efforts to promote healthy eating.

The as yet untitled book will be published in April 2012, and will see the US First Lady describing how she was inspired to plant the first edible garden on the White House’s South Lawn since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War Two era “victory garden”.

She will also share some of her family’s favourite healthy recipes, said Crown, an imprint of Random House publishers. Mrs Obama received no advance and would donate the proceeds to a charity to be determined later.

Explaining her reasons for writing the book, she said: “We’ve gotten food out of the garden, and we can eat it and it’s good. So we wanted to share the story with the rest of the nation and perhaps with the rest of the world, because we get so many questions about the garden: how did we do it? Why did we do it? How do I do this in my own home or community?” The book will include photos of Mrs Obama’s White House garden as well as other community, urban and school gardens around the United States.

The first lady has been a strong advocate of healthy eating and exercise and in February 2010 launched her “Let’s Move!” initiative aimed at beating child obesity and improving the quality of food in US schools.

Now, how many ways do you think the reactionaries of America will hate this book?

The leading populists of our time, the KoolAid Party only needs to remind their obedient followers that Michelle Obama is well-educated – and Black.

I used to be Amarillo on business every other week. Last stop on the way home from West Texas. Amarillo is Culture Wars 101.

Between the John Birch Society and warring fundamentalist Protestant sects – everyone hates someone. That some gnat’s ass little clot of Christians got together a dozen acolytes to burn someone else’s holy book probably wouldn’t garner local TV coverage.

They’d have to video record it themselves and give the coaster to a TV station.

This dude who broke up their book burning probably made it on camera because someone was there to watch him and the other skateboarders.

Har!

The former head of the army today accused Tony Blair and Gordon Brown of letting down British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and described the case for the Iraq war as “most uncompelling”.

General Sir Richard Dannatt called Brown “malign” for failing to fund the armed forces adequately, and said Blair lacked the “moral courage” to make his then chancellor deliver the money that was needed.

The accusations were made in a book, Leading From the Front, which is being serialised in the Sunday Telegraph…

In his book, Dannatt wrote that the evidence for Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction – the official justification for Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion – was “most uncompelling” and the planning for the aftermath of war had been an “abject failure”.

While the 1998 strategic defence review (SDR) provided a “good framework” for defence policy in the Labour years, it was “fatally flawed” because it was underfunded by Brown’s Treasury and could not cope with the strains of deploying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time.

“History will pass judgment on these foreign adventures in due course, but in my view Gordon Brown’s malign intervention, when chancellor, on the SDR by refusing to fund what his own government had agreed, fatally flawed the entire process from the outset,” he wrote.

“The seeds were sown for some of the impossible operational pressures to come…”

Sound familiar? Insert the names “George W, Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney” in the appropriate locations and watch the hurried defense of political hacks who specialize in rear guard actions against any responsibility for their political disasters.

True Believers aid as best they can.

Chief Farcical Officer
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Facebook, which has gone after sites with the word “book” in their names, is also trying to trademark the word “face,” according to court documents.

But the social networking site has met with a familiar foe. As TechCrunch first reported, Aaron Greenspan has asked for an extension of time to file an opposition to Facebook’s attempt. Greenspan is the president and CEO of Think Computer, the developer of a mobile payments app called FaceCash.

“I’d bet against ‘face’ being awarded to Facebook,” said Henry Sneath, a patent and trademark lawyer based in Pittsburgh. “You cannot overtake the use of a generic word people use in everyday speech…”

Facebook’s separate fight over “book,” on the other hand, has been more of a David vs. Goliath saga.

As CNNMoney reported Thursday, Facebook is suing start-up site Teachbook.com — which claims it is merely a teacher’s community. The social networking giant also forced the travel site PlaceBook to change its name to TripTrace earlier this month.

In the case of Teachbook, Facebook would have to prove the site caused “a likelihood of confusion,” said Sneath, the trademark lawyer. That’s a steep burden, he said, but Facebook could succeed.

I thoroughly understand the need for existing copyright-holders to press to defend their mark against every interloper no matter how small. No matter how laughable.

In this case, I think “egregious,” greedy and grasping might be a better fit.

The Department of Defense has no written policy on how detainees convicted in military commissions should be housed after they are sentenced despite a 2008 Pentagon directive to create a plan for such prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a military judge said Wednesday.

“This is troubling,” said Judge Nancy J. Paul, an Air Force Lt. Col., noting that two commissions are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay which could lead to the sentencing of two detainees this month. She said “no written plan, no written policy, or directive exists” about where to put convicted war criminals here.

The issue arose this week in the case of Ibrahim al-Qosi, a 50-year old Sudanese who cooked for al-Qaeda’s inner circle in Afghanistan, and who pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism…

Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which runs the detention facilities here, objected to the agreement reached by military prosecutors to keep Qosi in Camp 4. That part of the plea deal was also backed by an order from the judge.

The task force, whose officials were not made aware of the agreement before military prosecutors signed it, was unwilling to implement it because the commander and others here believe the Geneva Conventions and military regulations prevent the co-mingling of convicted prisoners and the general detainee population.

And didn’t our president swear – while campaigning and after assuming office – that our nation and his adminstration would live up to the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Military Code of Conduct?

Or so I thought I heard.

Jurors were not made aware of the fact that there is a plea bargain, and that their finding could be moot…

Military officials said Qosi’s actual sentence may not be revealed for several months. They — and defense counsel — refused to discuss the plea, or its terms.

“It’s a charade,” said Jennifer Turner, of the ACLU, who said the administration wanted the appearance of a harsh sentence while avoiding criticism that it sanctioned something much less.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is used to political lashings. But the latest one is not from an opposition party — it’s from his own wife.

In a book released this week titled, “What On Earth Will Change in Japan After You Become Prime Minister,” first lady Nobuko Kan writes bluntly about her husband’s shortcomings.

The book says the prime minister is unable to cook a simple meal and has no fashion sense. But it’s the blunt review of her husband’s ability to govern that will raise eyebrows.

She writes that her husband — a grassroots politician — is a good off the cuff speaker and is suited to working in supporting political roles. But as the world’s second-largest economy’s prime minister, she questions, “Is it okay that this man is prime minister? Because I know him well…”

The marriage between the Kans spans four decades, and is widely regarded by the public as a pairing of equal minds. The prime minister speaks publicly about his sharp-tongued wife and how she is his toughest critic.

In her book, she notes that most of their conversations are about politics. They disagree and debate the issues, she writes, from capital punishment to tax reform.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan appears to have been left out of the writing of his wife’s book. Talking to reporters, the prime minister joked, “I’m afraid to read it.”

Har!

Actually, I’d be as inclined to vote for Michelle Obama as her husband – a second time around. She might be more likely to face down the cowards in the Democratic Party – and the hypocrites in the Party of NO.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures

When the letters and e-mails started to pour in, Dr. Paul Offit braced himself. The pediatrician and vaccine inventor is a prominent defender of childhood vaccines, tackling those who have argued that immunizations can cause autism.

His book, “Autism’s False Prophets,” takes on British researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield, whose now-debunked 1998 study in the prestigious Lancet medical journal linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. It also criticizes organized groups that advise parents to avoid vaccinating their children for fear the vaccines may cause autism.

The issue is at the center of a vociferous and often vicious debate, despite the preponderance of scientific opinion in favor of vaccination.

Offit has endured hate-filled letters, death threats and even a phone call that menaced his children. However, his book was greeted with an outpouring of support from parents of children with autism who had previously remained silent.

“It’s actually been exactly the opposite of what I would have guessed,” Offit said in an interview…

Last week a special U.S. federal vaccine court ruled against three families who claimed vaccines caused autism in their children. Offit hopes the ruling, on top of dozens of scientific reports, may reassure parents whose fears about vaccines have caused a plunge in vaccination rates in developed countries.

As a result, childhood illnesses like measles are making a comeback. More than 1,300 measles cases were reported in England and Wales in 2008, and 197,000 people died globally from measles in 2007.

These numbers frustrate public health officials, who cite study after study showing no link between vaccination and autism.

Every decade there is a new rationalization against vaccination. I don’t know what possesses this particular tinfoil hat crowd other than the anti-intellectual, anti-science propaganda of fundamentalist religions.

When I was a kid, we waited through every winter’s illness season to see who died from measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough or diphtheria – just as we feared polio in the summertime. Vaccinations allow generations since to live without that fear.

Stephen King has a pink one
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

Amazon today revealed its Kindle 2 wireless reading device that will go on sale later this month with a thinner design, longer battery life, faster page turns, more storage, sharper images, and a new text-to-speech feature.

In a press event at New York’s Morgan Library, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos told attendees that Kindle e-books now make up 10 percent of the online retailer’s unit sales. “Kindle 2 is everything customers tell us they love about the original Kindle, only thinner, faster, crisper, with longer battery life, and capable of holding hundreds more books,” he said. “If you want, Kindle 2 will even read to you — something new we added that a book could never do…”

Meanwhile, Amazon’s new “Whispersync” technology promises to sync Kindle 2 and the original Kindle automatically for easy transitions. Users can pick up a Kindle at home, read a chapter or two, then drive to work where they have a Kindle 2. Wherever you left off will be synced to the other device with no flipping forward and backward to find your place. Amazon says Whispersync will make it easier to transition to the new Kindle from the old model or to use both together. Eventually, support for “a range of mobile devices” will be provided, presumably smartphones, but no specifics are yet available…

The Kindle 2, with its 2 GB of memory, can hold more than 1,500 books compared to the original’s 200. Books bought before are backed up to an Amazon.com account, so customers can wirelessly re-download previously purchased titles as necessary…

Delivery starts in a couple of weeks – at $359. Nothing I need since I retired and became a hermit. But, that’s me.