EU warns river wildlife at risk

Many of Europe's freshwater fish and molluscs are now threatened species, a new EU study shows.

The European Commission called for urgent action to preserve the diversity of Europe's wildlife.

Pollution, overfishing, habitat loss and alien species are blamed for the decline in species.

The latest findings are based on a study of some 6,000 species for the European Red List - an assessment of threats to wildlife.

The list of Europe's threatened species includes 44% of all freshwater molluscs, 37% of freshwater fish, 23% of amphibians, 19% of reptiles, 15% of mammals and dragonflies and 13% of birds.

The Commission says 467 plant species are also under threat, including wild varieties of crops such as sugar beet, wheat, oats and lettuce. Such species are "vital for food security yet are often neglected in terms of conservation," the Commission says.

The Commission has urged the 27 EU member states to adopt sustainable farming and forestry methods to halt biodiversity loss.

Nature's 'goods and services'

"The well-being of people in Europe and all over the world depends on goods and services that nature provides," said EU Environment Janez Potocnik. "If we don't address the reasons behind this decline and act urgently to stop it, we could pay a very heavy price indeed."

There are some notable successes however for wildlife conservation in Europe.

The EU's Natura 2000 conservation network of protected wildlife areas aims to give endangered species a better chance of survival. Corsica's Centranthus trinervis plant and the land snails on Madeira are showing signs of recovery, the Commission says.

A biodiversity expert at the environmental group Friends of the Earth, Paul de Zylva, says the thriving otter population in the UK is also a success story - a sign that the healthy fish they prey on are abundant in once-polluted rivers.

But many of Europe's water species are suffering, often because their natural habitat is disappearing, he told BBC News.

"Our water resources are a symbol of whether we are getting environmental policies right," he said.

Threat from aliens

Invasive species from other parts of the world often spread through Europe's rivers, he said. Among them are Chinese mitten crabs, Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed. Rivers disperse plant seeds across borders - one reason why co-ordinated European action is necessary, he said.

It is vital for the EU to provide the right financial incentives for farmers to boost nature conservation when a revised Common Agricultural Policy takes effect after 2013, he said.

The Natura 2000 network was expanded this month, taking in an additional 18,800 sq km (7,259 sq miles) - most of that being marine areas.

The UK has added some biodiversity hotspots in the Atlantic, including reefs off Rockall Island.

In the Mediterranean, marine habitats of endangered turtles and monk seals have also been added to the list of more than 26,000 European conservation sites.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-europe-15862137

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Pakistan's envoy to U.S. quits over coup memo (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? Pakistan's ambassador to the United States resigned on Tuesday, days after a Pakistani-American businessman said the envoy was behind a memo that accused the Pakistani military of plotting a coup in May.

Envoy Husain Haqqani said in a Twitter message that he had sent his resignation to the prime minister. State television said his resignation had been accepted.

"I have resigned to bring closure to this meaningless controversy threatening our fledgling democracy," he said in a statement released after his resignation.

"I have served Pakistan and Pakistani democracy to the best of my ability and will continue to do so."

Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times on October 10, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for U.S. help to stave off a military coup in the days after the May 2 U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Haqqani.

No evidence has emerged that the military was plotting a coup and the Pentagon at the time dismissed the memo as not credible. Haqqani denies involvement in the memo. (http://r.reuters.com/wes25s)

"I still maintain that I did not conceive, write or distribute the memo," Haqqani told Reuters shortly after he resigned. "This is not about the memo," he continued. "This is about bigger things."

He declined to comment further.

Haqqani's resignation followed a meeting with Pakistan President Asif Zardari, the nation's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and its intelligence head, Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

A spokesman for the prime minister's office said Haqqani was asked to resign and there would be an investigation into the memo.

Haqqani is a former journalist who covered Afghanistan's civil war and later wrote a book on the role of radical Islam and the military in Pakistan.

With his crisp suits and colorful turns of phrase, he has developed close ties with Washington's top power brokers as Pakistan's envoy since 2008.

In the past year, he has sought to ease tempers in both capitals and find common ground during an extraordinarily tense period in U.S.-Pakistani relations that included the bin Laden raid, the jailing of a CIA contractor, and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

He is close to Zardari but estranged from Pakistan's military.

Tensions between Pakistan's civilian government and military have bedeviled the nuclear-armed South Asian country for almost its entire existence, with the military ruling the country for more than half of its 64-year history after a series of coups.

Haqqani's resignation was seen by many analysts as further weakening the civilian government, which is already beset by allegations of corruption and incompetence.

"They (the military) may expect much more from the government, much more beyond the resignation of Husain Haqqani, because they see that everybody perceived to be involved in this affair will be seen as anti-military and by implication anti-state," said Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst in Islamabad.

IMPACT ON U.S.-PAKISTAN TIES?

Haqqani's successor might include a diplomat with a less complicated relationship with the military, perhaps Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir or Pakistan's envoy to the United Nations, Hussain Haroon.

"Whether Pakistan's people or its military will be represented in DC will become evident when Husain Haqqani's replacement is announced," Ali Dayan Hasan, representative for Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said on Twitter.

Vali Nasr, a former senior State Department official who worked on Pakistan, said the crux of the affair was not Haqqani's role but whether Zardari would come to be seen as having directed the memo, which would imply the president had gone outside Pakistan to request urgent assistance against his own military.

"At what point would the issue escalate to Haqqani was acting on Zardari's behest? That would really create massive tension between the military and Zardari."

Nasr said the issue would be unlikely to have a major impact on the strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship unless it seriously weakened or toppled the civilian government.

As U.S. officials focus on thorny diplomatic and security issues with Pakistan, Haqqani's departure did not immediately make many visible ripples in Washington. The State Department said it had not been notified of Haqqani's departure and the Pentagon declined comment.

Democratic Senator John Kerry, who has been heavily involved in U.S.-Pakistani relations, said he was sorry to learn of Haqqani's resignation.

Kerry said he respected the Pakistani government's decision but that Haqqani would be missed "as we continue to work through the ups and downs of our relationship."

Ijaz said initially he believed Haqqani was acting under the authority of Zardari, but said later he was not sure how involved Zardari was in the affair.

Mark Siegel, a lobbyist who represents the Pakistani government in Washington, said Zardari called him when the Financial Times story appeared, asking his law firm to initiate libel proceedings against the newspaper and Ijaz.

Siegel advised Zardari against filing a case because he judged it difficult for a public figure to win a libel case in a U.S. court.

"He was irate and said the memo was a total fabrication," Siegel said. Siegel, who has known Zardari for 25 years, said he was absolutely certain that Zardari had known nothing about the memo.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider, Qasim Nauman and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad and Missy Ryan in Washington; Editing by Peter Graff, Jon Hemming and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/wl_nm/us_pakistan_ambassador

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Celebs, hacking victims turn spotlight on press

Crime victims and Hollywood stars whose personal lives have exposed in Britain's press confronted their tabloid tormentors on Monday, testifying at a public inquiry into media standards.

The parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked by one of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspapers, gave powerful evidence about their experiences.

They were due to be followed later on Monday by film star Hugh Grant, who is expected to talk about how the Daily Mail covered the recent announcement of the birth of his daughter as an example of breach of privacy.

Actress Sienna Miller, "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling and the father of missing girl Madeleine McCann are among others due to testify over the next week.

Others appearing will be the ex-wife of England soccer player Paul Gascoigne; Mary-Ellen Field, the former business adviser of supermodel Elle Macpherson; actor and comedian Steve Coogan, and former Formula One chief Max Mosley.

Singer Charlotte Church will appear next week detailing how her mother attempted suicide after her father's affair was exposed.

The inquiry, headed by senior judge Brian Leveson and due to last a year, will make recommendations that could have a lasting impact on the industry, lead to tighter media rules or at least an overhaul of the current system of self-regulation.

It was ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron after it emerged that journalists from the News of the World ? owned by News International, the UK division of Murdoch's NewsCorp ? had hacked into voicemails left on the phone of Milly Dowler. The 13-year-old went missing in 2002 and was later found murdered.

False hope
Sally and Bob Dowler spoke about the heartbreak caused by the hacking and the human impact.

Mrs Dowler recount of the false hope caused by hackers who had deleted the teenager's voicemail messages, giving the impression she was still alive and using her mobile phone.

She said :At first we were able to leave messages and then her voicemail became full.. so I was used to hearing that. We'd gone ... to look at ... CCTV and I rang her phone and it clicked through on to her voicemail and I just jumped and said: 'She's picked up her voicemails Bob, she's alive'."

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She also said she did not sleep for three nights after learning of the phone hacking in July.

Story: Phone-hacking scandal: James Murdoch insists he didn't mislead British lawmakers

Last Wednesday, the lawyer representing 51 clients who say they have suffered at the hands of the press delivered a withering critique of newspapers which he said had resorted to unacceptable, "tawdry" tactics to find exclusives.

Three of those he represents say they believed papers' hounding had contributed to family members committing suicide or attempting to kill themselves.

"When people talk of public interest in exposing the private lives of well-known people or those close to them, this is the real, brutally real impact which this kind of journalism has," lawyer David Sherborne said.

All were targeted to get stories to make money for the papers, he told the inquiry. "That's why it was done: to sell newspapers. Not to detect crime or to expose wrongdoing, not to protect society or for the public good."

Most of the focus of the inquiry so far has fallen on News International, the British arm of News Corp, whose lawyer has admitted that phone-hacking was widespread until 2007, when one reporter was jailed, and possibly beyond.

However, Sherborne has made it clear that it is all papers' activities that deserve to be scrutinized and reformed.

Video: Phone hacking scandal puts heat back on James Murdoch (on this page)

Lawyers for Britain's major newspaper groups have already pleaded for the essence of that system to remain and said that the press actually needed more freedom to expose wrongdoing.

"I want this inquiry to mean something," Leveson said. "I am ... very concerned that it should not simply form a footnote in some professor of journalism's analysis of the history of the 21st century while it gathers dust."

Central to discussions will be what constitutes public interest, and whether paying for so-called "kiss and tell" stories about well-known figures private and sex lives could be justified.

Sherborne said the majority of Britons saw no reason for phone-hacking or similar "what is called news-gathering".

"What the public are interested in, in the first sense, sells more newspapers: celebrity gossip, generally tittle-tattle," he said. "What the public have a genuine interest in knowing about: drug trials, what goes on in Europe with the Central Bank and so on, mostly doesn't."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45383308/ns/world_news-europe/

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Moscow martial arts fans greet Putin with catcalls (AP)

MOSCOW ? Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was greeted by catcalls when he stepped into the ring after a mixed martial arts fight at a Moscow arena on Sunday night.

Putin, a judo enthusiast, has long been an admirer of Russian heavyweight mixed martial artist Fedor Emelianenko and came to see him take on American Jeff Monson.

After Emelianenko won, Putin stepped into the ring to congratulate him, but was met with catcalls from many of the 22,000 fans at the Olympic Stadium. The whistles and shouts could be clearly heard on the live television broadcast.

Russian Professional Boxing Federation spokesman Andrei Bazdrev said on Ekho Moskvy radio that Putin seemed taken aback by the negative reaction, but quickly regained his composure. Speaking over the din, Putin praised Emelianenko as a "real Russian bogatyr," a term for a medieval warrior.

While Putin remains highly popular in Russia, his approval ratings have fallen steadily in recent months. The independent Levada Center said polling done in late October showed Putin with 61 percent support, down from 77 percent a year ago.

Putin, who was president from 2000 to 2008, has announced plans to run for a third term in March. Even though he is all but certain to win the election, he has been actively campaigning for months, eager to show that he remains strong and vigorous at 59.

Russians, however, are showing less tolerance for his televised publicity stunts, and this is particularly true in Moscow and other large cities where social media use is high.

Last month, Putin's spokesman was compelled to acknowledge that a diving expedition during which the prime minister had retrieved two ancient Greek jug fragments from the seabed was staged.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111120/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_putin

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Is it legal for your cellphone to track you?

GPS navigation and cellular-signal triangulation can help us to find our way around ? or to help someone else find us. If you happen to be a lost pet, an Alzheimer's patient or a small child, that's a good thing.

But what about the rest of us? Where do we stand legally in terms of being tracked by cellular carriers, smartphone app makers or the government?

Government tracking
You might assume that there's a federal law preventing government tracking of you, at least without a warrant. But you'd be wrong.

Several court decisions in recent months have sent mixed messages about the legality of GPS and cellphone tracking by the government, and the issue has just landed in the U.S. Supreme Court.

In August, a federal judge in New York ruled that police would need a warrant to track an individual using cellular-tower triangulation. In early October, a different federal judge, this one in Washington, D.C., ruled that police did not need a warrant to use same method to track the cellphone of an armed-robbery suspect in an ongoing case. And just last week, a third federal judge, this one in Houston , ruled that a warrant was necessary.

[ How Your Cellphone Lets the Government Track You ]

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. vs. Antoine Jones, a case involving a suspected drug dealer whose wife's Jeep was tracked in 2005 using an attached GPS locator.

District of Columbia authorities obtained a warrant to attach the locator to the Jeep, but continued tracking it for a month, long after the 10-day warrant had expired. Prosecutors used the vehicle's movements in Maryland, outside the warrant's jurisdiction, to convict Jones of conspiracy in 2007.

A federal appeals court overturned Jones' life sentence in 2010, ruling that the use of the warrant outside of its boundaries violated the Fourth Amendment. The Justice Department appealed the lower court's ruling.

The Supreme Court's eventual ruling in the case, due by next summer, could potentially shed some light on the issue. But even a Supreme Court ruling may conflict with sections of the USA PATRIOT Act, which many federal agencies cite to claim that they never need a warrant to track potential suspects. (The time limits on those sections were recently extended.)

"Right now, there is conflict in the circuit courts. We don't have a national policy," said Robert Ellis Smith, a Rhode Island lawyer who is the publisher of Privacy Journal, a monthly newsletter, and who helped write an amicus briefing to the Supreme Court on behalf of Jones.

Smith explained that requiring warrants would not prevent GPS tracking, but would leave a legal paper trail if the tracking went on for months.

"When you are talking about long-term surveillance, there is no reason not to get a warrant," Smith said.

The real question asked by U.S. vs. Antoine Jones is: In the digital age, how will the current Supreme Court interpret the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizure?

Is tracking of individuals by the government bad? Well, that depends on the situation.

Most of us are already familiar with the E911 system, which helps 911 call operators to locate emergency callers by using cell-tower triangulation. A recent Federal Communications Commission ruling requires all cellphones enabled with E911 to be accurate to at least 50 feet by 2018.

Non- government tracking
But if the government can track individuals using their cellphones, so can a lot of other people. Tracking software can be installed by anyone with access to a smartphone. And sometimes a resourceful person doesn't even need access to the phone.

"Your phone type, your carrier name and your cell phone number" are often all that's needed," said Angela Daffron, the founder of Jodi's Voice, an online anti-stalking advocacy group based in New Mexico.

Some companies even market tracking apps that allow a spouse or parent to track both the location and the communications of a smartphone. It's not illegal. Earlier this year, a New Jersey appellate court ruled that it was not an invasion of privacy for one spouse to install a tracking device on a jointly owned vehicle driven by the other spouse.

Are you your own worst enemy?
As it turns out you, may be your own problem ? if you don't know how to make the right choices with your smartphone apps. Many apps, especially on Android phones, ask you to allow them to track your location even if they have no need for it.

Of course, some applications use your location for fun. "Check-in" applications, such as Foursquare or Facebook's "Places" feature, allow a user to let all his friends or followers know that he is at a specific location.

But this feature, known as "checking in," has the potential to make an unprecedented amount of data about your whereabouts public.

So how worried should you be about the security of "checking in?" Experts are conflicted.

"[There's] no reason to think they're not secure. Both [Facebook and Foursquare] take data security very seriously," said Christopher Wolf, the co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C., public-policy advocacy group.

Daffron countered that "checking in" is fine, but only in moderation.

"Be careful not to check in at home, or at specific locations," she said. "It's fine to check in at the mall, but don't list specific stores."

Your safety
If you want to minimize the ability of others to track you, you have a few options.

First and foremost, say no to smartphone apps that want to track you, and turn off the GPS chip on the phone. Look for "location services" or similar settings on your smartphone or tablet.

Google maps Wi-Fi hotspots around the world to aid in its location data; if you don't want your home wireless network included, you'll need to add "_nomap" to the end of your network's name.

To prevent tracking software being installed on your phone, Daffron suggests keeping your phone with you at all times, and also limiting who knows your mobile phone number.

You can also install a good piece of anti-virus software, such as Norton, on your phone to keep away spyware.

If you really want to make sure that your cellphone is not being tracked, even for E911 purposes, then you need to set it to airplane mode or shut it off. Of course, you won't be able to receive calls during those times.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45394735/ns/technology_and_science-security/

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Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points -- Cut Congress' Pay!

We're going to try something new here today. Well, before we get to that, we have to apologize for not warning readers last week that we were taking a break for Veterans' Day. Which brings up a related subject: there will be no Friday Talking Points next week, either (the day after Thanksgiving), as we plan to be lounging on the couch in a tryptophan haze. Consider yourselves warned, this time.

Back to today's column, though. We're going to try an experiment today, and try to tighten these columns up significantly. They started off as very simple columns which didn't run all that long, and now they've grown to monstrous proportions. So we'll be (mostly) doing away with this introductory bit here, and moving straight to the awards and the (hopefully, shorter) talking points. We'll see how it goes, and we'll see what readers think. Let us know in the comments, as always. Comments which start with: "You know, it's really annoying how you revel in the editorial 'we' during these columns..." will, as usual, be ignored (by us). We, to coin a phrase, will not be amused.

OK, enough silliness, let's get on with the show.


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Most Impressive Democrat of the Week

We've got two Honorable Mention awards to hand out before we get to the main event. First up are all the folks in Wisconsin who are gathering signatures to recall their Republican governor. Now, signature-gathering out here in California is hard enough, having to stand around accosting passers-by in front of a supermarket or other public space, but I can only imagine what it is like to do so in the Wisconsin winter. So we have to give everyone gathering signatures up north for the next few months a collective Honorable Mention... and a quick cheer for the Green Bay Packers, while we're at it.

Senator Bernie Sanders is also worthy of an Honorable Mention this week, for an article he wrote for the Huffington Post, in which he begs Democrats to "stop caving." Always good advice for Democrats, sadly enough. Everyone should read Bernie's article, as it is definitely worth your time.

But the winner of the coveted Most Impressive Democrat of the Week this week is none other than Representative Gabrielle Giffords. And not for her "strong victim fighting for survival" human-interest story, either. Instead, for writing to the so-called "supercommittee" and suggesting the radical idea that if Congress wants to cut some spending, why not cut the pay for House and Senate members?

The Washington Post wrote an article on Gabby's effort:


Slashing lawmaker salaries was one of the last major issues Giffords advocated before she was shot in the head at a January 2011 constituent event. Only days before the shooting, Giffords had proposed legislation to cut the salaries of senators and representatives by five percent.

"Members of Congress can't ask any American to cut back before we are willing to make some sacrifices of our own," Giffords said at the time.

The article also has a link to the text of the letter Gifford's just sent -- signed by 11 Republicans and 14 Democrats (so far):


Several pieces of legislation have been introduced this Congress in both the House and the Senate to cut Member salaries and curb gold-plated Member retirement benefits, including the only bill introduced in the 112th Congress by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. These proposals show that compensation reductions can result in real deficit savings. For example, a five percent cut to the $174,000 Member salary would save $50 million over a ten year window, while a ten percent pay cut would save $100 million. Adjustments to Member benefit packages, which can be worth 47 percent of salaries, according to reports, could also result in millions of dollars in deficit savings.

United States Members of Congress are more generously compensated than legislators in almost every other country in the world. Legislators in the developed nations receive on average salaries that are 2.3 times higher than the average full-time worker, while we receive salaries that are 3.4 times higher than the average full-time wage. Only members of the National Diet of Japan, earning a salary 3.7 times higher than Japanese workers, outpace Members of Congress.

The last time Members of Congress took a cut in pay was on April 1, 1933 -- the midst of a Great Depression. At a time of similar economic turmoil and record deficits, Congress should not require sacrifices of others without tightening its own belt.

Bravo, Congresswoman! [or maybe, "Brava!" -- my Italian is pretty non-existent, I must confess...]

Sure, this would be merely symbolic. $100 million is a rounding error (especially over a 10-year period) on Capitol Hill. It's less than pocket change, to the budget seen as a whole. But symbolically, this would be huge. And if we start talking about staffing money and retirement packages, it could grow significantly.

For championing this issue -- not for doing so under extraordinarily tough personal circumstances, but for the issue itself -- Representative Giffords is our Most Impressive Democrat of the Week. Go Gabby! Cut Congress' pay!

[Congratulate Representative Gabrielle Giffords on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

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Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week

We are pleased to announce that this is one of those weeks when no Democrat seriously disappointed us (or the public at large). We keep thinking "Maybe we weren't paying attention, maybe we missed somebody doing something idiotic" -- which is always a possibility. As always, let us know in the comments if you've got a suggestion for the Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week award. You can even go back two weeks to suggest a candidate for the MDDOTW award, due to the lapse in columns last Friday.

Of course, we're polishing up a statuette just in case we have to award one next week for whichever Democrat on the supercommittee caves and votes for a Republican plan. And don't worry, even with the Thanksgiving break, we'll still remember this if it happens.

?

Friday Talking Points

Volume 189 (11/18/11)

In honor of Gabby Giffords' MIDOTW stance, we're going to devote the entire talking points section this week to Congressional salaries and perks, and related subjects.

Once again, it's not about the money saved, in this particular instance. It is all about the shared sacrifice, and symbolism.

The Occupy Wall Street movement may be floundering, but the frustration that sparked it is still out there, and still burning fiercely. Democrats need to tap into this energy, and for the life of me I can't think of a more appropriate way to start. So here are my suggestions for what Democrats should come out in support of over the next few days.

?

1
???Our salary, or nothing

This is the tangent to the issue, so we'll get it out of the way first. The issue arose during a hearing where the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac leaders were grilled before Congress, but it should be applied to everyone.

"Any company in America who receives a taxpayer bailout -- no matter what type of company it is -- will conform to the federal employee pay scale. Not one thin dime of taxpayer money will go to any company unless it accepts this rule. The highest-paid executive in any bailed-out company will get exactly the pay that members of Congress receive. Oh, and they'll get a bonus, too -- they'll get to keep working at a job. If these terms are unacceptable to any executive, well, good luck getting hired elsewhere at some exorbitant salary with 'led a company which failed miserably' as your last employer recommendation."

?

2
???Immediate 17 percent cut

Gabby Giffords has the right idea, but even she didn't push it far enough.

"If the supercommittee fails to vote out a bill, then we face what some have estimated as a 17 percent across-the-board cut to all federal domestic programs. If the supercommittee fails to act, I strongly urge Congress to immediately cut its own budget by 17 percent. I demand a 17 percent pay cut for every member of Congress, a 17 percent reduction in budgets for staff and office expenses, and a 17 percent cut in all perks. If we can't cut our own budgets 17 percent -- by next week -- then what moral right do we have to ask the rest of the government to make the same cuts?"

?

3
???Ten times minimum wage

This one would have some real teeth, far into the future.

"I am introducing a bill which ties congressional pay to the minimum wage. I don't think members of Congress deserve more than ten times what the lowest-paid worker receives by law. The minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour, which works out to an annual salary of $15,080. My bill will set the absolute ceiling for any member of Congress' wage to be $150,800. From now on, if Congress wants to raise its pay, it must do so by raising the minimum wage one-tenth of the amount of our own pay raises. If Congress wants to keep their cost-of-living adjustment, then a proportional COLA must be in place for the minimum wage."

?

4
???Public sector pensions

This is one where recent Republican language can be turned against them.

"Republicans across the country have made an enormous political issue over the pensions of public sector workers such as firefighters, police, and teachers. They say we have to slash these pensions to balance our books. OK, let's start with our own. I am introducing a bill which will end the current pension program for Congress, which is likely the most generous public-sector pension program in all of human history. All of this will end. Instead, we will all get a 401K plan and Social Security and Medicare, just like most private sector employees receive. We are going to set the example for America by only allowing ourselves the same pension that the average American worker gets -- and not a penny more."

?

5
???Congress follows all laws

This one is slightly off on a tangent, but it's such a popular one that I had to include it.

"I am calling for a constitutional amendment which states 'Congress may not pass laws which do not apply to Congress.' This amendment will further state that any laws currently on the books which exempt Congress from any law the rest of America must follow is now null and void. Congress should not be able to carve out exceptions for itself when passing laws. If Congress passes a workplace law, then they must follow this law. If Congress passes a rule all businesses must follow, then they must also follow the new rule. Few Americans are aware of how Congress exempts itself from its own laws in this fashion, but when informed of the practice, few Americans like what they hear. I am calling for this to come to an end, and I am confident that amending the Constitution to do so will be wildly popular with the public."

?

6
???100 percent transparent

If we're going to live in the Citizens United world, let's at least see where the money's coming from.

"I am calling for a campaign finance law which requires everyone paying for any political activity to be publicly identified. If corporations want to spend money in the political arena, we should know who they are, and how much they are giving. No political advocacy entity will be able to have anonymous donors anymore. Full public disclosure for political groups, parties, candidates, PACs, SuperPACs, lobbying, advocacy groups -- everyone. Every dollar which pays for politics in this country -- and who donated it -- needs to be public information. Period."

?

7
???NASCAR jackets for Congress

This idea has been floating around the internet for a while. I certainly can't claim this as an original idea, but it is still the best radical idea in the field of campaign contributions I've ever heard.

"I am introducing a bill I call the 'NASCAR Jacket Bill' which will require all members of Congress to wear -- whenever on the floor of Congress or at a public event -- visible patches from every corporation or lobbying group they've taken money from in the past ten years. Since this 'sponsorship' of Congress is so widespread, let's allow the public to see who is buying whom. Congressmen will be forced to display patches from every group who donates money to them -- and the patches will be larger and more colorful, depending on the amount of money given (just like NASCAR sponsorships are rewarded, in other words). Let the public see this legalized bribery, on every television screen on which a politician appears. Let the people decide for themselves whether they want to vote for a politician who has been bought and sold in this fashion. Give Americans the visual evidence of where the money in politics comes from, by forcing NASCAR jackets on each and every member of Congress."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/congress-pay-cuts_b_1102378.html

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What bacteria don't know can hurt them

Friday, November 18, 2011

Many infections, even those caused by antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, resist treatment. This paradox has vexed physicians for decades, and makes some infections impossible to cure.

A key cause of this resistance is that bacteria become starved for nutrients during infection. Starved bacteria resist killing by nearly every type of antibiotic, even ones they have never been exposed to before.

What produces starvation-induced antibiotic resistance, and how can it be overcome? In a paper appearing this week in Science, researchers report some surprising answers.

"Bacteria become starved when they exhaust nutrient supplies in the body, or if they live clustered together in groups know as biofilms," said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Dao Nguyen, an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University.

Biofilms are clusters of bacteria encased in a slimy coating, and can be found both in the natural environment as well as in human tissues where they cause disease. For example, biofilm bacteria grow in the scabs of chronic wounds, and the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Bacteria in biofilms tolerate high levels of antibiotics without being killed.

"A chief cause of the resistance of biofilms is that bacteria on the outside of the clusters have the first shot at the nutrients that diffuse in," said Dr. Pradeep Singh, associate professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, the senior author of the study. "This produces starvation of the bacteria inside clusters, and severe resistance to killing."

Starvation was previously thought to produce resistance because most antibiotics target cellular functions needed for growth. When starved cells stop growing, these targets are no longer active. This effect could reduce the effectiveness of many drugs.

"While this idea is appealing, it presents a major dilemma," Nguyen noted. "Sensitizing starved bacteria to antibiotics could require stimulating their growth, and this could be dangerous during human infections."

Nguyen and Singh explored an alternative mechanism.

Microbiologists have long known that when bacteria sense that their nutrient supply is running low, they issue a chemical alarm signal. The alarm tells the bacteria to adjust their metabolism to prepare for starvation. Could this alarm also turn on functions that produce antibiotic resistance?

To test this idea, the team engineered bacteria in which the starvation alarm was inactivated, and then measured antibiotic resistance in experimental conditions in which bacteria were starved. To their amazement, bacteria unable to sense starvation were thousands of times more sensitive to killing than those that could, even though starvation arrested growth and the activity of antibiotic targets.

"That experiment was a turning point," Singh said. "It told us that the resistance of starved bacteria was an active response that could be blocked. It also indicated that starvation-induced protection only occurred if bacteria were aware that nutrients were running low."

With the exciting result in hand, the researchers turned to two key questions. First does the starvation alarm produce resistance during actual infections? To test this the team examined naturally starved bacteria, biofilms, isolates taken from patients, and bacterial infections in mice. Sure enough, in all cases the bacteria unable to sense starvation were far easier to kill.

The second question was about the mechanism of the effect. How does starvation sensing produce such profound antibiotic resistance?

Again, the results were surprising.

Instead of well-described resistance mechanisms, like pumps that expel antibiotics from bacterial cells, the researchers found that the bacteria's protective mechanism defended them against toxic forms of oxygen, called radicals. This mechanism jives with new findings showing that antibiotics kill by generating these toxic radicals.

The findings suggest new approaches to improve treatment for a wide range of infections.

"Discovering new antibiotics has been challenging," Nguyen said. "One way to improve infection treatment is to make the drugs we already have work better. Our experiments suggest that antibiotic efficacy could be increased by disrupting key bacterial functions that have no obvious connection to antibiotic activity."

The work also highlights the critical advantage of being able to sense environmental conditions, even for single-celled organisms like bacteria. Cells unaware of their starvation were not protected, even though they ran out of nutrients and stopped growth. This proves again that, even for bacteria, "what you don't know can hurt you."

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University of Washington: http://www.uwnews.org

Thanks to University of Washington for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115338/What_bacteria_don_t_know_can_hurt_them

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New revolutionary material can be worked like glass

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2011) ? A common feature of sailboards, aircraft and electronic circuits is that they all contain resins used for their lightness, strength and resistance. However, once cured, these resins can no longer be reshaped. Only certain inorganic compounds, including glass, offered this possibility until now. Combining such properties in a single material seemed impossible until a team led by Ludwik Leibler, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire "Mati?re Molle et Chimie" (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech), developed a new class of compounds capable of this remarkable feat. Repairable and recyclable, this novel material can be shaped at will and in a reversible manner at high temperature.

And, quite surprisingly, it also retains certain properties specific to organic resins and rubbers: it is light, insoluble and difficult to break. Inexpensive and easy to produce, this material could be used in numerous industrial applications, particularly in the automobile, aeronautics, building, electronics and leisure sectors. This work is published on 18 November 2011 in Science.

Replacing metals by lighter but just as efficient materials is a necessity for numerous industries, such as aeronautics, car manufacturing, building, electronics and sports industry. Due to their exceptional mechanical strength and thermal and chemical resistance, composite materials based on thermosetting resins are currently the most suitable. However, such resins must be cured in situ, using from the outset the definitive shape of the part to be produced. In fact, once these resins have hardened, welding and repair become impossible. In addition, even when hot, it is impossible to reshape parts in the manner of a blacksmith or glassmaker.

This is because glass (inorganic silica) is a unique material: once heated, it changes from a solid to a liquid state in a very progressive manner (glass transition), which means it can be shaped as required without using molds. Conceiving highly resistant materials that can be repaired and are infinitely malleable, like glass, is a real challenge both in economic and ecological terms. It requires a material that is capable of flowing when hot, while being insoluble and neither as brittle nor as "heavy" as glass.

From ingredients that are currently available and used in industry (epoxy resins, hardeners, catalysts, etc.), researchers from the Laboratoire "Mati?re Molle et Chimie" (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech) developed a novel organic material made of a molecular network with original properties: under the action of heat, this network is capable of reorganizing itself without altering the number of cross-links between its atoms. This novel material goes from the liquid to the solid state or vice versa, just like glass. Until now, only silica and some inorganic compounds were known to show this type of behavior. The material thus acts like purely organic silica. It is insoluble even when heated above its glass transition temperature.

Remarkably, at room temperature, it resembles either hard or soft elastic solids, depending on the chosen composition. In both cases, it has the same characteristics as thermosetting resins and rubbers currently used in industry, namely lightness, resistance and insolubility. Most importantly, it has a significant advantage over the latter as it is reshapeable at will and can be repaired and recycled under the action of heat. This property means it can undergo transformations using methods that cannot be envisaged either for thermosetting resins or for conventional plastic materials. In particular, it makes it possible to produce shapes that are difficult or even impossible to obtain by molding or for which making a mold is too expensive for the envisaged purpose.

Used as the basis of composites, this new material could therefore favorably compete with metals and find extensive applications in sectors as diverse as electronics, car manufacturing, construction, aeronautics or printing. In addition to these applications, these results shed unexpected light on a fundamental problem: the physics of glass transition.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by CNRS (D?l?gation Paris Michel-Ange).

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Journal Reference:

  1. D. Montarnal, M. Capelot, F. Tournilhac, L. Leibler. Silica-Like Malleable Materials from Permanent Organic Networks. Science, 2011; 334 (6058): 965 DOI: 10.1126/science.1212648

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111118091200.htm

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